The world now seemed like a much quieter place for not having the high priest, Osric Ead, alive to give his venom-dripping sermons anymore. Priscilla thought it was a better world, at least. Maybe Njal agreed with her simply on the grounds that the only good priest was a dead one. Sometimes the little details made all the difference.
"The key," Njal said, no more urgently now with Osric laying in a pool of his own blood between them than when he had first found her trying to steal the coveted blood sacrifice of the Northmen for herself. "Give it to me."
"I seem to recall Erik Golden-Shield taking a key from Kazamir after we had gone through all the work of winning the battle for him. You were there too, were you not?" Priscilla mused, hefting the weight of her sword in one hand while holding her dagger tight in the other. "Shame about all that honor and glory going to a man who hardly deserved it. Almost makes you stop and wonder about what, or who, you are fighting for…"
Njal stretched his neck from side to side, a sharp crack of bone sounding from beneath that curtain of ringed metal. "Save your clever words for that bear cub you've tamed, girl. I think I will check your pockets for another, just to be sure. Perhaps I will find Gunnar's balls too, sell them back to him at a good price."
It would have been a funny joke, one that she might have actually laughed at despite her growing closeness with Gunnar. Maybe even because of it, but Njal had chosen that moment to lift his meat cleaver of an axe and swing it at her head in a sweeping arc, so she had other things to worry about besides whether or not laughing at Gunnar's expense while he wasn't around was rude. She ducked and slid sideways as Njal's axe wooshed over her head, then jumped in close and slashed at his undefended side, cutting with her dagger and opening a red line that blended with all that red leather he wore. He gave an angry roar and struck at her with the barbed end of his weapon, forcing her to retreat as he turned around and cleaved down at where she stood. The axe came at her lightning quick for such a large and brutal weapon, but Njal wielded it with all the strength of a wrathful demigod, as practiced in its deadly use as he was in breathing.
She just side-stepped the falling axe blade before it smashed into the floor beside her feet, sending wood chips flying into the air. Springing forward, she thrust with her sword, aiming to pierce his chest, but he brought up the haft of his axe and turned her away, robbing her of any chance to end things quickly like she had done with the Peacekeeper before. As she danced around the corpse of Osric, careful not to let the evil bastard trip her up and get her killed from whatever pit of Hell he was burning in, Njal gave chase. With a great roar, he swiped at her, and she ducked with a yelp just before the axe blade chopped through the posts holding up the expensive-looking curtains around the bed, sending them tumbling like a tremendous red wave of gaudiness.
"Surely, we can find a way of talking this out?" Priscilla huffed as she deflected the next blow, positioning herself between Njal and the bed.
"No more talk!" Njal grunted, taking a step back so he would have enough room to line up his long axe with her head when he next swung. She didn't give him the chance. Grabbing hold of one of the curtains, she tugged it from its broken frame and threw it over Njal's head like a crimson shroud, golden tassels flying as it enveloped him. He grunted and cursed, blinded by the thick curtain meant to keep out the cold and the light as Osric slept peacefully above the corruption and ruin he sowed each day in the city below, but was now a chaotic distraction as Priscilla rushed in close to the big Raider and quickly stabbed him in the gut.
Her dagger plunged in and out of the curtain, blood leaking onto her clothes with each new hole she made, Njal howling like a kicked puppy underneath. After the third stab, he managed to land a punch to her head, sending her reeling back with her dagger still in him. He fumbled with the curtain, ripping it off his head, skull looming in the air like some robed demon, and tried to toss it away, but it was stuck to him where the dagger was pierced through. Giving a bestial snarl, he pulled the blade free and glared at its bloody shine before tossing it away. "You… fucking bitch!" he snarled at her once he had regained enough sense to see that she was running for the door. "I'll kill you and drink from your fucking skull!"
"You can fucking try," Priscilla called back over her shoulder as she ran for the stairs, but she only made it halfway down before she heard noises echoing off the stone walls from the floors below. Screams, mad and frantic, pained shouts followed by fiendish laughter and the wet chopping of meat. More Vikings, dealing out scant mercy to those left below. "Dammit…" She turned back, deciding to take her chances with the one wounded Northman who already knew she was there rather than rush headlong into a fight she might not win.
