LotS/The Story/The Saga of Drunken Ragnar/Fastfoodfight

Fast Food Fight

Crates flew this way and that. Dozens already lay strewn across the landing pad like corpses in the wake of a savage army's passage, victims of their bloody massacre. Some had broken open and disgorged their innards. Stuffed toys, cheap clothing, weapons, armor, candy bars... All these things and many others poured from within. Such was the fury of Ragnar, son of Ragnar. Svana lay on the ground and waited for the storm to pass.

"Sir! Put the crate down! I'll-"

The hulking Niflung turned to the man, who was clad in a security guard's armor. A pistol trembled in the guard's hand -- for he was no Niflung, but one of softer blood. Ragnar held a huge crate above his head as though he were Thor himself, ready to hurl it forth and crush an enemy's skull in the distant days when god fought giant. There was darkness in the warrior's foe-finders. There was darkness too around the guard's crotch. Perhaps the man saw himself smashed beneath the crate's weight, his blood smeared across the ground. He holstered his weapon, turned, and ran for all his legs were worth. Ragnar threw the crate, and let it smash in his wake.

"Ragnar!" the weaver cried. "Stop it!"

"Where's my axe?"

"I don't know! But you're not going to find it in these crates!"

He snorted. Yet there was wisdom in her words.

"You might have left it someplace last night. If we retrace your steps, maybe we could find it..."

"Fine! I'm going to Kebab Chaos."

Ragnar stomped away. Svana rose and pursued him, her word-axe clutched to her vomit-smeared chest.

"I'm coming with you!" She hurried alongside the hero, trying to match his great stride.

"I told your father I'd look after you. I can't do that while I'm smashing kebab shops."

"I don't need looking after! And I can help. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have this lead at all!"

Ragnar snorted. Yet no retort passed his lips.

"I need to get cleaned up first though. I can't go around like this! Is your ship here?"

"I landed on the other side of the city. But I know somewhere on the way to Kebab Chaos. You can get a shower and some new clothes there. But only if you're quick. If you take forever washing your hair, I'll go without you."

• • • 
      

"You look beautiful, dear!" The plump woman clapped her hands.

Ragnar grunted his approval and stared at the weaver's breasts -- true to his former words. This time they were not covered in vomit. Instead a mail bodice held them in its grasp.

Svana gazed down at her new outfit and sighed.

"I'm grateful. Really. But it's not exactly me..."

"I think you make a lovely valkyrie" the woman said. "But if you'd like to see the Arabian princess outfit again... Or maybe the panda suit?"

"We don't have time for this!" Ragnar said. He spoke the first words to Svana's chest, and the rest to her eyes. "We should be at Kebab Chaos!"

"Ragnar!" the woman exclaimed. "A nice girl like this deserves a better date than that..."

"It's not a date, Liz. If they did what I think they did, it'll be a bloodbath!"

"Oh. Then her outfit's perfect! That's real Niflung mail, you know. Some of the girls' clients are very picky about things being real. Well, not everything... But the outfits, anyway..."

"Great... So if anyone shoots or stabs me in the breasts, I'll be fine..." Svana sighed once more. "How much do I owe you?"

"On the house, love. Anything for a friend of Ragnar's!"

Svana gave her thanks. Then she and Ragnar ventured from the brothel, into the great happenings that awaited beyond.

"So..." the weaver said. Her fingers were poised above the word-axe as she spoke, ready to inscribe the hero's words into its electric memory so she might later weave it into his saga. "...how do you know Liz?"

"She had a pimp. Years ago. He used to hit her. Until I threw him off a building."

The weaver recorded the deed, that future generations would know of the doings of Ragnar, son of Ragnar. As her word-axe cleaved, her bosom chafed -- unused to the mail which adorned it. But she bore that discomfort with the strength and courage of a fashioner of sagas, willing to endure such things in the name of her tale.

Her mighty companion walked in silence. He stared at each man, woman, and child they passed -- as though believing that any of them might have stolen his foe-hewer. Svana feared he might grasp them and try to shake the truth from their heads, or else splatter their brains beneath his boot to join those still caked in its treads. But he did not, and the weaver was glad.

Yet violence was only delayed, not averted. For as they passed down streets and alleyways, the sounds of combat drew their ears -- the cries of warriors yelling in pain or exultation. Weaker men would have turned back from such things. But Ragnar only quickened his stride, until the weaver was forced to run to remain by his side. The noise grew louder as they neared their destination, and they found both kebabs and carnage in the same place. Such is the fate of warlike men.

Before them, on the other side of the road, was Kebab Chaos -- its name emblazed across a black sign in glowing red letters that consumed the entire width of the building's upper floor. It was a banner that had beckoned drunks by the dozen, and perhaps the son of Ragnar was among those whose drunken guts had been host to the sustenance it offered -- before it gushed forth in foul-smelling torrents on Svana. But now the sign did not look upon hungry drunks, nor upon people seeking a morning meal to carry them through the day. Instead it bore witness to bloody battle.

Two groups of uniformed warriors clashed, each comprised of both men and women, humans and aliens. One band wore the same red and black as the sign. The backs of their shirts bore the image of a hunk of cartoon donner meat with four slender limbs and big hands, feet, and bulging eyes. The other's members were clad in yellow-brown shalwar kameezes and turbans. These too bore a symbol on their backs, proclaiming their allegiance. Theirs showed a man of equally cartoonish proportions and palette to the anthropomorphic donner meat. He wore the same turban as they, though his was adorned with a huge diamond. He held a broad-bladed scimitar in each three-fingered hand, and his mouth was opened in a golden-toothed war cry which bespoke his readiness to use them.

