Svaltha V: Destiny Refuted
The Second Day of the Eighth Moon, 873 AD.
Dyfed's Warcamp, Hoarsoil Valleys, Scelopyrea.
She was fucked. Completely and utterly fucked. Not even the good kind either, but the regular shitty kind that just made her feel awful and highlighted just how terribly everything was going at the moment.
I just want one season without something upending my life, I swear to Krakevasil.
Everything she thought was good and right in the order of the druids had been shown as being false by the one worthy god, and it was her responsibility to ensure that whatever ruin might be brought about by the very schemes she helped to put into place would be stopped in its tracks. She wasn't stupid, she knew she couldn't do it alone, but she had remarkably few people to turn to. She couldn't go to the druids, who might see her message as a trick or a threat to their power. She couldn't tell Kætil, for he still didn't know she'd been planted to try and ensnare him and she didn't want to risk alienating him if he did find out. The situation with the others was much the same.
That was why she was here instead. She'd ridden away from the battle-line, alone, back to the Great Jaerl's warcamp, and asked for an audience with Dyfed Ostæinson once more. It had been granted, but that didn't mean she was excited for this. The Great Jaerl was a... he was an intimidating man, and there was no-one in all of Scelopyrea who would say otherwise. The two silent guards were at the entranceway to the tent, as seemed to be usual, and whilst they dwarfed her in size they were each a head shorter than the Great Jaerl himself.
And the last time they spoke he hadn't exactly been a pleasant conversation partner.
Still, he did seem to mistrust the druids, and he was one of the most powerful men in Scelopyrea. Probably the most powerful man, seeing as the only person with enough power to rival his own was a woman and not a man. Not only that, but she was a... companion, for his son. That had to count for something, right?
But all of those thoughts were just excuses, and she knew it. She just wanted to put off having to speak with him for a few moments longer. Still, she couldn't put it off forever, and so with a deep breath and a muttered prayer she steeled herself and walked with purpose up to the tent, the two guards moving aside before she'd even introduced herself.
That gave her a half-second of pause, but she quickly shook it off and carried on. Perhaps word of her coming had been given to them ahead of time?
With the briefest of nods she made to enter the tent, neither of the guards acknowledging her as she pushed aside the flap and looked around the room. It was all but the same as how she'd left it, though she was more than confident that a few of the trinkets around the room had changed. She didn't know the significance of any of them; a small dragon carved from jade, a piece of driftwood with a prayer carved into it that had been silvered over, a book with a title in one of the southern tongues, maybe Klironomean but she had no way of knowing since the only word she could read said 'Jotun' on the front, that sort of thing. She was certain that different items had been around the room earlier, but she couldn't remember what any of them had been. Not that it was important at all, probably.
"Druid Svaltha. You asked to speak with me once more."
She steeled herself once more and spoke to the huge man, puffing herself up to look as confident as she could, no matter the fact that she'd hardly felt less confident in her life.
"I did, Great Jaerl. I could think of no-one else to trust with this, and given the fact that your previous comments indicated that you knew my kind were up to something I figured you would be the most receptive ear to what I had to say."
Dyfed looked at her, curious and yet strangely grim. It seemed the last few months had made him tired, but certainly far from weak.
"I see. Well, let's hear what you have to say in that case."
"I've spoken to our god again, only far clearer than ever before. He told me much, and I need someone with both the will and the power to act on what he has said."
Dyfed raised an eyebrow at her.
"Many in your order speak to your god. Many more claim to have spoken to him for their own gain. Why should I trust what you have to say?"
"Because..." She thought hard for a moment. Had she misjudged the situation? Would he not believe her after all? "Because the druids are wrong."
There, she had said it. It almost hurt her to say, to have spent so long wishing to be on the winning side only to find out that in doing so you were to be responsible for catastrophe and then have to admit that out loud, but it needed to be said.
Dyfed looked at her for a long moment as if trying to work out what exactly she was, who she was, his stare once more turning almost supernaturally inquisitive. When he did speak again his voice was measured and intent, and something in his tone told her that not only did he believe her, but she had his absolute and total attention.
"You say you spoke to Krakevasil. All in your order speak to him, but you claim this to have been something different. He delivered a revelation or two to you, didn't he?"
She nodded at Kætil's father, the Great Jaerl staring at her almost as intently as he had back when they'd first spoken properly in what seemed at the time like the most terrifying conversation she'd had.
Seeing her god so clearly had blown it out of the water since then.
"Whilst I always have time for one who speaks to the Lord of Fresh Carrion, I am curious as to why you have come to me with this information. Aren't little things like you supposed to go to your elders with information like this? Did you not think your actions would go unnoticed by your peers, or did you realise and simply not care?"
