ACCORDING TO the old tales, Dwarfs had made many of the Gods’ most prized possessions. They had made Odin’s spear, Thor’s hammer, and Brisingamen, the Goddess Freya’s sacred necklace, among other things, and now, though hardly a Goddess, a Hel-warrior named Bloodsong possessed a Dwarfish Tarnkappe.
Bloodsong studied the Tarnkappe thoughtfully as she chewed her last bite of breakfast. She glanced up at the cave and wondered how many Dwarfs wearing Tarnkappes were watching. Again, my thanks, Bloodsong thought, and for the food, too, she added, remembering their surprise when they had decided to breakfast in the comparative safety of the Dwarfs’ realm before traveling onward and found the dried meat and hard bread in their saddlebags had been replaced with slices of spiced meat, fresh cheese, and a heavy loaf of rich dark bread. Their wineskins had also been filled with potent golden mead.
Thanks to the unnatural sleep caused by the Dwarfs’ magic, Bloodsong felt rested and alert, her strength fully returned. Her three companions had also benefited from the Dwarfs’ sleep spell.
Bloodsong opened her spell pouch beneath the shadows of her cloak and placed the Tarnkappe inside. Then she rose and went to her horse. All four horses had been fed and well cared for by the Dwarfs.
Valgerth had also finished eating and was now looking to her horse. She cinched the saddle tighter and patted the beast’s neck, then looked over at Bloodsong. Valgerth frowned.
By sunset they would pass near the valley where Bloodsong had lived after the escape. The valley, the village, where she died, Valgerth thought, repressing a shudder of repulsion. The memories will surely tear at her. I must watch her closely and be ready to help in any way I can. I must be a friend to her now, perhaps more than ever before.
Feeling Valgerth’s intense gaze, Bloodsong glanced around. Their eyes met and held. Finally Valgerth nodded slightly and smiled. Bloodsong smiled back and returned the nod.
Thorfinn saw the silent exchange between the two women. He smiled.
Bloodsong swung up into her saddle. The others followed her example. Together they rode away from the cliff and the dark, yawning cave, out of the Dwarfs’ domain, and south along the mountain road toward Nastrond.
* * *
The tension grew in Bloodsong as sunset neared. They had ridden through the mountains in safety all afternoon. She was grateful for the respite, but it puzzled and worried her. The only conclusion she could draw was that Nidhug, for the moment at least, had abandoned magic in favor of the overwhelming physical forces at his command. Otherwise, they would surely have been attacked by some new sorcery after leaving the Dwarfs’ protection.
She thought of the Tarnkappe. It would be an excellent weapon against soldiers when they appeared, as she was certain they soon would. But what of her friends? The Tarnkappe only made the person wearing it invisible.
Bloodsong reined up at the top of a rise where the twisting mountain trail ended and a road through forested foothills began. The road sloped downward from the top of the rise to disappear among the trees. There was no sign of danger, and Bloodsong’s instincts told her that all was still well. Only her mind remained uneasy. Where are they? she wondered. Where are the soldiers Nidhug is certain to have sent north against us? They could be waiting in ambush anywhere in this forest.
The others reined up near Bloodsong. Valgerth glanced to the left, thinking about the valley there and the ruins of the village where Bloodsong once had lived.
“With the Tarnkappe,” Bloodsong said, “I have a chance to reach Nastrond, even if Nidhug’s entire army blocks the way. But you three will be vulnerable. Perhaps it is now time for us to—”
“She’s trying to get rid of us again,” Huld broke in.
Valgerth and Thorfinn laughed.
“Forget it, Bloodsong,” the Witch said.
Bloodsong sighed. “I don’t want any of you to die.”
“We should already be dead several times over,” Valgerth replied. “But we are not.”
“You have luck with you, Bloodsong,” Thorfinn said, “or the Gods, or both, and a warrior is always glad to follow a leader to which luck and the Gods’ favor clings.”
“If too many soldiers confront us,” Valgerth said, “then we might consider separating, but not before. We three could lead them a wild chase while you used the Tarnkappe and slipped through to Nastrond.” Valgerth saw the Hel-warrior’s eyes shift left toward the valley. “Nidhug may send soldiers to search for you in places other than along this main road, Freyadis.”
“Such as near the graves of my husband and son?” Bloodsong asked, her voice flat, still looking toward the valley.
