More Valkyrien. Starting to get to the point where I can begin posting my backlog of tales from the summer following Chechnya. And soon, Samhain! Anyway, intellectual property of myself, Jared G. Juckiewicz. Warnings of blood and violence and death. Gorm reminiscing again, triggered by something no one would expect...
We have finally arrived at Michael and Sara's house outside of the town of Wapiti Bend. It has taken us a week of travel, five days in the car and two days of rest. We arrived just in time for dinner, and having eaten, and eaten well on good home cooking, venison steaks only barely seared, potatoes roasted in the droppings with herbs, onions and mushrooms sauteed on the side with carrots and corn. And if Vixen, Michael and I opted to go a little heavy on the meat side of the diet, well, who's counting. Anyway, it ensured that his little ones had to eat their vegetables. 'Cause there wasn't enough meat to satisfy everyone. To top it all off, he had a good, strong stout to wash it all down with, although, again the children had to settle for a lesser alternative.
After the meal, we settled down in the living room to watch a film. One selected by his eldest daughter, a girl of perhaps ten or eleven. Now, I'd expected to have something soppy and unwatchable. I'd even planned on a counter, falling asleep on Vixen's shoulder. On the other hand, as the film began, it showed a party, in the great Romanov Palace in Saint Petersburg. Cartoon though it may have been, it was well drawn. I recognised it, for I knew that hall well. I even knew which Ball it was meant to be. I had attended, a personal retainer of the Tsar, trusted by the Romanov family. Whilst I had seen better likeness of the Romanovs, possibly on accounts of having known them, the ones they had were not bad. Vixen must have noticed the change in my mood, asking me 'What is it? Gorm?' But I just shook of the question, shaking my head. Until Rasputin appeared. The likeness was terrible, but it was obvious who it was meant to be. I leapt to my feet, straight into a combat crouch, claws forming at my fingertips, canines cutting through my lower lip. My eyes flamed yellow as I snarled at the screen.
Everyone was staring at me. Vixen grabbed my arm, and pulled me back, and down. Michael was the first to recover. "I take it you knew them, then?" He asked, and I answered softly. "Aye. Nicholas the Second was a good friend of mine. His children too. The Tsaritsa, she had no time for me, though. I gestured towards the screen with my chin, two lines of blood trickling down it, from where my fangs had pierced my lip. "Rasputin's work that. That man was no monk. That monk was no man." I shuddered. He'd actually scared me, that man. Part of the reason I had been so glad when Nicholas went for the front. Naturally I went with him." I settled back down, and the film resumed. Vixen and I spoke softly all throughout. I told her of my arrival in Russia, in 1866, attached to the Entourage of Dagmar of Denmark, bride of Alexander III. I told her of how I had lived in the palace as a guardsman, until Nicholas II came to power. Of how I caught his eye at the coronation, and earned my elevation to his personal guard soon thereafter.
Those had been good days. Nicholas gave me rank and position and wealth, in exchange for naught but my loyalty and service, which I was happy to give. As a Princess who knew not who she was found herself on a train to Paris, I told her of my run-ins with Rasputin. That man had oozed charisma. He was almost irrestistable to women, and few men were willing to stand against him. I could smell a darkness about him though, and we hated each other. I tried so hard to get him killed. We had him stabbed. And poisoned. Shot. Mutilated. None of it worked. In the end, we gave him to the Neva, and offered up prayers that he would stay there. Those who stood beside me as we rolled his bound and wrapped body, still squirming, through the ice asked the White Christ to intercede on our behalf, to banish the evil being from this earth. I invoked older gods. Darker gods. Wotan and Loki. Fenris and my namesake, Gorm. The half-dead goddess Hel. And others, the Finnish death-gods Turisas and Ikku-Turso, who are one and the same, and yet not. Their bride, and kinsfolk, and the Morrigan of the Celts. Something must have worked, for Rasputin rose not again from the icy waters. Not alive at least.
And as a Princess began to remember I related the tale of how I had stood by my Tsar, and his wife who had reviled me, and his son, and his daughters, who had thought me their friend and protector. How I had gone with them into captivity. And how, when it came time for them to die, how I met that death with them, and helped them to face it. They did not die easy, I told her. The seventeenth day of July, in the year Nineteen Eighteen. I died with them at Yekaterinburg. I was buried alongsides them, but dug myself free as my wounds closed up. I fled to Finland, only to get caught up in the civil war there. I always meant to return, and avenge those I had failed to defend, but it was impossible to track those responsible. I was forced to settle for standing against the Bolsheviks who had had them murdered come the Winter War in 'Thirty-Nine. As the film, and my quiet tale finish, I have to laugh. Look at me. A warrior, a werewolf. A hardened killer, who has known some fourteen centuries of war and more, reduced to tears by a children's film, and the memories it draws forth.
As far as historical notes, I have tried to get the history of the events as accurate as possible, accounting for the presence of a bloodthirsty werewolf. I suggest anyone who reads this looks up the song Rasputin. I prefer the Turisas cover, but the Boney M version isn't bad. He was not a nice man... And yes, the Romanov family were, it is now believed, all executed on July 17th, 1918. According to the chappy who actually did the deed, they were told they were being moved to keep them from being rescued by the white army, placed in a small room, and then slain in a most incompetent manner. Most of them, and the few servants accompanying died slowly, of numerous bullet wounds. A few had to be bayoneted, and bludgeoned in addition to being shot, before they actually succumbed. Guess which group Gorm fell into...
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