by GR Griffin
It was a sick twist of fate, that win or lose, Lenneth would still have been given away. Her fate had long been decided on, her king needing just an excuse to rid himself of her. That Odin had maximized the effect of just how devastating a decree that his order would be, just cemented in Lezard’s mind that the God was as deceitful and manipulative as he had already known Hel to be.
~Damn him!~ There was real venom to that thought, Lezard glad that Lenneth was situated behind him so as not to be able to see the scowl that had twisted his very expression. He was so mad that Lezard thought that he might spit, the unholy magic inside him bristling with the need to lash out at a certain God. For this is not what they had agreed upon, not at all what Lezard had imagined when he had bartered away everything in exchange for having Lenneth as his intended bride to be. He hadn’t expect the Valkyrie to come to him HAPPY about her fate, but neither had Lezard thought the woman would be so thoroughly poisoned against him.
Believing him to be nothing more than her punishment, Lenneth’s prejudices had been set against Lezard long before she had learned of just who and what he worshiped. This was nothing like what Odin had promised, the woman completely unprepared for the reality of her situation. Instead the burden of explanations had fallen into Lezard’s hands, the man completely caught off guard, floundering about in an attempt to somehow find a way to make the situation and it’s circumstances palpable to his bride.
He feared that there was nothing, NOTHING, that could be done. No words that could be a strong enough balm for the hurt that Odin had caused. The damage to the foundation of everything that Lezard had hoped to build upon with Lenneth. That seething feeling, that sheer lack of hope, both pushed and pulled at him in a play for dominance over his thoughts. He again damned Odin for his tricks, and if Lezard was at anywhere honest, the man damned himself too.
His lust his undoing, Lezard knew and understood that his feelings were a weakness. That Lenneth was a weakness. One any and all could exploit, even the Valkyrie herself. Certainly her king had, Lezard wondering now at just how much more deeply he had been played. Had Odin been counting on Lezard to fall? Is THAT why he had allowed the sorcerer so close, Lezard able to get an eye full of a whole squadron of Valkyries? Dozens upon dozens of the lethal beauties, the fierce battle maidens dressed in full armored regalia, with swords, spears and even a cross bow at the ready.
Divine in nature, deadly in grace, the Valkyries hadn’t fought a war so much as made sport of the undead around them. With blood spraying and limbs flying, with heads severed and bodies squelching under foot, that group of Goddesses were a quick and efficient lot. With wave upon wave of undead approaching, with ghouls, zombies, vampires and even a revenant or two, with creatures of all manner, and nightmares that crept from the deepest part of the dark, this legion of monsters had barreled head on to their doom.
It had been awe inspiring, and truth be known it had been a little frightening. Lezard had looked at the Valkyries, and had seen the sheer and utter futility of Hel’s plans. Of the war that the underworld’s Queen had hoped to wage. Lezard had not only seen defeat for Hel and her minions, he had anticipated a great many deaths. He might have even seen that of his own, Lezard having looked up at the group of Goddesses at their most ferocious, and coming away shaken by one fact. That no mortal human, be he man or she woman, be they armed with magic or armed with sharp steel, would ever be able to make a true difference. Not even Hel’s blessing could change that fact, the underworld’s Goddess simply too weak to empower the humans needed to overrun the heavens.
Rooted in place, it was on the Plains of Idavoll, that Lezard Valeth had the first of his many epiphanies. He didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want to be damned. Both were unenviable fates, the cycle of life and death such that a human had to both live and eventually die. It was the second that was more negotiable, factors at play here that decided who went where and by how. There was a complex balance between the heavens and the underworld, Nifleheim a place for all of Odin’s undesirables. Such as the warriors who did NOT die in battle. Or the humans who died of old age or of sickness. It hardly seemed fair that so many were damned on so daily a basis, and yet it was fact that the underworld was overcrowded with the condemned. The damned and those too beneath the heavens’ consideration.