“Freyadis, I—”
“It’s all right, Valgerth. There was much happiness there before the pain, and I will try to cling to the happiness as we pass through the valley.”
“Through?” Valgerth asked, uneasily.
“Aye. It is foolish to continue on the main road now that we are south of the mountains and have a choice. Once through that valley, many roads lead across the plain to Nidhug’s fortress. There may be soldiers on each one, but perhaps not as many as will be searching for us on the main road.”
“And what about the soldiers who are almost certain to be waiting in ambush near your old village, Freyadis?”
“I’ll use the Tarnkappe and kill them,” Bloodsong answered. “But perhaps Nidhug will think I wouldn’t dare go there. Maybe there won’t be any soldiers in the village.”
“And maybe Freya will take a vow of chastity,” Valgerth suggested skeptically.
Huld laughed at the sarcasm. “Bloodsong, I want to suggest something,” she said. “From my own experience with magic, I know that one of the easiest mistakes for a magic worker to make is to let their magical senses be fooled by their physical ones. If Nidhug’s physical senses told him you were in one place, while you were in fact in another, invisible wearing the Tarnkappe, he might become careless, might temporarily neglect to search for you with his sorcery. What’s more, if Dwarfish magic turns away his sorcery, the Tarnkappe might make you undetectable by his sorcerous senses as well.”
“So, you are suggesting that I should perhaps have been wearing the Tarnkappe since leaving the Dwarfs’ domain?”
“I should have thought of it sooner,” Huld admitted.
“Or I myself,” Bloodsong said.
“But now that it has been thought of, if we were to exchange cloaks and you were to then put on the Tarnkappe while I pulled the hood of your cloak up to hide my face—”
“No, Huld.” Bloodsong shook her head. “I will wear the Tarnkappe, but you will not be made into the main target for Nidhug’s soldiers.”
“Bloodsong, please,” Huld insisted. “Nidhug will surely have told his soldiers to look for a rider wearing black, and yours is the only black cloak here.”
“Freyadis is right, Huld,” Valgerth said. “You should not be made the target. I should.”
“No, Valgerth.” Bloodsong shook her head again.
“Shall I impersonate you then?” Thorfinn asked with a laugh. “The Witch’s plan is a good one, Bloodsong, and though the last thing I want is for something to happen to Valgerth, she is more your size and, in a fight, would not give the trick away by a lack of sword skill.”
Valgerth slipped off her cloak and held it out to Bloodsong.
“Listen to me, all of you,” Bloodsong said. “Nidhug may also have told his soldiers my name. If they remember me from the arena and get close enough to see whose face is beneath the hood of my cloak—”
“If they get that close,” Valgerth interrupted, “it will be during swordplay, and they won’t live to tell anyone what they see.”
“We won’t let them get that close, anyway,” Huld said.
“We’ll let them chase us instead,” Thorfinn continued, “as Valgerth has already suggested. Your horse will appear riderless, with you wearing the Tarnkappe. Soldiers chasing us won’t chase a riderless horse. You can slip away.”
“Your cloak, Freyadis?” Valgerth asked, still holding her own cloak out to the Hel-warrior. “And perhaps we should exchange shields too. They might be looking for those Runes and could see it from a distance.”
Bloodsong hesitated a moment more, started to say something else, changed her mind. “Modgud’s Bones,” she cursed, then unstrapped her shield, jerked off her cloak, and exchanged them for Valgerth’s.
Valgerth grinned as she took Bloodsong’s shield and cloak. But her grin faded when she slipped the Hel-warrior’s black fur cloak around her shoulders. She shuddered, remembering her dream of the corpse in Bloodsong’s clothing. And when she pulled up the hood, her repulsion grew even stronger. She set her teeth, determined not to remove the cloak.
“And now the Tarnkappe,” Huld prompted.
Bloodsong took the Tarnkappe from her spell pouch, removed her battle-helm, placed the Tarnkappe on her head, and vanished instantly from sight. Unseen by the others, she replaced her battle-helm over the Tarnkappe.
Valgerth and Thorfinn moved into the lead, while Huld and a seemingly riderless horse followed close behind.
“To the left, Valgerth,” came Bloodsong’s words from the apparently empty air beside Huld. “I’m sure you remember the way.”
“Yes, Freyadis. I remember,” Valgerth quietly said, shivering beneath the Hel-warrior’s cloak and leading the way off the trail into the forest toward the valley that had once been Bloodsong’s home.
