by Matt Larkin
There is only one way a bad life ends—badly.
Vebiorg was right on that count. Hervor had wrought her own urd. Lived as a bandit, a pirate. A murderer. Committed nigh every crime imaginable. Except, she’d never broken an oath until now.
She’d sworn vengeance on Orvar-Oddr, and she’d taken it. Maybe that had been a mistake, but she’d kept her oath.
People began to step around her, thinking she no longer waited for the chance to pass the gate. Maybe she no longer did. Because she still had an oath to Starkad. Maybe she could make him see her side of it.
Maybe not.
But she had to try.
And she had to go after Orvar. Become the hunter.
One way or another, she had to put an end to this.
28
Arete had seen to Starkad’s needs, predicted them all. Through the haze of his death and rebirth, it had proved nigh impossible to control himself or make sense of the flood of sensations. In the aftermath, though, he’d looked upon the carnage he’d wrought.
It was the distant horror of a battlefield. The stench of death and the disquiet of knowing he’d had a hand in it, yet it remained far away. Removed from him, as if it had been someone else’s hand that dealt the killing blows.
Now he stood in front of Tanna’s palace, staring up at the massive wall around it. Maybe the Patriarch would be in his tower.
That thought had run round and round in Starkad’s head and given him pause, while forcing him to dwell on the events of his first waking two nights ago.
The heartbreak on Hervor’s face had offered a dim satisfaction. The pain she visited upon him returned to her in some small portion. All of it seemed a blur, though.
With the victims and the fucking both, he felt like he had wandered back into the nightmare worlds Ogn had drawn him through. Except this was reality, he was fair certain. And he had become something like a draug now, creatures he had despised and seen as foes most of his life. Creatures that killed many he’d known and cared for. Abominations.
As a vampire, was he better than a draug for being less obsessed with vengeance, perhaps even closer to human? Or was he worse, for those very same reasons? Because he was not driven by the single-minded pursuit of destroying the living and yet found himself preying upon them all the same.
Hard to say, really.
At the moment, though, he did not seek to prey upon humans but upon other vampires. A bold ambition, perhaps.
Arete had warned him he was young, barely in control of himself. The latter had probably been true most of his life. She’d said Tanna had vampires serving him who’d lived for centuries, stoking their power by devouring countless victims’ life energies. Starkad could not hope to match that, she’d said.
Then again, he’d fought Tanna and lived, even as a mortal. And he was something more than that now.
Starkad grasped the gate and heaved himself upward, caught the top of it, and slipped over. His increased strength made most barriers mere minor annoyances. Useful.
Beyond the wall, a heartbeat pounded. Just one. Poor bastard.
Starkad crept forward, sticking to the shadows. A single guard patrolled around the yard, though other heartbeats sounded in the distance. They should have patrolled in pairs, the fools.
With incredible speed, Starkad lunged at him, slapped a hand over his mouth, and bit down on his neck. The guard squirmed a moment before his strength—meager though it seemed next to Starkad’s—gave out. Starkad drank deep, but still felt full from last night and couldn’t stomach much more. Instead, he broke the man’s neck and left the corpse lying there.
Whatever Arete had done, it had mostly fixed Starkad’s jaw. She’d said a few more feedings and he’d be able to speak without pain. He’d complained about his eyes and she’d said those injuries were too old to be fixed by his rebirth. Meaning he was stuck with bad vision for all eternity. Delirious as he was while dying, he hadn’t really considered that, and he found himself a little vexed at Arete for not bothering to point it out.
He jumped up to a windowsill ten feet in the air, pulled himself up, and slipped inside. Just beyond here, two more guards waited on a landing. He dispatched these two and pushed on.
On the upper level, he checked several rooms before coming to one with another guard. Starkad charged him from the shadows and slammed a fist into his gut before he could raise a cry. Then he snapped this one’s neck too.
Starkad tried the door. Locked. He slammed against the door twice before the lock buckled. It opened into a plush bedchamber. Probably Tanna’s room, though empty now. He stroked his beard, found that sent a small twinge of pain to his jaw—feeding hurt too, but it was so powerful he almost didn’t notice—and gave it over.
