by Derek Nelsen
The spring that fed the pool was hot and smelled of svovel, and it felt good. Tor had never taken such a hot bath. Back home, he was accustomed to washing in Cold Creek, near the farm, or out of a bucket in the house in winter. Never had he been fully submerged in water that wasn’t the icy result of glacial melt or an unsunned, underground spring—and it soothed his weary bones.
A horn filled with firewater awaited him as he left the bath. He was also glad to see his clothes again—cleaned and even mended from where the thorns had made their cuts. He’d taken the sword to the pool, not letting it out of arm’s reach since they’d escaped Hel, but beside his clothes lay an accessory, a fine new baldric and scabbard. The scabbard looked to be of a reptile’s hide—tough, yet more supple than any tanned leather he’d ever felt. The baldric was woven out of Ymir’s beard. Dressed with rubies, it fastened over the shoulder with a brooch of solid gold, enough to buy a ship back home. The adornments brought unnecessary attention to the sword, but perhaps that was Slegge’s intent. This new setup was surprisingly balanced and light, allowing him to move much more freely compared to any he’d worn before.
Had it not been for the business at hand, and being so far away from home, he might have felt better. He wondered how Slegge planned to have a funeral when they didn’t have anything to bury.
As soon as Tor walked through the door, Kiara wrapped her arms around his neck. Her hug warmed him better than the firewater and the hot bath and the clean clothes combined. He couldn’t help but think of Gefn.
When Kiara let go, she smiled, curtsied, and spun on her toes. No mended clothes for her. She was wearing a red dress that set off the strawberry of her hair. And her hair—Tor had only seen it wild and untamed—was now clean and shiny, and her big curls had been braided to lie neatly over one shoulder. She was beautiful. He wished Erik could’ve seen her like that.
Slegge’s sister Ruby put down a finely woven sack, dyed green as a winter pine, held to with golden twine.
When she released the knot, the pretty green cover fell away to reveal Svikar, growling like an angry pup. He had lost most of his stink, and his nasty hair was clean and frizzy and standing on end.
Kiara snickered and Tor spewed firewater on his clean shirt. Even the troll was spoiling his somber mood.
“What’s this all about, eh?” asked Svikar. “There ain’t no bodies, now is there? So, what’s the hurry? You’re supposed to be finding these two a guide to get them home, and I’d like to go, too, while you’re at it.”
“Do you take me as a dwarf who would take council from a troll?”
“Maybe we should wait,” Kiara agreed.
Slegge cleared his throat. “I’ve lost my son.” He wiped his eyes and stood up straight. “It must be done in Rødfelt. And it must be done now.”
Ruby gave Svikar some blood weed to chew on and hid him away in a back room.
After Slegge locked the door, he led them through a labyrinth of tunnels and excavation sites. The roughhewn walls reminded Tor of the corridors that led them to Hel, sending a chill up his spine.
Slegge stopped at a doorway so short even the dwarfs would have to bow to get through. Tor turned when Slegge’s eyes turned back. Some distance behind them, red armor plate reflected an orange glow. They were being followed.
“Go on,” said Slegge. “They won’t stop us.”
A warm breeze blew across Tor’s face as he crawled through the door and into a dark tunnel.
“What was that?” Kiara was close behind.
For a brief moment, the floor glowed orange. There was light ahead, and Tor pushed toward it.
“Tor?” Kiara sounded worried.
The floor erupted with color as a school of glowing fish swam by on the other side. Sweat dripped from the tip of Tor’s nose as he remembered the shock of breaking through the ice before the falls bore them out of Hel. The floor they were crawling on was like that ice, clear as polished glass, only not as cold. And the only way out was forward into a room full of dwarfs. Tor was beginning to wonder if Slegge had set them up.
“The floor’s crystal,” said one of the two dwarfs who helped him to his feet.
“Would hold a giant looper if you could figure out a way to get one inside,” said the other.
Looper? Tor didn’t want to know.
