With loud caws the two ravens disappeared into the storm, but the fury of the wind increased. The rain fell faster. The hail beat harder. The limb from which Bloodsong hung jerked and shuddered, whipped her back and forth, tightened the noose more and more.
She could barely breathe, felt her consciousness going, her grip slipping faster and faster. Then suddenly she was hanging solely by her neck, hands flailing numb and useless as she futilely tried to regain her lost grip.
The roaring of the storm penetrated her skull, now came from within her mind.
The flashing of the lightning seemed to dim, the crash of the thunder to become a mere whisper.
She writhed and jerked at the end of the rope, kicking and twisting as the roaring in her head became a gentle murmur.
Suddenly, light flashed within her mind, searing her consciousness. An orb as bright as the Sun burned its way into her brain. Flames hissed as her thoughts burned chaotically, the hungry orb of light consuming her being, probing every corner of her soul, questioning everything, doubting everything, seeking truth, hungry for wisdom. Deep male laughter boomed within her mind, followed by ragged screams and the howls of a ravenous beast.
Odin! she screamed with her thoughts. Berserker God! Gallows God! Cursed be your name if I die! For Guthrun’s sake I must live!
The orb of blinding light in her mind grew dim and went out. Whispers cold as sifting snow slithered like a serpent at the edge of her consciousness.
She had ceased being able to feel even the rope around her neck, but suddenly it became a ring of pain once more, burning as if aflame, searing deeper and deeper into her throat. The agony of her burning neck spread fire through her veins until every nerve was seared raw.
A scream rent the air, long and piercing, a wail as of a newborn in agony. Dimly she realized that it was her own scream, wondered how she had drawn enough air into her starved lungs to sustain the cry.
Images swirled, formed, changed into others within her mind. Then one began to dominate, a vision of a young woman’s face.
Guthrun! Bloodsong called with her thoughts.
In the vision, Guthrun’s gaze focused on her. Confusion, then delight, filled Guthrun’s eyes. Her lips formed words Bloodsong could not hear.
Be strong, daughter! I’m coming for you! Be strong! Guthrun’s lips continued to move, but Bloodsong could still hear no sound. Then the image began to fade. Guthrun’s eyes swept back and forth as if searching for Bloodsong.
Guthrun!
The image of her daughter’s face vanished.
Suddenly, she was falling. She hit the dead coals beneath her, lay still, unable to move, gasping for air, her neck throbbing as if it had been branded with red-hot irons.
Rain no longer fell. Overhead she saw stars begin to appear as the storm clouds parted. Lightning flashed faintly in the distance. Thunder rumbled less and less often.
Bloodsong tried again to move, still found that she could not, let her eyes close, and gave herself up to exhausted sleep, not understanding how she had escaped the rope, not caring, remembering only the image of Guthrun’s face, so vivid and so real.
* * *
At dawn, Harbarth and the others returned and found Bloodsong lying across the dead coals, her nude body battered but still warm with life. Harbarth lifted her into his arms, glanced up at the rope, the noose dangling broken, its inner surface blackened as if by fire, then he turned his attention to Bloodsong’s neck, excitedly studying what he saw there.
Encircling Bloodsong’s throat, Runes had been branded deep into her flesh. Harbarth’s eyes swept over the symbols. Shock rushed through him. He, a master, of Runes, could not read them.
“What do they mean?” Ulfhild asked at his side as she leaned closer to study the encircling Runes.
“I’ve never seen their like. Odin knows what they mean, I assume, since he must have put them there, but I do not.”
“How I envy her!” Ulfhild said, touching her own throat.
“Somehow,” Harbarth replied, “I doubt that she will share your enthusiasm.” Then he turned and carried Bloodsong away from the tree.
Ulfhild and the others followed behind.
GUTHRUN OPENED her eyes. Her surroundings confused her. Her head ached horribly. The image of her mother’s face was still strong and vivid in her mind.