He made his way further down the winding stairs to the lower level. Nikolaos had still refused to act directly against Tanna or even allow Arete to do so. Starkad got the impression that, as a vampire given life by Arete, the rules should have prevented him from trying this, too.
He’d made it clear he didn’t give a fuck about vampire rules or the emperor or aught else save killing Tanna. And Nikolaos had ordered Arete to give Starkad two new swords, these made of pure iron. Not woven, not worked into steel, pure iron.
“We’re ghosts,” Arete had explained. “Pure iron—cold iron, that is—is harmful to us. The hilts are wrapped in leather, allowing you to hold them. The blades will sap your strength, though, so take care.”
Some völvur had claimed iron warded against vaettir. If it worked against vampires, that was all the better.
As he reached the lower floor, a shadow dropped down from the ceiling. Starkad lurched away just as a female vampire slashed at him with claw-like nails. Shit. He’d gotten used to listening for heartbeats and hadn’t noticed her. He fell back, hit the stairs, and had nowhere to go.
Nor any room to draw his blades.
Instead, he caught her wrist as she slashed at him. She jerked free with astounding strength, her other hand slashing along his face and neck. The pain of it stunned him for a bare instant, then he ducked the next blow. So she was stronger than him. Not faster, though. He dodged, hit her in the ribs with a hook, and followed up with an uppercut to her jaw. That one sent her toppling over backward.
He jerked his blades free. She leapt up, lunged at him, then drew up short as she caught sight of his swords. Too late. He rammed one through her chest. She spasmed, then went limp around it. With the other, he lopped her head off.
That ought to kill a vampire.
Starkad kicked her corpse off his blade, then started down a hall.
More heartbeats. Giving over stealth, he charged right at them, cutting both down before they even had weapons up.
Guards probably meant he was going the right way. He tore through more hapless victims and another vampire who clearly didn’t expect intruders at all, much less one as fast as him. If Starkad didn’t find Tanna, maybe he’d just kill every last bastard who worked for him. That ought to get the Patriarch’s attention.
Starkad came to stairs leading deeper, followed them down into what seemed like a dungeon. A few prisoners in the cells, though no one Starkad recognized. He bypassed those, then paused at a cell. Beyond a steel door, chained to the wall, rested Höfund. Bruises covered the big man over more or less every spot of skin Starkad could see. That, and at least three distinct pairs of bite marks. The vampires had fed off him. And his feet were bare, both those and his shins charred black and oozing blood.
Eyelids drooping, Höfund lifted his gaze to Starkad. Actually, one of those lids didn’t quite open given the heavy swelling around it. The other eye blinked, like it didn’t quite believe it was him.
Starkad sheathed his swords, strode over and grasped the chains, then yanked them out of the wall. A link snapped, and Höfund pitched forward onto his hands, groaning.
“Someone turned you.”
Starkad spun at the voice, hands going to the hilts of his swords.
Tanna stood the
re, Mistilteinn in hand, a slight smirk on his face. “I admit, I didn’t think Nikolaos would go so far. Do you think he’ll grieve the loss of his progeny?” Tanna hefted the runeblade. “More importantly, did you know this runeblade can kill even an immortal? The other runeblades were graced with strange gifts, roaring flames or pale fires, poisons, icy venom that saps one’s strength. But Mistilteinn, oh, I think it perhaps the greatest—or most fell—work of this era. For the wounds it inflicts are as real and deadly to immortals as an ordinary sword is to humans.”
Starkad bared his teeth—fangs—and jerked his swords free once more. “I’m going to kill you.”
A snicker, and then the vampire nigh flew forward, runeblade flashing. Starkad parried. It barely slowed the runeblade, which sliced through his sword. Starkad twisted away and flung the hilt at Tanna. The vampire batted the projectile aside with Mistilteinn.
The problem with making swords of iron instead of worked steel was pure iron was soft. Even a steel-wrought blade could barely stand up to the power of a runeblade. An iron one was hopeless if he needed to parry. Instead, Starkad leapt over Tanna’s next blow, landed, and kicked off it.