Lezard had known he was both, had known the blessing of his Goddess had tainted just about all chance at heaven’s paradise. And yet he had dared to dream otherwise, had dared to hope. It was on the Plains of Idavoll that an idea began to take root. A mad bit of scheming that had Lezard grasping at the opportunity that his Goddess herself had inadvertently sanctioned. With the very subterfuge that she had bid him to play out, Lezard had decided to use what he knew of Hel’s desire, and of her plans, to instead betray her.
Privy to more secrets than any other human in Hel’s kingdom, Lezard felt certain that HE was the key towards bringing an end to Nifleheim’s insane ambition. He was the most trusted of her subjects, the most gifted and beloved, Lezard’s magic talented beyond measure. It was that magic that came into play on the Plains of Idavoll, the sorcerer using all manner of spells to aid and assist the Valkyries in their fight. Those warrior maidens hadn’t needed his help in theory, but the spells that Lezard had slung about did help to wittle down a large number of the undead king’s near endless troops.
It was then that he had seen her, it was there amidst the dwindling number of able bodied undead that Lezard had spied a glimpse of the Valkyrie Lenneth. That fleeting glimpse from across a vast distance, shouldn’t have had such a profound effect on him. Lenneth should have been just another woman, just another Goddess, a figure whose deadly dance across the crowded plains should have struck a fear and desperation into all who had beheld her lethal form.
Lezard hadn’t felt fear, though a desperation had been upon him. A rapturous desire, Lezard driven by need, the man wanting to see the face of that Valkyrie. He hadn’t been able to get a good enough look, the Goddess moving too fast, twirling away from one danger to another, her sword effortlessly slicing through air as she had thrust and stabbed it into the bodies of nightmares. Her cobalt blue armor had made a striking offset against the braided platinum of her long hair, and long, lithe legs flashed tantalizing glimpses of her thighs whenever the woman kicked high enough for her skirt’s slit to fall back and expose her.
Lezard had found that he had not only stopped breathing, but that his eyes hadn’t been able to look away. He had been riveted in place, had been in the absolute thrall of the Goddess, his heart an echoing drum beat that had left him deafened to the roar of the war around him. He hadn’t been able to see, to hear, to FEEL, all of Lezard’s acute awareness spiraling down to that vision in cobalt blue. To the hint of striking ice that was her eyes, to that wild play of that braided hair of platinum, each facet of her that had been revealed to him had then carved a brand into his very soul.
Such a ruthless embodiment of sensuality, such a sublime promise of the unearthly, pain and pleasured combined to deliver a woman that was the perfect instrument with which to deal in both. He had been in awe of her, Lezard so thoroughly overcome, the thoughts slipping from his head as easily as the breath had from his lungs. He hadn’t been able to see, to think of anything else, Lezard attempting to creep closer to the woman, the Goddess who had so thoroughly took a hold of him. That not one, but two armies stood between the man and the Valkyrie hadn’t seemed to much matter, Lezard bristling with his determination and the unbridled strength of the very magic inside him.
Such unholy magic had been a danger, and not just to the combatants that might stand between Lezard and HIS Goddess. In that moment, Lezard had been a danger to himself, all his efforts to suppress the true level of strength inside of him forgotten, all that amassed power surging stronger. Hel’s power had never burned hotter, Lezard lit up like a beacon and betrayed by his own magic. Marked by it, marked by her, his ties to Nifleheim should have guaranteed his end.
Even as Lezard had reali
zed too late what he had just done, the man had struggled to suppress the worst of it. Unholy energy had continued to gather in his glove hands, his skin having crackled with the heated sensation of a spell, his magic wanting, needing an outlet. The struggle to deny it that had left Lezard sweating, thick beads of perspiration dripping down the sides of his face. His fingers had actually curled under the onslaught of magic, the energy calling, wanting to damn him and those around him to it’s death and devastation.
It was the platinum haired Valkyrie, the sight of her, and the thought of her broken body, that had kept the worst of his magic at bay, For her, Lezard had fought the use of his own magic, the man having struggled with the effort that it took for any semblance of control. The gathered magic hadn’t wanted to be denied, that malevolent energy not wanting to stay hidden. It, that thing inside him, had wanted to be known, had wanted to revel in the shock, awe, and horror of all those around him.
