Chapter 15

Drums of War


X Ymirjar X

Drekthac stopped his charge when he noticed those around him had curiously stilled. Sweeping his gaze back and forth, he noticed the many Ymirheim warriors now faced him, and he put his back to a boulder to face them all. Never, during a war game, had they stopped like this – even the enemy had ceased their combat to face him.

Glancing upwards, he saw the many val'kyr waiting patiently to perform their duties, with Maldrid among them.

In their tongue, he demanded, "What be this?" His two swords clashed in frustration, sending a deep ring through the silence.

Britta, the wily huntress, leaned towards him with a wide grin beneath her hood. "We be decide hooman need death experience."

Drekthac's left eye twitched as he thought over her words. Jabbing both swords into the snow and ripping off his helmet, he demanded, "So fight you all against me?"

Pleased growls escaped most of them, and there were many nods. There had to be a hundred men and women gathered around him, looking to him. Drekthac glowered at them, and this absurd challenge. Truly, in the nearly two weeks time he had lived here, Drekthac had yet to die in battle – certainly Maldrid had been needed to heal him, but never to revive him from full death.

This was to be an execution. Without the helmet, he could see clearer around him, and he noticed one particular val'kyr flying forward, eager for a better vantage point. He noticed, with some disdain, it was Hilda, the so-called queen. She was smiling at him, like a large cat does its prey.

To Britta, Drekthac gestured one of his swords and said, "This up you ass, you bitch." Tired of his struggling Vrykul, Drekthac shoved his helmet back over his head, buckling it in place, and he shouted at them all, "If that's how you'll have it, then come at me!"

There was no warning. In the same moment he reached for his swords, Britta had her bow raised and fired. Drekthac dove aside, ripping free his swords, and all at once his brothers and sisters clamored forward for his life. Britta's hearty laugh followed his every action.

By then, it was no secret that Drekthac not only deserved his place among the Ymirjar, but he was one of the greatest among them. In the war games, he was undefeated, and his brothers often looked to him for the decisions of where and to whom to strike. Their team had lost under his command, certainly, but never in battle when fighting with Drekthac.

Now, those that were with him were against him, and those that he fought before were glad to try again at his life. Britta, the bitch that she was, lusted for any form of pain and blood from him, pelting him as she could with her deadly aim. She was a fine huntress, but gods be damned if she wasn't some part insane.

The first warrior was dispatched in nearly an instant. Drekthac was in no mood for games or duel. He was here to live, and he did that by killing before being killed. The blood was still flinging from his sword when a val'kyr dove down to recover the dying man, while Drekthac dove under several crushing blows. He did not want to waste his strength, energy, or rage on anything but killing blows.

His height gave him all the advantage of a mouse, scurrying between blades and even legs. But he was not so cowardly as too only run. Drekthac stopped to cleave off the leg of a warrior too eager and confident in their numbers. As the giant still fell, the other blade ripped open his stomach.

Drekthac found several scores rent into his armor in the passing. The Ymirjar were not basic footmen, and even in this hungry frenzy, they did not behave entirely without sense. Drekthac let his rage build, expelling it only on opportunity, and so five others were struck down fatally.

Several arrows managed to punch through his armor, but Drekthac did not have the opportunity to address Britta or the other huntresses. Only one managed to pierce flesh anyways. Still he fought, maintaining a high ground near the boulder, while using it to tag those who grew too careless at close range.

The better fighters did not make many mistakes, and if they did, they were so guarded that there was always something to prevent Drekthac from pressing an advantage. He contented himself with taking fingers and hands, sometimes impaling a foot or scoring against a leg. He was always in motion, always stepping to get an opportunity against his opponent. When on guard, it was impossible to get around a warrior's shield, but in this mad field, they always pressed the offense, swinging often, and with only a dodge and a counter-attack, Drekthac found his opponents falling in droves despite the odds.

He did not know how many had fallen when an arrow took him through the eye. Drekthac nearly conceded there, stumbling back with outrage, while he could hear the triumphant, "Aha!" of Britta. Wildly, his good eye opened for a flash of motion, and he barely raised a blade to parry a hungering strike.

Skeletal hands broke free of the ground to grasp Drekthac's ankles, and he was reminded of the many death knights among the Ymirjar. He fell to the ground, just as another arrow sailed over his head, and a desperate strike cut off an over-reaching vrykul's leg at the ankle, sending him down as well.

With a desperate cry, Drekthac ripped free the arrows from his armor, then that in his eye – ignoring what might have been pulled out with it, and he thrust a bottle from his waist to under his helmet, drinking swiftly. The potion's effects were immediate – he was healed.

Drekthac would call it the second round then, as he rose with all vengeance and claimed the lives of nearly a dozen in under thirty seconds of furious fighting. By then, there were shouts and calls, claiming caution against the Dragon, and they stopped advancing so recklessly.

Panting with both rage and exertion, Drekthac saw barely half remained of their numbers. His mind was fogged, clouded in the red haze, and suddenly he caught sight of a huntress with her bow fully drawn back. His focus tightened, even catching her arrow when it came. His mind flooded with urges, to see her broken and mangled, to see her face twisted with pain and pleasure at a forceful fucking, to see that laugh wiped off her face from any possible method.

He came for her then, in a storm of steel and blood. Two Ymirjar leapt before him to engage, and they both fell before they could even swing, missing a leg each. Britta threw aside her bow just as Drekthac descended upon her. Her hand axe deflected away the first, then the second strikes, before the third completely overpowered her and sent her pitching back down the sloped land of Ymirheim.

Drekthac had advanced too quickly for the others to be prepared, and he chased after her unopposed. A clawed gauntlet caught the snow to stop her fall, and then Britta rolled aside to escape Drekthac's next strikes. On a knee, she caught one in a parry, only to have the second blade score deep into her furred shoulders. The whole article slacked then as half of its support was lost, revealing the blue skin of her shoulder.

The iron bracer blocked the next strike, while Drekthac lunged forward eagerly. The hand axe scraped along his breastplate, too late to stop him from kneeing her in her unprotected stomach. Britta heaved out a loud breath, then bashed her helmet against his, stunning them both for a few long seconds.

When Drekthac could think again, he saw the others upon them again, and with sweeping strikes, he manged to cut open one's belly while still ripping open Britta's side. She fell back with a howl, laughing even in her defeat, while the val'kyr continued falling down upon the broken.

The high sun broke the clouds near the time the battle ended. Its warm rays touched the area, warming Drekthac through his armor, while he sat finally on a low boulder, with his remaining sword planted in the snow before him. He was clinging to the blade, resting against it, with fingers unyielding in their grip over the hilt. Should another warrior come upon him then, he would be in final defeat.

But there were no other warriors. Around Drekthac was a see of red and black blood, of mangled bodies with white angels beside them whispering their words of magic to bring back wholeness and life. Warriors groaned with pain and shock, if they still lived, while others still stared with eyes no longer filled with life.

Drekthac's iron grey armor had gained a red layer of paint, much of it his own blood, while his helmet had been dented into his head, unable to be easily removed then. His right shoulderplate was dangling by a thread, and elsewhere the shell of his breastplate was like pincushion with its many holes.

But he lived, still gasping breaths through broken ribs and a punctured lung. Blood and swelling closed one eye, but the other glared out over the devastation with uncertainty, as if looking for more of the endless foes. It was, he was unable to accept, over.

"Well, well," an amused voice tinkered with laughter floated against him from above. "Look at the Dragon, the Immortal, still alive after such a clear ploy. Are you so desperate to never find the grave? So proud as to never know defeat? Look at you now, heaving with so much rage, and so much pain, and trembling now with shivers and approaching death, and ready to fight it back as you always do."

Drekthac did not glance at her, could not look up from the field of battle, eye narrowed with fury. The voice went on, unacknowledged.

