WALKING DOWN the snow-covered forest trail beside Bloodsong, Huld reached up time and again to touch the hacked-off strands of her hair. When the soldiers took her prisoner, they had thrown away the few possessions she carried, including the pouch of talismans and herbs that Norda had taught her to use. But Norda had also taught her that much of a Witch’s power came from the length of her hair. Huld touched the severed strands another time. She felt miserable and cold. Her shredded garment did little to protect her from the chilly air, and her tattered gray cloak was too thin to provide much warmth.
Huld shivered. Bloodsong noticed and stopped walking.
“What’s wrong?” Huld looked apprehensive.
“You are cold.” Bloodsong removed the sword belt from which her sword and shield hung on her back atop her cloak. She held them out to Huld.
“I’m not carrying your weapons.”
Bloodsong shook her head. “Just hold them a moment. Or must I dump them in the snow?”
Huld took them. “But, why would you dump—”
Bloodsong slipped off her heavy fur cloak and put it over Huld’s gray cloak. For a moment she thought Huld was going to protest, but then the young woman handed Bloodsong’s weapons back and gratefully pulled the fur tightly around her. “My thanks. But you will be cold now.”
“I am used to the cold,” Bloodsong answered, remembering Hel’s realm, remembering Guthrun. The Hel-warrior strapped sword and shield to her back again and resumed walking, watching the tracks left by their fleeing horses. If she could not find the gray stallion and the Hel-horse saddle he bore, conjuring a new Hel-horse at the next sunset would do her no good. And without the speed of a Hel-horse, her chances for victory would grow even slimmer. She wondered if Huld would consent to ride behind her on a steed from Hel. It would either be that, or the Witch would be left behind.
“Bloodsong,” Huld said, “I don’t mean to be a bother and complain so much. Even though you ruined my hair, you saved my life.”
“And my own.”
“But I have something else to tell you. I have not studied with Norda Greycloak for three years. It was three—” she hesitated, “months.”
Bloodsong stopped and stared at the young Witch.
Huld met Bloodsong’s gaze. “Well, say something!” she finally cried.
“Months?” Bloodsong asked at last. “Just how many spells do you actually know, Huld?”
“Enough to free Norda Greycloak from Nidhug’s dungeons and enough to help you defeat him.”
“How many?”
“Well, there’s the night-vision spell, the one to heal, the spell to repel mental probes, one to open locks of all kinds, basic herbcraft, and—” Her voice trailed away.
“And?”
Huld hesitated, then shrugged. “That’s all. But I assure you that I can do all of them perfectly, and they’re enough, if I use them cleverly.”
Bloodsong looked at Huld a moment more, then shook her head. “They didn’t help either of us very much a little while ago. “
“Be angry with me if you wish,” Huld said. “I don’t care. And go on without me now that your ankle is healed, thanks to me. But I have vowed to free Norda, and I will, with or without your help.”
“You love Norda, Huld. She was kind to you, more of a mother than your own, from what you have told me. But perhaps you should reconsider your vow to save her. Would she want you to risk your life for her?”
“After I’ve set her free, I’ll ask.”
Bloodsong smiled. “You remind me of someone,” she said after a moment, thinking of her own youth.
“Who?”
“It was years ago.” Bloodsong shrugged. “She died.”
Neither said anything for a moment.
“We’re wasting time. And I am glad of one thing, at least.” Bloodsong poked Huld’s arm.
“Ow!”
Bloodsong laughed. “I am glad it was not weeks.”
After a short pause, Huld smiled, then they began walking again, following the horses’ tracks in the snow.
* * *
When King Nidhug had strengthened himself with a hearty breakfast, he made his way through the upper levels of Nastrond toward his private chambers in the central tower.
Richly robed and bejeweled nobles whom he met bowed and spoke careful greetings. Soldiers snapped to attention as he passed by. He ignored them all, thinking of a spell he had not used for over two hundred years. But before he could safely use it, he needed to refresh his memory, and to do that he had to consult a scroll he kept in a carefully protected cache in his sleeping chamber.
He finally came to a narrow stairway which wound into the shadowy upper reaches of the tallest tower. There were no soldiers or nobles allowed here, only unseen demons, bound there by his sorcery to guard the passage from all intruders.
He spoke a complex phrase, repeated it twice more, then began to ascend the stairway. Unseen, the guardian demons drew back, allowed him to pass, then crowded together again, blocking the stairs.
Flickering torches lighted his way up the twisting stairway, torches whose flames cast no shadows and never needed tending.
At the top of the stairs he came to a wooden door carved with intricate Runes. He spoke a word of command. An unseen demon opened the door.
He strode through into his private chambers.
The door closed behind him.
Midmorning sunlight squeezed through his room’s tall, narrow window. Through the window the roofs and towers of Nastrond were visible and, beyond them the desolate plain surrounding the sprawling fortress.
