Bloodsong Hel X 3 Read online

  Jalna tried to remember the strange dream she’d just seen, but the pain again crowded out everything else. She made herself look at her stomach. She sobbed with horror.

  “Tell me all you learned about Bloodsong.”

  Jalna shook her head.

  “Is that a no?”

  She cried helpless tears.

  He shrugged and intoned a runic phrase. The tip glowed brighter.

  Jalna moaned then gritted her teeth and cut the sound off.

  With a gesture, he made the brightened tip touch her stomach wound again.

  Jalna screamed and heaved and tried to dislodge the tip but it followed her every move. When she passed out again, the dream-woman continued her appeal.

  Trust Hel to tell you what to do and say, Jalna Audsdaughter.

  But when I die, I do not want my soul to go to Helheim!

  Hel will love and heal you. Trust me. Trust Hel.

  I can’t!

  Then trust Hel’s hate for Nidhug. If you would mislead Nidhug and help Bloodsong, call on Hel.

  Hel is a monster!

  Would Bloodsong ride in Hel’s name if Hel were a monster?

  I don’t know. I—

  Nidhug forced Jalna out of darkness again.

  “From Bloodsong, you know where this torture leads.” He brightened the tip another degree. “And because time is short, we are there.”

  Jalna’s heart jumped and stuttered at the news.

  “I will now make the wand touch you until either you break or the burning eats away too much of you and you die. Pass out and I will leave it burning while I wake you up. But if you die, I will bring you back to life, heal you, and start over.”

  He gestured with his fingers and positioned the tip. “You are no hero, wretched woman! You are just a miserable slave, contaminated by contact with the mind of an insane traitor. Tell me Bloodsong’s secrets!”

  “She will—” she panted, “destroy you!” Her voice was so hoarse from screaming, it hardly seemed her own.

  “Believe me, slave, you do not want me to do this next thing! With the tip this bright, the burning and boiling will spread rapidly in all directions, up and down your torso and legs, and that is just on the surface. It will also burn into your guts! It might even boil and burn all the way through a slender thing like you and separate your upper body from your lower. Think about that. But even then I can bring you back to life, and you will eventually tell me what I need to know.”

  A growl started low in Jalna’s throat and built into a wordless roar as she jerked and heaved back and forth in a berserking rage against her bonds.

  “Please, little slave, cooperate with me so that I can heal you and make you pretty again. You are already so ugly it turns my stomach. Cooperate!”

  I must think of lies to fool him! Quickly! Without calling on— The words had come unbidden into her mind. Calling on whom? Then it all came flooding back. Was that real? Can I really call on Hel for help? Dare I? Do I have any choice but to try?

  “You just ran out of time, slave.”

  “No! Wait!”

  “Are you ready to talk?”

  Oh Gods! I can’t stand any more! Skadi forgive me! Hel! I call on the Goddess Hel! Help me! Stop him! Help—

  Jalna’s consciousness shifted. Though still awake, ghostly figures arose in her mind.

  She saw a woman on a throne, half alive, half dead. A young girl with dark hair and brooding eyes stood nearby. And a woman with long blond hair—Halta! Jalna recognized Hel’s messenger. And Queen Hel. But the child? Then from Bloodsong’s memories she knew. Bloodsong’s daughter! Guthrun!

  Trust me, courageous one, said Hel, touching Jalna’s thoughts. I will tell you what to do and give you words to mislead Nidhug. But I know well his mind. To be certain he believes my lies, you must promise to wait until he has hurt you just a little bit more.

  What? No! Give me the words to stop him!

  You better do what She says! the child warned, frowning, then, fighting tears, Guthrun added, Please! Help my mother!

  I can’t stand any more!

  Your soul is stronger than you know, Daughter of Aud, Hel told her. I will trust you. Receive now my words!

  Jalna heard a multitude of undecipherable whispers fill her mind. Then they stopped. Her thoughts cleared. Focused. And she realized Hel had done what She had promised. I have the words! False plans! Everything! I can stop him!

  Nidhug moved the tip closer. Tendrils of smoke rose from Jalna’s skin.