"It is said that those who stand again, even when defeated, do not find the grave. It has been argued among the val'kyr that defeat is a state that must be accepted, never given against the final will of a combatant. You, young Baelin Drekthac, seem a living testimony to this fact. Will you die now, of your wounds and the cold, or will sheer will fight it back? I have commanded away your precious Maldrid, who might heal you. What will you choose?"

No response. Only choked breathing, and an unrelenting glare. Hilda's smile was wide. "So be it, Drekthac, greatest of all the Ymirjar. Sleep, know only of your victory." Runes danced around her hand, before she closed it into a tight fist, and the spell seized Drekthac from where he sat. Slowly, the warrior slumped against his blade.

XxX

Drekthac woke up to the heavy weight of armor still burdening his body, though his helmet had been removed. The enchantment had been broken from that, but now he could breath without the steel shoved against his nose, and he noticed he breathed easy, without pain.

Finally, he cracked open tired eyes. From the cold, he knew it was not his home he had been taken to. He found himself on a flat of land partially up the mountain of Ymirheim, with his back propped against the rocky wall. Night had nearly fallen. Past his booted feet, he saw two pale beings of white snow watching him, both female. He stared blankly at them for a long moment, before they clicked into his mind. Freydis and Maldrid.

"What happened?" he mumbled over a numb tongue.

His old friend had a tense look over the half of the face he could see. Her lips were drawn tight, until she said, "You should not have won. You should not have defeated one hundred Ymirjar in single battle."

"Well, I was not just going to let them roll over me." The effort of talking strained him, and at the spike of headache, his eyes closed once again, and he relaxed himself back.

Her troubled voice returned, "No, Baelin, you do not understand. You should not have won."

His eye cracked open again, to see her turning away to peer over the ledge into the city. He stared at her pale back and her brilliant, white wings. It took him some time to realize she meant it should not have been possible, and later still that there might be consequences.

"It was a challenge, and I won," he argued weakly at her back.

"It was an execution," she explained without looking.

Maldrid knelt beside Drekthac then, with her angular face pensive, from what he could see. "Are you well?" she asked, concerned.

Drekthac shook his head, pushing himself up to a sit despite his body's complaint. He needed another douse of healing and a week's worth of meals, but that could come later. As his mind sharpened, he took especially note of where Freydis had taken him, outside of the city, away from his brothers and sisters.

"Freydis, what has happened?" he growled, forcing the words past his blasted dead tongue.

He noticed the tightness of her knuckles over her polearm then, planted into the snow before her as she peered down at Ymirheim. "The city is... afraid of you, Drekthac," she replied finally. "They do not believe such a victory can be possible, for good reason. There is rumor of cheating, that you've sold out your soul to nefarious beings. Pride has many of those warriors in agreement with the excuses for their loss. Your welcome has been drawn very thin."

Noticing the offered hand before him, Drekthac gratefully accepted Maldrid's grip as she pulled him back to his feet. His legs refused to work properly, his knees unbending as steel, but he hobbled over to Freydis. "My armor is finer than theirs," he began, fury leaking into his voice. "The enchantment, unprecedented to any of my kind before, and I had to train just to control it. I wear iron braces over each of my joints, so my body does not break under the strain of vrykul combat. My soul fills with the battle-rage of a true warrior, same as them. In that battle, numbers made them confident, always pressing attacks and never properly defending."

"You killed seven defending Ymirjar in a single sweep of your blade," Freydis argued by way of example.

"When I was so deep in the enchantment's rage that nothing mortal could have stopped me," Drekthac agreed. "And the attack nearly ripped my arm off, if not for the braces."

Freydis remained silent, while Maldrid told him from behind, "We know that you fought true, Ymirjar. You do not need to waste breath on us. However, it is the rest of Ymirjar that beats the drums of war and seethes in rage and mistrust."

"What does Hilda say?" Drekthac asked, remembering the vague words she said to him at the end of the fight.

It was Freydis that answered: "She keeps silent, knowing the val'kyr are also torn on which side to decide upon. She will not risk a schism of the Ymirjar."

"Sides," Drekthac repeated, grunting the word. "What sides are there? That I won the fight because I'm a lucky son of a bitch or because I am a demon-possessed champion of Hela?"

"The sides, my liege, are to decide whether or not the Ymirjar exile you from their ranks... or take you as king," Maldrid explained.

It was as if the ground had been taken from beneath Drekthac's feet. After a long moment of gaping, he shouted, "What in hell's fuck is that about? Of all the blighted ideas...!" He stumbled back a few steps, away from the edge of the cliff, and Freydis turned to face him, grim.

With furious motions, Drekthac tore off the loose shoulder and threw it to the snow, then undid the other. His armor was still a red-caked and ruined mess. "Help me take this off. I've had enough of this," he growled.

Both Battle-maidens approached. Their large hands were experienced in the task, undoing human-sized buckles and straps quickly. At the iron braces, Freydis paused her work to turn it over in her palm, and she admitted, "It is easy to underestimate and forget the power of these."

"Can't snap my knee. Can't throw out my shoulder or force my elbow past its limit. At times, it can replace a battle of muscle to one of muscle against iron, and iron will always win," Drekthac told her, nodding. His arms went up as Maldrid finally removed his punctured breastplate.

The handmaiden paused then, one lip peeling up with distaste. It was clear, from the ripped drake-skin vest beneath, the many purple bruises and leaking holes still on him. Her hand fell over his chest, with red runes pouring over them, and when she moved, Drekthac could see flawless, if still stained, skin remained instead. Most of his aches vanished with the healing.

All that remained then were the pants, boots, and metal braces at the knees. Drekthac stopped them there. "Now, take me to my kin. I will not tolerate this foolishness any further."

XxX

In the Hall of Heroes, there was calamity. It was not song and boast that filled the feast hall, but shouting and strife. Val'kyr remained astride with those they personally served, while others circled around a stoic Hilda, who hovered above them all, watching through her blindfolded face.

Drekthac did not have a grand entrance. Even with Maldrid's healing, and despite the braces, his walk was short and stiff. The two val'kyr walking abreast each other just behind him is what truly caught their attention, recognizing those that served the one called the Immortal, and very quickly the entire hall shut up to stare at the human.

Their Common and his Vrykul were both not good enough for clear communication, so Drekthac asked Freydis to translate for him.

He began mildly but loud enough to echo through the hall. "If I look like I went a hundred rounds against a Ymirjar, despite repeated healings, that's because it is true." Above him now, Freydis boomed his words in Vrykul, her accent clear and very, very suiting to her, he felt.

Before any grumbling and shouting could break out, he continued by singling out a warrior. "Skaldr, if I came at you without once raising my shield between us, do you think you could strike me down?"

This warrior did not need Freydis' translation, but still she repeated the question. In Vrykul, Skaldr shouted, "In a heartbeat!"

Drethac nodded. "What if I came at you a hundred times?"

"A hundred times or a thousand, I could slay an undefended warrior from sun up to sun down!"

Unarmored, stumbling Drekthac pointed at Skaldr. "There is the reason for my victory today. In your overconfidence, one hundred of you came at me thinking numbers made up for defense, that striking first could supersede a raised shield or a raised blade. If I can recall, there were barely a dozen that bothered to fight as warriors, with shield always between you and opponent, stepping aside to score hits."

He waited for Freydis, then shouted, with a gesture to himself, "And hit me they did! Never have I fallen so close to the grave! My armor gives me strength beyond that of my body, gives me skill, speed, and dexterity, and still I lay prone before the gates of Valhal for a long age!" Freydis. "And so I come to, hearing that you bicker among yourselves to exile a warrior who could defeat a series of fools? Exile Skaldr too! Or Jarldan! Or Baldar!" He paused for the translation. "And worse still, I hear word of raising a king over the Ymirjar! The Ymirjar have no king!"

