Trapped

  Grim-visaged and stouthearted, dwarfs young and old, yet Shield Brothers all, marched to meet the shambling blue draugar of Hel, detested queen of frosted twilight. Her army, unbreathing, steeped in the attar of woe, unleashed a hail of bullets, stolen weapons from the mines of Midgard. Deafening thunder roared through Nidavellir that day, rattling teeth and rifle fire and ringing shields and battle cries. Forearmed, skaldic runes on shields and helmets, the front line advanced undaunted, metal pieces flying back at the foe, ragged soldiers who knew no honor in life. They, heedless of any harm below the neck, bore the ricochets in silence.

  The Shield Brothers pressed forward, unwitting of their coming doom.

  Cunning Hel, bride of ice and despair, gave commands in tombstone whispers to her soldiers, who raised their weapons and fired at the ceiling above the Shield Brothers, bullets whipping off rocks, tearing through flesh from above, felling many who never struck a blow for their clans, never hewed a head from its shoulders.

  The front line marched on, and behind them quickwitted Shield Brothers raised their skaldic wards, redirected ricochets, foiled the efforts of Hel. And finally, when the armies met, the draugar learned of the strength of dwarfs! Rotted skulls flew from rotted bodies as axes swept the air over shields, while others were trampled under the vanguard and hewn apart by subsequent ranks.

  The draugar shrank back at first, their orderly advance exploded, but then they swelled as corpses will with blowflies and maggots, filled the tunnel with their unholy bodies, halted our advance and held their line, while their back ranks emptied magazines above the Shield Brothers’ heads, ceaseless ammunition thrown up to tear us down, and some found targets after two, three, or four ricochets.

  Slowly, by attrition, the draugar took their toll, slaying noble dwarfs in heat and noise and close rock walls with cowardly attacks. The dead soldiers of Hel pushed back, advanced again despite the best efforts of the valiant Shield Brothers, courageous warriors to the last.

  Bodies of their dwarven brethren, slick with blood, impeded both retreat and advance. The wounded, no matter how they cried for help, could not be tended in that close tunnel with so many enemies to fight; naught but enduring agony, desperate breaths, and despair was their lot, until their honorable deaths brought them peace and immortal glory.

  Back, back, beneath the onslaught, the Shield Brothers gave ground, slowly yet inexorably, pushed by the juggernaut of Hel’s army. Yet every footstep was dearly won, for it took hours for the draugar to travel the distance a dwarf may walk in five minutes, crawling over the massed dead.

  And in that time, assembling in the Grand Cavern, a mighty force of Shield Brothers awaited, ready to protect the market and residences and streets there. Ricochets would not be so effective in the Grand Cavern, and the Shield Brothers had firearms of their own. So when the tunnel forces were pushed back to the cavern, they abruptly retreated on a signal from their general, fell behind the lines, and allowed the draugar to walk into an ambush.

  Thousands of shambling soldiers were mown down by a fusillade from dwarf-made guns, and a furious cry of victory echoed in the cavern! Blue and twitching, heads shattered by bullets, the draugar fell in ranks, turned to foul dust, leaving their weapons behind.

  Yet still they came, innumerable as ants or the swarms of summer bees, and after we had slain a thousand with unremitting fire, they paused, and we entertained hopes that our resolve had taught Hel to reconsider her rash invasion of Nidavellir. But then they flooded once again through the opening, yet with this cruel difference: They held the bulletproof skaldic shields of our fallen brothers in front of their heads, and thus we could not slay them, only poke holes in their rotted flesh, slow them for a time with a shattered thighbone, a pulverized ankle, nothing more. And then the chill craft of Hel manifested itself, and we shuddered in horror at her plan, for every piece of it represented the death of a Shield Brother in the tunnel: The draugar began to make a wall of shields, three high, linking them together and then creating another column, by which method they created a corridor that would allow them to maneuver in safety.