Njal now stood leaning his hulking form against the door frame, axe head resting on the floor the shaft held weakly, other hand pressed to his bleeding stomach while his shoulders rose and fell with each labored breath. "I will make sure… all you tins burn for this… ah… And Bjornson too, if need be..."
Priscilla laughed. He was hardly the person she expected to be killing up in this tower when all was said and done, but now that he was here, it seemed like the prudent thing to do. It struck her that she had thought the same of Gunnar once and his brother Herleif not long ago. It was with a bitter reflection that she thought back on when killing Gunnar had seemed like the only option and how her change of heart seemed all the more muddled now that she was still keeping more secrets from him, even when it was clear that he trusted her entirely. Njal, though, required no such deliberation on what had to be done to ensure the success of her mission.
"Come on then, you will not be getting another chance," she huffed, waving him over with a flick of her sword. He stepped forward, one leg trembling before he willed himself to stand strong, rising to his full height in the dark hallway, an extra head taller than most men, and leveled his shoulders in defiance of her challenge. The light from outside shone stark against his silhouette, and he seemed to take up the entire width of the hall before her. He made an easy target in that tight space, with little room for him to wield his great axe, but she was standing down the steps from him, meaning she would have to fight an upward battle to make it back to the room. He took another step towards her, putting one heavy boot on the first step, then she sprung, hoping to catch him off guard, betting that he believed she would just stand there and let him come to her. That would have been the smart thing to do, and so he punished her for making a dumb decision instead.
He knocked her sword away with the haft of his axe, and she usually would have attacked again with her dagger, but her other hand remained empty. In an act of surprising agility for a man with three stab wounds to the gut, he pinned her sword against the nearby wall and kicked her square in the chest, sending her down the stairs with a shriek, weaponless and tumbling ass over head. The kick had hurt bad enough, but each and every stone step she rolled over on her way down was another bruise just waiting to form. Finally, she crashed into the wall at the bottom of the stairs, the world spinning around her even in the gloom. She only just got her bearings as the sound of boots coming down the steps filled her ears. Njal was near tumbling his way down after her, his gate limping with each step as he held a bloody hand over his stomach, snorting like a bull and just as angry. She rolled out of the stairwell before he reached her, stumbling on shaky legs for a moment as she made her way into the empty room a floor below Osric's apartment.
It seemed the tower had been some sort of scriptorium for the Pyre to create their manuscripts and propaganda to deceive the masses. There were more empty desks, more inkwells, and jars filled with dazzling colors, piles more of blank and half-illuminated parchment all left abandoned now that the tower stood isolated within a city overrun with heathen savagery. Priscilla jumped over the desks and weaved between the low benches and stools to get away, Njal bursting forth from the stairwell and barreling his way through the room after her, knocking the wooden furniture clattering away. She kept her distance, but with the Vikings lurking on the floors below meant that she had nowhere to run. Murky rays of light from the smoke-filled sky shone through the tower windows around them, but they were far, far too high up within the tower for her to even consider any of them as a possible means of escape unless she might like to end up plastered against the mountainside next to the Warden who had jumped before, bringing all of her present worries to a very permanent end.
She was trapped like a damsel having to fight her way out of her own locked tower, and there was no point in waiting for some dashing hero to come and rescue her, even if she was owed twice over by now. Not that Gunnar counted as much of a dashing hero in the first place. More of a shaggy, well-mannered brute at best, but then reality did have a habit of altering childhood fantasies as one grew older.
"Come here, you tin witch!" Njal growled, picking up a desk and tossing it aside to crash against the wall as he came for her, quills and manuscript pages flying through the air.
Priscilla cursed as she looked back and saw how close he was now. She jumped up onto a desk and sprang away just as he chopped down with his axe and split it apart in an explosion of sharp splinters. Her breath came on in hot pants as she jumped again, but the next desk suddenly fell out from under her as Njal chopped the legs out from beneath it. The room lurched around her as she tumbled and landed hard on her side, teeth rattling in her skull, eyes squeezed shut as hot pain flashed behind them. She more felt the axe blade coming down on her rather than saw it and rolled to the side just before it split her in two, sharp metal slamming down behind her back. Grabbing a nearby stool, she hurled it up at Njal as hard as she could, the dense wood taking him in the head just as he was yanking his axe up from the floor to strike again, eliciting a grunt of surprise as he stumbled back.
