Valkyries

By Wesa

An original fiction set in the Immortal Witches AU of the Highlander universe. Despite the similarities of names, this is not intended to be a Mary Sue story. Claudia asked for a history for the witch she has named after me, and this is what I've come up with. The time/place setting, to begin with at least, is the very early Bronze Age in Finland, approximately 3300 BCE, before the arrival of ethnic Finns.

Category: Hurt/Comfort, Drama

Rating: R, at least, for descriptions of male/female sexual encounters including what today would be called rape, but then was just the way things were.

Warning: Character death.

Disclaimers: Kanetsidohi belongs to Claudia, and the Kurgan belongs to Gregory Widen, 20^th Century/Fox, Highlander Productions, and Rysher/ Panzer-Davis, who also own Methos and Kronos (mentioned briefly, but not major characters in this story), the Highlander universe, and all that goes with it. All other characters are original.

By Wesa.

"Father, no!" Wesa protested in horror.

Her father only looked at her and shrugged. "You have become a woman, Wesa. You will go to Vidogg's hut now."

"But -"

"Go!" roared Kalev, angrily. "You are not even my daughter, but a changeling witch! Go!"

Wesa looked at her mother, but Hillet only stood with her eyes downcast, unwilling to risk her own safety by intervening further on behalf of her daughter. With a sob, Wesa turned and left her father's hut, walking slowly and reluctantly to the hut of their village's best hunter.

Vidogg was old, at least fifty, and she was the fourth wife he had purchased; the first two had committed suicide, and the third had finally been beaten so severely that she had died. In her fifteenth summer, Wesa had at last shed woman's blood, and had hoped to be wed to Valeg, with whom she had already made plans to build a hut of their own. Their teenage teasing and fondling had not yet led to physical coupling; Valeg was an honorable young man who wouldn't dream of having sex with a child, no matter how well-padded at breast and hip. Now they would never be together.

Valeg watched as Wesa crossed from Kalev's hut to Vidogg's, his blue eyes furious. He had been present when Vidogg had purchased Wesa from Kalev; he had tried to intervene, to out-bid the old hunter. Valeg could easily have paid more for Wesa, but Kalev had ignored him, as if he had reached some private agreement with Vidogg before their public transaction. So Valeg had watched, powerless to help her, while Wesa was sold for the lowest bride price any of them had ever heard of.

Wesa felt Valeg's eyes on her, but she was too humiliated to meet his gaze. Sold, like a heifer, for three blankets and a dog, to a man who had already killed three wives with his cruelty; Wesa paused at Vidogg's door, then pushed aside the woven mat that hung in the doorway of the summer hut, and went in.

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Vidogg slapped her. "You're not doing it right!" he panted.

Wesa squirmed beneath his assault, sobbing in pain. "It hurts!" she protested. "I'm trying, but it hurts! Please stop!"

"Stop?!" Vidogg thundered, outraged. He slapped her again, and smiled when she began to struggle, trying to get away. He liked a woman who fought him. He pinned her slender frame beneath his much larger one and thrust hard, tearing his way into her, grinning at her screams of pain.

Valeg burst through the mat at the door. "Vidogg!" he cried. "Get away from her. You're hurting her!"

Vidogg ignored him, thrusting viciously into his new young wife, pleased with her struggle to evade him until she clawed at his face. He balled a fist and struck her, knocking her senseless.

With his wife unconscious and no longer fighting him, Vidogg's man-flesh shriveled, and he withdrew from her and turned on Valeg. "You would come between a man and his wife?" he demanded. "Get out!"

"No!" Valeg retorted. "Wesa should have been mine. And she will yet be!" He brandished his knife.

Vidogg laughed. "Do you challenge me, wolfling pup? I am Vidogg!" He grabbed one of the stone-tipped spears that leaned against the wall and thrust it toward Valeg.

The lithe teenager avoided the thrust, gripping the shaft of the spear and taking a swipe at Vidogg with his prized bronze knife. Vidogg caught his wrist in his hand, and the two wrestling men crashed through the mat into the muddy grass between the village huts. On all sides, people suspended their activities to watch the fight.

Wesa slowly regained consciousness, her ears roaring with a sound as of a dozen or more people shouting. Wondering if their village was under attack, she got to her feet, even more confused when she couldn't find her dress or the bone brooches with which to fasten it at her shoulders. She wrapped herself in one of the blankets - hides, really - from the pile of bedding, and made her way past the torn mat hanging in the doorway.

Outside, a small crowd of people stood shouting as two men fought viciously in the center of the group. Wesa looked curiously, but only when she recognized Valeg through the matted blond hair and the blood streaking his face did she remember what had happened. "Valeg!" she shrieked.

Her cry distracted him. He glanced at her, and Vidogg took advantage of his momentary lapse to wrest the knife from his hand. "Upstart pup!" he growled, shoving the blade between Valeg's ribs, slicing and twisting. Valeg gasped, and Vidogg dropped him onto the ground, kicking him as a final measure of his contempt.

"Valeg!" Wesa pushed her way through the crowd and knelt at his side. "No," she protested.

He coughed, bright blood bubbling from his lips. "I wanted to make you happy," he said. "I would have given Kalev everything I have for you."

"Shh. Don't try to talk."

"Wesa!" Vidogg shouted. "Attend me, wife."

Wesa ignored him, so focused on Valeg that she hardly heard him. "He won't live forever, Valeg. Then we can be together."

He smiled up at her. "I'll wait for you," he gasped, then was still.

Wesa watched his eyes grow sightless, but had no chance to mourn his passing before her husband yanked her to her feet. "I said, attend me!" Vidogg shouted, shaking her.

His rough treatment caused the blanket she had wrapped around herself to fall away from her body, and the women of the village gasped in horror at the blood that streaked her thighs. They had celebrated her passage into womanhood only a week before; they knew this was blood from injury, not from her woman's cycle. They had heard her earlier screams, and they knew who was responsible.