After Tor helped Kiara to her feet, Ruby and Slegge walked out of the tunnel in a bow. Six dwarfs dressed in red armor plate followed close behind.
The room was a massive underwater bubble—ceiling, walls, and floor. Somewhere between the little door and the end of the tunnel, they’d left the world of stone behind. Tor could see it, though, just there, through the wall, a great stone cliff. The bubble was balanced atop an obsidian spire that disappeared into the depths, and water gurgled out onto the floor where they mated.
“Shut that door before you drown us all,” the captain shouted to his Red Guard. As soon as the little door echoed shut, the breeze died down, the bubbling stopped, and the standing water drained back into the base of the well.
Tor lead Kiara to the well, where Slegge stood with his arm around Ruby. “Are we safe?” They were surrounded by dwarfs, hats in hand.
“Rotinn grew up in Rødfelt. When one family mourns, we all do,” Ruby’s voice cracked. Kiara took her hand.
Slegge pulled two tanned sacks from his belt. He opened the larger and held it high.
“Too many have been lost in Svartalfheim.” Slegge placed the larger sack, brimming with tiny blue pellets, on the side of the well.
“Too many,” the dwarfs nodded and muttered their agreement. Some of the mothers hugged their children. Some wept.
“Too many sons and daughters of the Red Fields have given their souls in the name of order and peace.”
Ruby stiffened. The room grew cold as uncomfortable dwarfs shuffled their boots and looked away.
Slegge emptied the smaller sack into his hand. With a gnarled finger, he counted out two gold pellets and gave them to Ruby. “For Job and for Goldie.” She hugged him, soaking his shoulder with tears. He gave a white pellet to Tor. “For Runa,” he said. Another went to Kiara.
Tor stared at the little white pellet. Can this be all there is? Tor felt so foreign as he looked down on the room full of dwarfs. Why are we here?
Kiara bowed her head and closed her eyes, put her soul to her lips, and breathed a prayer. The quiet, pure note rippled across the water in the well.
The last two pellets looked like glistening ruby shards. “For Rotinn and Kort.” Slegge watered them with tears as his whispers echoed in the quiet chamber. “I’m so sorry Kort. It’s your turn to watch over him now, my love.” As the tears filled his calloused palms, they began to radiate a brilliant red. “I’ll make it right. Promise I will.”
Tor’s eyes widened as he watched the dwarf ease them down into the water. Like two embers of a fire, the shards burned brighter as they sank. They swam in circles around the well until the light burned upward, as if from a torch.
Ruby eased her gold pellets in next, adding a new color to the show. By then, the two reds had slipped out into the crystal water underfoot, circling the bubble at a feverish clip. Within a lap they’d grown to the length of hands and had taken on long, graceful fins.
When Ruby’s golds escaped the well, they put on luminescent scales and long, radiant tails and joined with Slegge’s reds. Ruby nodded to Kiara and Tor.
The whites turned to living silver as soon as they hit the water. Tor stood over the well as the glowing spawn began to swim around and around, faster and faster, until they burned brilliantly. After they escaped the well, they swam fast as arrows around the crystal bubble. The fish were exquisite, like nothing Tor had ever seen—lending light to dark waters like fireflies on a summer night.
Ruby edged them toward the tunnel so the others could take their turn. Each dwarf added a pellet from the larger bag Slegge left behind. Blue eels swam out of the well, coalescing into a vibrant, glowing school. The original red, gold, and
silver fish hunted the eels, putting on a show of bubbles and light. The boiling water attracted other colorful fish, thousands more, until the entire room was filled in a fiery light from the feeding frenzy happening outside.
Kiara was in tears when she leaned into Tor’s chest. For the first time since they’d left Slegge’s house, he took his hand off the hilt of Hella’s sword—and put it around her shoulder. “This is the most at peace I’ve felt in a long time. I think Runa would’ve liked this.”
“God is good,” she whispered to herself.
“God is—” Tor quieted as he caught sight of something on his periphery, like a shadow passing underfoot. He pulled away from Kiara and put his hand back on the sword.
