Skald

I broke free of Jarnja's arms as the summer heat of the yellow rose intensified, my breaths coming hot and heavy at the touch of her lips. The cockerel of Ragnarok, my fetch Gullinkambi, crowed to herald Sunna's bright apex in the sky as noon settled its dry bones across the mountain kingdom of Utgardr.

Jarnja gave a throaty purr, then before I could protest, cradled me in her arms and took to the skies with a piston pump of her leathery wings, Gullinkambi at her shoulders. She laughed mightily as I screamed in surprise, bouncing me jollily in her embrace, and the magicked sunshine beat down upon us, warming her black fur. The blue ice-topped crystal mountains wreathed in greenery spread out below us like Wotan's war banners in the wind.

"What are you doing, Jarnja! You're insane!" I cried, grasping her shoulders for dear life as her arms cradled my waist and hips. "I hate heights!"

"Get used to them, snowflower, this is the first of one of our many flights of fancy - it is time I showed you how that fetch is used!" Jarnja soared to a cavern high in the cliff face of the tallest spire of a purple mountain laden in snow, a kind of hollowed out fighting arena, or gladiator ring, like the shieldmaidens and berserkers of father's kingdom and I used to fight in. Open to the mountain air, in the great gladiator pit were stables, warriors were practicing stabs, parries, and thrusts with longswords and wooden shields. Huldre were using their claws and fangs and cow tails and birch backs to spar, trolls were smashing rocks, and duergar were digging, digging, digging out dwarven tunnels.

Jarnja landed in a raised fighting ring where Heith was sitting sipping Periland coffee at ease, overseeing the daily drills.

Jarnja's great draft horse of a blue roan whinnied and raced to meet his master, his eyes the color of citrine. The Gallows Horse was well-muscled - but over his coat were white splotches in the shape of a skeleton, making a white-blue mask of his face.

"Grimnr! Sired by Sleipnir himself, gift of my father! Come here, you rascal, and meet my dear bride!" Jarnja hollered, and Heith gave a bright laugh, clacking her cup on her saucer. The horse whinnied, bucked, then licked Jarnja's palm where she had pulled an apple from her knapsack around her belt. Grimnr bit into the white flesh and smiled dreamily at me, nodding with jeweled eyes. The ghostly draft horse approached me tenderly, then nuzzled my outstretched hands.

"I think he likes me," I said quietly.

"You carry Death in you, and he is the Gallows," Jarnja said quite simply, giving Heith a knowing look. Heith opened a vellum book of hours and began reading a skaldic prayer to Mother Freida. But before her eyes met the page and she returned to her coffee, she winked at Gullinkambi, who had flew onto Grimnr's shoulders and was now preening Grimnr's mane. Grimnr gave a damp whuff and nuzzled my rooster fetch, and they seemed thick as thieves as Grimnr danced on his horseshoes and gave bright hoo-hoos.

"Jarnja, is that you, my old friend! - not in the study late into morning researching laws and reading lore in order to take back our kingdom from the Stronghold you yourself erected, or seeking Loki's weakness in your scrying bowl?" said a male huldra with whipcord muscles, cow tail and ears, birch hollow back with moss on the interior, dark olive skin, and curling black locks. His brown eyes sparkled and he had cow feet, dressed in breeches and bare chested. In his arms was a humongous claymore - the claymore Jarnja had charged my father, King Hakkon with, smelted of iron ore and gold flecks, with wicked dagger-like teeth jutting out at the pommel, and a burnished ruby bezel at the hilt.

"Oh Felice, it is about time, you rascal of an arms master, my best student," Jarnja said fondly, leaning down to hug him. When she parted from me, I felt an ache - was I addicted to this Beast's touch already? Felice the huldra kissed Jarnja on the cheek in greeting, and jealousy stirred in the pit of my stomach. I shook it off, taking to braiding Grimnr's mane. "Without Aslaugh's magick, destroying the Stronghold was impossible. But now, I have the fruit of my blood and her womb - her daughter, nexus between Midgardr and Utgardr. I believe the strong Isa magick has reawakened anew in dearest Turiel."

Jarnja took the claymore and slashed it through the air, a defensive stance, then an uppercut. "Come, Felice, get Turry a longsword - she is skilled in swordsmanship, and I am here to teach her how to use her fetch in battle. Hurry, you rascal lothario huldra!" Jarnja winked a merry ruby eye at Felice, and she then turned her smiling muzzle on me, her black lips and fangs like a song.

"Swordfighting with Gullinkambi, eh? What tricks do you have up your fur, Jarnja?" I asked, smiling - flirting, even, getting the best of me.

"As many as wily Wotan," she responded. "And like Wotan, I have a way with women... let us dance with our swords as lovers, cutting through the air in a quadrille of might, passion, and power. I would like to see your spry sylph muscles springing under duress. I would like to see how our sparking steel comes together, and if we are the better or the lesser for it."

Heith chuckled. "Such the romantic, Jarnja dear." She winked at me.

I blushed. "I'll win, you know," I said, sizing up the musclebound bergresar queen. "I can take down men thrice my size."

"I'll cheer on whatever dear lady wins!" Heith said, her beaded, antlered headdress clinking in the sunshine with its bony rune carved beads. Heith stirred an excessive amount of Periland sugar into her coffee, a staple of the Waterman traders who voyaged across the Saffron Sea from Arcadia's Tunis prefects to foreign Periland to obtain the sweets and sacred drink and spices. "Oh, but I do believe we have an audience."