* * *
Darkness had fallen when they topped a hill overlooking the ruins of Bloodsong’s former village. A half-moon waxing toward full hung in a clear sky. Huld had exchanged places with Thorfinn beside Valgerth.
“I see no sign of soldiers,” Huld reported. The Witch’s eyes flickered with the yellow-gold light of her night vision.
Invisible in her Tarnkappe, Bloodsong looked down upon the moonlight-silvered ruins, determined not to allow herself any tears. Her fists clenched around her horse’s reins, her eyes were drawn to a tree on a hill on the far side of the village. “By Guthrun’s soul and my own, and by the souls of all those Nidhug’s evil has harmed over the centuries, there will be vengeance,” Bloodsong vowed in a low, even voice.
“Eirik and your son are buried just down-slope from the tree, Freyadis,” Valgerth quietly said.
“I will visit them, alone,” Bloodsong announced. “Don’t try to dissuade me, Valgerth. With the Tarnkappe I will be in little danger if soldiers hide there, and I can watch for signs of an ambush as I go. I would have to scout ahead sooner or later, anyway, so it might as well be now.”
“You need not scout the village, Freyadis,” Valgerth protested. “We could go around—”
“And have soldiers at our back as well as our front?”
“Bloodsong,” Huld said, “what if instead of soldiers, Nidhug’s sorcery awaits you in the village? He could have set magical traps or placed demons there in case you returned.”
“I have faced his sorcery before. I have the Hel-ring, and besides, I’m now protected from his magic by the Tarnkappe.”
“We don’t know that for certain. I should come with you,” the Witch insisted.
“If I sense danger, Huld, I won’t approach the graves. And what good would my being invisible do, if you were with me?” Bloodsong dismounted. “I won’t be long,” she said, then, invisible, she walked down the hill toward the ruins.
The others dismounted. “Curse her stubbornness,” Huld said.
The sound of Bloodsong’s boots upon the earth was almost immediately lost in the distance. Valgerth and Thorfinn slipped reassuring arms around each other’s waists, silently remembering the day they had come to visit Bloodsong and found bloodstained ropes hanging empty around the tree.
Huld pointed at the distant tree. “Is that the tree where you had your vision, Thorfinn? And where Bloodsong—”
“Yes,” Thorfinn said, cutting her off and squeezing Valgerth’s hand.
“We should each watch in a different direction,” Valgerth said. “No soldiers can slip up on us in this moonlight if we keep a sharp watch.”
“I will watch toward the village with my night vision,” Huld said. And I will watch especially closely to see if anything happens near that tree, she added in her thoughts. “We should have done something to stop her from going down there alone,” the Witch grumbled, staring hard at the tree.
“Nothing short of binding her could have done that,” Valgerth commented uneasily.
“I’m afraid of what might happen to her,” Huld replied.
“As are we,” Thorfinn agreed, “but she was right about needing to scout the village for an ambush. You are not the only one who cares what happens to her, Witch.”
Huld gave him a quick glance, then nodded. “I know.” She stared back at the distant tree.
* * *
Sitting alone in his tower chamber, lost in thought, King Nidhug’s head suddenly snapped up. He frowned in concentration for a moment, seeking the source of that which had disturbed him. He then smiled, understanding.
A sorcerous trap he had set six years before was about to be sprung in the village where Bloodsong had lived. He had sent no soldiers there because that which waited and watched in the ruins was more deadly than any soldier. And now that watcher had sensed someone’s presence.
Could it be Bloodsong? he wondered hopefully. If she were that close to Nastrond now, his sorcerous senses could give him more information than before.
He closed his eyes in concentration, seeking Bloodsong’s essence, picturing in his mind the ruined village. But he could detect no one at all in the ruins or near the tree where she had died.
The sorcerer-king widened his search and sensed three presences somewhere beyond the village. Two were but unknown humans. A hint of magical energies clung to the third.
The two I saw with her during the Hunt, and the Witch, he decided. But if so, where, then, was Bloodsong herself?
He concentrated his search near the tree, then outward through the village again, but still detected no one’s presence.
Might she be using a spectral cloak of some kind? he wondered. Or Dwarfish magic perhaps?
One thing, however, was certain. Whomever the watcher in the village had sensed was soon going to die. If the intruder did turn out to be Bloodsong, he could retrieve the Hel-ring, and her corpse, later.
