Journey of an Einherji - The Sword of Summer

A Dream within a Dream

Darkness. That was all I saw.

I was standing in a completly dark place. A black void with no light nor a hint of anything else, just darkness. And I didn't know how I've gotten there.

Was it the limbo between death and resurrection? The last thing I remembered was the medieval knight killing me at the battlefield, it would make sense if this was a limbo, where I would have to wait until I was resurrected back in Valhalla.

That's when I heard them.

Voices. Whispers. Screams.

I looked around trying to find the source of them, but there was nothing, no one, not to mention I didn't know if I could see much. I looked down to find out I was standing on nothing. I felt my feet making pressure on some sort of ground, but I couldn't see it. I tried to move only to find out my body wouldn't respond.

I could still hear the whispers, but there were so many, and so many voices speaking over the others I couldn't understand what they were saying. I tried to move again as more voices joined the others, louder, more screams of terror and desperation and fury and thunder rumbled. More and more to the point I thought they were in front of me, reverberating in my ears like drums with a constant rythm. I tried to cover my ears, but I couldn't even move my fingers, just my head and my eyes.

Suddenly it got colder. I shivered in the limbo, I could see my breath in the form of mist evaporating in the void, the cold got worse, making my teeth chatter. Despite the darkness I saw shapes of things I couldn't make out.

Then, there was light.

A faint white light, a small triangle in the vast darkness appeared on the horizon. Slowly, very slowly it grew bigger. As the light started to expand I started to see in the dark void. Peaks of grey mountains that looked like giant stalactites (or stalagmites I never knew the difference), cliffs covered in ice, roads of grey round frozen stones.

The light got brighter with more colors than just white: light blue and yellow, which spread like spears in the grey land. Thanks to this I saw from the corner of my eye what looked like a column. I turned my head and saw a two columns: one pure white and in perfect conditions, while the other was black and broken, with pieces scattered all around it. Beyond the columns, a road led to a city. A city mostly grey.

Tall walls surrounded it, a double gate as its only entrance and watch towers at the corners of the walls. The city seemed to be divided, like different districts, but because of the wall I couldn't see the lower parts, only a few before the highest place.

Houses that looked like boulders with holes instead of doors and windows without glasses, with a faint orange light inside of some. Other houses had more defined structures, gable roofs of wood, chimneys with no smoke and walls of stone, there were bridges going across a riverless ditch. 

And above all was the palace, which I could only see the front of it. Sturdy towers, rough arches, balconies and windows. The palace seemed to be like two sides of a coin: the left side was made of white marble, smoke rose from the chimneys, windows with glasses of different colors. While the right side looked like it had gone through countless wars: roofs collapsed, walls caved in, leaned towers and all was made out of black marble.

Despite its strange appearence I could see movement in the city, but before I could try to take a step forward, a low, deep growl made a chill run down my spine. 

I turned to the only place where the light had not reached yet. Of course it was behind my back. A pair of piercing yellow eyes were glaring a hole through me, a snout started to be visible and sharp canines, big enoug to rip me apart.