Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Four (section)

===Hosanger Welcomes the Menfolk===


The square was a riot.  Hundreds of clansmen were milling about, waving trophies, telling tales, sweeping their women off their feet, scooping children onto their shoulders and generally making themselves at home.  Freya pulled her hood low over her head and tugged the drawstrings a bit, closing her face off from the world.  She slid the cloak a bit tighter across her chest, concealing herself.

Freya stepped aside as the first of the warriors entered the building, already hollering for food.  Many of the others were tromping off for the Swollen Head instead, and some dispersed amongst the houses with a reunion on the mind.  A few cheap and overworked-looking women on one corner simpered at the passing warriors, and some peeled off to follow…like bitches on a leash, Freya thought with disgust.

She turned away from the scene and marched around the edge of the square to the tavern, peeking in through the windows.  The room was flooded with people now, from a handful of alert-looking men with stone clubs in the corners to the reveling warriors who had come home.  The crowd that had gathered outside was breaking up, some dragging trophies with them.  Freya slipped into the building, making her way over to the massive bar.

She patiently waited for the harried barman to reach her.  “A glass of red mead,” she said quietly, sliding some of the change from her dinner across the table.

“Aye, lass, here you are,” the barman said, taking the money and sliding her a thick stone mug.  The scuffs on its handle showed that, clearly, it had seen use as a weapon more than once.

She nodded and lifted the mug, making for the door.  Once outside, she slid around the back of the building to find what she had hoped she would: a ladder, built into the back wall, no doubt for posting sentries in times of siege.

Balancing the mug in one hand, Freya climbed the ladder up to the roof.  She arrived at the top and sipped her drink as she walked up to the edge.  The alcoholic drink was so named because it was supposedly made with human blood, long ago.  Now, a cup of boiled mammoth blood was mixed in with the cask.  With her refined senses, she could taste it.

Freya sat on the edge of the building and let her feet dangle over the side, after wiping a spot clean of snow.  She looked out over the little town of Hosanger, and let its sights, sounds, and scents fill her.  She breathed deep of her people, and smelled their cooking and labor.

She listened to hundreds of rowdy warriors sing their war songs, and tell their tales of victory and loss.  She heard children cry as sergeants relayed news of their brothers and fathers’ deaths.  She listened as the warriors caroused and refueled themselves, got into brawls and swore their oaths, lay with their women and spoke of the next campaign, the next war, the next raid.

Freya closed her eyes and drank deep of her cooling mead.  She heard a few grown men weep as they sank to their knees before their wives and children and swore that that was the last time, no more fighting, home life now!  The sounds of breaking glass and roaring song filled her ears from beneath her as the entire town of Hosanger turned out to greet their conquering heroes.

Freya smiled and brought the mug to her lips.  “So…this is the part of Fenris dad loves so much.”

She drank the rest of the heavy mead and licked her lips.  The blood lent the drink a harsh, metallic tang.  This was the drink of a fighter.  “You were right, Dad.”  She climbed to her feet.  “That was worth my time.”

Freya turned her back on the square when a voice called up from below.  “Oi!  Red!”

She looked down to see a few warriors standing below.  “You looking for something?” one cried.

“No, warrior, just taking the evening,” Freya said.

“Well get down if you do not wish to freeze your tits off, girl!” he said, to the chuckles of his compatriots.

Freya threw her head back and laughed.  “I’m just fine.”  Without another word, she vaulted off the roof of the building and landed on her feet less than fifty centimeters from the startled warrior.  She rose and nonchalantly pressed the mug into his hands.  “Here, take this into the bar,” she said.  “I’m off to home.”