Guthrun shook her head at the overwhelming odds against her and fought a sudden wave of hopelessness. She remembered her mother and how Bloodsong had won over unbeatable odds in Nidhug’s arena and later against the sorcerer-king himself. She headed down the stairs by which she had reached the window. Don’t think so far ahead that the task seems hopeless. One thing at a time. Look for a way out other than the main gate, avoid the cursed Jotun, find and free Huld, then—”
A loud creaking sound outside the castle interrupted her thoughts. She ran back up the stairs to the window and cautiously looked out.
The odds weren’t bad enough? she thought bitterly.
The Jotun was in the courtyard, opening the gateway. As the gate slowly creaked open, she saw black-clad warriors atop skeletal white steeds, waiting to enter.
Below her in the castle she heard new sounds, peered down and saw black-robed and hooded forms moving about. The inhabitants of the rooms below? she wondered. Now in human form? But no one or thing above me is emerging yet, thank the Gods. I wonder why not?
She looked back at the courtyard.
The Jotun finished opening the gateway, then stepped back and went down on one knee in the snow, his head bowed.
The black-clad warriors moved aside, forming a pathway down which a pale woman with long, glistening black hair rode. As she entered the courtyard the black-robed ones emerged from the castle, crowded around her, went down on their knees with bowed heads, and from all came the same chant, echoing through the icy air.
“Hail, Thokk! All power to Hel!” they chanted over and over while the tall woman smiled, coldly, exulting in their submission.
And from the crimson veins in the black stones of the window and castle’s walls, Guthrun saw scarlet drops suddenly ooze forth, hang glistening for several heartbeats, then vanish.
THE NINE black-clad warriors rode into the courtyard, bringing four prisoners with them.
Valgerth! Guthrun thought. Thorfinn! And their children. But not my mother? If Thokk had been to Eirik’s Vale and captured those four, why not also Bloodsong?
She’s either free, or dead. Guthrun realized, fighting to control her fear. She’s alive, she reassured herself. I must believe she’s alive. But I cannot depend on it, nor on her freeing me and slaying Thokk. I must believe that she’s alive, but also that I have to free and revenge myself. First I must free Huld, then together we must free Valgerth and Thorfinn and slay Thokk. And I won’t think of the odds against me, only of victory.
Guthrun watched the courtyard a moment longer, decided to make a run for Huld while the castle was temporarily, she hoped, deserted. She sprinted down the stairs, holding tightly to the sword, the castle now silent as a tomb.
* * *
Thokk breathed deeply of the icy air in the courtyard. Her gaze swept the towering black walls of her castle. Feelings of pleasure swept through her. She was home. “Take the prisoners into my throne room and hold them there for me,” Thokk ordered Vafthrudnir.
The Jotun finished closing and securing the gateway, bowed his head in assent, then hastened to obey, worrying silently about the escaped human. If only Thokk had arrived later in the morning, everything would have been as she desired. He had tracked the girl into the upper reaches of the castle and had been within moments of recapturing her when Thokk’s mental summons to open the gateway had called him from the hunt. The Hel-Witch was certain to be very angry. How would she punish him? He would not allow her to kill him, but there were other things she could do, things that he had witnessed firsthand.
Thokk turned to the Death Riders. “You have done well. I will request of Hel that your pain be diminished. Resume your castle duties.”
The Death Riders silently guided their gaunt mares away toward the stables.
Thokk looked down at the black-robed Hel-worshipers surrounding her, still on their knees in the snow. She laughed softly. “You may rise. Assume your duties.”
One of the robed ones came forward and took the reins of Thokk’s Hel-horse. Another aided her descent to the snowy ground. The others hurried into the castle to their duties.
The Hel-Witch walked beneath the arched portal that led into her castle. Time enough later to deal with the prisoners, she thought, and turned her steps into the lower reaches of her castle where more interesting and exciting matters awaited her amusement and attention.
