Bloodsong Hel X 3 Read online

  The one who had carried her did not leave but remained silent in the darkness. When he did not touch her again, she wondered why.

  The sound, when it came, startled and confused her. It was a dry, rasping sound, like dried wood scraping against stone. Silence returned for a moment, then the sound came again and yet again, and she realized that it must be the Death Slave trying to speak.

  As the Death Slave repeated the sound over and over again, it slowly became more intelligible.

  “Bloodsong?” Jalna hesitantly asked.

  “Yesss,” the death slave rasped, “annnd ... meee ...”

  “Bloodsong and ... you?”

  “Bothhh deaaad ... killled ...” the creature continued, struggling for every syllable. “Nidhuuug killled usss ... annnd ourrr ... sssonnn ...”

  No. Don’t let it be him, Jalna begged in her thoughts.

  “Haaate Nidhuuug ...”

  “Eirik?” Jalna whispered. “Are you ... Eirik?”

  “Meee!” the death slave cried. “Wannnt to killl Nidhuuug forrr ... killling Bllloodsssong, ouuur sssonn, annnd meee ...”

  Jalna felt like crying as Bloodsong’s memories of Eirik mingled with her own feelings, but she held back her tears. She understood now why her torment had stopped. She had cried Bloodsong’s name, had cried the slaves’ battle cry, and this Death Slave, who claimed to be Bloodsong’s murdered love, had heard and taken her to a safe corner of the chamber. That had to be it, she decided, but from Bloodsong’s memories she knew that Eirik had not seen Bloodsong die, for he had been slain himself first. Jalna also knew that because Bloodsong had not seen Eirik’s soul in Hel’s domain, she had been comforted by the assumption that Eirik was dwelling with the Gods. The knowledge that Nidhug had made a Death Slave of Eirik would be horrible for Bloodsong.

  She must never find out, Jalna decided. But perhaps it would comfort Eirik to know that Bloodsong was alive. He need not know that she was now a Hel-warrior, nor that she had died and spent six years in Hel’s domain.

  “Eirik,” Jalna quietly said, “Bloodsong is alive.”

  There was a long silence, then, “Alllive? Blllodsssong isss alllive?”

  “Yes. “

  The Death Slave made a sound like a dry sob. “Alllive ...”

  The dry, sobbing sound came again: “Howww lllong ... sssince I diiied?”

  “Six years.”

  After another long silence, the Death Slave said, “I llloved herrr sssso ...”

  Again silence descended, until Jalna heard new sounds and realized with tears seeping from her eyes that the Death Slave who called himself Eirik had begun to cry. But is it really him? Really Eirik? She suddenly wondered. Might this be another of Nidhug’s tricks? Another attempt to wrest Bloodsong’s nonexistent plans from her? He knew that because Jalna held Bloodsong’s memories, a meeting with a Death Slave who called himself Eirik would horrify and hurt her terribly.

  Tears stopped flowing from Jalna’s eyes. Even if the Death Slave had once been a man named Eirik, she must not forget that this was now a creature of Nidhug’s sorcery. Should Nidhug so will it, the Death Slave would no doubt strip the flesh from her bones without hesitation.

  She listened to the creature sobbing in the darkness, and hate burned anew in her heart. You must destroy Nidhug, Bloodsong, she thought, clenching her fists in impotent rage. You must find a way to destroy him. So much evil must not go unpunished!

  After a little while longer the Death Slave stopped weeping. She heard it stand and move away into the darkness. Would the others come for her again now? Had the one who called himself Eirik forgotten what had happened? Or would he remember her and their conversation and come to her aid again, should the others renew their attack? Or might the Death Slave merely have completed what Nidhug had ordered him to do and gone back to a state of mindless, living death?

  She kept straining to catch the first hint that the things were approaching. From time to time, she brushed crawling things from the bare flesh of her thighs and upper body. Then, remembering that she was only able to feel things above her knees, she brushed frantically at her numb lower legs and sent several previously unfelt things scuttling away.

  She fought fear, panic, helpless repulsion, and used her hatred to anchor her sanity.

  Bloodsong and freedom! she thought, all alone in the dark. Bloodsong and freedom!

  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.