Before the battle in the longhouse, Lokith had designated seven prisoners, Bloodsong’s closest friends, to be separated from the rest. One of the seven, the warrior Grimnir, was now dead, but the other six had been moved to a small hut.
Valgerth was among the six, as was Thorfinn and their two children, Thora and Yngvar. The remaining two were the warriors Jalna and Tyrulf. All were just beginning to regain consciousness, their breath frosty in the chill air within the unheated hut. Only Jalna had not yet been stripped and chained. Torg Bloodear, the burly Hel-warrior Lokith had left in charge, had saved her for last.
As Jalna moaned and weakly moved her arms, fighting to regain full consciousness, Torg knelt beside her on the cold, hard earthen floor of the hut and got to work. When she felt her clothing being removed, Jalna tried even harder to fully awaken, but the lingering effects of the drug-induced spell still rendered her all but helpless.
Torg soon jerked away the last of her clothing, roughly turned her onto her stomach, then began binding her as he already had the other five. He first locked heavy iron manacles, connected by a short length of hobbling chain, around her ankles. He then took another set of manacles, looped them through the ankle chain, pulled her wrists behind her, locked one empty manacle around one wrist, tugged her feet up until nearly touching her hands, and finished by locking the remaining manacle around her other wrist.
He sat back on his heels and looked down at JaIna as he smoothed back his shaggy brown hair, scratched at his long, scraggly beard, and studied the dark-haired warrior woman’s sleekly muscled nudity with an appreciative grin. Then he pulled her onto her side, slowly ran a rough-palmed hand along the curve of her hip and thigh, and grinned up at the other two Hel-warriors in the hut with a knowing wink.
“If only Lokith hadn’t forbidden us to use her,” one of the men complained, “or the other one, for that matter,” he added, glancing at Valgerth.
“Aye,” the other agreed. “Naked like that, so beautiful, if not for their battle scars, I’d find it hard to believe they’re really warriors.”
“There are other female prisoners, however,” Torg noted, still grinning, “that Lokith has not reserved for himself.”
Still fighting the effects of the drug-induced spell, JaIna finally managed to open her eyes. As her vision cleared, she also became aware of her bonds and Torg’s hand upon her thigh. She jerked at her chains and cursed.
Torg responded by using both hands to explore her more thoroughly, chuckling at her continuing curses and futile attempts to get free.
Hearing Jana’s curses spurred Tyrulf to shake off the lingering effects of the spell and regain full consciousness. He saw what was happening, then recognized her tormentor.
“Leave her alone, Torg,” Tyrulf rasped through dry, parched lips. He wrenched violently at his chains, managed to twist himself from his stomach onto his side.
“Relax,” Torg told the blond-bearded warrior. He pawed at Jalna some more. “Before we left Helheim, Tyrulf, Lord Lokith brought before us a wheezing, bleeding thing he claimed was the remains of General Kovna. This thing told us what it knew about Bloodsong and her forces, and about you, Tyrulf, about how you’d turned traitor and were now fighting for Bloodsong. Now that I’ve seen this warrior whore of yours,” he motioned to Jalna, “I know why. I recognize this sword-bitch, see? She’s that big-eyed slave-cow you whined about that night we got drunk together. Remember? She was being tortured by the king.” He chuckled. “I would have been happy to have watched the king make the slave-slut scream, but you? You wanted to help her! Fool!”
“You call me a fool?” Tyrulf asked, “You obviously died Hel-praying. The proud warrior I once knew became a coward at the end and is now a Hel-slave.”
Torg’s eyes clouded beneath frowning brows for a moment, but then he drove away his memories with a curse. “Lokith no doubt has interesting things planned for you and your whore.” He patted Jalna’s bare hip as if it were a horse’s flank. He chuckled at her new attempts to get free. “And I’ll enjoy watching. Maybe he’ll even do something painful to these.” He squeezed her breasts.
“Enjoy those hands while you can,” she growled, “before I cut them off and stuff them up your—”
“Silence!” He slapped her as hard as he could.