"I did realise, mighty Jaerl, and whether I care or not is irrelevant. I spoke to our god, and he spoke back as clear as I've ever heard him. I saw him as well. With my own eyes, I swear to you that I saw him. The words he spoke to me... I couldn't go to my peers, to my elders. He told me so many things. So many things in a voice like... in a voice like the eruption of a fire-mountain beneath glacial ice. All deep rumbling, so clear and yet obscured, so near and yet so distant. Ashen wings upon his back, tattered and torn like worn leather stretched too thinly over bone. Feathers that seemed to rot and malt even as I looked at them, falling as ash and snow. And his... and antlers that struck forth from his head, four of them, two more at his shoulders, twisting like the hands of a haunted oak, as though they were not antlers but grasping skeletal arms."
She hadn't been able to see him through the fog at the time, yet even as she spoke the words she knew they were true. Was her mind simply trying to fill in the blanks, or was her mental image of him something else? Was it truly the visage of a god? She certainly thought so, and damn anyone who said otherwise.
She took a deep breath and forced her mind to surface again, stopping herself from getting too lost in thought. She had a message to relay, and her voice had taken on a hint of hysteria as she recounted his visage. That would not do.
"They'd never believe me, I know it. That's why I came to you."
"Your words... your conviction tells me you truly believe all you say. Few have seen the Raven-God and lived to speak of it when they came to once more." The man rubbed his chin with his right hand. "Krakevasil doesn't want you babbling to the other druids then, I take it?"
Svaltha shook her head, which earned her an almost gleeful grin from the large man opposite. As quick as it appeared the grin went away, Dyfed visible working his face as he passed a hand over his features to put on a more professional guise once more.
"Sorry, I shouldn't take heart in personal petty victories when the stakes are so high. Carry on."
Svaltha nodded and made to continue speaking, struggling to keep her voice from tightening as she remembered the events of that day.
"He told me that we face the wrong foe, that the true enemy sails west. He told me that the plan of the druids was folly, and would lead to the end of us all. He told me their meddling must stop."
Dyfed raised an eyebrow at her.
"And what exactly were those plans that the druids had made?"
She swallowed hard, instinct telling her to be quiet and reveal nothing. If she told him then she'd never climb the rungs of status amongst the order, but... but what? She was already betraying the order in their eyes, even if it had been the words of her god that had driven her so. Nothing she could say would convince any of them that she wasn't lying, that she hadn't just grown fond of her life at the Great Jaerl's court. They'd carry on with their ambitious plans regardless, plans she once believed in wholeheartedly but had now come to see as folly, so would it really make a difference to her if the powers that be knew she'd betrayed their confidence?
"The plans," she started with a final, shuddering exhale before she broke any chances of becoming an elder, "involved driving you and the Eyvindottir to a single, cataclysmic battle. A true fight to the end, with every combatant in all Scelopyrea involved. When the day was over the stragglers would have been killed by the Jomsravens. The hope was that the amount of blood spilled, the amount of fresh death in the fields, would see Krakevasil returned to us once more."
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Dyfed nodded gravely, as if taking it all in. It was a good act, but she knew in that moment that he'd already known most of this already. She didn't know how, but he knew. That means this must have been a test of loyalty for me then. A little opener to see if I would be willing to, if begrudgingly, dole out the secrets the orders have kept.
What a pity it was that she now knew the plans to be useless so close to their fruition.
"Well, thank you for letting me know about that. You needn't worry about those plans from your superiors, however. It's going to look like we're playing along with it, but our friend in her own warcamp across the river and I have a little 'agreement'. You'll not know what it is until it happens, but it will soundly destroy any hopes of a plan like the ones the druids wished to enact both in their own eyes and the eyes of every fighter on the field of battle. We can search for newer foes, just as you say our god told you to. We will march south and cross the Aenir, carving out new realms for our people there. I trust you understand that such wars will be greater for our god than any battle between our own kind up here?"
"There is much blood amongst the southerners. Warm blood. A plentiful harvest. It is his will."
Dyfed smiled at her.
"Ah, you do understand. Excellent. If that is the case then I think you'll find a lot less people watching you around my son. Do keep making him happy, won't you?"
She nodded, doing her best to take it all in. He seemed to have a solid enough plan to her, even if she was being left out of the finer details. That didn't really bother her, truth be told; she'd spent most of her life amongst the druidic orders, so being left out when it came to important details was sort of par for the course in honesty. Not only that but it seemed that the Great Jaerl was... supportive? Of her and Kætil? He was at least ambivalent, that much seemed certain, but she had no wish to start treading on the Great Jaerl's toes at the moment. He might have started to trust her a little more as a result of this information, but she wasn't going to assume that such trust would be permanent, or even particularly robust. She would be trusted only as long as she remained a useful plant in druidic circles.
