Hello again. Today I decided to post something more literary, as the last post may have been a bit too academic to inspire much more than yawns and stretches. This is a short story I wrote not too long ago. It is the opening story of a character I developed for a game. It isn't the story I've been working on, but it's good. It has some decent action and is fairly indicative of my writing style. I have posted the story in four easily ingestible parts and in reverse order (meaning you can simply continue to scroll down to get to the next part, as would be the logical inclination).
Well, here it is...
Bjorn swished his scythe out in front of him, cutting the last swath of wheat for the season. He set the blade into the dirt and leaned on the handle for moment to look out over the freshly shorn field. It had been an entire day's work, but well worth the effort. In reality, it had been a season's worth of work, but now he and his mother would have enough grain to sell at the market and some left over to hold them until the next year.
He ended up standing there for some time, squinting his deep blue eyes at the sun as it set in the west. The last remaining rays of light struck of his golden hair and cast a godly look upon his well-muscled form and deeply chiseled features. As the sun winked its last of the day, he bent over and slung his last sack of wheat over his corded shoulder and ambled his way to the cart. Loading this sack with the rest that were piled high in the back of the cart, he looked out over the field in the quickly fading dusk one more time. Nodding with satisfaction, he went to the front of the cart and pulled it along behind him as he plodded toward home.
Hallbjorn Stigandr often found himself looking out at the sunset. It was virtually a daily ritual. After a hard day's work in the field, he couldn't help but look toward that horizon and wonder what lay beyond. He knew very well, of course, what lay beyond. When he had been a little child, he had tuned his radio to the faint signal broadcast by a station in the city some eighty miles away. It wasn't so far, eighty miles, or at least, it hadn't been. When he was little he dreamed of someday buying a truck and driving out into the city to find his fortune. Maybe he would get rich selling real estate or making deals for some big corporation in a really big developed city.
But his father had always wanted him to run the farm once he was grown up. His dad never held much with city folk. He had always told Bjorn that his grandfather had once owned some of the largest farmland up in Wisconsin, but when he died, some big shot city lawyers had divvied the land up among his city dwelling siblings, who had bulldozed it to develop housing. In the end, Bjorn's old man had to head south to Kansas and build his own farm here in the fertile prairies of the Midwest.
So, Bjorn had been brought up learning how to till the earth, how to harvest the crops, and how to defend the farm against the vermin that infested these untamed plains. Like his father and grandfather before him, Bjorn grew to be a strapping young man. The Viking blood that was said to run through his veins was evident in his every physical quality. And like the Vikings, and his last name Stigandr, which meant 'Wanderer', he felt the pull of the wide world calling him to explore. Harsh reality, however, pulled him back down to earth.
Seven years ago, when Hallbjorn had reached the ripe farming age of twelve, his father, old man Stigandr, was taken from him and his mother prematurely. Bjorn the younger was supposed to be in the fields helping his father. Instead, he had stolen away to the village to find himself a working vehicle that he could drive away to the city. He had been saving up since he was ten the money that his father gave him for 'services on the farm'. His plan was to pay for a truck, one man in the village had been trying to get rid of a beat up old Ford for ages, and keep it there for a while. Once he was fourteen, or so, he would hop in and drive off.
Alas, it was not to be.
When Bjorn came home from a hard morning of haggling with the old farmer for his truck, he found that his father was nowhere to be seen in the field. He went into the house where his mother told him she thought they had been tending the crops all morning. He checked the barn; his father was not there. Panic started to rise in the young man as he ran out into the fields calling out his father's name. He stopped when he tripped over his old man's lifeless body lying under the waves of his wheat field.
The sheriff and one of his deputies came out to look over the scene. It was pretty grisly. They determined that a pack of gnolls had crept up on the man, crouching in the tall swaying wheat as they came. They assured what was left of the Stigandr family that it had been fairly quick and painless as they pounced on him and tore him limb from limb. All in all, the officers seemed fairly useless. They did not offer to find the creatures responsible, and when Bjorn's mother had asked, they simply shot one another a nervous look and explained that this was a dangerous land and that building a farm out here was a mighty high risk.
So, Bjorn and his mother buried his father in a small ceremony behind the barn. For some time afterward, young Bjorn could have sworn his father would call to him from his final resting place to get up and go out to the field before the sun came up. Perhaps it had just been the memories that were haunting him. Regardless, he got up every morning well before the sun from the day after his father's death on. He had become the man of the household, and it was only through his ceaseless efforts and maturity beyond his years that the bank did not foreclose on the farm. The bills had mounted after Bjorn the elder died, but his son carried on, and slowly he and his mother began to make headway.
Now, all Bjorn had of the days of his youth were his long-time fantastical reveries at sunset. And today, as every day, he trod toward his home to eat the supper that his mother so lovingly prepared for him, while visions of the past played in his mind.
He halted.
Approaching the barn, where he would put his harvest and tools for the night, Bjorn thought he saw a figure dart between it and the house. He blinked in the twilight that had the first few stars of the night twinkling above. It might have simply been a trick of the light, but he knew better than to take his chances. Seven years of defending his fields on his own had him padding over to the barn more silently than one might have thought was possible for man so large. He deftly slipped between the barn and the house and peeked around the other side, his scythe held up at the ready.
He caught his breath as he spied a silhouette standing over his father's grave. It was certainly not his mother. Bjorn's heart pounded in his throat and he could hear nothing but blood rushing in his ears. He went to step around the barn to face this shadow, whatever it was, when it suddenly moved. It spun around to face him and he saw its eyes flash reflectively in the darkness. The young man broke into a cold sweat, entirely unsure of what was going on. A menacing growl from the shadow told him soon enough.
Sudden movement on either side of him had him leaping away in barely enough time. Gnolls came pouncing at him from the darkness. The one on his left missed him as he went diving away from the attack, but the one on the right raked his shoulder with nothing more than its jagged claws. An arrow went whizzing by Bjorn's head as he stumbled forward, scythe raised high. The gnoll standing over his father's grave snarled at the failed shot as its arrow thudded into the barn.
Bjorn plowed ahead, not even bothering to attack with his scythe; he simply trampled the one before him. Clearly, it had not been expecting such a sudden approach because it yelped in surprise as the young man half-stomped, half-tripped over it. The other two gnolls bolted ahead to aid their companion. They were met with hard and even strokes from Bjorn's weapon of harvest. One dove deftly away, but the other flinched and found itself slashed deeply across the chest. It howled in pain and skittered away warily.
Now it was two against one. The gnolls advanced menacingly on Bjorn, who could only hold up his long weapon in defense. One of the creatures aimed poorly and attacked nothing but the blade of Bjorn's scythe. It pulled back a bleeding forearm. Its companion, however, the one that had been holding the bow, had taken out a knife and scored a nice gash on the young man's ribs.
Bjorn winced, but gritted his teeth and brought back his scythe for a powerful swipe that he hoped would hit both of his opponents. But luck was not with him tonight. He missed the first gnoll as it dodged the long blade of the farming tool and the second was already not close enough. Suddenly, all of his attention was drawn away from the battle as a female scream pierced the night from the direction of his house.
"Ma!" Bjorn called.
He was answered with a raking claw across his neck and a stabbing dagger in his side. He cried out at the sudden pain and the realization that he had to face these beasts before he could get to his distressed mother. A boiling anger began to simmer up within him, and he turned his attention back to the battle with a new sense of urgency and a feeling like he was on the verge of exploding. He swung his improvised weapon, this time focusing on the creature that kept poking at him with the dagger. There was a momentary sensation of resistance as the blade slid diagonally across the gnoll's chest, and Bjorn heard the satisfying sound of a yelping whine.
His minor victory was short lived, however, as another scream rent the air followed by a loud boom. He could not help but glance toward his house. He was fairly certain that, out of the corner of his eye, he had seen the muzzle blast that went with that shotgun sound. Once again, he was rewarded for his distraction with another blow, this time to his face. Dirty claws drew four lines over his cheek.
Bjorn could not contain the building pressure any longer. He felt like he was fighting a battle that he could not possibly win as long as he thought his mother was in danger. It seemed that the foundation of his sanity cracked, and he was, quite suddenly, only half aware of his actions. He felt a great surge of strength, and his wounds seemed to hurt considerably less. With a huge backswing, Bjorn brought forth his weapon with devastating force. There seemed to be virtually no friction, like he was cutting through air, and the part of him that was witnessing as if from elsewhere thought that he had missed. He carried the swing all the way to his opposite side and watched the first gnoll fall backward, its torso spilling open as it did so. The second one spun to the ground spraying blood all over Bjorn. He had cleaved straight through both opponents, killing them instantly.
Without a moment's consideration to his dead foes, Bjorn ran to the back door of the house. It was standing ajar. He rushed in and nearly slipped on a splattering of blood on the kitchen floor. He looked down, and the fresh corpse of a gnoll caught his attention. Half of its chest had been blown apart by what could only be a shotgun blast. Just a few feet away, lay the shotgun, and next to it, his mother. She lay in a thickening pool of her own blood, which was flowing freely from an open gash in her neck.
