by Derek Nelsen
Kiara pulled out her filthy little soul. She didn’t trust the troll, but the Viking and the dwarf were tied up. She had to try.
She took the chain from around her neck and wrapped it around her wrist, then slipped the ring down the length of handle. It locked into place at the base of the hammer. The handle seemed to bend itself to lock the ring tightly into place. The female draugr who’d been harassing Svikar grabbed at Kiara’s left arm. Its thorny grip sent searing pain to her shoulder, and she reacted by swinging the hammer down on the draugr. If it had been an axe, she’d have cut its arm off, but instead, the hammer buried it deep into the stone floor. With the weight of her soul, the hammer had an unnatural power. Kiara looked at her cracked little ring, and for the first time, realized there was power in it.
Svikar’s draugr retreated. “If you want to stop a draugr, you’ve got to get their soul away from the vine.” She heard Slegge cursing—something about draugar and candle wicks.
The dwarf growled at the vine as he finally got his torch into it, as if he didn’t realize fire burns both ways. Once he got it to light, the vine let go so fast it made a crack like a whip. Its soul ring sang as the dry tendril drew it up and away from the flame. Before the vine got away, Slegge warmed his hands by the fire. But the other draugar in the line panicked, slashing at the burner with their thorny fingertips to prune it before it set them all ablaze like a fire running a fuse.
“Tor”—Kiara refocused her efforts on Runa—“I’ve got to do this now.” She swung the hammer hard. This time a new force propelled the hammer through, ripping Runa out of shape as it passed through her wriggling mass, sinking deep into the wall.
Kiara fell away as a chunk of stone the size of a bull crashed to the floor, burying half of Runa’s vine down under it. The impact sent out a small crack the length of the floor, separating Hella from her throne. The demon stopped smiling.
Tor was dragged down onto the boulder amidst his draugr wife—who had become nothing more than a writhing, roiling, and firmly trapped vine. Kiara lost some skin when she yanked her arm and the hammer out of the confused vine’s grip. As much as Runa tried, she could not keep her. Tor looked like the wall caving in had woken him from a trance, and with a few quick jerks, he broke away from Runa’s tentacles—bloodied but free.
False arms formed and reached out. Claws scratched floor to be freed from the weight of the stone. No luck. Then the thing probed the floor’s new crack as if seeking a place to hide. Still no luck.
Tor looked horrified, and the weed seemed to notice. It tried to recoil back into a form more like Runa, but at least half of it was sticking out from the other sides of the stone. The side next to Tor had enough to form a chest, a head, and a piece of an arm. The rest of the weed kept on slithering, making Runa’s draugr look like it was crawling out of a den of snakes.
Two obsidian eyes looked as trapped and pathetic as the naked vine—helpless, hopeless, and scared.
Tor looked like he wished he didn’t recognize her.
While the thing reached helplessly toward her husband on one side of the rock, the rest of her gathered together and slithered off in the opposite direction, probing around the rubble.
“Tor!” Kiara tried to get his attention.
He turned to her and raised his sword. Reflexively, Kiara raised the hammer, not sure what she would actually do with it but keenly aware that she and it had brought down the stone wall that now trapped his wife. Tor had a defeated look and let the anger fall from his face. Ignoring Kiara and the hammer, he turned back to Runa, sad, as if searching to see if there was something else that could be done.
Kiara decided to let him be. He would have to figure that out for himself. She watched as the part of Runa Tor couldn’t see sniffed around the dirty floor until it found its missing gold coin, the final offering Runa held in her soul for this very day—to pay homage to the gods and to buy her way to a better afterlife.
The slithering side of Runa managed to free enough of itself to nudge the little gold coin all the way to lady Hella’s feet. Along the way, it followed the part of Hella’s necklace she’d left strewn along the floor, slipping in and out of its rings as if to bind itself to its master.
But Runa fell short, unable to elevate the gift to Hella’s knees. Hella smiled as it tried but wasn’t even willing to stoop to accept it. The vine pulled and pulled but just couldn’t make it, so it left the offering on the ground next to Hella’s perfect toes, even remembering to flip it over to hide Freyja’s likeness.
