Strangers In a Hall

Mord Liutson studied the throng of warriors that surrounded him. He was a guest in the hall of Jarl Waltheof Hedinson. As such he sat at the top of the table near the great chieftain. All around Mord there was much merriment for Waltheof and his warriors had recently returned from a successful vik.
Beside the noble Jarl there was an open chest heaped with treasures brought back from raiding the Christian monasteries that were sprouting up like vile weeds all across the Viking territories. When Mord had arrived, Waltheof had been dipping into this chest and handing out gifts to his men. Mord had been welcomed with all the hospitality that Norse tradition dictated and given his seat of honour beside their chief. Many of the gathered warriors had glanced questioningly at the bundle that Mord carried slung across his back; however, he had freely given up his sword at the door and so was allowed to keep his curious secret. Weapons were never a good thing to bring to a Norse feast. With mead and wine flowing as freely as rain then fights were inevitable and so it was only a wise precaution that anything bigger than an eating knife was left at the door before entering.
Mord observed one such fight across the corner of the great hall. Two burly ruffians had set eyes upon the same comely serving girl and had come to blows. Mord suppressed a grin as a third suitor lured the pretty blonde slave into a dark corner while the first two pounded lumps from one another until they were pulled apart by their oar-mates.
The fight over, Mord returned his attention to the other guest in Jarl Waltheof's hall, sitting opposite to him. This was an old grizzled looking white haired man, built like a wrestler despite his age and wearing a tunic and breeches of wolf-skins. The man's craggy face was made all the more remarkable by a white burn scar that ran from his lower lip on the right side of his face, across his cheek and stopping just short of the blazing blue orb of his eye. This man had arrived before Mord, but the young warrior had not been surprised to see him. Rather he had expected it... hoped for it.
Mord had not touched any mead or wine since he had arrived, though it had been freely offered. He had drunk only water and he hoped that his refusal to drink anything stronger did not offend his honoured host. As he took one last look around him he made his decision and rose from the bench, tankard of water in his hand.
"A toast to our honoured Jarl Waltheof Hedinson for this magnificent feast and his unrivalled generosity!" Mord bellowed across the hall to those assembled. He downed the contents of his tankard in one and slammed it down on the great oak table. The warriors all cheered and took the excuse to drain their horns of mead or tankards of wine, banging the receptacles on the table when finished.
Waltheof raised himself from his chair at the head of the table and raised his powerful arms into the air in acceptance of this praise.
"Thank you, my friends! May I say that you have all more than earned the generosity which I am praised for. There is not a man of you here that I would not claim as my own son. Though young Mord here would honour me more were he to make his toast with a man's drink. Water is for ships to sail on, boy... not for drinking!"
There was a chorus of raucous laughter from the warriors.
"Perhaps later, my lord. I would ask you though if I may honour this hall with a story to entertain you all?" Mord asked.
Waltheof's answer was to sit down and nod his head. He slammed his fists on the table.
"A story!" he roared and that was all the prompt that young Mord needed.
Mord stepped up onto the great table as if it were a stage and whirled around once his arms outstretched, encompassing his entire audience before coming to settle his eye upon the great Jarl and the old grizzled guest at his side.
"Many years ago in a hall just like this one there was gathered a mighty assembly of warriors. They too had returned from a successful season of Viking off the eastern shores of England. In celebration of their successful return they held a great feast and the Jarl rewarded his oar-men and warriors with many great gifts from the treasure which he kept hidden behind a curtain, in an alcove that lay just behind the Jarl's chair. That evening saw the arrival of a stranger to the hall. A trapper and fur tradesman who had travelled to the village to pedal his wares and, arriving late sought food and shelter in the great hall, as was his right according to our great Norse tradition of hospitality to all travelers." At this Mord bowed once again to his host in acknowledgement of his status as guest in the Jarl's hall.
