A Vigil's Ending

Withered purple flowers whispered against the dark headstone.

A notched broadsword was driven into the frost-covered earth beside the grave.

Only five words, hastily hewn into the granite, made up the epitaph:

Otto Frydenlund

Husband, Father, Friend

A still, slight figure kneeled a few steps away.

A ragged breath, made visible by the cold, escaped Björn Frydenlund’s dry lips. His father’s heavy wooden roundshield was tightly belted to his handless forearm; the extremity had been lost in the same raid which claimed Otto’s life. Frigid tears adorned the young face.

The sun crept silently into the pinkening sky. One by one, the surrounding hills shrugged off the shadows to reveal clean white peaks and plateaus. The Frydenlund’s was the only hill not yet touched by snow.

The wind picked up and, like the hand of his father’s ghost, tousled Björn’s feathery hair. The furs and armor bound around his narrow frame kept out the cold well. They could do nothing to contain the blaze within.

Otto never wanted his children to be warriors.

Björn’s one fist clenched powerfully. A rivulet of dark blood ran from a cracked knuckle and dripped to the earth below, just as flecks of snow began to drift across the plateau.

This vigil was over.

The son of Otto Frydenlund rose to his feet. His bloody hand grasped the handle of his father’s blade. He would remind the world that no war song is more great and terrible than the one which follows a requiem.