Chapter 2: Ragnarsson Rock

5009, OTT

The days after her death were like a haze. I woke in the Union Clinic. It was the first time I could remember being away from the Burg. When I first regained consciousness I was floating in some kind of gooey liquid, whatever I tried I could not move and through the liquid I could see people moving. I was certain one of the shapes was father.

When I woke again, I was no longer in the liquid but in the same room. All was gleaming white and clean.

A man with a broad smile greeted me. “Welcome Eric, I am James Dwyer and I am one of the doctors of the Union Clinic. How do you feel?”

“Did you save mother too? Is she going to be alright?”

The doctor’s smile vanished instantly and his beardless face showed concern. “I wish it would not be me who has to tell you, but I was not called for your ... I am afraid your mother is gone.”

He knelt down before the gurney I was on. “Eric, this is the most difficult thing I had ever to say to a child.” He swallowed and sighed. “Your mother is dead.”

Just then father came in. “How much longer do you intend to keep this whelp? With all your machines you should be able to cure an army.”

Dr. Dwyer got up. “This is Union Ground, Mr. Olafson.”

Seeing father everything that had occurred came back in every gory detail. “Why? Why have you hit Mother?”

“Silence! You are coming with me now!”

Father grabbed me by the arm and pulled me of the diagnostic bed.

Dwyer said. “Unhand that child at once. Security is dispatched.”

Father did not listen and dragged me out.

The doctor yelled after him. “Mr. Olafson if you leave now, I will report this.”

“Report this to whom you want, this is Nilfeheim and this is my son. My will is supreme!”

Father did not stop and dragged me like a rag doll behind him. I could not think anything else but seeing him killing mother and I knew he would kill me.

Death has been something abstract something that was beyond my understanding and yet it suddenly had become very real. Mother was dead. She was gone and would never come back.

Even though he was easy to anger, I could not explain what happened to father. Why did he kill mother and why did he almost did the same to me?

Isegrim pulled me in a hurry through the automated doors of the clinic where he ran into Uncle Hogun. Isegrim barked. “Out of my way you big oaf.”

“I am still an Olafson and I demand an answer. What happened? Is it true, have you...” Hogun’s eyes fell on me. “They said the child was rushed to the clinic more dead than alive.”

Isegrim pulled his whip with his free hand and uncoiled the wicked weapon.”I am the Olafson clan chief and you are to obey, brother. Don’t mind what is not your business. Go back to thy Tavern and stay there. You are no longer welcome at the burg.”

Hogun stepped back and Isegrim pushed past him onto the street, just as two Union Security guards alerted by the doctor reached the door. Isegrim laughed at them in an almost mad sounding cackle. “Off World lackeys you are bound by your rules. Step out and I teach you a lesson!”

Hogun appeared completely baffled, as one of the guards said. “I am indeed unable to enforce Union law on Nilfeheim ground, but I am also a Freeman of this world, and you threatened me. Let us see if your whip will stand against Union armor and training.”

The other guard said. “Mr. Olafson you are hereby prohibited to use this or any other Union Facility. Yes you may claim local ordinance and law above that of Union jurisdiction, but you also revoke your Union Citizenship by ignoring Federal law and committing crimes on Union ground.”

Isegrim was still in rage. He had obeyed Gretel and killed Ilva, he had almost killed his own son and now he wanted to take the child home, just as Gretel said. He did not know that she had increased his emotions and used psycho drugs on him, but he knew he had made a series of costly mistakes.

I woke up, bolting upright in my bed. Another nightmare. That night he had killed mother had burned itself into my mind and once again it had revisited me in form of a horrid dream. The blood, the screams of pain from my mother as she tried to shield me and the growls of rage from my father. My mother died that night a little more than six years ago. As always I could no longer sleep. I never was able to go back to bed after such a dream,. So I went to my small desk by the draughty window and sat down to put my thoughts into a little PDD my Grandfather had given me. It was the only Off World High-Tech thing I owned and If father knew I had it, he would have taken it away from me.

I remembered so little of my grandfather, he was there for mother’s funeral I was certain.

