by Derek Nelsen
“Yes,” Kiara growled, “because it is evil—a lying son of the devil himself.”
“No.” Tor looked at Kiara as if she had just eaten a bug. “Ignore him because he knows nothing.”
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. I know lots of things.” The croaking voice echoed from the ever-darkening shadows behind them. “I’m the only one other than the goats that knows where you’re heading right now. Keep walking and you’ll be no better off than your fat friend. You’ll be fertilizer before that torch you’re holding snuffs out.”
“Wait,” said Orri.
“Orri, I could use some help here.” Tor said it with an odd desperation. “I’m going to need you to walk if you don’t want to get left behind.”
“So thirsty,” he mumbled.
“Thirsty?” Svikar sneered. “There’s more to worry about down ‘ere than where you’ll get your next drink, that’s for sure.”
Tor stopped dragging and turned toward the darkness. “Ja?”
“Come on,” said the head. “I’ll make a bargain wif ya. I’ll help you find your way if you don’t leave me ‘ere. Keep you alive, I will. Help you find your water.”
Tor looked down at Orri. The fat man lay still, eyes half open, lips cracked.
“It’s too late.” Kiara crouched down and put her cheek on Orri’s face. “He’s gone.”
“Tor,” Runa sounded frustrated. “Give me that sword.”
Tor gave it to his wife. “Sons of Odin!” He slammed his hand against the wall. A hollow echo mocked them all.
Runa took the sword and sliced Orri mid-belly, letting out a putrid stench.
“What are you doing?” Kiara gagged and fell back toward the wall.
“I’m collecting more of the vine. These torches are burning fast.”
“You’re defiling him.”
“He’s already dead.” Runa backed away from the odor. She looked like she was going to vomit. “We don’t know how much longer this vine’ll grow.” Runa smothered the flame on Orri’s stomach.
Without the appetite of the fire, the vine grew wickedly fast. At first, it was like she was cutting the head off a snake before it could get out of its den. Then Runa let it grow longer, long enough to start to shape into arms or other appendages, like the draugr that fought over them in the moonlight.
Tor watched closely as she attended to her work. “Be careful, Runa.”
“Just let me be, Tor. My torch is right here, and I’ll set fire to this thing if it gets out of hand.” Runa stayed focused on the task, cutting and then deburring each piece. “I think we could use some rope, ja?” As she got more comfortable working with the vine, she started allowing it to grow more and more before making the cut. The longer the vine, the more it seemed to organize. They watched in a trance as it shaped itself into an arm.
“Cut it off, Runa.”
She waited until it began to form a head, looking eerily like a man trying to climb out of Orri’s stomach.
“Now!” barked Tor.
She cut it off, and it fell into a pile on the ground.
She deburred the length of it as a new weed began to grow. This time it came a little slower.
It formed a head first, allowing the rest to gather into a pile beside the dead man. As Runa raised the sword to make the cut the pile drew up into an arm and tried to grab it from her hand, only to be dismembered by her quick, sharp stroke.
Tor took his torch and lit the vine at Orri’s stomach again. The new growth wrenched from side to side in protest but never made it far enough to form a recognizable shape before burning away like a candle wick.
“Kiara’s right. You shouldn’t be doing that,” Tor said to his wife.
“That girl knows nothing,” she replied. “Would she have us leave without something to burn or a piece of rope? Perhaps she can say a prayer? Which is about all she’s good for.”
“You’d be wise to take the soul ring off the dead man’s chest and protect it from that vine.” Svikar sounded bored of the bickering.
“It is up to God to determine the fate of his soul. To remove it would be sacrilege.” Anything that head said must be a lie. Kiara was sure of it.
“Your god has no power here! He is Odin’s now,” Runa huffed. “When my own father died, our priest collected his soul. That’s our way, Christian.”
“Old Erik took it?” Kiara wondered if the irony was lost on the woman.
“I doubt you know what your priests do with your dead.” Runa wouldn’t let it go.
Kiara scowled. “I’ve seen a lot of death, thanks to that fat Viking, and Vidar, and the rest of your savage countrymen and women.”