Runa, who had been trying to kill her husband minutes earlier, had lost all aggression. The vine was beaten, trapped, and at the mercy of those around her.
Gently, it wrapped itself around Hella’s ankle, probing and stroking as if to gain favor, like a servant kissing her master’s feet. The tip of the weed bore Runa’s soul, plated in fine yellow gold, bright and reflecting.
Hella paid Runa’s advances no mind. With a shift of her left foot, the demon stepped on the snake, crushing its head and pinning its offering, and its soul, to the ground. Runa didn’t struggle or pull away. Instead, she seemed to accept her judgment.
With a crunch of the serpent’s head, Hella stepped toward Kiara. Tor raised his sword. The goddess smiled and circled, corralling them around the table toward the wall of vines, a prickly veil separating them from the abyss.
“Wait, don’t leave me ‘ere.” Svikar’s eyes were trained on Hella’s thirsty-looking draugar. “I don’t want to be left again,” he pleaded.
As Tor nudged Kiara around the table, he kicked the troll’s head toward the dwarf as he passed. The crunch sounded like it loosened some of Svikar’s teeth, and he flipped nose over ear under the table like a lopsided gourd.
Svikar painted the floor with long licks from his tongue as a sort of makeshift brake as he skidded toward the abyss.
On the other side of the table, the dwarf seemed to have finally found his ring. Seeing its swirling colors in the torchlight, Kiara couldn’t believe it took him so long amongst the gawdy gold and silver rejects the lady’d scattered across the floor.
Without lowering his gaze, the dwarf dropped the sole of his boot on the troll’s cheek, stopping it just short of the abyss.
The draugar dutifully followed the lady as she pushed Tor and Kiara around the table toward the dwarf. Farther from the door. Farther from escape.
Hella closed her eyes, and the room began to spin and shift; another part of the illusion gave way. The lady stood in front of a clearly visible arched wooden door—the exit Tor had so desperately searched for but just couldn’t seem to find. It was too late for that now. Tor was already steadying his feet, trying to hold on to every foot of solid ground. It was hard to tell what rattled him more, the heights behind the curtain, or Hella and her draugr.
Though the air was cool, sweat soaked the hair along the back of his neck. His eyes looked wild when looked over his shoulder. Then he stopped backing away. Widening his stance, he planted his feet and raised his sword up high.
“Lady, I will go no further.” The tip of his sword shook ever so slightly, showing this to be a stand of desperation.
Slegge pocketed his ring.
Kiara raised the hammer.
Hella was the only beautiful thing left in the hall, but even that wouldn’t last. Kiara gasped when the lady dropped the last veil and let them see the true nature of their circumstances.
Her pale, white skin glowed blue and slithery wherever it was touched by shadow. In the dark, she was ragged, bleak, and grim, a true queen of the lost souls deceived into her eternal service. A glimmering mother of the common draugar swarming together in her wake.
Kiara gagged, as the very air took on the rank, putrid smell of death. A cold shiver climbed Kiara’s back, like the touch of a thousand spiders, and for the first time since they were sacrificed, she could see her own breath.
With her deception withdrawn, Hella’s necklace, too, shone clearly. The ornate rings of the fallen not only decora
ted her long neck, but twisted down along the stone floor then up through the headpiece of the throne before pouring over the ledge and down into the abyss.
Hella was as much a prisoner as they were, only she had power, and she kept coming. Her fingernails dragged across the table as she rounded a corner. There was no barrier except Tor and his sword to keep Hella and her draugar from pushing them into the abyss.
Slegge stopped. He’d gotten to the edge. There was no way he could fit behind Hella’s massive throne without disturbing the curtain of death weeds. Kiara was probably the only one who could squeeze through there.
Kiara was about to start climbing up over the table when the stout dwarf gave the throne a shove. She wasn’t even sure why he tried. Everyone knew mortals couldn’t bear another’s soul unless it was given in life or lost in death.
Slegge couldn’t move that chair—the same way Vidar couldn’t pick up Erik’s ring in the village hall.
