Valkyrie

Medieval 5: K and Y 8 The Saxon Hag, part 2 of 2

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Kirstie

“But wait…” Captain Otto started to object but got interrupted when a half dozen fairies flew up in front of him. They immediately got big and bowed to the girl.

“Lady,” the head fairy said, and Yrsa still translated for Otto and his men. “The hag is on the road bringing forty families and forty more men to Bremerhaven. I suspect they will attack the town to take control. I have no doubt they intend to invite Abraxas to cross over the channel and come to the continent.”

Kirstie paused and flipped to a totally different subject. “You look familiar,” she said to the fairy. “Why is that?”

The fairy smiled. “My father was Maywood and my mother Marigold, if you remember them.”

Kirstie smiled more as if to say she remembered. That was back in the days of Margueritte, and Genevieve. She stopped smiling when the fairy’s words penetrated. She called to her armor and weapons, and that shut everyone’s mouths. She quickly picked ten of the crew and told them to stay and guard the treasure,

“But wait…” Captain Otto said the words again, but he did not appear to know what else to say.

Kirstie grabbed the man’s hand. “Christian Otto. You better come and bring your twenty soldiers. The rest of you men follow me.” The men were typical Vikings, not inclined to listen to any woman other than their wife or mother, though they might give Mother Vrya and the Witcher Women a hearing. Kirstie, however, they knew in a different way. They followed her in the battle against the Vanlil, and they were dramatically reminded of just how special she was when the fairies came and bowed to her.

“Mariwood.” She named the fairy. “Please lead the way.” The fairy bowed again, got small with his companions, and flew in front. After a short way, Kirstie tapped her shoulder and Mariwood gladly came to rest there and ride where he could whisper the directions in her ear.

“I can tell you have done this before,” Mariwood said. “I would have thought you were still too young, no offence.” he pulled a little on her hair to get comfortable.

“Buttercup stays mostly with my friend Inga, but she rides on my shoulder sometimes.”

Mariwood thought for a minute before he added. “Buttercup sounds nice.”

“I don’t know,” Kirstie said. “She is what some call a frost fairy. It gets pretty cold where I live.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Mariwood said and got silent for a time to think about it. They had gotten to the Bremen Road that the hag and her people were coming up, so there were no more directions to give. It was just as well because Captain Otto finally had some questions he thought to ask.

“Are you a Valkyrie?”

Kirstie thought before she answered. “No. I’m a Shield Maiden. That is a female warrior among my people. Apart from that, I am a Christian as I confessed, and you should be the same. The old gods have gone away, and the new way has come. Do not doubt that. The hag we go to face, the servant of Abraxas who calls himself a god, is a terrible creature that has a whole town of people enchanted under her evil spell. Any doubt or confusion on your part and she will attack your mind.” Kirstie took a deep breath and said softly, “Although the Valkyrie used to work for me in the old days, or rather, they worked for themselves. I’m just the one who got blamed when they screwed up.” She remembered one time in particular before she quickly threw her hand over Yrsa’s mouth, so she did not translate that last part about the Valkyrie.

In a short way, they ran into the hag and her followers. The numbers were about even, and though the old lady hag looked surprised that the Vikings and townspeople appeared to be working together. Even so, much like the hag in Norway, this old lady hag anticipated their arrival. Her men came out from the trees and bushes and Kirstie’s and Captain Otto’s men barely had time to defend themselves.

Kirstie managed to get her shield to the front in time to block a spear. She stepped forward, making the long spear useless and swung her battleaxe, practically taking the man’s head off. Yrsa shot the man to her left. Mariwood got down and got big to stab the man to her right. It seemed they were ganging up on her position, but her Vikings pushed forward and pushed the enemy back, while Captain Otto and his soldiers kept the men away from her flank.

