Sword of Doom (20 page)

Greb lay in the grass, the tunic under his chain mail still smoking. But he was alive—saved, in part, by the very humans he despised. Greb got to his feet, brushing himself off and clearing his throat, looking particularly subdued. At last, Dane thought, he has seen the error of his ways and is about to tell us that just because humans had hurt them in the past didn't mean
all
humans were out to do them harm.

“Kill the humans!” Greb screamed instead. Weapons raised, the soldiers rushed at Dane and the others—until Lord Dvalin stepped in their path, ordering them to stop. “You don't command my soldiers,” Greb raged at his master. Again he ordered his soldiers to attack, but with their ruler
in their way, they hesitated. Dane was wondering how long this test of wills would last, when a horse galloped into their midst, forcing the soldiers to scatter.

Astrid reined her horse to a stop and shouted to all, “We have returned with the magic of the gods!” Kára's mount trotted up, pulling a small sled that carried something covered with fresh-cut pine boughs. “You have heard how the Hammer of Thor fell to earth outside our village—and how a mighty wind returned it to the heavens,” Astrid said. “This sacred tool of the gods was made in ancient times by your very ancestors, is that true, Lord Dvalin?”

“It is true. It took my people two hundred years to forge the Hammer itself. The largest tree on earth was honed to serve as its handle.”

“When the Hammer fell to earth,” Astrid said, “a sliver of its handle chipped away. Our cart, which carried the relic, was too large to pass between your trees. So we went back and retrieved it.” Astrid nodded to Kára, who removed the pine boughs to reveal a sliver of ancient wood, six feet long, that convincingly looked as if it had come from Thor's Hammer. “Thor himself touched this wood! His almighty hands grasped its surface! And he who possesses this possesses the power and favor of the gods!”

Dane saw that Dvalin and the troll soldiers were staring in awe at the fake relic. He would learn later that Astrid and Kára had spent hours singeing and rubbing dirt into the wood grain to make it appear ancient, and surprisingly Kára
had not worried for a moment about breaking a nail.

“Lord Dvalin, please accept this gift from us, so it may reacquaint your people with the greatness of your past and, we hope, lead you all to a proud and powerful future,” Astrid said.

Tears streamed down the faces of the trolls, and Lord Dvalin especially wept copiously as they went on their knees before the supposed relic, touching its surface with their tiny, gnarled hands. All were swept up by the emotion of the moment—all save Greb, who was fuming that a piece of wood had usurped his command.

“How do we even
know
it's real?” he asked. “It could all be a pack of lies!”

Lut stepped forward and said with the deep, mystical tones of a wise man, “Only those who believe will share in its power.” Greb thought about how he could argue with that. He gave up, kicked the ground, and stalked away.

Dane smiled to himself, marveling at Lut's sagacity. Later Lut told him it didn't matter that the relic was a fake—if the trolls believed in it, if it helped them reconnect with the glories of their past and gave them strength and hope for the future, what was the harm? “Besides,” Lut said, “think what neighboring trolls will pay to come and touch the relic. Faith is all-powerful, doubly so if it brings in revenue.” This was the kind of wisdom you can't argue with.

A
strid's heart was soaring as they moved over the treetops toward the ice cliffs. Thrym was alive and well, and they were riding him again!

The water from the troll well had stirred him back to life, refreezing over the melted holes in his arms, legs, and chest, recrystallizing, and restoring him to health. How thrilled she had been, when Thrym had first come climbing out of the pit, to see the smooth solidity of his broad chest and limbs, to see him walking and talking once more.

Many of the trollfolk had cowered in fear as lambs before a wolf when they saw him again towering over them. But to put them at ease and assure them of his friendship, he had gone down on his knees, bowing before Lord Dvalin—even in this position, he still dwarfed Dvalin—and in his deep and sonorous voice Thrym solemnly promised he would go
to Utgard and end the brutal war on their kind, as a gesture of peace and goodwill.

“If it's not too much trouble,” Dvalin said, “could you also return the trolls taken prisoner?”

“Yes, of course,” said Dane, catching a look from Thrym. “We'll do all we can to free the captives.”

And then Dane heard Jarl mutter, a little too loudly, “Free dung-hearted trolls? What next? We give them piggyback rides?”

Thrym had swung his head round and aimed an icy look at Jarl, and it had amused Astrid to see how swiftly it had chased away Jarl's unfeeling attitude.

There was still the question of what to do with Klint the raven. Their trek would take them into the windswept, frigid wastes where only men of ice could survive for long. Klint had barely survived being frozen once on this trip, so Dane decided that his friend should stay where the climate was more hospitable to feathered creatures. Astrid thought the bird would follow them anyway, such was Klint's devotion to Dane. But as they had departed the village to much fanfare—the brooding Commander Greb and his top lieutenants conspicuously absent from the cheering send-off—Astrid heard Klint's
caw! caw!
coming from high in the forest treetops. There she saw the bird perched cozily next to another shiny black raven—a female, she suspected. It seemed Klint had found a friend and was enjoying her hospitality already. He called out again, a jocular squawk
that to Astrid sounded as if he were saying, “Farewell! Have fun freezing your faces off!”