  And it was, indeed, a corridor. Strangely, the draugar made no attempt to advance in the cavern, to advance on our treasures, to reach for our lives or destroy our homes. Putting aside their modern weapons, the Shield Brothers charged with axes and hammers to break the wall, and the resultant clash of arms thundered in the great cavern, as draugar were beheaded and dwarfs were shot by the defiant minions of Hel. Reports came back that the draugar were advancing through and past the cavern as fast as they could move, their objective elsewhere, their purpose unclear.

  And then in the court of King Aurvang a Svartálf bowed, ambassador of the dark elves, longtime resident of our realm, and announced he brought a message from Hel, she having no other way to speak to us in safety.

  “Speak,” King Aurvang said, his fury palpable, “and then begone from my realm! We will have no traffic with Svartálfheim henceforth for this betryal!”

  “My people should not be punished for bearing you a message,” the ambassador said, “especially since it may save the lives of many dwarfs. Will you hear me in patience, rashness reined, ire checked with prudence?”

  Our king made no promises. “Speak your part, Svartálf,” he said.

  The dark elf simpered and bowed again. “Hel wishes me to say she has no designs on your realm and wishes no more harm to the noble dwarfs of Nidavellir. She simply searches for her father, Loki, whom she has heard is currently visiting. Her army will not attack dwarfs except in self-defense or if their progress is impeded.”

  “And when she finds her father, what then?” King Aurvang roared, wrath awakened, patience fled. “Will she reduce my tunnels to rubble, set my caverns aflame, slaughter my people?”

  “Nay, noble king,” the Svartálf replied. “She will leave with him if she can, containing his madness so far as she is able. Her quarrel is with Asgard and Vanaheim, not the honorable people of Nidavellir.”

  “Have you aught else to say?” the king asked.

  “My message is complete, sire.”

  “Then remove yourself from my presence and my realm! I never wish to see you more!”

  When the Svartálf had gone, chastised yet unrepentant, the king sent for me. I rushed to answer his summons on bended knee.

  “Runeskald Fjalar,” he said, “long have you labored for our greater good as a poet and enchanter of armor. Now I must ask of you a service befitting a hero. Retrieve the Deadman’s Shroud and wear it yourself. Follow Hel’s hordes and discover what they intend, then report back to me. Slay none except in the utmost extremity. You must live to return the shroud and speak of her plans.”

  “It shall be done, sire,” I said, and wept as I bowed deeply to him. Never had I been asked for so weighty a service.

  The Deadman’s Shroud was crafted centuries before my time by the greatest of all Runeskalds, Mjotvangir son of Rathsvith, nimble-fingered, honey-throated, unmatched scion of clever craft. The shroud may be worn only by Runeskalds, but, once worn, it convinces the dead that the wearer is also dead. There is no copy, for none have ever duplicated the skald of Mjotvangir; his runes exist for all to see, but the dread words he sang while crafting the shroud are forever lost.

  Orders given, I was led to the king’s treasury and presented the Deadman’s Shroud, sacred relic of my forebear’s skill. I collected my skaldic shield, fire-tested, then was ushered to the front lines of the Shield Brothers, where battle still raged. Rather than try to break through the wall, where I would be exposed to gunfire, I was vaulted bodily over it on the premise that I would draw no fire once I landed, shroud-wrapped, disguised from dead eyes.

  I landed heavily but intact, drew stares but no fire. Identity concealed, purpose hidden, I joined the stream of dead forward through my own realm, an invader of my own home.

  What a wonder Runeskald Mjotvangir had made! I marched unremarked in the midst of putrefaction, cold malice, and unknown intention. Past warrens and
neighborhoods and then past mines and pockets of wealth, I followed the stream of dead ever downward. And then, after seemingly interminable hours of this journey, so far down I knew not where I was, the draugar before and behind me stopped and pressed themselves against the wall of the tunnel we traversed. I did likewise, waiting, breath heaving in a passage where no other breath heaved, until a giant of a dog rushed past: Hel’s own hound, named Garm, of yellow eyes and unmatched determination, nose following a trail I could not smell, doubtless made of malignance and the acrid trace of sulfur.