Priscilla grabbed for the dagger left slung in her belt. Not her dagger, given to her so many years ago by the smiths of the Sisterhood, but the one she had taken off the Peacekeeper she had killed upstairs. The weight felt unusual in her hand but familiar enough to weild despite the lack of a crosspiece on the hilt, and the dark blade had only a single edge to it, like an oversized eating knife. The means by which she had come to possess an extra dagger were perhaps a bitter memory now, but sometimes even the cruelest deeds done out of desperation still proved fruitful in the end. At least, that was what Priscilla told herself as she whipped the dagger around and stabbed it into Njal's foot.
The Raider gave a sharp howl of pain, and Priscilla heard panicked shouting from the floors below; the rest of the Vikings surely alerted now to their companion's distress. Gritting her teeth, she yanked the dagger free from Njal's bloody boot and sprang up from the floor, breaking straight for the stairs back to Osric's room, desperately trying to figure out what to do next as she ran. Njal spat his wrathful curses and stumbled over the toppled desks to get after her, and she knew that no matter where she went, he would continue to give chase regardless of how many holes she filled him with. She had to end this fight here and now if she wanted any chance of escaping the tower alive with the key. Coming to a stop in the middle of the room, she gripped the curved dagger tight in her hand and turned around to face her foe, presenting herself as a clear target while Njal came charging at her in a terrible rage.
"I'll rip you to pieces!" he shouted, leaving red boot-prints behind him as he came on, dipping his shoulder and opening his arms wide to take her off her feet. The hollow eyes of the skull mounted on his helmet stared her down, and she wondered briefly who the person might have been before they had been killed and used as a decoration by this blood-splattered barbarian.
Priscilla counted her breaths along with the remaining steps before he finally got to her. She didn't move, didn't flinch, refusing to step aside even as every hair on the back of her neck stood on end, her instincts willing her to flee. Another quick step, another thundering footfall, and one more- then she jumped. Not to either side, taking herself clear as the Raider's stampeding charge so that she might slash at his outstretched arms or stab her dagger into his broad back. That would not guarantee her a killing blow, and right now, she needed her strike to count. A bit of recklessness was required to ensure her mission succeeded. Hardly ideal, but that was the state of her life these days. It was all for the mission, she reminded herself as she jumped straight up into the air. Everything she did was for the mission.
Tucking her legs up beneath her, dagger still gripped tight in her hand, she felt herself linger in the air for a single heartbeat. Then came the hit.
Her breath was stolen out of her lungs at the impact, her body no longer hovering in place as Njal carried her through the room and towards the stairwell at speed. The room rushed past her in a blur, her hood fluttering about her head. All she could see was the dirty fur wrapped around his shoulder as he clutched her, his strong arm squeezing her painfully tight, threatening to crush her spine with his frightening strength. She gritted her teeth and fought through the pain, still holding onto the stolen dagger as he carried her across the room. She held the dagger firm, feeling it stuck in place, and felt how Njal's grip began to slacken just a bit, his steps starting to slow and stagger ever so slightly.
A shadow fell over them as they entered the stairwell, and all at once, Priscilla felt her back slam against stone when they reached the far wall. They crashed together, pain lacing up her back from her tailbone to the base of her skull as her body shuddered in Njal's embrace, feeling his grip go slack. Then she fell, a gasp escaping her as her bottom slammed on the floor, taking away what little breath she had left. Her head was ringing, not entirely knowing if her helmet had protected her or caused more harm from the crash, but she had no time to clear it as Njal fell upon her with all his weight. Panic momentarily welled in her chest as everything went dark beneath his bulk, the smell of sweat and blood filling her senses as he enveloped her, the gleam of his axe shining bright just at the corner of her vision as everything went still.
Huddled in the corner at the bottom of the stairs, Njal gave a slow lurch back, one shoulder rising and then the other. He made no sound, gave no more curses as he rose, only sat up and away from the wall before pitching backward again, falling to the floor in a heap of dust and with the clatter of bone. The hollow eyes of his skull ornament stared blankly up at the ceiling above while the Raider's eyes turned dark and glassy through the thin slits in the visor of his mailed helmet. Or, at least one eye did. The other was split around the sharp blade of Priscilla's stolen dagger, the blader stabbed into his head nearly down to the hilt.