Lezard had fought it, fought the magic and the death it would bring. His efforts alone shouldn’t have been enough, Nifleheim’s magic such that all of Asgard should have been up in arms over it. Over the threat of it, the danger, the taint of the underworld creeping in with him. The sin of it alone was a death sentence, Hel and her followers not welcome in Asgard. They had NEVER been. And they might never be, Lezard left alive by the grace of one God. By Lord Odin himself, the God not so much in a merciful mood as he had been curious.
Lezard had always known right from the start that the mission had been dangerous. That there had been little if any chance of success. That too many had already tried. Too many who had tried and then failed, finding their lives were the ultimate in prices paid. Hel hadn’t cared, the underworld’s Goddess too obsessed with, too determined to get a foothold into the heavens. Mage after mage was commanded, many promising talents lost to one mad deity’s lofty ambitions.
Every last one of them considered expandable, Hel had sacrificed close to one thousand mages in her attempt to gain an audience with the heavens’ king. Spread out over countless centuries, and Odin had never ONCE deign to speak to any of the queen’s ambassadors. Lezard shouldn’t have been any different. The power inside of him shouldn’t have been anything worth noting. And yet there was a reason that the man was the queen’s favorite, a reason why the magic inside him was so special. Twisted by Hel’s touch as it was, there had still been no masking it’s own unique flavor.
Odin hadn’t been able to resist it, hadn’t been able to contain his own curiosity. Here was a power, in a human no less, that was unlike anything in all of Creation. That odd mix of the divine and the damned, Hel’s brand upon him not able to strip away entirely the superiority that was in the mage’s blood. Odin had looked at Lezard and had seen the puzzle fit, a decades long mystery and it’s secrets unraveling.
His existence the key, the tangible proof of an unforgivable crime, Lezard had by all rights been Odin’s to strike down. The God shouldn’t have hesitated, shouldn’t have allowed any doubts to have plagued him. And yet it had, Odin having wondered a great many things. The why of it, and the many possible what ifs, Lezard the Goddess Hel’s trump hand revealed, the mage possibly just the first of a legion of such elite.
Even if he wasn’t, even if the mage was a wholly unique anomaly, then why would Hel have risked him? Why play this tact so early? To scare Odin, or to seduce him? The King of the Heavens hadn’t been able to tell, and perhaps it was that uncertainty that had troubled the Lord all the more.
Unable to make a decision, unable to outright try to right Hel’s wrong, Odin had instead settled on a subterfuge of his own. Having made himself comfortable on a smooth sided boulder, the God’s eyes had never diverted from the mage. Odin had born silent witness to the man’s struggles, to Lezard’s exhausting efforts to tamp down the magic that had been betraying him. He hadn’t seemed to have noticed how neither the Valkyries nor that of the undead had realized and been alerted to him. He had been completely oblivious, Lezard not aware of anything save his own difficulties and desires.
He certainly hadn’t felt the shielding spell that had been placed around him. The magic that muffled and contained the underworld’s taint. That same power that had clouded over his senses, Lezard aware of little, until after the God had sighed. Odin’s breath had expelled on a great gust of wind, that breezy current having held a hint of winter’s frost to it that made the mage shiver in reaction.
It had been more than the cold that had caused that reaction. There had been a surge of power behind him, a great spike of power that had surpassed that of Hel’s. It hadn’t been there just a second ago, Lezard having now become aware that a new player had entered into the field. A God by the feel of it, one of such immense age and power that there was few if any to truly be of rival.
Having expected to be then be struck down by this God, Lezard had still tried to speak. His tongue had faltered inside his mouth, Lezard’s mind so alarmingly empty. He hadn’t been able to find the words, hadn’t even been able to think of them, Lezard having tried and failed to plead for his life.
The killing blow had never actually come. Instead of fists or a sword, or a blast of divine ether, the God behind him had merely sighed again. There had been admiration in that sound, the God’s low, husky voice then speaking.
