by Bec McMaster
The undead were difficult to slay at the best of times.
“Oh, finding Marduk will be no trouble,” he muttered under his breath, pitching his voice to match a female’s tone. “It will be an excellent adventure.”
“What?” Bryn called.
“Nothing,” he grunted, as he scrambled along at her heels. “Just noting how typical this adventure is proving to be. Missing princes. Völva who practice dark magic. Undead. If my luck holds its usual pattern, we’ll probably find ourselves battling some monstrous beast from the Underworld. Or betrayed to an ancient god.”
Bryn shot him a sharp look, but his head was down.
She couldn’t promise any gods.
But did a dreki princess count?
“What took you so long?” Sirius demanded, standing at the top of the mountain track as he swiftly buttoned himself into his breeches.
“Some of us don’t have wings,” Tormund told him, bending over and resting his hands on his hips. Mother of God. His lungs were about to explode and a twinge of pain ached in his right ankle. He didn’t want to admit it but Bryn had set a punishing pace. The only consolation had been watching the tight leather breeches she wore flex over those powerful thighs. “If you wanted speed, you could have carried us.”
“Do I look like a pack mule?”
“No,” Bryn purred. “You look like a powerful dreki prince who rules the skies.”
Tormund’s eyes narrowed on the dreki prince. Losing an eye had done the bastard little damage. Indeed, now Sirius looked even more dangerous, with a leather eyepatch to match the sneering smile he frequently wore.
And clearly Bryn had noticed, as she watched Sirius haul a shirt over the broad expanse of his shoulders with undisguised appreciation.
Trust me, giant. He was dreki…
What did that mean?
“He’s mated,” Tormund told her curtly, after a frustrating morning of having his attempts at conversation rebuffed. “And his wee pretty wife would rip your throat out with her teeth if she saw the way you were looking at him.”
“I’m only looking, giant. Where is the harm in that?” Shrewd eyes turned back to the Blackfrost. “Besides, I know who he is. I know what he’s capable of. It would take a woman braver than I to even think of dabbling with such a creature. His mate must be a powerful warrior.”
Tormund considered Malin. Short. Pretty. Nose buried in a book most of the time. “Honestly, she’s the nicest dreki I’ve ever met. She baked me a cake to thank me for helping her save him.”
Bryn blinked.
“I don’t think she even knows how to hold a sword,” he told her with a little enjoyment. “But then she doesn’t have to. She’s got this great big overgrown lout wrapped around her little finger. He’d eat anyone who tried to harm her.”
“I can hear you,” Sirius called.
“I’m aware of that,” Tormund called back, without taking his eyes off Bryn. “So where do we go now?”
She lifted her face to the skies, watching the merlin who soared above them with a distant look on her face. “Left,” she finally said.
“Of course.” Tormund sighed as he looked to the left. And up. More fucking steps. “Why did I even bother asking?”
“Is there any chance you can cease your complaints for at least ten minutes? I’m starting to forget what silence sounds like.”
Then she stalked to the left, brushing past Sirius as if he wasn’t standing there looking like an ancient god brought to life.
Tormund blew out a breath. The good ones were never easy. Bryn had spent all morning gracing him with an icy shoulder, though her laugh whenever Haakon spoke was warm and hearty—and his cousin wasn’t a funny man.
Though Haakon was clearly amused now, snickering under his breath as Tormund followed their “guide.”
“Enjoying yourself?” he muttered, as he shoved past his cousin, his shoulder slamming into Haakon’s “accidentally.”
Haakon caught himself on a tree. “Immensely. How’s destiny treating you?”
“Coldly. Very, very coldly.”
“Perhaps you should use that endless charm that has never failed before.” Haakon could no longer contain his laughter.
“Do you remember when the lovely Árdís had such doubts about you? And I reminded her that you were worth fighting for?” Tormund shook his head. “I was wrong. I hope one of the draugar eats you.”
