Wötan: The Untold Story – Short Snippet

(…) Lying on the ground in pain, Wötan looked around. From where he was, all he could see were Frankish horsemen, wielding shields with the Frankish insignia. Wherever he looked, there they were. Demons. Four-legged ghosts, half-men, half-animal. Monsters from the North, bringing death and destruction to this land. To this people. HIS people. Wherever he looked, the bodies filled up the battlefield. His countrymen. His brothers. Blood of his blood. All because of him, because of his stupid pride.

Perhaps they could’ve stayed in the Kingdom, locked behind gates. They had enough resources to perhaps survive the sieging of their lands. They had enough archers to perhaps fend them off. But he convinced them going to war and preventing such siege was the best thing to do. Driven by his own selfish desires and dreams of immortality, he convinced them to follow him to an unwinnable war. He led his countrymen, his brothers, to their death. He had their blood on his hands.

The Oracle… the Oracle was wrong. The Oracle said he would return victorious… yet there he was, hurt, demoralized and alone. Everything had changed. How could he go on?

Wötan, for the first time in his life, felt utterly defeated. The mightiest warrior these lands had ever produced, completely helpless. His body was hurt yet not disabled. His spirit, though, was on the very verge of breaking. But in that sweet moment, he found a glimpse of peace. He had lived by the warrior code, abided the code and now he could die by the code. He had bled with his brothers and had bled for them.

Wötan closed his eyes. He could now accept the sweet embrace of death. His mind was not on the Twin Peaks anymore. His mind wandered freely back to the Unghur kingdom: his wife, swinging her own sword for the first time. The first time he heard her sing. Her first archery tournament. His memories shifted then to Gundahar. His first monthly ritual. His first vision. The first time they went boar hunting. The first spear he ever gave him. The forging of the Eisenspeer.

And it was Gundahar’s voice what brought him back to reality from his trance. Wötan opened his eyes and here he was: his mentor, his father-by-adoption. Gundahar the Elder was there by his side, mounted on a Frankish horse, screaming his name. (…)