Valkia the Bloody

by Sarah Cawkwell

  ‘The Fly Lord, bringer of disease, we show you these two healthy children. Their form is pleasing and it is clear that neither is god-touched. We thank you for your benevolence and ask that you leave them be.’ A second smear of mud over the first left the girls with a cross marked on their chests. Valkia and Deron crossed their arms across their breast; the recognised sign of warding away illness.

  ‘To the Reveller, god of lusts, we offer these two infants as proof of the virility and fertility of our leaders.’ Another smear, this time diagonally across the other two. Finally, Fydor beckoned Valkia forward, offering her a small silver dagger.

  ‘And the last. To the Axefather…’

  ‘Kharneth,’ Valkia interjected. ‘Use his name now, Godspeaker. He is our patron god after all.’ She knelt by her crying daughters and one after the other, made a small nick in the palm of their hands. She squeezed gently and the blood welled. Taking it onto her finger, she drew the final line in blood, the other diagonal that left an eight-pointed symbol on the girls’ chests.

  ‘To Kharneth, the Blood God, we ask that you turn your eye to these children and give them the strength and ferocity to build the might of the Schwarzvolf for generations to come.’ The Godspeaker met Valkia’s gaze and she stared back. Fydor reached out and laid his hands gently on the heads of the two babies. ‘Protect our future leaders,’ he said.

  At these words, Deron stepped forward as though he would interrupt and Valkia closed her eyes, releasing a breath that she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. It was exactly as she had hoped. His impetuous nature had caused him to violate one of the tribe’s most important rituals.

  ‘Stand back, husband,’ she said. ‘The ritual is not complete. Would you dare risk the wrath of the Four? Does the thought of their displeasure not fill you with dread?’ They were words spoken with equal ritual severity and her voice trembled slightly. Here, in this most holy of places, he dared to defy the gods themselves.

  ‘I fear nothing. My own god favours me beyond all else and the others are weak in his shadow. I am greater even than they.’ His arrogance was unwavering and Valkia knew a moment’s regret and sadness. He could have been truly great had he only learned to see her as his equal. But he had sought to control her. And for that, he would pay the ultimate price.

  ‘As my husband says.’ She bowed her head. Then, she leaped to her feet and drove her silver dagger through his eye and into his skull. ‘Are you afraid yet, Deron?’

  He did not answer, merely stared at her with a cyclopean gaze that became glassy and dead. He sank first to his knees, then forwards onto the hilt of the knife, pushing it further still into his brain.

  Behind her, still lying in the grass, the girls stopped crying. The air itself stilled. No breeze rippled the grass or leaves in the trees above them. The only noise was that of Deron as he grunted out his last breaths. He sounded like a pig that had been taken to slaughter and the analogy delighted Valkia. She pushed him over with the toe of her boot so that he lay face upwards. She pulled the dagger from his head and spat on him.

  ‘No man is greater than the gods,’ she said. ‘For the sin of such arrogance, you will meet them in their own realm and they will show you who is the greater.’ She thrust the blade into his throat, the tip biting deeply into his spine. With a twist and a crackle of bone Deron’s head came free, a fitting trophy to adorn this sacred place.

  Above them, the bale moon had shone, eerie and insipid, but swollen to a size far larger than it had been in a long while. Just as it shone now. Valkia stared into its light for a long while as though she could divine some greater meaning from it. All she knew for sure was that the Schwarzvolf had gone from strength to strength since that night she had given herself over totally to the Blood God in name and deed.

  This battle may have been over, but the new day would bring another opportunity; another threat to their supremacy. Valkia turned from the moon and walked into the night.

  SEVEN

  Locephax

  She is unnatural.

  They were words that had long been whispered about Valkia but they had gathered momentum of late. The whispers, so she had heard, originated from the most unlikely of sources and whilst she was aware of them, they did nothing to shake her unwavering sense of purpose.

  Let the people gossip. Let them talk about her. At almost thirty years of age, Valkia was in her prime and at the very peak of her power. She had no interest in rumour and words that could never hope to harm her.

