Arrow's Rest by Joel Scott (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

with a ruffled dress shirt and thin slacks. The strip of skin sliced by the old man’s knife had peeled down across his forehead baring the bone beneath and he pushed it back up and tightened the cummerbund around it again. It wouldn’t stay in place and the skin fell back once more and he left it as it lay, peering out from under it, and tied the cummerbund around his neck. His shoes had disappeared somewhere along the way and his feet were bleeding through the thin silk ankle socks.

Albright was bone-weary from his long ordeal but dared not rest. If he fell asleep, he would not wake. He had no matches to start a fire with and knew he would die from cold and exposure before the night was over. He tripped and fell in the dark and hauled himself up again. His leg was swollen and purple where the wolf had bitten him and taken out a chunk of meat the size of a quarter pounder. He’d wrapped the wound in moss and tied his suspenders around it as tight as he could. It stopped the bleeding, but now the leg was numb and unreliable and without the rude crutch he’d fashioned from a branch he would have been helpless. If only the eternal night would end. He knew he must be heading north towards the base of the mountain; the inlet was on his left, revealed by an occasional gleam through the trees. Once, he’d tumbled down the low bank and fallen into the water before he managed to crawl back out again.

He sensed the sky was beginning to lighten and daybreak was not far distant, although he had no idea of the time or how long he’d been in the water. His biggest regret was being denied the battle with the giant Englishman. To have that epic dish set out in front of him and then taken away again was heartbreaking. It was so close he could almost taste it, the man was just a few feet off and then he was snatched away at the last second and his destiny denied. Could the giant wolf have been a signal from the gods? Was it Fenrir driving him over the side and into the water towards a greater battle, a more glorious destiny? It must be. He felt it in his marrow and it comforted him.

He began to sing, roaring out Wagnerian rhythms as he limped along. It was astounding, magnificent, primeval; the original force of nature. And he was the gods’ chosen one. He broke into the final glorious verse, his injuries forgotten, limping forward with his chest thrust out and shoulders thrown back, blood streaming down his brow as he stepped over and around the logs strewn on the beach in scattered jumbles.

Several of them were stacked up high across his path and he used the crutch to lever himself up and over them, his face incarnadine, his voice roaring out the paean to wild nature and primitive man. Suddenly a big-breasted flaxen-haired woman jumped up in front of him at the same moment his makeshift crutch slipped and he tumbled headlong down inside the blind. He looked up in awe at the magnificent fashioning of the gods. His eyes teared. It was Brunhilde. A true big-breasted blue-eyed Aryan blonde with long braided pigtails streaming down her back.

“Shhh, be quiet, you idiot, you’ll scare them,” she hissed, and Albright reached up and squeezed her breasts and screamed “Yes” as his manifest destiny enfolded him. He had reached his final destination here in the valley of the gods, and Brunhilde was waiting for him. How could he have ever doubted? He was Siegfried, and he was the chosen one. Chords from “Ride of the Valkyries” crashed through his mind.

And then a small person in a fur-trimmed leather coat and lederhosen and an alpine hat with a feather in it sprang up from beside her. One of the hammering dwarves. He saw the brow flap fallen, the bare bone and mad eyes beneath, the blood streaming down the crazy man’s face.

“Mein Gott,” the dwarf said.

“Jawohl,” Albright said, and struck him senseless with the crutch. He took the man’s coat from him, he was shaking from excitement and the cold now. It was barely half his size and he threw it aside in disgust. His golden-tressed woman stared at him, open mouthed. Albright grinned at her and rolled his eyes. They would mate now and she would warm him. He took a step towards her but suddenly he heard the magic ravens of Odin croaking and scolding in the distance. Huginn and Muninn were summoning him. He turned towards the noise and squinted under the fallen flap of skin. The blood was running freely from his last fall and blurred his vision but he could see now that there were more dwarves spread out along the beach. At least a half dozen and none of them much over four feet tall. And the gods be praised. All of them were wearing fur coats. Perfect. Brunhilde would sew them together for him.

Albright tried to sneak up on them but his damaged leg betrayed him and he stumbled over the logs and crashed down once again. He cursed under his breath, but the nearest dwarf didn’t move, he hadn’t heard him fall. He pushed himself to his feet again and limped forward, holding his breath in anticipation, concentrating on moving silently as he closed the distance. He couldn’t run with his bad leg and would have to creep up to get close enough to finish him. The dwarves were dim-witted, but they were fast. This one was hunched over and poking at something now, grunting like an animal. He was short, all right, but damned broad in the beam and Albright thought his fur coat would fit him just fine. He was warmer already with just the thought of it. And then the dwarf stood up and moved