The Damned

Well. Today and Tomorrow, we find out just what Gorm did at Verden and on the Volga that lead him to consider himself well and truly damned. Thursday, MAYBE, (Assuming I finish rewriting the thing) We will be hearing a bit about his marginally more recent history, and then at some point after that it's back to the ancient stuff... As soon as I get it sorted. And then I have a new Story Arc to start work on, the rest of his tales while they are on the journey, and some of the stuff he does over the summer... my Valkyrien muse appears to be rather active at the moment...

Anyway, Intellectual property of myself, Jared G. Juckiewicz, copyright held by the same.  All the traditional Valkyrien warnings, language, blood, death, violence, et cetera...

Without further ado, The Damned!
The travels Day Two. We reckon its going to take us about a week to get where we be going, and by that, we mean Five days on the road. I personnally be tacking an extra two days onto that, on the grounds that I'll be damned if I'm spending five straight days cooped up in the cab of a pickup. No, as soon as I'm healthy enough to walk, we're stopping and spending a day doing that. And as soon as I'm healthy enough to change, we're stopping and spending a day with me as a wolf. Well. Dog. Officially. There's even a... collar. and lead. and bowl. In the trunk. Required licenses and everything. For one Paskiainen, Pedigree Suomi Bearhound. Honest. But for now we are driving. To be fair, I'm in a better mood than I was yesterday. The day of rest helped, as did Vixen feeding me bottles of beef broth. Good for feverish, festering Werewolves, that. The bed was even fairly comfortable in the motel we spent the night at, even if I did need to be carried into and out of it. Now if only I had the strength to stand. But I'm still festering out the poisons from my wounds in Chechnya. I had enough lead in me to start a mine. Couple that with over-exertion, and a delayed start to the healing process triggered by not feeding properly till about three days after I took the wounds, and you begin to understand why even I am a shade under the weather.
Fortunately, Lydia Czernobaj, the young Wolfborn girl we rescued in that op has been keeping my mind off it. Yesterday, any time I was awake she drilled me on how I met Vixen at the battle of Breiteinfield. Now, she wants clarification on something I said then. "Gorm," She asks sweetly, "Yesterday, when you apologised for being a bad patient," I nodded, "You said you hadn't been called Virtuous since before Verden. What happened?" Well. That tale is complicated, but I would tell it. See, in truth it starts around the very end of the 7th century. I had decided to take up mercenary work, and got hired by the Danes. I helped build the first stage of the Danevirke, and then helped to defend it. I was still there in the middle of the Eighth century, when Merchants first began to come through and settle in a place that would come to be known as Hedeby. One such merchant had a daughter named Frisa. A gorgeous woman she was, shapely, graceful, cultured. The Merchant desired a warrior, to protect his interests. I desired his daughter. A marriage was arranged. I gave up a mercenary life to serve him as a courier, and as a bodyguard, and in exchange, I married his daughter, who was as taken with me as I with her. I struck a rather dashing figure back in those days. We had a good life together, and when her father died, a decade or so after I married her, he left his business to me. I had learned something of running such a thing, and Frisa had learned more, and between us, it prospered. Seven Hundred and Eighty, Anno Domini. After some twenty years of marriage. Frisa was becoming what in those days was considered to be an old woman. Through care in dress and deportment, and the use of certain paints and dyes, I looked to have matched her aging. The Saxons made a raid. Most of the merchants where Frisa and I lived were slain, as was she. I survived only because I was Wolfsblood. When I recovered, which didn't take long, as I had plenty of corpses on which to feed, I again took up the sword. I had heard that the King of the Franks, Charlemagne, Who we called Carl Magnus, was engaged in war with the Saxons. I took service with him. For two years, I fought where and whom he said. And then came Verden. The Saxons had again broken their oaths of conversion to the White Christ, broken faith, and rebelled against the King.
Charlemagne led his armies back into Saxony, against the Saxon Chief, Vidukind. The campaign ended at Verden in Seven Eighty Two. Four Thousand men and more we had taken prisoner in the battles leading up to it. They were offered the chance to repent, to return to Christ, and when it was not accepted, Charlemagne declared their deaths, by Beheading. And I, with my great, two-handed sword, Kuolema, was first in line to volunteer as an executioner. I remember few of the kills I made that day. I remember being told afterwards that I had taken a hundred head. It was simply done. A half pivot, Kuolema swinging up into a high guard, and then, as I completed the pivot, she would come crashing down and another head would roll from it's trunk. And then my two 'assistants' would drag up the next, and force him to his knees. Until they brought up a warrior, barely more than a boy. As he approached, I saw no fear in his eyes, simply acceptance. He did not struggle, but walked proudly, head held high. As they bade him kneel, I signaled them to stop. I could speak a bit of the Saxon tongue, I had learned it as a merchant. "You. Boy. Would you meet death as a man?" I asked him, and he answered with a simple "Aye." His voice held no fear, no hatred. Simply acceptance, and honour. As though he knew that his fate could not be changed, and chose not to struggle against it. "Then cry your god, Boy." Says I, and swung. He roared the name of Baldr, the god slain by treachery. It was then that I knew I was damned.
I fought for Charlemagne for a while longer, but I knew in my heart I could not do it much more. I could not fight for one who thought to save souls, but led his men into Hel's embrace. Even if he did it unwittingly. I am told Verden tormented him, the rest of his days, and that on his deathbed, he asked his god to show him the face of every man he had slain there. I left his service, and went Aviking. The raids on Britain were just beginning, and it distracted me for a time. Never mind that I was doing the same thing I had just taken vengeance on the Saxons for. Never mind that I had little need or desire for the money it brought. No, my heart and my soul were black, hard, cold. My heart has since healed. My soul remains as it was, Black, Hard, Twisted and Gnarled. Cold and pitted, without a trace of mercy or compassion for any bar my own.