The Last Valkyrie: Chapter One

The young shieldmaiden watched the Valkyrie storm into the forest, holding a gleaming battle axe in one fist with a long auburn braid swinging down her back, ignorant of the rainclouds forming overhead, fearless of the darkness.

Of course, she was not truly a Valkyrie. She was only Eira’s mother. But sometimes, watching Greta Agnarsdottir walk into a storm, it was hard for Eira to tell the difference.

Eira followed her, holding her breath. Though she had grown nearly as tall as her mother, she worried her shoulders would never be quite as broad, nor her arms as strong, nor her hands as sure.

She tripped on a root, making her curse under her breath. Her mother never stumbled, but Eira did. Sometimes she thought she knew the ground better than the sky.

“Hurry up, daughter. We lose light early today,” her mother’s voice called from the shadows ahead.

Eira paused at the treeline, lifting her face to the darkening sky. Already she could feel the first icy raindrops needling the back of her neck. She tried to ignore the discomfort as she rushed into the forest’s shade, where a fresh cold swallowed her.

“It’s going to storm,” she said.

“Yes.” Her mother, already a few paces ahead, glanced back at her daughter but didn’t slow. “Come.”

Eira hurried after her, pulling her cloak tighter. The smell of hearthsmoke from their longhouse still clung to the scratchy fabric. She had already torn it twice in her forays into the woods; her mother’s mending stitches showed. But it was warm, and out here, warmth mattered more than pride.

The forest path was her favorite road in the world, which was fortunate, for she had walked it more times than she could count. She knew every root that crossed it, every stone that wobbled underfoot, every place where the pine canopy thinned enough to show a strip of sky. She knew it in summer when it smelled of warm earth and birdsong, and she knew it in rain, like today, when the trees closed dark around her and the ground softened and sucked at her boots.

She knew it because her mother had walked it with her, almost every day of her eighteen winters. And on those days, even a stormy forest felt like the safest place in the world.

So why did today feel different? She sniffed the air, smelling the familiar musk of wet earth and pine resin. But there was something else lurking underneath it today, older and more alive.

Stifling a shudder, Eira lengthened her stride.

The training ground was still a good walk ahead, a flat clearing sheltered between two hills where her mother had taught her everything she knew. This land was where she had learned every strike, every foothold, every way to read an opponent’s body before they moved. If Eira trained hard enough, she might earn a place among Jarl Harald’s hird of warriors. At eighteen winters she was old enough. It was time to find out if she was ready.

She had been telling herself that for months—usually while lying awake at night, tracing circles around her arm, imagining the weight of the jarl’s oath ring there. She had watched the hird train in the yard outside Harald’s longhouse often enough to know their names and faces: broad Erik with his booming laugh; Kjartan who preferred fighting with two battle axes and no shield; Runa, the only woman left among them, who sometimes caught Eira’s eye where she hid in the shadows of the trees, watching.

She wanted to stand among them, the same way she wanted a fire on a cold night or a meal when her stomach grumbled. Her mother had all but promised her she would battle alongside them one day.

But now, facing this storm, she wasn’t so sure.

“Do you smell that?” she asked.

Greta glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows arched in question. “What do you smell?”

Eira inhaled again. The stench made her stomach lurch. “Fur and old meat, I think.”

Her mother nodded. “Good, Eira.” She scanned the shadows between the trees. “Your nose will save your life one day, if you learn to trust it.”

“Is it wolves?”

“Probably.” Greta picked up her pace. “But they won’t come near us. Wolves prefer to be left alone.”

Like me, Eira thought.

But she wasn’t so sure her mother was right about the wolves today. She had seen what the beasts did to a farmer’s goats the previous winter, leaving nothing but scattered flesh and fur and blood that was black against the snow. The memory turned her stomach sour. But her mother strode forward as though the forest were her own hall, her worn shield hanging proud on her back, her hair glistening like amber in the rain.

“Móðir,” Eira asked, “do you never feel afraid?”

