Heir to the Empire

48. Jorguldheim - Loldirr

Never before had Loldirr seen a landscape so white and untouched. The sun shone high in the clear blue sky, forcing its bright rays to paint a picturesque terrain. The wind stirred up the loose snowflakes to cause a gliding white wave across her path and into the distance.

It may have been cold, but it was beautiful.

As her feet sank into the snow, she giggled like a little child hearing the crunch of her footsteps. As she turned her head to gaze at the forty burly men in her presence, she remembered that her reaction was perhaps not the most appropriate.

Looking up to the sky with only the sun in its presence, it felt empty and neverending. It gave Loldirr the feeling of being so small and irrelevant. Not since Greenhaven had she felt that feeling, yet this time she embraced it. So much had happened since her cries for adventure, so much she regretted, but this was the first time that it was the adventure she had imagined.

That was until she remembered why they were here. To fight a witch and her dragon.

"It's not really a dragon, is it? It must be some kind of Fæordic metaphor?" Loldirr asked as Hrok walked by her side.

Hrok chuckled before passing a piece of dry meat to his walking companion. "No metaphor, a real dragon."

Loldirr tore a piece of the meat before shaking her head. "I don't believe you."

A deep growl bellowed from Hrok; it wasn't until Loldirr looked at him that she realised he was laughing. "You fight a Death Wraith yet do not believe in dragons?"

Loldirr smiled, something she realised she had not done in a long time. "A winter ago, I did not believe in either; I did not realise I had powers or meant to be an Empress of a great empire. A winter ago I was surrounded by a forest with no escape from my life; now I have visited three impressive, vastly different cities, experienced the sea and have come to see this beautiful icy wasteland."

"The gods have strange plans for us all," Hrok answered before tearing into his piece of dry meat.

Loldirr rubbed her scarred cheek as she realised smiling, provoked a dull pain from it. "I do not believe in the gods."

Hrok stared at her emerald green eyes, "It does not matter, they obviously believe in you."

Unable to counter his argument, Loldirr smiled once more, ignoring the discomfort it caused her. She looked around at the other men that had come on the journey—a warlord from each of the ten tribes of the Fæordic with three of their best warriors. "Are forty men enough to take on a dragon?" she asked.

Hrok growled once more, laughing even more heartedly than previously. "Gods no, that's what makes it even more fun."

Loldirr scrunched her nose at the answer. "You are a bizarre people!"

"Your father said something similar to the warlords of his time. There is no greater death for a Fæordic than to die in battle. Those who die here today will be greeted in the halls of the gods, where they will dine and feast and tell stories of their great victories and challenging defeats. To be Fæordic is to face the battle and embrace the challenge." explained Hrok.

"You want to die?" Loldirr asked.

"Hah!" laughed Hrok, "of cause not, no one wants to die, but everyone wants to live. The Fæordic know how to live."

Loldirr listened to his words and understood their meaning. Never had she been so alive as the times she flirted with death. Never had she been so powerful as when her life was being stripped away.

"That look, you understand what I mean?" Hrok smiled.

Loldirr nodded in response.

"Perhaps you are more Fæordic than you realise."