Bloodsong Hel X 3

by C. Dean Andersson

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Huld admitted. “Perhaps you are right, Guthrun. I pray to Freya that you are.”

  “As do I,” Guthrun agreed, glancing at the horizon behind them. “As do I.”

  * * *

  The Sun rose golden in a deep blue sky as the two shape-shifters raced on, untiring, through the foothills of the mountains in which they hoped to find Freya’s Wood. Sunlight reflected from the snow in dazzling, diamond like sparkles, glinted from Ulfhild’s flame-red fur, glistened upon Bloodsong’s silken coat of glossy black. But Guthrun kept looking around at the horizon behind them and in mid-morning finally saw what she’d long expected and dreaded.

  “Black clouds behind us,” she announced.

  Bloodsong and Ulfhild stopped and turned. The five wolves who had been following in their wake, trampling their tracks, stopped, too, panting hard, tongues lolling, finding it harder and harder to keep up with the shape-shifters.

  All four women studied the horizon. It was dark with heavy, boiling black clouds such as those conjured by HeI-magic to protect Hel-horses from the destroying purification of sunlight.

  “If Lokith has split his forces as we intended,” Guthrun said, “and if he’s not with the group trailing us, I can use my Hel-magic to momentarily disperse clouds caused only by a Death Rider, which would destroy our pursuers’ mounts and leave them unable to keep up. It would also even the odds in a fight. There might not be too many following our set of tracks. Should we risk setting an ambush?”

  “I say no,” Huld replied. “If our spell of concealment has not succeeded in keeping Lokith’s sorcerous senses at bay, it might be his entire army beneath those black clouds, and we can’t hope to destroy them all in an ambush.”

  Ulfhild communicated with the wolves through a series of growls and barks. One male wolf snorted in reply, then turned and began following his tracks back in the direction from which they had come. Satisfied, the Berserker turned and began running onward once more, Bloodsong by her side.

  “I guess the answer is no ambush,” Guthrun noted to Huld as the two Witches continued clinging to their respective shape-shifter’s back. “Perhaps Ulfhild will learn how many follow us through the eyes of the wolf she sent back.”

  * * *

  From within a thicket alongside the trampled trail, the wolf sent back by Ulfhild watched a Death Rider and five Hel-warriors race past, their Hel-horses treading the moaning shadows of an icy Hel-wind. Through the wolf’s eyes, Ulfhild then knew who and how many pursued them.

  The Berserker stopped and sat back on her haunches.

  Huld took the hint, quickly dismounted, and stepped away.

  Bloodsong and Guthrun did the same.

  While the two Witches stretched their cramped and weary muscles, Ulfhild transformed back to human form.

  Bloodsong concentrated upon doing the same. Her beast-self resisted being sent back to her mind’s shadows. Panic momentarily washed through her, then she pushed away her fear and angrily, determinedly concentrated harder until finally the beast submitted to her will.

  “One Death Rider, five Hel-warriors,” Ulfhild announced as Bloodsong’s transformation completed.

  “Lokith probably has mental contact with his Death Riders,” Guthrun noted.

  “As Nidhug did with his warriors when I fought him years ago,” Bloodsong nodded. “How much farther to that refuge of yours, Huld?”

  “We should be there before dark.”

  “But at the rate they’re gaining on us,” Guthrun noted, “the Hel-horses will catch us before that. We can defeat them, Mother. I know we can. I’ll disperse the clouds long enough to destroy their mounts.”

  “And I can use the Freya-sword to hurl Freya-fire at the Death Rider,” Huld agreed.

  “While Ulfhild and I attack the Hel-warriors in beastform,” Bloodsong finished.

  “The Death Rider may be weakened by the sunlight,” Guthrun suggested, “or perhaps even destroyed.”

  “And slaying the five Hel-warriors should be easy enough,” Ulfhild responded.

  Bloodsong was silent a moment, then nodded in agreement. “Very well,” she said, “but we must not underestimate the danger. We must work together as one. Our timing must be perfect.”

  “It will be,” Guthrun assured her.

