Chapter 4

Modern Day Northern Sweden - 3124 B.C.E.

They trudged through snow that was knee deep and getting deeper by the minute. The otherworldly howl of the wind drowned out all other sounds. The crisp, fresh smell of the snow mixed with the pleasing aroma of the surrounding pine forest. The pleasure of these new fragrances weren’t enough reward for Nerata’ari for the pain caused by the bitter cold; each inhalation was a dagger through her nose and into her brain. Her gloved hands instinctively pulled her hood further over her face as the wind hit her like a icy fist.

Each of them was fully dressed for battle; bronze chest armor, greaves, bracers, skirt, and helmet. On top of this, to keep out the sub-zero temperatures, they wore a thick coat of black bear fur, with pants and boots of the same material. They each carried two spears on their backs while a pair of khopeshes hung from their hips.

They reached the top of a small hill overlooking a broad valley. At the bottom was a series of small huts clustered as though even they needed to huddle together for warmth. Smoke rose from the center of each, their occupants desperate to keep out the cold. Past the far side of the valley, off in the distance, the sun sat just above the horizon but hidden by thick gray clouds, even though it was the middle of the day. Its attempt to warm the people below was pitiful at best. In a few more days it would sink below the horizon and not return for months, adding an even greater sense of urgency to their hunt.

They were here to speak to the villagers about a wolf that had been terrorizing the area for half a year. Sekhmet hoped they would be able to point her to the beast’s lair, but she felt the odds were pretty low. They wanted nothing to do with the beast, so took precautions to avoid it whenever possible. Still the creature claimed three men and a young boy, and untold livestock.

She didn’t want to alarm the inhabitants, so she transported herself and Nerata’ari far enough away from the hamlet so they wouldn’t be seen magically appearing. This meant an hours walk through a frozen tundra that they both regretted.

“Oh, over there!” Sekhmet screamed, trying to be heard over the wind. Nerata’ari thought her excitement was wholly too much considering the conditions.

She looked towards where her partner was currently running. About twenty yards to her right was a large game trail running perfectly straight down the hill. Even from this distance, and through the snowfall, Nerata’ari could see that it had been used recently. The snow was freshly packed along as much of it she could see. The bottom of it was nearly invisible to her thanks to the storm, but she doubted that whatever herd of animals cleared the path had stopped halfway down. Did she think the wolf came through here? It was impossible to see any footprints from this distance, but it was definitely worth a look.

She began trudging over the her lover, who was eagerly waiting for her.

“Hurry up slowpoke!”

The Oracle picked up the pace, but more for the chance of getting to the village, and warmth, faster than any other reason. She really hoped their next hunt was someplace warm.

She ducked under a fir tree branch brought low with the same heavy snow that blanketed everything around her. Unfortunately she didn’t bend far enough and her head brushed the bottom of the branch causing an small avalanche to crash down on her. For anyone else the weight of the snow would have knocked them to the ground, but for Nerata’ari’s unnatural strength it was little more than a slight stoop inducing inconvenience.

She brushed the snow off of her, more miserable than ever. She had snow down her coat and pants, as well as in her boots. Freezing to death would almost be welcomed compared to the agony she was in now.

Sekhmet came running over. The look of misery on Nerata’ari’s face must have been all too obvious; without a word the Goddess placed a hand on her shoulder and instantly warmed her lover as if she were in a tropical paradise.

“I’m sorry Nera” she said, using her pet name for her lover. She brought her hooded head close enough for a quick kiss, “I know this place sucks right now, but these people need us.”

She nodded in agreement. Nerata’ari may have been absolutely miserable, but that paled in comparison to the idea of these people being slaughtered. The Oracle wouldn’t have turned around no matter the cost.

“Besides, these are some of the worst conditions you’ll see in the entire world. If you can fight here, you can fight anywhere.”

Nerata’ari gave her lover a smirk that meant something in between “I know” and “You’re lucky I love you.”

“Let’s go” she said to her Goddess.

The two trudged hand in hand to the top of the game trail. Just as Nerata’ari had observed, a large herd of animals, probably reindeer judging by the tracks, had trampled a straight path down the hill. The snow was packed hard as stone. She wondered what would happen if she slipped and fell, shuddering at the thought. She still wasn’t over her fear of heights entirely, despite living at the top of a flying pyramid, and the thought of falling down this hill was almost making her dizzy.

As she turned her face towards the sky to right her senses she could feel her partner remove the spears from her back. Thinking there might be some danger she snapped her head back down, her hands flew to the handles of the khopeshes at her side. Instead of there being any danger she watched as Sekhmet threw all four spears as hard as she could, four slivers of black against a gray sky raced through the air before they both lost sight of them on their way into the valley below.

“You trust me right?”

“Of course my love” the Oracle replied, a bit apprehensively due to the suspicious nature of the question.

Sekhmet reached in for a quick kiss before shoving her lover backwards down the animal trail.

