“The answer is still no,” Bloodsong firmly replied.
“By Freya’s Teats and Her Flaming—” Huld stopped herself and took a deep breath. “If you don’t want us all to go, Bloodsong, at least let me take the risk,” Huld pleaded. “Please. It’s so very important to me. It would be, even if there wasn’t a battle with Hel in our future. Don’t you understand what finding this sacred spot means to me? I want this like you wanted Guthrun released from Helheim. The only possible danger is that I might join the Dance of Joy and stay dancing obliviously until dawn, something that I assure you I’m not about to do. Don’t try to deny me this, Bloodsong, because I won’t be denied. My power is strong here in this sacred wood, and I could use my Witchcraft to make you let me go. I don’t want to, but I swear by Freya that I will, if you don’t see reason and change your mind this instant!”
There was silence as Huld stood glaring with fiery, yellow-gold eyes at Bloodsong.
Bloodsong cursed softly beneath her breath, then reached up with one hand and grasped Huld’s shoulder. “There are now and may continue to be only we four to stand against Hel,” she reminded the Freya-Witch. “If something happens to you, we’ll be deprived of your Witchcraft in the battles to come.”
Huld smiled. “You know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t go into the woods if I thought you three might be attacked while I was gone, or if I feared I might miss helping break cursed Hel’s power.”
“Aye,” Bloodsong replied, “and so, in spite of what my mind tells me I should do, my heart says to let you go.”
Huld breathed a sigh of relief, then squeezed Bloodsong’s hand in thanks.
“We won’t be going with you,” Bloodsong added.
“Very well.”
“I can’t allow more than one of us to risk those unknown woods at night.”
“I understand.”
“Freya protect you.”
“She will.” Huld laughed. “She is.”
“I wish that I could go with you.” Guthrun looked at Bloodsong. “I believe she’s right, Mother, about there not being any danger.”
Huld turned her glowing eyes on Bloodsong. “Experiencing the power of concentrated Life-magic might do much to help Guthrun battle the darkness in her soul as Hel draws nearer. Let her go, please?”
“No.”
“I promise neither of us will join the Dance of Joy, just watch?”
“Please, Mother?”
“Absolutely not!” Bloodsong placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“Sorry, Guthrun,” Huld shrugged. “I will try to bring you back a bit of the earth there or something else that might help you battle Hel.” The Freya-Witch embraced the younger Witch, then hurried away down the hill and out of sight.
WHEN HULD reached the edge of the trees, she took a moment to study the floating yellow-gold lights, but even when one drifted silently within reach, it appeared to be no more than a point of brilliant yellow-gold fire.
Shrugging at the mystery, Huld entered the forest and began moving through the closely packed trees, deeper and deeper into the sacred wood, her night vision revealing her surroundings bathed in a soft, yellow-gold glow.
Birch trees, oak, ash, elm, pine, and many other varieties that usually did not grow in the same locale grew together in profusion within the wood. Their vine-entwined trunks were gnarled and massive with age. The warm air was scented by the sweet perfume of night-blooming flowers. Small forest creatures scurried out of her path, then sat watching her with bright, inquisitive eyes as she continued on.
Huld shook her head sadly when she remembered Bloodsong’s caution, wishing that her friends could be experiencing and enjoying the sacred woods with her.
On and on through the ancient trees Huld pressed, following the sound of the singing, laughing, childlike voices. As they grew steadily louder she began to notice that the floating points of light were becoming more numerous and moving faster, now generally moving in the same direction as she. Soon the specks of fire became so numerous that she no longer needed her night-vision spell in order to see.
Huld walked faster and faster, keeping pace with the increasing speed of the current in the river of lights. Soon she was running, driven by a hunger and desire that grew stronger and stronger within her until she felt she would soon explode with longing.
The trees pressed closer and closer on each side and above until Huld was hurrying through a veritable tunnel of trunks and limbs, running half bent over, ignoring the scratches she was receiving and the tears and rips being suffered by her clothing.
On and on through the tunnel of bark and leaves Huld rushed amid the flood of swirling lights, the voices growing louder as she steadily neared their source.
The tunnel began twisting and turning as it ascended and descended slope after slope, never running straight for more than a few steps. Then it grew even smaller until Huld first had to crawl on hands and knees and then on her stomach up a sloping rise. But at the top of that rise the trees suddenly ended.
Huld got to her feet. She was standing on the edge of a circular clearing in the forest, tall trees towering toward the stars on all sides. The golden lights flooded from the opening of the tunnel to spiral down into the clearing, streaming around and around, lower and lower toward the center where danced the slender and graceful forms, some tall and some not, of those whose voices she had followed.
The Freya-Witch smiled with delight as she brushed leaves and twigs from her clothes and hair. She reminded herself that she was only going to listen and watch. The Witch-lore of Freya-Witches contained many warnings about what happened to humans who gave themselves too completely to the ecstasies of the Dance of Joy. Caught still dancing in the first rays of dawn, their sanity was at risk. She deeply longed to join the singers and dancers in their revels, but she was not going to risk it, not with the battle against Hel in her future and her friends awaiting her return.