* * *
Down high-ceilinged corridors thick with shadows, Valgerth, Thorfinn, and their children were herded by the Jotun. Even if their children’s safety had not been in danger, the two warriors could have done nothing against the giant, hands bound behind their backs as they were. All four of the prisoners shivered in the icy air spawned by the Frost Giant’s presence.
They entered a vast chamber whose walls were hung with rich tapestries depicting the ecstasies of the grave, scenes that chilled and sickened the captives. At the far end of the chamber stood a bone-white throne.
The Jotun forced them against a wall behind the throne, then stepped back and watched them almost casually, knowing that there was nothing they could do.
The children stood near their parents. Thora glared defiantly at the Jotun. Her young brother, Yngvar, turned with his face against his mother’s leg.
As the moments stretched out, Vafthrudnir’s thoughts turned more and more to the escaped human and Thokk.
Where is Thokk? he wondered. He had assumed that she would come straight to the throne room to deal with the prisoners. Why else have him bring them there? He would have then found some way to tell her about the escaped girl. But if she had gone elsewhere, perhaps into the lower reaches of the castle, and if she found the girl’s room empty before he had a chance to tell her, she would be furious. The Jotun’s eyes flicked more and more often to the door through which Thokk would enter.
“Why is he so nervous?” Thorfinn whispered to Valgerth.
“I’ve noticed if too,” she replied. “He seems almost frightened, a strange thing for one nearly twice our height.”
“Perhaps there is some way we can exploit his fear.”
“We must not endanger the children.”
“No, but perhaps—”
“Silence!” Vafthrudnir roared.
Yngvar began to cry. Thora ran forward and aimed a vicious kick at the Jotun’s shin.
“Thora!” Valgerth cried, and ran forward, jerking at her bonds.
“Get her back to the wall!” Vafthrudnir ordered, “or I’ll twist her head from her shoulders. “I’ve no love for humankind.”
“Thora, do as he says,” Valgerth commanded.
“But, Mother! We have to fight him!”
“Thora, please! We will fight him later.”
Vafthrudnir laughed.
“Freya’s Teats!” the six-year-old cursed.
“What have I told you about cursing that way?” Valgerth snapped.
Thora scowled then heaved a big sigh. “Not to. But Huld does!”
“That does not mean it is all right.”
“But—”
“Thora!”
The girl stomped back to the wall and stood by her brother. “Stop crying, Yngvar,” she ordered. “What would Allfather Odin think?”
Yngvar didn’t care what Odin thought and continued to sob.
Vafthrudnir continued to worry.
* * *
Guthrun bundled the red cloth under her right arm, held the sword with her right hand, and grabbed a torch with her left. She plunged through the archway the Jotun had used to take Huld below. At the foot of the long stairway, she looked in both directions down a long corridor, wondering which way. The Witches had not taught her any spells in the short time she had been with them, but Norda had told her that most people used mental powers without knowing when they followed hunches and intuition. Guthrun had always been good at that. Freya guide me, she though
t, then turned to her left and ran down the corridor, her torch’s flame streaming behind her as she ran.
Another archway loomed and more steps going down.
Guthrun turned and hurried into the depths of the castle. Another corridor, another intuitive choice, another stairway, down and clown she went into the darkness, encouraged by the broken spider webs across the paths she’d chosen, evidence that her hunches might have been correct.
Suddenly she was tearing through spider webs. Black shapes scurried away along the shredded silken strands. Guthrun cursed and frantically brushed the clinging webs and spiders from her face and hair, imagining that she could feel crawling things all over her body. Rejecting her revulsion, she retraced her steps, ascended to the last landing where the webs had already been broken, found an iron-banded wooden door, and tried to open it. It was locked. She rammed the torch into an empty wall bracket and began hacking at the lock with her sword, hoping that she wasn’t wasting precious time and ruining the weapon trying to open the wrong cell.
