Kehur painfully forced himself up onto his protruding legs. Using his spear as a crutch, he reached the spot where he had dropped his shield. A round piece of wood—coated in green paint and reinforced with steel edges—lay abandoned in the snow.
In an attempt to pick it up, Kehur's strength failed him and he collapsed to the ground once again, staining the whiteness around him red. Sparse snowflakes fell upon his many wounds. He lay there, breathing for a few moments, before raising himself into a sitting position. Streams of blood ran down his face and arms. He closed his eyes and smiled, savoring the moment of warmth provided by his own blood, while ignoring the piercing pain in his limbs.
He rose again using his spear, this time triumphantly holding his shield in his other hand. He surveyed the sea of corpses around him. Some had been his brothers; others, his sworn enemies. Regardless of who they had been, while alive they had all met a warrior's death. In the end, a warrior's death is what truly matters. The warriors of the North live to bestow it upon others.
Kehur blinked, his vision slightly blurring. "Probably from blood loss," he concluded. The nearest settlement was the fortified city of Vuknin, the center of their pillaging expedition, just a few hours' walk ahead. Behind him, five days' march away, lay his homeland: Svenbjorn—a cluster of villages and clans that, in times of peace, survived on fishing and hasty attempts to shatter the era of calm.
The northern warrior laughed and began to trudge forward. Step by step, the sole surviving combatant resolved to finish the campaign that his brothers had begun. That is, if he managed to survive until Vuknin. His vision blurred once more, and Kehur tilted to the side as if he were about to fall. Still, he maintained his balance and pressed on. He gritted his teeth in the blind stubbornness characteristic of only the finest warriors. He was mildly annoyed that he hadn't kept count of the people he had slain, but in the bloody melee that had erupted during the fight, blood hit his head and robbed him of the ability to count. After all, he knew he could only count to ten. With a shrug, Kehur spat blood into the snow and fell to his knees, releasing a final, desperate scream at life as it slipped away, before tumbling headlong into the snowy cover.
As if it had been waiting for that very moment, a storm rolled in from the sea. Thrilled by the outcome of the battle, it expressed its gratitude to the earth with thunder and lightning. Merging the storm with the snow beneath, a colossal apparition appeared. With a helmet of clouds and horns of lightning, this giant seemed unreal—as if it were an illusion or a trick of tortured eyes. The long sword he held was black and shrouded in storm clouds. His attire resembled that of fallen warriors, yet the lower one looked down his body, the paler it became. Below the creature's shins, there was nothing. The True God of war, Vuluj, had come to collect the souls of his fallen subjects.
Vuluj raised his sword high above his head and swung it. From the bodies of the fallen warriors, shadowy apparitions rose—slightly translucent and misty. A universal joy began as the souls beheld the god of war above them. The warriors who had been slaying one another now sang and danced together, rejoicing that they had all died a warrior's death. They knew what awaited them: an eternity of drunkenness, feasting, and pleasure with women, for that was a privilege reserved only for those granted a heroic death.
Vuluj then pointed the tip of his sword at the ground. From that spot, a massive wooden gate arose. The god of war nodded at the warriors in a gesture of respect, swept his cloak—which could cover an entire nation—around him, and strode toward the horizon along with the storm above.
The wooden gate, adorned with battle motifs, opened before the mass of the deceased, revealing an extraordinary sight. Instead of the gardens of paradise, taverns, or whatever the brave fighters had hoped to find, they saw the bottom of a chasm filled with warriors fighting one another. It did not seem as if there were any sides; everyone was attacking everyone else. Inhuman screams of triumphant victory and exultant defeat mingled, producing a sound worthy of the very throat of hell. The fallen warriors of Svenbjorn paused for only a second to survey the situation before their captain raised his double-headed axe and shouted in unison with the clamor behind the gate. The other fighters answered in kind, and a horde of fallen souls surged through the gates of hell and soon rejoined the unending war.
Yet, before the wooden gates could slam shut with a resounding clatter, one more opportunity managed to slip inside. Unlike the Viking-like style of dress favored by the northerners, the unknown interloper wore an attire similar to that of physicians from the southern end of the world. The main difference was its color—rather than the classic white-and-gold, this stranger wore a black-gray, fur-trimmed robe.
