She ran. She did not know how long she had been running. She did not know where she was running to. She did not care. The world seemed a blur. Whether due to her speed, the focus of her mind, or the sting of the soot filled air in her eyes, she did not know. She did not care. Sweat poured. Wet hair clung to her face. Her throat burned, choked from the smoke which hung heavy in the air around her. Her nostrils drippled snot. Still, she ran. Heart racing. Lungs stinging. Feet aching. Legs burning. She did not dare to look over her shoulder. She was safe now. Or as safe as she could be. She ran on. She knew if she stopped, she would not be safe for long. Her stomach turned and twisted. Whether from hunger or from fear she did not know. She did not care. Danger was coming. Death was coming. She quickened her pace.
The ground beneath her feet was scared black and covered with ash. Broken shale tore at her bare feet. Unknown objects hidden under ash crunched and crumbled beneath her. What few trees stood were little more than grotesque charcoal pillars against a blackened horizon. The air was hot. Unbearably so. She coughed as she gasped for air which burned the soft tissue of her lungs. She did not care. She ran on. Seconds felt like minutes. Minutes like hours. Time was strange to her. This world was strange to her. Screams rang in her ears though the world around her was silent and still. The sound of battle. The sound of suffering. The sound of horns and the tramp of boots. Visions. Visions of fire. Of dismembered corpses strewn across the ground. Flashes. She could not make sense of it. Nothing she could do could shake it. Her head pounded. Aching. Pressure building.
She stumbled. Tripped and fell. A glance over her shoulder. Roiling clouds of darkened ash behind her. The stench of desiccation all around her. Her only path was forward. Forward into the unknown. Anywhere. Anyway. Any place that was not this. She stood and continued to run. She did not make it far. An impact. Hard. She fell back, hitting the soft cushioning of ash on the ground. She looked up. A figure. Man or woman she could not tell. A form of ash and burning charcoal. The air around it warped like ripples in water. The heat was intense. Her skin scarred and blistered. She met its gaze. It was hollow. Two smoldering embers wreathed in plumes of billowing smoke. It moved towards her. She tried to stand. Tried to run. Her muscles were paralyzed. She could feel the heat growing as the figure approached. Her nostrils filled with the sweet putrescence of her own burning hair and flesh. She tried to scream but her voice was choked with ash and soot. As the figure closed around her, burning her to nothing. In her last moments, she saw something in the corner of here eye. A blurred vision of something pale white. That was all she could make out before all faded to black.
Una awoke on her back in a puddle of her own sweat. Her head ached as it had in her dream. A relentless pulsing of pressure that would not subside. Her mouth was dry. Her arms and legs were stiff and aching though she was able to move them. A sigh of relief. She lay there for a moment, trying to remember her dream. It had been the same dream every night for as long as she could remember. When it first started, many years ago, it came in flashes. Bits and pieces. One part one night, the next another. Each piece slowly fitting together until some sense could be made of it. Now it would change from time to time. Sometimes it ended sooner, sometimes she could run on for much longer before… before she died. This time however, the ending was new. She still died in the same manner, but that thing at the end, the vision of white. She tried to remember, tried to clarify what she had seen in her periphery. She squeezed her eyes and thought hard. The effort made her head ache even more. Her eyes darted back and forth beneath her eye lids, trying to recall. Nothing. She gave up.
Una began to kick at the tented blanket above her. It was heavy. As she kicked it, it began to lighten. Cracks of dim flickering torch light began to come through the imperfections in the weave. When she felt that the blanket was light enough, she removed it from herself. Despite her efforts, a handful of ash still fell onto her face and into her mouth. She sputtered, spit out what ash she could and wiped the rest which clung to her cracked lips. She sat up and hit her head on something hard.
"Fuck!" she shouted in a whisper through gritted teeth.
Una put her hand to the top of her head and pressed down hard to relieve the shock of pain. The impact had caused her headache to pulse even harder. She cursed again. She rolled over far enough to maneuver her legs down to the creaking ladder that led to her second level bunk. Her feet met cool ash as she reached the floor and moved to a small locked chest at the head of the bunk. She lifted a key which was affixed to a chain which hung about her neck, unlocked the chest, pulled out her socks, her boots, and her weapons belt and put them on. She removed a bearded hand axe and a seax held in a sheepskin sheath. She tied the sheath to her belt, and slipped the axe into a loop on the opposite side. Before closing the chest, she removed a long scarf which she tied around her head, covering all but her eyes, and took a moment to glair at the wooden beam above her bunk, upon which she had hit her head. Again. She walked towards a door, down a line of over a half dozen double bunks filled with sleeping figures. Her footsteps muffled by the ash covered floor and by the snores of the sleeping figures.
