“I can’t. You don’t know what it’s like to experience what I did, and to know to the depths of your soul that you can never experience it again. The pain of the loss is so vast, that I—”
“We’ll carry you kicking and screaming from here if need be,” Bloodsong interrupted, “but leave here you will.”
“Aye, Huld,” Guthrun agreed. “You must. We all need you. I need you. As Hel draws nearer I’ll need you to help me keep hold of my soul.”
“My soul was ripped from my flesh when She touched me,” Huld whispered, remembering. New tears streaked her cheeks. “Would that you had never called me back to my flesh,” she said to Bloodsong. “I can’t leave here now. I can’t!”
“Give her the clothing, Guthrun,” Bloodsong ordered. “She’s going to get dressed, and she’s going to come with us.”
Guthrun picked up the clothing, but suddenly it crackled with flickering, golden fire. Guthrun cried out in surprise and dropped it back to the floor.
The clothing had changed.
“Huld?’” Guthrun said wonderingly, cautiously picking the bundled clothing up for the Freya-Witch to see. “Are these what I think they are? If so, I would say that Freya wants you to leave and do battle with Hel, wouldn’t you?”
Huld reached out a shaking hand and touched the clothing.
“There must be some mistake—”
“Try them on, Huld,” Guthrun urged anxiously.
“I can’t! I’m not worthy to—”
“Put them on,” Bloodsong ordered, growing impatient. “Freya wouldn’t have given them to you if She didn’t think you were worthy to wear them. Hurry and dress, then we must be on our way. I want to get back to that hill in the clearing. I’m growing more and more uneasy here by the moment.”
“Please, Huld?” Guthrun said. “Try them on?”
Huld hesitated a moment longer. “Freya’s Teats,” she muttered.
Guthrun grinned.
“What’s so funny, Brat?”
“You haven’t called me that in years,” Guthrun noted, still grinning.
“You haven’t been one in years.”
“Sure I have! Dress!”
Huld got to her feet, took the clothing from Guthrun, and, weeping silent tears, began to dress herself in the ritual clothing of the highest station to which a Freya-Witch could aspire, the clothing of a High Priestess of Freya.
HULD EMERGED from the hut into the sunlit clearing, Guthrun and Bloodsong following.
When the old man saw Huld, his eyes grew wide with recognition of what the clothing she wore meant. He grinned a toothless smile in approval and then gave her a respectful bow.
Over a green robe, Huld wore a blue mantle fastened with leather straps and decorated with sparkling stones. Around her throat rested a necklace of shimmering amber and gold. On her head she wore a black hood lined with white fur. On her hands were white leather gloves, white fur turned to the inside. On her feet were ankle-high, soft-soled boot-shoes of white leather fastened with long, thin laces and large tin buttons.
“You need a staff,” the old man said. “I have one in my hut, and I want you to have it, if,” he added, eyeing Ulfhild’s ax, “I might be allowed to get it?”
“Let him go, Ulfhild,” Bloodsong decided. “I will follow him inside.”
“I’ll go too, in case he tries some trick.”
He laughed. “There were days in my youth when I’d have been glad to play with you, my well-muscled beauty.”
Ulfhild growled low in her throat.
He laughed again.
When the three went into the hut, Guthrun came close to Huld. In her hands she carried the scabbarded Freya-Sword.
“No more tears, Huld. Please? You shouldn’t weep, not looking so beautiful and so strong.”
Huld took Guthrun’s hand. “I know better now what you’ve been suffering, although, of course, in a different way. It’s not easy to keep hold of this world when your soul has been touched by a Goddess. And yet, in another way, it anchors me here even more! It is a paradox to drive a mortal insane!”
“Remember the things you’ve taught me, Huld,” Guthrun urged. “We’ll help each other now. Agreed? It will give me a chance to pay back all l owe you.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“Except my sanity and soul? Now wipe away your tears. A High Priestess of Freya does not cry!”
