by Matt Larkin
The red-bearded hammer warrior rose, spun, grabbed another of Hel’s servants and resumed the process of furious beating. The hammer rang against a helm. It crunched through the helm. The man grabbed the broken thing and hurled it aside and began splattering the skull.
Tenacious. She had to admire that.
And in for torment, considering Melinöe was drifting toward him, silent as death, bearing an axe that might easily split the man from head to toe. The Mistwraith would devour the man’s soul in one … the man’s …
“Thor?” Her voice sounded hollow, making the name seem foreign, though she should know it should have been familiar. Her words wheezed through her rent open throat.
Suddenly heedless of her threats, Baldr crawled up beside her and peered over the edge. “Brother? My brother’s dead?”
Thor … her … husband? He had died?
“Father!” Baldr said. “And Tyr, look, against the wall. T-they’re all here?”
Here now, in Niflheim. Dead. All those she had known … Dead. Like her. Only, about to be devoured by Melinöe’s unfathomable hunger. Consumed entirely and wiped from existence.
Thor swung at Melinöe, but the Mistwraith was faster than him, despite its heavy weapon and armor. A backswing caught Thor in the gut and sent him flying against the canyon wall. Lucky not to be hewn in two.
Doubled over, in pain.
Melinöe hissed now, flowing closer, claw-like hand outstretched. Ready to grab Thor’s throat and—
No!
Scarcely aware of what she was doing, Sif vaulted over the side of the precipice, lunging down with her spear. The ground came up fast. She thrust and the spear’s point skidded along the overlapping metal plates under Melinöe’s shroud. The impact drove the Mistwraith forward though, stumbling.
Sif landed hard in the snow, but lunged up, thrusting with the spear. This time, the angle allowed it to slide between two plates and bite into spectral flesh beneath. The Mistwraith shrieked and spun, jerking the spear from Sif’s hand.
Facing her. Growling its feral, soul-twisting snarl. Hefting that axe in both hands.
Weaponless, Sif fell back. She was no match for a Mistwraith. No one was.
Roaring, Thor came up behind it swinging that hammer. The weapon clanked off Melinöe’s armor, sent the Mistwraith stumbling a step forward. Its spinning backhand caught Thor in the face and sent him flying through the air, spinning end over end.
From above, a shadow loomed for a bare instant before Baldr collided with the Mistwraith, his sword clanking down on the helm beneath its hood. His impact had Melinöe spinning around, exposing the spear Sif had struck through its back.
On instinct, Sif lunged, caught the haft and jerked it free.
That drew a short wail from the Mistwraith.
Then it snared Baldr around the throat and drew him up, close to its hooded face. Baldr’s shrieks sounded out, even with his throat squeezed. Sif could see it, as bits of his soul broke apart and wafted into the Mistwraith’s head. Sucked away into that all-consuming abyss of this fell, hideous creature.
The right hand of Hel herself.
Sif roared defiance at the abomination and thrust her spear into Melinöe’s wrist where it held Baldr. The blow struck flesh and Baldr pitched to the ground, landing in a heap. Moaning in torment.
Brave, stupid boy.
Sif thrust again. Struck armor. Another thrust, screaming, desperate.
Melinöe caught the haft of her spear. Snarled. A swipe of that axe splintered Sif’s weapon and sent her stumbling away. Inconvenient.
“Sif!” Father came trudging toward her, hesitated an instant, then broke into a mad run.
The Mistwraith whirled on him, swinging that axe around with a whoosh. Father dropped prone beneath it, rolled, and thrust his sword forward, scraping Melinöe’s knee.
Sif took the opportunity to tackle Melinöe, wrapping her arms around the Mistwraith’s waist. The armored plates beneath that tattered shroud were colder than ice, and merely touching the creature, Sif felt its hatred trying to consume her soul. Shrieking, she heaved, slowly wrenching Melinöe toward the ground.
Of a sudden, Thor came flying through the mist, snarling like a beast. His hammer clanked hard into Melinöe’s helm, and the wraith staggered. It gave Sif the chance to bear the ghost to the ground. Tendrils of mist snaked around her limbs and wormed toward her eyes. The shroud itself had come alive, writhing beneath her.
