by Matt Larkin
The moment the crashing stopped, he struggled to his feet.
Loviatar had closed the distance to them and caught Pakkanen by the throat, hefting him up until his toes barely brushed the ground. “Little shaman … thinks to match with me?” She opened her mouth wide, exposing a black void. Then she drew Pakkanen’s face up close and hissed, spraying what looked like ash over the shaman’s face.
The witch dropped him as Ecgtheow advanced, and the shaman fell to his knees, coughing, clutching his throat. His skin turned purple, and he heaved like he meant to retch, except only ashes came out. Ashes—and a stream of black blood dribbling over his lips. Then seeping from his nose. Then his ears. Pakkanen was screaming.
Ecgtheow faltered, unable to make himself move forward toward the wickedly grinning witch.
Pustules rose up all over Pakkanen’s face and arms. Then they burst, spewing blood and pus out in geysers. A man shouldn’t be able to scream like that. Shouldn’t be able to live through aught which would draw out such a sound. Pakkanen rocked back and forth, wailed. Then his eyes exploded like the pustules had, spraying out more gore. And the shaman pitched face-first into the ground.
An enormous crash sounded behind Ecgtheow. A roar. A hiss. He’d forgotten about the fucking dragon. And still, he could not look away from the witch, as she strode toward him. He had his broadsword up, one hand steadying the other, and still they were trembling.
Her flesh was rotting, something like maggots wriggling around beneath her skin.
Vulgar, blasphemous nightmare what shouldn’t have existed.
Ecgtheow was breathing too fast. He couldn’t control his heartbeat.
A battle cry, behind him, and Kustaa charged past, swinging his axe in wide arcs, vicious. Wild, without proper control from one hand. But fearless. The way Ecgtheow had been … a lifetime ago. Now he felt half a craven, beaten down by the unending horrors of the Otherworlds.
Die bravely and see the valkyries.
Die bravely.
When all he wanted to see was his wife and child.
Loviatar caught Kustaa’s axe by its haft. The wood rotted beneath her grasp, turning black and then crumbling, leaving the axe-head to tumble down and clatter onto the stone.
Die … bravely.
Ecgtheow roared his own battle cry and charged the witch.
32
The dragon recoiled from Tyrfing’s flame as Hervor whipped the runeblade around again. Her arms felt afire themselves, aching, and she knew each swing grew slower than the last. She could not keep this up for long.
Starkad had scored several small gashes on the dragon’s face, once each time it tried to lunge for him. He was brave and fast—faster than any man she’d ever seen—but they were still only human.
The dragon slammed its coils into the cavern wall again, sending another shower of obsidian shards raining down from above. Hervor dove to the side, hands over her head, screaming.
Black rocks clattered harmlessly off the dragon’s scaled hide, but one slammed into the ground a hairsbreadth from where Starkad stood, cracked open the stone, and stood there, embedded. Hervor’s lover just dodged around it, swept his own sword around, and cleaved into the dragon’s scales.
Or tried.
His blades clattered off the dragon’s hide as ineffective as the rocks had been.
Odin, give them strength.
From the far side, Wudga charged in, spun, and whipped Mimung down. His runeblade sheared through dragon scale almost as easily as it carved through mortal armor. The creature’s blood shot out in a geyser, hissing like acid and sending Wudga scrambling away to avoid getting scorched.
Ajatar bellowed and spun on Wudga in fury.
Hervor used the opportunity to cleave into its length with Tyrfing. Already prepared, she dove under the spray of acid blood, twisted around, and jerked the flaming sword up once more.
The creature shrieked, but it was like trying to kill a mammoth with a thousand cuts from a dagger. Even if it finally worked, everyone involved would be squashed in the process.
Hervor twisted around to see the dragon had now turned its gaze on her. She froze for a split second, then dove to the side, behind a fallen obsidian shard.
A heartbeat later, the dragon’s maw crashed into the spot she’d stood, its fangs gouging even the stone floor, a chunk of which it spit out at Wudga. The man threw himself prone to avoid it.
Another war cry. Somehow, Starkad had gotten atop the linnorm’s body and was running up its length, toward its head. His steps uneven, pain obvious in his visage.
