Bloodsong Hel X 3 Read online

  Valgerth nodded. “Yes, but Gerda—”

  “Look there!” Bloodsong shouted, pointing to the edge of the forest.

  Emerging from the trees galloped an army of mounted warriors, thundering closer. In front of them came nine black-clad warriors atop gaunt white steeds.

  Bloodsong cursed. “That explains the dark clouds. Hel-warriors atop Hel-horses.” She knew the Hel-horses could not stand the rays of the sun, and that they would sweep over the walls and try to open the gates. She shouted, “Protect the gates!” She drew her sword and readied her shield. “Protect the gates from inside! Move!”

  Warriors looked confused but hastened to obey. Many left the ramparts and soon stood ready in defense of the gates from within.

  The riders swept on toward the fortress. Just out of bowshot, the main mass of the army reined to a halt. The Hel-horses rose higher into the air, were soon level with the ramparts, and hurtled on toward the defenders of Eirik’s Vale as the steeds’ hooves tread the moaning black shadows swirling beneath them.

  As the Hel-warriors sped nearer, their corpselike nature was revealed to the watchers on the ramparts. When Bloodsong had fought Nidhug in Hel’s name, she had herself been a Hel-warrior, but a living one, not like the death-horrors nearly upon them, black-bladed swords drawn, purple fires flickering within the empty eye sockets of their skullish faces.

  “They’re like the ones Nidhug had with him when he led the Hunt of the Damned against us!” Valgerth cried, “and only the Hel-ring you wore was able to defeat them!”

  “Perhaps they’re not quite the same,” Bloodsong said hopefully. “I never regretted Hel taking back that cursed ring and the Witch-powers it gave me, until now.”

  Valgerth shouted orders to her archers. A volley was fired at the approaching death-horrors, then another. Shafts struck their targets and embedded themselves deeply into riders and mounts alike. The Hel-warriors and their steeds took no notice.

  Valgerth cursed.

  The black-clad corpse-warriors shot over the ramparts. Black blades flashed downward nearly too fast to see. Men screamed. Beside Thorfinn, Ole fell without a sound, blood and brains pouring from a cloven skull.

  The Hel-warriors came to the ground within the walls, slicing left and right as they divided up, two heading for each of the four gates. The ninth rider jumped from his steed and ran toward the entrance to one of the barracks.

  “My children are in there!” Valgerth cried.

  Several warriors left the gates to block the ninth Hel-warrior’s way to the barracks.

  “Go help them,” Bloodsong ordered.

  Valgerth and Thorfinn hesitated, torn between their duty on the ramparts and their desire to do as Bloodsong had said.

  “Go!” she shouted. “The battle is there, anyway, not here!”

  Valgerth and Thorfinn headed down to join the battle.

  Bloodsong glanced back to the army outside the fortress.

  Flames had begun to rise from some of the dwellings. An image of the massacre she had witnessed thirteen years before rose in her mind. It won’t happen again, she vowed. I won’t let it.

  The army outside the gates was spreading out, encircling the fortress, ready to enter once the Hel-warriors had opened the gates.

  Bloodsong looked to see how many Hel-warriors yet remained. A chill shot through her. The eight who had attacked the gates still sat on their skeletal steeds, slaying to left and right. Only a few warriors were left to oppose them at the gates. The ninth rider was pressing ever nearer the barracks, advancing with frightening ease through those who fought him. And then she saw that even when a Hel-warrior’s blade did not slice flesh, defenders still died, crumpling to the ground and screaming in agony even if their weapons so much as contacted the swords or bodies of the Hel-warriors. Merely touching them causes death! Bloodsong realized, sickened, suddenly knowing that against such warriors her own had no chance, that the battle could end in only one way.

