Berserkers

Part 1 The Finding

Authors Note: Well my dears, I promised I'd publish something every week, but the muse says what the muse says. Just imagine this song as the one the child was singing on the woods and bear it with me. I promise I'll try to update my other works soon.

This is for Slaxl19

*****

If it wasn't for the voice, Izzy thought, he would have pass right beside him and never seen what was hiding under that pile of brown leaves.

He had left the village at dawn break, he wanted to prove to his father he was old enough to hunt on his own. He was a man, godamit, he was 13, and even if he had no hair on his face, he had already proved his skill with the sword, and, he thought with a smile, his mother's favourite slave smooth legs and the dampness that hid between them.

He knew he was the heir, he knew he had to take caution. Dangerous times his father said it often, rival tribes coveting their plentiful forest, their bountiful bay, their privileged position, but he couldn't help feeling trapped. To hell with caution, he wanted to bring his father a handsome deer for the evening feast. The harvest was over, the days were shorter, and the sharp cold told him that soon everything would be covered in snow, and he would not, he repeated to himself, would not spend another winter amongst women and children on the longhouse. He was a man, he knew the sword, he knew the arrow. If he could get his father a handsome, fat deer, he would probably be allowed to cure it's skin and wear it's head on the coming months.

Instead, he found a boy.

He heard the voice, sweet as a girls, and for a moment was again reduced to a whimpering child, afraid of the spirits of the forest.

He unmounted his horse, tying it to a twisted oak tree, as old as time itself, and patted the warm flank of the beast, seeing his own breath come out in a frightened steam out of his mouth and listened.

The forest was eerily quiet, and then he heard it again. All the hairs on his arms were up but he swallowed his fear and walked to were it seemed to be coming from.

His feet were light on the leaves but he stepped on a branch and it creaked, making him lose track of the noise for a minute, his heartbeat on his ears so loud he was sure not even Odin would spare him a horrible death.

The sound started again and he realised that it was a song, half whispered, half spoken and when he turned to look at his horse, he saw it.

A child it seemed, was singing, a language he didn't recognise, and for a moment he thought of all the legends, of apparitions that came from nowhere to lure a man to his death but when he got near, he could see it was only a child, of what colour he couldn't tell. His hair was covered in mud, and he was covering his naked arms with the fallen leaves, his hands and lips blue with cold, singing that strange song softly to himself, not even aware Izzy was standing, completely dumbfounded, in front of him.

-Hello,- he said, - who are you, and why are you here? Aren't you cold?-

The child lifted his green eyes to him, green eyes that were full of tears, and put his hands in front of him, dropping the leaves by Izzy's feet, and resumed his singing.

Izzy heard the sound of horsefeet then, and the thin figure of his father and his men unmounted their horses. He run to him, and hid his face on his father's cloack, -father, I found a child!- he sobbed.

Harold Isbell was a man of few words and even fewer tender gestures. He pushed his wayward son gently behind and crouched over to the child on the ground, wrapping it on his cloack and mounting it on his horse.

Izzy knew, by his father's face, that he would have to account for his wrongdoing later, but for now, he was just glad to be on his way back to the village.

****

-It's a boy.- His mother had said. -Half frozen and starved.- She pulled his father aside. -Harold,- she looked at Izzy and lowered her voice, -his body is full of bite marks and he was, - her voice wavered and she whispered on his father's ears something Izzy couldn't grasp, but by the way Harold eyes widened, he knew it had to be a bad, bad thing.

-Bathe him, and feed him. Let him rest for tonight and bring him to me in the morning. I want to ask him where he comes from.- Harold said.

-You won't get much out of him. You would think he is deaf, or mute, but our son affirms he heard him singing, so maybe he's idiot, or simply too scared to speak.-

-Maybe he just don't understand us, mother.- Izzy said, looking at his feet. He feared his mother temper even more thar he feared his father's disapproval.

-We'll see. He's not a slave, that I'm sure off. He doesn't have a neck brace, or any iron marks.-

-A hostage, held for ramsom maybe?- His father inquired, pensive.

****
-I bet you shat yourself!- Taunted Steven, eating a greasy boars rib with his skinny hands.

-I did not!- Izzy answered back, picking up a pice for himself with his belt knife.

-But I bet you were scared. I would.- Said Steven 's slave, Saul.

Saul arrived on his mother stomach on a sunny summers day, after their parents returned from a trip from the south, with salt and gold and slaves. She was the strangest creature Izzy ever laid eyes off, black from heat to toe, and he remembered running to his mother's skirt when they brought her to the longhouse, and he remembered her screams as she birthed Saul, and the general outcry when the baby she bore was not black as her, but a beautiful brown eyed child that soon was the apple of all women in the village's eyes. They were brothers, and Steven adored him, but a child born of a slave is always a slave. He was allowed to grow his hair, and his neck brace was of gold, not iron. He belonged to his brother, as much as his brother belong to him, and because of that, his only work was to look and protect that slightly different, slow child from harm. And that he did, not out of duty, but out of love.

-Well I would have dared anyone not to be scared of that beast,- Izzy said, chewing his food, -he kicked and screamed like a mule, and has teeth like a bear!- He boasted.

Sitting on his log, Michael eyes rolled on his head, and his food dropped from his lap. Steven and Saul held him to prevent him from falling.

-What did you see?- Izzy asked, crouching by his side.

Michael was the 7th son of a 7th son, and had the vision in him.

-He will kick like a horse and he will bite like a bear. But he will bring blood with him wherever he goes and more gold than you could fit in you pockets Izzy. And he is wolf at heart.-

-More like a drowned sheep, I'll think! Beeeehh!- Taunted Steven again.

Izzy looked to his mother bringing the boy outside, and the morning sun made his hair flame around his face. He thought on how could such a small, skinny and ugly child bring him anything but trouble.

He looked at the axle on the log in front of him and shivered.