Stones of Power- Hellstone & Maelstrom

by Jenna Grey

  “It’s fine, it will take our weight,” he said, testing the spike again to make sure that it really was secure. He paused and fixed her in a hard stare. “Have you noticed?”

  Polly gave him a puzzled frown.

  “Look around on the ground,” Bert prompted. Polly did. All around were the signs of boot prints on trampled earth, and none of the prints were theirs. Polly tried to picture her uncle and Winchard here; she couldn’t imagine either of them abseiling down this sheer cliff face into the unknown. When she thought about it, though, he would never have trusted this to anyone else.

  “If Gaunt has the Hellstone, then surely he’s got the Torinstone as well?” Polly said.

  Bert shrugged.

  “Logically, yes. But we’ve been prompted to come here, so I have to believe that it’s still here somewhere. The most likely reason for your uncle not finding it is that he doesn’t even know it exists,” he replied.

  Finn had already set himself up to abseil down the side of the precipice and looked as if he’d been doing it all of his life. Polly rushed forwards and managed to kiss him before he disappeared over the edge; it was a clumsy sideways kiss because their helmets kept bumping together. She took his face between her hands and said:

  “Don’t you dare take any risks down there, just get to the bottom and call us to come down. Promise?”

  Finn gave her a sigh and a nod, crinkling up his nose in feigned exasperation.

  “Promise. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on anything, anyway.”

  She gave him a nod, and then he was gone, down and over the side. Polly rushed to the edge and watched him as he clambered down, and within a few seconds, all she could see of him was the flashlight in his hand at intermittent intervals as he bumped his way downwards.

  “I’m down,” he called up to them. “It’s very muddy down here – well, there’s nothing but mud. Just watch yourself when you get to the bottom.”

  “Off you go now, sweetheart, just take your time, and you’ll be fine,” Bert said.

  Polly drew in a deep breath and turned her back to the precipice. She could do this; she could do it. How hard could it be? She dropped down over the edge, bracing herself against the side, terrified beyond measure. She began to let herself down, tortuously slowly, pushing against the rock with her feet, the way she had seen them do it in films. Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry, but she refused to let this beat her.

  It didn’t seem to take as long as she thought it would and after only seconds, she felt Finn’s arms around her waist, helping her down the last few feet. Her feet disappeared up to her ankles in thick slimy ooze, going over the top of her boots and sliding down inside. She made some noises and curled up her nose.

  “You could have warned me,” she said. There was a strange smell, a dank and unpleasant muddiness – stagnant water and damp.

  “I told you it was muddy,” Finn said as she turned to face him and moved in for a hug. He reached up and switched on the lamp on the front of her helmet, but it shed little light. She could see nothing beyond the immediate dim circle of the flashlight and the darkness beyond made her shiver. She looked up, but all she saw was the morse-code light from Bert’s flashlight, flickering above.

  “This place gives me the creeps. I keep thinking that something is going to jump out of the dark at me,” she said.

  “Not much longer now. We’ll be out of here in no time,” Finn reassured her.

  Polly could hear Bert above, wrestling with his gear, and Polly thought that Finn should have gone up to help him, but she didn’t want to be left alone down here.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone down here,” Finn said, giving her a crooked smile.

  Bert was already halfway down, and he was shaking by the time he got to the bottom.

  “I’m too old for this sort of thing,” he said, “and I don’t want to think about getting back up again.” Polly hadn’t thought of it either.

  Finn arced his flashlight down to the sea of mud in front of them.

  “Well, let’s see what there is to see then. Be very careful where you tread because we have no idea what we’re walking on.”

  Finn switched on the metal detector and began sweeping the area directly in front of him, moving forwards with measured caution. The mud was glutinous, dragging at Polly’s feet, trying to suck her down into it – it made walking, or rather wading, nigh on impossible.

  “Do you know, artefacts from this period are very rare. Can you imagine how much potential there is here in this one site for finding enough objects to stock up an entire museum? It could have been the greatest archaeological discovery for decades.”