A strong wind blew as she closed the door to the building behind her. All above her was black. It was not yet dawn. Though even if it were, the thick clouds of ash which blotted out the sky made it impossible to tell. She walked to a stone well in the center of a courtyard surrounded by other buildings. Lifting a corner of the leather which covered the well, she withdrew a small bucket, separated her scarf so she could raise it to her lips, and drank. The cool taste of the water washed away the memory of the choking ash that had filled her dream. She made her way to the largest structure on the northern side of the courtyard. A grand mead hall in surprisingly good condition. Unlike the drafty makeshift barracks in which she had stayed the night. Little detail could be made of its exterior as ash fell heavy around her. She climbed the stairs that led to its entrance and pushed the doors open. Drifts of ash followed her in. The doors were closed behind her as two servants quickly began to clean the ash which had made its way in and dirtied the entrance.
The hall was long. Its other side was fifty or so paces away. Tables, benches, and a long hearth filled the interior. The ceiling peaked to around six meters in height. Near to the side edges of the hall the roof fell closer to three meters where wooden pillars and crosshatched wooden walls and curtains offered some privacy for the few servants to work, conversations to be had, and the amorous activities of the drunk were carried out. The sound of heavy breathing and snoring filled the room. Aside from what ash had followed Una into the hall, the floors were clean. Relatively. What few remnants of food, dried ale and mead, and stains of vomit still cluttered parts of the floor was being tended to by a servant girl. The hearth crackled with warmly, freshly stoked, and a few torches affixed to the pillars dimly lit the interior. The flames danced pale shadows on the walls, telling a tale of long ago when this hall must have been magnificent. A place where Jarls, Chiefs, warriors and Skalds would come from all corners of the world to drink and make merry. Where the food was plentiful and wine, ale, and mead flowed without end. Now this hall stood as but a hollow shade of its former glory.
At the end of the hall sat a solemn high-backed chair, and in it, slouched to the side in an uncomfortable position was Jarl Knútr. Knútr was an older man. A shaggy mane of thinning gray hair covered his head and face. In his youth he had been a fearsome drengr. Selling his sword to wealthy Jarls. But that time had long since passed. All memory of it hidden beneath the ash. Knútr had proclaimed himself Jarl of this desolate village many years prior. There was no one to challenge his claim. The village's previous inhabitants had either left, or had not survived Ragnarök. He and a handful of followers had repaired the hall and some of the surrounding buildings and had since brought the village back to some sense of life. Knútrholt, as it had been named, was a port town which sat where the mouth of the Black River fed into the sea. What little trade still passed through these lands, came through Knútrholt.
Una walked down the rows of sleeping figures, past the snoring Knútr, and through a thick tapestry towards the back of the hall. She stepped into a chamber light by a single iron chandelier, under which a large figure stood, bent over a table. The figure was around 2 meters tall and was as wide as an ancient oak. A thick fur cape sat on the figure's broad shoulders, and a large two-handed axe was slung across it on his back. Una approached the adjacent side of the table, resting her hands on it. A map was laid on the table. A hastily drawn map. Like something a child would have made. They both stared at it in silence for some time before the figure spoke.
"Whatever nithing drew this map should have his hands cut off." The figure growled.
"I think you will recall that this 'nithing' did have his hands cut off." Una said. "By you if I am not mistaken. Hardly the payment he was expecting, I would imagine."
Una glanced up and saw a smirk creep across the man's scarred face.
"All the same," he began.
"Father?" Una interrupted.
"Yes, Una?" he sighed.
"It came again tonight."
"The dream?"
"Yes."
"The same as before?"
Una paused for a moment, rubbing her temples.
"Almost." She started. "It began the same as it always does. Ash. Fire. Death. Running. The figure. Me dy-…" she stopped on that word, seeing the tension rise in her father's shoulders. "Everything was the same except for the very end. At the end I saw something new. Something just out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't make it out clearly. It was white. Or, pale at least. I can't be sure".
Una's father gave a grunt.
"I feel like it has something to do with what we are searching for." She continued. "Something to do with the North."
Her father was silent for a moment. He remained motionless. Eyes staring into the map as if to see something hidden within. Finally, he let out a long sigh. The tension in his shoulders released and he stepped back from the table, crossing his massive arms.
"When next you dream, try to calm yourself at that moment. You know what happens, so you know what to expect. Try to sill your mind and focus on what you saw." He paused. "It is what your mother taught me to do when… whenever I relived the past in my dreams.
His voice was soft at the end. Regretful, almost. Una placed her hand on his arm. It looked like a child's next to him. She looked up into his face. It was emotionless. His eyes still fixed on the map.
"I will try. Thank you, father."
Una remained for a moment before turning away and walking out of the room, back across the hall, and out of the doors. The floor swept clean of ash. More ash blew in as she left.