Thokk came to the top of a stairway more crumbling than any she had yet descended. Below, no torches flickered. She hesitated and whispered Runes. Her eyes flickered with a purple, funereal light. To her, the darkness below was now illuminated by a purple glow. Her full lips parted slightly in anticipation. She was nearly to her monthly Darkmoon goal.
Her long black cloak billowed behind her like great wings as she moved downward into darkness at a faster pace. She gently brushed silken spider webs she encountered aside with slim-fingered hands as she padded through chilled dust. Crawling things either scattered before her bare feet or thrilled her with their touch as they escaped.
Thokk reached the bottom of the stairway. Before a nail-studded wooden door she spoke an incantation. Her warm breath, steaming in the cold air, glowed a purple deep and dark.
There came a dull thud from the door’s heavy lock.
The portal yawned slowly and silently open.
She stepped into an unlighted circular chamber. Into the dead air within she spoke another incantation. Behind her, the door closed and the lock crunched shut.
In the center of the chamber rose a dais of intricately carven stone, and upon its flat upper surface, resting upon soft purple cushions was a young man’s corpse.
The Hel-Witch approached the dais. Her glowing eyes studied the young man. A purple covering concealed all but his face and hair. She pulled back the covering. His lack of clothing made it easy to examine the progress of her necromantic healing spell as she bent from her slender waist to perform his monthly examination.
She was pleased to discover that, save for a few remaining vestiges of decay, his face and body no longer showed any significant signs of death. Soon, he would be indistinguishable from a living man.
“Lokith,” she murmured, using the name she had given him when, at Hel’s direction years before, she had taken possession of his infant corpse. “My beautiful child.” She stroked the youth’s flowing blond hair. “Soon your flesh will be whole. Soon I will bring your sister to you. Soon will Hel’s plan be complete.” She smiled, bent closer, kissed his cold lips, and whispered in his ear. “Soon, in Hel’s Holy Name, our conquests shall begin!”
Thokk straightened and opened the clasp that held her cloak about her broad, strong shoulders. The cloak rustled to the floor. She wore nothing beneath.
She bowed her head so that she symbolically faced Hel’s Underworld. She concentrated her will. She intoned ancient words of power. She reached beyond the physical world with her refined magical senses and connected with the deep-consciousness realm of her Goddess.
Carefully maintaining her connection to Helheim, she stretched out on the slab next to Lokith’s corpse and gently covered his cold flesh with her warmth.
Several moments passed when the only sound in the blackness was Thokk’s steady breathing. Then she further focused her concentration and whispered a necromantic incantation.
A sound other than her own arose.
The youth’s chilled flesh stirred.
Sighs and moans half pain, half pleasure crept from his stiff-muscled throat.
And he crept another step closer to life.
IN A SMALL, one-room cottage three women lay sleeping.
Nearest the hearth slept an elder, Norda Greycloak. Her silver hair glittered crimson in the firelight. Though the night was warm, she wore a thick gray robe and had wrapped a blanket tightly around herself, for with age had come a persistent chill that she could never seem to dispel. Norda was not sleeping well. Her lips moved soundlessly, eyebrows drawn into a frown as she fought a bad dream.
Against one wall of the cottage, naked beneath a yellow cloak, slept Huld, a young woman with elfin features and long blond hair. She was also frowning in her sleep, fighting a bad dream, sweat glistening on her skin.
To one side of the door, clothed in a thin, white sleeping shift slept Guthrun, a girl on the brink of womanhood, her face strong-featured even in its youth, her hair long and raven-black.
Norda and Huld were Freya-Witches. Guthrun was in training to become one.
Guthrun was also frowning in her sleep. Her head flinched from side to side. Her breathing was heavy and labored as she fought to awaken. Then suddenly she succeeded. Her eyes snapped open. She lay panting softly, still tensed, trying to remember the nightmare. Then she heard something that swept away all thoughts of the dream—outside the cottage, muffled whispers!
