Post by Cornar the Black on Apr 13, 2021 10:39:04 GMT -6
"Some jarl you are."
Dirt is kicked into the face of Cornar the Black, he is laying in a heap on the ground surrounded by his settlement. Thorbjornn, right hand of the jarl, stands over the fallen Jotun-Sized.
"Promises of plentiful food, gold, silver, mead and Odin's blessing. Promises of glorious battle, and we followed this pile into the unknown?"
The people of the settlement all roar approval of Thorbjornn, all except the Seer. She throws herself on the ground to cover Cornar from another beating.
"See if your hearts, not with your eyes," she slithers out of her mouth. "Your jarl needs you right now and you're just throwing him aside like some whore. He does walk with Odin in his dreams."
Thorbjornn peels The Seer from Cornar's body and literally chokeslams her to the dirt. "Begone, foul being. We do not care for your silver tongued words. We were promised a bounty and we were given but a pittance."
Cornar stirs, but Thorbjornn drives his foot nearly through a lung. Cornar falls, Winterbeaker clanks to the ground too. A blue glint catches Thorbjornn's eye, he reaches down and struggles but manages to lift the hammer into the sky.
"This, a gift from the bowels of Norway. Forged by the greatest smith to roam Midgard. For Odin!" Thorbjornn holds the hammer above his head, unsteadily, but has enough to swing the massive hammer down into the spine of Cornar the Black, sending a wail of anguish from inside him.
"This rotting body cannot hold us any longer," Thorbjornn boasts. "He is frail, weak and unable to even defeat a single opponent in battle any longer."
"I can defeat you," the broken soul of Cornar the Black squeaks out.
"Me? Jarl, are you challenging me to a Holmgang?" asks Thorbjornn, struggling still with Winterbreaker.
"I am," grunts the Jarl, sitting up onto his knees now.
"A wager? I wish to hold the crown," a confident Thorbjornn casts into the ether of the settlement.
"And my victory prize is every single one of you leaving this settlement," Cornar roars, casting gasps from all within ear shot.
"Agreed, let us battle," says Thorbjornn, looking into the worried faces of everyone around him.
Some time later, the sun has gone down on The Lakes. The settlement has once again gathered in the middle of their home grounds, and a circle of hay bails has been erected in a dug out pit of sorts. Thorbjornn smugly walks toward the fight pit, slinging his body over the bails and down into the arena with a thud and puff of dust from his feet. Cornar lumbers from the other side of the settlement, with The Seer at his side. He more gingerly climbs into the pit, standing across from his opponent. Winterbreaker is sitting in the middle of the circle, an equal distance from each drengr.
The hay is lit aflame, a big flame shoots upward but quickly fades, creating little more than a burning wall around the pit. Thorbjornn darts for Winterbreaker and as he grasps the handle, Cornar makes it to the center to grasp Thorbjornn's wrist. In onr motion Cornar twists and breaks Thorbjornn's arm into a thousand bone shards only held in by the limp muscle and skin. A howl unlike any animal escapes Thorbjornn, as the settlement watches on in horror.
Cornar windmills his arm, holding his shoulder and working it from the hammer blow earlier. He easily picks Winterbreaker up from the ground and drops toa knee, swinging the hammer full force at the inside of Thorbjornn's knee, sending it outward and snapping it, an unnatural crack echoes around the fight pit. Hobbled, Thorbjornn tries to throw a punch but he is blocked by Cornar, who thrusts a boot into the chest and surely breaking a few rubs, possibly the sternum. Thorbjornn rolls around on the ground in agony, people from atop the pit call for mercy but Cornar gives none.
"Your jarl yields for NO MAN!"
Cornar palms Thorbjornn's head and lifts him to a standing base, arm and leg limp. "Please.. please jarl," whines the fallen drengr, but Cornar has none of it. He rushes forward and slams Thorbjornn's head through the burning hay bails and into the side of the pit, and disgustingly repeatedly ricochets the skull off the hard wall time and time again until the life escapes Thorbjornn. Bleeding, lifeless, aflame - Cornar has beaten his foe.
"Now go, all thee who doubted me. Leave this place, you are nomads now. You have no home. And by Odin if I ever see another one of you, I will make you suffer like this dickless bastard who lays before me."
Slowly, the settlement's inhabitants all turn and leave the fight pit, then their homes, as they are left to wander Las Vegas and find a new place to live.
