SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

OF STORMS AND FLAME Tim Marquitz & J.M. Martin

AD 955

Island of Frei, Norway

Fog suffocated the light.

Bard clung to his axe as a drowning man to driftwood. His fingers throbbed, pinpricks of fire erupting across his skin as the numbness crept in, no mercy in its arctic crawl. The blood of his enemies – the Austmann who’d met them on the field of Rastarkalv – dripped from his hands. The gore dulled the shimmer of his blade, its cloying wetness magnifying the chill, but the tang of Eiriksønnene’s defeat infiltrated the frigid air. Bard had followed his young king, Harald Greycloak, into battle, and now he wondered if he would soon see Greycloak’s father, King Erik the Bloodax, in the halls of Valhöll.

They had been routed by Haakon’s forces, especially his circle of detestable witches, the spastic, chanting völur. And though Bard had slew many warriors and his limbs ached from the doing, a swirling mass of unnatural grayness now washed over him, clawed at his throat, and he held his breath for fear of its dark magic befouling his lungs.

Witchery, this was. The product of an invoked galdr. And Bard went to one knee, clenching his teeth against the mist. But it caressed his defiant lips, a foul lover, perilous in its kiss. He knew it would not be long before he would drink it in, and he feared the fog would obscure his lifeless body. Would his spirit make it to the Golden Halls? Or had the Norns of old another fate in store for him? Even if he did somehow find his way to a warrior’s afterlife, how could the Allfather accept an offering as poor as this?

Death had thus far left Bard unscathed. Even as armies clashed amid the witches’ fiery galdrar, and Haakon’s beasts, summoned from the very depths of Hel, tore flesh from the bones of his brothers-and sisters-in-arms, Bard knew there was no honor in such an end – to merely slip away into the cold silence, unremembered by the gods.

No.

The word filled his skull.

No. It strengthened with every whispered echo.

No. He would not succumb to the treachery of Haakon the Good’s sorcerers, whose abominations had slain so many this day. The scion of warriors would not meet Death on his knees. Bard tightened his grip upon his ax, stood, urged his feet forward.

“No,” he growled through clenched teeth. The direction no longer mattered. The familiar swell of the sea had long since faded in the distance. Only the empty gray greeted his senses, and in its embrace, with enemies all around, one way was just as good as any other.

His muscles ached as he pushed on, bones creaking in their joints. The dead grass was slick beneath his boots, and the muffled squelch of his footfalls built to a careful rhythm as he bulled forward. Bard cursed the noise of his passage as only silence came back at him through the mist. Spiders of fear crawled along his spine. A tribe of jötnar might well loom just paces ahead but he would never know it. Not in this murk. He swallowed hard at the thought; set one foot in front of the other.

Bard traveled for a thousand beats of his heart, ax gripped tight, scowling, his eyes narrowed and searching for someone – something – to kill, until a shadow materialized, and another beside it a moment later, and yet another. But this was no enemy.

Runestones.

Bard tapped the first with his boot to test its certainty. He ran a cautious hand across its graven surface. Futhark stood out from its smoothness. The meaning of the script leapt clear to his mind before his eyes could pick them from the stone. The runes read: Honor. Peace. Memory. The words sang against his fingertips in turn. Haraldr Hárfagri ræisþi kumbl þausi æftiR Øyvind eR vaR, he read on the nearest stone, equal in height to himself as it manifested from the gloom.

Harald Fairhair raised these monuments in memory of Eyvindr the Valiant.

His pulse stilled in his veins, a curse withering on his tongue. He’d come to Freiøya’s long barrows. Far from where his fellow víkingr had come aground, the burial site was a grim landmark, and one he had prayed never to visit; still, for all its sanctity, there lurked hope within its hallowed fields.

Who but a fool would seek life in a barrow?

Bard had heard stories some years prior of Eyvindr’s exploits in the west, as well as his hand in slaying one of Harald Fairhair’s own brothers at the behest of the Norse king himself. Bard snorted, but he did not linger – he needed shelter with more substance than these accursed stones, some sanctuary before Haakon’s völur called back their mist and revealed him.