"The trapper was given a seat next to the Jarl. A position that was only shared by the chief's wife and son. The son was a boy of but twelve winters and still longing for the day when hairs would grow on his chin, like moss grows on a troll's back. His mother, the Jarl's wife, was more beautiful than the goddess Freyja herself, may Odin strike me down if it were not so." Here he paused, arms outstretched and looked up as if waiting for the one-eyed king of gods to smite him. When no blow came he winked and grinned at the assembled warriors who laughed heartily before allowing him to continue.
"With the honoured guest so seated the feasting and merriment carried on well into the darkest hours of the night until eventually, weary from too much food and drink, everyone dropped off to sleep. Many slumping where they lay, on the straw strewn floor of the great hall or across the table at which they sat. It was a slumber from which none of them may have awaken from if not for the scream of one hapless warrior. Such a scream had never been heard by any of the men assembled save in perhaps their direst nightmares of Helheim, the domain of Hel whose mortal kiss all Norse-men fear. What those gathered warriors saw when they awoke to that scream made each man fear that they all dwelled in the same living nightmare. The screaming man was dangling in the jaws of a monster that towered over even the mightiest of those assembled. This beast was not a wolf though it had a face like one. Nor was it a man, though it did stand on two legs, with terrible feet that ended in claws longer and sharper than any seax. Its naked body was covered in long white fur, matted now with the blood of the fallen warrior, who no longer screamed for no man can scream long without a throat. The varulv, for that was what it was, dropped the dead warrior and before a blade could be drawn it was among them. It had meant to send them all to Hel's hall while they slept, three mangled corpses spoke this tale, but the fourth had awoken and his wail of terror had given the alarm. Even had those brave men been wielding more than just eating knives, it would have made little difference. Does a warrior still go to Valhalla when he is sent to his death bearing only the knife which previously had sliced his bread and meat? I can only hope so, because it was to be a fate shared by one and all in the hall that terrible night!
The Jarl could see how things were turning. He grabbed up his son and thrust him into the treasure alcove, behind the curtain. 'Stay, boy, and do not come out whatever happens!' they were the last words the young lad ever heard his father speak.
Having slaughtered every last man and slave in the great hall the varulv pounced towards the chief and his wife. The noble Jarl would have protected his wife as he had done his son. Being lord of the hall, he alone had retained his sword. He held it now, keeping his beloved behind him. The boy watched from behind the curtain and felt hope as he saw his father's blade enter the monster's chest. A blow that would have cloven the heart of any man in two. The point burst forth from the beast's back in a spray of dark blood. So stricken, the varulv staggered back, wrenching the sword from the great Jarl's hand. The Jarl did not long mourn the loss of a blade that he could retrieve soon enough from the carcass of his vanquished enemy. Only that was not to be. The wolfish features of the beast twisted into what could only have been a smile and a barking laugh escaped mockingly from its lips. Taking firm grip of the sword's handle in its terrible clawed hand it wrenched the blade free and tossed it aside as if it were naught, but a splinter. The terrible wound in its blood caked chest closed up before the eyes of those living that beheld it, as if it had never been there. For the noble Jarl it was doom. He never got the chance to recover from the shock of what he had seen.
The boy behind the curtain could not look away; not even when his father's head flew across the hall and bounced off the wall mere feet from where he hid. Nor could he tear his eyes away when that fiendish monster caught his mother, pinned her down and violated her with its obscene, bloated member. The ferocity with which that thing raped his mother was such that she was probably dead before it ripped her throat out with its teeth.
Now only the boy lived. As he watched his mother die he felt his fear melt away into a red rage. He knew the varulv would be coming for him next. He was the only thing between it and what it really wanted... his father's treasure. The boy reached out behind him and felt for a weapon, determined that he would not die without a fight. Once armed he braced himself for the beast's attack.
As the creature tore through the curtain the boy swung his makeshift weapon at its face. The weapon was a large silver cross, no doubt looted from an English monastery. Not much of a weapon to use against such a monster that his father's sword, one of the finest ever forged, had failed to fell. The effect of that cross upon the beast when it connected, however, was unexpected to say the least.
