“Please help me lift this stone,” Tam Nok said.
“We do not have time for all this!” Penarddun said. “Dawn will be here soon and we must be away by then.”
Ragnarok looked down. He had no idea how deep the stone went into the ground. He put his ax down and squatted, wrapping both arms around the rock. He lifted with his legs, straining.
The stone didn’t move at all.
He tried once more, putting all his energy into moving up. His hands slid off the stone and he fell backwards onto the cold dirt. He started to get up then paused, putting his head against the ground. He listened for several seconds, then stood.
“Someone is coming.” Ragnarok pointed to the east. “From that direction. Mounted on horses.”
Penarddun stepped back. “The King’s men.”
Tam Nok was looking in the direction he pointed, then she slowly pivoted, doing a complete circle. “Others are coming also. More dangerous than men on horses. Valkyries. And something else,” her voice trailed off as if she were listening. “Someone else is coming.”
Ragnarok picked up his ax. He did not like their situation- in the middle of a large plain with horsemen and demonesses bearing down on them. “We must go.”
“We have to get what is under the stone!” Tam Nok existed.
“It will do us no good if we’re dead,” Ragnarok argued. “And I cannot lift it right now by myself.”
Penarddun was still moving, passing through the lintel of the inner circle, escaping to the west.
Ragnarok grabbed Tam Nok’s arm. “We must leave now.” He pulled her after Penarddun. The eastern sky was brighter, the sun ready to rise above the horizon.
Tam Nok shook his hand off her shoulder. “We have to get what is under the stone.”
“Fine,” Ragnarok agreed. “Tomorrow night. Now, can we get out of here?”
Tam Nok pulled her hood back up and followed through the inner circle then the outer. Ragnarok could hear the horses now, hooves thudding on hard-packed dirt, coming closer. He looked over his shoulder. A troop of men, about eight or nine, were a half mile away and heading directly for Stonehenge.
Tam Nok dashed forward and grabbed Penarddun. “That way!” She pointed to the north.
“We can make the barrows and hide,” Penarddun protested.
“There is more danger from the barrows,” Tam Nok said. “The Valkyries are coming from there.” Without another word, she ran to the north. Penarddun glanced at Ragnarok, who shrugged then sprinted after his charge. The druid priestess followed.
Ragnarok felt a chill on his neck, even as he began releasing the battle lust inside of himself. They were clear of the outer circle of standing stones. The horsemen were still heading toward Stonehenge, not aware that there were interlopers in the area.
Ragnarok and his companions passed through the small ditch and were clear of Stonehenge. The nearest barrow was a half mile away. Ragnarok knew if they were spotted, the horsemen could run them down before they could reach that cover. And the sky to the east was growing brighter with each passing moment.
Ragnarok stopped and turned, not to the east, but facing south. He realized Tam Nok had also stopped and was looking in the same direction. Penarddun ran a few more yards then also stopped.
Something was moving very fast in the southern sky, coming directly toward them, about a hundred feet up in the air.
Ragnarok released the battle rage. Three Valkyries were coming toward them, blood red cloaks floating behind in the air.
Ragnarok heard yells to his left- the horsemen had spotted him and his partners. The Valkyries would be on them before the horsemen and there was no doubt which was the greater threat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tam Nok pull the small shield she had used in the fjord out of her cloak and unsheathe her long knife. The shield was a foot high by six inches thick- not very large in Ragnarok’s opinion.
“We will cross to Valhalla together,” he said.
“You are in too much of a rush to die, warrior,” Tam Nok said. “Think about living.”
Penarddun was behind them. She had dropped to her knees upon spotting the Valkyries and she was chanting in her druid tongue.
The Valkyries spread out, twenty feet between each, and descended until they touched the ground less than ten feet in front of Ragnarok and Tam Nok.
“Hlokk, Goll and Skogul,” Tam Nok said, identifying the creatures from left to right.
Ragnarok knew the names from the legends his mother had told him- Hlokk the Shrieker, Goll the Screamer and Skogul the Rager. The only way he could tell the difference between them was the pattern of red and black on their cloaks and he didn’t have the time right now to study that.
“I have never seen them out of the mist, in the open,” Tam Nok said. “This is something new.”
Ragnarok cared little for their names or if this was something new. So far the creatures had been totally silent. They were tall dark shadows, seven feet tall, their shape hidden under their cloaks, their faces flat and featureless except for the burning red eyes. Ragnarok felt the malevolence of that stare like the fury of a pack of wolves closing on a wounded animal.
Ragnarok had never believed in giving away the initiative. Without another thought, he dashed forward, ax upraised toward the Valkyrie on the right, Skogul.
He swung a mighty blow and Skogul swept a long arm out and took the blade straight on. Ragnarok’s arms almost went numb from the recoil of the ax bouncing off the Valkyrie’s arm without leaving a dent. With the other arm, Skogul hit the Viking a back-handed blow on the side and threw him ten feet in a tumble.
Ragnarok got to his knees, then his feet, shaking his head. The other two Valkyries were circling around Tam Nok and Penarddun. Skogul was flowing forward toward Ragnarok, claws now extended on both hands, the bottom of her cloak a few inches clear of the ground with nothing apparently supporting her.
A thundering sound came from behind. A horse and rider flashed by Ragnarok on his right, the rider screaming a war cry, tip of the spear leading.
Skogul slid left, the spear just missing. The creature’s left hand, claws first, slammed into the rider’s chest, piercing the linked-iron armor shirt. The warrior screamed and writhed like a spitted fish as Skogul lifted him off the horse which bolted away in terror.
Ragnarok growled and ran forward, swinging his ax at the arm that held the man. Skogul threw the dying warrior directly at the Viking, knocking him to the ground once more and covering him with the last spurts of blood out of the Saxon’s chest.
The rest of the mounted warriors were thundering down on the Valkyries screaming their war cries. A golden beam shot out from Goll toward Tam Nok, who reflected it with her small shield. Another beam from Hlokk flashed and was bounced away.
Then the seven remaining soldiers of the king were among the Valkyries in a flurry of swords, spears and claws. Tam Nok grabbed Ragnarok as he started to charge toward Skogul once more.
“No! You cannot defeat them here and now!”
Ragnarok heard the screams of the men being killed by the demon creatures. Penarddun was already fifty feet away and running furiously to the north, toward the river. Ragnarok felt caught- between fighting the Valkyries, the King’s men, and doing what his charge said.
Tam Nok pulled him once more and Ragnarok followed. She moved surprisingly quickly and he had to lengthen his stride to keep up. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw that only two warriors still stood, unhorsed, fighting back to back as the three Valkyries closed in. And then they were down in a flurry of claws.
The first ray of the sun sliced across the plain and hit the memory stone, casting a long shadow toward the center Mega-Sarsen stones.
Ragnarok paused as the Valkyries screamed in unison, the sound echoing across the plane. He stopped and spun, ax at the ready. But the three were leaving the corpses, bloody claws reluctantly letting go of mangled bodies. They floated up almost a hundred feet and then as if blown by a strong wind, rapidly disappeared to the west, chasing the darkness.