The ghosts of his enemy’s forefathers lingered in the air. Bard could feel their presence bearing down upon him as he crossed the stone boundary. With a willowy breath he muttered apologies, despite his lineage, for his trespass. He’d no intention of befouling this resting place, but it was what the living Bard had to contend with for now. The dead would have their turn with him soon enough.

It seemed an impossible task. The barrow stretched out before him in desolation, but just when he’d begun to despair he might be trapped there forever his outstretched hand struck something solid. A reverberating thump resounded and his hand throbbed at the impact. The cold sent the pain bone deep, but he ignored it and examined the object. Smooth marble greeted his touch. He inched closer and the towering form of a warrior slipped loose of the fog, looming above. Bard’s heart threatened to burst but reason took hold before it could beat its way free of his ribs. The monument of a Víkingr king stood bold in his path. Might this be the monument of Harald himself?

Bard let out a slow breath, choking back a nervous laugh only to go rigid at a muffled susurrus in the wet grass behind him. He ducked as a whirl of smoke and steel hurtled over his head, crashing into the statue with a clang and sending chips of stone flying.

The vague shape of boots appeared and Bard lashed out, driving the point of his ax toward where he believed the enemy came at him. Metal sang out. A sharp gasp followed as needling stabs reverberated up his forearms. His blow had done its work. The boots toppled backward, barely visible, and Bard scudded forward to keep on the move. A pained grunt slipped loose of his assailant as he struck hard earth. Bard closed without hesitation, his left hand seizing the warmth of his opponent’s throat. He growled and hefted his ax to rain down a blow but then his arm went stiff as a familiar face formed beneath him.

“Gods, Hilde,” he cursed. “I nearly killed you.” He released the woman’s neck and lowered his weapon.

“Don’t be so certain,” she answered, grim humor in her voice as two slivers of steel crept from the gloom and wavered before his face.

He grinned as twin shadows took shape – brothers he’d thought dead coalesced from the fog, their own smiles a radiant sight to behold.

“We found her smirking atop the bloodied remains of a great, horned mare, its head split asunder and its brains gouged from its skull,” Devin boasted, gesturing to the woman. “If ol’ Hrimgerd herself couldn’t bring down Hilde, I doubt a fifl like you could.”

“At least that’s how she’d tell it,” Arndt said with a chuckle.

Relieved laughter spilled from Bard’s throat and he rose, pulling Hilde to her feet. He embraced her quickly and did the same to the others in turn.

“We’d thought you dead,” Arndt told him with a clap to the shoulder, his plaited red beard darkened and congealed with blood. His helm boasted a respectable dent, and a shallow cut ran across the bridge of his broad nose but Bard had seen the warrior worse off.

“As did I.” Bard slapped a hand over the warrior’s meaty shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. “As did I.” He let his gaze wander over the others; having been separated rather quickly on the battlefield, he reveled in their unexpected presence and found his mettle buttressed by their good company.

Hilde looked much as she had when they’d disembarked: her long blonde hair pulled so tight against her scalp as to appear untouched by chill wind or her wretched battle against the strange beast. Her big blue eyes stared back at him as he appraised her. Her buckler hung on her arm, and her breastplate was painted with the crimson stains of those who’d dared stand before her – only the slight indentation from his own ax marred the steel of it – but no visible wounds other than a shallow cut or two proved she had given more than she got. A subtle flicker of amusement played at her pale lips and a hint of rose colored her freckly cheeks, then she bent and retrieved the sword Bard had knocked from her grasp.

He watched her, grateful he’d not buried his ax in that fair skull of hers, for he was sure that would provoke the goddess not to mention her aunt, Queen Gunnhild. Bard’s gaze flickered to Devin, a wiry Thuringian who stood blade in hand, and gave Bard a solemn nod. The man’s frame made Hilde look almost masculine, but Bard knew deceptive strength lurked within the warrior from his long years as a galley slave pulling oars on a Byzantine dromon before his liberation at the hands of Bloodax’s longships. Dev’s sharp features peered from the gloom like an eagle’s, barely shadowed by the growth of fuzz at his chin. He’d lost his shield somewhere along the way but he looked no less fierce for it.

“If we don’t find sanctuary Óðinn might yet catch us in his hall,” Hilde said, the ghost of her smile having passed on. Thunder rumbled somewhere above as if to punctuate her point.