“There,” said a voice from the crowd.
“Water looper,” said another.
The chatter rippled through the dwarfs.
Tor followed the pointing fingers in time to see a shadow rise to ambush the school. Red, gold, and silver reflected off its white underbelly. Four massive fins left trails of bubbles as they propelled the assassin into the fray. Its long, stone-gray neck swiped, sending red and gold lamentations raining down as it targeted the darting silvers.
Teeth flashed, survivors scattered, and it was over. How could they have missed a monster like that lurking in the shadows? Tor realized the irony of his thoughts. His own village had embraced the lure of Vidar. Hadn’t he himself been blind to the threat of Old Erik, and Anja? He thought about his sons, alone in the wilderness. What would they find? What would they come back to? With his hand back on the hilt of his sword, he looked around at the room full of wide-eyed dwarfs, and at the Red Guard. He thought about how he himself had been both predator and prey. Which was he now?
While the creature finished off the dead and dying, Tor pressed Kiara toward the door.
The Red Guard had the exit blocked.
Tor’s mood had been spoiled, and he wanted out. He drew the sword.
Confused looks gave way to a trained response, as the guards pulled into formation and raised their hammer-axes across their chests.
“Whoa, whoa, what are you doing, Tor? Put that thing away.” Slegge shook his head in Tor’s face, staring up at him as if he was insane.
“I’ve got to get out of here.” The bubble felt like it was shrinking. The blade shook in Tor’s hand. He hated guards—always too loyal or stupid to know when to step aside.
Slegge snarled, then turned to reason with the captain. “This man’s a stranger here. He doesn’t understand.”
No response. All eyes stayed on Tor—and the sword. Even the creature outside circled the bubble to track a glint reflecting off the blade. Tor noticed. Slegge didn’t.
“He’s lost his wife...and I my son. Now let us pass, eh?”
“Sir?”
“Not now.”
Drops of sweat dripped down the guards’ faces as their eyes followed the looper stabbing its head toward the glimmer running along on the glass. Tor pretended not to see it, twisting the blade until he had the creature chasing it’s light like a big, twisted kitten with jaws large enough to swallow a goat. Slegge, oblivious, seemed emboldened, as if they were backing down from him.
“Captain?”
“Hold the line, boys.”
“Boys? Well look around you, boys. This isn’t the time or the place to test this man.” Slegge got right up in the captain’s face, nose to nose, like two cocks sparring outside a henhouse. “You know where he got that sword, don’t you? I know you know.”
Tor played with their fear, fixing the glint on the closest guard’s red helmet. The color must have resonated, because the monster went wild and started slamming its head into the bubble from above. The dwarf mourners cowered around the exit, yelling at the guards to let them pass. Thump, thump, thump. It was like being inside a drum. Teeth the size of daggers scraped against crystal, leaving deep scars the length of most of the dwarfs. The room shook.
“Let them pass!” The captain fell when he tried to lean against guards that had already scattered.
Ruby was already pushing the screaming Kiara out the tunnel. But Slegge impressed Tor. He took his time, like it was a hot day and he was looking forward to a swim. After Tor sheathed the blade, the creature hovered, its long neck like a snake looking for something to strike, then turned and swam underfoot, pursuing a red glow fading in the distance. The old dwarf bowed, never breaking eyes with the cowering captain, before leading Tor to the exit.
As they made their way back, Tor felt callous and feral, like he hadn’t felt in years. “I’m thirsty. Have you any more of that firewater?
“At home,” said Slegge, "but I’m not sure you should be drinking it. Can bring out the worst in you.”
“I’m going to need it if I’m ever going to get home again. I've got to end what’s started.”
When they arrived back at Slegge’s, a gravelly voice grunted out of the shadows, “What’d I miss?”
“Just a dwarf funeral.” Hands shaking, Tor drained a horn full of firewater and filled it up again. “Beautiful—until the monster showed up.”
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About the author
Derek Nelsen is the author of the Saga of Souls series.
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