Tanna swung at him, and Starkad flipped over the vampire to land behind him. The Patriarch’s runeblade embedded in the dungeon wall almost a foot deep. Starkad swung at him. Tanna’s form brought about to dust. Then came back together as the iron sword seemed to bite into flesh. The vampire staggered backward, hand to his side where Starkad had gouged him deep.
He snarled at Starkad, looked to Mistilteinn, then lunged for Starkad instead. Starkad whipped his sword around once more. Becoming a vampire had made Starkad even faster. Almost as fast as Tanna. Almost.
The other vampire dodged around Starkad’s blade, caught his wrist in a steel-like grip, and flung him into the side of the cell. Starkad tried to shift his gravity to the wall the way Arete did, but it came at him too fast and the impact sent his own fangs jamming into his lip. He hit the floor, dazed, but somehow not winded.
Because he didn’t breathe except to speak. Huh.
Before he could gain his feet, Tanna was there, his form half solid, half dust. His foot caught Starkad in the ribs and hefted him up so hard Starkad actually hit the ceiling. This time, he did manage to shift his gravity and cling there.
Didn’t help, since Tanna leapt up to him an instant later, fist swinging. Starkad rolled to the side and Tanna’s fist dented the stone ceiling, sending a spiderweb of cracks along it. Starkad dropped off, hit the floor in a crouch, and lunged for his iron sword. His fingers brushed over the blade on the way to the hilt, and he instantly felt slow and weak.
Claw-like hands dug into his shoulders and sent him crashing against another wall.
Starkad struggled to rise, but pain seeped into every bone in his body. Some of them might well have been cracked. He managed his knees. Twisted to the side as Tanna’s fist came in once more. The blow split stone.
Snarling, Starkad landed a hook into Tanna’s ribs. The Patriarch barely flinched, instead catching Starkad by the hair and driving him back against the wall. “You, a pathetic neonate, cannot hope to match my power. I am ancient. I feasted on the blood of uncounted souls and grew mighty as I passed down through the ages. I am eternal.”
The tip of a blade exploded out of Tanna’s chest, driven right through his heart.
“Reckon that means you was immortal, huh?” Höfund said. “’Cause you said this here blade could kill immortals.”
The vampire looked down at the runeblade, his hands trembling. Blood spurted from his mouth as an all-too-human expression came over his face.
Starkad sneered at him, slipped around behind the vampire, and took the runeblade’s hilt from Höfund. He jerked Mistilteinn free, then hacked off Tanna’s head in one swift motion.
The half-jotunn grimaced, backed up into a wall, and wiped blood splatters from his face with one hand, chains still dangling from his wrists. He grunted once, then shook himself. “You figure we can leave Miklagard now?”
“You can.” Starkad wiped his own face. “You should.”
“You ain’t coming?”
“I’m not sure yet … there are things I need to see to in Tanna’s tower.”
“Huh. Where’s Hervor and the others, then?”
Starkad shook his head. “I don’t know. Let’s get you out of this place, then you should head to the harbor and see about finding a ship away from here.”
The big man pushed off the wall. “Finding a ship is good, sure enough. But I ain’t leaving without Hervor.”
All Starkad could do was frown.
29
A shadow passed through the night, down the cobbled street, there only for an instant and then gone. Hervor pressed herself hard against the alley wall, uncertain whether the darkness had been her imagination or a vampire stalking the city.
Either way, heading out after dark didn’t seem over wise. Not wise, but then, she saw no real alternative. She’d taken one night to rest, but she had to find Starkad, to try to make things right. Or at least to try to help him end Tanna.
Tanna, Orvar, even Starkad now—damn Arete—were like to be out only in the dark hours.
And she had business with all three of them. Poor Win was dead, but she’d given her oath to save Holmgard if she could. Damn oaths, always trapping her.
And she needed to find Orvar-Oddr, too, and Vebiorg, assuming the varulf lived. The latter to gain her help with destroying the former. Hervor would do it alone if she had to, but she liked her odds better with Vebiorg by her side.
So she stalked from alley to alley, watching Tanna’s palace and Nikolaos’s both. From the gate to Tanna’s grounds, a big man stumbled out, steadied himself on the wall, and then shuffled onward.