A dream? she wondered. No, it was more than that. I touched her mind somehow. She’s still alive! But she’s not my mother, is she? Not my true mother, she’s—
“Freya!” Guthrun cried, gripping her throbbing head between her hands. “Bloodsong is my mother! My only mother. A curse on Thokk’s tricks and lies!”
She felt as if awakening from a drugged sleep and shook her head to clear her thoughts and vision. Bloodsong is alive! And she said she was coming for me, said for me to be strong!
The aching in her head was fading. She felt chilled and noted that she was naked upon a stone slab. The only light was that of a flickering torch in a wall bracket.
Someone was lying beside her. She tried to focus on who it was, rubbed her eyes, fought her way as if through a fog, and finally saw clearly.
Beside her lay the corpse Thokk claimed to be her brother’s. One of his hands rested upon her bare thigh. He was breathing.
With a startled cry Guthrun jerked away from his cold touch and scrambled down off the slab. She backed away until she was stopped by a wall. She ran to the door, found it locked, and looked back at the slab. Upon the corpse’s lips glistened dark smears. As she watched he frowned, licked away the stains, began to awaken.
She felt something warm and sticky on her inner thighs, looked down, saw blood.
It all came back in a rush, a nightmare she now knew had been real, Thokk battering away at her mental defenses, her mind finally giving way, agreeing to what Thokk wanted, asking that the Hel-Witch make her first woman’s blood to flow, using her own fingers to place that blood upon the corpse’s lips, hearing the ragged intake of his first breath, the creaking of his dead skin as his chest heaved, lungs expanding.
Other memories tore at her. She felt sick as she remembered what had happened next, how she had willingly done as Thokk wanted, had stretched out next to the living corpse, taken his cold flesh into her arms, comforted him, strengthened him with more and more blood.
Guthrun’s breath came in sobs as she crumpled to the floor and buried her face in her hands. Be strong, her mother had urged in the vision. But she had not been strong. She had given in. Thokk had won.
“No!” she cried. Thokk has won a battle. That is all. I am not dead. I am not yet lost to Hel. I will fight back, somehow help my mother destroy the Hel-Witch. And I can begin by destroying the Helish thing before me.
Guthrun got to her feet, wiped away her tears, felt a cold rage settle on her heart. The corpse was still struggling to awaken. She had to act fast.
She grabbed the torch from the wall bracket, hurried to the slab, lowered the torch.
Lokith’s eyes snapped open. He saw the torch and knocked it away with blinding speed. “No, Sister,” he hissed, smiling coldly as he sat up in one smooth motion and stared into her eyes. “You will not harm me.”
Guthrun sprang for the torch. Her right hand closed upon it. She whirled to face him. He was not on the slab. A cold hand gripped her wrist from behind. His laughter rang out.
She kicked back, caught him on the instep, kicked again, and connected with his knee. He seemed not to notice the blows and laughed again. She transferred the torch to her left hand, twisted to thrust it into his face, but again he was too fast, gripping her other wrist.
They stood facing each other, Lokith gripping both her wrists, his hands like ice-sheathed steel. Within his eyes flickered embers of purple fire.
“I am not pleased, Sister,” he said, “and neither will be Thokk. I am the important one of we two. Your blood was nee
ded to bring me to life, and more is needed until I gain my full strength. But after that, unless you cooperate—”
“My blood did not bring you to life!” she cried. “You are not alive, monster! You are dead! Dead!”
“Not as dead as you will be, if I so choose. I could snap your neck as easily as I can snap your wrist.”
Lokith’s grip tightened upon Guthrun’s left wrist. She heard a crack and felt blinding pain shoot upward along her left arm.
She screamed, dropped the torch.
Lokith released her with a laugh.
She cradled her broken wrist against her body and glared at him through tear-blurred eyes. “You won’t win!” she vowed. “Your mother will destroy you if I don’t first!”
“My mother? You mean Mother Hel? No,” he said with a grin. “I can see that you refer to that other woman. She is not our true mother, Guthrun. Why can’t you accept that?”
“Thokk’s lies!”
