Valkia the Bloody

by Sarah Cawkwell

  The rest of the Circle stared at her. This was unheard of. In past times, the chieftain had selected his own Warspeaker based on merit. Valkia laughed, a rich, throaty sound, at their faces.

  ‘Oh, come now!’ She practically beamed her amusement at them. ‘I am not suggesting a fight to the death! Merely a trial to determine who is the most cunning and the most capable. Although, if you feel a battle to the death would be more appropriate…’ She cut the sentence short and bit back the desire that this be the case. She sensed the palpable air of relief at her amendment and nodded. Fights to the death for her amusement would have to wait, it seemed.

  ‘Secondly, the reavers mentioned by Eraich allegedly decimated their people. We should seek them out and assess whether we should consider them a threat or possible allies. Hepsus.’ She turned to the warrior. ‘Put together a scouting party and take them up into the hills. Report back as swiftly as you can. If Eraich’s smallholdings are still standing and have not been burned to the ground, take whatever of use you can find.’

  ‘As my hetwoman commands,’ replied the warrior. This he understood. Direct orders. He felt relieved. Valkia nodded her pleasure at his easy compliance.

  ‘Finally and most importantly, we need to properly inventory our supplies. We need to know what we have to see us through the winter.’ This was a subject that she and her father had often come to blows over. Merroc’s attitude had been that the gods would provide. Valkia, far more pragmatic, had argued that it would be the hunters who would provide and that every morsel of food counted. There were enough things that could kill the people of the Schwarzvolf. Starvation due to stupidity was not an option.

  She looked around the group. ‘Perhaps one of the women from the newcomers can tally numbers and aid with rationing. Find out. Godspeaker, that may be a task for you. You are more inclined to patience than the rest of us.’

  The elderly man nodded. His eyes had not left Valkia since they had assembled and she was slightly uncomfortable under his scrutiny. She did her best not to let it bother her though. She had to demonstrate complete control and strength of purpose to maintain her position as leader. So far the fates had been on her side but she knew, without really understanding how, that one error at this stage could result in complete chaos. It was vital that she maintained her composure. There would be time to sit quietly and assess all that had happened later. Now was not that time.

  Valkia chewed on her bottom lip and looked around the assembled group. Time to deal with the main issue. There was no point in leaving it to be resolved later, or it would fester like an infected wound.

  When her voice came, it was clear and confident. ‘I know that some of you have doubts in my ability because I am a woman. But ask yourselves honestly: when has that ever stopped me before?’ She was gratified that one or two of them looked faintly embarrassed and even more pleased to see nods of agreement. ‘More than anybody else amongst our people, I need your support. I can lead the Schwarzvolf to greatness. All I ask for is your trust.’

  She leaned forward then, her spear across her knees. ‘So tell me, my people, do I have that?’ Her finger ran down the blade of the spear tip and a hungry look sparked in her eyes. ‘Or do we need to discuss it further?’

  By the measure of the Schwarzvolf’s lifespans, Fydor the Godspeaker was an old man. Fifty summers he had lived and he was robust and healthy yet. Time had not diminished his abilities or his voracious appetite for life. He had taken three wives to his hearth, had fathered many children, and countless grandchildren bore his blood. Merroc had once affectionately said that such a virile man could have repopulated the tribe by himself. He was no great warrior; in his youth he had lost not only his right eye, but also most of the fingers of his left hand. Only the thumb and part of the forefinger remained.

  He could still wield a sword when the situation demanded it, but unable to properly hold a shield he was more of a liability than an asset. At first he had struggled to cope with his loss of status but he had been young, barely an adult, and the previous Godspeaker had guided him in the ways of divination.

  Nobody knew whether he was genuinely able to feel the supposed will of the gods. But whether it was reading omens in the weather, predicting battle outcomes from the guts of an eviscerated animal or divining something more personal from the pieces of bone that he carried around in a pouch round his neck, Fydor was without question able to convince his people that he was speaking for the divine. The fact that his predictions came true with almost unfailing accuracy helped considerably.

