Runeblade Saga Omnibus

by Matt Larkin

  Another awful crunch as bone snapped beneath it.

  Starkad had thought he had no voice left to scream. He’d been wrong. His wails of agony echoed over the cavern walls. Rang on and on into the distance.

  Somewhere, far away, cheering answered. A chorus of whoops and clapping, the dverg’s brethren applauding his work.

  As the cheering finally ended, the sound of iron creaking reached him. Cart wheels, rolling over the rocky ground. A mine cart, filled with stones and dirt. A pair of carts, in fact, being rolled over by more dvergar.

  “Did he like being buried in the dirt?” one of them asked.

  “Best find out for sure.”

  “One way to test …”

  The dvergar all hobbled over to those carts and each grabbed great handfuls of dirt and rock.

  Oh gods … Starkad thrashed, trying to pull himself free of the stone clamps holding his arms in place. The restraints crumbled all of a sudden. He could make it. His legs wouldn’t respond in the least, so he flopped over and pulled himself along the ground by his arms. Had to get away.

  Just had to stay ahead of them.

  Each foot he covered was a rush of torment through his legs. Had to escape … He yanked himself over rough stone, dragging his useless legs behind himself.

  A lump of dirt and stones fell on his back. Starkad tried to shake it off. Another piled up. And another.

  The creak of cart wheels sounded as the dvergar rolled one of them closer.

  No.

  Damn it, no!

  He kept pulling himself forward, tearing gashes into his arms and face. Dirt ripping into his mangled legs.

  More rocks thrown atop him weighted him down. Piles and piles of them.

  He couldn’t move.

  Great heaping armfuls of dirt fell upon him. Buried him alive once more. Tumbled before his face and cut off all vision.

  7

  Everything hurt. Every bump the rickety cart passed over sent a jolt of pain surging through Hervor’s ribs. Her jaw had become a swollen mess of purple bruises. She could eat naught but broth, and even that burned and stung as it passed her bruised throat.

  It all hurt, but there was no one else to drive this cart. In the back, Grandfather sat huddled in furs, shivering despite the summer. Beside him, Starkad lay senseless.

  No, maybe not senseless.

  He tossed in feverish fits. Moaned incomprehensible objections to whatever fell visions plagued him. Given her own experience with the Art, she didn’t even want to imagine what went on in his dreams.

  Hrethel had been generous enough to give them this cart and the horse to guide it. That, and not much else. The jarl claimed to know naught of either Orvar or the sorcerer. Maybe it was the truth. Hrethel had quite the large hall and probably couldn’t keep track of all his guests.

  Truth or lies, either way, the king of Ostergotland could do naught to help her. Indeed, she could think of but one man who might. The very last man she ever wanted to ask for help. After what he had put her through the first time …

  But Gylfi alone might understand what had befallen Starkad. Might, if urd were kind, be able to undo the fell work Orvar’s sorcerer had wrought.

  But then, when had urd ever been kind?

  The cart rolled over a root, even that little disturbance drawing a grimace from her.

  The day had already grown late as the town drew into view. A great commotion rang out from the marketplace, people shouting and laughing and cheering. Once she reached the market, the source became clear.

  Whole place was clogged with twice the number of vendors as usual and three times the patrons, all wearing their finest, and most at least a little drunk from the looks of it.

  Sumaraki. Here she was, finally in town for Sumaraki, and still in no position to enjoy it. The summer solstice marked a new year. She could hardly celebrate aught while Starkad lay in torment and Grandfather suffered in declining health.

  No, there would be no joy this solstice. Drink, perhaps, but not in revelry.

  There was no way she’d be able to navigate the cart through the marketplace, so she went around, and pulled it up before the king’s hall. Even more raucous celebration echoed inside Gylfi’s home, but a warrior loitering outside came to inspect the cart.

  Though he teetered with a shuffling gait, he sobered at the sight of Starkad lying there, and shouted for help. In moments, Starkad and Grandfather both had each been taken to warm beds within Gylfi’s hall.

  Someone must’ve sent for the king himself because when she turned around, Gylfi was hovering just behind her.

