by Matt Larkin
There had to be some way to open this.
“Check the thrones,” he whispered when Afzal neared.
The boy did so, running his hand over one throne while Bragi examined the other.
“What is it?” Tiny asked.
“The vault, I think.”
“You think? After what we just went through—”
“It’s my first lost dverg city. Now stop whining and help.”
Tiny grunted, then began pushing and prying on the floor. “Gold so close I can taste it. And here this big fucking rock is in the way.”
“Try tasting the rock,” Bragi offered.
“Is this …?” Afzal began. A slight click came from the throne he inspected.
Without further warning, stone began to grate on stone. Tiny scrambled off the slab as it began to slide into a hidden alcove beneath the floor. This opened up a pit with a short staircase leading to the base of it. The roof here was smaller than a man’s height. Even Afzal would have to stoop to walk here.
Starkad leapt down into the pit. His feet skidded on something. “Afzal. Torch.”
The boy tossed the flame into the pit. Immediately, the whole tunnel began to glitter. Gold and silver coins ran the length of the space. In their midst sat gem-encrusted goblets, dverg-wrought blades, gilded chain fit for a king. There were emeralds and rubies and lapis lazuli and opals. Enough gems to buy a kingdom.
“Thor’s thundering cock,” Tiny said when he looked down.
“We have reached the Otherworld,” Afzal said.
Bragi snorted and jumped down into the now crowded tunnel. “Nope, boy. Just the best of this one.”
Starkad pressed on, back into the tunnel, to examine the gilded mail. From what he knew of dverg work, they made naught without practical use, so he had to assume—appearances aside—the armor would turn a blow. Maybe as well as Orvar’s famed magic shirt. He lifted the chain to inspect it, admiring the way the light glittered off it. Not the most practical for stealth, perhaps. But certainly elegant.
Coins and gemstones clattered as he tugged the mail free of them. As they did, they exposed a hand. Taut flesh failed to fully cover the skeletal fingers beneath it. That hand flexed.
Another draug here, in the vault.
“Back!” Starkad barked.
The others grumbled, then saw what he saw and ceased filling their satchels with plunder.
Starkad had taken a few steps back. The tunnel was too tight to properly wield his blades. They needed to face this creature out in the open. “Up the ladder! Out of the pit, now!”
A sword burst free from the treasure hoard, scattering priceless wealth as it rose. A series of runes ran the length of the blade, each radiating a faint iridescent light. A pit opened in Starkad’s stomach.
This was not just a blade.
It was one of the nine runeblades. And that meant its owner was no ordinary draug.
Afzal had already scrambled back up the ladder with the torch. Starkad shoved Bragi toward it, then began pulling himself straight up the wall. It wasn’t so tall, after all. Seeing his reaction, Tiny did the same. They crested the ground level just before the draug finished freeing itself from its hoard.
The creature’s eyes glowed red, like any draug. And yet, a bluish flame seemed to waft off its head and spread from its mouth. It bore a crown around its helm, one set with a gleaming ruby reflecting the same unholy light as its eyes.
Starkad jerked both swords free.
“Go! Take out the ones guarding the entrance, and find a way out of here.”
Tiny stood shoulder to shoulder with him, broadsword in hand. “We can take one more.”
As it stepped from the pit, the draug rose to its full height, at least as tall as Tiny. It looked to each of the party. And it continued to grow. Its mass rippled outward, its armor inexplicably growing with it. Those indigo flames only intensified as the draug grew.
Starkad fell back a step. And another.
In the back of his mind, he knew Afzal and Bragi had broken, run for the entrance as he’d told them. The fiend had now grown to twice Tiny’s size. It was not a mere draug. It was a dark god of the dead, fit to challenge a jotunn. They had awoken some ancient power that ought to have been left sleeping. Perhaps the very reason the Niflungar had not come here to try and claim this runeblade for themselves.
Starkad had wanted a challenge. He’d wanted to know who was the best.
