Like most people she knew, she accepted that occasionally a baby would be born who, as it grew, exhibited qualities that seemed to mark them as an ancestor returned for a new life. But she had never given the possibility of such a thing in relation to herself much thought. Now, however? Now?
If she and the young man who was eventually warped into Nidhug had been together so vastly long ago, as horrible and yet wondrous as that knowledge was, even more incredible was that, so strong had his love for her been, after all that had happened in the intervening centuries, all that he had done to others and to himself, Nidhug had still recognized her soul looking out from behind her eyes and remembered!
Lokith hissed a word of power.
Jalna again found herself paralyzed. So what? she thought. I am not my body, not my flesh. If I die, I will just come back again, forever!
Lokith shoved her onto her stomach. He quickly bound her elbows together with a thin, punishing strand of cord. That done, he removed the rope connecting her hands to her feet, tied a longer length of rope to her bound hands behind her, drew it between her legs and up to her navel, circled her narrow waist above her hips, and knotted the rope tight. Then he looped each of her slender ankles with rope and left a short length stretched from one to the other, hobbling her.
Jalna realized she was observing what he was doing as if it were happening to someone else, not even bothering to struggle. It did not seem to matter.
He pulled her to her feet and held her upright. He turned her to face Tyrulf, who still hung wounded and bleeding from Torg’s tortures.
Tyrulf! she thought. Her mind revolted against the lethargic acceptance into which she had fallen. Curse me! And curse Nidhug! It does not matter what once was or who I might once have been! And it does not matter whom I might become in some cursed future life! All that matters is now! I am Jalna Audsdaughter! I must fight to get free! Help Tyrulf who loves me now! Get to the longhouse! Find and free Bloodsong and fight—
Lokith revoked Jalna’s spell of paralysis, took away his steadying hands, and gave her a hard shove.
She stumbled forward and collided with Tyrulf. Still unconscious, his body swung from the rope around his wrists as she struggled to regain her balance. The hobbling rope tripped her, but her warrior’s agility and fast reflexes saved her from falling. She straightened. The cord cinching her elbows together and the rope bisecting her torso were scalding agonies, but her stoic expression betrayed no hint of pain. I won’t give him the satisfaction of my reacting, she decided. As much as possible, I must pretend complete indifference. But she wondered why she felt so certain that was the way to act. Another part of her longed to curse at him, spit in his face, and take the consequences.
Lokith’s eyes swept over her. “Are you trying to capture my heart, slave? Are you trying to use your beauty to make me succumb to that weakness you call love?” He laughed. “I can’t allow that, of course. It just wouldn’t do.” He drew his sword and moved the point so that it hovered near her face. “Perhaps,” he mused, “to protect myself from your inconsiderate seductiveness, I should mutilate your beauty.” He moved the blade so that the point touched her cheek, indenting her flesh. He applied more pressure.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as the pain increased but she said nothing and did not flinch.
Lokith drew back his sword with a laugh. “I will save the mutilation of your face for later. But the mutilation of other things might not have to wait.” He pressed the flat of the cold steel blade against her breasts and moved it back and forth. “Shall I turn it, slave? So that the sharp edge is against you instead?
Jalna prevented herself from looking down. She made herself fake a yawn.
“I’ll wager you are more frightened of what I could do with this blade than you seem.” He teased her with the point in one place then another.
She forced another yawn.
Lokith frowned. “I understand, I think. Your thoughts are as empty to me now as if you had no mind at all.
He cannot now read my thoughts? Jalna asked herself. That gives me an advantage! How can I best use it?
“Yes, I left you with Nidhug too long, slave. It is the best explanation. He drove you so far out of your mind that hopeless insanity has claimed you. Such a shame. Torturing a mindless thing is no fun at all.”
Was that what Nidhug intended? she suddenly wondered. Did he do something to me that gave me this advantage? Something that stops Lokith from reading my thoughts? Who better to know how to foil a torturer’s desire to inflict pain than another torturer? She felt like laughing but did not. She did, however, feel a sudden flash of warmth deep inside and remembered the face of the kind-eyed youth Nidhug once had been. My thanks, Jalna thought. Then her mind recoiled from the realization that she obviously also remembered the feel of their ancient love. Enough! she told herself. Be a love-sick idiot later! Concentrate! Find a way to defeat the monster at hand!
Lokith touched her hair, gently stroked it. “Black as a raven’s wing,” he mused. “But your mind’s completely gone.”
Yes, she thought, an empty headed fool who just might catch you by surprise!
“But you are still strong in body, and that strength is yet useful to me. Here, let me show you how.” His fingers lightly stroked her throat near the jugular.
She almost jerked away from his touch but stopped herself in time and stood passively uncaring of what he did.
“I have, for the moment, a need for a strong woman’s blood. Your blood will be a potent elixir. I only wish you had the sense left to be upset when I drink from your veins.”
Oh Gods! she thought. He’s some kind of Vampire?
He grasped her bare shoulders and pulled her nearer. The preternatural strength of his grip felt like steel.
