by Matt Larkin
Win held up his hands. “We don’t have time to cast blame upon one another. If this place is a deliberate maze beneath Tanna’s holdings, we need to focus our efforts on finding egress.”
Starkad grimaced. “I might … I have good instincts. I may be able to find a way through.”
“Instincts?” Hervor asked. “Did they warn you about Afrid?”
He winced. Maybe he didn’t deserve it. But who else was she to blame?
“Shit,” she mumbled. “We can’t go forward. We have to go back for Höfund.”
Starkad flinched and stared at her with sad eyes.
Win was already shaking his head. “We do him no good by sacrificing our lives in a vain attempt to reach him. Tanna’s minions already caught us unawares and handily defeated us. Our numbers are fewer now.” The prince left the mention of Baruch unspoken.
The Miklagardian had died for this mission. He’d escaped this city long ago, earned his way free from slavery, made a life for himself. Since coming back here, he’d lost Fjolvor and then his own life.
“Stonekicker has betrayed us,” Win finally said. “Vebiorg is missing. Höfund is captured. Are the three of us to do what seven failed to?”
“We’ll find a way to go back for him,” Starkad said. “Not now, though. Right now, we need to get free of this place. The only way I can see to do that is to press on and try to navigate this maze of tunnels.”
And Hel take them both for being right. Why the fuck did Höfund have to throw in his lot with Rollaugr? And the big man had trusted her and Starkad to help solve this. She’d failed him, every way a friend could. When she’d asked for his help to save Starkad from the witches of Pohjola, Höfund had come running. And this was how she repaid him.
“Lead the way, then,” she snapped at Starkad.
He did, heading out a few steps ahead of them. He paused at an intersection. Thinking? Or … Oh. Odin’s bleeding stones. He was trying to use the Sight to get Otherworldly guidance. Even the thought of it had the hair on Hervor’s arms standing on end. Maybe that insight had helped them a time or two. Still, it seemed a fell, even fey gift—or a curse. She couldn’t help but mistrust aught that didn’t come from the human world. More so now, given all she’d seen in the past seven years.
Starkad led them down bend after bend. Maybe the Sight told him where to go. Maybe he just wandered nigh as blind as she had, but didn’t admit it. Didn’t want them scared any worse than they already were. He needn’t have bothered if that was the case. She couldn’t have gotten much more scared.
Down the next tunnel, the sound of metal scraping over stone reached her. What now?
Even Starkad glanced back at her, a hint of concern on his face. “I’m fair certain we need to continue this way.”
“Then let us do so,” Win said.
With a nod, Starkad pressed on. They came round a bend and the source of the sound became clear, if hard to believe. Great sweeping blades the size of a man flashed out of grooves in the walls, cutting across the hall in an arc one way. Then the other.
Behind them, the sound of grinding stone echoed through the tunnel.
“Not this way,” Hervor said.
“I’d say not,” Win agreed.
Starkad frowned. “Who would build this?”
Tanna probably, though Hervor didn’t much care, truth be told. She spun around and doubled back. Only … hadn’t the bend been to the left when they’d come around? No, she must just be exhausted. It was right.
Beside her, Win was blinking, shaking his head.
Whatever. Hervor started down the tunnel. That grinding sound just kept going and going, like a mill inside her head. There was another intersection, with a way to her left and a way straight on.
As she approached, a section of the wall maybe five feet on a side began to shift over the floor, grinding, closing off the intersection. She spun around, gaping, finding Starkad and Win doing much the same.
“How …?” she mumbled. How and why would anyone build something like this? It made no sense .
“These vampires predate even the Old Kingdoms,” Win said. “Perhaps they know secrets long forgotten by the world.”
Even if that explained the how, it hardly said much about the why.
Starkad swept his torch close to the wall that had closed off that intersection.
“Are we being herded?” Hervor asked.
He was still inspecting the now-flush block. “I’m not sure. I suspect all this was designed to confuse as much as herd. Given centuries … millennia, even, with which to work, the vampires must’ve designed this place to hinder their own kind as much as humans.”
