Viking Lost

by Derek Nelsen

  “Mmmmmmmmph!” grumbled Svikar.

  “We don’t have much time,” the dwarf pleaded. “You can’t kill a goddess, not this way, anyway. She’s got to be pissed.”

  Kiara smacked the vine with the dwarf’s hammer. A few stones showered her head, but the vine didn’t move. She put the hammer down, pulled her ring off its handle, and removed the leather thong from around her neck. Carefully, she looped the leather through the ring, then back into itself before putting it back on. She admired its fractured, mottled surface, seeing it differently now that she knew its power—that creatures like Hella might want it for themselves. Kiara put her ring to her mouth, held it between her lips, closed her eyes, and blew into it. The sound was shaky, and weak, but it brought her peace.

  With a finger, she poked the thin vine, like a child playing with fire. Nothing happened. Again, she blew across the ring as she put her fingers, one by one, along the thin vine. Nothing. Kiara began to pull, slowly and steadily. Pop, pop, pop. The vine was covered in fine hairs that gave it a strong grip.

  “Alright, this one isn’t trying to kill me—yet!” Kiara yelled out, as if it was the dwarf who needed to hear it. She pulled, then yanked, even using her foot to push against the wall, but she couldn’t break it free.

  “Tor, I need some help.”

  Tor didn’t respond. He was standing near the boulder, near what was left of his wife.

  “The vine doesn’t want to let go,” she said as she stared at the sad man. “It’s stronger than it looks.”

  “See if you can find something to pry it off the wall,” echoed the dwarf.

  Kiara picked up her torch and scanned the dark, dank room. I can’t believe Hella made this feel comfortable. Without the lady’s spell, it was barely more than a cave.

  “Ah!” Kiara saw a glimmer of gold and polished iron. The lady’s sword. “She must have dropped it in the falling.”

  “What did you say?!” yelled the dwarf.

  The sword was light and finely made. She returned to her spot, then thought better of it.

  “Hold on.” Kiara made a cut. The sword was so sharp it sliced through the vine and scratched the stone. She pried it away from the cave wall, and slid the sword between the wall and the vine, cutting through the strong fine hairs as if they weren’t even there. “It’s working.” Kiara stopped prying the vine from the wall just short of the edge.

  The curtain of blood vines blocked the opening. “I can’t,” she cried down. “There are vines.” Then she caught a glimmer from the sword. She turned back to Tor, but he was in another world. “Just pull back and cut. You’ve swung a sword before,” she whispered to herself.

  But she had only swung the training kind before. She used to play “Knights” with her brother when they were young. She looked at the shimmer of the pale, blue blade and was reminded she’d really never swung a real one, and never at a column of vines with the power to snatch her up and take her soul.

  “What’s going on up there, girl?!” yelled the dwarf. “I’m not going to be able to hang here much longer.”

  “I’ve got the lady’s sword.”

  “What?!”

  “I’ll have to cut through these vines, but I’m scared they’ll grab me.”

  “You can do it, girl. They’re harmless unless they taste blood or touch your soul. Just use a nice, smooth swing.”

  Kiara hid her ring inside her shirt. “I’m afraid.”

  “Why am I not talking to the Viking, right now?”

  Kiara turned back to Tor. He was on his knees now.

  “I-I think I can manage.” Kiara pulled the sword back, said a prayer, and with all her might swung high and across. Using that sword on the curtain of weeds was like choosing to use an axe to cut bread. The sword only slowed when it cut into the stone of the wall over Kiara’s shoulder.

  “Watch it, clumsy!” shouted the dwarf. “Can’t you tell the difference between a sword and a hammer?”

  Kiara looked at the blade. Not a scratch. She couldn’t help but think that if they’d have had weapons like these back in Ireland, how different her life would be now. Kiara laid the sword on the stone floor next to the hammer gently, so as to not bring the walls down on their heads. “Now what?”

  “Pass down that strand of Ymir’s beard.” Slegge sounded tired, or maybe a little sad. “I’ll do the rest.”

  Hell Fire

  The only sound Tor could hear was that of his own shallow breath and the dragging bark of the vines as the curtain swayed from the cold breeze rising out of the abyss. As Hella fell, she took the warmth of the place with her, along with the rest of the façade. Hel, as it turned out, was a frigid place, and Runa’s draugr had already picked up a layer of white frost along its bark.

