“Select a belt and scabbard for my blade, too, and clothing for later.” Bloodsong thrust her sword’s blade into the snow.
“Carry these for me,” Ulfhild said to Huld.
“Cloak too warm, as I warned?” Huld took back the ax and cloak, but she had guessed the shape-shifters’ plan.
Guthrun also guessed the plan. The conflicted expression she saw upon her mother’s face concerned her. After the Hel-Witch, Thokk, had awakened the dark Hel-powers within her, Guthrun, had struggled hard to accept, control, and learn to use the powers that were at first a source of deep shame. Her mother, however, who normally met problems head-on, had avoided accepting and learning to use the awakened beast-self within her, which told Guthrun how very great was the repulsion Bloodsong felt. “You’d have a better chance of escape, Mother, without us weighing you down. Huld and I can evade and distract Lokith, while you—”
“No,” Bloodsong shook her head. “You will either allow me to carry you, or I will stay by your side to fight.”
“Guthrun,” Huld said, “of all of us, you must escape. Lokith tasted you mother’s blood and was going to taste yours. That he failed may be important, magically. Maybe he is not completely healed. Or maybe tasting both his mother’s and sister’s blood will strengthen him further.”
“We’ll hardly notice carrying you two scrawny things,” Ulfhild said.
Bloodsong nodded. “And besides, at the moment a fur coat will be welcome.”
“There are old tales about Witches riding wolves and using serpents for reins,” Huld said. “I’ve always wanted to try.”
“Forget the serpent-reins,” Ulfhild responded.
“I love you.” Guthrun gave Bloodsong a quick embrace.
“And I you. Now select that clothing and swordbelt for me, while I concentrate upon changing.”
“And I’m gathering bundles of food,” said Huld.
“Let the beast rise within you, Runethroat,” Ulfhild urged Bloodsong in soothing tones. “Let Odin’s power possess you as it did that day you battled the Death Riders in the forest.”
“I know the feeling well enough,” Bloodsong answered, “from trying to banish it.” She concentrated upon relaxing her hold on the beast waiting in the shadows of her mind and soul.
The Rune-scars encircling her throat began to burn. She gritted her teeth against the pain, soon felt other pains tearing through her as her bones and flesh began to reform, transforming her body into the shape of a monstrous, black-furred beast whose approximate shape was that of a wolf, but whose head possessed the face of a fur-covered, stiletto-fanged human skull.
Bloodsong fell to all fours as the agonizing transformation ran to completion. Then suddenly the pain was gone, replaced by a pulsing excitement, a throbbing exultation of pounding strength and power, all her senses beast-sharp.
When she’d transformed years before during the battle with the Death Riders, it had been done unconsciously, prompted by emotions of anger and battle-lust. She had never imagined that the transformation could make her feel like a vessel filled with unbelievably intense life, rather than an instrument of hatred and death. Ulfhild had tried to tell her, of course, but she had stubbornly refused to believe.
She felt something push against her side. Ulfhild stood beside her, now also in beastform.
Seeing what her mother had become, Guthrun shuddered, silently vowed to conceal her repulsion, went forward, drew Bloodsong’s sword from the snow, and thrust it into a scabbard on a swordbelt she had selected.
The back of the huge black beast came to Guthrun’s chest. Ulfhild’s beastform, slightly smaller than Bloodsong’s, came nearly as high on Huld.
Huld, holding in one arm a battle-ax and food bundled into the spare cloak, grasped the red beast-hair of Ulfhild’s neck with her free hand and apprehensively climbed onto Ulfhild’s back.
Guthrun reached hesitantly out and touched the raven-furred neck of her mother’s beastform. She had expected the beast-hair to be stiff, but instead it felt as soft and silky as Bloodsong’s human hair. Even more apprehensively than Huld had with Ulfhild, Guthrun pulled herself onto the back of her mother.
Tightly holding the bundle of clothing cinched in the spare sword belt under one arm, Guthrun announced that she was ready.
