Toad Tales
Which starts poorly, goes further down, but ends promisingly.
Disturbing nights
Even though the swirling mists of Winterfell hid the sky in the traditional manner, I came to notice that I was much aware of the the Moon in the nights following our visit to the Summer Lands of the Eotun and our farewell to one-eyed Grim. It bore down on me, disturbing my sleep in ways discomforting: lighting my dreams with shifting phantasms racing past, as I raced past them. Poor sleep takes a toll and in the few days remaining before Blot and ceremonies of renewal of the protections and boundaries that prevent such things, an aelf-shot struck me in the face.
One morning when I strode out from Lytel… ahem, Osgar’s hall and took a snort and a sharp sniff to clear my nose, daggers of cold stabbed into my head. It was as if nothing stood between the lining of my nose and a gust of freezing air bearing all the smells of the world. The sneezing fit that followed was so heroic that I was sad that none but a few beasts in the pen were present to bear witness.
With tears in my eyes and ringing in my ears it occurred to me that an amount of croaking, and aching joints, were close by in my future. So unsettled I was that I gave serious thought to broaching the flask of Lady Iduma’s fine mead, which nested in my bundle untouched, intended for the Blot celebrations. It would be a shame, I thought, were I to die of the aelf-inflicted winter-fever cough I feared was coming without tasting the mead, and if it should do me good, as the lady promised, then t’were foolish to deny myself. But the fit passed, others came into the yard and gave ‘Good Morning!’, the day moved on, and the thought forgotten.
A Disturbed Night
The nearness of Blot was also in Lytelman’s thegn thoughts, wisely for wights had only a few days of freedom left to wreak mischief. He was sure they would seek to try us again in the weakness of the year. He set us, his companions and sworn men alike, to join him in night watches and patrols of the palisade and enclosure around Gefnhame to face whatever wyrd and wight might bring.
For my own part thoughts of fever were not lost entirely, for my nose remained distressingly sensitive with a damp, even drip-wet, tip, a burning at the top behind my eyes and an occasional ear-popping making all about me too loud for a few moments before returning to more muffled normality. I was not unhappy, one night, to be invited to take the dawn watch with Eawulf the Thunor priest, thinking that if the fever came full on me I might have ready assistance at dawn itself though I wondered how I might persuade him this was battle-wound, save to blame the aelf.
An early night in the hall then, as all prepared for the night-duty. My sleep was untrammelled by dreams and omens even up to the moment a horn sounded outside the hall and broke my slumbers. In anticipation of such an alarm I was fully clothed, sleeping in light leather jerkin and trews, and took only moments to slip on boots, clap cap on head, and lift shield and spear from where they stood ready against the wall. Even so thegn Lytelm… Osgar was ahead of me – I dare say he slept in his boots in preparation – rushing out of the back door of the hall with the Sweon warriors Sven and Svipdag close behind him. Both were fully armed and neither held a horn so I supposed this must be soon after their watch, the horn sounded by the next pair out on a patrol likely by the hunter Herewulf the Bow, as his watch-brother Talorc the Tattooed didn’t seem a horn-man.
Behind me was Eawulf the priest, dark eye’d and stumbling from his poor sleep following his recent practice of sleeping in full armour, but then my experience of him is of a dedicated man who practices the mortification of the flesh to bring himself closer to an understanding of the gods’ burdens. After him Stigand, a warrior comrade of Lytelman’s ousting of the Witch of Gefnhame, recently returned from other business in the wider world.
Outside we were all given pause by the thickness of the fog. All was quiet, none responded to calls to the watchers so with a terse ‘Follow me’ Osg… Lytelman set out across the yard to investigate further, acting on Stigand’s recollection that the horn sounded as from the palisade ‘over that way…’. Earwulf and Stigand had thought to bring torches, though there was, for a foggy night, plenty of light I thought; the moon must have been bright somewhere above a ground fog. Shapes moved in the fog, but were only swirls, slow and lazy, picked out and given extra motion by the flickering of the torches. The fog stank, but that was just the developing winter wheeze festering at the back of my nose, more noticeable out here away from the smoke of the hall fire. Another swirl and a thought struck me. There could be anything out here and further, ‘Did anyone bar the door behind us?’ I asked out loud.