  “My uncle obviously doesn’t give a damn about saving treasures for humanity,” Polly said, giving a little growl of disgust. She almost lost her footing as she found a pothole, grabbing hold of Finn’s arm just in time to stop herself toppling.

  “Your uncle doesn’t give a damn about humanity – full stop,” Finn replied.

  Finn moved forwards cautiously, panning around with the flashlight and finding nothing but bare walls and rocky floor. Polly switched her light on, arcing her beam in a different direction so that they covered a larger area. She swept it around, but all she could see was mud.

  “There,” Finn called. “There’s something there.” His voice reverberated around the walls, a chilling echo.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t metal because the metal detector had remained silent. They moved across to the object, treading carefully and Polly saw what it was. It looked like a human thigh bone, protruding from the mud. Finn bent forwards and pulled it out cautiously. It came away in his hand.

  “It’s a thigh bone. Be very careful where you step from here on in,” Finn said, letting it drop back into the mud. They moved forwards again, each step placed with the greatest of care. Within seconds the metal detector began to scream at them, piercing the air with alarming violence as Finn moved it across the surface. “I think we hit the jackpot,” he said. Then came the sudden, terrifying silence as Finn hit the off switch.

  Bert reached under the surface and pulled out a filth covered object – an iron helmet, in pristine condition by the looks of it, apart from the coating of thick mud. Bert wiped some of the clay from it so that Polly and Finn could get a better look at it. It was exactly like the helmets that Polly had seen in countless photographs of modern replicas: riveted, plain iron with a nose guard. He let it drop back down, to sink back into the mire.

  “I hope to God the rest of the site isn’t all buried under mud. We don’t have time to rake through every inch of this muck,” Bert said.

  They edged forwards, each step guarded, into a wider part of the cave, and there in front of them was a sight that cramped the breath in Polly’s lungs. The entire surface of the ground was covered in bones. The skeletons lay in the same position they were in when the bodies were thrown in by whoever brought them here. They had collapsed in on themselves where the tendons and cartilage had rotted away over the years; it was the eeriest sight Polly had ever witnessed. She had seen programmes on TV of ancient sites being excavated, even one of a Viking mass grave somewhere in England, the unfortunate end for a band of Viking raiders that had fallen foul of the locals. Seeing it on a TV didn’t convey the real horror of it. There must have been forty or fifty skeletons here, many with their heads separated from their bodies; a pile of skulls lying to one side of the cavern. There were helmets and swords, the remnants of round wooden shields, long decayed, lying in amongst them – a treasure trove that poor Bram would have orgasmed over.

  “So many of them. Did they really slaughter all of these men?” Polly asked.

  “It would have been nothing to them,” Bert said. “Life was cheap in those days.”

  Polly felt something crunch under her foot and looked down to see a femur, snapped in two by her boot. She winced, remembering that had once been part of a human being, who had loved and hated, fought and died a pointless, violent death.


  “It’s hard to understand their mentality. They didn’t all die by the Blood Eagle, did they?” she asked, praying the answer was ‘no’.

  “No, sweetheart,” Bert said, “You can see, over there, the pile of skulls, some were decapitated. And there...” He crouched and pointed to a skull that clearly showed a great cleft, from front to back. “That was from an axe.”

  “Life really did seem to have been cheap to them. It’s horrible,” Polly said.

  “Sigurd is here somewhere. Better start looking,” Finn said.

  “How will we know it’s him?” Polly asked.

  “Well, we know he was a huge man, and you told us about his cheek being broken – you can see now how every single bit of information we gathered was vital,” Bert replied, tapping the side of his nose with his forefinger.

  “Oh, God, look, over there,” Finn said. Polly followed Finn’s pointing finger and saw what he’d spotted. It was another body, but this time dressed in modern clothing, jeans and a padded coat. It looked as if he had been dead quite some time. His face was upturned, his mouth open, as if he’d let out his last breath as a final scream. The front of his coat was stained black, a frame to the bullet hole that had gone straight through his heart.