  She ran along the ramparts, shouting empty encouragements to her warriors, ordering the archers to stand ready near the gates should the main army charge. And then she saw Valgerth and Thorfinn racing to help fight the Hel-warrior near the barracks. She glanced outside the fortress one last time and saw that there was nothing more she could do there. She threw herself down the stairs toward the hopeless battle raging within the fortress. Thank Freya that Guthrun is safe with Huld, she thought as she reached the ground. She raced for the gate that had the fewest warriors left to defend it and saw, as she ran, that only Valgerth and Thorfinn remained to stop the ninth Hel-warrior from entering the barracks. The Hel-warrior suddenly drew back, refusing to fight them, refusing even to let their weapons touch him, and moving with a preternatural speed to evade their cuts.

  Bloodsong stopped running toward the gate and ran toward the barracks instead, wondering why the Hel-warrior was drawing back and if there still might be a way to stop those at the gates.

  “He has a death-touch!” Valgerth shouted as Bloodsong came to a stop beside her.

  “What did you do to make him draw back?” Bloodsong demanded, watching as the Hel-warrior evaded yet another cut from Thorfinn’s sword.

  “Nothing!” Thorfinn called.

  “Except attack him, like all the others were doing. But he must not want us dead,” Valgerth concluded.

  “Then you two can help at the gates if the others act the same way.”

  “And you?” Valgerth asked.

  Bloodsong understood and stepped toward the Hel-warrior.

  He drew back from her too.

  Suddenly a small form slipped by Bloodsong and ran at the death-horror, a young, blond-haired girl brandishing a wooden training sword.

  “Thora!” Valgerth screamed, and made a grab for her daughter.

  The Hel-warrior avoided the child, too.

  Valgerth reached Thora, held the child tightly, and dragged her back toward Thorfinn and Bloodsong.

  All defenders at the north gate had fallen. The two Hel-warriors there were opening the gates, ignoring the arrows being embedded in their flesh from archers on the ramparts. The army outside thunder through, shields held over their heads to fend off arrows.

  As the mortal warriors poured into the fortification shouting war cries, the Hel-warriors at the gates sped away. The one who had attacked the barracks mounted his Hel-horse and followed close behind, his steed galloping skyward upon the moaning shadow-winds and over the ramparts. With his departure the sky began to clear. Morning sunlight again bathed the fortress as Bloodsong and her warriors battled within.

  Nearly half the warriors of Eirik’s Vale lay dead and decaying from the Hel-warrior’s death touch, and though those who remained fought with all the skill and ferocity Bloodsong had taught them, the attackers were too many. In the midst of the battle, warriors surrounded Bloodsong and threw a heavy net over her, as if she were a beast to be captured. As she struggled to cut her way free, she saw nets being thrown over Valgerth and Thorfinn, too.

  It was soon over, the battle lost. Bloodsong, Thorfinn, and Valgerth stood sweating near the barracks, their hands bound tightly behind them, warriors with drawn swords watching them closely as the few defenders who yet lived were herded out the northern gateway.

  Other warriors forced the people within the barracks outside and out the northern gateway, too, all except Thora and Yngvar, Valgerth and Thorfinn’s daughter and son, who were pushed to where their mother and father stood bound.

  Beyond the northern gateway screams began to rise.

  Bloodsong started forward, memories of the massacre years before tearing at her. A sword touched her throat and prodded her back against the barrack’s wall.

  “What are you doing to them?” she cried.

  Those guarding her said nothing, merely exchanged knowing grins.

  Through the northern gateway rode a man and a
woman, he with tanned skin and gray hair, the woman with pale flesh and long black hair hanging in glistening coils.

  “Kovna!” Bloodsong cursed, recognizing the man.

  “And the woman?” Thorfinn asked.

  The woman was too far away to have been able to hear, but her eyes turned upon Thorfinn and held his gaze as she rode nearer. “I am Thokk,” she announced as she and Kovna reined to a halt nearby. Her gaze shifted to Valgerth and the children, then settled upon Bloodsong. She smiled coldly.

  The screams beyond the walls were growing louder, more numerous, more agonized.

  “You’re wondering what’s happening to them,” Kovna said, eyes boring into Bloodsong’s. “You will see,” he said with a laugh, “before you die.”