  The dead, and I as well, continued after him, always coursing down, into the unlit depths where no dwarf had roamed for years. When the darkness became too much for my eyes to pierce, the shroud did me a service and lit my way, alarming none in the process.

  After another hour of peregrination, I entered a vast chamber already full of draugar. There, high up on a ledge, glowed the resting form of Loki Firebreath, supine on the rocks, slumbering in peace, only his bare skin revealing a blue aura of simmering flames.

  Garm sat beside him, stalwart sentinel, ever vigilant. The legions of Hel made no move to wake him but rather faced outward, ready to face any threat, and there they still wait at this very moment, protecting the sleep of Loki, Hel’s father, lord of mischief.

  I hurried back to tell my king of this news, and grimly he sent word to Asgard of Hel’s doings in Nidavellir.

  Her father found, Hel’s goal was accomplished, and the dead stopped flowing into Nidavellir, but still they wait silently far below our cities for Loki, robed in wrath, to waken again.

  More than ten thousand draugar fell that day to dwarf weapons. Seven times seven hundred Shield Brothers fell defending their homes, their children left fatherless, their women widowed. And for what? For a selfish god’s nap in the deep! For a Druid’s foolish tongue! You see me here, beardless and braided, for the loss of an uncle and a nephew in that battle! Why should I not now, in justice draped, exact a measure of the blood shed for a careless word three months ago? My fallen family demands it, as do the families of all the dwarfs who died that day!

  “You will not move,” Frigg said to Fjalar, her voice as cold as his was hot with rage. “Do not stir to shepherd violence here. These are your guests and mine.”

  The dwarf looked apoplexed. “But my honor—”

  “Will restrain itself for a while longer,” Frigg finished. “Odin has a plan that will pay your people properly and tax the Druid heavily.”

  “What plan is that?” I asked.

  “You already know it well. Now is the time,” Frigg said, “while Loki and Hel are occupied, while Garm is stationed elsewhere, to cripple their efforts to bring about Ragnarok. Hel’s realm is half empty. There you must go to slay Loki’s spawn, Fenris, Odin’s bane, devourer of gods.”

  “You want me to go to Hel and kill Fenris?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought he was supposed to be tied up on an island in the middle of a black lake.”

  Frigg rolled her eyes and waved this away. “Snorri Sturluson made that up. He was bound in Hel and there he remains, tended by her minions.”

  “I can’t get into Hel.” I knew the shift points to get to the planes of Nidavellir and Jötunheim—the first was in Iceland and the other in Siberia—but I’d never tracked down the shift point that would take me to the third root of Yggdrasil, which would lead me all the way down to the spring of Hvergelmir and the lower realms of the Norse.

  “Untrue. None other than the goddess Freyja will lead you there. She is your guide and your surety of return.”

  I snorted. “Forgive me, Frigg, but Freyja is no surety of my return. Not after what happened in Oslo six years ago. Say rather that you’re holding a shotgun to my head and Freyja will pull the trigger.”

  “She besmirched the honor of the Æsir that day, but none more so than her own. This is her penance. Only by your safe return can she restore her good name.”

  “And once I’m returned from Hel? Will she attack me then, her oath fulfilled?”

  “No, of course not. But you are not going alone. In addition, good King Aurvang has already promised the services of the Black Axes.”

  “The Black Axes!” Fjalar exclaimed. “How many of them?”

  “All of them. You will lead an army to kill a single wolf.”

  “He’s not an average wolf, and you know it,” I said. “What is Loki up to?”

  “It is something akin to the Odinsleep,” Frigg said. “He is healing. He has not had a decent night’s rest in centuries. He is drained, and now he heals for an indeterminate time.”

  “So he’ll be even stronger when he wakes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will he still be batshit insane?”

  “His sanity has always been doubtful. He once tied a rope to the beard of a nanny goat and the other end to his testicles just to make Skadi laugh. It was an extremely high-pitched tug-o’-war, and his idea of kindness. If you are wondering if he will be less likely to pursue malevolent impulses than in the past, my guess would be no.”

