HULD RODE BESIDE Bloodsong. Since the battle, Valgerth had ridden with Thorfinn, following behind.
In a few hours the sun would set. The gray stallion with the Hel-horse’s saddle had not been found. Without the advantage of a Hel-horse’s wind-treading speed, Bloodsong was considering Dvalin’s Burrow, a danger Nidhug might not guess she would chance.
“Huld, my Witchcraft consists of bits and pieces of Witch-lore implanted in my mind by Hel. Can you tell me a little of the processes involved in the way magic works? I am seeking weaknesses or constraints I can use against Nidhug. Or foreknowledge.”
Huld straightened in her saddle. “I have already been thinking about what form his next attack might take. I doubt shadow-wind demons will be of aid to you again. They partake of the air and sky, as did Nidhug’s first two attacks. I would therefore guess his next attack will have nothing to do with the air or sky. Fire is closely allied with air, so we can probably rule fire out, too, though not for certain. He might, however, use some force partaking of earth or water. And—”
“Hold!” Bloodsong motioned for a halt. Her eyes narrowed. She stared down the road ahead.
“I see it too,” Valgerth said, riding up beside Bloodsong, upset with herself for again feeling repulsed by nearing her friend.
The rolling hills had given way to a flat, snowless plain. The road lay straight to the horizon, and far in the distance upon that road, a dark shape was coming toward them.
“A lone rider?” Thorfinn reined up next to Valgerth.
Bloodsong and Thorfinn drew their swords. Valgerth made ready her bow and took an arrow from her quiver. Huld, without a weapon, compensated by intoning the spell to repel mental attacks, just in case.
The stranger reined up within bow-shot. He held up an empty, leather-gloved hand. “Hail, Bloodsong!” He removed his dented steel battle-helm. “I would ride with you against Nidhug! May I come nearer?” His dark hair and full beard were streaked with gray. Beneath a brown fur cloak matted with age, he wore a mail shirt that showed signs of frequent repairs. A massive silver amulet in the shape of a dragon-headed Hammer of Thor hung by a thong around his neck. The hilt of a sword strapped to his back protruded over his left shoulder. Shield, ax, and bow were tied to his saddle. The chestnut stallion he rode was, like its rider, well past youth, lathered sides heaving from the long gallop.
“What name did you call me?” Bloodsong asked.
The rider laughed. “Bloodsong! If I were an enemy, wanting to take you unaware, wouldn’t I have pretended not to know who you are?” He eyed the arrow Valgerth held aimed at him. “And I would have reined up out of bow-shot.”
“Perhaps,” Bloodsong answered, “unless you thought to make me trust you by doing the opposite of what you should.”
He laughed again. “A Valkyrie told me I was going to die fighting for you.”
“A Valkyrie? Or too much ale?” Bloodsong watched him carefully.
The stranger walked his weary horse toward them. As he neared, Bloodsong saw that his face was heavily battle-scarred. Only skilled warriors lived to become so marked. His deep-set eyes were hooded by shadows. His weathered, deeply lined face suggested that he was much older than she’d at first thought.
He pulled his horse up just out of sword reach, winked at Valgerth, who still had a killing shaft trained on his chest. “Hold tight to that arrow, woman,” he urged with a grin, then looked at Bloodsong again. “I am Ragnar Olaf’s son, and tonight I am to die aiding you against Nidhug.”
“You seem rather cheerful for one who carries such a belief,” Bloodsong replied.
He shrugged. “This morning I saw a Valkyrie riding the wind. As she passed overhead, she pointed her spear at me and into my mind came the knowledge that the legendary Bloodsong was riding to do battle with Nidhug, and that if I rode north to meet her, I would find my last battle this night. It is the kind of death for which I’ve always hoped. No straw-death for me! This night I feast in Valhalla!”
“Or in Sessrymnir at Folkvang,” Huld suggested, frowning. “Freya takes half the dead heroically slain in battle to Her hall.”
