Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  Valkyrie

  “The worst thing,” she told Hakr, Skeggi, Ostryg, and Gefjun later, “is that we’re holding a position that the enemy has just about surrounded.”

  “And we don’t know where the rest of our fleet is,” Gefjun said. “I have plenty of water, but I have fifteen fighters in varying degrees of health, and I’m already running low on bandages and some of my herbs. I counted on having enough until we met up with the rest of the fleet.” She held up her arms. She’d left Skala in a long-sleeved shirt, but now her arms were entirely bare. “I’ve torn up all my sleeves and the bottom of my shirt and skirts for bandages. If you have any clothes you don’t mind sacrificing, please send them to me.”

  Dyrfinna reached under her armor and ripped off her sleeves. “A gift for you,” she said, handing them to Gefjun, who grinned.

  Ostryg, not to be outdone, ripped off his entire shirt and gave it to her. Gefjun wrapped it in her arms. “I’m half tempted to keep this one for myself. But I won’t. Duty calls.”

  Captain Hakr leaned in. “As I feared, Nauma has sent some of her fighters around to the other side of the mountain, into the forest there. Some sharp-eyed whippersnapper spotted them for me. It seems to be a small scouting force, so we might send some skirmishers out that way to cut them down.”

  “Our numbers are small. Should we even be sending skirmishers out at all?” Dyrfinna asked.

  “If they’re light on their feet, mayhap they can act as assassins.” Hakr said.

  “Is that honorable, to stab a man in the back in the dark?” Ostryg asked.

  “Better that, than to lose fighters that we will sorely need,” Dyrfinna said. “We need to survive, and so we’re going to have to do so, using some less than honorable means. Once we are reunited with the fleet, we can go back to doing the honorable thing.”

  “Honor is not something you can sidestep away from any time you please,” Ostryg said. “I was just stating a point.”

  “It’s a good point,” Dyrfinna lied. “But we’re in the king’s territory with his armies to the north, east, and south of us. If their dragon returns, then we’ll be surrounded in all four directions and from above.”

  “We can make some places for our comrades that might be safe from the fire,” said Skeggi, “though I admit it won’t be easy. Dragon fire is … unbelievable.” He met Dyrfinna’s eyes.

  “It is,” she agreed, resisting the urge to touch her burned hair. “Do your best with what you have.”

  “Morning will bring more fighters from King Varinn’s hold,” Hakr said. “We need to be ready to defend these rocks.”

  Dyrfinna nodded. “With your help, we’ll be more than ready.”

  The rest of the evening was spent in building rock fortifications. Her friends were grim but cheerful as they worked, though the work was long and tiring. It was very late when the fortifications were ready, and they drew straws to decide who’d keep watch while others rested.

  Dyrfinna hiked out alone to find a place to sleep on the ground. She had her sea cloak; at least that would make a good blanket. Her arm burned hot where the wolf had bitten it—it seemed so long ago—and she wondered if she’d torn some stitches. They would have to wait until tomorrow. Gefjun was with the wounded; little sleep would she have tonight. Several were dying, and she’d been tending to them, trying to ease their passing. At least Ostryg had been helping her, and his service had been valuable.

  She looked at Nauma’s fighters camped on the shore far below, out of the reach of falling rocks. Dyrfinna did not doubt that her army would be surrounded before long. But at least she had this part of Varinn’s army tied up, and more would be coming to this place.

  We’re like the Spartans at Thermopylae, she thought. A few of us holding a position against many attackers.

  Except the Spartans’ strategy had turned out badly. They kept lining up in phalanxes to attack; they often used the same plan of attack for every single battle, no matter what the conditions. They’d also allowed themselves to be outflanked due to a mountain pass they’d overlooked. If they’d changed their tactics, and had also sent a few people up to that mountain pass, they might have been able to hold Thermopylae.

  In war, it was important to be strong, but it was important to be smart, too.

  A cold mist fell. The fog had rolled in, and tiny snowflakes swirled in the mist. The world softened, vanished around her. She breathed deep of the misty air, smelling pine resin, soil, the salt of the sea.

  Something moved in the fog ahead of her.