Nerata’ari landed hard on her ass. She knew this was a joke, but it sure didn’t feel like one. A second after her brain registered the pain from her landing it discovered a new sensation. She was moving backwards down the hill! She spun around to investigate and regretted it. Not only was she sliding down a vertigo inducingly steep hill, but she was gaining speed. Her heart pounded for all its worth, convinced that if it was time to go it was going out in a blaze of glory, while her stomach threw itself into her throat like a rat trying to escape a sinking ship.

She screamed so loud she thought it would bring an avalanche down on her. She could feel the uneven snow, packed down under the trampling of the herd, sliding beneath her butt as she gained speed. She frantically grabbed at anything that might slow her down, but her hands found no purchase, only more ice and snow. Kicking her feet at everything like a mad woman didn’t help either. She was left helpless to the terrifying mercy of gravity.

Trees were nothing more than blurs as she raced down the animal trail. Her throat began to hurt from screaming so loud even the wind that whip past her couldn’t drown it out. Her eyes stung from the million needles made of wind, ice, and snow that kept assaulting them.

She slowed down as she neared the bottom. The snow started getting softer here as well, the herd had fanned out here so the snow wasn’t as packed, causing more powder to hit her face. Suddenly her feet hit heavy, unpacked snow. Her body flew up, arms and legs spread wide, like a starfish tumbling through the air. The fresh snow cushioned her fall, but didn’t stop her from rolling a few times before she finally came to a rest. Snow filled all her clothes but she barely noticed, she was just glad to be at the bottom of the hill and no longer moving.

She heard laughter and screaming off to her right, followed by what she assumed was her lover’s body flopping into the snow. She looked and was not disappointed. Sekhmet lay a few feet away, a huge smile stretched across her beautiful face. Nerata’ari crawled to her and began pummeling her with slaps, each equal parts “ha ha, very funny” and “I’LL FUCKING END YOU IF YOU EVEN THINK OF DOING THAT SHIT AGAIN BITCH!”

Sekhmet just laughed through the beating. She knew her lover was afraid of heights, but couldn’t resist shoving her down the hill. She reached up and pulled Nerata’ari into a hug as they rolled through the snow.

Nerata’ari ended up back on top “I’m gonna kill you!”

“You love me too much” she replied with a smile.

The Oracle’s heart melted and she gave the Goddess a playful slap upside her helmet; “You’re lucky I do.”

“I am! I tell myself that everyday” she said before pulling Nerata’ari in for a make out session that lasted entirely too long for the weather conditions.

Soon they were up on their feet and trudging through the snow once more. In the valley there were no trees to catch some of the snow, making it nearly waist deep. The quarter mile trek to the village took an agonizingly long time.

The snow picked up now, as well as the wind. The women had to hold hands lest they lose each other in the blizzard. They couldn’t see more than a few yards in front of them, but the wind coming out of the east and hitting them in the right side carried the smell of wet beasts; most likely the herd of reindeer that made the trail down the hill. They would have missed the village altogether had it not been for that same wind carrying the smell of campfires off to their right.

Through a bit of a circuitous route they finally found the village. It consisted of a dozen huts arranged in a long oval. Each hut was about twenty feet long and half as wide. Nerata’ari ran a gloved hand over a wall as she walked past. It was made of rough stones, the gaps between filled with grass and mud. It looked like it would all be washed away in a heavy rain. She compared it to the stonework of her people. They worked the stone into precise blocks with tightly fitted joints, making beautiful buildings. These huts looked as though they were vomited out by the earth itself.

She chided herself. These people didn’t have the luxury hers did she thought. In Egypt workers could spend as much time as they pleased to make sure a stone was perfect. Here, if they weren’t done before it got too cold an entire family would freeze to death.

They rounded a corner and went to the first door they found, if it could be called that. Each entrance was nothing more than a gap in the wall covered by layer upon layer of animal skins to ward off the cold. At the top and bottom were a couple of stones clumsily placed to keep the skins from blowing away in the wind. As feeble as they were, they looked far warmer than the thatch roof that crowned each hovel.

“Hello” Sekhmet called through the flaps of hides. Nerata’ari was startled by the sound. She distinctly heard the greeting in a language unfamiliar to her, yet she understood it as though it was her native tongue. It must have been some sort of power Sekhmet gave her but forgot to mention.

They heard a confused ruckus from within. Whoever was in there obviously wasn’t expecting guests.

A few seconds later a man came out of the hut. He stood over a foot taller than either of the women, with arms the looked larger around than their torsos. He was covered head to toe in animal furs, with only his face exposed to the elements. He had a thick, unkempt reddish blond beard with unruly eyebrows to match. His hazel eyes were almost feral, with a look somewhere between confusion and open hostility.

“What?” he asked with a gruff voice and manner that betrayed the fact that he would rather be anywhere but talking to them.

“We’re here to hunt the wolf” Sekhmet answered.

The huge man roared with a belly rumbling laugh. He struggled to call his sons out to see.

