“But that’s the very reason I came!” Kára retorted. “Don’t you understand? I’ve had enough of the boring sheltered life of a princess. I want danger! Peril! Excitement! Adventure! The stuff stories are made of!”
“The stuff death is made of, you mean,” said Ulf.
“You could get hurt, Kára,” said Dane.
“Yeah,” said Jarl dryly. “That’s why they call it ‘danger,’ princess.”
Kára gave Jarl a withering look. “I don’t care. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going in and that’s that.”
“Consider yourself warned,” Jarl said, “and don’t expect any of us to come hold your hand if you get frightened of the dark.” Kára stuck out her tongue at Jarl and he at her. And though it was clear that Jarl was sorely pained to have the princess along, Dane could also see that it wasn’t because he disliked her. Quite the opposite. By the way Jarl and Kára each stared when the other wasn’t looking, Dane could tell that they had feelings for each other. But nothing they would ever admit, of course. They were both too vain, too lacking in curiosity, and altogether too pigheaded—in short, made for each other. And Dane hoped they would soon stop playing their silly little game so that Astrid would once again know that he had eyes only for her.
After he and Jarl agreed that Rik and Vik should ride ahead to scout for signs of Godrek, Dane told William to stay outside with the horses.
The boy protested. “Why must I stay outside?”
“Because the horses need watching, that’s why.”
William kicked the ground. “’Cause I’m the youngest? I don’t need protecting!”
“Just do as you’re told,” Dane said sharply. “Picket the horses and stay here. It’s an important job and I’m giving it to you.” Resentful and grumbling, William snatched up the reins and went to tether the horses. Dane understood William’s yearnings; not long ago he himself had felt just the same. But Dane had grown up too much to let hurt feelings get in the way of responsibility. The job he had to do was impossible enough as it was—the last thing they needed was an impulsive boy taking unnecessary risks.
Equipped with weapons, ropes, and torches, Dane started in, only to find Astrid scooting ahead of him. “Wait, I should lead,” Dane said as he jumped in front of her.
“Where is that written, in the quest rules?” Astrid said, hurrying to lead the group.
“There may be peril ahead,” he said, elbowing his way around her.
“I’m just as good with peril as you, Dane!” she said, forcing her way past him. “Maybe even better!”
Dane stopped her. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting odd lately.”
“Perhaps I’m tired of you hogging the glory.”
“We all are,” cracked Jarl, walking past them.
Dane gawked at Astrid. “I do not hog the glory.”
“You’re always first into danger,” Astrid accused. “As if you think the gods will always spare the great Dane the Defiant.” Although her tone and words were hard, as he met her gaze, Dane saw a hint of something else in her eyes. Was it fear? He decided he would wait till later to find out, and he let her walk ahead.
With Jarl and Astrid leading, the party went deeper into the passageway, the air turning colder as the tunnel widened, and the princess griping that if she’d known it would be this chilly, she’d have brought her ermine coat and sealskin gloves. The footing became wet, with small pools of icy water to avoid. Soon they came across the skeletons of long-dead animals, their bones scattered about as if they had been dragged there, stripped of their meat, and sucked clean of their marrow. Amid the detritus of death Dane spied small misshapen skulls, vaguely human, but before he could ask Lut what kind of creature these skulls could be from, Astrid said, “Stop!” and signaled for silence. Eerie echoing whispers came floating on the air.
“What is that?” the princess blurted. Everyone shushed her and they listened again. To Dane, the whispering seemed to be a strange, guttural language, full of growls and squeaks, as if the speakers were more animal than human.
“Dark dwarves,” Lut said, gesturing to the small, human-like skulls mixed with the strewn-about bones. “They eat animal flesh, and sometimes even their own.” Lut tossed his torch high in the air, and the light swept the ceiling to reveal a chilling sight. A score of the awful creatures, small, squat, and deathly pale, perched like gargoyles directly above them. They screeched, shielding their eyes from the glare, and quickly scuttled back behind rocks. Dane heard the princess gasp in fright. Drott began to hiccup, his usual response when suddenly shocked. So it was true what Godrek had told them! The dark dwarves were all too real and dangerously close.