Hillet turned to her husband. "Return the blankets and the dog," she instructed him angrily. She went to Wesa, insistently drawing her from Vidogg's grasp. "Come home, daughter."

Vidogg would have none of it. "She's mine!" he roared, drawing back his hand. He struck Hillet with a sound like one chunk of wood hitting another.

Hillet fell, and Wesa went down with her. "Mother!" she cried, but Hillet's head rolled loosely and her sightless eyes looked up at her daughter and her husband beyond.

Kalev stared. His daughter had disobeyed her husband, and as a result his own beloved wife was dead. His first impulse to challenge Vidogg for Hillet's death evaporated in the face of his anger with Wesa, and he pushed his daughter aside to lift her mother in his arms. "Go with your husband, woman, and cause no more trouble here."

Wesa watched disbelievingly as her father carried her mother back to their family hut, leaving her to Vidogg. She looked for help to Eira, Hillet's sister, but although she found sympathy in her aunt's gaze, she knew there was no help there. Valeg's father glared at her, blaming her for his son's death. One by one, the rest of the village turned from her.

Vidogg pulled her to her feet once again, dragging her with him back into his hut.

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For four years Wesa endured Vidogg's violence, his need to hurt. She had learned, slowly, that if she didn't fight when he turned to her in the night, but merely endured his touch, he couldn't keep his man-flesh hard. And though she suffered a beating for it, at least he didn't leave his seed in her, at least she didn't risk having his child. She had hoped he would sell her to another of the men when he found he could no longer get any pleasure from her. But he had never accommodated her in this, and Wesa had long grown weary of being beaten twice or more a week.

She had turned to Eira for the only comfort she found in the village, and her aunt had continued the teaching Hillet had begun, showing Wesa how to find local herbs and how to use each one.

When Wesa joined her the morning after a particularly bad beating, Eira scowled at her bruises. "Why can't you just do what he wants, Wesa?" she asked, applying a healing poultice to the worst of them.

"Beating me is what he wants," Wesa replied. "I keep hoping he won't come home from hunting, but he always does."

Eira firmed her lips, then in an apparently innocent change of subject, she told her niece, "They say a witch lives at Folkvang."

"A witch?" Wesa didn't miss the underlying suggestion. "I couldn't get to Folkvang before Vidogg knew I was gone, not even if I had gone right after he left to go hunting. He'd kill me if I tried to escape."

"Is it better to be beaten so hard, so often?" Eira asked.

There was no other answer to the question. Wesa went to gather her few belongings. She had to get away now, before Vidogg returned.

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Wesa didn't sleep that night. She was afraid of the wolves she had heard howling their territorial announcement earlier in the evening; they were now certainly hunting. They wouldn't disdain to eat an herb-woman. But what she really feared was that Vidogg had killed early in the hunt and returned in time to set out after her before nightfall. If he had been able to give chase before mid-day, he wouldn't have stopped at sunset, and he might burst into her camp at any moment. As soon as the sky began to lighten in the east, she rose and started along the trail to Folkvang again, still afraid that Vidogg was hot on her heels.

She knew that she couldn't outrun him. She just had to hope he had been late, or waylaid along the trail, or killed in the hunt. She hurried through the forest, running whenever she felt she could do so without breaking a bone or making herself prey for a bear or a pack of wolves, or running headlong into a herd of elk. If Vidogg caught up to her, then she would risk death to get away from him, but right now she was still trying to live.

The morning mists cleared as the sun rose, and Wesa saw the mountain Lyfia. The meadow called Folkvang lay at its foot. Her breath came in deep gasps of fear and exertion as she stopped to rest at the top of a rise and looked down at the broad expanse of grass. Where was the witch's camp? Oh, please! She could not have come so far, could not have risked losing her life at the hands of the madman who raped and beat her no less than twice a week, not if it was all for nothing!

She stood straining to see, then realized there was a campfire burning somewhere a little nearer the foot of the mountain; she could see the smoke, and Wesa realized she had been smelling it for some time. Suddenly, behind her, she heard a dog bark, and knew she had to run as fast as she could if the witch was to protect her.

The dog bayed as she reached the edge of the meadow, and Wesa heard Vidogg shout. She would have sobbed in terror if she had had the breath to do so. But she would not give up now, not when she was so close to freedom, so close to sanctuary.

So close to something Vidogg feared.

She had nearly reached the witch's camp, calling breathlessly for help, wishing she knew the witch's name, or the names of whatever gods she worshiped. From the largest building in the small group stepped a tall, slender woman with darker hair than Wesa had ever seen. She was close enough to see her scowl at the sight of a woman being pursued by a giant of a man on her very doorstep. The witch - for that was who Wesa fervently hoped she was - disappeared briefly back inside her house, reappearing with a long bronze knife in her hands. She started to Wesa's rescue just as the dog brought the fugitive wife down.

Vidogg shoved the dog aside and picked Wesa up with one hand. "Did you think you could escape me?" he demanded. "Did you think I would just let you go?"

"You will let me go, or I will certainly kill you in your sleep!" Wesa screamed. "You killed Valeg! You murdered Hillet! You turned Kalev against me! Even my dog obeys you, not me. I hate you! I'll never let you rape me a-" Wesa's rant was cut off in mid-word as Vidogg slipped Valeg's knife between her ribs. She gasped at the shock, the pain. She had not made it. The witch was still too far away to help her. Gasping for air, Wesa managed one last sentence. "I will haunt you to your death," she promised Vidogg, coughing and spraying him with the death-blood that frothed from her lips.

