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| ~ • ~ | Character Basics | ~ • ~ |

.:Name of Character:. Þórodda Blóðøx (THOH-rodda BLOH-theuchs)
.:Nick Name:.

In order of preference:
1) Blóðøx ("bloodaxe", also her byname/surname)
2) Rimmugýgr ("Battle-hag")
3) Þóra (Short for Þórodda)
4) Kettlingr ("kitten", no one, bar a few, can use this nickname and live)

.:Age:. 35
.:Race:. Swedish
.:Status:. Nomad, former húskarlar (knight)

| ~ • ~ | Appearance | ~ • ~ |

.:Physical Appearance:.

(hyperlinks in yellow)

Most people who meet Þórodda would not see her as a woman. While only standing at 5'7", shorter than many noblemen, Þórodda is heavily built, with broad shoulders, large biceps and thick legs, and weighs 156 pounds of pure, savage muscle. Her blond hair is cut to just above collar length, in keeping with the customs of her people (short hair being a sign of slavery), and her sky blue eyes are wild, showing no femininity whatsoever. Furthermore, Þórodda almost always wears her chainmail, or at least an off-white gambeson, and carries at least one weapon at all times, often wearing two or more.

There's more to it, of course. The left side of Þórodda's face is badly burned, extending from just above her ear, around to the base of her skull and almost down to the bottom of her jaw. The burns extend down her neck, covering her left arm right down to the elbow. Should you see her in a short sleeve shirt, you will also notice that she has a small scar on her left arm, about five centimetres long, from where an arrow penetrated her shield and that she has another scar on her right bicep, another arrow wound. At that point, most people suddenly realise that Þórodda has breasts and then wonder why they didn't notice them before. In truth, Þórodda's breasts are virtually non-existent as a result of the huge amount of physical activity that she does combined with her being from a family of small breasted women.

Further scarring is usually hidden under a shirt and a pair of trousers, unless Þórodda is teasing someone, and they consist of a a long cut across both her breasts, starting at the top of her left armpit and ending just below her right breast. The scar gradually tapers down from being almost two millimetres thick to being barely visible thanks to Þórodda jumping backwards just before the blow landed. Another scar, this one from a spear, is found slightly above her right hip. It is complimented by a long scar on Þórodda's left leg, starting just below the knee on the inside of the leg and gradually curving around to the front of the shin, as well as numerous other small knicks and scratches that have come from nineteen years of training and combat.

In order to prevent further scars, Þórodda has three lines of defence, each offering a unique component to the defence and combining to produce a very effective barrier against Þórodda being skewered by a sword or spear.

The first line of defence is distance, and this role is filled by Þórodda's Danish war axe, Randgríð (shield-hungry). At 145cm long overall, Randgríð provides Þórodda with enough reach to keep most opponents out of reach. Despite the length, the axe is very well balanced and weighs just over two kilograms, making lightning fast recoveries possible, even after extremely powerful attacks. And this axe is powerful indeed. The ten inch blade, combined with the weight and leverage of the haft, is able to hack an opponent's shield apart with frightening speed and most forms of armour provide it with little challenge, the powerful weapon breaking bones and causing internal damage even if it can't hack through the armour. The haft of the axe is bound and capped with iron to protect the wood from damage.

The second level consists of a single handed axe, a sword, and a large round shield. This level of defence is primarily used if room is at a premium, or if fighting in a shield wall, or if fighting a duel. Þórodda, the axe lover that she is, prefers to use her single handed axe, Fjôrsváfi (Life-taker). Fjôrsváfi is normally slung diagonally across Þórodda's back, with the head sticking out over her right shoulder. While lacking the power of it's large brother, the single handed axe is still an effective weapon and can be used for hooking an opponent's weapon or shield out of the way to open up the possibility of a shield bash.

Taking its rightful place at Þórodda's left hip is Gunnlogi (Battle-blaze), a magnificent sword taken from the body of the draugr Blæingr, formerly a mighty hero, after she ripped his head off. The hilt and pommel have been inlaid with gold and silver in a herringbone pattern, while the blade itself has been made using a softer, pattern welded steel and iron core with two harder, high carbon steel strips forming the edge of the blade. This allows for a sharper cutting edge, while retaining a certain amount of flexibility in the blade, reducing the likelihood of the blade shattering in combat.

The final member of Þórodda's second line defence is her shield, a classic viking round shield. The shield is 80cm in diameter and is made from solid, butted linden wood planks, each 8mm thick, with a 15cm steel boss in the centre, made from 5mm thick steel. On the rear of the shield are three steel reinforcement strips, one down the centre and one and either side, with cloth wrapped around the middle reinforcement strip, right where the boss is, in order to provide a hand grip, and the inside of the boss has been covered in felt to help protect the hand. The face of the shield has had tough, 1mm thick leather glued to it, with the leather further attached by a series of iron nails that are 20mm in from the edge of the shield and that are repeated every 35mm. The shield has been uniformly painted red, with no heraldic symbol, and it rimmed with rawhide, which has tightened as it has dried and has compressed the planks closer together. When not using the shield, Þórodda slings it across her back, using a strap that attaches to either end of the central iron strip.

Þórodda's third and final level of defence consists of her armour and two daggers. In terms of armour, she wears a simple, thigh length mail shirt, with three quarter length sleeves, and a simple, brown gambeson underneath. The mail is made from alternating solid and riveted rings, providing better protection than plain riveted mail, and was a gift from King Aðalríkr, presented to Þórodda when she swore fealty to him. She was also presented with a helmet. The spectacle guard both helps protect the eyes and poses a danger, potentially guiding a sword and spear thrust towards Þórodda's eyes, while providing better protect against slashes than a normal, open faced helm. Furthermore, the spike on top of the helmet makes a head butt from Þórodda a very dangerous thing indeed.

