by Njord Kane
"I have never heard such a thing. I think you may be mistaken." said Rowan.
"By not letting you know who you really were was the best way to keep your true identity a secret. Not even the blacksmith knew. When he purchased you to be his thrall, he swore an oath to sell you back for double the price without any question when the trader came back for you years later. He also swore an oath to tell no one of this promise that he made to the trader."
Rowan stood quietly for a moment taking all this in. He remembered one night when the blacksmith was drunk from taking in too much mead and told Rowan that he was only temporarily his thrall. He had no idea what Bjord meant by that, nor ever asked. He just assumed it as being drunk talk. Nevertheless the statement had stuck with him.
"So who am I and what is this alleged destiny?" asked Rowan.
"That is not important right now. What is important is...."
"What do you mean it is not important right now? " Rowan asked as he interrupted Tom. "Then why did you tell me such a thing?"
"It is not important right now, because it is not your time yet. You time will come and then everything will be explained to you." Answered Tom. "But it is not your time to die and the only way to stop your death is if you slay the creature before it comes for you."
"How do you know its even coming for me?" asked Rowan.
"Because it has been my task to watch over you and I have seen the creature come to the edge of the woods near here and look upon this very house. It has been seeking you. It is only a matter of time until it comes for you. It came for you before and was unsuccessful killing you in your sleep. But only because it was weakened by the iron in the house. It won't fail again. Especially now that it is angry." stressed Tom.
"If it wanted to kill me, why didn't it kill me both times when I was near its lair?"
"It's a creature that has been risen from the abyss of death. It is not very smart and it was distracted. That's the only reason it did not come after you blindly. Had it been, it would have destroyed you easily."
"I have no doubt of that. It is too powerful. I don't think it's even possible for me to kill it as you seem to think I am able to do." expressed Rowan.
"I have a plan that might work." explained Tom. "The iron not only hurts the creature, but also weakens it. You can use the creature's weakness against it."
"How so?" asked Rowan.
"I think you can use the scraps of iron within this longhouse and make a trap."
Rowan laughed and asked, "how would I possibly make a trap with scraps of iron?"
"You must use your imagination and think!"
Rowan could sense the annoyance in Tom's voice.
"Okay, but you said you had a plan. You must understand, I have never trapped a huge monster before. Or anything else for that matter." pointed out Rowan. "You said you had a plan. What is your plan?"
"Find a net and string bits of iron all through it. Make a trap and lure the monster into it. When the net with iron falls upon it, it will be trapped and unable to get the iron netting off before you can attack it. We believe that you can kill it if you chop it's head off and burn it." explained Tom.
"Wait a minute, who's 'we.'" inquired Rowan, not missing Tom's accidental use of 'we' instead of 'I.'
"Again, that is not important right now. When the time is right, I promise you, all your questions will be answered." Tom insisted.
"But how am I to do all of this anyways? The lady of the house, my mistress Gwenda, will never allow me to leave nor will she allow me to take any iron. She plans to sell it all to traders." Rowan explained. "They plan to trade wool and other items tomorrow. I am suppose to take care of the livestock and gather iron fror her while they're away. There is no way I'll have time."
"Don't worry about any of that. I will come in tomorrow after you leave and take care of everything in the household." Tim promised. "You focus on the task at hand."
Chapter 12 - The Trap
The very next morning after the women of the house had left for the day, Rowan began getting ready. It would be his only window of opportunity as the ladies of the house had planned to spend the entire day in the village center to trade. Many knarrs with traders were expected to show up and Gwenda had hopes that she'd be able to trade wool and other goods.
Nobody else would be in the longhouse today, so Rowan took his chance to set his plan into action. Gwenda had tasked him to take care of the livestock and clean up her late husband's blacksmithing items to be traded later.
Tom had promised Rowan that he'd take care of everything that needed to be done when Rowan was absent. Excluding the iron blacksmith items, of course.
Tom said he'd show up after Rowan left to deal with the draug. Rowan had no choice but to hope Tom kept his word and showed up after he left. For now, he had to get busy if he had any hope of completing this dreadful task that laid ahead.
Rowan gathered up as much iron items as he could. Iron scraps, pieces of slag, pig iron, whatever he could find. There were two unfinished shirts of chain mail that Bjord had been working on. Rowan grabbed those as well. He figured that he could use them to help trap the beast.
It was a heavy load and he was already struggling with it. He had two wooden buckets full of assorted scrap iron, a sling with 15 ax heads strung on it, and two partial shirts of chain mail. He also grabbed the fisherman's net that Bjord had hanging in the rafters, along with some assorted twine and rope. He had quite a load to carry.
He decided to divide the weight on a yoke they had for carrying the milk. It was a shoulder pole which he could put over his shoulder to help bear the weight through the forest and up the hillside.
Rowan tied as much as he could to the shoulder pole, including Bjord's ax, and put the heavy load on his shoulder. It was heavy, but not as bad as he thought it would be.
Taking one last look behind him at the longhouse, he made his was through the forest and up the hill towards the draug's burial mound.