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When Wesa woke, she was somewhere dimly lit, a fire flickering in a hearth only a few yards away from the bed where she lay warm and comfortable. And alive. How was that possible? Gingerly she felt her ribs where the knife had gone in. It didn't hurt; it wasn't even bandaged, though her clothing was gone. Was the witch able to reach her in time after all? How powerful must she be, if she was able to raise the dead? Wesa shivered in fear. What had she gotten into? Could she be in more danger from the witch than she had been from Vidogg? Where was Vidogg? He would not have let her go easily, not if he realized she was still alive.

The door opened and the witch came in. "Ah, awake, I see," she greeted Wesa, her warm brown eyes sparkling. "I imagine you have questions. So do I. First, you must be hungry. Your clothes were ruined, but I think some of mine will fit you, even though you're a bit taller than I am."

"I'm ... taller than you?" Wesa repeated. The witch's odd accent combined with Wesa's state of confusion made following the steady stream of chatter a bit difficult. "But - Where's Vidogg? Is he gone?"

"That would be the man who stabbed you?" the witch wondered. "He ran when he saw me coming."

"He won't let me go so easily," Wesa warned. "He'll be back."

"No. He thinks you're dead," she replied, laying out one of her own dresses for Wesa to wear. "What's your name, and why did Vidogg stab you?"

"I'm Wesa," Wesa replied. "I ran away."

"That doesn't seem like a very good reason."

"Are you the witch?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Wesa wished she could call them back.

The witch smiled. "I see my reputation has preceded me. My name is Kanetsidohi."

"Ka -?"

"Ka-ne-tsi-do-hi," repeated Kanetsidohi, smiling. "I realize it's rather hard for you to wrap your tongue around. You'll get used to it if you stay."

"Please may I stay?" Wesa asked.

"I think that would be a very good idea, Wesa," Kanetsidohi told her. "You don't yet realize what has happened to you, and there is much you must learn."

"I - I already know what Hillet and Eira taught me about the herbs of the forest," Wesa told her eagerly. "It was Eira who suggested you might be able to help me."

"And Eira is?"

"My mother's sister," Wesa explained. "She was afraid Vidogg would kill me, and she thought you could protect me."

"I'll teach you to protect yourself," Kanetsidohi promised.

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In the course of Wesa's training with the long knife Kanetsidohi called a "sword," the elder witch learned about her treatment at the hands of her husband. "Hmph. I'd have killed him," she said. "Have you never experienced pleasure at the hands of a man?"

"There was Valeg," Wesa sighed over her stew. "We had kissed, and ... touched. But we had never actually ... I mean, I didn't bleed until I was fifteen. It would have been wrong for us to lie together before I was a woman. But ... Kalev sold me to Vidogg instead, even though Valeg wanted me and was willing to pay far more than Vidogg offered, but..." Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head. "I'll never understand why.

"When Vidogg began hurting me, Valeg tried to come to my rescue," Wesa continued. "Vidogg killed him. When Hillet tried to take me home and told Kalev to return the bride price, Vidogg killed my mother, too."

Kanetsidohi growled softly. "I should have killed him when I could have," she said.

"Why didn't you?" Wesa asked. "You never seem to hesitate about anything."

"Because I didn't know how long it would take you to revive," Kanetsidohi explained. "Every Immortal is different."

"I still don't understand. How did I become Immortal?"

"No one knows. You either are or you aren't," Kanetsidohi told her a little sadly.

"Will you - Will you teach me to be a witch like you?"

"Perhaps. There is something else I have to teach you first."

"What is that?"

"It will take me a few days to arrange it. Until then, be patient, Wesa."

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A week after Wesa told her mentor that she had never known pleasure from the flesh of a man, a man rode into camp on the back of a gray horse, leading two more horses behind. Wesa stared, not at the horses, though she had never seen them before, but at the man who rode the gray.

He was tall, as tall as Vidogg, but younger, perhaps only a year or so older than Wesa herself, and slender. Yet when he dismounted from the horse she could see that his slender form was deceptive, for muscles stood out like corded rope across his shoulders and back, bared to the summer sun. His wild hair was as red as Loki's was said to be, the color of a flaming sunset in midsummer. "Kanetsidohi!" he called.

The elder witch came out of the house behind Wesa. "Luvik!" she shouted back in delight. "You're here already!" She smiled at Wesa as she passed and lifted her student's jaw back into place. "Catching flies?" she teased gently before going to Luvik and embracing him.

Wesa made certain to keep her mouth closed the rest of the afternoon while she watched Kanetsidohi put the two reddish horses through some kind of a test, after which she seemed pleased. Luvik attempted to engage her in conversation, but Wesa was so overwhelmed by his mere presence that she could barely respond intelligently.

"Kanetsidohi wants me to teach you to ride," Luvik said.

"Me?" Wesa squeaked. The huge animals were bigger than reindeer, and though perhaps not as heavy as musk oxen, they were even taller than those animals. Wesa had spent her whole life learning how to stay out of the way of large animals. "On those?"

"It's easy, just takes practice," Luvik assured her, "and Kanetsidohi says it'll be time for her to move soon."

Wesa swallowed hard. All right. If she had to learn to ride one of those monsters in order to accompany her mentor, then that was what she would do. "When do we start?" she asked in a small voice.

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Wesa looked up at Luvik speechlessly.

He smiled down and offered her his hand. Kanetsidohi laughed. "Go on," she encouraged. "He doesn't bite. Well, not often."

As Wesa glanced at her friend, Luvik gripped her hand and hauled her up onto the horse behind him. "Put your arms around my waist," he told her, "and hold on with your knees."

The big gray horse moved restlessly, and Wesa clutched convulsively at Luvik's middle. "Not too fast," she quavered.

He chuckled and patted her hands. "They're not really dangerous, Wesa," he promised. "But we'll start at a walk so that you can get a feel for their movements. You know, tomorrow you're going to ride Feyd by yourself," he added, referring to his horse by name.