  “I won’t let Hella hurt you.” Tor tried to sound strong.

  The draugr reached out a hand, no longer Runa’s supple, pale skin, but one of rough bark, with talons of thorns where her nails should have been.

  Tor thought about loss. From his parents to his first wife. His daughter. His sons out there somewhere facing the bitterest time of the Norwegian winter on their own. And now Runa. “What a mess this is.” He slowly extended a hand.

  The draugr ran a coarse branch down the length of his finger, tracing a line across his palm. Tor managed a smile from the tickle. She was still there. He could see something of Runa in the draugr’s cold, black eyes. Then, as if to crack bone, it clamped down tight on his hand, and a tendril began to slither up his arm. The eyes did not change. Runa was still inhabiting the draugr’s blank, slithering face. Tor grunted as thorns pierced his skin.

  The draugr slipped out of her cloak of humanity the way Runa might have dropped her dress to the floor during happier times. As the façade fell, the draugr rose up tall above her husband before wrapping him up to squeeze him like a constrictor. With lungs crushed, he could only manage to grunt for help.

  Then the shock of it sank in. Rather than fight his wife, Tor gave in to her. He even managed to slip his fingers out between the crushing weed and hold on to a part of her, even if she no longer could. Tor closed his eyes and began to pray.

  He thought back to the life he had lived, to what he had and hadn’t done. Valhalla was a lie—he always knew it. But it was a way to avoid the truth. No. He would spend his eternity with this woman—this draugr. This was what he deserved.

  Runa moved, her tight grip dragging him along with her.

  He opened one of his eyes and realized she was dragging him toward the ledge.

  His entire body broke out in a clammy sweat as he thought about the seemingly bottomless pit.

  “Runa!” Tor could only cough out his appeal. It felt like his watery eyes might bulge out of his head.

  Closer, closer she dragged him. Briar's dug into his back, his chest. With each twist, his weight pushed into more thorns, piercing his flesh like a thousand needles. The pain was the only thing keeping him sane as she drew him closer to his worst nightmare.

  “Slegge! Slegge, come quick!” Kiara turned to help the dwarf up, but there was no need.

  He ran past her, hammer at the ready, slamming it down on the vine as Tor frantically tried to squirm away from the edge. It didn’t work.

  Tor hung headfirst out over the ledge. Runa seemed vindictive, stabbing him with his worst fear. No sharper blade could she find.

  Four trails of blood painted the stone floor where he dug in his nails to cling to solid ground.

  “Help me!” yelled the dwarf. Kiara grabbed the sword and raised it high overhead.

  “Don’t.” Slegge pushed her to the ground. “They’ll both fall if you cut her away from the stone.”

  Tor howled, half pulling away, half holding on.

  Kiara dropped the sword, wrapped her hands in her cloak, and started pulling on the vine.

  The only part of Tor still clinging was his legs. Working his toes frantically back and forth, he tried everything to help win the tug of war of his life.

  Slowly,
the team began to outpull the vine. Tor bit at it, stripping and spitting bark between gasps for shallow breath. When his hips finally touched the edge, he squirmed side to side to help the dwarf and the girl with the pulling.

  “Owww!” howled Svikar when Kiara stepped on his ear. Either from the shock of his voice or the squish underfoot, she lost her footing, and the vine lunged forward.

  Tor froze. He was staring straight down into the abyss. A blast of icy air blew up into his face, sending a shiver down his spine. Acrid fumes rode the arctic wind, burning his nostrils and freezing the tears in his eyes.

  “Bite the vine, troll!” yelled Slegge.

  “You left me here, dwarf,” replied Svikar.

  “Grab it!” yelled Tor and Kiara in unison.

  Svik snagged a piece of the vine with his long, forked tongue and pulled it into his mouth. Tor heard the crunch of his chomping. With an angry whip of its tail, the vine sent the head flipping toward the pit.

  Kiara dove across the vine to stop the head from going over. When she regained her footing, the rope turned taught, pulling Svikar up off the ground, then down again, as if the squishy head were a bouncing ball.

  Slegge rolled around behind the hunk of wall to anchor the vine to the other side.

