Ship of the Dead (19 page)

Dane looked down at Lut's ancient face. “He is a Rune Warrior” was all he could think to say.

“Ah. Idiotically courageous and forthright.”

“He is, your highness,” Dane said.

Hel shrugged as if such human qualities were beyond her understanding. “Take them away,” she ordered.

“Wait!” Thidrek ordered. Dane turned and saw that Thidrek had retrieved the hand mirror from the floor and was admiring his restored flesh. He touched and poked his face. What had been rotting, green, and crawling with maggots moments before was now sound and whole. “I wanted
his
years,” Thidrek said, pointing at Dane.

“Has not my promise been fulfilled?” Hel said with irritation.

“Yes, it's very good, excellent work, your majesty,” Thidrek said, checking out his full set of gleaming white teeth that had been rotted, black stumps before. “But he took my life and I demand his in return.”

Hel leveled her reptilian glare upon him. “You . . .
demand
? If I am mistaken, by all means correct me, but I thought a human could not
do
that to a goddess.” Her tone was brittle and deadly. Thidrek's swagger vanished, replaced with a grovel worthy of Grelf's best.

“Yes, yes, yes, of course you are correct, your majesty,” he mewled. “Quite correctly correct, I beg your forgiveness. I will
never
use the, uh, d-word in your presence again.”

Chapter 22
The Curiosity of the Dead

R
iding atop Sleipnir, Astrid followed the ship past the Niflheim gate, keeping low to the fog- shrouded water to remain unseen. Once through the gate, she and her steed soared high over the ship. Looking down, she saw the decks were crammed with a gray mass of people standing still as statues. But these weren't people—at least not the living kind, she realized. They were the souls of the doomed being ferried to Hel's realm. She kicked Sleipnir's flanks and they flew on, following the waterway until they came to Hel's fortress on the banks of the Lake of Fire.

Poised high in the gloom over the enormous, deformed structure, she saw a shallow ravine behind the fortress that afforded cover. She set down Sleipnir, dismounted, and stepped into the black, sulfurous ooze. “Welcome to the underworld,” she said to herself.

“Astrid!”

She saw the dim outline of someone approaching up the ravine through the fog. Astrid thought of leaping back upon Sleipnir and escaping, but the gray figure hurried quickly forward, emerging from the gloom, carrying a bucket. Mist! They both burst into tears and fell into each other's arms. It was a strange sensation, for embracing and being embraced by a soul felt like the caress of the wind.

“I was out gathering mud and saw a white flash streak by above. I prayed it was you,” Mist said between sobs.

“Mist, I'm so sorry!” Astrid choked out. “It's because of me you're here.”

“No, Aurora's to blame. She's in league with Hel. But I'll get my revenge on that little traitor if it's the last thing I do.” Realizing the unintended humor of her words, she gave a bitter laugh. “But I'm
already
doing the last thing I'll ever do,” she said, nodding at the bucket that was filled with the odorous mud. “Serving as Hel's handmaiden.”

“What's the mud for?” Astrid had to ask.

“Her bath. She simmers in hot, stinking muck as if it will soften her scaly hide. She commands that we make her beautiful. But that's like putting sweet cream on a cow pie. No matter what we do, she's still a big steaming pile of—”

Sleipnir gave a snort as he nosed at the mud he was hoof deep in.

“Odin lent you Sleipnir, so you must be on a special mission.”

“He didn't exactly lend him to me. I . . . stole him.”

Mist's jaw dropped. “Stole him? You stole
the
most powerful god's favorite horse? That's insane!”

“I don't disagree, but I had no choice. I had to get here, and he knew the way.”

“You've come to rescue Dane and your friends?”

“You've seen them?” Astrid said. “They're alive?”

Mist told her that Thidrek had brought them on his ship and had given them as a gift to Hel. “She especially prizes those who are pure of soul, the kind who fill Odin's Valhalla. She put them in the Moat of Souls.”

“Where's that?”

“Inside the fortress walls. It's where the doomed are placed until Hel decides what to do with them.”

“Is it guarded?”

Mist nodded grimly. “Even if you get them out of the fortress, once they escape, Hel will order the Niflheim gate closed. And there's no other way out.”

“Then we must distract Hel so she won't care if they steal Thidrek's ship and escape.” Astrid reached into the canvas satchel and brought out the item Skuld had given her. It was a shining crown of simple design, made of bronze. “You say Hel desires to be beautiful. This will make her
believe
she is. And when she is under its spell, she will think of nothing else.”