"Ma!" he cried, stumbling over to her, suddenly feeling very weak.
He dropped to his knees beside her and placed his hand over her wound to stem the blood's flow. She moaned weakly at his touch, but her eyes remained closed.
"Oh, ma, please be ok. Come on, ma. I need you to wake up for me. Wake up so I can call a doctor."
He shook the woman gently and pleaded with her some more. Her warm blood leaked between his fingers, and his mind rushed desperately to find a way to keep her wound covered so that he could get to the phone. All the while a small voice in his head told him it was futile. It would take anyone from the village at least twenty minutes to get here, which meant another twenty to get her to the hospital. The clock was ticking, and time was running short for the woman who had been the only love and support he had known for the past seven years. He felt the panic rise in him with each less distinct gurgling breath she took.
"Mom," he wept, "please don't go. Don't you leave me too. What will I do without you? I'll do anything, please. Just stay."
It was ever so faint, but he heard her say his name.
"Hallbjorn," she rasped again.
"Mom?" he said looking down at her, the hint of hope shining through his tears.
"Hallbjorn, Leave this place. You were born for more than just farm work. Go to the city, like you always dreamed of," the woman whispered hoarsely, giving a weak cough as she finished.
Bjorn looked into his mother's eyes, which were just barely open. He shook his head firmly. "I won't leave you, mother. You need me," he said with a quavering voice and a faltering smile.
"Not...anymore," she gasped, returning his smile with a weak one of her own. Her teeth were pink with her own blood. Bjorn suddenly wondered how much of it had been seeping down into her lungs.
"Nonsense," he said to her. "Here, put your hand here so I can go call the doctor..." He went silent for some time. "Ma..." He held her cold, limp hand and stared down at her still half-open eyes. Like the warmth that was gone from that hand, those eyes seemed strangely dimmed, as though the flame that kept her warm had gone out. Bjorn knew, then, that he was alone. He lay there for quite a while feeling nothing. Letting the coldness that was now taking the body of his mother chill him to the bone.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Bjorn's Harsh Beginning...Part 2 of 4
Deputy John Allenbeck had not seen the Stigandr boy, or any member of the Stigandr family, for some years. Naturally, he was surprised when Bjorn, who had barely stood to his chest seven years ago, stumbled into the station. At first he was startled by this giant of a man, spattered with blood, lumbering up to his desk wielding a scythe that was just as bloody. Then he recognized the rugged sculpted features and the golden blonde hair of the family. It was uncanny how much the man seemed to be a younger clone of his father. Apparently, the Stigandr men had a strong Norse influence in their genes.
The deputy didn't need Bjorn to tell him what happened. Although he may not have known the details of why the young man was arriving in this state, he could have predicted the general theme. He remembered well when the boy's family had lost its patriarch. He had only been a new recruit for a week when a twelve year old Bjorn led him and the sheriff to his father's mangled body.
"Deputy," Bjorn panted in a deep voice, "ma's dead...gnolls..."
"Are you alright?" John felt really dumb asking, but he needed to know if the young man needed medical assistance.
Bjorn answered by toppling to his knees and sprawling across John's desk. His scythe clattered to the floor. The deputy thought, for a moment, that the exhausted young man had simply passed out, but he could hear a faint sobbing. He tried several times to move him. He even tried explaining that he needed him to collect himself so that he could ask him some questions, but Bjorn would not be budged.
Deputy Allenbeck felt terrible for the boy, but he found himself wondering why this had to happen tonight, on his shift. Feeling he had no other choice, John called the sheriff.
"Ah, Christ," sheriff Jessup swore groggily when the deputy explained the situation. "That poor kid. Hang on. I'll be there in a bit."
Fifteen minutes later, the sheriff looked over 'that poor kid' and realized he was very much a grown man. Rubbing his eyes, partially to wipe away the last remains of sleep, but also in disbelief at the size of Hallbjorn, Jessup sighed heavily. He looked to deputy Allenbeck and raised his eyebrows.
"Well, son?" the sheriff asked the blood-covered man, still prostrate on the front desk. "Why don't you set down and tell me what happened?"
Bjorn, recognizing the vaguely familiar voice, lifted his head from the hard wooden surface and looked up at the sheriff. His forlorn eyes looked out from the camouflage spattering of blood on his face. They were pleading orbs set in the chiseled and battle-painted visage of a young man with too much life experience. While it seemed he wanted to get up and take a proper seat, he did not seem eager to recount the events of the night.
Jessup saw the anguish in his expression and nodded sympathetically. "I know. It's hard. Listen, why don't we just get you cleaned up and give you a place to rest tonight. If you like, we can wait 'till tomorrow to do all of this."
For a moment, Bjorn looked grateful, but then another shadow crossed his expression. He thought of his mother lying cold on the kitchen floor in a circle of her own blood. Somehow, it didn't seem right, waiting until tomorrow. As unpleasant as it was, he decided it would be for the best if he took care of this now. No, he would not leave his mother alone for the night, her blood attracting whatever curious animals were wandering close by.
So, with much difficulty, Bjorn told the two men all that had happened that night. His tears flowed freely, but he showed notable control of his voice as he clearly spoke the story without wavering. John wrote down everything he said with great interest. When he finished his tale, he looked from the sheriff to the deputy expectantly. He received looks of great pity in return.
"You're a brave man, son," sheriff Jessup said. "And you've had a hard night. Why don't you go in the back and grab a shower. I'll give you a place to sleep, and me and John will go out to the farm and check things out. We'll get everything in order, don't you worry."
"What about the gnolls?" Bjorn asked hesitantly. "Now will you do something?"
It was like a horrific parody of when he was twelve. The two men gave each other the same look he had seen them give one another nine years ago. The sheriff seemed to be wracking his brain for an acceptable response.
"Listen, Bjorn," Jessup began cautiously. "From what we've seen over the past several years, those gnolls run with quite a large pack. Frankly, we don't have the man power to do anything. We've tried settin' up traps, but you know they're not as dumb as some of the other animals. See, the problem is the state doesn't give us enough funding to launch a large scale initiative to get rid of these things. We're a hick town in the middle of nowhere. They're not going to spare the resources they use to protect the big cities to come out here and help us. They figure it's wild country out here, and if we can't handle it, maybe we shouldn't live here."
Bjorn sat silently for several minutes before saying, "How can that be your answer? Won't you do anything?"
Sheriff Jessup sighed. "I know it doesn't sound fair, son, but what can we do? I got me and the two deputies in this whole town. How can we go against all of them?"
"Can't you get the town involved?" Bjorn asked angrily. "Isn't this their problem too?"
"Really, Bjorn," the sheriff said impatiently, "here in town we've never had a problem."
The disbelief that Bjorn felt at this response made him unable to reply. It sounded like the sheriff was telling him that it was his parents' own fault that they were dead, that they shouldn't have come here, spent their savings on farmland, and worked so hard their entire lives. His shock kept him silent as sheriff Jessup showed him where the shower was and where he could sleep for the night. He flinched when Jessup patted his shoulder before walking out the door with deputy Allenbeck.
Bjorn went to the locker room where he stared with a distant sort of ire at the wall of empty lockers. What did a police department with three officers need with twenty four lockers? He stalked into the shower where he stood motionless under the warm water for almost a half an hour. By now the sheriff and the deputy would be looking over the scene, doing whatever little investigation they were going to do. Words were not enough, come to think of it, neither were thoughts, to express the disbelief and resentment that he felt toward law enforcement right now. It made him wonder why his parents had been so worried about paying taxes.
Then a funny thought struck him. When he was younger, his father always used to tell him, "If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." Now, as those words echoed in his mind, their significance seemed especially poignant. Suddenly, his mind began to race with ideas.
In seconds Bjorn was back in his bloody clothes and searching the locker room. Most of the lockers were empty, but three contained a few things. There was a jacket and a pair of pants in one. Another contained some clean socks and a folder. Weren't police supposed to have body armor and guns?
Pepper spray. He found pepper spray in the third locker.
He left the locker room in a huff and looked around the back office. There were two desks, a filing cabinet, and three doors. One of the doors was open and led out to the front office where he had come in. The door behind him led back to the locker room. The third door was labeled with the word EVIDENCE in what looked like electrical tape.
It only struck him after he had busted in this third door that what he was doing was surely illegal, but at this point, he really didn't care. He turned on the light and stepped in. On his left were a series of shelves stacked with boxes that had case numbers written on them. Bjorn found it hard to believe that there was enough crime in this town to justify so many boxes. He peeked into one and found a single plastic bag containing a pair of broken sunglasses. He shrugged and looked to his right. There were some more boxes, but these were larger and did not have any case numbers that he could see. Next to these boxes was a tall metal cabinet. Bjorn walked over to this and opened it.
Jackpot.
A black handgun glistened on the center shelf, and two magazines lay next to it. Bjorn really didn't know much about handguns. He had only ever fired a shotgun. He picked up the weapon and looked at it. Down the barrel was stamped a big 'G' with the word 'LOCK' written inside it.