“Don’t call me that, Guthrun. I’ve not had the long training required, nor passed the initiation tests, nor—”
“Huld!” Guthrun exclaimed, “shut up! You have danced with Freya Herself! And she changed your clothing into that which you now wear! You are a High Priestess, and by Freya’s own hand!”
Huld nodded. “I know, but it’s hot easy, I mean, it’s so hard to accept, so hard to believe that it really happened at all. Yet here I stand, feeling as I do, and dressed like this.”
Inside the hut, the old man rummaged around in a wooden bin along one wall. “I know I put it here,” he mumbled. “If only I could find it, you’d see what a lovely staff it is. If only, no, wait, here it is!” he suddenly exclaimed. He jerked a staff from the bin.
Ulfhild raised her ax. “Move suddenly like that again, old man,” she growled, “and you’ll be without your head.”
The wooden staff, Runes carved into its entire length, had a brass knob studded with a magically significant variety of colored stones. He set it to one side and started rummaging in the bin again.
“Enough,” Bloodsong told him. “We have the staff. Back outside.”
“In a moment, impatient one,” he muttered. “There’s something here for you, too.”
From within the bin he slowly and reverently Iifted a magnificent, double-edged sword, its gleaming blade carved with Runes near the hilt, a Sunwheel sacred to Odin carved on the pommel.
“Worth waiting for, wouldn’t you say?” He laughed, then handed it to her.
She took it in her left hand, keeping hold of her other sword in her right.
He began rummaging in the bin once more. “I have something for you, too, ax-wielder,” he told Ulfhild, and, a moment later brought out a sturdy-shafted spear with a Rune-engraved steel tip.
Ulfhild took it in her left hand.
“Only a moment more,” he promised as he began searching within the bin yet again.
“There’s sorcery at work here,” Ulfhild complained to Bloodsong. “What tricks are you playing, old man? This spear is too long to have fit in that bin!”
He ignored her and, a moment later, turned toward them clutching several objects in his hands. “May I go back outside now?” he asked Bloodsong.
Bloodsong nodded and motioned toward the doorway with her old sword.
He took the other objects and the staff and shuffled out the door.
When they were outside again, he walked to Guthrun and handed her a massive silver medallion on a heavy chain. “To protect you and give you strength,” he told her with a wink. The medallion was a Hammer of Thor upon which had been engraved a Sunwheel surrounded by the likenesses of ravens and wolves.
He next gave the staff to Huld.
“There’s great power in this staff,” Huld said, reverently stroking the Rune-carved wood. “Where did you get it, old one? From some High Priestess who had come here to die? No common Witch could have charged it with the power I feel throbbing within.”
“Who carved and charged the staff I cannot say,” he replied. “I found it when I first came here, in the center of the clearing, the morning after I danced too long and forgot my name. I have always liked to think that Freya left it for me, though it was probably left by a former visitor, perhaps as a token of thanks for a Moondance. I built my hut where I found it. But now it is yours.”
“My thanks,” Huld said, clutching the staff to her. “I think it will help me stay
in this world and fight Hel.”
“Then I am glad I remembered having it,” he responded sincerely.
“And these other treasures?” Guthrun asked, looking down at the Hammer, which now rested over her solar plexus on its chain. “Did you find them here, too?”
“I think that I brought these other things with me when I came here years ago,” he told them. “Yes, I’m nearly certain they were once mine, whoever I was. But now they are yours, and for two of you, these as well,” he added, looking down at the two objects still remaining in his hands, two small silver ingots. He solemnly handed one to Ulfhild and one to Bloodsong.
An old tradition held that edged weapons exchanged between friends would sever the bonds between them unless paid for. Often, the giver included a small bit of silver or gold with the weapon. If the recipient did not give the token payment back, it signified a desire for the bonds between them to be severed.
Ulfhild stepped forward without hesitation and faced him. “I may never see you again, old one,” she said, “whoever you might be, sorcerer or not, but I shall treasure this spear and I thank you for it.” She handed him back the silver ingot. “May there be unsevered bonds between us.”