  Dyrfinna stopped, squinting into the darkness. Yes, there was a dark shape, the soft sound of a footfall in the misty leaves on the ground.

  Leaves? She looked down. Green ash leaves lay around her feet. But there had been no leafy ash trees up here in the rocks, and certainly no leaves on the ground. There had not been any ash trees growing anywhere when she’d been directing the building of the fortifications. The only trees that grew up here were spruce and fir with their prickly needles.

  She shook her head and breathed deep, wondering if she’d nodded off.

  No, she was not asleep. A figure stood in the fog near her. Dyrfinna’s hand fell on her sword, prepared to draw, and she cast around her, checking to be sure nobody else hid in the fog to spring on her. Then she said in a low voice, “Who goes there?”

  The fog uncurled from around the dark figure. A tall woman wearing a dark-blue cloak with white armor underneath towered over Dyrfinna. This woman held a spear that stood a cubit taller than she, and it cast a faint glow. A great shield sat on her other side, emblazoned with an enormous eye.

  The woman turned. A long, severe face. Dark, unknowable eyes fixed on Dyrfinna as she turned.

  As if she knew her.

  And as soon as Dyrfinna met those immortal eyes, her breath caught in her throat.

  She choked.

  “Skuld,” Dyrfinna croaked.

  She went down hard on one knee, and immediately bowed her head, trembling in every limb.

  And she jerked awake, heart pounding.

  Dyrfinna was lying on the dirt next to the path with the rest of the fighters, wrapped in her sea cloak. She didn’t even remember having laid down.

  She pushed herself up to her elbows, looking wildly around. But there were no green ash leaves on the ground. No fog, no mist, no snowflakes.

  No Valkyrie. No Skuld.

  But Skuld had looked at Dyrfinna.

  Skuld was the Norn, the goddess of the unknowable future. Skuld, the destroyer of the threads of life.

  Skuld was the Valkyrie who chose who died.

  First Day Of Battle

  Dyrfinna pulled herself to her feet. She was still exhausted, but sleep had fled. She did not want to think about what her dream might mean, but she couldn’t get Skuld’s eyes out of her head. How those eyes knew her. As if they were weighing her .…

  “Stop, stop, stop, stop,” she muttered, wrapping the sea cloak tightly around herself, and walked to the fortifications. The east had already brightened, though it was still night. The days were getting much, much longer. Winter was a sky of everlasting stars; summer was a sky of everlasting sun.

  Some of her crew was up and whispering near the fortifications. One of them was Ostryg. “What’s happening?” she whispered as she joined them.

  He gestured for her to stoop, then pointed out to the spruce forest that grew up the side of the rocky mountain. Stooping, she looked. For a while she could see nothing. Then her eye picked up a flicker of movement among the rocks below. Too big to be a bird or pika. She focused on it. Yes. A person with a fur cap, crouched among the stones, trying to hold very still.

  “Huh,” she said, stepping back into the shelter of the rocks so her words wouldn’t travel down the mountain to where the spies hid. “How many?” she whispered.

  “We think five people,” Ostryg said. “Scouts.”

  “Too bad they’re out of arrow range,” Dyrfinna said wistfully.

  “We shouldn’t w
aste our arrows on anything that wouldn’t be worth shooting,” he said pedantically.

  It wasn’t as if Dyrfinna suggested flinging a quiver of arrows at them just for wasteful fun. She held back her exasperated sigh. “Any sign of more behind them?”

  “Nothing we can hear or see.”

  Gefjun slipped into the small group. She stooped beside Dyrfinna and offered her a sea-biscuit and some fish. Dyrfinna’s stomach grumbled at the savory smell.

  “Oh! Thank you,” she whispered, accepting the wooden bowl.

  She nibbled at the breakfast while looking over the rocks out at Nauma’s lines. The stars were still out, but she expected Nauma’s army to be moving into battle formation soon. Dyrfinna’s people were already up and around, and Nauma’s were, too. She could hear their quiet talk, even from this distance. She eyed her friend. “I need to head down to the fighters at the front.”

