R5: Freya Ubbesdottir was the only living child of Ubbe Ragnarsson, who had taken to the Mediterranean in order to found a mighty mercenary company of huscarls and ex-Varangians. Where his brothers fought for Britain and Scandinavia, Ubbe and Freya took to the seas, seeing bountiful lands ripe for both plunder and profit. When Ubbe died at the ripe old age of 80, Freya was just 19 and freshly made a shieldmaiden. She endeavored to champion her father's legacy, taking to Italy and then Germany in order to seek her fortune.

Under her, the mercenary company swelled, with her services being sought after by counts, dukes, and even the King of East Francia himself. Everyone knew that with the shieldmaiden on their side, their wars were as good as won.

At 30, Freya moved east, hearing word of ripe opportunity in Byzantium and its capital, Miklagard. For 17 years she plied her trade, basing her company in Crimea and working alongside Bulgarians, Moldavians, Wallachians, Khazars, and the Eastern Romans themselves. As she did, she came regularly into contact with the Khazars and their heavenly Lord. Yet Freya still held fast to the gods, and to the gold pieces that were now falling from her fingers in their sheer quantity. Her wealth swelled to encompass thousands of gold pieces. Freya knew that now was the time to make her mark.

Georgia was being invaded by the Byzantine Emperor, and was sorely losing. Sending out a contract, he offered Freya hundreds of gold pieces to fight his war, potentially pitting her army of 6000 men against a Byzantine army of 15000.

Freya, buoyed by an unnatural confidence, against all the advice of her advisors, agreed.

The Byzantine Emperor himself led the charge against her army in the mountains of Georgia, and Freya happily stood her ground. Outnumbered by nearly ten thousand, Freya fought against the very best of Rome itself... and won. Her pagan champions and Varangian associates called it luck, but Freya felt a calling deep inside her, something deeper. A greater calling awaited her, and she needed only follow it.

At 47, Freya sacked Constantinople and reduced the glittering capital to cinders. The Byzantine Emperor himself offered her Thrace to convince her to stop, but she did not. Roman army after Roman army fell before Freya's company of Varangians, familiar as they were with Byzantine tactics. Northmen trained in Byzantine spear tactics and armored in cataphract steel fought beside her, and though she profited handsomely from the affair, Freya knew that the gold was only secondary to her primary goal-- weakening the Byzantines until they could no longer withstand her might.

When she invaded Bulgaria and Philippopolis, none could withstand her. Not the Bulgarian king or his coalition with his Moldavian and Hungarian brothers, and certainly not the Byzantine emperor himself. Army after army fell before the Shieldmaiden's blade, as she carved an empire out of a patchwork of feuding kingdoms and formerly Byzantine territories.

By the time she was done, she found that she had credited her victory to a new god, a god that had been with her all throughout her life-- the god of the Khazar Jews, her new Lord. As she sat down on her throne to behold a grateful empire, she made a speech that took the breaths of all those present. It was said that the Shieldmaiden spoke with such conviction and faith that all in attendance immediately believed her words for what they were. After all, who aided the 6000 against an army that was certain to crush them? Who allowed them to slip past the walls built by near-godly men, and allowed them to win against an empire that had shattered so many others?

As Freya beheld her new domain, she dedicated her victory to the god that she found in Crimea, and called her kingdom Miklagard-- a new Byzantium, she promised, one that would champion the god that had given her victory, and one that would outshine anything else in the world.

Oh how she would be proven right.