  “I’ll tell!”

  He smiled. “Very well. Begin!”

  “Move the tip—” she gasped, “back!”

  He moved it closer, instead. “Talk!”

  “Yes!” She panted. “Bloodsong plans to—”

  No! she stopped herself. Don’t be the coward you’ve always been! Do what Hel asked! Bloodsong would! Let him start! Then stop him quick!!

  “Monster! I won’t tell! Bloodsong and freedom!”

  He shrugged and made the tip touch her.

  She screamed and immediately cried, “I’ll tell you!”

  The wand stayed in place.

  She screamed and jerked and spasmed and struggled to stay conscious. “Stop!”

  “Not quite yet.”

  “Stop!” Must remember Hel’s words! Hel’s words! Then she heard Nidhug. He was again laughing at her suffering! Her hatred for him erupted beyond anything she’d ever imagined she could feel.

  “It needs to be brighter.”

  “No!” She panted and fought and gasped for air.

  He began a runic phrase—

  “Let me tell!”

  He finished the phrase.

  The pain consuming her unbelievably increased and the destruction of her flesh accelerated.

  Consciousness slipping, she fought back. Her pounding heart faltered but recovered and raced even faster. Smoke rose from her manacles as the flesh of her wrists and ankles burned.

  “But when Bloodsong broke, it was one degree brighter.”

  “No!” She screamed. “No!” She gasped and sobbed, “I beg you!” Oh Gods! I begged! Just like Bloodsong! No!

  “Ah! You begged!” He laughed loudly. Then he brightened the tip.

  Incoherent screams echoed in the cavern’s icy air as Jalna’s burning body thrashed and spasmed out of control.

  “Only one degree brighter to go!” He shouted to be heard over her constant screams.

  She shook her head No! but could only keep screaming. She fought through the pain and smoke just to breathe. Remember the words! Her vision blurred. Must stay awake. Her vision darkened. Don’t pass out! Stay awake! Don’t let him win! Remember the words!

  He brightened the tip to its maximum.

  Agony exploded.

  The burning spread quickly. The heat overwhelmed her eyes and her vision went dark. She arched rigid in her chains and shook with constant spasms. Unconsciousness clawed at her. But then she heard him laughing again and screamed in rage and fought back and endured and found a way to brokenly shout, “Let! Me! Tell!”

  He spoke Runes. The wand vanished.

  Jalna’s burning spread no farther, but each breath was a struggle and, now blind, lost in darkness, the slightest movement brought fresh agony. She fought to retain Hel’s words. She feared she would die before she could deliver the false plans. She worried that if she died and he brought her back, her memory of the words might be gone.

  Nidhug waved away smoke and looked up at her. “What you just did is not possible. You took more punishment than Bloodsong without passing out! Or dying! And now, though burned raw, you are still awake and aware. It is simply not possible. Oh, you looked like nothing but a pretty slave, but that was just a disguise. What are you?”

  “Wh—” she gagged, almost coughed, managed not to
, “What?”

  “Who are you?”

  She fought to breathe. “I—” she sobbed. Her heart fluttered unsteadily, “I am—” a gasp, “Jalna Auds—”

  “I don’t mean your name. I want to know who you used to be.”

  “Who?”

  “Your soul! You are beginning to remind me of someone from long ago. I must remember who.”

  “I—” she whimpered weakly, “am dying! Let me tell!” She abandoned herself to a long wail of agony and horror. “If I die and—” she coughed, screamed, “you bring me back,” she hurried the words and gasped another breath, “I might forget.”

  “You might be a reincarnated enemy. If so, my sorcery can use undying hatred such as an old enemy would feel. But we will investigate those mysteries later.”

  A desperate idea flashed in her mind. “Heal me!” she pleaded. “Just enough—” she gasped, “to live!” She sobbed. “Don’t risk my dying—” another gasp, “and forgetting Bloodsong’s—” she coughed, screamed, “secrets!”

  “Actually, you are correct. I should not risk your forgetting. Your inhuman endurance distracted me. Is that your purpose? To distract me? Are you working against me, even now?

