[Osse]

Thorns and branches whipped evilly at his legs, taking delight in the dark blood as it seeped down. Heedless, Bear ran on. Through glade and fen, tussock and moor, Bear ran on, tireless steadfast and sure-footed. Light he would have felt, if his anguish filled mind had allowed him to. His mail lay rusting at the bottom of the lake; his shield lay forlorn and ill treated, stamped into the mud of the settlement. Sweat mingled with water beaded on the blade and caused the axe in his right hand to glisten and dance through the air – a blood-filled night had conceived a bright, new day.

Leaping like a stag, Bear cleared a small brook and went crashing into the young trees on the opposite side. The wounds on his shins now wept freely, the blood mingling with that already contained in his sodden lashings. Like a crazed and angered beast, would Bear appear to any who chanced to see him. The forest behind him was left in a stammer-like shock-silence. Not even the gods could stop him.

Suddenly no trees barred Bear’s way. There stood the settlement. It glared at him like a cancerous growth upon the landscape. Its tall wooden walls seemed like a shell around a rotting carcass and a grey smoke still wound itself up to the heavens from within. Without hesitation, Bear shot forth through the cleared ground between the forest and the walls like a shaft loosed from a bow. Bellowing like a war horn came Bear of the Hillmen.

The first of the arrows sped past him thigh and lodged itself up to the fletching in the soft soil. Others sped into the ground around Bear. None met their mark. Not even the gods could stop him now.

Another arrow screamed death as it fled past Bear’s ear. Some instinct caused him to raise his left arm; his shield arm and immediately a burning pain filled his being. An arrow had pierced the sinuous flesh in his forearm, slicing tendon and chipping bone. The arrow-tip came well through Bear’s lower arm. On ran Bear of the Hillmen.

His bellow was cut short by another feather-clad woe-bringer, this time lodging its terrible form in his now exposed, lower abdomen. Two more thudded into Bear’s torso, yet still he ran on. It appeared to bear that all went grey and misty, except for the now fast-receding wall in front of him. Like walls of an icy tunnel, the peripheries of Bear’s vision melted into darkness. An arrow sped straight through Bear’s breast and went cartwheeling away into the void behind him.

The great man’s breathing became scant and irregular, the whole in his left lung depriving him of oxygen. Plummeting forwards into the soft ground, Bear’s mind slowly ticked over. Grasping with his fingernails, he pulled himself forwards – inch-by-inch he crept towards the wall, leaving a trail of his dark-red life behind him like some gruesome snail. Slowly the life drained from his defeated form like water through cupped hands. Inch-by-inch, Bear became limp, his lifeless hand still clutching the ground. The sweet wind whistled through his unhearing ears. Not even the gods…