“You’re staring at me again,” Huld growled, looking Ulfhild in the eye. “I don’t like it.”
“Why do you wear no hair on your head?” Ulfhild innocently asked.
“So that’s why you’ve been staring. It’s Thokk’s doing. But since I escaped her power, it’s started to grow back. Be careful! During the fight she might do the same to you.”
For a brief instant apprehension widened Ulfhild’s eyes. She touched her thick red hair.
Huld turned quickly away to conceal a grin, then her smile faded as she contemplated the cliff and the ordeal to come within the Castle of Thokk.
Bloodsong started to speak to the Berserkers, but suddenly she was shaken from within by a deep throbbing of emotion. She steadied herself against the cliff, momentarily dizzy.
“Bloodsong?” Grimnir asked with concern, moving closer.
“For a moment, I felt—” she paused, frowning. “I felt as I did when I first set eyes upon Guthrun after her birth. I think, yes! I know it! She lives once more!”
Huld said, suspiciously, “Thokk’s doing?”
“Or maybe Guthrun was not truly dead?” Jalna suggested.
“A trick of some kind?” Grimnir asked.
“Aye,” Tyrulf agreed. “The Hel-Witch seeks to trick us.”
Bloodsong straightened. “Guthrun is alive, and no matter why, by the Gods she is going to stay that way! Caution be damned. Hurry, Huld! Lead the way!”
* * *
Thokk screamed words of power, raised her arms above her head, and flung them out to the sides. Thunder exploded within the Chapel of Hel, A blazing curtain of purple fire formed between the altar and the Death Riders.
The corpse-warriors tried to pass through the fire but could not.
“Why, Lokith?” Thokk cried, locking gazes with him through the curtain of purple fire.
His answer was to concentrate his will and intone words of power. The curtain of fire began to fade.
Thokk renewed the spell of protection. The curtain flared brighter again.
“I am stronger than you!” Lokith shouted. “Surrender, Thokk. I will let you live!”
“You are endangering Hel’s plans!” she cried back.
“I made different plans!”
“Don’t do this, Lokith! Stop it now! I did not labor for years to heal you only for you to—”
“Kill my sister and I will let you live.”
“She, too, is part of Hel’s plan!”
“Kill her!”
“Set me free!” Guthrun cried, catching Thokk’s gaze. “You can’t beat him alone. I feel the power within me now! Let me help!” She jerked on her spell-chains.
“Kill her, Thokk,” Lokith urged. “I know all you know and more. You and Hel made me more powerful. Plunge that cursed dagger back into her heart!”
“Choose, Thokk,” Guthrun said. “You can’t have both, and I am your only chance to live.”
“You are both important!” Thokk cried.
“The fire curtain is fading again,” Vafthrudnir noted, his deep voice tight with pain, blood pumping from his wounded shoulder. “And if you could spare some energy to heal this wound, I may live long enough to help you fight.”
“Release me!” Guthrun demanded. “I will heal his wound while you keep the fire-spell strong!”
Thokk glanced from Bloodsong’s daughter to Bloodsong’s son. All her plans and dreams were collapsing. She looked back at Guthrun. With a curse, she intoned Runes.
Guthrun’s chains fell away.
* * *
On her last passage through the tunnel, Huld had replaced the rocks at the cave-in as best she could, to make it seem like she had never left the Chamber of Decay. Now, she helped hastily remove those rocks. Then, when there was an opening large enough for even Grimnir to crawl through, Huld led the way, Bloodsong next.
Bloodsong scrambled to her feet on the other side. She unstrapped her shield from her back and unsheathed her black-bladed sword.
Huld’s eyes flamed with her night-vision spell.
Grimnir, Jalna, Tyrulf, Magnus and his men were also soon through the opening. Jalna and Tyrulf handed their Freya-swords to the Witch. When her hands touched the hilts, the Runes upon their blades began glowing with yellow-gold light, dimly illuminating the walls of the narrow tunnel for Bloodsong and the others.
The Witch said, ‘‘Keep your senses sharp.”
