---Battle---
I sit, for the second time in my life, on the back of a Terran landspeeder, being piloted by one of my crews’ mothers.
My mate, my child, my Sahas subordinate and her Terran boyfriend have all remained at the [longhouse] we've slept at, since arriving, which is understandable, after what happened when we arrived, the other day!
Below us is a massive [palisade] enclosure of hewn wood.
The landscape is buried under a [30cm] blanket of [snow].
The sheer variety of habitats that Humans can inhabit and traverse is one of the things that make gardenworlders so incredibly reluctant to admit that they are a single species; Afterall, one species surely cannot naturally live both in sun-baked desert and icy [tundra](!)
The wooden wall sits in an area of flat land, with forests of Fennoscandian trees growing nearby.
In the distance, mountains loom beneath grey skies.
Approaching the fortress is an army of Terrans, dressed in armour and armed with weapons used nearly [2000 years] ago.
In this force, I see Victor, standing tall and looking like a true warrior!
Most of the other Triple Ms are with him.
Apparently, there’s a consistent problem finding enough volunteers to fill out the nonNorse sides of these [reenactments].
A few contingents of the opposing force are stood outside and act as if they have been taken by surprise.
They are quickly set upon and ‘slaughtered’…
If you’d asked the woman I was, at [16], she would likely have guessed that a Terran performance, such as this (if it occurred, at all), would have required the real slaughter of whoever was unlucky enough to be slaughterable… Afterall, she would have reasoned, they are savage deathworlders!
The reality is much more mundane!
In actuality, while their arms may look ancient, they are in fact very modern… each containing a mild shock battery.
When a [reenactor] is hit by a weapon, if they feel it electrify them, they fall into the [snow] and play dead.
A side effect of the general hardiness of Terrans is that, for the most part, their bodies are very resistant to electric shock!
Even their brains (massively more delicate than the rest of them and more like gardenworlder flesh than deathworlder) can withstand enormous currents being passed through them!
Their single hearts, on the other hand, are extremely susceptible to electricity! This is due to the fact that, unlike most species, Terran muscles can only contract (great for strength, terrible for righting every chamber of your heart being contracted at once!)
Even a small shock is enough to induce cardiac arrest, if passed through them!
I have been assured that the current is not strong enough to pose a risk to life but, still, playing with something you are so sensitive to, much less, subsequently lying in the [snow], for prolonged periods, does seem like the foolhardiness of a deathworlder, to me!
A man steps forth, from beside Victor.
He wears a golden [crown].
Apparently he plays ‘Æthelred’, the [King] of the approaching force…
Yes, seemingly, there was a time when not only did Terrans submit themselves to monarchy but monarchs were expected to serve on the frontlines of battle! Something unique to them, of all the martial species!
Victor was apparently offered the part of Æthelred but turned it down, not believing he would be able to do it justice. He plays, instead, the part of Æthelred’s brother, Alfred… who would later either become the first [King] of a united England or become the grandfather to the first, Æthelstan… depending on who you wish to listen to… In this battle, however, Alfred is a much less active part and, thus, Victor was much more happy to accept it.
This is a lot of history to retain!
“GEOPENAÞ ÞÁ GATU! ĠESELLAÞ!!!” screams the [King] toward the [palisade].
The gate is kicked open.
There stands a giant woman, wearing a [helmet] and a quilted [gambeson], bearing a wooden shield and with an unnervingly large [axe], flanked by her [2.2m] blue skinned daughter and the uplift, of whom she play acted as the unwilling, male bride, the other night.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“TILL VALHǪLL!!!” screams the wife of the woman to whose back I cling, raising her [axe] into the air before swinging it forward to, menacingly, hold it at shoulder height.
“BECÍESAÞ!!!” bellows the [King] of the opposing force.
A resounding ROAR comes up from both sides as they sprint toward eachother, in a groundborne charge.
The animalistic ferocity these Terrans exhibit is enough to, momentarily, put me back into the mindset I had before I crashlanded my fighter on a Terran held world and, rather than being eaten or (at the very least) summarily executed, the way I expected to be, I was surrendered and had my wounds treated by Terran medics!
It seems impossible that it’s only a few [millennia] that separate modern Terrans from Terrans who fought like this! That this is the same species as those medics that, more than anyone else, brought about the Peace by showing everyone that these were deeply kind and compassionate creatures!
That kindness and compassion is completely absent from sight right now.
The warriors collide and the air rings out with the *CLANG* and *CLATTER* of ancient Terran weapons against ancient Terran shields.
Every one of them truly look as if they are genuinely trying to hack eachother apart, to me!
I feel the woman’s back, that I cling to, rise and fall in mirth.
