Valkyries Calling-Chapter 73: Where Valkyries and Angels Weep

The field below Dún Ailline had grown quiet.

Crows strutted boldly among the corpses, tearing at sunken bellies.

Now and then, a dying man groaned, lifting a hand to the gray heavens, only to be greeted by dark wings instead of angels.

On the rampart, Vetrúlfr watched in silence. Blood still clung to his hair and beard.

His wolfskin mantle was stiff where it had drunk too deeply of the slain.

At his side stood Ármóðr, helm under his arm, gaze distant.

"It is done," the Jomsviking said. "Connacht’s host is broken. Whatever petty bands remain will scatter to their keeps, squabbling over who must pay for this ruin."

Vetrúlfr didn’t answer.

His pale eyes were fixed on the riverside, where Gunnarr’s crews were herding thralls aboard the ships; sullen men with wrists bound in rawhide, wide-eyed women clutching children, all driven by the flat slap of spear hafts.

Among them, King Maél Sechnaill mac Cathail and his kin stood alone, forced to witness every moment.

Gunnarr strode up the slope to meet them, wiping blood from his axe on his cloak. A grin split his scarred face.

"Well, it’s done. These Gaels won’t muster another field army this year; maybe not for three. And their fields are ash besides."

He spat. "Connacht will starve before it fights again."

"Not if we linger," Vetrúlfr murmured. He let out a long breath, as if tasting the wind. "Send word to your shipmasters. We take what remains, grain, tools, livestock, and any thrall left unbound... then we sail. Before the rest of Ériu realizes their western flank is gutted and comes howling for vengeance."

Ármóðr nodded. "Aye. The petty kings of Meath and Leinster still brood over old insults, but if they see us stay too long, greed and fear alike will drive them together. Better to vanish like mist and let them quarrel over these bones."

Gunnarr’s grin faded as his eyes flicked to the captured royal family."What of them? The old king pisses himself each time we near. His son tries to posture, but has the eyes of a calf at slaughter. The girl..." he tilted his head. "Strong hips on her. Would breed fine stock."

Vetrúlfr’s expression was unreadable. He descended the rampart, boots squelching through mud slick with gore. As he neared the prisoners, Mael flinched and pulled his family tighter.

His queen wept openly, while the young prince tried to stand tall, chest heaving.The daughter kept her eyes down, hands clenched white around her mother’s sleeve.

"King of Connacht," Vetrúlfr said softly, his voice almost gentle. "Your armies are dust. Your halls will hold other lords. The blood of your line ends here; save where it serves us."

Mael swallowed hard, trying to speak. Only a strangled croak emerged.

"Take the girl," Vetrúlfr ordered. Two húskarlar seized the daughter, wrenching her free. She screamed, struggling, but was dragged back toward the ships.

Mael lunged, only to be hammered to his knees by a clenched fist.

"And the rest," Vetrúlfr continued, his voice a pitiless breath of winter, "show the gods they still dine well on the courage of kings."

"No! No, by Christ, mercy!" Mael howled. But his words were drowned as the axes fell.

The prince died first, a savage stroke to the neck. The queen’s wail rose shrill and terrible until it cut off in a wet gurgle.

Mael was forced to watch, weeping, until finally his own head was hacked from his shoulders and kicked aside like a dropped helm.

Vetrúlfr watched without expression. When it was done, he cleaned his blade on Mael’s rich cloak and turned back to his captains.

"Burn them atop their slain. Let Connacht’s crows feast well, that they grow too fat to follow us north."

---

By dusk, the ringfort was a skeleton of itself. Fires smoldered in black heaps where the last stores of the Gaels had been seized or torched to deny them even meager harvests.

Fafnirsfangr lay at anchor below, its decks crowded with spoils and sobbing thralls.

Vetrúlfr met with Gunnarr and Ármóðr at the crude long table they had set within the gatehouse hall. The floor was still sticky with old blood.

Ármóðr laid a rough map across the boards, stones marking where Connacht’s major hillforts and strongholds still stood.

"Word will fly to these places soon, carried by whoever lived to crawl home. Once they see what became of Dún Ailline, they may think to band together. Or at least send riders south, begging Leinster’s aid."

Gunnarr leaned over, tapping a knot of settlements upriver. "We struck hard here, but the hills beyond still have cattle and folk too poor to bother fleeing. Easy meat for the next summer’s return."

Vetrúlfr’s eyes were distant. "It will not be next summer. Not here. We have torn this heartland too deep already. Let them rebuild, fatten again. The crows and wolves do not take the same sheep twice."

