*
The men drove their horses, carefully, along the safest path they could, between bright, angry red-orange flames, which would flare up, suddenly and alarmingly all around them, through cracks and holes in the rocky ground. It was rapidly becoming more difficult to persuade the horses to continue with the men on their backs, so Sharp Axe gave the order for the men to dismount, to try to lead the horses on foot.
‘They just don’t want to go on… ’ complained Randver who was now, himself, struggling with his wooden leg on Muspelheimr’s hard, uneven terrain, ‘… at least, mine doesn’t. Come on, you great obstinate – !’
‘You can hardly blame it,’ pointed out Aldaron, empathetically and struggling with his own reluctant horse. ‘It can’t be very easy being led into a place like this, for a big, stupid beast that can’t understand, can it?’
‘I don’t know!’ responded Fearless. ‘Let’s ask one, shall we...? Hodbrodd, what’s it like being led into a place like this?’
Hodbrodd said nothing, but merely turned his head towards Fearless and stared at him for a moment. In turn, Fearless looked at Hedin and Hamdir, raised his eyes skywards, made a snorting noise and failed completely to notice that his breeches were on fire. When Hamdir thoughtfully mentioned this to him, Fearless danced around in a panic, until Sharp Axe and Fynn had beaten out the flames – possibly rather harder than was strictly necessary – with the woollen blankets they had taken from their horses’ backs, where they had been packed together with the rest of their belongings.
‘Was it strictly necessary to beat out the flames so hard?’ demanded Fearless, a little ungratefully in Sharp Axe’s opinion, as he staggered around unsteadily on Muspelheimr’s inhospitable ground, the stinging pain in his legs from his rescuers' recent flame-beating activities making it hard for him to stand still in one place.
‘Absolutely!’ lied Fynn.
‘My head wasn’t on fire!’ protested Fearless, rubbing it to try to reduce the throbbing headache resulting from the powerful blows that it, too, had recently sustained.
‘Purely precautionary,’ lied Sharp Axe. ‘Can’t be too careful with fire... didn’t want it to spread... you must have got too close to the flames... take note everyone and be on your guard.’
[Quiet chuckling in the background.]
*
The men led the horses on, through the smoke and flames, for several uncomfortable minutes.
‘There!’ shouted Hedin Dogbiter suddenly, which came as a surprise to almost everybody, because he so rarely spoke above a mutter and, even then, only to Fearless and Hamdir. ‘What’s that?’
Hedin pointed to a vast structure in the distance which, although apparently completely black, from certain angles reflected Muspelheimr’s bright flames like polished metal.
‘I’d say, Hedin,’ replied Sharp Axe, having to squint against the brightness of the surrounding flames, the heat and the smoke, ‘that you had found our Fire Giant’s residence.’
‘Must be worth an absolute fortune!’ observed Fearless. ‘Such a desirable neighbourhood! It’s got everything: great climate; clean air; molten lava on tap... I wonder if there are any properties for sale around here... ’
‘The best person to tell you that would be Surtr… ’ suggested out Sharp Axe, with a rather anxious little nod towards the palace and, despite the heat of his surroundings, a sudden cold shiver ran down his spine, ‘… here he comes, now.’
From out of the monstrous structure had appeared an equally-monstrous figure, still barely visible through the smoke, but who was striding towards the men with a sense of purpose none of them found especially welcoming.
‘Sharp Axe,’ said Fynn, like a man who fully expected to be uttering his last words, ‘are you sure – ?’
Fynn was cut short, however, as the rapidly-approaching giant seemed to reach for the handle of a sword, by his waist. He drew it but, instead of a blade, all the men could see was an unnaturally-bright, almost blinding light; they could not bear to look at it and, to a man, turned their heads away, or shielded their eyes with the backs of their hands.
‘Who dares... to enter... Muspelheimr… uninvited?’ bellowed the giant with almost careful deliberation, anger and such incredible force that it was all the men could do to remain on their feet. It was Sharp Axe who answered.
‘Ah, good!’ he replied, about an octave higher than he had intended. ‘You speak our language!’
Perhaps it was the bizarre nature of Sharp Axe’s observation or, possibly, the frightened expressions on the men’s faces which convinced Surtr that his realm was in no imminent danger of invasion but, whatever the reason, the Fire Giant put his sword back into its scabbard and addressed the visitors in a much calmer fashion.