Freydis shouted the words with equal passion, and the men before them nodded. "The Ymirjar need no king! We are men and women of honor, of glory, of tradition!" Pause. "Even the King of the Vrykul has no hold over the Ymirjar! For we are the blessed warriors of Valhal, waiting for the day we die in glorious combat!" A shout returned him. "So go back to your meads, back to your feasts, and if you wish to shout above my victory today, let it be envious praise!" He flexed, eliciting a laugh and jeer from them. "Hope you have the fortune of slaying a hundred overconfident fools! And remember, my titles are not just here for show!"

More laughter, and calls of "the Immortal." Drekthac nodded at them, limping towards where he usually sat, where he saw Britta grinning with a twinkle in her blue eyes. He let the hall fall into a low murmur, broken by the occasional shout and laugh, and then the feast halls regained their life and heart once again, though still it buzzed with a new topic of conversation.

Maldrid peeled away from his side without notice, as Drekthac came to his seat. Nearby vrykul had taken to using it as an arm rest, but they quickly moved away as Drekthac first climbed the bench, and then sat on a second bench bolted into the first. Growing tired very quickly of standing like a fool, he had it hammered in on his fourth day.

Once seated, he found an empty horn, and he had barely raised it before Maldrid was there, filling it. Though Drekthac had always been patient in finding himself a servant, Freydis had been right in keeping her. Maldrid proved herself very reliable, pleasant even, and she displayed heart even as a handmaiden. She was a Val'kyr of Ymirheim.

"Britta thinked hooman try sword up ass," a voice shouted across the table at him. "Very disappointed."

"Did I say "sword?"" Drekthac asked, feigning surprise. "I meant something equally obtrusive but would elicit different screams."

The former Hyldnir narrowed her eyes at him, inquisitively, while he grinned and raised his horn for a drink. He could admit to satisfaction at ruffling Britta by using Common she didn't understand. She was a proud woman, but her hubris would be her downfall.

"Hooman can take yer "eleeceet" and stick up own ass!" Britta declared, harrumphing. "At least Britta no fall dead asleep after victory!"

Drekthac took to Vrykul, as he gathered his plate. "Sorry, can no hear over one hundred dead Ymirjar."

Britta laughed, as did the others beside him, just as Drekthac felt a warning touch from Freydis. He turned his head to see the approach of a particular val'kyr. He first sighed, then straddled his bench with his plate on his lap, waiting for the words of Hilda.

Hilda's came in lofty bobs through the air, touching here and there to random vrykul, but her destination was clear and very linear. She paused finally at the span before Drekthac and Freydis' seats and touched the ground with her sandals, smiling in her sly way at him.

"You sure you wish to speak to this short one, Lady of the Spear?" Britta asked, her words clear and smooth in her own tongue. Drekthac, as always, tried to take note of the confusing grammar and sentence structure of the vrykul tongue, though it was far easier to hear than to speak. "His victory bloats his head like the stomachs of goats."

"For such good reason, honored Ymirjar," Hilda returned, bemused, before saying just as easily and sultry in Common, "Well met, Drekthac the Immortal."

"Well met," Drekthac returned, taking another bite into his food. There was no chance he'd delay eating further after the many healings and struggles of the day.

"My words to you now are quite short. I wish to warn you that not every temper has been smoothed here, by your passionate speech. Also, I wish to tell you that you have far exceeded my expectations, and have well surprised me, as the Ymirjar do."

Drekthac was glad that he had long realized bravado was not how he dealt with this one. "Your words honor me, Silvertongue. I will keep your warning heeded."

From the wide, mischievous smile that she assumed, Drekthac came to realize that her words were not at all intended to be short. Hilda reached forward to take the iron plate from his lap, and then she turned – with white wings barely passing over his head – to take its place. She purred, "You are indeed a curious one, Dragon. Proud and kind, dangerous yet deliberate. The slayer of Thane Byjron." His food was returned to the table.

Drekthac stared at the sudden lapful of scandalously dressed val'kyr, with eyebrows raised high as the nearby vrykuls' eyes were wide. Hilda scooted herself further in place, seated on his groin, and turned her blindfolded attention to his face. "Now, I don't mean to make your Freydis jealous, but I did want to add that..."

Though her mouth stopped moving there, the sentence continued in her same voice as if it hadn't. ...you have my approval for your place of leadership among the Ymirjar. Though tradition allows your clan no King, much as there is no Queen of the Val'kyr, they will come to see you as many do myself. The mouth moved again, "Well, it seems I lost my thought. But so it was worth your time..." She kissed two fingers and pressed them to Drekthac's forehead, then touched the floor again with her feet.

Drekthac had no reply to that, wondering at the voice, as she turned and beamed brilliantly at him. Her voice, without mouth, returned: Do not be shy in meeting me, little Baelin. The times are dark, and our peoples without direction. We must soon discuss the future of the Ymirjar. Call upon my name in the Val'kyr Halls, and I will allow you tour of my chambers. She took to the air, quickly falling into her usual robust and hearty nature.

"Baelin, is there still thought between your ears or only steam?" Freydis asked beside him, interrupting Drekthac's bewildered thoughts. He gave a slow, considering nod as he turned back to the feast. His old friend had a wry smile. "That is good. We cannot have you so undone from one kiss, even from Hilda herself."

He noticed the wide-eyed stares from everyone around him, including Britta, and assumed only he had heard the voice of Hilda apart from her spoken words. They must have only seen and heard the rest, the... ruse. Lips drawing thin, he turned to give one last look to Hilda, before returning to his feast. Curious indeed.

XxX

Drekthac was unconvinced of being taken as any leader, at least until the next day. He worked with the blacksmith to repair his armor, and the man had a strange formality to his addressing of Drekthac. Certainly, the blacksmith had resigned from the daily battlegrounds, but he was still Ymirjar and still better at swords than most of those that came to him for repairs or new weapons.

Following that, two brothers in dispute asked for Drekthac's opinion on the matter, and they accepted his answer without further challenge. Then a sister, whom he didn't even know the name of, left a raunchy suggestion in passing. It was different, certainly, but the real change Drekthac noticed when he entered the battleground at southern Ymirheim.

One hundred Ymirjar looked to him, at the start. The previous day made him wary, but now it was without any hostility. One asked him for his plan of attack. What was there to do against a Ymirjar army but flank? He proposed it, and they asked him where each should go. Fighting his growing confusion, Drekthac kept it simple, assigning those skilled in healing with each group, placing himself as a leading figure in the main force, and off they went.

Through their usual tenacity, Drekthac's team had won, though it was close as every game was. They celebrated their lunch and sang of their glory and included Drekthac's name, championing the Immortal. Hilda showed herself that far down the city, watching from the shadows, and he saw her attention fixed on him during their feast.

Following the feast, the imaginary lines of the teams dissolved, and the vrykul asked Drekthac his thoughts on the proposed "King of Northrend" they heard rumor about, toting around the land. Some human paladin, bold as the gods to throw out that title. Drekthac had snorted, not even recognizing the family name "Eyenhart" of the so called "King." He took to reminding them that the Ymirjar were an autonomous people, whom governed themselves, and they submitted to no king. The answer suited them.

Following, Drekthac declined from the evening games, instead proceeding north and west to the Val'kyr Halls. Before entering, he turned north and hiking the outer rim of the city, to stand on the bluffs that overlooked Icecrown. A scout greeted him, one of the Ymirjar that preferred the solitude of the outdoors, and served as a defender of the city. Drekthac nodded back, before looking to the glacier.

The late light painted the land in oranges and pinks, with the green of the Ghost Light above flickering over it all. There were no mists now, leaving his view clear. He inhaled a deep breath, nodding once at the confirmation, and took a seat beside the scout.

The hunter, one of the old Ymirjar converted to death knight by the Lich King, did not speak Common. Taking the one skull that hung from his leg, Drekthac held it up for comparison, mentioning, "Dark time." The hunter nodded. A longbow was laid over his lap, the wood nearly ten feet in length.