Gunnarr smirked. "And by then, our thralls will have littered new halls with babes. Your wolves’ kin will fill ships we cannot yet count."

"That is the true harvest of this war," Ármóðr agreed, tracing a line up to where the sea met Iceland’s cold promise.

"Their sons will grow under our banners, learn our speech and our gods. When next we come to Ériu, it will be with a host born of her own womb."

Vetrúlfr’s teeth showed in a hungry smile. "Aye. Let Rome call it abduction, call it heresy, call it heathen lust; call it what they will. I call it the forging of a people strong enough to outlast all their decrees."

He stood then, resting his hands on the table. The lamplight caught on the fine cuts in his mail, the old stains that never quite washed clean.

"When dawn comes, we sail. Those who try to follow will find their rivers choked with the hulls we leave behind; burned, spiked, poisoned with rot. The rest will squabble over empty fields and dead kings."

His eyes swept his captains. "And we will return to Ísland, to Færeyjar, to our cold halls heavy with gold, new wives, and new tales. Tell your men: the gods have feasted here. We will honor them by living long enough to offer them yet more."

---

Outside, the night was alive with uneasy sounds. Thralls sobbed by the ships. Norsemen caroused around braziers, voices rough with victory songs. Somewhere, a priest’s body still smoldered atop a pyre of broken icons.

Vetrúlfr walked the rampart alone for a time, breathing deep the iron-heavy air. Far above, clouds parted just enough to show a sliver of moon, pale and cold.

Crows wheeled against it, black cuts across silver.

He closed his eyes, whispering to gods whose faces shifted with the smoke:

"See what your wolves have done. Mark it well, for this is only the beginning. The Nine Worlds will hear of the rivers that ran red in Ériu. And that Ullr’s son had led the charge."

And perhaps, somewhere beyond the stars, Valkyries and angels both paused in their endless flight, unsure which of them should stoop first to choose the souls that drifted upward from the blood-wet earth.

---

Normandy freewebnoveℓ.com

The fields beyond Falaise lay thick with dust. Hundreds of hooves churned the roads to powder as barons and petty lords mustered under Robert’s banner.

Their retinues trailed behind them; men-at-arms in battered hauberks, levies bearing pikes that outstripped their own height, squires leading nervous destriers.

Blacksmiths had erected makeshift forges near the castle gates. Sparks lit the dusk as they worked feverishly to shoe horses, mend harness, or hammer the worst dents from battered shields.

Robert rode among them on a tall roan, his own mail polished to a dusky sheen. His helm swung from his saddle; he preferred his enemies to see his face now.

The smile that was never quite warm, the eyes that weighed even his closest allies like coin.

Beside him, his marshal surveyed the gathering host with a hawk’s narrowed stare.

"More have come than I thought would dare stand with you, my lord. Even the Duke’s most loyal of bannermen have each sent fifty knights, though they have also pledged loyalty to your brother thrice over."

Robert’s laugh was a low bark. "Those old husks know which way the wind blows. As do they all. My brother may return from Rome draped in papal blessings, but what good is a benediction against steel?"

The Marshal’s gauntlet traced idle circles on his horse’s neck. "The men murmur already. Some say you mean to seize more than your brother’s council seat. They whisper of crowning yourself outright."

Robert’s smile turned cold. "Let them whisper. If Richard returns to find his vassals drawn up under my standard, he will see there is only one path left; kneel to me as the true master of Normandy, or flee into exile as so many lesser sons have before him."

They crested a low hill, and the full breadth of the encampment spread below them: pennons snapped in the rising wind, fires dotted the twilight like sullen red eyes, and the clang of sword against shield rose in drills that echoed over the meadows.

The Marshal exhaled, something like unease flickering in his weathered features. "And if he does neither, my lord? If he would rather die than bend knee?"

Robert leaned forward in his saddle, voice soft, almost fond. "Then we will see if Norman steel cuts through family ties as easily as it has through Breton mail. Either way, the duchy will be mine; in fact or in truth."

His eyes roamed over the bustling war camp, then lifted to the darkening horizon. Somewhere beyond that lay the roads Richard’s train would soon tread.

"And let Rome rage at the shedding of Christian blood," Robert murmured. "Better that than a fool’s peace paid for with our dignity. Charlemagne bound his line to Rome’s yoke forever. I would sooner be a wolf in the wilderness than a lamb fattened for a Pope’s blessing."

As the sun bled out behind the trees, torchlight took its place, and the Norman banners of black lions on gold stirred restlessly in the night wind; heralds of treachery yet to bloom.

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