An Angel Called Eternity

To Bet on Losing Dogs - Svaltha I: To Set the Trap

Svaltha I: To Set the Trap

The Forth Day of the Third Moon, 873 AD.
Isan's Passage, Hoarsoil Valleys, Scelopyrea.

Well, she couldn't exactly pretend to be happy with her latest assignment.

Svaltha shivered a little as they continued making their way north. There was something in her mind that told her not to continue on this journey, but the senior Druids had assigned her this task and she'd be damned if she didn't see it through to the utmost. Besides, it wasn't going to be hard exactly. The worst part would be the waiting when it all went 'wrong'. Deliberately wrong of course, but wrong nonetheless. One of the elder Seers had seen a vision of two lesser Jotun stalking this roadway, and so they wanted her to be the bait in a little trap. Not to catch the Jotun, but to ensnare some puffed-up young warrior, the son of the Great Jaerl no less. She didn't know exactly what he was like, but the elders had spent much of the last half a decade making overtures and showing deference to him in a feigned display of submission to make sure he followed their orders without realising it, and if they could get her by his side then they'd have a direct channel through to him at all times without the Great Jaerl suspecting a thing.

Thinking on the elder Seers amongst the ranks of the Druids made her think of the reports they'd heard from the south. Apparently the coastal southerners had a Seer of their own in their palace, but whoever this Seer was they were certainly not counted amongst the ranks of the northmen. 'Powerful' was the word on the lips of those traders who had made their way south and back, powerful but raw, powerful but secretive. Whoever they were, they were no ally of the Druids.

Shaking her head a little she considered how much longer they might have to travel down this road until the Jotun caught scent of them. The giant folk did not scare her as they did most, for she had little reason to fear with the whispers of Krakevasil in her head, but nonetheless there was a sense of nervous anticipation slowly building in her gut. She trusted the elders, of course she did, and she recognised the value of effectively having the son of the Great Jaerl willingly puppet himself for them, but it still seemed rather calloused to send half a dozen guards and attendants purely so that they might be killed to draw in the son of the Great Jaerl; from what she understood the sense of gratification he got from the Druids seeking him out meant that he likely would have gone off into these hills and valleys to find her even without the proverbial sacrificial lambs.

Still, the senior Druids knew what they were doing. If she played her part well she might even be made a Druid herself, rather than being forced to remain a Novice for another five years. She could probably spin things in her favour with her elders if they recognised that she was sound, that she could be trusted with such manipulations and schemes. She fully understood the need for caution where inviting outsiders into their plots was concerned, for it had taken almost three decades to get Scelopyrea in the state that it was and they were so close to the final battle, but she wished to stand amongst the ranks of her initiated brethren nonetheless.

Did she not hear the whispers of her god within her mind as they all did?

Of course you do, came a voice through the rustling of the leaves on the wind, I never leave my children.

She smiled a little at the affirmation. She'd never doubted her god, but it was nice to hear nonetheless. It made sense if the druids didn't want her involved any more than this, for to perfectly divide Scelopyrea in two the wheels had been in motion for almost a decade by the time she'd been born, but in a year or two there would be an apocalyptic battle on the ice between the two armies, a great and terrible shedding of blood that would make even the mighty Aenir run red. A goodly portion of all the soldiers, warriors, and fighters in Scelopyrea would die in a single tumultuous day, and by the end of it all the bloodshed would be so great that their god would find the strength to pull himself back together, to walk amongst them once more and lead them to the ultimate triumph over the treacherous Hedyn and Brythonian kingdoms to the west, as well as the soft, weak realms to the south. The age of kings and warlords would come to an end, and the age of the Druid would welcome all with a living god as its herald.