Thrym leading the way, the party followed the wide path torn through the troll forest by the attacking frost giants. Since they were short on horses, Astrid, Drott, and William rode in the rope harness slung round Thrym's neck, along with the still-trussed Fulnir, who, groggy from the potion, had yet to have any more fits. The coarse wolf hairs that had sprouted on Fulnir's face were now falling out, and his fangs, which had lengthened to twice their normal size, were receding back into his gums.

“Look at you, almost human again!” Drott gushed. “We were about to start calling you Fulnir the Furry.” Drott plucked at a few bristles on his friend's face, and this brought a loud growl from Fulnir. “Uh-oh—he's still got a way to go,” Drott cautioned.

“That was my
own
hair you just yanked out, clotpole!” Fulnir cried.

“See?” Drott said to Astrid and William. “He
is
almost human! He sounds just like Fulny again!” This good news was relayed down, bringing cheers from everyone.

“What was it like being a wolf?” William asked.

“Did you want to sniff people's butts?” Drott asked.

“No! Well…yes,” Fulnir admitted. “But I fought it.”

“Which urge was strongest?” Drott asked. “The desire to sniff someone's rear or tear their thoat out?”

“Well, usually the throat,” Fulnir replied, “but a couple
of you had particularly strong scents, and I think it best, for your own sakes, that I not answer any further.”

“That,” said Dane, “is most wise.”

Before long, all his wolfen hair had fallen out and Fulnir seemed back to his old malodorous self. He was untied, and Astrid delighted in seeing her two friends laughing and joking again. Her spirits were lifted, but only for a moment, for the sun-white ice walls of Utgard far in the distance reminded her of the perilous task ahead. They were venturing to a place few humans had ever visited—and from which even fewer had ever returned. Worse, they were going when the giants and trolls were at war.

“How did the war with the trolls ever start in the first place?” asked Astrid.

“Trolls made Thor's Hammer, the Hammer killed giants. So the giants made war on the trolls,” Thrym said.

“But that was in ancient times,” Astrid said. “They're still fighting over that?”

Thrym explained that for a long while there
had
been peace between trolls and frost giants. They had engaged in lively trade, with troll artisans selling high-gloss ceramics and other wares in exchange for fish and game provided by the frost giants. There had even been an annual root vegetable festival, where troll performers dressed as turnips and beets and acted out scenes from a frost giant's epic poem. But then King Bergelmir, the giants' wise and peaceful ruler, had been killed by one of his own kind, a power-
hungry frost giant named Hrut the Horrible, and it had been Hrut who had plunged them again into war.

“If I am to bring peace,” Thrym said, pausing for reflection, “I must defeat Hrut in combat.” From the tremor in his voice and the furrow in his brow, Astrid could see that he feared he would be facing overwhelming odds.

 

As they rode toward Utgard, they saw no tracks of Godrek's party in the snow. So it was true, Dane realized—Godrek had not passed through the troll valley before them. He had dropped back behind them, letting Dane lead
him
to the frost giant fortress. Dane remembered the message from the runestone:

When he had told Thrym of this rune clue, the giant had said it sounded like the Hall of Relics, a crypt deep within the fortress where the remains of their hero kings lay. There were legends of a sword buried within one of the bodies of the dead kings, and Dane surmised that if this was the other half of the rune sword he sought, it would bear the rest of the clues and lead them to the serpent's treasure. Godrek had to know this since he too had seen the message
on the runestone in the cave. But if this was true, why was Whitecloak letting Dane have first chance at the blade? It made no sense. Until Dane realized that Godrek
knew
he held the ultimate bargaining advantage. He possessed Dane's mother. And that Dane would gladly give up the blade to get her back. Lut had said that Godrek needed a woman's life to unlock the treasure. Perhaps this meant that Godrek would trade the life of Dane's mother for directions to the treasure.

As all this weighed on him—the rune blade, Godrek, his mother, freeing the trolls, the impossible task of getting in and out of Utgard—they began to traverse the deep cleft in the ice cliffs, the secret entrance into the Land of the Frost Giants, when suddenly Dane began to hear things. Or
thought
he was hearing things. A faint whispering, sweet and soft like the voices of children. Soon it became stronger, an irresistible force beckoning him onward. His father had once told him of the Lorelei, beautiful maidens whose enticing songs lured sailors to their doom along rocky shores. But this could not be them, since they were far from the sea. “Do you hear—” He turned to see Jarl riding next to him.

“Voices again?” Jarl asked, smirking. He turned back and called out to everyone, “Dane the Addled-Brain is hearing—”

“The wind,” Dane interrupted. “I
heard
the wind.”

“Didn't come from me,” Fulnir said from his perch atop Thrym.

“Not
that
wind. I mean—oh, forget it.” They rode on, Dane trying to convince himself it
was
nothing more than the wind. He knew it was important to stay calm, if only to set a good example.

