The Nightmare

Hilde is consumed by anger and drunk with exhaustion at the cave mouth. It seems the rage of war becomes her shadow as she accuses the King and admonishes the Normans.

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Rage hardened to a solid force at her back, and Hilde’s body propelled by it shot out of the dank earth and roots of the cave into the night air, and she found herself scrabbling for balance on top of the rocks at the mouth.

The sea breeze, a cold night wind, teased a low howl from the cave mouth, and rattled the branches of the oak tree.

The men there arguing did not turn. Their foreigners voices hushed on the night air. Rough and accusing. Ready to murder her, but she stood nonetheless, on the rocks, balanced between escape, life and certain death.

Her King was there in his furs, who had ordered her father to die in the North. To not come home. With him aides simpered and nodded, not fine courtiers, not noble captains. Just as gore-soaked.

Another, the madman, jacket covered in blood, stood armed with a knife. His promises to kill her rang no less strident in her minds ear. But Hilde still stood in defiance and rage.