by Matt Larkin
The Mountains of Fimbulvinter, Hermod called these towering peaks. They broke out above the mist, so tall they seemed poised to scrape those shimmering lights in the sky, and Sigmund found staring up at them made his stomach lurch, and sapped away at his balance.
Finally, he focused his gaze upon the endless snowy path that lay ahead of him, then plodded onward. None of them could afford for his warriors to see him disconcerted. They depended upon him to be strong, and he must show them that strength. Whatever fears he felt bubbled up, Sigmund would kill them. Odin’s quest would not tolerate weakness.
Beyond valleys and chasms, they came at last nigh to the Well of Cold, Hvergelmir, from which sprang nether rivers, Hermod informed them. He led them on a path far around the river, so Sigmund gained no glimpse of the well itself. A part of him was glad about not having seen what Hermod described as the source of the mists, here and on Midgard. Another part felt dismayed, tempted to look upon the horror, just as men could not tear their gazes away from murder victims in the street.
Horror demanded someone bear witness.
But instead, Hermod found a bridge formed of ice that rose up in an arch over one of those rivers. The path took them up into the buffeting winds, but Hermod claimed they could not risk touching any of the rivers, and had no other means of bypassing them.
So, a few warriors at a time, they crossed. It was a steep, unsteady climb to the top, and then, the snows were all that kept the ice bridge from being too slick to even attempt a crossing. Sigmund passed over, his steps unsteady, slow, keenly aware the others below watched him.
Once he had made his way to the base, more men began to cross as well.
Someone—Sigmund could not make out who with the mist—slipped, twisted around, and skidded over the side. A brief scream. A splash.
Whoever had fallen did not surface from the icy river below, as if something in that current had seized him and swallowed him whole.
A wave of nausea swept over Sigmund and he folded his arms across his chest to stop himself from using them for balance.
Höfund, Kára told him, was the man who’d fallen. A brave man, with whom Sigmund had passed more than one evening in times long ago. Not recently. Sigmund ever found himself busied with newer arrivals in Valhalla, and with his own kin, and had not even spoken to Höfund in … years.
Why had he not made time?
The man had oft spoken of his courageous wife and his glorious son, Heidrik, who was in Frey’s band, Sigmund thought.
In Valhalla, it always seemed like there would be plenty of time for things. Naught ever felt pressing.
And then a brave man was gone in an instant.
At last, beyond jagged peaks of ice, they came to the fortress itself. The place of nightmare that every last man, woman, and child of Midgard feared to ever look upon. The place of the damned.
A single chasm-like path led up to this monstrous fortress. At the end of the passage, those perilous, infamous, iron-bounded gates now stood thrown wide, and an army was arrayed, barring passage, while more of the damned flowed from the gates with each passing moment.
There were thousands of ghosts. Their clothes in tatters. Their faces and limbs rotten, oft exposing bits of skeleton not so unlike Hel herself. In the Mortal Realm, Sigmund might have taken the army of the damned for draugar, and, indeed, they had that red gleam in their eyes.
Here, they had no bodies.
Like warriors in life, they stood in war bands, clustered together in great shield walls, with every shield bearing blood-painted symbols that seemed to writhe and defy Sigmund for even looking upon them.
At the fringes of these shield walls stalked decaying hounds more terror-inducing even than the army around them.
Beyond the gathered war bands stood—or rather flitted—shrouded, armored entities of flowing mist and darkness. Mistwraiths, Hermod had called them. The most dire servants Hel could throw against them. And here and there, like specters of white, drifted snow maidens, their hateful wails threatening to tear through Sigmund’s mind.
Blowing out a reflexive breath, Sigmund drew Gramr and beat the bone hilt against his shield. “To me! Shield! Wall!”
His warriors clustered up beside him, falling into position. Before him, men and shieldmaidens formed the front of the wall, leveling a thicket of spears that should have dissuaded even those fearsome hounds from charging.
Across, he saw the other war bands forming their own walls, like spiked tortoises preparing to close in. It would come very soon now.