  Hervor suppressed her jolt of surprise. “Help him.” Her words still sounded slurred in her own ears, as distorted as her mouth felt. And raspy from the throttling Orvar had given her.

  Gylfi put a hand on her shoulder for a moment, then stepped around her and ushered everyone else out of Starkad’s room. Hervor followed him inside and shut the door behind her.

  The sorcerer-king trod over to Starkad’s bedside, his own slightly unsteady gait the only indication that he too had partaken of the merriment. The king knelt beside Starkad and laid a hand upon his forehead. No doubt still burning up, as the man had been the whole way here.

  For a painfully long time, Gylfi said naught. Just sat there, seeming to stare into oblivion. Finally, he rose. When the king drew a knife, Hervor’s hand reflexively went to Tyrfing’s hilt. But Gylfi merely nicked his own palm, then sheathed the blade. The king drew his index finger along the cut and used the blood to paint a rune upon Starkad’s forehead.

  With a groan and creaking knees, Gylfi sat once again, legs folded under him. “Stay very still and offer no distraction. Not a sound, shieldmaiden.”

  Hervor sat down beside him, glad to get off her feet, and certainly not wanting to interfere with the Art in the least. At the best of times, touching the Otherworlds was fraught with peril and sure to unleash horrors. She did not even want to imagine the consequences of Gylfi making a mistake.

  Still, as time dragged on, it became hard not to squirm. How long had Gylfi been staring at him? A quarter hour? Longer?

  Of a sudden, the sorcerer-king lurched backwards with a gasp, caught himself on his hands, and scrambled away from Starkad. The old man stumbled to his feet, mumbling under his breath all the while.

  “What?” she rasped. “What is it?”

  He continued backing away, hands up in warding against both her and Starkad. “I … I cannot help you. Forgive me.”

  The sorcerer flung open the door and fled, tottering down the hall.

  What in Hel’s frozen crotch?

  Hervor scrambled to her feet and chased after Gylfi, caught him several strides down the hall, and grabbed him by the shoulders. “What the fuck?” She barely resisted the urge to throttle him. Even grabbing him sent a fresh throbbing through her ribs. “After all Starkad did to get you that runeblade, you’re walking away from him?” Her voice hurt from raising it, pathetic as it still sounded.

  A blade slid over leather as one of Gylfi’s thegns rumbled toward her.

  The king held up a hand to forestall his man, then shook himself free from Hervor’s grasp.

  She let him, fixing first the thegn, then the king himself with a level glare. “I came to you for help.”

  Gylfi looked to his warrior, then waved the man away. Then he stole a nervous glance at the room where Starkad lay, and beckoned Hervor away from it. She followed him several paces until they stood alone in a corner.

  The king heaved a great sigh, shuddering with the breath. “You … know the story of King Vanlandi?”

  Hervor shrugged. She didn’t know the name. Nor care at the moment.

  “He was an early king in Sviarland, of Upsal. One of the first after the Old Kingdoms fell.”

  She glanced back toward Starkad’s room. “I don’t care overmuch for ancient history.” Every time she got the least bit involved in it, things turned rather woeful. Her encounters with the ghosts in Glaesisvellir had been far to
o much education in the days gone for her liking.

  “Vanlandi married this beautiful girl out of Kvenland. Wellborn, and wise, so it’s told. And for a little while, they were happy. Then he went out raiding and was supposed to come back. But he didn’t. He took up with some other woman.

  “So the girl waited and waited, and for many winters he didn’t return. Finally, she turned to this witch out of Pohjola. And the witch cursed Vanlandi for his crime of abandoning his wife. She called up a mara—a nightmare vaettr and set it upon Vanlandi.”

  Hervor frowned. “And you’re saying one of these maras is in Starkad?”

  Gylfi motioned for her to lower her voice. “Vanlandi complained of nightmares. For days he complained to his people. He felt like something was crushing him in his sleep. He couldn’t move, couldn’t rest. Woke up more and more drained with each passing night.” Gylfi cleared his throat. “And then he died in his sleep. They said his face was a mask of the most stark terror anyone had ever beheld.”

