Thrice curse Black Erlik!

"Thrice curse Black Erlik! May Hel herself take him into her busom!" The necromancer continued to rant for several moments, wiping blood and the ruined remains of his left eye from his cheek. The pain was nearly unbearable, but it was a moon-cast shadow compared to the flaring hatred that scorched the man's heart and gut.

"The ambush was well laid, Master," intoned the sepulchral voice from the animated skeleton. The undead thing did not actually speak, but the necromancer could hear the hollow thing's speech in his mind.

"It does not matter! I am no mere man! I command the forces of life and death itself! I am nearly a God! How can this flea-bitten mongrel and his lackeys get the better of me? OF ME!?" The man was nearly mad with pain and anger, and he screamed, savagely kicking the quickly cooling bodies of two members of Erlik's band that lay in the bloody snow at his feet. The slippery scarlet slush beneath his boots got the better of him, however, and the necromancer tumbled to the frozen ground. Maddened even further, he began thrashing and screaming, flailing about like a spoilt child.

The skeleton, uncaring and emotionless, simply impassively stood at the ready, holding its halberd, guarding its master.

The necromancer bellowed and screamed to the heavens, blood still flowing from his empty socket. "I hate him! May all the gods, low and high, curse Erlik and all his spawn from now 'til Ragnarok! I will give you whatever you ask, anything, my very soul - if you only give me a way to defeat him!" The man, fully spent with his final cry, fell limp, his arms and legs splayed in the four cardinal directions. His right hand landed in the pooled blood and hair of one of Erlik's dead crew.

Slowly, the skeleton's head turned, the ancient cartilage in its neck creaking in the sudden vacuum of silence. A voice emanated from the un-living thing, but this time, the voice was black and full of malice. "Our bargain is struck, Vekel Geirson. I now name you my own. You shall henceforth be called Vekel Dökkalfarson"

The necromancer felt a chill run down his spine and his pants run hot and wet. He had dabbled in the dark-arts his entire adult life, and never had such a thing happened within his sight, his hearing, or his witness. Vekel suddenly knew he had gone one step to far.

"Remember your Enemy," the poisonous voice from the skeleton said.

Suddenly, all that Erilk had done to him sprang anew in Vekel's soul and it seemed to him that all of the pains, the insults, and the defeats were magnified and made all the more real and potent to him. The necromancer felt the dead man's hair and blood beneath his hand and suddenly, an idea came to him. A most heinous and horrible idea. Quickly, the necromancer rolled over and a wicked wolf's grin had replaced his own. He looked from the skeleton to the freshly slain men at his feet. One of the men had lovely eyes--pale green like sea foam--that were still clear and not yet clouded over in death.

"Come, Bonethrall," Vekel Dökkalfarson, the necromancer, spat. There was something new in his voice, a steely, icy edge. "We have much work to do..."

Art Source: "The Bone Whistle Corpsman" (c)/by SidharthChaturvedi

Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth, Erilk the Black (c)/by Raulston Hunsinger

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #viking, #Erlik, #theKinslayer, #ErliksSaga, #BlackErlik, #Ingemar, #Vekelsson, #Vekel, #Bonethrall, #VekelDökkalfarson, #necromancer, #VekelGeirson

"Erlik! Where are you?"

"Erlik! Where are you?"

Frigid water invaded his leather boots and seeped into his wool-wrapped leggings. Ingemar Vekelsson fished about for his sword and the torch he'd been carrying. "Erlik!" He called out again, his voice questing out into the damp darkness. Ingemar had no idea where he was or where his war-leader, Erlik, was. The viking lad's head was pounding and he cursed, trying to remember...

One hand found a stone plinth and Ingemar felt the deep, grooved stone. Fingers tentatively traced the edges of the smooth, perfectly formed cuts, feeling them curve and swoop and join in with one another. The design sparked something in his foggy, pounding skull and he remembered. The Celts! They had been in Iberia, exploring a raised grave--Erlik had called it a barrow--and one moment, he had been side by side with the Erlik Kinslayer and the next moment, he'd been falling.

Now, he had no idea where his Ring-Giver was, or in truth, where he was.

The son of Vekels right hand traced across a conflux in the grooves of the plinth and a blazing blue light filled the chamber. He was in a place unlike anything he had ever seen: part natural cavern and part worked stone chamber. The eerie wytchlight came from everywhere and nowhere at once, illumination without a source. Ingemar blinked, reeling from the sudden stabbing pain in his ice-blue eyes. His footing slipped as he reeled and the he found himself tasting foul, stagnant water.

Ingemar slammed his fist into the water, cursing, "Son of a carrion eating old hag!"

It was at that moment that he heard the laughter. It was less laughter than it was a painful-sounding exhalation of breath, followed by the phrase, spoken in Old Norse. "Stay down, Kinslayer. It will make your death quicker."

The viking lad spun, taking in the thing before him. His foot struck his war wall and his fingers found the wet, leather-wrapped hilt of his blood worm. His eyes, however, did not depart from the...thing...before him. Ingemar had no idea what the thing was that was slowly slogging its way towards him. Ingemar did not fear men. Erlik the Black was Ring-Giver to him, after all. But this thing, this was no man.

The viking lad rose to his feet, slinging his shield into place and whipping his sword before him. "Come, foul fiend. I am not Erlik the Kinslayer, but I will send you to take your place in Nágrindr, the Corpse Fence!"

The creature roared and the battle was joined.

Art Source: "Warriors of Decay" (c)/by spyders
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth, Erilk the Black (c)/by Raulston Hunsinger

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #viking, #Erlik, #theKinslayer, #ErliksSaga, #BlackErlik, #Ingemar, #Vekelsson