“Get enough of them searching out here, and it might be our best chance.”
“Aye,” Jalna agreed. “But Lokith leads these Hel-warriors. Beware his sorcery.”
HIDING IN the shadows, JaIna struck.
A Hel-warrior’s scream rang out.
Other Hel-warriors rushed toward the sound. They found the warrior’s corpse, but JaIna was already gone.
Slipping silently from shadow to shadow, she waited and watched. Her crimsoned sword steamed in the cold air as the blood dripping from it cooled.
Elsewhere in the encampment, she heard another man’s cry of pain and hoped it was because Tyrulf had killed someone and not been killed himself.
She sprinted across a narrow, open space, shoved open the stable door, and slipped into the inner shadows, intending to cause further confusion by turning out the horses. But as she closed the door behind her, the shout of a Hel-warrior told her she’d been seen.
She cursed and plunged deeper into the stable, sickened by the death-stench of the skeletal Hel-horses within, their eyes flickering with purple Hel-fire in the darkness. She wondered where they had taken the mortal horses.
Hel-warriors with torches rushed into the stable. “There!” one yelled, catching a glimpse of her before she could slip out of sight.
JaIna cursed beneath her breath.
“Some of you go around and block the other door,” a Hel-warrior shouted.
The man who’d seen her led several others to a stall. “I saw you enter this stall! Throw out your weapon!”
All was silent within the stall. One man finally summoned enough courage to hold his torch high and duck his head around the edge. “There’s no one there!”
“There has to be.”
“Look for yourself.”
“Garm’s Blood,” the first man cursed after looking. He walked cautiously into the empty stall, tensed for the unexpected, swept his gaze toward the beamed ceiling, and cursed again. “Check the adjoining stalls,” he decided. “Maybe I chose the wrong one.”
The men checked but found nothing. Outside in the night another scream tore through the air.
Jalna heard the warriors run cursing from the stable to investigate. She waited a few moments longer, heard no further sounds, threw back the straw under which she had hastily hidden in the stall’s manger, and climbed out, sword in hand.
Hay clung to her as she edged cautiously out of the stall. A whirring sound warned her. She jerked back just as a sword blade cut the air where her head had been.
A man cursed.
She used the sound to aim her sword stroke in the dark stable and felt the satisfying thunk of her blade cleaving flesh.
The warrior who had stayed behind in case she was hiding cried out, “Help me! I—”
Her second sword-cut silenced him.
JaIna slipped out of the stable by a side-door and pressed herself into the shadows of the adjoining smithy’s walls.
Men rushed back into the stable.
She eyed the distance to the central longhouse that concealed the escape tunnel and moved toward it.
“Come back!” someone whispered within the smithy.
She froze.
“It’s Tyrulf!”
She hesitated. Even whispering, the voice seemed wrong, but it might be him. “Come out. Show me.” She held her sword ready.
“Wounded!”
Jalna cursed. But still she did not move.
“Torg tricked me! Please!”
Cursing again, hurrying before those in the stable came back out, Jalna moved a few steps closer to the smithy’s darkly open entrance then stopped and whispered, “When was the first time you—”
Something flashed from out of the smithy’s shadows and crashed into her head.
She crumpled to the snow.
Torg Bloodear laughed. Two men emerged with him.
“Out here!” Torg shouted. “I got one!” Torg picked up the iron blacksmith’s hammer he had thrown at Jalna. “Ah, it’s the pretty one. I hope she’s not dead.” He checked. “Still breathing. Good. Her battle-helm saved her. Rub snow on her face. Wake her up.”
* * *
Freezing cold on Jana’s face awakened her. She gasped and opened her eyes. Her head throbbed with a sickening ache, but her initially blurred vision quickly cleared.
She saw she was near the smithy, held upright by men who gripped her arms. Her hands had been bound behind her. Before her, revealed by flickering torchlight, stood Torg Bloodear.
“Thank you,” she said.
