Remnant Pages Valkyrie

Remnant Pages

-Valkyrie-

J.B Kleynhans

Remnant Pages

Valkyrie

Copyright 2020 by J.B. Kleynhans

Smashwords Edition

Farsight and Insight. It was the gift of the Valkyrie, making them both warriors and scholars of renown. On the isle of the Golden Wastes, they lived in isolation, although not as isolated as they would like sometimes. From Rade'Remar (Raed Remar), they watch the heavens. With bow and spear they kept their lands, and brought to the world alchemies and observations of the stars. Of all the heavens, Mallova was darling to them, for their Sights came by the grace of the white moon. Their gaze went farther than the eye could see, deeper than the mind could think.

Chapter 1

A Way of Life

Vanapha cupped her hands, dragging them to the surface of the well, much of what she held already leaking through her fingers. Steadily, her hands came up to her mouth, so that she could take a precious mouthful of water. It disappeared so quickly down her throat, its relief a small counterbalance against the desert that imposed on her skin, on her hair, on her eyes and on her thoughts. When out here, only the water was enough to hint at an existence out and away from this blistering sun.

She then regretted not having brought a cup as she replicated the process, each time getting only a tease of drink. But then she travelled light as always, and her bow and sword were much more essential for her survival than any comforts. You kept the water the safe. As clean and as pure as you possibly could. That was the law of the desert and Vanapha upheld it.

From this well in the nowhere of the desert she washed her face, running her wet fingers through her long golden hair. She was tall, so had to hunch over the low wall to get a better view of her face as the water became still again. She forced a smile at her own reflection, her green eyes and nose coming into focus. She had been told that she was fine-looking, but those comments were the farthest thing from her mind now, although relating in a manner; like the rest of her body, her face had bronzed again quite quickly since setting out from home and that brought other worries to her.

There was nothing that aged a person quite as badly as the sun, and this was especially true for the Valkyries, who travelled very light and for the most part did not wear loose fitting cloth garments to cover themselves with.

She packed down and lifted the lid from a jar from her satchel, which's contents had a few distinct herbal scents that Vanapha associated with nourishment. And it was exactly that, protecting her from the worst of the sun. She quickly applied another coat to every inch of exposed skin.

Still, nightfall would be pleasant, that is if I can find shelter.

She was not alone in braving the heat of the day: a choir of invisible insects, dune beetles, provided a din that pulsed over the sands, in a flurry of wings of a flightless ritual that called out the hungry to a decaying piece of flesh - maybe a lizard or so - that was too small for the vultures to take notice of. That they haven't retreated yet, meant the sun had not yet reached its peak, which was an even greater threat for the ants that they competed with, but who could carry away the morsel from right underneath the beetles noses' and disappear into their vast caverns had they the chance.

All of this, Vanapha had not spied with her own eyes, but with the gift of Farsight; a second sight that did not heed the confines of her body and could fly high or could spy close. Such a thing however was often a distraction, so Vanapha urged herself to hurry along before she could get sidetracked on the lives of tiny creatures.

With her bag open, she took out two small vials, from which she sprinkled a few droplets of each into the well.

She covered the well with a canvass again, to protect it from the sun. On a regular basis the roaming Valkyrie administered Lendeil to the water, a special Valkyrie-made compound that weighed down the water and making it resistant to the pull of the sun. The other vial was simply a purifying agent to keep the water clean.

Refreshed she left the well behind, the beacon sure to be nearby. Vanapha knew the landscape like the back of her hand, or rather, as much as anyone could possibly know these deserts. Enormous ocean winds ploughed year-out through the island, marshalling entire exoduses of great dunes. The landscape might be considered dead, but it was far from static, landmarks like trees choked dead, water sucked dry and great rock faces disappearing or reappearing depending on how the desert moved.

But there were other markers, man-made so to speak, that on a clear day Vanapha had no trouble finding. A stiff walk from the well, up and over a dune, and she positioned herself in the midst of these markers where the desert smoothed out as far as the eye could see.

Five great beacons were placed at the edge of Vanapha's vision. Ordinarily these were used for the sisterhood to navigate the desert, stone pillars set fifteen feet high with markings important to the Valkyrie. Today, she had chosen these beacons because they stood close enough to each other for her enemies to find a landmark in an otherwise uniform landscape. The raiders - a blight on the deserts and chancing on weak prey like the insects, before the sun could get to them. They were slave traders, thieves and murderers, and today Vanapha had business with them.