The beasts had already begun moving through the trees, away from the captured encampment, moving steadily faster and faster until soon, filled with the exhilarating strength and power of the liberating Odin-force flowing through them, they were running free with cold winter air whipping through their fur as the two Witches clung determinedly to their backs.
EYES BLAZING with purple fire, Lokith raced on through the forest atop his skeletal white steed, his Hel-horse’s hoofs treading a moaning Hel-wind, never touching the ground. Behind him rode half of his Hel-warriors and the six Death Riders who had survived the battle in the longhouse.
Following the directions he had stolen from an unconscious prisoner’s mind, he led his men to the escape tunnel’s exit, pulled back hard on his mount’s reins, and shouted for a halt. His Hel-horse reared, skeletal legs flailing, then came back to all fours.
Lokith noted the plundered cache, then quickly studied the tracks in the snow, his night vision bathing everything he saw in a ghostly purple glow.
The only tracks leading away through the trees were the deep tracks of two beasts. “The Witches are riding atop beasts!” He set off in pursuit. He considered using the wind treading ability of the Hel-horses to rise above the treetops, but doing so would have consumed more energy, and although he expected the chase to be a short one, he did not want to take the chance of weakening too soon the mounts or himself. The more weakened he became, the less potent would be his sorcery and the greater his need for fresh blood to renew his strength.
Watching the tracks in the snow, Lokith rode on through the night, determined that the four escaped women would soon be his captives once more.
* * *
Atop a bare, snow-covered hill in the midst of a clearing, Ulfhild stopped, threw back her head, and began to howl.
Bloodsong, who had already crested the hill and was halfway down the other side, stopped and looked back.
Ulfhild continued howling, head thrown back, eyes glaring wildly at the heavens.
Bloodsong shivered, repulsed by the wolf like, yet nearly human sounds, but she guessed almost at once that Ulfhild was trying to summon aid.
Bloodsong hurried back up the hillside until she stood near the Berserker. Huld, still sitting astride the baying shape-shifter, had covered her ears with her hands.
“I can’t say much for her sense of melody,” the Freya-Witch quipped to Guthrun, who grinned in response.
Ulfhild stopped howling long enough to look around and give Huld a hard stare, punctuated by a threatening growl, then she threw back her head and began howling once more.
Bloodsong’s sensitive beast-ears heard from all sides howls in response, and as Ulfhild continued to sing, the howls became steadily louder as the beasts who made them came rapidly nearer.
Soon, first one wolf pack and then another and another, loped into the clearing, stopped at the base of the hill, sat back on their haunches, and listened, panting, tongues lolling, to Ulfhild’s continuing cries.
Bloodsong sniffed the air, hair prickling at the scent of the wolves who were answering Ulfhild’s summons.
“Freya’s Teats,” Huld cursed beneath her breath, awed as more and more wolves entered the clearing. Although she knew spells to attract and control wild animals, she possessed no magic capable of doing what Ulfhild was accomplishing without using any spells at all, other than the Odin-magic that helped power her beastform.
When several woIfpacks sat eyeing each other suspiciously around the base of the hill, Ulfhild was finally satisfied, but she noted that there were no Berserkers among them and reasoned that Lokit
h must have somehow slain the Berserkers who were on patrol near there.
Pushing down grief over her lost friends, concentrating on hatred of Lokith, she began to make other sounds, barks, yips, growls, finally ending with a long, mournful howl that garnered return howls from the assembled packs.
Ulfhild surveyed the dozens of wolves a moment longer, then ran down the hillside. The assembled wolves moved aside to allow her passage through their ranks as she loped away.
Bloodsong took the hint and followed close in Ulfhild’s wake.
One large pack followed the escaping women, but the rest turned toward the distant encampment, sniffing the air, fangs bared, waiting for Lokith and his warriors.
* * *
Concentrating on the tracks of the two fleeing shape-shifters, Lokith led the way into the clearing before noticing the dark masses of the assembled wolves.
He cursed at his carelessness. He should have guessed that some attempt, however futile, would be made to stop his pursuit.