“I would not refuse Freya’s company,” he said, now winking at Huld, “if She is as beautiful as they say.”
“She is,” Huld assured him.
The man winked at her again.
“Enough,” Bloodsong said, glancing warily all around, determined not to be caught off-guard by the distracting stranger. “I have no reason to believe or trust you. If you die this night, it will not be by my side.”
The warrior’s expression darkened. “The Valkyrie did not lie. Tonight the Norns will cut my life’s cord.”
“If you try to follow us, my friend will loose her arrow.”
“Gladly,” Valgerth said, her arrow still sighted on the old warrior’s heart.
The man’s gaze swept from face to face, saw no support in any of them. He hesitated a moment longer, then placed his dented battle helm back on his head. “I’ll not follow you. But know this, the Valkyrie did not lie,” he growled, jerked his reluctant horse around and kicked it into a faltering gallop in the direction from which he’d come.
“Shall I loose the shaft?” Valgerth asked while the aged warrior was still within bow-shot. “He could wait in ambush somewhere ahead or tell others what he learned of us.”
Bloodsong started to tell her to kill him but then did not. Even as she wondered at her hesitation, he passed beyond Valgerth’s range.
Valgerth lowered the bow, looked questioningly at Bloodsong.
“I’ve known men like him,” Thorfinn said, “warriors who have survived long enough to feel age coming upon them. He’s probably been imagining Valkyries for some time now, hoping for a final battle.”
“Many have seen Valkyries,” Huld protested. “Don’t you believe in Valkyries, Thorfinn?”
Thorfinn shrugged. “I don’t necessarily disbelieve the stories about the Gods and Goddesses, Huld, but I sometimes wonder if the tales about a glorious afterlife in Valhalla or Folkvang for those who die bravely in battle weren’t invented by leaders wishing to gain more enthusiastic warriors.”
“You’ll end up in Hel’s cold realm of darkness talking like that,” Huld warned, “and surely you can’t doubt Hel’s existence, not after Bloodsong has returned from Helheim.”
“Theology bores me quickly,” Thorfinn commented.
“When you’re losing the discussion?” Huld suggested.
“Losing? Now listen, Witch, I—”
“Theology bores me too,” Bloodsong cut in, sheathing her sword.
“And me,” Valgerth agreed, replacing the arrow in her quiver.
Huld glared from one to the other. “Empty-headed warriors,” she growled. “The stranger knew Bloodsong’s name!”
“A Valkyrie need not have been the source,” Valgerth said. “He could be a scout for a larger force, acting the fool to get a closer look at us, for Nidhug or some common gang of robbers, though if he’s with robbers, they must have a magic worker with them for him to have known Freyadis’ identity.”
“I don’t know why I hesitated to have you slay him,” Bloodsong said. “If he, alone or with others, springs an ambush ahead—”
“Your instincts are usually correct,” Valgerth said, “or at least were, before—” Her voice trailed away.
Bloodsong looked at her.
Valgerth looked quickly away.
Bloodsong quietly urged her horse ahead, Huld by her side.
Valgerth dropped back and rode with Thorfinn.
* * *
Another youth spell accomplished, Nidhug’s strength returned, but his masked appearance still remained that of the dead. He made his way down a dark, narrow corridor. Behind him came two soldiers, one bearing a flickering torch, the other roughly pushing a terrified slave woman before him.
The slave’s name was Thorhild. Her breath wheezed from her lungs, the congestion she had been fighting for days made worse by the cold damp air. She drew the dirty cloak they had given her tighter around herself, naked beneath it. She wondered if the tunnel led to the rumored place of sacrifice. From time to time she saw rats slipping out of sight. Dark things she could not identify moved on the filthy floor. She tried to avoid them with her bare feet whenever possible, sickened by the feel of them when she could not.