  Gefjun nodded. “I’ve got to bring the fighters water before I go back to the wounded. Shall we go together?”

  Dyrfinna nodded and stood, chewing her last bite of fish, and stuck the wooden bowl back into Gefjun’s pack. “Actual warfare is a lot different than a game of King’s Table,” she confessed to Gefjun as they walked. “Especially the part where I constantly want to throw up.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  Dyrfinna and Gefjun distributed water bladders among the fighters who sat among the rocks, sharpening their swords and spears. Some of the warriors, who she’d known since she was a little girl, joked with each other, telling rude stories about other battles that they’d fought in, braiding back their hair, their battle partners helping them strap on their armor.

  “It’s hard to order the deaths of all these people,” Dyrfinna said quietly when they stepped away. “I’m their commander. I led them into this. In these rocks, we’re in a better position for survival. We’ve also managed to pull the enemy off the water, so they’re here instead of traveling to Skala. But what happens next is going to be … difficult.”

  Gefjun lay a hand on her shoulder. Dyrfinna leaned in toward her. They stood like that for a minute.

  Dyrfinna thought of old days at Gefjun’s house, playing with herbs, trying to tame her rooster, playing warriors around the streets of town, learning swords and weapon skills with their swordmaster that Dyrfinna’s papa had hired long ago.

  “Stay alive, friend,” Dyrfinna said.

  They kissed each other on the cheek, the way they used to do every evening when their parents called them home.

  A great stir came from Nauma’s lines. They squeezed each other’s hands and Dyrfinna started for the front lines, taking her shield down from her back, pulling the sword loose from her scabbard.

  “Here we go,” she said to Captain Hakr and to Skeggi, who already stood at the front.

  Ragnarok yawned and peeked up over his shield. “Where’s the fun?”

  Thwack went an arrow into his shield. The shield popped back upon the hit.

  Everybody ducked back behind the rocks, except for the captain, who held up his shield.

  “Look at you shy kittens,” Hakr said. “That was just the first raindrop. Wait until it starts to pour.”

  Dyrfinna held her shield at the ready. “Did anybody see that archer, by any chance?”

  They all peered into the forest down the mountainside, but no movement gave the archer away. If it had been a sniper, maybe they could take her out .…

  A sudden wave of arrows crested from downhill. Several slammed into Dyrfinna’s shield so hard that their impact would have knocked her off her feet if she hadn’t braced herself. The arrows were all clustered at the top of the shield. They’d been aiming for her eyes.

  A man screamed to her left, a bloodcurdling sound that made Dyrfinna flinch.

  Gefjun raced to him. “I hate arrows,” she said. “Get back from him, people. Get back. Lie down.” Another moan rose into a scream as the man, on the ground, arched his back, an arrow sticking out of his belly. Gut-shot. One of the worst, most painful ways to die.

  Your first casualty, Dyrfinna thought. Welcome to command.

  A shout from below. A second wave of arrows screeched in, but the shout allowed Dyrfinna to duck behind her shield before they started. The other fighters did, too, and the deadly-barbed wave seemed to have no effect on her people this time.

  “More arrows for our archers,” she remarked, standing and rolling her neck. “Those of you on the back lines, gather what arrows you can find and deliver them.”

  “If you’re not already helping with casualties,” Gefjun added as she and several others loaded the still-screaming wounded man onto a stretcher to get him off the front lines.

  As soon as they moved him, two shieldmaidens came to the front with shields and armor, ready to fight. One of them tapped sword hilts with the man next to her, both saying quietly, “Kill ’em all” as they did.

  The main brunt of Nauma’s attack took place on the clearing that Dyrfinna’s small force had blocked with a wall of stones. She had some of her warriors lined up along the high ridge out of sight, waiting impatiently to start avalanches on any comers.

  The enemy came up the hill like a tide, holding their red shields in front of them, and Nauma’s archers stopped firing so they wouldn’t be hit by friendly fire. Dyrfinna’s bowwomen kept shooting, though, as they were high up, hidden in a fir tree or a rocky crag over their heads.

  The red tide rose to the top of the hill, the bowwomen picking off Vikings through the gaps in the shields. But they kept coming, and at the top of the pass, they charged.