Hanging in her chains within the cell, Huld was jarred back to consciousness by the clangor of metal on metal. She struggled to clear her thoughts, cursed to find herself chained as before, gasped at the returning pain, and strained futilely to get free. She feared that the noise that had awakened her might portend new horrors. But then she heard a voice, a curse.
“Guthrun?” Huld shouted.
Guthrun hesitated.
“Guthrun?” Huld repeated.
“Huld?”
“Yes!”
“Huld!” Bloodsong’s daughter began hacking at the lock with renewed vigor, the stolen sword’s blade now badly notched. Then suddenly her efforts were rewarded. She grabbed the torch and pushed the door open. She saw Huld, eyed the way the naked Witch was chained. “Aren’t you cold?”
“What?”
“That doesn’t look fun to me, but—”
“Are you joking?”
“Some people like hanging around, I guess.” Guthrun thrust the torch into a wall bracket inside the chamber. “Doing nothing.” She hurried to Huld. She held out the red cloth. “I brought your favorite gown.”
“Stop joking and get me out of this!”
“I’m working on it, thinking about it.”
“Don’t think. Do!”
“Maybe I can use this sword to pry the pins out. Or do you have a key?”
“Guthrun!”
Guthrun tossed the cloth at Huld’s feet and went to her knees beside it. She started using the sharp point of the sword to pry at pins on the Rune-engraved manacle around Huld’s left ankle.
“How did you find me?”
“Witchcraft, or intuition. You should have taught me the open-lock spell like I wanted.” She kept working at the manacle with the sword.
“You weren’t ready.”
“Was.”
“Too impatient!”
“Thokk has returned.”
“What? Wonderful. Hurry!”
“She has prisoners.” The manacle came open. She started on the other one.
“Are you going to tell me who?”
“Valgerth, Thorfinn, and their children.”
“Freya’s Teats. She’s been to Eirik’s Vale. But why only bring those four as prisoners, unless—”
“My mother is alive and still free,” Guthrun said, interrupting. “That’s what I’m going to believe, until I discover otherwise.”
Huld nodded. “I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do against Thokk, Guthrun. I’m still exhausted. They haven’t fed me since we’ve been here, so I’m a little weak, especially after our earlier exertions.”
The other ankle came free. “Stand straight! Give your wrist chains some slack.”
“It hurts. My feet are half numb.”
Guthrun went to work on Huld’s right wrist manacle. “Good thing you’re short, or I couldn’t reach your wrists.”
“I’m normal.”
“Normal for short people.”
“Your mother and you are tall!”
The wrist came free. “But lots of Witches are short. Guess I’ll be the tallest Witch in the—”
“Hurry!”
The other wrist came free. Huld groaned and began rubbing her wrists.
“Do that later. “ Guthrun headed for the door. “I’ve got what’s left of this sword. You get the torch.”
The Freya-Witch grabbed up the red cloth and took the torch from the wall bracket.
Suddenly both Guthrun and Huld screamed in pain, hands flying to their skulls, sword and torch falling to the floor.
From the dark beyond the door, her eyes flickering with purple fire, Thokk stepped into the cell. She walked to the two forms sprawled unconscious. The Hel-Witch cursed the Jotun’s carelessness, feeling again the fury she’d felt upon finding Guthrun’s room empty. Vafthrudnir must be severely punished.
Thokk picked up the torch and crushed it out. She needed no light.
She dragged Huld by the hair to an undamaged set of spell-manacles, placed a manacle around one ankle and spoke an incantation. The lock clicked. Then she did the same to Huld’s other ankle. She grasped Huld’s left wrist and lifted Huld up as if the Freya-Witch weighed nothing, stretched the wrist high, placed a manacle around the wrist, incanted the lock shut, then manacled Huld’s other wrist.
Thokk went to Guthrun, effortlessly lifted the young woman into her arms, and strode from the cell. “Time to begin, child,” the Hel-Witch murmured, gazing down at Guthrun as she carried her up the stairs. “Time to begin awakening the powers slumbering within you. Time to introduce you to your true self.”