It was my teacher Mr. Flensburger who suggested that I keep a diary of my thoughts and of daily events. He said thinking things over and writing them down would help to get a different perspective about things.

My father had killed my mother with his Steel cable whip that fateful night. He had beaten me as well right after my mother no longer moved. The steel whip had almost cut me in half and I almost died that night. I was not sure who it was who stopped him, but I was certain I remembered the red dress of Gretel through my bloody haze. They had flown me to the Union Clinic.

I wished I had died that night as well, I missed her so much! While I was still a kid and not supposed to understand it all, I believed to know the reason why father killed mother and why he hate me so much. Midril, the cook had explained it to me more than once, and she knew every rumor, gossip and local story there was to know. Father, so she had explained to me one morning, was the oldest heir to the Olafson clan. It was an old clan and its linage reached back to the time when the first settlers arrived on Nilfeheim. Lineage and being of the Old clans had great value in our society, but the Olafson clan was poor and had very little resources. They had to hire their men out to other clans because they could not afford their own Hunt Subs or fishing boats. My mother on the other hand was of the Ragnarsson clan, also one of the Old clans and perhaps the richest off them all. Her father and my Grandfather was credited with increasing the wealth and influence of the Ragnarsson clan even beyond Nilfeheim. Grandfather’s only son, my mother’s older brother had died training for the Ancient Rite of Passage, he and was crushed by an angry Tyranno Fin so the story went.

There were no other sons only a daughter, my mother. While it would be perfectly normal for a woman to inherit on almost any other world in the Union, here on Nilfeheim, it was the First Born son that got everything and he alone decided what share his mother, brothers and sisters would get from an inheritance. Marriages between clans were arranged by clan Chiefs and daughters were given a dowry by their fathers and then given away to seal alliances and pacts between clans, the young people had no choice in who they were allowed to date, love or marry. Dating someone else against the wishes of the clan Chiefs usually ended in the death of the girl by the hand of her own father.

The boy was often also punished but rarely killed. Now the old clan chief of the Olafson’s, my late grandfather Volund had made such an arrangement with the old clan chief of the Ragnarsson clan, Erik Gustav Ragnarsson. The oldest Son of the Olafson clan, my father was to marry Ilva Ragnarsson and since there were no other male children in the line of the Ragnarsson clan, it would cease to exist and all its riches and all its possessions would become Olafson. This was a tremendous deal and fortune for the poor Olafson clan of course, but my father was in love with another woman and secretly dated and loved her against all traditions. This other woman was the daughter of a Nubhir herder, a lowly Freeman named Hemstaad who was as poor as one could be. Her name was Gretel and she had worked as a Nubhir skin scrubber in our burgs Tanneries.

A union between a Nubhir herder’ daughter and future clan chief would have met the end of the Olafson clan in terms of relevance, however it was her, Father wanted. Father and Gretel kept seeing each other in secret. Not that such secrets could really be kept in a clan burg where eyes and ears were everywhere and their inappropriate liaison was the source of much whispered gossip. Midril told me that everyone knew how, father hated my mother from the start and that he hated everything the Ragnarsson clans stood for. Matters turned worse when Grandfather standing at my crib making a sacred Viking oath and proclaiming me and not father heir to all, as I was the first born in the line of the merging clans and the first male child carrying Ragnarsson and Olafson blood. Of course, as long as my mother’s father lived, the Ragnarsson clan existed and only on his death I would inherit. Father hated me and would have loved to kill me but the fact that the very Burg we lived in would not be his if I died before Grandfather passed away kept me relative safe.

If I died before my Grandfather, he was free of any obligations to the Olafson clan. Father would have to move back to the small and half crumbled burg that was the Olafson Rock, about 160 kilometers to the east. I put the PDD down. I was tired and I glanced over to the bed, but there was no rest for me in a night like this. I could not go back to sleep without seeing the lifeless bloody heap that had been my mother, being awake was better. It was almost time for the kitchen servants to get up and prepare breakfast. Our Burg was home to about eighty families, almost a hundred servants and low men and most of them got up very early to tend to their daily chores. Breakfast was served in the High Hall for members of the first families and in the common hall for everyone else. The High Hall was where my father and the exalted members of the clan would eat. Of course I was not part of that since mother died, as I was barred from setting foot into the High Halls. I dressed and headed down to the kitchens. That early there was little chance I would run into Isegrim or my brothers and I could sit by the hearth and Midril would give me some hot rolls in XChange for hauling supplies from the Under croft and the store rooms.

