by C. L. Werner
“I won’t let any of them touch you,” Bjorn vowed. He nocked an arrow to his bow, ready to meet the descending birds.
“Let’s hope the whole flock doesn’t come down,” Tyr said as he watched the clouds. The longer he looked, the more birds he spotted. “Or that those ‘birds’ don’t turn out to be dragons when they get down here.” He thought the chance of that was remote. He didn’t know if Muspelheim had dragons, but if it did, he couldn’t imagine them behaving any different to those of Asgard, Midgard, and Jotunheim. Dragons in those worlds despised the company of their own kind as keenly as they did a hero’s sword.
Lorelei lifted her head and turned her face to the sky. She closed her eyes and squeezed arcane words from her pursed lips. For a moment there was no change, but then Tyr saw one of the soaring shapes wheel about and start to descend. This was the one enticed by her spell, but its movement was noticed by two others that turned and dove after it, perhaps thinking it had spotted some kind of prey and were eager to join in the meal.
“Three,” Tyr called to Bjorn in case he hadn’t spotted the diving birds. He braced his legs and tightened his hold on Tyrsfang, ready to meet the descending fliers.
As the creatures dove, Tyr saw that they weren’t birds at all. They resembled bats more than anything, but their wings seemed to be formed from smoke and their bodies made of flickering flame. Each was as big as a horse and their mouths bulged from the sharp fangs jutting from their jaws. Their dangling feet were tipped with claws as long as knives and streaming behind each of them was a long, whip-like tail studded with bony spikes.
“Hai! See how an Asgardian fights!” Bjorn shouted at the bats. He loosed an arrow into the foremost of the creatures. The missile slammed into the chest, causing the flier to shudder in midair. But it didn’t fall, and a moment after the arrow struck it, the shaft was burned away by the intense heat of its flaming body.
Bjorn sent a second arrow up at the monsters. This time he hit one of the shadowy wings. There must have been some physical structure behind the billowing smoke, for the bat screeched and its wing folded back against its body. The creature fell from the sky, slamming into the ground in a plume of black dust.
Tyr had no opportunity to see if the bat had been killed in the fall, for at that moment the other two were upon him. Long claws scraped against his shield as he met the attack. His sword lashed out, hacking a foot from his enemy. What spurted from the wound sizzled like acid on his armor and he wondered if all of this weren’t in vain, if the essence of these beasts would be of any use to Lorelei’s magic.
The other bat came at him from behind, its long claws raking against his armor, its barbed tail whipping around his leg. He was jerked from the ground as the creature climbed back into the sky, the tail snapping taut and lifting him away. Tyr hung beneath the monster while it ascended. With the ground growing more distant below him, he acted more by instinct than strategy. Bending in half, he brought his sword within reach of the bat’s neck. A stroke from Tyrsfang sent the head leaping away. The tail grew slack, releasing him. He hurtled earthwards, the slain bat falling beside him as both crashed to earth from a height of some hundred feet.
The God of War landed in a plume of dust, the impact driving him several feet into the volcanic sand. He coughed as the gritty cloud filled his nose and mouth, spitting the taste of Muspelheim from his tongue. The shield lashed to his left arm had been utterly crumpled by the fall, crushed around the limb in a misshapen snarl of metal. To free himself from the impediment, he used Tyrsfang’s keen edge to cut away the straps. It was a moment’s work, but even that slight delay was repugnant. There was at least one more bat and neither of his companions were as hardy as a son of Odin.
Tyr scrambled from the crater left by his fall. He saw that Bjorn was vying with the bat whose foot he’d cut away. The huntsman was swinging his axe, trying to fend off the creature, but even keeping it at a distance wasn’t enough to be safe from its ire. From its sizzling maw, the bat ejected molten blobs that splashed against Bjorn’s mail. Tyr could see his friend’s beard was burning from where some of the spatter had landed. It was only a matter of time before the bat’s spittle struck a part of him that wasn’t protected by enchanted armor.