Her strike needed to count, and luckily it had. Two eyes in one day. Reckless indeed, but she could hardly argue with the results so long as the mission was a success.
"Almost... the Silent... fucking Blade..." she panted, sitting there a moment to catch her breath. She could still hear shouts and screams from the floors below, but for now, she just needed a moment to think. It would be no small thing for Ivar's man to suddenly turn up dead, especially after the battle had already been won and the Divine Pyre defeated. Luckily she had a cultist handy who would give no protest if she used them to shift the blame.
It hadn't taken her long to get back onto her feet and up the stairs, not with the sounds of carnage growing ever closer up through the tower urging her on. The Peacekeeper was heavier than she would have thought as she lifted the body from the desk. Perhaps they had fared better as one of Osric's attendants here in the tower than the starving masses far below, but it was hardly a comforting thought as Priscilla carried her out of the room and to the top of the stairwell. She winced as the woman's limp body clattered down the steps after tossing her. It seemed like an undue insult to a Sister, even if she had betrayed their homeland in the end, but it was for the good of her mission, and so she buried the guilt deep, same as always.
The woman's body was draped over Njal's when Priscilla came down, the dagger still embedded in the Northman's head. She positioned the Peacekeeper as best she could, making it appear that she had been the one carried off her feet and slammed into the wall, limbs spread limply about and head bent over against one shoulder. It would hardly do to leave the woman's gaping eye-socket left bare, but neither could Priscilla hope that anyone would believe that the Peacekeeper could still land a killing blow to Njal while suffering from a lethal blow of his axe. Luckily the Raider carried two dark-metal knives on his belt, although they looked more like brutal spikes than blades. She took one and jammed it into the visor of the Peacekeeper's helmet, piling up yet more guilt in the pit of her stomach, then frowned down at the unlikelihood that these two poor souls would have each landed the same killing blow on each other at the exact same time.
"Stranger things have happened, I hope," Priscilla muttered to herself, looking down at the two corpses with hands on hips. "Perhaps it will get you both put into a saga, at the very least."
"Njal? Njal, where the fuck are you!?" came a harsh from the next floor down.
"Dammit," she hissed, sparing the Sister one last pitying look before she turned and dashed her way back up to Osric's room. She snatched up her sword along the way, sliding it back into its sheath, and just as she stepped into the ruined apartment, a sharp cry of anguish broke through the air.
"Njal! Aargh! What..? Get your nithing asses up here, you louts! Njal is dead!"
More shouts followed, angry and shocked, but Priscilla paid them no mind as she searched the room for her missing dagger left behind. If she wanted the Vikings to believe a fight had broken out in their absence, she wanted to make damn sure that they thought no one was left alive to talk about it. Her heart was pounding in her chest, spooked by the stomping of boots, and the curses snapped freely as more Northman ascended the tower to find Njal dead and the one who had surely done it already beyond the torturous pain of their revenge. Then her eyes fell on the metal length of her dagger, the sun shining off its gleaming edge as it poked through the clouds and smoke from the open door that led out to the balcony. As she snatched it up off the floor and stored it back in its rightful place on her belt, she realized this was the only path left open to her now.
"Dammit," she hissed again, cursing herself for not thinking things through and getting herself stuck between a lot of sharp metal and a very long drop as a means of escape. Once again, she found herself with her life on the line to see her mission through to the end, like so many Peacekeepers before her. Always for the mission. Looking over her shoulder towards the door behind her, she caught sight of a figure hurrying up the stairs, and then she was out the entrance to the balcony.
The wind blasted her as soon as she was outside, whistling about her hood, feeling as if she might get swept away before it finally died down. The Walled City lay sprawled before her, still burning in parts, the Viking camp filling the plain outside the walls, silent and empty of the horde. The clamor of countless angry Northmen and helpless civilians rose to greet her as they moved through the narrow city streets and alleyways like ants, and it might have been an impressive sight to behold if she hadn't needed to find a place to hide with all haste. Only, there was none. The balcony was not very big to begin with, and whichever way she looked, there was only more open space filled with nothing but wafting smoke. "Dammit all!"
"Who's there!? Show yourself!"
Priscilla's heart leaped into her throat at the northern accent of the demand coming just from the room behind her. There was no more time to think, and so she didn't. Stepping over to the stone railing surrounding the balcony's edge, she jumped up and went over.