“Well, I’ve never killed anyone.” Runa cut the fiery head off the snake and started deburring and pulling it out of Orri’s dead body as unfeeling as if she were weeding a garden.
Had these people gone mad? Kiara couldn’t bear to look at Runa.
“Why should we take Orri’s soul?” Tor turned toward the troll.
“Oh, now Svikar may have some wisdom, eh?” Tor held the torch up to the tip of its nose, and the troll started talking. “To keep the weed from getting to it.” Svikar puffed at the torch like a child trying to blow out a candle. “If it does you’ll have another problem.”
Kiara looked at Tor, his stoic face hard as stone. “What kind of problem?” she asked.
“Your soul’s a manacle.” He spoke to Kiara as if she were seven. “Who you are is bound to it, and you’ll be bound to whoever ends up with it after you die—whether be God or some lying snake. Once this life ends, your will’ll be your master’s will, and the master will call its lost souls home.”
“But Orri doesn’t have his soul,” Kiara remembered. “Old Erik put it on Tor, and then—”
“Then one of the vines took it. Runa!” yelled Tor. “Get away from that body.”
“As always, the husband talks and the wife prepares,” Runa complained to herself like a mother cleaning up after her grown children. “If it weren’t for me we’d never eat. No one would make the sacrifices. No rope. No light—”
The hall fell silent as if Runa was satisfied she’d finally gotten in the last word.
Runa’s light snuffed out. The goats started bleating wildly.
Tor held his torch into the black. “Runa?” He started running toward the sound of screaming goats. “Runa!”
By the time his fire lit the scene, Runa was in Orri’s arms. The vine from his stomach had wrapped itself tightly around her throat, and she’d lost all color in her face.
Tor raised his sword to kill Orri for the second time in one night. Runa was kicking Orri’s legs and punching at his face. She was not helpless, for his cheek was peeling back at the eye socket with each vicious blow. His dirty fingers were inside Runa’s lips, pulling her mouth apart by the teeth, and a tongue of vine stretched from his mouth into hers.
Kiara heard the crunch of Orri’s teeth as Tor slammed his left elbow into his face. Orri’s jaw snapped and dislocated, leaving the lower half of his face swinging open to one side—but the thing didn’t fall, didn’t react, didn’t show pain. Tor tried to pull fat Orri off his wife, but he couldn’t overpower him, as if the draugr had the power of ten men.
Kiara hovered just outside the fight. Not knowing what to do, she prayed aloud and grabbed Runa around the waist and pulled. Jerking and pushing, she didn’t have the strength to move the pile of bodies.
Runa’s eyes were wide, and tears streamed down her cheeks as she watched a golden soul ring ride the vine from Orri’s mouth into her own. As she clutched at the vine, trying to pull it out of her throat, blood ran from her grip and down her wrists from thorns strewn the length of the serpentine tongue.
“Find the sword!” Tor yelled over the sound of the struggle and the bleating. The draugr was killing his wife before his eyes.
He shoved his torch into Orri’s slack jaw, but the prickly tongue continued to slowly work its way down Runa’s throat.
Kiara saw Ice Br
eaker, and this time she did not hesitate. The first cut severed the leg off the draugr, bringing the whole group down hard onto the stone floor. Goats scattered to avoid being crushed in the melee, but Orri was not slowed. Kiara sawed at the vine coming out of Orri’s open gut, leaving the end noosed around Runa’s neck loose and snapping like an angry whip. She cut at it again, this time closer to Runa’s throat, dropping the length of it down to be finished off by any goat hungry enough to claim it.
In the struggle, the vine in Orri’s face had caught fire. The smell of burning hair mixed with roasting flesh as it climbed his beard and rolled yellow flames over his bald, tattooed head. Tor grabbed the sword out of Kiara’s hands and cut his flaming head off.
When Orri’s dismembered body fell over it toppled onto Kiara, pinning her under what now felt like a sack full of vipers.
The fiery, stinking head dangled by its tongue as the stubborn vine kept trying to climb into Runa’s face. Tor started pulling, the sharp thorns coating his palms in blood. Desperate for air, Runa grabbed the blade from her husband’s hand and cut the vine off near her lips. Tor dropped to the floor with the second head he’d cut off that night.