  When the Circle had broken, when Valkia had sent them from the tent that had once been her father’s, she had turned her attention to him. Fydor had been there the day that Valkia had come into the world. Merroc’s first-born. His pride when his wife had gone into labour had been so great and Fydor had never forgotten the look of disappointment when he had realised his longed-for son had been a girl. But Merroc had loved Valkia regardless.

  Fydor shook the pouch around his neck, the bones within clattering together slightly. Valkia’s dark eyes took in his slender form; the lined face and the bright, intelligent eyes.

  ‘Godspeaker, you know what I must ask of you.’

  ‘I do, hetwoman. You wish me to divine your future. A simple enough task.’ She nodded and he continued. ‘I will do so for you and gladly – but be warned. You must make your focus very specific.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What is the answer that you seek, Valkia?’ She did not berate the Godspeaker for the use of her given name. Within the tribe, Fydor was considered second only to their chieftain. The respect for him was immense and Valkia knew that she could not afford to make an enemy of him.

  She leaned back on the furs and let her eyes close to half-lidded slits. She could hear the sounds of activity outside; people moving to carry out her orders. It was a heady thing to realise that she could command them so easily. The stringing up of the ‘perpetrators’ was a stroke of genius and she knew that it would put her mark very firmly and clearly on how she intended to rule her people.

  Fydor did not hurry her. He untied the pouch from his neck and let the bones tumble to the floor. He picked through them, arranging them and generally preparing himself whilst Valkia considered the question that would shape her future.

  Eventually, she sat upright again and her eyes opened. She crossed her legs beneath her and rested her chin on a hand.

  ‘I seek to make the Schwarzvolf the most powerful tribe the people of the north have ever known. My question to the gods is this, Fydor. Will I succeed in that venture?’

  The Godspeaker smiled and took the bone fragments up in his hand. He shook them in his closed fist. Their rattle sounded to Valkia like some kind of ominous overture.

  ‘Let us find out, hetwoman.’

  He opened his hand and cast the bones. Valkia could not bring herself to look down at them, but kept her focus firmly on the Godspeaker as he passed his misshapen hand across them and closed his remaining eye.

  As was his way, he was mumbling under his breath, incomprehensible noises that she could not make out. She had long suspected that it was more for show than any mystical effect. But perhaps the effect of the day’s events had taken her into its grip, because she felt a shiver of anticipation.

  In his time, Fydor had foretold events with unerring accuracy. This was less an indication of some divine connection and more a testament to his ability to extrapolate current conditions from simple observation. He was an expert in reading the mood and shift of an army of warriors and had he been put in charge of a battle would have made a considerably lethal general. He had never experienced any kind of true holy ecstasy.

  What he experienced now was far from ecstatic. Red began to seep into his mind’s eye, as though a thin film of blood coated his thoughts. So real was the sensation that he actually opened his eye to be sure. He sucked in a sharp intake of breath. Valkia’s eyes widened at the noise.

  She looked as though she wo
uld speak, but he held up a hand to forestall her. He reached it up to his face and to his slightly detached surprise it did not come away stained with blood. Yet everything around him still bore an unmistakable tinge of deep crimson.

  ‘Blood,’ he whispered in a voice so quiet that Valkia had to lean forward to hear him. ‘I see... blood in your future, Valkia.’

  ‘Blood that I spill, or my own?’

  ‘I cannot tell.’ Even the air was charged with that unmistakably coppery scent that Fydor automatically linked in his mind to the aftermath of a battlefield. He licked his lips which had gone suddenly dry as he scrutinised Valkia. He spoke honestly, saying what he was seeing. The words given volume did not help him understand this strange phenomenon one bit, but he felt it was expected of him. ‘You are falling into shadow. Darkness gathers around you. It will swallow you, consume you...’ He frowned. ‘Or envelop and protect you. I cannot tell which.’