“They’ll not come near the firelight,” Lut said, picking up his torch. Warily the eight of them continued on, huddled together. Soon Dane spied a dim, ghostly light ahead, a glow that grew brighter as they approached. Abruptly the tunnel opened into a large, cavernous chamber, and peering upward, they gaped in amazement.
Above them were stars, seemingly hundreds, each giving off a shimmering pale blue glow. Dane wondered how this was possible. They were inside a cave—at midday, no less! Feeling some act of courage was in order, Dane stepped forward, and his torchlight revealed something even stranger. Hundreds of silken strands hung like fine ropes from above, glistening eerily in the torchlight. The silence was broken by a chilling shriek, and as he turned to the sound, Dane’s torch cast its light upward, causing everyone to gasp at what they saw. It was a dwarf creature, caught in the sticky strands. It struggled to free itself, but its desperate gyrations served only to entangle it further.
“It needs help!” the princess cried.
Before anyone could decide what to do, the trapped and terrified creature was drawn upward, like a fish on a line. Dane saw what was on the ceiling. The points of light weren’t stars; they were the luminous tail sacs of giant insects. They resembled monstrous, hairy caterpillars, their pale pink segmented bodies the length of two grown men and as big around as a mead barrel. And from each creature hung dozens of the silken snares that it used to trap prey. The insect’s mouth rapidly gobbled in the strands that had trapped the pitiful dark dwarf, pulling the creature higher and higher, its awful shrieks growing louder and more desperate, until at last it was enveloped in the monster’s mouth and its screams were heard no more. Just the sounds of bones being crushed. Dane noticed that Princess Kára was not the only one to turn away from the gruesome sight.
“Remind me not to die that way,” said Ulf the Whale.
“Don’t worry,” said Fulnir. “They could never lift you.”
“And who knows,” said Drott, “you might get so hungry, you’d eat one of them instead.”
Moving on, careful to stay clear of the forest of snares, they descended steps cut into the rock that looked to have been carved in ancient times. Down they descended until the steps gave way to a rocky ledge, Dane halting the group as he discovered that just paces ahead the ledge dropped away to a large subterranean lake perhaps thirty paces below.
“The moonless water,” Astrid said. “The thing we seek must be near.” They searched the area by torchlight, but they could see nothing bearing runic inscriptions.
Lut lowered his torch to the ground and pointed to parallel lines newly scraped in the rock. He followed the lines to the ledge that fell away to the lake below. He retraced his steps, pointing to where the lines started. “A great slab of rock stood here—most likely the runestone we seek. But it was recently moved, dragged across here”—his fingers traced the lines to the edge—“and thrown into the lake below.”
A torch was tied to the end of a rope and lowered down over the ledge so they could see where the great stone had landed. To their surprise, the lake was frozen, and ice had reformed over the hole where the stone had crashed through. They threw a sizeable rock down, and it broke the new ice, disappearing under the water. Astrid was tethered to a rope harness and lowered over the hole in the ice, but her torchlight could not penetrate
far enough into the blackness of the water to see the stone at the bottom of the lake.
“It could be ten or a thousand fathoms deep,” Astrid said after she was pulled up. “There was no way to see.”
Dane began stripping off his clothes, and Astrid asked what in Odin’s name he was doing. “I’m going to swim down and find the runestone. I’ll attach a rope and we’ll pull it up.”
“Great plan, except for two things,” Astrid said. “The water is so cold, you’ll freeze before you reach bottom. And even if you make it to the bottom, there’s no light down there to see anything.”
“I don’t care—I have to try,” Dane said, continuing to strip off his clothes.
“Must you always be the hero?” Astrid cried. “You’ll die!”
“She’s right,” Fulnir said. “It’s too dangerous.”
Lut put a hand on Dane’s shoulder. “Son, even if you found the runestone, it’s probably too heavy for our ropes to lift.”
Dane stood his ground, angry they were giving up, his frustration turning to fury.
“There is only one way to know Godrek’s destination! And that is to read the runestone. There must be something we can do, because I am not ready to go home and let my mother’s life be sacrificed.”