Runa swallowed, gagged, and coughed as the remainder of that prickly vine disappeared down her throat. Coughing turned to sobbing as she drank the air in, then threw up.
Tor didn’t stop chopping at Orri’s body until no fingers, toes, or vines dared to twitch. The only sign of life was a thick, red sap oozing from the ends of the severed vines. The shredded remains of Orri’s sack of a carcass did not bleed.
Infection
Runa threw up again.
“Can we just cut it out?” asked Kiara.
“Kill that girl.” Runa spit what looked to be blood, but the aftertaste was sweet. “Kill her before she starts the dissection.”
Tor gave Runa a hard look. “We need to get it out of you somehow, before you end up like Orri.”
“If you do she’ll die,” said Svikar. “You might as well ask if you can cut out her heart. It’s feeding on her, and it’s waiting for her to get tired.”
“You don’t have a heart, troll, and yet your mouth will not die.” Tor looked at Svikar as if he was responsible for all of this.
Runa slunk to her knees and sobbed. “Freyja help me!”
“It’ll be alright, Runa.” Tor sat beside her and rubbed her back as she vomited. “We’re going to get the weed out.” He tried to sound reassuring.
“Ha!” laughed the head. “It’ll take more than a goat to pull that weed.”
Tor’s eyes burned a hole into the troll until Svikar used his big ugly mouth to say something more helpful. “As she weakens, her soul will become a burden. When her body can’t carry it anymore, she’ll let it go and take up the vine. Then she’ll be like old Orri over there.
Orri was hardly recognizable now that Tor had had his way, just a pile of scraps and bone.
“Don’t listen to him, Runa. He’s a liar.” Tor turned his back to the troll.
“When the blood vine has her soul ring, you’ll call her draugr. Her body will fade but not her spirit. You can’t kill the spirit.” Svikar seemed to be thinking of some distant memory.
“Runa, I know you don’t like me, but you need to listen to me now.” Kiara took a deep breath—her heart was pounding. “Look, I’m no priest. All I know is that if you give your soul to Jesus, and you ask, he will forgive your sins, and he will save you. If not in this life, then forever after.” Why was that so hard? she wondered.
“Shut ‘er up with all of that,” said the troll.
“I’m just trying to give her peace.”
Runa put the torch in Svikar’s face to shut it up. “Have you given your soul to your God?” Runa stood up straight and knocked the dust from her dress.
“Of course I have.” Kiara kissed her own tattered soul. Dear God, could you have put me here to save this woman?
Runa wiped the water out of her eyes. “You are in the underworld with a dying woman, a Norseman with a sword, and the head of a troll, far away from your homeland that you will never put your eyes on again. Are you at peace right now?”
Something inside Kiara snapped. The woman was as bad as the troll.
“That’s enough of that,” said Tor. “Svikar, what can we do? How can we save my wife?”
“There is someone who may help her. Her soul will guide the way, but you’ll need me if you want to get there alive. You gotta take me with you.”
“Take you with us?” Kiara’s hand shook as she dropped her ring back in her shirt. “How exactly are we supposed to manage that?”
Harnessing the Troll
“Aren’t you good at anything, Christian?” Runa seemed to have renewed her zest for treating Kiara like her slave.
“I don’t want to get anywhere near them—not the vine or the troll.” Kiara couldn’t hide her panic.
“You know that when a creature with a soul is dying, its soul gets heavier? To it, I mean,” said Svikar. “How’s yours feeling, Runa?”
“You must not have one, then,” said Tor, “or much of a brain, either, ‘cause your head is light.”
“You taking my neck may have had a little to do wif dat, Viking.” Svikar’s ugly features twisted. “Too tight,” he huffed.
“Would you rather stay here, with the goats?” Tor threatened.
“It’s not the goats that worry me.” Svikar furrowed his thick brow. “And I wish you’d tame that tongue of yours, Viking, since our fates are tied as tight as that weed.”
“Are you sure this is safe?” Kiara thought about Orri as they pulled the harness off the troll.”
