Sword of Doom (22 page)

“To guard what?” Astrid said.

Lut pointed to the arm ring circled by the serpent. “Odin's Draupnir, the very treasure Godrek seeks.”

“So it's real then,” Dane said gravely.

Lut nodded. “And the runes on the blade tell where it lies. On the Isle of Doom in the northernmost seas. Jörmungandr guards those waters, preying on all who dare draw near. Few are the men who've set eyes on the beast and lived to tell of it; the sea monster is said to have sunk a hundred ships in a single day and devoured all those on board, its hunger for human flesh only growing greater the more men it eats, its jaws being so large—”

“All right,”
said Dane, “the thing's a monster, I get it. But
it's not something
I'll
have to face, because we've got the rune blade now. And after I trade it to Godrek in exchange for my mother, Jörmungandr is his problem.
He'll
be facing the monster, not me. We'll be going home.”

K
ára tried to quell her panic. After escaping up the tunnel, she crept back and watched as Jarl and the others were easily overcome. She saw them gathered up and imprisoned with the trolls and then heard one of the giants tell another, “Go tell Hrut he has humans to kill.”

Humans to kill!
One of the giants lumbered up an adjoining tunnel, no doubt to convey the message of the capture of the humans. The other giant lingered behind, though, and Kára knew she would have to get past this one in order to get to the cell door. Yet even if she could, how would she open it? It was secured by a large, heavy lock far out of reach.

Feeling helpless, for a moment she wanted to cry. But no! She refused to give in to tears.
I am a princess,
she told herself.
People rescue me, not the other way around.
She wished she were back home in Skrellborg, watching boys fight over her. Life there may have been boring and predictable, but at least it was comfortable and safe.

Eyeing her axe, she recalled the thrill she had felt when Astrid first placed it in her hand. This simple, rough-hewn tool had transformed her idea of who she could be. She need not be the highborn know-nothing of days past. No, she could be a
woman
with the courage to cut her own path through life—and woe betide anyone who would try to stop her!

She set off up the tunnel, knowing that for the first time in her life it would be up to her to come to the rescue.

 

Hrut the Horrible decapitated another victim, crushing the giant's head with his war axe and dismembering his frost-encrusted limbs in full view of the roaring crowd. How he relished it all. The challenge of the kill, the cold efficiency, the vigorous exercise. He took pride in his work, in knowing he had found his true purpose. And he took particular pleasure in the final conquering moment, when, with his victim on his knees, begging for mercy, he would swing his massive war axe and the whining pleas would be abruptly silenced. The head then would bounce to the ground and roll away, sometimes coming to rest with its eyes still blinking back at Hrut. And what a frolic he would have, kicking the head round the arena, further delighting
the crowd as he played victor to the vanquished.

It mattered little to Hrut if his victims were truly enemies; whether a fellow frost giant wished him ill or not had no bearing on his death. The only way to retain power, Hrut knew, was to terrorize his own kind. And so whenever the mood struck, he would stage a
freista
, a sporting festival, in which any citizen of Utgard could step forward and challenge his rule in one-on-one combat. No giant was ever fool enough to challenge him, though, for they knew too well of Hrut's fearsome brutality. So Hrut then would simply point to a giant in the stands at random and summon him to the arena floor. Hrut would accuse the giant of treason or of harboring unkind thoughts against him. The giant would beg and plead and swear he was Hrut's friend. And Hrut would say, “If you are truly innocent, the gods will aid you in battle against me.” The giant would be given a puny sword or dagger to fight against Hrut's three weapons of choice: his wooden club, his silver war axe, and his iron shield. And as the crowd dutifully cheered—anyone not cheering was usually the next victim—Hrut would go to work, doing what he did best.

But even a cruel, heartless warlord had his limits. And on this night, having crushed a good score or more of his brethren and tiring of large sport, Hrut decided it was time for the final spectacle: the butchery of trolls and humans. What with the war on, the killing of hated trollfolk was
a rather common sight, pleasant enough but nothing special.

But humans, ah, now
that
was special.

There hadn't been humans in Utgard for quite some time, and the killing of them would be a rare pleasure for him and the crowd. Whether crushed underfoot or clubbed to death, trolls were easily smashed into a sticky green goo. Humans took longer to kill, for they were often fool enough to fight back, as if they actually believed they had any chance against Hrut the Horrible.