“Of course!” Bloodsong answered. “Hurry, Huld!”
“My concentration will be on shielding our presence from Thokk, so I’ll not be able to magically sense danger.”
“Just lead the way!”
Huld hurried in the lead. The air became steadily more tainted by a death stench. The tunnel widened. They entered the region of corpses and rats. The floor became covered with crawling things until they walked through them ankle-deep.
Huld watched closely for moving shadows, remembering the thing that had attacked her there, but no more of the shadowy beast-things appeared, and soon they reached the locked door.
“If we could force it open by physical means, we wouldn’t risk Thokk detecting my use of magic,” Huld told them.
Grimnir examined the lock then removed the ax on his belt, drew the weapon back, and struck. An instant before the ax reached the lock a bolt of purple fire shot forth and struck the ax, turning it aside to thunk into the wood of the door. The warrior cursed and released the handle, his hands hot with pain. But learning that his skin had not actually been burned by the blast, he angrily wrenched the ax free and aimed another blow at the lock.
“No, Grimnir,” Bloodsong said. “The same will only happen again, perhaps actually harming you this time. We must use Huld’s magic. Whether Thokk detects us or not, we have no choice.”
Huld held the glowing swords with their points aimed at the lock. “Take the cloth and cover the lock,” Huld tensely ordered.
Bloodsong took the bloodstained cloth from a pouch on Huld’s belt and held it over the lock. She felt a tingling sensation where her fingers touched the Thor-empowered cloth.
Huld again pointed the swords at the lock, then concentrated her will and intoned lilting syllables of power.
Beneath the bloodstained cloth the lock began pulsing with purple light, resisting Huld’s magic, trying to burn through the Thor-magic shielding the Witch.
Huld’s face streamed sweat as she repeated the spell over and over. A small circle of purple light blazed as a small hole, its edges charred, appeared in the cloth, then another and another.
A spear of purple fire jabbed through one hole toward Huld. A tongue of yellow-gold fire from the Freya-swords intercepted it. The magical forces canceled each other with a crackling of power and an explosion of purple-and-yellow sparks.
The Freya-Witch kept at it, refusing to be beaten by the magic of her enemy. Another purple ray and then another was countered by yellow rays from the swords as Huld continued to intone the spell. Her body trembled with the strain.
Suddenly there came a loud hissing amidst a shower of purple sparks fountaining from beneath the cloth, then the metal of the lock, reduced to a red-hot ooze, began seeping toward the floor, cutting flaming channels in the aged surface of the door’s nail-studded wood.
Bloodsong jerked back the cloth and used her gloved hands to slap out one flaming corner, then she quickly stuffed the cloth back into Huld’s belt-pouch, kicked open the burning door, and motioned Huld ahead. When Huld did not immediately move, she looked more closely at the Witch and saw Huld sway unsteadily on her feet, a frown of pain creasing her brow.
“Huld?” Bloodsong asked.
“I’m all right,” the Witch panted.
“Then hurry!”
The Witch hastily garnered her strength and pushed past Bloodsong into the spider web-draped corridor. The Freya-swords glowed in her hand
s.
Up stairway after stairway they ran, meeting no defenders. The door to the cell in which Huld had been tortured stood open. The Witch quickly checked inside and saw that it was empty.
“Valgerth and Thorfinn were chained there when last I was here,” she explained as she hurried up the next stairway.
“This is too easy,” Grimnir said behind Bloodsong. “We must be walking into a trap.”
“Perhaps it’s just that Huld’s magic is shielding us as we’d hoped,” Jalna suggested.
“I agree with Grimnir,” Tyrulf said. “Maybe—”
“Traps be damned!” Bloodsong growled. “I’m going to my daughter!”
* * *
When the black walls of Thokk’s castle came into view around a bend in the mountain trail, the Berserkers discarded their weapons and breechclouts.
“Wolfraven and Odin,” Harbarth said softly, for stealth’s sake resisting the urge to shout the battle cry. He raised his right fist skyward and faced his people.