  JALNA PACED in frustration at the edge of the forest. She cursed under her breath. The massacre of the survivors of Eirik’s Vale had begun. Kovna’s men were amusing themselves with the captives, killing them in various ways, none quick or painless, even women and children. Having suffered torture herself, Jalna’s fury grew with each ragged scream.

  “We have to do something,” she insisted, looking at Tyrulf. “They’re killing them!”

  He said nothing.

  “Curse you,” she said, and returned her gaze to the distant scenes of horror, watching as her friends and comrades in arms screamed again and again.

  Tyrulf felt angry that there was nothing he could do to help. It was much as it had been in Nidhug’s dungeons when he’d wanted to help Jalna, except that this time she was safe. If not for him, she would either be already dead, or screaming in the distance with the people of Eirik’s Vale. “At least you need not worry about Bloodsong’s life, at the moment,” he told her.

  Jalna stopped pacing. “Because?”

  “We had orders to spare her, along with another woman named Valgerth, a man named Thorfinn, and their children. Thokk worked a spell, and their identities and appearances came into our minds. We trained using nets to capture them.”

  “Hel’s Blood!” Jalna cursed and began pacing again. “But, that gives us a little more time.”

  “To do what?”

  She turned angry eyes on him. “Rescue them, of course.”

  “Have you noticed? There is an army—”

  “Curse the army! There must be a way.”

  “And Thokk?”

  “Curse her, too.”

  “Very well. Maybe you are right. Cursing them might make them run away in fear, so that we can—”

  “Silence! I am trying to think.”

  He shrugged and watched her pace.

  There must be a way! Jalna thought. There’s got to be a way!

  * * *

  A heavy rope tied around Bloodsong’s neck ran to Kovna’s saddle. He and Thokk rode ahead, leading her toward a hill outside the village upon which grew one ancient tree. Not far from the base of the tree were two oval graves outlined in stones, one grave smaller than the other, the graves of Bloodsong’s infant son and his father.

  Their destination clear, Bloodsong struggled even harder to free her hands, her eyes locked on the approaching tree, but the tight cords held her wrists unyieldingly behind her.

  Kovna turned in his saddle, noticed the expression on her face, and laughed.

  All around Bloodsong were scenes and sounds of death and horror. Most of the surviving warriors were now mercifully dead, but their screams had been replaced by those of the other villagers. Even the children! Bloodsong thought, sickened and enraged. Fire was spreading rapidly throughout the village, and soon it would all be in blackened ruins again.

  Just like before, Bloodsong thought, shuddering. It was all happening again as it had thirteen years ago, and there was nothing she could do except follow helplessly along behind her captors like a beast on a leash, just as she had all those years in the past. And she had no doubts that Kovna planned the same for her on the tree she had suffered once before.

  Could I have foreseen this? Prevented it? she wondered bitterly. Did I miss warnings? Ignore advice I should have heeded? I have failed those who trusted me to protect them. Thank Freya that Guthrun is safe with Huld.

  * * *

  Huld remembered going to sleep with Norda and Guthrun in the cottage, planning the next day’s lessons for Guthrun, reminding herself that it would soon be Norda’s birthday and she must complete the surprise she had been creating for her beloved teacher. Then, with sleep had come nightmares from which she could not awaken, until now.

  The young Witch gritted her teeth against the pains of returning awareness. Even with her eyes open there was only darkness. Her shoulders and wrists ached sickeningly. She tried to move and managed slightly to flex the muscles in her arms and legs. Chains rattled.

  She was standing upright, chained. Her clothing was gone. She struggled harder, panic sweeping through her. No matter, she told herself, trying to grow calm. I can easily free myself with the spell to open locks.

  Huld concentrated her will, softly intoned the lilting phrases of the spell, and waited for the yellow-gold light of Freya’s power to glow around the manacles that held her wrists and ankles. The darkness remained. She tried again and then again. She remained bound.

