CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The clouds parted, and the world turned dark. The filtered sunlight of Folksvangr gave way to inky blackness. The only light was red, like the distant eruption of volcanoes. I set foot on rocky ground. The screams of tortured souls filled my head.
I stood on a stony precipice overlooking a plain of broken souls. Black, amorphous shapes fought across the field below me, their bodies made of the stuff of shadows, only their eyes and mouths distinct, and then only because they glowed with a red inner light that matched the sulphurous explosions that lined the horizon. Storm clouds churned overhead, giving voice to low, growling thunder, their depths punctured by bright lightning and brighter flames. The battle below was carried out in absolute silence. The screams I heard seemed to come from all around me, as though the rocks themselves suffered underfoot. The precipice on which I stood led down onto the plain below. Other bluffs dotted the horizon, their surfaces scarred by lightning and the twisted forms of dead trees.
“What the hell is this place?” I wondered aloud.
“An appropriate turn of phrase.” A shadow detached itself from the trail, strolling to the very edge of the precipice. It faced away from me, arms comfortably crossed at its waist. The edgelord, carrying what appeared to be a skull in his hands. “This, my friend, is the death I was promised. The death of glory, and the afterlife to go with it. An endless battle, in preparation for the war to come. All of it a lie.” He turned in my direction and lifted the skull mask, as though to offer it. I recognized him.
“Aelwulf?” I asked. “But that . . . you were honored among the valkyrie. You seemed happy!”
“I did not want happiness,” he spat. “The fat, lazy joy of that place was an abomination to the name Valhalla. I wanted the glory I was promised!”
“This?” I asked, throwing my arm out over the hellscape stretched below. “This miserable place? You would trade eternal life at a party for this?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Weak, soft-willed men like you, happy to drink beer and burp and . . .” His frustration became too much. He slammed the helm back down on his head and drew the Totenschreck. “Solveig saw a better way, when she learned of your pathetic domains, and the history of the Totenschreck. I was only too happy to follow. She hoped to convert you. A pity you didn’t die at her hand.” He raised the sickly green blade, its length squirming with unfettered energy. “You will find my offer much less pleasant, and impossible to deny.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said. “I’ve faced everything you threw at me, and I’m still standing. This domain of yours is just a figment, or I wouldn’t even be able to enter against your will. That sword is the only power you have, and it’s a borrowed power. You’re nothing without it!”
“I’m enough to destroy you!” Aelwulf shouted. He came at me with the sword in both hands, slicing down, but then pivoted the blade to slice at my side. Steel rasped against chain, and I scampered back. That blade was deadly, but it appeared my armor was enough to keep me safe. Aelwulf growled in frustration, but kept swinging, dropping the forte of his blade against the rim of my shield, then trying to swing the tip down, looking for some break in my armor. All he had to do was scratch me, and this was over. Desperately, I chopped at his ankle. It was enough to drive him back, if only for a moment.
“This is hopeless, Rast. I have died the death of steel a thousand times, fought against warriors of legend, even tried my hand against the gods.” He stalked toward me, blade loose at his side. “Do you think you are more dangerous than any of them? Because I think you are just a little boy who is in over his head.”
“I’ve been to Valhalla. I’ve seen what passes for fighting there,” I said. “You want me to get a volleyball so we can settle this like real Vikings?”
Aelwulf roared in outrage. He slammed my shield hard with his pommel, once, twice, a third time that forced me back. I tried to strike back, sliding my shield to the side and stabbing out with my sword. Derisively, he slapped my sword aside with Totenschreck’s ornate hilt, striking me so hard in the wrist that my blade went flying. With his backswing he took a swipe at my head, ringing my helm like a bell. I stumbled back, then turned to run. Aelwulf’s laughter followed me as I scrambled through the rocky path.
“What did I say, Sir Rast? You are outmatched. Overpowered. A pathetic excuse for a hero,” Aelwulf called after me. “Have the courage to die like a warrior. Perhaps I will find a place for you in my new Valhalla.”
“Solveig made a similar offer,” I said. “Still not very tempting.”
“Then why are you running? Do you think I will tire? Or that your friends may arrive to save you?”
“Pretty sure that’s not going to happen,” I mumbled to myself as I turned a corner on the trail. The geography here resembled a small river canyon, with dozens of narrow passages between steep, rocky walls snaking away from the precipice. I lost sight of the plain and its warring shadows, though the sound of screams and rumbling thunder followed me. I took one turn, then another, trying to stay out of Aelwulf’s view. I ducked behind a low stack of flat boulders and drew my dagger. Trying to control my breathing and slow my hammering heart, I sat and waited for Aelwulf.
“Hiding will do you no good,” he called a few moments later. He was far away, his voice echoing among the stones. Several moments later he spoke again. “This is my domain, Sir Rast. There is nowhere for you to run. No escape. Only death.”
That only confirmed that his domain was barely formed, and lacked the power of a true domain. It took a great deal of magical energy to form a domain. Even with the Totenschreck, Aelwulf must be testing the limits of his power.
Now if I could just poke some holes in his world, maybe the whole thing would come crashing down.
