Huld set off to her left, moving fast, worried that the alien consciousness she had touched might have thereby also sensed her. What other monstrosities infest this house of Hel? she wondered as she ran along the cobweb-strewn hallway. And is Thokk here too? Surely I would have sensed her magical aura at once if she were. If, Freya willing, she is not here, we must get free before she returns. Weakened as I am, I could not hope to win a duel of Witchcraft with her.
The corridor ended in yet another stairway. Huld began to climb once more. Her already strained leg muscles burned with every step.
Other questions filled Huld’s mind as she moved up the stairs. She had deduced that the nightmare from which she had not been able to awaken before her capture must have been a spell sent by Thokk to make her helpless. How did Guthrun and I get here? Who brought us? But perhaps that does not really matter. Norda said that Thokk intends to awaken the dark power we sensed within Guthrun and that I must not let that happen. For now I must concentrate only on finding Guthrun and getting her away.
Torchlight flickered through an archway at the top of the stairs. Huld slowed her pace, revoked her night-vision spell, felt her headache abate slightly.
The torchlit corridor was empty. She took a torch from a wall bracket, moved to the right, the direction in which she sensed the presence of Guthrun, thinking that not only did the torch provide light and some meager warmth, but also that it could be a crude physical weapon should the need arise.
The stone floor of the corridor was covered with a soft grayish substance which reminded Huld unpleasantly of mold, and the musty scent in the hall suggested the same. But the faint odor of decayed flesh was always there too, beneath the mustiness.
The ceiling that arched high overhead was lost in shadows, and occasionally from the darkness above came faint whispers and the soft sounds of wings, though Huld’s Witch-senses detected no living presence there. From behind some of the doors that lined the hall came other sounds, footfalls, sighs, more whispers, but again her mental probes detected no associated consciousnesses. Guthrun’s mind, however, was becoming easy to detect.
A dark corridor led to the left off the torchlit hallway. Huld hesitated, walked a few steps more down the main hall, felt Guthrun’s presence weaken slightly, returned to the darkened corridor, and entered it.
More doors lined the narrower hallway, and again she occasionally heard sounds that her Witch-senses detected as nothing living. She followed the hall in a turn to the left. Then she heard no more sounds save her own until suddenly a familiar voice cursed behind a door just ahead.
Huld approached the door warily, reached out with her mind, and satisfied herself that it was not a trap. She focused her concentration on the door’s lock. Yellow-gold light flickered. The lock clicked. Within the room Guthrun’s cursing stopped.
The Witch pushed open the door, saw no one within. A small lamp flickered on a polished table. An uncovered bed and a chair completed the room’s contents.
“Guthrun?” Huld called, mentally sensing her friend’s presence, though visually there was still no sign of her.
“Huld?” Guthrun’s voice asked after a moment’s silence. Huld edged into the room, looked to her right.
Pressed against the wall next to the door, holding a large square of shiny red cloth as if it were a net in which to catch prey, stood Guthrun.
“Huld!” Guthrun cried. She dropped the red bed covering, rushed forward, and threw her arms around the naked Witch.
* * *
It was the woman he had chained below, the Freya-Witch. He could tell it from her scent, unmistakably identifying her to his inhuman Jotun senses. But how had she gotten free? He was not worried about her escaping the castle, but Thokk would be angry with him if she returned and the blond-haired human was not chained as intended, and those who angered Thokk she either punished or destroyed.
Uttering a Jotun curse older than humankind, Vafthrudnir stood in the torchlit corridor, looking into a dark hallway. He sniffed the air. Yes, the one from below had gone down the dark way.
He stepped into the darkness, waited until his Jotun eyes adjusted and faint purple fires flickered deep within them, then hurried forward to recapture the escaped human and make certain that the younger one remained a prisoner in her assigned room.
He regretted he had orders not to harm either one.
* * *
“Enough questions, Guthrun!” Huld cried, pushing her young friend away and scooping up the red cloth. “We haven’t time now for talk. I sense danger coming our way!” She bundled the cloth under one arm then rushed into the hall, holding the torch high.
Sensing the inhuman presence she’d detected earlier approaching from the direction she’d come, Huld headed the other way, but their pursuer was gaining on them, the air growing colder and colder as whatever followed them neared.
“Run!” Huld whispered.
The dark hallway curved to the right and then stopped. A brick wall blocked the way.
“Freya’s Teats!” Huld cursed.
Guthrun tried a nearby door, found it locked. “Huld,” she whispered, “maybe if your magic can open this door, we can hide in here.”
Huld shook her head negatively and headed back the way they’d come “Too near the dead end,” she explained as she ran toward the nearing guardian, whom she felt would be upon them in a few more heartbeats. In front of a doorway along the curved passageway she intoned the spell to open locks, pushed Guthrun inside, followed, and closed the door.
They waited, muffling their rapid breathing, listening.
The cold kept getting worse, and then it was joined by a pungent aroma. Outside the door, heavy footfalls sounded.