"Have you been drinking one of Kanetsidohi's concoctions?" Wesa demanded.

The witch grinned at her. "He doesn't need any of them, sister," she told her.

Sister? Wesa completely missed any other implication, focussing on the affectionate sobriquet. She was still staring at the witch in surprise when Luvik clucked his tongue and nudged the horse in the ribs with his heels. She grabbed tighter.

"Relax," he advised. "If you're nervous, the horse can sense it. If he's nervous, Feyd can be difficult to control."

"Have fun!" Kanetsidohi called after them, swinging up onto one of the other two horses. "I'll be back by nightfall."

"Where's she going?" Luvik asked.

"I just now found out she was leaving," Wesa replied. The feel of the muscular animal between her thighs was intriguing, and although she was concerned about Kanetsidohi's absence, especially all day, Luvik was there, and he carried a sword. Wesa assumed that if someone came he would be able to protect her as well as himself. Her skills with the long blade were still rudimentary at best. "All day, and in summer, too," she mused. "How fast can these creatures go?" she added in surprise as the witch kicked her steed into a lope, heading across the meadow on the trail Wesa herself had run along when she arrived. "She must be going a long way."

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Hearing hoofbeats, Eira looked up from the healing ointment she was applying to the rash that her eldest grandchild had acquired in the forest. "Go," she told the boy as the creature came into the village.

The boy stared at what appeared to him to be a beast with four legs and two heads, and only ran away when his grandmother repeated her instruction.

Eira stood to face the stranger on the strange beast, a woman with wavy dark hair, her darker complexion flushed with the rush of cold air across her cheeks. "I'm looking for Eira," Kanetsidohi said.

"You've found me," Eira allowed cautiously.

Kanetsidohi looked around at the otherwise deserted village, finally understanding how Wesa could be so unsophisticated. The simplicity of life here had left her terribly unprepared for what was to come. "Where is Vidogg?" she asked cautiously. Although it had been nearly two months since the witch had threatened him away from his wife's bruised and bleeding corpse, Kanetsidohi thought he might recognize her, and if he did then her plan would go to waste.

Eira hesitated. "Why would you think I would know?"

"Wesa says you know everything that goes on in the village," Kanetsidohi replied softly, in case anyone else was within hearing range.

Eira gasped softly. "You're the witch of Folkvang," she breathed. "Vidogg said Wesa was dead."

"And dead she must stay, if she is to have any freedom," Kanetsidohi warned. "He must continue to think her dead." And not just because he would try to take her back if he knew she was alive. Vengeance demanded that Wesa's dying vow be followed through on, and that would be impossible if Vidogg ever suspected his wife was still alive.

Kanetsidohi dismounted and announced, loudly enough for anyone who might be within the huts to hear, "Even in Folkvang we have heard of the wisdom of the herb-woman Eira." In a lower voice she added, "and your sister's daughter speaks very highly of you."

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After the mid-day meal, Luvik put Wesa up onto the gray and swung up behind her. "It's time for you to begin to learn to control him," he said, his breath warm in her ear. "Pick up the reins. Don't forget to hold on with your knees."

Wesa picked up the leather straps that lay across the horse's shoulders, gripping them tightly. Luvik put his large hands around hers. "Relax," he murmured. "If you pull it too tightly, he'll back up or even rear back. You don't control Feyd by holding him tightly. He'll react to the pressure of the reins on his neck. All right?"

She nodded, all too aware of Luvik's warm body pressed against her back. The only time Vidogg had ever done that ... She shuddered at the memory.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Luvik asked in concern.

She gulped and nodded again, adjusting her hold on the reins. "Is that better?"

"Much. You're a natural," he replied. "Now nudge him with your heels."

He's not Vidogg, Wesa told herself, following Luvik's instructions. He's not like him at all. He's young, he's handsome, and he's gentle. Kanetsidohi - my sister Kanetsidohi - would not have left me alone with him if she thought he even might hurt me.

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Kanetsidohi took her mid-day meal with Eira, in her hut, away from the others. She did not want to see Vidogg; she feared she would kill him outright, and he deserved the far worse death she had planned for him. She discussed the local herbs and roots and their uses with Eira for another hour, getting a feeling for the woman's opinion of her niece's husband through subtle questions and comments. When she wondered softly, "Wesa is still alive. What will you do when Vidogg wishes to marry again?" she thought Eira might feel obliged to tell him that Wesa was still alive.

Instead, Eira spat into the fire angrily. "I will not allow him to do to another what he did to my sister's daughter," she vowed. "I will kill him myself first."

Kanetsidohi smiled. "I would not have you killed for murdering him," she said softly. "I was hoping you would feel that way, though. So," she added, drawing a packet of dried roots and herbs out of her pack, "I want you to tell him that I came to the village. As the witch of Folkvang I feel a duty to the folk of the area, and I am going to all the villages and consulting with their healing women."

"I don't lie well," Eira objected.

"You don't have to," Kanetsidohi assured her. "It's true. This isn't the first village I've visited, only the furthest from Folkvang. I've given each of the other women a packet similar to this one, with instructions to make a tea from it to give the village's best hunter before each hunting trip. He is still the best?"

"For now," Eira allowed.

Kanetsidohi smiled. "Good. Then he will be motivated to take the drink even though he will know I concocted it. What he must not know is that I know who he is. Can you keep that to yourself?"

"What will it do to him?"

"You may say I told you it would give him even greater strength."

Eira smiled. "What will it really do?"

"Just that."

Now Wesa's aunt frowned. "Why would you want to do that?"

"So that he will outdistance the other hunters." Kanetsidohi's eyes hardened. "She told me what he did to her. No man can treat one of my sisters that way and expect no consequences."

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Wesa looked up the trail through the dusk, worried that Kanetsidohi had not yet returned. Although she had one of the bedfurs wrapped around her shoulders, she shivered in the chill of the coming night.