A dubious Mist took the crown, examining it. “Maybe I haven't clearly described the goddess. Or, as we call her behind her back, Her Grotesqueness.”

“It won't
change
her looks,” Astrid said, “but merely deceive her into believing she's beautiful. Can you get me an audience with her?”

“An audience? You
are
insane. How would you explain your entrance to the underworld?”

Astrid hadn't considered that. She thought for a long moment. “I'll say I'm an emissary from Odin with a gift of peace.”

“That flimsy crown? Hel would take that ‘gift' as an insult and throw
you
in the moat. No, the whole thing is impossible. You should leave now before you're discovered.”

“I can't, Mist.”

“But you must! Or you'll be like me, trapped here forever.”

Astrid had to tell her the bigger reason why she had come. “There's more at stake than Dane and my friends. The Norns say that Hel will unleash an army of the dead upon earth, with Thidrek leading them in his ship. I
have
to stop him.”

“So the Norns are behind this,” Mist said. “I should've known. They play with our lives, but in the end they don't care what happens to us.”

“I'm beginning to think they do care. At least they don't want our world destroyed.”

“It's
your
world, not mine anymore,” Mist said. She started to weep again, then found strength to stifle her tears. “I won't let Hel turn it into a place like this. I'll take the crown to her.”

“No,” Astrid protested. “Eventually she'll realize she's been deceived. You'll be blamed.”

“Good. Then at least the hag will know it was
me
who foiled her.” She gave her sly, crooked grin, the same one Astrid knew from when they were best friends, flying the skies together in service to Odin. Then Mist kissed her on the cheek and hurried away up the ravine, quickly disappearing into the gloom.

The dead were extremely curious. They pressed in around the Rune Warriors, their gray hands reaching out to touch them. To Dane their touch felt oddly insubstantial, like the light brush of a feather upon his skin. It even tickled a bit.

“Get away, will you!” an irritated Jarl shouted as they crowded in. “Back off!”

Dane was kneeling over Lut, who was sitting up, having just regained consciousness, although his eyes were glassy and he looked confused. “Where are we?' he croaked.

“We're in Hel's moat,” Drott said.

“But at least we're alive,” Fulnir said.

“Which is more than I can say for the other inmates,” Dane added.

Drott giggled as hands touched him. “Stop! It tickles!”

An ancient-looking soul with a long beard stepped forward and announced that his name was Gudmund. “Please forgive our forward manner. Many of us have not seen a living person for ages. Why are you here?” Dane told them how they had been captured, taken to the underworld, and now become Hel's prisoners. “Well, I'd advise you to abandon all hope,” Gudmund said. “Besides, once you settle in, this place isn't all that bad.”

“Sure, it's a sunny paradise,” Jarl cracked. “When does the mead start flowing?”

“At least we're not in the Lake of Fire,” Gudmund said. “You've seen it?”

“Can't really miss it,” Jarl said. “See, it's a
lake
that's on
fire
.”

“The kind of men who killed me dwell there,” Gudmund said, “those who preyed on the weak and killed for plunder or just because they liked killing. I was leader of my village and bribed a raiding party to pass us by. But they murdered me and all my kin.”

“So that's why you're here?” Drott asked. “Because you bribed a gang of brigands?”

Gudmund hung his head in shame. “Perhaps had I been brave and fought them off, I would have gone to Valhalla.”

There was a sharp cracking sound as a flash of lightning lashed down, sparking the ground right near where Lut was sitting. Twenty feet above them on the bridge was a demon holding the whip handle. He stared down malevolently at Dane and his friends, as if the lash he'd given was just a taste of what was to come.

“You pig-faced goon!” Jarl shouted up to him. “Wait till I get you without that whip in your hand!” The guard whipped down again, missing Jarl but catching Fulnir across the shoulders. Chuckling to himself, the guard moved on.

Drott checked out the burn marks across his friend's flesh. “It's not deep. Does it hurt?”

“Nothing worse than a hundred wasp stings at once,” Fulnir said, grimacing.

“You mustn't show defiance,” cautioned Gudmund. “It will only bring more lashes.”

“What are we to do?” Jarl said. “Just stand here and take it like sheep?”

“We have to,” Gudmund said. “We're doomed.”

“Who says you're doomed?” Jarl challenged. “You're only doomed 'cause you
think
you are.”

“Coming through! Make a path!” said a voice. Horvik the Virtuous pushed up to the front. “What's this about us
not
being doomed?”