He whipped back his hand and struck her face so swiftly that she had no chance to dodge.
The force of the blow threw her back against a wall. Blood trickled from a split lip.
Lokith picked up the torch and walked slowly toward her, smiling hungrily as his eyes swept over her nakedness. “Your body is nearly that of a woman, dear Sister, and your blood is sweet.”
She kicked sideways, catching him in the stomach. He cursed, then swung the torch at her head.
She ducked, sidestepped, kicked out again, and caught him in the side, sending him reeling.
The purple fires in his eyes blazed brighter. His lips drew back from sharp white teeth. He growled like a beast and crushed out the torch, plunging the room into darkness save for his burning eyes.
Bloodsong had trained for six long years in the darkness of Helheim before riding against Nidhug. She had taught Guthrun the skills needed to fight in the absence of light. Guthrun used them.
A series of lightning kicks drove Lokith back against a wall. She moved closer, gasped with pain, as cold fingernails raked her already injured left arm, and struck at where she estimated his throat to be with the edge of her right hand.
Lokith cried out as the edge of Guthrun’s hand chopped into his windpipe. His eyes closed, shutting out the purple fires burning within them. She heard him sliding downward along the wall, heard ragged breathing as he lay upon the floor.
Now to finish him, she thought, teeth gritted against the pain of her broken wrist. Though the torch no longer burned, it could still be used as a club to smash open his skull.
Guthrun hurried to the spot where she remembered he’d thrown the torch, searched but a moment before finding it, started to turn back toward Lokith, and cried out as cold hands closed on her shoulders.
Lokith spun her around and hurled her forward.
Pain exploded within her head as her skull struck the stone wall. She crumpled to the floor, clinging to consciousness, dimly saw eyes of purple fire staring down at her, coming nearer, and felt icy hands grip her ankles. Her bare skin scraped against the floor as she was dragged toward the slab. Corpse-cold arms lifted her into the air and roughly dropped her onto the slab. The eyes of purple fire came nearer. She tried to move, to fight back. He pinned her to the slab and easily held her there. His icy lips touched hers.
“When I no longer need your blood,” Lokith hissed, his breath against her face cold and moist and stinking of decayed flesh, “you will die as unpleasantly as I can devise.”
He drew back a fist, struck her again and again, until satisfied that he had battered all consciousness from her.
Then he began to feed.
“GUTHRUN!”
Grimnir’s head snapped around at the sound of Bloodsong’s cry. He ran to her, knelt beside her. “Bloodsong?” he called, gently stroking her sweat-dampened hair.
The nightmare images she had been experiencing began to fade, images of Guthrun unconscious upon a stone slab and a dead thing who called her Sister, hitting her, battering her without mercy.
“Bloodsong?” Grimnir called again, louder.
She groaned, murmured Guthrun’s name once more, and opened her eyes. Grimnir stared down at her with concern. Harbarth and Ulfhild stood nearby.
She was lying by a fire in a cave, naked under animal furs. Her hands and throat were bandaged. A soothing salve coated her other wounds.
Grimnir smiled encouragingly and gripped her shoulder. She winced with pain at his touch and he jerked back his hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I doubt you could touch a place that didn’t hurt just now.” She gave him a weak smile. Then she glared up at Harbarth.
“You promised to return at sunset,” she accused, rising anger giving her strength.
“I did not say which sunset,” he replied, grinning.
“Cursed Odin-worshiping, word-twisting—”
“You survived,” Grimnir cut in. “That’s what matters. You have gained the allegiance of the Berserkers.”
“Bloodsong,” Harbarth said, kneeling beside Grimnir, his eyes searching hers, “what happened during the storm? What did you see? Hear? I—we must know.”
“Go hang yourself and find out.”
“I have,” he solemnly assured her. “We have all ridden the gallows, Odin’s steed. But never before has what happened to you befallen any of us. There have been visions, of course, even visitations, but—”
“Nothing happened.”
“Tell him, Bloodsong,” Grimnir urged. “It’s important.”