Lorelei too was beset. Limping across the sand, hissing its malice, was the bat that had its wing broken by Bjorn’s arrow. The injured creature whipped at her with its tail, trying to snag an arm or leg in its grasp. She kept circling around the beast, trying to keep its injured side towards her so that at least she would avoid being knocked flat by the bat’s smoky wing. The Uru dirk smoldered from the fiery ichor she’d drawn from her foe.
Tyr made his decision quickly. The bat attacking Bjorn was the greater enemy, for it could carry one of them up into the clouds where the rest of the monstrous swarm flew. Even so, he recognized that a dirk was a poor weapon for Lorelei to be using against her adversary. The solution he saw was to strike each bat in turn from an unexpected quarter. Though it would mean exposing his friend to grave danger if he miscalculated.
“Bjorn! Help Lorelei!” Tyr shouted. The huntsman’s devotion for her made him turn without a second’s hesitation and rush to her aid. The moment he did, the bat darted at him. It was the last thing the creature did. Rushing at it from the side, Tyr drove his sword into its chest even as it charged at Bjorn’s back. The massive brute crumpled to the ground, its smoky wings decaying into a skein of ash.
Bjorn dove upon the one-winged bat from behind in a leap that buried his axe deep in its back. The thing flailed beneath him, trying to dislodge him with the claw on its wing. Distracted by the man on its back, the creature left itself vulnerable to the woman at its fore. Taking her dirk in both hands, Lorelei lunged at the monster and slashed the tendons of its wing. A shiver rolled through the bat and it sprawled on the ground, writhing in pain.
“They know they’ve been in a fight now,” Bjorn declared, standing over the injured bat.
“So do we,” Tyr said as he glared down at the thrashing beast. He looked from Bjorn to Lorelei. “Do they possess what you need? If it can be helped, I’d rather not go through a repeat of this.”
Lorelei had the bone flute in her hand again. She stepped over the dying bat and brought the flute to her lips. Swaying above the creature, she played an eerie melody on the instrument. From the beast’s body, Tyr could see ribbons of smoke being drawn into the flute. Though it didn’t actually change in size, he had the impression of the bat diminishing as Lorelei drained its essence. In a matter of moments, it was just another carcass sprawled in the ashy sand.
“This will suit our needs,” Lorelei stated when she’d finished playing and the first bat was completely drained. She looked over to where the two killed by Tyr lay. “Once I’ve drawn off the essence of all three, then we’ll be ready.”
Tyr caught her arm as she started towards the second carcass. “All three?”
Lorelei shrugged. “If I act quickly, before their vitality completely evaporates, I can still harvest them.” She fixed Tyr with a stern look. “You seemed unsettled enough by the thought of enticing one down, I didn’t want to disturb you even more by telling you I needed three.”
“Then the other two didn’t come down by accident?” Tyr demanded.
Bjorn slapped Tyr’s hand from Lorelei’s arm. “Of course Lorelei didn’t plan for the other two to come down. Just because she needed three doesn’t mean she wanted them all at once.”
Lorelei showed Tyr an indulgent smile. “Since there are three, it would be foolish not to take advantage of them.”
Tyr returned the smile with a scowl. “Accidents like this, Lorelei, are why I wonder how much you take after Amora.”
“If I were at all like my sister, I wouldn’t have to ask for your assistance,” Lorelei snapped. “I would command, and you would obey.” She turned from him and strode towards the second bat.
“You’re unfair to sa
y things like that,” Bjorn growled at Tyr.
Tyr watched while Lorelei played the flute and called out the bat’s essence. “Just keep watching the sky,” he told the wolfhunter. “In case she decides she needs four bats.”
Twelve
Tyr judged they’d been marching for some hours since Lorelei harvested the essence of the bats. The mantle of smoke, the breath of Fafnir, surrounded them from above, below, and on every side. Except for the feel of solid ground beneath his feet, Tyr might have believed himself cast aloft in some dark and noxious cloud, for the musky and unforgettable stench of dragon was all around him. He wondered if the smell would seep into his hair as it had when he’d battled the worm Grafvinti. The smell had lingered so long that he’d shaved his mustache to limit the immediacy of the reek.
