Chapter 14 #2
She drew a deep breath, inhaling the salty scent of the sea which bound her blood to Sigurd.
“I shall now do the same and choose love for my Sea Wolf over my glory as a Valkyrie. Whatever price I must pay to save Agnar, I shall—for he is bloodsworn to Sigurd.” Brynhildr’s gaze seared Skjogul, the ouroboros burning her skin and fueling her inner fire.
“The Bear of Bjarkholm shall aid Sigurd in avenging his faeir’s death when he sails to Sweden to challenge King Lyngvi.
Agnar will help him reclaim his birthright—the Volsung lands that Lyngvi seized by murdering Sigurd’s faeir.
Hjálmgunnar rules Lindesnes for Lyngvi. By choosing Hjálmgunnar for Valhalla, I spare Agnar for Sigurd…
and enable the man I love to fulfill his destiny, avenge his faeir, and reclaim his ancestral lands. ”
Below her, the Mirrored Sea shimmered, enemy ships beaching along Agnar’s besieged shore. She smoothed the white feathers of her swan cloak and slammed her spear onto Kára’s pinewood floor.
“It is time,” she hissed, striding for the door. “The Battle of Bjarkholm begins.”
* * * *
Brynhildr descended from the clouds, hovering over the battlefield where steel clashed, men shrieked, and the stench of blood and bowels fouled the crisp saline air.
On the beleaguered shore, Agnar’s men had formed a shield wall to block the invading army swarming from a dozen warships, their green sails bearing the fierce image of a black tusked boar.
Nearby, she spotted the Sjórúlfar longships with wolf banners—Sigurd’s trio of drakkar among them—alongside others with furled sails and banners marked with Agnar’s bear sigil.
On the blood-soaked field atop the cliff, clad in his brown bearskin cloak over his Sólvorn sunburst armor, Agnar tore through enemy warriors in full berserker rage, seemingly impervious to slashing axes and swords.
Warriors bearing shields painted with the black boar fell beneath his furious Bjarnrokr blade.
Among the wolfskin-clad, armored Sea Wolves, her heart lurched at the sight of Sigurd.
The blue-grey fur of Blárúlfr shimmered in the sun, his gleaming blade streaked with blood, like his scarred, beloved face. He lunged, spun, and struck, his úlfblóer sword felling warriors with each swift thrust, while his snarling wolf shield blocked enemy blows.
As Skogul and Kára selected the slain, the fiery swirls and crystalline strands spiraling upward, bearing souls to Valhalla and Fólkvangr, Brynhildr spotted the blond brute she had glimpsed in the vision—the invading king who had slain Agnar’s faeir, King Bjorn of Bjarkholm.
Iron noseguard of his helmet shaped like the tusked snout of a raging boar, King Hjálmgunnar clutched the god-forged sword úlfsbani, poised to strike Agnar with a killing blow.
As thick swirls of black smoke coiled around Agnar, marking him for Odin, Hjálmgunnar’s malevolent blade fell.
Sigurd blocked the fatal blow, his úlfblóer sword shattering like shards of ice.
Brynhildr pressed the blade of her Valkjósleier spear against the sword arm of the enemy king, defying the web of wyrd.
Hjálmgunnar reeled—then fell to Agnar’s lethal blade. Swirls of fire bore the brutal Boar King’s soul to Valhalla.
At the sight of the fallen king, the defending warriors of Bjarkholm roared in riotous triumph.
Hjálmgunnar’s man blew a horn, signaling retreat.
But Agnar’s army— bolstered by the Sjórúlfar and hundreds of men from Sjórborg—cut them down as they fled the field, leaving no survivors.
Wings of her white swan cloak spread wide, Brynhildr flew over the fallen with the Laguz Triad, selecting the slain, until all had been claimed for Valhalla or Fólkvangr.
The battle was over. Agnar prevailed. Though four enemy ships were lost in the battle, six of Hjalmgunnar’s drakkar were seized for Bjarkholm.
Brynhildr landed on a hilltop beside Kára and Skogul, their winged horses waiting to bear them back to Sessrúmnir. Across the battlefield, Kveld Nightwolf watched her, the amber eyes of the black wolf atop his armored helm glowing golden in the setting sun.
He sees me with his otherworldly seier vision. He knows what I have done. Perhaps he has even seen the price I shall have to pay.
Brynhildr held the Nightwolf’s all-seeing vitki gaze and nodded in solemn reverence.
In return, he inclined his dark head to her.
Agnar’s men quickly cleared the battlefield, burning the bodies of the fallen in glorious funeral pyres of tribute.
Healers bore King Agnar into the fortress to treat his numerous wounds.
While the acrid odor of smoke blended with the stench of blood and death, the Sea Wolves headed into bathhouses with blood-soaked, weary warriors.
