As he walks Snorri sees that slaughter has been done here too, the carnage strewn about. An arm here in the shadow of the rocks, a head there, offal strewn across a broad swathe of stone. Not misshapen demons but men, or beings like them, and not just men, but women too, shieldmaids armoured in the fashion of the north and bearing axes, spears, hammers. Each of them though, whether tall or short, broad or narrow, shares one trait that speaks of their origins. Every person there lies white-fleshed on the right, black on the left, the same with their armour, each axe or sword cast in a metal white as milk, their shields so black they might be holes cut into the day.
“Servants of the goddess.” Snorri kneels, wincing, to inspect a shieldmaid. An axe blow has sheared through the side of her helm. Hel must have sent her and the others to retrieve Freja’s soul and those of the children. Whoever killed them has not been gentle, but this was not the work of Karl’s sword. Snorri studies the woman’s white eye, reflecting the gyre above his shoulder, and her dark one, like a polished black stone. Her lips are drawn back in the snarl she wore when struck, the teeth behind serrated like a sawblade. Not human, then.
Though Hel has no sun there is a sun here in this memory of the Uuliskind, and it is setting. Ahead of him in the neck of the valley, black against the sunset, a lone warrior, wide, armoured in ill-matched pieces, arms spread, a buckler held in one hand, an axe in the other, its blade a wedge for piercing mail.
“Sven Broke-Oar?” For a moment Snorri knows fear. The giant is the only man to have bested him: his strength is not human. Weak from loss of blood and crippled by his injuries, he knows this fight to be beyond him. Still on his knees the Northman whispers a prayer, the first to pass his lips in an age. “All-father, I have done my best. Watch me now. I ask only that you give me the strength that has left me.” The prayer of a man who has met his challenges with an axe and a brave heart. The prayer of a man who knows this will not suffice. The prayer of a man who will not live to speak another.
Snorri rises with a snarl, careless of his wounds, knowing that the gods are watching him. He stands, clothed in the ichor of demons and the scarlet of his own blood, hardly distinguishable from the beasts he has slain in such numbers.
“I am ready.” If Hel has set Sven Broke-Oar between him and his family then Sven Broke-Oar will die the second death. “Undoreth!” he roars, and as if his shout is a spear launched at the heavens themselves the sky turns red as blood behind him. And then he charges.
The warrior holds his ground as Snorri races toward him. He wears an outsized shoulder guard of spiked black iron, a pot helm, visored to offer only a slit for his eyes and perforations at the mouth. Black bands of iron around his chest and middle girdle a thick shirt of leather and layered padding. Iron plates sewn to leather trews defend both legs. Every part of his armour bears the signs of battle, bright cuts, dull crimson splashes, dented metal, torn leather.
Twenty yards remain between them. The warrior raises his axe above him. Ten. The warrior tilts his head. “Snorri?” Five. And lets the axe fall.
Snorri, filled with battle-rage, swings his own axe in a decapitating arc, razored steel driven with the force of both arms. At the last moment mind over-rides muscle, and screaming with effort he pulls the blow, able to rob it of most of its power. Hel’s blade strikes the warrior’s gorget, coaxing a bright sound from the metal collar before falling away.
“Snorri?” Gauntleted hands fumble with the helm’s hinged faceplate.
Snorri lowers his axe and uses it to support himself, heaving in laboured breaths.
The faceplate comes free.
“Tutt?”
“I knew you’d come.” Tuttugu smiles. He lacks his beard, his chins raw where it was ripped away. The red slice Edris Dean’s knife made still marks Tuttugu’s throat, his face pale. His eyes though, they shine with joy. “I knew you’d make it.”
“What in Hel’s name? What . . . Tuttugu . . . how?”
“Ssshhh!” Tuttugu raises a hand. “Don’t speak her name—not here. She’ll send more of her guards, and they’re hard to beat.”
Snorri looks back at the body-strewn valley. “You did all this?”
Tuttugu grins. “They didn’t all come at once.”
“But still . . .”
“I couldn’t let Freja and the children be taken, Snorri.”
“But Karl . . .”
“Karl could fight the demons, they’re just beasts following their instincts to hunt down stray souls. But to go up against Hel’s servants as they carry out their orders? That could get him thrown out of Valhalla. We couldn’t have that.”