Following behind Thrym, they plunged into a dark, narrow canyon framed by sheer granite walls. It thrilled him to know he was soon to tread in a land unknown to most of humankind. And again the strange whispers came, Dane at first thinking the sounds were coming from inside the crater, bouncing off the canyon walls themselves. But then, the deeper they went through the cleft in the cliffs, the clearer and louder the sounds became. Dane felt as if they were coming from inside his very own mind. It was like beautiful music, swelling and sweet, and he became spellbound by the hypnotic sound, as if lost in a waking dream. He yearned to find the source of the music, to unite with it, and onward he rode like a starving man drawn by the enticing scent of fresh-baked bread or meat sizzling on a fire. His need to reach the source of whatever was calling him became overwhelming, and he was just about to spur his horse to gallop ahead when—

“Dane!”

Jerked from his reverie, he now saw that Lut had ridden up beside him and reached out and seized the reins of Dane's horse. “Is it the siren call you hear, son?” Lut said under his breath so as not to be overheard by the others. Dane nodded, still dazed. “It's the rune blade calling, trying to tempt you.
But you must
not
give in to it.”

“But how?”

“Push it from your mind. Think of those you love.”

Dane looked around at the others; no one seemed to be hearing the voices. “Why does no one else hear it?”

Lut shook his head. “You were the only one to touch it. You and Godrek. Or perhaps it calls to only those it chooses.” Dane cocked his head, yearning to hear the soft, pleasing voices again. They were like sinking into a warm, soothing bath. Lut grabbed his arm.

“No! It has power to turn men mad with greed. If you are weak—if only for a moment—it will drown your soul. You'll forget everyone—your mother, your friends, all those dear to you will be cast aside in your lust for riches. Shut it out. Resist!”

With much effort Dane willed the voices away, as if slamming a door to lock them out. But like light seeping through a crack at the bottom, the whisperings did not vanish entirely.

“The closer we are to the blade, the more it will tempt you,” Lut warned. “But you cannot, you
will
not give in to it.”

Dane knew how easy it would be to open that door and let the seductive voices into his head again, and he feared he would not have the strength to resist their call. “Godrek said my father was a coward for not following the rune sword to the treasure. He said that's why they parted ways and why
he came to hate my father.”

Lut pondered this a moment. “Perhaps your father feared the sword would lead to madness…or maybe he had other reasons why he shut out its call.”

“Is this what my dream was about? Does the serpent represent the call of the rune sword that threatens to swallow
me
?”

Lut gave a shrug. “I know only that my buttocks have grown sore in this saddle and my throat parched in thirst and I am far from the comforts of home.”

“That doesn't exactly answer my question, Lut.”

“Well, what do you want from a cold and tired and
starving
old man?” said Lut. He looked heavenward, asking the gods, “Is there no pleasing young folk these days? They think they know everything!”

At last the path emerged from the deep canyon, and Dane and his friends stopped and gasped in awe. They were now standing on the rim of a gargantuan crater, and filling the bowl of the crater was a vast frozen lake. And there, built upon an island in the center of the lake, was Utgard itself in all its startling, crystalline majesty. It was a gleaming, six-sided fortress, each side seeming a full league or more in length, and its massive ice-block walls rose so impossibly high that the ramparts disappeared into the heavenly mists above. Jarl began to say that he'd expected something bigger, but the words froze fast on his lips. Thrym said nothing, gazing upon his former home in dread.

“So that's the giants' fortress, is it?” Drott said, staring in wonder.

“Hope so,” Ulf said, equally transfixed. “If it's just their outhouse, I'm going home.”

And then Dane heard another distant sound, different from the whispers in his head, coming from the island fortress. At first he thought—again—that no one else could hear it, but Jarl asked, “What is
that
?”

“It sounds like…cheering,” Astrid said.

“It is the
freista
,” Thrym said gravely. “The battle test.”

 

Godrek watched the troll commander strut about like a bantam rooster in front of his chieftain and lieutenants. “So it
was
a lie!” the commander crowed. “They made us out to be fools, Dvalin! And you the biggest fool of all!”

Godrek stood, backed by Svein One Brow, Thorfinn, and five of his men in the chieftain's lodge hall, having cast sufficient doubt about the supposed relic that lay on the stone floor before them. The commander kicked at the piece of wood. “A sliver from Thor's Hammer? Ha! Is it not enough that the giants destroy our village and steal our people?” he raged, pointing a finger at the chieftain, who sat looking thunderstruck. “Just when we are about to kill
one
of the enemy,
you
have him healed and released. Because they brought you this!” Again the commander kicked at the wood.

Godrek knew it was a stroke of luck that he had sent Svein One Brow ahead to spy on Dane's party. Svein had seen the two girls in the troll forest using axes to fashion the fake relic. Svein had then followed them back to the village and seen how the worshipful trolls had fallen on their knees before it. When Svein had reported back with this news, Godrek knew the truth about it would enrage the trolls—rage he would harness for his own purposes. He let the little commander strut about until he had worked himself up into a fine lather, then calmly interjected, “The frost giant you speak of—he is the one we are tracking. He has killed many men and flees to Utgard.”