“So what do we do?” she demanded.
“Naught has changed save that we could not go back even if we wished to do so. We must press forward and seek another escape from the undercity.”
Hervor grimaced. An awful, sick realization settled on her gut. They were going to die. Despite all they’d survived, her and Starkad, all they’d been through, they were overmatched this time. Facing foes they barely understood. Caught in a game where they didn’t fathom the rules. And they’d been defeated at every turn.
So then, it was only a matter of time before Tanna or some other vampire cornered them and killed them. And she couldn’t think of a damn thing she could do to change that.
21
“ H ow did you know where they’d be?” Orvar asked Tanna as the vampire Patriarch led him to a dungeon beneath the palace. This far down, they had to be adjacent to the sewer system Hervor and the others had fled into.
Tanna chuckled ever so slightly. “Ah. A particular gift of mine. If a human willingly surrenders his—or her—soul to me, I can see through her eyes.”
Tanna’s agent among Hervor’s crew. “Who was it?”
“A girl, really. A child among them I cornered when they first attacked my tower. She begged for her life. So I gave it to her. After tasting her blood, of course, and binding her to me. Maybe I’ll even make her one of us, someday.”
They entered a corridor lit by small torches stuck in sconces, with steel doors every so often. Tanna bypassed several such doors before pausing at one. He twisted his hand oddly and something clicked. Then the door popped open on its own.
Orvar raised an eyebrow but said naught. He caught the edge of the door and flung it the rest of the way open. Inside, the vampires had chained up the big man who’d been working with Hervor. Bigger even than Ecgtheow had been, in fact—Orvar sometimes wondered what happened to him.
If some fell urd, he deserved it. He too had been on the crew on Thule. The ones who had abandoned Orvar.
Vengeance. Vengeance. Vengeance.
This other man might’ve been half jotunn, actually.
“Did you know,” Tanna said, drawing a small vial from beneath his robes, “we studied a concoction those fire-worshipping Serklanders developed? We developed our own formula for it, one which we use in large quantities to repel any attempt at naval invasion. This small quantity of it has other amusing uses, though.”
The vampire handed Orvar the vial.
Orvar uncorked it. It just smelled like oil to him. Looked like it, too. “What do I care of it?”
“Liquid fire, my friend. Water will only make it spread. It just burns and burns …” Tanna cocked his head toward the big man chained to the wall. “I must see to the other interlopers. One of them carries a runeblade I intend to claim.”
Hervor herself, in fact.
“Amuse yourself with the oaf and learn what you can. When you’re finished with him, tell Nilos and he’ll have you brought to me. I wouldn’t want you to miss the end.”
No. Orvar definitely wouldn’t want to miss that.
Vengeance. Vengeance. Vengeance.
Tanna strode back down the hall they’d come from, leaving Orvar alone with the big man.
He drifted into the room and paced around. Tanna’s people had manacled Hervor’s companion’s hands behind his back, with those manacle
s then chained to the floor.
“Reckon you’re the one, ain’t you? ”
Orvar cocked his head at the man’s words. “She told you?” As far as he’d known, Hervor had gone to substantial lengths to keep anyone from learning of her crime of betraying and murdering him. How important this man must be to her, if she trusted him with such dangerous knowledge.
The big man shrugged, jiggling the chains in the process. “Gonna have to kill you eventually. Just being upfront about that.”
Orvar chuckled, a sound that made the big man recoil. His laughter had that effect on the living now. It sounded hollow, Otherworldly. Perils of being among the damned. “Who are you?”
“Höfund Godmundson. You?”
Good question. “Once, Orvar-Oddr Grimrson. Later, they called me the Arrow’s Point. There was a time I thought I left even that name behind. Now, I am dead. So perhaps I am Orvar, or perhaps something else.”
“Huh. Kinda overlong answer to a simple question. Like to hear yourself talk?”
Orvar frowned. Then he caught Höfund with a hook to the face. His blow sent blood and spittle flying. A moment later, the man spit out two teeth.