Guthrun reached for the sword she always kept near her bed and drew the blade from its leather scabbard. Her heart racing, she slipped quickly but quietly to Huld’s side and gripped the young Witch’s bare shoulder. “Huld!” she whispered urgently. “Wake up!”
Huld moaned but could not awaken, sleeping on as if drugged or ensorcelled.
The door crashed open. Men rushed into the cottage. Swords gleamed in the firelight.
Guthrun screamed a war cry and rushed forward. Her blade sliced air and jerked to a stop as it cut halfway through a surprised warrior’s neck. A fountain of warm blood sprayed her face. She had killed her first man.
Reacting as her warrior-mother had taught her, she wrenched the blade free, parried a cut, feinted, lunged, and killed a second man. But the warriors were all around her now, the surprise of her attack fading as they cursed and pressed closer, overwhelming her by sheer numbers.
Her arms were gripped from behind and her sword arm twisted. She gritted her teeth against the pain but refused to drop her sword. Her arm was twisted farther. She cried out in agony as her blade fell to the ground. A sword point touched her throat, slowly pressed inward, the scar-faced man who held it savoring her last moments.
“No!” shouted a blond-bearded man as he hurled the warrior away. “She killed Thorir and Jon!”
“Sheath your sword, Ragnar. Carelessness and overconfidence killed Thorir and Jon.”
“But she’s just a girl!”
“You were told that she was Bloodsong’s daughter and would know swordcraft. And Thokk told you she might not be affected by the sleep spell.”
Hearing Thokk’s name, Guthrun struggled wildly in the grip of her captors.
“Thokk’s orders stand,” the tall leader continued. “She must be taken to Thokk alive.”
Guthrun saw other men lashing Huld’s and Norda’s hands behind their backs with leather thongs. The two Witches continued to sleep under Thokk’s spell. A moment later Guthrun felt thongs tighten around her own wrists.
The warrior who wanted to kill her stood staring angrily at the tall man a moment more, blade held in a white-knuckled grip. Then slowly he straightened out of his tensed crouch and slammed his sword back into its scabbard. “They were my friends, Tyrulf.”
Tyrulf nodded and slapped the man’s shoulder. “What Thokk has planned for her and the other two will no doubt be quite unpleasant, Ragnar.”
“Pray Odin it is,” Ragnar growled, glancing angrily at Guthrun.
“Allfather Odin will have nothing to do with Thokk,” Guthrun spat, “or with men who work for that Hel-Witch!” The look of doubt that flitted over Ragnar’s face told her that she had hit the mark. “No Valhalla for you when you die,” she continued, grinning coldly, “but only an eternity of horror in the Goddess Hel’s cold embrace. She will never let your soul fly to Odin, not after you’ve helped Her servant, Thokk.”
Ragnar growled low in his throat. “Make her bonds tight,” he urged the men tying Guthrun’s wrists. “Neither General Kovna nor Thokk said she had to be comfortable on the journey.”
A warrior slipped to Tyrulf’s side and whispered something Guthrun could not hear.
Tyrulf followed the man back to where Norda lay, squatted down beside her, and placed his fingers on the crone’s neck.
“Norda?” Guthrun said, realization dawning. “Norda!” she cried, twisting desperately, wrenching at her bonds.
Tyrulf ros
e to his feet with a curse.
“But how?” the warrior asked. “Why? We didn’t touch her, save to bind her hands.”
Tyrulf cursed again. “Perhaps the sleep spell? Maybe she fought against it. Maybe her heart gave out. She was an old woman.”
“Thokk will be angry,” the warrior whispered, eyes glinting with fear.
Tyrulf cursed a third time, then began giving orders. “Take the girl and the other one to the horses. Leave the crone’s corpse. Fire the cottage.”
“No!” Guthrun shouted, struggling as she was pushed toward the door. “I will avenge you, Norda!” she vowed as she was pushed past the crone’s body.
“Wait!” Tyrulf commanded. The men holding Guthrun stopped. Tyrulf walked to face her. “How much have these Witches already taught you, girl?”
