Into Many Worlds - A Collection of Short Stories

The Valkyrie

In the end, it was silent. Babies stared wide-eyed in their mother's arms as the remaining villagers and slaves gathered around the village. I too stood in the square, leaning on sticks, watching as the gray clouds rolled toward us from the ground.

My heart beat faster than war drums as I looked upon the world I loved. With just one glance, a stone sank in my stomach, knowing what happened.

Before my father's longhouse and beyond the village wall, shone the sun, brightening the blue sky. And below it, a thick layer of cloud growing by the second.

When I was a child, I always stood in this exact spot and gazed upon the mountain that safeguarded my people. The mountain that once stood to protect my father's village was no longer there.

The mountain, my beloved rock that pierced the sky had now collapsed and without a doubt, I knew the worse had come. Ragnarok began, and the world was ending.

I limped out further to the wall as the ash from the dead mountain sank in the village and covered the people. It snaked into my mouth and coated my throat.

I looked around the village at everyone who remained. My father's villagers with a few men stood sprinkled amongst women and thralls. The ash covered everything. The freeze from the stained snow at our feet buried into our bones. Three winter seasons had passed with no summers in between for the harvest. The dust made the village look dead. Each starving and frail face stared back at me, gray and pale. It resembled a graveyard.

As a young girl, my arranged marriage to an enemy village, revered for their warriors, secured my future. When I came of age and consummated my marriage to my husband, a treaty promised that both villages became allies and battled together. Nineteen years later, here I stood in my father's village, as my husband lead our army along with my father's raiding an enemy village after a battle won. The only villagers that remained behind were the sick, elderly, villagers, thralls, and wounded. When I moved to my husband's village, I trained to fight, and breed as only a woman warrior could. An empty village was a new site for me to behold. I was a warrior and never stayed back. Being left sickened me, but I gave away the advantage during the battle, and my wound was proof.

The injury wasn't a terrible wound as far as they went, but an enemy warrior had slashed my thigh with his knife. He only got in that close because I got arrogant. My father, the Jarl of his village, and my husband, the Jarl of my own, left me here to teach me a lesson.

"Lif."

I looked toward the sound to find a thrall wide-eyed and pointing to where the mountain once stood.

I turned to see what was in the distance; the unmistakable march of warriors in a war formation marching onto a village.

Elation jumped through my core at the thought of my husband returning with more riches and dresses. I stood among my people a warrior and a woman who loved finer clothes and shiny weapons.

My underarms hurt from leaning against walking sticks, but I suffered through as I rushed to the wall to greet our joined armies.

I paused, looking at the warriors heading our way. These men marching onto us were quiet and marched as if there were one person. Our men would have been running and shouting. These men had to be enemies.

The unknown warriors lined in rows blocking the horizon, black shields shining the light in our eyes. Never had I seen the wood of shields shine in the sun as theirs had, or clothes so black, but it frightened me more than the Christians who came and went.

Instantly my body jolted in fear. Limping around, I rushed back into my father's longhouse, passing the great hall and into the room where my father kept the weapons.