Rowan's mind drifted here and there as he made the walk. This was his third time taking this path and he no longer needed to track it. He unfortunately knew the way by heart by now.
There were some serious doubts in his thinking as to whether or not he'd be successful doing this. He tried to think of ways to make his trap plan work out, but most of his thoughts wandered on the fact that he felt this was his last trip to the creature's mound.
Not because he felt he would successfully trap and kill it, but because he felt his best efforts would be futile and the draug was certain to kill him.
By time he made it to the area just before where the dead walker's mound was located, he was already covered in sweat from bearing the load and keeping a steady pace with only short rests. He only stopped to rest long enough to catch his breath. He wanted to get up to the location while he still had plenty of daylight to work in.
Looking around at the pathway through the bushes, he could smell the creature's foul scent of death and knew it was close. He tried to be quiet and not attract its attention, even though he assumed it didn't matter as the creature could probably sense him anyways.
Most of all, he tried not to look at the bodies of the brave men who had taken him up there to prove his story about the creature in the first place. Their bodies laid where they had fallen when they tried to fight the beast. Seeing their mangled corpses didn't help Rowan's confidence in that he'd be able to do this by himself one bit.
This was a place of death begat by death.
Trying to keep focused, Rowan set down his load and set to work as quickly as he could. He had to quickly make the trap if he'd any hope of successfully pulling it off. That is, if his plan would work at all or if the iron would even stop the accursed beast.
Casting these negative thoughts to the wind, Rowan began to make the snare. Initially, he was going to dig a pit and make a dead fall for the creature, but in his haste to gather iron he'd forgotten to bring a shovel.
He could use his the ax and his hands, but it wou
ld still take too much time to prepare and the creature would probably show up before he got the hole dug anyways.
Thinking better, he decided to make a snare to trip the creature or at least slow it down enough so he could get the net over it ...somehow.
Rowans laid out the fishing net. It wasn't as big as he wanted it to be, but it would do. He used the twine he brought to tie in bits of iron sporadically in the net. The idea was when the net was over the creature, the iron would be pressing on it at multiple locations.
He took the rope he had and cut several lengths. With the rope lengths he made a knot about a forearm's length apart from each other. In between each knot, he threaded an ax head through the rope length.
In his plan, once he got the net over the creature, hopefully slowing it down, he could wrap the rope around in and bind the beast with the iron ax heads pressed against it and further disable it.
He hung the net from some limbs above and tied knots holding the net to limbs that he could pull loose with a single length of rope. He tied the net up a couple times and pulled the rope loose to make sure it would work as planned. Also so he'd know exactly where it would drop.
At the spot where the net dropped, he laid the chain mail shirts down and tied them together so they were wide. He threaded rope around the blanket of chain mail and tossed the rope over a strong limb above.
He bent a young tree down and tied it down to the ground. Then he tied the rope leading to the chain mail to the bent over tree.
Now all he had to do was cut the rope holding the tree bent over and it spring back up and pull the chain mail up tight around the beast's legs. He concealed the chain mail with leaves, so the draug wouldn't see it. Also so the iron wouldn't burn its feet right away, exposing the trap.
He set his ax down by the tied off rope, so it would be ready. If everything went to plan, all he had to do was lure the creature into the spot, pull the rope so the net dropped on it and then cut the rope holding the tree down so it would pull the chain mail up over its legs. After the net was dropped on it and the chainmail sprung up on it, all he had to do was grab the rope with the iron ax heads threaded through it and wrap the rope around the beast while it was snared.
The rest of his plan relied on using Bjord's ax to finish the creature off.
Plan B entailed running away as fast as he could. In truth, there was no plan B. This had to work.
Chapter 13 - The Battle
A couple hours had passed since Rowan had finished making the trap. He'd been sitting on the ground holding the rope to the net and watching the passageway to the dead walker's burial mound. Watching and waiting for it to come.
He hoped that he could safely wait there and the draug would just come from, well wherever it came from by the mound, and just head towards him so he could trap it. But that obviously wasn't going to happen. He was going to have to expose himself and lure the creature to his trap.
Rowan didn't like this idea, because there was a great chance he'd never get the creature to the trap and an even greater chance the creature would kill him before he even had the chance to trap it.
This was why he waited in this spot, putting the trap between him and the passageway where the creature usually came from. It was the safest way.
Unfortunately, the safest way was not going to work. He had no choice but to try and lure it in.
Reluctantly, Rowan got up from the ground and grabbed the ax he'd set up to cut the snare line and started walking towards the passageway to the beast's mound.
Already he could feel his heart pounding in both anticipation and fear.
Taking slow steps, he walked through the passageway through the bush and looked at the mound. He stood there and tried to come up with a way he could lure the beast out into the open, chase him and lead it to the trap...without it killing him.
There was no real to do it safely.
"Do it safely." Rowan quietly said to himself, "What a joke. Safely isn't even a word that belonged in this predicament."
It was all or nothing time. Rowan abruptly walked to the burial mound and kicked some of the rocks loose.
