Berserker Page XXI/ XVIII

Berserker

6,420 Words

In the seventeen years that I had been alive, no, in all the days that this kingdom has seen, no man or beast has fought as I have. For all the days that I have lived, there has been a sword at my side. Never was it the same sword, and rarely did I hold a shield, but it was always named the same.

I was Dante. And I was captain of the royal guard, a very exclusive group of knights. It was exclusive in that I was the only member. No other knight had taken the path that I took because no other knights thirst for blood as I do. I loved battles, and never lost in any battle or fight or brawl so long as I was participating.

In this time, I was known as a berserker: one who killed with reckless abandon, friend or foe. In any case, I allowed none to stand in my way. Some said that I was this way because there was a wolf present at my birth, so that I became a berserker at birth.

I am as I have told you. None may have called me friend on the battlefield as just a simple touch will send me to destroy you.

As I rose through the ranks to knighthood, I soon became a captain, with ten men under me, and then I moved up to twenty, then thirty.

I found myself standing idle at the back of the battle, my least favorite spot. My hair wasn’t tied back today; it hung loose at my shoulders, the black on my red and yellow tunic a stark contrast. I waited patiently, watching my men beat back the barbarians, often looking over their shoulders at me, checking to be sure that I was not behind them to do as I promised in battle, by shoving them into blows with their enemies and forcing them to fight harder. I felt pained, watching them. If I were just fighting, I would have no trouble, but here I was, waiting for the end to another battle that I have to oversee and watch.

By the end, we were a few men down, but a hundred spirits up. We had won, as we always did in those days, so we had no reason to take it seriously. I don’t even remember what we fought with the barbarians for we just did.

One does not rise through the ranks without a reputation, as I had made mine on winning battles. Always. No man would stand before me and speak with unwavering eye save the king and others of the court. Noblemen. I had been a peasant’s child and unfairly so, as I was faster, stronger than many nobles.

I made my report to the king, there in the center of the marbled courtroom on my knees. Knelt quietly before him. In soft tones I told him of our victory and rose, turning to go, but he called me back.

“Dante, it seems to me that you’re unhappy with this position after so long,” the king smiled softly. He’d always been kind to me, but often he misspoke himself. “Is there something you’d rather do?”

“My king, I…” I wasn’t much for talking in those days, so it took me a few moments. “I’m not happy to be a leader of men. I would rather walk the battlefield as my own man; I have no desire to watch battles waged,” I spoke softly, but I was too close to the king for him to mishear anything I said. Many in the court were making faces to one another, wondering what I was thinking.

“I’m sure there’s another job you could be doing for us, Sir Dante,”

- - - - - - - - - - Months passed, before the job was found.

That job when it came to fruition was to protect. That was the only other job I could do for the kingdom where Dante resided. It was almost like being alone again, like when I was younger, just traveling the woods and hunting, curious about the wolves, slaving away at the hunt and giving myself entirely to it.

My job entailed protecting the King’s daughter, the princess who spoke little, but spoke kindly when she did choose to speak so. Our county was at war, and here there were dangers all around. But still, the king’s daughter was a reckless one and understood little of these dangers, so it came to pass that she needed one guard to stand beside her. I, Dante, was the only one willing. I was a warrior and wished to remain so. No general was allowed to engage in direct combat, and I would be bound to diplomacy and keep myself above the war with hands clean.

The princess, as fate would have it was a whimsical girl who enjoyed long hours in the garden, which she had been denied since the war had escalated, so it was my duty to grant her that privilege.

We often sat for long hours there in the garden, in silence, unless she spoke, which she seldom stopped doing when she began, but my favorite part was the lack of silence, which I had thought I enjoyed. Apparently it was just the opposite.

“A yellow rose,” she said, softly plucking a rose from the ground and holding it up to me, closing one eye, so it probably looked as if I had a rose for a head. She offered it to me, careful of the thorns and smiled earnestly up at me. “Yellow roses mean friendship… You’re my friend, right, Sir Dante?” she asked, watching me for a reply.