He quickly shouted orders for his Hel-warriors to stop and await further orders while his Death Riders followed him, then he drew his black, Rune-carved Hel-blade and charged straight at the wolves.
Just before he reached the beasts, he hissed an incantation. Purple Hel-fire shot from his outstretched blade. Howls of agony ripped the night as several wolves struck by the Hel-fire burst into writhing masses of flames.
Atop their skeletal Hel-horses, Lokith and his Death Riders raced past the blazing carcasses, reached the crest of the hill, and reined up.
The snarling wolves looked first at Lokith atop the hill and then at the warriors who had held back, suddenly unsure of what to do.
Lokith hissed another incantation. Another stream of Helfire, then another, lashed tile wolves, slaying several more and adding to the others’ confusion. “Now attack!” he shouted. “Hel-warriors, forward! Death Riders, down the hill!”
The wolves fought with determined ferocity, but soon, many of the wolves, unable to bring the dead-alive Hel-horses down and many quickly slain by either Hel-horse hooves or warriors’ blades, the remaining wolves fled.
Cursing the delay, Lokith led his men away from the clearing in pursuit of the four women once more. New curses erupted when he discovered that instead of having only the clear prints of two beasts to follow, there were now dozens of tracks trampling the snow.
Another pack is following them, he realized, obliterating their tracks. Warning himself to watch closely for any tracks branching away from those of the main pack, and frustrated that the Witches’ spell of concealment was still keeping his sorcerous senses at bay, Lokith rode onward through the night, promising himself that when the Berserker woman whose lupine allies were causing him such trouble was once more his captive, he would make her scream long and loudly before allowing her to die.
* * *
Dawn crimsoned the eastern sky. Hel-horses shied nervously at the coming daylight.
Lokith sat looking down at the tracks in the snow. Four times during the long hours of pursuit following the battle with the wolves, he had been forced to send parties of Hel-warriors, each accompanied by one Death Rider, to follow wolf tracks branching away from the tracks of the main pack. Now the tracks had branched again, this time leading off in three directions at once. At one point he had even momentarily used the extra energy required to ride his wind-treading steed above the treetops for a better look, but it had not helped.
He cursed softly beneath his breath. Only two Death Riders remained, and without either himself or a Death Rider along to generate a thick cloud cover to block out the sunlight after dawn, the Hel-horses his warriors rode would fall into oozing heaps of dust.
He ordered five Hel-warriors to accompany one Death Rider along one set of tracks, another five to accompany the last Death Rider after the second set, then, followed by the remaining ten warriors, he, himself, set out to follow the third,
His mental powers allowed him to remain in contact with his Death Riders, so he knew that none of the others had yet overtaken the wolves they pursued. He also knew, however, that the endurance and speed of Hel-horses would eventually overtake ordinary wolves and that even shape-shifters imbued with Odin-magic must eventually succumb to fatigue and slow down.
She can’t escape me much longer, he promised himself, an image of Bloodsong’s face looming in his mind. Hel grant that her tracks are among those I am following, he added in his thoughts, and raced onward over the snow.
WHILE BLOODSONG and Ulfhild in their beastforms raced over the snow, Huld and Guthrun considered other courses of action to combat Lokith and his Hel-spawned sorcery. As the rising Sun lightened the eastern horizon, the two Witches agreed that for the moment their best chance was to reach a forested mountain valley hidden from uninitiated eyes by powerful spells of concealment. Within that valley stood a wood sacred to the Goddess Freya, the Wood of Freya’s Woe. There, in that place where the forces of Life reigned supreme, Huld’s Freya-magic would be at its strongest. But it was said that no follower of HeI could enter that wood. Could Guthrun, tainted with Hel-magic as she was, go there?
Bloodsong had listened to the Witches’ discussions as she ran and, unable to think of a better plan for the moment, had made no signs of disapproval. So Huld had begun giving directions to them, and now, with the Sun. about to rise, they were entering the foothills of the mountains.
