Bloodsong Hel X 3

by C. Dean Andersson

  Yngvar threw himself from the back of his horse onto Lokith’s shoulders.

  Lokith hissed a word of power.

  Yngvar tumbled through the air, crashed into the snow, and lay unmoving.

  Lokith grinned down at Thora, placed the sword’s point back on her throat.

  With a savage howl a gray wolf suddenly leapt for Lokith’s throat.

  Lokith dodged in time.

  The wolf hurtled by.

  Forgetting about Thora, his face suddenly contorted with a mixture of rage and terror, Lokith backed away from the wolf as it turned to make another run.

  Thora saw that one of the beast’s eyes blazed with white-hot light. “Odin!” she cried.

  The wolf leapt for Lokith’s throat.

  There was a blast of fiery purple light and Lokith vanished.

  Thora found that she could move. She sat up. She looked for the wolf.

  It was gone.

  She saw Yngvar struggling to get to his feet and ran to him. “It was Odin, Brother!” she told him. “Our Allfather saved us!”

  “What?” he asked, still dazed. “Really?”

  Bloodsong clawed open the soft underbelly of a monstrous spider-thing and raced for the towering War Skull, the way finally clear. A flash of purple light temporarily blinded her as she reached the Skull, and when her vision cleared, she saw Lokith grinning down at her, sword in hand. Curse me for not letting Guthrun or Jalna kill him! she thought.

  He gestured. A fire-beam shot forth.

  Bloodsong leapt aside.

  He sent another fire-beam at her then another and another.

  One grazed her left shoulder and sent her rolling, howling with agony. She recovered and set herself to evade and attack, but then she saw, through a gaping wound in his neck the light and shadow-filled emptiness within him.

  He laughed, but it was deep and inhuman, and Bloodsong recognized the sound. She had hoped never to hear it again. Fear chilled her, but she shouted with her thoughts, Curse You, Mother Hel! and leapt for Her throat.

  The Goddess gestured. A near-lethal force pounded Bloodsong to the ground.

  Stunned by the impact, suffused with the pain of broken bones and a shattered spine, able to move only her head, Bloodsong looked up.

  Hel dropped Her disguise. She towered over Bloodsong, one half of Her a stunningly beautiful woman, one half a decaying corpse.

  Laugh last, then, Hel, Bloodsong thought. Drag me back to Helheim. But spare the others.

  Even you misunderstand me, Child, Hel responded in Bloodsong’s mind. I only want—

  Two howling beasts, one with black fur, one with red, leaped at the Goddess.

  Ulfhild sank her fangs into Hel’s living arm.

  Veinslicer clawed and bit at Hel’s dead side.

  Hel sent Ulfhild hurtling away and reached for Veinslicer.

  A purple fire-beam of Hel-magic slammed into Hel’s chest. Hel howled with pain and stumbled back against the Skull.

  Ulfhild hit the snow, rolled, and recovered unharmed.

  Veinslicer broke off her attack and looked around.

  Sitting atop a madly rearing horse, her entire body blazing with purple Hel-fire, eyes staring wildly, mouth open and screaming ragged Hel-Runes, sat Guthrun.

  Guthrun raised her hands, and from them another and another and another beam of Hel-fire shot forth, the first again striking Hel to keep her disoriented, the others striking the War Skull.

  Hel looked at the War Skull and screamed in rage. The Skull’s crystalline surface was cracked. Black blood oozed forth. Hel stepped protectively in front of the crack and looked where She had last seen Guthrun, but Bloodsong’s daughter was no longer there.

  From behind the War Skull more purple Hel-fire beams struck the Skull and it shuddered. More cracks appeared, deepened, and spread.

  A blazing, yellow-gold fire-beam of Freya-fire struck the Goddess Hel.

  The screams of Hel rose to the skies.

  From Guthrun’s blazing hands more Hel-fire beams struck the Skull.

  A yellow-gold healing ray from Huld’s Rune-staff bathed Bloodsong’s broken body.

  Pain ripped through her as her injuries were healed with accelerated speed. She scrambled back to her feet and saw Hel raise Her death-hand to point at Guthrun.

  No! Bloodsong’s thoughts howled. She again threw herself at Hel.

  A dim fire-beam shot from Guthrun’s hands and struck Bloodsong in mid-leap, harmlessly throwing her away from Hel. Then, with one last scream of power, Guthrun sent a blinding streak of hissing Hel-fire smashing into the War Skull amidst its deepest cracks.

  Hel screamed as the War Skull exploded in a blast of purple energy.

  The explosion sent Bloodsong tumbling helplessly across the snow. When she stopped rolling, she lurched back to her feet and looked for Guthrun.

  Bloodsong saw a shallow crater where the Skull had been, but the War Skull itself, along with Hel, was gone. Then she saw Guthrun lying unmoving some distance away. Others were picking themselves up after surviving the blast, but Guthrun was not.