It could never be said that she had ever stood as a cowered in the face of battle and death. She had bravely faced down two separate foes and come out alive in just the past hour, with nothing but a few bruises and the sin of yet more murder weighing on her soul to show for it, but nothing had put the icy chill of fear in her like dangling off the balcony's edge as the city stretched out below her from a dizzying height.
"Oh God..." It was a desperate plea. She had made it this far, and now she only needed to hold on a little bit longer, Lord willing. Right now, she held on tighter than at any other time in her life, clinging to the balcony's edge. Beneath, there was a stone framework supporting the balcony's weight against the tower, just close enough that she might get her foot hooked if she could get close enough. As quietly as she could, she began to swing, ever cautious of her grip on the stone floor above lest she should slip and fall like an angel cast out of God's heavenly kingdom.
That thought did little to inspire any confidence in her, given her tumultuous history with being cast out from both court and her homeland by the Pyre, but she had little time to dwell on it when she heard disgruntled voices from above. "I swear I thought I saw someone out here..." The voice seemed somewhat familiar to her, and she recalled the rat-faced Berserker from the tavern in Eitrivatnen from the sound of that high-pitched whine.
"You're seeing things. Got your blood up after cleaving apart all those priests and finding Njal like that." The gruff voice of that one-eyed Warlord, also from the tavern. Njal's friends then, or close enough, and no less grumpy than the last time they had met by the sound of things. "Ivar is going to have your head when you tell him."
"Me? Why do I have to be the one to tell him?" snapped the Berserker.
"Because you're the one who found him! Should have been watching his back too, instead of letting him get done in by one of those hooded bitches."
"Who am I supposed to be, his fucking mother?" the Berserker grumbled. Priscilla gritted her teeth, feeling her fingers slipping on the stone, but she nearly had her foot to the framework as she swung her legs and reached out with the tip of her boot. Everything would have been fine if these two fools would take the empty balcony for what it was and just left, but instead, they kept arguing like a couple of starving dogs over a bone. "Not my fault he went after the high priest all on his own and left us to clean up the scraps!"
"That's another thing Ivar's going to be pissed about," grunted the Warlord. "You see the cut on that nithing shit? Barely any neck left to keep his head on. Who do you think did it? Njal or the tin?"
She was almost there, just a little bit more. Her teeth gnashed together so hard she thought her jaw might break. Wiggling her foot forward, it barely scraped against stone as she swung, eliciting a pained whine as her arms began to tremble.
"Shh... What was that?"
"What was what?" asked the Warlord. "I don't hear anything out here except the fucking wind."
"I hear better than you can see, you one-eyed bastard. I can hear a rabbit jumping through fresh snow and catch it with the toss of my axe at thirty paces, so don't talk to me about the fucking wind, and let me listen."
"Thirty paces my hairy ass. You wouldn't hit the broadside of a drakkar even if it'd run aground on you. I see well enough, and I don't see anything but black smoke and this miserable city on fire, so don't tell me you hear something that isn't there."
"Don't tell me what I can and cannot tell you, and I'm telling you to shut the fuck up and let me listen!"
That was it. She was going to die here listening to these two bastards boasting and arguing over pointless drivel. Their friend lay dead at the bottom of the stairwell, and their prize corpse still lying with their throat ripped open just a few steps away, and still they remained bickering on the balcony while she felt her strength failing her with each passing breath. Silently she cursed them both. She cursed herself for getting stuck in this awful mess in the first place, and then she cursed the Sisterhood, the Legion Council, and the Divine Pyre for good measure. Her fingers gave another slip, and still she couldn't secure her foot in the stone framework. Death by falling from a balcony while hiding from two morons. Not exactly the saga-worthy ending Gunnar might have ever boasted about, but then boasting had never been her style in the first place.
She could have stood to hear Gunnar boast a bit more, and maybe have Coal take a crack at him with a joke after. Fools that they were, she really thought of them as her fools now, and suddenly she very much wanted another chance to sit down and have a drink with the both of them, better than the last time in Eitrivatnen, now that Njal was dead. That would have be nice, actually.
"So, you hear anything?"
"Shhh... Just listen..."
"There's fucking gold in here!" shouted another voice from inside.
"Gold!?" cried the Warlord and Berserker in unison.