Something touched Guthrun’s leg. She glanced down and stopped the scream that nearly escaped. Something vaguely human with a corpse-face lay upon the floor, grinning up at her, a questing tendril covered with gray mold caressing her bare leg beneath the hem of her sleeping shift.
Huld opened the door a crack, peered into the hallway, and saw that it was empty.
Guthrun pulled away from the thing on the floor and eagerly followed Huld back into the corridor.
They ran toward the lighted hallway, reached it, hesitated. Huld reached out with her Witch-senses. The presence that had followed them suddenly seemed to be gone instead of headed back their way, which worried Huld even more.
“Huld,” Guthrun whispered, “in that room I saw, there was a thing. It touched my leg. It was horrible.”
Huld draped the red cloth around herself and knotted it at one shoulder. “I heard sounds behind some of the doors, but my Witch-senses could detect no living presences.”
“It’ll never catch on,” Guthrun said.
“What?”
“Your new gown.”
“Joking? Now?”
Guthrun shrugged. “I’m not surprised you detected nothing living in the rooms, if the thing I saw on the floor was an example. Ugh! It had the face of a human corpse but was covered in mold, had tendrils like a plant, a maggot-like body—”
“Wonderful. I have heard that worshippers of Hel are transformed by their initiations. They can look human, at times, but their true appearance can be other.
“We’d better keep moving.”
The Freya-Witch started down the hall, still unable to detect the inhuman consciousness that had pursued them.
Guthrun followed closely.
“I came the other way,” Huld explained. “I was chained in a lower level. Thokk used spell-chains. I couldn’t work magic to get free. But Norda—”
“Huld, Norda is dead,” Guthrun interrupted.
“She is now,” Huld agreed.
“Now?”
“She—”
An icy wind whipped at them. A whirling cloud of snow and ice exploding into existence all around. The inhuman presence crowded Huld�
�s perceptions, nearly close enough to touch. Huld’s torch was blown out. They both fought to breathe and felt the warmth and consciousness being swiftly drained from their bodies.
Through eyes squeezed nearly shut to avoid stinging slivers of ice, Huld saw a gigantic shape reaching for her. She jerked back, swung at the thing with her dead torch, missed, and grabbed Guthrun by the arm. She staggered shakily back until she could turn, then she ran, Guthrun beside her.
Glancing back, Guthrun saw a humanlike form through the swirling snow, something towering twice a human’s height. “It’s gaining on us!”
Huld thought furiously as she ran and decided that only one thing might help, fought to concentrate, intoned a spell, and threw the force of her will backward toward the pursuing giant, praying to Freya that its mind would be receptive. There was a hoarse cry from behind. The icy wind stopped. Huld and Guthrun ran on.
“What happened?” Guthrun cried as they passed the archway through which Huld had emerged from below ..
“Frost Giant!” Huld gasped, pushing herself to run faster, fighting to ignore the exhaustion her exertion was rapidly making worse. “I sent it an illusion of its body turning to flames. It won’t stop it long.”
“Frost Giant? A Jotun?” Guthrun asked, running slower than her top speed in order not to leave Huld behind.
A stairway lit with candles led upward on their right. Huld took it. “Yes.” She was panting, her legs burning as she forced herself up the steps. “A Jotun like in the old tales.”
“I didn’t know they really existed.”
“Shut up and run!”
“It’s not me who’s going slow!”
‘‘Then go on ahead! I mean it, Guthrun. Find a way out for yourself. Thokk wants to make you into a Hel-Witch!”
“Really?”
“I’m exhausted from what I suffered below. I’ll follow you later,” she gasped, “if I can.” She reeled as they reached the top of the stairs.
“I won’t leave you!”
“Do as I say! I sense the Jotun coming! Hurry!”
Bloodsong’s daughter hesitated. “Don’t let him catch you.”
“Take your own advice!” Huld panted.
“I’ll be back for you!”
“Don’t you dare! Go!”
Guthrun ran away down the corridor, found another staircase, and headed up it.
Huld leaned against the stairway railing, head swimming, fighting to catch her breath.
The giant reached the foot of the stairs. He looked up at her.
His skin, she saw, was of a bluish hue. He had thick, long black hair, a long black beard, and more black hair covering his chest, arms, and legs. He bounded up the stairs.
Huld cursed and staggered down the hall. The air grew colder as the Jotun neared. Her heart pounded in her ears, every breath an agony. She tried to concentrate on another desperate spell but felt the giant’s massive hand close around her waist before she could complete the incantation.
“Thokk doesn’t want you covered,” the giant said, lifted her above the floor with one hand, and tore away the red cloth with the other.
Naked, Huld struggled against the giant’s imprisoning grip, her bare feet flailing the air above the floor, freezing cold searing her flesh where the giant’s hand touched her skin. The Jotun’s stiff black hair on the back of his huge fingers stung like needles. He headed down the steps.
Huld fought to stay conscious, felt herself losing the battle, used the last of her rapidly fading strength to try focusing on another spell, failed, slumped unconscious in the giant’s grip.