  She heard him chanting Runes, Not having sight, she did not know the Venom Wand had vanished. She feared he had lied about its having been its brightest and was brightening the tip again. She stiffened at a sudden stab of deep pain, in her heart. But a moment later, her heart began beating normally. Its unsteadiness was gone. And then, into her eyes light came in a hazy patch, and as the sorcerer continued to chant Runes, her vision returned! He is healing me! she realized. Praise Goddess! But which One, now? she wondered. Hel?

  She looked down in horror at the raw and ruined flesh of her body but then watched in amazement as her burned skin rapidly healed and returned to normal. The deep agony radiating out from her guts stopped hurting as the flesh of her stomach again became whole.

  “There, slave, or whoever you really are. You are healed inside and out, except for your deadened legs. So! Tell me Bloodsong’s secrets. If you get stubborn again, however, or if I don’t believe what you tell me, I can conjure a return of the Venom Wand and start over. Now, talk.”

  Later, hanging in her chains, Jalna was careful to conceal her pride. She had won! Nidhug had accepted Hel’s words. But he still did not know everything, nor that Bloodsong had Witch-powers.

  “Thanks to your information, slave, Bloodsong will soon be here with us, hanging in your place, brought hence by sky-demons. And then you can watch as I do things to her that make what you have suffered seem the foreplay of a lover. But I will not take you down just yet. If your information proves faulty, I will punish you, of course, perhaps call back the Venom Wand.”

  Oh Gods! Jalna thought. I hadn’t considered that!

  He strode away.

  As he left, she tried to quell new panic. Then she noticed that blood, fluids, and sweat from her torture, pooled on the floor beneath her, were attracting rats and insects. She wondered if they could climb the Skull to get at her. Certainly the insects could. She sobbed with new horror.

  Peace, child, Hel’s thoughts returned. In her mind, Jalna saw the ghostly images of the Queen of the Dead, Halta Ingasdaughter, and Guthrun.

  “Goddess? Oh, Goddess! Free me before he returns!”

  Thank you, brave warrior, said Guthrun, for helping my mother. She raised a small fist in salute.

  Jalna shook her head. “I am no warrior.”

  Yes you are, said Hel. And would that I could free you, but the traitor Nidhug must not guess I intervened. And to that end, all memory of my help I now remove from your mind.

  Jalna was suddenly afraid she had failed Bloodsong. What did I tell him? She fought to remember. Did I give him false plans? Or cause Bloodsong’s defeat? And that strange dream. I saw death! Hel Herself came to me! Oh! Sweet Skadi! Am I going to die?

  Alone on the Skull, Jalna wept.

  Sleep, child. Sleep.

  She raised her head and looked around the cavern. Who had spoken? Or had she imagined it? Then she suddenly remembered snuggling in her mother’s warm bed on cold winter nights. The memory was so strong, so real—

  Jalna sighed with contentment.

  Jalna slept.

  RIDING SOUTH down the snow-covered forest trail, Bloodsong began to grow uneasy. She sensed danger. Had the slave woman broken? Did Nidhug now know all?

  Huld was peering intently into the surrounding trees.

  “You feel it, too, Witch?”

  “I feel like a storm is about to break.”

  “The sky is clear, but the forest around us—”

  “—is growing darker.”

  “Nidhug’s sorcery?” Bloodsong drew her sword.

  “An attack,” Huld nodded, “but of what nature?”

  The sky remained clear and bright, but soon they rode through a twilight gloom.

  “You wanted to aid me, Witch. Do it. Repel this attack before it can harm us.”

  “I—” Huld began, but suddenly she was jerked violently upward off her horse. She screamed, found herself hanging by her long blond hair from a tree limb that arched over the trail. She kicked and struggled to get free but could not. She felt a sharp pain on her left forearm and saw blood welling up from a cut. An instant later she felt another cut slice the flesh of her left leg, ripping through her clothing. She screamed again and again.

