The Last Berserker – read a free extract
This is a short extract from The Last Berserker, the first book (of five) of my Fire Born Viking series. The books are about berserkers (elite warriors, called Fire Born or Rekkr in this story, who fought with the frenzy of a wild animal in battle) and the 8th-century Northern European culture that surrounded them. This extract is the Prologue and – Warning! – it is rather violent, as are all five Fire Born books. Enjoy!
Prologue
The Rekkr shambled towards the village, the butt of the long-handled axe dragging a furrow in the sandy soil as it dangled from his bandaged hand. He hummed to himself as he approached the gate in the fence that surrounded the tiny settlement by the sea; a rhythmic four-note tune, repetitive, hypnotic – the vibration in his throat designed to suppress the frailty of his much wounded body and coax the Beast once more from its lair within his heart.
He was a huge man, his scarred face toad-ugly under a hacked fringe of greasy hair; his heavy shoulders made bulkier by the thick fur cloak that was draped over his back. The filth-matted fur vambraces, which protected both his forearms, made his upper limbs appear absurdly large, particularly when combined with the ropes of coiled muscle on display between shoulder and elbow. A soft leather loincloth and leather greaves, sewn with iron strips and strapped over a pair of heavy, iron-studded boots, completed his costume.
Fifty paces from the rickety gate, he hefted the axe on to his shoulder and broke into a lumbering trot, increasing to the full charge as he neared the wooden fence. The humming noise now rose in pitch and volume to become a terrible keening screech, then an open-throated, piss-curdling scream. At a full sprint, he threw his massive body against the collection of sun-faded sticks held together by thongs and hemp-twine, crunching through the gate and bursting out the other side, into the village itself, in a shower of debris.
The two gate-guards, village men armed with no more than fishing spears and wicker-shields, were already running by the time he had brushed the splinters from his fur-cloaked shoulders. The Rekkr threw back his head, lifted the axe high in both hands and roared with mingled rage and triumph.
Then he set to work.
He strode to the nearest house, a slumped hovel of wattle and daub, with a sagging turf roof. He ripped the leather curtain aside, swung low and sank his axe into the groin of a man who lunged out at him with a bait knife in hand. He booted the collapsing man’s body back into the cottage and, chuckling and calling out a jovial word of greeting, he followed it inside.
The air was ripped apart by the sounds of violence – shouts of anger first, then squelches and cracks, then screams of pain. Finally a woman’s voice pleading, begging, and a newborn bawling – both cut horribly short. The Rekkr emerged a few moments later, spattered all over with fresh gore, and now laughing like a donkey.
He shook the axe-head free of its slick coating, droplets scattering, and stumbled on into the heart of the village. A bitch, a big mongrel with a good deal of wolfhound in her, barked at him, and circled growling, sensing his evil. The Rekkr leapt, fast as a snake, and the animal was swatted away with an axe blow, half her ribs crushed. She staggered, and fell, whining.
A shield wall had formed, half way up the only street in the settlement. A dozen men, all the males of fighting age within the village. They huddled together, trembling pitifully, behind three big, round, blue-and-yellow painted lime-wood shields. A few wavering spears pointed in the Rekkr’s direction and five or six extended swords or long knives. The intruder loped eagerly towards them, gathering speed, chuckling merrily, and swinging the long bloody axe in ever wider loops around his huge shaggy head.
The shield wall fared no better than the frail gate. The Rekkr smashed straight through it; then, he hacked left and right, killing with practiced ease.
He took a sword thrust to his left side, the steel scraping over his naked ribs, but paid not the slightest heed – the Beast possessed him wholly now and he had no understanding of pain. The long axe hissed through the air and thunked into living flesh. Again. And again. Blood spattering in wider arcs, as the blade plunged into human meat and was swept back for another strike.
The five unwounded men of the shield wall now ran for their lives, scattering – and the Rekkr let them go. There were seven men curled on the bloody earth, coughing, bleeding, dying. He stamped on a twitching fellow’s head, crushing the skull like an egg under his massive iron-shod boot. Then, unexpectedly, the Rekkr stooped and picked up the dead man’s sword, an ancient one, but well made by a craftsman; he gave it a few trial swishes.
He smiled.
The Rekkr then set to work on the houses, zig-zagging across the street from one to another to make sure he did not overlook any potential victims. In each house, he kicked open the door, pushed inside and killed, sword in one hand, axe in the other. He slew the old, the young, women and infants. He dispatched livestock, even pets. He spitted a kitten on the point of his newfound sword, held it up in the air. He destroyed anything that breathed.
Slathered in gore, like a dread creature from a nightmare, or a man who’s been dipped in a brimming cauldron of blood, the Rekkr approached the last and biggest building in the village, a long house built of timbers.
The fur of his great-cloak was now utterly soaked; his vambraces were soggy and glistening red; of the heavy features of his filth-caked face, only his cold dead eyes could be distinguished and a glimpse of yellow teeth in his mad, almost jubilant smile. The survivors, no more than a dozen folk, mostly women and children, had gathered in the gable-ended long house and barricaded the heavy oak door with benches from around the walls. The Rekkr ignored the main entrance and went in straight through the east wall, easily hacking through rough wattle-and-daub exterior and thin inner planks with the axe. His fury and stamina were apparently endless, and he battered a man-size hole in a matter of moments, and burst through, skewering a doddering greybeard through the belly with the ancient sword and, with the axe in his other hand, hewing the neat, grey-combed head clean off a matron who tried to stab him in the belly with a roasting spit.
The rest of the inhabitants cowered by the long rectangular fire-trough in the centre of the hall, resigned to their fate, all except a young dark-haired boy, who charged at the Rekkr from the shadows, yelling shrilly, a sharp little eating knife in his hand. The Rekkr killed him with a sideways flick of the axe, a casual, almost friendly blow, which smashed the little boy’s right cheekbone into several pieces, driving the shards deep into his small skull.
The Rekkr loomed over the last few folk, huddled by the fire-trough, breathing from his exertions. He fixed on one of the girls, a pretty blonde.
“Freya, my sweet,” he said. The words were clogged in his throat, as if they were too large or too jagged to come out. “I have come . . . for you.”
Ends.
All five Fire Born books are available from Amazon as paperbacks, eBooks and audio books. Start with The Last Berserker (Fire Born 1) and end with Blood of the Bear (Fire Born 5). If you do enjoy the books, please leave a review on Amazon. It really helps to spread the word and encourages me to keep writing.