The first of the daggers is Níðingr (truce-breaker), a large, vicious looking sax that is less of a dagger and more of a short sword. With a 43cm blade and 60cm overall length, it is almost capable of taking limbs off. It is also the only one of Þórodda's weapons to bear any sort of inscription, the blade reading: ᚾᛁᚦᛁᚾᚴᛦ (Níðingr). While not a name you'd normally want to call a weapon, Þórodda gave the weapon it's name after she took it from the body of the man who broke a truce and killed her lover. She keeps it to remind her that you should never trust a truce to hold, and wears it on her right hip.

The second dagger, carried in Þórodda's boot, is Naðr (Adder), a small, leaf bladed dagger with a wooden handle. While not quite long enough to reliably pierce the heart or reach vital organs, the dagger is nonetheless a deadly weapon that should not be discounted because, in Þórodda's hands, the blade could very easily cut your throat or slice through tendons, leaving you helpless. Þórodda also uses the knife to eat, cutting off or skewering the piece of food she's chosen.

The only other thing of note about Þórodda's appearance is the gold pendant she wears. Made from solid gold, the pendant is a representation of Thor's hammer and was a betrothal gift from a long dead lover. Þórodda wears it with the leather thong wrapped around her right wrist, where it won't interfere with her in combat but where she can still see it. To her, it is a good luck charm and she will kill, or at least severely bash, anyone who, on the few occasions where she takes it off, picks it up without her permission.

.:Height:. 5'7"
.:Portrayed by:. Marina Bouras

| ~ • ~ | Personality | ~ • ~ |

.:Personality:.

Þórodda was never really a girl. Even as a young child she would prefer to be out running in the fields with her brothers rather than being inside learning how to cook and sew with her mother and sisters. Fortunately, as the youngest child, Þórodda was allowed a lot of leeway and spent a good deal of time outdoors, although she was still forced to learn how to cook, sew, weave and even tend to her father and brother's wounds when they came back from a raid or from a war. And so her tomboyish personality developed, and she would get into fights with her brothers or, on occasion, her half brother by her father's concubine. Some of the traits that she would show later on developed her, especially her foul mouth and blunt speech, picked up from her oldest brother, who also taught her a little on how to use a knife.

Over the years, most of Þórodda's femininity has been stripped away, mostly by choice, revealing what those who knew her as a child would probably agree was the real Þórodda. She doesn't mince words, almost always coming straight to the point, and tends to use very creative curses to punctuate her speech. This blunt way of speaking can be very confronting at first, and tends to put people at odds with her initially. Sooner or later they begin to see that the bluntness is often undercut with subtle wit and that she generally does it to annoy people. It takes them even longer to realise that, despite Þórodda's bluntness she rarely reveals what she actually feels, instead giving voice to the general consensus of those in the room. Of course, when Þórodda reveals her true opinion it is usually in a very blunt manner calculated to shock the listener and manipulate them into following the path that she's been preparing for them. Negotiating with Þórodda is generally considered to be a very dangerous activity and few people actually end up enjoying matching wits with her.

As well as being a force to be reckoned with at the negotiation table, Þórodda is a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Like most of her fellow Vikings, Þórodda enjoys battle and believes that her death is preordained. As such, she is more than happy to fight in a battle that seems hopeless, fighting against insurmountable odds. In fact, while Þórodda goes into almost any battle smiling and laughing, she smiles and laughs all the more when the odds are against her. To her, there is nothing better in the world than to be outnumbered and fighting a losing battle. Furthermore, off the battlefield, Þórodda is capable of torturing someone and enjoying it. She often taunts her victims and plays with the cruelly, enjoying their terror and pain.

Off the battlefield, Þórodda enjoys drinking, gambling, wrestling and playing board games, especially hnefa-tafl, where she excels thanks to her deceptive bluntness. During these times, Þórodda acts just like a man and, in many cases, out does most of the men. She can hold a surprising amount of ale, more than most non-Viking men, and gives as good as she gets when the time inevitably came for drunken flyting (an exchange of extravagant and generally untrue insults).

Despite generally being able to give as good as she gets, Þórodda tends to be slightly more prickly about her honour than most men, probably because she's a woman doing a man's job. Any man who refers to her solely as "woman", or calls her a "bitch", "mare" or "feminine" will be instantly challenged with a duel, and any man who slaps her or insults her fighting prowess will immediately be attacked. Despite this, some men can get away with almost everything bar the slap, just so long as Þórodda knows them and that they're joking. This has led to a few cases where someone has mistakenly thought that Þórodda was okay with the insults, only to find that she minded the insults when they said them.

Þórodda is also a very stubborn woman, and she almost never gives up. In some cases people have tried to dissuade her from pursuing vengeance on someone who she believes has wronged her, but Þórodda has just ignored them, going after the man who she thinks has insulted her or her honour. Other times she has been wounded on the battlefield and should have retreated to the rear but has instead gone into a berserker rage and smashed a hole in the enemy line. Even when wrestling with other members of her warband, Þórodda won't give up, even if she's pinned beneath a hundred kilograms of muscle. The stubbornness doesn't always save her, but it does make her more difficult to kill.

