Tritania's Reign

by J. A. Popovec

  “What’s your name, son?” Warbuckle asked him. Then, noticing the boy was missing some gloves to complete his ensemble, Fenir tossed the kid an extra pair from his satchel.

  “Simon Hollander, sir,” the kid shouted back as he plucked the gloves right out of the air, donning them as if they always belonged to him. “I am here, and I am ready to kill.”

  This caught Warbuckle’s attention in a sharper way. He cocked his head to one side, then the other as he scanned the youth before him. “You’re ready to kill?” Changing his tone, he continued questioning the young man, “Why did you come?”

  “I’m answering a call… just like the rest of you!” He was growing irritated, becoming defensive, and it was showing in his body language. “I’m here to serve a higher power!”

  Warbuckle spat back, “Since when does serving a higher power include killing?!”

  Hollander’s expression was one of defeat and confusion.

  “You’ve been painted a mirage, son…” He now turned to the crowd and looked it over for any other young people new to the company. “You’ve not been given a mere license to kill! To those just joining, our duty is to protect. That is our priority; it is our only priority! It is not for us to decide who dies! That’s not our job; it is the job of the Valkyries! Step on their toes and you will be squashed!”

  A few more young newbies in the crowd soon struck the same expression as Hollander. They each looked at their weapons, in question of the company they’d just joined.

  “Your weapons are significant!” Warbuckle’s emotions were getting the better of him now, as he yelled even louder over the harassing windstorm. “They each have a purpose and that purpose will be revealed to you in battle! You are not to use them until then.” The kids, having been sufficiently reminded that they were kids, Commander Warbuckle handed the floor off to his second-in-command.

  “Runby Hobarts, start the line.” The commander looked to his oldest friend with deliberation, “Show them.” Then he leaned in and talked directly into Runby’s ear, “And keep a close watch on that one,” indicating Hollander. “He’s a zealot. Still, we need him with us, so we will groom him properly… Give him his independence; keep a watch from a distance.” Runby nodded in agreement. He knew when Fenir Warbuckle meant business.

  “Alright, you five…!” Runby began sectioning off the crowd, and directing this first batch over to the five lit Viking torches. “Start in! The wind will only get worse before it gets better!”

  A TORCH FOR A TORCH

  The circling winds had kicked up again around the 20-foot tall Swedish Viking Torches. The flames within were ducking and dancing around repeatedly, managing to escape the handoff of the flame to the soldiers on horses. Runby darted in on his horse, knocking Hollander’s out of the way.

  It was going to take more than just one spark to ignite the end of the hand-held torch poles the soldiers were carrying. Runby knew this and he knew the technique. Starting with a simple trot, he was ramping up to show the crowd an example of how it was done. As he circled the Viking Torches on his horse, he took one quick and sharp jab at the space between the sectioned pieces. This was where the tinder and kindling had burned down and where the center of the logs would need to be targeted if the flame proved to be uncatchable.

  “Keep circling until they are lit…!” He moved quickly, swiftly around the large furnace, extending his torso and stretching his arms out from the shoulders—grunting with each jab that he took. From the looks of it, Runby Hobarts had apparently been trained in more than just the weightlifting of slate rock piles. Onlookers saw evidence from his moves of a previous life as a swordsman, kept secret from them until now. After a few more prods, he got the handheld torch lit.

  “See that? The light will always come from within,” he was proud of his efforts and smirked at his wit. “Oh, …and you’ll want to caution yourselves, and avoid letting the horses stop in front of the fire!” He paused to see who was listening before concluding, “They become curious…”

  He was holding something back, but that was typical of Runby Hobarts, who believed in providing information on an “as needed” basis. This was one of the many qualities that longtime friend and mentor, Fenir Warbuckle, had imparted to his protégé, and the reason he felt confident making him second-in-command. “Keep circling!” Runby repeated. “Never stop circling…if the one Viking Torch is not fruitful to you, move on to another.”

  Runby moved swiftly back to the general population. Somehow, he knew there was still a great deal of work to be done with this crowd to prepare them for the next part of their journey. He instructed the whole crowd, “Right! Then you’ll grab your rations, and a blanket or a hide if you need one, and go! Do not wait for the rest of the company… then, you will off to the Alpines and the north coast!”

  Runby turned to address Hollander and his group of followers first, and then the rest of the company. He was impressed with how quickly the young man had already built a team for himself. He spoke to Hollander with almost a bit of confidentiality, “If you have to stop for a rest, find a tall rock and reach the top of it. You’ll be safe there.”

  The young man nodded, and his confidence returned—being given this order was an acknowledgement from the second-in-command. The young recruit was very aware of what that implied.

  *****

  Time passed and the area with the five furnaces in the center of Trickling Village was soon filled with many, many equestrian pairs. Runby dismounted and joined Fenir for a meal. Their friendship went back decades. They watched together as the scene before them unfolded.