“Hit it again!” Sif shrieked.
Thor complied, his spectral hammer resounding like a gong off Melinöe’s helm.
Father came up beside Sif and wedged his blade up in between the scale-like plates of the wraith’s armor, grunting as he drove it deeper and deeper into the thing’s flesh.
Snarling herself, Sif grabbed the Mistwraith’s head and wrenched it around. The abyss of darkness beneath her hood tried to swallow her. Tried to do to her, what Sif aimed to do to it. She punched her fist into the void and it smacked against something solid. Again and again.
Lances of ice shot through her arm as if the cold darkness from the Mistwraith was struggling to take her too. Growling, Sif snared Melinöe’s chin and craned it up, exposing its neck. And then Sif leaned in and bit, her draug fangs rending spectral flesh. Gnashing, gnawing deeper. Wanting to care what Thor and Father thought of her, but not quite able to make herself stop and ponder it.
She ripped a chunk of the wraith’s neck out, slurping down bits of its soul in the process. Icy blood dribbled down her chin, freezing and painful and glorious. Melinöe gurgled, stunned. Weak.
Weak enough … Sif leaned in toward the wound and sucked. Not with her mouth, but rather, with her will. The energies of Melinöe’s wretched soul writhed inside the wraith’s spectral form. Writhed and twisted and … flowed out, into Sif. Slowly, at first, a trickle of delicious sustenance more powerful than consuming mere pneuma, though some of it certainly converted to that, reinforcing Sif’s own form.
But something deeper, too, flowed into her. Something ancient, thick with experience, and fortified by having consumed so very many souls herself.
In her mind, Melinöe screamed. The soul denied this was possible, tried to protest that no mere draug shade could overcome its power and consume its soul. This abomination that had existed for more ages than Sif could fathom … Slowly Melinöe went down, then more quickly, until its essence became a torrent that flooded into Sif. It crashed down deeper and deeper inside her, seeping into every limb, every finger, every toe. A soul, knitting and folding itself inside Sif, becoming a part of her and making her stronger. More than she ever was before.
Melinöe crumbled, armor rusting away into flakes, form dissolving into mist.
The wraith had traded her soul for power long ago. And now, some small portion of that power had passed into Sif. Some fragment of Melinöe’s memories—hateful, dark, twisted things, missing the moments of joy a soul ought to have had—they burrowed into Sif’s mind, becoming a part of herself.
An echo of Melinöe bubbled deep inside Sif, a shadow that, were she not careful, might try to assert itself before finally fading away into darkness.
Gasping, Sif craned her head back and chuckled. Wiped her mouth.
And finally, turned to see Thor and Father staring at her. The looks of horror on their faces were further blows on her wretched body. Sif, though, had endured innumerable torments at the hands of Hel’s minions. What was one more torture?
Thor lunged at her and she caught his shoulder, even as he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Forgive me!”
On the verge of flinging him off of her, Sif hesitated. Forgive?
“Forgive me!” Thor panted. “F-forgive … I’m so sorry for what happened to you … I never, never meant …”
Forgive? It was not a word Sif had heard in Niflheim. It sounded alien, as foreign as the fathomless entities that dwelt in the darkness between the worlds. Incomprehensible to the dead.
But …
Father, too, wrappe
d his arms around her shoulders.
Forgive …?
“We’re here now,” Father said. “We’re here, my precious child.”
And then Mother was too, her beautiful, scarred face staring down a mere moment, lip trembling, before she joined in the pile of their embrace.
So much warmth.
She could not speak.
“Hel has gone,” Sif said, when the others had gathered round her. The Queen of Mist had left the better portion of her forces here, and Odin and his army had broken them. Destroyed or scattered the defenders and claimed at least the outside of the fortress.
No doubt, within, chaos reigned, as the remnants of those loyal to Hel struggled for control, both against each other, and against the prisoners that had begun to break loose. The countless multitudes of the damned—many of which already flowed from the fortress, fleeing, while Odin had ordered all to let them pass.