A dust cloud appeared on the horizon between the beacons of Ouok and Mull, one which she had kept in her sights for some time. And it was not just the sight of her eyes. Like before with the insects, her Farsight could pick them up at a vast distance, seeing what was still far away, around her, above her, beyond even the horizon - and could focus on one thing while her eyes were doing something else.

Vanapha smiled, out here no one could ambush her, unless they came from the sands itself. She watched them keenly, until she could distinguish six riders, her eyes and her sight now viewing the same in great detail. She stood ready, certain they had seen her by now in turn. When they were at two hundred yards away Vanapha unshouldered her bow, a recurve that took years to master. At a hundred yards she drew back the arrow to her cheek, holding back sixty pounds of force, which required a strength that had made her right shoulder and deltoid slightly larger than the left if someone had to strip her naked.

The raiders closed in. A hundred yards, eighty , seventy, sixty... and she unleashed, the arrow splitting the chorus of desert insects, speeding loftily, and unsaddled one of the raiders. The man tumbled backwards, dead, his horse buckling in fright and the rest of the riders broke formation. Vanapha eased and dangled her bow at her side, utterly passive now, which allowed the raiders to regain composure and approach her in an angry rush, but weary. The leader, wrapped in cloth garments and a turban, snarled and spat at Vanapha. ‘I could have you killed and be done with it!’

‘I told you to bring only four men. Not Five.’

‘I did not count myself!’

‘I did you a favour then, he was terrible a rider and was slowing you down. I picked him for that. I doubt he was any better as a fighter.’

The raider's lip curled back but said nothing, not entirely willing to admit that they really were better off without the dunderhead lying dead in the sands.

Vanapha's focus however was not on the leader; sitting with one of the riders was a small girl with red-rimmed eyes, sunburnt and her blond hair all in a mess.

This group of raiders had the darker skin of the Pangean slave traders, which Vanapha took as a sign that they were going beyond their normal hunting grounds again, as the oceans to the East had been calm in the last year, allowing for their ships to go further than they normally ventured. Or maybe the appetite for slaves had grown... either way, these men did not look forward to a trip back with low supplies, and would stay and sell their captured girls to locals if such an opportunity arose.

‘Where is the ore?’ demanded the leader.

That was what this was about after all, at least for them: the girl in their custody, Melindra, was due to be shipped as a refugee to Rade'Remar, but the raiders had intercepted the caravan and captured the girl doing so.

Vanapha was instructed to intercede.

She tracked the raiders for many days, waiting for them to make camp in a secluded valley among the dunes, their tents pitched away from the wind, but haphazardly so that the shape of the camp conformed to the land.

Scanning the camp with her Sights, it was clear to her she was going to have no easy way of barging to the centre of the camp, rescuing the girl and make off with her. Getting out and away with a girl weak from pain and hunger was the problem and then to avoid a pursuit afterwards where they would definitely get caught for a lack of speed.

As she brooded and observed the camp, she saw a rather careless man brag about an ore they had uncovered, gesturing wildly with the stone in his hand, something that by the looks of it, might even be worth more than the girl would be on a slave market. He put the ore away, but Vanapha knew where it was stored.

Another careless raider was all it took, one who was nodding off while guarding the tent entrance. Vanapha slipped in while the man slept. It was a second later that she absconded with the ore, and in its place left a note. She was certain the sleeping guard had not survived the discovery of the note: it made it clear to the raiders they had to meet with Vanapha, out in the open, with the girl unharmed and only five of them could approach or she would not honour the meeting. The ore was very valuable Vanapha realized the moment she had touched it. It was a lodestone, a receiver and store of magical energy. The raiders however could only hope to sell such a thing; they had no magical abilities within their ranks.

Vanapha pulled a misshapen grey object from her satchel, almost cylindrical, but rough around the edges. She would be glad to part from it, as it was an unnecessary weight at her side.

Again the leader spat, this time in anticipation, clearly a habit he had formed from the fine dust infiltrating his mouth.