  Three hundred men and women on horseback circled and swirled in a trot that moved in and around the five flaming furnaces. There was beauty in their innocence. They were unaware that they were learning how to hold a sword, how to take jabs, and how to withstand the jerkiness that came with navigating tight corners while riding horseback. Poetry was ubiquitous in their movement, and the universal leaders graciously rewarded them with a slowing down of the freezing wind. With less wind came a good amount of heat from the furnaces, and a little relief went a long way in the cold night. Still, a bigger shift was on its way.

  A TRANSFORMATION

  Warmth in their bodies produced laughter and ease. Their faces thawing out meant conversations would begin again—it was apparent that the challenge before them had become engaging. Movement from the large group evolved in short strokes from each individual horse and rider pair into a whimsical rhythm from the entire ensemble. It was as if a dance had effervesced in their hearts, and they began to interact with each other on horseback. They were enjoying the moment and it distracted them from the inquisitive nature that accompanied being unaware of what lay in store.

  What Runby and his commander witnessed next was only the beginning of the transformation. “Keep circling…!” Both men stood and were directing the crowd together.

  Some soldiers began to pair off and jokingly imitated their movements from the torch lighting with one another: jab-jab-stick, jab-poke! The more jovial they became, the quicker the transformation would come upon them. And it was beginning to happen already.

  *****

  Below the company on their horses, the dirt was changing its constitution and beginning to glow with a pale blue iridescence. It tickled the horses’ hooves and quickly sent them into a canter. As their movements increased in cadence, the glowing effect from the earth began to work its way up the horses’ legs and bodies.

  Just around the area between the ankle and the knee joints, thin leather mechanical wings sprouted from the horses’ limbs, in vertical panels. They were muted deep-browns and blacks to match the coat of each horse and looked quite revolutionary.

  Similar panels formed around the horses’ skulls, and extended down both sides of their necks, conforming to the curve in their shoulders. The transformation was mostly for the horses; they were the only species who had not yet received the gifts of battle when crossing the 120th meridian. It was i
nteresting how these additions gave the horses an overall more muscular and chiseled appearance, and as well, injected a shot of adrenaline that forced a bucking kick from each of them.

  Many riders became thrown off-guard by this, and spoke up louder than their expressive equine partners. “Whoa…!” one rider exclaimed as he tried to calm his horse. “Hey…Hey! What’s this?” Laughing, Hollander was excited and cheered on his horse. The transformation was in full motion, and the dust was swirling in the ground’s iridescence.

  Hollander’s horse jerked its head repeatedly, neighing and trying to break free from the harness. The young man worked hard to control him, but there was no controlling the one ton horse that miraculously transformed into a beast on its hind legs, armed and ready for battle. Hollander’s eyes filled with fear and surprise when unexpectedly he felt his own blood begin to boil and circulate throughout his chest cavity. In a panic, he removed his glove and reached for his heart beneath layers of clothes. His sinister look from earlier had returned, and this time he felt recharged. Fenir noticed this from the distance, and nodded.

  Commander Warbuckle and his comrade were watching with fascination and approval as the transformation progressed. Slowly, the other horses began, one by one, mimicking everything that happened with Hollander’s horse. The commander broke the silence with congratulatory commentary to Runby, “Our work here is almost done,” Fenir was indicating the crowd before them. Runby inquisitively turned to him.

  “We stay with the company, and we fight…” Fenir reassured his friend. “But they take over operations from here.”

  Fenir directed his second-in-command to something in the distance, at a level higher than the ground on which they were sitting. Runby’s eyes followed to where his friend pointed, when a look of calm and ease settled gently onto his parched cheeks, softening the tiny wrinkles that extended from beneath his pondering eyes. He was acknowledging the information he’d just received.

  A HEIGHTENED AWARENESS

  Different from the other villages of Zaundaurïn, Trickling was absent the Searching Trees, but was populated with a variety of smaller cone-bearing trees. Mostly, there were hemlocks, standing between 30-70 feet tall. To the direct north, and beyond a small grouping of these conifers, sat a colossal igneous—rock or a mini-mountain, depending on how one chooses to look at it.

  From where the activity was happening around the Swedish Viking Torches, this rock was fifty yards ahead, and expanded fifty feet above the tallest trees in the village. Runby shifted his focus for a moment to the glowing dirt-covered ground at the rock’s base. He was beginning to piece together the many moving parts of the scene before him.

  As he looked past the far end of the area – where the crowd had been circling, and before the front of the large igneous rock – there was an area on the ground where a tiny crevasse could be spotted. It held the same glowing effect as the area around the furnaces, trapped within. It appeared as though a lightning bolt had initiated at the rock’s base and crawled across the ground, with a graduating spread that dictated the width of the glowing land and furnaces; the patient wolfdogs off to the side in smaller packs.

  Runby’s eyes reversed direction and back-traced the pale electric blue lightning bolt to the source rock from whence it came…. He discovered that it didn’t begin at the base. He continued to trace the crooked blue line up the front of the rock and all the way to the top—having assumed that it extended up behind the trees that covered it…and that it did.

  There, at the peak of the large rock and completely out of view of the fire-dancing soldiers, the six Valkyries on horses sat perched in all their extraordinaire, the blue vapor exuding from their chest cavities. Deep within the icy-blue irises of these alluring feminine creatures of the demi-spiritual realm could be seen centuries of life and love, death and lust, and re-creation and repurposing…swirling and swirling evermore. They had seen a lot in their days, and were grateful for their experiences.

