Blessed by the Gods

Rùna's Plan

Fallen asleep, Ivar and Rùna lay on the bed, their hearts so close, Rùna heard them both beat in rhythm to the other. A calm melody that would only last the night.

Cold, then a sharp pain. Awoken by the rush of electric impulses streaming through her body, Rùna jumped up. The stinging pain came from her side where blood gushed onto the sheets and pooled beneath her body.

Ivar yelled out for help, clinging to Rùna as he pressed his hand on the bleeding wound.

The first to react, Hvitserk, stormed into the room, slit the throat of the slave that had attacked Rùna and covered the wound with a rolled up cloth from her bath. After instructing Ivar with what to do and handing him a sword, he stormed out of the room to alarm his father.

In a matter of seconds, all the kings and their men stood ready to fight whoever dared to enter the house. Unknown to them, another slave had snuck into the back rooms to finish what the first loyal to the queen slave could not.

However, he did not come far as Rùna pushed Ivar's hand off her wound, rose from the bed and walked to the door she had sensed the slave enter through. An electric impulse rushed from the tip of her finger before the slave's heart into their body, shooting through them so fast, Ivar could see the veins pop out of their skin.

A blood curdling scream escaped the slave's mouth before he dropped to the ground, the body twitching and bursting under the pressure of the shock Rùna had sent into his body.

Ragnar and Valtar, who came to her aid, stared in fear at the slave on the ground, the face falling apart as the skin ruptured. Steam rising from the body.

Indifferent about the situation, Rùna walked into the hall where the other men had gathered, her still bleeding side colouring her night gown red. The eyes wandering over the people in the room, she turned her back and grabbed her father, who ran after her. "She is here, and so are her remaining men!" Rùna hissed, guiding him into another room, followed by Hvitserk, and Ragnar, his sword in hand, and Floki who carried Ivar, by his side.

"What is this? What are you?"

Rùna shut the door behind the men and stood in the middle of the room. "I am who the queen is most afraid of. Now listen" Rùna swung her fingers through the air, silver lines flying around her, forming a map of the town and the surrounding woods. One by one, she explained what parts of town had been destroyed by the storm the previous night and the plan she had overheard from the queen's slave. She told them what she had gathered from the mind of the dead slave in her room and laughed at the shocked faces of Ragnar and Valtar. "Do not believe me to be any less valuable than you, ever"

All together they formed a plan on how to win against the army that waited for them beyond the woods, hidden in the mountains, awaiting the command of the queen, who had betrayed Valtar and pledged her allegiance to another ruthless king in the north, who wanted to kill Ragnar and Valtar to control the south of Sweden as well as most of the east that belonged to him already.

With the finished plan in hand, the men sent out to organise their soldiers and stand their ground against the army that could attack at any given moment.

While Valtar and his men headed to the northern end of town to guard the broadest entrance to Myrhult, Ragnar led half his men to the eastern end, the giant lake Unden that separated his land from King Bǫlverkr's. There in the distance, the high masts of Bǫlverkr's ships covered most of the horizon. The dark flag, and below a line of ships following the wind in direction of Myrhult.