Her heart melted when Sigurd returned to the place where úlfblóer had shattered beneath Hjálmgunnar’s malevolent blade.
She watched as he found the first shard partially buried in the charred ground, the snarling wolves etched along its length dulled and dark with gore. When he knelt and pulled it free, she sensed through the ouroboros that the steel was deathly cold.
With the sweat-soaked tunic he wore beneath his chain mail brynja, Sigurd reverently wiped the broken blade clean and laid it upon a patch of untouched grass.
The second jagged shard lay further away, its sharp edge blunted by the brutal blow of the úlfsbani sword.
As Sigurd lifted the fragment of his beloved blade, she felt him reliving the jarring impact of the lethal strike—the painful shock reverberating up his arm, the screech of rending steel, like ice breaking on a frozen fjord.
He bowed his head in solemn silence before lifting the shard, wiping it clean, and placing it beside the first upon the pure grass.
She sensed Blárúlfr’s sacred blood call to Sigurd’s Sea Wolf spirit as he staggered across the field and found the final fragment.
Dark with blood, dulled with dirt, it lay on the very spot where he had stood when he took the fatal blow meant for Agnar. Brynhildr mourned with him as he wiped the shard clean and laid it upon the green grass, completing the broken whole.
The elaborate hilt and pommel he found intact, lying where the sword had been torn from his hand.
Though the lapis lazuli eyes of the snarling wolf carved into the crossguard were dim, the golden threads of the deep blue gems glimmered in the firelight from the funeral pyres, watchful and waiting.
Beneath the grip, the trio of runes etched into the sword remained unmarred.
Brynhildr reflected how Algiz had indeed protected him, even as his blade had shattered. Tiwaz, the rune of justice and honor, symbolized the sacrifice of úlfblóer to save Agnar. And Ansuz, the god-rune of Odin, represented the fierce wolf blood which flowed in Sigurd’s Volsung veins.
Through welling tears, she watched as he sank to one knee.
Bowed his head before his beloved blade.
And wrapped the three broken shards and intact hilt in a swathe of linen, as carefully as if they were sacred bones.
úlfblóer’s scabbard—the sheath crafted from the same wolfskin hide as the Blárúlfr cloak which draped his slumped shoulders—still hung on the sword belt at his hip, barren and empty.
Its trio of lapis stones glimmered in the firelight.
Like the eyes of the snarling wolf in the hilt, they were dim, watchful, and waiting.
He rose, removed the scabbard from his belt, and placed the wrapped shards inside the wolfskin sheath. Head bent and heart heavy, he crossed the blood-soaked battlefield toward the bathhouse, rejoining the Sjórúlfar, his Sea Wolf brothers.
Across the field, Brynhildr watched, her seier sight revealing what Sigurd could not yet know. She would tell him, when she slipped unseen into the fortress, that nothing forged of blood and vow could ever be destroyed.
Only broken.
Only dormant.
Waiting to be reborn.
Under the reproachful gaze of her two Valkyrie sisters, Brynhildr removed her swan cloak and solemnly secured it to Himingdrápa’s saddle alongside her Valkjósleier spear.
“We’ll return for you at dawn.” Skogul’s tone was sharp as her steely gaze.
Kára kissed her cheek and whispered into her ear as she handed her a blanket for warmth—and to conceal her golden Valkyrie armor when she entered Agnar’s fortress. “Drink deeply of your Sea Wolf’s love. It will sustain you when you face Odin’s wrath.”
With a whoosh of wings on a whisper of wind, Kára and Skogul flew west into the setting sun.
Brynhildr remained on the hilltop beneath a small grove of twisted oaks, their roots gripping the cliff as fiercely as she clung to her defiant choice. Below, the fjord gleamed dark and restless, reflecting the last embers of golden light.
When night finally fell, she wrapped the woolen blanket over her head and shoulders, hunching over and dragging a leg as if injured while she made her way toward the entrance to Agnar’s fortress.
“Another wounded,” one of the guards muttered to another. letting her pass through the heavy double doors. “Healers are in the east tower. Victory feast in the Great Hall. Get your wounds treated, then join the revelry.”
Brynhildr grunted in acknowledgment and slipped into the dark castle.
Behind the enormous guarded doors lay a narrow entry hall, dimly lit by torches burning in metal sconces along the stone walls.
Amidst the smoky haze and the acrid odor of blood and pungent herbs, armored guards directed wounded warriors toward harried healers who seared the gashes of screaming men with white-hot tongs, set and bandaged broken bones, and closed open wounds with gleaming needles and silken thread.
Just ahead of where Brynhildr lurked in the shadows stood a second set of massive oaken doors.
Jubilant notes of lyres and lutes blended with thunderous song and bellows of laughter from the Great Hall, tankards clashing and raucous voices raised in raw celebration and hard-won triumph.