We Will Meet Again in Valhalla

Each breath turns to fog amongst the bitter cold of winter’s night. I can feel frost burning through my armour, but this does not faze me, I try focus my thoughts to what lies ahead. The silence is almost unbearable, even the loudest of us is muted with fear, I can see it in their cold stares.
The only thing I can hear is the crunching of the snow beneath my weary feet and the subtle whispers in my head telling me to turn back and run, but retreat is no longer an option, perhaps it never was. The whispers of retreat turn to screaming of fallen brothers from battles past, they haunt me, follow me through my dreams and thoughts like a nightmare that never ends. I can hear the familiar sounds of battle echoing ahead as if calling me, mocking me with dark memories and paralysing fear. A bright blaze in the distance fills the night’s cold air with the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh. Crippling fear turns to burning hate as I pull my head forward to what was lying ahead, my slow pace quickens with my heartbeat and I charge forth.
The sound of whistling arrows tears through the bitter air accompanied by the heavy thuds and desperate screams of my brothers dying in the bloody winter’s snow. They fall with glory and honour and die with the fury of the old gods in their dying hearts and shining steel in their hands. We will meet again in Valhalla, yet I find little comfort in this, but I'll take what I can get these days. The painful screams are replaced with the clashing of shields and the singing of cold iron as it tears through warm flesh.
The familiar smell of blood and fear fills my nose. The bittersweet embrace of war greets me once again in the endless battle that is my life. Hate once again fills this old man’s eyes, and for a short while I feel almost complete, but this temporary bliss is replaced by the sudden sting of burning iron. I can feel hot blood melting my frozen armour as I desperately clamour to stop the inevitable, I can feel my weary body crumble underneath me. The sounds of the world seem to slip into a piercing silence, the only thing I can hear is the echo of tired breathing and the beating of my dying heart. With each breath I can feel world the slip away as the colours shift and bind into a bright collage of light. The worries of this cruel world melt away with reality and my agonizing memories drift away as if the weight of the world had been taken off my shoulders, for the first time in my life I actually feel free as I close my eyes and look to the stars I feel my soul relinquish its grasp on mortality, and I drift further from the fear and hate, far from sadness and regret. For the first time in many years this old man feels free, I look to shimmering night’s sky and laugh one last time.