  Ulfhild thanked the wolves who had followed them for their help, then gave them her leave to go. “They would have gotten in our way in a fight,” the Berserker commented as she watched the wolves move away into the forest. “Many brave beasts died for us, fighting Lokith last night,” she told them. “I sensed their deaths. We owe them our thanks, and perhaps our lives. Odin willing, there will be a place for them beside his own wolves, Freki and Geri, in Valhalla.”

  The four women watched the disappearing wolves in silence a moment more, then began discussing the ambush, all of them glad that it was finally time to turn and fight.

  FOLLOWED BY the five Hel-warriors, the Death Rider raced into a small forest clearing atop his gaunt white mare.

  Sunlight pierced the boiling black clouds overhead.

  Hel-horses screamed in agony, reared in terror, their skeletal forms steaming. Maggots erupted from beneath their tight-stretched flesh as their skin began rotting away.

  Startled Hel-warriors hurled themselves cursing from their rearing steeds, scrambled to their feet, reached for their swords.

  When the sunlight struck the Death Rider, a high-pitched keening sound oozed from his withered throat, but unlike the Hel-horses, he did not begin to decay. Then his screaming stopped. Purple Hel-fire flared brightly within his empty eye sockets as he whipped his black-bladed Hel-sword from its scabbard and flitted, wraithlike, to the ground from the back of his disintegrating mount.

  The Hel-horses’ crumbling legs snapped like twigs beneath them. They writhed for an instant on their sides, screaming in pain, then grew silent and still as their disintegration continued. But before they finished turning to piles of dust, other sounds ripped the morning air.

  Howling with blood lust and battle fury, two monstrous beasts hurled themselves among the Hel-warriors, ripping and tearing with fangs and claws, flame-red and raven-black coats of fur soon glistening with the gushing blood of their screaming victims.

  The Death Rider moved like a windblown shadow toward the attacking shape-shifters, black sword raised. A beam of yellow-gold fire struck him and hurled him to the ground. He writhed in agony for several long moments, the keening sound again coming from his skeletal throat, then he was on his feet once more and heading not toward the shape-shifters but toward she who had hurled the fire-beam.

  The sunlight had done its work. The Hel-horses had been destroyed. Guthrun released the Hel-magic spell by which she had temporarily dispersed the clouds, drew her sword, raised her shield, and stepped in front of Huld to face the charging Death Rider. The black clouds boiled back together overhead. The twilight gloom returned.

  “Another fire-beam!” Guthrun shouted. “Hurry!”

  “I am hurrying!” Huld cried.

  The Death Rider’s sword arced down toward Guthrun. She blocked the stroke with her shield, then parried the Death Rider’s return stroke with her blade. Sparks flew as steel met steel. The Hel-magic in Guthrun protected her from the Death Rider’s death-touch, but the preternatural strength behind his blows nonetheless soon drove her to one knee as she parried another arcing stroke and then another, only barely able to keep ahead of the Death Rider’s lightning-fast movements.

  “Huld!” Guthrun called between pants as she finally got back to both feet and continued blocking and parrying strokes. She had no chance to take the offensive as she desperately kept protecting herself from the Death Rider’s sledgehammer blows, knowing that her aching muscles were soon going to fail her and that, had Lokith not ordered her captured alive, she would no doubt already be dead.

  A
yellow-gold stream of fire finally shot forth from Huld’s outstretched Freya-sword, but this time the Death Rider had been watching for it and dodged to one side. The fire-beam ineffectually grazed his left arm.

  Guthrun cursed, then cried out in pain as the Death Rider kicked out with his booted foot to catch her in the side. She saved herself from a serious injury by rolling with the blow, hitting the ground, and coming back to her feet with her shield up to block a cut, but the Death Rider was moving against Huld instead.

  The Freya-Witch’s eyes widened with horror. She was no swordswoman. There was no time in which to conjure a spell of protection. She knew that she would be lucky to parry even one blow of his sword, and that while the Death Rider surely had orders not to kill Guthrun, the same was probably not true of herself.

  The black sword came down. Huld clumsily got the Freya-sword up just in time, but the hammer blow knocked the blade out of her grip. Huld cried out and hopelessly tried to dodge as the black sword began its return stroke, hissing toward her neck.