‘Put the girl down. The ore is yours once she is at my side, we have nowhere to run, so you have nothing to risk by the letting her go first.’ The leader nodded at the man who carried Melindra behind him. He jumped from the saddle and untied the girl where she still sat on the horse. He picked her off roughly and then shoved her forward before her legs could acclimatize from what must've been a long ride. For a moment it looked like she would stumble, but she was so desperate to be away that she recovered and ran as hard as she could. She found shelter behind Vanapha, on her knees as she wrapped her arms around Vanapha's thigh, which very dangerously almost pulled Vanapha off balance in a situation where they couldn't afford it. Not able to vest any attention on the child then, she pulled back her arm and rolled the ore forward with enough momentum to curve almost all the way to the leader.

The leader kept his gaze fixed on them as he picked it up, his mouth set in a way that Vanapha knew made claim that he ready to pounce and flatten all diplomacy.

‘You can try,’ said Vanapha, tapping the cutlass at her waist and speaking to the thoughts that were clearly running through his mind. ‘You might succeed,’ she continued in a neutral tone, knowing they wouldn't. She couldn't take them all with a cutlass. But for them chancing a victory against a Valkyrie where they would certainly take casualties was not a priority for this man.

He seemed to consider it, then suddenly remounted.

‘I've wasted enough time on you. Fuck you.’ He wheeled his horse around and pumped his heels into its ribs three times to set it charging, his subordinates following his unnecessary haste to get away.

Vanapha watched them keenly, making sure they did not have a change of heart along the way. She turned then to the girl, who seemed to be still in a state of shock. Her face seemed on the very edge of a despairing cry, and Vanapha thought she might have had a steady run of tears if she had but moisture to spare.

Saying something comforting seemed like a good idea then, but for the life of her Vanapha found it hard to so; both because of her awkwardness around children and the absolute unwillingness to honey-coat the situation.

She inspected the girl. All things considered, she was not in any worse shape than what Vanapha would expect of someone who had traversed the desert and had been abducted by raiders. Luckily the raiders did not abuse their captives. Their worth on a slave market was severely diminished if found that a confederate prince had lost first rights to a scruffy desert cretin.

On her haunches she took the girl by the shoulders. ‘I am Vanapha. We're going somewhere safe alright? Somewhere where they can never get to you again. Is that okay?’

Melindra nodded, her lower lip trembling, the sound of eternal escape surely sounding too good to be true right then.

‘Okay. Let's first get somewhere to wait out the night, and put some food in you.’

They found shelter at one of the beacons, a stone pillar that rose from the sands, marked with sand-blasted enamelled panels. Behind the lower panel was a small cavity with the meanest supplies. Most importantly, it had blanket rolls and a cloth canvass that could be fixed along the beacon in ninety-degrees like an awning, and roll down the rest of its length to provide adequate shelter. Pinning the canvass to the ground was tricky, as the sand was often too loose to hold a single spike. So the pin flowered open at the tip, increasing its surface exposure to the sands that would weigh it down once embedded into the earth.

Out of the wind and the coming cold, Vanapha prepared their little enclosure, dividing her attentions between lying out their blanket rolls and preparing a meal.

They were to have oats. For dinner and in the desert it was not ideal but that was what the beacon yielded. Along with water and a small dented pot, Vanapha got a tiny gas cylinder, which the Valkyrie laboratories filled by breaking down gas-yielding rocks. It put up a small hot flame as Vanapha opened the screw and struck a spark where the canister whistled in a barely audible pitch.

She added salt to the water and then added the oats once it boiled. It was hard to stir in the small pot. They waited it out and all the while she felt Melindra's gaze on her, her eyes darting down every time Vanapha thought to say something. Too timid to speak. Too tired even. And thinking along these lines Vanapha realized that the girl must be suffering severe sunburn and sun-sickness. ‘Here,’ said Vanapha, grabbing the salve from her satchel. ‘Be sure to cover as much of your skin as you can. It will help with the pain.’ The girl took it delicately and Vanapha scooped out the oats while girl gratefully rubbed her skin with the ointment. Digging further into the stone enclosure, she found a jar with some hard crystallized honey, which she was happy to scrape painstakingly out of the jar to give the oats a tiny bit of flavour.