As the still-moving remains of his last victim were gathered up and piled on a sled for disposal, Hrut raised his arms and addressed the crowd. “My fellow
frostkjempe
!” His voice rang out, echoing across the arena. “Tonight—in addition to the traditional Troll Slaughter—you will have the rare privilege of witnessing the death of
humans
as well!” There were roars of approval and the stamping of giant feet. “And when the killing is done,” he boomed, “dessert will be served!”

The cheering was thunderous.
“Blód-íss! Blód-íss! Blód-íss! Blód-íss!”

 

“Exactly
when
can we expect rescue?” the she-troll asked tartly. The giant guarding the cell door had temporarily wandered away, and Jarl, Rik, and Vik were all straining to pull one of the cell bars from its footing in the rock floor. “I ask the gods to help us, they send you,” the she-troll
moaned. “Which proves the gods despise us.”

“The gods and a few others I can think of,” said Jarl through gritted teeth, straining with all his might to pull the bar free. Drott and Ulf sat on the floor nearby, playing a game of pick-up-sticks with a couple of the young trolls.

“One of us escaped,” William said, trying to keep everyone's spirits up. “She'll bring Dane and Thrym. They'll save us.”

But the she-troll was having none of it, which only angered Jarl more. He was about to make another rude comment when they heard a sudden thunderous chanting from the arena….

“Blód-íss! Blód-íss! Blód-íss!”

Jarl and his friends stopped working on the cage bar, chilled by the sound of the cheer. As luck would have it, the guard giant reappeared just then, nodding his head in time with the chanting, too distracted to notice what Jarl and the others had been doing. And Drott, quite accustomed to having things explained to him, called up to the frost giant.

“What's that they're chanting?”

The giant grinned. “A special treat will be soon served. Flavored icicles.”

“Flavored icicles?” said Drott, hungrily licking his lips. “Will we get some too?”

“Oh, you'll get some, all right,” said the guard. And when
Drott then asked what they were made of, the giant smiled and said that the blood of all those killed in the arena was drained, mixed with ice, and pressed to form the flavored icicles and eaten with gusto.
“Blódíss,”
the giant called it. “A great delicacy in Utgard.”

“‘Blood ice?'” said Drott, still not clear on the notion.

“But,” said Jarl more alertly, “I thought frost giants didn't
have
blood?”

“That's right,” the giant said, his stupid grin growing wider.

“So whose blood do they use?” asked Drott.

The giant cleared his throat. “That of the trolls and, uh, the humans.”

Drott got it.
“Us?”
he said in disbelief. “
We're
to be blood ice?” The guard giant was called away again, and as soon as his back was turned, everyone—the humans
and
the trolls—ran to the cage bars and frantically strained to loosen them, getting in each other's way and stepping on each other's feet in the mad scramble to free themselves so they would not become frozen treats.

Jarl felt the bar start to give. “It's loose! Everyone pull!” And now he wished that he'd never said a thing, for instantly he was overrun with trollfolk, their little elbows poking him in the crotch and hairy feet stepping on his, their troll odor filling his nose, a smell that could best be described as a cross between rancid goat's milk and fresh pig dung. For an awful moment he thought he
would be sick, but then he felt a sudden tremor beneath his feet.

“The bar's moving!” Jarl cried. But it wasn't the bar that was moving, he realized; it was the entire floor of the cell. The whole thing was rising upward, compacting the space between the floor and the wooden planks of the ceiling.

“We'll be killed!” wailed the she-troll. She stabbed a finger at Jarl. “You bring death upon us all!”

“No, she-witch, the frost giants bring death upon you,” said Jarl. “Dane and his stupid promises bring death upon
me
.” The floor rose ever higher, the ceiling pressing down on them until it seemed they were to be crushed like so many grapes in a wine press. The ceiling was suddenly thrown open like a hatch, and they could see the star-brightened sky. The floor continued up until it was flush with the ground above.

Another thunderous cheer swept over him, and when Jarl raised his head, he beheld an awesome sight. He was standing on the floor of a colossal outdoor stadium, oval in shape, and carved entirely of gleaming blue ice. There were two tiers of seating benches, filled with what seemed to be a thousand frost giants, their breath frosting the night air as they cheered.

And then suddenly the cheering stopped and an eerie silence descended over the arena, the crowd of giants collectively holding their breath in expectation. Jarl saw their confiscated weapons had been piled in a heap on the ground.
“Our weapons!” he cried, rushing to retrieve them, quickly throwing swords and knives to Rik and Vik and helping William pick up his bow and quiver of arrows.