  His eyebrows arched and his smile was sincere, contented to know what he now knows. Runby locked in on the motionlessness of the six Valkyries. Only their eyes would move as they gracefully watched over the company of 300 women and men on horseback, and their team of courageous wolfdogs.

  This intrigued Runby, and only an old friend could pick up on how much. Fenir couldn’t help but notice how his buddy from youth would always lace his fingers, palms together, swiftly rocking his hands up and down… up and down… and up and down, whenever something truly intrigued him. And he was doing that now. Fenir knew that the questions within Runby’s mind were in full development, and soon he would either learn the answers on his own, or put the question back on Fenir to answer. Fenir waited. He chose to exercise patience with his pupil, understanding the importance of not answering a question before it was summoned.

  Runby stared hard into the eyes of the one Valkyrie to the left of center. He could swear that the moonlight reflecting in her eyes was painting the story for him. He watched the pale blue vaporous light stream from her chest, and it spoke to him as possibly being an act of love from the Valkyries to the crowd below. Suddenly, her helmet-covered head cocked, like a bird, once… and then twice, in what appeared to be his direction.

  Runby’s nerves shot a rapid pulse through his spine that took his breath for a moment, and he turned away in embarrassment for having been caught staring at a superior. He felt his forehead begin to sweat, even in this freezing air. When he glanced over at his mentor to see if Fenir spotted this exchange, relief draped Runby in a comforting veil, and he caught his breath again.

  Runby had been mistaken. The beauteous presence from on top the rock was sharing a glance with the man to the left of him, his friend, Fenir Warbuckle. There was a sense of renewed appropriateness that Runby could easily come to grips with in learning that this sudden shared communication was between the Valkyrie and the Commander of the company preparing for battle. They operated from a level that Runby wasn’t yet willing to explore, and the thought of receiving extensive knowledge that the pair together possessed was overbearing to the new second-in-command. So, instead, Runby Hobarts refocused back to the task at hand: monitoring the crowd before him. Any remaining questions he had would have to come much later.

  Focusing hard on the progress of the scene, Runby was determined to keep himself in line until he felt it was safe to look up again. As he intently watched the crowd circling, laughing, and jousting, he couldn’t help but allow his attention to be pulled to the glowing earth below—he didn’t want to let go of the previous moment when he discovered the luminescent air that came from the creatures above. He allowed his eyes to close for a moment, just long enough to make it real again. His eyes shut, he inhaled, and on the exhale, there they were… the Valkyries, perched together in the blackness of his imagination with pale electric blue light exuding from them, down the rock and into the pool of dirt beneath the horses’ hooves.

  A SECRET WITHIN

  Speculation over whether spiritual beings, a higher presence, and gods and goddesses truly lived among humans on this planet had been a long-debated topic. Even among some in Warbuckle’s company, conversations arose during the first part of their travels that revealed hidden anger, doubt and fear for what was to come. But the experiences they encountered from the 120th meridian to the village of Trickling had changed all that, and far outshone anything they could have ever read about or heard tale of.

  To many from this company, as well as those who stayed behind in Cantroïne, the events that had transpired in the recent days were unpredicted, unprecedented, unparalleled and quite frankly befuddling. In contrast however, were soldiers who were rumored to possess inside knowledge, and having anticipated such a string of events as this, travelled the Earth in search of the company that would fight for the ultimate cause—and then join forces with that company. Runby Hobarts was one of those knowledgeable soldiers.

  *****

  A sudden warmth was injected into his lungs, and Runby felt reig
nited. His eyes shot open and returned once more to the vision above. The true Valkyries were still there, motionless and focused. And there they would remain, in their shadowy disguises, for as long as was required of them…. They were waiting. They were all waiting: the equestrian pairs transforming into armed horses and soldiers; the enhanced wolfdogs passionately pacing about with pride and honor; the wise Commander and second-in-command gaining wisdom, expansiveness and foresight; and the luxuriously eloquent Valkyries ready to take flight as “aerosmiths” of the sky. They were all present, and in the moment, and open to receiving the impulse that would send them racing off into the next part of their journey.

  END PART 1

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  J.A. Popovec is a new author of action-adventure fantasy-fiction. The majority of her former work included ghostwriting “how to” books for the travel industry and IT training content for massive, global corporations. She also has an extensive background in the theater arts and the film & television industries. The desire to nourish her creative writing side was one that she had been harboring inside for many, many years. And, like many other artistic types who hold their true creative expressions deep within, by the time she allowed herself to embrace it, her imagination was set free! She is excited to be able to share that part of herself with her fans and readers. In addition to the commitment of delivering the story of Tritania’s Reign to the world, J.A. is also dedicated to raising awareness that will benefit all artists alike, helping the world to understand how to heal and nourish artistic personalities by providing more environments, financial support and more jobs for thespians, filmmakers, artists, and musicians to create, practice, hone, perform and deliver their talent and products to societ