Lokith motioned him away, never taking his eyes from Jalna’s battered flesh. “And take these others with you.”
When Torg and the guards had gone, Lokith closed and barred the door, then walked back to the hanging prisoners. He probed their thoughts more deeply than he had in the longhouse, learned more of their secrets, especially Jalna’s fears. A slow smile spread over his pale-skinned face. Until Bloodsong passed back through the barrier or Torg returned with the escaped prisoners, he felt free to further refresh himself with special delights, including, eventually, blood from Jalna’s veins.
Lokith smoothed back his mane of blond hair, prepared himself mentally to work magic, traced Runes in the air, concentrated his will, and spoke guttural words of sorcerous power.
Purple rays shot forth from his hands to bathe Jana’s body in healing magic. Within moments, her wounds were gone.
Her large, dark eyes opened and focused upon Lokith, grinning up at her from the stable floor.
“Because your thoughts are open to me, slave, I know you recognize me, but we have not been formally introduced.” He mocked her with a slight bow. “I am Lokith, your new master.” He reached up and touched her bare hip.
She kicked out, caught him in the chest, sent him staggering backward.
He roared with laughter, then stood watching as she swung back and forth, powerless to stop the motion her violent movements had caused. “The only kind of slave worth having is one who resists, because there is always some reason to punish them. And there are few things more enjoyable than punishing wayward slaves, don’t you agree, slave?”
“I am no one’s slave!” Jalna growled, fighting to keep her rising panic at bay, to deny that her nightmares were being made real. He has read my thoughts, she reminded herself. He knows my fears. But I am free! And I am going to stay that way!
“Not true. You are now a slave again. My slave. The few years you’ve thought yourself free since Nidhug’s fall have been but an illusion.”
“Your lies do not disturb me, Hel-slime.”
“And what’s more,” he continued, “I may even make you a special kind of slave. Would you like that? Would it make your slavery more meaningful and satisfying to you if you had a special status? Of course, although your thoughts tell me that you’ve had experiences that seem to qualify you automatically, you’ll understand if I personally want to test you for the position of my foremost scream-slave.”
Jana’s eyes widened slightly. He knows about my fear of being tortured again, too. But I survived Torg’s tortures last night, and I can survive Lokith’s!
“Oh, yes, you’ll survive.” Lokith grinned. “I’ll see to that. And what a pleasant life you’ll lead. You’ll have no work to do, and nothing about which to worry. All that will be required of you is to perform when I need to hear your screams. You will also have the comfort of knowing that no matter how badly I hurt you, I can, if I desire, heal you and make you whole once more. Of course, there may be times when I do not heal you at once, and eventually there will come a day when I tire of you and do not heal you at all, even let you die. But you’ll not be burdened with the knowledge of when that might be.”
“You’ll not break me,” Jalna vowed, heart pounding in terror.
“Promise? Because I don’t want to break you! We are a perfect match!” He laughed. “This oaf hanging beside you, however?”
“Leave him alone.”
“No.” Lokith traced Runes in the air and concentrated his will. A flaming skull appeared and began to condense around Tyrulf’s head.
Jalna cried, “What are you doing? Don’t kill him!”
Tyrulf came awake and groaned in agony. His body twitched uncontrollably at the end of the rope.
“Stop!” JaIna shouted.
“No.”
“If you leave him alone, I will—”
“Relax. I am only making him a Skull Slave. Everyone in the encampment will become one eventually, except for Bloodsong, Guthrun, Huld, and you. I want you four still able to defy me, so that my pleasures with you will be more exquisite.”
Tyrulf screamed as the flaming skull passed beneath his flesh and out of sight, then he lapsed into unconsciousness once more.
Satisfied, Lokith looked back at Jalna. “Do you remember what happened to Nidhug after Hel appeared in the cavern to reclaim the War Skull from him? Do you remember how She warped him into a maggot-like dragon? Of course you do.” He laughed. “How would you like to visit him, slave? In the darkest, coldest, most hopeless depths of subterranean Helheim?”
He can’t really do that, she told herself.
“Yes! I can send your spirit and mind there while your flesh stays here, because of my links to Helheim. And in Helheim, spirits are as real and easily hurt as flesh.”