Involuntary whimpers came from her throat each time her mind grasped anew the horrid reality of the nightmare she was experiencing, that it was actually happening to her, was not a dream from which she could awaken, nor something from which she could remain a detached observer.
Thorhild had seen slaves punished before, even executed, but had carefully kept herself distant from their terror and suffering, even when it had happened to someone she knew. Always had she obeyed orders without questioning, had never been punished, had never done anything to upset her masters, even when she’d ached inside to express her anger, to rebel against her life as a slave. So what was happening to her now should not be happening. She had done nothing to deserve it, and she was crushed by the injustice, by the ultimate reality of slavery that her very life could be taken from her for no reason, save that it was her master’s will.
Nidhug stopped at the end of the passageway before a cobweb-draped door. His gloved hands swept away the webs, sending spiders scuttling in all directions. The door was iron, rusted and pitted with age. There was no lock in which to insert a key. Inscribed into the metal were Runes and other magical symbols.
The sorcerer-king spoke a series of harsh-syllabled words. The door creaked open without his touching it. Icy air wafted into the corridor.
Nidhug stepped to one side. “Put her in,” the king said.
Thorhild fell to her knees. “Please, sire!” she pleaded, head bowed. “I have been obedient! I will do anything you say! Just please, don’t sacrifice me to some demon!”
“You have been listening to rumors, slave,” Nidhug said, amused. “There is no demon altar within this chamber. That place is elsewhere, down a different passageway. Obey your king, if you are so obedient. Enter the chamber.”
Thorhild raised her tear-streaked face, looked up at the king, glanced into the dark chamber. The flickering torch dimly revealed the chamber’s interior. She saw mounds of earth within, like graves.
“Are you going to disobey me, slave?” Nidhug asked.
Slowly, Thorhild rose to her feet, still looking into the chamber.
“Remove your cloak,” the king commanded.
Thorhild numbly undid the clasp at her neck, let the cloak drop, stood naked before the dark chamber. “What is going to happen?” she asked.
“Hesitate longer and you will be punished,” Nidhug warned. Thorhild took one step toward the chamber, and then another. She hesitated, brushed her long blond hair back from her face, looked around at the king, turned and took another step, and stopped.
The cold air from within the chamber bathed her nakedness. She shivered. The cold seemed to penetrate deep within her. Suddenly, her knees felt weak. She could not take another step. Her control broke, she turned with a choked sob, and threw herself at the king and the soldiers, trying to force her way past them.
A soldier grabbed her, lifted her from the floor, moved forward, and threw her into the chamber.
She sprawled onto soft, moist earth, heard the door creaking shut behind her, scrambled to her feet and rushed toward the narrowing opening with a hoarse cry of horror.
The door clanged shut, plunging her into total darkness.
She pressed herself against the door, sobbing, began beating upon it, heart pounding wildly, and started begging hopelessly for mercy, for release from the nightmare.
In the passageway Nidhug ordered the soldiers away and waited till they were gone, taking the torch with them, leaving him in darkness. He concentrated, intoned the spell to give him night vision.
Beneath his hood, his eyes began to flicker with purple fire. He studied the Runes and symbols on the door. They were corpse runes, necromantic words of power. He could hear the slave’s frantic pounding and begging but ignored the sounds.
When he was certain his memory of the incantation to awaken those within the chamber matched that written on the door, he intoned it three times without taking a breath, then waited.
Within the chamber, Thorhild felt the moist earth tremble beneath her bare feet and heard soft sounds filling the dark chamber, the sounds of earth being moved. A faint purple glow disturbed the darkness, a glow with multiple sources, each pushing upward from beneath the mounds in the chamber, each glow surrounding the death-stripped bones of corpses. Whispers came from the grinning skulls.
Whimpering and begging, Thorhild watched them approach. They reached out toward her, touched her skin, dug claw-like hands into her flesh.
She screamed in agony as fleshless fingers began to rip her body, saw her attackers affixing the bloody smears of her torn flesh to themselves, covering their glowing bones.