And now we come to Þórodda's sexuality. Quite simply, on the surface, Þórodda is a bi-sexual with a male preference. She certainly sleeps with far more men than she does women, and tends only to flirt with women to tease her fellow Vikings. That view is overly simplistic, though. While Þórodda does sleep with more men than women, her relationships with men tend to be short, rarely more than a night, while she might be in a relationship with a woman for up to a year, even if she's still sleeping with men. The reason for this is quite simple: Þórodda sleeps with men, dominating them in the process, and then boasts about it the next day, before the man has had a chance to do the same, thereby making them less of a man. Þórodda does this as a result of her first experience with a lover, who slept with her and then boasted about it the next day, making her feel betrayed.

In contrast, Þórodda's relationships with women are generally on equal terms or, in some cases, with Þórodda being the submissive member of the relationship. Unlike her relationships with men, which are mostly about power and revenge, Þórodda enters into relationships with women because she wants love, not the struggle for dominance that inevitably occurs with any of her relationships with men. However, Þórodda can't seem to maintain these relationships for as long as she would like, eventually getting restless and breaking it off. She doesn't know why, but suspects that it may have something to do with the death of a lover who was murdered just after he proposed to her.

In both cases, though, Þórodda's lover is better off not complimenting her beauty or any feminine aspect, since Þórodda does not like that at all and will often leave in a huff.

.:Strengths:.

- Stubborn to a fault.
- Highly trained and battle hardened.
- Knows a good deal of medicine.
- Skilled flute player
- Berserkergang: when artificially berserk, Þórodda has supernatural strength, stamina and wound resistance, being capable of tearing off limbs with her bare hands, or fighting on despite what would normally be lethal wounds.

.:Weaknesses:.

- Pride/honor
- Blunt personality
- Berserkergang: when artificially berserk, Þórodda can't tell friend from foe, and is almost totally incapacitated for up to a day afterwards.
- Mental scars from her rape can trigger violence if she sees a woman being harassed, assaulted or otherwised harmed.
- A woman doing a man's job (prejudice against her, etc)

.:Magic Abilities:.

• Berserkergang: Þórodda uses a very potent, and dangerous, potion to induce a supernatural battle rage. The potion consists mostly of very strong alcohol (>30%), with the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria and bear/wolf's blood providing the magical component. No words need to be spoken when the potion is drunk, and Þórodda doesn't know how to brew it.
  
  There are several dangers to the potion. Firstly, after drinking the potion, Þórodda loses all ability to reason. She becomes like a rabid animal, tearing through friend and foe alike, using brute force to crush all defences, not even bothering to use her shield, or block blows with her sword or axe. While Þórodda can withstand what would normally be mortal wounds while berserk, these wounds will still kill her once the potion wears off unless magic or some A-grade medical skills are involved the moment the fit ends.
  
  Secondly, after the potion wears off, Þórodda is left as weak as a newborn kitten, unable to stand and incapable of lifting even the smallest of weapons to defend herself. Additionally, Þórodda is still incapable of coherent thought for the duration of the potion's "cooling off" period (roughly 24 hours), and so she is incapable of telling anyone who finds her after the battle who she is or how best to take care of her.
  
  Finally, the third detrimental effect of the potion is that each use damages the user's mind, causing them to become more aggressive and undergo a limited form of berserkergang. While not having supernatural strength, the berserker is still much stronger than normal and is almost completely resistant to pain. As the effects accumulate, the berserker will eventually end up at a point where they no longer need the potion to have supernatural strength and pain tolerance, but they will also be berserk constantly, for as long as it takes for the body to wear out. Fortunately for Þórodda, she has only used the potion once, and the effects aren't that great. Using it a second time, however, will definitely result in some serious effects.
  

.:Special Skills:.

• Sword and axemanship.
  
• Archery (not all that good beyond 20 metres)
  
• Raiding/guerrilla warfare
  
• Battlefield surgery (good at dealing with physical wounds, not so good with magical/poisons)
  
• Weaving/sewing
  
• Armour/weapon repairing
  
• Skilled flute player (knows about 60 traditional tunes off by heart, and has composed a further ten by herself)
  
• Negotiation
  
• Literate (Old Norse only)
  

.:Accents:. Old Norse (specifically, Swedish)

| ~ • ~ | History | ~ • ~ |

.:Birthplace:. Sweden
.:Family:.

• Father: Fullughe Galma (deceased)
  
• Mother: Hallbera Snorradóttir (deceased)
  
• Brother: Ásbjörn Liðzmaðr (deceased, was 10 years older)
  
• Brother: Smiðr Hjálmr (deceased, was 6 years older)
  
• Brother: Valbjörn Dagfinnr (deceased, was 4 years older)
  
• Brother: Vigholf Fullugheson (deceased, was 2 years older)
  
• Sister: Katrín Silfra (deceased, was 9 years older)
  
• Sister: Eybjörg Hallberadóttir (deceased, was 7 years older)
  
• Half-Brother: Steingrímr (alive, 45, thrall)
  
• Half-Brother: Taf (deceased, was 1 year older)
  
• Half-Sister: Ýri (alive, 42, thrall)
  

.:Occupation:. Mercenary
.:Current Location of Residence:. The road.
.:History:.

The Innocent Tomboy

The youngest member of her family, Þórodda was born into the world as Áfríðr and would keep the name for the first sixteen years of her life. Her family had been farmers for centuries, the land handed down from father to eldest son and the Patriarchs all being buried in barrows on the land. Situated in the centre of Sweden, the family's lands were mostly safe from raids, and so the only real violence that Áfríðr was exposed to as a child was the honour duels between hot headed men and the occasional feud that turned nasty. Compared to many other children, she had a peaceful childhood.

