Bloody Vengeance

Ginnivýð huddled, naked and shivering, in the middle of the tent, her once silky black hair hanging lank and damp down her back and sides.. The deed was done; the pirate captain was dead, slain by his own dagger and lust. She could still taste the metallic saltiness of his blood on her tongue, and she spat, wishing desperately that she had some good clean water with which to wash away the vileness, for she wanted nothing of the beast in her mouth. Outside, the sounds of his crew's merriment continued on unabated, their captain's last choking screams unheard over the clamor of drunken carousing and the crashing of the surf. Still seeking to gain control of her trembling and ragged breathing, Ginnivýð managed an almost-smile, really more a grim snarl of triumph, and considered what to do next.

Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes and tightened her grip on the captain's blood-covered dagger, striving to numb herself to the violent emotions surging through her violated body and mind. She clenched her teeth until her jaw ached, stifling the whimpers and sobs that attempted to burst out of her, and fed the shame and revulsion that threatened to overwhelm her into the furnace of her hate for these pirates and their captain, her father's slayers and her despoiler. After several long minutes, her breathing eased and a cold sense of calm came over her as an idea began to form in her mind. Her hand clutching the dagger relaxed slightly, and though a single tear rolled unnoticed down each of her cheeks, her eyes were focused and clear as she opened them.

She would have her vengeance. Sixty more lives would pay the blood-price for her noble father.

Ginnivýð stood slowly, her slender body sore and shaking from her abuse, and moved quietly by candlelight about the captain's tent, thankful that his reputation for disliking interruptions while having his women kept his crew from coming near while she covered herself as best she could and armed herself further with a spear from the captain's weapon hoard. Then she waited, listening to the drunken cacophony outside slowly dwindle away into the night sounds of the shore.

When at last it seemed the crew had all gone to their beds, Ginnivýð peered cautiously through the tent flap. Seeing but one sentry awake at the low-burning fire, his filthy and unkempt yellow hair bathed in moonlight as he sat with his back to her, she set down the spear and crept from the tent, using all the skill she had accumulated in eighteen years growing up in the cold, treacherous wastes of Icewall Glacier to remain silent. Coming behind the young raider, she almost gagged at the stale stench of him, but steadied herself as she reared back, then thrust the dagger with all her strength into the center of his back. The pirate sentry gasped, all the breath driven out of him at her thrust, and she wasted no time, drawing the dagger out and grasping the man by the hair to steady him before savagely slashing his throat. With her victim rendered unable to giving a warning cry, she released her grip on his hair and let him fall to bleed out on the sand.

Recovering her spear, Ginnivýð looked all around the beach on which the pirates had grounded their longship, knowing that they would have chosen a site near a stream, or river, or some other source of fresh water. A glint of moonlight of flowing water drew her attention to the west of the camp, and she strode to where a multitude of ever-dividing rivulets streamed down the sand to the surf. Following the water's flow up to the line of vegetation a few hundred paces south of the shore, she cast about the banks of the stream she found there, praying to the gods. Then, spying what she sought, she sighed and smiled cruelly in satisfaction.

In her youth, as a daughter of the famed Blackhammer clan of Icewall, she had had the finest tutors, among whom were some of the most knowledgeable Riverseers in all Hrafnawyld, and they had taught her much of the flora and fauna of the whole of the island, not just her glacial home. Thus did she know the look of a certain herb that grew along the riverbanks in much of Hrafnawyld, a bundle of which she gathered now, wearing leathern gauntlets taken from the captain's tent. Then she stole back to the camp, where the pirates' fire had died down to a bed of fragrant, glowing embers.

Ginnivýð sought out the various jugs, crocks, and barrels containing the pilfered wine and meade the raiders had accumulated during their many plunderings, wringing and squeezing some of the plant's juices from its thick stalks and shredding bits of its leaves into the drink, taking great care not to let any touch her skin. Silently she crept from vessel to vessel, adding her deadly herb to the pirates' stash, until none had been missed, then, after dragging the sentry's body into the captain's tent and kicking sand over the place where his blood had still stained the beach, she hid herself in the treeline with her dagger and spear.

As the sun rose the next morning, the pirates began to rise, slowly at first, then with greater vigor as the early-risers kicked their fellows awake. Just as Ginnivýð had hoped, the crew was accustomed to rising with a morning drink, and had soon begun to imbibe their meade copiously as they broke their fast. None was sparing in their consumption, she noted, and once more her smile was nearer to a snarl as she waited in anticipation.

The first men among the crew began clasping at their bellies, their faces contorted with pain, before the lot of them had even finished their meal. Some eyed their food with dark suspicion, but as more and more of them fell to the ground, their bodies writhing and spasming uncontrollably, only then did any of them think to examine the contents of their crocks and mugs with growing horror.

Ginnivýð watched them all as they collapsed, her expression frozen in a hate-filled grimace, then stalked forth from her concealment, spear and bloody dagger in hand. She moved among them without mercy or compassion, thrusting her spear through the chest of each man methodically, dancing back from any who sought to reach for her, whether to harm or to plead. Bleeding out and contorted in agony, they died on the beach beside their ill-gotten ship, Ginnivýð's cold gray eyes watching them dispassionately in their tortured final moments. As the last of the crew went still, she grounded her spear in the sand and set about work with her dagger.

The next morning, as smoke rose high into the air, Ginnivýð watched the approaching form of a longship grow larger as it entered the fjord, drawn to the plume. Her eyes were calm and her soot-stained face was expressionless as she stood balanced on the sidewall of the beached pirate ship, her ship now, her spear held loosely at her side. Her expression did not change, and she simply waited in silence, as the other boat drew nearer and she recognized it for the escort that had accompanied her and her father before a storm had separated them some days ago. On the shore some twenty paces from where her ship lay drawn up on the sand burned a great fire, fed by driftwood, the canvas from the captain's tent, and the bodies of some sixty-three pirates, every man of them gelded.

Turning her gaze from the approaching ship, she looked over her prize, her weregild for the theft of her father and of her youth, and said in a quiet monotone, “You shall be my bloody vengeance.” Then she stepped down and went to meet her rescuers.