There was something though, because when the dwarf shoved the throne, Hella stopped, and her twisted stare showed a new emotion—fear.
The goddess forced a smile as the dwarf rubbed his hands together. Her chair was icy cold.
“I’ll give it to you if you like. It’s worth more than its weight in gold, or gems, or whatever else dwarfs waste their lives digging up.” She took a step closer, but Tor stopped her with the point of his sword. “Kill the girl for me, and I’ll give it to you.”
The chill in the air grew colder.
“How about you, Norseman? Sacrifice her to me, and I’ll make sure your soul finds its way to Valhalla.”
Kiara looked up at the powerful man, sword clenched tightly in his fist. Surely, he wouldn’t. Not now.
“In life, Orri begged Odin’s favor,” breathed Tor, “and he ended up no different than my wife—a woman who’d never raided anything more than a chicken coop.” He clenched his teeth as he pointed toward Runa, a trapped, shape-shifting vine.
“Orri was no warrior.” Hella put her finger on Ice Breaker’s tip. “Not like you.” Was she flirting? “Besides, it’s too late for them—but it’s not too late for us.”
Tor grabbed Kiara by the arm and pulled her close.
“What is it about this girl, that you would bribe us to kill her?” Tor’s grip loosened. “And who would be next, me or the dwarf? Why don’t I just kick the troll over the edge while I’m at it—save the last of us the trouble?”
“Would you, a mortal, soul-less man, refuse mercy again?” Hella jerked hard on her necklace, but the chain snagged, and the throne rocked forward. “I only dared condemn the guilty—and for that I was exiled here by God. Do you think you deserve anything less?”
“My wife was a devout follower of the gods and look what that got her.”
Hella jerked the ring of the closest draugr, sending a ripple through their ranks. “Do you think these pathetic souls forgot to make their sacrifices?”
“I’m done trying to buy your favors. If I didn’t earn Odin’s protection after every terrible thing I did in his name, then I will renounce him unto my dying breath.” Tor stepped toward the lady. “I will make no sacrifices to you or any god if this is the reward you offer.”
Svikar just grumbled from his place under Slegge’s boot.
“Take your ring off the hammer, then give it to me, lass.” Slegge whispered to Kiara. “The Viking and I will handle this.”
Kiara finished her silent prayer, then whispered something to Tor. He shook his head.
Kiara raised the dwarf’s hammer, kissed her ring that was banded around its neck like a striated decoration, and stepped up next to Tor.
Hella’s eyes narrowed, and her features tensed. Raising her sword higher, the lady took a step backward.
Like a child stepping out on the ice for the first time, Tor lowered his body and slid back toward the precipice—and the throne. His breathing was heavy, sending white clouds of fear rolling over Kiara’s shoulder.
“Tor,”—Kiara stepped back—“you’ve got to do it now.”
The lady slithered forward toward Kiara.
Tor stood up straight, then stabbed Ice Breaker down through one of the rings of Hella’s necklace as it passed out of the back of her throne. He let his body collapse to the floor and immediately started crawling back away from the abyss.
“You’re not so bright, are you, Christian?” Hella mocked. The gold and silver rings of her chain kept time—click, clack, click—as she reeled in her necklace, until it was piled up at her feet. “Don’t think it’s long enough to reach you?” With Hella’s final tug, Kiara could hear Ice Breaker knock against the back of the throne. “I can still reach any place in this hall.” Hella’s perfect figure gave way to lumps, like random knots popping out on a skinny tree. Something began shifting from side to side under her gown, like a dog’s nervously wagging tail, and her face grew ugly and sinuous. “No mortal soul escapes the pain of death!” hissed the hag.
“But not every soul goes to Hella!” Kiara screamed as she sent the dwarf’s hammer crashing into the back leg of Hella’s throne.
The leg bent inward, crippling the chair and sending it backward until it flipped through the veil and down into the abyss.
Hella’s jaw dropped as the slack in her chain spiraled off toward the brink. She stabbed sharp fingernails from one hand into the tabletop and grabbed the throat of one of her draugr with the other.