Ater quickly produced a pair of wax earplugs from his pocket and inserted them. He took a deep breath. "Much better," he said aloud, though his voice was soon drowned out by the sound of the Endless War. "Massacre, always massacre," Ater commented somewhat defiantly as he pushed his way through a throng that was busy killing one another. "Excuse me… Coming through… A little to the right, please…" he said politely as he passed.
A knight bearing the insignia of the Capital's guard fell at the feet of the Dark Physician. More precisely, his head did. The lifeless corpse that had once been his lay a few meters away. "Hey, hey… Sir! Yes, you, sir in black!" the severed head called out. Ater did not look back; he began to step over the severed head when, suddenly, the knight's head opened its mouth and lifted slightly. With one swift movement, it bit Ater on the ankle.
Confused, Ater picked the head up and placed it before him. The stranger's head and Ater found themselves eye to eye. "Good sir, doctor, would you be so kind as to return me to my body?" asked the knight-guard. Ater read his lips and gave a brief nod. "On your right side, roughly ten meters in that direc—" the head stopped speaking when Ater, like a discus thrower, hurled it from his shoulder in the indicated direction. Self-satisfied with his skill in tossing severed heads, he shook his hand free and continued to make his way through the melee.
Ater always felt quite secure in the Warrior's Paradise. Although they were dead, warriors from all continents recognized the medic's crest. Killing medics brings bad luck—that is a universally acknowledged fact.
After a few hours of walking, Ater was finally able to remove the wax from his ears. At that distance from the center of the battlefield, corpses lay scattered everywhere. Mountains, rivers, meadows—everything was covered with corpses. Ater pulled a thick, leather-bound book from his bag and opened it to a marked page. "The Flower of Enteop, better known as the Deliverance Poppy, is a rare specimen that sprouts on the corpses of souls in the Eternal War. For a soul to turn into a corpse, one of two criteria must be met: 1) the soul is slain by an angelic being, or 2) the soul loses the will to live, thereby severing its connection to existence and vanishing completely."
Ater bent down and produced a pair of scissors and gloves from his pocket. Incredibly gently, he grasped the flower with his gloved hands as he cut the stem with the scissors. He gathered everything into a small bundle which, once he had collected enough Enteop, he would tie up and stow away in one of the many inner pockets.
He raised his gaze. The gorge—greater than their world—had been the battlefield for the Eternal War. Ater fell into thought. _The existence of the gorge suggests that there is another world in which it exists. Do gods live in that world?_
"Too much thinking," Ater concluded as he replaced the wax in his ears. It was time to go back.
Ater stood in the center of a tangle of crossed arms, nervously drumming his fingers on his hip. "Where is any battle anymore? There's no way the world has just decided to usher in an era of peace just as I am about to go…" he grumbled.
One Viking looked up and, in a surge of mindless bloodlust, charged at the doctor. Ater stepped aside and extended his leg. The warrior stumbled and fell. The axe he had been clutching ended up lodged between his neck and the blood-soaked earth.
The severed head was caught in mid-air by the frustrated doctor. "Jesus, you idiot, from what god forsaken place do you come that you've never seen a doctor in your life? Huh? Are you blind? Can't you see the BIG RED cross on my back? Or did you miss the BIG RED cross on my chest? What of it?"
The Viking warrior had spent his last fifty years in this never-ending brawl, and now, for the first time since he had passed through the wooden gate, he was frightened. "I wasn't paying attention, you see…" he began to offer an excuse, sounding like a big, sulky child chided by his teacher.
"Not paying attention? NOT paying attention? Of course you weren't—if you were, you wouldn't be here now," Ater commented disdainfully, tossing the head behind him. In the direction where the head had landed, a new wooden gate rose.
"Finally," Ater said, slipping his hands into his pockets as he set off toward it. Depending on the scale of the battle, he might have to wait half an hour for all the fallen souls to pass before a space would free up for him. He didn't forget to kick the head of the Viking warrior who had tried to attack him—a kick accompanied by some choice Nordic swearing.
Ater leaned against the edge of the gate and, inquisitively peering through the gap, watched as the huge wooden doors opened by themselves. Instead of a horde of barbarians or a legion of knights on the other side, there stood only one small figure.
A child, no more than about ten years old, with two bloody knives—one in each hand—and a face swollen from tears, rushed through the gate.
"What in the actual fuc-? Oh, you're not gonna do that, damn it," Ater shouted, his words coming out choked, as he grabbed the child by the wrist and dragged him back into the world of the living.