  “One of Gaunt’s party?” Bert asked.

  Finn shrugged.

  “My best guess is that he was the guide that brought him here and once he was no longer needed, Gaunt got rid of him. He didn’t want to leave any witnesses behind.”

  Bert shook his head and made a strange little sign in the air.

  “Poor soul. There’s nothing we can do for him. Let’s just find what we came for and get out of here.”

  They picked their way through the bones, being very careful where they trod. Polly dipped the flashlight down on them, and she could see that some of them had large wounds in their skulls, like the first skull they had found. They had obviously been killed by a blow from an axe. At least it must have been quick.

  “We need to look for the other signs that it’s Sigurd. The ribs on his back will be smashed away from the spine,” Bert said.

  “Don’t remind me,” Polly replied. “I keep thinking that poor Liam had to feel that pain, I can’t bear to think about it.”

  “Dad, try a locator spell,” Finn suggested.

  Bert closed his eyes and mumbled something under his breath. He opened them again almost immediately, pointing to the left.

  “There, he’s over there.”

  They picked their way cautiously through the bones, and there in the corner were the remains of a large man. Polly’s heartbeat quickened, and she was overcome by the strangest sensation. For a moment she couldn’t quite understand what she was feeling. Then she understood. She was looking down not just at Sigurd’s body, but at her own body. It was the strangest sensation. Memories that weren’t hers sped through her head almost pulling her away from this reality.

  The ground was hardly muddy here, and Polly knelt in the heap of sludge covered bones. Polly wondered what would happen if she touched one of them. Did she dare? No, definitely, no.

  There was no doubt that Bert was right; the torso had fallen forwards, and the damage to the back was quite evident, the ribs had been smashed away from the spine. Sigurd’s skull had fallen the right way up, and there was the damage to the cheekbone – a nasty fracture that must have been excruciating – something Polly could testify to. Polly had only felt a shadow of it, and that had been enough. There was no doubt that these were the remains of Sigurd Thorgeirsson.

  “Poor bugger,” Finn said, “What a way to end up. He deserves a decent burial.”

  “They all deserve a decent burial,” Polly said.

  “We can never make this public; this is all the funeral they are going to get I’m afraid,” Bert said. Polly realised he was right; there were too many dark shadows hanging over this discovery.

  “You can see that his remains have been disturbed. Gaunt and his morons must have just tossed Sigurd’s bones aside, searching for the stone.” Bert was right. Sigurd’s bones had been haphazardly thrown around, his arm and leg bones in pieces, scattered around the body.

  “We can lay them in more dignified repose before we leave,” Bert said.

  Polly remembered the two pouches on Sigurd’s belt.

  “Look around for a pouch, a leather pouch. Remember what Sigurd said – the two stones could never be kept together – that’s why Gaunt didn’t find it.”

  “It’s got to be under the mud somewhere,” Finn said, plunging his hands into the glutinous mess and groping around.

  Polly began searching around on the still muddy floor, running her fingers through the slurry in case it had slipped beneath the surface. She pulled out handfuls of worms and squealed in disgust.

  “It would help if we knew what it looked like,” she said.

  But even before the words had left her lips, her hands closed over something long, flat and hard. It had to be a sword hilt. She pulled it out from the sucking mud with difficulty and wiped the mud from it. There, set in the handle, was a large red stone, not a glittering jewel, but a red, slightly veined stone, that looked like blood.

  “I think I’ve found it,” she said. As she closed her hands over the sword hilt, she left the world.