Hervor gaped. Mist-madness at its finest. He was running on a dragon. He was …
She shook her head, not quite able to believe he’d even try that.
Nor did the dragon itself seem to believe it. It threw its head violently against the wall. Rather than be crushed, Starkad jumped, swords pointed down, and let his momentum add weight to his strikes. One of the blades actually managed to embed itself between two scales. As Starkad fell, the scale peeled back and popped clean off, spraying acid and some foul gas in the process.
Starkad landed and sprang up almost in one move, driving his other sword through the now exposed flesh. It sunk up to the hilt, and the dragon convulsed, reared back, and roared.
Shit. It was going to fucking kill him.
Hervor charged forward, slashing as she ran, drawing numerous cuts along Ajatar’s scales. Acid droplets sprayed over her, scorching her skin. She grit her teeth against the pain and kept hacking away, desperate to keep it from focusing on Starkad.
Wudga must have sensed her plan, because she heard him screaming, hewing away at the dragon’s tail. She spared him a glance. The serpent lunged forward. Its coils slapped into Wudga as it moved. Volund’s son flew backward and hurtled into the cavern wall, then fell limp and lay still.
In the chaos and noise of the fight, Hervor had no idea if he yet drew breath. Nor could she spare even a moment to check in on the man.
Starkad had lost one of his swords—damn, it was still stuck in the dragon—and was now desperately fending off the beast’s maw with the other. His face had turned green as the dragon’s breath fell over him. Odin alone knew what poisons where in that gas.
If she ever needed Tyrfing, now was the time. If the runeblades had ever been intended for a noble purpose, let Tyrfing now kill this creature. Hervor shrieked and thrust Tyrfing deep into dragon flesh. Rather than jerk it free, she grabbed it with both hands and pulled it straight across, running forward as she did so.
Fresh acid sprayed over her hands, scorched them, and she shrieked in agony but refused to let go of the sword. Blue flames erupted beneath the dragon’s scales. Its flesh split apart at the seams, drawing a gaping hole that just kept growing.
Acid and blood and gore stung her eyes, blinded her. She kept pulling. Her arms were ready to fall off. Just a little more … She jerked the runeblade along, shredding the dragon like a sausage, screaming in fury and agony all the while.
The runeblade scraped bone. Cut through it and kept going. The dragon’s flailing caught her, sent her tumbling along the ground. Tyrfing slipped from her grasp and went out.
Her head slammed against the rock and white light filled her vision. Ears ringing … Maybe dying …
Roaring echoed through the cavern.
Hervor blinked, tried to focus.
“My arm!”
She turned. Loviatar had caught Kustaa’s forearm. Where she’d grabbed him, his flesh had turned rotten, blackening as it bubbled and peeled. A creeping pestilence spread up his arm as the witch released him. Edging closer and closer to his elbow.
Kustaa was screaming, eyes wide in horror at his decaying body.
Ecgtheow bellowed and brought his broadsword down, severing Kustaa’s arm at the elbow. The dismembered limb fell, hit the ground. Continued to blacken and rot with an acrid stench. Flesh ate away revealing bone beneath, and even that began to crack.
Kustaa had fallen to his knees, cradling hi
s arm, while Ecgtheow spun after Loviatar. Except the witch was missing.
Hervor pushed herself up, crawling to where Tyrfing lay fallen.
Turned over.
Starkad shrieked as he drove a blade through Ajatar’s eye. Acid exploded over him and he fell, screaming, rolling on the ground. The dragon reared back, bucked wildly, slamming against the cavern walls.
Twice, and then it collapsed down to the floor. It heaved and hissed. Some foulness Hervor couldn’t identify dribbled out of Ajatar’s mouth.
Starkad thrashed, screaming. And then he seemed to melt through the floor.
Hervor scrambled over to where he’d just lain, fell to her hands, and beat the empty floor. It was acid-scorched, but no sign remained of her lover.
She pounded the rock once more but got no answer.
While Ecgtheow was tying off Kustaa’s wound, Wudga came limping around the dead linnorm’s coils, holding his ribs and wheezing with each breath he took. No disguising the pain in his eyes. How many ribs had the dragon broken? A lot, more like than not, and still Hervor counted him lucky to be walking at all. She knew that pain all too well.
