BOOK ONE: THE LAST VALKYRIE

THE ANGEL OF DEATH

'SEIZE HER!' Screamed the Jarl, pointing a finger at where Prudr's head broke the canopy of the crowd.

Asta tugged at her arm. 'We must go,' she hissed. 'Run!'

Prudr smiled. 'Do they mean to fight me?' She asked.

The crowd gathered to block them, cursing and hurling rotten vegetables.

The Jarl's warriors drew knives and axes from thick woollen coats.

'Come,' Asta shouted. 'Please.'

From every angle, Jarl Ulf's warriors trickled into the clearing, calling to the crowd to part.

Asta tried once more to pull Prudr away, but the woman stood her ground, watching the approaching warriors with a sinister grin on her face. Asta retreated between two buildings pressed tightly together and watched from the shadows as Prudr dropped her sack of armour to the ground and opened her arms wide.

'Yes, I killed your son, Jarl Ulf,' she shouted in delight, turning to the Golden Bear. 'I do not deny it. He was a rapist and a fool. He died begging beneath my heel.'

'LIAR,' screamed the Jarl, marching towards her in his thick furs and brown cloak, clutching his two-handed axe. 'Death will be too quick for you, whore. I would see your little teats cut off for the dogs. Who sent you? Jarl Erik? Jarl Odger?'

Prudr laughed as a dozen warriors with round, painted shields closed in around her.

'I am Prudr the last of Odin's Valkyrie,' she shouted. 'I trained with my sisters every day for hundreds of your mortal years. I've seen thousands of your battles and picked the best of your dead to feast in Valhalla.'

She smiled, mockingly, and slowly turned in a circle.

'I've sat with Odin and poured him his wine,' she boasted. I've feasted with the greatest heroes of your age, and fucked a few of them too. I do not fear you, Jarl Ulf, small...small Jarl Ulf.' She held up her finger and thumb and pinched them close together.

She laughed. She turned to his warriors. 'Fear me. It is my judgment that will see you through the golden doors of Valhalla.' She watched them edging closer, their spears, swords and axes raised to attack. Prudr shrugged. 'Do not disappoint me.'

Despite her size, Prudr moved faster than anyone Asta had ever seen. A spear lunged towards her heart, but Prudr dodged it easily and plucked it from her attacker, pulling him forwards into the dirt where she thrust the point of the spear through the flat of his back. The other warriors stepped away as she held the spear across the back of her neck and crouched to the dying man, wincing at the pain on her stomach.

'His fire was little more than an ember,' Prudr said as she dipped her fingers in his blood and smothered it on her cheeks. 'No-one here is worthy of travelling with me. I see that now.'

'Hold your tongue, Murderer!' Shouted Jarl Ulf. 'Somebody contain this creature.'

Three men roared and ran towards Prudr, but she was ready, parrying and thrusting as if playing with them. With one cutting arc she sliced open their throats and watched as they fell to the earth, gurgling and grasping.

The next man was faster, slashing and blocking until Prudr reached out and gripped him by the beard, pulling his stomach onto her spear. As he fell backward, the spear wobbling in his gut, Prudr picked up an axe from the ground and banged it against a stolen shield.

'COME AT ME,' she screamed, 'FIGHT ME. COWARDS.'

Asta watched from behind the building as more soldiers gathered around them, bows clutched in their hands. She looked in all directions, plotting the best escape. Then she spotted the horses left behind by Rolof and his men and snuck towards them.