The chaos. The maddening melee and slaughter.
How many other warriors would Sigmund lament when this was done, wishing he’d taken more time to hear their tales?
Odin could not or would not tell them what urd befell those souls who perished beyond the Mortal Realm. Not Valhalla, that much Sigmund felt certain. Perhaps they ought never to have come here.
But Odin had given them a reprieve in Valhalla. A chance to be with kin and kindred spirits, to drink and laugh, though their lives had ended and such things ought to be beyond them.
Odin had given them hope and purpose when such things would have fled.
And Sigmund had to believe his god’s cause was just. For that cause, he would charge. He would storm the very gates of Hel.
In life, and now in death, Sigmund thought he had lived well. As well as he could, in the times he was given.
And if his soul fell here, then so be it.
31
There was screaming. Cries of pain, Tyr knew too well. Shouts of fury. Terror. Laments for the falling. And the awful, hateful cries of the damned, locked in torment. Charging them, over and over.
The damned crashed against the shield walls, until those walls broke.
Tyr had lost count of how many times the press had come together only to finally back off.
But when the wall broke, it broke, and there was no getting it back.
Then, just chaos. Melee. And more screams than ever.
All sides, einherjar fought against shades loyal to Hel. Splattered blood, yes, coating the snows. Staining them red. Painting the whole fucking chasm red instead of white.
No bodies, though. Those who died—really died, since the maimed dead weren’t always gone—they melted into who knew where. Like something dark and massive was swallowing them. Drawing them into … well, not the ground. Into something under even this world. Swallowing them whole.
One of those vile hounds came loping at him. They’d focused on the leaders, like they knew.
Just as well. Tyr figured he was an expert at killing foul canines.
He twisted round and hacked into the thing’s hide. His ghost blade didn’t shear through clean. Not like a real runeblade. Instead, it scraped down over bone—bones actually jutted up out of the flesh in these foul canines—and carved muscle, and broke the hound’s charge. Then came the hacking and hewing, black blood and bits of decaying meat flying in the air as Tyr tore into the hound over and over. Crushed its skull.
Still kept coming at him. Kept trying to shift over and bite him. So Tyr cut out teeth. Finally managed to hack off a leg. All while roaring his feral battle cry.
Dead dogs didn’t want to get all the way dead, and Tyr found that vexing.
Finally, it broke into convulsions, giving over any attempt to get to him. Couldn’t afford to waste any more time on it.
Tyr broke into a trot. Briefly, until a screaming damned shade came at him, hardly a speck of flesh left on his face. Just dirty skull and red gleaming holes where eyes ought to have been. That, and a rusted, oversized mace held two-handed. He swung at Tyr, a furious wind stirred up. Tyr leapt back, out of the path of that enormous weapon.
Snarling, the shade came at him again, this time swinging over his head. Tyr stepped to the side, and the mace crashed down into the snow, flinging up clouds of powder. It lodged deep in there, and, for a bare instant, the ghost struggled to heft it again. Tyr stepped in and hacked his sword across the thing’s neck. Th
e blade crunched against bone—harder to do without a runeblade—and broke it, rather than cleanly severing.
Either way, the damned shade fell, collapsed. Began to melt into whatever darkness came for the twice-dead.
Then more were on him. Endless hordes of the dead and damned, always pouring from those gates. All Tyr could do was keep killing and killing, and hope, when it was done, he still had a few warriors left standing.
Because einherjar, they too got sucked down into the darkness. Swallowed by it.
And Tyr suspected Hel had a good many more legions than Odin had warriors.
The Mistwraith circled Tyr, passing around other melees, behind clusters of warriors. Vanishing from time to time.
But he felt it, the thing watching him.
It knew him for a threat. Maybe it had seen him dispatching more dead than others. Maybe it had witnessed him giving commands to his warriors.
Didn’t matter, much.
Tyr figured it was just as well. Better he should deal with this abomination than let the thing further deplete his warriors. In the madness of unending battle, Tyr had no idea how many men he had left.