As Thorhild’s still-warm flesh covered more and more of the glowing-bones, the chamber slowly darkened. It went on and on, her screams growing weaker, the purple glow dimming as more and more of her flesh was torn from her.
Then at last she screamed no more. The chamber was silent, the darkness within it total once again.
In the passageway, Nidhug repeated the incantation to open the door, waited until it grated open.
The Flesh Demons stood within the chamber, swaying silently and restlessly from side to side, waiting impatiently, their number one greater than before, one bleeding, raw-fleshed form that of their latest victim, long blond hair still hanging here and there from her torn and bloody scalp. All had but two thoughts filling their withered minds—pain and the ravenous desire to steal more flesh to help quell that pain.
Nidhug concentrated, spoke another incantation, watched the Flesh Demons vanish from the chamber. He then resealed the door and walked away, smiling beneath his hood, hoping that soon the Flesh Demons would return with the flesh of Bloodsong’s companions covering their glowing bones and the Hel-warrior herself in their bleeding grasp.
* * *
The flat plain had become tree-dotted hills, their slopes becoming gradually steeper, the trees thicker, as the towering mountains ahead loomed nearer. Snow-covered peaks still glowed in the light of the setting sun. But soon, the peaks were no longer touched by the sun, and the four companions rode through a deepening twilight.
“Bloodsong,” Thorfinn said, “I can see the road ahead, but only barely. If ambushers or other dangers hid in the trees, I could not see them in time.”
“Show them, Witch,” Bloodsong said to Huld, who had already conjured her night vision.
Huld turned in her saddle and looked back at Valgerth and Thorfinn so that they could see her glowing yellow eyes. “I am our night eyes.” Huld laughed at their startled expressions.
“Skadi’s Bow,” Valgerth whispered. “I care little for magic.”
“Typical warrior,” Huld chided.
“But we are glad you are with us, Bright Eyes,” Thorfinn added, laughing too.
“Perhaps that is your war name,” Bloodsong suggested. “Huld Bright Eyes.”
“My Witch-name, rather,” Huld corrected, thinking about it, liking it. “Yes, I—”
She was interrupted by a man crying out in the distance, then shouting the name of Odin.
“It’s his voice.” Bloodsong drew her sword. “The old warrior.”
“It could be a trap,” Valgerth said.
“It isn’t.” Bloodsong kicked her horse into a gallop, wondering at her sudden certainty but trusting her instincts.
Huld raced close behind, scanning the road ahead, ready to call out a warning to Bloodsong if any danger appeared.
Valgerth and Thorfinn hesitated, then galloped after the other two, drawing their swords.
The aged warrior kept shouting “Odin!” But his war cries became ever more ragged with each repetition, and cries of pain punctuated Odin’s name.
Bloodsong reined to a halt at the top of a rise, certain from the loudness of the cries that she was nearly upon him. She could but glimpse half-seen shapes in the deep twilight. Huld reined up beside her.
“What do you see, Witch?”
“It’s—” Huld began, then swore under her breath. “It’s the warrior, fighting bleeding things, little more than skeletons, that are tearing his flesh—” Huld’s voice broke as she looked away.
“Necromancy of some kind, living corpses.”
“Yes.” Huld forced herself to look again. “They are placing his flesh on their own bleeding bones!”
“Swords might be useless against the dead,” Bloodsong said, thinking furiously, searching the Witch-lore in her mind.
“We can’t save him,” Huld told her. “You can’t see what they’ve done. Freya’s Teats! I wish I could not!”
Bloodsong screamed a ragged incantation into the night, startling Huld. The Hel-ring flashed purple fire. Bloodsong’s face momentarily became a glowing purple skull. She screamed a second time, then a third.
The Hel-ring stopped glowing, her skull-face disappeared.
“What’s happening now?” Bloodsong asked.