Höfund?
Oh, praise Odin. Hervor had begun to think the Ás king had utterly abandoned them all here.
Glancing both ways down the road—and seeing no sign of vampires or draugar—she hurried toward him.
The half-jotunn drew up short at her approach, squinted, then stomped toward her and threw his arms around her. “Half feared you was dead.”
She could hardly breathe with him squeezing her so tight, but she struggled to return his embrace. “Same.”
Höfund released her, wobbled, and she caught him. He weighed more than most men, so even his arm around her shoulder nigh bore her down. Still, by the look of him, he’d fared even worse than her. Wounds everywhere, feet burned to a crisp. The poor bastard was barely alive, from what she could tell.
“What happened?”
“Orvar tortured me, here and there. Figuring on hurting you by hurting your crew, I reckon. That, and Tanna and his creatures took to drinking my blood more oft than I’d have liked, if anyone bothered to ask on it.”
Hervor grimaced. “How did you get away?”
“Eightarms came in, fought with Tanna. We killed him, but Starkad just disappeared off into the night saying that things in the tower needed tending to. Dunno for sure, but I reckon maybe he meant Orvar.” Höfund wheezed, leaning more heavily upon her shoulder. “Told him we ought all best be sailing off, but he’s a right stubborn one, that.”
Truer words had never been said.
Hervor guided the big man away, toward an alley. “Starkad was right here?”
“Was, but I can’t say as he’s like to still be close. He was moving a bit faster than I could manage, truth be told.”
Shit. Hel take all vampires, Starkad included. “You truly killed Tanna?”
The big man chuckled, a deep rumbling sound that might’ve been intimidating, if his mirth wasn’t so damned good-natured. Like he was also so eager to share his joviality. “Ran him right through with his own blade, I did. Don’t normally hold with stabbing a man in the back, but I reckon he had it coming, all in all.”
“I’d say he did.” And one problem solved, at least. Starkad and Höfund had upheld their oaths to Rollaugr, though the king might rather have had his son returned to h
im. He’d have to take whatever small satisfaction victory offered him, though. Naught else remained to any of them.
She helped Höfund to the alley, and then he leaned on a building, the release of weight from her shoulder drawing a sigh from her. The big man was staring at her now, as if waiting for her to tell him what to do next. Maybe once she’d been the captain of a crew, but honestly, she’d been a rather evil bitch back then.
And again, in Pohjola, well, she’d all but murdered Ecgtheow, gotten almost all the rest of her crew killed, and somehow failed to foresee Wudga’s betrayal despite knowing she ought to trust him less than a godsdamned troll. No, she didn’t really need to be in charge of aught. And yet, here was Höfund, looking at her and waiting for her to say something to make everything all better.
She leaned with her back against the wall herself. So her oath to Rollaugr was fulfilled, true, but she had to try to keep her oath to Starkad. And either way, she had to see to Orvar. That bastard needed to die. Or she did. Either way, she’d had her fill of him and she’d made her decision to stop running.
“Got something deep rumbling around in that head of yours, I reckon.”
Naught good. She looked back to the half-jotunn. Hurt as he was, he’d probably come with her if she asked. And he’d die for it. Orvar would make certain of that. No, too many people had died over her crime.
Höfund might well be the closest thing to a good man she’d ever met. Enough so she didn’t want him to wind up the way everyone else in her life did, anyway.
“I need you to do something for me.”
He shrugged, then grimaced as even that little motion had pained him.
“Can you make it alone to the harbor?” She pointed off in the direction of the Black Sea.
Höfund sucked his teeth. “Been through worse than this.”
That seemed doubtful, but she’d have to take it as his way of telling her not to worry over him. Which, considering she had rather enough to fret on at the moment, she’d have to accept. “Go to the harbor, staying out of sight as you make your way. At dawn, find a ship willing to carry us out of Miklagard. Have them wait for me as long as they can, an hour from sunset if they’ll do so.” Hervor fished out one of the pouches of silver they’d stolen from Tanna’s vaults and pressed it into Höfund’s hands. “If I’m not back by then, I’m not coming back. And you need to go, take the ship and go.”