“The monster may come for it,” Lut whispered. “Perhaps we should cast it into the sea.” They looked at Ragnar, who stood over the ring, his hand gripping the haft of his sword, ready to strike at anyone who threatened his ownership.
“There’ll be blood if we try,” Dane said.
“Well, perhaps the monster won’t find us,” Lut said with an air of false optimism.
“And if he does? I’ve brought you all to where it dwells.”
“It wasn’t only you we came to rescue, Dane. Besides, the gods are protecting us.”
Dane brightened at this. “Is that what the runes say?”
“Would I lie?”
Though his situation was still dire, William was glad at least to be off the tiny growler. It had drifted into a much larger iceberg and, as if going from a rowboat to a longship, William had easily stepped upon it, bringing his weapons, brazier, and pitch pot with him.
He guessed this larger berg was a hundred paces across. The place he was now standing on was flat, like a beach lapped by small waves. There were two pinnacles of ice that rose as tall as a frost giant on opposite sides. Maybe seventy paces behind him the flat part had eroded away, sloping down like a funnel into a watery channel. It was a stroke of luck that his tiny drifting floe had been stopped by this larger berg, for if it hadn’t, he knew he would be farther away from land now, without hope for rescue.
But when would it come?
He warmed his freezing hands on the brazier coals, knowing that when they died, all he would have for warmth would be his tattered coat. Then crraaacckk!! A startling sound from deep within the ice. Again the ice groaned and snapped as if the berg itself were alive, its bones and joints creaking and cracking as the churning sea thrashed it about.
And then he heard a new sound from out in the mist. Sploop, sploosh. Followed by an ominous silence. Was it Jörmungandr? Instinctively he backed away from the edge, seized with a sudden chill of panic, staring helplessly into the clouds of mist.
From somewhere beyond the mist he now heard the rhythmic splash of oars hitting water. “William!” It was the voice of Dane. “William! Where are you?”
What should he do? Should he keep quiet so they would row away? No! They would only come back. He must warn them. “Go away!” he shouted into the mist. “The monster is here! Go away!” He listened, but the pace of the oars only quickened and grew louder. “No! Go back! Go back!”
The ship appeared from out of the mist, moving swiftly toward him, the figure of Dane standing tall in the prow. William realized his warnings were useless, for Dane and the others would never abandon him, even if huge, scary beasts were lurking about. As the craft came closer William saw Dane wore the stern look of a father ready to punish his son. “William the Brave, eh? We’ll have to change that name.” Dane broke into a big grin. “How ’bout William the Insanely Brave?”
William had always yearned for Dane’s approval, and he wanted to say something in return. But the words caught in his throat, for he saw, rising high out of the water, as high as the top of the ship’s mast itself, a sinuous serpent’s tail bearing long, daggerlike spikes. And a cry of “Look out!” was all William could manage.
The tail came crashing down behind the stern, and the huge wave it made lifted the entire ship up out of the water and onto the ice. For a moment Dane and his friends just sat there, glad the ship was still intact and they were in it. And then the tail rose again, even higher than before, and as it came down, everyone dove from the ship onto the ice. Krrr-splamm! The tail crushed the craft, turning it to splinters. For a chaotic moment everyone scrambled away from the writhing tail. William looked back and to his horror saw that Rik had been skewered like a piece of meat by one of the beast’s tail spikes. The tail plunged under the water, taking Rik with it.
Rik’s twin, Vik, bellowed in agony as if mortally wounded himself. He tried to leap into the sea to save his brother, but Dane and Jarl held him back. Vik beat at them, trying to free himself—when William saw the tail again break the surface, excited to see Rik hanging on to the creature’s tail, stabbing into its scales with his knife!
“He’s alive!” William cried, pointing.
Indeed, Rik rode the tail as if it were a bucking horse, stabbing and cutting its flesh. But when the beast finally shook him free, Rik’s body went catapulting skyward, arcing high overhead until, hitting one of the upraised ice pinnacles, his body slid down its smooth, curved side and soon came to rest at the very feet of his brother, Vik. For a moment no one spoke, believing Rik dead. And then they heard laughter. And when Vik rolled his brother onto his back, he saw it was Rik who was laughing, his cloak bearing a large rip in the side where the monster’s spike had stabbed, missing his body completely. Pulled to his feet, Rik was soaked and shivering. Nevertheless, he shook his head to clear it, grinned, and said, “That was fun. Can I go again?”
