Odin's Ravens

by K. L. Armstrong

  “Raven starvers. I’m guessing it means ‘cowards’—someone who’ll never fall in battle and feed the ravens.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?” Fen said.

  “No, but it is kind of a cool phrase. I’ll have to remember it.” Matt glanced back over his shoulder. “I think we can slow down. The thing about running from old dead men? You don’t have to run very far. They’re way back there. Just keep walking fast and—”

  Matt stumbled. Baldwin caught him before he fell, but he left his shoe behind. He looked down to see it mired in mud. Or, at least, he hoped it was mud.

  “I think we found the river,” Baldwin said, pointing as he retrieved Matt’s shoe.

  “Perfect,” Matt said. “Once we’re across it, we’ll be past the land of the dead and on our way out.” He glanced at Laurie. “Is that what the map says?”

  She smiled. “It is.”

  Matt looked down at the boggy ground. He could make out the river about fifty feet away. Fog drifted over it, but it didn’t seem to be that wide, maybe twenty feet across.

  “Can everyone swim?” he asked. “It might not be that deep, but just in case.”

  They all said they could make it that far. They found a drier path and started across the wide bank. As they walked, the fog rolled in, licking around them, so thick they could barely see one another.

  “Stay close!” Matt said. “Move slowly and make sure you can see someone else.” He paused. “Better yet, let’s form a line. Baldwin? Grab my shield. Laurie? Hold on to his shirt. Fen?”

  “Bring up the rear,” Fen muttered.

  “Thanks. Let me know if you hear anything back there.”

  They continued forward. It was slow going. Matt didn’t want to lead them into thick mud, so he felt his way with his toe, being sure to pick safe ground with each step.

  “What’s that noise?” Laurie called.

  Matt had been paying too much attention to choosing a path to notice anything else, but when he listened, he caught a faint popping sound over the burble of water.

  “The river, I guess?” Matt answered. “I think we’re almost there. I smell…” He inhaled and coughed as the stench burned his nostrils.

  “What is that?” Baldwin said.

  “The river, I guess?” Matt said again.

  Fen muttered something, but he was too far back for Matt to catch it.

  “Stay alert,” Matt said. “We should be there in just a few—”

  He stopped. The fog had lifted and he could see the river now. It was wider than he’d thought, maybe forty feet across. The water came right up to the banks, but it wasn’t like a beach, with shallow water stretching out to the depths. The bank seemed to drop straight off, the bone-strewn ground disappearing the moment it reached the water. Which didn’t look like water at all. It was grayish-brown and weirdly thick, the consistency of stew straight from a can, gelatinous and disgusting. It even looked like stew, with dark chunks roiling through it, popping up, only to disappear again.

  Also, it was bubbling.

  At first Matt thought it was boiling—probably because of the stew comparison. But he couldn’t feel any heat rising. Just stink. A terrible stink, like stew that’d been left out for weeks, rotting and foul. It bubbled away, popping and sputtering. When a drop hit his cheek, it hurt, and he pulled back, rubbing the spot.

  “That doesn’t look sanitary at all,” Baldwin said.

  “Or safe,” Laurie said as she moved up beside them. “What is it?”

  As they watched, a skull popped up. Or more of a head, really. Somewhere between the two. There was bone and there was… not bone. Hair. Skin. Teeth. Matt was happy when it dropped back under the surface.

  “Whoa,” Baldwin said. “I think it’s like a soup. Of dead people.”

  “No,” Matt said quickly. “That’s not in the myth. It’s just a river.”

  “A river with body parts,” Fen said.

  “I’ll, uh, check it out,” Matt said. “You guys stay here.”

  “No,” Baldwin said. “I’ve got this, boss. I’m indestructible, remember?”

  Baldwin edged past Matt. He took three careful steps to the river’s bank. Then he dipped in his finger. When he pulled it out, Matt heard a weird fizzing noise. Smoke rose from Baldwin’s finger. Matt raced forward, but by the time he got there, Baldwin was reaching another finger into the stuff. He dripped it onto his shirtsleeve. It sizzled and left a row of tiny holes where the drops fell.

  “Acid, I think,” Baldwin said, calmly wiping off his finger. “Huh. I liked this shirt, too.”