Three
Three enormous burial mounds guarded the entrance to the valley. Mist clung to the sweeping slopes, and a pair of enormous lintel stones were carved with ancient runes.
“Looks welcoming,” Tormund muttered under his breath as he drew his axe.
“They’re warnings.” Bryn’s eyes roved the shadows ahead. Gone was any sign of flippancy. Now she moved with the prowling grace of a wolf. “Enter here at your own risk. May the gods be with you.”
“I thought völva practiced natural magics?” Tormund eyed the burial mounds. Sweat dripped down his spine. He’d fought many monsters—dragons, kraken, and wyrms—but draugar were in a category of their own.
“This one foretold a future once that the local villagers did not like. She lives apart from the world, and many men have tried to ruin her. They say she is nearly two hundred years old.”
“Not human then?”
“Human once, perhaps. Though they say she turned her face from blessed Freyja to grim Hel and made a dark bargain in order to preserve her life.”
“You know a great deal about the workings of these people,” Haakon commented, and Tormund knew his cousin’s instincts were roused.
Bryn shrugged as she strode between the rune stones. “I make it my business to know, Dragonsbane. There is good coin in it. And you’re less likely to earn an unexpected knife in the back. Come. Follow my footsteps exactly. And don’t listen to the voices.”
Voices. Jesus.
Tormund watched her walk between the burial mounds with seemingly no care.
“Do you want me to hold your hand?” Haakon muttered.
“My good Christian mother warned me not to get involved with this madness when I was a boy. And I didn’t listen. I told her you would not lead me astray. I promised her I would die a good, natural death, surrounded by my grandchildren and languishing in my bed.”
“It’s all right,” Haakon said in a soothing voice. “We all have fears. I promise I won’t let a big, bad draugr eat you.”
Tormund shuddered. The thought of dying in battle wasn’t something that bothered him; but being eaten alive by something that had crawled out of the grave….
“I hate you. I just want you to know that,” he shot back, before he strode after Bryn. “Can you kill the draugar, Sirius? From a nice, safe distance?”
The Blackfrost could freeze the heart in a man’s—or dreki’s—chest with a single thought, and could rouse a storm to icy, chilling lethality.
“They’re undead,” the dreki replied tersely. “I can freeze them and slow them down, but I can’t explode their hearts with my magic. Or I can, but it won’t affect them. They’re not alive.”
Damn it. “A pity you can’t breathe fire like your cousin Rurik.”
Sirius bared his teeth. “True. All the better to roast you alive.”
“Is that why he’s king? I never did work out how you dreki proclaim such things.”
Sirius hissed under his breath. “Rurik is king because I do not want to sit on his throne.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Haakon grumbled, “Can’t the two of you be quiet for once? I feel like I’m dealing with children.”
“What is the plan? What are we facing here?” Tormund knew little about draugr, except for the fact they were undead, difficult to kill, and best avoided.
“We talk to the völva,” Bryn called over her shoulder. “Politely. We offer her coin for information. We leave. Preferably with our heads.”
“I like this plan. But what happens if the völva takes exception with our visit?” To his right, one of
the burial mounds loomed. A shiver passed through him as he stepped within its shadow.
“We run,” Bryn replied. “Pass back through the rune stones and sprint toward the village. Regroup at the church. I don’t think they can cross consecrated ground.”
“Also acceptable,” he said.
Every step felt like he crossed the threshold to Helheim. The temperature plunged, and he walked directly into a wet, cool mist. The sound of their footsteps muffled until silence settled over them like a shroud. Even he didn’t feel like breaking it, and he was remarkably fond of the sound of his own voice in situations like these.
Soft whispers seemed to stir the mist.
“Look at the lights….”
“Over here…. There is gold and jewels….”
Tormund stared steadily ahead. “Don’t listen to the voices,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t listen, don’t listen, don’t listen.”
An eerie green light glowed to his right, like a firefly—except there was something about the way it drifted through the air that told him it wasn’t.