“Something funny, Mrs Árnadóttir?” I query, wryly.
“Just… my wife’s axe…”
“Your wife’s [axe]? What’s so funny about that?”
“It’s just… she’s so fussy about historical accuracy… but that axe she excuses, because of the ‘rule of cool’(!)”
I look at the weapon, currently being swung into the side of a Terran, with bone cracking momentum!
“That’s not a historically accurate weapon?” I ask.
She wobbles her head “It’s really more of a stylised woodcutting/executioner’s axe. It’s too long and hefty to really be used effectively as a onehanded axe (the way she uses it) but it’s too short (and still too hefty) to be a particularly effective two hander. If you ask my wife, she’ll tell you that it’s ‘plausible’… not out of the question that someone, somewhere, had an axe like that made and used it in battle. She would also point out that the fact is, she is a strong woman, much taller and stronger than average today and certainly historically, thus making it less unreasonable for her to use that kind of axe since it’s less exhausting for her than for others… but she does also admit that she just prefers the look of that one to more historically accurate ones!”
I chitter “You’re rather well informed about ancient battle [axes](!)”
She laughs “It helps that I am one(!)” making a joke that my translator notifies me is selfdeprecating “Actually, it’s all from being married to her for more than a [century]… without her, I would never be the kind of woman who could tell you the first thing about Dark Age battle axes! That woman just has such infectious enthusiasm that I don’t mind listening to her prattle on for hours about ancient weaponry!… Though, if you do mind receiving lengthy lectures, I’d follow Auntie Heidi’s three rules for harmonious coexistence with a Gyðja and Historian(!)”
“…And… what are these three rules… ‘Auntie’ Heidi(?)” I query, wryly.
“One:…” she says, extending a single digit over her shoulder “Loki and Þórr are not brothers!”
“Alright… that shan’t be a problem for me as I wasn’t aware that anyone erroneously thought that, until just now! What’s rule two?”
She extends a second counting digit “Two: Never use ‘Viking’ as a synonym for the Norse language, religion, culture or people… in fact I try to avoid the word entirely!”
“Alright… what does ‘Viking’ mean, if not these things?” I ask, having heard the word but not learned its meaning, previously.
“Like: Pirate? Raider? Reaver? Voyager?”
“…And… why would I use that word as a stand-in for an entire culture?” I ask, confused.
She shrugs and puffs, mirthfully “Because there was a time, in history, when our ancestors did a lot of piracy for a few centuries… the economy became pretty reliant on it… entire colonial kingdoms were built off of the back of it! The association’s stuck… but it’s a reductive one.”
“I’ll bear that in mind… Rule three?
A third counter is extended “Rule Number THREE (and this is the most important rule!): Never, and I mean NEVER, mention horned helmets!”
“Horned…?”
“Horned helmets are her biggest pet peeve! She will rant about them for hoooouuuurs if you give her the slightest provocation!”
“You mean like the one you wore the other night?” I ask, quizzically. If her wife hates these things that much, then it seems needlessly antagonistic to wear one!
“No, not like that one… that one’s decorative and she lets me get away with it because Loki isn’t usually depicted as a warrior, it’s horned battle helmets she hates!”
“And… why?” it seems unlikely to be merely a matter of taste(!)
“You see…” says the woman, doing a rather good impression of her wife “…if I don’t strap a horned helmet to my head then what the horn is is a massive lever for anyone who doesn’t want me to be wearing a helmet (like whoever I’m fighting) to aim for, to knock it off my head! If I do strap it to my head then what I’ve then given my enemy is a handle to use to manipulate my head down to throat cutting height!”
She mimes taking hold of a horn, wrestling the person it’s attached to and cutting their throat before returning to her usual voice to say “Yeah, sooo… if you’re in the mood to have what I just explained, explained again, only this time in 74 thousand words… then I encourage you to bring it up with her(!)”
“Noted! I’ll only bring it up if I’m truly in the mood to die of either boredom or terror without a strong preference for which(!)”
This elicits a hearty chuckle.
I turn away from the battle and, instinctively, scan the horizon.
Then I notice something… something odd!
“Mrs Árnadóttir…?”
“Oh, call me ‘Heidi’, sweetheart!” she chirps, cheerfully.
“Alright. Heidi?” I respond, distractedly.
“Yeees…?”
“What’s making those trees move like that? To our back left?”
I feel her body tense in a way that reminds me that she’s just as much a deathworlder as those below us!
She whips her head behind herself to look to where I indicated.
A look of horror adorns her face as she returns it to the front, leans forward and, activating voice amplification, barks a single untranslatable word, three times, instantly stopping the noise and the fighting, replacing them with an eery still.
“[TROLL]! [TROLL]! [TROLL]!”