  Slavering jaws clamped down upon the Death Rider’s sword arm an instant before the blade reached Huld’s throat. The sword turned and jerked downward as the weight of Ulfhild’s fangs ripped through the rotting flesh of the corpse-warrior’s arm. A heartbeat later Bloodsong tore out his throat, and he crumpled, decaying, to the ground.

  The battle over, Bloodsong and Ulfhild immediately returned to human form. The Death Rider destroyed, the black clouds overhead boiled away and were gone within moments. Sunlight sparkled upon the bloodied snow.

  “Are you wounded, Daughter?” Bloodsong asked with concern as she hurried to Guthrun, who was grimacing and rubbing at her side.

  “I’m all right,” Guthrun assured her. “The Death Rider kicked me. I rolled with the blow like you’ve taught me. I’m only bruised.”

  “Come quickly!” Ulfhild called as she knelt beside Huld’s body.

  Guthrun and Bloodsong rushed to the fallen Freya-Witch.

  Huld was unconscious, breathing with great difficulty, her pain-twisted face streaming sweat. Guthrun knelt and cradled Huld’s head on her lap, frowning with concern.

  “I see no wounds,” Ulfhild said.

  “There!” Guthrun pointed to a short, nearly invisible scratch along the left side of Huld’s throat.

  “The Death Rider’s sword must have grazed her skin,” Bloodsong said.

  “His death-touch has gotten into her blood,” Ulfhild noted. “If not for the Freya-magic in her, she would already be dead. Perhaps she was right about Freya not letting her break her vow about Freya’s Wood. But whatever the cause, she is surely doomed.”

  “Not if I can help it, she’s not,” Guthrun responded. “I’ll try to counteract the Hel-magic in the death-touch with Hel-magic of my own, and I’ll fight Freya Herself if that’s what it takes to save Huld’s life! I’ll be able to concentrate better, however,” she added, “if the two of you will leave me alone with her while I work.”

  The young Hel-Witch closed her eyes in fierce concentration, stretched out her hands over Huld’s shuddering flesh, and then determinedly began to intone an incantation of healing.

  Bloodsong hesitated a moment, thinking of all the years she’d known Huld and the friendship she’d come to feel for the Witch. I’ve lost Grimnir. The Gods forbid that Lokith’s evil should also claim Huld’s life. Bloodsong motioned to Ulfhild. The two warriors left Guthrun alone.

  “If Huld dies,” Ulfhild whispered, “we’ll need a new plan. She’s the only one who knows where to find Freya’s Wood.”

  Bloodsong nodded without comment, then began using snow to cleanse drying blood from her skin, most of it the blood of her victims. Ulfhild watched a moment, then shrugged and started to do the same.

  “Are you feeling differently about the beast-powers Odin has given you, Runethroat?” Ulfhild asked as she scrubbed bloodstains from Bloodsong’s back.

  “They are effective weapons,” Bloodsong answered after a slight hesitation.

  “You knew that before. Do they disgust you less now? Have you begun to glory in the way they make you feel?”

  Bloodsong hesitated even longer, then nodded yes. Ulfhild came around to face her and proudly gripped her shoulders, but the look in Bloodsong’s eyes made the Berserker frown.

  “You still feel shame of your beast-self?”

  “No. Yes. Curse it all, Ulfhild. I don’t know anymore. And I don’t like being confused. It slows the reactions in a fight.”

  “There was nothing wrong with your reactions just now, when we killed the Hel-warriors. You fought magnificently. We won victory! That’s all that matters.”

  Bloodsong held the Berserker’s gaze. “You’re right, of course,” she decided, then added, “at least for the moment.”

  Suddenly she shivered with the cold, knelt beside their bundle of supplies, unrolled a shaggy-furred black cloak, and slipped it around her shoulders. She saw disapproval in Ulfhild’s eyes. “My beast-blood is evidently not as thick as yours, Ulfhild. And we’ll soon take beastform again.” She slipped fur-lined boots onto her feet. “So I’m not going to dress completely. Just these boots and cloak.”

  “As you wish. “ Ulfhild shrugged, then also reached toward the bundle of supplies, but not for a cloak. Instead, she grasped the haft of the battle-ax Huld had chosen for her and examined the cutting edge of the blade.