The old man took the silver ingot and then looked questioningly at Bloodsong.
Bloodsong studied his face carefully for several moments more, then tucked the token payment under her weapon belt.
“Bloodsong!” Ulfhild cried, deeply shocked.
“Why, Mother?” Guthrun asked.
The old man grinned. “You suspect the truth about me and wish the bonds between us to be severed,” he said, then chuckled. “Your defiant blood has been a delight to me for many centuries, proud one. Come with me into the hut. I have something to tell and show you alone.”
“Into the hut alone?” Ulfhild laughed. “That’s not very likely.”
“Go to the top of the rise and wait for me there,” Bloodsong quietly told them all. “I will go with him into the hut.”
“No!” Ulfhild cried. “He’s a sorcerer of some kind, or at least mad, from the way he talks, and I won’t allow you to—”
“Ulfhild,” Bloodsong interrupted firmly, “take Huld and Guthrun to the top of the slope.”
“It will be all right,” Huld assured the Berserker, touching her arm. “I think I know what he wants to do, and it will be for the best, for all of us.”
“Then let him do it outside, here in the sunlight in plain view,” Ulfhild insisted. “No good will come of this, Blackwolf. I’ve never known you to take such foolish chances!”
“Ulfhild,” the old man said without looking at her, “do as your leader desires.”
Something in his voice chilled the Berserker, but she suddenly found her distrust fading away. She hesitated and stubbornly resisted a moment longer, suspecting that he was working a spell of some kind on her, then cursed, turned, and started up the slope, Guthrun and Huld in her wake.
“Her blood will not be on my conscience if she does not come out of there alive,” the Berserker complained as they neared the crest of the rise.
Bloodsong followed the old man into the hut, then stood facing him silently, a sword in each hand, their points toward the floor, and while he studied her face intently with his bright, birdlike eyes, she struggled to conceal her emotions, determined that he was not going to see any evidence of foreboding and fear.
* * *
“Stop pacing, Ulfhild,” Huld urged from where she sat cross-legged on the ground, hugging the Rune-staff to her as if it were a child. Guthrun stood by her side, one hand resting on her shoulder.
“It’s been too long,” Ulfhild growled. “If he harms her, I’ll—”
A lone figure appeared in the doorway of the hut and staggered into the sunlight.
“It’s Bloodsong!” Ulfhild cried, and started running down the slope.
Guthrun and Huld followed closely behind.
Ulfhild stopped when she reached Bloodsong and slipped an arm around Bloodsong’s shoulders to steady her. “What did he do to you?” she demanded. “I’ll take his head from his shoulders if he—”
“I am not injured,” Bloodsong interrupted, “and I do not think even you, Ulfhild, could claim His head.”
“Mother?” Guthrun asked in concern as she came up to Bloodsong and Ulfhild.
“I’m all right, Daughter,” Bloodsong answered.
“And,” Huld said hesitantly, “did He read the Runes?”
“Aye,” Bloodsong replied.
“Runes?” Ulfhild asked.
“The Runes upon my throat.”
“He did not look like a Rune-master to me,” Ulfhild frowned.
“Ulfhild,” Bloodsong answered, steadily holding the Berserker’s gaze, “He is the one Who placed them there.”
The hut in the clearing shimmered for a few heartbeats and then suddenly vanished without a sound, while high overhead, an eagle and two ravens momentarily circled the clearing, then flew rapidly away out of sight to the north.
“He couldn’t have been Odin,” Ulfhild protested, visibly shaken. “He had two eyes.”
“No, Ulfhild,” Bloodsong answered, “he did not, not really. Just before I left him in the hut, he dropped his disguise. What I saw lasted only a moment, then He laughed and vanished.”
Bloodsong trembled slightly at the memory, then took several deep breaths and fought to bring her emotions back under control.
“Did you return the silver ingot?” Ulfhild asked after a long pause, her voice subdued.