Greta gave a low chuckle. “Often.”

“Well, you never show it,” Eira complained. As much as she admired her mother when she wielded her axe like this, sometimes she preferred her mother around the hearth at night, braiding her hair and humming old songs. Less a shieldmaiden, no longer the Valkyrie—just a woman. Her móðir.

“Showing fear and feeling it are different things.” Greta ducked beneath a low-hanging branch, then held it back for Eira to pass. “Fear should never make your decisions for you. Wield it like a weapon instead. Notice how sharp it is, and you will find it very useful.”

Eira turned this over in her mind as they walked deeper into the pines. The rain strengthened, drumming against the canopy above them, dripping in cold threads through the branches. She could feel it working its way under her collar, each drop a small shock against her skin. She hunched her shoulders in a vain attempt to shield herself from the onslaught.

At least the noise of the storm drowned out other sounds. In a way, the rainfall deafened her to everything else—a relief. Still she breathed in through her nose, counting silently the way her mother had taught her when things became overwhelming.

Stay here, she told herself. Stay present.

Greta stopped and turned to face her, studying her in the gray light with those piercing eyes. Then she reached out and tucked a wet strand of hair behind Eira’s ear, one of the few touches Eira never flinched from.

“I knew you were different before you were even born,” she said softly. “From the first moment you stirred in my belly. You were careful, deliberate. I think you were listening to the world before you entered it.”

Eira said nothing. She knew how the others in the village saw her, as ugly and strange, someone to be pitied or avoided. The butcher’s wife crossed to the other side of the path when Eira passed, and the young men looked straight through her as though she were made of air, which was somehow worse than cruelty. The other village girls were already marrying and bearing children, building lives that seemed as foreign to Eira as the bottom of the sea. Without a husband, a woman had nothing—unless she took up axe and shield the way her mother had, the way Runa still did. A shieldmaiden could forge her own fate, so long as she was brave enough to reach for it. This was what her mother had always promised her. And coming from her lips, different was not an insult.

“The village thinks feeling too much is a weakness,” Greta continued, her thumb grazing Eira’s cheekbone once before dropping away. “They thought the same of me, when I began speaking of my dark dreams.” Something shifted behind her eyes. “Perhaps they are right to fear it. But they were wrong to shun it.”

“They took your oath ring for it,” Eira said quietly.

“They did.” Her mother’s voice was even, as if just noticing the weather. Eira had never understood how she bore the insult without bitterness. She herself felt the injustice of it like a splinter under the skin. “Harald decided a shieldmaiden who dreamed of Ragnarök was more trouble than she was worth. A woman who sees shapes in the hearthsmoke makes the men nervous.” The corner of Greta’s mouth lifted. “Nervous men make poor warriors.”

Though her mother’s words were calm now, Eira had heard her describe the dreams. Echoes of Valkyries. Armies of draugrs marching through endless winter. Blood splattered across snow like wine spilled at a feast. She shivered now, as she always did when she thought of them. Most in the village doubted her mother—or pretended to, while they huddled close and shuddered—but not Eira. She knew the gods had touched her mother, making her messenger to Midgard, a burden and a blessing both.

“Do you miss fighting with the hird?” she asked.

Greta looked at her for a long moment. “I miss belonging there.” She tapped Eira’s upper arm, where an oath ring would sit. “You will find your belonging, Eira, but it may not look the way you expect.”

Eira raised her eyebrows. She wanted to ask what her mother meant. Had she seen something in her smoke-visions? Had the Norns shown her something of her fate?

But Greta was already dropping into a battle stance, battle axe in hand.

“Time to train,” she said with that wicked smile that always made Eira’s blood rush faster. “Show me what you remember from last week.”

Eira pulled her axe free and bent her knees into a warrior’s stance. The sight of her mother across from her like this—axe in one hand, shield in the other, a snarl on her lips—made something ache inside of Eira. She wanted to be that someday.: a shieldmaiden worthy of living among the gods in the next life.