  “Acid?” Laurie said. “That’s… We can’t cross…”

  “There must be a way,” Matt said. “I think I remember something about a boat.”

  “I’ll check the map.” She did. “Okay, it looks like there’s some sort of crossing. Either a boat or a bridge? It’s not really clear. But it’s a way across. We just need to find it.”

  “Then let’s do that.”

  There was a boat. A longship, actually. Baldwin spotted it first, racing ahead and jumping in the beached boat, saying, “Check this out!”

  It was, Matt had to admit, pretty cool. It wasn’t nearly as big as a longship, of course. It wasn’t even a snekke, which was the smallest form of longship and still about fifty feet long. This was more like a replica, ten feet from bow to stern. There were only two sets of oars. It did have the dragon on the prow. Or a serpent. It was kind of hard to tell—the two terms were often interchangeable in Norse myth, which meant he might be fighting a dragon at Ragnarök instead of a giant serpent, but he tried not to think about that.

  “You need to get out of there,” Fen called to Baldwin. “We can’t push off otherwise.”

  “Sure you can.” Baldwin grinned. “You’ve got mighty Thor. The god of battle.”

  “Not lately,” Fen said. “More like the god of running-from-battle.”

  Matt looked over sharply, but Fen was smiling, and it seemed a real one. “Yeah, yeah,” he said good-naturedly and waved for Baldwin to get out. Baldwin hopped over the side, and they all pushed the longship to the water’s edge. Then Matt held on to it and said, “Climb in. I’ve got her.”

  Baldwin came around the stern. “Nah, you hop in. I was just kidding. I’ll push her off. A little acid-wading won’t hurt me.”

  “No, but it’ll hurt your shoes, and you need them. I’ll be careful.”

  Baldwin climbed back in the boat. He tried to take a set of oars from Laurie, but she wasn’t giving them up, so he moved to the front to guide the boat. Laurie and Fen used the oars to push from the shore as Matt shoved from the back. Once it was mostly in the water, he said, “Hold her steady with the oars and I’ll hop in.”

  Matt got one leg over the side. Then, with the other, he gave one last push off the shore. The boat shot into the water, and Matt was left hanging there for a second, straddling the side, one leg in and one out.

  “Can you touch bottom with the oars?” he said. “Hold her still?”

  Fen and Laurie tried, but even when they pushed their oars down as far as they could reach, they weren’t touching bottom.

  Matt eased his leg up carefully. Longships were known for their stability, even on rough water, but he wasn’t about to take that chance when the “water” could strip the flesh from your bones.

  At the thought, he moved a little too fast and had to stop, getting steady again.

  “Just pull your leg inside, Thorsen,” Fen said. “I know you think you’re a big guy, but trust me, you’re not going to flip her.”

  “I know. Hold on.”

  He pulled his leg up until it was almost on the side of the boat. Then he noticed the water burbling like a geyser right below his foot, and he started to swing over fast, but a hand shot from the middle of the geyser. It seized him by the foot. As he scrambled to grab something, anything, a whole body emerged from the river—a huge, rotting corpse, holding his foot tight in one bony hand.

  Baldwin let out
a cry. Fen reached for Matt. Matt caught his arm, but then the corpse wrenched with superhuman strength and Matt flew off the side of the boat, pulling Fen with him. He saw Fen’s eyes go wide, and he knew it was too late to grab the boat, too late for Fen to grab the boat, and the only thing Matt could do was…

  Let go.

  He released Fen’s arm and sailed over the river. He caught one last glimpse of the giant corpse. Then it released him, and Matt hit the water, flat on his back, arms and legs churning wildly as if he could stop his fall. He hit with a splash and watched as the acid-water closed over him.

  FIVE

  FEN

  “ZOMBIE STEW”

  He just let go!” Fen sputtered. He stared for a split second at the spot where Matt had disappeared into the acid-water, and then, with a combination of shock and anger coursing through him, he flipped one of the oars upside down and poked the skinnier end into the water. He hoped he didn’t bean Matt on the head with it, but he didn’t see a whole lot of other options. He couldn’t dive in: he’d end up bones and meat in minutes. He couldn’t not try to save Matt, either.