Drott asked, “Why're they giving back our—Look
out
!”

They leaped aside just before a massive war club smashed into the ground, pulping one of the trolls, its body turning to green and pink paste right before their eyes. Hrut the Horrible, his face monstrously deformed, grinned down at them. “
Blódíss
is so nice.”

And down slammed Hrut's club again.

 

With the other half of the rune blade now in Lut's possession, Dane's spirits rose, for he knew he was closer to gaining his mother's freedom.

The plan was to meet up with Jarl and the others and—providing the rescue was successful—the freed trolls. Thrym would see them all safely away from the fortress. And then the giant would return to Utgard to do what he'd said he should have done long ago—fight the dark shadow of evil that had fallen over the realm of giants.

When they came out of the Hall of Relics, Dane saw a lone figure in the distance running toward them. It was Kára, and he realized something had gone terribly wrong.

 

It occurred to Jarl, in the one part of his brain still capable of reason, that they had been given weapons because Hrut
wanted
them to stand and fight—as much for his own
amusement as to entertain the crowd. But Jarl knew that would be suicide. They had been easily beaten by the giant in the basement—and he hadn't had the humongous war club Hrut wielded. No, to survive, if only for a while, they must run and scatter, and stay free of the club. But how? They could not outrun Hrut forever. With one of his strides equaling ten of Jarl's own, the frost giant could stalk them relentlessly across the arena and never tire. Already Jarl had seen a half dozen or more trolls killed, their bodies turned to pulp under Hrut's club. Then they had been thrown onto a “troll press” and squeezed, their blood sluicing down into a large
blódíss
vat below it. Jarl had flinched at the sight of it. Would
his
blood be served up as a
blódíss
frozen dessert? What
else
did the gods have in store for him?

Twice Jarl had managed to outwit Hrut, once even riding atop the tip of the giant's foot, much to the crowd's delight. But now Hrut had William cornered against the far wall of the arena and was fiendishly toying with the boy as a cat would with a mouse. Jarl was sickened by the sight of the boy, stumbling in exhaustion in the shadow of the towering Hrut, and it seemed William would soon be joining the trolls in the
blódíss
vat below. Jarl watched as again he tried to run, but the giant smashed his club to the ground, blocking his way.

“So small,” Hrut snickered, “yet
so
tasty.” Hrut raised his club for the killing blow when Jarl leaped in front of the boy.

“Hey, ugly!” he cried brashly. “'Twasn't the gods'
tears
that made you! They just took a dump and called it ‘Hrut'!”

The giant roared and swung his club. Jarl pushed William out of the way and hit the ground. The club smashed into the arena wall, crushing the head of a spectator giant in the first row.

Jarl sprang up and dashed away, frantic to find a place to hide. The ground beneath him shook, as behind him the monster drew nearer with each booming footfall. His heart thundering, Jarl knew escape was impossible now. This would be his final stand, his last sweet moment of life. Vivid images flashed in his mind—his body hung over the vat, his blood dripping into the ice—and he felt a sudden revulsion that his blood would be mixed with the lesser fluids of the trolls.
If I am to die,
he thought,
I want my true essence tasted in all its glory. I want the bold and heroic bite of my juices to be savored and celebrated. I want to be remembered as being the best
blódíss
ever!

Jarl suddenly stopped and turned to face the charging beast. He was a warrior and thus would die like one. He bravely raised his sword to meet Hrut, bracing for the final blow, hoping that the next thing he saw was a Valkyrie taking him to his warrior's reward in Odin's corpse hall.

But it was not to be.

For just as Hrut raised his club for the killing blow, another huge body came rushing forth, crunching into Hrut with cataclysmic force. Hrut was sent flying backward across
the arena, the distance of ten longships at least, landing with such an earth-rattling crash that Jarl thought Thor had sent down a thunderbolt.

But it was no god who had sent Hrut atumble, Jarl saw. It was none other than Thrym! The dazed frost giant lay sprawled on the ice nearby, slowly picking himself up. “Good timing, Thrym!” Jarl called up to him, relieved to still be alive. Thrym gave Jarl a shrug and a smile and turned back to face Hrut, who was rising angrily to his feet. Hrut grabbed his war club and pointed it threateningly at Thrym.