NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

Few things scare a man more than facing his death with the knowledge that not a damn thing can be done about it.

To many men, Norsemen on a raid are that fear made manifest.

Crowfeeder slips around a shield and splits a panicking man open. His friend screams as red blood sprays over his face. His trembling hands fall limp as he too feels Crowfeeder's bite.

Christians are soft. That is an objective fact.

A man's eyes bulge out as an iron-rimmed shield drives into his gut. Weapons clatter against the ground as Crowfeeder cleaves through shoulder-to-shoulder.

Another man leaps forward and quickly finds himself bereft of his arms. He barely has the time to register his loss before Crowfeeder dances across his stomach.

One of the raiders sprints ahead, a bloodthirsty crescent on his laughing face. An orthstirr-filled axe slays three men in a single powerful blow. The village defenders fall back, reaching the village square just in time to see their holdfast's gate open.

Christians are weak. That is also an objective fact.

The raider's head tumbles from his shoulders, his body following close behind.

But what many Norsemen fail to realize...

Well-polished armor worth many dozens of fortunes gleams in the sunlight. A sword longer than two arms flicks blood from its blade.

...Is that Christians are only weak if viewed through Norse eyes.

The sword plants itself in the middle of the village square. Armored gauntlets lay atop the pommel as eyes peer out from a dark metal mask. Long red plumage falls from the helmet and flows in the wind.

All Norsemen are cultivators and Christians are not. This means that when battle is met between Norse and Christian, the Christians lose.

However, to think that all Christians are little more than unrefined ore is objectively wrong.

While only a select few Christians practice cultivation, those chosen few do nothing *but* cultivate. While a Norsemen farms, Knights cultivate. While a Norseman fells trees, Knights cultivate. While a Norsemen prepares for a feast, Knights cultivate.

When battle is met between Norsemen and Knights, the Knights win.

Two Norsemen charge the Knight. Two Norsemen die.

It happens that fast.

One moment they're alive. The next they're not.

To survive a Knight is an impressive feat.

But to win? To not only beat a Knight, but kill one?

That alone is worthy of the Sagas.

In the blink of an eye, six more Norsemen meet their fated day.

Stigulf Kersson steps up next, but a age-worn hand on his shoulder holds him back.

An older man steps forward and the Knight quirks his head. There's something different about this raider, something... lethal.

Crowfeeder scratches a line in the dirt and the Knight watches intently as the raider assumes a fighting stance. The Knight points his sword at the raider, resting it on his elbow as he readies himself for combat of a different nature. The kind of combat that men like him die for.

The fight of a long-lived life. A fight that will end the long-lived life.

Heartbeats pass like a poor man's rations as the two warriors, paragons of their peoples, meet each the others gaze. Steel gray meets ice blue and neither are found wanting.

A leaf falls from the heavens, sent by some divine watcher with a penchant for bloodshed, and it floats and flutters through the air in a lackadaisical manner. Slow may be its descent, but by some unspoken agreement, both warriors know that their duel begins the moment it touches down.

Where beads of salty sweat might roll down the brow of lesser men, the brows of these two warriors are dry. Where the knobby knees of lesser men may shake and tremble, the legs of these two warriors are firm and steadfast.

Where lesser men may plead to their gods as their doom fast approaches, these two warriors have no need for such pithy measures. After all, men like them have already made peace with their deaths.

It is as inevitable as the floods that meltwater brings. One day, they will die.

This day, one shall die.

The leaf touches the ground.

All hell breaks loose.

Sparks shower the cobblestones as two titans of bloodshed clash iron against iron. Sparrowflight against Crowfeeder. Christian against Norseman. God against Gods.

Three sword strikes swing out in less time than it takes to close an eye. Each strike a picture of swordplay perfected. Each strike a display of an art long since mastered. Each strike, though cursory probes in nature, is as able to leave wounds as lethal as any committed blow.

Three sword strikes meet the perfectly positioned rim of an iron-bound shield. Each blow is deflected away by a minute change in posture, by the smallest of changes in how it was held.

From that briefest of exchanges, both warriors understand how this is going to end.

The Norseman was going to win, there was simply nothing the Knight could do that could alter that outcome. However, what was not so set in stone were the steps it would take to reach that outcome, the chain of events that would lead from A to Z.

As steel gray met ice blue once more, the conditions change just as quickly as they set. No longer was it a fight to see who would walk away. No longer was it a contest to see who was the better warrior.

Now, it was a race to achieve the lofty goal of most favorable outcome.

For the raider, it was to kill the Knight as quickly as possible, before he had an opportunity to pull off one of the acts of sacrifice his ilk are so famous for.

For the Knight, it was to do exactly that; make a martyr of himself.

Kin die, cattle die.

But one thing is certain;

Christians are weak.

But death is not their defeat.

0~0~0

AN: I know, I know, this isn't the Steinarr interlude you were looking for.

But it is pretty cool, I think.