  The Schwarzvolf had grown in power and strength without stopping until they were the undisputed tribal force of the north. At their head, always at the front of the battle line, Valkia stood; mighty and resolute.

  She had taken the sobriquet ‘the Gorequeen’ to heart and had elected to use ‘Queen’ as her honorific. It was an affectation rather than an indication of any kingdom she may have ruled over, but such was the power that she wielded that very few could tell the difference. ‘Queen Valkia’ became the recognised and expected form of address.

  She lived, as she always had, for battle. Her advance in years had not lessened her ardour for bloodshed and she was still as lithe and nimble on the battlefield as she had ever been. All that age had brought for her had been experience and skill, and a terrifying strength which ensured she could humble any man who dared to cross her.

  The majority of her people adored her. Even those who initially had reservations about being conquered by such a violent figurehead ultimately fell for her charisma and her unerring ability to lead. She could muster the entire tribe in short order and her pre-battle speeches were stirring and eloquent. Her people... yes, they loved her. There were the gossiping whispers that there had always been but their voices never found volume.

  Her enemies – those that still remained – feared and hated her in equal measure. Valkia was an acknowledged champion of the Blood God, the god known variously as Kharneth or the Axefather and it was certain knowledge that nobody could defeat her all the time he favoured her.

  She became known for her cold, dispassionate cruelty in dealing with anybody who challenged her and those who dared to defy her never did so for long. The impressive collection of heads that she took in a few short months alone acted as a deterrent to enough people. There were still those who tried, of course.

  Politically, she was ruthless. She had arranged suitable marriages for her two half-sisters, but had given her own daughters the freedom to choose for themselves what they wished to do. Now sixteen, Bellona and Eris had grown into young women who were perhaps even more beautiful than their mother had been at that age, having inherited their father’s colouring which contrasted so well with their dark hair and eyes. They were identical down to the last detail and were the only people to whom Valkia ever showed any tenderness.

  Her little brother Edan had ceased to be a threat to her position the day that Fydor had taken him on as an apprentice. Now a young man, he was small and undersized and had often fallen prey to winter sickness. It amazed Valkia that he still lived at all. In his position as the new Godspeaker he was still finding his way alone, following Fydor’s death at the startling age of seventy-five barely six months previously.

  Valkia had openly wept at the old man’s funeral. The Godspeaker had been her closest ally and her dearest friend. His loyalty had been without question and his loss tore at her in a way she had not known since the day she had ended Radek’s life.

  The grief passed to a hollow ache of loss in time and if Valkia regretted the display of momentary weakness at Fydor’s funeral, she did not let it show. Nobody dared bring the subject up with her and life resumed its usual pace. The Schwarzvolf had resumed their nomadic ways, moving between summer and winter camps that grew a little larger every year. They were in the Vale at the summer camp the day the stranger arrived amongst the Schwarzvolf.

  The affectation of the title ‘Queen’ had brought with it a certain expectation and it amused Valkia that her people had practically insisted that sh
e have a throne within the chieftain’s tent. It was hand built and came apart for the need to travel.

  The wooden throne was adorned with a number of skulls, a choice Valkia had made to complement the practice of displaying the corpses of traitors and betrayers around the camp. Markings denoting the manner of the deaths of these unfortunate souls were carved into the bone. It loaned an entirely unpleasant and gruesome aspect to the woman who sat surrounded by them. Although she would never have openly acknowledged it, it was the most uncomfortable thing that Valkia, a woman used to sitting on the ground, had ever had to bear. Regardless of this fact, it nonetheless earned the respect of those who came to speak with her.

  And many came to speak with her. The balance of power in the north had shifted and Valkia was considered one of the most powerful warlords. As such, it became ever more desirable to ally with her. She had long since stopped going to other tribes to barter for their allegiance. Let them come to her and beg.