“Perfectly safe,” Svikar winked.
Kiara froze. What was that supposed to mean? She didn’t like the troll. Didn’t trust it. And the thought of being tied to it was making the bile rise in her throat.
“If we just had a dwarf,” Svikar never seemed to run out of things to say to make things worse, “they’d make a harness so nice you wouldn’t believe it. Clever little things those dwarfs are. The only creature worse than men for making up things to do is dwarfs.”
“Dwarfs?” Kiara held her torch into the darkness.
“Concentrate, girl,” scolded Runa. “I’ve almost got it.”
“Are you really asking the head of a troll if dwarfs is real?” asked Svikar. “Suppose you don’t believe in goblins, neither?”
“Goblins?”
Svikar seemed to like scaring the wits out of Kiara. He sniffed with that big nose. “No worries. I ain’t detecting any been ‘round ‘ere in a while. It was the dwarfs who built these passages. Wouldn’t be much here at all without ‘em.”
“There isn’t much here now.” Runa sounded sick. Or maybe the troll was getting under her skin, too.
“Oh, dwarfs is always making things better, always planning. If we do this, then next we’ll have that. Then we can build one of those.” Svikar had a talent for mocking.
“Are they dangerous?” Runa kept tying her knots.
The troll raised his eyebrows, considered his words, and spit. “A dwarf with nothing to do might get to thinking—and that could be dangerous. No, we can’t have that. Keep ‘em busy. Keep ‘em busy. That’s what we says.” Svikar winked at Kiara again dubiously.
“Take this.” Runa pushed her torch into Kiara’s hands and slipped the new harness over Kiara’s shoulders. “Watch it, girl. If you light it afire, then I promise I’ll leave the thorns on the next one. Tor, help me get Handsome here into the sling.”
Tor and Runa lifted Svikar’s head and dropped it into the harness, nose out. Fear coiled in Kiara’s belly. The harness was made of a piece of the same vine that had overpowered Tor and forced itself down Runa’s throat.
The head was surprisingly light for its size, but the stench of his oily hair and dank breath made Kiara’s eyes water.
“Do all Christian’s stink like this one?” Svikar’s protest woke Kiara from her scent-induced trance.
Runa touc
hed the filthy troll on purpose without retching, as if none of this bothered her. She wrenched the troll sideways by its pointy ears.
“Maybe I’d be better off with the goblins!” he cried in pain.
Runa ignored him. “Svikar, your eyes go out in front, so you can see for us, and so my husband can cut them out if you give us any trouble.”
Svikar whispered up to Kiara. “The more the vine takes, the more her true self will come out. Sweet gal you married there, Viking.”
Tor scowled at the head. “Alright, Runa, we’ve been still too long.”
Runa may have looked sick, but her grip was strong. When she jerked the harness, Kiara stumbled forward into the darkness.
She tried to think of better things, of fresh air and blue skies, as she carried their untrustworthy guide like a bridled horse.
“Well, Mister Svikar with the big mouth,” Runa gave mocking a try, “two heads, one set of arms, and one set of legs. Just like when we met you.”
“Only shorter,” snarled Svikar.
“Now take me to my goddess,” Runa cackled. “I can feel her calling.”
Viking Lost
After hours of winding and climbing and twisting and turning, their two-faced guide stopped them again. Svikar’s long nose snorted and sniffed. He’d done it so often that Runa stopped worrying about it. She wasn’t feeling much at all, actually.
“Strange,” Svikar sniffed. “Can’t be. A little faster, Christian, I know a place we get out of this passage up here.”
“Why?” asked Tor. “What do you smell?”
“It’s a shortcut,” Svikar grinned. “And we need to get out of this passage.”
Kiara arched her back to stretch. “Why are we trusting him? ‘Cause it feels like he’s leading us straight to the gates of Hell.”
“Don’t think I ain’t thought about it.” Svikar looked nervous.
Runa didn’t care. “You know, I’ve heard enough of that girl’s complaining.”
“I wasn’t-”
“Every time you adjust that harness or rub your back or ask to take a rest, I know what you’re implying—that we’re only following the troll because of me.”