Vafthrudnir glanced down at the blond-haired human when she stopped struggling and saw that she was unconscious. Anger surged through him. When she was chained below again, he would have to find the younger one and return her to her assigned room. Using his power to dematerialize into wind and snow had angered him too. It was a great effort and left him feeling sick for days. Then there was the trick this human had played on him, making him think for several horrible moments that he was aflame. His race’s hatred for humankind was well founded, he decided.
It would be so easy to jerk her head from her weak white shoulders, he thought. But I must not. I am pledged to do Mistress Thokk’s will and I will to preserve my honor. But someday, when my term of service is ended, perhaps I will add Thokk’s own head to my trophies .
The thought cheered him as he continued into the depths of Thokk’s castle. Taking several steps at a time, he soon reached the cell in which the human had been chained and placed the manacles around her wrists and ankles once more. Then he studied the cell, his eyes of purple fire piercing the darkness, seeking clues, wondering how the human had escaped. In two places he saw piles of something dark heaped on the floor.
The Jotun examined the nearest one. Ashes, he thought, shuddering and jerking back from them. Human ashes. He moved to the other pile of ashes, sniffed at them, detected a Jotun scent, the scent of his friend, Thrym, a young Jotun whose bones had not yet grown a complete covering of flesh.
“No!” Vafthrudnir roared, whirling to face the human, thoughts seething. His massive hands hooked into claws. Dying by fire was the most horrible death possible for one of his race. It did more than destroy their flesh, It also seared their soul, mutilated their spirit, gave them pain in the next world, unending agony, kept them from ever again forming new bones and growing new flesh.
Vafthrudnir approached the chained female, trembling with rage, intending to rip her flesh from her bones. He reached out, touched her left thigh, closed his grip upon the white flesh.
No, he thought, stopping himself, and withdrew his hand. I must not harm her. I must not break my pledge to Thokk. His curses echoed from the walls.
“I do not know how,” his voice rumbled at the unconscious human, “but in some way you were responsible for Thrym’s fire-death, and for that you will pay. I will revenge my friend in time. This I vow upon my Jotun honor.” But for now I must keep my patience and find the younger human, he added in his thoughts, then looked again at Thrym’s ashes. I will return when I’ve found the younger human and see that your ashes are properly honored, he silently promised his dead friend, then with a final curse left the chamber and locked the door, leaving Huld spell-chained in darkness once more.
FROM WHERE Bloodsong hung she could see the fires of Kovna’s camp beyond the outskirts of the ruined village. Here and there fires still burned in the village itself within blackened husks of cottages and longhouses. From time to time, weak screams came from the few captives still alive. Silhouetted against the scattered firelight, guards stood watch around the base of the hill.
Her hands and feet were numb. The muscles in her arms and shoulders ached and throbbed. Waves of nausea swept through her. The night air was cold against her sweat-dampened skin.
Her ordeal had begun to give rise to hallucinations, images from that other time she had hung from the tree to die, memories of Eirik and her son being tortured, the helpless horror of feeling her own life slowly ending, weakening, knowing that both she and her unborn child would soon be dead. Her unborn child, her daughter.
“Guthrun,” she whispered through parched lips. “Guthrun.”
* * *
“The moon will rise soon,” Jalna whispered. “You must have cut her free by then.”
“Jalna, I know the moon’s habits at this time of the month. And we’ve already been through the plan many times. I won’t disappoint you. Bloodsong will soon be free if luck is with us.”
“Not if you crouch here whispering all night long.”
“Curse it, woman. You’re the one who—” he began, then stopped himself. “Wait for my signal. You’ve given your word to do that.”
“I will wait for the signal.”
Tyrulf nodded, bent close to her in the darkness, and touched his lips lightly to her cheek before she un
derstood what he meant to do. Then he hurried away toward the camp fires, grinning at the stream of curses Jalna whispered behind him.
* * *
The watcher had drawn within a bowshot of the nearest guard at the base of the hill. He waited a moment, noted the distance of the guards to either side, then started forward again, crouched low to the ground, moving steadily and silently toward the hill, sword and shield gripped tightly.
* * *
Bloodsong heard someone speaking with a guard at the base of the hill. She heard laughter then the sound of someone moving up the slope toward her. She strained against the ropes, thinking that it was Kovna come to begin her torture.
“Bloodsong,” a man whispered, “I’ve come to help you.”
There was not enough light to see his face. “Who—”
“I’m going to cut you free. Jalna is waiting for my signal.”
“Jalna?” Bloodsong responded. “I thought her dead. She probably is dead. Tell Kovna that his trick won’t work.”
“I’ll free your feet first. Be ready. And Jalna is definitely not dead.”
Bloodsong heard the sound of a blade sawing rope. Her feet came free. She tried to stand, but her feet numb.
He freed her numb hands next, and she found she could only barely move them.
She now hung by ropes that cinched her waist and circled above and below her breasts. When those ropes came free, the man had an arm supporting her. He eased her to the ground.
“My feet and hands are numb,” she said as she rubbed at her wrists.
The man knelt and rubbed her ankles. “We must hurry.”
“Why not take our time?” she asked between gritted teeth.
“What?”
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