  Tor shifted his legs back and forth like a frog as he slid and scratched his way to solid ground. Next to him, Kiara raised the sword, sweat dripping from her brow.

  Crack! She severed the part of the vine that had Tor from its soul.

  Tor pulled himself to his feet and fell back against the large stone. Gasping for air, he ripped the prickly vine from his clothes and skin. It made a wet, popping sound as he freed it thorn by thorn. Then he shook off the remains of the lifeless draugr like a pile of prickly rope.

  Kiara limped over and put her head on Tor’s shoulder. Blood pocked their clothes and skin where the thorns had ruthlessly scratched and stabbed during the struggle.

  With a high-pitched clink, Kiara let the sword fall to the floor and hugged him. “I’m so sorry,” she cried.

  “Kiara, listen.” Tor faced the girl. “I didn’t—”

  Kiara mimed a silent scream—the other side of the undead vine had slithered up and grabbed her by the throat.

  Tor caught the tip before it could slip into Kiara’s soul. Blood dripped from his hand as he tried to pull it loose.

  Slegge hammered down to snare the vine, but it slipped and slithered, leaving the dwarf crushing nothing but stone.

  “Runa!” Tor pulled at the vine until he saw he was crushing Kiara’s windpipe. He snatched up Hella’s sword. “Don’t make me.”

  “Do it!” The thing had caught Slegge by the wrist.

  Tor slid the sharp blade between the vine and the girl’s throat. He looked for something to reason with, but all he saw was its hollow black eyes and her gold ring riding along the slithering viper like a ship on a rolling wave.

  An image reflected off the side of Runa’s soul ring. Despite its covering of gold, Tor could distinctly make out the image of a serpent. Like the knot art he’d personally carved into the doors of Pedar’s hall. Like the interwoven bodies of dragons carved along the hull of almost every Viking ship. He’d carved the design himself no less than a hundred times, but not in Runa’s soul. No knife was sharp enough, or strong enough, to do that. Why had he not noticed that before. Had Runa?

  Tor thought about how Hella’s pale fingers had changed into slithering vipers. His eyes turned to fire. “Go to your goddess, draugr!” he yelled. His hand shook as he strangled the vine. Then, with tears in his eyes, he pulled back on the sword.

  Kiara fell to the floor coughing and wheezing for air as she pulled the piece of dead vine from her throat.

  But a piece in Tor’s hand stayed strong, wrenching and cutting his palm in its struggle to hold on.

  Pinning the thing down onto the stone floor, Tor cut and stabbed, cursing and taking out his anger on Runa for what she had become. The anger he felt at himself for watching her change, slowly over the years, into this thing. With every cut, he realized she’d become this long ago, a writhing mess of anger and unforgiveness and spite, covered in the facade of a pretty face and a bit of gold.

  Like a cornered viper, the last of the vine struggled and bit at Tor, wrapping itself around his arm and clambering for his neck. Tor pinned it to the wall, trying to figure out a way to end it, then froze when he saw the glimmer of Runa’s gold-plated soul slipping up and down near its head.

  From over Tor’s shoulder, Slegge shoved a torch into it. It’s dry bark aflame, what was left of Runa loosed her grip in a frenzy of self-preservation. Tor threw the fiery worm over the ledge, where it got tangled inside the curtain. The hanging vines sprang to life at its touch, one of them pushing itself though her ash-infested soul ring. Finding new life, a new fiery draugr began to pull itself together, coiling into Runa’s likeness.

  The curtain became a sort of twisted stage. Runa had been born again, but this time into a world of flames. She roiled in agony and anguish like a fiery marionette. Her fire spread across to the other vines as she reached out to escape the burning.

  The vine burned through, and the shape of his wife fell away when her soul dropped down into pit. The wall of fire she left behind filled Hella’s hall with light and heat, as if it was an oven.

  Slegge covered his eyes in the brightness of it all, and Svikar used his tongue to drag himself toward the door.

  “I couldn’t let her hurt you anymore,” Kiara cried.

  “I should have stopped her long ago.” Tor hugged Kiara tight, lifting her up high off the ground. Maybe I could’ve saved her if I had.

  “If you two’ve made up, we really need to get going.” Slegge used his hammer to break down the door out of Hella’s hall.