Luvik came out and stood behind her, his hands resting gently on her shoulders. Wesa wondered distractedly when she had become so accustomed to his presence behind her that it no longer bothered her. "Kanetsidohi can take care of herself," he said softly. "Come back inside where it's warm. You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow. You should go to bed."

"She said she'd be back before nightfall," Wesa worried.

"Then she won't be long. And she'll expect us to be in bed."

Wesa's head came up and she looked around at Luvik. "What?"

"Teaching you to ride was not the only task Kanetsidohi set for me," he admitted. "She told me you had never known pleasure from a man."

"I - No," Wesa admitted, choking on her fear.

"She said if we liked each other as much as she thought we would, we shouldn't feel awkward about - about being together. She said she wouldn't mind." He stroked her blonde hair away from her neck and pressed a kiss behind her ear. "I like you, Wesa," he murmured. "I'd like to teach you about pleasure, if you'll allow me."

"I'm afraid," she whispered.

"You were afraid of Feyd, too," he replied softly, running one hand gently down her spine. "Do you refuse me?"

Wesa hesitated. Her sister trusted Luvik. Kanetsidohi would not have told him that she had never known pleasure from a man if she didn't trust him. She would not have left her alone with him if he might hurt her. He had not hurt her so far. And he promised her pleasure instead of pain. Could it be that this was what the witch had planned all along, that Wesa should give her body to this man? "I do not refuse," she murmured at last. "If you wanted to hurt me, you could have done so at any time today. But I know nothing of you, Luvik, except that my sister trusts you, and that you easily bend the will of creatures far larger than yourself. I ask for time, that's all."

"How much time?"

"Vidogg began to destroy me four years ago," Wesa replied. "I don't know how long it will take me to heal the scars from his abuse. Let me learn to trust you while I heal. Perhaps then I can willingly share your bed. If you still want me."

Luvik gazed down into her eyes for a long moment, searching for something he didn't find. "This Vidogg," he growled. "Does he still live?"

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Kanetsidohi had been forced to slow her horse to a walk when darkness fell. A single stumble on an exposed tree root, and she might be thrown and break her neck. Of course she would recuperate from a broken neck...if the wolves didn't find her body before she regained consciousness. Wolves thoroughly dismembered their prey while eating, and even if her head didn't come loose from her shoulders, did she really want to survive with her arms and legs torn away and stripped of flesh? That wouldn't be survival, that would be horror.

She had stayed with Eira longer than she should have, barely slipping away before the hunters returned, and so she was returning to Folkvang later than she had planned. She smiled to herself, wondering if Wesa had yet succumbed to Luvik's not inconsiderable charms, not least of which was his firm gentleness. And that hair! Not to mention his face. Kanetsidohi warmed herself with memories of long winter nights and bit her lower lip, shivering deliciously. Perhaps if Wesa didn't want Luvik - but no, her little sister needed to regain her lost confidence, and a man's sweet attentions were the best way to do that, short of taking a Quickening.

Finally, under the blaze of the aurora, Kanetsidohi reached the meadow and started across it to her house. It would be another quarter of an hour before she reached it in the dark, and she would have to care for her horse before she could go in, eat, and collapse into her bed. Well, that was good. Perhaps Wesa and Luvik would be finished before she was ready to sleep.

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"So she didn't tell you everything," Wesa murmured, allowing Luvik to put his arm around her shoulders as they sat before the fire.

"No," he confirmed. "Most likely she thought I'd go off and kill him, and I'm sure she wants the privilege if you don't."

"Why did she tell you - what she did?"

"Probably thought we'd end up in bed, and wanted to make sure I didn't go too fast for you." Luvik smiled. "Kanetsidohi looks after her friends. She called you 'sister' this morning. She likes you, Wesa." He stroked the side of her neck with his forefinger.

"I like her," Wesa replied. "She's demanding, but she always explains why. Well, except for why I had to learn to ride. She didn't tell me anything about leaving. Please don't do that." She shrugged away from his finger.

"Don't you like it?"

"I do," she admitted, "but I already told you I'm not ready for that." Her head came up as they heard hoofbeats outside and she felt the sensation of her mentor's presence, simultaneously disturbing and reassuring. "She's back."

Wesa scrambled to her feet and grabbed again the bedfur she had worn around her shoulders earlier, wrapping it around herself as she hurried outside. Luvik followed in time to see her greet Kanetsidohi with a hug. He took the reins from his old friend and led her horse into the safety of the barn, where the animals were safe from wolf attack during the short summer nights.

"Where did you go?" Wesa asked later, while Kanetsidohi ate the thick stew that had waited for her by the fire.

"I went to see your mother's sister," came the reply. "If you're going to follow through on your dying curse, Vidogg needs to be properly prepared." Kanetsidohi's eyes twinkled over the rim of her mug.

"You're going to drug him," Luvik realized admiringly.

"Certainly," she replied. "I do have a reputation to maintain."

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The world looked very strange as Vidogg strode through the forest. The trees danced around him and the ground moved crazily under his feet. That was all right; he was the greatest hunter, the strongest. He had easily outdistanced his hunting companions, and he felt as if he could push on forever, right to the home of the gods in Vanaheim, where Njord would certainly see his worth and return his health and youth.

Except ... he'd killed Wesa. She was an herb-woman - a young one to be sure - but Njord's daughter Freja would not look kindly on her murder. Freja always took the part of the women, even though Wesa had deserved to be killed. He couldn't let her run away from him like that. It made him look bad. It wasn't as if he had still enjoyed her flesh, not when she just lay still under him, her eyes unfocussed as she stared off into nowhere and waited for him to finish. No, she had deserved his knife between her ribs, and Njord would understand that. Vidogg was sure of it.