"Glock?" Bjorn muttered curiously. He figured that was the name of the company that made it. Next to the 'GLOCK' logo was the number 22, then in smaller letters 'AUTSTRIA'. Right above the trigger it said '.40 SW'. "Whatever the hell that means," he added.
Noticing that there was no clip already in the gun, he picked up one of the full magazines and slid it into the weapon until he heard it click. Then he noticed that there was what looked like a switch over the trigger and then a button a bit further back above the grip. Curiously, he pushed the button. The magazine fell out and clattered to the floor.
Bjorn sighed. He was beginning to think that this was more trouble than it was worth. He picked up the magazine and slid it back into the gun and put the loaded glock into his front pocket. He grabbed the other magazine from the cabinet and pocketed that as well. Then he turned his attention back to the shelves in the cabinet. Surely there had to be something else of use in there.
"What's this?" he gaped at a small silver flask with the letters 'SS' ornately etched upon its smooth surface. He twisted off the stopper and held the flask to his nose. It smelled an awful lot like brandy. With a shrug he tossed it back.
When he was younger his mother had given him a shot of brandy whenever he had caught a cold. It had always helped him to sleep soundly at night and, thus, recover more quickly. As an adult, he was familiar with the effects of larger volumes of alcohol and figured if there was ever a time he needed a drink, it was now. He was completely surprised by the effect of the content of this flask; it was certainly not brandy. It burned harshly as it went own and, for a moment, all the color left his vision. It was gone in a fraction of a second, however his skin, it appeared, remained a stony gray color. Now that he thought about it, perhaps it was not the greatest idea to drink from a random flask in closet labeled 'EVIDENCE' in the sheriff's department.
Regardless, time was wasting, so he tossed the flask back into the cabinet and, trying to ignore the strange color of his skin, rummaged briefly for anything else that might be useful. At the very bottom of the cabinet, he found it. There in a metal case was a stockpile of long, red, tube like sticks that Bjorn could only imagine was dynamite.
"That can't be safe," he muttered with a raised eyebrow. Whatever he thought about the safety measures employed, or not employed, by the sheriff's department, it didn't stop him from taking one of the sticks. He looked it over curiously, as there as no fuse that he could see, but he did notice that it was capped on both ends with plastic. Well, he didn't have time to puzzle over it now. He stuffed it into the pocket containing the extra gun clip.
Satisfied that he had enough to at least make things interesting, he exited the evidence closet and headed toward the front door. As he stepped through the front office, he noticed his blood-covered scythe still lying on the floor. He went over and picked it up. Of all the things he was bringing to the fight, this felt the most comfortable in his hands. Besides, at some point he was sure it would become a close quarters battle. Somehow he couldn't see that little handgun cutting as large a swath in a group of opponents as his reaper would. Gripping the scythe tightly, he walked out the door and headed down the west road out of town, on a path that would lead him just north of his family's farm.
The deputy didn't need Bjorn to tell him what happened. Although he may not have known the details of why the young man was arriving in this state, he could have predicted the general theme. He remembered well when the boy's family had lost its patriarch. He had only been a new recruit for a week when a twelve year old Bjorn led him and the sheriff to his father's mangled body.
"Deputy," Bjorn panted in a deep voice, "ma's dead...gnolls..."
"Are you alright?" John felt really dumb asking, but he needed to know if the young man needed medical assistance.
Bjorn answered by toppling to his knees and sprawling across John's desk. His scythe clattered to the floor. The deputy thought, for a moment, that the exhausted young man had simply passed out, but he could hear a faint sobbing. He tried several times to move him. He even tried explaining that he needed him to collect himself so that he could ask him some questions, but Bjorn would not be budged.
Deputy Allenbeck felt terrible for the boy, but he found himself wondering why this had to happen tonight, on his shift. Feeling he had no other choice, John called the sheriff.
"Ah, Christ," sheriff Jessup swore groggily when the deputy explained the situation. "That poor kid. Hang on. I'll be there in a bit."
Fifteen minutes later, the sheriff looked over 'that poor kid' and realized he was very much a grown man. Rubbing his eyes, partially to wipe away the last remains of sleep, but also in disbelief at the size of Hallbjorn, Jessup sighed heavily. He looked to deputy Allenbeck and raised his eyebrows.
"Well, son?" the sheriff asked the blood-covered man, still prostrate on the front desk. "Why don't you set down and tell me what happened?"
Bjorn, recognizing the vaguely familiar voice, lifted his head from the hard wooden surface and looked up at the sheriff. His forlorn eyes looked out from the camouflage spattering of blood on his face. They were pleading orbs set in the chiseled and battle-painted visage of a young man with too much life experience. While it seemed he wanted to get up and take a proper seat, he did not seem eager to recount the events of the night.
Jessup saw the anguish in his expression and nodded sympathetically. "I know. It's hard. Listen, why don't we just get you cleaned up and give you a place to rest tonight. If you like, we can wait 'till tomorrow to do all of this."
For a moment, Bjorn looked grateful, but then another shadow crossed his expression. He thought of his mother lying cold on the kitchen floor in a circle of her own blood. Somehow, it didn't seem right, waiting until tomorrow. As unpleasant as it was, he decided it would be for the best if he took care of this now. No, he would not leave his mother alone for the night, her blood attracting whatever curious animals were wandering close by.
So, with much difficulty, Bjorn told the two men all that had happened that night. His tears flowed freely, but he showed notable control of his voice as he clearly spoke the story without wavering. John wrote down everything he said with great interest. When he finished his tale, he looked from the sheriff to the deputy expectantly. He received looks of great pity in return.
"You're a brave man, son," sheriff Jessup said. "And you've had a hard night. Why don't you go in the back and grab a shower. I'll give you a place to sleep, and me and John will go out to the farm and check things out. We'll get everything in order, don't you worry."
"What about the gnolls?" Bjorn asked hesitantly. "Now will you do something?"
It was like a horrific parody of when he was twelve. The two men gave each other the same look he had seen them give one another nine years ago. The sheriff seemed to be wracking his brain for an acceptable response.
"Listen, Bjorn," Jessup began cautiously. "From what we've seen over the past several years, those gnolls run with quite a large pack. Frankly, we don't have the man power to do anything. We've tried settin' up traps, but you know they're not as dumb as some of the other animals. See, the problem is the state doesn't give us enough funding to launch a large scale initiative to get rid of these things. We're a hick town in the middle of nowhere. They're not going to spare the resources they use to protect the big cities to come out here and help us. They figure it's wild country out here, and if we can't handle it, maybe we shouldn't live here."
Bjorn sat silently for several minutes before saying, "How can that be your answer? Won't you do anything?"
Sheriff Jessup sighed. "I know it doesn't sound fair, son, but what can we do? I got me and the two deputies in this whole town. How can we go against all of them?"
"Can't you get the town involved?" Bjorn asked angrily. "Isn't this their problem too?"
"Really, Bjorn," the sheriff said impatiently, "here in town we've never had a problem."
The disbelief that Bjorn felt at this response made him unable to reply. It sounded like the sheriff was telling him that it was his parents' own fault that they were dead, that they shouldn't have come here, spent their savings on farmland, and worked so hard their entire lives. His shock kept him silent as sheriff Jessup showed him where the shower was and where he could sleep for the night. He flinched when Jessup patted his shoulder before walking out the door with deputy Allenbeck.
Bjorn went to the locker room where he stared with a distant sort of ire at the wall of empty lockers. What did a police department with three officers need with twenty four lockers? He stalked into the shower where he stood motionless under the warm water for almost a half an hour. By now the sheriff and the deputy would be looking over the scene, doing whatever little investigation they were going to do. Words were not enough, come to think of it, neither were thoughts, to express the disbelief and resentment that he felt toward law enforcement right now. It made him wonder why his parents had been so worried about paying taxes.
Then a funny thought struck him. When he was younger, his father always used to tell him, "If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." Now, as those words echoed in his mind, their significance seemed especially poignant. Suddenly, his mind began to race with ideas.
In seconds Bjorn was back in his bloody clothes and searching the locker room. Most of the lockers were empty, but three contained a few things. There was a jacket and a pair of pants in one. Another contained some clean socks and a folder. Weren't police supposed to have body armor and guns?
Pepper spray. He found pepper spray in the third locker.
He left the locker room in a huff and looked around the back office. There were two desks, a filing cabinet, and three doors. One of the doors was open and led out to the front office where he had come in. The door behind him led back to the locker room. The third door was labeled with the word EVIDENCE in what looked like electrical tape.
It only struck him after he had busted in this third door that what he was doing was surely illegal, but at this point, he really didn't care. He turned on the light and stepped in. On his left were a series of shelves stacked with boxes that had case numbers written on them. Bjorn found it hard to believe that there was enough crime in this town to justify so many boxes. He peeked into one and found a single plastic bag containing a pair of broken sunglasses. He shrugged and looked to his right. There were some more boxes, but these were larger and did not have any case numbers that he could see. Next to these boxes was a tall metal cabinet. Bjorn walked over to this and opened it.