“You're a perfect example, Horvik,” Jarl said. “You don't deserve eternal whipping by demons for what you did.”

“You're right. I imagine maybe a day or two of whipping would take care of my sins,” Horvik said.

“What about the female souls here?” asked a stout woman soul. “We're shuttled to Niflheim because we didn't go off to war and die with a sword in our hands. Is that fair?”

“No!” shouted several nearby female souls.

“I was a thrall,” volunteered a young male soul, “like many here. We suffered on earth—must we suffer here, too?”

“No!” cried many of his comrades.

Jarl waded into the crowd, egging them on to rise up and fight. “Even in the underworld our friend is true to form,” Lut said weakly to Dane. “Whether souls are living or dead, his only instinct is to rouse them to rebellion.”

Dane smiled at the truth in that. He looked into Lut's watery blue eyes that had lost the sparkle of youth. “Why did you do it?”

“Give Thidrek my years?” He heaved a deep sigh, as if mourning what he had sacrificed. “I read of my fate in the book.”

“The Book of Fate? You
opened
it? What did it say?”

“It said . . . I would die an old man. So here I am . . . old and ready to die.”

Dane's eyes filled with tears. “No, I won't let you.”

Lut smiled. “When I said ‘ready,' I didn't mean right now.”

“Oh . . . good,” Dane said, relieved. He heard a
crawk!
He looked up and saw his raven circling in the gloom above.

“It's Klint!” shouted Drott. “He's looking for us. Here, Klinty!” A sizzling lash from above caught Drott across the back and he cried out in pain. The demon guard was back, probably alerted by Jarl's rabble-rousing. He whipped down again; Dane jumped in front of Drott to protect him and took the force of the lash across his raised forearm. The pain was searingly intense. The demon drew back the whip again—when a sharp
shriek
caused him to turn his head. Diving from above, Klint caught him at full speed in the face, his beak like a sword tip plunging deep into the demon's eye. The guard stumbled back, lost his balance, and fell off the bridge into the moat.

“Get him!” cried Jarl. But Fulnir was already on the brute, pummeling his hideous boarlike face. The demon roared and threw Fulnir off. He grabbed for the handle of his whip that had fallen to the ground—but Horvik kicked it away, and it was grabbed by the thrall soul. For an instant the thrall stood there, gazing timidly at the whip in his hand, afraid to act.

Gudmund, of all souls, screamed at him. “Use it!”

The thrall reared back and whipped the lightning lash forward to where it wrapped around the guard's legs, sizzling his hide. He bellowed in pain, falling to the ground. Then Jarl, Fulnir, and Drott attacked, pummeling the bestial thing's face into a bloody pulp.

“Look out!” cried one of the souls, pointing to the bridge above, where another demon guard had appeared with a whip. The guard lashed down, but at the same time, the thrall soul whipped a lightning strike back up at him. The thrall's lash caught the guard around the neck. The thrall gave a hard yank, taking the guard off the bridge and into the moat. He fell headfirst, and when he hit, his skull burst open like a ripe melon, spewing blood and brains.

The souls gazed in silent awe at the lifeless guards, shocked that the demons who had so brutally oppressed them now lay dead at their feet. “See what happens when you fight?” Jarl announced, clearly taking credit for the killing of the two demons. “Those two won't beat you anymore.”

“But what do we do about the others who are sure to come?” asked one soul.

“And the fact that we're still stuck in this moat?” said another.

The souls all started chattering among themselves, worried about the repercussions of killing the guards. Some voiced panicked fears they all would be thrown into the Lake of Fire. Gudmund held up his hand, bringing silence. “I'm sure this man did not incite us to fight,” he said, gesturing to Jarl, “without a plan that would save us from Hel's wrath. Let him speak.”

Ashen faces gazed intently at Jarl. They were not aware—as Dane and the rest of the Rune Warriors were—that Jarl was best at stirring things up and doing the actual fighting. But when it came to any kind of strategic thinking? Forget it.

“Uh . . . well . . . uh,” Jarl began, his normal bombastic style of speech deserting him. “Look, I just got here. I can't solve all
your
problems.”

“He's doomed us!” cried the thrall soul. It appeared that Jarl was about to be swarmed by the angry dead when above them appeared a heaven-sent vision bathed in a golden glow.

“The gods be praised,” an awestruck Gudmund murmured, falling to his knees. “Have you come to take me to Valhalla?”

Horse and rider descended. “What? No, sorry. I've come for the live ones,” the Valkyrie said.