“You got their attention,” Huld said nervously. “They’re looking this way. I don’t think they can see in the dark. It’s more like they’re sensing us, sniffing the air like wolves.”
“Garm’s Blood,” Bloodsong cursed. “I had hoped that an incantation to return the dead to their sleep would work on them, but—”
“But you did not awaken them,” Huld finished.
Valgerth and Thorfinn reined up beside the Hel-warrior and the Witch.
“What is it, Freyadis?” Valgerth whispered.
“Sorcery,” Bloodsong answered. “What are they doing now, Huld?”
“Coming toward us! We must outrun them! Now!” she cried, reining her horse around and galloping away in the direction from which she’d come.
“Follow her!” Bloodsong shouted.
“Freyadis? What—” Valgerth began.
“Do it! Run! I will follow!”
Valgerth and Thorfinn obeyed.
Bloodsong’s horse reared at the nearing horrors. With a curse she kicked the beast into a gallop after the others. She strained to see behind her as she raced through the darkness.
Huld fought to control her fear, slowed her horse, looked back with her glowing eyes, and saw the other three racing after her. But the bleeding skeletons were rapidly catching up.
“Faster!” Huld screamed. “They’re nearly upon you!”
Bloodsong heard the Witch’s warning and tried to coax more speed out of her mount. She could now see a dim purple glow coming from the things that chased them, a glow that was brightening rapidly. Soon, within the glow she could see death-stripped bones, racing faster and faster, as if their exertions caused them to lose flesh and that loss gave them ever increasing speed.
One was nearly within reach of her now, reaching out, trying to rip at her horse’s flank. She lashed out with her sword, severing the thing’s hands from its arms. It seemed not to notice, kept coming, leapt into the air as if flying, hurtling silently toward her.
Her sword cut backward shattering the thing’s skull. It fell to the ground and convulsed helplessly.
Bloodsong turned her attention to the next pursuer as her terrified mount galloped onward.
“Valgerth!” Bloodsong cried, “on your right!”
Valgerth saw the thing reaching for her. She yelled a curse and chopped at it with her blade. One arm fell away, but with the other it sunk its talons into the flank of Valgerth’s horse. The terrified beast lurched sideways and began to fall.
Valgerth leapt clear, rolled, and came up on her feet, saw three of the dimly glowing skeletal horrors rushing toward her.
“Valgerth!” Thorfinn cried, and reined back on his horse. Bloodsong was doing the same.
“No!” Huld screamed, reluctantly slowing her horse even more. “Don’t go back!”
But the others weren’t listening, were racing toward Valgerth, who stood fending off her glowing attackers with her sword, only barely able to keep them at bay as she plied her swordcraft at a furious pace.
Still mounted, Bloodsong used her sword to crush a glowing skull with strands of long blond hair attached to its bleeding scalp. Thorfinn’s blade shattered another attacker’s skull. Left with but one to face, Valgerth’s blade did the same to the third. But four more of the horrors yet remained, and they were closing in.
Bloodsong reached down to help Valgerth up behind her on her horse. “Take my arm, Valgerth!” she cried.
Valgerth started to obey, suddenly hesitated, drew back as if repulsed, ran to Thorfinn’s side, and leapt onto his horse behind him.
Bloodsong stung from what Valgerth had done, started to wonder why but didn’t have the time. She crushed the skull of a new attacker and then turned and galloped after Thorfinn and Valgerth, seeing, as she did, that the remaining three attackers were pursuing once more.
They ignored Valgerth’s fallen horse, Bloodsong thought, so they must only prey on humans. Yet they could be stopped with swords after all, which surprised her. With only three left there was therefore no more reason to flee.
“Turn and fight!” Bloodsong shouted. “There are only three left!”
She reined back. So did Thorfinn. Valgerth leapt to the ground and confronted one of the attackers as Bloodsong and Thorfinn dealt with the other two. Within moments it was over. The last three horrors convulsed upon the ground, their skulls shattered.