As she grew up, Áfríðr revealed herself as a tomboy at heart, chasing her older brothers, as well as her half-brother, around as soon as she could walk. It didn't take long before she branched out into playing in the dirt or fighting, especially with her half-brother, Taf. A year older than her, Taf was the son of Fullughe's concubine, Vérún and, as such was a thrall himself. This caused him a lot of problems as soon as Áfríðr wanted to fight him because he would get in a lot of trouble if he defended himself, and Áfríðr would bash him if he didn't. He soon learned to hide from her but, unfortunately for him, Áfríðr soon worked out how to find him and considered it a game. Eventually, her father forbade her from playing with Taf, and Áfríðr reluctantly obeyed, instead annoying her brothers, chasing sheep and frustrating her mother's attempts to turn her into a good little girl.

Much to the consternation of her mother, Áfríðr grew more and more like a tomboy, partially assisted by her older brother, Ásbjörn, who was frequently amused at the situations his sister got into and who recognised that, despite what his parents thought, Áfríðr was never going to be a good little girl and would doubtless make a very interesting wife, so he decided to teach her how to take care of herself, just in case her eventual husband didn't like "interesting". He did so whenever his parent's weren't watching, playfully teaching her how to punch, how to wrestle and, one time, took her hunting and showed her how to kill. He got in a lot of trouble for that one, but Áfríðr didn't mind.

And so, by the time Áfríðr was twelve, she was the wild child of the family, and her mother had pretty much given up on ever getting Áfríðr to act like a proper girl should. Every time she tried to teach Áfríðr how to cook or sew or weave, Áfríðr would get bored or impatient and loose focus. Just about the only thing that Áfríðr took an interest in was tending to the wounds of her brothers and the family servants, showing what her mother considered to be an unnatural interest in the wounds and the gory stories told to her by her brothers as they had their wounds stitched.

It was a good life, but not one that could last forever, and Áfríðr was about to find that out.

The incident happened when Áfríðr, her mother (Hallbera), her sister (Eybjörg) and brother (Valbjörn) where heading to the market in a neighbouring village. There hadn't been any raids in recent times, and so they weren't expecting the six man band of outlaws who attacked them. Valbjörn managed to fell one of the men with his axe, but then he was killed by a spear thrust and went down. Áfríðr, her mother and her sister were all captured by the men, bound by the hand and were forced back to the outlaw's camp. The outlaws began to drink heavily and soon one of them decided to take avenge their dead friend by raping the women. They didn't stop until well after dark.

Áfríðr, still only twelve at the time, had never felt such pain in her life and had passed out several times, both from the pain and from blows to her head. When the men had finished with them, they tied the women to a tree, gagged them and went to sleep. Hallbera, through her tears, tried to comfort Eybjörg and Áfríðr, lied to them, telling them that they would be rescued soon, but Áfríðr didn't believe that. She could remember some of her brother's warnings, about what happened to girls who went into the woods on their own. At the time she had discounted them, she had figured that he'd been trying to scare her, but now she realised that they rang true. She, along with her mother and sister were going to die here.

As she thought on this, Áfríðr felt a surge of anger. These men had caused her so much pain, they had killed her brother and hurt her mother and sister. How dare they think that they could get away with it? As her mother and sister tried to sleep, Áfríðr tried to slip her bonds. Despite being tall for her age, Áfríðr was thin and the outlaws had used thick ropes. Slowly but surely she worked her wrists free, focusing on the pain in her groin so that she could ignore the damage the rope was doing to her wrists. In some places, the rope had rubbed through her skin and muscle and was scrapping the bone by the time she got her hands free.

With her hands free, Áfríðr managed to get the rest of her body free, took a step and immediately feel to the ground, barely stifling the cry of pain that tried to force its way out of her lips. Áfríðr tried to stand but the pain was too great. Gritting her teeth she began to crawl towards the men. One of them had left his belt, complete with a sax knife, on the ground close to her and she crawled to it, seizing the short sword. She was going to kill these men, avenge her family's honour.

At this point, Áfríðr's mother woke up and saw her youngest daughter crawling towards the outlaws, weapon in hand. She called out whispered warnings, pleaded with Áfríðr to come back, to free herself and her sister so that they could leave without waking the outlaws. Áfríðr was so focused that she never heard her mother, and her mother was too afraid to raise her voice in case it woke the outlaws and they resumed their activity of the previous night.

Finally reaching where the men were sleeping, Áfríðr crawled over to the closest man and realised that he was the man who had spent most of his time raping her. Remembering what her brother had taught her when they went out hunting, Áfríðr raised herself up, grabbed the man's chin, pulled his head back and cut his throat. The man woke and started to thrash around, so Áfríðr started stabbing him in the chest and continued until he stopped moving. As the man gave one last spasm and died, Áfríðr pulled the knife out of the body and brought it up, expecting the other men to be coming for her. Fortunately for her, they were still in a drunken stupor and hadn't woken yet.