  As he sloshed the oar around in the water, he bumped into something and felt weight on the oar. He yanked it to the surface, realizing as he did so that the weight was too light but hoping that maybe Matt was swimming as Fen tugged. As he pulled the oar out of the water, he saw that the hair of a skull had tangled around the wood.

  “You don’t think that’s…” Laurie started to ask.

  Fen shook the head off the oar. It bobbed on the water, seeming to stare at them with dead eyes. It couldn’t be Matt. Fen refused to think for a moment that it could be him. Thorsen might still get on Fen’s nerves now and then, but that didn’t mean that Fen wanted to see him reduced to his bones.

  Quietly, Laurie asked the question she’d just left unsaid, “Is it Matt?”

  “No, of course not!” Fen hoped that he wasn’t lying as he put the oar back into the water and swished around, hoping Matt would grab on. It was weird that the boat and oar didn’t disintegrate, but Fen figured they must be made out of something the acid-water wouldn’t eat.

  The remaining members of the group were scanning the water, hoping for a sight of their missing friend, when Fen realized with relief that the skull he’d pulled to the surface had stringy black hair. “It’s not him!” he exclaimed. “See! Thorsen’s got red hair. That guy”—he pointed at the skull—“had black hair.”

  Laurie and Baldwin both let out audible sighs, but Fen wasn’t as relieved as he’d have liked to be. The current in the river was pushing the boat farther and farther from the spot where Matt had gone in, and they still couldn’t see any clues of where he might be. On one hand, Fen thought that checking the spot where he’d gone in was the best idea. On the other, the current was stronger than it had seemed when they’d launched the boat; plus, there was whatever had pulled Matt into the water. If the water hadn’t reduced Matt to bits of bone and meat, he was still fighting whatever had snagged him—all while under the water without air and dealing with river currents. The odds were against him. Even if none of the kids said it, they had to all be thinking it.

  “Come on; come on,” Fen muttered. “You’re tougher than this, Thorsen.”

  “Fen? I’m still dead until we leave here.” Baldwin pulled off his shirt and kicked off his shoes. Then he paused and glanced at Laurie. “Uh, can you close your eyes?”

  “No, but I’ll search on this side.” Laurie turned her head so she was looking off to the other side of the boat. In a shaky but determined voice, she added, “Maybe the current pushed him this way.”

  Once she looked away, Baldwin unsnapped his trousers, but before Baldwin could finish stripping, Fen felt something heavy grab the oar. It felt like the biggest fish in the world, and there was no way he was going to pull it out on his own. “Wait!” he yelled. “I think I might have him… or he has me, or at least something does. Help me pull him up.”

  Baldwin and Fen tugged the oar back out of the water as fast as they could, the boat leaning heavily to their side, and there, clinging to the oar, was Matt. His clothes were tattered, like… well, like he’d been swimming in acid-water.

  Both boys reached into the water and grabbed him. The water burned to touch, but the skin wasn’t sloughing off their hands like it would in real acid. Apparently, whatever was in this water destroyed fabric faster than flesh.

  Laurie started to come to help, and the boat began tipping.

  “Stay over there,” Fen yelped. “We need to stay balanced.”

  “Sorry!” she squeaked.

  Once Laurie returned to where she had been, the boat seemed to stabilize a bit. She leaned back, and it evened out more. It still tilted, but not so much that they’d all spill into the acid-water.

  Fen looked over his shoulder and told her, “Grab that end of the oar.”

  Matt was clinging to it, even as Fen and Baldwin tugged at him. They had their hands on his upper arms, pulling him upward steadily. It felt like there was resistance, though, like whatever had pulled Matt in still struggled to keep him.

  They weren’t going to let that happen.

  “Heave on three,” Fen ordered.

  Baldwin nodded.

  “One, two, three.”

  On three, they all yanked, and whatever had hold of Matt lost its grip. Together they got his top half into the boat, and even in his only semiconscious state, Matt apparently knew instinctively to release the oar and grab the boat.

  Laurie swayed backward as Matt released the oar, but she stayed in the boat. The momentum of her backward tilt helped offset the weight of Matt on the opposite side of the boat. It wasn’t enough, though: Matt was a big guy. As the boat started to tilt again, Baldwin leaned backward, rocking in the direction opposite of the tilt.