  Spell-chains? she wondered, panic returning. Like the ones Nidhug used on me? But Nidhug had been destroyed, transformed into a monstrous, maggot-like dragon by the Goddess Hel and condemned to scream forever in a dark corner of Helheim. Huld had seen his transformation and disappearance from the Earth with her own eyes. Who, then, had placed her in spell-chains? She thought of Norda’s old enemy, the Hel-Witch, Thokk. Yes, it might well be Thokk’s doing, but if so, why? Revenge? And if she were in Thokk’s dungeon, was she there alone? Or had Norda and Guthrun also been captured?

  “Norda?” she called into the darkness. “Guthrun?” She tried several more times, but received no response.

  The air was cold and moist. A faint scent of decayed flesh underlay its musty odor.

  Huld strained onto tiptoes to relieve her aching shoulders and wrists. She considered the way she was chained, her legs and arms splayed out so that her body formed an X. A living Gebo Rune, she thought. Might there be a purpose in that? She knew that the X Rune was often used in operations of sex magic, representing as it did the interaction of two forces.

  She tried to discount the notion and control her fears. Something touched her bare foot, something covered with stiff hairs. She took a deep breath and yelled as loud as she could, heard what she assumed to be a rat squeal in fright and scuttle away. A small victory, she thought.

  The muscles in her calves began to tremble and cramp from maintaining her tiptoed position. She sagged in her chains once more, pain returning to her wrists and shoulders, and hung helpless in the darkness, cold, frightened, confused, angry, waiting for she knew not what.

  * * *

  “Bloodsong!” Jalna exclaimed. “I see her now. There. “She pointed. “Walking behind Kovna and Thokk, headed toward—” Her voice trailed away. “Gods,” she whispered. “No. They’re taking her to that hill where—”

  “Where?” Tyrulf prompted.

  “Nidhug tied her to the tree on that hill after recapturing her thirteen years ago. Then he tortured her husband and son to death as she watched and left her there to die. I don’t want to believe that they’d do that to her again.”

  “It would be like Kovna,” Tyrulf commented. “He was undoubtedly with Nidhug that other time.”

  “I’m going to circle around through the forest so that I’m nearer. You need not come with me.”

  “Try to stop me.” Tyrulf set off beside her through the trees.

  * * *

  While Kovna and Thokk watched, warriors with drawn swords prodded Bloodsong to the lone tree on the hill, then turned her to face her captors. Kovna stepped closer.

  “You remember thirteen years ago?” he asked
.

  Bloodsong met his gaze but said nothing.

  “Of course she remembers,” Thokk said with a laugh. “She also guesses what’s coming and is struggling to keep her fear and panic from showing.”

  Kovna nodded, concealing his distaste for the magic that allowed Thokk to so easily penetrate the minds of others. He remembered that King Nidhug had been able to do that, too, but not in the same way, not so effortlessly. Thokk had obviously discovered certain secrets that Nidhug, for all his power, had not.

  He walked nearer to Bloodsong. “You also remember,” he continued with a soft laugh, “that Nidhug stripped you naked before tying you to the tree, as befitted an escaped slave about to be executed.”

  Several of Kovna’s warriors chuckled.

  Bloodsong ignored them and kept her eyes locked with Kovna’s.

  Kovna leaned closer to her face. “I’m going to have your hands untied. You will strip yourself naked and place yourself against the tree to be tied there to die.”

  “She’s thinking that as soon as her hands are free—” Thokk began.

  “I can guess what she’s thinking, Witch,” Kovna growled, “but she’s not going to try any arena warrior’s tricks, for several reasons.” He lightly touched Bloodsong’s long black hair.

  She jerked her head away.

  He laughed harshly. “We don’t have your husband and son to torture this time,” he said, “but if you don’t cooperate, we can substitute your friends, Valgerth and Thorfinn, and their children. And if you don’t care about them?” He gestured to Thokk. “Show her.”

  Thokk had been holding a long, thin object wrapped in leather that she had taken from her saddle. Watching Bloodsong’s eyes, she unwrapped the object with a flourish. Guthrun’s sword fell at Bloodsong’s feet.

  “No!” Bloodsong cried, started forward. Swords instantly pressed her back.