A movement on the other side of the river caught his attention. Yes, an offering to the gods was in order. He hadn't seen what kind of an animal it was, but whatever it was, he would kill it and take the meat and hide with him to Vanaheim. Vidogg made his way over the rocks and fallen trees and through the bracken to the stream. He looked up just in time to see a woman disappear into the forest on the other side.

Strange. She had looked like Wesa. Frowning, Vidogg searched for a place where he could cross the river.

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Wesa shook her head in amazement. She had been afraid of this pathetic excuse for a man? She had played with him for hours now, letting him glimpse her, then disappearing into the forest as Kanetsidohi had taught her. And he honestly seemed to think she was simply going to lie down and let him ravage her, as he had done for four years. She shuddered at the memory of her treatment at his hands. He deserved what she and her friends were about to do to him.

She led him toward Lyfia, on whose slopes Kanetsidohi and Luvik waited. Probably enjoying each other's bodies, she realized with a grin. She held no grudge against her mentor for drugging her and sending her to Luvik a few weeks earlier. Luvik had been gentle, and careful to make her first experience with him utterly blissful. She remembered all of it, although through a rosy haze. She had needed no drugs since then. She had learned about pleasure and she liked it. A lot. The grin lit her face again as she thought about Kanetsidohi's plan, and she looked over her shoulder to make sure Vidogg hadn't lost her trail. Not yet. Not until sundown.

Just before dusk she left him behind, and as Kanetsidohi had predicted, he soon stopped and built a fire. From the darkness she watched him as Luvik and Kanetsidohi joined her. Wesa put her hand over her mouth to stop her laughter at what Kanetsidohi had done to Luvik.

He stood proudly naked, except for the bronze sword strapped to his back, and his fiery hair flew wildly about his head instead of in the single braid down his back as he normally wore it. He was the very picture of the trickster god, right down to his stiff man-flesh. It was time for Loki to go to Vidogg.

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"It is a great gift you have given me, Vidogg."

The hunter looked up from the strengthening tea he had brewed following Eira's instructions, gaping at the sight of Loki standing within the circle of light cast by his fire, his hands propped on his hips. "G-gift?" Vidogg stammered.

Loki smiled a smile like that of a wolf, and held out his arm. Vidogg blinked as Wesa came into the firelight and moved into the god's embrace. She, too, was naked save for the leather straps that held a bronze blade to her back.

"Witch!" Loki commanded. "Bring the potion." He kissed Wesa, fondling her breast as he did so, and Vidogg stared as his frigid wife made no complaint, indeed seemed to welcome the god's touch.

Chanting softly, Kanetsidohi stepped into the clearing, into the firelight, and approached Vidogg with a bowl of liquid. She was dressed - if you could call it that - like the others. For a moment Vidogg was frightened; the witch might tell Loki he had killed Wesa out of anger, not as a sacrifice, not as a gift. But as she placed the bowl in his hands, pausing in her chanting, all she said was, "Drink." Then she rose and joined the others, pressing her nude body against Loki's, her hand joining Wesa's on the god's mighty flesh. Both women continued to chant softly while caressing Loki's chest and belly, teasing his cock and balls.

"Drink," Loki commanded gently when the hunter hesitated, watching the tableau before him. "It is our gift to you, Vidogg. Because a god can never have too many eager wives."

Gift? God? Wives? Vidogg raised the bowl to his lips and drank greedily of the slightly bitter liquid.

Loki smiled approvingly and pressed gently down on the women's shoulders. Both of them sank to their knees and began to kiss his belly, his thighs and his hard flesh.

"What kind of a man," Loki asked Vidogg, "knifes a defenseless woman at the very foot of a holy mountain? What kind of man continually rapes his wife, and beats her because he can't keep his flesh hard any other way? What kind of man kills not one but four wives? What kind of reward does such a man deserve?"

"Pain and death," whispered Wesa.

"Pain and death," echoed Kanetsidohi.

"There now, you see?" Loki said. "We're agreed. Pain and death it shall be."

Vidogg felt the first faint stirrings of fear as a tremendous roiling in his gut. "What are you going to do, Loki?" he asked, somewhat shakily.

"Me?" Loki asked innocently. "I'm going to make love with the two most amazing women in the world. And we're going to watch you die."

As he spoke, excruciating pain lanced through Vidogg's chest; the potion had been poisoned, a spell cast upon him by the witch and her pupil. Vidogg opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came out. He watched helplessly, furious despite his pain, while Wesa eagerly accepted Loki's caresses, willingly spread her legs and accepted his man-flesh. The witch smiled and caressed Loki's hair and back as she waited her turn, only occasionally glancing in Vidogg's direction.

It wasn't long before Loki had Wesa shrieking her pleasure aloud, writhing and clinging to him in desperate desire. Then, moments later, she shuddered and sighed, relaxing as Loki withdrew from her and turned to the witch, taking his pleasure with her as he had with Wesa.

This was too much for Vidogg; it wasn't right that even a god should have two such women while he had none. Wesa was rightfully his. He set his jaw, his fury overcoming his fear of the god. He staggered to his feet and lunged toward the trio of lovers, drawing the knife he had taken from Valeg, the one he had killed Wesa with. This time he would make certain she stayed dead, and send the witch and her god/lover with her.

Luvik and Kanetsidohi, too involved with each other's bodies to pay any attention to Vidogg, didn't notice that their lives were in jeopardy. Wesa, however, had recovered enough from Luvik's attentions to become aware again of her surroundings, and she saw Vidogg coming. She jumped to her feet, finding her sword in her hand with no memory of having drawn it. She had no time to think about the relative size of her sword to Vidogg's knife. He was coming after her, after her friends, with the weapon she most hated and feared. She swung her sword, and Vidogg's head fell free, rolling into the fire as his body collapsed at her feet.