“What?” Torg responded, surprised. “That blow addled you, did it? I am Torg Bloodear, and—”
“And I was hoping to find you,” she cut him off. “I owe you. A blade. In your guts.”
Torg laughed. “Call to the others. Now!”
“What others?”
“Except, don’t bother calling to Tyrulf. He’s dead.”
After a short pause, she said, “I don’t believe you. You know our relationship. So now you’re trying to trick me, again.” She added a silent prayer that she was right. The thought of Tyrulf dead was not acceptable.
Torg struck her face with the flat of his hand.
She tasted blood from a split lip.
“Call to the others.”
“What others?”
He struck her again.
She spit blood at him.
“Sword bitch, you think me an idiot, I’ll wager, but you are wrong. Maybe the others are no longer even here. Is that it? Should I start looking outside the walls? Were you and my old dead friend, Tyrulf, heroically delaying us while the other two and their brats escaped?”
So, she thought, he hasn’t found the guard missing from the watchtower, yet.
Torg hammered his fist into her stomach. Air whooshed out of her as she doubled over and fought to breathe. The men holding her forced her upright once more.
“Check the watchtowers,” he ordered. “They might have used one to slip over the walls.”
Men hurried to obey.
Torg hit Jalna in the stomach again then held his gloved fist near her face. “I won’t kill you, but you may wish I had.”
“I—” she gasped, “survived Nidhug’s tortures. You can’t come close to that.”
“I love a challenge. Lokith can always heal you with his sorcery, if he wants, perhaps even return Tyrulf’s corpse, or yours, to a semblance of life. You and your lover might become Death Riders, for all I know or care. But one way or another, I intend to have all six of you here, alive, dead, or mutilated, when Lokith returns.”
Returns? she thought. lf that sorcerer is not here, Valgerth and her family will have an even better chance of getting away.
“You were so pretty, naked.”
Jalna stiffened, guessing what was coming.
He looked her up and down with a grin. “Sorry about the snow. Might be a bit breezy out here, naked.” He heaved a sigh. “But it can’t be helped. Strip her.”
JaIna kicked out as three warriors came forward to obey. She caught one on the knee with her boot, another in the groin. Both sagged, groaning and cursing to the snow.
“Grab her legs, you idiots!” Torg shouted.
Other men came forward.
Jalna grunted and cursed, bucked and heaved and writhed in their grasp, but soon the last of her clothing had been stripped off.
Torg kicked the pile of discarded clothing farther away, then faced her. He looked down at her bare feet, ankle deep in snow. “You look cold. Bet your feet hurt.”
Jalna said nothing.
“Know what I think?” he asked, leaning nearer. “I think I don’t have to make you tell me anything at all in order to find the others. All I have to do is start making you scream. They’ll come running. Especially that fool, Tyrulf. Yes. I lied abou
t his being dead. But now, when he comes to save you, I will kill him as you watch. Unless you cooperate.”
She said nothing.
Torg looked at the smithy. The entrance was a large square opening formed by a cross beam and two thick wooden support poles. “Suspend her from the beam with her hands behind her.”
The men forced her under the beam. A rope was secured to her bound wrists, then one end was thrown over the beam.
“Get her up,” Torg ordered, “and tie off the rope.”
Two Hel-warriors pulled upward on the rope. JaIna grimaced and moaned with the tearing pain in her shoulders as her bare feet left the snow.
“Now,” Torg continued, “stretch an ankle to each pole.” JaIna ineffectually kicked out at the men as they grabbed her ankles and looped them with rope.
“Pull them as tight as you can,” Torg commanded. “Two of you pull on them together. That’s it! Use some muscle! I want her to think she’s splitting up the middle and that her legs are about to be torn off. No! Not that high. Keep them lower so that she can’t touch the poles to get any support. Yes, that’s it, pull them out and down to increase the strain on her shoulders.”