She knew from his laughter that he had detected her terror at the thought.
“Poor, lonely Nidhug would so enjoy seeing the slave who helped bring about his downfall. He screams almost continually, you know, and I’m certain he would enjoy having the company of your screams, while you enjoy the honor of being the Bride of the Dragon!”
JaIna closed her eyes and said nothing.
Lokith laughed.
Hanging with her eyes still closed, JaIna heard him begin an incantation. Suddenly, spears of icy cold shot along her nerves, and there was a moment of disorienting nausea. Her nostrils filled with a death-stench. She opened her eyes.
She was in an icy cavern. Its glistening walls throbbed with a pulsating purple glow. The floor was strewn with naked human corpses in various stages of decomposition.
Jalna’s legs were chained wide apart to thick iron rings set into a raised stone platform. Her manacled wrists were stretched tight overhead by a thick chain that vanished into the unseen reaches of the shadowy ceiling. Her strained position allowed only her toes to touch the floor. And of course she was still naked. It seems totally real! she realized. Hurts like real, too! Just as he said it would! Oh Gods!
Out of the shadows beyond an arched doorway that suddenly appeared came a huge, coiling thing, slick and pale as a bloated maggot. It raised a ghastly, deformed head and looked at her. Then it screamed. And moved toward her.
Jalna jerked on her chains, each breath a moan of horror as the thing crept closer.
He will consummate your marriage first, Lokith’s voice suddenly spoke within her head, then he will torture you in ways you cannot imagine. He owes you much pain, to his mind, for helping turn him into what he now is.
The maggot-thing stopped, almost touching her. Its head, a twisted mockery of a human face, arched down and screamed. Its breath exuded a nauseating scent of decay. And she recognized the thing’s eyes. Nidhug’s eyes!
Memories of torture in Nastrond flooded her thoughts. But then, suddenly, her chains loosened. Her feet touched the stones beneath her, taking her weight. The chains above lowered her hands until they were at her waist. And she noticed that Nidhug had grown quiet.
Tears glistened in his eyes. He gasped a strangled sob. And he began to weep.
In Jalna’s mind, she heard a hated voice from her past say, In spite of all I did to Hel, She discovered that She still loves me, a little, and that my ruined soul might yet be healed. Hel knew I still loved you, too.
“What?” In spite of her situation, Jalna barked a laugh.
Mother Hel could tell you were always on my mind. My love for you convinced her my soul might, in time, still be redeemed, healed—
“This must be Lokith’s idea of a joke!”
I do not ask your forgiveness for what I did to you in Nastrond. Remember, though, that I told you I suspected you were more than you seemed? But I did not remember until too late who—
“Or maybe Lokith thinks to trick me somehow? It won’t work!”
Lokith cannot hear or see us. He will still believe you are screaming while I de
file and torture you. He will not learn that your soul is, was, and ever shall be, my One True Love! Before I knew Hel and became a Hel-warrior, when I was young, many lifetimes ago, we had a life together, you and I. In those days, I looked like this.
Into Jalna’s mind came the face of a youth with kind eyes and a sad smile.
Remember me, my Love?
Jalna gasped. She did remember something—“No!” she protested. “It’s a trick!”
Hel helped turn Lokith’s thoughts to sending you here. And She is helping me trick him now.
“You’re lying! Why would She—”
She likes you, from when She helped you survive and fool me in Nastrond. And She always knew who you were. She sees and plans far. And now, for me, and for you, and for the sake of our love—
“Lies!”
She is helping again.
“Against Lokith?
She always laughs last, my Love, and no one but Hel understands the Great Joke!
With wrenching suddenness, Jalna found herself back in the stables, on her knees at Lokith’s feet. Her hands were tied behind her. Disoriented, confused, her spinning thoughts quickly grasped and held onto one simple, important thing. Her feet were not tied.
Lokith leaned close and grinned. “Did you enjoy your wedding night, my little—”
Jalna pushed hard with her feet, threw herself forward into Lokith, knocked him to the floor, whipped her muscular body around, scissored his neck between her strong legs, cutting off his air, hoping to hear his neck snap.