While the child ate, Vanapha staked out the perimeter, familiarizing herself with the dunes, drawing a line through the sand with her boot here and there. She returned to camp. The theory was, a Valkyrie's sight did not turn off during sleep, just as much as hearing did not - but a human's hearing would not alert the conscious mind until it hears something out of the ordinary. From this example it was conceivable, that during rest, should her Sight wander the camp, and notice something out of the ordinary, like the line being crossed, Vanapha would be alerted where her subconscious would ignore the rest.

‘Are you full?’ she asked Melindra as she ducked back into the canvas.

‘Yes thank you,’ the girl said, her eyes meeting Vanapha's for the first time. She took that as a good sign. She was rather scared that she had suffered a trauma that would be much longer lasting than her physical condition.

‘Thank you for saving me,’ she added.

Vanapha smiled. ‘Rest now. We'll be off first thing in the morning, so you'll need your strength.’

They nestled into the blanket rolls as the desert wind started tugging at their little enclosure. Vanapha lay awake until she heard Melindra's breathing slow down, and was relieved when she showed none of the fits Vanapha feared she would have. At ease then, the Valkyrie slipped into slumber, and as each night, the sight of stars was the last in her mind, the great Pegasus star telling her she was already dreaming of a night-sky yet to come.

Chapter 2

The Golden Wastes

It was said that when the Archangel Ferachsus spilled into the world, the deserts were created. A thousand years ago, on the equator of the world, the archangel confronted Nimroth the Devourer in battle and there smote him with the white flame of heaven carried within a lantern of silver. The Daradya desert on the mainland were created in the blaze and so too the Golden Wastes as the fire scourged across even the stretch of ocean between the mainland the island home of the Valkyries. The once paradise-like landscape was flattened into sand. Luckily, the Valkyries came only afterward, but other civilizations did not survive it. The only thing the sands ever welcomed was the sun, the so-called Wastes perpetuating itself in heat and dire winds that battered everything that didn't move fast enough into more sand. Trees and waterholes were to be found, but they were like sought-after myths in an unforgiving landscape. Even then it was the watering holes that were often hunting grounds rather than sanctuary, its lure true for both prey and hunter, good and evil.

The coasts were more welcoming, but only just. White beaches were as highways sometimes, but sharp and glorious cliffs protruding into the oceans made it impossible to circumnavigate the island without going into the desert at some point. There were the more hospital areas as well, even among the lazy dunes, places of beauty for their simplicity and vastness, and for the secret nature that it held. You could admire it as long as you had a place to retreat to at night and at midday.

This was what Vanapha's knew all her life. It was an exceedingly hard existence, but this land nurtured her with a will that could do without the bounty provided in the mainland. It was home.

Knowing this place was critical, inside out, a study of everything inscribed in the Valkyrie way of life, and in their talents.

She and Melindra set out very early the next morning, before the sun could surface. The Valkyrie did not wear hoods or shrouds around their faces, for they wanted no interloper pretending to be Valkyrie bypass the defence of Farsight by hiding their faces. It was Valkyrie law not to shroud their face, though they often wore head cloths or scarves for the back of their necks during longer expeditions. Vanapha however was going to allow that luxury to Melindra, covering her head with a cloth that she first wetted with some water. Having Vanapha at her side would be enough for any other Valkyrie scouting the deserts. And she was a child besides.

Vanapha herself wore a sleeveless maroon shirt, with leather tassets around her hips and thighs. She had bracelets covering her forearms and she had knee-high boots, her upper legs bare. Her hair she tied into a long ponytail. Clasped to her collar were a short white cape, which she at times wrapped around her neck and upper arms, or even cocoon her head so that just her face stuck out. When the glistening brightness of the desert got too bad, she wrapped some gauze around her head, just enough that it covered her eyes. She could almost see through the transparent gauze, almost, but relied then more on her Sights to navigate.

They set off, soon coming into a rhythm they would have to keep up for the remainder of the day.

This part of the wastes were both beautiful and deadly, like a sea of golden sand that the wind carefully sculpted, creating such a fine slope to the crest of a wave that never broke - and then the dell of the dune on the other side that were almost like a sheer drop in contrast. They wove through valleys, ascending a dune only when they had to, as the S-curves of the dunes looked like a cloth mantel discarded carelessly, creating folds, and soon they followed the very top of these folds as long as they could, with sheer drops on both sides of them. Then, when the line they followed no longer aligned with their end destination, they went through a dell and scaled again another intimidating bank.