  Bloodsong reached Guthrun an instant before Huld and Ulfhild.

  Blood seeped from Guthrun’s nose, mouth, and ears, but she was still breathing.

  While Huld hastily concentrated on a healing spell, Bloodsong changed back to her human form, as did Ulfhild.

  The healing spell finished, Guthrun opened her eyes. “Did we win?” she asked. “Did it work?”

  “It worked, Daughter.” Bloodsong took Guthrun’s hands. “Thanks to you, the battle is over. Look around you. Hel’s army crumbled to dust, even the Hel-warriors, when the Skull was destroyed. Of course, I doubt that Hel was slain. I doubt that is possible. But without the War Skull, She will be weaker now. And because the Skull has been destroyed, no one can return it to Her ever again, not even for the love of a daughter.”

  Guthrun stood and looked around. She breathed deeply of the cold air, no longer tainted by the stench of death and decay. The black clouds overhead were vanishing, being devoured by golden sunlight. And Guthrun laughed.

  Jalna, Tyrulf, Valgerth, and Thorfinn rode up, jumped to the ground, and ran to Bloodsong.

  “Thanks to me?” Guthrun laughed, looking at them all, then back into her mother’s eyes. “No. I did not have the power to do what had to be done. I couldn’t tell you earlier, Mother. I couldn’t tell anyone, not even Huld, for fear that Hel or Lokith would find out by reading your thoughts. Near the Lair I nearly died, but I was strengthened when I needed it most by—”

  “Thokk?” Huld guessed. “Yes, it would make sense. I should have thought of it sooner!”

  “And Thokk or I should have suspected that Lokith’s mind was empty because Hel in disguise had replaced him. But maybe Hel cast a spell to keep us from suspecting it. I don’t know. And neither do I know why She simply didn’t attack us from behind, as She must have planned to do, instead of letting Herself be surrounded near the Skull.”

  “Gods!” Valgerth suddenly cried. “Hel used Lokith’s body? And Lokith’s body was near my children!” She turned to race for her horse, Thorfinn at her side. But before they could mount, they saw Thora and Yngvar galloping toward them.

  The children reined up, their eyes wide with excitement, quickly told what had happened, and how they and the guide wolf had chased Lokith away.

  “The wolf again,” Jalna commented.

  “And this time,” Thora added, “I saw that one, and only one, of its eyes was blazing with white light.”

  “Thora was right about Odin!” Yngvar joined in.

  Guthrun nodded. “Who but Odin could frighten Hel into abandoning Her plan to attack us from behind and send Her fleeing to Her endangered power source?”

  “And so,” Jalna said, making certain that she understood, “Odin, in wolf form, aided us in
our battle, Hel replaced Lokith before the battle even began, and Thokk, working through Guthrun, helped us destroy the War Skull.”

  “If it was destroyed,” Guthrun commented.

  “Daughter?” Bloodsong frowned. “You suspect another of Hel’s tricks?”

  “No, but, well, the Skull was just a manifestation of a Deathgate that provided a conduit to the power that lies in the Gray Between.”

  “True,” Huld agreed. “And the Gray is Eternal. Hel might find a way to recreate a new Deathgate, in time, which She has plenty of. Plus, there are legends about Deathgates existing in all the Nine Worlds. The one in Alfheim, for example, is said to have an especially intricate lunation link that phases its power to subliminally include—”

  “Does anyone other than me,” Jalna grinned, interrupting, “wish these cursedly confusing Witches would shut up?”

  Tyrulf laughed and slipped an arm around Jalna’s shoulder.

  Guthrun raised an eyebrow at Jalna. “And what about Hel’s far-famed reputation, Jalna? For having the last laugh?”

  “This time, we are laughing last, Daughter,” Bloodsong decided. “Agreed?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Bloodsong looked at Huld. “Agreed?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Agreed, Jalna?”

  “Gods, yes!” Jalna exclaimed. “I was beginning to wonder whether we had even won!” And to her mind came thoughts of Nidhug, not as what he’d become, but as the boy she’d loved so many ages ago. Would she, could she ever tell anyone about that, even Tyrulf? “I prefer victories that are determined by battle skills and steel alone!”

  “I, too,” Ulfhild agreed. “But as Odin says, you’ve won when ravens pluck out the dead eyes of your enemies.”

  “I’ve never heard that rather obvious saying before,” Huld responded. She frowned. “Is that from some obscure Berserker lore?”

  “Yes,” Ulfhild answered. “Very obscure. I just made it up.” The Berserker laughed and slapped the Freya-Witch on the back.

  “Ow!”

  Veinslicer howled a laugh.

  Ulfhild gave the Werebeast a wink.