The fur on the creature's face burst into a white flame and the beast flew back against the wall, knocking loose a torch from its holdings and causing it to fall upon the straw. It did not take long for the fire from the torch to take to the straw and spread quickly across the hall, devouring anything in its path like a fiery serpent. The varulv looked long and hard at the boy, as if its eyes could burn hatred into his soul. Then it bounded across the hall, through the flames and out of the door into the night.
When men from the next village came to investigate the smoke and fire they found the hall a blackened shell. Sitting outside the ruin of his former family home sat the young chieftain's son, cradling in his arms the very thing that had saved his life... the silver cross of the white-Christ.
On that night he swore that he would hunt down the varulv and claim his blood price for the evil that had been wrought that night. Some say he is still out there now, searching for vengeance." As Mord brought his tale to a close there was a chorus of rowdy appreciation from the assembled warriors. Only his fellow guest did not join in the vigorous table thumping.
"It seems to me that you are ill-mannered to tell tales of hall-burnings when you are the guest in the hall of another. Perhaps your tale is in fact a veiled warning of your own intent?" the old stranger growled.
Mord had ignored the scorn of his grizzled heckler as he strode down the length of the table, bowing and soaking up the praise that was bestowed upon him. He strode back up to the table's head and stopped to look down on the old man.
"Perhaps you have another, better tale that you would like to tell? Of how you came by that scar, mayhaps?" Mord challenged, his young face dark and serious despite his smile.
The stranger scratched the scar absent mindedly as he considered his reply.
"These fine warriors would be bored to tears to hear tell of an accident I had when I was a bairn, helping my father - a blacksmith - when I fell whilst holding a red hot soldering iron."
Jarl Waltheof rose from his chair.
"I fear you may be right. Look!" he gestured sweepingly around the hall. "Many of my men already fall asleep at the mere suggestion of it!"
There was a ripple of laughter from those still awake. Mord turned to the Jarl and nodded before turning to jump down from the table and return to his seat.
One by one the revelers tired and fell asleep.
Mord unslung his mysterious bundle from across his back and laid it before him on the table. He rested his head upon it and closed his eyes.
The warriors had not been sleeping long before they were woken again.
It was Mord who woke them, for he had not been sleeping. Without warning he had leapt back from the bench, taking his bundle with him. That was not the noise that had roused the warriors, however. It was the sound of splintering wood as the clawed hand of the varulv from Mord's tale had been driven into the table where the young warrior's head had previously lain.
The gathered warriors looked on through bleary, sleep heavy eyes. They must have believed that they dreamt when they saw before them the very monster that Mord had described to them in his saga earlier that night. They also saw their doom, for what else could their fate be, but to be slaughtered by this invincible creature. The varulv regarded them all with its malevolent yellow eyes, its snarl made all the more terrible by the white scar on the right side of its lupine face.
Off in the shadows there came a whistle that drew the attention of everyone, not just the beast it was meant for. From these shadows stepped Mord, unwrapping the bundle that he had worn across his back all night. It was a great warhammer, worthy of the thunderer Thor himself, its hammerhead had been forged from pure silver and was etched in runes of power. Mord uttered no words as he wielded that mighty hammer and ran at the varulv head on.
The beast raised its claws and leapt to meet him with an almighty inhuman howl.
All those gathered cheered when the fiend was sent sprawling back onto the table, which splintered beneath it, blood and broken teeth and smoke billowing from its hideous mouth as it fell.
It struggled to get up from that fell blow, but Mord stepped up and swung the hammer again, knocking it once more to its back. Mord trod upon the creature's chest. It still yet lived and would have got up again if Mord had not rained the hammer down and spread its brains among the straw and table splinters with three mighty strokes.
The hall was silent. Not one of the warriors there assembled tried to stop Mord as he slung the great hammer, now stained with black ichor, across his shoulder and stalked out of the hall into the night without looking back.
Only when Mord had disappeared from sight did the men return their attention to the vanquished monster to find the naked corpse of the old stranger lying there with his brains and blood pooled around his ruined head.