“Nearly there,” Bryn whispered, and even she was stepping carefully, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.
Out of the mists loomed a tall, hooded figure leaning on a staff. Tormund’s heart skipped a beat, and he choked down a curse as Bryn stopped.
“Good völva,” she called. “We come in peace.”
“You’re not welcome here,” the völva replied in a hollow, guttural voice that made Tormund wonder how long it had been since she crawled out of the grave herself.
Two hundred years old? He was betting that dark bargain she’d made had cost her more than the usual gifts to the gods.
“We come with gifts,” Sirius called, looking as though the entire situation raised his hackles. “We seek information.”
“As did the other.” This time, there was a hint of a smirk about the völva’s wrinkled chin.
“Marduk?” Sirius called.
Silence.
“He is the one we are seeking,” Sirius added. “If you tell us where he went and what he wanted, then we shall leave, and in so doing, leave our gift behind.”
The völva leaned closer. “What makes you think he’s not dead? My draugar are hungry, after all. It takes a lot to fill their bellies.”
Little green marsh lights glowed in the dark. Tormund’s nostrils flared and his hand came slowly to rest upon the hilt of his axe. They’re awake, he wanted to mutter, but didn’t dare.
“He is not dead.” Sirius gave an arrogant shrug. “The four winds would have carried the tale all over the world. Nor is he the kind who would fall to a mere draugr. He is a dreki prince with the gift of fire in his veins.”
Tormund exchanged a glance with Haakon.
I thought we were trying to placate the völva? Not antagonize her.
Haakon winced.
“Dreki.” The völva spat on the ground. “Dreki think they are invulnerable, but there are means to destroy them.”
“Peace, my friend,” Tormund called, gesturing with his hands. “My cousin and I are dragon-hunters, and well know the arrogance of dreki.” He ignored Sirius’s sharp glare as he held up the purse they’d agreed to offer. “If we didn’t need this overgrown bat, we’d have left him in Iceland. But my cousin’s wife is desperate for the safe return of her beloved brother. You would be doing us an immense favor if you would tell us where Marduk was going and what he wished of you. And we have two hundred kroner for the information.”
That caught her attention.
The völva flipped her hood back, revealing white, filmy eyes. She’d painted a black line across her brows, and the ink dripped into runnels in her aged skin. It also welled between her teeth, as if she’d bitten into the source of the ink.
“Ask three questions, dragon hunter, and I will answer them,” she spat. “But mind your words, for I am no mere mortal to be trifled with.”
“What did Marduk want of you?” Tormund asked.
“He came searching for the source of the song only he can hear.”
“The song only he can hear?” Bryn muttered.
“And what did you answer?” Tormund continued.
“I gave him a gift: a dwarven listening horn which can hear the music between the notes of the world. With it, he could track the source of this music.”
“Sirius seems to think he went east when he left, which means he was tracking this song, but do you know his precise destination?”
The völva knelt and rested a palm flat on the ground. Closing her eyes, she cocked her head and listened.
A pebble skittered across the ground. Tormund’s nostrils flared.
“Ragnarök’s breath,” Bryn said, her hand falling to her sword hilt. “What is she doing?”
“Communing with the dead, I think.” He’d have never said those words six months ago. Sometimes he wished he’d left Haakon on Iceland’s bleak shores and sailed home to visit his aunt and cousins, where he could safely say he’d never met a dreki—or gotten involved in their mess.
Little cracks formed in the surface of the dry earth, and Tormund could sense something stirring beneath the shale.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He shifted his feet as the cracks rent the earth beneath him. “Why couldn’t it be a dragon?”
Why did it have to be the dead?
Instantly, the earth fell still.
The wind stopped.
And as the völva looked up, Tormund knew instantly that something had gone wrong.
