On The Trail.

I know it's been a while since I last put a story up, but time has come to remedy this. I've been writing a reasonable amount lately, but it's all been set after the present interlude... This has now been remedied...
Anyway, Intellectual property of myself, Jared G. Juckiewicz... Not much violence, mostly just setting the stage for the next one...

The fires of the wounds I had taken has dimmed now. Only a dull throb remains. What little lead had been left within me festered out by the following dawn. By now, the dusk after, I feel fine, more or less. As does Vixen. Better than fine, in fact. We have caught up with our companions, Tyrone and Cutyr, and the black Gryffon, Hugin Ravenwing. We are all properly armed now. Admittedly,'tis with AK's, which are not the most modern of weapons, but effective enough. The best of it is, Hugin managed to track down the mules we'd stampeded. Some had carried drugs to be shipped west, now destroyed. And money, claimed for our own. A tip, a gratuity if you will. And the other two had carried a small mortar and many, many rounds of ammo.
We no longer cared what Illus' orders had been. To be perfectly fair, we hadn't in the first. Send a wolf, especially one named after the Devourer of Souls, Hel's own Hound, alongside a Kitsune with the blood of the Wykingr and Samurai, and a Fae Sidhe of Irish heritage, Gall-Gaelidh no less, out to scout, there is no way you'll keep them from the shedding of blood. We'd figured it was open season from the time we'd left camp. And now the hunters were armed. To the teeth, as it were. Which in the case of three of the five of us, were weapons as well, seeing as Cutyr is Cuain Sidhe. Oh. And Hugin's beak is nasty. It might not be curved and razored like those of most of the broadwinged Gryffons, or even the faster, lighter Gryfalcon. No, his is the heavy, blade-like beak of a Raven, a carrion-eater. Built for ripping through flesh toughened by age and rigor mortis, for cracking bone and tearing drying hide. All told, we should be more than a match for the two score left of the party we took these weapons from.
We were on their trail the now. They'd left one poor blind Hlod could have followed, afore Bragi slew him. It was good. It meant Vixen and I could follow it without changing. Which meant we could use such things as firearms. Which meant we might actually manage to take them without getting shot to pieces. And it gets better. I'd been out this way before. Spent a decade or so up here with a Varangian garrison. We were getting into the lands I'd patrolled. Lands where we Varyaags had hidden caches. The food would be gone, rotted and useless. But the steel should still be good. It had been good steel, and had been stored safely, wrapped in oiled cloth and oiled canvas and oiled leather, to keep out water, and then packed tight in peat to keep out air and rust. A few light spells tacked on, for no few of the Varyaags were not exactly human, and they should be easily obtainable. Armour too, and even the odd uniform. Perhaps we could present our foes with the appearance of ghosts from the past, put the fear of the King of the Greek in him.

Anyway. Some explanations.
Gorm is the name of the Wolf that guards the bridge that leads to Niflheim, the halls of the dishonoured dead. He is the devourer of those souls that try to escape, or that displease Hel in some way.
Wykingr is an Archaic form of the word Viking.
Fae Sidhe means Faerie Elf in Irish Gaelic.
Cuain Sidhe is a mishmash of Irish Gael and Scots Gael, which I believe means Elf Hound, Or rather Hound of Elves.
Hlod was one of the Norse gods. He was blind, and that disability made it possible for Loki to trick him into killing his brother, a deed for which Bragi killed him. Hence the poor blind Hlod statement...
Varyaags is one of the many names for the members of the Varangian Guard, short for Varyaags of Miklagaard.  Don't ask for a translation, I don't have one...
The King of the Greek refers to the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire. Which was effectively greek and based out of modern day Istanbul...
Oh. and Gall-Gaedhil is also Irish Gael and refers to those Gaels, be they Irish, or Scot, and often Hebridean Islanders, who adopted Norse ways.