The Woodwo and the Naiad (Part Three)

It came on again, and this time its razor tusks scored Oswulf’s arm as he rolled aside. Knife in hand, he stood, bleeding and uncertain what to do next. With a spear he might have had a chance against it, but a knife? 

The heavy snorts of his foe and Freya’s desperate pleas rushed at his ears. He looked at the animal that would kill him, and couldn’t help smiling with admiration. What a magnificent creature, this hunk of muscle and aggression.

It charged but he leapt away. Noticing how it took a little while to stop, turn and prepare the next charge, only a few heartbeats, if that, but he resolved to follow and use that precious time to attack next time.
Freya’s heart was clamped with ice, her guts squirmed as she saw this forest monster assault her dear heart once more. He was bleeding, and it terrified her, though she could do nothing; she had left her bow on the other side, and interfering now might distract Oswulf and cause his doom.

The ivory blades scythed towards her dear one, she watched him turn away, so nearly gored by them, and follow it as it ran on. He threw himself at it, slashing its hindquarters again and again. It squealed and reared, and he hacked at it more; thick welts of crimson spattered his face and chest.

The monster turned and threw him to the floor with a flick of its head. Though limping, it bore down upon him quickly, was above him as he scrabbled, tearing its tusks back and forth as he desperately tried to keep its head back, away from his flesh. It was too strong for him, he could not hold it.
The stinking breath of this pig overpowered his senses, its hide, its very being, stank. Blood dripped onto him, and trickled from the scratch on his arm; it was screaming from the wound and burning with the pressure of the pig. He knew that any minute his strength would give way, so he decided to gamble his last strength for victory.

With the remainder of his power he bellowed his war cry, Freya’s name, and she watched as with one hand he punched up into the chin, or throat of the monster, and with the other rammed his knife inside its mouth. It vomited blood onto him, spewing great bouts of the liquid on his face, squirming and squealing while he lay still and silent. 

Finally it too grew quiet, and sank onto him.

Freya couldn’t move. She was trembling, the last moments going round and round in her head, cutting her air and warmth. After a while, she dared to go closer. If only she’d taken her bow! She was cold. She wept, for Oswulf was like the grave, and bloody beneath the carcass.
In Freya’s mind flowed images of the past. Their meeting, their courting, their life together filled with so many moments and memories, so many smiles and so much happiness, cut short by this stinking swine.

She sat beside the corpse pile, her mind and body numb. How fickle fate was, to turn such a beautiful moment, a true jewel in their time, into this tear stained, blood spattered, orgy. Thoughts left her. Only grief remained. She stroked his face like she had done in the past, gently, the tenderness of a lover passing down from his brow to his cheek, to his chin. She wanted to see him, not from lust but love; she couldn’t let this rotten beast lie on top of her dear heart’s body. She resolved to move it, and heaved against the dead weight for what seemed like an age.

Eventually, it crashed to the ground, and as it did so, her heart was injected with a rush of hope, of joy, of bliss. It jumped so fiercely that it almost flew from her mouth, causing her to create some shocked, guttural sound, and when it landed it nearly stopped dead.
Oswulf had coughed, and his eyes were open. He looked dazed, but nothing else.
‘Freya.’ He said, smiling.