Bloodsong glanced from Grimnir to Harbarth and back again.
“Is my testing over? May things I now do and say allow them to withdraw their aid?”
“The testing is over,” Harbarth said.
“Grimnir?” she asked, ignoring the leader.
“It is over.”
She looked back at Harbarth. “I couldn’t be certain which testing you meant, Word-twister.”
“What did you see?” Harbarth demanded.
“My daughter, Guthrun,” she finally replied, looking at Grimnir again. “Our minds touched somehow, giving both of us strength.”
“A gift from Odin,” Ulfhild said.
Harbarth nodded. “Aye. And what else did you see, Bloodsong?”
“Two ravens who wanted to gouge my eyes.”
Harbarth beamed and looked up at Ulfhild, “Hugin and Munin!” He laughed.
“And did you also see Odin’s wolves?” Ulfhild asked. “Did you see Freki and Geri?”
“No, but there were many images inside my mind after I lost my grip and hung by my neck. I saw a bright orb of light, then deep darkness, felt fire and then ice. I only barely remember. What I do remember, all I care to remember, is seeing my daughter again, knowing that she’s still alive.”
Bloodsong reached out and touched Grimnir’s arm with a bandaged hand. “I’m certain of it, Grimnir. Guthrun is alive.” She looked back at Harbarth. “For that knowledge, I thank Odin. For everything else, I curse him.”
Harbarth and Ulfhild laughed. “Curse him all you want, Ropebreaker,” Ulfhild smiled.
“Ropebreaker?’
“Odin no doubt now approves of your curses,” Harbarth went on. “It is said that the heroes he values most are those who, distrusting him, their very God, refuse to give up their weapons before entering Valhalla. Now that you bear his marks, your curses most likely merely make him grin.”
“Marks?” Bloodsong asked, then touched her bandaged throat. “You mean the rope burns. You all bear the scars of the noose. Even you, Grimnir.”
“There’s more, in your case,” Grimnir quietly told her. “The marks on your throat are not entirely like ours.”
“It’s one of the reasons we wanted to know all that happened to you last night,” Ulfhild said.
“I was hoping for a clue,” Harbarth explained
, “a key by which I could decipher the Runes Odin burned into your neck. “
There were several heartbeats of silence, then Bloodsong began to curse.
* * *
“I’m slipping!” Jalna cried, losing her grip, on the rain-slicked rocks. “I’m going to fall!”
Tyrulf tightened his own grip, shifted his weight, reached down, and helped her to a more stable position against the rocks. “You can’t fall now,” he told her between pants. “We’re too near the top. It would be bad luck.”
“Especially for me,” she gasped, pulling herself up as he continued to climb. Thunder crashed nearby, the concussion nearly enough in itself to make her lose her precarious hold. “I thought you said the summit was above the storm,” she complained.
Tyrulf kept climbing, glancing down to check on Jalna every few moments. Wind whipped at them, trying to tear them from the side of the mountain. A flurry of hail battered them, then passed. Lightning struck the rocks overhead. The air hissed. Rocks clattered down around them. They clung desperately to the mountainside until rocks no longer fell.
Up and up they climbed, muscles aching and burning, lungs straining in the ever-thinning air. Then the tempest grew less violent. Continuing to ascend toward the summit, the rain soon stopped. Farther, through a rapidly thinning fog, they broke into sunlight.
“I told you so.” Tyrulf laughed, helping her onto a narrow ledge to rest. “Look,” he said, pointing. “The summit.”
“If only we didn’t have to climb back down,” Jalna growled, rubbing sore muscles.
“They’ll be even more sore tomorrow, I’ll wager.” Tyrulf grinned. “Mine too. It’s been years since I enjoyed a good climb.”
“A good climb!” Jalna exclaimed, then laughed, glad to have challenged the mountain and still be alive.
Soon they began to climb again, covered the short distance left to the summit, and stood side by side, gazing at the mountaintop.
A chill went up Tyrulf’s spine.
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