He went directly to an ironbound chest. Speaking another word of power, he waited as the invisible demon who guarded the chest obeyed. The lock on the chest clicked. The heavy lid opened.
He got to his knees and searched within the chest till he found a small yellowed scroll sealed with blood-wax. Saying a different sorcerous command, he broke the seal. He took the scroll to a wooden table inlaid with gold and silver. He sat down on a thickly cushioned chair and studied the scroll. Upon it was a fragment of text from a forbidden grimoire, copied from memory after a dangerous spirit-journey centuries before. It would, if properly executed, bring Bloodsong alive to Nastrond, writhing and screaming. No magic she could wield would prevail against it, because its power did not derive from any of the Nine Known Worlds. It came from an alternate reality.
Once she was in spell-chains, he intended for Bloodsong’s prolonged suffering to provide him with much pleasure. Yes, before he banished her soul to the realm of eternal agony and imprisoned her rotting corpse in a chamber beneath the Cavern of the War Skull, with the bodies of all the other Hel-warriors he had defeated, he would question, experiment upon, and use Bloodsong in any way he desired. And eventually, when he tired of her agony, he would drain her life-force into the War Skull and see if it might recharge his source of power. Bloodsong’s unexpected magical energies, undoubtedly coming directly from Hel, might be more compatible with the Helish energies of the War Skull than the energies of all the other Witches he had tried.
Excited and cheered by the prospect, and encouraged that by using the Hel-warrior he might solve many of his own problems, King Nidhug continued struggling to translate and fully understand the spell detailed in the yellowed scroll.
Again and again he found dangerous gaps in his memory of the spell, stubborn blocks to his understanding. He poured a jeweled goblet of blood-red wine and sipped it slowly, studying the scroll, occasionally rubbing at a growing headache throbbing in his temples.
Finally, he had to admit that it was hopeless. It had been too long. He had forgotten too much. It would take days to fully recapture the spell and be able to use it safely. He could not waste that much time. He would have to use a less potent spell, one less certain of success, one which exposed him to more danger.
He sat thinking, sipping wine, gazing out the window, considering spells he could conjure without recourse to forgotten languages and only partially remembered rituals. To his surprise, he found that many of his most effective sorcerous weapons were also in need of study before being used.
A feeling of uneasiness crept through him. How many skills, how many hard-won spells, abilities, weapons had he lost by not using them over the centuries? He had become so certain of his powers that he had failed to practice them. And now?
His uneasiness edged toward fear. Unbidden into his mind came an old saying.
Hel laughs last, he remembered. And again he remembered the faceless watcher in his recent nightmare.
With a curse he went to the open chest, grabbed up several more scrolls, and returned to the table to read.
* * *
Bloodsong stood staring down at the trampled snow before her. “Other riders headed in this direction must have intercepted our horses,” she said, gesturing at the tracks.
“And then veered off through the woods,” Huld said, pointing to where the trampled snow led away through the trees.
“Or perhaps our horses went straight on, long after the riders were here, but there’s no way to tell that now, not from these jumbled tracks.”
“Do we go on, then?” Huld asked.
“First, I want to follow these other tracks a short distance. There was a wagon. See?”
Moving carefully through the trees, making as little noise as possible, the two women followed the riders’ tracks. Out of sight of the road, the tracks disappeared over a low rise.
Bloodsong and Huld cautiously edged toward the top of the rise and peered over it. Huld quickly ducked down before she could be seen, but Bloodsong studied what she saw there before lowering her head. They went back down the rise and were nearly back to the road when Bloodsong stopped. Huld kept going.
“Wait, Huld,” Bloodsong whispered.
Huld stopped, glanced around. “Wait?” She whispered back. “We must get out of here! There are a dozen soldiers over there!”
“Only eight,” Bloodsong answered. “And two prisoners in a slave cage.”
“Eight too many,” Huld noted.
“You said you wanted to help me, Witch. Do you wish to prove it? Circle around through the trees. Wait until I start slaying the soldiers, then use your Witchcraft to open the lock on the slave cage. The soldiers will be too busy with me to notice you.”
“You can’t kill all eight of them alone!”
“I can.”
Huld looked at the warrior for a moment. “I don’t see how.”
“Just be glad there aren’t nine.”
“You’re joking. Aren’t you? Some kind of warrior humor? Well, it’s not funny!”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Bloodsong, are you certain this is not a trap Nidhug has set for you?”
“I know the prisoners, Huld.”
“Even more of a reason why it may be a trap.”
“Then there would be a more serious threat than eight soldiers.”
“Others may be hiding nearby.”
“If you see any when you are circling around through the trees, come back and warn me.”
“Bloodsong—”
“Don’t worry, Huld. I once fought ten men at one time in the arena. They lost. And when this battle is over, I will be—”
“Dead.”