She grimaced slightly but made no sound.
He slapped her again.
Breath hissed between her teeth.
“Leave her alone!” Tyrulf shouted. “Curse you!”
Torg stood and kicked Tyrulf in the stomach, then he turned his back. “Come with me, Sven,” Torg said to one of the two men with him. “Dakk,” he said to the other, “build them a fire in the hearth. Lokith wants them alive, not frozen.” He thrust a boot against Jalna’s hip, shoved her from her side onto her stomach, and walked to Tyrulf and did the same. He glanced at the other four bound prisoners. From their movements and the sounds they were making, he knew they’d soon be fully conscious, too. “When you’ve got the fire going, Dakk, lock the door and stand guard outside.”
With a last grin at Tyrulf and a wink at Jalna, Torg motioned Sven out of the hut, then followed him. He kept thinking about touching Jalna’s warm flesh. It had taken all his willpower to obey Lokith’s order about leaving her unmolested. “We will check on the other prisoners, Sven. They should be examined more closely, now that our dead are buried and we have the time, don’t you agree?”
“Of course,” Sven nodded. “Especially the women.” He grinned and hurried along at Torg’s side.
Within the hut, Dakk finished building the fire and then, after a long, regretful look at Jalna and Valgerth, left the hut and secured the door behind him.
Tyrulf twisted back onto his side as soon as Dakk had gone. Beside him, Jalna did the same, so that they faced each other. On the other side of Tyrulf lay Valgerth, then Thorfinn, Thora, and Yngvar.
Jalna’s heart was racing as she fought to control a rising panic. After Bloodsong had destroyed Nidhug and freed Jalna along with other slaves, Jalna had learned the skills of a warrior to fulfill her vow of never again feeling the bite of slave manacles. But sometimes she still awoke from nightmares, imagining that she was again chained, helpless, awaiting further tortures in Nidhug’s dungeons. She forced herself to breathe deeply, struggled to keep panic down.
Tyrulf saw the haunted expression in her dark eyes and understood. “We’ll find a way out,” he told her. “There’s always a way out.”
“Skadi’s Bow!” Valgerth cursed as she awoke and began struggling against her bonds.
Thorfinn groaned at the pain throbbing in his head, then also cursed and jerked on his chains.
Moments later, Thora awoke, and then Yngvar. Thora was the older of the two, would soon be on the brink of womanhood. When she, her brother, and their parents had been captives in Castle Thokk, Yngvar had spent much of the time weeping. Older now, he was determined to act more as he thought a man should. “Thor’s Blood,” he cursed, determined to master his fear or at least not let it show. “Be brave, Sister!”
“If you insist,” she answered. Fear had never been Thora’s problem. Her problem had always been a reckless lack of it. She had once tried to attack a Death Rider with a wooden training sword.
“Does anybody know more about what happened than I do?” Thorfinn asked, twisting himself onto his side. “It wouldn’t have to be much.”
“All I remember,” Tyrulf said, “was Grimnir telling us to grab our weapons because danger was near. Then nothing.”
“Three men were here before you awoke, Thorfinn,” Jalna said. “They took our clothes and chained us. They were Hel-warriors.”
No one spoke for a moment. “So, Bloodsong was right once more,” Valgerth finally said. “Hel has been planning further attacks. I never really doubted that it was true, but I had hoped, after Thokk’s destruction, that we might be left in peace.”
&nb
sp; “Do you suppose Lokith has returned to lead them, as Guthrun predicted?” Thorfinn wondered. “If so, our falling unconscious could have been due to his sorcery.”
Jalna replied, “One of the men who bound us mentioned Lokith.”
“Torg Bloodear’s his name. We were soldiers together,” Tyrulf explained. “He recognized me, and Jalna.”
Jalna forced a laugh. “He could have recognized me even if he’d gone blind, the way he used his hands on me.”
“He will pay with his blood for touching you that way,” Tyrulf vowed.
“Aye,” Jalna agreed. “But let me do it.”