Vanapha was pleased with their progress; the girl looked physically fit, so she was hopeful that they could push toward Rade'Remar in a day's time - maybe a day and half.

It meant however that she had to push the girl to her limit as the alternative was losing time to a sun that raced to its peak. They did not run, but where they could they jogged along at a pace that Vanapha could maintain throughout the day and which she hoped Melindra could live with if they stopped strategically. You could not stop anyplace either. It had to be in the shade or at a beacon or a well. This time of the year, the sun coasted across the sky on a angle leaning a little more to the north, so where a rock outcropping lifted from the sands, a bit of shade was to be found on the southside of the rock. But these were rare and as the morning sun intensified the little figure bobbing by her side had Vanapha worried for the remainder of the journey; how to tell if she was strong enough for this? And if dehydration struck how suddenly would it come to someone so young? Vanapha accounted for that moment the desert robbed a person of their reserves without warning, so she checked on the girl and reacted immediately when she saw her posture slumping, or her feet dragging too heavily in the sand. She had them stop, drain the tankard, wetted her head cloth again and rest a while.

Vanapha spoke to Melindra in short bursts, confirming more or less what she already knew about her, just as well, as the girl was not in a mood yet where she would want to spend too much time on what was a painful experience, and fresh in her mind besides:

Tricotta had been a fisherman's village on the mainland, torched and raided. It sat on the coast near the Bildjen woods. She among others had made it out by the mercy of some passing tradesmen of a neighbouring village. There was however not enough for a village like that to give a young girl the kind of life she would need, so a refugee ship were to take her to the city of Lorcrea on the northeast tip of the island. The Valkyrie ambassador to Lorcrea had stood waiting as the ship docked and in the process identified Melindra as a potential student almost as soon as she disembarked. With no better prospects, the Lorcrean authorities were happy to send Melindra with one of their caravans to the Valkyrie city of Rade’Remar on the other side of the island. But the raiders had infiltrated the island again recently to prey on trade routes and Melindra for a second time encountered their malice. Only this time she did not escape. The incident was caught by another Valkyrie scouting the sands and she alerted all others on duty. That was when Vanapha received her summons and as the raiders came her way, she took up the mission. It turned out better than what she expected, discounting the fact that they still had to survive the journey back home.

Melindra's story was not unique, neither was it the most tragic - many of the women that had joined the Valkyrie were refugees of such events. Those they could not save in time ended up in Pangean slave trade circles, from where there was no escape.

They came across two more wells, and they were welcome landmarks which Vanapha thought did enough to lift Melindra's spirits. It was a hard day especially for someone who had just escaped captivity. They took pause and refreshed. The wells however were not just critical sources of water. They were lined with one of the Valkyrie's most valuable secrets, lodestones, like the raiders had unearthed. When Mallova the white moon passed over the wells, the lodestones took powers of the white moon and charged them into the waters, and one day the waters would be used by the Valkyrie to distil a most remarkable potion that awakened the powers of the Sights. Reborreom. Vanapha intended for Melindra to one day learn this secret if all went well. It however made her think again on why the raiders would suddenly prize a lodestone so greatly that they had no use for.

She had no answer, so when Melindra looked invigorated they set out again for the long haul.

Their next stop came to a less regular feature of the desert, yet which had stood in it for a thousand years. This contradiction came because of the winds. The often unseen of the Golden Wastes were the age-old ruins that littered the landscape, much of it now covered by oceans of sand, so many bygone eras layered over each other, their mysteries uncovered by chance of shifting sands or a willing explorer. They were of particular interest to Vanapha and she had set the goal of exploring every ruin that she could. She had in fact been busy exploring these ones right before she had taken up the call to rescue Melindra.

To Vanapha they were a lifelong study, as they belonged to the Tajeni people of old, extinct now, yet who documented their lives and their intense magicks upon the walls and monuments of their cities with glyphs and runes. Though Vanapha understood very little of it, it had been become a task she set for herself to document the ruins as best she could. For now however they would only use the cracked monument for a bit of shelter, Vanapha already having scribbled its runes in a little book she carried. She expected Melindra to ask her about this strange place, but she did not, which she found concerning.