But if he fought this fiend now, fought and lost, his people would die. Without him to protect them, their deaths were nigh to assured. He swallowed. “Tiny, go. Help them!”
The big man made no further objection, turning and running for the exit.
The draug plodded toward Starkad with great lunging strides.
The runeblade—it had grown too, hadn’t it—hefted above its head. A shield big as Starkad was protected the monster. At the last moment, Starkad dove forward, rolling between the draug’s legs. The runeblade sheared into the floor and gouged a great swathe of stone.
Starkad rose and swung at the draug’s legs. His sword clanked off a chain greave. He dared not remain, instead immediately leaping away again. Even as he did so, the draug spun on him, slamming the edge of its shield into the floor where Starkad had stood a breath before.
Without looking back, Starkad scrambled to his feet and made a break for the entrance. Tiny and Bragi had already felled the two draugar there and were waiting for him, beckoning him forward. And that entrance was so tall even the giant draug could pass through. Wonderful.
Great crashing footfalls rang out behind him. It would overtake him in a few strides. Now he did look back, just in time to see the runeblade sweeping down on him. Starkad skidded to a stop and fell over backward, sliding just under the blade’s arc.
He scrambled forward, helped up by Tiny’s swift grab. The big man shoved him out of the palace, and they all dashed for an alley.
A bellow erupted from behind them, a sound like all the damned of Niflheim shrieking in agony. It went on and on. Starkad passed into the alley, then guided his men around it and around another. Running blind, just to keep that thing from spotting them, from tracking them.
A draug voice answered the hellish scream with a mind-rending shriek of its own. Another and another draugar joined that profane chorus, until the whole city echoed with it. Hundreds of them, no doubt.
All screaming for the blood of men.
All hailing the wakening of their king.
42
After another round of beatings, the finfolk threw Hervor into an ice hut beside Orvar.
She groaned, then rolled over to look at him where he sat.
Everything hurt.
Her eyes burned. Her muscles ached. Breathing was agony.
Her godsdamned hair hurt.
“Listen, girl. I’ve been thinking … we need to agree to this. We have to say we’ll marry them without actually giving an oath.” He paused a moment, clearly in pain himself. “And we need to get them to bring us both at once.”
Hervor groaned again, not bothering to sit up. “Why would they do that?”
He shrugged. “Tell them you won’t marry unless it’s a joint wedding.”
“Because that’s not fucking suspicious.”
“So tell them I’m your father, and you won’t be wed until you see me wed first.”
“My fa—” She snapped her jaw closed. Her father? Her father! This monstrous, murderous, trollfucking bastard who had helped kill her father. And he wanted her to claim him as such! She could barely form the words through her clenched teeth. “It would dishonor my actual father to claim another as such.”
Orvar grunted in acknowledgment, then sighed. “Perhaps. But a reasonable man will understand the extreme circumstances. Sometimes a lie is the only chance.”
She stifled a bitter laugh at that. Of all the tales she’d heard of Angantyr, all the ways her father was described, reasonable had never made the list. And this man had left him to burn in agony, writ
hing in torment until the end of time, had Hervor not come and claimed Tyrfing. Her father’s ghost might no longer burn, but still it writhed. Maybe watching her, even now, waiting upon the fulfillment of her oath. That was his only hope, no doubt his sole solace.
And if one more lie—no matter how vile—was her only chance at fulfilling her oath, then she would lie. She had done worse. Would yet do far worse, if it meant avenging her family.
She sighed. “Very well. I will agree to the wedding on your conditions. What’s your plan?”
He grimaced. “We do not know aught about the temple or their ceremonies. I don’t have a plan, save to look for an opportunity and seize it.”
Not elegant. But then, such was most often Hervor’s plan as well. After all, she was still seeking the opportunity to cut Arrow’s Point down.
And soon, she would find it. And she would seize it.
The finfolk ferried them over the sea in those long, narrow boats of theirs. Behind Troll Rock rose a temple carved from ice, looking much like a hollowed-out iceberg with a peak carved into a spiral.
