Contributed by: The White Wizard
This is something I have written as a lark after listening to some heavy metal music. It's also sort of a "proof of concept" for the writing style I am currently using, one that is in the third-person, an omniscient narrator and heavy in imagery. It is a fantasy piece, and somewhat violent, but not NSFW. The name itself stems from Old Norse, and means "Way of the Berserker"
The crows gather alongside the storms, as in the foothills below mountain peaks the men of Dunland prepare to die.
They shake free their hair from their customary braids and ponytails, and strip themselves of armor and treasure, standing naked in the skins of wolves and bears. As they don their funeral-coats, some already begin to show signs of the Bjornsarkirgang, the way of Bear's Skin. As one, they lift their steel to the sky and bellow their war-cries, coalescing into a fierce hymn of battle:
Thundergod!
Protect your champions for the battle ahead,
Grant us the strength to strike them all dead,
Giants ahead of us, Trolls are behind,
Only their death is what they will find!
Thundergod!
Steel needles and pins, red blood of sin,
Once our brethren, no longer our kin,
They are forgotten, they are the damned,
Corpses will flood Hel, its gate jammed!
Thundergod!
Hammer of Gods, the Giants sworn foe,
Look down on valleys, where giants do grow.
Raise your Mighty Hammer, let storms run wild,
Blood is your seed, Death is your child!
FOR THE THUNDERGOD!
At the last cry the voices begin to turn feral, words becoming snarls, bellows taking on the insane cry of animalistic fury. Froth runs at the mouth of many, and some are already swinging their weapons in wild arcs, snapping branches and hewing trees. The skins of man and animal merge, two becoming one, as all are overtaken by their chosen totem. Skin thickens, hardens, fur grows at an explosive rate, at first in patches, then as a wildfire merging into a thick, tangled forest across the bodies of crouching, loping, digitigrade fury. Their jaws aws snapping with new canines pushing through and sharp, filthy claws clutching bare and hardened steel
Finally there is only the snarl and fury of the animal. Whining, growling, as if straining against some unseen leash, they amble about, not directly fighting another but hostility barely held in check by a sense of common purpose.
The horde of Jotuns crest the ridge, and, seemingly, even their fearless frames are wracked by a momentary pang of fear, as the howling fury of men gone mad rushes into them like a dam bursting...
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