Astrid, Dane, and William dashed to the destroyed ship, looking for weapons. Astrid found a knife and Dane a long-handled fishing gaff. A hand grasped his shoulder and swung him around to face Ragnar’s glaring eyes.
“The ring is mine!” he growled.
“I don’t want it!” Dane yelled back. “The monster does! Give it to him and maybe he’ll go!”
But Ragnar wasn’t listening. He was sifting through the broken timbers to find Draupnir when a jarring quake knocked everyone off their feet.
The sea monster was attacking the iceberg itself—hacking away with its massive spiked tail, as if the berg were a ship it could splinter and send to the bottom. Thunderous whacks cracked the ice, sending large chunks of the berg flying off and splashing into the sea. Dane knew if this went on any longer, their ice shelter would be smashed to bits and all lives lost.
“William! Any arrows left?”
“Just three.”
The brazier, Dane saw, was lying on its side, some of its still-glowing coals spilled out on the ice. He coated the three arrows in pitch and lit them, and—in rapid succession—William grabbed each one and shot at the tail. The first one missed, but the next two sank into its scaly hide. There was the sizzle of fire on flesh, and the tail jerked in pain and quickly plunged underwater.
“Killer aim, Will.”
“If only I had more arrows.” The boiling sea calmed, as if the monster had dived far below to lick its wounds. But was it gone for good? “I thought of what you said,” said William. “About having courage…about acting through the fear. I guess it worked.”
“Guess it worked? Without you I’d still be a prisoner.” He gave William a brotherly fist to the shoulder. “And I saw you trying to warn us, thinking more of our safety than your own. The act of a true Rune Warrior.”
“Me?” said William, his face alighting in awe. “A Rune Warrior?”
“At only ten years old. What’ll you do when you hit eleven?”
The berg shuddered violently again. The monster was now attacking from the other side. It had snaked its way into the channel eroded by seawater—which meant there was no place on the berg that was safe. The creature’s glistening spiked tail uncoiled upward, rising high overhead, then came slamming down like a felled redwood—KA-BAM!—landing with a thunderous crash right on the spot where they had just been standing, the crushing weight of its tail so intense that the ice cracked beneath it.
Now they were split into two groups, one on either side of the tail, and they quickly backed away in opposite directions, Jarl and Dane on the right side, everyone else on the left. But the tip of the tail curled round to the left, trapping everyone on that side, and threatening, Dane saw, to enclose them and pull them back into the sea.
“William!” cried Dane. “Make a torch!”
William grabbed an oar and thrust the handle end into the pitch pot, then into the brazier fire, lighting it. He bravely ran at the slithering tail, touched the flame to the hide, and jumped away. Instantly the creature jerked away its tail.
But this stratagem backfired, for then the snaking tail we
nt sliding the other way, curling back around to the right and trapping Jarl and Dane on an even smaller section of ice. As the tail snaked close, Jarl hacked at it with his sword, Dane stabbed with the sharp, hooked gaff, but the thing dodged their weapons as if it had a mind of its own.
And then Dane saw, astonishingly, near the tip of the tail a black orb that could only be one thing: an eye!
“It sees us!” Dane cried.
“A tail can’t see!”
Dane thrust the gaff at it; the tail ducked and swerved, lunging with its spikes at Dane’s head. He parried the attack, slashing with his weapon.
“The end! Go for the end of the tail!” shouted Dane.
As Dane fought furiously, trying to keep the thing’s attention on him, Jarl crept to the side, his blade held high, waiting to strike. With the long, deadly tail spikes thrusting toward him, it was as if Dane were fighting six swordsmen at once. Swoosh! Swoosh!
“Any time now, Jarl!”
The tail whipped sideways, knocking Dane off his feet. Again he saw it rise, ready to slam its spikes into his body—but Jarl gave a war cry, and in a flash of his blade he had severed the end of the thing’s tail. Dane rolled as the tail slammed down blindly, missing him. The tail jerked and writhed, wildly whipping around like a frenzied blind man trying to ward off attackers. Then it retreated, slithering back across the ice, disappearing beneath the black water.