“The prince is east of the sun, and west of the moon; North of the earth and south of the ice; Above the fire and below the stars.” The völva slowly pushed to her feet. “But I can See what I did not See before. He searches for the world-killer, for the Monster With No Name. And if he unleashes it, then we shall all wish for the mercy of Ragnarök’s doom.”
Slamming her staff upon the stones, she turned her face to the skies. Instantly, a wind whipped her cloak until her matted white hair streamed behind her. “My dead children whisper of Destruction, and it must not be allowed to happen.”
“Easy, now,” Tormund said. “We’re all friends here—"
“You will help unleash it upon the world. That much is clear. Unless I stop you.”
A hand smashed through the burial mound to his left.
A high-pitched scream escaped Tormund. Fuckity-fuck-fuck. “How good are you with that sword?” he yelled at Bryn.
“If I draw this sword, giant, then none of our enemies will leave this clearing alive.”
“I like your confidence, woman.”
He just wished he shared it.
Another pair of hands crawled from the second burial mound. Mottled flesh clung to the finger joints, but the tips were mostly skeletal.
“They’re all rising!” Haakon bellowed.
And the three draugar were between the group and the rune stones.
“Now what?” he yelled at Bryn. “Running doesn’t seem to be an option anymore.”
“Behead them,” she roared back. “Cut them to pieces if possible. Or burn them.”
The war axe cleared its sheath. It felt good to have something solid in his hand. His pulse was still raging out of control. “Back to back then. Don’t let them break through.”
Bryn strode forward to meet the first draugr. “I don’t need you to guard my back, big man. I fight alone.”
Jesus. He threw her a frustrated glance, but the draugr to his left captured his attention. Its hollow eye sockets were filled with the little green marsh lights he’d seen earlier, and it stared at him as if yearning to make his acquaintance.
Judging from the rotting leather carapace that clung to its bared ribs, it had once been a woman.
“I’m sorry,” he told it. “I’ve already met my wife. And I prefer a little more… flesh, to be honest.”
The creature hissed at him, the twisted tendons of what had once been a tongue waggling at him.
“Why do you always drag me into these things?�
�� he bellowed at his cousin as Haakon’s back met his.
“Drag you?” Haakon demanded incredulously. “You volunteered to come, you fucking idiot.”
The draugr swung its sword.
Both of them drove forward, his axe and Haakon’s sword meeting the downward blow. It should have stopped any normal creature, but the draugr possessed supernatural strength. The jar of its strike reverberated up his arm, and Tormund went to one knee, almost dropping his weapon.
For a creature compiled of rotting sinew and bones, it was remarkably strong.
“Someone has to save your fool head,” he yelled, scrambling across the ground and swiping for its calf.
Missed. Curse it.
The ringing clash of Haakon’s sword echoed frantically. “You’re the one on your ass!”
Muscles bunching, Tormund swung back the other way, smashing the spiked end of his axe into the creature’s foot. It let out a roar, momentarily thrown off-balance, and he scrambled upright.
Haakon’s sword slashed across its abdomen, spewing ropelike innards and a gush of green bile.
Tormund’s stomach rebelled the second the smell hit him, and he dry heaved as the creature roared and started… growing.
Frigg’s tits, what would it take to kill this fucking thing?
He examined his axe, examined the creature who now stood head and shoulders above him, and then lifted the axe over his head and hurled it directly into the draugr’s chest. The draugr screamed, its ribs caving in beneath the blow, but it merely staggered back three steps, then locked its gaze upon him.
“Tormund!” Sirius roared.
Tormund turned just as the dreki launched into the skies, his human arms stretching into wings. Sirius erupted into an enormous creature carved of scales, fury and violence.
The black dreki launched forward, its teeth snapping around the draugr’s head. With a wrench the Blackfrost ripped it off, tossing it aside with a vicious fling. The body fell backwards, Tormund’s axe sticking out of it.
“That’s one way to kill it,” Tormund muttered, yanking his axe from the draugr’s chest and breathing hard. He paused. “What’s he doing…?”