Jackpot.
A black handgun glistened on the center shelf, and two magazines lay next to it. Bjorn really didn't know much about handguns. He had only ever fired a shotgun. He picked up the weapon and looked at it. Down the barrel was stamped a big 'G' with the word 'LOCK' written inside it.
"Glock?" Bjorn muttered curiously. He figured that was the name of the company that made it. Next to the 'GLOCK' logo was the number 22, then in smaller letters 'AUTSTRIA'. Right above the trigger it said '.40 SW'. "Whatever the hell that means," he added.
Noticing that there was no clip already in the gun, he picked up one of the full magazines and slid it into the weapon until he heard it click. Then he noticed that there was what looked like a switch over the trigger and then a button a bit further back above the grip. Curiously, he pushed the button. The magazine fell out and clattered to the floor.
Bjorn sighed. He was beginning to think that this was more trouble than it was worth. He picked up the magazine and slid it back into the gun and put the loaded glock into his front pocket. He grabbed the other magazine from the cabinet and pocketed that as well. Then he turned his attention back to the shelves in the cabinet. Surely there had to be something else of use in there.
"What's this?" he gaped at a small silver flask with the letters 'SS' ornately etched upon its smooth surface. He twisted off the stopper and held the flask to his nose. It smelled an awful lot like brandy. With a shrug he tossed it back.
When he was younger his mother had given him a shot of brandy whenever he had caught a cold. It had always helped him to sleep soundly at night and, thus, recover more quickly. As an adult, he was familiar with the effects of larger volumes of alcohol and figured if there was ever a time he needed a drink, it was now. He was completely surprised by the effect of the content of this flask; it was certainly not brandy. It burned harshly as it went own and, for a moment, all the color left his vision. It was gone in a fraction of a second, however his skin, it appeared, remained a stony gray color. Now that he thought about it, perhaps it was not the greatest idea to drink from a random flask in closet labeled 'EVIDENCE' in the sheriff's department.
Regardless, time was wasting, so he tossed the flask back into the cabinet and, trying to ignore the strange color of his skin, rummaged briefly for anything else that might be useful. At the very bottom of the cabinet, he found it. There in a metal case was a stockpile of long, red, tube like sticks that Bjorn could only imagine was dynamite.
"That can't be safe," he muttered with a raised eyebrow. Whatever he thought about the safety measures employed, or not employed, by the sheriff's department, it didn't stop him from taking one of the sticks. He looked it over curiously, as there as no fuse that he could see, but he did notice that it was capped on both ends with plastic. Well, he didn't have time to puzzle over it now. He stuffed it into the pocket containing the extra gun clip.
Satisfied that he had enough to at least make things interesting, he exited the evidence closet and headed toward the front door. As he stepped through the front office, he noticed his blood-covered scythe still lying on the floor. He went over and picked it up. Of all the things he was bringing to the fight, this felt the most comfortable in his hands. Besides, at some point he was sure it would become a close quarters battle. Somehow he couldn't see that little handgun cutting as large a swath in a group of opponents as his reaper would. Gripping the scythe tightly, he walked out the door and headed down the west road out of town, on a path that would lead him just north of his family's farm.
Bjorn's Harsh Beginning...Part 3 of 4
Dawn was just a few short hours away when a chorus of howling let Bjorn know that he was on the right track. Before long, he saw the flickering of a campfire coming from a shadowy area that looked a bit like a grove in the dim light. He had never really been out this way before, and the grouping of trees looked a bit strange to him. Generally speaking, trees did not regularly grow in big groups on the prairie, unless someone had put forth the effort to cultivate an orchard.
Bjorn padded toward the trees as silently as he could, gripping his scythe to help ground his mounting anxiety. He crept around trunks just barely wide enough to conceal his body, peeking around before he went to the next one. When he was close enough to spy what was going on in the center of this little grove, he gaped curiously at the sight. Inside was a spacious clearing where a large fire was burning. Gnolls, at least forty of them, were gathered here, but not very close to the fire. Most of them sat around the edge of the clearing, the nearest one no more than ten feet from where Bjorn stood.
Most intriguing, however, were the two large gnolls that were pacing around the fire. They were staring at one another with hatred in their eyes, and their lips were curled back baring their sharp incisors. Suddenly, one lunged at the other, and the two gnolls were a blur of flashing teeth and claws. They were snarling, and Bjorn could hear their jaws snapping even over the cheers of the other creatures. He could see from the condition of the two fighters that this battle had been going on for some time. Both came up from this flurry with a few less patches of fur and a few more bleeding wounds.
At some other time in his life, Bjorn would have found this fascinating, but he had come here searching for these very creatures with a purpose. Turning his attention from the dominance struggle, he reached into his pocket and drew out the stick of dynamite. This was surely the best way to start things. With a good aim he might easily take out half of these creatures. Now the only question was, where the hell was the fuse?
Bjorn pulled the plastic caps off of both ends and felt for some kind of thing that he could light. There was nothing, at least, nothing that he could figure out. Then it struck him that it didn't really matter; he didn't have any matches or a lighter. Even if there was a fuse, he wouldn't be able to light it anyway. Bjorn clenched his jaw and looked back to the clearing.
The gnoll closest to him was not paying attention to the fight. It was sniffing the air suspiciously. It turned around and started to walk toward Bjorn's hiding place. Quickly ducking his head back behind the tree, the young man cursed silently. After a night of walking, he was sure his scent hung thickly about him to a creature with a sense of smell as good as a wild dog's. Bjorn's heart was pounding, but still he held his breath. If he was discovered before he wanted to be, he would have to do some pretty quick thinking. From the other side of his hiding place he heard an interrogative growling.
Risking a peek around the tree, he saw that the curious gnoll was dangerously close, but its back was turned as it explained to another in the crowd that it could smell something. Although he did not understand the creatures' unattractive language, Bjorn knew that the situation was not going in his favor. His mind raced as he strained to come up with some idea that would help him initiate this in a way that gave him the upper hand.
Suddenly, it came to him. He wasn't sure if it would work, but he had run out of time. As the other gnoll joined the first in its investigation, Bjorn stepped out brandishing the glock in one hand and his stick of dynamite in the other. He aimed at the first creature and pulled the trigger. To his dismay, and almost complete shock, there was simply a clicking sound and nothing more. The two gnolls seemed equally as shocked, but they recovered quickly and advanced on the human with teeth bared.
Bjorn knew he had no choice but to go ahead, now that he had revealed himself. He threw the stick of dynamite up and over the heads of the confused gnolls, who watched it sail over helplessly. Bjorn followed its path with his eyes as well and noted with satisfaction that its trajectory was going to land it somewhere in the fire. He quickly ducked back behind the tree and flinched.
But there was no kaboom. He had expected to hear the explosion of a stick of dynamite, but all that happened was a crackling sound and the snarling murmur of many surprised gnolls. Suddenly, the shadows of the grove lit up with a reddish light, and Bjorn looked around the tree in confusion.
On the edge of the fire, burning very brightly, was a red light that flickered and danced and threw off sparks. The gnolls seemed momentarily mesmerized by the flame-engulfed road flare, as did Bjorn, but the urgency of the situation forced the young man to shake off the disheartening feeling brought on by his ignorance and bad fortune. Not ready to give up on the gun, he looked and felt for something that seemed like the hammer. He'd read about revolvers in a western comic when he was a kid, aside from that, he had used a shotgun. He figured this firearm had to be similar. As he fiddled with the weapon, the two gnolls that had discovered him tore their attention away from the sputtering flare and resumed their advance.
Things were deteriorating quickly. Bjorn cursed his luck as he shifted his attention from moving backward, away from the two creatures, to desperately twisting and pulling at all angles of the gun to find some other mechanism to make it fire. He looked up again at the gnolls and noticed the wicked gleam in their eyes as they realized that he was beginning to panic. They crouched down low, their powerful hind legs twitching in anticipation. Barking out in triumph, they leapt at him simultaneously.
In an instant, something slid and clicked, then sprung back into place. Completely on instinct, Bjorn held up the glock and squeezed the trigger repeatedly. Bang! Bang! Bang! Three shots rang out, and the two gnolls changed momentum in midair. Howling in pain, they both scurried back to the crowd, which now had its entire attention focused on him.
Not unexpectedly, chaos broke out everywhere. Gnolls came charging out at Bjorn from seemingly all directions. He backed up against a tree and quickly emptied the clip in his glock. Fifteen bullets seemed far too few to him just now. He did have that other magazine in his pocket, but he certainly didn't have the time to reload. He pushed the button to eject the spent clip and pocketed the glock, while pulling out the scythe, which he wore slung over his shoulder.
It wasn't fast enough. Too late, Bjorn noticed several arrows flying over the heads of the approaching pack. One of the arrows clipped a creature that was almost about to jump on him, but the others were true. With uncanny accuracy, five arrows struck him directly in the chest. All he could do was flinch bemusedly when, inexplicably, all five missiles bounced off of him and fell to the floor.