The severed end of the tail, bearing the single black-orbed eye, lay twitching on the ice. “I shall hang it over my hearth to honor my victory,” Jarl proclaimed. He cocked a look at Dane, in case his rival was thinking of stealing his trophy.
“No argument here,” Dane conceded.
Hefting the twitching tail, Jarl brought it back to where everyone stood. He held his trophy high, boasted loudly, “I have slain the monster!”
Jarl’s boastings were usually overblown, and this time was no different. With a roar Jörmungandr shot headfirst from the channel, landing with cataclysmic force upon the ice. Everyone was thrown off their feet, and the berg began to tip upward under the monster’s enormous weight. In a mad scramble, they all reached out and clutched one another’s hands, legs, and clothing so as not to slide toward the monster. Jarl had Kára. Ulf grabbed Dane and Astrid. Geldrun grabbed Lut, who held William’s hand. Drott and Fulnir anchored themselves by sinking their knives into the ice and called out for others to hold on to them. Ragnar had also anchored himself with his knife and was clutching his precious ring to prevent its sliding away.
The ice sheet angled higher and higher, but the human web seemed to be holding. The beast below them hissed and snorted, blowing gusts of hot air from its nostrils. Below him Dane saw the black maw of its mouth and the sharp, pointed horns atop its reptilian head, its eyes twin orbs of green smoke and fire that burned with an all-seeing malevolence.
Dane heard a cry. Astrid had lost her grip and was sliding right past him. He flung out his leg, and at the last instant, she grabbed his foot, hanging on precariously.
“Don’t let go!” Dane shouted.
“I won’t!”
To shake its prey free, below them the monster reared its head up and smashed it onto the ice. The berg shook, and Astrid lost her grip and tumbled downward.
Astrid clawed frantically at the ice to stop her slide. If I die, must I still be a Valkyrie? If not, where will I go? Is Valhalla strictly a males-only afterlife? That seems rather unfair….
Then she realized she still had a knife. She grabbed it from her waist and stabbed at the ice, but down she kept sliding. Again and again, she plunged it in, until finally it held and she jerked to a stop.
Clutching the knife handle with both hands, she hazarded a look below—she hung a mere two body lengths above the beast’s black, cavernous jaws.
“This time don’t let go!” she heard Dane cry.
“That was my intention!” she cried in answer.
Below Dane the monster smashed its black jaw onto the ice, shaking the berg like a bear shakes a tree to dislodge low-hanging fruit. Dane saw that the reverberations were swinging Astrid to and fro from her precarious handhold. Another jolt might shake her free. “Form a chain!” Dane yelled to those nearest him. “We can reach her!”
Above him he saw one of the ship’s long-shafted oars had gotten lodged in the knot of arms and legs. “The oar!” he yelled. “Fulnir, give me the oar!” Quickly the oar was handed down to him. Dane took one last look at his mother, who clung to Lut beside him, and he let go of Ulf’s grasp and slid away, the oar in hand.
He knew if he collided with Astrid, they’d both tumble into the monster’s mouth. So he dug the oar into the ice like a rudder as he slid, steering himself just a bit to the left of her. Astrid grabbed at him as he shot past—missing—and Dane went sliding feetfirst toward the monster. He rammed into its lower jaw, its breath steaming over him. He rolled and kicked, trying to elude its massive fangs, the sudden nearness of its jaws flooding him with panic. In moments, he’d be eaten. He swatted the creature’s snout with his oar shaft—once! twice!—and the thing growled and opened its jaws even wider, hungry to finish Dane off. But as its jaws came down, they suddenly locked—for Dane had wedged the oar shaft inside its mouth, propping it up between the roof of its mouth and the bottom.
The sea monster violently slammed the ice, intent on dislodging the oar. But Astrid was jolted loose instead and, plunging past Dane, she went tumbling into the beast’s open mouth and onto its slick black tongue. Her knife still in hand, she began stabbing it upward into the roof of the beast’s mouth, the creature bleating in pain. Dane could see its blood spurting onto Astrid, her arms awash in crimson. Thrusting himself halfway into the beast’s mouth, he seized her hand to stop her from disappearing down its throat.