Kirstie, who stood by the river, had a moment to focus on the hag. Apparently, Kirstie noticed she picked up some elves during her march through town. The hag, reverted to a big, hairy monster, had taken several elf arrows. The arrows stuck, not being made by men. Yrsa managed a perfect shot in the hag’s eye. but while the hag roared from the pain, it pulled the arrows out, including the one from her eye, and she healed over. She instantly grew a new eye once the arrow was removed.

Kirstie did not know what to do. The road ran along the river, but the hag stayed on the far edge of the road, far away from the water. Someone shot a flaming arrow. It got followed by several flaming arrows, and like the last time, the hag roared in delight. It grew bigger as it became covered in flames, and it looked far stronger as its roar deepened. Kirstie panicked. She felt sure no convenient ogre would tackle the hag and shove the hag into the river.

She thought of Njord. It should be enough. Grandfather Njord said it would be enough, but before she could do anything, the burning, monstrous hag rushed to attack her. Kirstie screamed and backed up, only to trip over a rock by the river and fall on her backside. The hag was not so lucky as she reached her claws out to rip Kirstie to shreds, only to paw at the air. Kirstie proved to be a stumbling block. The hag’s forward motion caused it to trip over Kirstie and arms flailing, land smack in the river. Kirstie heard the hag yell.

“No. Abraxas, help me.” Then came the scream, and the hag quickly reverted to the old woman and melted to a puddle on the surface of the slow-moving water.

Captain Otto and his soldiers stopped fighting first when the enemy turned away, went to their knees, threw down their weapons, held their heads and moaned. Not to their credit, Kirstie’s Viking shipmates stopped last and killed a few of the enemy even when they were in no position to fight back.

The women and children under control of the hag that kept back during the fighting came up weeping. The men also wept. Kirstie thought it best to shout and Yrsa also shouted the translation. “Shipmates, back to the ship. Help the wounded.” She yelled at seven men to stay with her to help clean up the battlefield. and to the rest to remind them that they have a treasure to guard until we can sell it. “Captain Otto, sorry to leave you with the surviving men, women, and children. You can practice some Christian compassion. Remember, they were enchanted and could not help themselves. You might also find some converts among them.”

Kirstie stopped suddenly when she realized she killed a man. It all happened so fast. She just responded. It was reflex, like Bjorn the Bear said. She felt like throwing up. She did not want to do that in front of her shipmates. She looked at Yrsa and saw tears forming in the elf’s eyes. Thorsten, the big man who rowed behind her must have recognized the signs of distress. He hugged her with a soft word.

“You are one of us now.” He added a softer thought. “This is a terrible world we live in.” Kirstie did let out a few tears as Thorsten turned to the task at hand. They had three dead that needed to be buried. Captain Otto lost five. Kirstie had one shipmate who was so badly wounded he would probably not live the night. The enemy lost twelve and many were wounded. They did not fight well in their enchanted state. Fortunately, now that they were out from under the hag’s influence, they were more than willing to carry the dead into town where they could be properly buried.

Kirstie pulled herself together and called to Captain Otto. She grabbed Thorsten’s hand and one from the captain. “Don’t let go,” she insisted, but that was all she said as she went away, and Mother Greta came to take her place. Captain Otto let go, but at least he did not shriek. Thorsten surprisingly held on. In fact, he smiled and lifted his chain and leather to show the scar where he had been cut in the side.

“From the king’s house,” Thorsten said, and Greta returned the smile. She recognized her own work, but she did not dwell. She turned to Captain Otto and asked a question.

“How is your Latin?” She asked in Latin.

That question seemed to bring the man back to reality. He shook his head. “Not good.”

“Yrsa,” she called. “You will still have to translate.” Then she had a thought. “Mariwood.” he was right there. “You need to send a couple of your people to Rune and Frode in the guild hall or wherever they are. They may need help driving a good and fair bargain, so one of your people needs to be good at bargaining. We don’t want to beggar the people of Bremerhaven, but we want a fair return for the value of the goods we carry.”