“I have no intention of dying again for a very long time.” Bloodsong unstrapped her shield and gripped it in her left hand. She drew her sword. “Go slowly and quietly, Huld. Don’t expose yourself to unneeded danger.”
“Of course not. I’ll just follow your example. And what danger? A mere eight soldiers?”
“You need not help, Huld. You can go back the way we came, or wait here until it is over.”
Huld shook her head, then moved quietly away to circle around the camp.
Bloodsong loosed her war ax from her belt and slipped its wrist thong around her left wrist. Then she walked back through the trees, up the slope, and peered over at the soldiers.
She noted that the groupings had not changed. One soldier stood by the slave cage on the far side of the camp. Five were grouped several paces away, eating and drinking. But at the moment it was the remaining two who interested her. Both stood near the base of the slope talking with their backs to her. All the soldiers had swords at their sides, but their skull-emblazoned shields hung from their nearby horses’ saddles.
While she waited to give Huld time to circle around the camp, she wondered what the soldiers were doing there. It was near midday, their camp was well off the main road, and there was no fire, suggesting that they did not want their presence known. Perhaps there was no mystery after all. One of the prisoners was a woman. After finishing their meal, the soldiers no doubt intended to enjoy themselves at her expense. Not this time, Bloodsong thought, smiling coldly, anxious for the battle to begin.
She waited a little longer, decided that Huld must have had time to get into position, took her throwing knife from its sheath on her belt, clenched the black steel blade between her teeth, and rushed to the top of the rise.
She dropped her shield, thrust her sword into the snow, grasped the dagger by its blade, and threw. Before the dagger struck she had followed it with her war ax.
The two soldiers at the bottom of the slope cried out in pain and surprise as they fell to the ground dying, one with a dagger in his neck, the other with an ax buried in his back. By the time the other soldiers had turned to see what had happened, Bloodsong was down the slope and racing toward them.
Her sword sheared through one soldier’s neck, and her return stroke felled another before their swords were in their hands.
The remaining three spread out, cursing. The soldier near the cage ran forward to join them.
Four soldiers with drawn swords now surrounded her and were beyond the reach of her blade. From the corner of her eye she saw Huld emerge from the trees and move toward the cage. She saw one of the soldier’s eyes flick toward the cage, saw his mouth open to tell the others.
She rushed him, blocked a stroke with her shield, parried a stroke with her blade, slammed her shield into an opponent’s sword arm, thrust into his momentarily exposed throat, whirled to parry another blade, and suddenly felt pain dig into her left arm as a sword sheared through mail to the bone.
Her shield fell from nerveless fingers as she took a step back, parrying strokes from the three remaining blades while blood spurted from her wounded arm.
Fighting to ignore the pain, she gave ground, back and back, hard-pressed to fend off the trio of flashing swords. Her back touched the trunk of a pine.
She cursed but kept fighting, nearly getting through one of the three’s guard, recovering barely in time to parry the stroke of another.
Pain dug into her left shoulder. Blood streamed anew from the already wounded arm. A shallow cut sliced her right thigh.
She slipped through one soldier’s guard to slice his sword arm. He shifted the sword to his other hand and kept fighting. She jerked her head to one side. The blade meant to behead her slammed into the trunk of the pine and stuck there for a fatal moment as Bloodsong’s sword pierced a soldier’s throat. But before she could withdraw her blade, another cut arced down toward her head.
She twisted sideways. The blade glanced from her steel battle-helm, stunning her. She kept her sword raised, fighting to remain conscious, to clear her vision, managed to parry a deadly stroke, felt pain in her right shoulder, feared she couldn’t fend off their blades much longer, set her teeth, and kept fighting as her vision cleared slightly, parrying, thrusting, feinting, determined to slay the two remaining swordsmen.
She twisted her sword through a complex feint, parry, thrust. One of the soldiers screamed and collapsed into the bloodstained snow. But suddenly the remaining soldier delivered a two-handed hammer blow to her blade, sending it flying from her grip.
With a laugh of triumph he raised his sword for the death stroke. Bloodsong’s eyes flicked to her fallen sword. She kicked out at his knees, threw herself past him, hit the ground, rolled, came up on her feet, again holding her sword in her hand.
Another hammer blow drove her to her knees as she parried the stroke. She thrust into his right leg, parried another stroke, rose back to her feet, drove him back one step, two—
Suddenly an arrow sprouted from the soldier’s neck. He dropped his sword, surprise and pain on his face, reached up to touch the embedded shaft, fell forward, dead in the snow.
Bloodsong looked around, saw the archer. She laughed and began running forward, ignoring her bleeding wounds.
The archer opened her arms. The two women embraced. “I always told you I admired your skill with a bow,” Bloodsong said.
“And I yours with a blade, Freyadis,” Valgerth answered, tears welling in her eyes.