  Bloodsong raised her sword, saw nothing at which to strike. Some unseen thing knocked her steel battle-helm from her head, grabbed her dark hair, jerked upward. She kept hold of the saddle with her left hand, sliced above her again and again with her sword. The sword cuts had no effect. She strained to keep her tenuous grip on the saddle.

  Above her, Huld hung from the branch, green robe ripped to tatters, blood welling up from cuts on her arms and legs.

  The force trying to pull Bloodsong out of her saddle increased. Grimacing with the strain of keeping her hold, Bloodsong thought of the shadow-wind demons that had helped against the soldiers. Might they also help her now?

  She remembered the summoning incantation and recited it. The Hel-ring flashed with purple fire. An icy Hel-wind began to moan, quickly built in intensity. The trees thrashed violently.

  Huld screamed with new pain as her hair was jerked and shaken by the moving branch.

  A different scream rent the tempest-tossed air, an otherworldy sound, inhuman, monstrous.

  The force pulling Bloodsong upward weakened for a moment, then increased in intensity once more. A cut ripped through her mail as if through rotten cloth, gouging the flesh of her left arm, then another, and another cut near the first one. Her attacker was trying to weaken her grip on the saddle. She held on, now also fighting her terrified, rearing horse. Huld’s mount had already disappeared down the road.

  Suddenly Bloodsong’s gray stallion lurched sideways in its efforts to flee the attack of sorcery. Bloodsong lost her desperate grip on the saddle, felt herself flying upward as the horse galloped away.

  She cursed, struggled to get free, slicing upward with her sword again, suspended between the trees and the ground by her hair.

  A cut sliced through her mail on her right side. Above her she saw that Huld had reached up and grabbed the branch, trying to relieve her pain.

  Unable to think of anything else to do, Bloodsong repeated the conjuring incantation, hoping it would summon more shadow-wind demons.

  The fury of the tempest increased. The moaning of the Hel-wind grew even louder. Trees whipped madly in the icy windstorm.

  The unseen attacker screamed in agony, released its grip on Bloodsong’s hair. She fell, landed on her feet, knees bent, and was hurled backward against a tree by the force of the wind. She threw her left arm around the tree and held on, sword ready in her right.

  The moaning of the shadow-wind
became even louder as the screams of the unseen attacker grew steadily fainter. When only the moaning remained, Bloodsong twice repeated the banishing incantation.

  The tempest died to a breeze. Bloodsong let go of the tree. She sheathed her sword, looked upward to where Huld still desperately clutched the branch, sobbing with fear and pain.

  “It’s over, Witch,” Bloodsong called out. “Can you free your hair?”

  Huld tried. “No! Help me! It hurts!”

  Bloodsong climbed the tree. Soon she was almost within reach of the young Witch, but the limb was too small to go farther. “If I come closer, the limb will break.” She drew her sword and extended it. “I’m going to cut you free, Huld.”

  “Cut through my hair? No!”

  “Hang on.”

  “Isn’t there another way?”

  “Hang on!” Bloodsong’s sword sheared through golden strands.

  “Oh!” Huld hung by her arms.

  “Now, work your way along the limb toward me.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You must!”

  “Oh! Goddess!”

  “Hang on, curse you!”

  “I can’t!” Huld fell, hit the ground, and lay still, moaning and sobbing.

  Bloodsong was on the ground within moments. She knelt beside the Witch. “Huld?”

  Huld looked up at her, tears streaming. “What?”

  “Are you hurt badly? Can you move?”

  The Witch tried and, with Bloodsong’s steadying arms, slowly managed to sit up. “Nothing feels broken,” Huld wiped at her tears.

  Bloodsong took a quick look at Huld’s wounds. “None of your wounds are deep enough to be serious, not much more than scratches. And the snow cushioned your fall.”

  “Scratches!” Huld exclaimed. “Cushioned my fall!”

  “The horses fled. We must try to find them,”

  “I’ve nearly been killed! I’m bleeding everywhere, and my clothing is so ripped, I’m nearly naked! And my hair!” she added, looking up where the golden strands were entangled. She touched her hacked-off tresses, groaned, then cursed.

  “You are unaccustomed to battle, Huld.”

  “Thank Freya!”