I took the rose in my hand carefully and held it in the open palm of my hand for a while. “Friendship,” I repeated, looking back at her. “I’ve never had friends that I cared much for,” I admitted, nodding and smiling softly. “I’m happy to be your friend.”

So we had sat for long hours there in the garden, alone, so close but at the same time still painfully far away. Eventually, night fell and I walked the princess to her room, and then walked outside, making my way to the barracks. I was unable to be with her all the time, but found myself curiously sated, the hunger that fighting created in him full on the short walks they’d taken together.

Days went by, and each of them were filled by the sights sounds and smells of the garden, and the people that passed by. With slow and gentle pushes, the princess had pushed her way into his life and his wall, the one he had used to keep others away from him. She was the only friend I remember. Each day meant Lady Tara, and each day meant another yellow rose.

When she died, she’d been the only friend I had ever had that I could remember. I found myself standing above her torn body, my own body suddenly so full of despair as I held in my hands the head of the man who’d slain her; still in his hands, along with the rest of his body, dangling idly from a blow to the head.

He’d come with a knife, out of the bushes and the trees, and had cut her only once, but it’d been enough for him; he’d ripped at her as a lizard tearing a newborn chick from the nest. I held the head in my arms and felt the slice of a knife, the numbing pain before drawing his sword and carefully held it, poised above him, waiting. He stopped slicing and looked at me with fear in his eyes, the rank sweat of it. My mail clanked loudly and I brought it down quickly, making three successive cuts along his torso.

He screamed and guards came forth, yelling at their lost princess, and puzzled looks made their way to me, where I was abusing the body of the small man who’d managed to enter the castle. He was trying desperately to wriggle out of my grasp, his body flailing and the knife forgotten. I dropped him and brought the heel of my boot down on his chest, crushing the air out of his lungs. He gasped and fell back, his body arching against the pressure as I continued to push him down. It was a long moment before I realized what he’d been wearing. He had a red and yellow tunic, as did I. As did all the knights of the castle here.

Questions were asked of me, and I was thrown into a cell at the bowels of the castle, condemned for my failure, whether or not the cause was my lack of action or treachery. I accepted the terms, but only after I had slain the man and left my sword deep in him, driving it further and further in, until only the hilt was visible. I’d pinned him to the ground.

There in my rotten cell, I waited for several days before the king stood before me, his eyes alive with fury. I waited for him to speak. He’d brought the jester and his sparkling attire along with him, for some reason I could not recall. He was there, perhaps, to tell that joke again, of the carrot-topped man and his hair. A shame that I’d heard it a hundred times.

He berated me on my failure, the first I could ever recall and renounced my title, and all of my deeds, spitting on the ground contemptuously.

I made no move to reply but simply glanced up from the spot I’d been thrown into by the other knights. My eyes traveled to his spitting mouth, and shook my hair out of my eyes. He continued for a while and then stopped, waiting for me to look up. As a dog always will when his master was angry, I did.

“You may feel as though I am wrong, but I made myself clear. Your soul is bound to the princess, and she is dead. I take your soul, as penance, berserker and I will make you live forever. You will live in constant failure.”

The jester moved forward, and I snapped to attention, aware suddenly that he had grown in size exponentially, stretching and straightening, his back making a better posture and his cane stretching to accommodate him. In all my years, never had I seen a jester with so few jokes, but for a wizard, he’d been quite funny.

With the mottled cane, he waved and chanted. Everything to me became a blur, and I felt my insides being tugged by his power and strength. He tore at me without ever touching me. I could feel scars pulled apart like hot fire being poured over them and wounds opened being stretched. I was on my feet and I could feel my own body stretching and changing. I knew I would only last moments longer, but shortly, my body would cease to rock and would fall. I would know no more.