  The words set the hairs on the back of Valkia’s neck to standing and she kept her face as impassable and neutral as she could maintain. ‘Consider the question, Godspeaker. Will I succeed in my venture to bring the Schwarzvolf to greatness?’

  Before Fydor could speak he experienced a terrifying vision. Something saw him, though he was not the focus of its attention. Its presence was vast, a fathomless thing of infinite rage. It burned with malevolence and radiated an air of sheer hatred and destruction. Against its enormity he was nothing but a speck, a tiny mote beside the furnace of an ageless fury. Heat, the acrid stink of burning metal and old blood assailed him. For a fleeting second he hungered for the glory of war once again. To wield a sword or an axe and cut down those who would dare to oppose them…

  And then his thoughts exploded, shattering and raining down around him as the vision left him and the cold grip of reality drew him back into its grasp. His head was throbbing and he felt a powerful need to vomit.

  Valkia’s voice was coming at him from somewhere far, far away and he stared muzzily up at her. ‘…speaker!’ She was standing above him, a look of genuine concern on her face. It was then and only then that Fydor realised he was lying flat on his back. He had no memory of falling, but it must have happened.

  Her strong hand pulled him upright and without a word she handed him a cup of wine. He sipped at it gratefully and massaged his temple.

  ‘What did you see?’ Valkia pressed the matter, eager to know the outcome of his vision. She had watched the Godspeaker over the years as he had performed these rituals for her father, but she had never seen anything as convincing as what had just happened.

  ‘The gods favour you, Valkia,’ he said quietly. ‘Or… a god. I cannot tell which. But their celestial eye rests firmly on you. I felt no disapproval, only…’ He paused. What had he experienced? A bloodlust. Unable to accurately articulate something for which he had no frame of reference, he said what he believed she had to hear.

  ‘You are strong,’ he said. ‘You are not afraid to take difficult decisions. I trust you will know I speak no ill of the dead when I say that towards the end, Merroc lost that ability. It will not be easy. But yes, Valkia. Yes. I believe you will succeed.’

  ‘I knew I would,’ she said, triumphant in her arrogance.

  Several days passed and the shock of Merroc’s death began to lessen for the tribe. In truth, the chieftain had been so removed from the tribe’s activities in the past months that most barely noticed his absence. But there was one person who felt his loss most keenly.

  Valkia had graciously allowed Kata to remain in the chieftain’s yurt but she had been entirely unable to settle. Edan was grizzly all the time and the two little girls were bundles of mischief who got over the shock of their father’s death with the alacrity that only the innocent could manage. They were wearying and Kata felt exhausted. But she did not dare let herself sleep. She knew that Valkia’s strike on her children must surely come.

  More days flowed by, blurring into one. And still her children lived. Kata could not bring herself to believe that Valkia had meant her words. She could not believe that the new hetwoman would willingly allow Edan to grow to manhood and stake his claim on the tribe.

  Her loyalties so torn, Kata began a slow but self-destructive descent into madness.

  Life went on regardless. Valkia’s promise to open up the Circle of Blood was kept, and a pleasing number of young warriors presented themselves to her. Each one stated their intention to take on the role of the tribe’s Warspeaker. It irritated the young woman that none of the shieldmaidens had chosen to present themselves, but she sensed that it was simply too much too soon.

  The trial by combat commenced. From the thirty or so hopefuls, two clear potential warriors emerged. One was Hepsus, whose superior skill and years of experience gave him an edge that had seen more than one challenger carried from the circle in a daze. The other was a callow youth by the name of Pelyn, who was possessed of a considerable talent in the arena.

  Valkia considered the latter thoughtfully. He was a strong-limbed young man of around her own age with hair like burnished copper and a pleasing arrogance to his stance. He would be pliable and easily manipulated to her will. Hepsus had the skill and the experience and, as Pelyn found out during the final trial, the superior cunning to lead her armies.

  The two men battled for a full two hours, both sweating and panting by the end despite the bone-chilling cold. Each was covered in nicks and surface cuts from the other’s practise blade.