Three more fur covered figures stepped out of the hut. The youngest was probably twelve and already the same height as Nerata’ari, while the older two were nearly the size of their father.

“These little women think they can kill the beast!” the father roared. Each boy erupted like their father.

Nerata’ari was angered by their reaction, but Sekhmet was downright enraged at their arrogance.

The Goddess fixed him with a stare colder than the wind chill and growled.

“I’m sorry, did I make you mad?” he asked as though speaking to a child. He reached out to rub the top of Sekhmet’s head. The instant his hand made contact with her hood her right hand closed on his wrist while the palm of her left shattered all the bones in his elbow. He doubled over, his howl of pain cut short by her knee slamming into his face, breaking his jaw and knocking him unconscious. The boys made a move as though to attack, but Nerata’ari had both her khopeshes out in a flash. Even in the dying light filtered by the clouds they could see she brandished weapons the likes of which they’d never seen, and made out of a material completely alien to them.

“Valkyries!” one of the boys gasped in horror. They scrambled back into their hovel, almost forgetting to drag their crippled father with them.

“Who can help us find the beast?” Sekhmet yelled after them.

The youngest boy poked his head out from behind the fur door. Nerata’ari pointed a khopesh at him, the tip inches from his face, and gave him an emotionless stare. The boy flinched, sure death was imminent. He opened his eyes when he realized the blow never came and looked up at the women. Slowly, a quivering hand came out and pointed diagonally across the way to a hut nearly identical to his own.

Both women looked in the direction he was pointing, giving him the opportunity to scramble back inside.

Nerata’ari took Sekhmet’s hand gently in hers, as though she was silently apologizing to the Goddess on behalf of her species. The two walked hand in hand to the indicated hut.

This man and the thoughts of her brother made Nerata’ari’s blood boil. What made men this way the Oracle asked herself. They’re arrogant beyond measure, and their only other quality that comes close to it is their stupidity. They’re too narrow minded to recognize anyone’s abilities other than their own, which are always self aggrandized, and demand respect while giving none. There’s no right way other than their own and their happy to stay this dimwitted. They’re downright pathetic; their masculinity is bruised by the slightest rejection of a woman which makes one wonder how they can claim masculinity is something good if it can be so easily destroyed. This in turn makes them angry and violent. She honestly wondered if women could magically reproduce by themselves would the human race be better off?

Sekhmet took a deep breath before yelling into this house. She was here to help these people, not break all their arms. Then there was the fact that she didn’t want her last encounter to sour this one.

She slapped a rock on the side of the entrance while yelling a greeting. A massive head the size of a pumpkin emerged from behind the curtain of animal skins. Wild, unkempt black hair tumbled this way and that from it’s crown and beard while savage eyes a deep brown and looking as though they belonged to a madman scanned the women thoroughly. They stopped on the khopesh Nerata’ari still brandished in her free hand, then scanned them once more.

Apparently satisfied with what he saw, the disembodied head replied “Come inside. It’s too cold to make guests stand outside.”

Nerata’ari hesitated. Perhaps it was what happened a minute earlier, or her general distaste for men, but she didn’t like the idea of entering.

Sekhmet sensed her partner’s apprehension. She couldn’t blame her. Nera had few interactions with men in her life due to being a priestess. Her brother may only have been kind to her, at least until their last meeting, because they were related. The men who desecrated her temple would have killed her on the spot, and the last guy was an asshole. She tugged at the hand she was still holding on to, “It’s ok. Not all men are bad, just like not all women are good.”

Nerata’ari returned the smile. She knew she was right, and felt shame for her feelings about men. Without a word she resheathed her sword and followed Sekhmet inside.

Considering the outside of the hut, the inside didn’t disappoint. The walls were the same stone as the outside, no extra measures had been taken to make them look nicer or keep out the cold. The thatch roof that defied expectations by actually doing it’s job at keeping out the cold was supported by a handful of large beams, bare tree trunks really, that ran the length of the hut. In the center of the far wall was a large fireplace. It was crude, mostly just a hole in the wall with another wall built around it, but it warmed the hovel all the same. The floor was bare dirt, the grass that once occupied the space had been trampled and killed long ago. A small collection of stone tools and weapons filled one corner. There were piles of straw buried beneath mounds of animal furs in a semi circle around the fire. Nerata’ari guessed these were beds for the occupants. Along the other wall were piles of firewood meant to last the winter.

The head that invited them in was attached to an enormous man, at least a head height taller than the last guy. Nerata’ari stared for a minute, she never knew humans could grow so large. He was only wearing pants, it was far too hot inside for much more. He had pale skin, far fairer than the Oracle had even seen, stretched taut across shoulders nearly as wide as she was tall. The beast of a man had more muscle than the next four guys put together. The pants he wore were thick brown fur and held up with a simple cord tied around his lean waist. He wore nothing on his feet, exposing the rough, callused feet the size of her thighs to the elements.