As I reached the backyard where the entrance to the kitchen was I could already smell the fresh bread Midril was baking. Isegrim was the head of the clan, but Midril was in charge of the kitchen and her staff. She ruled over it with her ever present long wooden cooking spoon. She wielded it like a club or sword and she had knocked me over the head with it on more than one occasion. Admittedly in her defense I usually earned it for stealing a hot cake or a piece of roast. Most of the commoners and most of the servants, especially those that came from the Ragnarsson clan treated me well and I knew some felt sorry for my fate and they all knew what had happened to my mother, although no one ever really talked about it, everyone was afraid of Isegrim. The kitchen yard was on the eastern side of the burg, a small cobblestone yard bordered by the high sea wall onto the west side and the entrance to my tower to the south. There was a small gate on the opposite site from where you could reach the old tunnels that used to be an escape passage from the days of the clan wars. Parts of this was now converted as storage space, were we kept barrels of Tyranno oil and bales of sea weed. A long forgotten secret corridor was there as well complete with a concealed door that led right between the walls of the Great Hall where you could sneak in and listen to everything that went on, and through a concealed crack you could even see some of it. Just as I had reached the yard, Midril opened the door and sloshed a bucket of hot liquid onto the cobblestones. She saw me and stemmed her fists in her wide hips.” Why am I carrying the mop water outside if you are already up and linger around like a starving Snapperfish? Get your behind in the kitchen and finish mopping the Common Hall and when you’re done the bread and the breakfast ham will be ready.” The kitchen was big and warm and always spotless clean. She would not have it any other way. The kitchen was pretty much the same since they rebuild the burg over 1000 years ago. The only modern equipment was the large convection oven, the big bread dough mixer and water heater. Everything else was traditional and old-fashioned, Thickgrass-seaweed compressed in into dense bricks served as fuel for the main stove, not that there was need to use fossil fuels as the Burg had a power generator running on hydrogen, but that was not traditional. Food had to be cooked over fire. I grabbed the mob and headed for the still empty Common Hall, the stone floor was gleaming clean but that did not matter to Midril who wanted it mopped never the less. The common hall had rows of stone slab benches and tables. Wood was incredibly expensive on a world without forests and had to be imported. Suddenly there was loud screaming and horrible noise of crashing and breaking from the kitchen. Something not human shrieking with an ear piercing sound. I ran towards the noise, slipped and fell on the slick floor as I reached the kitchen. The tidy kitchen was now a tumbled mess. The liquid I slipped in and that covered the floor right by the door was thick dark and red,. It was blood! In the center of the gory puddle a badly mangled body I only recognized it as Gudrun, one of the cooks by the frilled apron the mangled corpse wore. A large Fangsnapper tore through the kitchen, smashing furniture and throwing utensils everywhere. It was about to attack Midril again. She already had lost an arm, bleeding heavily, still on her feet, brandished her wooden spoon against the dagger sharp rows of teeth of the furious beast. The back door