Drekthac had studied the head of the creature he slew on his path to Ymirheim. Something was wrong with its skin, he concluded in the end, for even when he held it clear before his eyes, he saw it as if recently bashed in the head and dazed, without detail. So he had boiled away the skin, peeled it away and cleaned the skull, to give it shape. Three eye sockets, a sunken span with three hoses for the nose, and a maw with two separate jaw bones on each side. Bizarre, foreign, alien. So it went, however.

Before him, over the lands of Icecrown, black shapes mulled about. Some were in bands, some alone, and some stood as tall as mammoths. In the west, before the gates just outside the citadel, battle raged between the white bones of a Scourge army and these darklings, with no end or victory in sight.

It was a changed world out there, no matter how comforting the traditions of Ymirheim were. The scouts, who watched this daily, remained disillusioned.

The scout pointed to the mountains north of Jotunheim, where he knew the Shadow Vault to be. The sun glinted off metal there, and he could see several massive banners mounted on the hills flanking the pathway. The King of Northrend dwelt there. Recognizing that, he nodded to the hunter.

They sat together in silence for a time, watching the advance of the darklings. Some traveled towards the Shadow Vault, others reinforced the battle outside Icecrown Citadel's gates, and others still were intercepted by the war parties of Jotunheim. His eyes were not trained to make out details beyond dots meeting dots, but he understood the meanings well.

Finally, as the sun touched the tops of the western mountains, Drekthac stood to his feet. He held out his hand, saying, "Brother."

The hunter clasped it, nodding back and looking with eyes as cold as death. "Brother."

The hulking doors of the Val'kyr Halls were shoved open, and Drekthac pushed them wide enough to step through unhindered. More vrykul were present than the last time he was in here. Nearly two dozen were broken into smaller groups, discussing matters with the val'kyr. None looked his way until Drekthac cupped his hands before his mouth and shouted, "Hilda! Here the call of the Ymirjar and come!"

Like last time, he gained every bit of wide-eyed intrigue, but now for a different reason. He was not just a human calling the name of a val'kyr on his first day. No, now he was someone bold enough to call upon she whispered as queen. The audacity of Drekthac knew no bounds.

"Come along then, Ymirjar. Don't keep me waiting,"was the smokey reply, rising from deep within the mountain of Ymirheim that the Halls were built into.

Freydis' acceptance to Drekthac's demand for her name held not a candle to the surprise of Hilda inviting someone to her chambers. One val'kyr even fell from the air, forgetting to keep afloat. Drekthac, however, remained only disgruntled. His hands shoved into the pockets of his cloak and he made his way forward, guessing at where Hilda might reside.

The Val'kyr Halls were not designed so differently from any other vrykul building, likely because the Val'kyr had always been vrykul rather than winged angelic beings. It was hard cut stone, first as brick walls, then later as just smoothed mountain wall. As he had originally seen, at evenly spaced segments, there were alcoves housing weapon racks, podiums carrying relics, and other artifacts. Then, at some point, the alcoves became long corridors, disappearing into darkness with only flecks of orange torchlight farther on.

Drekthac continued down the main Hall, ignoring the branches. At a hundred yards in, he noticed a brightly lit corridor to his right. There was a chamber, unbarred from any door, that was bright with color, under a white light that couldn't have been torch. He could see within it grass, trees, and everything he might expect from a meadow in Grizzly Hills. At first he paused, considering a look, especially as he saw several val'kyr hovering about within, in discussion, but he shook his head and focused.

Deeper and deeper, until he was sure he had passed nearly five hundred yards into the mountain. That was when he saw the end of the main hall, finding an embellished double-door that stood at least fifteen feet tall and eight wide. The wood had been carved with finely detailed impressions and painted to present a grand scene of battle, of vrykul and dwarven and giant armies banded together against a foe of darkness, many bound and wrapped in strangling tentacles.

It was a depiction of the ordering of Azeroth, if his history was right.

Drekthac opened the doors. Inside, he found a dimly lit chamber that was clearly the master quarters of the entire complex. From the burning incense that filled the air with a musky, pleasant scent, and the drapes of deep crimsons and scarlet, it was exactly as he might expect of Hilda. Remembering manners, he remained behind the threshold and knocked on the wood of the open door.

"Enter," her voice permitted, amused. Drekthac crossed over, closing the wood door behind him.

When she heard, Freydis assumed – as those back inside the hall did – that Hilda had invited him to her chambers for a night of pleasure. Drekthac didn't agree, though he wasn't sure what to think of this mysterious val'kyr. Servant she may be, but a ruling and manipulative hand she had over the entire people. She served no will but her own, and her psychic words to him confirmed the fact.

To the left, a vrykul-sized four poster bed fit for a queen covered more ground than Drekthac's own home did. A thin veil of white gave an opaque view of the darker covers, and deeper red curtains were held to the posts, able to shield it entirely if its occupants wished. From the brightly colored body within, Drekthac knew Hilda to be seated upon the edge of her bed, but his attention turned to the racks of weapons mounted above the bed.

Finely carved axes, swords, shields, lances – they made a pattern despite each unique shape. Those were not the weapons of warriors – they were the arms of kings, of thanes and chiefs, of gods and immortals. Beneath each weapon was a gold plague with carved runes in the Vrykul language. Named weapons, he noted.

Hilda stood then, drawing his attention back to her, and she parted the veil to present herself to him – and present she did! Unlike her usual clothing meant to show as much skin as she could excuse as decent, she wore now an actual dress that appeared of starlight. It was pale as the moon, radiant as her skin, and sheer enough to betray every curve and detail of all ten feet of Hilda.

And she had much to be proud of displaying, Drekthac noted very quickly. However, worried thoughts did not allow him the distraction. Raising an eyebrow, he only remarked, "A dress?"

A smile appeared to be a constant expression for Hilda, always amused by something no one else saw but her, but at least it changed to fit her mood. "Always backless for our wings, which makes them unsuitable for Northrend climate, but I enjoy them as I can. I see you come dressed for war."

Drekthac still wore his armor, with even his helmet tied beside the skull at his waist. He shrugged. "Can I be blamed?"

A throaty laugh returned his question. "Ohoho, dear Baelin, if I wanted you hurt, I'm not sure it would help."

"Many have perished thinking the same."

"And perhaps one day, we shall see." Her unrelenting smile regarded his steady gaze, until she winked and added, "Though my intentions now are far from harm."

"And far from a tumble too. You asked me to come, and so I have. What is it you wish from me?"

Even now, Hilda kept her blindfold in place, seeing with the sight of a spirit. It kept her emotions, her thoughts, her true intentions hidden from him. Drekthac felt that was her armor, and the tantalizing peak at her body, her sword.

She nodded, sobering up. "Ah yes, business first. The Ymirjar. You realize now my words are true, that your brothers and sisters turn to you for guidance and leadership, don't you?" Though he was loath to do it, Drekthac gave her a curt nod. "Then you must understand that the two of us are the shapers of the Ymirjar, the controlling hands, the deciders of fate. And in the coming days, we must not be idle."

Drekthac stared at her with an expression of stone. Sometime in their banter, the sleeve of her dress had fallen over a pale shoulder, giving him direct view of her skin, and reminding him of the ease in which that dress could come off. And as those thoughts turned over in his head, of the sultry desire Hilda brewed from her presence, the temptation of her, he listened to her words of strings and the hands of puppeteers.

His response to her was, "And I will not fall into your grip nor into your plans for the Ymirjar."

Thin, refined eyebrows rose, and the edges of her lips twitched in the image of a smile. "Oh? Whatever do you mean?"

