Rage, by Matt Gilbert

3851.CE 

The direfang, Draumsvak, grumbled with suppressed excitement. Rurik subtly pulled the reins and quelled its impatience. Like all his brothers and sisters, he despised demons. And dragons. The Varangur had a particular loathing reserved for the denizens of the hell-pit, and for anything with scales. Something visceral triggered inside him just thinking about them. Something murderous. 

Around him, chaos and carnage swirled. To his left, the Sons of Korgaan, Hearthguard from Ulfrskaal, chopped a path through a vast horde of lesser demons and their succubi cousins. Demon-gore slicked the hammers and axes of the Sons as they sought to break through to the true prize beyond: a chance to test themselves against the demonic berserkers now carelessly and brutally cutting their own path through the succubi to reach the tribesmen. The eventual meeting would not be for the faint of heart. In the morning, the bodies of the demons would have gone, dissipating in the night. 

Sleek tundra wolves and snow foxes streamed past him, snarling and howling. They used the bodies of the dead to propel themselves into the Nagarri – grotesque amalgams of muscled demon and serpent. Even as the first of these monstrosities fell to the jaws of the pack, a second and a third slithered in to sweep their massive blades of soul-tempered iron down and through the frenzied canines. 

Unleashed by its handlers, a lumbering cave-dweller roared and, as a parting gift for its freedom, turned  to eviscerate one of its former keepers. As the body slumped to the floor, the remaining keepers swore viciously and stabbed and jabbed the beast, goading it toward the abyssal snake-men. The dweller howled in indignation and then charged through flurries of snow, slamming into the Nagarri, and disappearing in a roiling mass of blood, fur, and scales. 

Freka had led her Pack Hunters to a small rise and now directed their arrows into the ranks of abyssals. Her Night Raiders, loosed as many missiles as they could into the mass of Flame Bearers moving towards them. They did not out-range them for long, and soon the grinning abyssals were returning crackling firebolts into the tribesmen to burn holes and melt flesh. As Freka’s group fell back under the firestorm, Khorveth the Mad led his pack of wild half-kin, exiles from Leith, into the fray, their void-touched steel scything through body and limb. The warrior runes tattooed on Khorveth’s arms flared red and his unhinged rage became manifest in a blur of destruction. 

As ice elementals, summoned by Ulfrskaal’s Ice Queen, the Magus Yrsa Stormveild – blasted deadly shards into a multitude of vicious hellhounds, Rurik found the challenge he sought through the raging bloodshed around him. Goraxidral was once a jabberwock, cursed and tortured by Korgaan, but had escaped and turned to the Wicked Ones in an act of spiteful and malicious revenge. Now of the Sixth Circle, Goraxidral was everything the Varangur hated most. Dragon and demon, fused into one abhorrent and diabolical monster. 

Rurik released his controlling grip on Draumsvak’s fur. The beast shook itself and stamped the icy ground. Rurik closed his eyes and made a silent pact with his god. The reaper’s mask-runes branded on his face seared into life, a gift from Korgaan. As he opened his eyes once more, they locked with those of Goraxidral, and the archfiend bellowed its unholy acceptance of the challenge. 

Draumsvak charged, and Rurik went to meet his fate. 

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