  Oh, Odin’s thrice-damned stones. “Get it. Out of him.”

  “An exorcism of that magnitude is far beyond my Art. Such an entity … I dare not even attempt it. Doing so would expose me to its power, as well.”

  Now she took a step toward him until her nose was practically brushing up against his. “You must try.”

  Gylfi’s eyes narrowed. “Do not take me for one of your drinking companions to be browbeaten or threatened, least of in my own home, shieldmaiden.”

  Hervor became suddenly aware she was dangerously close to a man who wielded powers she dared not even imagine. But … Starkad. She wasn’t going to let Vanlandi’s urd become Starkad’s. It would not stand. “If you cannot do it, tell me who can.”

  Gylfi pushed her away. Not roughly, but clearly at the end of his patience. “Odin, perhaps, were he here. I do not know of any mortal sorcerer that would dare to invoke such powers.”

  Hervor bared her teeth and shook her head. “Odin? So be it. If I have to track down the Ás himself and force him to help, I will. But this I swear—I will save Starkad.”

  “You are quick to make oaths, shieldmaiden. Take care that your rash words do not lead you down paths from which you cannot return.”

  Hervor flinched. Gylfi might have been more right than he knew. But none of that mattered. Not while Starkad lay possessed, maybe dying. They had sworn to stay by each other’s sides. They had said …

  No. She would not lose him. No matter what, she would not allow it to happen.

  “I need you to get messages to my allies. Send word to any who might come to Starkad’s aid.”

  The old king pursed his lips and nodded slowly.

  8

  Starkad lay buried in the earth, slowly sinking deeper and deeper. As the hours passed, became days, the land pulled him so far under he would never again see light or air. It wrapped him in a prison of endless pain and crushing weight, holding him motionless.

  The ache in his legs had become so constant, he could almost forget it. For a moment or two, here and there.

  He couldn’t have even said when the mud and rock engulfing him began to grow warm. Had it always been this hot? It must have started slowly, but now he was caked in sweat that had nowhere to go. It lingered, sticky on his skin.

  The rock pressed him so tight he couldn’t hope to pull away from its scalding heat. He could hear his skin blistering. The only sound really, besides his own whimpers of torment.

  The flesh on his arm popped and hot blood oozed out, seeping through the tiny spaces between rocks. It was like a smoldering bog, sucking him ever deeper.

  And then his heel was free, hanging in the air. A heartbeat later, his arse was loose. And then he fell, pitched tumbling through scorching hot air for dozens of feet.

  He landed in a raging fire, the impact knocking him senseless for a bare instant.

  Then screaming. He flailed and tried to throw himself free. His legs barely responded. Flames ignited his hair and beard, his clothes. Blackened his flesh as he crawled from the bonfire. His charred skin ripped apart, oozing, even as he pulled himself clear of the blaze.

  He rolled over and lay on his back, gasping.

  Why couldn’t he die?

  Was this … Odin’s fault? Was this Starkad’s curse? An extended youth … followed by never-ending torment?

  Smoke burned his lungs, choked him. He coughed, spewing up sickening ash-colored blood and mucus from some ruptured organ. The flames had scalded his eyes, and it stung to even open them.

  Still, he forced himself to do it. He lay on his back, staring up at a cavernous ceiling that itself smoldered and glowed incandescent. Ash filled the air, bits of it drifting on a scorching wind that swept around the cavern.

  Groaning in pain, he rolled over onto his side. Rivers of magma cut deltas through a broken caldera. In the distance, volcanoes fed those rivers, weeping continuing streams of lava. Beyond, barely visible through the smoke and ash clogging the sky, a lake of fire bubbled. Iron chains with links as big around as a house spanned the enormous gulfs between jutting, spike-covered obelisks.

  Trembling at the sight of it all, Starkad turned over and pushed himself up on his hands. The earth itself was searing, sending fresh agony through his already scorched palms.

  Just one more stone on the mountain of pain crushing him. He should be dead a dozen times over.

  He longed for death.

