The Valkyrie Queen Pt. 01

Kára weathered the beating, moving so the shield deflected the vicious blows. Módi did not falter, did not waver in his attack. He struck with violent strength that shuddered through Kára's shield and into her shoulder. Still, she weathered it.

Odin's guard flowed around the match, toward the shield wall and those bristling spear tips. Liv, Ragnheidr, and Ylva fell back toward the wooden shields as the golden warriors came at them.

"Spears!" Roared the Captain and the formation lowered their own spears into a gleaming line, the first two ranks of ten levelling their weapons while the rear two ranks of ten held theirs high. They came in unison and their spears never wavered. Liv and Ragnheidr wielded swords and shields as easily as Kára did, while Ylva had chosen her bow. None of them attacked, instead they stepped back and back until they had their backs pressed to the shield wall.

For a brief moment, the Captain was unsure. He wavered as their backs touched the shields and he finally took note of something. It hung in his mind for the briefest of moments that there were no feet or legs visible at the bottom of the shield wall. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to call out a warning but the brief moment passed, an arrow sinking deeply into his eye. The Captain grunted a noise of surprise and collapsed, falling face first onto the street.

"Shields!" Another guard shouted as arrows pelted the formation, two more guards dying in short order, sunk to the fletching in the soft places between the joints of their armor. Freyja herself led the charge out of the buildings on each side of the street, her people flooding out with hatchets and swords and shields and spears. They fell into the formation of Odin's guard with a wild fury.

Ragnheidr, Liv, and Ylva both joined the fight. Ylva sent arrow after arrow at the guard with precise aim, with their attention drawn to the flanking attack they were easier targets for her. Liv charged ahead, slamming her wooden shield against the golden one of a guard, startling the Asgard that held it. He died with his mouth agape, her sword thrust around her shield and into his chest. Ragnheidr fought two of the guard, they circled her warily while their comrades fought viciously against the attack. They were Odin's guard and the surprise only lasted so long. With at least a dozen of their number felled, they fought back with brutal ferocity. Ragnheidr parried sword blows and used her shield to smack one of the guard in the nose, breaking it. The other thrust his blade at her and she used her shield to turn it away, then used the hilt of her sword to bluntly strike his nose too. Both Asgard bled furiously from their broken noses and renewed their attack against her.

Kára shrugged off blow after blow from Módi but she knew she was losing ground. He tirelessly swung his axes at her, raining blows down on her shield until splinters flew as furiously as sparks. She thrust her shield at him and he stumbled briefly, then grunted when the townswoman who had rolled Kára back to the storage shed swung her own axe and drove it into Módi's shoulder. It bit through his armor and stuck in the meat, blood flowing down his arm. Before Kára could move, Módi arced his axe in a swing that was so casual it hardly seemed a swing. The woman stumbled back and clutched at her throat, where Módi had split it with his blade.

Kára came at Módi with Gugnir, sweeping it and the tip of the spear splitting open Módi's face from temple to chin in a diagonal line. He roared and redoubled his attacks, swinging his axes over and over again while Kára fell back, desperately using her shield. Her arm throbbed from the blows, her shoulder ached, and the shield split. He was formless and dangerous in his rage, impossible to predict and more impossible still to react against. Until two of the largest Asgard warriors in golden armor took hold of his arms and pulled him away, forcibly dragging Módi away from where his attack had been leading and bringing him to the relative safety of the less than twenty of Odin's guard that remained. They were bloodied and battered and missing a good many of their number.

The price had been paid in the lives of Freyja's people but the cost had become too great for both sides.

"Lord." One of the guard said. Módi nearly struck the Asgard across the face but he saw it and even in his rage, he knew that he been too focused on Kára and had not seen that he was being drawn into a trap. Ragnheidr and Liv would have been on his flanks and the three Valkyrie would have fallen on him at once, and he would be slaughtered like his brother. He raged and breathed hard, covered in a sheen of sweat and blood, chest heaving. Past the mock shield wall, ships had taken on as many as they could. A handful of fishing vessels loaded with those who wished to flee and a longship with still more.

Módi and the guard cautiously pursued Kára and the others down to the wooden dock. Freyja urged her people out while the Valkyrie blocked the narrow opening at the head of the dock. The fishing ships began to take to the water.

"Was it worth it?" Módi growled at Kára, motioning to the bodies off the Midgard that had been killed.

"I could ask the same of you." Kára said, breathing hard and tossing aside the shattered pieces of her shield. "All these lives wasted. You could have left us in peace."

"No." Módi shook his head, smiling under that layer of dirt and blood that caked his face. "We could not have done that."

Lightning split the clear night sky and Odin's guard were renewed, just as Freyja's people and Kára were dismayed. Thor himself was coming. Kára whirled and roared a single word.

"Run!"

The first lightning strike landed on a fishing ship and the people aboard died screaming, aflame as the boat burst into splinters from the force of it. Freyja cried out but could do nothing but watch as a second fishing ship burst, lightning from the sky committing it to the same fate.

Kára felt the hair on her arms standing on edge and she used her spear to push those that remained on the dock toward the water. Módi's laughter rang in her ears for a moment before lightning struck the dock. Kára and everyone else on the dock was tossed by the explosion, water pushed up into a cascade by the force and rocking the remaining ships, before plunging back to fill in the newly created crater. There was a bright white light that blinded everyone.

When it cleared, Thor stood among the remaining guard, shoulder to shoulder with Módi. Kára's longship fled without her and the other Valkyrie, along with a few remaining fishing ships. Thor could not see any sign of the Valkyrie, Freyja, or anyone that was not of Midgard.

Thor's own personal guard flooded out from the Bifröst, dozens of berserkers wielding hammers and axes and draped in furs and covered in warpaint. They had drawn out the Valkyrie and now they must be dead.

"Find what is left of them." He growled. "I want to piss on whatever is left. Burn the town."

"The ships?" Módi asked, staring after them. Thor waved a hand.

"Nothing but Freyja's pet Midgardian, worthless runts." He said. Muninn cawed forlornly from overhead and Thor glared up at the raven.

"Someone bring that beast down. I'd have the winged traitor for a meal."