"And jewels! Did you fuckers even bother to search the room, or are you just here to take in the sights?"
Immediately both Northmen rushed back into the tower, their boots scuffing on the stones as they were away. It was not as if they went very far, but it was far enough for Priscilla as she hauled herself up the railing just as quickly and slumped over onto solid ground, or ground enough for a balcony still suspended hundreds of feet up in the air. It might as well have been holy ground as she laid herself out and caught her breath while the Vikings inside scuffled and fought over the treasures found inside the small chest left behind on the desk.
After a moment, she pushed herself up and slid up against the tower wall next to the door frame, still breathing hard, knowing that if she was caught now, she would not have the strength to fight off however many Vikings were left inside. Peeking around the corner, she saw just the three of them crowded around the desk, the Peacekeeper's original sack of loot now claimed next to them as they shoveled out the treasure from the chest to fill their pouches and pockets. The Berserker had his back to her, and luckily the Warlord had his one good eye fixed on the gold and jewels rather than the balcony. The third warrior was another Raider, all done up in splashes of red, old paint and fresh blood both, and from each of their belts hung a severed head, still dripping blood around their boots. The heads were marred with gore and frozen expressions of anguish, but it was not too hard to recognize the faces of the book-hurling priests.
"Alright, that's all of it," said the Raider, and he slapped the empty chest away before grabbing up the sack of loot. "Let's get out of here."
"What about Njal?" whined the Berserker, squinting at a sapphire in the dim light through his ridiculously ornate visor.
"What about him? He is feasting in Valhǫll, and we have our gold. Grab the priest, though. Ivar will want the body."
The Warlord grumbled as he stooped down to grab the holy corpse under one arm while the Berserker got the other, the two of them dragging Osric towards the door. "My knees are going to be shot by the time we get this sack of meat down all these stairs."
"Guess we could always just toss him out over the balcony to make it easier," said the Berserker. Priscilla's hand went to her dagger at the suggestion, fingers still numb from dangling off the balcony for so long.
"And then what? Scrape him off the ground after and deliver him to Ivar in a bucket?" They both laughed at that as they walked out of the room, their voices fading away with their descent down the stairs.
Priscilla let out a slow breath, then carefully looked in again to make sure she was alone. Her hand was shaking when she let go of the dagger, her legs weak as she stumbled from the balcony and back into the room. All that was left of the carnage that had befallen the room was the broken bed frame, a few knocked-over paintings, and a dark bloodstain leading out of the room toward the stairs. She glanced over at the open picture frame, still stuffed full of scrolls of which the Vikings hadn't shown the slightest interest if they had noticed it at all. Her fingers brushed over a pouch on her belt, a bit more feeling in them now, enough to feel the outline of the vault key kept inside.
Taking a step around the large pool of blood soaking into the floorboards, her legs shook and nearly buckled beneath her. It had been a long, hard day, and somehow she felt that the journey down the tower would be no easier than the journey up. Seems the Warlord wasn't the only one whose knees were shot. Sitting down on the bed, she suddenly felt exhausted. Her strength seemed to flow out of her like the breaking of a dam, and she fell back onto the feathered mattress, not caring in the least if its softness was lost to her within the armor she wore. She was still alive, for now, and that meant her mission could carry on. Another step forward, but still so far to go. For this moment, at least, it was nice just to lay back and breathe. Surely she was owed that much for all she had done and still had yet to do.
Glancing up around her, she saw a few tattered remains of the bed curtains still hung from the broken frame. She reached up a hand and stroked along the red fabric, taking in the delicate gold embroidery and the fine craftsmanship. Then she tugged at it, feeling the material go taught as it clung to where it was fixed to the bed. A strong material, perhaps strong enough to make her descent down the tower just a bit easier on her legs.
Red curtains dangled out of a tower window a few stories up from the ground, tied together to give just enough length for Priscilla to get down to the mountainside safely. She felt like she needed another rest in bed once her feet touched solid ground, but such simple pleasures would have to wait a while longer. Her descent had taken her out the back of the tower, as the front entrance was now surely kept under guard, which suited her needs just fine. It was not the city that she meant to return to, but rather up along the quiet mountain paths of the volcano.