GUTHRUN OPENED her eyes and rubbed her throbbing temples. She was back in the room from which she’d escaped. Beneath her the shiny red fabric, now soiled and slightly torn, again covered the bed, and again the lamp burned upon the carved table. But now, in the chair, sat Thokk.
Guthrun jerked to a sitting position, winced and cursed as pain shot through her body.
“I apologize for the pain, child,” Thokk said soothingly, watching from the chair. “It will soon pass. I did not intend for you to know pain in my house, only joy.”
“Don’t call me child,” Guthrun ordered, squinting at Thokk through her pain.
Thokk nodded. “Quite so. You will soon become a woman. Your body is nearly that of a woman now, and soon your first blood will flow.”
The pain began to fade. Guthrun lowered her hands from her temples, stood and faced the Hel-Witch. “Where is my mother?” she demanded, thankful that her voice did not sound as shaky as she felt.
“Bloodsong, you mean? How would I know?”
“Valgerth and Thorfinn and their children are your prisoners. You must have been to Eirik’s Vale.”
“From your thoughts I detect that you witnessed my return and that you think I attacked Eirik’s Vale. Why should I have done that?”
“I can’t read thoughts,” Guthrun answered, “but I can sense when people lie to me.”
Thokk shook her head sadly. “You think I’m lying because you have been taught to think badly of those who serve Hel. You might as well know about Valgerth. She has had dealings with Hel for many years.”
“More lies.”
“No. Valgerth secretly made a pact with Hel, in exchange for being allowed to have children.”
“No. Nidhug’s sorcery made her barren. But when Nidhug was destroyed, his spells lost their power and Valgerth was able to have children.”
“If not for the pact she secretly made with Hel, Valgerth would still be childless, I assure you.”
“Lies on top of lies.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
Guthrun laughed.
“You should thank me, Guthrun. I saved Bloodsong’s life.”
Guthrun laughed even louder.
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“Listen to me, Guthrun. Hel is still grateful for the service Bloodsong performed in returning the War Skull to Helheim and destroying the Hel-traitor Nidhug. And those whom Hel treasures, She protects. When Valgerth made her pact with Hel, she agreed that the first two children she birthed would be given to Hel to become Hel-warriors. In an attempt to get out of that pact, Valgerth made a second pact, with Odin. But in order to aid her against Hel, Odin required that Valgerth perform a service for Him. But Odin was the God who stole the War Skull from Hel. Bloodsong became Odin’s enemy when she returned it to Hel. Therefore, Odin agreed to help Valgerth against Hel, only if she killed Bloodsong.”
“Valgerth would never agree to that!”
“Old friends are one matter, Guthrun, children another. For her children’s sake, Valgerth indeed would have slain Bloodsong, her oldest friend. That is why I captured Valgerth, her mate, and her children. Bloodsong remains safe, as Hel desires, while Thora and Yngvar will yet become Hel-warriors, as Valgerth promised. As for Valgerth and Thorfinn, perhaps in time I will let you execute the traitors yourself, after you have come to accept the truth, and after I have let my Jotun amuse himself with them. He does so hate humans, especially ones who’ve made pacts with one-eyed Odin. The Jotun’s name is Vafthrudnir, you see.”
‘‘The same as—”
“Yes, a descendant of the Jotun who lost his head to Odin when that God of Lies cheated to win a riddle-game.”
“Do not speak ill of Allfather Odin,” Guthrun warned. “The Jotun race are enemies of humankind. Odin and his son Thor protect us from them, And if that means having to cheat and. lie, Odin does so better than any other, praise Him!”
Thokk laughed. “How delightful you are! How loyal! And how deluded. You’ve been warped by lies, Guthrun, but in time you will learn truth, There is nothing but truth in my house.”
Bloodsong Hel X 3 Page 30