‘You have been sent here?’ he enquired, still loudly but, this time, with no apparent threat or malice.
Now that Surtr’s blinding light-sword was no longer drawn, Sharp Axe could take a good look at the Fire Giant for the first time. He stood rather shorter than the tallest of the Frost Giants Sharp Axe had encountered in Jøtunheimr, but cut no less imposing a figure for that.
Surtr wore nothing more than a chain-mail loin-cloth, which hung down almost to his knees. His tight, muscular flesh had the appearance of beef which had been cooked too quickly, by an intensely-hot fire: a charred-looking surface, with a glowing ‘blood-redness’ underneath, visible through what seemed like cracks in the giant’s dark skin. His hair was jet black and wild, falling to just above his shoulders and, unusually for a giant, in Sharp Axe’s limited experience, his beard, also black, was short and appeared to be rather neatly-cut (or, possibly, singed). The giant’s eyes, Sharp Axe noticed with some discomfort, were an intense, almost hypnotic, rich, deep-red colour. If the stories Sharp Axe had heard were true and Surtr had been around since the creation of the Nine Worlds, he certainly did not look his age.
‘Yes,’ returned Sharp Axe, eventually, a good deal closer to his voice’s natural pitch than before. ‘We have come on an errand for the king of Norway, Harald Fairhair. He... ’ Sharp Axe paused and hoped the king had been right about Surtr, ‘... he told us you would help us.’
Surtr appeared to consider this for a moment.
‘Harald... Fairhair... ’ repeated the giant carefully, though not with any obvious degree of recognition.
Sharp Axe fully expected to hear the words, “Never heard of him!” quickly followed by, “Now, you all die!”.
Instead, Surtr declared in his deep tones, ‘Yes... I am sympathetic to his cause.’
Sharp Axe’s long, drawn-out and clearly-audible sigh of relief was echoed by his men.
‘What do you wish of me?’ enquired the Fire Giant, in a co-operative tone which surprised everyone.
‘We have to go to Helheimr,’ replied Sharp Axe, ‘where the goddess Hel guards the list which names Freyr’s line, the House of Yngling. Harald Fairhair needs us to take the list to him, so that he may offer proof of his right to the Throne of Norway. Without that proof, Norway will descend into civil war... perhaps even fall to invaders. We need you to guide us there... erm... please.’
‘I see,’ nodded the giant, slowly. ‘You would never cross Muspelheimr and survive the ordeal without a guide... as for Niflheimr... you would wander around in confusion, until you died of the cold – or starved to death... and, from there, the road to Helheimr is treacherous – for mortals, at least and, perhaps, even the Aesir and Vanir... but for a Fire Giant,’ at which point, Surtr made a slow gesture with his hands, to indicate himself, ‘the whole journey would be little more than... an amusing diversion!’
Surtr laughed uproariously. No-one joined him.
‘Will... will… you... ’ ventured Sharp Axe, trying to pick his moment, so as not to appear discourteous by interrupting the Fire Giant’s laughter, ‘... will you help us?’
‘I... shall!’ announced Surtr and made to draw his light sword again. The men immediately turned their heads away from him, or shielded their eyes, which
made Surtr laugh out loud again, rather irritatingly.
‘Great!’ muttered Fearless to himself. ‘What we really need now is a Fire Giant who thinks he’s a comedian.’
*
There was no remote possibility of the horses making the journey from Muspelheimr to Helheimr and back. Consequently, Surtr arranged for them to be looked after by one of his servants, who was told to take them out of Muspelheimr, to a place where they could graze in safety until Sharp Axe and the men returned.
Another of Surtr’s servants brought the men provisions for the journey: each received two large loaves of bread, something which looked and smelled like a lump of cheese the size of a man’s head and a large, heavy skin bag, full of water. Each man also received a coarse-haired animal skin (the origins of which were not immediately apparent to anyone), to provide extra warmth once the fiery climate of Muspelheimr had been left behind.
All too soon, the guardian of Muspelheimr urged the men to follow him and begin what Sharp Axe knew would be the most challenging journey he and his men had ever made. His humour was not improved by Aldaron, who spoke quietly to him when he was sure Surtr was far enough ahead of them not to hear.