"What the hell?" Bjorn asked as about half of the gnolls eyed him a bit more warily. The other half charged ahead, too bloodthirsty to notice that he had just turned aside several arrows.
Not wanting to question this glimmer of good fortune too thoroughly, Bjorn set himself to receive the charge of those creatures that were rushing toward him. He caught two of them with the long blade of the scythe as they crashed into him. One of them lost its snout and keeled over, while the other turned away whining loudly. A few of the creatures managed to get in some hits, some with claws, others with rusty short swords, but none of them fazed the human.
Gaining confidence with this strange impervious phenomenon, Bjorn waded through, swinging his scythe this way and that. The gnolls soon began to realize that this was no ordinary opponent. This human was one they had to be wary of if they wanted to survive this encounter. Little by little, each one of them began to coordinate their attacks and dodges so that they remained well clear of the swinging edge of the harvest blade.
Bjorn noticed their increasing reluctance to attack him and could not help but laugh out loud. "Ah, yes!" he shouted. "It seems I have the upper hand after all!"
The gnolls, now realizing that their attacks were basically pointless, simply formed a ring around him. They watched him for any change or sign of weakness. None of them believed that a single man could defeat all of them. So, they just waited hungrily for the next rush.
Bjorn grinned and reached into his pocket to produce the glock. With one finger, he held it against the handle of his scythe as he reached in the other pocket for the fully loaded magazine. It was awkward, but still none of the gnolls dared approach him. He slid the clip into the weapon with a click. But now he was stuck. The gun was loaded, but as he had learned earlier, it would not fire until there was a bullet in the chamber. Throwing caution to the wind, he dropped his scythe to the ground and, in one swift motion, pulled back the slide and began to fire.
Seeing Bjorn drop that accursed blade provoked an instant reaction from the gnolls. Despite the fact that bullets were flying at them, they drew in on their prey. A few of them were hit as they advanced and fell over or ran away yelping, but there were always more to take their place. Before he could empty this clip, the gnolls descended upon him. He dove for his scythe as they dove for him.
This time, however, the gnolls' attack was a bit more successful. As they piled on him, his hand barely wrapped around his bladed weapon, Bjorn could feel the sting of a few raking claws and poking swords. Whatever had given him skin like a stone had worn off. He was now susceptible to all their attacks, and the gnolls could tell; they went at him with a renewed frenzy. Bjorn soon found himself overwhelmed, and as they beat and cut him mercilessly, his submerging consciousness finally berated him for his foolishness.
Bjorn padded toward the trees as silently as he could, gripping his scythe to help ground his mounting anxiety. He crept around trunks just barely wide enough to conceal his body, peeking around before he went to the next one. When he was close enough to spy what was going on in the center of this little grove, he gaped curiously at the sight. Inside was a spacious clearing where a large fire was burning. Gnolls, at least forty of them, were gathered here, but not very close to the fire. Most of them sat around the edge of the clearing, the nearest one no more than ten feet from where Bjorn stood.
Most intriguing, however, were the two large gnolls that were pacing around the fire. They were staring at one another with hatred in their eyes, and their lips were curled back baring their sharp incisors. Suddenly, one lunged at the other, and the two gnolls were a blur of flashing teeth and claws. They were snarling, and Bjorn could hear their jaws snapping even over the cheers of the other creatures. He could see from the condition of the two fighters that this battle had been going on for some time. Both came up from this flurry with a few less patches of fur and a few more bleeding wounds.
At some other time in his life, Bjorn would have found this fascinating, but he had come here searching for these very creatures with a purpose. Turning his attention from the dominance struggle, he reached into his pocket and drew out the stick of dynamite. This was surely the best way to start things. With a good aim he might easily take out half of these creatures. Now the only question was, where the hell was the fuse?
Bjorn pulled the plastic caps off of both ends and felt for some kind of thing that he could light. There was nothing, at least, nothing that he could figure out. Then it struck him that it didn't really matter; he didn't have any matches or a lighter. Even if there was a fuse, he wouldn't be able to light it anyway. Bjorn clenched his jaw and looked back to the clearing.
The gnoll closest to him was not paying attention to the fight. It was sniffing the air suspiciously. It turned around and started to walk toward Bjorn's hiding place. Quickly ducking his head back behind the tree, the young man cursed silently. After a night of walking, he was sure his scent hung thickly about him to a creature with a sense of smell as good as a wild dog's. Bjorn's heart was pounding, but still he held his breath. If he was discovered before he wanted to be, he would have to do some pretty quick thinking. From the other side of his hiding place he heard an interrogative growling.
Risking a peek around the tree, he saw that the curious gnoll was dangerously close, but its back was turned as it explained to another in the crowd that it could smell something. Although he did not understand the creatures' unattractive language, Bjorn knew that the situation was not going in his favor. His mind raced as he strained to come up with some idea that would help him initiate this in a way that gave him the upper hand.
Suddenly, it came to him. He wasn't sure if it would work, but he had run out of time. As the other gnoll joined the first in its investigation, Bjorn stepped out brandishing the glock in one hand and his stick of dynamite in the other. He aimed at the first creature and pulled the trigger. To his dismay, and almost complete shock, there was simply a clicking sound and nothing more. The two gnolls seemed equally as shocked, but they recovered quickly and advanced on the human with teeth bared.
Bjorn knew he had no choice but to go ahead, now that he had revealed himself. He threw the stick of dynamite up and over the heads of the confused gnolls, who watched it sail over helplessly. Bjorn followed its path with his eyes as well and noted with satisfaction that its trajectory was going to land it somewhere in the fire. He quickly ducked back behind the tree and flinched.
But there was no kaboom. He had expected to hear the explosion of a stick of dynamite, but all that happened was a crackling sound and the snarling murmur of many surprised gnolls. Suddenly, the shadows of the grove lit up with a reddish light, and Bjorn looked around the tree in confusion.
On the edge of the fire, burning very brightly, was a red light that flickered and danced and threw off sparks. The gnolls seemed momentarily mesmerized by the flame-engulfed road flare, as did Bjorn, but the urgency of the situation forced the young man to shake off the disheartening feeling brought on by his ignorance and bad fortune. Not ready to give up on the gun, he looked and felt for something that seemed like the hammer. He'd read about revolvers in a western comic when he was a kid, aside from that, he had used a shotgun. He figured this firearm had to be similar. As he fiddled with the weapon, the two gnolls that had discovered him tore their attention away from the sputtering flare and resumed their advance.
Things were deteriorating quickly. Bjorn cursed his luck as he shifted his attention from moving backward, away from the two creatures, to desperately twisting and pulling at all angles of the gun to find some other mechanism to make it fire. He looked up again at the gnolls and noticed the wicked gleam in their eyes as they realized that he was beginning to panic. They crouched down low, their powerful hind legs twitching in anticipation. Barking out in triumph, they leapt at him simultaneously.
In an instant, something slid and clicked, then sprung back into place. Completely on instinct, Bjorn held up the glock and squeezed the trigger repeatedly. Bang! Bang! Bang! Three shots rang out, and the two gnolls changed momentum in midair. Howling in pain, they both scurried back to the crowd, which now had its entire attention focused on him.
Not unexpectedly, chaos broke out everywhere. Gnolls came charging out at Bjorn from seemingly all directions. He backed up against a tree and quickly emptied the clip in his glock. Fifteen bullets seemed far too few to him just now. He did have that other magazine in his pocket, but he certainly didn't have the time to reload. He pushed the button to eject the spent clip and pocketed the glock, while pulling out the scythe, which he wore slung over his shoulder.
It wasn't fast enough. Too late, Bjorn noticed several arrows flying over the heads of the approaching pack. One of the arrows clipped a creature that was almost about to jump on him, but the others were true. With uncanny accuracy, five arrows struck him directly in the chest. All he could do was flinch bemusedly when, inexplicably, all five missiles bounced off of him and fell to the floor.
"What the hell?" Bjorn asked as about half of the gnolls eyed him a bit more warily. The other half charged ahead, too bloodthirsty to notice that he had just turned aside several arrows.
Not wanting to question this glimmer of good fortune too thoroughly, Bjorn set himself to receive the charge of those creatures that were rushing toward him. He caught two of them with the long blade of the scythe as they crashed into him. One of them lost its snout and keeled over, while the other turned away whining loudly. A few of the creatures managed to get in some hits, some with claws, others with rusty short swords, but none of them fazed the human.
Gaining confidence with this strange impervious phenomenon, Bjorn waded through, swinging his scythe this way and that. The gnolls soon began to realize that this was no ordinary opponent. This human was one they had to be wary of if they wanted to survive this encounter. Little by little, each one of them began to coordinate their attacks and dodges so that they remained well clear of the swinging edge of the harvest blade.
Bjorn noticed their increasing reluctance to attack him and could not help but laugh out loud. "Ah, yes!" he shouted. "It seems I have the upper hand after all!"
