Vándr

She was from a place where the art of pain was cultivated, a clan of torturers.

He came for his brother, who was known to be in their compound. After a lengthy war, the northerns were victorious and they found his brother, barely breathing in one of the wagons. As the man hurried to free him, he sensed her. She didn’t attack; she just stepped out from the shadows; a flensing knife in her hand

“The Northerner has come for his kin. I am Yashira. Your brother was… an interesting subject. Resistant. It was a pleasure to map his thresholds.” Her words felt like a punch in the gut, a red haze started to to cloud his vision. His voice cracked like thunder “I will not kill you, but…. you will know the same pain you gave my brother”

She attacked but it was a choreographed attack, more of a dance than a battle. Her knife thrust out, aiming for the tendons of his wrist. The seasoned warrior swung the haft of his axe around to block, the steel of her knife scraping against the hard wood. But she was fast and weaved around his blows, her knife finding gaps in his heavy northern gear going for his joints, throat and face. She didn’t try to match his strength; she used his size and strength against him, forcing him to overextend, to stumble on the blood-slicked stones. She was not a warrior; she was a surgeon of pain and violence. “Your brother wept before he screamed. Will you?”

The mention of his brother was her big mistake. It should have made him angrier, but instead, it pierced the red haze. A clarity of sorts took over. He was not fighting a warrior; he was fighting a totally different kind of beast. Trying to kill her with a warrior’s blows was like trying to swat a fly with a war hammer. He needed to fight differently. He stopped, slamming the butt of his axe on the ground. Then spread his arms open, his chest heaving, seeming to offer a larger, open target. She paused, her eyes narrowing, her mind instinctively cataloging the new situation. It was a trick she didn’t understand. A Northerner doesn't yield. She lunged at him, aiming for his exposed throat.

That was what he waited for. He didn’t try to block the knife. He moved into the attack in a brutal, suicidal motion. His left hand shot out, ignoring the blade that sliced deep into his forearm, the sharp pain that came with it. His fingers closed around her knife-hand, his grip like iron. Bones ground together. Her eyes widened.

With his right hand, he didn’t reach for his axe. He reached for her, grabbing a fistful of her hair and her top and pulled her into him with the crushing force of a bear hug. He pinned her knife-hand between them, rendering it useless. He trapped her other arm against his side and wrapped his massive arms around her, her strength was nothing against the mountain of muscle and bone of a Torvaldsland raider.