Page 109 of A Light So Blinding
“I do.”
“How do you do that?”
“I am Bjorn, son of Dag the Destroyer. I come from a long line of berserkers who have fought and won, no matter the pain or the cost. I watched my grandfather fight to his death, missing an arm. His blood coated all of his victims, and he refused to die until they all did.” Bjorn could almost taste metal on his tongue.He knew who he was, and what his line was. “I protect my people. I stand between them and torment. Even here.”
The guard slipped away, perhaps one of the first human men who had walked through an army of trolls and never once been touched. That was what his Astrid had done for this guard, and he could only hope she had picked the right person to do so.
The man could run to the other guards. He could tell them where they were. But Bjorn had a feeling this man wasn’t going to do that. He was going to take his money and run far, far away from this place.
“Come,” he said to the other trolls, knowing that the heat at his back was likely Ragnar. “Follow me.”
“What is the plan?” Ragnar asked.
“Kill every human in sight. Spare no one unless they are female. Otherwise, kill them all. Release every troll you see. Any humans in those cells? Leave them.”
He thought of the man who had been across from him, the human who had made comments about Astrid and who had made women cry when they were gifted to him.
Bjorn would love to tear that man apart with his claws. He would love to see his blood dripping from the walls of his cell, but he also knew leaving all of them there was death itself. Starvation took time. A long, horrible period of time.
Perhaps men like that deserved to wait and wonder why they hadn’t been freed. They deserved to panic, to fear what would become of them, to realize that no one was going to find them.
And then they deserved to die alone.
The first group of guards found the trolls almost as soon as they entered, and by that point Bjorn had already worked himself up to near berserk already. He could feel it pressing down on him, even though he knew it wasn’t yet time. He needed to guide the other trolls to the cages first.
So he held himself in check as they rushed toward the guards. None of those men stood a chance against the cleaving motion of his axe, nor did they seem to understand the danger they were in. Some of them must have recognized him, but they didn’t have time to even blink before he was on them.
Oh, it felt good to use this weapon again. Somewhere in this pit was his father’s axe, where it would remain buried as it should be. But he couldn’t deny it was far more pleasing to swing this weapon in both directions and slice heads from shoulders with every movement of his arms.
Soon enough, blood splattered the walls of the tunnel, and he turned the trolls into the hall where the cells were. There were many of them, though. That was the problem.
Breathing hard, he tried to speak though he knew it would be difficult. A berserker didn’t think. He wanted to fight, to make things bleed. He wanted to hear the cries of the dying begging for mercy that he would not give.
But he was still himself. He was still Bjorn.
For now.
He pointed to five of the splintering passages. “Each of these has warriors in it. Get them, and bring them to the armory.”
“Where is the armory?” Ragnar asked.
He... Shit, he hadn’t brought them to the armory. He was already losing his mind, and he couldn’t remember where the damn room was. Lips twisting around his tusks, he tried to remember the mental map he had built over the years.
But the walls were closing in on him. The smell of mud and blood only reminded him of all the things that had happened. He’d been little more than an animal in this hovel, and just being here made him feel the same. He needed Astrid’s cool touch to ground him. He needed the touch of his woman, who had always seen him as more than just a beast to be pointed in a direction and loosed until everything was dead.
One of the trolls moved past him into the hall, and his shoulder struck the light hanging from the ceiling. Unfortunately, that made it swing wildly, and all Bjorn could do was try to focus on the ground that seemed to be getting closer and closer.
He would not pass out. He was Bjorn the Destroyer.
No, he was just Bjorn. Bjorn, who wanted his family and friends to never fear that they would face the same horrors he had. He would not stand by while they had to suffer.
This place would be destroyed. He would honor his father’s memory in that sense, but he would never go too far. Not like Dag had.
“This way,” he growled, the words getting harder and harder to say.
Ragnar followed him as they both stalked down the lines of cells. There were fewer trolls than what he remembered. A sign that something terrible had happened here. He blamed the king, but of course he did. The king would need to put on much more complicated shows than he ever had before. He’d lost his favorite troll, the one everyone knew they could bet on. Losing Bjorn had likely cost the king an exorbitant amount of money.
He had his eye on one cell in particular. His stomach twisted on the way, though. What if something had happened? What if Rabbit was dead? All the questions bubbling in his mind came to a halt as he paused in front of the doorway to the man’s cell, who he might even call friend.
