A Spear ripped through his iron-banded bear hide, ripping into his guts from the side, passing through clean, not leaving him impaled, as he had fallen back against the wall when the two charging groups crashed together in the luridly lit dark, illuminated only by the bobbing brand on his bison horn helmet.

Little Mud faces were skewered by long Mudder spears.

Long Mudder legs were bashed by Mud shields and slashed by Mud machetes.

His power remained in full bloom. He knew the gut stab was fatal, but that would not kill him until Night fell—after they fell.

He cut left with a pendulous hewing swing of the ax as he long-stepped between the two parting packs in the corridor—the space that their recoiling from friendly stabs in the sparklight had made for him to resume his grim work on the proper scale.

The axe sheared through a Mud shin, rising still as it carved in half a stout Mud thigh, rising still as the blood spattering head of the bearded axe ripped upward into a gore squirting ribcage. With two flopping on the floor in howling agonies and one gurgling out his life on the still rising axe head, Cull switch-stepped back, caving in the face of a dying foe and heaved the axe higher, hurling the gurgling dead man into the faces of the three Mudders who now each held two long black-bladed knives.

To his left shimmered a steel streak as his beard was sheared and his bear skin opened.

That runt took a hook to the balls and had them ripped off before he could back swing.

A shearing machete cut glanced from the steel bands of his axe arm, sending sparks up into his face, even as his mighty arm smashed backward with the axe, driving the dull back of the axe head through the splattering head as it flew into bloody gray, white and red chunks.

More came through the gory spray, blades licking in the sparklight.

A knife slid into his hook arm, paining him as the Mudder danced back, only to be split in twain from groin to breast bone with a tremendous upward cleave of The Axe Who Knew.

Slashing razors tore at his lightly armored hamstrings, bit into the back of his bison horn helmet, causing the brand in it to cast wavering shadows.

A swing of the axe at hip level as he turned away from the sundered Mudder and his two dancing companions, cleaved three Muds in half just below the breast, making a wonderful crunching sound.

I knife pierced the back of his hook arm, and, as he spun back toward the ever dancing Mudders, ripped, causing his own blood to begin filling up the stump guard.

But that very hook bit up into ball sack and held the knifer as The Axe Who Knew split the startled head in half and buried her beard in the blood-gushing neck stump.

The foe was finding their rhythm, as more blades licked at his back and helmet and heels, slowing him, paining him, weakening him.

Yet he cleaved the last Mudder in half from shoulder to hip, the fellow twitching in the dim sparklight, and gushing such gore that the face of Cull was showered in warm Mudder juice and the sparklight died as the firebrand in his helmed was blood doused.

A blade sheared off his bison horn in the dark, taking his ear with it.

A spear jammed into his knee, making it hard to shift his weight.

He hooked a head and smashed it against another, heaved them down in the dark.

She roared and felt dying flesh quiver around her darling beard, sensed splitting bones shivering on her haft.

His full battle fury was upon him and he lost all ability to recall, decide, feel, hear, care, or stop.

He lurched and chopped.

They leapt and died.

He lumbered and smashed.

They cringed, crumbled and fell.

He limped and hooked.

They squealed, wiggled and smelled.

He lived.

They died.

He cursed their monstrous mother.

They wailed for their “madre.”

On he walked, stiff-legged, bleeding, his belly seeping and stinking, his limp hook arm dripping and dragging.

There were more, She Knew!

Out into the burning dawn, with it cursed light to burden his work with the foe’s sight, he lumbered, snorting like a great bear, his nose making a hollow bellow because something was stuck in his throat, something that kept his battle roar from coming up from his speared guts.

Before him, in a hesitant, horror-eyed semicircle was massed. He would tell trek of his error in Hel. It was a slaughter band of over a hundred Muds, a hand of Mudders on each side, a hand of mighty bawling round-headed chiefs with their topknots swinging proudly on their shaven heads, and even a Papa. Chanting his onholy Hel shit from the big black codice of their brown kind, the Papa leading the pointy-toothed Mudders in a song of spell-weaving to entrance him.

The Axe Who Knew begged for release, was willing to abandon him to their many stabbing spears, ripping knives and slashing machetes.

She loved him no longer, his powers having seeped into the dank earth and with them his allure.

He wished not, wanted to cleave on, but knew better and let her go.

The Axe Who Knew, beautiful bloody beard shimmering luridly in the first light, whirled end over end, cleaving the blasted binder of spells and burring herself haft deep in the scrawny chest of the startled papa, the last of his mouthy kind, Cull did hope.

The roar of retribution rushed up from a hundred and more throats and he staggered toward them as they rushed, hook dragging, axe hand extended to grab a head whose face could be bitten off, any grisly trophy to take down to Hel to shove up her brown ass!

Cull shivered and choked on ten spears thrust through his war torn bear shirt from all angles, singing passed one another in the same wicked instant.

On his downward flight to Hel, he did feast, on the flat greasy face of some round-headed foe, unlucky enough to have been the last thing in this wretched world that Cull, Mud Slayer of the Nords, had managed to grasp with his holy axe hand.