was smashed to pieces and marked the way were the animal gained entrance to the kitchen. Despite all the confusion and horror I wondered how the beast got here. I could not understand how the Fangsnapper managed to get through the steel gates or get over the high outer walls. Our burg was in the middle of the ocean and far away from the hunting grounds of these beasts usually only found in the southern pole region. I struggled to my feet, slipping twice again. There not far from the dead cooks hand lay a big cooking knife. I did not think much and what I did then was more instinct than any planned course of action. I grabbed that knife and with a jump was on one of the big stainless steel kitchen tables and catapulted myself brandishing the knife with both hands onto the back of the beast and plunged the razor sharp steel into its back right behind the skull. The Snapper screamed even louder tried to shake me off. I didn’t have a very good hold. With my left hand cramped around the left head fin, my legs clamping as hard as I could to the still moist body of the beast and plunged the knife as often as I could deep into the same wound. Hot blood sprayed from the wound gushing all over me. It stank sickly sweet and the odor mingled with the moldy fish scent Fangsnappers were famous for. As much as I was in danger of getting seriously hurt and maimed, as much as I was afraid there was a part of me deep down that enjoyed every moment of it. The Fangsnapper collapsed literally inches from Midril. Only now I saw she was protecting little Elena the daughter of Gudrun. I remembered that she was six or seven years old and always in the kitchen either playing or helping with small chores but never saying a single word. The beast, in its death throes twitched to the side and I flew of its back and hit the stove. Before I felt the actual pain of being burned I could hear the hissing sound my skin as it made connecting to the hot steel. Now men came rushing in, servants and workers that were about to get breakfast and alarmed by the noise. Greifen, who was the Burg Master took charge of the situation. He bandaged Midril wound and she was rushed away, most likely to be flown to town where she would get help at the Union Clinic. I heard my father coming. His bellowing voice heralded him long before he appeared. He then appeared in the door glancing over the mess. Greifen said.” Your son Eric has bravely attacked the Fangsnapper with a kitchen knife and killed it. He saved the lives of Midril and the young girl. He is badly burned and he too should go to the Union Clinic.” My father growled. “It must have been the doings of the cursed Elhir clan. They dropped that Fangsnapper into our yard, no doubt! They can’t stand the fact that we are now merging with the Ragnarssons.” Greifen nodded. “Yes, Sire, I was thinking the same. There is no other way that Fangsnapper could have made it up here into the Kitchen yard. Sigmund, one of our harpooners and clan warrior appeared next to father and said. “I was sure the Elhir were planning something ever since we got into a fight with them at the wharf last week I and broke Hilfheim Elhir’s leg, as you know Sire.” “We will discuss how we retaliate on the table tonight! Now I expect this kitchen to be cleaned by this failure of a son! If he had kept watch in the tower as I expected him to do, he would have seen who did this. If he would be a real son of mine I would look upon the bodies of the intruders and not some worthless beast.” He turned to leave.” Let him tend to his own wounds. If I hear that anyone wasted time helping that whelp I will break every bone in their bodies!”

Despite father’s very real threat, Greifen had taken me to the still room and put lard and a clean bandage on my burn.

“Greifen, do not put thy life in jeopardy. I can bandage myself.”

“Nay Lord Eric applying bandages on ones back is quite difficult. Thy father is strong and his word is law, but to tend to the wounds of a warrior is the command of the gods himself and if he wants to break my bones he has to do that before the council. I am a free warrior born and bound to oath to thy grandfather.”

He applied the final bandage and added. “I wager he would not want the events to be reported to the Elders as they really happened.”

“Thank you Greifen.”

He gave me a toothy grin. “If I where you I take the old tunnel past the under croft and stay out of sight for a while. Out of sight you be soon forgotten and you can rest a while.”

I jumped of the sturdy work table thanked him again and slipped past the stacks of boxes filled with soaps, cleaning supplies and all sorts of dry goods used by Midril and the house servants, shouldered open the door to the winter tunnels and the maze like basements that honeycombed Ragnarsson rock deep down. Even way past the water surface.

The upper tunnels were used when the snow was too deep during Longnight. There were storage basements and corridors that led to the tanneries and the dwellings of the low men.

Lumi plates in more or less regular intervals provided light for the last few thousand years and according to Greifen they would most likely still do that for another thousand years or so. While the southern part of the basements was busy year round and featured big cavern like rooms for the leather production. This side was more or less unused.

Midril used a few of the storage rooms and there was a big ale and meat cellar underneath the high halls, but this side was sort of my domain. Down here I could hide and find rest for a while. Using the western most corridor. You could access the old forgotten escape tunnel. It had been built during the last big clan war, Greifen remembered.

The tunnel led to a natural cave and from it you could crawl through a partially collapsed passage and reach Raghild’s Grotto. It was a small natural cave open to the sea one side. One of the many legends and stories of this old rock was that of Raghild’s lost dowry and her tragic end.

Midril who probably knew every story new or old told me this and many other stories and usually while I helped to peel sea weed stems.