Covered in bright red blood, Áfríðr moved onto the next man and paused, just as she was about to cut his throat. Her luck couldn't hold out forever, so she needed to find a new, quicker way to kill this man. Thinking back to her life on the farm and her brother's lessons, Áfríðr suddenly remembered one of the sagas, where the hero had killed an enemy by driving a knife up through his eye and into his skull. Crawling right up to the man's head and getting as much height as she could, Áfríðr brought down the sax with all of her might, putting as much of her weight behind the blow as she could, and angling the knife up towards the man's brain. The weapon went right through the eye and hit the skull behind, only just penetrating. The man awoke with a start and opened his mouth to cry out just as Áfríðr, out of pure desperation, pulled the sax towards her, twisting it. It was just enough for the sax to fully penetrate the man's brain and kill him.

Heart pounding, Áfríðr gave a vicious, victorious smile and moved on to the next man, dragging her body along the ground, and killed him with even less trouble than the second man. Moving on, she killed the final two men and then dragged herself back to the tree where her mother and sister were tied, grinning viciously, and cut them loose. Too shocked to even begin discussing what had happened, her mother simply started for home, using a stick to stay upright and supporting Áfríðr. Eybjörg, not as badly hurt as Áfríðr but still barely capable of walking, brought up the rear, also using a stick to stay upright. It was slow and painful going, but they eventually reached the road and started down it, meeting some family friends who were out looking for them and ending up being carried home.

Áfríðr's killing of the five men forever changed how people looked at her. Many wondered if she had been possessed, and everyone agreed that Ásbjörn had acted strangely. She'd tried to explain the anger that she'd felt and the good feelings that had occurred as a result of the men's death, but no one seemed to understand. Even her older brother, Ásbjörn had to wonder what had happened to his tomboyish, but innocent sister. He did, however, understand her feelings about killing the men to a certain extent, having felt a similar way after his first kill. And so, when Áfríðr begged him to teach her to defend herself, Ásbjörn agreed. Áfríðr had already proven that she could kill, and he couldn't stand the idea of her being attacked and raped again, so he taught her everything he could. Her mother, afraid of Áfríðr, disapproved, but her father gave his grudging respect, understanding that his little girl wasn't a little girl any more.

The Violent Young Girl

Over the next four years, Áfríðr trained with her brother and went from a tall but skinny little girl to a tall and muscular woman who hid her fears under a brash, masculine personality. The rape had left Áfríðr with many scars, physical and mental. While she had shunned physical contact in the months after her rape, Áfríðr eventually forced herself to ignore the scream that tried to force its way up her throat and overcompensated for her terror, becoming one of the most touchy feely members of the family. By the time she was sixteen, Áfríðr was able to almost completely ignore the bad memories that physical contact brought her.

Two other things happened when Áfríðr was sixteen. Firstly, she developed a crush on the daughter of one of her father's thralls and secretly pursued her. Unfortunately, the thrall wasn't interested and, while she would have submitted to Áfríðr in order to protect her family from any wrath, Áfríðr sensed her reluctance and, in light of her own experiences didn't press on. The second, and more important event that occurred was the raid by a neighbouring family who decided that they want the land Áfríðr's family had occupied for centuries and that they weren't willing to use marriage to secure it.

It was night when they came, and the first thing anyone knew the men of the opposing family and their thralls were attacking, throwing burning torches at the house, killing the thralls and bursting into women's quarters to capture the women of the family. That was where things started to go wrong for the raiders.

The first man in the door after it was broken down had his unarmoured skull crushed by a stool, and the second man barely blocked the stool after Áfríðr threw it out the door at him. Shield raised, the man couldn't see her sprint out the door. Áfríðr grabbed his shield while the man's head was still behind it and twisted the shield around, forcing the man down and around. Taking advantage of her momentary advantage, Áfríðr jumped on the man's back and cut his throat. The vicious smile that had split her face four years before returned and she picked up the man's axe and shield. With a wild scream, she charged a third man, who had seen her attacks and had come to avenge the deaths of his friends. Áfríðr hooked his shield aside with her axe and the shattered his shield arm with her shield, smashing it right into the forearm. The man cried out in pain and instinctively dropped his axe. Áfríðr killed him with a single blow to the head.

Áfríðr was in trouble now, though, because four men, thralls of the enemy, were closing in on her. Armed with clubs, the thralls weren't exactly a threat to Áfríðr individually, but together they posed a threat that she wasn't strong or experienced enough to deal with. Still, filled with bloodlust, Áfríðr charged them, screaming a wordless battle cry. The thralls met her charge, spreading out and trying to encircle her.

Smashing into the thrall in front of her, Áfríðr sent him tumbling to the ground and ducked, raised her shield and spun low. The shield caught one blow aimed at her, while her axe hit the leg of a thrall. As soon as this happened, Áfríðr rolled to the side and quickly got to her feet, taking another blow to the shield. She faced three enemies now, but the fourth thrall was still a potential danger, even if he was groaning and clutching at his leg.

Fighting the thralls, Áfríðr was constantly on the move, never letting them trap her and lashing out whenever they got too close. She made the occasional rush and manage to score a few minor hits, but always had to retreat before she could do any real damage. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the thralls managed to wear her down and kill her but she stubbornly refused to give up, rushing the thralls in a sudden burst of rage.

One thrall lashed out with his club and caught Áfríðr's shield at an awkward angle, tearing it from her hand. Swearing, she gripped her hand axe with both hands and took the thrall's head off. Another thrall aimed his club at her right arm, and Áfríðr tried to dodge out of the way. She wasn't quick enough to completely evade it, and the club numbed her arm, forcing her right hand to let go of the axe. Swinging wildly with her left hand, Áfríðr forgot about the forth thrall and was rewarded with a blow to her head that knocked her unconscious for a few seconds. When she came too, one of the thralls was standing over her, club raised for the killing blow.

