The Vanquished and the Valkyrie

To bloodied warriors torn apart
Whose fire fell from battlefields
To every soldier pierced in heart
Dying on a broken shield

Sounds of war fade to stillness
Left with only falling snow
Failing eyes dance with darkness
And faintly follow life's last glow

Swaying, as a lantern glimmers
Fateful whispers, mere and light
Drift in half imagined shimmers
Ancients of the wintry night

Warming, shifting, they draw near
And gently whisper to the slain
Nordic tidings melt his fear
Quiescence to his mortal pain

Golden hairs caress his face
A smile crosses hardened features
Unnoticed, the once blackened space
Made brighter by the graceful creatures

Two forms pass beyond the bend
With unseen arcane subtlety
The warrior and an astral friend
The vanquished and the Valkyrie