Not enough, that was sure.
The ghost had this fell, hissing shriek. Not like snow maidens, exactly. Not a wail. More like … something that hated him more than should’ve been possible. Hatred too big to hold inside a person. Too ancient. Too boundless.
It drifted round and round, and Tyr kept hacking through the damned, trying to find a way to close with the foul vaettr. Thing would come at him in its own time, he knew. Didn’t mean he liked having it take too long.
Tyr tore into a few more of the damned shades, cut them down.
Seeing them fall must’ve drawn out the Mistwraith, for it finally came to him. Forming up like an armored shadow inside a cloud, hints of a tattered shroud further obscuring its form. It raised up a blade as long as Tyr was tall. Wavy, like Gungnir’s point was. And the whole blade seemed to shimmer, like the air kept trying to freeze solid around it.
Tyr grimaced. Just looking at the thing had him queasy. Wanting to flee. Not his way, though.
Instead, he pointed Mistilteinn at the Mistwraith. Most times, runeblades seemed longer than the average North Realmer sword. Now, it seemed short compared to the enormous weapon the wraith had.
The ghost twitched its blade from side to side, faster than it ought to have been able to wield such a weapon. Something that long, that heavy, it ought not have proved agile
The Mistwraith rushed at Tyr then, whipping the blade in great arcs that set the wind rushing over Tyr. Air howling at the ferocity of it.
Tyr jerked Mistilteinn up to parry. The force of it rang through his arm and drove him back. Frost lurched up Tyr’s runeblade and seared his hand.
All so fast, and he barely ducked away from another blow. The wraith, it just kept coming. Not charging, so much as flowing toward him, all part of the assault. A continuous aggression that gave him no time to regain his footing. No chance to plan, or even to react proper. Just keep falling back, never fast enough. Never able to get out of reach of that fell blade.
Whooshes of screaming wind raced past Tyr’s head. Frost numbed his arm every time he even tried to parry those mighty swings. It was closing in. No doubt about it, and Tyr couldn’t do a damn thing.
And then Fitela launched himself at the ghost, jabbing with a spear. Its point struck armor on the Mistwraith’s shoulder, squealed, and flew free.
Like a rush of rapids over rocks, the wraith flowed around, caught Fitela by the throat.
Shit.
Tyr lunged in himself, driving Mistilteinn right at the ghost’s back. The blade struck something solid, like an armored plate, skidded along it and careened off.
A whirl, and the wraith flung Fitela at Tyr. Man came so fast, there was no dodging. Just a hit with a thud and the two of them tumbling through the snow.
Tyr shoved Fitela off him, struggling, scrambling. Desperate to get free of the man before …
The wraith had flowed there over them, rising in a cloud. Hissing.
A swipe of its fell blade descending, right into Fitela’s back.
Blade sheared right through Sigmund’s son.
Then the pain hit Tyr too.
A bolt of lightning through his leg, only cold even.
Gasping in pain, he shoved himself away. Only, his left leg was missing from the knee down.
Tyr screamed in horror, gaping at the wound. It was cold, numb and blood oozed out, rather than gushed. And that numbness was spreading up his leg, like something crawling through his veins. Rising into his hips. Turning his stones to ice.
The Mistwraith flowed around him again and Tyr hefted the runeblade, raising what defense he could while lying on his arse. Couldn’t live through this, could he? Living man would’ve fainted from it.
Tyr growled wordless wrath at the creature, but it didn’t seem fazed. He swiped the runeblade, but it wouldn’t reach.
“Vaettr!” Odin shouted. “I know what you are.”
King came closing in, Gungnir by his side. A brief, sidelong glance at Tyr’s leg. Maybe a moment of pity, quickly buried.
Still on his arse, Tyr continued to yank himself away from the ghost. Couldn’t do much to help Odin now.
The king charged in, thrust, then bobbed out of the way of the wraith’s flashing blade like he knew where it’d be. A flurry of strikes, but Odin evaded each. Ducked and dodged. Then he thrust Gungnir’s point right up into the wraith’s face.