“He was right here,” she mumbled under her breath.
Wudga groaned, shook his head. “With Pakkanen dead … our only way back to the realm of the living now lies through Loviatar’s own power. We … need … need to be there if she opens that way. If we … miss …”
Oh, Odin’s stones. If they missed it, they’d be trapped here forever. Or until they died, which was not like to be long at this rate.
“All right!” she snapped. “We have to move, now!” The witch must’ve had another exit from this place. Hervor glanced back at the entrance. Unless she could turn invisible like the damn hiidet. “Wudga. Can you find her trail?”
“I’m not a shaman.” He grunted in discomfort. “I don’t … there’s another tunnel out of this chamber, beyond the linnorm’s coils.”
No guarantee Loviatar had gone that route, but they had to try. “Make for it.” And pray to Odin that the witch-queen had fled in that direction.
Ecgtheow helped Kustaa up, but the pirate shrugged him off and hefted a torch with his remaining hand. Hervor didn’t envy him trying to fight with his off-hand—especially if that was the broken arm. It had taken Hervor a lot of moons training left-handed with Starkad to come anywhere nigh to the skill she’d had with her right. Still probably wasn’t there yet—and never would be. But those first moons, those were the worst.
The four of them edged around the dragon corpse and then made their way into the tunnel Wudga indicated. Hervor led the way, using Tyrfing’s flames as a torch as she pushed on.
The passage sloped downward for a hundred feet or so before leveling out. The tunnel looked more like a burrow. Maybe Ajatar had dug this out herself. Either way, it soon opened out into a small cavern honeycombed by other tunnels.
The witch stood at the mouth of one, speaking to more hiidet. A half dozen of those trollfuckers. Loviatar and her minions all paused as Hervor entered the cavern. All looked to her, to Tyrfing flaming in her hand. Hervor glared at the queen of Loude, panting through her clenched teeth. This time, the queen would die.
Bellowing, Hervor charged straight in at the hiidet. She’d expected them to vanish, but instead they dove into the rocks, disappearing underground. She faltered a step, then hesitated. The stone just before her rose like a bubble out of water. Then one of the creatures burst forth from it, croaking and slashing.
Hervor swept Tyrfing down on its head, splattering the creature. More popped up around her.
Damn it. Godsdamned diminutive globs of troll shit! She roared, whipping Tyrfing around. “Wudga! Go after Loviatar.”
The man raced past her, dodging around another breaking stone bubble, and took off toward the witch—who began to run down the tunnel. Wudga’s uneven gait revealed his pain, but he was moving. And he was resistant to her Art, it seemed—maybe the best suited to kill Loviatar.
“You two, help me take out these hiidet!”
Ecgtheow bellowed in assent and laid into the nearest one. Kustaa, though, just kept running right after Wudga and Loviatar.
Hervor gaped at him, shook her head. Bastard wanted revenge on the bitch who took his arm. She couldn’t blame him, but his timing might cost them all.
Shrieking, Hervor barely dodged one of a hiisi’s rending claws. Another tore into her unprotected side.
Tyrfing severed the hand that had struck her. Sweat and blood and gore blinded her, and she spun, using the flames to hold the monsters at bay as much as to strike at them. Ecgtheow had felled one and now brought his blade down in a vicious overhead chop on the fallen hiisi.
Hervor turned, cut through the last one she could see, though more bubbles seemed to flow beneath the ground. “We have to get after the witch.”
Ecgtheow grunted, nodded, and took off in that direction, half running, half limping. The big man had been through a lot. A lot of it with her. And now he was going to fuck things up with Starkad.
Which she couldn’t allow.
She trotted after him, then swiped Tyrfing across his hamstring as she passed. The blade bit through flesh with ease and ignited his trousers. Ecgtheow fell, screaming in agony and rolling on the ground.
Hervor couldn’t bring herself to even look back as she ran on. Killing Loviatar and saving Starkad were what mattered. Ecgtheow … one more murder. One more betrayal …
Because what choice did he leave her?
Bastard.