Raghild was the oldest daughter of Thorsten Ragnarssons, clan chief about two hundred years ago and promised to the oldest son of the Starkhelm clan. Yet she was in love with Gansbaf Starkhelm.

It was just one of many such stories of course, the names changed but the theme never did. People denied their own choices and driven to choose between love and loyalty. The general lesson was that those who made the choice always survived while those who did not give in, died.

Raghild died too, at least she disappeared forever in this cave, which was pretty much the same. She however had her revenge by hiding the dowry. No one ever found it. Most agree she had tossed it in the ocean. But Midril is convinced she just cleverly hit it. Most of the dowry would have dissolved and rotted away no matter where she hid it, but the twenty thousand Iridium Kroner worth ten thousand in Union credits would be unaffected by decay. The legend part of the story was of course the usual ghost protecting the hidden treasure.

To me it was a damp but peaceful place, I could retreat, well not for too long and of course not during Longnight.

I eased myself down on a large rock and stared across the water towards the sea side opening of the grotto. The burn on my back was hurting now pretty good.

Isegrim, my father had married again and now I had two brothers: Lothar and Tyr. My stepmother was of course Gretel Hemstaad, my father’s true love and she already saw herself in the highest social circles of our planet, being very wealthy and important. She would not let an opportunity go to waste telling anyone how important and rich she soon would be. Before she worked as Nubhir Hide scrubber, now she had servants and staff who hated her arrogance and antics.

At school I was ridiculed by the sons of other clan Chiefs for his choice of elevating a Low man’s daughter to be his wife. Murdering his noble wife, my mother. He was still the clan chief of the Olafsons but few would socialize with him.

What galled him was of course the fact that he was only the steward of the Ragnarsson Rock. Aye he was made unchallenged ruler by the word of my grandfather of that well-kept burg. Erik Gustav had however taken back the control over everything else he owned and controlled outside the burg. The Fangsnapper herds at the South Pole, all Nubhir farms and the crown jewel of the Ragnarsson Empire on this planet, the Quarry. On a planet without wood and only one big island. Rock, especially cut rock for burgs had great value.

What riches and possessions my grandfather had amassed beyond Nilfeheim I did not know, but father never had controlled it. He had long spend every Iridium Kroner and credit my grandfather had given my mother as dowry. To keep the tanneries producing leather, he had to buy hides and pelts, cutting into the profit of course.

Gretel often praised the manhood and strength of my father in the presence of guests and servants alike. Praising the man’s skills in bed was a truly ancient tradition but considered without class and was frowned upon by most. However it pleased my evil father very much.

Lothar, the older of my two half-brothers was two years younger than me, yet father treated him like his true heir and the first born. Lothar not only got my old room and most of my things, but he learned from very early on that he had power over me when my father was present and he love to find new ways of making my life even more miserable. Tyr was four years younger and since he was the second born father simply ignored him, but he would not treat him like he did me.

Disturbed by something I could not really describe but it somehow felt comforting and warm. I looked up and was certain, I did see the back fins of Tyranno Fin not far beyond the mouth of the grotto. The light must have played tricks with my eyes, there were no white Tyrannos. The enormous fins probably just reflected the light somehow.

The fins disappeared below the ocean surface and I got up with a deep sigh. Making my way back to the kitchen. I wanted to hear how Midril fared.

There were no news on Midril as she was still at the Union clinic on the big island. The kitchen was still a mess, but servants were busy cleaning it. One of the Olafson warriors stood by the dead Fangsnapper. “There you are, Eric! Come to the High Halls for we must celebrate thy first kill!”

“Lord Beowulf, honored are I by thy recognition of my name, but by father’s command I am not to enter the Halls.”

“The burg, soon half of Nilfeheim will hear how a boy of eleven years defeated a Fangsnaper with nothing but a kitchen knife. All the warriors of the Burg, be it Ragnarsson or Olafson speak your name. Now Lord Isegrim surely can’t deny thee. Come now. Honor must be given to a warrior born.”

Dreading what would occur as certain as thunder followed lightning, I followed the respected warrior. Up to this day he had not even acknowledged I existed.