  She had dispensed with Deron when he had no longer been necessary. She had done so without remorse and she had actively taken great pleasure from the act of murder. It had led to difficulties with Deron’s father of course; Kalir had found it virtually impossible to reconcile their differences. He had openly accused her of murdering him in cold blood, but on the given witness of the Godspeaker had been forced to accept that his headstrong son had condemned himself through his heretical actions. To interrupt a ritual to the four gods was an unforgivable thing.

  Still, he had openly challenged Valkia’s suitability for leadership. For the first and only time, Valkia refused to meet him in the Circle of Blood.

  ‘We need each other, remember? You agreed to this alliance and if we turn upon one another… now, when we need one another’s strength, we will doom ourselves. The other tribes will ally against us and strike whilst we are weak.’

  Her argument had been persuasive – and accurate – and Kalir had withdrawn the challenge. The Bloody Hand and the Schwarzvolf remained allies and it did not take too long for Kalir to meet his demise. Valkia was almost disappointed that the berserker met his end on the battlefield. She had developed many plans for dealing with dissenters. In time, the berserker-warriors of the Bloody Hand were simply absorbed into the Schwarzvolf collective.

  They thrived. The gods had truly granted their blessings upon Valkia and her people. Deformities in the children disappeared almost completely. Meat was plentiful and the tribe were well fed and healthy. The fervent adulation of their patron god was worn on every face and it became common practice to behead animals or prisoners, or sometimes both on a daily basis to retain his favour.

  The Bloody Hand had been secretive and almost furtive in their worship of Kharneth. Valkia denied this subterfuge, preferring instead to make sure her enemies knew where the loyalties of the Schwarzvolf lay.

  Such open acknowledgement brought fear and struck terror into the hearts of their enemies… and it also drew the attention of those who Valkia had not considered.

  The visitor was tall and slender with hair that came down below his shoulders. He looked willowy, as though a strong wind could snap him in two, but there was a kind of iron strength about him that she found oddly alluring. The colour of his hair was unusual, too. She was used to seeing steel-grey or blond hair amongst the people of her tribe, but this man’s hair was true silver. It glinted in the sun as he moved and wherever he walked, all heads turned towards him.

  As he approached Valkia, seated upon her throne, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. His eyes were of deepest amethyst, a rich, dark purple. He was one of the god-touched to be sure; one of the many deformed babies of the Wastes who were left to the hands of the gods and who had somehow survived.

  The skin of his face and neck was alabaster pale with an ethereal glow about it that reminded Valkia of moonlight on the snow; one of the sights she had always found most beautiful. She stared at him as he approached. She had rarely seen such sharply defined features in a man. He was pretty, there was no other word for it. Where Deron had been blessed with ruggedly masculine good looks and even the scarred Radek had been attractive in his own solidly-built way, this stranger was beautiful.

  As he took the first step up the dais towards her throne, she saw that he wore gloves made of soft leather. He peeled one off and caught her hand in his. The skin of his hand was just as luminescent as that of his face and he raised her knuckles to his perfectly-shaped lips.

  ‘I feared that the many tales of your beauty were grossly untrue,’ he said in a musical lilt. ‘Yet you are quite lovely, Queen Valkia.’ The bold approach took her by surprise and she stared hard into his eyes, allowing him to hold her hand a moment longer before she snatched it away and forced an imperious glower onto her face.

  ‘Who are you?’ The words came out tinged with wonder rather than with the usual barked impatience.

  The smile he gave her was devastating. ‘My name is Locephax,’ he said. ‘And I am here to make you an offer.’

  Everything about Locephax fascinated Valkia. The way he moved with such easy, fluid grace. The manner in which he held himself. There was a confidence to his stance, and his bearing was almost regal; at first, Valkia had wondered if he was some southern lordling. Over the course of the evening’s conversation, it transpired that Locephax was a northman.

  She had told him to present his offer, but he had laughed gently. ‘There will be time enough later, my lovely warrior queen,’ he had said. ‘For now, why don’t we take advantage of one another’s company? I have brought you gifts.’

  He had brought fine wine the like of which Valkia had never tasted. It was fermented, so Locephax explained, from fruit that grew freely in his domain. It was sweet; nothing like the bitter berries and blood that Valkia had grown accustomed to over the years and she savoured each drop. The wine was deep claret in colour and she swirled it around in the stone cup as she considered him over the top of it.

