A Grey Town

The cold rain lashed against Halla’s face - her blonde, braided hair plastered to her scalp, mud caked to her boots.

She drew her wolf pelt cloak closer around herself as she felt the slight hint of a shiver. This was a different cold than the brutal winters of her homeland: this was a damp cold that soaked through clothes and skin alike until the very soul was damp and chilled.

Halla squinted against the thick fog in the graying light, she thought she could make out a hint of a warm yellow glow... or that could have been wishful thinking on her part. Her hand trailed to the sword beneath her cloak. Given her luck she would probably wander right into a bandit camp.

It wouldn’t have been the first time.

The closer the lone shieldmaiden got, the more she could discern. This was no trick of the light, and this was no bandit camp. Small abodes made from the gray rocks of the mountain dotted the top of the hill.

“Any shore will do,” Halla muttered.

The mud persisted as she drew closer to the village. if it weren’t for the scent of burning wood, Halla would have thought the place abandoned. She squinted against the rain and fog and could discern that one of the abodes that was larger than the rest as the scent of ale and stew reached her nostrils.

Ducking through the open doorway Halla found herself among a straw strewn floor, where rude tables and chairs lay. The small group of patrons stopped their conversations immediately and turned their gaze to the shieldmaiden.

“Gads!” One exclaimed. “The Northerners are raiding all the way up here!”

Halla scoffed as she made her way to a table scored by old cuts.

“Pah, nothing worth raiding here.”

The traveller took the battered wooden shield from her back and leaned it against the table. The patrons kept staring at her.

Halla grew annoyed.

“Is there food here or not?” She snapped.

A skinny dark haired girl placed a bowl of broth before Halla with a wood tankard beside it.

“My thanks,” Halla grunted.

An old villager cleared his throat. “What brings you here stranger?”

“Passing through,” Halla muttered.

“We don’t get many travellers hereabouts,” the villager rasped.

“I imagine so,” Halla replied, slurping down broth.

There was an uneasiness in the poor excuse for a tavern, if they were hoping she’d just eat and leave they were sorely mistaken.

“I’m in need of lodging, I’ll not go back out into...” Halla gestured into the darkness. “...That. I don’t fancy blundering off a cliff in the dark.”

The villagers exchanged glances. Some looked toward the hearth, others to the floor. No one offered her a welcome. Finally, the skinny girl who had served her stepped forward again.

“There’s a loft above the smithy. Empty, mostly. I’ll show you after supper.”

Halla grunted in assent, draining the last of her broth and swiping the back of Honeher hand across her mouth. She was used to cold welcomes, but something here set her teeth on edge. The villagers had a strange way about them: too quiet, too tense, their eyes darting toward the door whenever the wind picked up.

As the girl led Halla through the village - which was little more than a cluster of homes with stone chimneys and moss-cloaked roofs - Halla noted the scars in the land. There were deep gouges in the earth, like something vast had dragged itself from the hills and into the gorge beyond. The fog clung to the edges of the cliffs, hiding what lay below.

“What's your name?” Halla asked as they walked.

The girl hesitated. “...Lina.”

“Lina. You have a grim village.”

Lina didn’t answer for a while. Eventually, she uttered something.

“We’re close to the gorge,” Lina said, as if that explained everything.

The loft was bare but dry, with a coarse blanket and a straw mattress. Halla tossed her gear in a corner and thanked the girl.

“I’ll be out of your way come morning.”

Lina lingered at the ladder. “You should sleep well tonight. It’s quiet on Ceremony Eve.”

Halla frowned. “Ceremony?” But the girl was already gone.

“Curious,” Halla stated as she set her sword and shield against the wall before spreading her cloak out on the floor. Halla laid down, drawing her seax from her belt and laying it beside her. She would keep it close at hand.

The next day brought no sun. Only thick gray sky and the smell of moss and damp stone. Halla had hoped to be gone by now, but she thought it would be prudent to visit the smith below and perhaps slip him a few coins for using the loft above.

Yet as she made her way down she found the forge cold, and the door locked tight.

A smith not working early? Halla thought. ...Surely they would be back.

She wandered toward the square. The villagers were gathering, cloaked in dark shawls and hoods, moving with a solemnity that reminded her of funeral processions.

She followed at a distance, keeping to the shadows until they reached the edge of the village where the land suddenly dropped into a vast, mist-choked gorge.

There, set upon a stone dais, was a wooden post. Around it, the villagers stood in a ring, murmuring some low chant she couldn’t properly hear or understand while torches guttered in the damp air.

Then the elder - the same man who had questioned her the night before - stepped forward. He held a stone bowl in one hand and a carved staff in the other.

A line formed.

The villagers passed by the bowl, each dropping in a token: a black feather, a coin, a carved bone... It reminded Halla of the war the lots her people once used to choose who went to battle.

Her brow furrowed, then she saw Lina step forward with a trembling hand. She dropped a simple braid of hair into the bowl.

That’s when Halla realized what was happening.

A Choosing.

“One for all,” the villagers chanted as the elder stirred the tokens. “One for all.”

The chant grew louder. The elder reached into the bowl and pulled a single token free.

A hush fell. The token was a carved figurine of a person.

“Aelfred,” the elder sighed. “I am sorry, boy.”

There were gasps and whispers. A young boy of no more than ten winters by Halla’s estimate was seized by two villagers and dragged forward.

Halla felt her blood go cold. The crowd continued their chant.

“One for all. One for all...”

The boy screamed for his mother. She didn’t move. Her face was pale and stony, her eyes hollow. The crowd stood like statues as the elder anointed the boy’s forehead with a smear of ochre.

“What’s going on here?” Halla demanded.

The chanting faltered.

“What in all the frozen hells are you doing?” she demanded, striding toward them.