  “There’s something else you should know, Mother.” Guthrun held Bloodsong’s gaze. “Two other souls desiring revenge on Lokith helped Thokk help me. Mani and Sol. At the encampment, they were Lokith’s Skull Slaves.”

  “And now?” Bloodsong asked. “Thokk is gone? And Mani and Sol?”

  “I think so, yes. Thokk’s powers of Hel-magic came from Hel, of course. All Hel-magic does. But Hel could project power to we humans on Midgarth, I believe, only because the Deathgate conduit we called the War Skull strengthened Her enough to do so. I can tell that my magic has vanished, at any rate, and evidently when Thokk helped destroy the Skull’s manifestation, the power it drew from the Gray Between was cut off. So, the power by which Thokk had clung to this world after her death would also have been taken away.”

  “Do you suppose,” Huld said with a shudder, “that Hel has Thokk’s soul now? Because if she does—” Huld’s voice trailed away.

  “Perhaps Freya made a place for her in Folkvang,” Valgerth suggested, “and Mani and Sol too.”

  No one spoke for several moments, then Guthrun laughed. “Don’t worry about Thokk. She would have taken everything into account. She might even have made a deal with Freya before she helped me destroy the Skull. Or made a deal with Hel to fool us all. Who knows?”

  “Or cares,” Huld added, remembering all she had suffered when she was Thokk’s prisoner. “But if Freya took her to Folkvang and I ever find out—”

  “You’ll invent new curses using other parts of Freya’s anatomy?” Bloodsong suggested.

  Guthrun shook her head. “She’s already done that, Mother. Why, I once heard her swear by Freya’s—”

  “Enough!” Huld glared at Bloodsong and her daughter for a moment, then her expression softened. “Fortunately, Freya loves willful children, like me, and all of us here who dared fight Hel and win. So, what’s next, Bloodsong? What impossible thing do you want us to help you do now?”

  Bloodsong laughed. “Just follow me out of this cursed frozen wasteland. But be warned, if follow me you do, I have every intention of avoiding any and every danger that might appear along the way.”

  “A long, uneventful, boring journey home is exactly what I had in mind.” Tyrulf responded.

  “Aye,” Jalna agreed. “Let’s go home.”

  “But where is home, Mother?” Guthrun asked. “The encampment in which we waited for this battle? Or shall we rebuild Eirik’s Vale once more?”

  “We will first honor our fallen dead at the encampment, Daughter.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I would like to go someplace new, a place with only good memories waiting to be made.” Bloodsong turned to Veinslicer.

  Will you come with me and my human allies? she asked Veinslicer with her thoughts. It is my desire that you and your people stay by my side. I will continue to need your advice and friendship. And there’s also the matter of helping you learn to transform into your human forms.

  I will come, Veinslicer replied, of course! And I will make certain that the others come, too. But, Bloodsong, how do you suppose my human form will look? I have thought about it, and I hope that it looks similar to yours, strong, beautiful, and—

  I’m not beautiful, Veinslicer. I’ve scars on my face and body from my life’s battles, my features are plain, my height makes some people uncomfortable, and—

  You are beautiful, Veinslicer insisted, and I’ll sharpen my claws on anyone who disagrees, even you!

  Bloodsong laughed. As you wish, then. I’ve no need to have your claws add to my beautiful scars.

  The Werebeasts who had mentally listened to the exchange roared a laugh.

  “You could let the rest of us in on the joke, Mother,” Guthrun remarked. She looked around at the fearsome Werebeast horde. Some were still growling laughs. “I can’t read thoughts anymore, remember?”

  Bloodsong put an arm around Guthrun’s shoulders. “It had to do with scars.”

  “Scars?”

  “And claws.”

  “Claws.”

  “Werebeast humor,” Bloodsong explained.

  Guthrun shook her head and shrugged. “Forget I asked.”

  Bloodsong pulled her daughter close. “Wouldn’t you rather discuss our new home?”

  “Yes!”

  Soon, then riding their mounts side by side and talking together, Bloodsong and Guthrun led them all away.

  Photo by Christopher Fulbright

  About the Author

  C. Dean Andersson writes Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. His day jobs (and night) have included rock band drummer, television graphic designer, US Air Force band percussionist, robotics programmer, and technical writer. His Swedish-born father inspired the Viking Age studies he uses in his tales about the warrior Bloodsong, collected in HELx3: Warrior Witch of Hel, Death Riders of Hel, and Werebeasts of Hel. He is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and was a Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award finalist for his story about a modern encounter with the Goddess Hel, “The Death Wagon Rolls on By.”

  To view cover art, for a bibliography, and other information, follow these links.

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  Wikipedia, Bathory’s “One Rode to Asa Bay,” dedicated to C. Dean Andersson in honor of Bloodsong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_rode_to_asa_bay

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