Anticipating the beast to show up, literally anywhere, he held the ax at the ready and looked around in every direction.
Nothing.
This time he stood on the mound and kicked more rocks off of it. Hoping to disturb it. He knew it was in there. He knew that was where it came out from when it formed from a strange mist.
Rowan stood on the mound for a few minutes, turning in every direction. He watched for the beast or any mist to come up. There was still nothing. This wasn't going to plan in any shape or form.
He simply wasn't going to be able to lure the beast out of its mound. A huge part of him was glad for that. Even though he'd show up and carried out the plan with a mockery of bravery that really didn't exist. It was more in desperation that led him to carry out this plan brought to him by Tom - a creature he wasn't even sure about.
There was only a few hours of daylight left and Rowan figured it would probably be best to gather the iron back up and carry it back down before his mistress Gwenda came back home.
Being that he wasn't successful in getting himself killed with this hair-brained plan, he may as well not get in trouble for taking the iron and going into the forest as well.
Rowan started walking back to fetch the items he used for his trap, but as he started walking through the passage through the bush, he noticed the tell-tale mist forming from the creature.
"Here it comes!" Rowan thought as his heart sank. He'd already been grateful that the creature didn't show, now it's here and it's go time.
Rowan slowly turned around and looked towards the mound. There it stood, the grotesques dead walker the elders called a draug.
It had formed in the mist when Rowan had his back turned. Apparently, it sought to ambush him.
Rowan looked directly at it as it looked right back at him.
This was a VERY bad idea.
Rowan immediately darted off at full speed towards his trap. If he could get to the rope before it reached the drop spot, he'd have a chance to trap it. It was the only chance he had. He knew he'd never outrun it and escape. It had to be trapped otherwise he was now trapped.
Rowan ran with everything he had. He could hear the beast howl angrily at him and its footsteps stomping behind him. It was chasing him.
He got past the passageway and was heading to the rope. He had to get to it. Rowan never ran so fast in his life. He was in sheer panic. But just as he was stepping over the chainmail hidden under the leaves, his foot caught a piece of rope and he tripped.
Rowan tumbled face first over his trap and rolled out of control on the ground, dropping his ax and everything.
He quickly recovered and looked for the ax. It was on the ground next to the chain mail snare trap. He ran to grab it and seen that the beast was charging straight for him.
As soon as Rowan picked up the ax the beast was on him. He recovered and stood back up just as the creature swung at him. It barely missed his head as it drove its monstrosity of a fist into the ground.
Rowan swung the ax and hit it in the leg, cutting it deeply. It was a panic swing, but he hit it soundly. The creature roared in anger as Rowan turned to swing his ax and cut the rope so he could snare the beast.
Unfortunately. when Rowan hit the rope with his ax it didn't cut the rope and only bounced off of it.
Thinking quickly while the creature was still in the trap spot, Rowan turned and pulled the other rope and released the fisherman's net with the iron ties on it.
The net dropped as planned, but did not land on the creature completely. Part of it fell to the side, but enough of it fell over the creature's head and shoulder, allowing the net to cover half of its body.
The iron trick was working. The beast was furiously howling in pain as the iron laid on its flesh and burned it.
It swung around madly trying to get the net off of it. Rowan noticed it was standing direct
ly over the chain mail snare with both feet now. He tried to cut the rope with his ax again. The ax bounced off the rope once again, only cutting a few threads of the rope.
Frustrated, Rowan swung the ax and cut the rope where he had it tied down. This time it cut through and released the snare.
The tree Rowan bent down sprung back up, puling the rope and thus pulling the chain mail up and around the creature's feet.
It screeched in a furious madness as the chain mail wrapped around its legs and feet. The iron burned it wherever it touched the creature's cursed dead flesh.
Remembering the rope strung with iron, Rowan quickly grabbed it from the ground and threw it around the dead walker as it was trying to get itself lose from the netting. Rowan managed to get it around it legs and ran around the creature as it roared at him. He wrapped the roped around the beast several times and then pulled at it taut.
He was trying to knock the creature over but failed because it was too heavy to even budge. It was like trying to pull an oak tree down, the forsaken being was extremely heavy and stood soundly firm in its place.
Rowan ran around the other side of it to grab his ax once again and try to hack it down.
However, as Rowan picked up the ax from the ground where he'd tossed it to pick up the rope with ax heads ties in it, the creature made a move for him.
The draug tried to step towards Rowan and swing at him, but tripped over the entanglement of chain mail and iron laced rope wrapped around it.
The dead walker fell to the ground and howled as it struggled to get itself free. This was the opportunity Rowan needed. He picked up the battle ax with both hands and lifted it above his head. He took one last look at the creature before he brought the ax down on its head with all his might.
The dull thud announced the ax hitting its mark. A grotesque sight indeed as the undead thing emitted a low growl.
Surprisingly, it was still alive. Such a direct blow to the head like that would have ended any living being. Yet this thing wasn't even really alive. This cursed thing shouldn't even be walking around in the first place. It had been already dead at one time and then risen again by some unknown strange reason to reap its malice upon the world.