  Locephax’s charm was insidious. He had won over every single person to whom he had spoken – even Valkia. And yet the warrior queen felt an uncertain hesitation about him. She considered him as he flirted shamelessly with Eris and Bellona. Her daughters were enchanted by the man and from the look on their faces as he whispered to them, he was making suggestions that were probably lewd. The tether on her patience ran out.

  ‘Eris, Bellona – leave us.’ Both the girls scowled their disapproval, but neither was bold enough to refuse a direct order from their mother. Perhaps when they had been younger, yes – but she considered them as grown women now. They pouted prettily at Locephax who watched them leave, devouring their shapely figures with eyes that did nothing to hide the lascivious thoughts he clearly had.

  ‘I would remind you that you are a guest in my presence, Locephax,’ Valkia said when they had gone. ‘You would do well to treat my daughters with the same respect you would afford me.’ Was she jealous? She was rather startled and a little embarrassed to realise that yes, she was. She was envious that her beautiful daughters were attracting the attentions of this captivating stranger.

  Angrily, she tossed the stone cup away from her. The wine was affecting her judgement and she had always sworn blind that she would not succumb to such a weakness. The drinking vessel hit the ground with a dull thud, the wine spilling out in a crimson stain on the furs that were strewn on the floor of the tent. ‘Now speak of this offer you have come to make me.’

  ‘I mean no offence, Queen Valkia,’ he said, leaning back on the floor, his arms behind him and his head bent backwards so that his long fall of silver hair brushed the earth. Not quite understanding why, Valkia wondered how his hair might feel if he was leaning over her. Locephax was stunningly attractive. His words of flattery seemed genuine and designed to strike true and yet there was something in the way he spoke that genuinely repulsed her.

  ‘I have taken none,’ she said. ‘Not yet, anyway. But Eris and Bellona are my children. I have a vested interest in what happens to them. I know nothing
of you. I will not have my daughters whoring themselves out to you in such a way.’

  ‘A pity,’ came the unexpected response. ‘I had such grand plans for them both. But since you have forced my hand in this matter…’ He sat up straight and smiled winningly over the distance that separated them. ‘I am here at the behest of my own lord and master, although the rumours of your beauty would have drawn me to you eventually anyway.’

  ‘Stop it,’ she said, her fingers curling briefly into a fist. ‘I am not a gullible child. Your words may be pretty, but you are not fooling me. Stop it and tell me what it is that you want.’

  The smile he gave her this time was far from winning or even remotely charming. It was chilling. A faint shock of understanding ran through Valkia, but she couldn’t comprehend why or what it was. She let her fingers slowly unfurl and then gripped them tightly once again. ‘I asked you this question before. Answer me truthfully. Who are you?’

  ‘Beautiful and clever.’ Locephax ran a hungry tongue across his perfectly-shaped lips. ‘What an exquisitely charming combination. Very well then, Valkia of the Schwarzvolf, I will tell you precisely who I am and why you will see that what I offer you is far beyond anything you have ever known.’

  Rising to his feet, Locephax stretched out his shoulders and took a contented breath of air. Valkia watched him like a hawk, her hand straying to the hilt of the dagger in her boot.

  ‘For most of your life you have sworn allegiance to the Four, favouring the – what is your people’s name for him again?’

  ‘The Axefather, we used to call him,’ she responded warily. ‘We know him as Kharneth now.’

  ‘Closer, admittedly,’ sneered Locephax. ‘Crude names at best, but fitting for a god whose only driving desire is that of death and bloody destruction. Now, my lord and master…’

  ‘You are a creature of the Reveller.’ So much was obvious. The flirtatious behaviour, the perfectly groomed appearance… everything about the man spoke of a life of debauchery. Valkia knew little of the other gods, only that Deron had once mentioned Kharneth’s abiding hatred of the followers of the frivolous Reveller. Instinctively, she went on her guard.