  “Don’t let them lure you out,” she said to her fellow warriors over the oncoming roar. “Make them come to you.”

  “The stories aren’t as exciting when we wait for the enemy,” Ragnarok complained.

  “But I need you to stay alive.”

  She prayed that the queen’s fleet would arrive soon.

  Because the tide of Nauma’s red shields had finished rising, and suddenly, all at once, they pulled out their swords in a loud shing of metal that was so wide and stretched so far that it made Dyrfinna physically ill. How could Dyrfinna’s small crew stop this huge onslaught, a little shipload trying to hold hundreds of warriors at bay?

  “It beats being slaughtered on the water,” she muttered, then screamed like a hawk and swung at an oncomer.

  Metal clashed metal as swords met across the fortifications, and the percussive boom of shields striking shields rang up and down the battle line. The press of the Nauma’s army crammed against her tiny area of defense. Only a few of Dyrfinna’s people were needed to defend the gap, while the rest of her army could act as reserves. Still, Dyrfinna’s fighters were stretched just to stay alive.

  But Nauma was not in the press of fighters, nor was her henchman. And those two were who Dyrfinna ached to fight.

  The gap in the wall was thick with shields and swords. The fighters pressed, the air thick with flying blood and sweat and yells and screams. Bodies started piling up, a gruesome second wall. Nobody on Nauma’s side were dragging the dead out of the way—anybody who tried ended up being cut down themselves—and her fighters kept climbing over the top of the blood-slippery limbs to get at Dyrfinna’s army, while the survivors in the piles of bodies wailed, and cursed, and begged to be killed.

  Dyrfinna stepped back from the fight, too close to the action to direct the battle. Two of her fresh warriors sprang into the gap, immediately getting to work to add more bodies to the pile of dying. Dyrfinna shook her head, drops of blood flying from the hair that had escaped her braids and helm. Her arms were covered with blood past the elbow. She was bone weary, and could have fallen asleep where she stood, but she pulled herself together and went to inspect the line and direct the battle.

  Dyrfinna found the end of her line was giving way before Nauma’s army, falling back before an onslaught of swords and screaming maniacs. She grabbed a woman behind the front of the line. “Quick, run up to the crags above there and throw rocks down at Nau
ma’s fighters.”

  As the shieldmaiden clambered up the rocks, with several of her friends following, Dyrfinna strode into the fight. “Push them back! Push them back!” she shrilled, and started hewing at Nauma’s army. Her fighters cheered, rallied, and pushed Nauma’s forces back. Dyrfinna pulled fighters in from the back of the lines, but there were only a few left in reserve. Soon there would be none.

  The first rock crashed into the press of Nauma’s fighters, followed by more. They scrambled back from the fight. But some shouted at their archers, pointing up at the shieldmaidens.

  “Stay out of sight as much as possible!” she called up to them.

  But now Dyrfinna noticed that her own archers were shooting less and less.

  “Nobody is bringing us any arrows,” one of her archers called down to her as she passed.

  Dyrfinna grabbed a wounded man who was limping past. “Quick, gather some arrows for our archers.”

  “But I was heading to the fight over there,” he said, pointing away from the main battle.

  “What?” she cried. “I’ll see to it. Pick up arrows quickly.”

  Dyrfinna needed to run, but all she could manage was a trot.

  Oh, Freyja. Over here, in the back part of the rocks, her fighters were letting Nauma’s army in a few at a time, so they could fight with them in straight-on combat.

  She strode up and with a great swing of her sword caught one of the enemy unawares and killed her where she stood. Others of Nauma’s army climbed over.

  “You fighters, defend the wall,” she yelled, turning a few of them and shoving them in that direction. “Earn your glory by defending our people, or I’ll have you hung by your thumbs, see if I won’t.”

  Several fighters rushed to the top of the wall and started cutting Nauma’s army back there as well.

  Her weariness grew.

  A huge rumble shook the earth. Everybody looked toward the noise, including one of Nauma’s Vikings. Dyrfinna took the opportunity to run him through, then yanked the sword out and kicked his body down the hill.