Chapter Four
Ally
Valkyrie's Point Of View...
Rushing through the dark tunnels with a white-knuckled grip on the only weapon I possessed – the sceptre I had stolen from my captor – and my other hand holding his coat tight around me.
I refused to make all this effort to escape only to die of hypothermia.
Taking the twisting turns though the dark, relying on all my senses to avoid the things I could hear and smell in the shadows. Some were small, some were huge, but the majority of them smelt worse than anything I'd ever encountered. They weren't creatures I wanted to bump into, especially not now in my half-frozen and disorientated state.
I could feel fresh air lightly against my skin when I heard mocking taunting coming from behind me: "Lagertha...oh, Lagertha, you shouldn't have run away, you know; you're only making it worse for yourself."
The threat in those words did not go over my head, but being scared would not help me now. I needed to stay sharp: nerves would keep me on my toes, but being scared would cloud my judgement and impair my decisions: and with that man close behind me, that might very well get me killed...or maybe something worse, if he intended to follow through with the un-worded threat in his voice. In short: it would probably be best not to be caught by him...so it would probably be best to stop over-thinking things and start running.
Using the speed that was another part of my inhuman DNA, I kept following my senses until I reached a crack in the stone. It was small: too small for the taller-than-six-foot psycho who'd pushed me into the lake...but for a skinny, barely-topping-five-foot girl like me? There was just enough space to wriggle through.
Quickly, I tossed the sceptre through the crack, listening for the tell-tale thud when it hit the ground, judging it to be about four feet below the gap. Next went the coat, and then I hoisted myself up and started to shimmy through, thanking my slight build and small curves. I was just bracing myself for the hands-first drop to the ground below when I felt a cold grab my ankle.
I screamed with rage, violent throwing my foot back and hoping I kicked him in the face again. I felt my foot connect with something, followed by the sound of that something cracking, and I sincerely hoped I'd broken his nose or something else important.
He let go and I pulled myself the rest of the way through as fast as I possibly could. I needed to get away now more than ever: an extra kick to the face and a possibly broken nose? If he was going to kill me before, now he was going to fucking slaughter me. And that sounded far too painful for me to even tolerate: and I could tolerate a lot, thanks to my past...
I'd been declared medically dead a dozen times already.
I was not looking for a thirteenth time.
Hitting the floor and immediately picking myself up, I dusted off the scrapes on my palms, donned the stolen coat and grabbed the sceptre, sprinting down the rocky slopes while I heard very angry and highly unrepeatable ranting fly out of the cave behind me. Ignoring it, I headed towards where I could see some sort of settlement: hoping that the inhabitants could somehow help me get home, or at least keep psycho away from me.
Let's just hope they're friendly.
-{-}-
It was two hours later when I stumbled into the settlement: a group of mud-brick and paved-stone houses no more than two stories with flat roofs and open doorways and windows. It reminded of the houses of the lower classes in places like ancient Egypt...but the people here didn't look human: not by a long shot.
Their skin ranged from azure blue to emerald green and they were scaled, with long tails swinging behind them. Their features were almost lizard-like, as odd as that sounded, and their eyes ran the gambit from yellow to purple to grey. And then there were the teeth...
The long, pointed, sharp teeth.
And despite even their shortest community members towering over me, they all flinched away from the sight of me...or rather, the coat I wore and the sceptre still in my hand...
"Why are you appearing to us as a woman, Trickster." the one who seemed to be their leader snarled.
"Um...I'm actually not the...'Trickster'...but I may have kicked him in the face. Twice. If he's the one I think you're talking about."
"We are talking about Loki of Asgard, the Trickster, silver-tongue and God of Mischief and Lies."
"Tall, with black hair and really pale skin? And a total psycho?"
"What does psycho mean?" their leader asked.
"Psychopath."
"Then yes. We're talking about the same being. And you kicked him in the face twice before stealing his coat and sceptre?"
"He did kidnap me and shove me in a lake. I felt it was deserved."
The humanoid-lizard person laughed: "It was more than deserved, tiny warrior, and as an enemy of the Trickster, you are a friend of ours."
"Thank you."
"No problem, our new little warrior ally."