She did not bother trying to hide her means of escape as she began climbing up the rising slope. So long as no one spotted her, she would be fine, and it may as well have been a fearful priest that had slipped out the window to flee to anyone who found it. Right now, she focused on making her way up the mountain on tired legs, careful not to fall and send any rocks tumbling to raise dust and give her position away to the Northmen still in the alcove below. Thick smoke and heavy clouds rolled through the sky above her, obscuring the sun except for small glimpses of golden rays, making it hard to keep track of the time even as the day gave way to night. Only when the orange glow of the fires still burning through the city began to reflect off the mountain itself did she realize how much time had passed since she started walking. Looking back over her shoulder, the city seemed so much more contained within its great walls, and even the alcove itself seemed like a small hole at the foot of the volcano. She couldn't stop until she was sure this part of her mission was complete.
It hadn't been until she found the cave that she knew what she had been looking for, but the distinct glow from within the darkness drew her like a moth to the flame. Luckily she didn't have to go very far or deep, feeling the air grow hot instead of cooler within the rock, sweat tickling her brow beneath her helmet. Even the ground was warm through her boots, and she watched where she stepped, careful not to set a foot into any painful surprises. The rushing lava flow ahead was the source of light by which she walked, and even now, still a good distance away, she had to squint through the heat she felt on her face to look at it. It was fitting, having come here to carry out her deceit within the very glow of the fires of Hell.
This mountain was no place of holy power, but it still possessed a destructive power all its own. Hot magma spewed from one crevice in the rock, flowing through a sliding channel formed from years of heat, new growth, and constant erosion in the rock until it disappeared again beneath the cavern floor and delved deep into the earth once again. Only a little was needed to suit her purpose, but an entire vein would not go amiss. She did not approach any further, not wanting to chance passing out and being roasted alive in her armor, forgotten and left behind by her legion beneath this mountain of false worship.
Opening the pouch at her hip, she took out the key and weighed it thoughtfully in her hand. The dull metal shining brightly in the lava glow, like the gold within the vault it was meant to open might have dazzled and shined. A vault that would remain forever closed to the Vikings so long as this key remained lost, leaving them to sit outside its sealed metal doors, brooding over how to get in. They would remain camped within the city, refusing to be parted with their most coveted prize. Erik would make them all stay, she knew, until this city became their tomb.
That was her mission. Destroy the key, and keep the Vikings tethered to the vault. The formulae might have been the payment for allowing her legion to return to Ashfeld free of punishment, but this was the true task given to her, the true will of the Legion Council and the Lord-Warden. It was why Elise had lied to her about the armor, to create a prize beyond worth that no Viking would be able to resist, and it had worked precisely as planned. For this, she would perhaps be hailed as an actual hero, but somehow it felt like a mistake as the key weighed heavy in her hand.
Things were not as simple as they had once been. The barbarians who had helped her defeat the fanatics and cultists that had ravaged her homeland were not all the demons she had believed them to be. Doing this would not come without consequence for her, and most certainly for Gunnar. He shouldn't have mattered, but he did. He was a weakness, but she could not bring herself to cut out and toss him away. Her masters would demand that she obey, that she would complete her objective and serve dutifully, but now she only found herself questioning.
Would this be worth all the pain and suffering her people had endured? The pain and suffering that had yet to come? It had not been Gunnar who had abandoned her to tyrants when her legion needed help the most, or Herleif, or even Erik for that matter, glimmering bastard that he was. Yet here she stood, ready to throw them into the fire along with the key at the behest of those who had abandoned her without a second thought. To them, it was her place to serve, to be the blade in the darkness, to keep the peace in the face of war and ruin; such was her oath.
This was the mission given to her. A Peacekeeper always puts the mission first.
"God," she whispered to herself, squeezing the key so tight in her hand so she could feel the metal hot through her glove, "show me the right path. Guide me righteously, for I have wandered alone in the dark for far, far too long. Show me that what I am doing is right, and please... may they all forgive me if it is not."
She tossed the key, and even tired as she was, her aim was true. It landed with the faintest spark as it dropped into the lava, disappearing in the blink of an eye beneath the red glow. Her mission was complete; now, she only had to wait. There was nothing more to be done here.
As she slinked back to the city under cover of growing darkness, moving through shadows and smoke like a thief in the night, she didn't feel like much of a hero. Heroes, to her mind, were never meant to live out their noble lives carrying so much shame.