  The land rumbled with an earthquake, trembling like an enraged behemoth. Somewhere ahead, a volcanic geyser vented, spewing sulfur and fresh ash over the hateful landscape.

  When the tremors subsided, Starkad managed to gain his feet. Hadn’t something happened to his legs? It was hard to think through the haze of torment … When he tried to walk, new pains lanced up his shins and sent him toppling back to the ground.

  “Hel,” he grunted.

  From within the smoke, something answered, its voice a hideous growl, its words alien and dark. The mere sound of them almost enough to break him.

  He struggled to his feet once more, teeth grit against the pain, hands raised up before him. “Where are you …?”

  A silhouette passed through the smoke and was gone, followed by another rumbling growl of torturous words. For a bare instant he thought he saw the pinpricks of glowing red eyes, too large to belong to aught human. Then they were gone.

  Fuck this.

  Unarmed and wounded, he was in no shape to fight a vaettr of any kind, least of all some flame spirit. Gasping with the effort, he shuffled away from the smoke column he’d seen the figure in. His shambling, lopsided gait carried him with all the speed and grace of a three-legged turtle, but he had to try.

  A sulfuric geyser erupted a few feet in front of him, nigh bowling him over with noxious fumes. Starkad threw his arm up in front of his face and doubled back, seeking a way around.

  From the column of smoke ahead, another silhouette passed.

  Bastards were stalking him.

  Grunting, he shambled on in another direction. Just had to get clear. Wherever this abhorrent place was—and part of him feared he knew—he had to get away from the creature.

  The smoke billowed around him, encircling him in a flowing black cloud. It forced him to change directions once again. Until there remained nowhere left to go.

  Starkad roared at the flames.

  And the silhouette formed up once more, striding toward him. Becoming solid, like a man. A deep-skinned Serklander, perhaps, with a tightly trimmed beard just around his chin and lip. Black haired. Unaffected by the flames or choking smoke swirling around him.

  “Starkad …” The same throaty growl that no human ought to have been able to make.

  “Be gone!”

  The man smirked, drawing closer, hands spread as if in offering. Within the depths of his eyes, a fire smoldered. His smile drew too wide, exposing sharpened teeth. Flames danced beneath his skin, visible through cracks in his flesh, as though magma flowed through his veins. His skin darkened, turned blue as
midnight.

  The creature inclined its head and there were goat-like horns rising from its brow.

  Starkad backed away a step. The smoke cloud brushed against him. He spun and dashed into it, blinded and not caring. Aught was better than staying with this creature.

  A hand fell on his shoulder.

  Starkad spun, punching with a lightning-fast hook. A smoldering hand caught his fist and he screamed as fresh burns spread up his arm. The creature flung him through the air, sent him spinning around sideways.

  He slammed back into the ground, toppled over, and came to rest a bare foot from a lava river.

  Starkad staggered back to his knees.

  A flickering vision of flames and unbearable rage washed over him, leaving him reeling. The Fire vaettr closed the distance in an instant as though he’d disappeared from one spot and reappeared next to Starkad. The creature snared him with one hand on his shoulder, bent him over backward, toward the fiery lake.

  Its other hand turned into molten lava, glowing so hot Starkad felt his flesh bubbling even as that hand drew nigh. He flailed, but the creature held him in an iron grip. It drew closer.

  “No!”

  Its hand moved over his face.

  “Stop! Please, stop!”

  It formed a fist, save for its thumb sticking out.

  “Don’t! You can’t do this—”

  It pressed its magma thumb into Starkad’s left eye. He heard the sizzle and pop of the jelly even over the sound of his own screaming. Unbearable, mind-shattering pain exploded through his head.

  He should have died again from it.

  He was lying on the ashy ground. Couldn’t see from one eye … of course not. With trembling hands, he reached up and brushed his fingers over the charred skin around his empty eye-socket. Even the faint touch was like burning acid.

  He’d begun screaming again. Didn’t know when he’d started.

  A vise gripped around his ankle and jerked him forward. He fell back, head slamming against the rocks.

  The creature dragged him by his ankle, its smoldering fist blistering and burning away Starkad’s skin.