“Get out!” she cried, insisting he save himself. But nothing would make him let go—he’d go into the belly of the beast itself if he had to. Jerking a look up to those still hanging precariously above him, he spied the dim gleam of Draupnir—yes! This was his chance! “Ragnar!” Dane cried. “Let it go!” Their eyes met, Dane sensing some new feeling there. Ragnar released his grip on Odin’s Draupnir, and Dane saw the ring skate down the sheet of ice just past him, its golden glint disappearing with a splash into the sea.
Having seen the golden ring go past, the monster made a move to retreat after it into the sea but then stopped, unable, Dane realized, to go underwater with its mouth wide open. Still hung halfway in its jaws, reaching in for Astrid, Dane saw her knifing the flesh of the beast’s throat, Jörmungandr swallowing its own blood. Coughs then came from the beast, great choking spasms. Its whole body shook. Dane saw terror in Astrid’s eyes as they both realized at the same moment what was about to happen.
And then, with sudden force, a great wave of putrescence shot up Jörmungandr’s throat, the stream of vomit propelling Dane and Astrid out of the mouth and tumbling down on the now-righted iceberg in a steaming-hot pool of sea brine and sour puke.
Dane sat up, dripping. Moaning beside him, Astrid wiped away the foul, soupy regurgitation from her eyes. “Well, that was interesting,” she said.
He hugged her as if she were the most beautiful girl in the world, for to him, even covered head to toe with sea-monster vomit, she was.
But where were the others? He turned, shocked to see Godrek’s ship beside the berg; his men had Dane’s beleaguered friends surrounded, spears and swords held at their necks. Accompanied by one of his men, Godrek strode forth, brandishing the rune sword, his eyes mad with avarice. The liegeman grabbed Astrid, and Godrek put the sword tip to Dane’s neck.
“Odin’s ring? Where is it, boy? My ring!”
“Gone, my lord,” Ragnar said, behind them. Godrek slowly turned to face his man. “I let it slip into the sea for the serpent to retrieve. He would’ve killed us all had I not let go.”
Godrek began to shake and quiver with rage, a volcano about to blow. “No…no…NO! It can’t be gone!” he wailed. In a frenzy he began to beat at
his temples with his fists. “It can’t be! It can’t be!”
His liegemen gave each other uneasy looks.
“My lord…,” a liegeman said, “all the other gold…surely that’s enough.”
“No!” Godrek raged. “It will never be enough!”
“Just the lesson my father learned,” Dane said. “There would never be enough gold in the world to make up for losing those he loved. He was no coward, Whitecloak; he was stronger and richer than you’ll ever be.”
Godrek stood motionless, everyone watching, his eyes jerking back and forth in their sockets, listening to the mad jumble of voices in his head. He began mumbling a stream of unintelligible words, as if carrying on a conversation with the very demon that had cursed the rune sword. Dane had had a burning desire for revenge against this man, but now he felt only pity. Godrek had been a leader, a warrior; he had bravely fought beside Dane’s father and experienced more than most men could ever dream of. But now he had succumbed to the curse of the rune sword—the incurable disease of greed. Like a man whose sole companion is his ale cup, eventually he winds up alone, empty cup in hand, friendless, loveless, gibbering to himself like an idiot.
“We need spill no more blood,” Ragnar said to the liegemen. The men exchanged looks, nodded, and sheathed their weapons. Godrek too sheathed the rune sword. And then, with a mad howl, he ran at Dane, seizing him by the throat, his fingers squeezing with inhuman strength, Dane choking, unable to breathe. Dane saw flecks of foam at the corners of Godrek’s mouth, and was just as frightened by the sheer madness in the man’s gaze as he was to be so near death. Others came at Godrek, trying to stop him, but suddenly they froze, backing away in terror, and Dane thought it only too fitting an end, to die at the hands of the very man he once looked to for wisdom. His world going dark as he began losing his vision, a sudden sound filled his head. A hissing snort. And then, just before his sight completely deserted him, he looked over Godrek’s shoulder and spied a chilling sight—Jörmungandr rising slick and gleaming from the sea.
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