The gnolls, now realizing that their attacks were basically pointless, simply formed a ring around him. They watched him for any change or sign of weakness. None of them believed that a single man could defeat all of them. So, they just waited hungrily for the next rush.
Bjorn grinned and reached into his pocket to produce the glock. With one finger, he held it against the handle of his scythe as he reached in the other pocket for the fully loaded magazine. It was awkward, but still none of the gnolls dared approach him. He slid the clip into the weapon with a click. But now he was stuck. The gun was loaded, but as he had learned earlier, it would not fire until there was a bullet in the chamber. Throwing caution to the wind, he dropped his scythe to the ground and, in one swift motion, pulled back the slide and began to fire.
Seeing Bjorn drop that accursed blade provoked an instant reaction from the gnolls. Despite the fact that bullets were flying at them, they drew in on their prey. A few of them were hit as they advanced and fell over or ran away yelping, but there were always more to take their place. Before he could empty this clip, the gnolls descended upon him. He dove for his scythe as they dove for him.
This time, however, the gnolls' attack was a bit more successful. As they piled on him, his hand barely wrapped around his bladed weapon, Bjorn could feel the sting of a few raking claws and poking swords. Whatever had given him skin like a stone had worn off. He was now susceptible to all their attacks, and the gnolls could tell; they went at him with a renewed frenzy. Bjorn soon found himself overwhelmed, and as they beat and cut him mercilessly, his submerging consciousness finally berated him for his foolishness.
Bjorn's Harsh Beginning...Part 4 of 4
"What's that?" deputy Allenbeck shouted, pointing toward the dark horizon.
Sheriff Jessup squinted through his windshield and instantly noticed the red flickering that John was indicating.
"Road flare," Jessup said without hesitation. "Wasn't sure if he took one. Box in the evidence locker was open."
"What the hell is that boy doing?" the deputy asked with a shake of his head.
"Hopefully he ain't gettin' into any trouble," the sheriff answered, though the feeling in his gut told him that was unlikely.
Stepping on the accelerator, Jessup sped his Range Rover toward the light. As they got closer, the flickering became less distinct, but it was clear that there was also a fire somewhere inside this grouping of trees. The two men pulled up and exchanged looks.
With a sigh, Jessup turned off the engine. "He's armed," he warned John.
Deputy Allenbeck returned the sheriff's sigh with one of his own, "I know."
Both men got out of the rover and checked their weapons. Then, with a nod to one another, they stepped into the grove. Right away they could hear a commotion, and they held their guns, both Glock 22's, out and ready. They snuck through the shadows and, in less than a minute, came upon a horrifying scene. A large group of gnolls were writhing and pushing through one another, apparently to get at whatever they had surrounded. The two men could see several of the creatures' corpses littered about, but not nearly as many as were partaking in this orgy of violence.
"Do you think that's him," John whispered to the sheriff, indicating the pile of snapping, howling gnolls.
"I hope not," Jessup said shakily. He looked very ghostlike, especially with his blanched face lit by the flickering fire.
But that question was answered by Bjorn himself. Suddenly there was a motion, like a great surge in the middle of this horde of monsters, and a huge, blood-soaked Hallbjorn Stigandr burst out, flinging two or three of his attackers in the process.
Even in the poor light, the sheriff and the deputy could tell that Bjorn was not quite himself. His entire body was soaked with sweat and blood, which ran off of him in rivulets. His eyes shown with a crazed hatred. They saw his scythe glisten briefly as he cut through a swath of gnolls like they were stalks of wheat in his field.
"Help him!" shouted sheriff Jessup as he began to fire his weapon at some of the gnolls on the outer edge of the ring that surrounded the barbarian of a man in the center.
Immediately, John started, likewise, firing at those creatures that were not too close to Bjorn. Hopefully, they could take out the reinforcements so that he could focus on those creatures that now held his attention. It did not take long for the gnolls to figure out that they had more company. John and Jessup soon found themselves unable to keep track of how Bjorn was doing as they were caught up with enemies of their own.
Deputy Allenbeck mowed down two gnolls, each with a bullet to the face. There wasn't a lot of crime in his town, so he had a lot of time to practice shooting. Another beast came barreling in from the side, and John embedded two bullets in its chest. Two more came charging at him, one from the left and the other from the right. He grazed the first one on the shoulder and missed the second entirely. He fired a second shot at the beast he had missed and hit it in the throat, but the first gnoll ran up and latched onto his wrist, sinking its sharp teeth into the flesh. John dropped his gun involuntarily, but with his other hand he reached down to his belt and pulled off a black device that hung on the opposite hip. With great relish he jammed it into the furry neck of the creature and pressed a button. With a jolt the gnoll let go and fell to the floor, stunned for just a moment. Moving quickly, John retrieved his firearm and shot the prone beast in the head. Instantly, he holstered his stun-gun and took aim at some more gnolls.
Sheriff Jessup was no slouch with a pistol either. Not a single creature could get by him. Until, of course, he ran out of bullets. Three gnolls were there immediately to take advantage of Jessup's situation. What they did not understand, however, was that the sheriff was hardly defenseless without his gun. He holstered the empty weapon and pulled out an all black, military issue Bowie. He dodged two of the creatures while splitting open the third's midsection. It fell over trying to salvage its insides. The other two got the point, almost literally, as Jessup lunged forward aggressively. They backed off, eyeing the dangerous man warily. There were two bangs, and one of the beasts fell over.
At first the sheriff had thought it was deputy Allenbeck who fired the shots, but as his other opponent took off, Jessup realized that it had been Bjorn. The large man stood in the middle of a pile of bodies, glistening with blood, holding his two weapons, and glancing around furtively. His eyes rested on the deputy for just a moment, then he turned around and ran in the opposite direction, bellowing after those few creatures that had finally been wise enough to run away.
"Bjorn, wait!" sheriff Jessup called out. He started to run after him, but a call from his deputy made him freeze. John's voice sounding awfully choked.
The sheriff ran over to deputy Allenbeck just as he fell over. He knelt down beside him and looked him over. There was a bullet hole in his chest just under the left pectoral.
"Oh, man," Jessup said falteringly. "Oh, man, John. We need to get you to a doctor."
"I'll be fine," John said, then he coughed and winced. "As long as you get me to that doctor fast."
Sheriff Jessup picked him up and carried him through the trees out to the Range Rover. He carefully laid John on the backseat and told him to hold his hand over the wound. Then, he hopped into the driver's seat and took off toward town as fast as the vehicle would go.
* * * * *
Bjorn slowly opened his eyes. It was a difficult prospect, as they seemed to be almost glued together. He sat up and squinted into the light. He hurt all over and felt so weary still, but he knew he could not sleep here any more. He blinked down at his arms. They were caked with dry blood. In fact, every part of his body that was not numb with pain seemed to be cracked or sticky with the stuff. He seemed to vaguely remember that he had been chasing after something.
Gnolls.
Yes. It was coming back to him now. His mother. The sheriff's department. The gun. It was all so vague and hazy. He looked down at his hands and saw that one was wrapped tightly around his scythe. Yes, the faithful gnoll reaper.
Gnollreaper.
That seemed a fitting name for the farming implement turned weapon. Just like Hallbjorn was a fitting name for him. It was Scandinavian for 'Stone Bear'. A fitting name for a young man turned... Turned what? Vigilante? Barbarian?
Cop killer.
Bjorn suddenly felt sick. In the deep recesses of his memory he saw the face of deputy Allenbeck looking back at him, eyes wide, almost as wide as the hole in his chest.
"I didn't mean to," he explained to the grass. "I didn't realize they were there. I don't know how I didn't. I remember it, but...it's like I wasn't there. Like I was possessed..."
The grass offered him no sympathy. It just rippled nonjudgementally in the wind. Bjorn knew that the sheriff would not likely be so understanding. He had never heard of a real case where someone had killed a sheriff's deputy, but he had read about it in his comics as a kid. The suspect was prosecuted to the fullest extent of his neck.
Bjorn knew there was no way they would believe that he was possessed, by a demon or anything else. He had to get away. He had to leave the state. He had to move to a city somewhere and change his identity, blend in with the populace. There was nothing left here for him anyway. With a heavy heart and a guilty conscience, Bjorn started walking. He didn't care which direction he went, as long as it was away from town, away from his home, and away from the memories that would haunt him in his dreams for the rest of his life.
THE END...
Sheriff Jessup squinted through his windshield and instantly noticed the red flickering that John was indicating.
"Road flare," Jessup said without hesitation. "Wasn't sure if he took one. Box in the evidence locker was open."
"What the hell is that boy doing?" the deputy asked with a shake of his head.
"Hopefully he ain't gettin' into any trouble," the sheriff answered, though the feeling in his gut told him that was unlikely.
Stepping on the accelerator, Jessup sped his Range Rover toward the light. As they got closer, the flickering became less distinct, but it was clear that there was also a fire somewhere inside this grouping of trees. The two men pulled up and exchanged looks.