Before I could react, into the fighting ring ran Rosy like a feral cat, tackling me. "Gotcha!" Rosy shouted, her face stained with berry cake and her small belly bloated under her pink dress. "Maren taught me how to make berry tarts mara style! Oh, and Silje says we should watch you and Jarngrimr fight, it will be the most entertaining thing all day. Mara is convinced you will win because Jarngrimr loves you, but me - I don't see how you could!" Rosy squirmed in my embrace, and I patted her hair. "You are not part BEAR!"

"Rosy, get away from that scary horse and claymore, you'll get trampled!" Yuri called, distressed, hand in hand with Dominic. She lifted her skirts and rushed over, sweating in worry. Yuri's plump, comely form was proudly wearing a brand new dress of Isa reindeer furs and blue tribal trim. She and Silje shared a knowing look, Silje was dressed to the height of Arcadia court fashion in a tiered golden dress on her slender form. They giggled and gave a secret handshake.

"I feel the same way about Fylja, my younger sister always causing trouble just like Rosiel," Silje said slowly in mock whisper, and Fylja brandished her lavender claws, making a cutthroat sign at Silje. Silje stuck out her tongue and waggled her fingers by her elfin ears.

"Oh poo, you two, my minx will WIN!" Fylja shouted, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her curtain of terrorizing asp like black mara hair came to life and hissed in a monstrous cloud, shedding sand and rain. "Go Turry!"

"Ladies, that's enough, this is a solemn lesson in magick - and the first phase of my courtship!" Jarnja mock scolded, beating her furred breasts with her claymore. Silence, then laughter, fell across the fighting pit.

Felice handed me a sapphire encrusted longsword carved with bindrunes in the shape of the wolf riding, snake reins giantess Hyrokkin. I saw Othala, the Ancestors, on its hilt. "I'll beat you, dear Jarnja," I smirked as I said it, flashing the blade.

"Gullinkambi, come," Jarnja instructed, and Gullinkambi leaped from Grimnr's back and landed heeled at my feet, assuming a defensive stance. My fetch's fires were elated, his eyes amber, his form red and gold, and his green feathers alight as his wings ruffled. "Repeat after me, dear Turry:" Jarnja began. "Fetch of Skadhi, Fetch of Light, Gift of the Gods, Gebo in Sight."

I repeated it, and suddenly Gullinkambi grew to the size of Jarnja's draft horse, gave a loud cock-a-doodle-doo of the apocalypse of Ragnarok, like Heimdall's thundering horn, and the rooster's light golden body became complete flames, then smoke. Before I could react, the spirit of Gullinkami possessed me like a bear his berserker or boar her Synfilking. My body lit with flame, like the runes Sowilo and Kenaz combined, and I felt as mighty as Wotan the Raven himself.

"What is this power?" I asked, but my voice was amplified with blasting resonance, like an avalanche, and I blew Jarnja over with my wicked godstongue. She crowed with laughter, then steadied herself on her claymore and said "Think fast!" charging towards me on paw and wings ablazing, her sharp claymore drawn. I instantly parried, my muscles brimming with godsfire, and she summoned Fehu for strength, her muscles intensifying. Without thinking, I parried, then crowed Hagalaz, and hail came from my blade, raining down on Jarnja.

Jarnja summoned Kenaz and burned the hail away, giving a wicked laugh as we engaged thrust for thrust, rune for rune, parry for parry, blow for blow. With my fetch's power inside me, I was like a terrible Valkyrie, avenging with a voice that wreaked havoc.

"Am I hurting you?" I whispered to Jarnja as she had me in a deadlock, which I quickly escaped and thrust her to her knees with one strike of Gullinkambi's golden wings that now burst from the back of my dress.

Jarnja looked at me with crepuscular eyes, her lust drilling into my bosom, then up to my lips with a thirsty, starving mouth, licked her maw, then drank in my jeweled face. "This is what I have dreamed of for twenty years," Jarnja huffed, then quickly took advantage of my moment of weakness and had me in a headlock. I tapped out on her muscular arm, and she released me, laughing in joy. "What a fight!"

I caught my breath, dropping the blade to the floor. Gullinkambi took that as a sign to exit my berserker furor like the bears did their warriors, and his spirit reformed into the proud cockerel by my side, cocking his head to the side and chirruping. I struggled for breath, gasping, and the entire room clapped.

"In all my days, I've never seen a warrior as powerful as Queen Jarngrimr!" Fylja gasped, clapping madly. Applause came and filled the space between Jarnja and I, and she helped me up, onto Grimnr's back, and we rode out into the crystalline halls, resilient, proud, and sweat as true as the budding blossoms between us wreathing our bodies in watery haloes. Jarnja's sweat smelled of lotus blossoms.

"Time to get washed up for the Discipline ball, now that you know your own powers," Jarnja whispered, me pressed to her breast and Gullinkambi at Grimnr's braided mane.

"How did you know I could withstand your might?"

"It is the gift I gave to you, fairy goddaughter - dominion over Death, just like a bergresar such as myself," Jarnja breathed, then bent down to kiss the nape of my neck as we rode off into the crystal lit halls. "And now, you choose your Discipline. Gird yourself, my bride - the Discipline ceremony is a test of spirit, wits, and strength, to determine if you are worthy to be a huldre foundling. It will not come as easily to you and your sisters as the wonderful adaptability your family has exhibited to Utgardr so far... this will be quite harrowing. It is our tithe to Lady Sithgunt, my mother."