Outside the cave, William sat and glowered. He was dead sick of being treated like a child. He was just as brave and capable as any one of them! But when would he get a chance to prove it? The cave entrance beckoned. He knew he should stay and do as Dane had ordered, but what was the harm of having just one little peek? Besides, he told himself, what if Dane and the others had fallen into a trap and needed his help? They could even be calling to him now, William! William! Rescue us!
A short time later, carrying a long-handled axe in one hand and a torch in the other, he crept into the cave. His bow and quiver of arrows slung over his back, he splashed through shallow pools of water, feeling the air grow colder. His torchlight fell on a mass of animal bones. He halted, spying the small, humanlike skulls. And then came a sound so terrifying, he dropped his torch into the water and all went dark.
He fell to his knees, groping for the extinguished torch in panic. He found it and got his flint steel working, but the torch was too sodden to relight. He heard it once more from the darkness: eerie, growling whispers. It was the sound he had heard in the forest…the sound of the dark dwarves. The whispers grew louder and came closer. William could almost feel them reaching out to strike. He swung the axe blindly—whoosh!—and felt it hit flesh. He heard a shriek of pain. Something grabbed at him, he chopped down with the axe, and another cry pierced the blackness.
He ran, stumbling, falling, feeling clawed fingers grasping at him. He swung the axe, heard animal cries of pain, and felt the spatter of hot blood on his face. He ran, not knowing in what direction, his only thought being escape. He ran until he thought that nothing was chasing or grabbing at him. He found himself in a huge cavern under a starlit sky.
William gazed up in awe at the stars above, too many to count. How could this be? When he was a thrall in Thidrek’s castle, he had heard stories of the mystical dwarf Laurin, who ruled an underground kingdom lit by jewels. Yes! This must be it, thought William. He wandered deeper into the cavern, drawn by the twinkling luminescence overhead. He felt something slap his cheek, something sticky. Now, to his horror, he saw he had wandered into a forest of ropelike vines hanging from above. Trying to pull away, he entangled himself all the more. He swung his axe, trying to cut himself free, but now the axe too became caught in the strands. He felt himself pulled up off the ground and he heard himself screaming, a cry of full-throated terror.
“Help! Help!” Eerily, his words came back to him, echoing off the cavern walls, as higher and higher he went. To his horror, he now saw that above him the lights were not glistening jewels after all, but the glowing tails of giant insects, and that one of them was sucking the vinelike strands into its mouth, pulling him ever upward. Shouting frantically, he grabbed for the knife in his boot but could not bend to reach it. As he rose higher, he saw the insect’s mouth had pincers on each side that acted like hands gathering up the silken thread, bringing him closer and closer toward its gaping jaws. From above its mouth, the creature’s two feelers dipped and touched William’s body, as if taking measurements of its next meal. William saw the thing’s mouth open—he was going to be eaten alive.
Fffhit! An arrow shot past William’s ear, burying itself just below the insect’s mouth. Fffhit! Fffhit! Fffhit! Three more arrows hit the thing’s body. It writhed violently like a snake, and William, hanging just below its mouth on the strands, felt himself swung roughly to and fro. Awakened from his paralyzing fear, he realized the shaking had loosened the strands binding him. He got hold of the knife in his boot and struck it upward, slicing through the insect. To his surprise, out poured a mass of pale green goo that fell splat on his face and head, the stench of it nearly making him retch.
“Behind you!” someone cried from below. Twisting round, William saw another caterpillar crawling across the ceiling toward him. Another arrow hissed upward, striking this one behind the head. The insect’s body arced; its tail shot round, whipping at William, who now saw the thing’s glow sac had a needle-sharp stinger at its end. William hacked with his knife, slicing off its tail and glow sac, which fell away to the ground.
He heard more cries from below and saw more of the creatures crawling across the ceiling toward him. His knife hand now free, he hacked desperately at the remaining strands. Although he was high off the ground and would probably break both legs in the fall, he knew he’d rather suffer broken bones than be insect food. He swiped the blade through the last strand still hanging from the dead insect above him—and plummeted.