  * * *

  Lokith reined his Hel-horse to a stop with a curse. He had sensed one of his Death Riders being destroyed. Obviously the tracks he was following were not those of the escaped women. He cursed again. But if there had been a battle, the Witches might have momentarily taken their concentration from the spell of concealment.

  Lokith reached out with his sorcery. Almost at once he detected the consciousnesses of the escaped women. He jerked his mount’s head around and galloped in the direction his magical senses told him to go. His Hel-warriors followed closely behind. His mental powers reached out to contact the minds of the remaining five Death Riders, ordering them to converge with him.

  * * *

  “At least she’s still alive,” Guthrun said, wiping sweat from her forehead. She stood beside Bloodsong and Ulfhild and looked down at Huld. The Freya-Witch was unconscious, fighting for each breath. “My Hel-magic has slowed the progression of the poison.” On the left side of Huld’s throat, steadily spreading out in all directions from the scratch of the Death Rider’s sword, were ugly blue-gray patches of dead skin. “Her only hope is for us to get her to the Wood of Freya’s Woe. Perhaps, once there, she will be able to draw enough strength from the sacred ground to give the Freya-magic in her victory.”

  “Then we’d best get started,” Bloodsong cut in. “Change to beastform, Ulfhild, and we’ll tie Huld across your back. Then I’ll transform, too, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “But which way?” Guthrun complained.

  “You’ll have to use your magic to read Huld’s thoughts,” Bloodsong replied.

  “I don’t have that power and you know it.”

  “Nidhug had it. Thokk had it. Lokith has it. Is your Hel-magic any different than theirs?”

  “Evidently it is.”

  “Either get the directions from Huld’s mind or she’ll die, and possibly we will die along with her. Because of the battle, we must assume Lokith has sensed our location, but we have no way of knowing how long it will take him to reach us. New black clouds might appear on the horizon at any moment.”

  Ulfhild dropped to all fours as her transformation into beastform ran to completion.

  “You have the power to read Huld’s thoughts, Guthrun,” Bloodsong insisted. “You must.”

  “I’ll try,” Guthrun said.

  “Some of these Hel-warriors must have had rope,” Bloodsong said as she started to search the saddles left lying on the snow where the vanished Hel-horses had been. “Here!” She freed
a coiled rope from its saddle-thongs.

  Guthrun helped Bloodsong quickly tie Huld across Ulfhild’s back.

  Bloodsong tightened the final knot and stepped back. “I’m being forced to use beast-powers to fight Lokith, and if there are Hel-powers deep within you that you have resisted confronting, you will have to face and master them.”

  Guthrun started to reply, but Bloodsong raised a hand for silence, then reached out and enfolded her daughter within her arms. “I know how hard it’s been for you, Guthrun,” she said softly as she stroked Guthrun’s hair. “You’ve walked a narrow path between the darkness and the light since Thokk awakened your Hel-powers, and you fear you’ll lose yourself to the dark if you delve too deeply into that side of yourself, just as I fear losing myself to the beast within me. So I know what I’m asking of you. But you must have as much faith in yourself as I do in you. You’re strong enough to do it, Daughter. I know you are. You can face the deeper darkness within you and conquer it.”

  “Yes, I must,” Guthrun agreed after a moment’s hesitation. “But,” she said, gripping her mother’s hand as Bloodsong started to step away to begin her transformation, “you must promise me that if you see the darkness in me winning, you’ll kill me.”

  Tears glistened in Bloodsong’s eyes. “Think only of victory. We are going to defeat Hel’s plans and destroy Lokith.”

  “I asked you to promise.”

  “I promise that you are strong enough to face Hel and win.”

  Guthrun was silent a moment, then smiled slightly. “I’d hate to be any beast trying to get the best of you.” She embraced her mother, stepped back, and watched without averting her eyes as Bloodsong’s human form once again became that of a monstrous black beast.

  THE AFTERNOON SUN cast long shadows upon the trampled snow within the conquered encampment. Black-clad Hel-warriors stood guard within the four watchtowers and went about their duties within the walls.