Eira wrenched her shield up just before Greta struck, fast as a snake. She blocked it, barely.

Too slow, she thought to herself. You were too slow.

Thunder rumbled like distant war drums as Eira swung her axe overhead and brought it crashing down. The blunted blade thwacked against her mother’s shield, the sound muted beneath the roar of the rain.

Lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the woods for a single heartbeat, raindrops glittering on pine needles like gemstones. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her nostrils full of damp earth and pine.

“Again, Eira!”

Eira swung again, landing a blow against her mother’s thigh.

“Focus!”

The rain was a wall of noise now, pressing against her from every side. She tried to ignore the feel of it trickling across her skin, but that was impossible. It found every gap in her cloak and made itself known there. The wet wool of her dress had twisted around her legs, clinging and pulling with every step. Her hair was plastered to her neck in a way that made her want to claw at her own skin. She knew this feeling, the world narrowing to nothing but sensation, every nerve screaming at once until there was no room left for thought.

Sound sharpened. Light fractured. The edge of her shield felt too heavy in her hand.

She had to breathe through it. She had to stay here.

“Embrace the sensations, Eira,” her mother said. “Do not let them engulf you. Let them flow over you. Let them be your guide.”

Easy to say, she thought. Her mother did not have skin that burned in the rain.

She had to carry on. If she could not handle this storm with only her mother as foe, how would she survive on a real battlefield? This training would prepare her for the holmgang that would prove her skill to Jarl Harald. Once she was part of his hird, she would fight for her village until death swept her away. And if it was an honorable death, the goddess Freyja might find her on the battlefield and invite her to join her Valkyries.

Perhaps in that life, Eira would not find the world too much anymore. The thought was the only thing that kept her moving.

She took a small step forward, struggling not to lose her balance as her boots squelched in the mud. With her shield arm she rammed her shoulder toward her mother, pressing their shields together like a pair of rams with locked horns.

“Follow with an attack. Try to disarm me.”

A flash of lightning cut the sky, followed a heartbeat later by a thunderclap. The rain beat harder, almost blinding her.

Thor is here, she thought, her skin prickling at the presence of the gods.

Her mother’s axe glinted in a spark of lightning. Eira lifted her shield just in time to block the blow, but it sent a jolt up her arm. Greta did not hold back, and now Eira had lost her advantage.

Another lightning strike lit the dark forest. For a heartbeat, the trees themselves seemed to come alive, shifting and twisting.

Tricks of the stormlight, she told herself, though a shiver raced down her spine.

“Rest,” her mother said, lowering her shield. “I smell the wolves closer now.”

Eira bent forward with hands on her knees, grateful for the reprieve. Rain streamed down her nose and dripped from her chin. Across from her, Greta stood straight as a pine, barely winded.

“Perhaps it’s Fenrir,” Eira remarked, half-laughing.

Mother chuckled. “And do you know why the gods feared Fenrir?”

There it was. Eira had heard this story so many times she could recite it in her sleep, but she had learned long ago that her mother told it for a reason. “Because he was a wolf, the son of Loki, and too strong to be fought honestly,” she said.

“All of the prophecies said he would spell their doom,” her mother continued, “and so they bound him. But each time, Fenrir broke free. So they asked the dwarves to forge an unbreakable chain, thin as silk. But Fenrir grew suspicious of their tricks. So the god Tyr stepped forward…” She paused, watching Eira, waiting.

“And Tyr put his hand in the wolf’s mouth as a pledge that they would not trick him,” Eira finished. “So Fenrir would trust them. He thought he could break the new chain just like he did the old ones. But this time, the chain held.” Eira swallowed. “So Fenrir bit off Tyr’s hand.”

Her mother cast her a grim smile. “The gods knew the wolf would break free one day regardless. Fenrir is destined for it. He’s still chained in a cave out there—only the gods know where—waiting for the end. And when he finally breaks free…”

“Ragnarök,” Eira whispered, shivering.

Her mother nodded, her eyes darkening.