For what felt like ages, I could feel nothing and hear even less there on the cold floor of that cell, I was silent until I could see something in the dark that had been my slumber. A small yellow rose petal in the horizon of my mind, drifting in the wind. I wept for a long time. Of the eternity I felt, it was probably half the time I could feel despair. The world changed around me, this I knew for certain.

When I awoke, I was new. I was without the fear I’d had in life, and I could feel in me the wolf that I’d been born so near. I was still myself, and yet not. Perhaps the world was the same, and I was different. I’d find out soon, once the wizard’s magic waned and I was released from it. As battles had been fought, I had only chosen to win because I was on a side of it.

Now I was on no side of the war. Being treated like a dog had its effect on me. Now all I wanted was to bite my master after such a blow. I would do so because it pleased me to lash out, not because I wanted one kingdom to celebrate and another to grieve.

But for years, that wasn’t in the cards. I wasn’t a man anymore I was a simple hound. My ears perked up and I growled when guards passed, but I was no more than a dog, here because I lashed out at other dogs, they must have thought. I was no longer the fearsome warrior that they all feared and loathed. I was a dog to be spat upon and kicked.

The king took me out once a month to hunt; he sat there on his horse, watching me glower at his feet. I don’t know how I knew, he never spoke of it, but he knew just what to say to set me off. He knew I was no ordinary dog, and he also knew that I was no hound. It was apparent to him that I was the man who had failed him so spectacularly in the gardens.

After every hunt, he took me out to the garden and showed me the spot where his daughter had fallen and not risen again. The spot where the yellow roses grew and blood still stained the earth under the trees.

He talked often of how the court was failing, the kingdom falling as the numbers of our enemies grew and our allies fell in battle. I would bark in response, only earning from him a laugh. I showed him no emotion for this, but I knew within me that he was referring to all this as my fault. He was calling me selfish. I’d been selfish for not wanting to rise in the ranks of knighthood, I had stood my ground and remained a guard to his daughter. Selfish. Well that must be it, selfish.

It all changed one day. I don’t know how long it took. The routine took me easily, and I had no gauge for time as a man might have had. But I found myself sitting before the princess once more. She was there with me in the cell and I was staring up at her, my head cocked to one side.

“My sweet Dante,” her lips smiled at me as she put her arms around my furred collar and held me gently. She had no scent, but I knew for some reason, that she wasn’t any sort of mad dream. “My father has treated you badly, hasn’t he?”

I sat and nipped at her ear gently, tugging on it. Her response was to bury her hands in my fur and stroke it warmly, only to receive more licks and nips. She laughed as she must have laughed when I stared at the yellow rose in my hands.

“Yes, I know,” she said softly, her hands gripping my ears gently and tugging them a little. I nestled my nose against her shoulder and she stood, receiving a whine from me. “I’m sorry you’re like this, Dante,” she added, leaning down in her soft white dress to put a hand on my head. I perked up, curious. What could she be talking about?

“My father ordered my death so he could continue his war,” Tara said, sighing and sitting back down. “You were just caught up in the crossfire, but you killed my murderer in return, a better favor than I could have asked of you,” she said, hugging my furred collar again and I perked up, my ears flattening against my head. She nodded. “But I have one more. You, Dante, my best friend… I want you to kill my father.” She said, holding me away and looking into my eyes. I stared into hers and I felt the change again, and cried out, but no more was I able to bark when trying to speak out. I screamed out for a long moment as a man.

“Princess…” I breathed. “Tara.” She was gone, but the cell door hung open and I felt around. On me, there was only the ring-mail that covered my torso and one arm, my left, shield arm and the tunic and leggings I had been changed to a dog in. I clinked to my feet and stretched, shaking my head free from nausea, swinging from side to side a little less manly, a little like a dog, but the feeling passed.

I had left this cage a hundred times as a dog, only after arriving as a man. But I was not going to leave as a man ever again.

No more was I a simple royal guard, or even a knight, but now I was the berserker, and I had a vendetta; I wanted my king dead. I was a stray dog. I remained now and again, the Berserker.