by K.E. Rodgers
***
Orusta af Stolt (Battle of Pride)
Eastern Nation – Fjalverja
Capital City – Laeradberg
In the Valley of Rings, a good two days journey from the capital city, men lay out on the thick green grasses like fallen trees, their roots cut out from under them and their life giving sap leaking from the cracks on their broken branches. It was a sight not unfamiliar to the all seeing eyes of this land. The final battle had ended years earlier, but still small skirmishes between the people happened almost daily. Hostility was thick like fog in the air, clouding good judgment and blinding the people from ever becoming a united country again.
When the Gaeta Wall had been erected it had left a nation barely able to survive. For those on the Eastern border, the losing side, they were left at the mercy of the six surrounding nations. Their strength was waning, but their influence was still strong. The citizens of the Eastern shore were divided even among each other as to where they saw their loyalties. Some wanted unity with the victorious Western Nation who had erected the wall while others saw themselves loyal to the Eastern Nations who they had sided with during the war. All of this was coming to head as talk of an alliance between the Eastern and Western shores was now in its final hearings. Soon a decision would be made and perhaps in the end a divided country would find itself united once again.
Yet happiness does not come easily and the road to a united country was paved with the bodies of its slain people. These casualties would continue as long as the future of the Eastern Nation was up in the air. The Eastern Nation, known as Fjalverja, a name derived from the protecting mountains that surrounded the Eastern borders, hadn’t seen peace and prosperity in decades and the land itself reflected the strife. After the final battle, instead of picking up the pieces and rebuilding, much of the devastation left from battle remained overgrowing with vegetation and decay. Neglect and hardship were calling cards of Fjalverja. The people suffered greatly while those on the Western shore of Sigurheim, which translated to victory, knew nothing of their struggle. And it was because of this that the weakened leaders of the Eastern Nation finally sought the much needed protection from their once hated other half.
Kári Haldis stood over one of her men as he lay in the sweet smelling grass inhaling his last breaths of cold air. He would die today for his own treachery and deceit. In the end most if not all men were deceitful and underhanded; they couldn’t be trusted. He had thought to guide her and her followers into the valley where she and her companions could be taken unawares.
Kári was not stupid or easily fooled by the machinations of mere men. She was the true daughter of the Allfather. Many tried to claim parentage, but only she could speak with truth in her voice. Born of a human mother and the almighty deity, she was the embodiment of the gifts of humanity and the strengths and weaknesses of the gods. But it was her human step-father she had followed in the end, much to the disappointment of her mother. They were both gone from this world now, and she was left to pick up the pieces of a nation that was fast crumbling beneath her feet.
“I knew you would be weak in the end, Brokk.” Kári placed the toe of her leather boot against his pale cheek and pushed causing his head to turn and a groan to escape from his dry and cracked lips. “You would have turned us over to the rebels if given the chance. And for what, a few coins in your pocket and the gloating rights? It isn’t enough that I feed and clothe you, you feel the need to betray me to these vultures.”
Kári felt the anger inside her grow. She was her father’s daughter in that respect with a temper that could blow hot as the fires of Brunkjar or cold as an Isgar winter weather. Right now she was blowing hot under the collar. The rebels in Fjalverja cared nothing for politics, only finding the disrepair of the country a perfect breeding ground to fester their greed. She was a political figure, a princess in her own right as her step-father, a cousin to the Western King, had reigned in the Eastern providence before the final battle took him from this world. Now what was left of her country was ruled over by her mother’s only brother, Ragnarr Solveig. He had only managed such a position because he had secured himself in the good graces of the Western Nation. At this time he was trying to mend the fracture between the divided countries by aligning himself through marriage. The rebels, who were being strung along with hopes of coin, were being fed false lies to encourage them to hand members of the royal family like Kári over to the Eastern Nations as traitors to the cause.
“Your family is weak and selfish. You would align yourself with those western dogs so that you and yours can have fine furs and large homes. What of our suffering?” Brokk’s chest moved slowly with his words and some of them slurred painfully out of his mouth. “Nothing will change for us except that we will have a Western prince to push our faces in the mud and steal the food from the mouths of our children. It was our families blood spilt, not yours. Our lives sacrificed and your family would throw it in our faces to align with the Western Nations.” He spat blood on her shoe.
He received a swift and brutal kick to his ribs. Brokk groaned pitifully in response. Leaning down beside him on the blood stained grass, she starred down into the face of one of her people. He had lost hope in his leaders. When that happened it was only a matter of time before others would sway his attention and loyalties. Right now the Eastern Nations felt threatened that if an alliance with her country took place then the strength of their power was truly gone and they would fall as swiftly as the crumbling wall.
“Do you see me in a fine house with furs and drink?” she questioned him, bitter anger in her voice. She hadn’t been home to see her family in years. Once she had left to go after her father all those years back, she had never returned, not even after his death. She had broken her ties with her family on the eve of her departure. What they did was of no concern to her. But her identity as a royal family member was still a risk to herself and her companions which was why she kept herself clothed as a man. In the thick of battle most never got close enough to detect the soft curves and angelic face that could only belong to a woman.
Kári clasped his waxy face with her long graceful fingers forcing him to look at her. “Do you see me sitting in a fine large home? No. I have no more than any of you and yet you would betray my trust and that of your brothers in arms to the Eastern Nations who care nothing about you or your family. All the Red Rebels care about is greed and apparently that is all you care about. I have sacrificed much for this country. More than you can ever know.”
Brokk wrenched his face from her grasp and stared out into the Valley of Rings. It was named such because of the strange rings made by mounds of earth and some believed that they transported persons to other worlds. Brokk was superstitious enough to believe that it could be true. The Red Rebels and his own men lay on the ground unmoving. He felt a moment of pity for the men he had sacrificed, but it was their own fault for following this Princess of Lies. She had led them to this fate, not he. Brokk knew he would follow them into the land of shadow and mist soon enough.
“I will go to the next world with a smile on my face knowing that soon enough you might join me, princess.” A smile curved his mouth, drawing up the corners in a macabre death smile. With a faint flutter of his eye lashes, he was gone from this world.
Kári knew when Brokk’s andi, spirit, had departed from his body. She felt it like a cold breeze passing across her skin. She clutched at the tiny charm held on a thin chain around her neck. It was a tiny heart shaped diamond forged from the Great Stone Mountain and held within it a piece of the Bifrost, the rainbow bridge that led into the land of the gods. Given to her by the Allfather himself so that at any time she might venture into their domain, it was a gift not to be ignored. It was also the only artifact she had to remind her of her true father.
She bent her head over the deceased man and prayed for his immortal soul, though it was more than the leech deserved after what he had done to them. It had only been by the strength of her men and
the luck bestowed upon her by the Allfather that at least a few of her followers had come out of the skirmish alive. Every day their numbers seemed to diminish until one day she was sure there would only be her-self left to count.
Rising up from the ground she surveyed the landscape, finding her close companions standing together lost in deep conversation. Eymundr spied her across the vast valley and gestured for her to join them. With her impressive height it was difficult to miss her. It was yet another disguise that helped to keep the truth of her gender from her enemies. Sweeping her sun-kissed blonde hair over her shoulders she made her way to the two people she trusted most in this world.