Yngvar had been silently working at his bonds. “Thora,” he said, “your wrists are nearly as small as mine. My manacles are a little loose on me. Yours?”
Thora worked her wrists back and forth. “Aye, but I can’t get my hands out.”
“I may lose some skin,” Yngvar went on, “but maybe I can.”
“Don’t speak loudly,” Jalna whispered. “A guard was left outside the door.”
Valgerth said, “It’s up to you, Yngvar. Be quick!”
“I’m trying,” the boy answered, grimacing with the strain. “My hands were nearly through, then got stuck. Now they won’t go any further,” he said with a grunt. “But I haven’t given up,” he quickly added.
They waited in silence, listening to Yngvar’s whispered curses.
“Keep trying, Son.”
“I am, Mother.”
“We should have a plan prepared,” Thorfinn suggested.
“Well,” Tyrulf responded, “let’s be good strategists and first assess our situation. We’re naked, unarmed, and locked inside a hut within an encampment that I assume is swarming with Lokith’s Hel-warriors. I suggest we break out and threaten to pummel them with our chains if they don’t surrender.” He waited a moment, then added, “No one ever laughs at my jokes.”
“Because they’re not funny,” Jalna replied.
“They are, to me.”
Yngvar kept struggling to get free.
BLOODSONG TRANSFORMED back to her beastform, ready to flee if black clouds again appeared on the horizon.
Huld was weaker. The ugly patch of corpse-gray skin on her neck was growing larger, now reaching from chin to collarbone, covering half her throat.
Guthrun chanted Runes, seeking Hel-magic with which to probe Huld’s thoughts. She fought down a panicky impulse to abandon her quest. She breathed deeply, then cautiously let herself sink past the barriers of her conscious mind into her subconscious toward the Hel-knowledge she’d long feared to confront.
The shadows through which she moved rustled and whispered obscenities, temptations, promises, bargains, threats. Guthrun held her concentration. The strength of her willpower alone separated her from the touch of the shadows, protected her from their dark invasion. The Coils of Old Night were hungry to claim her soul.
She descended deeper into the darkness within her, wanting to race screaming back to the light of her conscious mind but forcing herself to keep searching for the knowledge she was determined to acquire.
The whispering shadows coiled tighter around her, pressed the tenuous barriers of sanity her will stubbornly maintained. Dark tendrils writhed ravenously on all sides. They threatened to suffocate her soul and wipe away her memory of the path back to the light. Fists clenched from the mental tortures to which she was being subjected, Guthrun moved defiantly deeper into the hungry darkness within her soul.
Bloodsong watched with growing alarm as her daughter’s face became a mask of agony, sweat streaming, panting gasps coming from between her gritted teeth. But then Bloodsong’s attention was suddenly drawn to the horizon. Black clouds! In several places, moving rapidly closer together while also growing larger as those who made them converged with each other and raced nearer. Within moments, the individual patches of clouds had joined to become one large cloud boiling higher and higher into the otherwise clear sky.
They had to leave. There wasn’t time for Guthrun to finish her inner search. And yet, if she disturbed Guthrun and broke her concentration, she might do irreparable harm to Guthrun’s mind and soul. But she either had to disturb Guthrun and risk harming her or simply stand waiting for Lokith to arrive.
Neither choice was acceptable, but one had to be chosen, and quickly.
With a growl of frustration Bloodsong made her decision and moved forward to touch her daughter’s arm.
* * *
Racing along through a twilight gloom atop his wind-treading steed, black clouds boiling in the sky overhead, Lokith reached out with his sorcerous senses again and again, glorying in the nearness of his prey. Soon they would be in sight, and soon thereafter, he was certain, they would be his captives once more.
He laughed with anticipation, an unpleasant sound that mingled with the moaning shadow-wind swirling beneath his skeletal steed’s hooves. Behind him, the purple fires within the skull sockets of his five remaining Death Riders flared brighter. Behind the Death Riders, the mass of Hel-warriors cursed silently to themselves, sore and tired from the long ride, anxious only to capture the escaped women and return to the comforts of the encampment.