Perhaps I can come back to these sacred woods after the struggle with Hel is over, if I’m still alive. Yes, she decided as she sat down on the ground to watch the dancers, I will plan now to do just that. Maybe Bloodsong will even let Guthrun come with me. Maybe she’ll even come herself.
As the singing and dancing in the clearing continued, Huld sat hugging her knees and watching, occasionally laughing with happiness. her feet keeping time to the rhythms of the songs, hoping she could remember the melodies in the morning but knowing that according to the old tales, it was unlikely. If only Bloodsong had allowed Guthrun to experience this, Huld thought. It would have given the besieged light in her soul so much strength.
The dance was growing more intense, Huld noted, building to a climax. She glanced at the sky. It was still black, no hint of dawn in sight. She shrugged and went back to watching.
Suddenly a brilliant flash of yellow-gold light exploded within the clearing. Huld involuntarily cried out. She rubbed at her eyes, trying to make them adjust so that she could see clearly once more, and when clear vision returned, the scene in the clearing had changed.
In the center stood a tall woman. Her body glowed with golden light. She was proudly naked, save for a blazing necklace of gold and jewels about Her throat, a vision of fierce beauty and primal strength.
Panic tore at Huld, terror and awe, love and desire.
The eyes of the Goddess Freya fell upon Huld.
Suddenly, as one, the others in the clearing turned their eyes upon her too. For the merest instant their laughing and singing stopped, but then it began again as they rushed up the slope toward her, and Huld saw the Goddess beckon her to join them.
They reached her and started stripping away her clothing to prepare her for the dance. I’ll only dance a little while and then withdraw, she promised herself. I can’t just watch now, not after my Goddess has beckoned to me. To me!
Huld eagerly helped the dancers strip her bare
. Then, as naked as they, she went almost shyly with them to the center of the clearing, her eyes daring to seek out those of Freya once more and finding with a hot rush of desire and pride that the eyes of her Goddess were still upon her.
The dance began anew. Huld’s steps and songs were slow and hesitant at first, but joy soon surpassed her awe, and she began uninhibitedly running and leaping and dancing with the others around the Goddess, who then began laughing and dancing and singing with them amid the spiraling golden lights.
As the night wore on, Huld laughed and danced and played with passionate abandon, her voice and the voices of the others in the clearing mingling with the clear, strong voice of their Goddess as they surrendered themselves to the shared celebration of ecstasy and joy.
On and on Huld danced and sang and loved, sweat streaming, bare skin glistening, loving and living with an intensity that kept growing stronger by the moment and which kept at bay the exhaustion she should have been feeling.
More than once Huld reminded herself that soon she must withdraw, soon she must go to the top of the rise and merely watch, but it was becoming harder and harder to remember why she was supposed to stop.
Surely she had always been there. Nothing could possibly have existed before. She would never stop laughing and singing and loving at the side of her Goddess. She would never leave the clearing. She would never again know pain or sadness or fear. And so it was that Huld gave herself more and more completely to the Dance of Joy, ignoring her past, uncaring about her future, too oblivious to notice that the graying, predawn sky overhead was slowly but certainly devouring the stars.
Huld danced on, eyes now staring wildly, laughing mindlessly, totally unaware that only moments remained before sunrise.
The frenzied intensity of the celebration suddenly increased tenfold. Huld gasped as she embraced and was embraced by first one then another of the revelers, whirled this way and that, back and forth from arms to arms, embraced, kissed, released, embraced again, on and on and on until a mere heartbeat before the sun broke the horizon, Huld was suddenly encircled by the arms of Freya Herself.
Pleasure and pain, love and horror, desire and despair swirled madly within Huld’s consciousness, overwhelming what little remained of her will and causing her to writhe and scream in a climax of ecstasy even as the first rays of the new day stabbed over the horizon and through the trees, ripping her soul violently away from her flesh and sanity from what was left of her rational mind.
* * *
Bloodsong had slept but little, and then only lightly during the remainder of the night, and so when Huld’s scream tore through the dawn air, Bloodsong was on her feet, sword in hand, before the scream died away. “Curse me for a fool!” Bloodsong said.
Ulfhild sprang battle-ready to Bloodsong’s side.
“Was that Huld, Mother?” Guthrun asked.
“Of course that was Huld!”
“But there could be no danger for her in Freya’s Wood, and she promised not to join the dance.”
“She didn’t even take the Freya-Sword.” Ulfhild pointed to the scabbarded weapon lying on the ground near where Huld had slept. “Do we enter the woods to search for her, Runethroat?”
“Bring her sword, Guthrun.” Bloodsong started down the hill at a run.
“There have been no more screams,” Guthrun said as she ran by her mother’s side toward the shadowy woods, clutching the scabbarded Freya-Sword in her left hand, her own drawn blade in her right. “Freya grant that’s a good sign.”
Neither Bloodsong nor Ulfhild responded, senses straining for danger. They reached the trees and plunged within the forest.
“I have her scent,” Ulfhild said, nostrils flaring. “Do you want me to take the lead, Ropebreaker?”
“My beast-senses are as sharp as yours,” Bloodsong growled, and kept in the lead.