"And the druids? How can you be sure they won't just start scheming again?"
Dyfed grinned, but he had a far-off look in his eyes. He was either weighing options even as he spoke or thinking on a memory, she wasn't sure which.
"As for the druids... there are plans in place on that front. I will bring the druids to heel. So will she."
"She? You mean-"
"I do. Things were already in motion before you brought this to my attention, child, but your message has only served to reinforce my convictions. A fair few of the godtouched may need to be put to the sword for profaning the words of the Bloody One, and some new appointees will need to take their place. You seem good for the role."
Just like that it felt as though her world was falling apart again.
"Me? I don't- mighty Jaerl, I haven't the skills to stand atop the order! I'd be torn apart in days!"
Dyfed shrugged, a grunt leaving his throat as he did so.
"By your own tales you have been selected by Krakevasil in a way that few have. I am not stupid Svaltha, if I may call you by your name, for I know that the more ambitious of your brethren will not be swayed by righteousness and those values they swore to uphold. You know who it will be good enough for?"
She shook her head a little, mind racing too fast to really slow down and try to consider an answer to his question at the moment.
"The Jomsravens. I don't know how they work out if your kind are telling the truth or not when it comes to the word of Krakevasil, but if they believe you then you'll have nothing to fear. Well, so long as you keep a few of them in the room with you at all times. You've got an opportunity here, girl. You're not profaning your oath either, since you're not siding with me here. The Eyvindottir and I are in agreement on this matter. It is time the druids returned themselves to an advisory position, and stopped their plays for power. It is the right of rulers to rule; the faithful are simply there to uphold the faith. Do you understand what I am saying, child?"
She did, vaguely. Very vaguely. She got the broad strokes of what he was saying, but at the moment she was simply too overwhelmed to really take everything in. Just a few minutes ago she thought she was throwing away any chance of a career, and now she was being told that there was a very real chance she would rise up the ranks astronomically fast because she'd actually tried to follow the word of her god?
By the Raven-God, she needed to lie down for a bit.
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Despite her wishes, there hadn't been any time for lying down. Well, not much anyway. She'd snatched an hour or two of rest after that meeting before mounting a fresh horse and beginning the ride back to Kætil and her other friends on the frontlines. She didn't know what this revelation meant for the skirmishes that ran the length of the... subcontinent? She'd heard that word used before for big regions of the world, but she wasn't sure if it was right in this instance. The skirmishes ran the whole length of Scelopyrea, that much she was sure of. The only regions where the fighting seemed to have not yet reached were the northernmost regions of Scelopyrea, those perpetually frozen regions between the northern mountains and Isan's Rock.
Not that there was much worth fighting over up there anymore.
Then again, it wasn't like there was much worth fighting over anywhere in Scelopyrea. The only real cities that had ever sat in the region were either gutted and burned or rotten and crumbling, and neither of those cities had particularly been the envy of the world even at their heights. So that begged the question, what had driven the Great Jaerl and Valkyrie-Queen to war? Aside from the druids of course?
Power. This war, and all the posturing and petty wars before them that had led up to it, was just a war for power. Power in its rawest and most undiluted form, power that came from oaths of loyalty and the words that men and women spoke. This wasn't power from riches, nor even from strength of arms despite what one might think when looking at the battle lines.
This was a war for power waged with the respect that each sides combatants had for their leaders. If one side lost the respect of their warriors then they would be impotent and useless, plain and simple.
But given the hints that the Great Jaerl had dropped both in her most recent meeting and their previous one she knew that he had a plan of sorts, a plan that involved working with the Valkyrie-Queen instead of against her. Did the Valkyrie-Queen know? Was she going along with it just as he was? Maybe this plan was hers to begin with, and the Great-Jaerl was the one going along with it instead. She didn't know, but what she was certain of was that it would be a death knell to the plans of her kindred.
Which meant she had to ensure it went unimpeded.
To let her kindred know of this decision would be akin to a self-levied death sentence in and of itself, so it was absolutely imperative that this all went under wraps. Fortunately she was still regarded as an important 'in' on the son of the Great Jaerl, and given the 'uniqueness' of her assignment she was still allowed a great deal more autonomy than most druids. Hell, she was actually a full blown druid now, not a novice, which meant that a goodly number of her peers weren't even able to shadow her anyway. Things should be fine, and provided nothing much changed things would stay fine. There was just one small problem.
She really liked Kætil.