The blow never came because, at that moment, Ásbjörn appear and, although suffering from a dozen mortal wounds, he buried his axe up to the haft in the first thrall's head and caved in the side of the second thrall's chest. And then, completely spent, Ásbjörn fell down dead.

Áfríðr staggered to her feet, dizzy, and the death of her brother finally sank in. She looked around and saw that all the buildings were burning but, apart from the first thrall she had hit, she couldn't see another member of the living. Eyes blazing hatred, Áfríðr killed the thrall as he begged for mercy and strode towards the flames. She saw her entire family lying on the ground, surrounded by the dead members of the raiding party. Seeing her family dead as they were filled Áfríðr with a sadness that she had never known. Sitting down amidst the corpses and backlit by the burning buildings, Áfríðr cried her heart out.

With all the male members of her family dead, the land went to Áfríðr's uncle and she went to live with his family. She tried to fit in, really she did, but the life of a woman wasn't what she wanted. Áfríðr felt empty, and she could remember what it had felt like to be fighting for her life and she longed for it. And so, two weeks after going to live with her uncle, Áfríðr cut her hair short like a man, stole a gambeson, picked up her brother's axe and left in the dead of night, determined to join a warband go raiding.

Kettlingr

A few villages over, towards the Finnish border, Áfríðr found a group of six men in a pub who were looking for a seventh member for a planned raid in order to fulfil legal obligations (<7=bandits, 7-35=raiding party, >35=army). All experienced men, they laughed at the young lad who gave his name as Ásbjörn. In the end, though, after he explained that his family was dead and that he was looking to do some raiding so that he could start a family of his own, they decided to let him come along. And so, now known as Ásbjörn, Áfríðr started her raiding career.

The group went over the border and raided a few farms, taking away livestock, slaves, farm implements, jewellery and even a horse. While the junior member of the raiding party, Áfríðr still received a lot of money from the raid, surprising her. The money that could be made by raiding was quite impressive although the dangers were evident, and were made more so by the death of one of the other raiders, killed by a arrow. However, that didn't scare Áfríðr. In fact, to her, it made raiding all the more desirable. And so, after the party returned and split up, she sought out another one, and then another, managing to hide her gender each time, and accumulating a good amount of money that was spent on alcohol and, after the third raid, a good quality sax knife to replace the one she'd had to leave at her uncle's.

It wasn't until Áfríðr decided to join the crew on a ship that she was outed as a girl, and that wasn't until the second day at sea. One half of the crew wanted to turn around and take her back, while the other half of the crew were split between using her as their sex slave or tossing her overboard and letting her swim back to shore. One man, more proactive than the others, decided to pursue his idea of using her as a sex slave, and felt confident when Áfríðr cowered and pleaded with him to leave her alone. He was very surprised, then, when she head butted him, breaking his nose, and then kicked him in the groin. The other members of the crew only just managed to restrain her in time, because Áfríðr tried to follow up on her attacks with her sax knife.

Quite naturally, the man she had floored wanted to gut her, but the captain intervened, pointing out that the man had attacked first. He let Áfríðr stay on board the ship, provided that she stayed out of the fighting. Not liking the conditions, Áfríðr disobeyed them at the first town the raided, outrunning the men who were meant to be guarder both her and the ship. When she got to the village, Áfríðr caught one armed man who was running away and killed him after a long, drawn out fight. By the time she reached the village, the rest of the fighting was done, and the captain was not pleased. To ease his anger, Áfríðr tossed the head of the dead man and presented the captain with the man's axe. Laughing in disbelief, the captain sent a man to check out the dead man's body, and he confirmed that Áfríðr had indeed killed the man.

From that point onwards, the crew of the ship developed a new respect for Áfríðr and, after another couple of raids where she proved herself to be just as enthusiastic and bloody thirsty as the best of them, they started to take her more seriously, eventually treating her much like a fellow man. They did, however, give Áfríðr a nickname: Kettlingr (kitten). It reflected her young age and tendency to spit and hiss when provoked. What the crew of the ship didn't know was that their Kettlingr hadn't given them her real name, mostly out of fear that word would get back to her uncle and he would try and drag her back to the farm. So, instead, she gave the crew a different name: Þórodda.

Þórodda

The ship eventually returned to Sweden and Þórodda swore an oath to the captain, becoming part of his household guard. It was a highly unusual move and very controversial, but all the members of the ship's crew agreed that Þórodda deserved it. Still, despite that, the captain couldn't legally grant Þórodda any land, so instead she helped out on his, participating in the harvest, cutting wood and doing whatever else was needed, just like a man. The captain's wife wasn't all that happy about the arrangement, and made this displeasure known, but Þórodda ignored her since she had no designs on the captain whatsoever. The captain's son, however, had designs on her.

Two years older than Þórodda, ØylakR hadn't been on the ship thanks to a fever stemming from an infected wound. Now fully healed, he was attracted to the tall, muscular woman who could shop wood like a man and whose hands had become calloused from rowing the ship. The fact that she commanded such respect from the other men of his father's warband intrigued him, and he just had to find out why. Unfortunately for him, Þórodda was not interested in his advances and tended to avoid him after she worked out that he was giving her undue attention. ØylakR kept at it, though, finding her evasiveness attractive, and eventually won her affections over the course of two years.