Bard nodded, the pleasure at finding his companions alive fading at the return of their unfortunate reality. For all their company, they were no less safe from Haakon’s witches than when they’d been divided.

“The ships?” Arndt asked.

“Likely put to the torch or set adrift by now,” Bard said. “We’re a long way from shore.”

“Then north is all we have, brothers. North to the far shore where we might stumble across those who slipped away…should there be any, that is.” Devin spun in a slow circle, eyes growing narrow as he surveyed their surroundings. “Of course, it might help to know which way that is first.”

Hilde grunted agreement, and Bard peered through the fog after Devin, eyes settling at last on the hazy statue that hovered nearby. He let out a quiet laugh, drawing the attention of the others. “Were you a monument to a king of old, would you stare at the land behind you or the way your spirit pushed on?”

Hilde stood quiet a moment and followed his gaze, her eyes gleaming crystalline in the murk. “To the sea,” she answered with a grin.

Bard nodded. “Then let us pray Haakon’s forefathers had some sense in their skulls the day they set this stone.” He trailed down the statue’s right arm and pointed the direction it led.

“We’ve our path, it seems,” Devin said.

Arndt shrugged. “The Valkyr will find us no matter where our carcasses collapse, so lead on, my friends.”

“Such optimism, brother.” Hilde chuckled low in her throat, yet didn’t hesitate scything through the fog as she marched on. “Stay close,” she warned, though she need not have wasted her breath. Bard and the others hounded her heels, near to tripping over her. For all their bluster, the trepidation that wafted from his companions soured Bard’s tongue, but his own fear tasted no less bitter.

Every step was plagued by thoughts of the corpses beneath their feet, and time slipped past unknown as they made their way through the crowded necropolis. Thunder rattled the heavens, a somber serenade to their uneasy flight. Bard had lost all sense of direction not twenty paces after the statue had faded behind them, and he prayed Hilde steered them true, but he could not tamp his growing nerves that festered with each step. Bard expected draugar – the animated bones of those long accursed – to step out from the fog, and his nostrils flared as he strove for even a hint of the unmistakable stench of decay. He glanced about wildly, certain he felt more than just the virulence of the dead upon them, only then realizing he could see his brothers without having to strain to do so.

“Wait,” he whispered, raising a closed fist. The others slowed and gathered about him, expressions uncertain.

Hilde grasped his concern first. “The mist lifts.”

Her proclamation seemed to rally the fading tendrils of gray as they drifted toward the lightening sky, the clouds thinning. A frigid wind crept in as if to fill the wound left by the departing fog. It sent a chill scurrying along Bard’s arms.

“They’ll be coming for us.” No sooner had the words left his mouth than a gargled hiss cleaved the air. A dozen more followed it. He tightened his grip on his ax as recognition of what wended toward them sunk home.

The first of Haakon’s beasts cleared the edges of the retreating fog. Bard held his ground despite the terror that urged him to flee. With a crazed howl it charged at them. Sleek like serpents, Haakon’s creatures were preternatural; nidhoggr, they were called – the name given them springing to Bard’s mind of its own accord – summoned from the bowels of Hel, and though they came only up to the víkingr’s knees, their bodies slithered out for yards behind, while feral, bear-like mouths with row upon row of jagged shards comprised their ill-shapen snouts. Four milky-white eyes glared at them with malevolence, deformed lumps of hate bubbling from the hairless skull of the closest beast. Their multitudinous legs scrabbled while their sharpened claws clacked a dirge along the packed earth.

An instant later, the beasts were on them.

Hilde was first to draw blood. She slammed her buckler into the mouth of the nearest nidhogg and drove her blade beneath its slathering chin. The sword broke through the hardened bone and pierced its skull, severing its unnatural ties to this world. Hilde booted its corpse aside and met the next, but Bard could watch no longer; he had his own to contend with.

The nearest nidhogg crouched as if it might go for his legs, but Bard had seen the creatures’ tricks. He ducked low as the creature changed tack and leapt high. It sailed overhead and Bard thrust the point of his ax into the beast’s belly, spun it about, and drove it back to earth with a sickening crunch. Its ribs shattered within its chest and it shrieked in agony, a dozen claws slashing at empty air, but there was no time to revel in one monster’s defeat.

