Yngnah (Repost) 2

 Years passed, and I grew stronger, harder.  Most began to forget that I was woman. 
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There is an uproar in Ragnar Lodbrok's great halls tonight.  It is because Ragnar, strongest and hardiest of rulers, has been taken by a man that can be no man.  What man hides behind stone walls and cannot bear to do his own killing?  Here in the North, we would tear him apart for cowardice.
  There is talk that this is the punishment of the new god.  But I look across the dusky firelight into the faces of Ragnar's sons and I cannot believe that a birthling god would dare cross such giants.  
   "Aella.  Aella."  the halls writhe with hatred, swelling beneath the chants of the Coward's name. Bjorn Ironside spits at his imagined foe and roars for blood.  His brothers join their voices to his, mingling with Thor's thunder outside.  The rain, always rain, cannot wash away such blood, such hate.  Only more blood can wipe clean the wrath of Odin-and of Bjorn.  The crowds call for the Coward's death, for Ragnar is much loved here.  
   I stand and cast aside my cloak, scratchy in the heat of the firepits.  I can feel the eyes of men, tracing, appraising.  They must wonder at a woman dressed in a man's leathers.  Those that know me look away as soon as they realize where their eyes have wandered.  The chicken-livered look away beneath my gaze, fearful of my ravaged face.  Now there is only one man whose eyes boldly fix themselves upon me. A rose blossoms between his eyes before he even has time to blink.  I yank my dagger out of his skull and bury it to the hilt in the soil beneath the rushes on the floor.  When I pull it out, it has been cleansed by the earth.  
    "Yngnah!" Bjorn bellows, thrusting a tree-like arm heavenward.  His eyes glint with humor, beneath his murderous rage.  "Sister-not, I see your anger tonight.  Do you not wish also to avenge Ragnar-king?  Will you join our Great Heathen Army?"  His query is directed to me, but is met by Ragnar's people with thunderous approval.  I kneel before him.  
     "I will fight."The hall erupts.  Lagertha rises, shakes free her famed golden locks, and kneels beside me. 
     "I will fight."  Our twin oaths bind us, our wrath unites us.  I notice that Ivar, wisest of Ragnar's sons, celebrates not with his brothers, but with his horn.  Lo, his eyes are filled with the same hate, the same fury as Bjorn, as Ubba, as Halfdan, and even as Lagertha.  But his glitter with an ice colder than the midnight sun.