The Lung Hammer

Urda adored her Theology studies and  Karlsjorg was the perfect University for a young woman to pursue her dream in the otherwise male world of boy prelates.

Gas lighting had just been installed in the streets around the halls, including where Urda resided with two other girls, Vera and Skua on the course and all three had never been away from home before. 

Renowned for their purity, they had been sponsored by the Bishops of three different forest cities across Denmark, a tremendous privilege for a female student in the patriarchal system.

Destined to be fated by great honours, the three girls were exceptional. Adroit, disciplined, bright and spiritual. These were the qualities seen in their home towns and now greatly admired by their professor, Skratti, in the seminary, perhaps too greatly. He had personally vetted their applications ensuring that they retained their innocence. 

Skratti had been teaching Theology since the greater dioceses of Karlsjorg and Vik had merged to form the new school of sacred studies within the ancient university. 

The school embraced new ideas about destiny, fate, God and Man's place in the universe, combining innovations in physics and anatomy with advanced Bible teachings and world religions. Professor Skratt was a world authority on the old magic of the Norsemen and was reputed to have himself a pure Viking lineage.

Urda greatly respected her prof, as did Vera and Skua, her two compatriots and they often took seminars together in his rooms, a panopticon of religious tomes and objects from Scandinavia and around the globe.

On top of one the cupboards was a large glass cabinet containing what appeared to be a huge mallet.

What's this Professor?

Urda was fascinated by the all norse artefacts and this appeared to be positioned above all of them. 

That my dear is the Lungnahamarr or Lung Hammer, an ancient weapon of death and destruction and the direct antithesis of Thor's creationist Mjölnir. It is said to have slaughtered more human beings than any other single object in history and that their ravaged souls are trapped inside, only to be freed by the taking and sacrifice of the virgin three.

Good Lord, it sounds horrible! Why have you got it Professor?

Well, it forms an important part of my studies and is at the centre of my occultist treatise on imprisoned spirits and the belief that freeing them would imbue great power, power to become a demi-god and enslave the Fates, the irksome Nonner.

Ah, the Nonner. I see. Is it part of our studies too?

I'm afraid not my dear . The University expects it's esteemed scholars such as myself to publish and this will be my own personal master stroke, once it is completed.

Well, your humble students are here to serve you Professor should you need our help.

The three girls all nodded.

I may just yet my dears, I may just yet.

Life in Karsljorg for the girls was a pleasant carousel of studying at the school, living and praying together in the Halls and occasionally venturing out into town to watch a play or enjoy each other's company in a coffeehouse.

It was in one such establishment that the girls first met Jens, a young man from the college of chemistry, which abutted the Theology school as it turned out.

Chemicals are the future girls! Not some stuffy old creed!

Jens had a magnetically amiable personality and despite his irreligious views his heart was generous and the four immediately hit it off.

They met as a group more and more and could be found laughing and joking together in all the best student coffeeshops in the town. 

So amicable were they that other students regularly tagged along to be part of the infectious camaraderie of this handsome quartet.  

One such was a boy, Sigur, who was over at the school of surgery and he became great friends with the girls, for whom he had a genuine bond and Jens as well. Jens often lent Sigur clothes, as his own were continually smeared in blood from the anatomy classes he attended every week and he was always late handing them in for cleaning.

The three girls' studies progressed well and the Professor was pleased with their advancement through their freshman year. He also attempted to guide them spiritually and ensured they followed the righteous path of theologians and lived up to the expectations of their respective Bishops. To be successful in theology was to be chaste, the doorways of sin kept firmly shut until the day of destiny and salvation. 

And so the years passed and the three female scholars exceeded all the yardsticks of achievement at the school and were close to graduating as true theologians. Only the final rite of passage remained, which the Professor, revealing nothing of it's content, said he would oversee personally.

So to the friendship between Jens and the three had flourished, as had Sigur and Jens, who continued to lend his blood-stained friend all his clothes.

Jens in particular was admired by Urda and her feelings towards him veered from the purely platonic to what she came to realise where physical, the first she had ever experienced as she, like her two friends had remained virginal throughout their paths to piety.

News of these university friendships had travelled from the coffeeshops of Karsljorg to the ears of Professor Skratti in their second year of study and receiving updates from trusted followers he had remained largely unworried until now.

Word had come to him that Jens and the girl Urda had been seen embracing and kissing by the sheds behind the school of Chemistry and that they had promised to seal their affection for each other the following night. 

The next afternoon, Skratti, keen for his wards to retain their chastity till the very end, followed whom he thought was Jens to the school of surgery, where he secretly attended one of the anatomical lectures to keep an eye on the wayward boy and correct the errors of his ways.

At the end of the lecture the cadaver was taken away, the gurney washed down and the Professor quickly went over to the boy and cornered him in an ante-chamber, where he deftly applied a chloroform cloth over his mouth.

