Valhalla | H.S Short Story

The Second Part

His warmth was long gone when she woke up in the morning. The sun was chasing away the fog and coolness of the night. She stretched out her aching limbs, sitting up, expecting to see him sitting next to the fire, or perhaps knee-deep in the river.

Only, he wasn't. And as she got up and looked, he wasn't even near the cave. He often left it to patrol the forest but that usually followed his informing of doing so.

The fire was dead, small embers that glowed and begged to be fed. The river was the only sound around her. Not the sound of iron being sharpened, or the sound of wood being chopped for their fire.

She told herself that he was just out keeping watch like he often did. But as she sat on a rock and waited, eating berries and collecting funny-shaped pebbles for the next hour, she knew she was lying to herself. He was never gone this long.

When she entered the cave and saw his axe perched next to his shield, she really started to worry.

There was a new element of fear now that he wasn't with her. Like every threat she could think of would bound into the cave and pull her apart.

I'll always protect you. Always. It's you before anything.

How could he protect her when he wasn't here with her?

She thought for a moment that she should be relieved. The Viking who had kept her from reaching the monastery was gone. She was free to run wherever she wanted. But that was the problem.

Scouts ravaged the forests. Both Dane and Saxon. If she ran into the former, they'd no doubt treat her worse than any nightmare could conjure up. And the latter, she wasn't sure that being a Mercian would save her from them this far out in the woods.

She had to stay put. At least here she had shelter, food, and water. Perhaps she could venture and find the nearest town, but that would have to count on her not being found by any soldiers roaming the woods.

Where was he? He can't have gone far, considering his axe was still here and he never let it leave his side.

It had been well over an hour since she woke up, and her worry increased with every passing second. Her protector had disappeared into thin air, and she felt compelled to follow the wisps of him.

She checked upstream, where a deeper part of the river was. He once went there for a more challenging swim. Nothing. He wasn't where he'd come from picking berries the day before. She didn't dare call out for him, as much as she wanted to. The panic was starting to set in.

It is also about thinking like your opponent. Put yourself in their shoes, trace their steps, predict their movement.

Think, Aisley. She told herself. There had to be something that would lead to him.

He had left his axe, which meant he wasn't planning on a fight. It also meant he hadn't gone far and hadn't intended to be away from her this long. Guaranteed he left willingly... No. She would have seen signs of a struggle.

And then it hit her.

I regret not burying him, as cowardly as his actions were.

Knut. He'd gone back to take care of his remains. In an odd way, it tugged at her heartstrings that he'd left without a word to do it. Like he couldn't take his mind off it.

Little did she know, it took him hours to work up the courage to leave her. Even if he only planned on being away for a little while.

She was sure she could find her way back to that small ravine, however, she didn't want to go unprepared. She gathered a knife from his belt, just in case, and went on her way.