“Wolfraven and Odin,” they repeated, also softly, fists raised.
“And may those who fall this day,” Ulfhild added, “feast in Valhalla this night.” Without warning, a spear of cold jabbed into her. She looked at Harbarth.
Her mate caught her gaze and frowned at the look in her eyes, then understood. A chill slipped through him, too. He came close and took her in his arms.
“And are we to be parted this day?” he gently asked.
Ulfhild said nothing, but tears came to her eyes. She hugged Harbarth tightly. They kissed.
“If today I meet Odin,” he said, “know that I have loved you long and well, my mate.”
“And if today I am the one to see Valhalla, know that I will love you even then, and keep a place beside me awaiting your arrival!”
“Wolfraven and Odin,” he whispered, kissed her again, then stepped away, closed his eyes in concentration, and began to transform himself.
His human features altered. His hair thickened, teeth elongated, flesh rippled and reformed into the likeness of’ a towering, massively muscled, gray-furred bear.
Ulfhild hastened to join him. Soon, a giant, red-furred she-wolf stood in the tracks left in the snow by her human feet. She glanced at the others, now also transformed.
The Berserkers followed her and Harbarth as they ran swiftly toward Castle Thokk, glorying in the feel of Odin’s power coursing like fire through their veins, lusting for the battle to begin.
A RED SHE-WOLF and a monstrous gray-furred bear leaped high over the towering walls of Castle Thokk and landed in the courtyard on all fours.
Styrki and the men who had been following Kovna’s orders, trying to open the gate from the inside, cursed with surprise, drew their swords, and pressed back against the wall as more and more beasts hurtled over the wall into the courtyard.
“Shape-shifters,” Kovna said, terror in his eyes and voice. “I prayed I would never see another. We can’t fight them alone. We need the rest of the men. Run! Follow me!”
His men followed him at an angle across the courtyard, racing for a small door well away from the main entrance where the shape-shifters were massed.
The beasts saw them and gave pursuit.
Styrki looked back. “They’re too fast!” he cried. “Stand and protect our general!” He turned to fight. The men with him cursed and formed a shield-wall between Kovna and the beasts.
Kovna heard Styrki and the others scream as the berserking beasts reached them. Then there were no more death cries, and glancing back, he saw a monstrous red wolf nearly upon him.
He threw himself through the portal just in time and barred the thick wooden door behind him. He heard howls of rage and claws digging at the wood on the other side as he turned and ran, cursing, knowing in his gut that Bloodsong was behind the attack. She had somehow gained the allegiance of shape-shifters!
If we could leave the castle, I would gather the men and ride away, leave Thokk to the shape-shifters and Bloodsong, he thought. But we can’t get out, can’t open the gate. Our only hope is to make a stand and pray a chance to survive appears. The main entrance is wide open! No one expected creatures who could leap over the outer wall!
Cursing again as he ran, heart pounding with terror, Kovna raced to muster his men.
* * *
Ulfhild loped back to the main entrance, frustrated that her prey had escaped, and saw Harbarth waiting there. Blood from the men they had killed dripped from both their fangs and claws. Others of their people had already entered the castle at Harbarth’s direction. Ulfhild growled with anticipation and entered the fortress, Harbarth at her side.
At first there was no resistance. But then a group of warriors burst into view, weapons raised. Their eyes widened in fear as they beheld those they faced.
With a savage howl, Ulfhild sprang forward, twisted with lightning speed to avoid a sword thrust, lurched upward, and tore out a warrior’s throat. Hot blood spurted into her face from a severed jugular. She twisted smoothly to one side to avoid another blade, leapt back, then forward. Her jaws clamped down upon another soft throat. She violently jerked her head sideways, ripping and tearing.
Beside her, Harbarth broke the back of one man, ignored a deep cut on his left leg, swept out with his claws and left a screaming warrior’s face a fountain of crimson gore, one ruined eye hanging by a string of flesh upon a raw-skinned cheek.