“If your blood is as strengthening as I expect, I will take you with me when I resume my pursuit of Bloodsong and Guthrun.”
Jalna’s heart jumped faster. Bloodsong and Guthrun are free? She almost betrayed her excitement but kept herself unmoving and silent. Praise the Gods! Now there is hope indeed!
He spoke a word and she was paralyzed once more. His icy teeth touched her throat. There was a sharp stab of pain as his teeth tore through her skin.
With deep disgust, she heard and felt him sucking her blood. But she kept her thoughts on Bloodsong and remembered words she had once heard Bloodsong say.
There is always hope. Hope for freedom! And revenge.
AS THE FOUR women returned through the forest to the hill in the clearing, Bloodsong explained what she’d learned in the hut.
“But I’ve never heard of such a place, Bloodsong,” Huld complained, “and how could such a place as this Frigga’s Crag have escaped the notice of Freya-Witches? I know every site of power in this region and never have I heard of it. I know that the Mother Goddess, Frigga is a powerful Goddess and a well-known protector of beasts, and because of Who told you about this Crag, I am not saying I doubt its existence, but—”
“I have heard of such a place,” Ulfhild interrupted, “though it was not called Frigga’s Crag. Perhaps the place I heard called the Tower of Beasts is the same, and perhaps only beasts and those in whom beastbood is strong, such as we Berserkers, are normally allowed to know of it.”
“If all the lives and deaths of every beast who’s ever lived on Earth is inscribed in Runes on the Crag,” Guthrun said, “and if with each beast’s death it grows higher—”
“According to what I was told,” Bloodsong responded, “it will one day reach through the white clouds Frigga spins on Her Wheel and touch the realm of the Gods. But none of that is important to me, nor should it be to any of us. All that matters is that we are to go there and seek out the Runes of the Corpse Beasts of Hel, which will then direct us to our next goal, the Lair of the Corpse Beasts somewhere beneath the frozen wastes.”
“Corpse Beast is one of the terms you
were called on the first night we were here,” Guthrun remembered, thoughtfully fingering the Thor’s Hammer she had been given. “Was the other term, Werebeast, also mentioned?”
“Werebeast is one of the names written in Runes upon my throat.”
No one spoke, waiting for her to continue.
“Two other names are written there as well,” she went on, defying a sudden desire not to speak of it to anyone else. “Corpse Beast is written there too, and Bloodsong, as well as one other word. Orlog.”
“Orlog,” Ulfhild responded, well versed in Odinic mysteries, “is the fate of an individual, which grows out of their past deeds and those of their ancestors.”
“Does it mean, then,” Huld wondered, “that your Orlog is somehow contained in, or expressed by, the other names?”
“The Runes on the Crag may help us understand,” Guthrun suggested.
“But if they are called Corpse Beasts of Hel,” said Huld, “won’t they fight on Her side?”
Bloodsong shook her head. “I was told they would fight against Her. It was suggested that they would recognize and follow me.”
“Recognize?” Guthrun wondered. “Could it mean that your Orlog and theirs is somehow connected? I don’t see how that could be.“
“I wonder if Corpse Beast might be the proper term for your beastform, Blackwolf,” Ulfhild interrupted. “Your head becomes a nearly human skull covered with black beast-fur.”
“Ulfhild,” Guthrun cut in, seeing the expression of disgust that was growing upon her mother’s face, “I do not think Corpse Beast is a good name for what she becomes at all.”
“I am well known among my people for my ability to properly assign names,” Ulfhild said, bristling, “and I tell you that it is!”
“Except,” Bloodsong responded, “perhaps it is not repulsive enough.”
“Repulsive?” Ulfhild asked. “Surely you don’t still consider your beastform to be—”
“Just be silent, Berserker,” Guthrun snapped, then reached out and tried to take her mother’s hand, but Bloodsong pulled away.
They entered the clearing and walked up the slope of the hill.
“I should tell you all another thing,” Bloodsong said. “Shortly after I was taken to Helheim, before your birth, Guthrun, I had a nightmare. I remembered it on my ride away from Helheim, but I have not thought about it again, even when my beast-self emerged, until now, which is strange. Either I blocked the memory myself, or something else did, perhaps to prevent enemies discovering the secret. In the dream, I was a beast who led other beasts into battle. I did not want the nightmare to be a memory, but it felt like it, and now I hope it was.” She stopped and the others with her. “The Runes on Frigga’s Crag should tell me where, beneath the frozen wastes, to find my lost army, the Corpse Beasts of Hel.”
Guthrun again reached for her mother’s hand.
This time, Bloodsong grasped Guthrun’s hand and squeezed. “I want to be at the border of Freya’s Wood before sunset.” Bloodsong let go of her daughter’s hand and started walking again. “Once over the barrier, I was told that we were to head northeast, just to the right of the spot where the horizon pulses brightest with the War Skull’s purple glow. Ulfhild’s and my beast-senses are to lead us the rest of the way to the Crag, or so it was promised.”
They reached the crest of the hill where they had left their supplies.