The rings of Hella’s leash thundered as they passed, cutting a narrow trench into the ledge like a saw. Kiara watched the crippled throne disappear into the darkness, then felt a tug on her ankle. It was Tor, lying flat on his stomach, jerking her away from the abyss, as if he couldn’t stand to see her so close to the edge.
Hella let out a shriek of terror just before her lovely necklace finally struck taught. The speed of her departure cracked her body like the tip of a whip. Her face mirrored the terror of the draugar as the shock jerked her and them in succession over the edge and down into the darkness.
The draugar unwound like she’d pulled a piece of yarn out from a series of loosely-knitted soldiers. Every time the tension hit a draugr, whether fashioned as a man, woman, or dwarf, they would be strung out into a rope that would unwind the next and the next and the next until the last in line cracked like a whip as it was jerked over the edge.
One after the other they unraveled, each making a twanging sound like a plucked string before unwinding the next. The rings couldn’t keep up with the speed of the serpents’ retreat, and were left spinning on the stone floor, likening Hella’s exit to that of a spoiled child, scattering her toys in a tantrum after being sent to her room by her father. The final trace of her was her sword, left spinning on its tip like a top.
“Mmmph!” came a muffled, gravelly voice from the void.
“Owww! You stupid troll.”
“Mmmph!”
The muffled groans snapped Kiara back to the present. The table was missing, as were many of the chairs.
Tor still had a strong grip on Kiara’s ankle. His face was buried in the stone floor, and his free hand clung to the edge of a cobble stone as if the floor had tilted toward the abyss during Hella’s descent.
The curtain of vines hung peacefully, pulsing their pale phosphorescent blue light.
Kiara helped Tor to his feet, then fell into his arms.
“Are you alright?” He was still shaking, but he was strong, and suddenly, she felt overwhelmed. The fear and the anxiety and the anger filled her heart till it burst, and her eyes filled with tears. She clung to Tor like the last time she hugged her father. “I want to go home.”
Dwarf Fishing
“If you break skin, I’m going to put my other boot right across your big, ugly nose!” Slegge’s angry voice thundered up from the abyss.
“Mmmph!?”
Tor pulled Kiara back gently by her shoulders, but he took no steps closer to the ledge. “Is that you, dwarf?”
“Down here.”
“Mmmmmmmph!”
&nbs
p; “Give us a hand, eh, Viking? Before I lose my foot.”
“I am not Viking.”
Kiara stepped around Tor, whose feet were rooted to the ground like a tree, and eased toward the ledge, leaned over, and nearly fell backward.
“There!” She held the torch out near the curtain and pointed down, but Tor took a step backward every time she leaned out farther over the edge. “I think that’s them. Slegge, how’d you get down there?”
“The lady knocked us over with the table—me and this head biting my boot.”
“Mmph!”
Slegge translated. “The troll asks that you kindly help us up.”
“How is it that the vine hasn’t taken you?” She narrowed her eyes. The Vikings’ destruction of her village hadn’t taught her skepticism—Runa had when she’d given Kiara to Skadi, as if she were nothing more than a broom. It broke her, somehow, and she wondered if she could ever trust again.
“Maybe you can help us up, first. Then we can talk about our luck after. I’ve got a pretty strong grip, but even I can’t hold here much longer.”
Tor stayed back away from the edge. “How far down are they?”
Kiara looked him up and down. “About three of you.”
“Watch those vines, there! They’ll snatch you up, those will,” echoed the voice of the dwarf. “Try to find a thin one with fine hairs instead of thorns—somewhere up along the walls. It’ll be thinner than a blood vine, smaller around than your finger.”
Kiara scanned the room, then saw a vine hanging sideways along the inside wall of the cavern. “I think I’ve found one. How do I know it won’t grab me?”
“You’re going to have to trust me. Those aren’t the blood vines. The thin ones are Ymir’s beard. They’re safe.”
“Doesn’t look very strong.”
“Then you’ve got the right one. Trust me, it won’t turn on you. The thin ones are safe.”
“I don’t know if I can...” Kiara hovered her hand over the little vine. Thoughts of the draugar filled her mind, of what they did to Orri—what Runa had become.