Now she knew that a statement like that was unnecessary, obvious even, but it still made her job both far easier and far more difficult. Kætil liking her was a godsend, since he almost always defaulted to her advice when it came to anything that wasn't directly connected to commanding his men. Her liking Kætil back complicated things, not least because people were expecting the Great Jaerl to form a marriage alliance with one of many foreign realms using him as a bartering chip. Aside from that, she was a druid. Druids didn't go in for this sort of thing. They lived to advise and to serve, to commune with their god and ensure that the rulers of the north held to his wishes. They did not start pining and lusting after the closest thing the north had to nobility. It didn't matter that he was a good leader and fighter, it didn't matter that he had a strangely endearing awkward manner when they were alone when his confidence was allowed to drop just a little, and it certainly didn't matter that the two of them felt as though they'd been made for each other. It just wasn't traditional.
Further complicating matters was the fact that Krakevasil himself had told her to ensure that she and Kætil would 'mate for life' or something like that, and whilst she certainly found that to be a rather entertaining and enjoyable prospect there was still the fact that the rest of her order was unlikely to be quite as happy for her. Still, the relationship was exactly what she wanted, and she suspected he did as well. The two of them had spent most of the last few moons either fighting, fucking, or drinking, sometimes a combination of all of the above. She'd genuinely wondered one night if she'd already died in battle and had gone to some quiet corner of the Krakewald as her reward, that's how happy she was at the endless bloodshed and drinking in their personal lives.
Hey, the two of them knew what they both liked, what was so wrong with that?
Ah well, she'd cross any bridges that she needed to in regards to their coupling when the time came. She was content to let it be for a little while longer for now. Who knew, maybe this plan that the Great Jaerl had might enable her to pursue this link a little tighter? For now though, she would wait.
Svaltha had always been very good at waiting.
So when she was stopped along the road back to the battle-lines she wasn't too worried, nor was she impatient. She wanted to keep moving, yes, but she was fine to wait. Treating a stranger well was important; you never knew who they were, and so they might be rather important in your future. An old superstition, but all superstitions had to start from somewhere.
"Ho, stranger! Any chance of directions?"
The voice that stopped her was lively, almost jovial were it not for an undercurrent of something stiff and false that immediately raised her hackles for some reason she couldn't understand.
"Directions to where, stranger?"
"Jotunheim," the voice called back, "the city of the giant folk."
That gave her pause, just as his voice continued to grate on her mind. Krakevasil, but this man... she would not say he scared her, for he had done nothing to warrant scaring her, but something about him certainly alarmed her. His smile was a little too wide, his face slightly... off. Wrong. He didn't look particularly bad, just... different. There was something about him that set alarm bells ringing in her head for no conceivable reason. She banished the feeling as best she could with a shudder and made to answer his question, which was odd by itself. Why would anyone want to go to a charred ruin in the north?
"Head as far north as this trail will take you, ignoring any turnoffs. You'll come to a fork about a hundred miles north of here; stick to the lefthand path and keep going. The trail will disappear abruptly, but follow its rough direction and sweep the snow off the ground if you want confirmation that you're still on the trail; the ground is still scorched by dragonfire for a league around the ruins."
The man gave her a nod and a bow with rather exaggerated motions, but where with anyone else she might have thought they were just doing it as a display of friendly humour this felt more like someone... someone trying to act human. She shook herself again to banish such thoughts. God, Kætil would laugh his ass off if he could hear her thoughts at the moment.
"Well, that's most helpful, stranger. My gratitude. Any other advice for a lonely traveller on the road?"
She did her best to ignore how 'inhuman' the man looked and instead focused on answering his question. Many things were real in this world, but this man opposite her was unmistakably a human, even if he didn't 'feel' like one.
"Avoid the Isanar," she found herself saying, "the entire river and its banks are awash with blood. You don't want to get caught up in that unless you've got a stomach for fighting."
The man chuckled heartily at that, but if anything the action made her feel more uneasy about remaining here.
"I've got more of a stomach for blood than most, girl, but I'll heed your advice all the same. No point getting distracted when I've business to attend to. Give my nephew my regards, won't you?"
Svaltha made to tell the man that she didn't know who the hell he was, so how the hell would she know who his nephew was, but when she blinked he was already gone. For a moment there was the faint sound of a cloak flapping in the wind, but then that too was gone. Fuck, he was certainly quicker than he looked.
"Huh. What a weirdo."
She still couldn't keep herself from shuddering when thinking of that truly odd man, but oh well. Maybe the shivering was unrelated? It was a little colder than it normally was this time of year after all, not that she'd noticed before now with the constant fighting and the 'warm bed', so to speak.
Either way, it was probably nothing.