‘Sharp Axe,’ he muttered, almost in a whisper, ‘there’s something about this Surtr that worries me.’
‘You mean,’ replied Sharp Axe, with a weary sigh, ‘apart from the fact that he’s nearly three times bigger than we are, glows in the dark, has piercing red eyes and owns a sword that almost blinds us whenever he draws it?’
‘Yes,’ said Aldaron seriously. ‘I don’t think we should trust him.’
Sharp Axe grinned mirthlessly and let out a quiet, snorting sound. ‘Oh, you Light Elves... you’re always mistrusting people... I remember Mithrén telling me not to trust Kolfinna, the Crimson Witch – ’
‘So she did… ’ agreed Fynn, ‘… and she was right, wasn’t she? Kolfinna was not what she seemed to be.’
Sharp Axe looked at Fynn, then at Aldaron and, finally, at the Fire Giant up ahead. Surtr was one of the most powerful entities in the Nine Worlds – more powerful, perhaps, than the gods of Asgard themselves – and he was leading the men into what was probably the most mysterious and dangerous of all those Nine Worlds. If Aldaron’s instincts about Surtr were correct and he was not to be trusted, Sharp Axe and his men were now in greater peril than they had ever been in their lives.
Chapter Six
Niflheimr
In a frosty, dense wood, far away from the flaming, smoky, rocky expanses of Muspelheimr, a figure sat cross-legged before a fire, staring into the flickering yellow and blue flames, occasionally sprinkling into them something which caused thick, white smoke to rise intermittently, up towards a cloudless night sky.
As the flames danced and twisted, the figure watched with increasing interest, each time an addition was made until, eventually, the flames gradually died, to be replaced with a bright red-orange glow which radiated from the fire’s embers.
The figure leaned forward eagerly and could see quite clearly, in the depths of the radiant glow, a vision of something happening in a different world: a group of men was picking its way, carefully, through fire and smoke, over an uneven rocky terrain, behind a giant’s silhouetted frame in the distance. A solitary hooded crow followed the group, effortlessly gliding high in the air, far enough behind everyone to ensure that it remained unseen by all those who walked in front of it.
After taking a moment to absorb the scene, the figure clapped its hands together and threw back its head, causing its silky, waist-length, iron-grey hair to flail around its back, before releasing a most dreadful, ear-splitting laugh. As the piercing sound of the crazed, hysterical laughter rang out, tree branches shook, as terrified birds took flight; frightened, wingless animals scurried for cover, weaving in and out of the trees; the chill air was filled with the howling of wolves and the frenzied screaming of those hideous, unseen creatures of the night, which also counted this wooded region as their home.
*
‘How much further,’ demanded Fearless of Sharp Axe, hoarsely, as the men trudged wearily after Surtr, in blistering heat, across Muspelheimr, ‘is this gigantic monstrosity up ahead going to drag us?’
‘I don’t know. You ask him,’ suggested Sharp Axe, also hoarse from dehydration and from having to inhale the choking, sulphurous fumes that issued from Muspelheimr’s underground fires and volcanoes.
‘I will!’ retorted Fearless, in a manner which hinted that trouble might well be on the way and imminently. ‘Hey!’ he called in the direction of the guide. ‘Surtr, is it? You there – Surtr!’
Sharp Axe cringed. Surtr stopped suddenly in his tracks and the men followed suit. The Fire Giant turned slowly around and stood looking down at the diminutive, petulant mortal before him, whose name he did not know. Surtr did not speak but merely stared straight into Fearless’s eyes.
‘Er... yes... ’ said Fearless, his voice trailing away a little, before he cleared his throat, took a deep breath and addressed Surtr once again. ‘How... many... days,’ he began slowly, clearly misinterpreting Surtr’s silence for a lack of understanding, ‘... will... it... take... us... ’ he continued, now adding hand-gestures, in a misguided attempt to assist the giant’s comprehension, ‘... to... get... to...Helheimr?’
