Slaupnir. The monster from a tale her father had told when she had been but a girl. The terrifying creature before whom the world would flee.
Two warriors were bounding towards her with murder in their eyes and she spun gracefully to meet their challenge head on. She pressed all her weight behind the spear as she held off their attack. They fought with axes, as did so many of the northmen, and she had long mastered the technique of disarming them. With a move so fluid that it was almost flawless, she thrust Slaupnir beneath the crescent blades of the axes, hooking them on the reinforced haft of the spear.
With every ounce of her strength, she lifted herself from the ground and planted a booted foot in the chest of each warrior, ripping the axes from the hands of her attackers. They staggered back, glaring in disbelief at the woman before them, but all they could see of her as she rolled to her feet were her eyes. Her mad, battle-lust filled eyes.
Lunging forward with the weapon, she speared the first warrior through the throat. Slaupnir burst from the back of his neck and he fell to the ground gurgling his death cry in a fountain of blood. Without the time to tug her weapon free, Valkia drew her dagger and vaulted over the dying man, plunging the blade into his companion’s chest. He threw his arms wide as though he would embrace her in his final moments and then pitched forward.
Swiftly reclaiming her weapons, Valkia butchered her way through the enemy to the place where their leader was surrounded by a vanguard of his elite fighters. To her extreme distaste, she saw two men standing behind him with the telltale robes of magic users. If there was one thing that Valkia found truly offensive in an opponent, it was those who invoked the mysterious powers of the unknown.
No matter. They would die at her hands soon enough. She never took the hearts of such tainted men. She had tried, once. But the taste had been unwelcome and the nightmares afterwards even more so. Killing sorcerers now gave her considerable pleasure.
With a practised eye, she glanced around what remained of the enemy. The surviving force was puny in comparison to that which had been fielded at the day’s break. She must make the magic-users her first target, otherwise they would call forth the powers of the earth itself in an attempt to annihilate the Schwarzvolf. She would give them their final chance to join her. If they declined, then they would finish what they had started. Should they choose to accept, then the magic users would be executed. She could see no route to failure.
‘I feel generous this day,’ she called out in a slightly mocking tone. ‘Swear fealty to the Schwarzvolf now and you can choose those who would live.’ Her armour was streaked with gore and there were chunks of flesh and viscera hanging from the spear in bloody strings.
‘We will never swear loyalty to a follower of the mad god.’ The enemy leader spat on the ground. ‘We would sooner die.’
‘As you wish.’ Valkia shrugged as though he had merely refused her offer of a drink. She threw back her head and let a mighty shout ascend to the heavens.
‘Blood for the Blood God!’
The response from her own men came instantly and with it, her heart swelled almost to bursting. For five years she had dedicated every battle, every kill and every drop of blood in the name of her adopted deity.
‘Skulls for his skull throne!’
The Schwarzvolf charged.
The leader of the tribe died quickly. Too quickly for Valkia’s taste; she had been looking forward to making his screams last for a while. But he died weeping like the snivelling coward that he was. She despised weaklings. Their hearts tasted insipid and brought no pleasure when consumed on the battlefield. The hearts of the strong however... she craved that flavour.
She lived for the moments when she tore out a heart, sometimes still beating, and its explosion of flavours in her mouth when she tore the first chunk from it. After she had taken her due – her right as the tribe’s leader – she would pass the organ to her other warriors. In such a way, the Schwarzvolf had come to believe, a measure of the strength of the enemy would be gifted to them. It was a practise that many of the northmen honoured. But since Valkia had named the Blood God as their patron, the Schwarzvolf not only honoured it, they practised it with great pleasure.
Their leader dispatched, the remaining elite guard had been granted the choice to swear their swords to her banner or die. To a man, they chose death, considering that their chance to switch allegiance had passed by the moment Valkia had taken their leader’s head. Even now she held the grisly trophy in her free hand, its eyes staring sightlessly ahead, ragged strips of meat hanging from the neck.
It always disappointed her when such fearsome warriors chose death over life, but only ever for a fraction of a second. Once the bitter resentment passed, she gloried in the slaughter. They could take great strength from the fallen, she would remind herself, and Kharneth would be pleased.
It left only the sorcerers to be dealt with. Valkia had lost a handful of her warriors in the path of their unnatural methods. They had called forth fire from nowhere and her warriors, three men and two women had died screaming in agony. The moment Valkia had successfully incapacitated them she had torn out their tongues. Let them speak their words of magic now. They would be bound, taken back to the camp of the Schwarzvolf and publicly executed as the abominations they were.
The might of the Schwarzvolf had grown exponen-tially in a few short years. Valkia’s ability to act diplomatically when the occasion called for it had begun to diminish proportionately. To refuse the will of the Schwarzvolf was to invite ruin. Her moods had always been mercurial but as she gained in strength and power she became ever more unpredictable. It was not unheard of for her to turn on one of her own warriors in a torrent of rage, and when she was held in the grip of such tantrums her strength was formidable.