With a powerful push of his piston like arms, he cast open the heavy doors to our High Hall. There on the big rectangular table with black and with red upholstered high backed arm chairs, one color to each side sat the warriors of both not yet completely united clans. In the center of that massive table square was the fire pit. Now cold and not in use.

There was a din of excited voices, everyone turned as Beowulf and I entered. “Behold the youngest, but aye not the least of warriors in our midst.”

Father rose from his seat at the head of the table flanked by Gretel and Lothar. What mockery is this, dragging this whelp into these halls? Have you not heard my command?”

Beowulf was of Olafson blood and a distant uncle of mine. “Liege it is the fruit of thy loin that slew a Fangsnapper with a kitchen knife, is he not honored according to our traditions?”

Lothar also got up and threw a piece of food on the floor. “Come and receive the reward then. Eat scraps of the floor like a mangy Nubhir.”

I stood fast, not saying a word.

Beowulf was openly angry and a dozen men rose as he spoke. “You let thy second born speak for you. While a warrior demanded an answer?”

Father glared and his hand dropped to the handle of his whip. “You have defied my decree. What are traditions to my word?”

Now Gretel chuckled. “This cretin has conspired against you. Your favorite son and true heir has given a command. Is he not to be obeyed by that thing?”

Father now turned red and screamed. “On the floor, do as Lothar commands.”

He rushed towards me before I could do or even say something and lashed the whip across my chest. The heavy steel cable shredded my shirt and bit with burning pain deep into my skin. I clenched my fists and teeth.

“He still stands!” Gretel egged him on.

Another lash cut even deeper. Warm blood now freely flowed. I struggled to keep standing. Instead of begging him for mercy, I smiled and raised my arms. “Thank you father for killing me. Now Odin will receive me.”

My knee buckled. “My death frees my Grandfather from his word.” Kneeling in a puddle of my own blood. I recited the warrior’s prayer. “Mighty Thor I call upon you...”

Beowulf and every Ragnarsson warrior stood. Kveldulf an old Warrior of the Ragnarsson clan. “There is a Viking son without fail. Aye he dies, but you Isegrim are no more sheltered by the oath of my liege. Upon his last breath, this is your burg no longer and let us see if your whip matches my sword.”

Father yelled with sudden panic in his voice. “Greifen get him to the still room and dial for the Union Doctor.”

It was the last thing I heard and I hoped and prayed silently now as my eye sight faded and my lips no longer wanted to move, that Greifen and the Union Doctor would be too late.

I cursed the doctor as I saw his gentle face hovering over mine as I regained consciousness. “Níð Ergi! Cursed are thy skills and cursed is this Off World Tech. Is it my fate to remain in this world where I am not wanted?”

He shook his head but his smile remained and he said to someone in the room. “He is alive, just barely so, yet finds strength to curse and insult me.” To me he said. “Eric, you almost got your wish but my oath prevents me from letting it happen when I can do something about it.”

He checked on a machine that was attached to me by a thin hose. “Now you got to lay still until the blood replicator has completed the transfusion.”

The other person in the room was old Kveldulf as I recognized his voice. “You will survive Eric. You are strong! The Huldufolk have their eyes upon you that is certain.”

I looked away and said. “The Hidden people, the Aseir are not with me or they would spare me such a father.”

“Warriors are not born in comfort, revenge grows out of the woeful tears of the maimed and tortured, you are the grandson of my liege and I am bound as he is by oaths and the unbreakable bonds of a warrior’s word. You Eric, you are not!”

The doctor paid little attention to what was said and checked his machine once again, then he said. “I send the flier in the morning to collect the equipment. I am needed elsewhere. On a personally note, I hope the day of Union Law coming to this cold barbaric world is soon. Then no child should have to suffer such cruelty.”

With these words he deactivated the GalNet Avatar projection and blinked out into nothingness.

Kveldulf, a grizzly old warrior with more gray than black hair arranged his fang snapper fur lined cloak, with a sweeping gesture of his sinew bulging underarm and sat down on a stool next to the gurney I was on. His face was tanned and wrinkled by glare of Solken, the frosty winds and spending a life time outside on the oceans or on the ice.