Þórodda had to admit that the captain's son was handsome and a very accomplished warrior, and his attentions did flatter her. She avoided him less and less, and then spent more and more time with him, sparring and, in her own, crude, awkward way, flirting with him. After two years, she was well and truly in love with him. If he'd asked her to marry him, she'd have agreed, and no doubt his father would have approved, if not entirely. However, ØylakR seduced her and slept with her instead. Thinking that, if she slept with him, ØylakR would propose, Þórodda forced herself to ignore the memories of her rape and tried to please him as best she could.

The next morning, they awkwardly parted ways and went about their morning chores. Þórodda wasn't sure how she felt. The sex had brought up so many bad memories, but ØylakR had seemed happy. No doubt, with time, she could force the memories into the background and might even be able to enjoy the act.

As she thought about this, she walked past a shed, where ØylakR was talking to some of the other members of the warband. Hearing her name, Þórodda stopped to listened and grew red as she heard ØylakR tell the others about having sex with her, adding in some parts that must have come from his fantasies. Shamefaced, Þórodda turn on her heel and virtually ran to a quiet place by the river where no one would be. She sat there for several hours, thinking about what had happened, and grew more and more angry at ØylakR for betraying her and using her. But what could she do? He hadn't forced her, and he was the son of her chieftain, so she couldn't challenge him to a duel over something that men would consider so trivial. Instead, Þórodda decided that she had to get away from her source of shame.

Walking back to the house, avoiding the areas where ØylakR might be, Þórodda sought out her chief, explained the situation to him and asked to be released from her oath. The chief tried to get her to stay, but Þórodda was firm in her desire to leave, so he granted her request.

Þórodda left the house an hour later, all her possessions on her back. She didn't look back and kept on moving, avoiding towns where someone might recognise her. Eventually, she came across a group of men going on a raid and joined them.

Meanwhile, at the farm, ØylakR was heartbroken that Þórodda had left and had no idea that she'd heard his boasts, just as she didn't realise that he was just exaggerating things to make him look like more of a man, a common trait in Norse society.

Axe for Hire

Just nineteen when she left the captain's farm, Þórodda soon earned herself a reputation as a fighter. Some men wanted to beat her in combat and "tame" her, while others wanted to see if they could defeat the famous shield maiden. Þórodda made sure that each duel had some sort of wager attached to it and, while she didn't always win, she still accumulated a lot of wealth, most of which went into new weapons or armour, while the rest was spent on drink and, in a few cases, women.

Unlike most fighting men, Þórodda never stayed with any one employer for long, usually hiring herself out for a few months and then moving on. A few men hired her so that they could woo her, but Þórodda always kept away from them. She did, however, sleep with a lot of other men, dominating them in bed and then boasting about it the next day, damaging the man's reputation since, by being the submissive partner, the man was less of a man than Þórodda.

At first her campaign of revenge was very distressing, but over the course of six years and more than a hundred men, Þórodda managed to push her memories to the back of her mind. They always lurked there, niggling in the back of her mind, but she forced herself to ignore them and enjoy them. Her rape had also apparently done more than psychological damage to her, too, because Þórodda never fell pregnant the whole time.

Then Þórodda met a man like no other. The man, Hróðgautr, pursued her gently, slowly, actually refusing her initial offer of sex, preferring instead to spend time training with her or teaching her how to play the Viking equivalent of the panpipes. Þórodda began to feel at ease around Hróðgautr and soon they were almost inseparable. It surprised no one when Hróðgautr proposed to Þórodda by presenting her with a solid gold pendant in the shape of Thor's hammer. What surprised them was Þórodda's reaction. She burst into tears and clung to Hróðgautr, so happy that he wanted her for what she was, not because she was a prize.

Two days later, Hróðgautr was killed by a man who, while an enemy, had agreed to a truce. The man stabbed Hróðgautr in the back with a sax knife, killing him. Þórodda was devastated and flew into a rage, killing not just the man but also his family as well, setting fire to their house and burning them alive. She left straight afterwards, full of anger, vowing to never fall for another man again.

Draugr Killer

Þórodda spent the next five years of her life wandering the Scandinavian lands, fighting in a war and joining numerous raiding parties. She softened her policy of sleeping with men in order to destroy their reputation, only doing so to thirty men in that time, and she even spent a year in one village after developing a crush on the daughter of a farmer. Unfortunately, Þórodda's restless spirit eventually caused her to break the relationship off and she went on her way.

Sooner or later Þórodda was going to get into some kind of trouble and, on her thirtieth birthday, she did. The town where she was working as a labourer was attacked by a draugr. A member of the living dead, a draugr was the animated corpse of someone who had been buried in a barrow. While they usually stayed in their barrow and didn't attack at random, this one had been disturbed by tomb robbers and was looking to seek its revenge. Angry at being dead, the draugr wanted to kill every single living human on the face of the Earth. At almost eight feet tall and weighing in excess of two hundred kilograms, no man could take it. Þóroddax, on the other hand, thought that she could.

The day after the first attack, Þórodda armed herself and set out to find the barrow. Armed with her war axe, hand axe, sax, boot dagger and her shield, Þórodda felt confident that she could kill the draugr, since it was weaker during the day. The old witch who met her halfway to the barrow begged to differ.

"You'll die if you fight the draugr."

Offended, Þórodda asked the witch why she would die. The witch replied that the Þórodda was too strong for any human to kill. However, the witch offered Þórodda a very rare potion: "Berserkergang".

Now, while Þórodda has experienced battle rage and had gone berserk a couple of times before, the berserker rage that the potion brought on was different. You became supernaturally strong and fast, capable of taking all kinds of damage before you finally died. It would, the witch assured Þórodda, allow her to kill the draugr. Apologising for her earlier tone, Þórodda took the potion and continued to the barrow.