The girl was quiet for the most part, but Vanapha could see a restlessness within her whenever they stopped, a compulsion stronger than the need for rest, her gaze shooting back the way they had ran so far. She realized she might have mistaken the girl’s fear for strength. She had run hard on the fear that she might be captured again.

‘They are not pursuing us and they won't catch us even if they did.’

Melindra looked up at Vanapha, her eyes wide and meeting the Valkyrie's in hope that the words were true.

‘Have you run long distances before? It seems you have strong legs and a good pair of lungs.’

‘We had races, in the Bildjen woods sometimes.’ Melindra bit off further comment. All her responses had been as shallow to thus far. She looked to be holding back as though reluctant to venture into anything that might make her feel something.

It was not a mystery to Vanapha. Just days ago she had been with a caravan she believed would take her to a new life. The caravan had been destroyed, just like her home. It was not in her to vest much feeling into anything she now believed could be snatched away from her at any moment.

Vanapha wanted to say something to cheer the girl, but she realized she was quite awful at this kind of thing.

‘This is the road of the fiery wind,’ she said finally, realizing that telling a story was all she had to offer, and that it might help besides. Melindra looked up at her.

‘A people once travelled these deserts. Nomads. They had no Farsight and no knowledge of the desert. They were in search of a new of home, but had no guide and were lost. One day, a spirit of the many moons came to them and told them to follow the fire that scoured the desert.

‘Yet they asked the spirit where the fire was, for they saw nothing. The spirit told them that the fire lays within the sands itself. It dawned on them then that as the dust clouds were swept up by the winds, and as the red moon of Rodreon in the night casts its rosy light, there was indeed a cloud of fire in the desert.

‘They followed the fiery wind, and it guided them to their new home. The predominant wind to this day still blows south-east, and you can feel the fire stinging against your ankles and pushing at your back. It lets you know that you're going to a new home meant just for you, beyond a doubt and that a life of fear is behind you.’

‘Do the nomads still live here?’

‘No, they crossed the sea. But with what boats I do not know. The beacons were laid in honour of that story, though they map out many roads and not just the south-east passage.’

‘What if they come after us? What if they follow the beacons like we do? asked Melindra

‘I will know. I can see farther than they can travel in a day.’

‘You really are a Valkyrie,’ said Melindra, with a question in her face that spoke of lingering doubt. Vanapha almost smiled at that. Even at the other end of the island, and though they housed Valkyrie ambassadors, the town of Lorcrea did not take tales of Valkyrie women all too seriously. There could have been many reasons for that, not excluding an often told joke; about how dissatisfied wives of Lorcrea were dissuaded by their husbands from absconding to Rade'Remar by making it out as a place of myth. It was clear that the girl had made mention of where she was headed and one or more had chided the child for fanciful tales.

Being a myth however would have been a luxury sometimes, if only Vanapha could convince their enemies of it.

‘Yes, and I can almost see Rade'Remar, our home. We are close now.’

Melindra nodded vigorously.

They set off again, racing west with the sun, which were in their faces now.

It was true what Vanapha said, that Rade'Remar would soon show up in her Farsight, but something else came into appearance first. Something that shouldn't have been there at all. Something that broke Vanapha’s promise of being rid of the raiders against all past evidence. And it was not just a passing threat. The raiders had a camp. A big one. Tents of dark and purple cloth stood in tight circles, surrounding brazen fires that had no intention of hiding their presence. They had planted defensive wooden stakes, which told Vanapha the intruders were new to the wastes. The Valkyrie did not ride horses. They were definitely new considering that they thought themselves safe with what numbers they had this close to Rade'Remar. Retribution would come down on them swiftly.

The end result for now however was that Vanapha and Melindra could not pass through here. She was somewhat in denial, so much so that she did not quite trust her Sights, and walked until she could physically see the raider encampment from an outcropping. It was set within the bow of the Dylotas escarpment, which ran such a distance as to cover almost all known trails to Rade'Remar.

On the high road, her Sights took notice of another Valkyrie on the Grendé plateau, which was out of reach to both them and the raiders. The woman up there was gesturing, signing in a way that could communicate over a distance where voices lost its power, but Farsight could still make sense of it.