Finally satisfied, Torg walked near the hunched-over woman. He playfully ruffled her hair. “It’s a position guaranteed to cure a woman’s modesty, don’t you agree?” he asked with a chuckle.
JaIna endured, all her concentration focused upon keeping herself from screaming with the pain of her overextended joints, tendons, and muscles.
“Let’s start with the obvious. Hand me a torch.”
A Hel-warrior complied.
Torg watched her eyes as he slowly brought the flaming torch near her face. “Bet this fire feels good, out here in the cold. It should bring you great comfort, yes?”
Chuckling softly, he moved around behind her.
JaIna guessed what he was going to do and steeled herself for it. She felt her inner thighs beginning to warm from the torch. I won’t scream, she promised herself. No matter what he does to me, I am Not! Going! To! Scream!”
“Roast her good, Torg!” one of his men shouted.
The others hooted with laughter.
“No,” Torg said. He withdrew the torch and came back to Jana’s front. “I think that’s a bit too severe to start, don’t you?” He ran a gloved hand down the strained column of Jana’s right thigh. “Someone cut a short length of rope.” Torg busied himself with further explorations until a man handed him a piece of rope.
Torg stuck the torch in the snow beneath her, then took the rope and knotted one end.
JaIna feared at first that the flames of the torch beneath her would still burn her, but they were too far away and, compared to the pain of her strained position, caused only mild discomfort.
Torg gave the knotted rope to one of his men. “Put it in some freezing water. Wet it good. Then bring it back.”
While the warrior was gone with the rope, Torg entertained the men by pretending to be an officer conducting an inspection tour. Every time he gave Jalna a new demerit, the men roared with laughter.
When the soldier returned with the rope, Torg took the freezing wet rope and said, “And so, for so many infractions, you have earned yourself some punishment. That’s only fair, don’t you agree?” He held the knotted, ice-sheathed rope for her to see. He laughed at Jalna’s stoic silence. He sliced the air near her with a practice swing and laughed when she involuntarily flinched. “Would you rather I start on your front?” he asked, cutting the air near her again, “or your back?” He moved behind her and drew back his arm to strike.
“Torg!” a warrior suddenly shouted. “One of the watchtower guards is dead! And there are four sets of tracks leading away from the walls outside!”
“Four sets?” Torg asked.
“Aye!”
“To the stables!” he ordered as he ran, leading the way.
Jalna watched from her position of pain as Hel-warriors mounted atop skeletal steeds soon rode the moaning shadows of a swirling Hel-wind from the encampment in pursuit of Valgerth and her family. But Torg was not among them. He’s using me as bait to catch Tyrulf! she realized. “Stay away, Tyrulf!” she shouted. “It’s a trap!”
“Of course it is,” Tyrulf said, hurrying up to her from around the side of the smithy.
“Leave me! Get away! They left the gate open!”
The sword cut the rope holding her left ankle.
Men rushed toward him.
Tyrulf cut the rope holding her right ankle then the suspending rope.
She fell. Her strained legs failed to support her. She sprawled in the snow, cursing.
Tyrulf met the charge of the Hel-warriors. He parried a cut; feinted, and thrust into an exposed throat above a mail shirt, then jerked free his dripping blade in time to parry another warrior’s stroke.
JaIna got to her knees in the snow, wrenched at her still bound wrists, got shakily to her feet. She saw a Hel-warrior coming up on Tyrulf from behind and threw herself against him, knocking him down.
Tyrulf saw the fallen warrior and quickly brought his blade arcing down into the man’s neck. But then the rest of the Hel-warriors overwhelmed him, gripped his arms and legs and held him struggling in their grasp. Two other warriors grabbed Jana’s arms and hauled her back to her feet.
Torg Bloodear laughed as he strode forward to face them. He said nothing for a moment, then grinned at Jalna. “At least we don’t have to retie your hands,” he noted, “or remove any clothing. Get her back up.”
Hel-warriors hastened to obey.