Surtr regarded Fearless disdainfully and, at that moment, Sharp Axe had the distinct impression that he may be about to become an only child. Fearless, too, seemed to be having similar thoughts, for Sharp Axe could detect a slight trembling in his brother’s legs. The trembling increased considerably when Surtr knelt down, in a careful, deliberate manner, right in front of Fearless.
‘Here... there is... no day or night,’ replied Surtr slowly, almost in a whisper, which sent shivers of fear and foreboding through Sharp Axe. Surtr said no more but stood up as slowly as he had knelt, turned and walked on.
‘Er... right... ’ replied Fearless quietly, releasing the breath he had been holding for some time. Then, he composed himself and shouted after Surtr: ‘That’s what I thought! Thanks for... clearing up the… confusion!’
[Some sniggering amongst the men.]
‘That told him, Fearless!’ chortled Randver. ‘You certainly put him in his place, there!’
*
Shortly after Fearless’s unsuccessful attempt to extract an estimated time of arrival from Surtr, the temperature of the men’s surroundings finally began to fall. The smoky, steamy air of Muspelheimr started to clear, all signs of fire disappeared and the men could begin to make out what sounded like a howling wind, way off in the distance.
Finally out of the intense heat and choking atmosphere of the Fire Giants’ realm, but not yet in the freezing cold of Niflheimr, Sharp Axe decided the time was right for a rest. He ran to catch up with Surtr, to make his proposal.
‘I think,’ he said, shouting up to the guide, ‘that we need to rest for a while.’
Without breaking stride or slowing down in any way Surtr, looked down at Sharp Axe, now walking briskly alongside him and replied simply, ‘Why is that?’
‘We men are not so strong as giants like yourself,’ replied Sharp Axe, taking a line of unashamed flattery in the hope it might, somehow, soften Surtr’s heart. ‘We need to recover... perhaps eat and drink something.’
Surtr considered this request for a moment and then, eventually, nodded slowly and stopped.
*
On a small patch of ground devoid of rocks and large stones, somewhere in the no man’s land between the two worlds of Muspelheimr and Niflheimr, the men sank to the ground, grateful at last for the chance to rest and took out the provisions with which Surtr’s servant had provided them. The Fire Giant stood motionless, a little way apart from the group and looked off, into the distance, towards what Sharp Axe assumed to be the border of Niflheimr.
‘Glad to get out of that place,’ commented Fynn to Sharp Axe, after taking a long drink of water.
‘I’m not sure the next one will offer us much more of a w
elcome,’ replied the leader, making no attempt to dilute the general apprehension and uneasiness he was feeling about what lay ahead.
‘Why is it we’re here, again?’ asked Fearless, one side of his mouth full of bread. ‘Just remind me.’
‘You wanted to get rich quick,’ replied Sharp Axe instantly.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Fearless with a nod, after stuffing a lump of the cheese into the other side of his mouth. ‘I remember.’
‘What is a... “civil war”, anyway?’ enquired Ulric, having surprisingly remembered what they had embarked upon this journey to prevent. ‘Is everyone really polite to one another?’
‘No, no; it’s a terrible thing,’ replied Randver in an authoritative manner, which suggested that he might have lived through one or two, as he adjusted his wooden leg into a slightly less uncomfortable position. ‘Neighbour fighting against neighbour... village against village... friend against friend... some people would sell their own grandmother to the enemy, just to get a few pieces of silver!’
‘Make much money in the last civil war, did you, Randver?’ probed Fearless. ‘I suppose that – aaargh!’
Fearless broke off suddenly and started slapping his upper left arm frantically with his right hand, in an attempt to beat out the flames which had just appeared, for no apparent reason, a little way above the elbow.
Sharp Axe and Fynn leapt quickly into action, thrashing Fearless with their blankets, as he lay on the ground writhing in pain, not so much from the fire, but from the full-blooded pummelling he was receiving, mainly from his brother.
‘It’s out! It’s out!’ pleaded Fearless, in the vain hope that his assailants might show him some mercy.
‘No – I can still see something glowing on your arm,’ argued Fynn, appearing to examine Fearless’s burnt clothing.
‘That’s my skin!’ retorted Fearless. ‘It’s red raw!’
‘Strange,’ commented Sharp Axe, scratching his head. ‘Must have been a stray spark, blown over from Muspelheimr.’
[Quiet chuckling in the background.]
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