Eawulf and Stigand were last out, but neither had heard sound of the bar dropping as they joined the rest of us gathered around Lytelman. Concern for the hall servants gripped me, so I stopped and listened, hard, allowing our people to pass me by, trying to separate our thumping footfalls, rushing breath and creaking leather armour from any other noise of movement out in the fog. I choked for a moment on another, thicker wave of stinking fog and realised the stink wasn’t in my head, but in the fog itself.
‘Ware! There is something out there, and it’s getting close,’ I called. Then I distinguished the patter of incoming footfalls.
‘They are coming from the palisade, to front left,’ the stench increased, ‘lots of them’.
The fog swirled aside a moment to show a column of mere-men running for the hall apparently oblivious, in the fog, of Geat warriors just off to the side of their path.
‘Back to the hall!’ shouted Lytelman, giving the command as I would have there and then. But now I reflect on the way we followed it: for each of us younglings turned and ran a foot race with the mere-men, as individuals, leaving the thegn alone save for the two Sweons, experienced warriors who formed up with their commander as their first step towards obeying his order. As a result of the pell-mell return to the hall we were split, and engaged the mere-men piecemeal; not at all to our best advantage. Already concerned for the people remaining in the hall with a door wide open for anything to enter, I outdistanced mere-man and Geat alike and when no one answered my calls to bar the door from inside took defensive stand in the doorway. My back itched as I turned it to the dark hall; was some unknown danger already behind me? Wyrd alone knew, so I faced the mere-man rush as the clearer and more present danger.
Lytelman and the two Sweons engaged the mere-men at the rear of the column. Stigand and Eawulf, though just behind me, were caught in the open as their paths intersected the head of the column, soon abandoning their torches, fighting to close with each other and avoid engaging too many of the enemy at once. Stigand’s blows with saex and shield both knocked mere-men aside, but yet more arrived to replace them. The Thunor priest sought to bring the Friend of Man’s protections to bear, but could not free himself of foes to find breath free for prayer rather than parries.
Then arrived the mere-man Chieftain, with his mere-warrior guards; a giant among his kind. He ignored Lytelman’s line, where much slaughter was being done to mere-kind by Sweyn’s and Lytelman’s axes and Svipdag’s francas, as insignificant to his objective. The mere-chieftain had one goal in mind, the hall, and the thing that stood in his way was brave Stigand, uncowed by the monster’s size, sword, claws and ferocity, who stood his ground, the epitome of Geats, a shieldwall in himself, and smote it in the head as a warrior’s welcome to his enemy.
The mere-creatures were fully committed against us. At the hall door I had cast back their rush and wounded those that tried me, so they were queueing to take their turn as previous contenders stumbled aside. Stigand was toe-to-toe with the chieftain, halting its advance and so heroically holding the mere-folk’s momentum. The huge creature wrenched his shield aside with its claws and scathed him with its sword, but Stigand did not bow nor step aside. In desperate fighting Eawulf tried to protect Stigand’s flank from overlapping mere-guard, but there were too many foes for a two man shieldwall to last for more than moments before Eawulf must give it up, to make an attempt to bring the gods’ favour to our side of the battle, summoning heroic strength for himself. Even as he did so Stigand, seeing his wyrd coming upon him, released his shield into the mere-chief’s grasp, to the giant’s disconcertion, then smote with all his might once again, on the head, staggering and stunning the mere-chief with his final blow. Then he fell under the blades of the guards mere-men, as heroic a death as I have been privileged to see. Surely the gods will make room for him in their halls.
Lytelman, in a godly fury of battle rage brought about by the fall of his friend tore into the chieftain, his axe rising and falling on the monster, even as mere-guard struck ineffectively at him and even threw themselves at that axe in desperate attempts to impede him to defend their fallen chief.
A Toad the Hall
…And that was the last sight I had of the battle, for as I defended the hall entrance something seized me from behind and I was drawn back from the door up into the roof space, losing shield and spear as I bounced off the beams, to end with my left shoulder in the grinding jaws of a giant toad-wight which had its tongue tightly wrapped about my chest. Past the head and the gleaming eye focussed on me I could see a great hole in the thatch and out to fog that was the night sky, rolling past. Not a single moment did I pause to admire the view. I struggled, punched and kicked my way clear of the mouth, and fell for a breath-taking moment before the the tongue arrested me and drew me back up.