As fortune would have it, the boy fell right into the rather large and waiting arms of Ulf the Whale, who caught him as easily as if he were an apple falling from a tree. And what relief William felt as, safe at last, Ulf set him down and he was surrounded by the faces of his friends, happy to see him unscathed. All save for Dane, who was furious for having been disobeyed, and William thought Dane might actually throttle him good. But Lut stepped in, pushing Dane away and pointing to the severed glow sac that lay throbbing on the ground, throwing light on their feet.
“Let’s get busy,” Lut rasped. “We have our light.”
16
THE RUNESTONE REVEALED
It was decided that Ulf—being a learned reader of runes and insulated by his prodigious fat—would be lowered into the lake. Using sealskin cords taken from his own boots, Dane tied the glow sac around the end of an extinguished torch stick. Rocks were thrown down to widen the hole in the ice. A rope harness was fastened around Ulf’s torso, and Drott gave him the glow-sac torch. Straining to hold on, Dane and the others lowered Ulf through the hole in the ice. Dane watched anxiously as the eerie blue light of the glow sac faded from view; and they continued to let out more rope, sending Ulf deeper and deeper into the frigid lake, until at last the rope became slack. He was on the lake bottom. But had he found the runestone? They could only wait, praying for Ulf’s safety.
Time wore on. Dane feared he had sent his friend to an untimely end, when—kuh-sploosh!—they heard the blow of air below and with relief saw Ulf’s great bulbosity bobbing in the icy water.
Up they pulled him, and it felt to Dane as if they were hoisting up a full-grown ox, the ropes nearly snapping from the strain of his weight. But at last they managed to pull Ulf the Whale up and over the ledge to safety, where they immediately went to work rubbing his vast expanse of skin to restore circulation. At length Ulf regained his powers of speech and haltingly recited the astonishing message writ on the runestone. It proved every bit as mystifying as Dane had expected….
Trek to where all teardrops shed
Freeze into mountains much in dread
Where death adorns a kingly throne
Ye’ll find a king as still as stone
Within him rests the blade of runes
“Why must it always be so complicated?” Drott complained. “Couldn’t we for once have some simple directions, like, ‘Go fourteen leagues, make a right, and you’re there’?”
“You’re sure?” Dane asked Ulf. “That’s everything on the runestone?”
“To the word,” Ulf said.
“Did you check the other side?” Drott asked. “Maybe that was just Part One.”
“I couldn’t exactly lift it to turn it over, Drott,” Ulf said testily. “Maybe you could’ve done better? Oh, wait—you can’t read!”
Dane patted the big man’s shoulder, reassuring him that he’d done a fine job.
“‘…Teardrops shed…,’” said Lut, thinking aloud, “‘…freeze into mountains much in dread.’…Hmm…frost giants. They’re said to be created by the tears of the gods.”
“‘Mountains of dread,’” said Dane. “Sounds right to me.”
Dane saw their faces fall—everyone had guessed where the next part of the quest would take them. All except Drott, who asked, “A sunny meadow? A balmy beach? Tell me that’s next on the itinerary.”
They rode north, Astrid keeping to herself now. If only she could tell Dane what Skuld had said and how she had tricked her. When Skuld made the bargain, she already knew where the quest would be taking them. And it wasn’t the safe, warm climes Drott wished for. No, it was Utgard, the legendary fortress of the frost giants! The old witch must be cackling now, telling her Sisters how she really put one over on the naïve blond girl from Voldarstad. Thinks she can save the boy’s life, does she? Let’s see him try to survive in the yawning abyss of cold and ice!
It was impossible to tell Dane not to go. His mother’s life was at stake. And just months before, he had flung himself into equal peril to rescue her from Prince Thidrek. That’s what Dane always did—if danger loomed or someone needed help, he always put himself front and center. Yet it was his very selflessness now that would make it difficult for her to keep him out of harm’s way. Back in the cave she had tried to convince him to let her lead by calling him a glory hog. And she had hated seeing how her words had hurt him—even though he had become big-headed of late, and the attentions of the king’s flighty niece weren’t helping. Now they were trekking to one of the most perilous places on earth, and protecting him would be even harder. No one knew exactly where Utgard was, only that legend said it lay beyond Mount Neverest, in the trackless, frozen north. They could wander for weeks, and Dane would never give up until Skuld snipped his thread of life.
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