* * *
Sword in hand, Bloodsong walking quietly past the charred remains of the cottages, longhouses, and outbuildings which had once belonged to friends, slowly moving toward the hill and tree on the other side, searching for any tracks, any sign that men might be hiding in ambush. She approached one very special place, the home of the villager named Sifa, who had found her wounded and near death in the nearby hills after the escape. She had lived with Sifa until becoming Eirik’s mate.
Suddenly she froze, thinking she had seen a movement within the ruins of Sifa’s home. But she heard nothing and saw no further movement. After several tense moments, she decided it must have been a trick of the moonlight spawned by her bittersweet memories. She moved forward again, cautiously watching the ruins of Sifa’s cottage until it had been left behind.
When she reached the outskirts of the village and looked up at the tree, she hesitated and clenched her teeth against a feeling of foreboding. I am afraid, she suddenly realized, afraid to go nearer. Of all the reactions she had expected, fear was not one. After she had left Hel’s realm, visiting the site of her death had been something she had intended to do only after destroying Nidhug. Then, Guthrun by her side, she had thought to go there, to honor the dead of the village, her husband, her son, maybe even to rebuild the village and name it Eirik’s Vale in remembrance. But then the advantage of a Hel-horse’s speed had been lost, the others had joined her, and here she was, looking at the place where she had— Died! She thought.
Yes, I died. I should be nothing but a rotting corpse. I am perhaps more akin to the dead now than the living. Her legs felt weak. She shivered. No! she cut off the thoughts. Guthrun is alive. I am alive. We shall be together, again, soon. And fear be damned, I am going to visit the graves of my husband and son!
Bloodsong tightened her grip on her sword, took several deep breaths, and walked determinedly forward.
I promised Huld I’d go back if I sensed danger, Bloodsong reminded herself, but this is not danger I sense, only my own weakness, my own fear.
She could not see the graves clearly until nearly there, because they were covered by the shadow of the tree cast by the moonlight. But when she did draw near enough and saw what was there, her fear became tinged by a sick feeling, her thoughts whirling, emotions surging.
“No,” she moaned, “please, no.”
One of the oval graves bordered by small stones yawned darkly open, the larger of the two, the grave of her husband. And in the dark depths of Eirik’s grave she saw Runes, pulsing with purple light. “Corpse Runes.” She sobbed. She fell to her knees beside her husband’s grave. The Witch-lore in her mind told her what the Runes meant. The inhabitant of the grave had risen to obey the summons of a sorcerer. Nidhug has made of my Eirik a Death Slave!
Weeping over Eirik’s grave, Bloodsong momentarily became oblivious to her surroundings.
“Why do you cry, Freyadis?” a familiar voice asked nearby.
Bloodsong threw herself to her feet, whirled around, sword ready, pulse pounding. Confusion washed through her. Hadn’t it been night a moment before? And hadn’t she been kneeling beside a grave? But, no, that couldn’t have been. Summer sunlight bathed the hill in golden rays. Above her the tree limbs were thick with leaves. The ground at her feet was carpeted in green while brightly colored wildflowers nodded in a warm breeze. And nearby stood a dear friend.
“Why were you crying?” Sifa asked again, concern in her blue eyes. “Or were you? Perhaps I was wrong. It’s such a beautiful day, and you have no reason to be sad.”
Bloodsong smiled and gently touched her swelling abdomen. Her first child was growing stronger day by day. “If it’s a son,” Bloodsong said, “and if he proves worthy, I want to call him Eirik.”
Sifa laughed and took Bloodsong’s hand. The blond-haired woman went to her knees in the grass. “Sit with me awhile,” Sifa urged, pulling on Bloodsong’s hand. “Lie here in the grass with me for a moment. It’s so peaceful here. So very peaceful.”
Bloodsong nodded and lowered herself to her knees. But then she suddenly felt reluctant to lie down. She frowned, feeling there was something important she had forgotten.
Sifa stretched out on the grass. “Why do you hesitate, Freyadis? Lie down beside me. Rest. You’ve been working so hard lately, preparing for the birth of your first child. You deserve a rest here on the peaceful earth.”
Earth, Bloodsong thought, suddenly chilled. Darkness within the earth. A grave.
She shuddered, pulled her hand out of Sifa’s, began to stand.