“They are beautiful, are they not?”
Of all the things that the God could have asked, that offhand comment spoken in so casual a tone, had been the last thing that Lezad had been expecting. He had nodded a slow yes without even thinking, too astonished to do much of anything save stare straight ahead. At the arresting sight, the dozen upon dozens of examples of Odin’s beauty at work.
“Beautiful and deadly.” His tone had been strangled, Lezard having wondered if the Valkyries would be the last sight of his. He hadn’t wanted to die, and yet Lezard had instantly sought out the figure in the cobalt blue armor. Let THAT Goddess be his last memory, that ethereal vision the only thing worthy of taking with him to his eternal damnation.
To his shock, a soft rumble of the God’s laughter had come from behind him. It hadn’t been a cruel sound, the God more pleased than anything that Lezard could have expected. It almost reminded Lezard of a proud father, the God speaking in a tone that was far more fond than anything Lezard could have imagined.
“It is an intriguing mix, is it not?” The God had wanted to know. Lezard had been unable to deny it, the mage no more immune to the charms of the Valkyrie women than most men.
“The soft beauty of a woman...” The God had continued after a moment’s beat. “Tempered with the violent aggression of a man.” Lezard had nearly winced then, watching as an especially vicious thrust forward had impaled a spear straight through some ghoulish nightmare’s body.
“Ah...” The God had breathed out with an approving sound. “But unlike those mortal creatures, my Valkyrie are perfect. They hold neither the vanity of a woman, nor the weakness of a man.”
It had been deliberate, that provocative statement meant to incite. Lezard had known that as fact, and still he had bristled, his masculine ego having been insulted. “And just what weakness is that?”
The God’s answer had been immediate, the words as provocative they had been hard fact. “Greed, lust, cruelty. Those many, many dark little impulses your kind has to do harm to others. I could go on for an eternity, and still not cover them all."
It had been said in such a mocking manner, the God’s derision apparent in his every spoken word. This was a man, a God, who had little like nor love for those he viewed as a lesser species, who had actually looked down on the human race as a whole. It was everything that Lezard had been warned against, the teaching of the underworld and it’s Goddess along with the decree of the Heavens themselves, all the truth needed to support the claim that Odin and his kind didn’t much care about anything, anyone not born of the Heavens. It had still been a struggle, both to accept that rudely taunting condensation quietly, and to not offer a scathing retort of his own. Lezard had fough
t for his control, had actually let out a deep, exaggerated breath, the mage watching the battle before him. His eyes kept on being riveted by the Valkyrie in the cobalt blue armor, an idle thought upon him, Lezard having wondered if SHE was like all the other divine. His infatuated heart though hadn’t wanted to believe it, his soul alight and alive with the desire that she had helped rouse.
Unable and unwilling to believe the worst of her, Lezard had let the sight of the platinum haired Valkyrie work off the edge of the red hot anger that had been boiling to a bursting point inside of him. Once the worst of the anger had been brought under his control, once Lezard had no longer fought against the scathing words that had remained locked inside him still, the man had had a realization. One that had so shocked and surprised him, that Lezard had forgotten to be wary. With a strangled shout, and with a sudden spin, Lezard had turned, getting his first look at the God seated behind him.
“YOUR Valkyries?!” He had then exclaimed, his jaw agape with his shock. With the realization that this wasn’t just ANY God before him, but that of the King of them. Odin of Asgard, the Ruler of the Heavens, and the very man that Hel had wanted Lezard to speak with. Under the guise of negotiations between the two realms, Lezard would have been expected to manipulate and lull Odin into a betraying a weakness. Some flaw that Hel herself would have been able to build upon.
Truth be known, Lezard hadn’t expected to see the God, let alone get THIS close to him. And yet here Odin was, seated comfortably on the rock as though it was the finest of thrones, completely and utterly relaxed as he had looked past the mage to gaze out with a fond expression at the battling group of Goddesses. There had been a slight softening to his features, the faintest of a smile there that had been one bursting with pride.