“Right,” Mariwood said and reverted to fairy form. That got the shriek out of Captain Otto, and Greta could not help commenting.

“What? I still have blonde hair.” Greta knew Kirstie’s hair was more of a dirty blonde where hers was more platinum, almost white blonde, but still, it was not dark brown like Margueritte’s hair.

“But who are you?” Captain Otto asked. “You are older than the girl, and more…”

“More round?” Greta admitted. “I am Mother Greta, and the nearest you have to a healer in this place. Doctor Mishka is not authorized to come and help. Come. Let us see who we can help, even if my skills are seven hundred and fifty years out-of-date.” Greta already looked around and knew where she wanted to go first. Many of these men could be saved if they were careful to not let their wounds get infected. There was honestly nothing she could do about the worst.

“Valkyrie,” Captain Otto mumbled as he, Thorsten, and Yrsa followed Greta all afternoon.

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MONDAY

The ship still needs to return home which is difficult when they get stopped again in the delta. Until Monday, Happy Reading

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Reflections Wlvn-11 part 2 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Moriah came up beside Laurel. “We did it,” Moriah announced. She looked covered in blood and held a hunter’s knife in her hand that still dripped purplish puss from the blade. Flern turned her head and went away from that place. Nameless came to fill her shoes. Laurel looked to the ground on recognizing the god. Moriah gasped, but Nameless smiled for her before he walked the village square and made certain that all of the ghouls in the village were dead.

Twenty ghouls had died, and none of them were merely wounded. They melted and left a purple-greenish puddle of puss on the ground. The village defenders had already made certain of that. Nameless sensed a half-dozen ghouls running for their lives, headed back to their home in the north, and he knew they would not come that way again, so he let them go. “Take the wounded to the house of the village chief,” Nameless ordered. “Carefully.” He underlined the word. “I will be along shortly to help.” He looked at his feet. The body of the village chief lay there beside the body of the chief dwarf. “Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid,” he said softly, as he knelt down to close the poor dwarf’s eyes. Then he called, and everyone stopped for a moment to hear as the sound vibrated in their souls before it left that place and scattered to the wind. It crossed over the mountains, even to the Great River, and sped north through the limitless forests, to the North Sea and beyond to the great peninsulas that hung down over the world like fingers from the ice cap. The call pushed across the east and south to the shores of the Black Sea, over the waves of the Crimea and to the wilderness beyond. And it went north, even to the Ural Mountains where more than one man lifted his head from the hunt to listen and wonder. There was one. She heard. She appeared in a flash of light and dropped to one knee without even looking up.

“Hilde.” Nameless knew her name and said it tenderly. Then the angelic-like form looked and saw the smile on his face and became very curious. “Hilde. First sister of many, I have a task for you which you alone can do.”

“I will, my Lord. But how is it that I know you and do not know you? How is it that I love you so dearly though I love no man? And how may I be the first of sisters when I have no sisters?”

“These mysteries will resolve in time. Be patient, only for now you have work to do.” Nameless pointed to the chief at his feet.

“The dwarf is gone beyond my reaching,” Hilde said. “It is so with all of the people of the spirit, from the littlest up to the gods themselves, yet this man is within my grasp should I choose him.”

Nameless nodded. “The valiant should not suffer in the pit with the wicked. I charge you, Hilde, and all of the sisters that follow after you to take the spirits of the valiant to the house and halls of Odin so that the Alfader may decide where to keep such men for eternity.”

“And the women?”

“Take them to my mother, to the House of Vrya and let her care for them as she will.”

“I will do this thing,” Hilde said as she stood. “It feels right, like I have been sleeping all of my days and have been waiting for this moment to come awake.” She returned Nameless’ smile at last, vanished from that place, and took the souls of the dead with her.

“Who was that?” Laurel still stood by his side, though Moriah had gone in search of Badl.

“The first Valkyr,” Nameless told her, and then he made her wait there a minute while he took two steps forward. Skinny Wilken ended up among the wounded and needed Doctor Mishka, but he had one more thing to do first.