Sifa grabbed her hands and pulled harder. “Lie down, Freyadis,” her friend ordered harshly.
“No, Sifa. Let go. I don’t feel well.”
“Lie down and you’ll feel better.”
“No.”
Suddenly, with a snarl of bestial rage, Sifa reached up and grabbed Bloodsong’s arms in a steely grip and began trying to force her down and onto her back.
Bloodsong fought back as the chill spread deeper within her and the sky darkened to night. The grass withered. Sifa changed, decayed, became a death-horror, tattered flesh clinging to bone, skeletal smile a grimace of hate, trying to force Bloodsong down into Eirik’s grave.
If she succeeds, Bloodsong thought, the Corpse Runes will hold me there, eat away my flesh, maybe even make a Death Slave out of me!
The Hel-warrior saw her sword on the ground to one side where she had dropped it during the hallucination. She threw herself to the side and managed to wrench the Death Slave off-balance, away from the grave. They fell together to the ground near her sword. She forced a knee up, thrust with all her strength. The Death Slave’s talon-like fingernails raked furrows on one side of her face as the thing lost its grip and was hurled away.
Bloodsong grabbed her sword, scrambled to her feet. And charged the Death Slave before it could stand. She slashed downward, severing the thing’s head from its neck. Again and again she cut downward with the blade until the Death Slave’s severed skull was a hacked and shattered ruin. The remainder of its body ceased to writhe. Then it and the mutilated skull crumbled to dust and were gone.
Bloodsong staggered back, feeling weak, the bleeding wounds the Death Slave had opened in her face throbbing with pain. She began to sweat, gasped for air, fought to retain her feet as the poison from the thing’s talons raced through her veins.
Her vision blurred. The former scene of a summer’s day came into and out of existence in time with the hammering of her heart. Then the scene changed.
She was naked and tied painfully tight to the tree, heard the screams of the villagers, the screams of her husband and son, saw Eirik and her infant child being tortured, saw them die. She saw Nidhug’s gloating face come near hers, looked down in horror at the corpse of her son tied to her breast, and heard Nidhug’s laughter as he rode away with his men, leaving her to die.
Then the scene changed again. She was near death, was going to die, did die. But then she felt the rotting corpse of her son stir in her breast, saw the slain villagers and her husband stagger back to life. They approached her. She heard them murmur soothing words as they untied her. They urged her to join them, to rest, to lie down in the narrow bed of her grave, to know peace.
Yes, she thought, I belong with you, with the dead.
But then, so faintly she could barely hear, there was the sound of a child crying. She looked for the source, saw a ghostly image on its knees. Its face was buried in its hands. She forced her way through the clinging hands of the corpses, reached out, touched the child’s dark hair. It looked up at her. The face was familiar, so like her own.
Guthrun! Her thoughts suddenly screamed, breaking the spell of the poison in her blood.
The ghostly image of her daughter vanished, and so did the hallucinations of the dead. She stood alone beneath the tree, leaned against the trunk, breathed heavily, and slowly regained her strength. She looked down at the Corpse Runes pulsing in Eirik’s grave. Somewhere the living corpse and soul of her husband was being kept tormented in slavery to Nidhug.
Her face a grim mask, Bloodsong raised her sword over the grave, gripping the hilt tightly, knuckles white, rage boiling within her, all grief momentarily burned away.
“I will destroy him, Eirik,” she vowed, her voice harsh in the darkness, “and when he walks the Earth no more, the Corpse Runes in your grave will fade, leaving your soul free to be with the Gods.” And if you’re imprisoned in Nastrond, perhaps I will find your dust or bones and return them here, she thought.
For a moment she wondered why Nidhug had not left Eirik’s undead corpse in the village in case she returned, instead of Sifa’s. Surely Eirik would have been even more likely to persuade her to lie down in the grave. But then she thought she knew the reason—so that even if she did manage to escape the trap and destroy the Death Slave, it would not be Eirik’s flesh and soul she freed, but Sifa’s, leaving Eirik still in torment, Nidhug’s slave.
She glanced at the smaller grave of her son. At least he left you in peace, she thought gratefully, and you may now rest peacefully too, dear Sifa, she added, eyes brimming. Then she wiped at her eyes, turned, and began walking back toward her friends, watching carefully for other danger, her hatred for Nidhug blazing more fiercely than ever it had before.