To Fly With Valkyries

[Rudo]

Light.

The air was thick, a choking total blackness. The smell of bad food, stale water and human waste hed gotten used to. Hed learned to do without sight; to find and eat his rations in the dark, to find his lavatory by counting his steps. It didnt stop the yearning.

I yearn only for some light.

The old tales were popular among the Hessians. Possibly only popularized as a resistance against the Kirche der Grunnen Adler, a rejection of the Gottkanzler as a deity, the ancestral fables of Odin sacrificing his eye for a taste of the sacred well, or of those who were slain in battle rising to fight on the side of the Gods at the final battle of good and evil were cherished among a band who saw their kin die on several fronts day in and day out.

So bright. The light, it burns!

They were interrogating him again. Years had passed. Years to tell himself these stories from memory, the dark to brighten the imagination and strengthen his faith. When the raid on the shipment turned into an ambush, he had led the charge. He was the first one hit, and he was left to pay the price. Years had taught him that brotherhood and loyalty were more myth than tales from Old Earth. Valor and glory were the only qualities to aspire to.

I begin to see again.

He knew where to prove his valor, to find his glory. To repay the Hessians for leaving him to rot in the pits of Vierlande. They offered him his freedom in exchange for names, for a location. He could start over and earn his passage to Valhalla. He would.

I see it all so clearly now.

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