The boy awoke shortly after tied down on the gurney. 

Skratti was dressed in the extravagant garb of a high Viking sorcerer. Beside him opon a silver tray lay a scalpel, a bone saw and a huge mallet, the Lung Hammer taken from his rooms.

The boy struggled. He was dazed and frightened.

What are you doing? 

Skratti remained silent until he began to cut into the boy's skin at the navel and continued upwards with the razor sharp scalpel until he reached the windpipe, all the while the boy screaming in utter agony and blood welling up out of the long bubbling slit.

Next the professor took the bone saw and to the complete terror of the young man began to saw through his breastplate. The boy shrieked in agony, but it was already evening and the anatomy hall was empty. His wails went unheard and ultimately, as Skratti grasped the the two edges of his rib cage, pulling them apart like cupboard doors, the boy made no more sounds at all except a weak gurgling noise as blood gathered thickly in his throat.

It was the professor who now spoke. 

He mumbled incantations in Norse, the occasional reference to Odin and Loki audible had anyone been present and proceeded to the climax of his belly blood eagle.

Smiling, he took hold of the boys' lungs and viciously ripped them from their sinewy roots and placed them, two bleeding white bags of air, between the splayed legs of the boy's twitching body.

Skratti now lifted his Lung Hammer and brought it down violently, first on one sac and then the other, completely flattening the boy's lungs until they resembled two pancakes of blood and skin.

Satisfied with the result of the ceremony and the dispatch of his only carnal rival he removed his Norse attire and wheeled the body to the school incinerator, which burned night and day and tipped it in.

That night Skratti summoned the three girls to his quarters to administer their final rite of passage.

As they walked in, he slowly worked his hand up and down the handle of his Lung Hammer, his face clearly reddening with vigour.

Your hammer has something on it Professor.

Ah, a little wetness my dear, to be expected in Karsljorg's damp air.

The professor bade them sit and explained that the final stage of their rise to true theology was his examination of them both inside and out, to ensure they were spiritually and physically intact.

To this end they needed to remove their clothes and he himself must wear the noble garb of his high office.

Professor, your dressed as a viking warlock and holding your hammer.

These are the ancient robes and symbols of the true theologians my dears.

He lied and dreaming of his coming godhead, bade them recline naked on his scatter cushions.

The excited Skratti let his engorged member sway before them.

I must confirm your continued chastity my dears and also end it as has been foretold. Your penetration will seal my destiny and your hammering my place in Asgard.

But professor, we have already lost our virginity.

What? Nonsense!

All three of us pledged our love to Jens tonight and his insatiable lust took us one after the other.

The trio of girls lay smiling.

Impossible! I killed Jens but two hours ago!

That wasn't Jens Professor, that was our faithful familiar and dear friend Sigur.

But he was dressed as Jens!

Yes, dressed, but that was all. 

How dare you make me look foolish this way! Who the hell do you think you are tinkering with my god-given destiny you simpering harlots! 

But it isn't your destiny Skratti, not at all. Your fate is altogether more horrible I'm afraid.

Urda had stood by now and grasped the old man's scrotum and squeezed tightly.

Skratti screamed.

Vera and Skua joined Urda in the squeezing.

Hello Sisters.

Sisters? Who in God's name are you witches! 

Skratti wailed as the girls forced him onto the floor.

We are the three Fates Skratti, the Nonner and your fate old man, for the destruction of our beloved Sigur, was always to die brutally at our hands.

No! It's impossible! I would have known!

Skratti yelled at the Fates, as they encircled him ominously.

Urda suddenly opened his mouth wide and with Skratti noisily gagging, she pushed her hand deep into his throat and then much further, eventually, shoulder deep, grasping his heaving lungs. 

At the same time Vera and Skua forced their arms high up the Professor's rectum and continued until they both had hold of his slippery intestines.

The three incanted his fate:

For our beloved Sigur!

And together viciously pulled hard at the same moment, so that the old man's lungs and entrails were hauled out of his body with a dreadful squelching sound.

Skratti could but muffle a scream but it was the scream of sheer and awful agony as he was eviscerated.

The Fates smiled at him and pulling his lungs backwards around his head, they tied them  in a tight knot to his intestines behind his back and carried him to the window, all the while the old scholar, his eyes welled up and delirious with pain, mumbled for their mercy.

It did not come and the three maneuvered his still-conscious body to the flagpole below his window so that he would hang face down like a spitroast.

They shoved and at the very last second Skua violently flattened his genitals on the window sill with his bloody Lung Hammer and stretched them out by hand, so that they hung on an impossibly long thread of dripping nerves, his squashed penis and testicles banging into the heads of the robed professors swanning by to their next classes.

For Sigur.

The Fates whispered and returned to their home below the mighty Ygdrassil, the World Oak.