"Don't be coy with me," he snorted. With a glance, he found a chair and jumped into place, letting his helmet and armor bang and crash. He liked the crude image as he regarded her again. "Your a clever woman with a tongue of silver. The only Lich King-raised val'kyr to be a handmaiden, and you garner all the respect of a true queen among the populous. You are the desire, the throb, of every male here, and that is your power over them. I'm letting you know now that it won't be so for me:

"All that matters is the traditions of the Ymirjar. We are autonomous. If they want me to decide, then I will decide how the Ymirhar should, not how Hilda the Val'kyr would want us to. No amount of sex or honeyed words will sway me, so consider very carefully how you word your proposals to the Ymirjar, val'kyr."

As he spoke, her smile grew wider and wider, until she clapped at his finish, seeming absolutely delighted. With girlish enthusiasm, Hilda darted between the veils of her bed and jounced onto the edge again. "Oh, Baelin, you are such a marvelous addition to the clan! So bold, so confident. It will be such a shame to see you overcome. Now, if you are quite finished, I'd like to recall your attention to the darkling threat outside our walls."

Drekthac had half a mind to demand she not call him that, but he'd pushed enough so far. The veils remained aside now, allowing him unhindered access to the view of her. He gestured her to continue.

"As you know, nearly all of the Ymirjar have returned to Ymirheim now, at the change of the world. Dark tidings have risen, and I trust you recognize that our preservation – and their destruction – is of our mutual interests." It was a teasing jab, but Drekthac gave no rise to it. "So we have several choices. We can war and march out against this threat, we can meet with this so called King of Northrend to hear his stand against them, we can conquer the King and march his armies as conscripts, we can rally the armies of the vrykul... I could continue, but you get the point. There are smart choices, and there are Ymirjar choices. You understand, yes?"

Drekthac did. The Ymirjar were a proud people. They would accept no allegiance, not even that of conscripts, in a glorious battle against some foe that might grant them true deaths. But also, these darklings were of no threat to the Ymirjar, and many would refuse to war at all, preferring the confines of their city – much like many of those during the War of the Lich King.

His hand urged her on again, remaining in contemplation. She said, "Take for example, our entire army of Ymirjar march out against the darklings. We very well might crush them in one day. Even if this foe was impossibly stronger, and more numerous – fighting a dark god, for example – if we kept the val'kyr handmaidens on the warfront, we would be as unending and unstoppable as the Scourge in their heigh-"

"No," Drekthac cut in immediately. Fuck him, she was entirely right, but her plan was so wrong. Her face became stone in its stare."The Ymirjar crave death, we wait impatiently for it. We desire the halls of Valhal. Out there, if we have found a foe that can slay us in worthy combat, then we deserve our final deaths. We welcome it! We will not have ourselves raised again and again, to fight on in a form of mortal immortality."

"Smart, versus Ymirjar," she agreed, but her words came like eating a bad apple.

But there was wrongness to her proposal. Drekthac's eyes narrowed. "Why would you propose such a thing, val'kyr? You know our people, you serve us. What do you know of this foe that would have you dare to suggest such a thing?"

"Oh, don't be a fool, human." Her voice came as a tease, but its tone was foreign, no longer sounding like Hilda. "You talk like a vrykul, but you're a try hard. The suicidal-pride conflict is an impossibility, and an illusion conjured by the Ymirjar. Take it away, and all that's left of Ymirheim is a city of narcissistic children drinking and fucking without restraint, waiting to die so they can drink and fuck some more, ignoring the immense potency of their combat capabilities. So powerful, yet so neutered by choice, and you, human, can recognize this, as your people would well condone this culture."

Drekthac kept his mouth shut firmly, but his nostrils flared. At the conclusion of her words, he slowly stood to his feet and growled, "Who... the fuck are you? You are no vrykul." At the alien stare from her, he felt a sense of panic and unease, and his armor felt thin. He turned towards the door, planning on making his leave. He needed to speak to someone about this.

Before him, the locks of the door turned at magical prompting, and the massive crossbeam slammed down far beyond human reach. "Sit, human, and continue speaking," was the cold demand.

Drekthac knew he could probably break his way out. Probably, because she could as easily weave spells to reinforce the door, and the attempt of pushing through left him vulnerable to any attack from her. For now, he left the matter alone, but a single sword was drawn as he faced the rune mistress again.

He did not sit, but he walked to the edge of the veils around her bed, regarding her at a distance of barely five yards. With her sitting, his eyes were level with her knees, and he could make out through the thin fabric the darker suggestion between. Thoughts of lust did not touch his mind then, and his eyes turned upwards to meet her blindfolded ones.

"In Ymirheim," she started again, tone bouncing back to the usual playful one, "there are the daily battlegrounds, where the death-seeking Ymirjar are always brought back. There are also the battle-pits, fought in duels, to allow one warrior the grace of true death. It can be the same in war. We can fight to die, and we can fight to live. Even the Ymirjar. But the Ymirjar are children, and they will only seek death in wars against those not also Ymirjar."

Drekthac noticed the way she excluded him from the clan.

She continued, "With your leadership, and my approval, the Ymirjar would march to war like a game of battlegrounds. Whomever scores the most numerous kills of darklings is the victor. Do you understand, human, the ease in which this force could consume this threat?"

"I'm only going to ask this once more... Who the fuck are you?" Drekthac replied gruffly. His eyes were narrowed.

Hilda's lips quirked. "I am whoever I want to be. A better question is who are you, human, who tries so hard to fit with vrykul?"

"I am Ymirjar. I am a narcissistic child who drinks and fucks without restraint. I am a potent force who chose to neuter myself."

His cheek made her smile twitch. "Then prove it, human. Would fucking me, right here and right now, prove your manhood? Or would it prove your shallowness? Would cleaving me in half make you right? Shall I serve you some wine, to befuddle your mind, and sit back in awe at your mighty nature?"

"Remove your blindfold, val'kyr," Drekthac demanded.

For a brief moment, her brow began to furrow, drawing down, until she caught herself and schooled her expression. Her hands came to her shoulders, and she slowly slipped the sleeves of the dress off. It fell to her impressive chest, and she peeled it away to reveal her breasts and torso down to her hips.

Topless, she said in a fey tone, "I will reveal every bit of my body to you, Ymirjar, but you will never witness my eyes. You do not possess enough authority."

Drekthac crossed the veiled line, approaching her with his sword, and his expression was hard. With his left hand, he grasped the bottom hem of her dress and pulled. She quickly lifted herself to let him pull the entire article away without it tearing. Like that, Hilda was entirely nude before him. And gods was she beautiful beyond belief, in every detail.

But he did not resort to looking, to memorizing or appreciating her shape. He threw aside her dress, then aimed his sword directly at her smooth stomach. Looking into her blindfold again, he muttered quietly, "You fucking changeling. I have no patience for your games."

"But you will bear them," she replied simply, at ease under his attention. "So I'm going to ask again, human. Will you continue playing the fool, or will you help me carve a future for the races of the realm? Stop pretending to be vrykul, stop trying to show yourself as larger than human, and do what you know to be right."

She inched closer to him. The sword touched her soft belly, and she slowly, but with firm hand, pushed the blade away from her. Once it was clear of her body, Drekthac let the heavy end touch the rug-covered floor with a muffled thunk. He kept his thoughts from his face, and though his eyes were upon her face, his were glazed with inward attention. Hilda seized advantage of the opportunity to rise from the bed, not standing to her full height but bending down to him.

Drekthac's eyes followed her with returned alertness. Ten feet of naked, white-skinned giantess was presented to him, kneeling now in an open, intimate way. Her white feathered wings stretched back to their full width. With a large hand engulfing his armored shoulder, she repeated in an earnest, lascivious tone, "Will you think as a rational human, Baelin?"

His eyes dropped from the blindfold. He traced along the length of slender neck to her smooth chest and her breasts squeezed together by the position. Down still to her flat stomach, the cinch at her waist before her seductive hips, to the brazenly displayed womanhood presented by the wide stance of her strong legs, finely maintained to a dark coat over her vulva that contrasted her platinum hair. She wore no sandals now, leaving her calves and ankles pleasantly bare for his eyes.