  “Go over there,” Fen barked.

  As Baldwin scrambled toward Laurie, Fen leaned over the side, reached in the burning water, and grabbed hold of Matt’s trousers. The material ripped further, but Fen still had enough leverage to tug Matt into the boat. The semiconscious boy flopped into the boat, stretched out in an awkward position half on top of Baldwin and the oar. He looked extremely uncomfortable. His body was arched up at the upper legs, so both his torso and calves were lower than his hips. His head and one shoulder were slightly higher, too, propped on Laurie’s legs. All four kids were tangled up in a mess of limbs, but they were okay.

  Fen was panting from the exertion of tugging Matt free of whatever had caught him—and from the effort of pulling a person into the boat. Baldwin was grinning. Laurie was sniffling a little but smiling at the same time. Matt was… there. That was all so far.

  His eyes were closed, and his whole body looked red like he had a serious case of sunburn. In a few places, it looked like he was so sunburned that he was peeling. This wasn’t actually sunburn, though. Fen had seen what the water did to Baldwin’s sleeve—and now to Matt’s clothes, too.

  “Thorsen?” Fen said, and then he cleared his throat because his voice sounded funny. He wasn’t going to sniffle and sob or anything, but the death of Baldwin was still too recent. He would admit—not out loud, mind you, but to himself—that he might’ve been more than a little afraid and worried about Thorsen.

  Baldwin prodded Matt gently. “Matt? Are you alive?”

  Fen shook his head at the question. Baldwin was an odd one—or maybe not. They were in Hel. Maybe Matt had been drowned or killed by whatever was in the water.

  What happens if we die here?

  But then Laurie reached her hand down like she was going to touch Matt’s face. She stopped just above his mouth and nose. “He’s breathing.”

  Matt’s hand darted out and pushed Laurie’s hand away from his face. Eyes still closed, he sat up. Then, almost at the same time as he opened his eyes, Matt also opened his mouth. He leaned over the side of the boat and puked.

  When he was done, he stared at them.

  “Dead.” Matt stuttered the word. He coughed, s
wallowed, and tried again. “Dead.”

  “No, you’re alive, man,” Baldwin assured him. He patted Matt on the shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” Laurie added soothingly. “You’re okay.”

  “No.” Matt shook his head and coughed. “I mean the water is full of dead Vikings. Go!”

  “Oh!” Baldwin grabbed a pair of oars and looked at Fen. “Let’s get out of here.”

  As quickly as they could, Fen and Baldwin rowed the boat to the other shore. Laurie alternated between pounding Matt on the back as he coughed, staring at the shore, and studying the map.

  A few times, Fen felt things grab at his oars, and he knew Baldwin was having the same experience because he’d hear Baldwin grunt and felt the way the boat was jerked around. It got worse and worse the closer they got to the shore. A few strokes from the bank, Baldwin looked at Fen and said, “Can we get closer?”

  Fen nodded. They used the oars to dig into the sediment or bodies or whatever was hidden in the water and forced the boat still closer. It scraped against the bottom with horrible noises.

  “Uh, guys?” Laurie was staring at the water behind them.

  They all looked back. The dead were wading toward them, using the other bodies as ladders of a sort. Partial bodies were submerged with others standing on their shoulders or, in a few cases, on their heads. As the kids watched, the dead that apparently filled the water climbed over each other in a grotesque but determined way. They were almost silent as they trampled those around them, their focus only on the kids. The dead stared at them, some with white eyes and others with eyeless skulls. They all fixed their gazes steadily on the descendants as they climbed and struggled silently toward them.

  Laurie let out a sharp sigh and then pointed to their right. Her face was paler than usual, but she sounded far less freaked out than Fen felt as she said, “We go toward those woods, and we do it as fast as we can.” She glanced at the map in her hand, which was shaking and thus making the insect-wing paper shiver and shimmer. “There is a line on here that looks like a border of some sort. I’m hoping it means that if we reach it we can escape them. If not, at the least we can try to lose them in the woods.” She poked the map. “There’s a cave here that we need to go through to get out of Hel.”