“Did you know I had a half-jotunn son?” Orvar shook his head at the thought. “I passed into Jotunheim once, and lay with a jotunn woman.” His son had been big like Höfund, but with an easy smile. “I dare not even show myself to him now. Not after what Hervor made me into.”
Höfund spit out more blood. “Reckon maybe you deserved it. Either way, most people what pick up a sword or axe or spear got some blood on their hands. Children and farmers might get the chance of being good. Maybe. Not even sure on that account. Warriors, we got different rules. ”
“Indeed.” Orvar punched him in the face again, twice. Then he landed a blow to the man’s gut. That one sent the half-jotunn retching up blood and everything else in his stomach. Orvar landed another hook to the man’s left ribs with a satisfying crack. Two broken, if he made his guess. With his other hand he punched Höfund’s right side, cracking another rib.
The big man dropped to his knees, hacking and coughing, sputtering up more blood.
Vengeance. Vengeance. Vengeance.
“Rules,” Orvar muttered. “Blood for blood. The evil bitch murdered me and must reap her reward.”
Inexplicably, Höfund laughed between coughing fits, blood soaking his teeth and dribbling down his chin. “Evil? Ain’t any such thing so far as I’ve seen. There’s just the people what you care about, and the people what you don’t.” He wheezed again, obviously pained to draw breath. “Your way’d leave all Midgard bloody.”
Utter drivel. Orvar knelt down, bringing the man’s face level with his own. “Death provides one clarity of thought and purpose the living could not fathom. Blood is everything. You do not understand. But you soon will. When your soul is cast into the void to drown in eternal torment beyond this life, then you will know I have told you the truth.”
“Could be. Or could be you’re just fucking mist-mad and can’t tell your mouth from your arse. Reckon ’cause you’ve got vampire cocks stuck in both.”
Orvar seized the half-jotunn by the throat and squeezed. Hervor cared for this man on some level, valued him, at least as much as the self-absorbed bitch could value the life of another. His death would hurt her, maybe have slightly more effect than all the others .
Then again, maybe making her watch the big man draw his last dying gasp would be sweeter.
Vengeance. Vengeance. Vengeance.
Orvar released the big man. He drew the vial Tanna had given him from his shirt, then upended it over Höfund’s feet. Naught happened. Maybe, like oil, it needed a spark.
After grabbing a torch, Orvar tossed it at the big man’s boots. His screams of agony caught even Orvar off guard and sent him falling back several steps. The acrid stench of burning flesh filled the room. He chuckled, shaking his head. What foulness these Miklagardians had come up with. As if men did not have enough awful ways of killing one another.
In truth, though, he hoped the fires wouldn’t kill the half-jotunn. Hervor should see his end, just before her own.
So then, time to find Nilos, and then Hervor. The time had come to crush her out of existence at long last.
22
P endulum blades swung back and forth across the tunnel. Starkad frowned, judging the timing. They could double back once more, of course. Could take their chances wandering around this maze longer.
But they’d seen shifting blocks closing off passageways and fires that somehow never seemed to burn out. And more blades like these, making every corridor its own deathtrap.
It had been hours already, and the constantly shifting passageways had done naught but delay them and cut off any attempt at return. While he knew no conscious mind ran this maze, still he could not help but feel someone was toying with him.
Urd, maybe.
Either way, sooner or later, they would have to stop turning away from the traps and cross one.
“What are you doing?” Hervor asked. “There’s another tunnel behind us.”
“It goes nowhere. ”
“You don’t know that.”
His instincts insisted that way would only send them wandering deeper into the convoluted paths. He shook his head. “We can do this.”
“You jest,” Win said. “Those blades are the bigger than even Höfund’s axe. I hope you do not think your mail will protect you if one catches you.”
“No. I’m going to avoid getting hit. Wait for it to pass, step forward, wait for the next, and so on.”
The prince groaned. “This is not some child’s game of balancing on logs over the river.”