She raced down the tunnel, panting with the effort. The route opened into another small cavern, this one deep below, and reachable by a path that wrapped around the outskirts. At the base of it, maybe forty feet down, a chunk of white root had burst through the stone floor.
Even as Hervor entered, Loviatar had her hand against the root. Was making it morph.
Odin’s flaming stones!
Wudga charged after her, Kustaa a half step behind and roaring like a madman.
She’d never make it. She’d be trapped here just like Ecgtheow. Fuck that. She jumped from the path onto where it wrapped around, fell almost twenty feet, and landed in a roll. The impact sent a jolt through her, and she almost tumbled down off the side the rest of the way.
“Trollfuckers,” she grunted, then threw herself down again, and hit the ground hard.
It stole her breath and left the room spinning, but she scrambled to her feet and dashed.
Kustaa had passed through the opening. Already, the root wall was closing.
Heaving. Gasping in pain and exhaustion. And utter fucking desperation. She flung herself forward, and the root snapped back into place behind her. She tumbled to the ground, rolled and couldn’t rise. Her arms wouldn’t answer.
She sucked in a painful breath. Looked up. She was laying on the floor in the same room they’d begun the vision quest in. No sign of Höfund. Ecgtheow’s body was still there, slumped over in sleep.
Loviatar stood nearby, turning around as if searching in vain for something. Her guise had switched back to the beautiful, eyeless maiden. Save for black hands outstretched, grasping, reaching for them.
Kustaa roared and launched himself at her, waving his torch—the only light source in this place. Loviatar jerked around suddenly, ducked a blow she clearly couldn’t have seen, and caught him on the back of the neck with a black hand. His legs gave out beneath him, and his skin turned ashen. A moment later, it began to rupture, spewing blood and black filth in all directions. The pirate spasmed, screaming in pain Hervor didn’t even want to consider.
She slowly stood. Started to reach for Tyrfing on the ground. Loviatar dropped Kustaa and looked around. Listening.
The only sound came from the faint crackle of Kustaa’s fallen torch.
If Hervor picked up the runeblade, the witch might hear it.
Where was Wudga?
There. Lying on the floor, not far from where the root had been. Must’ve gotten hurt on the way through. Running with mul
tiple broken ribs—probably not healthy.
Loviatar stalked around the room, fingers clenching and unclenching. Eager to catch Hervor, no doubt. “I know you’re here.”
Hervor willed her breath to slow, held it, as the blind witch passed within a foot of her. She dared not move a muscle. Any sound and Loviatar would catch her out.
Loviatar turned again, waving that black hand out in front of herself. Hervor leaned backward, away from it as those wretched fingers passed dangerously close to her nose.
The witch moved on, toward Wudga’s prone form. Closed in on him. “Afraid, little girl?” At this point, Hervor worried her pounding heart would give her away. “I suppose I’ll settle for this one, then. For now.”
Hervor grimaced. Wudga. Damn it. Her hand closed around the hilt of her dagger. If the witch heard her advance … One touch and she was dead. In a rather horrific manner, from the look of it.
So she had to close in, silent as death. Had to kill her with one blow of the dagger and make sure Loviatar couldn’t touch her in the process. Sounded all but impossible.
Starkad was counting on her.
So.
So fear and the witch could both go fuck a troll.
Hervor flung the dagger. It wasn’t weighted for throwing, of course. Hardly mattered since she only aimed at the far wall.
Loviatar spun at the sound of it clattering. Hervor used the noise to snatch up Tyrfing, then immediately thrust the runeblade forward. The witch spun, but too late. The runeblade slipped through her side, hit the spine, then punched out the other way. Hervor jerked the blade back immediately, falling over herself to get out of reach of the suddenly grasping black hands.
The witch flailed around limply, her death grasp passing nigh to Hervor’s knees, even as her torso seemed ready to pitch over to one side or another.
On her arse, Hervor scrambled backward, knowing Tyrfing scraped over stone and she made an awful racket, but unable to do aught about it.
Loviatar hissed like a fucking snake, spun around, and retched up a curtain of black blood that fell just short of where Hervor lay. The witch shambled forward, reaching for her.