The Last Werewolf (Vidar #1) | ONC2021 Grand Winner

The Drowned Land of Saeftinghe

"A drowned mermaid," Mo repeated. "How does one...?"

"By slashing the gills and pushing her underwater until she stops moving," Vidar said calmly.

"You say as though you were there."

"I was."

Living for so many aeons, meeting humans and creatures whose lives were but a drop on the plate of his existence, there was only so much information his mind could hold. After a few decades, his brain reduced faces, names, and events to a muddy blur of unrelated images. But once he remembered, memories he believed erased flooded back to him.

And, this time, punched him in the gut too.

He took a thin scalpel from the tray and pushed the blunt end against the botched tissue in her neck. The knife marks appeared fresh, but those cuts had already been there, three hundred years ago, when her lifeless body had washed up on the right shore, close to the sewers.

His luck to be the one to find her, take her into his arms and rock her. The end of a bond that had formed at the dawn of the Eighty Year's War, when during a full moon, she had brought him back from the brink of death after a farmer had shot him in the back over a bloody chicken. A feverish kiss had sealed their fate; a favour for a favour, a vow that he would keep her safe as she had him.

A raw, primaeval rage bubbled up inside of him. Not because he had failed her all those years ago—he had learnt life took as much as it gave—but because even death hadn't granted her the peace she deserved. 

What brute saws off a mermaid's tail?

Vidar inhaled sharply, a revolting mix of rotting fish and mint entering his nose. A hint of melted cheese not far away. He turned towards Mo, who was standing next to him.

He took another bite from the slice of pizza in his hand as he asked, "Human or paranormal attack?"

"Humans," Vidar said."Ever heard of drowned land of Saeftinghe?"

Mo lifted an eyebrow in thought. He swallowed. "Vaguely... it's a salt marsh right across the border, isn't it? Abandoned, after the sea recaptured the land."

"That's what history books and scientists say, yes."

"But you know better, don't you?" Mo gave him a wink.

Vidar nodded as he returned the scalpel to the tray. He remembered the bustling market, pints of ale flowing richly as rowdy merchants in purple garments praised their wares. The fattest pigs, the tastiest sheep, chickens that laid eggs all year long. Rubies, gold, silver, pearls—the market of Saeftinghe had it all. Each new mayor wanted to make his mark. Walls and fortifications were built on swampland. There came a new harbour house, and then a bigger one. Finally, they erected a tower as high as the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp. Not because they needed it, but because they could.

A hint of Asgard by the river Schelde; he had hated the place.

Mo waved his hand in front of Vidar's eyes. "Don't zone out. Share the daydream, Wolfie."

"The town was as prosperous as it was strategic," Vidar told Mo. "War was never far away. Whoever occupied the region controlled the harbour. Young men, one day chasing after their first love with flowers in their hands, were sent into battle the next day. Those that survived were heroes, defenders of the town who could do no wrong. Vanity and greed prospered. One foggy day, a fisherman caught a mermaid in his nets. Instead of releasing her, he tightened the ropes around her, intending to sell her to the highest bidder. She begged to be set free, warning of dire consequences if he didn't. Arrogant as he was, the fisherman saw the mermaid's words as a threat and plunged a dagger into her chest. Her husband found out, sank the fisherman's ship before it reached the shore and cursed the town, screaming, 'The lands of Saeftinghe will fall, only its bell towers will stand tall!'"