“No!” Tyrulf cried, struggling violently to get free. “There’s no longer any need for that, Torg! You’ve caught me, and your men are following the others’ tracks. There’s no longer any reason to make her suffer!”
“Prisoners who try to escape deserve punishment,” Torg replied, “especially when they’ve killed many of my men in the process. And besides,” he added, grinning at JaIna, “she failed an inspection.”
JaIna gasped with pain as she was again suspended by her reversed arms. Men reached for her ankles.
“I’m sure,” Torg continued, “that when Lokith returns and learns what you’ve done, he won’t begrudge me this little bit of satisfaction for all the trouble you’ve caused.”
“Then punish me!” Tyrulf cried. “Not her!”
“Oh, I shall,” Torg assured him, “and the others, too, when they’re caught. But your woman here was the first caught, and so shall be the first to suffer.”
Tyrulf nearly broke free of the men holding him.
“Bind him and lay him there beneath her so he can have a good view,” Torg ordered.
While Tyrulf was being bound hand and foot, Torg walked to JaIna, tested the ropes on her ankles to make certain that they were as tight as he desired. “Now, where were we before the interruption?” he asked, then lifted the length of knotted rope, moved around behind her, and, without further hesitation, brought it whirring down.
“BLOODSONG,” Ulfhild called, touching her friend’s shoulder.
Bloodsong snapped awake and reached for her sword.
“No,” Ulfhild said, quickly drawing back, “there is no immediate danger.”
Bloodsong got to her feet, sword in hand, and started to ask what the Berserker meant, then saw what had happened to their surroundings. She stood in shocked surprise for a moment, then softly cursed.
“When did it happen’?” she asked.
“Just before I woke you.”
The night air was still summer-warm, but the hilltop in the forest clearing had become a small, grass-carpeted plateau no more than ten paces across. Past the edges gaped empty air beyond which, far below, treetops could be dimly glimpsed in the silvered light of a waning crescent moon. Tiny specks of yellow-gold light drifted silently over and among the trees. But one horizon soon drew all of
Bloodsong’s attention, a horizon above which no stars shone, a horizon glowing faintly with a throbbing purple light.
“And what do you make of that?” she asked the Berserker, pointing with her sword.
“Hel-magic?” Ulfhild suggested. “There could be black clouds covering the stars. Lokith’s doing?”
“Perhaps.” Bloodsong nodded, then looked up at the stars twinkling in the rest of the sky in order to check her directions. “But I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s not coming from the direction of the encampment. It’s coming from the north,” she noted, and felt an unexpected tightening in her solar plexus. She knelt beside her daughter. “Guthrun,” she softly called. “Wake up.”
Guthrun jerked awake and reached for her sword.
“It’s me, Guthrun.”
She drew her hand away from her sword. “Is it my watch already?” She yawned.
“Take a look around,” Bloodsong urged, then moved to Huld’s side to awaken the Freya-Witch.
Huld awoke and invoked her night-vision spell. Eyes glowing yellow-gold, she joined the other three in gazing toward the northern horizon.
“Hel-magic of some kind,” Huld said. “That’s for certain. And the direction is right, too,” she added, after looking up to check the stars, “since the entrance to Helheim is in the north. Guthrun, what do you think?”
The young Hel-witch didn’t answer. She suddenly swayed on her feet and started to fall.
Bloodsong caught and steadied her. “Guthrun!” she cried with concern, glimpsing Guthrun’s glazed and staring eyes in the dim moonlight.
“Trance,” Huld decided, studying Guthrun’s face. “Quickly! Place her on the ground.”
Bloodsong gently lowered Guthrun to the ground and then knelt with Huld beside her.
The Freya-Witch grasped Guthrun’s hands, gripped them tightly, closed her eyes, and began chanting lilting phrases of power. Suddenly, yellow-gold light flickered like heat lightning around their touching hands.
Guthrun’s staring eyes snapped closed. She gasped, drew air deep into her lungs, then let out her breath in a long, pained groan.
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