Metal scraped against stone nearby. I sank deeper into my nook and held my breath. The light here was dim and the shadows thick, so it wasn’t that difficult to stay hidden. At the same time, I didn’t see Aelwulf until he was on top of me.
He loomed around the corner, Totenschreck held up to provide some light from the putrescent glow emanating from its blade. I almost yelped in surprise, but then he walked right past me, eyes scanning the path ahead. I waited until he was a few yards down the way before I launched myself at him.
Jumping at someone while wearing plate armor has one big disadvantage, and one big advantage. Disadvantage, there’s no way to do it quietly. Advantage, once you’re flying through the air you’re pretty much an unstoppable battering ram of steel and chain.
Aelwulf spun around to face me. He tried to sidestep, but the lane here was too narrow, and the sides of the trail were littered with loose rocks. His shoulder banged into the wall just as I ran into him, shield first. We went down in a clatter of steel and stone. The Totenschreck slid along the top of my shield, passing over my head and harmlessly bouncing off the wall. As we rolled along the rocky ground, I brought my dagger up and slid it across the front plate of his armor, blindly trying to find the seam between chest and arm. Aelwulf hammered on the top of my helm with the pommel of his sword, driving the metal cap down my forehead and twisting the visor out of position, obscuring my vision. Just as I thought I’d found a place for my dagger to go, he drove his right knee into my rib cage. The dagger almost slipped from my fingers, and the force of the blow rolled me onto my side.
Quickly, Aelwulf shoved me onto my back and pried my shield away from his face. His right foot went down on the wrist of my shield arm as he sat on my thighs, pinning me in place. I tried to roll out of it, but I couldn’t do it without ripping my arm out of its socket.
“Can we talk about this?” I gasped. “Look, I’m not a big fan of volleyball, either. Maybe we could get together and produce a better talent competition. Something with class! I could—”
“This is how you end, John Rast: sweating and begging for your life.” He reversed his grip on the Totenschreck and lifted it over his head, preparing to drive it through my throat. “Perhaps the valkyries will get you, but I don’t think there are many of them left, and they can’t reach you here anyway.”
Wriggling my hips, I kneed Aelwulf in the back. It didn’t have the kind of force I was hoping for, and did little more than upset his balance. He regained it, stretching his right leg and grinding down on my wrist with his boot. I screamed in pain, sure that my hand was broken, but when I looked over I saw that he had overextended his foot. The gap between greave and cuisses lay open, exposing the inside of his knee.
I drove the narrow blade of my mercy dagger hard into the chain mail. It punched through the mail and flesh, skidding off the bone. Aelwulf screamed and fell backward, crushing my legs. I kicked him off and rolled clumsily to my feet, leaping as he swung at my heels. When I turned around I saw him pluck out the dagger and throw it to the side, then slowly drag himself to one leg. Damned Vikings were tough, especially those who had died a thousand deaths and so forth.
“You’re going to pay for that, Rast,” he swore. “Death is too much glory for you. I’m going to pare you down, fingerbone by rib cage, keeping you alive and screaming, until there’s nothing left but—”
“Yeah, yeah, guts for entrails, I get it,” I said, then ran back the way we’d come. Aelwulf’s lurching footsteps followed, laced through with some very creative and vile threats regarding my digestive system.
My sword was right where I’d left it. Aelwulf didn’t think enough of me to kick my blade into the pit of warring shadows, or pick it up and stick it in his belt. That was fine by me. I didn’t mind being underestimated. After all, I wasn’t the one stabbed in the kneecap, was I? I picked up the sword, then adjusted my helm. The visor was hopelessly broken, so I twisted it off and tossed it aside, then looked around for a suitably heroic place for my last stand. The terrain was choked with small passages and steep cliffs, but about ten yards down the trail I found an open bluff surrounded on three sides by sheer dropoffs down to the plain of endless war. It seemed like as good a place to die as any.
Aelwulf limped out of the shadows. Blood soaked his right leg from knee to heel, and before he saw me he was using the Totenschreck to support himself. Hardly a glorious purpose for a magical sword. As soon as he laid eyes on me, though, he brought the sword to his hip and tried to disguise the limp with swagger.
“You have chosen the place of your death? Good. In honor of the blood you have drawn, I will erect a cairn at this spot once I am done with flaying your legs and feeding them to you.”
“My mother always said I wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans,” I said. “Well, look who’s piling stones now, Mom! Ha! Showed you!”
“You have a strange sense of humor. You might have made a good Viking, if not for your cowardice and misplaced entitlement.”
“Cowardice? What the hell do you mean by that? I’ve chased you all the way to hell, and I’m going to drag you back to the real world if it’s the last thing I do.”
“It will be,” he said casually. “You want to show your courage? Take off that girlish armor. It’s not fitting for a man to be so precious with his skin.”
“This coming from a man wielding a magic sword that kills with the slightest cut,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll stick with my steel, thanks.”
“Very well.” He reached the clearing and looked out over the warring shadows down below. “Look at them, John. Don’t they look happy?”
“They do not,” I said. “Are you done with your break time, old man? Can we start fighting, or do you need a nap?”
“The dead never sleep,” he said. “As you are about to find out.”
Our swords met in a crash of steel and necrotic magic, spitting sparks like fireworks. Below us, the silent dead fought on.