Sounds of battle continued outside, but they were not my priority. There were a number of journeys up to the wide, thin, lipless, crushing mouth and kicks and wriggles to escape, only to bounce between sky and earth on the limit afforded by the extended tongue. The thing was playing with me, I realised, looking up at the cruel eye regarding me. Sound and scent went away, sensation in crushed joints became distant and vision faded to grey and tunnel-like focus on the ensnaring tongue. My first impulse to grab it, swing up and bite my way free seemed impractical, but staring the creature in the eye, I willed it to relish just a few seconds more of my distress in my final moments. Its error was to have encircled only my chest, not my arms. Slowly I drew my secret saex-fang from my belt and raised it, carefully, up behind the tongue where it was shielded from the gloating eye above. And carefully, deliberately, sliced — then
fell
into
the
dark.
The Tell Tale Toad Tongue
I woke, after a while, with my left shoulder joint aching from the toad’s chewing and the right shoulder joint aching from landing on the hall floor from damn near the roof’s ridge-pole.
People were coming in outside, rather than mere-men, so it seemed we’d won this one. I told the tale of the toad, as laconically as I could for battle information; I pointed to the severed tongue lying on the floor where I fell as evidence, and the gape where the narrow smoke hole had
(Later I’ll spice it up a bit for the formal boasting: ”…I was drawn swiftly upwards, striking my head on a roofbeam passing by, until upon reaching the top I found my left shoulder jammed painfully into the toad’s mouth … at this point I may have I lost my presence of mind and cut through my sole means of support, neglecting to take a firm grip upon the upper portion…”. )
Eadgyth, daughter of Ecgfrith the Steward, came in carrying my spear. She’d picked it up when I dropped it and did good work with it at the doorway, keeping the mere-men out and even sallying out at the end to help mop up the remnants of the attack. A fine woman. Also appeared, Talorc and Herewulf, who’d not had their troubles to seek at the palisade, where they were attacked by merelings, hence the horn, and Herewulf disabled by blow-darts, hence the silence when we sallied. As far as I can tell when we compare stories all round they must have arrived, along with Nothgyth, on the far side of the fight when I was leaving roofward.
Eawulf used his god gifts to help relieve me of the injuries I’d suffered; mostly a severe gumming by the toad, and the subsequent fall. He advised rest overnight, then turned his attention to the toad tongue, though there it was not healing he proposed to the gods’ attention.
In the morning he cut runes of seeking into the meat. We all watched in amazement as the thing wriggled around so the tongue tip pointed toward the mountains. There was some confusion among us at this, for several expect that the tip of the tongue would point the direction to what we seek, that being the the rest of the toad and the mountains seem terrible toad territory. After much thoughtful beard-tugging we realised that the cut face of the meat would have the greatest affinity with its stump, in the toad’s mouth so there fore we were looking the wrong way. Sighting from tip to transection told the toad’s true territory: towards the valley floor marsh.
Having determined we were to pursue the toad through the instrument of its own treacherous tongue, Lytelman put on his commanding thegn manner and called for volunteers from the local people to guide us through the icy black pools and low, shifting islands of the place. Forth stepped Herefrith, a cousin of Saexbeorht the marsh-hunter, come visiting kin. Not a local Gefndener, but a warrior and a marshwiggle, familiar with similar marshy realms.
So with Herefrith as our, not quite a guide, more a marsh mentor and leaving Swein and Svipdag to hold Gefnhame secure with Nothgyth, we: Wistan, Lytelman, Eawulf, Herewulf and Talorc, trod the tussocks and tarns, toad-wards, swatted the occasional whirring mere-ling dart, and discouraged mere-ling attempts to drag us down to various watery or muddy dooms with their nets by timely spear thrusts. At the drawing in of the day we were, by Eawulf’s interpretation of the wriggling of the rune-marked organ, closing on the terminus of the tipless tongued toad’s trail.
With night coming upon us Lytelman had Herefrith find us a slightly less damp islet to rest the night, pending taking our toad to task. It was a dismal place in the dwindling light with only its few feet above the marsh level to recommend it. A single tree stood on the highest point at one side from where the island sloped back down onto black, black pools where the edge dissolved back into marsh. Still, there was enough room to set a small fire and for six to make camp, if two were standing watch.