  Polly had no idea what was happening to her. She was in so much pain; it made it hard to focus on reality, any reality. Her eyes were almost closed where she’d been beaten so badly, her whole face and body one great mass of pain. Her back was an agonising knot where she’d been bent over for so long in a cage. There were flaming torches all around that almost blinded her; she was being herded forwards, her hands tied behind her back. Around her there were men and women, screaming for her blood. It didn’t matter to her – it would be over soon, and she would be in Valhalla with her son, Bragi. She knew that she was still Polly, but she was Sigurd too, and she tried to hang onto her belief that none of this was real. But it was real, and she knew what was going to happen to her.

  She fell, landing hard on her knees, but was pulled up again, strong arms under hers. They hauled her along, her feet dragging on the ground. She pushed away the fear, refusing to let it take hold, but Polly wanted to be afraid, even if Sigurd was resisting it. The Polly part of her was pleading with Finn to take the sword from her hand, but she couldn’t make her mouth form the words. Someone was trying to prise her fingers open, but they were locked tight around the sword hilt, refusing to let go. She felt herself being pushed downwards over a log and her arms stretched out on either side. Then there was agony so great it consumed the whole world. She arched her back in a contorted spasm as nails were hammered between finger bones, pinning her to the wood. She couldn’t scream because Sigurd wouldn’t scream. He pulled the scream back inside himself, biting down hard to stop it escaping. If he were going to die, he would die like a warrior, not an old woman.

  Polly felt the burning blade parting the flesh of her back, a straight line downwards from top to bottom and screamed inside, even though no sound came from her mouth. Other cuts followed, and the flesh was peeled back, ripped from her bones. Sigurd clamped his jaws together and refused to give in to the scream that wanted so desperately to escape. If he didn’t scream, he would still be admitted to Valhalla, proof that he was a warrior and deserving of a place at the Allfather’s table. Then the pain filled the whole world, and she had no idea if she screamed or not, because it didn’t matter any more. She just wanted it to be over; he wanted it to be over to be with Bragi and his wife, Inga. Polly slipped into blissful darkness, and it was the end of her world, of Sigurd’s world.

  She was in Finn’s arms again. Not quite back to reality. Her back hurt so badly, the echo of what had been and she was sobbing, hardly able to catch her breath. Her whole body was wracked with unimaginable pain.

  “Just lie still, don’t try to move,” Finn said. “It’s over now.”

  “It hurts,” she said, “it hurts.”

  She felt something small and hard push
ed into her hand.

  “Here, take these, some codeine. I brought them along in case any of us got injured,” Bert said. “Take a couple extra, to hell with your liver.”

  “No wonder Liam had to bail out. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” Polly said, her teeth chattering so violently she couldn’t unscrew the lid from the water bottle. Finn took it and did it for her.

  “We could see what you were going through. I tried to pull you out of it, but you were under too deeply,” Bert said. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, downing three codeine and damning the consequences. “We’ve found the Torinstone. What have you done with it?”

  “It’s safe. I just hope it was worth it,” Finn said. “You’re not going to feel well enough to get back up that cliff face just yet. I’m going to go back up and see if I can’t rig up some sort of pulley for you and Bert. I can use the Rover to act as a hoist.”

  Bert slipped his arm around Polly’s shoulders.

  “She’ll be fine down here with me. You go and do something clever, my boy.”

  Polly and Bert found a rock to perch on, while Finn made his way back up the side of the pit. Polly took off her silly helmet and rested her head on Bert’s shoulder, taking a great deal of comfort from his nearness. He sat, holding her hands in his and whispering comforts to her, which floated over the top of her and didn’t make her feel any better, despite his best intentions. Images kept flashing through her head like lightning strikes, not just Sigurd’s memories, but blinding bursts of memories from all of the dead around her and she couldn’t shut them out no matter how hard she tried. There was so much pain and misery trapped in this pit that it screamed out to her, jangling her nerves and making her feel as if someone was trying to scrape the meat from her bones.

  Polly looked up, staring at the sight in front of her, not believing what she was seeing. A large man, dressed in rough hessian, a wolf pelt draped around his shoulders, his broken face covered by a helmet just like the one they had found earlier. Bert seemed utterly unaware that anything was going on.