The Mistwraith flailed its arms wildly. Its blade cracked. A spiderweb of cracks, really. Like ice struck with a hammer. Then it exploded into shards, some of them showering over Tyr before vanishing.
Odin twisted his spear, ramming the Mistwraith straight into the ground. Another shove, pushing the spear deeper. Then ripping it free. The wraith just broke apart, melding back into the mist.
Tyr gasped, suddenly hit twice over by the pain. Maybe a dead man couldn’t faint. Starting to wish he could.
King was by his side, waving frantically, until Sanngridr came. Valkyrie grabbed Tyr’s shoulders and yanked him away, to the side of the cavern walls. Tyr winced with each passing foot.
“Leave me,” he begged her. “I’m dead anyway.”
Sanngridr set him up against the wall, knelt in front of him. Valkyrie had these bright blue eyes. Tyr hadn’t noticed that before. Odd combination, with her dark hair. “You’ve been dead a while. But if you hold in your pneuma, will yourself to remain in existence, you can survive this.”
“Eh. To what end? I’m useless now.”
Valkyrie patted his cheek. “I don’t have time to coddle your feelings. Hold yourself together or let your pneuma bleed out and your soul dissipate to wherever. You’re already dead and unless something comes to drain you, you can maintain yourself. It’s a choice.” She rose, then, and waded back into the battle.
Tyr groaned.
How many times was he supposed to die before he got to rest?
All he could do now was sit and shout instructions to the nearby warriors.
Small thing. All he had left.
32
She’d been right. The sounds of battle rang out through the passage leading up to the gates of Hel. An army of ghosts seemed engaged with Hel’s legions. While the invaders easily overmatched many of the damned legion, Mistwraiths and snow maidens tore through their ranks and feasted on souls, dispatching their foes with terrifying ease.
The thought of feasting on souls actually set Sif’s insides ablaze. It wasn’t her stomach, exactly, but something deeper inside her, that hunger for such a feast.
Baldr crept up behind her and she had to suppress the urge to tear into him, bite a chunk out of his face, and consume some bit of his essence. An urge that came upon her almost every time she looked at her companion.
Together, they were crouched on the precipice above the canyon. The mist didn’t obscure her vision half so much as it did Baldr’s. Sif had been in Niflheim a l
ong time.
She could not say what madness had possessed her to return to this cursed fortress. They had hidden deep in the mountains for so long, evading snow maidens that would have feasted upon their souls. They’d searched for the bridge out of here, but Sif hadn’t found it. Niflheim stretched on and on, a wasteland of ice and darkness and mist.
How much more would it change her in another century? A millenium?
Oh, assuming she could hold herself together that long. Vaettir—she was one now, she knew—could not maintain themselves forever without consuming souls. And Baldr’s, wretched though it had become under the mara’s torment, still called to her. Warm and succulent and not yet wholly subsumed by mists.
With a glare, she sent him scurrying away, then leaned forward to get a better look at the invaders. Surely Hel’s minions would not devour all their souls. If she could find some stragglers …
Gah … It was a despicable impulse, one she kept trying to push down.
Devouring a soul was surely worse than murder. But the craving inside her kept cropping up, trying so desperately to rise and overtake her, to drive her to embrace what her whole being implored her to accept.
In truth, though, the invaders fared far better than she’d have suspected. Did they know Hel had fled the fortress? Was that why they attacked now, to claim it while the goddess was away?
But the Aesir did not feed on souls themselves, which meant, to destroy Hel’s minions, they had to cause inordinate injuries. Destroy hearts or heads utterly, pulverize spectral bodies.
Below her, one of them seemed to have realized it, for he slammed a war hammer down on a skull, over and over, shrieking in blind fury she had to admire. Pounding, until the shade finally dissipated. Even so, Sif half wondered if it might reform. She’d seen plenty of shades suffer evisceration, flaying, or worse, and still find themselves unable to escape Hel’s torments until at last one of the gaolers saw fit to consume their souls.