Vanapha returned the gestures and they conversed in this way. It was the women named Selea and she was warning Vanapha that the raider camp wasn't their only problem, as another mounted raider patrol was coming from the north, and could potentially pinch them between two very large groups of enemies. Selea could see this because she was on higher ground.

Vanapha thanked her and bade her well. She swung back to the raider camp and watched it sternly, her anger steadily growing at this unexpected trespass:

This was traditionally a Valkyrie territory, if not a stronghold for them in some way, for the many years it stood clear of all enemies. Yet now, there was no easy passage for any Valkyrie who were returning home such as Vanapha. She was a little disappointed that her sister in battle, Malcorva, had not dealt with these raiders already. Normally, she would have done so before they could even conjure up the idea of encroaching their territories. She was certain they would still crush the interlopers in time.

Regardless, Vanapha could not wait, realizing that lingering or going around was not an option, considering the patrol that was coming their way. It was possible, that they could go north and around. If Vanapha was alone, that would certainly have been her choice, but she was not confident the girl was going to survive the trek.

The alternative was only slightly better, if at all. It certainly wouldn't be if we get killed. Her gaze ventured to the south, a reluctant option, where a cave entrance waited at the end of a ravine, slowly submerging into the base of an unclimbable rock formation. The raiders wouldn't go there even if they knew about it, and for good reason. Its only temptation was that it could bring a traveller to the other side of the hills, at the southern walls of Rade'Remar.

She looked at Melindra.

‘Do you think you can get through a dark place, a cavern with tight spaces?’

Melindra nodded enthusiastically, as though the idea of getting away from the sun was very pleasing.

Vanapha was not sure the girl quite understood the risks. ‘It’s going to be dangerous. I can't even tell you what we might encounter, because knowing would make it worse.’

‘Anywhere the men won't catch me again. I am not scared of the dark,’ Melindra said.

‘Alright, we're going through the caverns - but you will have to be brave!’

Chapter 3

A Feast of Nightmares

They descended into the cave mouth, as it drank the light from outside, the rocky edges promising a way in without comforts, the foot path not clear, riddled with jagged stones that jutted from the ground and required carefully placed feet. The ceiling above shrunk and grew again, like they were down the throat of a living thing, the odd breeze that came down it its breath.

For all that, the cave was once inhabitable, exploited by primitive people who had made the tunnels their own, slipping in and out of them as easily as if it were their clothes. Remnants of their alarm drums lay in the dust and sand, which could echo for miles on end within the cave system. On a fateful day their drums would have alerted all the warriors to take arms against a threat. Their final threat, they could not overcome, the one that ended them.

Vanapha could not shake the feeling that this was a terrible idea, a situation she would do her best to avoid if not for the girl beside her.

For one thing this place denied her strengths. Twists and turns, confined and easily trapped. It could make a mockery of her Sights and her bow. Were the rock wall intruded shamelessly into the passage, it left but small openings to one side, having them ducking past it like it was a curtain, and like a curtain there was no telling what was behind it.

The darkness on its own was a problem, as the Sights of the Valkyrie still needed light to operate.

When the Valkyries needed it the most, Mallova the white moon gave them some light at night time, but there was not even that in these caves.

Melindra started making sounds and gestures that were symptoms of what Vanapha feared the girl might experience here. Symptoms that rose from darkness and enclosed spaces. But Vanapha knew they could not turn back. She couldn't allow indecisiveness. ‘We've chosen our path, now we keep steadfast. On the otherside is Rade'Remar remember?’ she reminded the girl without being prompted.

Once darkness swallowed them whole, Vanapha removed two vials from her satchel. They were tiny, but so prepared that they held two different fluids separated by a wax divider in the middle. The stopper had a needle that ran into the first half of the vial, which was ready to puncture the wax divider if one pressed hard on the stopper. Once punctured, a swift turn of the vial mixed the two chemicals, upon which the reaction was a bright white light, and the rest of its energy released in a slight warmth to the touch. The potion was called Lithil. She quickly alit two, the light coming up to reveal the surprise on Melindra's face. ‘See, Valkyrie's always have something to get us through the day,’ she said encouragingly.

She handed one for Melindra to carry and tied the other one to her bow, right above the grip, so that she could walk prepared - draw an arrow if necessary and fire without having to put away the light.

It was one of the least impressive things the Valkyrie could do with chemicals, and yet,