On and on through the trees they ran, ignoring the rich beauty on all sides, thinking only of their friend, remembering the sound of her scream.
At last they came to the tunnel of bark and leaves, shadowy and threatening in the daylight, and pressed on through its twists and turns, following Huld’s scent on and on, until finally they crawled up the slope of the last rise and emerged into the circular clearing.
To one side lay Huld’s clothing.
In the center of the clearing sat an aged and rotting hut, smoke curling lazily from a smoke hole in the roof.
A tall, thin, frail-looking old man with stringy white hair and a waist-length beard stood in the doorway peering up the slope at them. “Be you the Witch’s friends?” he called. “She’s inside.”
Bloodsong and Ulfhild ran down the hill.
Guthrun quickly gathered up Huld’s clothing and followed.
Bloodsong approached the old man warily.
“Had a bit too much of the Moon, I’ll wager.” He chuckled. “Too many dances with the Fairies, is my guess.” He grinned toothlessly but carefully watched Bloodsong’s drawn sword with eyes as bright as a bird’s. “Put away your sword, woman. Tend to your friend, if that she be. I awoke to her screams, found her wondering naked in the clearing, and brought her inside. She may be all right, if she can remember who she is. It’s always that way with the ones who dance too long with the Fairies. Maybe the sound of a friend’s voice will draw her soul back to her body. Maybe not. I came here long ago. I didn’t have friends with me, and I never did remember my name. So my memories and most of my soul stays with Freya while here stay I!” He ended with a laugh that devolved into a fit of ragged coughing.
“Stand aside,” Bloodsong ordered, her sword point at the old man’s wrinkled throat. “I’ve no wish to harm you.”
He held his arms up in surrender and then stepped aside, still coughing.
“If he moves other than to cough, Ulfhild,” Bloodsong said, wrinkling her nose at the man’s unwashed scent, “gut him.”
Ulfhild smiled unpleasantly at the old man and raised her ax.
“Guthrun, stay out here until I’ve checked inside.”
Bloodsong cautiously peered into the smoke-filled hut, waited until her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light within, then stepped over the threshold.
The rotting hut was empty save for Huld. who lay naked, her eyes open and staring, upon a bed of dead leaves and grass.
Bloodsong went onto her knees by her friend. “Huld?” she called.
Huld did not stir.
Bloodsong called her name again and reached out to stroke her long blond hair.
Huld’s lips trembled slightly at Bloodsong’s touch.
“Huld,” she called again. “It’s me, Huld. Bloodsong.”
“Tell her what her name is!” the old man shouted. “And also tell this overly muscular friend of yours to quit grinning at me over her ax!”
Bloodsong glanced around the hut to make certain that no danger had appeared while her attention had been on Huld, then she set her sword to one side and grasped both of Huld’s shoulders.
“Huld,” she said loudly. “Your name is Huld. Remember, Huld. Your name is—”
“Huld?” the Freya-Witch whispered uncertainly.
“Yes. Huld!”
Huld slowly focused her eyes on Bloodsong. “Bloodsong?” she asked. “Where—” Her voice trailed away in a groan. “Oh, why did you have to come after me?” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “I can’t live like this. I can’t! I’ll go mad! Perhaps I already am!”
Bloodsong let her friend weep for a moment, then pulled Huld’s hands from her face and wiped away her tears.
“Tell me what happened, Huld,” she urged, taking hold of Huld’s hands. “It might help to talk about it.”
“Are the others here?” Huld asked, clinging to Bloodsong’s hands. “Guthrun? And—” she frowned with the effort of remembering, “Ulfhild?”
“Outside.”
�
��Call them, please?”
“I will call Guthrun, but Ulfhild will stay outside to watch the old man and warn us if danger approaches.”
“Old man?”
“Someone who found and brought you here. He says he came here long ago and forgot his name. Guthrun!” Bloodsong called, grasping her sword and standing up. “In here.”
Guthrun rushed into the hut and knelt beside Huld. “We heard your scream,” Guthrun said as she set aside the scabbarded Freya-Sword and the bundle of Huld’s clothing. She took hold of Huld’s hands.
“I don’t remember screaming,” Huld replied, “unless it was at the end when—” her voice trailed away. New tears welled in her eyes.
“When what?” Guthrun prompted. “Did you find Freya’s love-bed?”
Huld’s eyes began to glaze and stare blankly again.
“Huld!” Guthrun cried.
At the sound of Guthrun’s voice Huld closed her eyes, grimaced as if in great pain, then wiped at her tears. “I’ll tell you all I can remember,” she said, and did.
* * *
“This hut stands in a clearing such as the one you’ve described,” Bloodsong said when Huld had finished her tale.
“And we found your clothing at the top of the slope,” Guthrun noted, motioning to the bundle of clothes she’d brought into the hut; “so this clearing must be the site of Freya’s love-bed!”
“It can’t be,” Huld protested. “There was no hut here last night, unless what I experienced happened in some other time, before the hut was built. Perhaps the old man you’ve mentioned was once embraced by Freya, too, and built his hut here, unable to leave, as now am I.”
“You’re leaving with us, Huld,” Bloodsong assured her.
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