With preternatural strength, he hurled her away and hissed a word of power.
Jalna convulsed with agony. She tried to move, but she was paralyzed again.
Lokith stood, drew back a booted foot, and kicked her. “Obviously,” he said, glaring down at her, “you need more time with your loving groom. Much more time. Newlyweds should have a great deal of time alone together. Don’t you agree?”
Moments later, Jalna found herself again in Nidhug’s icy cavern. And although to Lokith she seemed to be experiencing the torments of the damned, she instead was sitting comfortably on the raised platform, listening to Nidhug’s continuing attempts to convince her of Hel’s regard and his undying love for her soul.
TORG BLOODEAR reigned up with a curse. In the snow lay the bodies of all but two of the Hel-warriors he had sent in pursuit of Valgerth, Thorfinn, and their children.
He studied the tracks that led away from the bodies. “The other two must have pursued them on foot,” he said to the six men with him, then kicked his horse back into a gallop.
On the tracks led through the forest, then up ahead, near the trees on the far side of a wide clearing, Torg saw the glint of sunlight on metal and two black forms lying sprawled in the crimson-stained snow.
He cursed and led his men across the clearing at a gallop. Something whirred past Torg’s head. One of his men cried out and fell, an arrow in his throat.
“Ambush!” Torg shouted, reining up as another man screamed in pain and fell dead from a second arrow.
Torg jerked his horse around and headed back across the clearing in retreat. Another man cried out and fell, leaving only three in his wake.
Just a little farther, Torg thought, eyeing the nearing trees, and we can circle around through the woods, where a bow and arrow won’t be so effective.
Sunlight flashed on metal an instant before a spear hurled from the edge of the trees toward which he was headed tore through Torg’s black mail shirt and sunk deeply into his chest.
Torg’s death cry was no more than a gasping wheeze as he toppled from his saddle.
The three remaining Hel-warriors galloped on toward the trees, swords in hand, hunched low in their saddles.
Thorfinn, having hurled his spear, waited until the last moment, then leapt from his hiding place and cut at the first horse’s legs with his sword, sending the rider spilling to the snow.
Thora leapt out from behind a tree and sunk her dagger to the hilt in the fallen warrior’s throat while her father cut the legs from under another horse and sheared through the unhorsed man’s neck with his sword.
The third and last rider galloped away into the forest. “Thor’s Blood,” Thorfinn cursed. “I’d hoped to kill them all. Now he’ll return to the encampment and—”
Suddenly, from among the trees, a huge gray wolf leapt high toward the Hel-warrior, crashed into him, and knocked him to the snow. The last Hel-warrior screamed as the fangs of the huge gray wolf closed on his throat. An instant later his cries were cut short, a crimson fountain jetting from the gaping ruin of his throat.
The wolf raised its dripping muzzle, its huge paws holding down the still twitching body, and growled as it set its eyes upon Thorfinn and Thora.
“Thora,” Thorfinn said, forcing his voice to remain calm, knowing that displaying fear encouraged beasts to attack, “come stand behind me,” he ordered, his eyes never leaving the wolf as he wished he could reach the spear he’d hurled into Torg Bloodear’s chest.
The wolf did not move. The body of the slain Hel-warrior stopped twitching. Steam rose into the cold air from the fallen warrior’s blood.
Thorfinn heard snow crunching beneath running boots in the clearing behind him. “Valgerth!” he shouted, “keep back! And keep Yngvar with you!”
Valgerth stopped running and raised her bow, an arrow nocked and ready for firing in case some new danger appeared from the woods.
“There’s a wolf, Mother!” Thora cried.
“Then you’ll be needing my bow,” Valgerth decided. “Go back to the other side of the clearing, Yngvar, and stay there until we call you,” she ordered, then began running forward once more.
“I told you to stay back,” Thorfinn growled as she came up to him.
“I won’t shoot unless it attacks us,” Valgerth said. “It killed that Hel-warrior?” she asked in amazement.
“Aye, the last one. They’re all dead, thank Odin.”
“And the wolf’s alone? No pack?”
“Not that I’ve seen or heard.”
Several tense, silent moments passed, then the wolf turned and loped away from its kill, moving around them through the trees until it emerged from the forest and broke into a run across the clearing.