  “Can Freyja get us into Hel without having to fight through legions of draugar?”

  “Yes. You will take the path that the Æsir use.”

  For a while, no one spoke. Eyes shifted around the table, measuring expressions, and wood popped and crackled in the hearth.

  This was precisely the sort of thing that Odin had requested of me some years before. Since I had been directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of many of those tasked to fight in Ragnarok, I had to take on some of their responsibilities. Fenris had to be slain, and we would find no better opportunity than this, while he was still bound in Hel and many of her forces were absent.

  “My hound stays here,” I said, “safe and unmolested.”

 

  No. We are not arguing about this. I need you to be safe.

 

  You wouldn’t be in Hel.

  “And your apprentice?” Frigg asked.

  “She’s not my apprentice anymore. She is a full Druid and may make her own decisions,” I said. I turned to Granuaile and spoke softly: “You are not under any obligation to accompany me. You should remain here and do something heinous to your stepfather’s oil business. Take Oberon with you.”

  Granuaile’s green eyes bored into mine. Her head shook minutely and she brought up her left hand to caress my beard. “Idiot. I’m going with you. My decision.”

  “Okay.”

 

  No.

  Oberon whined.

  One of us has to live through this. I always want you to be the one who lives.

 

  Go down to Ouray and find someone there who likes big friendly dogs.

 

  That’s actually not a bad idea.

 

  Chapter 27

  I understand the attraction of forgiving gods. There are times, like this one, during which I wish for nothing so much as forgiveness for my trespasses, and if I could truly feel such forgiveness, I would cling to the source of it like a newborn to his mother’s breast. But Odin doesn’t forgive. Nor do the Tuatha Dé Danann. The attitude of both parties is to make whatever restitution is possible and, in the words of my old archdruid, “stop looking at the entire world as a hole to put your cock in.”

  There was no pardon in the face of Frigg either, who amongst the Norse was most likely to offer succor to those who sought it. Her eyes were cold. She would never say to me, “Go now, you are forgiven.”

  To seek absolution from humanity would be to seek my own folly. One may sp
eak of forgiveness here, and another may actually mean it there, but legions remain who would condemn a starving man to amputation for pinching a crust of bread. We are petty creatures who seek to aggrandize ourselves by feasting on the dignity of our fellows.

  There was nothing to be done; weeping would not mend it, nor would raging. I could only strive to live so that my merit outweighed my discredit. To pay for the lives of nearly five thousand dwarfs slain by my careless words, I had to kill the biggest, baddest wolf in all the world’s stories.

  Fenris wouldn’t fall for a bowl of poisoned kibble. He’d probably turn up his nose at a poisoned steak too; he was too smart to be tricked. Had Týr not been willing to sacrifice his arm, he never would have allowed himself to be bound by Gleipnir, the masterwork of Fjalar’s ancestors, the unbreakable dwarven fetter made of six impossible things. Fenris was a wolf that could reason and speak like a man—like an Old Norse man, anyway. He’d trust nothing from the hand of the Norse anymore. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t poison him.

  “Give us time to prepare?” I said to Frigg. “Where and when shall we meet Freyja and the Black Axes?”

  “On the very tip of the peninsula southeast of Skoghall in Sweden. Östra Takene. You know it?”

  “North end of Vänern Lake?”

  “Precisely. Say, midnight, Swedish time. Will that be sufficient for your purposes?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then Freyja will see you there.” Frigg rose, and, belatedly, so did the rest of us. Oberon recognized that our visit was finished.

 

  Fjalar glowered at me from underneath his impressive brows, but the effect was ruined by his comically bald chin. Frigg nodded to us and we thanked her and Fjalar for their hospitality. The dwarf growled at us, which I supposed was the best I could expect from him right then.

 

  I think he’d rather put us in his next recipe.

  We showed ourselves out of the foreman’s manse and walked up the hill to our own cabin.