With her friends looking up at her in surprise, Wesa stared down at the body of the man who had tortured her for four years. He was dead, finally and completely, and by her hand, not from Kanetsidohi's spell. She had killed him. She had killed -

Luvik let Kanetsidohi up to attend to Wesa as she retched, sickened by having killed a human. He knew from experience that none of the witch's reassuring words would help. Killing sometimes had to be done, and few deserved it more than Vidogg, but the first time was nearly always hard, afterward if not before. He got to his feet and went to retrieve their clothes and horses.

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Luvik stayed with the women for a few more weeks, gradually becoming restless, despite having two women who were both willing and eager to bed him. Finally one morning he packed his gear onto his big gray horse, Feyd, kissed his lovers, and rode off without saying goodbye.

Kanetsidohi reassured Wesa that it was just the way Luvik was. "He comes and stays for a while," she explained. "Then he goes. He's a warrior, Wesa. He needs this place to rest, but if he rests too long, he won't be able to protect himself out there. I can practice with him, but he knows his life is in no danger from my sword, not while I wield it. It isn't enough. He needs to practice with someone who is actually trying to kill him. So he goes to war."

Wesa wiped her eyes. "What if someone kills him?" she asked.

"It is something that can happen to any of us, at any time," Kanetsidohi replied. "I explained the rules of the Game to you. As long as an Immortal is present when his head comes loose from his shoulders, Luvik's essence, his Quickening, will not be lost. We will find him again, I assure you. No one kills my friends and gets away with it." She rubbed her protégé's shoulder gently. "Don't try to bind him close, Wesa. Luvik has much in him that is as wild as his people were when I first found him. He needs freedom; he cannot be tamed completely."

Wesa sighed. "Yes, you're right of course, Kanetsidohi," she admitted. "Luvik isn't mine, or even ours. He belongs to himself. But I'll miss him."

The witch smiled. "Then apply yourself to your lessons, sister. The faster you learn, the sooner you'll be ready to leave here and go out on your own."

"Leave?" Wesa looked at Kanetsidohi worriedly. "Why would I leave?"

"Folkvang is Holy Ground, sister," Kanetsidohi laughed. "For you, I have already stayed here far longer than I usually would have done, because you need to learn in safety. When you are able to defend yourself we will leave here, and I will show you wonders you do not even suspect yet."

Wesa smiled faintly. "Tell me again about the mountains of your homeland, Kanetsidohi," she requested. "Are they really so tall that they scratch at the very sky? Are there truly dragons breathing smoke and flame living in the tops of them?"

Kanetsidohi laughed. "Well, I haven't climbed them to check for myself," she admitted, "but they look that tall, much taller than Lyfia." She gestured to the mountain that rose above Folkvang. "And though I've never actually seen any of the dragons, I have seen smoke, and sometimes even fire, coming from the tops of some of the mountains."

"Will you take me there?"

"Someday, sister," Kanetsidohi assured her, "but it is very far to my homeland, and there are many nearer wonders to show you."

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Kanetsidohi continued Wesa's training, teaching her many ways of self-defense, not only with her sword, but also the spells and enchantments that would help to keep her safe from other Immortals. They traveled beyond the boundaries of the world Wesa had known, leaving Scandinavia entirely and going east and south. Together they studied with the priests of Nebuchadnezzar and Imhotep, learning many strange things, both about themselves and about Immortals.

In the land that would one day be Greece, they met two men who would forever influence their lives, though at the time Methos and Kronos were merely students and lovers. Like Luvik, these men could never be tamed; indeed, they couldn't be controlled long enough for the witches' teachings to take, and it was with regret that Kanetsidohi released Kronos and Methos, sending them off to roam together, eventually taking students of their own.

True to her word, Kanetsidohi showed Wesa great wonders. The blonde village girl was amazed to see the Ural Mountains ... until she saw the Caucasus, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. The Himalayas left her breathless, and the natives' stories of a hairy, smelly wild man that lived above the snow line amused them both for many nights.

East of the Himalayas they discovered people with golden skin and black hair, who told enough stories about dragons to nearly satisfy even Wesa, and on a mountaintop in Africa, choking on the sulfur fumes, they finally saw the lair of such a beast, though not the beast itself. Wesa was disappointed, but Kanetsidohi pointed out that it would probably only have eaten them anyway, laughing and asking, "Didn't you get enough of lizards in all the time you spent watching the crocodiles in Egypt?"

They made their way back north, where a new pharaoh was building himself an immense stone tomb near where the Guardian kept watch, and they paused to marvel at the ingeniousness of his architects. Who else but the Egyptians would have thought to build an artificial mountain? Both witches were dismayed at the condition of the Guardian, however, and managed to get restoration work started on its body. The great leonine head, they were told, was damaged beyond repair by the unusually wet weather of recent centuries, and would have to be re-carved.

In Troy they purchased the finest horses they had seen anywhere on their travels, and heard of a new way to work iron that was being experimented with in Damascus. They went south again to see for themselves.

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Wesa held her new sword reverently, watching the sunlight run like liquid fire along the edge of the blade as she turned it. "It's magnificent, Kanetsidohi," she breathed, fitting her hands to the decorative grip. "It's perfect."

The elder witch smiled, trying out her own new blade. "I must say, the smith is quite an artist. The symbols on the grips are far more elaborate than my sketches," she told her friend.

"They're beautiful," Wesa agreed, "though I'm not certain that images of his goat-god might not get us in trouble some places."

Kanetsidohi laughed. "I'm not likely to go anywhere near Canaan again for a while," she said. "That whole 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live' thing made me nervous."

"Not to mention 'Thou shalt not kill,'" Wesa added, grinning. "It's one thing to fight another Immortal, someone who is as bound by the Rules of the Game as we are. To have the whole countryside mad at us just for being witches is something else entirely." She sighed and looked out at the dusty near-desert countryside just beyond the walls of the city. "I miss the forest, Kanetsidohi."