With a sigh, Jessup turned off the engine. "He's armed," he warned John.
Deputy Allenbeck returned the sheriff's sigh with one of his own, "I know."
Both men got out of the rover and checked their weapons. Then, with a nod to one another, they stepped into the grove. Right away they could hear a commotion, and they held their guns, both Glock 22's, out and ready. They snuck through the shadows and, in less than a minute, came upon a horrifying scene. A large group of gnolls were writhing and pushing through one another, apparently to get at whatever they had surrounded. The two men could see several of the creatures' corpses littered about, but not nearly as many as were partaking in this orgy of violence.
"Do you think that's him," John whispered to the sheriff, indicating the pile of snapping, howling gnolls.
"I hope not," Jessup said shakily. He looked very ghostlike, especially with his blanched face lit by the flickering fire.
But that question was answered by Bjorn himself. Suddenly there was a motion, like a great surge in the middle of this horde of monsters, and a huge, blood-soaked Hallbjorn Stigandr burst out, flinging two or three of his attackers in the process.
Even in the poor light, the sheriff and the deputy could tell that Bjorn was not quite himself. His entire body was soaked with sweat and blood, which ran off of him in rivulets. His eyes shown with a crazed hatred. They saw his scythe glisten briefly as he cut through a swath of gnolls like they were stalks of wheat in his field.
"Help him!" shouted sheriff Jessup as he began to fire his weapon at some of the gnolls on the outer edge of the ring that surrounded the barbarian of a man in the center.
Immediately, John started, likewise, firing at those creatures that were not too close to Bjorn. Hopefully, they could take out the reinforcements so that he could focus on those creatures that now held his attention. It did not take long for the gnolls to figure out that they had more company. John and Jessup soon found themselves unable to keep track of how Bjorn was doing as they were caught up with enemies of their own.
Deputy Allenbeck mowed down two gnolls, each with a bullet to the face. There wasn't a lot of crime in his town, so he had a lot of time to practice shooting. Another beast came barreling in from the side, and John embedded two bullets in its chest. Two more came charging at him, one from the left and the other from the right. He grazed the first one on the shoulder and missed the second entirely. He fired a second shot at the beast he had missed and hit it in the throat, but the first gnoll ran up and latched onto his wrist, sinking its sharp teeth into the flesh. John dropped his gun involuntarily, but with his other hand he reached down to his belt and pulled off a black device that hung on the opposite hip. With great relish he jammed it into the furry neck of the creature and pressed a button. With a jolt the gnoll let go and fell to the floor, stunned for just a moment. Moving quickly, John retrieved his firearm and shot the prone beast in the head. Instantly, he holstered his stun-gun and took aim at some more gnolls.
Sheriff Jessup was no slouch with a pistol either. Not a single creature could get by him. Until, of course, he ran out of bullets. Three gnolls were there immediately to take advantage of Jessup's situation. What they did not understand, however, was that the sheriff was hardly defenseless without his gun. He holstered the empty weapon and pulled out an all black, military issue Bowie. He dodged two of the creatures while splitting open the third's midsection. It fell over trying to salvage its insides. The other two got the point, almost literally, as Jessup lunged forward aggressively. They backed off, eyeing the dangerous man warily. There were two bangs, and one of the beasts fell over.
At first the sheriff had thought it was deputy Allenbeck who fired the shots, but as his other opponent took off, Jessup realized that it had been Bjorn. The large man stood in the middle of a pile of bodies, glistening with blood, holding his two weapons, and glancing around furtively. His eyes rested on the deputy for just a moment, then he turned around and ran in the opposite direction, bellowing after those few creatures that had finally been wise enough to run away.
"Bjorn, wait!" sheriff Jessup called out. He started to run after him, but a call from his deputy made him freeze. John's voice sounding awfully choked.
The sheriff ran over to deputy Allenbeck just as he fell over. He knelt down beside him and looked him over. There was a bullet hole in his chest just under the left pectoral.
"Oh, man," Jessup said falteringly. "Oh, man, John. We need to get you to a doctor."
"I'll be fine," John said, then he coughed and winced. "As long as you get me to that doctor fast."
Sheriff Jessup picked him up and carried him through the trees out to the Range Rover. He carefully laid John on the backseat and told him to hold his hand over the wound. Then, he hopped into the driver's seat and took off toward town as fast as the vehicle would go.
Bjorn slowly opened his eyes. It was a difficult prospect, as they seemed to be almost glued together. He sat up and squinted into the light. He hurt all over and felt so weary still, but he knew he could not sleep here any more. He blinked down at his arms. They were caked with dry blood. In fact, every part of his body that was not numb with pain seemed to be cracked or sticky with the stuff. He seemed to vaguely remember that he had been chasing after something.
Gnolls.
Yes. It was coming back to him now. His mother. The sheriff's department. The gun. It was all so vague and hazy. He looked down at his hands and saw that one was wrapped tightly around his scythe. Yes, the faithful gnoll reaper.
Gnollreaper.
That seemed a fitting name for the farming implement turned weapon. Just like Hallbjorn was a fitting name for him. It was Scandinavian for 'Stone Bear'. A fitting name for a young man turned... Turned what? Vigilante? Barbarian?
Cop killer.
Bjorn suddenly felt sick. In the deep recesses of his memory he saw the face of deputy Allenbeck looking back at him, eyes wide, almost as wide as the hole in his chest.
"I didn't mean to," he explained to the grass. "I didn't realize they were there. I don't know how I didn't. I remember it, but...it's like I wasn't there. Like I was possessed..."
The grass offered him no sympathy. It just rippled nonjudgementally in the wind. Bjorn knew that the sheriff would not likely be so understanding. He had never heard of a real case where someone had killed a sheriff's deputy, but he had read about it in his comics as a kid. The suspect was prosecuted to the fullest extent of his neck.
Bjorn knew there was no way they would believe that he was possessed, by a demon or anything else. He had to get away. He had to leave the state. He had to move to a city somewhere and change his identity, blend in with the populace. There was nothing left here for him anyway. With a heavy heart and a guilty conscience, Bjorn started walking. He didn't care which direction he went, as long as it was away from town, away from his home, and away from the memories that would haunt him in his dreams for the rest of his life.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
You be the judge...
Ok, so it has been nearly a month since my last post. Despite my reassurances, I bet some of you were wondering if I had forgotten, or simply lost interest. I assure you that neither of those is true. What, then, have I been doing? Allow me to explain.
You may or may not believe this, but I love making work for myself. I know, I know, who doesn't? But by this I don't mean that I am not very wise and usually make decisions that delay or completely unlgue processes in progress. Well, I may be guilty of that sometimes, but when I say that I love making work for myself, what I mean is that I love creating things for me to do. This blog was one such thing. So was and is my book. So is the program I have been writing for the past three weeks.
Yes, for those of you who are even the slightest bit alert, you know that I have a degree in computer science. I acquired this degree with the intention of becoming a successful IT professional. I found out toward the end that my perceived love of programming was really rooted in my love of linguistics. I also found out that it is fairly difficult for a fresh computer science graduate to jump right into being successful.
So, one year away from graduating I thought, "Well, I've come too far to stop now." I've seen people quit college that close, and even closer, to graduating and wondered how they could possibly throw away all that hard work. And while I was convincing myself to trudge stoically through my senior level CS classes, I was voluntarily checking out volumes from the school library on such gripping subjects as "the origin of language" and "applied linguistics". While I was learning ultra-cool phrases like "labial dental fricatives" (which is not as suggestive as it sounds), my GPA was hovering somewhere around "help me"! See what I mean about making work for myself?
So, you would think that now that I'm out of school and working a mildly professional IT type job, despite the fact it is not what I am passionate about, I would never willingly write code in my spare time. Well, you would think...but you'd be wrong. See, I do like programming, but only when it's my own project. Programming is fun when you don't have a deadlines or strict corporate procedures to follow. Granted, those things can make for clean, efficient code, but they can be inhibitive to the creative process I believe is necessary to write truly useful and dynamic programs.
I believe a programmer is a kind of writer, especially when it is his passion. Programming is certainly useful to me in expressing my passion, but it in itself is something I am not passionate about. I shall elaborate.
As a writer I use language to express my creativity, but it is not my only outlet; I also create language. I am what as known in some circles as a "conlanger". A conlanger is a person who engages in the creation of a nonexistent language. The reasons anyone would do this are many and varied, but ultimately it comes down to entertainment. Even L.L. Zamenhof, who created Esperanto, was, I'm sure, entertained by the hope of everyone speaking his "international language". The reason I do it? Well, my aforementioned love of linguistics and writing figure heavily into it. It also helps to give depth to the races in my book. This idea is not unlike how J.R.R. Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings to create a backdrop where his Elvish languages flourished.