On watch I was, with Herefrith, over the middle of the night. Though I had thought to take the highest feasible point as the best look out, standing on the tree’s roots, it took Herefrith’s warning shout of ‘Wistan, above you!’ to tell me something had silently crept up the tree behind me. Thanks to him I dived clear as a great white snake dropped from the tree. Eawulf was resting just below where I had been standing and was at the huge creature’s mercy, but its bite caught only his belt and tore away the bag holding the toad’s tongue, then the serpent slithered across the island to the dark waters of the surrounding slough. The size of the creature was its undoing. For though the head escaped with the bag, its tail was still in the tree even as Herefrith pinned the middle body to the ground with his spear. A rain of blows from wakened warriors, their marshal spirit raised by having their uneasy sleep disturbed, stilled the giant. It was hardly any surprise at all, given the attempt on the tongue bag, that the snake shrank in death to the form of a dead woman, tongue-bag clutched in her arms. The guiding tongue recovered, the shape changer’s body was consigned to the swamp’s waters, and the head to a different pool so we could be reasonably sure of the creature’s passing, at least for the while it would take to find its head again, which it did not do by dawn.
In daylight, when morning came, we saw we were indeed close to the edge of the marsh, as we had thought in the evening’s gloom. It seemed likely, from the rune-marked tongue’s motions, that our destination lay outside the marsh and so Herefrith led us to drier land nearby, which turned from connected islands to a continuous ridge clear of the marsh as we followed towards the land. At a point where a substantial stream flowed down across the ridge on its way to the marsh, the tongue’s turning indicated a wade up the stream bed was in order. The was was freezing, waist deep in the torrent and as well none slipped before we came to the dark spring whence the stream emerged. Wise Eawulf suspected that there might be a way though the waters and having previously displayed some affinity with the element led the way, ducking through with a length of rope trailing behind: one tug for ‘Follow me’, two for ‘Pull me back’ or a shortened end of rope floating back out would leave us to make our own choices.
On the single tug I followed Eawulf, into a cave well lit by a blue light from the waters about him, for he had summoned up some protective gift to scathe water wights and this was the sign of it. At the far side of the cave I could see a waterfall falling in from high above to fill the pool we were standing in, which bordered a higher, dryer ledge in front of the fall. The others came through one by one and none downed, to huddle within Eawulf’s protection, and complain about the poor light even as they blocked it with their own bodies. Or perhaps it was that standing in the light is no way to see into the dark, for stepping away from Eawulf, to make room as others crowded in, the cave was clear enough between the priestlight and scraps of daylight from somewhere high above the waterfall. While Eawulf and the surrounding clump shuffled forward carefully, I trusted to my spear butt to find unseen unevenness below the pool’s surface and easily stepped forward ahead of them. Well I took care, for what became the dry ledge rose steplike under the water, so forewarned by my simple care and honest spear I climbed out rather than trip and fall on my face.
A Toad in the Hole
As I set foot on the step the view changed. Reclining on a dais-like outcropping of rock was a naked woman, from the circumstances clearly of the sisterhood of the nicor. Her words claimed she wath pleathed to thee me again though her eyes told another story and from her lisp I reckoned we had met amongst the roofbeams of Gefnhame and she might bear me malice. She voithed a plaint about our band killing her family, her thister, her mother, and promithed vengeanth, while I found myself walking toward her unthinkingly, making argument that we only defended ourselves, and perhaps if we could agree to— then she leapt and though I thrust my spear into her I was struggling close with a giant toad once more, though thankfully no tongues and spear in hand this time, as we tumbled down into the pool. I felt again the grinding jaws, clamped on my thigh, and struggled to free myself. Talorc distracted her with keen blows and I was thus able to take the opportunity to fall from her mouth. It was a confused fight sometimes on, sometimes off the ledge. The nicor-toad tried to both to bite me and sit on me to drown me, I to stab it, while comrades blundered blindly around in the pool asking where the action was and which one was Wistan. I recall suggesting people strike at the biggest thing they could make out and I would trust to my wyrd. Talorc needed no such encouragement, probably did not understand my words anyway, but struck the creature again, so close to me that I too took a cut from his blade. (Be careful what you ask for…)
I was grateful when Lytelman resolved the dispute, with finality, when a blow from his axe severed the nicor-toad’s thigh, though he admitted later he was unsure just who or what he was striking. I was still grateful, mostly that it was the toad’s thigh.
Everyone else emerged from the pool, dripped on the once-drier ledge slab and complained about the gloom so much that Eawulf was forced to call his gift again to make an increased light, by which we poked around the limited space available, quickly finding the waterfall curtained a further cave chamber wherein were rock daises that perhaps bedded three nicor such as we had met, and such a treasure that we were unable to count it all.