“There are unsevered bonds between us.” Bloodsong took another deep breath and turned to Huld. “As soon as we’ve returned to the other clearing, you will guide us from these sacred woods. It is time to continue on. Because of what I was told in the hut, we now have new goals, but not much time to reach and use them if we are to have a fighting chance of stopping Hel. Now, let’s get moving. Back to the other clearing and our supplies,” she ordered, heading up the slope toward the opening of the tunnel-like passageway through the trees, her steps growing firmer and more steady as she walked. “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned about our goals, and about myself, as we go.”
Huld and Guthrun were the last to enter the passageway, but just before Huld did, she turned and looked back at the clearing.
Her eyes filled with new tears. She stood trembling, tried to turn and go, discovered that she could not. I can’t leave! she thought with a rising panic. I can’t!
“Huld,” Guthrun said, touching her arm. “You must come with us, please? I need you with me, Huld. We all do. Take my hand.”
Huld squeezed Guthrun’s hand.
“Here.” Guthrun held out the Freya-Sword. “Put on your sword and let’s go. Okay?”
Huld hesitated only a moment, then nodded, buckled the swordbelt around her High Priestess robes, clutched her Runestaff to her, determinedly wiped at her tears, turned, and then, with a curse but without another backward glance, plunged into the shadowy tunnel, Guthrun close behind.
SHORTLY BEFORE dawn, Lokith and the men with him reached the encampment. By then, his weakness had become so great that it was all he could do to merely cling to his saddle.
He had immediately taken blood from a female prisoner in the longhouse, then collapsed into a short, strengthening sleep that lasted until the sun had risen well above the horizon. The first face he saw upon awakening was that of Torg Bloodear.
Though Torg concealed well his fear, Lokith immediately probed Torg’s thoughts and learned all that had happened.
“Lord Lokith,” Torg bowed stiffly, “there was an attempted escape while you were gone, and—”
“And in spite of finding tracks outside the encampment, you’ve as yet only recaptured the two who remained within the walls,” Lokith finished for him as he rose to his feet.
“Aye, Lord Lokith. The men who went
after the other four have not returned, although I expected them before now.”
“Your thoughts tell me they were on Hel-horses. A Death Rider was not with them to create shielding clouds. Their mounts have been destroyed by now and they are afoot, if they’re still alive.”
“Yes, Lord Lokith,” Torg answered, disgusted to hear his voice trembling slightly with fear.
“You were wise not to kill the ones you recaptured, Torg. I wish that pleasure for myself, while Bloodsong watches. Now, take me to them.”
Anxious to please, hating himself for being so subservient but still terrified of what Lokith might do to him for allowing four to escape, Torg hurriedly led the way from the longhouse and to the stables. After punishing JaIna and Tyrulf in various ways in the smithy, they had been moved into the stables so that they would not freeze to death in the frigid night air.
Torches flickered inside. Guards Torg had left there stood and saluted Lokith.
Jalna hung from a ceiling beam by a rope that chewed into her wrists. Dark bruises and streaks of blood marred her bare skin. Tyrulf hung nearby in much the same state. Both were unconscious.
“Do you wish to continue serving me as a breathing warrior, Torg?” Lokith asked conversationally as he studied Jalna’s and Tyrulf’s wounds, “or would you prefer to become one of my Death Riders? Four corpse-warriors have been lost to me since coming here, and I could use replacements.”
“I wish to continue as I am, Lord Lokith,” Torg stammered, fists clenched with fear at his sides.
“We shall see,” Lokith replied, tracing a deep cut that ran down the back of Jalna’s right thigh. “Perhaps you may do so, if you bring me the other four prisoners before sunset.”
“I will lead another search party to look for them at once, Lord Lokith,” Torg assured him. “If you are not coming with us to generate shielding clouds, we will use captured horses stabled in the shell of the burned-out longhouse. I assure you that the other four will again be your prisoners by sunset. May I have your leave to go?”
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