“We will eat some food from our supplies as we walk. Lokith will probably detect our passage through the barrier of Freya-Magic at the border and immediately resume his pursuit. He will, of course, try to recapture or kill us before we reach the Crag. Hel will have continued to move closer. Tonight the northern sky will be even brighter with purple light. We must find and awaken the Corpse Beasts before She reaches their lair. How long that will be, I don’t know. Freya and Odin grant that She does not reach them first. She must not reach them first.”
They gathered up the supplies and began to walk, exchanging food and eating as they went, Huld leading the way, and before sunset reached the magical barrier that separated Freya’s Wood from the surrounding land. Seen from within the wood, it was a shimmering curtain of yellow-gold energy. A snow-covered forest showed on the other side, not the base of the vertical cliff.
“You must have been right about the barrier by which we entered transporting us elsewhere, Huld,” Bloodsong noted.
“So it would seem,” Huld agreed, “thank Freya. I didn’t relish climbing up that cliff. Nor do I relish leaving the warmth here for the cold out there.”
Bloodsong took off her sword belt and began stripping off her clothing. As soon as they were on the other side of the barrier, Ulfhild and she would be able to shape-shift once more. The Berserker, who had been walking in the summer warmth without even a cloak, was already naked and ready to shift to her beastform.
When Bloodsong’s clothing and weapons had been bundled into her cloak, Ulfhild’s ax and spear into hers, they were ready.
Huld concentrated upon erecting a magical shield to deflect Lokith’s sorcerous senses. When Guthrun’s Hel-magic began working again beyond the barrier, she would add her energy to the spell to escape his detection.
“Lokith no doubt stationed sentries around the cliff,” Bloodsong noted.
“And there’s that energy barrier of his that Huld sensed after our arrival,” Guthrun added, “and by which he’ll probably detect our departure.”
“But,” said Huld, “since we no longer seem to be in the valley encircled by the cliff, our leaving may escape his detection, at least for a while, especially when Guthrun adds her energy to my concealment spell.”
Bloodsong looked from woman to woman. “Odin and Freya, and Frigga, give us victory,” she said. “Is everyone ready?”
They nodded that they were.
Bloodsong held her daughter’s gaze a moment longer, then turned and stepped across the barrier.
A blast of freezing air took her breath away. She cursed and immediately concentrated upon shape-shifting to her beastform.
Ulfhild stepped across the barrier and took a deep, approving breath of the frigid air, then began to shape-shift, too.
Guthrun stepped across next, then Huld, clutching her Rune-staff. Both Witches cursed the sudden cold.
“Guthrun,” Huld said, shivering, “look.”
Guthrun looked where Huld was pointing, back through the barrier. They were again standing on the edge of the vertical cliff with the illusory snow-covered valley far below.
“Then Lokith no doubt will have detected our departure,” Guthrun said with a groan.
“Add your Hel-energy to my Witch-shield at once,” Huld urged. “He may know only that we’ve left, not exactly where to find us.”
Guthrun nodded and quickly closed her eyes in concentration, while nearby her mother stood again in her beastform and Ulfhild dropped to all fours as her transformation ran to completion.
* * *
The shadows in the yard of the encampment were growing long with the nearing sunset when Lokith unbarred the stable door and prodded Jalna outside at the point of his sword.
Her hands and elbows remained bound behind her, torso bisected by the rope that anchored her hands, and her ankles still hobbled by a short length of rope. Two small trickles of blood had dried on her throat where Lokith had sipped from her jugular vein. When the cold evening air bathed her nakedness, gooseflesh stood out on her exposed skin. Barefoot in the snow, she shivered.
Lokith noticed. He laughed. “Cold?”
She said nothing, but her teeth began to chatter. She pretended she did not care, tried to remain convincingly empty-headed.
He prodded her toward the central longhouse. Before he reached the door, he sent a mental summons within. The door opened, and into the yard, heads bowed in submission, came brother and sister, Mani and Sol.
Since Lokith’s r
eturn, they had lived every moment in terror that he would discover how Sol had helped Bloodsong escape, but so far all his attention had been elsewhere.
“Scrub this slave down with snow,” he ordered. “She stinks.” He chuckled.
“Yes, Lord Lokith,” Mani and Sol responded as one, then set to work while he watched.
Jalna stood shivering, pretending not to care.
“Enough,” he finally decided. “Take her inside. She needs warming up.”
Mani took hold of one arm and Sol the other.
Jalna let them guide her inside. Near the entrance, she noted a pile of confiscated weapons. Along the walls she saw friends and acquaintances bound in ropes, some of the women as naked as she. Most of the prisoners were lying unmoving with eyes closed, whether from some spell of unconsciousness or merely from normal sleep, she could not tell. Most importantly, however, she saw no guards.
“Take her near the fire,” Lokith ordered.
Jalna was walked to the fire pit in the center of the longhouse. Low flames burned within. She luxuriated in the warmth but tried to appear not to care.
The point of Lokith’s sword touched her between her shoulder blades. “You wanted to get warm? Go ahead. Get warm. Jump into the fire.”
Jalna almost glanced back at him but stopped herself. Is he serious? she wondered. Or testing me?
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