Guthrun said nothing.
“We know you can use a sword,” Tyrulf said. “Perhaps you can also wield some Witchcraft. I don’t take chances.”
He drew his dagger, reversed it, and brought the pommel down to crack against Guthrun’s skull. She slumped unconscious in the grip of her captors.
Guthrun and Huld were lifted onto horses. The cottage was set afire. Then, through bright moonlight, Tyrulf led his men at a gallop down the forest trail, leaving the Witches’ cottage blazing, the corpse of the beloved Freya-Witch Norda Greycloak charring in the flames.
They were too far from the cottage to hear when that charred corpse screamed and then slowly, determinedly, began struggling to stand.
ATOP A HILL overlooking the sleeping village of Eirik’s Vale, a warrior stood alone in the moonlight. Despite the warmth of the night, the warrior was dressed for battle in a steel helmet, mail shirt, and brown leather breeches, boots, and gloves. A broadsword and shield were strapped to the warrior’s back. A dagger hung in a sheath from a broad leather belt.
The warrior’s name was Bloodsong. Her stern-featured, battle-scarred face, framed by dark hair, was pale in the moonlight. Her deep-set, dark eyes brooded beneath a frown.
Bloodsong had lived in the village once before, after leading a slave revolt and escaping from Nastrond, the fortress of the sorcerer-king Nidhug. But in time, King Nidhug had found her, massacred the villagers who had befriended her, tortured her husband and infant son to death. He then burned the village and left her to die. Bloodsong had eventually returned the favor, destroying Nidhug and Nastrond. Then she and those who had fought by her side returned to the village and rebuilt it with the help of freed slaves.
Now, seven years later, the village she had named Eirik’s Vale, in honor of her dead husband, bore little resemblance to the village Nidhug had destroyed. It had grown larger than the original village, and there was a fortified encampment at its center, protection against the bands of raiders that had begun terrorizing the countryside after Nidhug’s fall. Warriors’ barracks were encircled by the fortification’s towering earthen ramparts, around which were clustered the village’s cottages and longhouses. Beyond the village stretched rich farmlands and pastures in which cattle and sheep grazed. A clear stream rich with trout rushed into the valley from the mountains to the north. Not far rose thick pine forests that provided material for buildings and fuel for their fires.
But Bloodsong was not thinking about her village. She was thinking about her daughter, Guthrun, and about Guthrun’s decision to study Witchcraft with Norda Greycloak and Huld, the young Freya-Witch who had helped Bloodsong destroy Nidhug.
Though Bloodsong herself had found it necessary to use Witchcraft in defeating Nidhug, she had a warrior’s distaste for magic. Guthrun, however, though now well trained in the skills of a warrior, felt otherwise and had been drawn more and more to the lure of the Unseen, the whispering mysteries of moonlight, the secret shadows and powers within the human mind and soul.
Bloodsong glanced up at the bright moon. Considering her daughter’s background, the circumstances of Guthrun’s birth and early childhood, perhaps she should not have been surprised nor upset that Guthrun wanted to become a magic-wielder. But it had surprised and upset her, and beyond that, she missed Guthrun deeply, felt a lonely ache for the daughter who, for the last seven years, had never been away from her mother for more than a few days’ time.
Movement caught Bloodsong’s eye. She watched as a figure emerged from one of the four gateways cut into the fortified earthen rampart encircling the warriors’ barracks. Moonlight flashed from a steel helmet and glinted from the pommel of a sword strapped across the figure’s back.
The warrior began running through the streets of the sleeping village.
Bloodsong waited, watched, determined to stop brooding over Guthrun and to trust her daughter to carve a good future for herself, even if the weapon Guthrun preferred to wield turned out to be Witchcraft instead of a sharp steel blade.
* * *
Dressed for battle in leather armor, sword and shield strapped to her back, the young warrior ran on through the streets of Eirik’s Vale, seeking escape from the memories that haunted her, from the nightmares that had again awakened her before dawn.