Hervor had never seen aught like it. Glorious and ominous, jutting from the sea.
The moon had risen. A full moon. For these shifters, that was probably an auspicious time. Many seals lounged about on the iceberg’s surface, some even within the temple. A few stood in human form in there, wrapped in those heavy fur coats.
Orvar had a hand inside his coat. The man had worked off a piece of whalebone and turned it into a shiv and had assured Hervor this would work.
Problem was, shifters didn’t die easy. Naught possessed by a vaettr did, but shifters were especially resilient. On the other hand, maybe she didn’t need them to die. Just to fall into chaos. That might let her reclaim Tyrfing and maybe even strike down Orvar in the process.
The boats bumped the iceberg, and one of the finfolk grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her onto the ice surface. Another did the same to Orvar, and he stumbled, no doubt still weak from the beatings and cold.
He looked to her. She feigned a slight smile. Bastard.
They had to duck to pass through the entrance of the temple, though the interior rose ten feet above her head. Inside, Kiviuq smiled at her like he was pleased—like she ought to welcome the forced union. Hervor inclined her head to the finfolk, forcing the hint of a smile as well.
Who could say where the beast ended and the man began? Orvar claimed they were people. If so, it meant forcing a marriage was all the more despicable.
Norns wove a crooked and cruel urd for men and women. They alone had such a right. For anyone else, stealing freedom of choice made you no better than any other thief. Worse, maybe, since choice counted for more than worldly goods.
Hervor chuckled under her breath. Then again, she’d stolen plenty and taken more lives than she could count.
None of the finfolk had brought weapons to the temple. Perhaps it would have profaned this ritual. They worshipped the moon, clearly.
A hole in the iceberg’s peak allowed moonlight to pass inside, reflecting off the ice. Beside Kiviuq and Orvar’s woman stood another man. A priest perhaps. The priest raised his arms into the moonlight, staring up at it and chanting in their strange language.
“Aningan,” he said, and all the gathered finfolk repeated the word several times. The name of the moon?
The man who had brought them began to guide them toward their would-be spouses.
Orvar offered Hervor the slightest incline of his head. Then the man jerked free the shiv and jabbed it between the ribs of their guide.
The finfolk doubled over in pain. Hervor reacted instantly, grabbing the man by his hood and flinging him in the midst of the temple. Shouts of chaos went up at once, but Hervor was already running, ducking her head back out of the temple.
The seals outside stared at them, clearly not certain what had just happened. Hervor jumped in the boat an instant before Orvar leapt into the other one.
“Go!” she shouted, shoving her boat away from the iceberg with one oar.
And he set to paddling away from the rock, down south.
Hervor, however, began to paddle back toward the village.
There was something she needed even more than freedom.
“What in Hel’s name are you doing?” Orvar shouted at her.
“I’m not leaving without my father’s sword!”
“Odin’s spear, girl! Your father will understand!”
Hervor ignored the murderous bastard. Oh, she’d have something for him, soon enough.
“Hervor!”
“Go to Hel!”
She continued toward the village, only a very short distance from Troll Rock, sparing a glance behind her. The seals had already begun to dive into the sea. The human form finfolk were shedding their clothes, preparing to do the same. Orvar too started after her.
Even better.
She rammed her boat right up on the shore, leapt out, and started running into the heart of the village.
Orvar’s boat would hit the ice in a moment. Hervor dashed toward Kiviuq’s hut. All of the finfolk had gone to the ceremony, leaving the village in eerie emptiness. The angry barks of seals drawing closer meant it would not stay that way long.
She ducked inside the hut, easily spotting the sword leaning against one wall, then crawled over and grabbed it. As she came back out, naked and screaming finfolk rushed toward them.
Hervor jerked her blade free from its sheath, and it gleamed like a ray of sunlight. She sliced through the attacking finfolk with a single mighty blow that opened him up from his neck to hip. He fell. A small army more was closing in, though.
“Run!” Orvar shouted and raced out of the village.
Oh. Damn it.