Starkad spun on him. “None of this is a fucking game. People are dead and my goal here is to keep from losing any more of the crew. Every moment we delay may bring the vampires closer toward us. If we can make it to the upper city, if we can survive until daylight, maybe we have a chance. But down here, the sun never comes up, and we cannot afford to be caught out.”
Hervor was staring at him, face grim. Clearly, she knew he had the right of it, because she pushed past him to pause just before the first of the three pendulums. As it swung back the other way she lurched forward, then pulled up just short of the next. She repeated the maneuver twice more to come out on the other side.
Starkad looked to Win. “You see what she did? I’m going to repeat it. Just learn the timing, same as you’d study a foe in a duel, except these blades never vary their speed. You’re dodging an axe blow. No more or less than that.”
So, then. Starkad watched the blades, danced forward when one passed, and then repeated it twice more to join Hervor.
He glanced back at Win. “Come on.”
“Starkad,” Hervor said. She was looking down the tunnel, into a circle chamber with other paths branching off it like rays of the sun. And striding down one of them, runeblade in hand, was Tanna.
Alone. Supremely confident.
Growling, Hervor drew Tyrfing. Pale flames sprang to life along the blade’s length. The shieldmaiden stalked forward.
“Hurry up, Win!” Starkad shouted, pulling his own swords. He raced to catch up to Hervor.
“It’s two on one,” she said. “We can do this.”
Starkad wanted to believe that. But Tanna’s speed was almost unfathomable. His strength like that of a troll.
The vampire bared his fangs, uttering a hissing growl. He lunged forward without further warning, his form blurring, becoming half a dust cloud as he flew at them.
Starkad shoved Hervor to one side with his elbow and then swung both swords at Tanna. In a blur, the vampire parried one blade and jerked Mistilteinn up to knock aside the other. And then Starkad was the one on the defensive, desperately parrying and ducking Tanna’s blindingly fast assault.
Roaring, Hervor came in, cleaving with Tyrfing. The vampire’s form became dust and then solidified, facing Hervor and bringing Mistilteinn up to parry her blade. He kicked her in the
gut, sending her flying through the air.
Hervor! Bellowing, Starkad thrust at Tanna. His form broke apart, letting the sword pass through harmlessly, before reappearing to Starkad’s side. On pure instinct, Starkad flung himself away in a roll, barely clearing the space before Mistilteinn whistled overhead.
Tanna’s body came apart again, and reformed in front of Starkad, chopping downward before he’d gained his feet. Starkad rolled to the side once more .
Win’s broadsword cleaved into Tanna’s shoulder, wedging down into his collarbone. The vampire bellowed in pain, an inhuman cry that echoed off the chamber and sent Starkad’s brain recoiling.
Half crawling, half running, Starkad scrambled to where Hervor had fallen. The shieldmaiden had pushed herself up to her knees, hands around her gut, clearly trying to catch a breath.
Starkad let go of one of his swords and snatched up Tyrfing. Hervor would forgive him for that, eventually. The blade flared to life in his hand, filling with enhanced vigor. And rage.
Win lay collapsed on the floor, so Starkad could only guess at what had happened to him. Tanna had driven Mistilteinn into the stone. The vampire grabbed the broadsword wedged into his shoulder by the blade, ripped it free, and tossed it aside, spraying blood in the process.
Even as Starkad closed in on him, the vampire’s wound began to close. That was fucking wonderful, wasn’t it?
Hissing, the vampire lord jerked Mistilteinn up and focused on Starkad.
“I don’t care how many centuries you’ve lived,” Starkad said. “I’m going to kill you. I’ll send your soul screaming down to Hel.”
Tanna snickered. “How old am I …? Old enough to know that dark goddess by other, older names.”
“Well, then you two should have a lot to talk about. I imagine she’ll be glad to see you.” Starkad charged forward, leading with his normal sword.
Predictably, Tanna’s body turned to dust and he flew around Starkad. Spinning around, Starkad whipped Tyrfing in an arc. The flaming runeblade cut through Tanna’s gut even as the vampire tried to hack at Starkad. All strength left Tanna’s blow, and the vampire fell back, hand to his abdomen.