The elder held up a hand. “You should not be here.”

“You’re sacrificing a child!”

The villagers looked away, shamed or resigned.

“It is the pact,” the elder said. “The worms hunger. If we do not feed them, they will come to us.”

“The worms?” Halla echoed.

She peered down into the gorge. The mist parted for a breath and she saw the earth shift.

Not earth.

It moved, bulging like something vast swam beneath the surface. She caught a glimpse of segmented flesh, as pale as maggot-skin, vanishing again into the fog.

“By the gods,” she whispered.

“We do this out of necessity, not evil. The worms are too numerous.”

Halla sneered. “You self righteous bastard. I’ll show you how to deal with a problem.”

Snatching a wood-chopping axe from one of the villagers, Halla made her way to the gorge. Once there, she found a basket and rope meant for the sacrifice.

She would be no sacrifice, she would end this once and for all.

Halla descended to the surface quickly, the basket landing with a crack as she hopped out axe in hand, it was no war axe, but it would do the job. Her feet crunched against yellowed bones.

“Come for me, beasties! You’ll have to earn your food this time.”

A puckering maw full of teeth erupted from the mud and Halla swung the axe cleaving the creature in two, right down the jaws.

Halla leapt back as another burst from the mud, another swing and the axe bit deep. She swung again and finished bisecting the worm. She was a daughter of the north, a shieldmaiden. She would not die by some lowly worms. Not while she still drew breath.

But the axe wasn’t made for war. As the third worm reared from the muck, its circular maw hissing and glistening with rot, Halla raised her blade to strike—only for the axe head to snap clean off at the haft with a sharp crack.

She stumbled backward, tossed the broken shaft aside, and drew her sword. The blade gleamed even in the dim foglight, worn from years of travel but still keen. Her shield followed, wrenched from her back and raised just in time as the worm lunged.

Wham!

The impact sent her skidding through the mud, boots slipping against the bones and slick muck. But she held fast, gritting her teeth, and slashed upward in a brutal arc.

The worm's head split open like overripe fruit.

She spat blood—her own, where she'd bitten her tongue—and steadied herself.

They were coming now.

The ground pulsed beneath her, alive with motion. She could hear them not just feel, hear the squelch and slide of countless bodies beneath the dirt. The gorge was a nest.

Halla braced her shield as three more burst up around her in a triangle. Her heart pounded, her vision narrowed. She went for the smallest first, ramming it back with the shield and chopping into its side. It shrieked a sound like a pig screaming and recoiled.

The second slammed into her from behind, knocking her into the muck. She rolled, came up swinging, slicing deep into its neck. It thrashed wildly, spattering her with black ichor.

The third lunged-

-And she caught it on her shield, roaring as she drove her sword through its eye-like cluster of senses, burying it to the hilt.

It went still. And so did the others.

For a moment, the gorge was quiet.

Halla panted, coated in mud, blood, and worm bile. Her braid stuck to her cheek like a wet rope. She stood there, sword dripping, shield arm trembling.

Then the ground buckled.

Not just one worm. Something bigger.

Something ancient.

The bones around her clattered together like rattling dice. A new sound, deeper than thunder, echoed through the gorge, a groaning, gurgling roar from beneath the soil itself.

From the cliff above, the villagers watched in horror. Lina clutched the edge, tears on her cheeks.

“What did she do?” someone whispered. “She’s woken the Great One.”

Halla didn’t run.

She gritted her teeth, planted her feet, and raised her sword again.

If this was death, let it come.

She had no fear, only fury.

The earth split.

A jagged line tore through the gorge floor as something titanic rose from the depths—not a worm, not in any way Halla had known them. This thing was a god of worms, a writhing mass of fused, pulsing segments the width of a mead hall, lined with rows of glistening teeth and blind, milky eyes. Its breath was a fetid steam that melted the fog, revealing the graveyard of sacrifices that had fed it for generations.

Halla stood her ground.

“This ends with me,” she growled.

The beast roared a hideous, churning sound of gnashing flesh and lunged.

Halla moved.

She ducked the first strike, rolled beneath the coiling body, and came up swinging. Her blade sank in but barely pierced the surface. She hacked again and again, each blow carving black furrows in its hide, but it wasn’t enough.

The worm god reared back and slammed its bulk down. The impact shattered stone, knocked the shield from her arm, and drove her to one knee.

Her sword trembled in her grip.

But then she saw it.

A spot beneath its body, pulsating with a sickly orange glow: a weak point, a sack of bile and nerves.

With a final cry, she charged.

The beast struck, but she was faster. Halla dove beneath its lunge, jammed her sword upward with both hands and drove it to the hilt in that vile, beating gland.

The reaction was instant.

The creature convulsed, shrieking so loud it rattled the cliffs. Its massive form thrashed, black ichor spraying like rain. Then it collapsed.

Its bulk smashed into the ground with a wet, final thud.

And then silence, broken only by the rain.

Halla stumbled back, falling to her knees. Her arms trembled.

Her body ached with every heartbeat.

But she was alive.

The cliffs above were still. Then, slowly, a figure climbed down: the skinny girl, Lina, her eyes wide with awe.

“You... you killed it.”

Halla looked up, face streaked with blood and rain.

“No more choosing,” she rasped. “No more sacrifice.”

Lina nodded, tears welling in her eyes.

Behind her, the villagers began to descend too; silent, ashamed, afraid.

Halla stood on shaking legs and pulled her sword free from the carcass, she wiped the gore from the blade before sheathing it.

She turned her back on the carcass, walking up through the mire of bones and broken offerings. She didn’t look back.

The rain washed her clean.

Any fear of the worms, that they would be back, was gone. The carcases lay strewn among the mud, a testament of the wrath of one shieldmaiden.