Hervor chased after him, not sheathing Tyrfing.
Orvar cast a glance back at her, at the sword. His eyes widened like he’d finally realized. Finally.
“Your father’s sword?” he shouted back at her.
Hervor screamed in fury like a woman possessed and lunged forward, swinging at him.
Orvar skidded on ice, dropped to one knee, and rolled under the blow.
Hervor spun, swinging again. “For my father!”
Orvar rolled away, unable to claim his feet. “Stop. We have no time!”
She paid him no heed, slashing and thrusting while Orvar fell back. He clearly knew a single touch would end him.
“Daughter of Angantyr!” he shouted at her. “I did not kill your father.”
Now she panted, advancing with a steadier pace. An executioner moving toward the condemned. This bastard would die. “You killed my uncles. You damned them all to eternal torment. I owe you twelve deaths, though I can dole out only one.”
By now, the finfolk had caught up to them and moved to surround them. Hervor glanced at them but continued to advance on Orvar. Naught else mattered more.
“You cost us everything!” Orvar said.
Hervor cocked her head toward Kiviuq. The finfolk man’s glare ought to have melted all the ice on Thule. She didn’t care.
“You were right,” Hervor said. “I can let a wereseal fuck me—if it means getting my revenge.”
“You’re mist-mad, girl.”
The female finfolk, Naliajuk, stepped forward, forestalling Kiviuq. “No. No blade. No fight.”
Hervor pointed Tyrfing at the woman. “Stay out of this or you’ll be next, bitch. Arrow’s Point dies this night.”
Glowering, Naliajuk raised one of those corded weapons above her head and began to twirl it. Other finfolk did the same.
Oh damn it. Not now. Not this close.
She roared and charged Orvar. He dove to the side, amidst the finfolk.
And then Naliajuk flung the weapon. The cords wrapped around Hervor’s legs and sent her stumbling down to the ice. Tyrfing slipped from her grasp and skidded along the ground for several feet.
“Bastard!” Hervor shouted at Orvar.
The man tried to rise, but Kiviuq grabbed him by his coat
, yanking him off the ground. The wereseal held him eye to eye for a brief instant. And then he cuffed him on the side of the head.
Hervor wanted to relish it, until Naliajuk began raining such blows upon her as well.
A barrage of them that went on and on until darkness finally enveloped her.
43
The shuffling gait of draugar boots filled nigh to every street in Nordri, the sound occasionally overshadowed by the thundering footsteps of the giant draug king. Starkad and the others crouched in an alley at the city’s edge, watching a patrol of five draugar amble by. They might have been able to ambush the patrol, take them down. More like than not, though, the noise of battle would draw others. And far too many draugar clogged these unholy streets for Starkad’s small party to overcome, saying naught of the king himself.
No, they could not fight. And the draugar knew they must have come from the main entrance, and so they now patrolled the thickest around it. Starkad had scouted that alone, searching for any way through. None presented itself, no matter how long he looked.
And so they had skirted the edge of Nordri, hunting for any other way out. It was hard to be certain in the darkness, but it looked like other tunnels did run out of the main cavern. Unfortunately, those all lay on the far side of a freezing river.
Maybe the dvergar had once used boats to cross, but if so, none remained now.
When the patrol had turned a corner, Starkad scampered forward, keeping low to the ground until he reached the next alley. The last such refuge before the open rocks in front of the river. The others dashed after him, Afzal creeping closest behind.
“Master?”
Starkad stared at the river. Numerous rocks jutting out of the water turned the river into icy rapids so swift even a draug would face destruction, smashed to pieces under that force.
“Planning to fly?” Bragi asked.
Starkad scowled at him, then shook his head. Desperation made even good men arseholes. “Those rocks look just close enough together a man might jump from one to the next.”
Bragi’s mouth dropped open, and he sputtered a few times before he spoke. “You got troll shit between your ears? Ice and water coat every one of those rocks. You’ll break your ankle on the first one and find yourself swimming for just long enough to die of deathchill.”