“I sent Yngvar over there!” Valgerth cried, and started to aim the nocked arrow.
“No, Mother,” Yngvar said, stepping out from behind a nearby tree. “I disobeyed you, again.”
“Praise Skadi for willful children,” Valgerth said in relief, lowering the bow.
“I won’t be punished, this time?” Yngvar hopefully asked.
Thorfinn laughed. “No.” He kept watching the wolf. It stopped on the far side of the clearing, sat on its haunches, and looked back across the clearing at them.
“Perhaps I should put an arrow in it, anyway,” Valgerth mused. ‘It might attack us later on.”
“Don’t, Mother!” Thora pleaded. “It helped us! Maybe it’s not a real wolf. Maybe it’s a Berserker, like Ulfhild, one who was on patrol when the attack came.”
“I’m afraid it’s just an ordinary wolf, Thora,” Thorfinn said.
“Who is acting very strangely,” Valgerth mentioned again, thoughtfully looking at the beast who still sat looking across the clearing at them. “Thora’s right. It helped us, and did not devour its kill.”
“Ah!” Yngvar cried, whirling around to look behind himself, then frowning. “Who said that?” He looked all around.
“Said what?” Thora asked her brother.
“That it wants to guide us,” Yngvar answered. “A stranger’s voice. A man’s voice. Said the wolf wants to guide us.” He looked at the others. “It was like a shout! You had to have heard it!”
Valgerth shook her head. “No, son. There was no shout.”
“But I heard it!”
“Maybe it’s a magic wolf,” Thora mused, “like in one of those stories you used to tell us. Maybe it’s even AIIfather Odin in disguise!”
“Who knows?” Valgerth responded.
“What?” Thorfinn asked. “Val, it’s just a cursed wolf!”
Valgerth shrugged. “Let’s be merciful to the two horses that were injured, then try to catch the other ones to ride. And if the wolf waits and acts like it wants to guide us, why not see where it leads? Anyway, you shouldn’t be so against the children’s notion, Thorfinn. You had that dream in which a wolf led you through a storm, remember?”
“Yes, but that was a long time ago.”
“Dreams don’t care about time,” Thora said.
“I had a dream, too,” Yngvar joined in. “A wolf licked my face. It was only a few nights ago.”
“I’m outnumbered!” Thorfinn smiled. He ruffled Yngvar’s hair, then looked back at Valgerth. “I will send the horses I injured during the battle to Frey.”
Valgerth nodded. “And we’ll see about catching mounts. Come, Children.”
“I want to help Father,” Yngvar announced.
Thorfinn winked at Valgerth. “I was hoping for your help, Son.” He walked to the first crippled horse.
Yngvar ran ahead and knelt by the wounded beast, who was lying in the blood-spattered snow. “I wish you hadn’t had to hurt him. I wish Huld was here to heal him.”
“Step back, Son. He was injured in battle. The God Frey will be good to him.”
Yngvar patted the horse’s neck then moved away.
Thorfinn raised his sword. “May Frey, Vanir God of Stallions, Brother of Freya, Son of Nerthus and Njord, honor you,” Thorfinn intoned over the suffering beast, then he brought his blade whistling down.
* * *
In the stables, Lokith stood looking at his captive with a puzzled frown. Something was not right. For one thing, since bringing her back from visiting Nidhug this time, he had been unable to penetrate her thoughts. “You are not as distressed by visiting Nidhug as I had hoped, slave.”
Jalna Audsdaughter stared up at him, again on her knees. Her hands were still bound behind her, and this time also her feet were tied and connected by a length of rope to her hands, but she hardly noticed. Her desperate situation seemed almost inconsequential now, because her mind was filled with all Nidhug had told her, and which, eventually, she had come to half-believe. But if it were true, the vastness of the time involved was numbing. Hundreds, no, thousands of years were involved, countless other lives she had lived and forgotten as if they had never been, each filled with loves and hates and joys and sorrows to which she had once given her full attention, as if they were all that had ever been or would ever be. But those lives had been only brief moments in the totality of her soul’s existence!
Bloodsong Hel X 3 Page 62