* * *
Within the Chapel of Hel, Lokith cursed at the sounds of fighting. He reached out with his Hel-senses, cursed again, ordered two Death Riders to his side, and sent one to aid Kovna’s men, the other to stop the invaders he had detected approaching from below. Then he returned his attention to his own struggle in the chapel and once more strove to concentrate on Thokk’s defeat.
* * *
Still concentrating her energies on trying to shield their presence from Thokk, Huld could not risk using her Witch-senses to seek Bloodsong’s daughter, so when they reached the torchlit level where Guthrun’s chamber had been, she quickly led them to the room but found it empty.
Huld leading, they retraced their path from Guthrun’s room then soon reached the main torchlit corridor. The Witch revoked her night-vision spell but kept hold of the Freya-swords, hoping that their power might help her continue to shield their presence from Thokk. Then she led them to the next stairway, noticing that the sounds from the shadowed ceiling and rooms were now gone.
“Be wary of a sudden drop in the temperature,” Huld urged as they mounted the stairs. “If the Jotun approaches, the cold that accompanies him might give us a moment’s warning. And,” she added, remembering the things he had done to her, “if by chance he survives the battle to become our captive, I claim the right to execute him, with love.”
“Love?” Bloodsong asked.
“It’s a Freya-thing.”
Bloodsong frowned at that but said no more.
They came to the top of the stairs and headed down another corridor. At the top of the next stairway, Bloodsong called a halt, her enhanced beast-senses straining. “I hear sounds of battle on the level above and a scent of death grows stronger. Huld, return the swords to Jalna and Tyrulf and use your Witch-senses. The death-stench may mean the approach of Death Riders.”
Huld gave back the swords. She quickly reached out with her Witch-senses. “Guthrun is on the next level,” she told Bloodsong, “and Thokk’s presence is near your daughter’s. I’ll lead us to her.”
Bloodsong followed Huld at a run up the next stairway, nostrils flaring as the death-stench grew rapidly stronger. Then at the top of the stairs appeared a skeletal figure in black armor, black-bladed sword held ready. It started down toward them.
Jalna and Tyrulf pushed past Bloodsong and Huld to confront the corpse warrior with their Freya-swords. Using a maneuver they’d worked out in advance, Jalna feinted to the left as Tyrulf held back,
waiting to strike from the right. The Death Rider’s preternatural speed nearly got past Jalna’s guard, but she parried in time and was relieved that, as Huld had predicted, the Freya-empowered sword protected her from the death-touch.
Tyrulf struck from the right, but the Death Rider’s speed allowed him to easily parry the stroke and strike back. Tyrulf blocked the cut and jerked sideways to avoid the corpse-warrior’s return stroke as Jalna sliced at the flesh-tattered remains of the Death Rider’s skeletal neck.
Once more the Death Rider’s speed protected him, but as he thrust his black blade toward Jalna in retaliation, Tyrulf risked a two-handed blow at the corpse-warrior’s neck, knowing that if the reckless cut did not succeed, he might not be able to block the Death Rider’s lightning return stroke.
The gamble worked. A black steel helmet containing little more than a skull clattered down the stairs. The corpse-warrior’s skeletal body collapsed.
Huld ran on up the stairs, Bloodsong and the others in her wake.
They emerged on the next level, raced down a wide corridor, heard men’s screams and the frenzied howling of beasts.
Three of Kovna’s terrified warriors, running away from the battle, came toward them down the corridor. Bloodsong and Grimnir met them. His battle-ax and her black-bladed sword quickly ended their lives.
They hurried past the fallen three, boots splashing in spreading pools of blood.
Down two more corridors the battle came into view. Though the Berserkers were outnumbered, they were having little trouble slaying Kovna’s men except for one, a Death Rider. At the black-clad corpse-warrior’s feet lay the bodies of several dead Berserkers.
Jalna and Tyrulf rushed forward and attacked the Death Rider as Bloodsong and the others followed Huld to find Guthrun. “She’s not far now,” Huld promised, her Witch-senses guiding her, urging her toward an arched doorway carved with scenes of death and decay, the entrance to the Chapel of Hel.
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