Encyclopaedia Argollica

Valkyries

In the north of Argoll, there is a realm that few dare to enter. I have not travelled there either, and the information in this chapter is derived from interviews with those of its inhabitants that I encountered during my travels. It is a land of high, brown mountains, their tips graced with white. Amidst its passes, tall pines stand, looming over the roads that are chiselled into the mountainsides. This almost idyllic landscape soon takes on a more sinister aspect if one ventures further than its outskirts. Tall spikes jut out of the ground, heads and body parts impaled upon them, while corpses dangle from the branches of the trees. If a determined traveller does not turn back upon spotting these grisly trophies, she will soon come upon stone watchtowers, whose guards are inclined to shoot first and ask questions later. These are the Silling mountains, where the valkyries live.

Valkyries are not related to the monsters that inhabit most of Argoll. On the contrary, they were once angels, though by now they no longer belong to our species. During the last age, they were the warrior-elite of our people, a force of crack-warriors who could serve as bodyguards or take on the most dangerous positions in important battles. Under their commander, Aella, they were some of the most loyal partisans of the High God in Argoll.

Naturally, they were hit just as hard by the death of our goddess as the rest of us. With the battle to which they had dedicated themselves to now over and robbed of all possibility of victory, they were left aimless. Their whereabouts in the first few years after the Awakening are unclear, but stories told by monsters tell of winged creatures mercilessly hunting them during this time. It seems that, as far as the valkyries were concerned, a new war had started after the end of the old one.

Aella and her warriors were present at the Great Synod with all the other angelic leaders. She was the loudest voice of protest against the new direction of our race. In her eyes, it was inconceivable for us to reconcile ourselves with the monsters, the creations of the creature that had killed our goddess. Instead, she argued that we had to avenge her death and wreak havoc upon this world, especially now that the demons, occupied with their great civil war, seemed to have retreated from the world and would not oppose us. When it was clear the majority of the other angels were not swayed by her arguments, she left, taking her army with her.

All was quiet for a few decades. Some of our travellers heard tell of massacres perpetrated by her and her army, but it was hard to track their movements amidst the vast wilds that covered much of Argoll at that time. It was only after thirty years that any reliable information regarding our brethren trickled back to us, and by then they had undergone a gruesome transformation.

Aella and her army had installed themselves in the Silling mountains, one of the less inhabited areas of Argoll. There she had found a new mistress to serve. A shadowy deity known as Nehalia had offered Aella a simple pact. She would give the valkyries her supernatural protection and bless them with the ability to procreate, a vital boon for such a martial people. All they had to do was keep shedding blood in her name, whether through war or sacrifice. She even left her mark on the bodies of the valkyries: their wings now sported various spots and patterns, no longer bearing the uniform colour of angelic wings, while their hands and feet twisted to resemble the cruel claws of birds of prey.

Ever since Aella made her pact, the valkyries have been a scourge upon Argoll. Their war parties are constantly travelling to and from Aella's large fortress compound of Halgard. Some serve as mercenaries, and certainly their skills are great enough for the kings of this new world to compensate them richly for their help. Other times, they act on their own, carving a path of slaughter and death wherever they wish to go.

The valkyries are not interested in conquest. They have not expanded beyond the mountains, though a few communities in the vicinity have to pay a tribute of agricultural produce to escape their wrath. Rather, they fight for the sake of fighting, to please their goddess and fulfil their new purpose of shedding blood. This is not to say that they kill everyone they come across however. Valkyrie society is fundamentally based on slaves. A warband returning from its campaign always carries with it a long chain of captives. Some of these are sacrificed in gory rituals, but most serve the valkyries, whether as servants in the halls of the thanes, as craftsmen creating necessary items or as simple farm labourers on the many agricultural plantations scattered around the mountains.

The life of a valkyrie is organised around war from the moment of her birth. As a child, she will train under the watchful eye of those of her brethren who, due to some form of injury, are unfit for fighting. As she grows older she frequently ventures into the mountains with other youngsters, training her skills and helping to sustain her community through hunting. When she reaches adulthood, she is attached to a warband that seems suited to her skills and temperament. She is not a true warrior yet at this stage, but she is allowed to leave on campaigns with the members of the warband and fight in battle. If the thane of her warband speaks well of her and she brings back a captive she took during battle, the final part of her upbringing arrives.

To become a true warrior, the young valkyrie needs to enter the tall temple of Nehalia that looms over Halgard, her captive in tow. The two are locked in there for the night, and she must slaughter the captive on the temple altar using only the claws the goddess gave her. Come morning, she will either emerge as a warrior, or she will be found dead next to the captive, having been found unworthy by Nehalia.

All adult valkyries are part of a warband. Each of these has its own rules, traditions and preferred strategies. Some fight as heavy infantry, with large shields and pikes, others train as archers or ride the enemy down from horseback. Some have strict rules regarding discipline, others fight like wild berserkers. Every warband has its own distinctive flags and symbols to identify their members, and the rivalry between them is intense, as each band of soldiers tries to prove themselves the most valiant and skilled. Needless to say, brawls are very common.

Every warband is led by a thane, who has absolute command over the unit and has the power of life and death over her underlings. There is no uniformity to the command structure beneath these thanes, as each band will have one that is suited to their way of fighting. A thane is either appointed to the position by queen Aella, usually after one of her previous thanes displeased her enough to be sacrificed to the goddess, or she gains the position by slaying the previous thane and gaining the position by right of conquest. Often, if a warrior manages to kill her thane, it will precipitate a bloody series of duels as others try to take the position from the new incumbent. These duels will then go on until one of their number proves herself enough times, the other warriors becoming unwilling to test their luck against her.

Queen Aella leads the largest warband, a force that even the other valkyries begrudgingly acknowledge as the best among them. Several times the thanes of the other warbands or soldiers under her command have challenged her for the title of queen, but so far she has bested every one of them. The queen still goes on active campaigns beyond the mountains, refusing to let her subjects outdo her in the eternal contest that is war for the valkyries. However, her campaigns take on a different character compared to those of her commanders. She never takes mercenary work and, where her underlings fight for loot and glory, when Aella rides to war, she seems bent on total destruction. Rarely does she leave a settlement she has assaulted intact, and when she takes prisoners, they are all sacrificed instead of becoming slaves. Whatever the views of her underlings, it is clear that Aella is still set on getting revenge for her dead goddess.