The warrior’s name was Jalna. She had once been one of Nidhug’s slaves. Her nightmares were of that time, of the torture and terror she had survived, memories that could be most quickly driven away by a physical assertion of her freedom and strength.
After Nidhug’s destruction, Jalna had asked Bloodsong to teach her swordcraft so that she might never again be made a slave. Because she had helped Bloodsong defeat the sorcerer-king, the warrior-woman had agreed, and Jalna was now one of Bloodsong’s deadliest and most relentless warriors. But still the nightmares came, and still she awoke, imagining that she felt manacles clamped around her wrists, the decaying hands of Nidhug’s death slaves pawing her flesh, the Venom Wand searing her skin.
On and on Jalna ran, pushing herself harder and harder, beyond the outskirts of the village, down a narrow trail that cut through the fields and pastures, until finally she reached the edge of the forest.
Jalna slowed her pace along the trail, feeling strong and free and confident again, cooling down as her eyes adjusted to the moonlight-dappled shadows beneath the pines. She wiped the sweat from her eyes and removed her steel helmet, ran a hand through her short, black, sweat-soaked hair. She replaced the helmet, started jogging forward again—
Movement! All around her! Men with drawn blades!
She crouched low and whipped out her sword, parried a cut on her left, saw movement out of the corner of her eye to the right, evaded a thrust from in front, heard a sound from behind and to her right.
The young warrior dove to her left and behind. She hit the ground, rolled, came smoothly to her feet outside the ring of attackers, sliced sideways to her left, and ignored the man’s death cries as her return stroke made another attacker scream.
She backed away from the remaining three. She grinned at them. “Come meet Hel!” she growled, nodding at her gore-slimed blade. “She hungers for your blood!”
They rushed her.
Steel met steel. Sparks flew. And the clangor of battle again cut the night.
* * *
Bloodsong watched until the warrior disappeared into the forest.
Jalna, she thought, still pursued by Nidhug’s evil.
She knew some but not all of what had happened to Jalna before Nidhug’s defeat. Jalna had never talked about it much. But Bloodsong had spent nights camped under the stars with the young warrior and been awakened by Jalna’s cries as she tossed in the throes of a nightmare. She had listened as Jalna cursed in her sleep, cursed Nidhug then prayed for the pain and horror to end.
Bloodsong added her curses to Nidhug’s memory and hoped that the Goddess Hel, whom he had once betrayed, was still enjoying making him scream.
But suddenly Bloodsong’s thoughts were shattered as the sounds of battle, men’s screams and steel striking steel, drifted faintly from the direction in wh
ich Jalna had gone.
Bloodsong ran toward the forest, stopped herself with a curse, and began running toward the village instead.
Jalna would have to fend for herself. An alarm had to be sounded, warriors awakened, the village alerted.
Freya give you victory, Jalna, Bloodsong thought, and ran on toward Eirik’s Vale.
NOT ALL of the warriors of Eirik’s Vale slept in longhouses within the fortified earthen walls.
Bloodsong halted at a cottage near the walls and hammered on the door. “Valgerth! Thorfinn!” she called. She hammered on the door again. She heard a muffled voice from inside and then the sound of a bar being pushed to one side. The latch clicked. The door opened. “Trouble?” asked the black-bearded man who stood there.
“Fighting in the woods,” Bloodsong explained. “Alert the village. Get the people inside the walls.”
Not waiting for Thorfinn’s response, she turned and ran toward a gateway, shouting orders for it to be opened. Inside the walls she sounded the alarm and began bullying sleepy warriors to move faster, to dress and arm themselves for battle.
* * *
The sky was graying with the coming dawn when the villagers were finally within the walls. Those who could not wield a blade were ordered to stay safely out of the way within one of the four longhouses that served as barracks.
“It was Jalna,” Bloodsong said to Valgerth when the tall warrior woman, her reddish-blond hair glinting coppery in the morning sunlight, mounted the ramparts to look out over the village. Thorfinn followed behind, talking with a warrior whose training he had undertaken but who had not yet been tested in actual battle.
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