A Valkyrie at the Keep
She lifted her right foot as the screams of terror grated against her ears yet again. She was frantically trying to reach the bend in the hallway just head where she could hear the cries of fear coming from. She was in a dead sprint, all that mattered to her was reaching the source of the voices and keeping them safe. If only she could reach them, she could provide them comfort and shelter them from whatever could be frightening ‒ or hurting ‒ them so much. The sounds were all too telling of how they poor voices felt. Wails of such misery are truly unique, they carve their way into one’s memories and never truly fade. Each one carrying a horrific and unmistakable feeling with it. Screams such as these communicate true experience of horror or agony more clearly than any amount of words ever could, and they are not easily forgotten.
Her knee reached her chest as tears of frustration streamed down her face. She was fiercely trying to move her legs faster, yet they would not cooperate. As if she had a ball and chain tied to each ankle that she could not see; or that she were trying to run in waist deep in thick, dark mud that she could not feel. All she desired was to reach the bend in the hall, yet her body was betraying her. She had relied on her strength and speed for her entire life and they were failing her now, when she needed them so desperately. She closed her eyes and put her head down, focusing all of her might into her legs to no avail. A roar of anger, from her this time.
Her right foot touched the ground and she opened her eyes again. Through clouded, teary vision she saw her foot roll slowly across the floor. Her heavy breath became irregular and her teary eyes worsened as she came to realize what she was looking at. Her foot’s movement slowed to a halt as her skin morphed into a cracked stony surface. The flesh in her legs stopped moving when it had changed into a solid rocky sculpture. Her own screams of terror stopped along with her exasperated breathing when her throat had become an earthen figure.
Rúna suddenly awoke from her nightmare panting and wet with sweat. A quick look around reminded her that she had fallen asleep in a tent near the construction site of the keep. Her mouth felt bone dry and she struggled to breathe in the warm, humid air. It had been almost four span since the last of the snow melted. In that time, Rúna came to wonder more and more how people from this part of the world coped with the heat. Yet everyone at the site of the keep still wore coats and full length leg garments. In the previous two span Rúna had worn little more than a burlap strap bound around her chest and shoulders, a hide skirt, and her blue scarf. Even that much was because her companions advised her that she should cover her body while in public.
Parched as she always was upon waking, she reached for the waterskin she had become accustomed to leaving beside her bedroll. Dismayed to find it empty, Rúna sighed heavily as she collected herself. She fixed her burlap top around her upper body and pulled her boots onto her feet before stepping out of the tent with the waterskin.
The sun had not risen yet, but she could tell it would soon; the light had begun to peak over the horizon. Rúna began her walk across the camp to the well she had helped dig once the ground had thawed. She spent the walk trying to forget her dream by thinking about the well. She had not yet grown accustomed to the new water source, or the idea that the water source she has always known and used is gone. She despised the taste of the wellwater. Snowmelt was all she had drank for the first eighteen years of her life and now, according to Caldwell and Orlov, this hole in the ground is the best source of water.
Rúna’s thoughts turned to the cool dew on the wet ground. Her heavy footsteps left deep welts in the morning mud. The ground here was long trodden down by the large groups of laborers carrying materials between the dock and the keep. The thick boots were the same ones she had worn in Vaggasál and they did well to keep the water and mud out. She worried not whether her walking roused any of the sleeping workers as they usually were called to wake shortly after dawn. Additionally, she had learned by then that the vast majority of the laborers dared not bother her.
Rúna did not often contribute to the keep’s construction, at Orlov’s request. She understood that she is not well trained for the fine craftsmanship that might be required. His other reason, however, still perplexed her. Being one of the “patrons of this endeavor” as he put it, never fully explained why she should be exempt from the labors. Most days she spent painting and studying the tinctures and herbs in kit she had acquired months ago. Occasionally, however, when some workers were struggling to move larger pieces of wood or stone, Rúna would step in to aid them. This is not why they feared her though.