Her friend grinned slyly. "And Luvik?"

"Of course. And since you don't mind sharing..."

"As it happens, I received word from him two days ago," Kanetsidohi said, retrieving from her pack a piece of tanned elk-hide bearing runic symbols. She gave it to Wesa, adding, "He wants us to come home to Folkvang."

Wesa took it, studying the symbols intently; Kanetsidohi had taught her to read her native language within the first year they were together, but it was rare to have such a piece of writing addressed to her, no matter how indirectly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought I just did!" the elder witch teased. "Anyway, our swords weren't finished. I'd already paid for them; I didn't want to leave them behind."

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Watching from the forest above the battlefield, the Immortal witches waited for the correct time to descend, hoping it wouldn't be necessary.

Luvik had contacted them from the Karelian battlefield, and they had come with all possible haste from Damascus to where the Karelians fought the incursion of the Kurgans. When Luvik called, they always came.

"He said he was between twenty-five and thirty years old," Wesa said, "very tall, and dark-haired. He shouldn't be difficult to spot."

"They're all dark-haired," Kanetsidohi pointed out, "but look there!" She pointed.

"Gods!" Wesa exclaimed, rising to stand on the boulder on which she had been seated. "It's a giant!"

"He fights like a berserker," Kanetsidohi observed.

"Will we be able to control him, sister?" Wesa worried. "He's so big, and he's not going to like me any better than he would Luvik."

Kanetsidohi nodded. "We will take advantage of the legend we started the first time we rescued Luvik's body from a battlefield," she decided. "Put on your armor, sister, and we will be safe from your kinsmen, at least. Choose one of the warriors below who dies bravely. If the Kurgan giant dies, I will take his body from the battlefield, and you will pick up the one you have chosen. No one will wonder -"

"Luvik!" Wesa cried out in horror. "No!"

Below them, the telltale flashes of a Quickening bolted from a fallen body to the sky, accumulating in the low-lying clouds. On the battlefield, many of the warriors paused to watch, the Kurgan giant among them. His opponent, however, didn't let such mystical occurrences still his arm, and he plunged his sword into the giant's chest.

Kanetsidohi suddenly realized that Wesa had swung up onto her horse and was heading down to the battlefield as fast as the Trojan stallion could carry her. "Wesa, don't!" she called.

"I will not lose Luvik!" Wesa cried, brandishing her sword toward the heavens. "Strike me!" she commanded the clouds. "Wodin! Wodin! He is not for Valhalla! Luvik belongs to Sessrumnir! Give him back!"

"I hope she gets there in time," Kanetsidohi prayed, watching from the hill as her sister rode desperately toward the battlefield, her blonde hair flying free behind her.

The first of the return bolts knocked Wesa from her horse. She staggered to her feet to greet the second and third with her arms outstretched in welcome. The fourth knocked her to her knees once more while the warriors around her scattered in fear of being struck down by one of Wodin's lightning bolts. Such was Wodin's fury that even one of his Valkyries was not immune.

No one bothered the lonely Valkyrie who staggered to her feet and made her way to the body of the fallen warrior Wodin himself had taken directly to Valhalla. The battle resumed some way away, but the bards were no longer taking note of the fighting. They watched the sobbing blonde warrior-woman pick up the head of the warrior, cradling it as she sank to her knees once more beside the body of her beloved.

Another Valkyrie came. She picked up the body of the fallen giant, while her sister cried and gathered up the body of the flame-haired warrior Wodin had taken. They put the bodies on their magical steeds and carried them from the battlefield.

The bards would have a new story to tell tonight, and it would not be about the battle.

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The Kurgan objected to being part of a funeral for an enemy warrior, and he had no intention of staying at Kanetsidohi's house at Folkvang. Her hall, Sessrumnir, had been improved upon many times over the centuries, and was now practically a palace by the standards of the simple folk of the land around it. But the Kurgan didn't see it that way, and he wanted no part of rescue by Valkyries, especially Valkyries who mourned the death of one of his enemies.

"We cannot force you to stay," Kanetsidohi said, watching from a distance with the Kurgan as Wesa lit Luvik's funeral pyre. She frowned, fearing Wesa would fling herself into the fire, too. "Well, we could, but you would learn nothing from it. If you must go, remember that you are no longer what you were. You are Immortal now, and other Immortals will be trying to take your Quickening. You are safe from Immortals on Holy Ground, such as here at Folkvang, but if anyone, Immortal or not, separates your head from your shoulders, you will die permanently. You would be wise to remain here and get all the training I can give you."

He laughed sourly. "Not the other one? What did you say her name was - Wesa? Does she know then, that she can teach me nothing?"

"She fears she would kill you. One of your fellow Kurgans killed Luvik, and she isn't certain that in the heat of combat she wouldn't forget the difference and take your head." Kanetsidohi sighed, watching her sister mourn. "I knew Luvik longer, but I'm older; I have more control. I wouldn't kill you accidentally."

"Accidentally?" The Kurgan burst out laughing. He walked over to the barn where the horses were sheltered, laughing all the way. A few minutes later he emerged with a big black stallion, mounted him, and rode off, still laughing.

Wesa saw him and started to protest, but Kanetsidohi caught at her arm as she joined her beside the pyre. "But that was Luvik's favorite," she protested.

"He doesn't need him anymore, sister," the elder witch said softly. "I couldn't convince him to stay. And remember, it was because Luvik sensed the Kurgan that you were here to receive his Quickening. If not for that, we would have lost Luvik forever."

"We have!" Wesa wailed.

Kanetsidohi put her arms around her sister witch. "Not forever, Wesa. While you were studying medical texts with that priest of yours, I consulted with one of their witches. There is a way. We must return to Egypt."

The End.