On reaching the barrow, Þórodda walked up on top of it and saw the hole that the robbers had dug, right through the soil. She could see where they had removed the beams that kept the soil from collapsing in on the tomb, and could hear the draugr moving around restlessly beneath her feet. Drinking the potion, Þórodda's mind went blank and she woke up a day later, laying in a puddle of filthy water, with the left side of her face feeling as though it was on fire. The draugr lay on the ground next to her, headless, with it's lower jaw on the other side of the barrow. The draugr's sword, which had belonged to the creature when it had been Blæingr, a mighty hero, was still gripped in its hand and, stiff, sore, with many broken bones and a badly burnt face, Þórodda took the sword from the monster's hand and claimed it as her own. Then she heaved herself up out of the barrow and started back to the village, first staggering and then crawling on her hands and knees, and finally clawing at the earth in an attempt to pull herself along.

The old witch found Þórodda and arranged for the surviving members of the village to carry Þórodda back to the village, where the old witch tended to her wounds and healed her with a combination of magic and herbal remedies. Þórodda came very close to dying from her wounds, but she eventually managed to recover, despite being heavily scarred. She also worked out why her face had been burnt: Blæingr, the man the draugr had been when it was still alive, had had Gunnlogi, an enchanted sword that could burst into flames on command. Unfortunately for her, the sagas didn't say what words Blæingr used to command the sword, and so the magic was useless to her. Still, the sword was well made and handsomely decorated, so she kept it.

The King's Downfall

One day, not long after Þórodda was able to walk on her own again, King Arngrímr of Sweden paid the town a visit. He'd heard much about Þórodda, who was already well known as a curiosity. However, the tale of how she defeated the draugr with her bare hands had piqued his curiosity and he wanted to see for himself if the much famed shield maiden was as good as people said she was.

While he was shocked at the scarred woman who had trouble standing upright, he was nonetheless impressed at her build, choice of weapons and the fact that, barely a month after fighting a draugr and having several major bones broken, as well as half her face burnt, Þórodda was up and walking about. He talked to some of the villagers and found that the stories hadn't really exaggerated Þórodda's victory. She had indeed ripped off the draugr's head. Well, that was just the sort of warrior that he wanted.

And so the king offered Þórodda a chance to join his hirð (warband). Þórodda accepted without a second thought, knowing that the elevation in status would benefit her greatly. It also meant that she would have a chance to train with some of the best warriors who had ever lived, as well as fight along side them. Besides, the king would no doubt be going to war sometime soon, and it would be worthwhile being part of the king's warband when that occurred. They'd get the best fighting and the best loot.

In return for her oath of fealty, King Arngrímr gave Þórodda a mail shirt and a steel helmet, very highly prized items. Few ordinary warriors could ever afford them, and it was usually only the men of a king or rich lord's warband who had such armour. Previously, Þórodda had relied on a horn reinforced, hardened leather breastplate and a horn helmet. The new armour drastically improved her chances of survival.

The armour wasn't the only benefit of being in the king's warband, either. The king served his men mead, and the serving girls were very good on the eyes and, as Þórodda found out, more liberal than most country girls. She also took a more cautious approach to bedding men and only bedded those whose reputation she really wanted to destroy. resulting in two of them challenging her to a duel to the death and loosing. As one of the other members of the war band said,

"How bloody stupid do you have to be to pick a fight with a woman who tore the head off a $%^&ing draugr?"

Despite these few bumps in the road, things seemed to be going right for the first time in Þórodda's life. She was an accepted member of the king's own war band, had many opportunities for violence and had an almost limitless supply of rich, high quality mead. In the end, it was the mead that ended Þórodda's dream life.

One night the king got drunker than normal, even drunker than the rest of his men, and tried to kiss Þórodda. While she was willing to endure a lot, Þórodda had made it clear to the king that she wasn't going to be sleeping with him and even his drunken attempt at a kiss was going to far in her opinion. As a result, she pushed the king away, almost as drunkenly as he had tried to kiss her. The king didn't like that and, his mind addled by alcohol, he slapped Þórodda's face with the open palm of his hand.

Now, in Norse society, slapping a woman's face with an open palm was one of the worst insults you could give her. Not only was it grounds for divorce, but such an action had caused feuds and killed hundreds of men at a time. Þórodda's reaction, while somewhat justified, was nonetheless a drunken over reaction. She killed him where he stood, and it took a full six men to restrain her after that. Not one of them managed to do so without getting some form of wound.

A Thing was held the next morning, and Þórodda was put on trial. The king's wife wanted her executed, and many members of the warband wanted to honour their oaths to kill the killer of their lord. However, Þórodda argued that the king had broken his oath to her, that he would never try and take sexual advantage of her. At first no one backed her up, no one wanting to call the king an Oathbreaker, but one man did finally come forward and agree with Þórodda's statement. Although uncomfortable, several more men then came forward and admitted that the king had indeed broken his oath.

Knowing that the decision of the Thing could still go either way, Þórodda swore an oath before the assembly that, if acquitted, she would go into voluntary exile and that she would never return. Seeing a way out, the Thing agree to Þórodda's terms and she was given three days to leave Sweden.

Gathering up her weapons and armour, Þórodda left that afternoon and began wandering the world, working as a mercenary. After hearing about all the troubles and battles that have been fought in Albion, she has set out to be a part of the carnage and chaos, hoping to find some work as a member of a king or noble's warband.