She had installed Hepsus as her Warspeaker despite her initial dislike and distrust of the man and it had proven to be a wise move. As bloody and violent as she was, the two would always be found fighting shoulder to shoulder at the head of her army. They shared the glory of victory together and she trusted him to lead the army at times when she was otherwise unable to do so herself. He had never once let her down or tried to wrest power from her but she refused to allow complacency.
Valkia’s position as leader of the Schwarzvolf had been absolutely assured when she had taken control with such affirmation. Her confidence, sense of identity and genuine desire to build on the foundations that her father had laid down, swayed her tribe to her cause in a matter of months. Those who had been gradually assimilated into the Schwarzvolf took a little longer. Some never accepted the alliance with the Bloody Hand, but they did not live long enough to raise argument.
She and Kalir had sat together for a long time discussing the terms of their accord. It had not taken much for Deron and his father to convince her of the merits of worshipping the Blood God. She could see their strength and their might and she wanted some of that for her people. They had sheer, brute force – she had numbers. Together, she reasoned, they would be nigh on unstoppable. They had been simple, guileless words but Kalir had seen their worth. The Bloody Hand could never hope to achieve glory on the level they desired without the numbers to see it through. The Schwarzvolf could bring that.
Valkia had presented the solution to the biggest problem. If the two tribes were to unite, who would be the recognised leader? She had bitten back her pride and had fixed Kalir with a careful eye.
‘I will marry your son,’ she said. ‘Together, we will represent the best of both our peoples. Such a union in the eyes of the Four will bind our tribes together by blood. And that is a message that cannot be ignored. I am the leader of my people and Deron will one day be yours.’ Kalir had been set to argue the point. He was the leader of his people, not his son. But her reasoning was presented in a carefully moderated tone that actually made him consider the option carefully.
‘I cannot answer for Deron,’ he said eventually. ‘My son must make his own choice in this matter. He has spoken of you
often over the winter.’ With those words, Valkia knew she had what she wanted. Much as she did not wish to do it, she would take Deron as a husband until it was no longer a necessity.
When he had been brought into the tent to join in the discussion, he had agreed readily. For Deron, he felt that he was getting the best of both worlds. He got to assume nominal leadership of his own people whilst at the same time marrying into the tribe that had become recognised as one of the strongest. He let his eyes linger on Valkia and her heart sank, knowing that she had been forced to give up one of her longest-standing principles. But it was for the sake of her people.
It was for the sake of her greater scheme.
She wondered, as she roamed the now-peaceful battlefield, why it was that she was letting her thoughts linger on the events of the past. She had put it all behind her and moved forward. She was no longer Valkia, hetwoman of the Schwarzvolf. She had been gifted a new name by those who opposed her and everything that she stood for. They called her the Gorequeen, an acknowledgement of her bloody, brutal methods of war. And in truth, Valkia had become a queen in the eyes of her people. She no longer simply led them. She ruled them with fairness and cruelty in equal measure.
Perhaps it was simply the fact that the fifth birthday of her twin daughters was coming up that had brought the memories forward. For all her single-minded savagery and prowess in battle, Valkia’s love for the two little girls was the one thing that kept her humanity chained to her. She had fallen pregnant quickly after the marriage to Deron and had hated every moment of it. She had detested the early sickness and the later sense of being so bulky and cumbersome. Childbirth had been difficult for her; she had always been boyish in shape with a long, slim waist and narrow hips and it had not made the process easy. The Godspeaker had told her that to be born in blood was a good omen however, that Kharneth looked favourably upon the children. This appeased Valkia and drove out what lingered of the pain.
Another memory surfaced.
‘They are girls.’
Deron’s disappointment enraged her and had she not been so weakened by the blood loss that had come with the delivery of the twins, she would have flown at her husband in a rage. But she calmed herself. The time would come. She lay there, smouldering in barely contained fury and forced herself back to a state of comparative calmness. There was no end such wrath could bring the united tribes to but a poor one. She had to bide her time.
‘But they are healthy.’ She detested how weary she sounded and swore blind that as soon as she was able, Deron would pay the price for his insult – whether it had been intentional or not. The girls were perfect in every way, although a little undersized. ‘Be grateful for that, husband.’ She put such venom into the word that he had looked up from the babies at her.
Their marriage had not been an easy one. Two such strong-willed personalities in a confined space resulted in raging arguments and any early feelings they may have had for each other were quickly lost. Outside of the privacy of their own tent, they wore a united face and until her pregnancy rendered her unable to fight, they had cut a startlingly impressive duo. As hunters, they had a natural compatibility and as fighters, their styles complemented one another perfectly. By themselves, Valkia and Deron were recognised as fine, deadly warriors. Together, they were terrifying. Together, they represented the might of the Schwarzvolf and the strength of the Bloody Hand.
And yet they came to despise one another swiftly. The fact that Valkia had birthed female offspring was a deep cut to Deron’s masculinity and she enjoyed his discomfort as she spoke of all the girls stood to inherit. How they would take the allied tribes forward to another generation of glory.
‘Our next child will be a boy,’ he said, interrupting her monologue. ‘He will become my heir and it will be he who leads our people to the feet of the Blood God.’