Odin had lost more than half his army, Sif judged, and the rest were worn ragged.
Poor, legless Tyr, who had crawled his way over to her just to see her, and now sat by her side.
“She left not so very long ago,” Sif said, “and I didn’t know to where until now.” Until she had gleaned it from pieces of Melinöe’s twisted memory.
Thor squeezed her shoulder. The man had not taken his hand off her in an hour, as if afraid she might fade away and vanish like so many of the dissipated souls of these einherjar.
Sif offered him a nod. She could not mimic gentleness or grace any longer, but … she did not wish him to remove the hand, either. And it had pleased her to learn Thrúd was not among the einherjar army. That meant—though she would have liked to have seen their daughter again—that she must still live. A comfort.
“Hel left Melinöe in charge here and took with her a small contingent of those most loyal and made for Naströnd. Melinöe was ordered to hold back any assault on the gates of Hel while she was away. I do not know to what end she would seek the corpse shore.”
Odin folded his hands over his chest and shut his eye, then shuddered. “The roots of Yggdrasil imprison Nidhogg there, in Naströnd, at the same time serving as a capstone to a greater abyss of darkness. If Hel were to somehow aid in the dark dragon’s escape, Nidhogg might bring down the entire World Tree.”
Father—he stood beside Mother, both had not left Sif’s side, either—he cleared his throat. “You’re saying … Hel would rather destroy the cosmos than allow you to defeat her? Would not such a victory be rendered meaningless to her?”
Odin blew out a breath and fixed Father with a hard gaze. “After eons trapped in Niflheim, sustained and empowered by its poison vapors, I think we can safely assume Hel has become the epitome of mist-madness. I … I pushed her to utter desperation by showing her I would not allow her another chance to claim the Mortal Realm. She knew I would come here and try to destroy her forever, and this is her answer.”
Father groaned and scrubbed a hand over his beard. “I can take us to Naströnd, but she already has a head start.”
Odin glanced toward Tyr, seeming about to say something. “Unfortunately, we cannot afford to delay. Make ready to move. It is no longer the fate of our world we fight for, but rather, the fate of all worlds.” With that, the king moved to Tyr’s side, whispering something in his ear.
Sif looked to her father, then to her mother. How strange. After lifetimes of torment and utter loneliness, she was reunited with those she … The word froze in her mind. Like she could almost think it, but some force—her own nature, this hateful world, or what had been done to her—denied even the realization of the thought.
It left with her but a single option. If she could not say nor even think the word, still she might express it. “I’ll go with you. To the end. To whatever end.”
33
The einherjar procession was hardly what it had been coming into Niflheim. Now, Hermod led them through some secret way, back to Naströnd, which he said he had come through in his escape from Niflheim the first time.
Freyja did not much relish the thought of seeing the corpse shore. Not that she’d particularly wished to see Niflheim, but, from all Odin had said, Naströnd was the darkest, most horrific place in creation. It was a pit of decay, rotting away at Yggdrasil, seeming to rest beneath the World Tree, and if aught lay beneath Naströnd, Freyja did not wish to know of it.
Odin and Hermod had both passed through the corpse shore, and both survived, albeit by fleeing the dark dragon Od now thought Hel might release. Long ago, Mundilfari had raved about predators out in the darkness, terrified and driven mad by them.
Freyja, though, had asked why, if Thor had killed even mighty Jörmungandr, their army could not slay Nidhogg. Indeed, Thor himself had seized upon the question, until both Odin and Hermod had talked him down. They lacked the power of Mjölnir now, Od had pointed out. And Hermod had warned that while Jörmungandr was perhaps larger, Nidhogg’s power seemed to run deeper.
“Imagine what a monstrosity it must be, that it took a cage of the World Tree’s roots to bind it. That the channeled power of Yggdrasil barely contains the dragon, and even now, that fell serpent gnaws upon the roots of creation, causing the Tree to shudder.”
Odin’s words had given Freyja a chill, though not half so badly as what her lover had said next.