“The smell is a part of the smoke and will vanish with the smoke,” Lorelei assured Tyr. She calmed his other worry, “Though we can see through the veil, there are none outside it who can see through to us.”
“Even so, we must be wary,” Tyr insisted. “A sentry might grow curious and come to investigate. Muspelheim is so filled with fire and smoke that it would be no deterrent to the beings that dwell here.”
“On the contrary, it is precisely because smoke is so rife in Muspelheim that we’ll be unnoticed,” Lorelei insisted. “A sentry won’t look twice at a bank of smoke billowing across the land. We will be dismissed as one of the rolling fires that sweep across the plateaus.”
“We’ve seen many of those as we’ve traveled these lands,” Bjorn pointed out. The huntsman was more ready than ever to take up Lorelei’s cause in any debate.
“This spell is indeed our best way to approach the fortress,” Tyr said to Lorelei, “but as you warned when we were still in your castle, it is reckless to depend too much on magic. Should the dragon’s smoke fail us, should we be discovered, then you must try to make it back.” His hand curled about Tyrsfang’s grip. “I’ll hold them back for as long as I can.”
Bjorn shook his head and glowered at Tyr. “Even should the spell fail, it is I who should act as rearguard, not you. You are the son of Odin–”
“Which means I have the best chance of holding Surtur’s minions if it comes to it.” Tyr cut him off.
Lorelei stepped between the two. “This bickering over who will play at being the hero is pointless,” she snapped. “The spell will not fail. We will enter the fortress.” Her eyes stared past them, peering through the translucent smoke at the fire giant’s castle. “I’ve not trekked across Muspelheim only to be defeated now.”
Lorelei’s reproach was like a dash of cold water in Tyr’s face. Of course they had to anticipate success. He was puzzled by the defeatism that had risen to darken his hope, for it had seemed to come upon him with the suddenness of a gale on Asgard’s Sea of Fear. Was it simply the atmosphere of Muspelheim dragging at his spirit or was it something more? When he looked at Bjorn he saw that, whatever the malicious influence, it was taxing the wolfhunter too. That bold resolution that had always been such a part of his friend was gone, replaced not by cowardice but by a grim kind of fatalistic resignation. Only Lorelei seemed unchanged, but Tyr had to admit he didn’t know her well enough that he could be certain her own personality hadn’t undergone some alteration too subtle for him to notice. Or perhaps it was that, just as she’d defied the falling cinders, some enchantment protected her from the oppressive blight that preyed on his own mind.
“To victory, then.” Tyr gestured for Lorelei to proceed, for it was with her that the dragon’s smoke moved. He strove to drive down the dour mood that worked upon him. He tried to rationalize everything as he would a military campaign, weighing what was risked against what could be gained. No, even if the odds against them were a thousand to one, they had to try. Taking Surtur’s sword would change the doom foretold for Odin, perhaps even avert Ragnarok itself. To achieve such a goal, Tyr knew even the most remote chance had to be taken.
Long hours fell away as the three marched ever closer to the glowing volcano and the stronghold poised above its cauldron. Tyr thought he’d never seen a structure of its like before. The walls and battlements were built from colossal blocks of dark basalt. Towers reared above the main structure, their spiky roofs making them look like clawed hands tearing at the sky. A central keep, immense and foreboding, squatted between the clustered towers, its facade sculpted into the image of a vast and fiendish face. Windows set into the eyes of that face flickered with internal light, lending the fortification an eerie sense of vigilance and awareness.
Several gates opened from the curtain wall. These too had seen savage ornamentation, stone fangs jutting out at every angle so that each conveyed the impression of a twisted maw rather than an entryway. Ahead of the exterior wall was a deep trench, a moat from which plumes of smoke arose. In front of each gate was a wide bridge that spanned the gap. Tyr could see that though the gates themselves stood open, the bridges before them were guarded.