  ‘I can keep going as long as it takes, old man,’ Pelyn had sneered, his self-assurance evident. ‘You could do the honourable thing and concede defeat.’

  ‘Were our roles reversed, boy,’ panted Hepsus in return, ‘would you do that?’

  ‘I would never be in your position.’

  ‘And that is why you will fail.’ Hepsus straightened his back. ‘To go into war with the belief that you are invincible will mean you fail to notice the pitfalls and snares your enemy puts in the path of your success. You are blinded to all but your own brilliance.’ Hepsus grinned suddenly. ‘And so you fall victim to the oldest trick of the veteran warrior.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Letting the old man get his breath back.’

  It had been a matter of moments after that before the startled Pelyn was beaten into a daze by an invigorated Hepsus. The Schwarzvolf, who had been watching the trials eagerly, roared their approval. Valkia nodded once, curtly. But there had been no ceremony, no drinking into the night at the celebration of a new Warspeaker. Hepsus would need to fully prove himself before she formally accepted him.

  She noted absently that once again, Kata had not been present. No doubt shut away in her yurt, drowning herself in floods of pathetic tears. Valkia’s patience with her stepmother had worn away within days of the same reaction. She had attempted reasoning and she had resorted to shouting at Kata but neither worked. The woman was dead to the world beyond her own suffering.

  ‘They call themselves the Bloody Hand.’

  Hepsus had returned from the scouting mission after several days without a single loss. In addition, they had brought back many sacks of grain and whole haunches of dried meat that would add to their winter stores. The hills people had accepted their fate without too much difficulty, although several of them had stolen away in the middle of the night. Valkia had not bothered to seek them out. If they preferred to take their chances with the creatures of the Vale and its environs rather than remain in the protective embrace of the tribe, that was their own problem.

  ‘The Bloody Hand,’ Valkia repeated. ‘Did you speak with them?’

  ‘Aye, that we did.’ Hepsus pushed a wad of dried herbs into the bowl of his pipe and lit it with a taper from the fire. The sweet, cloying smoke filled the tent with its smell and he offered the pipe to Valkia. She accepted it and inhaled the herbs, but not too deeply. They relaxed the body and it was easy to inhale too much and relax the mind as well. ‘Son of their leader. Deron, his name was.’

  ‘What led them to at
tack Eraich and his people?’

  ‘They were… not forthcoming on the matter. I pressed the point as much as I dared under the pact of truce. As far as I can tell, they were simply hungry for a fight.’

  ‘Possible threat or likely allies?’

  Hepsus considered the question. ‘Perhaps both,’ he concluded after a while. ‘They are small in number, but witnessing first-hand the damage they wrought in the farming settlement... they are also remarkably destructive. I suggest we treat them very carefully until we get a better idea of where we stand.’ He took a long, slow draw on the pipe and the blue smoke clouded his face for a moment or two. ‘They have asked to meet with the chieftain, of course.’

  Valkia bristled slightly at the hint of amusement she detected in the other warrior’s voice and shifted position until she was sitting more upright. ‘And what did you tell them?’

  ‘I said that I would speak to our leader and see what could be arranged.’

  An uncomfortable pause followed. Valkia could feel her ire rising at Hepsus and his casual manner. She had always thought him flippant, but she had a distinct feeling that he was mocking her. He was baiting her, trying to draw a weakness out. Ordinarily, she would be damned if she would fall for it, but she had to ask the question. She had to ask the question and she had to ask it with confidence.

  ‘Have you told him,’ she said, her voice clear and without any hint of irritation, nervousness or indeed any emotion at all, ‘that you are led by a woman?’

  ‘No,’ replied Hepsus and he took the pipe from between his teeth to grin wickedly at her. ‘I thought I would let them find out for themselves.’

  She could not tell from the way he spoke whether he had done this thing to weaken or strengthen her position, but a part of her was relieved. If the Bloody Hand thought that the Schwarzvolf were anything but strong, they would be attacked. She didn’t doubt the capabilities of their warriors, but they were already in a difficult place. They had to have time to settle.