“The web of urd has created a cycle of eschatons, the Wheel of History, if you will, which serves up chaos and souls as offerings to this abomination. Even the Wheel of Life, reincarnating our souls, effectively perpetuates this feast. If all of history is, in effect, supplication to this creature and the primordial darkness it represents, is it not then the very antithesis of life? While Jörmungandr grew vast beyond measure and was thick with poisonous eitr, have you considered where the serpent first came from? Might it not have been of the brood of Nidhogg, which itself seems spawned from Ginnungagap?”
Thor, Freyja strongly suspected, had not the first clue about what Odin was saying and had answered only with a grunt.
No, it seemed, they could not afford to attempt to fight Nidhogg itself. Not when the stakes of losing were the dissolution of the cosmos and when they, in truth, had no way of judging the source or extent of the dragon’s power.
Instead, they now went there to fight Hel who, in effect, had already killed most of them once. Or more than once, perhaps, given that so many had fallen outside Hel’s gates. Her own brother had sustained an injury to his left arm, rendering it a dangling mess he’d never use again, though he had waved off Freyja’s ministrations.
They had lost Róta, and without the valkyrie, Sigurd struggled to hold together his already dwindling band of einherjar. He had bemoaned the loss of a brother, Hamund, and Od had taken that hard. Not half so hard as the loss of Tyr, though.
Freyja walked by her lover’s side now, while they passed through an ice cave. His neck bore the hideous signs of his end at Fenrir’s hands—a gaping red wound in his neck, flesh torn to shreds, exposing the back of his spine. Even that revealed broken, crushed bones, marks of the varulf’s ferocity.
And Freyja had no idea what to say to Odin about the pain. For he must relive that injury every moment, even as Freyja continually felt her own death at Od’s hands.
Einherjar marched ahead of them, and other bands behind, but for the moment, they were alone. Not that she truly believed them out of earshot from the nearest warriors, but rather, this place seemed to enhance the sense of isolation. She would have to choose to take that as a boon and accept that, in the last walk—perhaps the last moments any of them had remaining—she was alone with him, in a world of their own.
How fervently he had begged her forgiveness for striking her down. But the truth was, he had released her from the torment and depredations Hel visited upon her. While the darkness of death hardly appealed, even the shadows of the Penumbra were better than being a prisoner in her own flesh. And Freyja would gladly visit pain upon Hel for what she’d done to her.
To them.
No, Freyj
a had not held it against poor Od, and, in time, he’d come to see that.
Now, his fingers tickled hers, brushing against them, while they kept a swift pace. Maybe they all dreaded what lay ahead as much as she did, but Odin had forced them to move with haste, warning that Hel now imperiled all creation. The madness of it all was almost too much to handle, and so Freyja preferred not to dwell on either their destination, or what might happen if they failed.
Instead, she cast frequent sidelong glances at Odin.
The Art had viciously aged his body, and he’d spent so long like that, even his self-image here resembled an old man. Worse still, Freyja could see the darkness eating away at his insides. She’d felt it, trying to transform her, and she’d had the benefit of having been altered by the Sun of Alfheim. Else, perhaps she too would have undergone a transmutation, becoming a wraith, as Odin himself clearly was, though he fought it off with wild fervor.
“Can you hold yourself together?” she asked.
Odin nodded, clearly not needing to ask what she meant. It tormented him, but then, maybe they each had their own torments to bear. Freyja had to admire his courage and tenacity, refusing to give in, even as the corruption devoured his soul and remade him.
“There are so very many things I wish …” she said. “I wish urd had granted us more time in life, in the world. It seems like every moment we should have shared was torn away from us by … war … and fathomless separation. By the gulf between worlds and later, even between ages. You’ve been through things I cannot well imagine. What I did imagine, though … I imagined us, sitting, quiet, watching the sun set as we did on Vanaheim, so long ago. Why could we not have had more days like that?”
“Urd is …” Odin sighed. Shook his head. “Urd is merciless. Cruel, even, but I have begun to believe it necessary. There are so many things I would have changed, given the chance, but now, at the end, I fear we never could have had that chance.”