The sentries were fire demons. Tyr had faced their kind before in Asgard and Midgard. Taller than a human, but built in the same rough design, they presented an unlovely aspect. Their faces were almost bestial in their cruelty, with squashed noses and wide, fang-filled mouths. Their eyes were more like hot embers than anything else and from the pores of their charred skin, where another creature might sport hair, there was only a fiery discharge, a nimbus of flame that clung to them so long as there was life pulsing through their bodies to fuel it. These guards carried glaives made from obsidian and thick shields forged from some manner of shiny red metal.
“We must cross one of those bridges,” Tyr stated, waving his hand at the fortress. “The most lightly guarded would still see us outnumbered eight to three.”
“We’ve faced worse than that,” Bjorn reminded him.
“It isn’t enough to simply fight our way across,” Tyr said. “We must do so without alerting the whole stronghold. If the guards on one of the other bridges or some sentry patrolling the walls spots us before we’re inside…”
“The smoke will hide us.” Lorelei’s expression was confident. “We’ve come this near to the fortress and none of the fire demons have given us a second glance. Under cover of this veil, we can steal right up to the guards without them being aware.”
Tyr shook his head. “They might not be able to see into the smoke, but can they hear what happens inside? Does your veil confound sound as well as sight?” He glanced over at Bjorn. “Yes, we’ve faced more numerous enemies, but we would have to vanquish these before a single one of them could cry out.”
“Perhaps not,” the huntsman said. He drew his wolfskin close about him. Before Tyr could make a move, Bjorn dropped to all fours and darted to the edge of the dragon’s smoke. He hesitated for only a moment, then crawled out from the area of the spell.
“Impetuous pup,” Tyr grumbled. “He means to test your enchantment,” he told Lorelei. Too late to stop Bjorn, he decided that at least the effort shouldn’t be wasted. He watched the huntsman crawl, the skin drawn over him. Up close his antics wouldn’t deceive anyone, but from a distance it was just possible he’d be mistaken for one of Muspelheim’s ash-wolves. With that in mind, Tyr suited the test to the deception. From deep at the back of his throat he started to growl in perfect mimicry of an angry wolf.
Bjorn came scurrying back after a minute. Once he was within the smoke, he straightened from his crouch. His face was anxious but eager. “Well?”
“Unless you heard a Varinheim cur defending its bone while you were out there, then no sound leaves Fafnir’s breath,” Tyr told his friend. The smile that stretched across Bjorn’s visage told him that he hadn’t heard anything.
“Your stupid antic has undone everything!” Lorelei cursed. She spun around and glared at Bjorn with such intensity that he wilted under her gaze. “Look!” she commanded, pointing towards the bridge. One of the fire demons was moving away from the span and marc
hing towards the smoke. “They spotted you while you were outside my spell!”
Tyr clapped Bjorn on the shoulder. “You may have been rash, but you were also crafty,” he told him. “They saw you, but your ploy worked.” He looked at Lorelei. “If they suspected there was anything more than a lone wolf sniffing around, they would send more than one guard to investigate.”
“If he steps inside the smoke, he’ll see us,” Lorelei said.
“He’ll get inside, but he won’t get out.” Bjorn ran his hand along the head of his axe.
“There’s no other way,” Tyr agreed, watching as the fire demon marched ever closer. The guard was eyeing the smoke with more than a little caution, doubtless worried the wolf hiding within would suddenly dash out. Through the veil they could see him warily circle the roiling mass. Tyr knew that there was one fault nearly every fire demon had. They weren’t a patient people.
Lorelei had to remain at the center of the smoke, for it was with her that the mass would move. Tyr and Bjorn, however, had the freedom to match the guard’s steps, to move with him and poise themselves to act.
The moment the guard stepped through into the smoke, Bjorn and Tyr were upon him. Tyrsfang ripped across the heft of the glaive, cutting it in half before the fire demon could recover from his shock at finding three Asgardians behind the veil. Bjorn struck at him from the other side with his axe. Even if the dragon’s smoke didn’t muffle sound, the fire demon was dead before he could cry out.
Tyr sheathed his sword and picked up the broken glaive. He handed it over to Lorelei. She gave him a puzzled look. “When you move, the smoke moves with you. We can leave no trace of the guard on the ground. His comrades might wonder what has happened to him, but if we leave a body behind, then they’ll know what happened.”