With Huld’s help, they found Valgerth’s horse. It was not crippled. Its wound would heal. She remounted it, then they rode back toward the place where the old warrior had been attacked as Huld watched for any new signs of danger.
The defeated attackers along the way were still writhing but more weakly now, their glow dimming as whatever vestige of unnatural life they had left began to wane.
Huld described the scene to the others, how the aged warrior lay bleeding in the center of the road, his body horribly torn, barely alive, but still gripping his sword. Nearby lay three death-horrors with shattered skulls. The warrior’s horse stood nearby as if watching over him.
Bloodsong dismounted and knelt beside the dying man, wishing there was more light by which to see.
“Warrior,” she said. “Ragnar Olaf’s Son. It is Bloodsong.”
Huld saw his eyes flutter weakly open, trying to see Bloodsong, then closing again when he could not.
“Odin will welcome you, warrior,” Bloodsong promised.
Huld saw him give a slight nod, then incredibly, a smile.
He laughed weakly, then grimaced, spasmed, and died.
“The Valkyrie did not lie,” Huld quietly said.
“Nidhug placed those death-horrors in our path,” Bloodsong reasoned. “They would have been hidden, their glowing bones unseen beneath their bleeding flesh. Even you might not have seen them in time, Witch.”
“They would have sprung upon us before we could draw steel,” Valgerth added.
“But Ragnar was riding ahead of us,” Thorfinn said, “and they attacked him instead, giving us warning.”
“Aye,” Bloodsong agreed. “We’ve no time to honor him with a burial mound and a memorial stone, but I won’t leave him for the wolves. Stand back, all of you. Hold my horse, and his.”
Huld saw Bloodsong’s lips moving soundlessly as the Hel-warrior intoned a spell.
Valgerth moaned with horror as Bloodsong’s face became that of the glowing skull and the Hel-ring flickered with purple light. A brilliant purple ray shot forth from the ring, struck the fallen warrior’s corpse. The flesh of Ragnar Olaf’s Son burst into flames.
Feeling suddenly deeply fatigued from the draining Hel-fire spell, Bloodsong staggered a few steps back from the searing heat, her face her own once more. Soon, nothing remained of the warrior’s corpse but a mound of ashes. Even his mail, battle-helm, and weapons had been consumed in the sorcerous blaze.
“Very impressive,” Huld commented. “Can you teach me that spell?”
“First you need a Hel-ring, I suspect.” Bloodsong answered as she mounted her horse. “And even I did not know of it until just now. It just came.”
“Or was sent? By Hel?”
“I don’t know, curse it. But why not earlier, if it was Hel who sent it? I could have used it before. Why now, just to consume a dead man’s flesh?”
“Did it drain your energy? It must have.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe Hel held it back. The temptation to use it might have tired you needlessly, where a lesser spell would have sufficed, which has indeed been the case. Or perhaps it—”
“Enough! We could speculate about it all night.”
Huld shrugged.
“Valgerth,” Bloodsong said, “I heard you moan when I was working the spell. And earlier, you would not ride with me.”
“Freyadis, I—”
“And so I will repeat what I told you before,” Bloodsong quickly went on. “You owe me no debts. You are free to go your own way. I told you I had changed. You know now that indeed I have. I do not blame you for feeling repulsed. What I have become, for Guthrun’s sake, repulses me, too.”
Valgerth said nothing.
“I doubt that Valgerth would leave your side, Bloodsong,” Thorfinn said at last, breaking the awkward silence. He reached out and touched Valgerth’s arm in the darkness.
Only Huld could see the look on Bloodsong’s face, the tears glistening in the Hel-warrior’s eyes.
“What about the warrior’s horse?” Huld asked, holding the aged stallion’s reins.
Bloodsong wiped at her eyes. “Bring him,” she said tightly, then urged her horse ahead down the road.