Gods, in life, this was a woman kings marched wars over, to have in their beds. This was a woman that would seize control then of that kingdom, through wicked manipulations and inescapable beauty. The hand behind the scenes, the voice behind the ruler's mouth. Would he fall into the dreadful grasp?

"No," he told her, shaking his head and stepping out of her firm hold. He meant it to his own thought and to her question. His spine stiffened, and his voice steeled. "No. I am human, but I am also Ymirjar. The two are not exclusive." His attention had to turn away from her, sword still in hand, to look into the rest of the lavish room.

The dark furnishings, and scarlet themes, and sex colors, and sex scents. This was Hilda's throne room. This was the spider's web.

What is her game here? he had to ask himself. He hated with great fury subtleties, deceptions, and finely-woven traps. He usually returned them with vicious, damaging physical force meant to ruin all and teach a lasting lesson.

He kept with bluntness, with honesty – a warrior's sharpest weapon against deceptions and manipulations. He would not play her game.

She was waiting for him, during his short reflections. He spoke. "I enjoy drinking, you silver-tongued bitch, and I crave a good fuck like every man ought. Is that what I want though? Never. What I want is to fight. I want to war, to kill, to immerse myself in fury, and blood, and passion, and lust so great that sex pales in comparison. I don't want to slaughter, and I don't want to butcher the weak and innocent. I want the glory of victory when the odds were slim, to cut down opponents so large that wearing their belt makes me that much larger. And one day, with all the glory and honor I could wrack up in my life, I want to clash with a foe too large for me to topple. I want him to run me through and take my head, and I want to die with my honor, to be burned on the funeral pyre and find welcome in the arms of my brother and sister warriors beyond, in Valhal."

His sword felt oddly heavy as he spoke, and he dropped it to the rug. He pulled out the second and left it on the floor. "Human, vrykul... That doesn't matter. That is what I want. I want to feel the same warm brotherhood I did fighting in the Blackrock War all those years ago, with a back against mine that I can trust in the heat of what I would call life. These thoughts were unwelcome by my kin, those who know of that genocide only by report and written numbers, and it wasn't until the vrykul that I saw the same once again. Settle down? What good is a simple farm and a plain wife!"

A spike of anger had him kick one of his swords. The heavy metal went crashing from the rug into a narrow, empty table, and it collapsed at once. His hand came to his chest, unable to feel the necklace but closing his eyes in memory for a sharp moment. They opened again still aflame.

"Ymirheim is paradise, you faceless whore. Here, I have found my brothers and sisters. Here, I can war, and here I can celebrate it. Here, I can find a back to take heart in, and a sword arm to fight beside, instead of against. Still! here we are champions, true warriors unhindered by early bravado and weakness. The feasting, the fucking, the scores of pretty servants, Hilda, those are rewards for us whom the world cannot oppose. We are those ready for Valhal but cannot seem to find death, to find honest challenge apart from each other. We could conquer the world should we choose, could sack every kingdom – even without val'kyr support – but we do not, for such is mortal concerns, and such is as low as the champions of Valhal returning to the living plane to conquer the worlds."

He appreciated her silence, letting him speak unopposed, but his thoughts were spreading too thin and wild in his passion, and he lost his place. In the growing stillness, she asked in a carefully reserved voice, "And the darklings?"

"Let the world prove its own strength, its own resilience!" he announced, glad for the topic. He glance sideways at her, but the nakedness proved more tempting than her blank face. "They will rise and quell any threat that opposes their place here. The Burning Legion, the Scourge, what does it matter? We are not the defenders of the realm, they are. We are not needed to fight their wars, lest we face a foe as vast and endless as that which details this door!" He kicked the locked door, rattling it in its hinges.

He added, quieter, with darkening thoughts, "Because that is a foe all of Azeroth must rise against, and prove ourselves titans not men..." Louder, he looked to her again and approached. "But the Outsiders, the Usurpers, the Makers – they chained and diminished those baleful beings that remain here, and the mortals of the world can kill them as they come, should another wake in the next decade or century or millennia. Until then, there is nothing but ambition and power-whoring to send the Ymirheim into the world's wars, aye like the Lich King!"

Hilda held his gaze once he stopped before her, only a few feet apart now, and their faces much closer. She showed stone, and he showed fire, both as unwavering as the elements themselves. Then, the white giantess cracked the stone, splitting it with a stretching of lips, and she threw herself back against the edge of the bed with a hand over her flawless stomach.

"Bah-hahahah!" she roared, rich with genuine and hearty laughter, not mocking and not high-held, not reserved and not deliberate. One large hand slapped her naked thigh, nearly guffawing if she hadn't been Hilda. Drekthac's eyebrows drew down, though he contented himself to watching the shaking effects of her laughter pass over her body, especially the breasts thrust forward by her arched back.

"Oh-!" she tried to speak, overcome still by her mirth. "Oh, B-Baelin!" In what must have been a very whimsical and impulsive action for her, Hilda reached up and yanked away her blindfold. Her eyelids blinked open to reveal two orbs of white glass, pristine in uniform color, and they sparkled brightly in her impish grin.

Certainly, she was no changeling then, but the thought was interrupted as Hilda abruptly captured Drekthac in a long arm, and she jumped with him backwards onto her boundless bed. He found himself mashed between her monstrous, well-shaped bosom, his knee somewhere even more suggestive, but he remained faced with her own uncovered – her naked – face.

Gods help him, this woman was as insane as Britta was.

"Baelin," she started again, whispering with all the husk and smoke she could muster. "You are so very precious. Human, I care naught, for you are the very personification of everything vrkyul culture is meant to be, and everything that a Ymirjar should be. You have passed my test, and I deem you worthy of anything I can supply, as well as my full support."

"Test!" he shouted, struggling to break free of her grasp. "Of all the fucking, conniving-!"

"Lay with me," she requested lustfully. He stared at her eyes, baffled, as her hands set upon his armor all at once. He felt them fumbling with his buckles and knots. "Lay with me, Baelin, and let me feel your passion. Let me show you the service I have denied everyone else."

Before he could even answer, the hands he thought were struggling finished their task. Like the touch of spiders, they traced his arms, legs, shoulders, waist, and chest – swiftly – and then all at once his suit fell apart. Drekthac snorted at that, not showing his surprise.

As he threw his breast plate over his head, to crash into his shoulderguard elsewhere, he mentioned, "I heard you didn't deny Gjonner the Merciless."

Under him, Hilda shook with a new laugh. "Oh, you would hear that. He demanded it, and he found the time before my service too... unbearable to chance his demands in here. I presumed he did not broadcast he ran away before even getting my thong off." Her hand took up his and set upon the place in question, let him explore. "Not like you."

For a moment, he started to drag it downward over the mound, but then he stopped himself before he could be carried away. "Wait..." There was a sense of danger to this, to Hilda, and he still felt too confused at her switch from accusing to playful to know what her intent was.

He thought of Freydis, who would be proud to see her man accomplish bedding Hilda. She trusted Hilda, for whatever reason, though she wasn't the one to constantly face her games or "tests." However, thoughts of Freydis quickly turned to thoughts of Freydis in pleasure, in the feel of her, of touching her skin and being inside, to hear her gasp and scream... He entertained the thoughts, while losing interest in the desire of the one before him. If he was to bed a val'kyr right then, he would rather it be Freydis. Let him be known as the man who turned Hilda down.

In the present, Hilda demonstrated her idea of waiting by removing his linen underarmor. His necklace fell forward at that, to dangle in the valley of her bosom. He gave no thought to it, instead pushing himself off her, resolute.