“So the gods only bought themselves time,” Eira mused.

Greta lifted her shield again, her eyes scanning the shadows through the downpour. “Sometimes that is all any of us can do.”

Eira opened her mouth to ask what she meant by that—whether she was speaking of Ragnarök or something else—but a growl from the trees cut her breath short. A crack of thunder swallowed whatever sound came next.

And then, through the curtain of rain, Eira saw them.

Eyes. Dozens of eyes, glowing like embers in the dark.

Eira’s stomach dropped as a pack of wolves stalked from the underbrush, padding silently through the mud, their dark fur shaggy and dripping with rain. The stink of their hot, rotting breath made her want to gag. More and more kept coming, spreading out to encircle them.

“Quick, put your back to a tree!” her mother cried.

Eira pressed her back to a pine. The crunch of branches at her side made her jump. A wolf appeared beside her, lips curling into a snarl, its head level with her waist.

One snap of that jaw…

She did not finish the thought. Her instincts took over.

She struck at the wolf with her blunted axe, smacking it in the side. It yelped as it skittered across the forest floor. When it scrambled upright, a fresh loathing gleamed in its yellow eyes.

Eira glanced at her mother. Greta had her battle axe in hand once more.

Eira looked down at her own training weapon, blunt and useless as a child’s toy. She couldn’t help her mother like this.

The wolf she had hit lowered its head, glowering at her. Eira’s heart pounded harder, making her whole body thrum to its terrible beat.

The wolf loped forward, growling.

Eira shut her eyes just as Greta’s axe burrowed into the wolf’s backside. She could barely hear the crunch of bones under the downpour. When she dared open her eyes, she saw the wolf was already splayed on its side in the mud.

The wolves would not forgive that. As one, they jumped.

Her mother whirled and slashed at the oncoming wolves. But there were so many. For each one Greta cut down, two more emerged from the trees.

“Run, Eira! There is nothing you can do here. Run and get help!”

Greta let out a fierce battle cry, sweeping her axe in a wide arc. Blood sprayed, steaming in the chilled air. She moved with the grace of a Valkyrie, her braid flying behind her.

Eira stood frozen. She could not leave. She could not stay. Her feet had forgotten which direction was away.

Another wolf lunged for her mother. She spun and split its skull. But as she recovered, two more leapt onto her, bearing her to the ground.

“Mother!”

Greta wrestled beneath them, sinking her axe into one’s belly even as the other tore at her shoulder. And still the storm came. The rain screamed in Eira’s ears, and the wind clawed at her skin, and the wolves kept fighting. Beneath the din, her mother’s voice grew distant, as though she were fading into a dream.

Eira stood with her useless weapon in hand, the world swirling around her. Sound became a roar without shape. The wolves blurred together. The rain felt like stones.

She could not think, could not breathe, could not move.

She closed her eyes. If she couldn’t see it, perhaps it would stop.

“Ragnarök is coming,” her mother’s voice called through the rain.

Was that real? It did not sound like a shout anymore. It sounded like it came from inside Eira’s own chest.

“Go, daughter.” Her mother’s voice was the rasp of leaves in a gentle breeze. It made no sense in the cacophony of the tempest that tore through the forest, yet there it was, calm and quiet as a summer day. “I am going somewhere you cannot follow. But I will see you again.”

Eira opened her eyes. Her mother’s body was lost in the writhing sea of wolves.

Get up, Móðir, she thought. Then, her lips moving: “Get up!”

She waited for her mother to rise. Greta Agnarsdottir always rose.

But not this time. 

She waited one more heartbeat—for what, she could not have said. But when one of the wolves turned its glowing eyes on her, she stumbled backwards, her heart leaping into her throat. She spat bile onto the forest floor. Tears joined the rainwater streaming down her face.

She had always believed she would stay. That when the moment came, she would be her mother’s daughter.

Now she knew the truth.

Whispering prayers to the gods, she stumbled into the dark.

© Ashley Hagood 2026