  The smoke siphoned out the open door, a toxic leader pointing the way.

  “Who knows what else lurks in the world’s dark basement,” said Kiara as she handed Tor a belt she’d quickly woven out of a strand of Ymir’s beard.

  “I know what lurks in the dark,” came the voice of the disembodied head.

  “I’m sure you do, troll,” Slegge scoffed.

  Kiara picked Svikar up, brushed off his dirty head, and looked at Tor like a child who’d found a lost pup. “We can’t just leave him.”

  A face like Svikar’s benefited from shadows and bad lighting, and the bright wall of fire highlighted every bit of the ugly.

  Slegge shook his head. “Does your own life mean so little that you’d sacrifice it for a troll?”

  Kiara fashioned a sling around her chest, like a mother preparing her baby to leave the house. “You still stink, Svikar, but I couldn’t live with myself if we were to leave anyone behind.”

  “What about your son, Slegge? Is there any hope?” Tor thought he saw Slegge’s head shaking as he led them out the door.

  “Wonderful,” said Svikar. “Wandering through Hel with a depressed dwarf, a farmer with a borrowed sword, and a little girl armed with a troll’s head in a sling. This ought to end well.”

  “Ah, troll, you’re more than just a head in a sling,” Slegge shouted back. “We’ve got your pretty eyes to help us see, your pointy ears to help us hear, and your lovely, lengthy nose to help us smell. What could go wrong?”

  To Trust Dwarfs or Trolls?

  An icy fog had settled across the entirety of Hel.

  “The air has g-gotten s-so cold I feel like I could freeze.” Kiara had her hands as close to a torch as she could manage.

  “Hella must’ve warmed it up for your arrival,” said Slegge, “’cause this is the way she keeps it. What’s so special about you, anyway?”

  Kiara silently shrugged.

  “Move faster. It’ll warm you up.” Slegge waddled on short legs, a pace somewhere between a walk and a trot.

  Tor was glad he hadn’t forfeited his coat while Hella’s spell had it feeling like spring. Since she’d gone, the bubbling creeks had frozen solid, and the columns holding up the ceilings
were dressed in coverings of ice, making it feel like they were escaping through a crystal forest.

  “How do you know where you’re going?” Tor asked the dwarf.

  “Because I know many ways to Svartalfheim, both the front doors and the back.” Slegge tapped a calloused finger to the side of his nose.

  Tor stopped short. “Is this the best way to get us home? I need to get back to my son Toren before he returns to that witch we’ve betrothed him to.”

  “And to Erik—” Kiara got very quiet and lowered her gaze coyly, as if she’d almost let out some great secret.

  “Ja.” Tor looked at the strange girl. “I’ve got to settle a few things with my neighbors before my sons return.”

  “To Midgard?” Slegge looked back, then nervously down at the troll. “I’d never take you there.” Then he turned to follow the river off the path. He’d picked up his pace.

  “You’re not taking us home?” Tears froze to Kiara’s cheeks. She looked ready to wake up from this nightmare.

  Tor understood how she felt, but he found himself looking over his shoulder now, too.

  “Never been to your world,” huffed Slegge. “Dwarf’s don’t leave the caves.” The stone pillars were getting thinner, and there were more of them, and the space between them was narrowing, too, like the way tall, skinny scrub pines will take over an abandoned pasture after years of neglect.

  Without any prodding, the troll blurted, “Don’t look at me. I never been to Midgard, either.”

  “Right,” the dwarf mumbled as he skated out onto the icy river.

  As Tor tested the ice, he kept an eye on Svikar. The troll’s ears kept cocking backward, and so did his eyes. He didn’t seem at all nervous about the ice, nor should he have been, for it was thick enough to drive a horse and wagon over it.

  When Svikar noticed Tor looking, he started running his mouth again. “But I know some who have—gone to Midgard, I mean.”

  Everything about Svik just felt unreliable. Kiara grabbed the back of Tor’s coat for balance. Even with his long strides and a lifetime of experience dealing with ice, Tor was having a difficult time keeping up with the surprisingly fast dwarf. Amidst a forest of pillars that were getting thinner and thinner as they went, one that was massive and out of place emerged from the frozen river, splitting the flow in two.