The workers were afraid of her ferocious training. Once per day, close to sunset when the work for the day had ceased, Rúna would ask a few of the strongest workers to spar with her. When she first started this, none of the workers took it seriously. After the few seconds it took for her to humiliate her opponent, that changed rather dramatically. Her training sessions had become quite a spectacle for the worker crew after their shifts ended. The collective realization was that there was no one laborer who could challenge the Valkyrie, so they began sparring her two, three, or more at once.
The nightly event became such a morale booster for everyone that Orlov decided to encourage it and ordered some sets of blunted weapons and leathers for protection. The men and women began to place bets not on who would win, but how many people Rúna could fend off and best at once. While she was glad that she was able to practice and train, she longed for the return of Nirka, a much more capable sparring partner than any of these masons or sailors or dockhands.
Rúna’s reminiscence came to an abrupt end as she rounded the corner of a large tent and was met with a spirit of a tall, strong woman. Startled, she stumbled backwards and with a thunderous crack, summoned her spear. The sound stirred the sleeping camp and Rúna instinctively raised her spear with her right hand. The shaft sparking with lightning mere inches from her face. The soft blue glow from the runic tattoos on her forearm visible out of the corner of her eye. Her left arm raised before her, interposed between herself and the figure before her.
After her immediate reaction Rúna realized who she had encountered. One of her ancestral guardian spirits stood before here, standing eye to eye with Rúna, bearing a shield in one hand and a spear identical to hers in the other, Eldspjót, the lightning spear of the Valkyries. This spirit, a translucent and iridescent blue, wearing a winged helmet that covered her face, spoke to her with a voice that echoed from an ethereal source to Rúna’s ears. It spoke in a language she had not heard since leaving Vaggasál.
You cannot protect others… if you cannot protect yourself.
Rúna’s posture relaxed, she recognized the voice.
A shield, is more than a shield!
Her eyes began to swell with tears as she watched the spirit stamp the shaft of its spear into the mud and begin to fade as it gestured to her bare, shieldless, left arm. Rúna fell to her knees as her heart flooded with guilt and shame while her mind with memories of home. Memories of learning how to hold a spear. Making pigments to paint the stony walls of her hovel. Lessons about how to move on the hunt. The first storm she was caught in alone.
Her nostalgia ended as she noticed the cold mud on her knees and between her fingers. She had fallen to her hands crying, still clutching her spear. Her knuckles whitened and her right fist began to shake as her grip tightened. The fingers on her left hand curled into a fist, gathering mud in her palm and under her nails. Her mighty grip forced cool, brown water out of the soil. Her blue eyes fixed on the spear she so firmly held, sparks arcing from one point to another along the shaft, or to the dew softened ground, leaving a small dry and hardened patch where it had landed. She could feel her stomach in her throat and her heartbeat behind her eyes.
The hot tears rolling down the bridge of her nose fell gently from her face and were immediately lost in the fresh morning dew as the sun rose behind her. She rose to her feet as the spear faded into a fine mist in her hand. She paid no mind to the crowd that had gathered around her as she slowly but powerfully walked the last several yards toward the well. Her muscles rippled as she hoisted a bucket of water from the dark pit. The cool water rushed easily down her throat and eased the stony dryness that had plagued her since she awoke from her nightmare. She gasped as she took her first relieved breath since then and, without hesitation, turned towards the east and walked toward the dock, retrieving her shield on the way.
The orange glow of the sunrise gently warmed the skin on her face and stomach as she confidently strode across the hard, stone wharf that protruded into the gentle waters. She stood at the precipice of the dock as she fixed her shield to her back. “To move as if it is part of you.” she said in her native tongue. “You could not teach me before… but now you have another chance to.” She paused and turned to look behind her back towards land. Standing a few paces behind her was the same spirit she saw earlier, removing its helmet.
Rúna smiled at seeing her mother’s face before diving into the lake.