Laughing again, Lokith urged his steed to even greater speed and raced onward over the snow.
* * *
From deep within the coiling darkness of her subconscious, Guthrun felt something jerking at her arm, trying to break her concentration. Stark terror possessed her. Sensing her fear, the hungry shadows pressed harder against her fragile barriers and almost at once began to break through.
No! she shouted with her thoughts. I won’t weaken! The barriers will hold!
The barriers strengthened and pushed the writhing shadows back.
An instant before her arm had been grabbed, Guthrun had glimpsed her goal. Now she fought against the disturbance and pressed forward through the shadows, reached out, grasped the knowledge she required, made certain she had all of it, then began withdrawing from the suffocating shadows in her inner depths.
Closer and closer she drew to the light of her conscious mind. The shadows about her began to thin. Suddenly a mass of darkness whipped a coil around her. She stopped moving upward, hung suspended for a heartbeat, then felt herself being slowly dragged back down.
Fighting panic and terror, Guthrun gathered her weakening will, concentrated it into a sharp focus of power, and thrust it into the imprisoning darkness coiled around her.
The coil held fast. Again and then again she pierced the massed shadows with her focused willpower, until finally, writhing madly as if in pain, the thick tendril of darkness released her.
The screams she’d been holding back erupted from her throat as she clawed her way back into the light and opened her eyes.
Bloodsong saw a haunted look of horror hover within her daughter’s eyes for a moment, then fade away, replaced by anger as Guthrun looked down and saw how the fangs of Bloodsong’s beastform were locked around her arm.
Bloodsong released the arm and motioned with her head toward the horizon.
Guthrun’s anger at being disturbed during her concentration vanished the moment she saw the boiling black clouds rushing nearer. Still weak from her inner battle, she climbed quickly onto the strong-muscled back of her mother’s beastform and held tight as Bloodsong began racing away from the black clouds, Ulfhild close by her side.
“I found the knowledge, Mother!” Guthrun shouted after taking a moment to compose herself and catch her breath. “I’ll use it at once and try to learn which way to go.”
Pride and relief welled within Bloodsong at the news.
Concentrating her already strained will, Guthrun envisioned the needed combination of Runic forms and gently pushed mental probes toward Huld’s consciousness. At Huld’s mental barriers she paused, envisioned other Runic forms, and, feeling like an invader, gained entrance to Huld’s t
houghts.
Forgive me, Huld, Guthrun said mentally, hoping the Freya-Witch would hear and understand. It’s necessary for me to learn the way to the wood. “Those hills to the left,” Guthrun suddenly said. “Go between them!”
Understanding that Guthrun’s quest had ended in victory, the two shape-shifters angled left between the two hills.
Once past the hills, Guthrun directed them across a clear expanse of snow and then to the right, among a densely packed stand of towering pines.
“If I read her thoughts correctly,” Guthrun said, “we should cross a narrow path before long. Go left on it when we do.”
They raced through the ancient pines.
Black clouds gained on them from behind.
“We should have crossed that path by now,” Guthrun said. “Garm’s Blood! I was certain I had the right directions. Maybe we missed the path,” she added, dreading the thought of having to backtrack toward their nearing pursuers. “In these shadows and with all this snow, we could have missed noticing a narrow, seldom used path.”
The shape-shifters raced on, waiting for Guthrun to decide. Just as Guthrun was about to tell them to go back, they saw the path ahead.
Guthrun gave a cry of relief.
The shape-shifters reached the path and turned left, Bloodsong in the lead.
“Keep on this path until I say differently,” Guthrun ordered.
Slowly the sun rose higher above the forest as the fleeing women raced on along the narrow forest trail, following the twisting pathway through the trees while behind them their relentless pursuers drew steadily nearer.
The sun reached the highest point upon its short winter’s arc and began its descent toward the horizon. But then dark tendrils from the boiling black clouds finally reached it and dimmed its light.
The dark shadows of the forest grew darker still as the shape-shifters raced on along the path.
Bloodsong Hel X 3 Page 55
