At the Break of Dawn

I was running through the snow-covered plain. Running... My breath hitched and my legs wanted to give in countless times, but I was running. I was running... Not for my sake, but for the sake of my child. My miracle. The one who had my love, my heart and my soul. I kept running from the angry shouts, from the fire, us Northerners feared so much, yet used in our daily lives. Why is this happening, you may ask. You may wonder, why I’m running from my own people. Am I a criminal? Am I the user of the dark magic? No... My story is pitiful. It is a wicked story that will give birth to ice-cold hate in the end. It happened nine months ago. Now it all seems like a bad dream, but alas, it is not. I was 19 and one of the tribe maidens picked to help the elder women prepare and serve at the incarnation of our new leader. I knew that the new leader, Bjorgon The Slayer, was interested in me, however, I had not looked his way even once. Silently I actually despised him, because 13 years ago, his foolishness and narcissism had caused my parents to die. He was 12 years old at the time, but he was very rash and a merciless person. He would beat the animals in our village and cut off fingers from kids who had ‘stolen’ from him. The villagers would always avoid him, but his father, the old leader, overlooked all of the wrongdoings of his son and in the end, decided that his son was the one who actually had been bullied. Thus he assigned two warriors as his personal guards. These warriors were my mother and father, they were known for their skills on the battlefield and loyalty to their leader. They had no choice, because to them, disobeying the commands meant shame which they refused to feel. How I wish they would have refused the command... One day Bjorgon had decided to taunt the sleeping god of the Eternal Frost Cave. He believed that he could make the sleeping god submit to his will. He told the warriors of his greed, but everyone denied him, even his father said that it is a foolish idea to taunt the god. Bjorgon did not listen. He proceeded to do as he wished and ran to the Eternal Frost Cave to taunt the god, to see this so-called ‘god’s wrath’, to prove everyone that he was the strongest of them all. My parents, as his guards, had to follow him. All the way there they tried to bring him back, but it was futile, as Bjorgon had decided that HE will be the one to make the sleeping god submit to his will. What a foolish child... They had reached the Eternal Frost Cave which shines in the dark and stays hidden in the light. The place no man should set foot on because he who sleeps there is a god. The entrance to the cave was enormous and dwelled fear into those who looked upon it. But Bjorgon... What did this fool know of fear?! He has been kept safe his whole life! He set foot in the cave and my parents had to follow. He awoke the god! And my parents had to witness it. HE challenged the god! But my parents were the ones who died protecting him... From that day, when he came back from the cave alive, everyone in the village adored him, feared him and idolised him as a great warrior who survived the god's wrath. But no one remembers that it was at the cost of my parent's lives. No one mentioned them ever again. Now it’s the incarnation of this monster and I am supposed to help the women to prepare for it?! But when I was young, my mother always told me ‘Do not lock up your hate in your heart for it will destroy your humanity, your soul and ultimately it will lead to your demise’. I have abandoned the hate and live my life on as just another village maiden. But this celebration was the day when I found out that there is hate in this world that your heart cannot let go of, not even in your entire lifetime. At the day of the event, Bjorgon had got drunk. I wish I had run away when I saw that he was looking my way and finally moving towards me. But I did not. That was my mistake. The crowd was happily cheering and dancing, drinking and celebrating. I was not. I was too afraid to move and I felt my legs shaking when I saw that Bjorgon was staggering my way. He was pushing and shoving everyone out of his way which caused him to, once again, become the centre of attention. He staggered towards me and I kept stepping back towards the wall until I felt I had nowhere to step back anymore. I felt like I was a pray in the eyes of a predator, as he was looking at me intensely and slowly coming towards me until he came close enough and grabbed my arm. He said ‘You will be my woman. How ‘bout that, Helde? You will become my woman and give me strong warrior children!’ I was disgusted. Goosebumps had appeared on my arms, he reeked of alcohol and his hideous face did not make the situation better. I sternly said ‘No.’ The next thing I heard was everyone in the celebration was gasping. Only Bjorgon’s father was laughing and saying ‘Tough luck, son, looks like you will have to find another one!’ But Bjorgon would not stand for it. The next thing I knew, he was pulling me out of the hall and in nearby storage. I was terrified, but what came next was even more terrifying. Bjorgon took me. After that, I shut myself away from everyone. I did not want to talk to anyone. Bjorgon had wanted to see me, but I always ran away. I ran away so many times I had actually made a hut for myself outside of the village, near the Eternal Frost Cave as I knew that no one would dare to look there. It was fearsome for me to go near it at first, but I left the sleeping god a ‘payment’ for every time I would enter his land. The sleeping god would always take it, but I had never seen him. I liked it that way. One day, as I was preparing my ‘payment’ to the god, one of the maidens who I still had contact with told me that Bjorgon had left the village to start one of his new pillages. This meant that I could come back and settle everything in the village, so I did. How stupid of me. Bjorgon was still there and when I set foot in the village I was taken inside of Bjorgons house. ‘I’ll teach you how to run away from me!’ he shouted as he was strangling me and tossing me around his house. After what seemed like hours the abuse stopped and two things were clear to me. One was that the maiden had lied to me and another was that Bjorgon wanted something from me, could he have known I was pregnant? The hate started piling up in my fragile heart. From that day on I was stuck in Bjorgon’s house. He would not let me out, he did not even talk to me. He just kept me there as if I were some kind of a pet. I hated this, I despised him for doing this. The hate kept piling up in my fragile heart. I had reached that time, the time when my stomach finally started growing. This meant that he would notice. I could not let him notice! I tried to hide from the predator in his own home… He took notice of this and eventually found out. He found out that I was pregnant with his child. But I felt relief when he paid even less attention to me now than ever, but I was trapped here even more now as I was not allowed out of my room. The hate had piled up in my fragile heart. 9 months after he had r***d me I went into labour. No one but the senile woman, a supposed midwife, was sent to my room to help me. Her clothes were dirty, and she smelled like rotting fish and her fingernails were long and dirty. She spoke nonsense, she yelled loudly and made me even more scared than I already was when she was pushed in my room. I did not want to let her near me. But… Once the door closed the woman stopped shouting and looked at me very sternly. ‘Child, you have touched the sleeping god, have you not? You have been in the presence of the Eternal Frost Cave and been unharmed for there are demons that lurk there at the break of dawn, looking for the souls of the innocent’ she whispered to me. I was barely able to make out her words, some of the things that she said went by my ears as mumbles, but what she said next stopped my heartbeat for a few seconds. ‘You have hate in your heart! It is so full of hate that it will turn to ice.’ she said, her eyes tearing up now. ‘I wish your child does not carry this hate, for if she will, the hate will make her into a vengeful woman, one that will not let go of the doings of others’ she continued, ‘Sleep, child, for I will take care of you.’ The last words felt fuzzy to my ears and I was numbed from the pain that I had been feeling before. The only feeling I had was the feeling in my fragile heart, I felt as if it had been ripped open and being drained from the hate that had piled up in it. Once I woke up, I already was holding a baby in my hand, a little girl with rosy cheeks. She was silent. She did not cry as the newborns do. She had her little eyes closed and she did not let out a single sound. I was surprised and for a moment thought she had passed away to the Valley of the Dead. I silently listened to hear her breathing and put my head to her chest to see if her heart was beating. It was. I felt relieved, but the feeling of relief soon left me as I understood that Bjorgon would not let her live as she was a girl, not a boy who could become a warrior, she was not someone who was worthy of being his child. I knew what will happen next. Bjorgon will come to us and my daughter will be killed. There was no mercy in his heart. I was snapped out of my train of thought when I heard Bjorgon’s footsteps stomping down the hallway. I knew it was him because I recognized his deep and sore voice that was shouting at his men for letting the senile woman run away without bringing her to him first. I was scared, but I understood that I could not sit around and wait for Bjorgon to just come and take my daughter away so I wrapped her up in blankets and escaped through the window that was left open in my room. I could have sworn that it was nailed shut the last time I tried… Could it have been the old woman? But I did not have time to ponder over this as Bjorgon was getting closer and closer. I jumped out of the window and started to run from him and the guardsmen.