No blasters flashed. Nor did slug-shooters bark. Instead the warriors fought with knives -- stabbing and slashing. It was as though some grim ritual combat took place before the weaver's eyes. As she looked on, a Snuuth's black shirt and fat gut were opened by a cruel cut. His intestines poured into the street as he tried in vain to pull them back. Nearby one of that Snuuth's fellows, a Vlarg, gained revenge by opening a shalwar-wearing Piscarian's throat.

Within the store, big windows revealed further blood and steel. More warriors struggled among the cheap plastic tables and chairs. A swarthy man stood behind the long counter and jabbed with a metal pole -- keeping his foes at bay like the defender of a greasy castle wall.

Other men and women besides Ragnar and Svana bore witness to this all. They stood around the melee, falling back like shifting tides when it seemed that the slaughter would stray in their direction. The weaver turned to one of these women.

"What's happening?" Svana asked.

"It's a franchise fight," the woman said. "The Curry Caliphate wants to turn this place into another Mega Masala."

Ragnar roared.

"These Kebab Chaos people can't answer my questions if they're dead!"

The hero's hand went to his belt once more. But again he could only growl when his grasp was denied its familiar grip on his foe-hewer's handle. So he charged empty-handed, his rage redoubled.

"Your friend should stay out of this!" the woman said. "Around here the fast-food workers are trained killers! They-"

Her voice gave way to openmouthed silence when the son of Ragnar grasped two of the Curry Caliphate's agents by their right hands, and drove each one's weapon into the other's body. Then he tossed them aside, and struck a shalwar-clad woman with a backhand from his head-smasher. The kenning was made reality, to the cost of her skull.

The remainder of the Caliphate's warriors in the street retreated from his path, scurrying away like rats before a fearsome hound. But in their cowardly haste, their terrified eyes saw only the dread hero. Their enemies' knives were forgotten, until they struck and drew both blood and life.

Those within Kebab Chaos still fought, not yet knowing that Niflung doom approached. But they knew soon.

Ragnar's foe-finders flashed this way and that. His head-smashers flailed where his gaze fell, scattering his enemies. Yet his pace never slowed, for all the violence he wrought. He crossed the restaurant, bashing his path through the melee, and sprang over the counter -- storming the bastion like a raider of old come to loot and pillage. The man who guarded the fastness fell aside and trembled. But the hero wasn't there to destroy him. He was there to seize a weapon.

A great hunk of meat, like an elephant's leg in shape, rotated upon an upright spit -- displaying sides from which long strips had been shaved. It glistened with grease, dripped with fat. It offered filled belly and ruined health, sated hunger and woeful illness. Such was the power of the donner kebab.

The Niflung hero grasped the thick metal pole and tore both spit and meat from their berth. With that great bludgeon in his hands, he leapt back over the counter -- and rained death upon his foes.

A Rylattu screamed. Then the heavy chunk of meat flattened his turban and broke his skull. A man screamed his battle cry -- "The Caliphate is great!" -- and leapt at the son and grandson of Ragnar. But the meat glistened. The pole flashed. The man fell to the floor and groaned, his stomach greasy and bruised from the great blow that had struck him. The meat rose and fell in the hero's hands. Blow after blow thudded against his head, until his brains flowed.

Like a raging inferno set by thoughtless hands and now consuming all in its path, Ragnar and his donner meat slew warrior after warrior.

"Donner meat is hard..." a woman gasped. Then she died, for her lungs had been crushed.

"Kebabs are dangerous..." a Vlarg said. Then he saw that his brains were beside his head, and he too died.

"Madras smash!" a burly Snuuth yelled. But his war cry died along with him, and he lay still -- grease and blood smeared into the ruins of his fat face.

Only when no warrior wearing a shalwar kameez drew breath did Ragnar toss the weapon aside and grunt. One of the men in red and black lifted the spit from the ground. Its great hunk of cooked flesh was smeared with blood, slathered with brains, and streaked with grime. He rubbed it against his apron before he passed it over the counter, where it was set back in place.

"You want donner?" the man behind the counter asked, when the weaver entered. He raised a whirring blade, and motioned towards the meat, miming the shaving of strips.

"No," Svana said.

Ragnar's foe-finders went from face to face -- for all the survivors in red and black were gathered there now, and they stared with awe carved deep into their countenances.

"I ate here last night!" the hero boomed. His voice was like the rumbling of thunder, or the trembling of earthquake. "Who served me?"

"Me!" A female Snuuth waved her hand in the air. "I remember you! No salad, triple meat, extra chili sauce. I had to wrap it in two naans to fit it all in!"

"No refunds!" the man behind the counter said. "You no like? No refund. You sick? No refund. You die? No refund. Is policy."

"He saved our lives!"

"Fine... Store credit. Make you new donner. You want donner?" Once more he motioned towards the spit.

"Did he kill anyone while he was here?" Svana asked.

"No." The Snuuth shook her head with great conviction. "That's the kind of thing I would have remembered."

"Did you put metal spiders in my kebab?" Ragnar asked.

"Metal spiders? I could see you were wasted, but I didn't know you were on chems! If you saw metal spiders, they weren't real."

"And what about my axe? Did I have it when I came in?"

"I didn't see one."

"Damn it!" he roared.

The employees backed away. The man behind the counter ducked from sight.

"If you've lost your axe," the Snuuth squeaked, "maybe you left it at Binary Beer."

"Binary Beer?" Eagerness overtook wrath on his face.

"That's where you were drinking, wasn't it? That's what you said last night..."