Hilda noticed the change, and her pretty face turned in piqued curiosity. As he began to gather up his armor and clothes, she acknowledged, "You love your Freydis, don't you?"

A shiver passed his spine. Had she seen inside his mind, with whatever psychic ability she had? He grabbed his bracer forcefully at the suggestion, but he answered in his gruffest voice, "No such thing as love." The word was a trick, an illusion.

"Oho?" Freydis remarked, and her new excitement was obvious as she sat up. "Now that is a very curious thing to say, coming from a man who carries a ring around his neck as memento. In human cultures, is that not the band of matrimony, to be placed on the finger of a bride?"

He paused at the cutting observation, closing a scarred and ruined hand around the gold object in question. He took a moment to gather himself, then released it to quickly grab the last of his things. He could not armor himself here. He would leave now.

The thrice-damned woman had an intellect too keen for him to withstand. She continued, "The simple farm and plain wife is an illusion, isn't it? Just like love? Because you watched it dispel right before your eyes."

Crack! ...thud-thud.

Drekthac made no sound, but in a violent fit, he threw his left bracer into one of the bed's four posts, and the aged wood cracked through, causing the hanging curtains to sag at that end. For a long moment, they were both completely still, until he told her flatly, "Stop there."

His muscles remained coiled too tightly with tension, and he felt his back aching until he managed to relax himself. He reached for the belt, his final piece, and a large hand touched his back. Drekthac spun in place, dropping everything to seize the wrist and pull it aside, enraged.

Hilda made no complaint at the odd angle he left her arm. Her expression was gentle, her dead eyes heavy on him. "No small one chose to stay in Northrend without an inescapable cause. You fled here, to hide from your human world."

"Shut the fuck up," he growled, pulling harder on her wrist.

Her eyes shined with challenge. "Make me."

With one foot planted on the bed, Drekthac lunged forward, dragging her wrist up to her head so his right elbow could come to her throat, and he took her down as he might an opponent in the Underhalls. She dropped amiably, fighting none, and when he had her pinned, knee into where the solar plexus would be, she only stared up at him patiently.

No resistance. Just brutality. Drekthac breathed out, disgusted, and released her to turn back to this things. The instant his hand left her wrist, his mind blanked with sudden pain as he was thrown to her other side. Pain pounded in the left side of his jaw, and he looked up with furious eyes to see Hilda's fist still in place where she had clocked him.

He tried to move again, but the wily val'kyr darted up and grabbed his torso in a fist, then threw him over her head way beyond, to the pillow-end of the bed. Drekthac felt torn between fury and apathy. He let her approach, swooping into the air in a long hop with her wings, and she landed before him on her knees, still glorious in her nudity. She had all the look of a warrior to her then, and he saw the Hyldnir roots shining. He almost expected a long spear in her right fist, forearm thick with powerful muscle and a long vein bulging down its length.

"Where is the Ymirjar now?" she demanded. Her voice was strange – almost its usual playful, amused tone, but there was a hardness to it. "Are you too weak to advance past a worldly loss? How many years has it been, and you still bleed? Women are the folk that bleed for days at no wound. Are you a woman?"

Narrowed eyes were the only signs of arousal to her words. She leaned forward, breasts hanging, with her fists tightly balled before her. She demanded, "Overcome me."

In what way, Drekthac wanted to ask. He had pinned her, and she played dead fish. He had left her, and she played vengeful queen-bitch. Overcome her will? Break her? That was not, and would never be, Drekthac's way. Through his raging thoughts, he tried to collect his wits, to consider what he knew of Hilda and her tests and manipulative motives. She was playing him, always playing him, searching for some reaction.

With soundless vibrations that resonated through his naked torso, large, intricate runes rang into existence around that spear-arm. Drekthac did not wait to see them come. He growled and lunged at her, intent only upon violence. Hilda raised a flat palm his way, but his attempt to bash it aside was utterly halted by an unyielding force about her hand then, and his chest crashed against it instead. Their was no waiting as she pushed back and slammed him into the bed in a cushioned impact.

"Weak," she taunted.

But the warrior-rage had begun building since the first confrontation. Without the enchant of his armor, Drekthac knew it would not strengthen his whole body; it could only be channeled, used, in blows of his choosing. It was what separated warriors from footmen. It was what had spell-casters, who dominated scores of foes with mere words, flee in terror at the sight of a true warrior.

The runes, which had been expelled in the shield, reappeared around Hilda's left arm. Now, the spear-hand gained icy blue ones, spiraling in a slow circle around it, and he knew of an arming like sword and shield, offense and defense. How far dare he go, in this scuffle on the bed of a naked maiden? Would he give himself entirely to the rage and bloodlust?

He needed steel in his hands.

A rage-empowered fist broke through her rune shield in their next confrontation, and he dove below her lancing blue fist. Jouncing off the soft bed, Drekthac found his feet again and lunged towards the scattered parts of his armor. He had barely found his remaining bracer when an invisible force grabbed him around his torso and flung him back to where Hilda waited.

He did not have any particular grace at turning himself in the air to address her there. He landed in a heap amongst the pillows, but the bracer was in a clenched fist, and his eyes burned with fury. He wondered at the rune mistress and her manner of battle, what spells she would use here, and also what she would not use, that could end the fight promptly without a means of deflecting it.

A stir of air told him his pants were missing, sometime between flight and fall. Evening the playing field, or something else? He paid no mind, instead scrambling back into a useable stance as she crawled closer, predatory in every foot of her bearing.

With steel, Drekthac could attack. It was no mace or club, but it gave him strength and resolution, it clothed him as well as her blindfold had, and he used it to slam aside her fists and block her small spells, until he had penetrated the range of her arms and leapt upon her giantess body. She accepted him with the tight grip of an arm, and they turned to fall back into the pillows.

Drekthac vented his rage against her gorgeous jaw then with the bracer. He barely managed two strikes before her free hand closed on his face and squeezed as she lifted him off her. His next strike missed her wrist, but then he made it and fell back to the bed, released. The cause of his rage, the memories, had been lost in the battle, and he gladly leapt back on the nude Hilda to continue damage.

Her arms came to him, but he grabbed them and thrust them aside, pinning her again, and at the first hint of struggle he kneed her soft stomach brutally. As she still keeled from it, he moved her arms above her head then, barely holding both in one hand in a painful pin, and he dropped his free right hand, about to strike her again. With his rage, he could likely reshape her pretty face a bit, one blow at a time.

But in the hanging moment, with their eyes staring into each other with all the intimacy and emotion that two opponents felt in combat, he began to hesitate again. The reason for this scuffle came to him in a single thought-image, of a young blond girl from Stormwind, smiling so brightly despite her patched linen shift and cheap dress.

A painful squeezing sensation assaulted his chest, and his eyes flashed at the thought of a new spell from Hilda. He hadn't even noticed she had stopped casting. But there were no exotic arcane colors added, only a renewed physical resistance when he fell distracted.

His left hand forced her wrists even tighter together, unyielding as reinforced steel, but instead of strike her, his right only seized her chin and forced it up ward, exposing her slender throat, then turning it side to side in study of her face. Her beauty was simply enchanting.

Overcome her, she had asked. Here she was, helpless in his hands. He'd remove her ability to speak with an elbow at the first hint of a rune. His hand lowered to her left breast, heaving with her panting breath. At the touch, her white eyes flashed, but no emotion lingered for him to guess her thoughts.

In a fit of renewed violence, he forced her arms aside, and leaving one to be pinned under their combined bodies, he turned her over and wrenched the other back in painful grip, below her wings, so he could lower himself over her. Her powerful legs were pried apart by his, and his free hand, reached under to touch her. She had grown aroused in their dispute. As he played with her, he was soon to follow.