Nameless reached out with his thoughts. “Loki. Play your games, do your tricks, make you mischief through your surrogates as you will. That is your business, not mine. I only want to remind you of the penalty for killing a god.”

After a pause, there came a response, one that felt cold in the mind. “I am in no danger, foolish boy. I would say it is that little girl of yours that is at risk if she should come up against the Titan.”

“Yes, but I kill more than one over the next several thousand years, so it is too late for me.” Nameless thought the words with a little coldness of his own. “But you should remember that the little girl is the Kairos, and the Kairos is counted among the gods.”

Another pause, but Nameless knew that Loki was still there. “But no one knows exactly what that means,” the response came.

“Even so, a little friendly advice. The Kairos will be coming for your big friend, and I would not recommend getting in the way.”

“That girl has a long way to go yet.” Loki responded more quickly that time.

“Just so we understand each other,” Nameless thought, and he cut the connection. He watched the escaping ghouls for a minute before something else caught his attention. Badl talked with the remaining dwarfs who were now leaderless. He took Laurel by the arm and walked to the meeting.

“Your mother was the daughter of a chief, and your father, though not strictly a dwarf, he was beloved by the goddess, and we need no better recognition than that. You could come with us and be our chief.”

“And if the Halfling can cook like you say, she can come, too.” A second dwarf interjected, and no one seemed to have an objection.

Nameless arrived and took Badl by the other arm. “Sorry friends,” he said. “I need him first. He can come to Movan Mountain after we are done.” He turned to Badl. “Time to go see Skinny Wilken,” he said, and he became Doctor Mishka as she walked toward a nearby house.

“How did we do?” Those were Wlkn’s first words, once Elleya took a breath. She mothered him, terribly, and told over and over how he saved her life. Apparently, a ghoul busted down the door to escape the carnage, but Wlkn got there first and sent a knife into the creature’s throat. The ghoul slammed Wlkn against the wall before it collapsed, and Elleya proceeded to beat the poor dead ghoul senseless with a frying pan, and no, she did not otherwise know what a frying pan was for.

“I’m not as young as I was, you know.” Wlkn pointed out, though he had no gray hair. “It felt like he tried to eat my youth with magic, if you know what I mean. I think the bite of apple I ate might have been too much for him, though.” Wlkn quieted as Mishka worked. She examined Wlkn and was pleased to find no broken bones, but then she had another duty.

Nameless returned and he told them all that he would be right back. He touched the dead ghoul at his feet, and both vanished to reappear in the woods outside of town. Nameless pulled his sword, and in a swift move, chopped the ghoul’s head off. Sure enough, he heard a moan as he did it. The ghoul had been trying to live off of Wlkn’s youth, and the last thing the village needed would be a ghoul resurrecting itself. Nameless threw the head into the mountains and left the body where it lay. It quickly shriveled and shrank until only a small greenish-purple stain remained. That was the way of ghouls, unless they were eaten. Nameless cleaned his sword, returned it to its place, and reappeared in the room to change immediately with Mishka once again.

Mishka said nothing as she finished examining Wlkn’s wounds, then she finally answered Wlkn’s question as she bandaged Wlkn’s head. “Even with the surprise turned to our side, and the arrows that decimated the ghouls before the fighting started, and an extra surprise of nearly as many dwarfs as there were ghouls, the ghouls managed to take as many with them as we killed. Twenty ghouls fell in the battle, and fifteen men and five dwarfs died. Plus, we have many wounded besides.”

No one spoke. That seemed a terrible toll, and Mishka knew that when Flern came home, she would be in tears because, in a real sense, all of those lives were given to protect and defend her, even if it was not the only reason for fighting. Mishka wiped her own eye and took Laurel and Moriah to check on the others. Badl stayed with Wlkn and Elleya until he needed to go out for a breath of fresh air and a bit of quiet.