So, what does this have to do with programming? Well, as a conlanger, one of the most frustrating and tedious exercises is creating a lexicon (that's dictionary, for the laypeople). It has been said that, in order to have a language where one can communicate fully and comfortably, that language must have a lexicon of about 2,000 words. Yes, folks, coming up with a grammar is the easy part. You can flesh out the syntax of a constructed language in a couple of hours, but a 2,000 word vocabulary.
a..
abacus..
abase..
abash..
abbess..
abbey..
abbot..
abdicate...
Yeah...abdicate. I abdicate from writing this whole damn dictionary. Fortunately for those with short attention spans, like me, there are programs out there that will randomly generate a 2,000+ vocabulary for you in about two seconds. It's actually pretty easy to write a program that will string together a few random characters in mass quantities. What is not easy is making those random characters sound like they come from the same language.
The individual sounds we make when speaking are called phonemes. Within a specific language, speakers use a specific set of phonemes. The alveolar flap r in Spanish is a different phoneme from the retroflexed alveolar approximant r in English. Aside from this distinction, there are also syllabic patterns to be taken into consideration. Many languages follow some kind of alternating vowel/consonant pattern. There are some spelling rules that come into play as well. For example, hobzgodjh is not a likely English word, despite the fact it is not too phonemically different from the word hopscotch.
While this is a lot of stuff to think about, it still isn't too terribly difficult to write a program that will do it. Jeffrey Henning's Langmaker software is one such program. So, problem solved, right? Wrong. You really didn't think it would be that easy, did you? Here's the next problem, and this one's a doozy. Aside from phonemic consistency, when creating a lexicon you have to worry about morphemic consistency.
Ok...wow. Should I slow down?
A morpheme is the smallest unit in a language that still has meaning. Paragraphs are made up of sentences, sentences are made up of words, and words are made up of morphemes. Sometimes a morpheme is a whole word by itself, but other times it is a affix or inflection of some sort. Take the word portability. It's morphemes are: the root word port (as in to take from one place to another), the suffix -abil (a variation on -able), and the suffix -ity (indicating that the word is describing a quality). Morphemic consistency is a common property of language. There are few languages in which all words are roots that stand alone without modification by other morphemes.
It's pretty tough to write a program that will build morphemic consistency into a randomly generated lexicon. Let me show you what I mean.
What I would theoretically want a program to do:
What available programs will give me:
Now, I am making some assumptions about my fictional language for the sake of simplicity, but it helps illustrate the point. You might notice from the first example that the translations have some consistency. In the second example, the words might seem like they are based on a realistic phonology, but they are clearly completely random.
So, am I trying to write a program that will randomly generate a morphemically consistent lexicon? Well, I might consider it as a doctoral thesis when I go back to get my linguistics degree, but for now it's way more than I have the stamina for. Instead I am trying to develop a middle ground, lexical management solution if you will. It is a program that will help you generate your lexicon by hand and easily look up roots, morphemes, and related words while you do. It will tell you if the word you've just created is already in the lexicon and will even have the ability to randomly generate a word when you are out of inspiration.
Again, I say...I love making work for myself. I actually have all the data structures coded, I just need to work on the user interface. In the meantime I will keep plugging away. And for those of you who are afraid this distracts me from creative expression that is more accessible to those who appreciate literature instead of 1it3r4tur3, fear not. I am always writing...
You may or may not believe this, but I love making work for myself. I know, I know, who doesn't? But by this I don't mean that I am not very wise and usually make decisions that delay or completely unlgue processes in progress. Well, I may be guilty of that sometimes, but when I say that I love making work for myself, what I mean is that I love creating things for me to do. This blog was one such thing. So was and is my book. So is the program I have been writing for the past three weeks.
Yes, for those of you who are even the slightest bit alert, you know that I have a degree in computer science. I acquired this degree with the intention of becoming a successful IT professional. I found out toward the end that my perceived love of programming was really rooted in my love of linguistics. I also found out that it is fairly difficult for a fresh computer science graduate to jump right into being successful.
So, one year away from graduating I thought, "Well, I've come too far to stop now." I've seen people quit college that close, and even closer, to graduating and wondered how they could possibly throw away all that hard work. And while I was convincing myself to trudge stoically through my senior level CS classes, I was voluntarily checking out volumes from the school library on such gripping subjects as "the origin of language" and "applied linguistics". While I was learning ultra-cool phrases like "labial dental fricatives" (which is not as suggestive as it sounds), my GPA was hovering somewhere around "help me"! See what I mean about making work for myself?
So, you would think that now that I'm out of school and working a mildly professional IT type job, despite the fact it is not what I am passionate about, I would never willingly write code in my spare time. Well, you would think...but you'd be wrong. See, I do like programming, but only when it's my own project. Programming is fun when you don't have a deadlines or strict corporate procedures to follow. Granted, those things can make for clean, efficient code, but they can be inhibitive to the creative process I believe is necessary to write truly useful and dynamic programs.
I believe a programmer is a kind of writer, especially when it is his passion. Programming is certainly useful to me in expressing my passion, but it in itself is something I am not passionate about. I shall elaborate.
As a writer I use language to express my creativity, but it is not my only outlet; I also create language. I am what as known in some circles as a "conlanger". A conlanger is a person who engages in the creation of a nonexistent language. The reasons anyone would do this are many and varied, but ultimately it comes down to entertainment. Even L.L. Zamenhof, who created Esperanto, was, I'm sure, entertained by the hope of everyone speaking his "international language". The reason I do it? Well, my aforementioned love of linguistics and writing figure heavily into it. It also helps to give depth to the races in my book. This idea is not unlike how J.R.R. Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings to create a backdrop where his Elvish languages flourished.
So, what does this have to do with programming? Well, as a conlanger, one of the most frustrating and tedious exercises is creating a lexicon (that's dictionary, for the laypeople). It has been said that, in order to have a language where one can communicate fully and comfortably, that language must have a lexicon of about 2,000 words. Yes, folks, coming up with a grammar is the easy part. You can flesh out the syntax of a constructed language in a couple of hours, but a 2,000 word vocabulary.
a..
abacus..
abase..
abash..
abbess..
abbey..
abbot..
abdicate...
Yeah...abdicate. I abdicate from writing this whole damn dictionary. Fortunately for those with short attention spans, like me, there are programs out there that will randomly generate a 2,000+ vocabulary for you in about two seconds. It's actually pretty easy to write a program that will string together a few random characters in mass quantities. What is not easy is making those random characters sound like they come from the same language.
The individual sounds we make when speaking are called phonemes. Within a specific language, speakers use a specific set of phonemes. The alveolar flap r in Spanish is a different phoneme from the retroflexed alveolar approximant r in English. Aside from this distinction, there are also syllabic patterns to be taken into consideration. Many languages follow some kind of alternating vowel/consonant pattern. There are some spelling rules that come into play as well. For example, hobzgodjh is not a likely English word, despite the fact it is not too phonemically different from the word hopscotch.
While this is a lot of stuff to think about, it still isn't too terribly difficult to write a program that will do it. Jeffrey Henning's Langmaker software is one such program. So, problem solved, right? Wrong. You really didn't think it would be that easy, did you? Here's the next problem, and this one's a doozy. Aside from phonemic consistency, when creating a lexicon you have to worry about morphemic consistency.
Ok...wow. Should I slow down?
A morpheme is the smallest unit in a language that still has meaning. Paragraphs are made up of sentences, sentences are made up of words, and words are made up of morphemes. Sometimes a morpheme is a whole word by itself, but other times it is a affix or inflection of some sort. Take the word portability. It's morphemes are: the root word port (as in to take from one place to another), the suffix -abil (a variation on -able), and the suffix -ity (indicating that the word is describing a quality). Morphemic consistency is a common property of language. There are few languages in which all words are roots that stand alone without modification by other morphemes.
It's pretty tough to write a program that will build morphemic consistency into a randomly generated lexicon. Let me show you what I mean.
What I would theoretically want a program to do:
| English: | Fictional Language: |
| able | ila |
| ability | paula |
| port | aun |
| portable | la'aun |
| portability | paula'aun |
What available programs will give me:
| English: | Fictional Language: |
| able | anu |
| ability | hino |
| port | pa |
| portable | inefu |
| portability | nohanina |
Now, I am making some assumptions about my fictional language for the sake of simplicity, but it helps illustrate the point. You might notice from the first example that the translations have some consistency. In the second example, the words might seem like they are based on a realistic phonology, but they are clearly completely random.
So, am I trying to write a program that will randomly generate a morphemically consistent lexicon? Well, I might consider it as a doctoral thesis when I go back to get my linguistics degree, but for now it's way more than I have the stamina for. Instead I am trying to develop a middle ground, lexical management solution if you will. It is a program that will help you generate your lexicon by hand and easily look up roots, morphemes, and related words while you do. It will tell you if the word you've just created is already in the lexicon and will even have the ability to randomly generate a word when you are out of inspiration.
Again, I say...I love making work for myself. I actually have all the data structures coded, I just need to work on the user interface. In the meantime I will keep plugging away. And for those of you who are afraid this distracts me from creative expression that is more accessible to those who appreciate literature instead of 1it3r4tur3, fear not. I am always writing...
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