Huld hoped they could reach the sacred woods before sunset, which meant that she did not think it was too far away. Days were short that far north at that time of the year.
As Bloodsong continued to run beside Ulfhild, amazed that her steely muscled beastform was still not feeling any twinges of fatigue, she listened as Huld told them the legend of the sacred wood they were trying to reach.
“Once, long ago,” Huld began, “the Goddess Freya fell in love with the God named Od. They lived happily together for a while, but then Od left Freya to explore the world of humankind, Midgarth. Freya’s anger at being abandoned soon turned to sorrow, then to a fierce determination to be reunited with Her mate.
“Freya harnessed Her two savage mountain cats to Her chariot and left Folkvang, Her home, and traveled over Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge, to Midgarth.
“Through many lands the Goddess traveled in search of Her love, and each land through which she passed gave Her a different name. In some lands She became known as Skialf, in others as Mardel, and in yet others as Thrung, or Gefn, or Syr,
“Everywhere She went She asked of all She met if they’d seen Her mate. Each time that no was again the answer, She wept Her disappointment and then passed on to continue Her search. Her tears that fell into the sea turned to amber, but tears that fell onto the land sank into the rocks and became rich veins of gold.
“Finally, far to the Sun-drenched south, Freya found Od sitting beneath a myrtle tree. When He saw Her, He remembered how much He loved Her and wanted only to return with Her.
“As the Goddess and Her mate traveled back to the Rainbow Bridge in the far north, the Earth, which had fallen barren because of Freya’s sadness, began to bloom again because She was again happy. So it was that before Freya and Od stretched bare-branched trees and pasturelands covered in snow and ice, but behind stretched oceans of green grasslands, brightly colored flowers, and heavily leafed forests.
“After that,” Huld continued, “brides in the northlands started wearing wreaths of myrtle leaves upon their heads, because it was under that tree that Freya had found Her mate. The prettiest flowers became known as Freya’s Hair. Butterflies flitting between the flowers became known as Freya’s Hens. And wherever Freya and Od stopped to make love on the journey home became a place sacred to Life where light elves and fairies thereafter appeared to dance around Freya’s love-bed in the moonlight. The Wood of Freya’s Woe is one of those places.
“Soon after crossing the Rainbow Bridge to begin her search, the Goddess
rested in a mountain valley. She slept and dreamed that Od was with Her again. Upon awakening, She found Herself still alone and wept in disappointment. Her sadness turned the valley into a place devoid of all life. Upon Her return to the north, however, Freya remembered the valley Her mourning had so injured. She took Od there, and there They lingered for three days, not only restoring life to the wood, but also making it one of Her most sacred spots on all of Midgarth.
“Freya-Witches who prove worthy are told by an elder Witch, usually their teacher, where to find the hidden wood,” Huld explained. “You should also know that Freya, Herself, may prevent me, and all of us, from reaching the wood.
“When Norda Greycloak told me of the wood,” Huld quickly went on, heading off Guthrun’s questions, “she made me take a vow never to reveal the wood’s existence, nor the location, to the uninitiated or unworthy. I took that vow upon my life and soul and in Freya’s name and would never be breaking it if we were not fighting the forces of Hel. But if Freya does not feel our need is sufficient to excuse my vow-breaking—”
“Perhaps,” Guthrun suggested, knowing the importance of such a vow to a woman of honor like Huld, “you are not breaking your vow. Though only you have been initiated into Freya’s mysteries, both Ulfhild and my mother have received Odin’s initiation. One of Odin’s many names might even be Od, might it not?”
“That speculation has been much discussed amongst Freya’s devotees. Yes.”
“And the death-shock ceremony by which Thokk awakened my Hel-powers could certainly be considered an initiation of sorts, if involuntary. And as for being deemed worthy in Freya’s eyes, surely our past battles against Thokk, and now Lokith, prove where our allegiance lies, even mine, tainted by Hel-magic though I am.” Guthrun saw Huld’s expression brighten.
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