‘There will be no next child.’ This was both a natural resistance to the suggestion and a statement of likely fact. The birth had been difficult and the damage done had left the tribe’s midwife in doubt as to whether Valkia would survive another pregnancy. ‘The girls are our heirs now. Look at them, Deron. They are born of a union of the finest and best our generation has to offer. They will be a force unparalleled by any other.’
Deron looked at the tiny girls, sleeping peacefully. For the briefest of brief moments, his expression softened. Both had heads covered in wispy dark hair and they had the same olive complexion of their father. Their spines were straight and strong and Valkia’s main observation was that they were healthy. There were no deformities, no mutations... they were beautiful.
But they were female. Deron felt no paternal instinct towards his children. He had held out hope that he would have spent this night drinking himself comatose in celebration of the birth of his first son; the ultimate proof of his prowess. Instead, he would drink himself comatose in commiseration. The desire that Valkia would produce a male child had been the only consolation he could find in the manner in which his children had been conceived.
Valkia had propped herself up on her elbows and studied Deron wordlessly. She could see the struggle going on behind his eyes and was relishing every moment of his pain. She had got what she wanted from him. She had decided that the time to bear children was right. Deron had not agreed.
Valkia had forcibly taken from him what she needed. Enough fermented spirits and the point of a blade could be most persuasive. He had been humiliated afterwards. He had claimed theft of his masculinity, but she had simply laughed at him and barred him from her tent.
She had not cared whether the offspring she had carried for nine months had been a boy or girl. She had her heirs. That they were girls was merely a blessing as far as she was concerned.
She had what she wanted.
She always got what she wanted.
The phrase rolled itself around her mind. ‘You should go attend to your duties, husband,’ she said eventually. ‘I must care for the girls. I have named them, if you have any interest at all.’
Deron looked as though he would retort, but bit his tongue. ‘What are their names?’
‘Eris,’ she said, pointing to the slightly smaller of the two. ‘After my mother. And Bellona. After yours.’
‘They will suffice,’ Deron acknowledged after a moment or two. With that, he swept from the tent leaving his wife and their two children alone. In that moment, had he but realised it, he sealed his own doom. In that moment, he had invited the full wrath of a proud woman.
The hearts of the fallen had all been carved out. It had been a long, laborious process and the bale moon, swollen to a larger size than usual, threw its cold green light down on the carnage. The Schwarzvolf roamed the corpses of the dead, salvaging usable arms and armour and claiming anything of worth.
Valkia, her face smeared with the blood of all the flesh she had consumed stood apart from the others, her hand on the spear as she stared up at the moon. It was an omen, of that she was sure. She had not seen it so big or so bright for many years. She made a note to consult the Godspeaker on their return to camp. She recalled quite clearly the last time the moon had shone so strongly. It had been the night when she had finally given herself over to Kharneth fully.
She had been back on her feet the day after the girls had been born and although she was weaker than usual, her ferocity and ardour were not dampened at all. She had taken her place at the daily moot, arriving before the others so that there was no chance Deron could usurp her position at the Circle’s head. When he had arrived – late – she had given him a sweet smile that was laced with pure venom.
‘Where are your children, wife?’ He had the faintly sick cast of a man who had partaken of too much alcohol the night before and she took a perverse delight in his condition.
‘Our children are safe and in the care of the women. There are matters here that need my attention. I am the leader of this tribe, husband. You would do well to remember that.’ She looked around the gathered faces. ‘You would all do well to re
member that.’
There were murmured sounds of assent, although one or two of the warriors cast sidelong glances at Deron. It was as Valkia had suspected. Her husband was trying to wrest control of her people from her and the very notion filled her with bile. This matter would need to be taken care of.
‘Fydor, I have need of you when this meeting is concluded,’ she said to the Godspeaker. ‘I require your presence in my tent to open the hearts of my daughters to the Four.’
‘As the hetwoman wishes.’ At least he was still fully loyal. He always would be. For a moment, Valkia felt fear for her position. It was a feeling she was entirely unaccustomed to and she disliked it. She put it down to the birth of the girls leaving her slightly addled. Forcing herself to focus, she sat through the morning’s council, although her mind was not truly engaged in the discussion. After the meeting was over and everyone, including her husband, had left her in peace, she sat and chewed her lip thoughtfully for several minutes.
Her mind made up, she ducked out of the council tent and headed back to her own.
It had been easy, in the end. Easy enough to bring Deron out to the glade where the tribe’s most fervent rituals were held. She had brought both of the girls with her and laid them naked on the grass. Eris had begun crying noisily at this treatment and Valkia had made no effort to silence her daughter. Let the Four hear how strong her voice was.
Bellona had joined in eventually, upset by her sister’s discomfort and the two girls wailed into the sky. Fydor had walked around the glade several times and then had knelt by the infants.
‘In the name of the Trickster, the god of lies, deceit and of change, we dedicate you. Time will change you from infants to young women of the Schwarzvolf. Life will change you from ignorant to knowledgeable. Embrace change.’ He smeared their bare chests with mud from the ground and continued.
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