Drekthac hate-fucked Hilda then. He did not know how else to describe himself as he yanked her wrist harder when lining up to penetrate her, or when he physically lifted and slammed her against the bed at an early struggle. The lust had come from the bloodlust still inside him, from the intimacy of their struggle. In the midst of it, her wrists had gained freedom, but Hilda showed no opposition to him, even turning over and drawing him closer, reciprocating with all the savage ferocity and passion of the vrykul.

And why wouldn't she, for this had been her plan all along.

At one point, she had grabbed his necklace in a fist and ripped it from him. Drekthac paused, shocked at the sensation and meaning of the snap, and he watched as she hurled it away from them. He looked to follow its path, pulling back to retrieve it, but her large hands stopped him. She turned his chin her way, digging her fingers into his beard, and she guided him back into her with a deliberate look. Hate and lust returned in a firestorm, and vengefully took her body with a strength that would kill human women.

When all had finished in the second climax, Drekthac felt the last of the beast leave his mind and soul. In the void was only melancholy apathy. His aching body laid out gingerly beside Hilda then, having returned to him on top before the end. He said nothing to her, while she threw a white arm over her eyes and breathed raggedly, her val'kyr body still shaking from the last of her orgasms. He hadn't bothered trying to pleasure her during it, yet it seemed she found it anyways.

He thought of the lost ring and began to muster the will to search for it. Before he even twitched a muscle, the wide hand of Hilda fell upon his chest, and she curled her body against him, with a gentle smile on her lips. The moment his eyes met hers, his mind exploded with visuals of her in every bit of passion, her sighs and screams, the twist of her face at her first climax, and with them came the sensations he himself had felt.

"Leave it," she suggested in a soft voice, but from her, it was demand.

"Fucking psychic," he told her, turning his attention away. He had given her the power he wanted not; with just a look now, she could remind him of this with such detail. He had great control of himself, but she had fingers in his mind, able to move thoughts, urges, and perhaps even lower his resolve against them.

The fingers curled over his hairy chest, the scrape of the nails not painful. She replied, "You seek it from habit. Do not take up the painful reminder without the heart's desire behind it."

He'd bet twenty gold pieces she said that knowing only apathy remained in the wake of their sex. "Do not fucking tell me what to do." Though he said it with heat, he didn't have the passion to back it. She was right that he wanted it from habit, but he'd be twice-damned before he left it to be lost forever more.

She rubbed his chest in the following silence, watching him with her white glass eyes. "You can talk about her now, can't you? What was her name?"

Immediately, he sought to change the topic, but as was her sly way, she spoke with very deliberate meaning. Before his mind could completely expel and deny her request, he came to realize he could speak it without the usual pain. He could talk about her.

"Fuck you, that's her name," he mumbled back. Just because it was so did not mean Hilda had any right to that knowledge. It was a matter of the past anyways.

She sighed softly, and the sound stirred up a thousand other similar sounds during their rough sex. "Must you fight me always, Baelin?"

"Must you always be a conniving bitch? You have not earned any trust from me at all," he returned callously. He left out the sharper bite about her psychic invasions but added, "You take such pride in your manipulations, spinning such grand schemes for such simple results. Maybe you ought to one day try the blunt and simple approach, and maybe you'll find that us blunt and simple folk respond to it well."

He felt Hilda shake with laughter, but a flood of anger drowned out any embarrassment. He did not know why he should care if she laughed at his words or not; not ten minutes ago, she had been screaming his name into her pillows.

"I have worked with vrykul with heads as hard as yours for more years than you have breathed, Baelin. There is no blunt approach that will change anything about you, not even if it came roped to a two ton boulder against your head."

"But we respond to it well," he repeated, and he cracked a smile as she shook with more laughter.

When she finished, she leaned to place a firm kiss against his furry cheek. It sent a pleasant spark through him, riddled with memories of golden days. Still with her enchanting, soft voice, she said, "Then perhaps this will be simple enough for you... I offer you the deed to my name, to be serviced by myself as you see fit."

Drekthac was glad he hadn't been drinking then, for it would have been all over her bed at the sharp intake of breath. He knew better than to accept her word at face value – Hilda did not do this, not even for those she liked. She had a plan in it, and by the gods, he knew better than to rope himself to her any further.

She continued, "I wish to prove my trust to you, but it comes with a small condition: you must keep such a bond secret from Ymirheim."

"Not from Freydis," he countered, "or Maldrid either." Like hell he'd keep secrets from Freydis for Hilda's sa-

"Done," Hilda concluded, and just like that, she had stepped over his quick rejection and secured her way.

Drekthac thought it said much about him that he noticed the very simple, very manipulative trick right away. Before he could establish rejection, she added a subtle challenge knowing he'd argue it, and in arguing it, in arguing conditions, he had already accepted at least the idea. He was glad to also notice how very slow he could be at times, in quick fits of challenge and pride.

Gods, even with his guard up, Hilda could roll right over him and turn him her way. And he was to be bonded to that in a pretense of servitude?

He hated the subtle world enough to just talk right over it. "Now see here, we are just agreeing on the conditions if I accept. I want Freydis' opinion, and certainly Maldrid's, before I accept a third val'kyr – a Hilda one at that!"

An amused smile, with white eyes sparking in their electric way. "Of course, Baelin. Go ahead and ask."

He began to decide on his next course of action. At the moment, he would usually prefer to lay with the night's catch and enjoy the pleasantness of female company and body, but he assumed that tightness would never leave his spine in Hilda's presence. She had the body and mind of a goddess, but he felt no welcome to it, not even with a blatant offering. With the evening's drink already gone from him, he might want to find a stone of ale, but again, beside Hilda, he'd ended up locked in more collars than a succubus in a Nether-play camp if drunk.

Finally, he rose to leave. Just as he sat up from her soft pillows, Hilda's hand touched his shoulder, and he looked to her strangely intent eyes. At his raised eyebrow, she mentioned, "My suggestion of earlier was not entirely test, Baelin. Consider the use of a Ymirheim army against the darklings, for I fear that the time is coming where no mortal force may wait and watch this turn of the world."

His brows drew down, and he escaped her hand to find the ring and his pants. While dressing, he asked somberly, "What makes you think that?"

"The new Lich King, who sleeps on the throne above Icecrown Citadel, has been consumed by darkness. Not the crown, nor the suit, nor the man remain in the living world."

The leg plate Drekthac had been fumbling with slipped from his hands back to the soft bed. He remained still for a long moment, then carefully picked it up again and secured it. "That, Silvertongue, is the information you start a conversation with, not bring up after the conclusion."

"I did not know how you, or any of the rest of Ymirheim's occupants, would receive such news," she admitted.

The honesty surprised Drekthac. He felt Hilda admitting an ignorance was a rare thing, but he could certainly see her using such information to spin webs of manipulations to deal with the threat as she saw fit, even if those involved were unaware of the why.

He asked, "What are your thoughts on the King of Northrend? That Eyenhart guy up north."

"He commands a potent force, which can either help or hinder us. We saw him take those 7th Legion men from their camp below the mountain into his army, the same day you arrived here. Those few soldiers were skilled enough to slay many Ymirjar who came to test their mettle."

"The clan wants to take battle to them, to show that the vrykul do not submit to such a "king." Already a score has left to ambush the army."

"I am aware."

"And I want your thoughts on it. This is how collaboration is supposed to work, darlin'. We both present our thoughts on something, then we make a decision. We don't respond only to the other and try to manipulate them into our own plans."

She had a crass smile on her face, content in her ways. "I dare say we will make the most incompetent team of leaders yet. But the Fool King... I say let us ride against them and test their forces. If they prove worthwhile, and their men prove as those of battle, let us see what agreements can be made. If they are crushed under our weight, then they have no right to life."

"Good. I am leaving to join the attacks." Drekthac lifted his two swords from the floor before the bed and slid them home against his back. Gathering his cloaks about him, he turned a final, vicious grin Hilda's way, then headed for the door in long strides. The same magic that had sealed it unraveled and opened it for him.