Bard drew back a few paces and swung his ax as another serpent-beast flew at him. Steel and bone collided and the creature fell away, its head cleaved in twain. A third beast caught the haft upside its skull on the backswing and thumped senseless to the grass with a muffled whimper. Bard took rapid breaths and glanced from its twitching form to see Devin cutting a swathe through a trio of nidhoggr, their rancid blood and severed limbs cavorted in the air about him like some knife juggler’s morbid finale.

Arndt lacked Devin’s grace. He grunted and frothed as he swept his greatsword two-handed in wide, arcing swings. Muscles bunched beneath his sun-scarred skin as the warrior put the whole of his strength into every blow. Nidhoggr flopped at his feet in pieces, howls and ragged grunts slipping from their foul mouths as they curled in on themselves and died. Yet more came, as if they knew Arndt’s ferocity would prove his undoing when the warrior’s strength flagged.

One found truth in that presumption.

Arndt batted aside a nidhogg that had gotten too close, but the movement sent him stumbling backward, off balance. Before he’d the chance to right his feet, the squirming front half of a beast he’d left to die latched onto his ankle. Bone crunched like a dry branch and Arndt screamed. He screamed again as his foot ripped free of his leg and he landed flush on the squirting stump. The warrior crumpled, his eyes rolling white.

Bard leapt across the intervening distance, but for all his effort, he was too late.

Arndt snapped to alertness as a monster buried its muzzle in his armpit. A wet rasp spilled from the warrior’s throat as the creature feasted, tearing at sinew and bones as it likely had worried at the very roots of Yggdrasil in its earlier days. Blood sprayed from the wound and rained crimson on the ground, as a black pool formed beneath Arndt.

Hilde reached his side first, driving her sword into the nidhogg’s gnashing maw, killing it before it could gorge further. Devin came up behind her, clearing the space of the dying beasts that thrashed in the grass. Bard did the same on the other side, facing off against the last of the monsters that had yet to be put down. He cut through their ranks, grinding his blade into their corpses until he was sure they were dead. He turned back to check on Arndt.

The fallen warrior trembled, gasped like a landed fish, stared off at nothing. Hilde held him to her breast, but it was clear he knew nothing of her presence. She shook her head at Bard’s unspoken question, meeting his gaze. “He’s done.”

Before Bard could think to reply, Hilde dragged the edge of her blade across Arndt’s throat, spilling the last of his life between the limp braids of his beard. He shuddered and slipped away without a sound.

Even with all the death surrounding them, Bard felt the warrior’s spirit writhe. This was a warrior worthy of the Golden Halls, and he cast about for a sign of the coming of the Valkyr.

Hilde laid Arndt’s head on the ground with careful reverence and climbed to her feet. Though there was little time left to them before the rest of Haakon’s minions found them, Bard knew they could not leave their brother with nothing. Perhaps the Shield Maidens would come soon, perhaps not. They could not return him to the womb of the goddess, but…

“Lo, jeg ser her min far og mor,” Devin started, making the decision for them.

Bard drew a breath and nodded. They could honor Arndt in this way, and so his tongue wove the rest of the prayer in little more than a whisper: “Lo, nå ser jeg all min død slektningsbordsetning. Lo, det er mitt hoved, som er å sitte i Paradis. Paradis er slik vakkert, så grønn. Med ham er hans menn og gutter.”

“Han kaller til meg, så fører meg til ham.” The last of the words danced from Hilde’s lips, and Bard repeated them in his head.

He calls to me, so bring me to him.

As the prayer faded, Bard collected Arndt’s sword and placed it in the dead man’s hand, laying the blade across his massive chest should his brother need it on his journey. Then, without another word, the survivors marched on, leaving their companion behind as the ominous gray slowly melted into the violet tones of the failing sun. Bard shivered, though not from the cold. He stared into the distance, watching the clouds devour the light and knew they’d only traded one horror for another.

The others seemed of similar mind. Their pace quickened, milking the last vestiges of illumination to see them free of the boneyard before the darkness returned. They’d only just made it to the barrier of stones when the sun slipped from sight, shadows dancing a tribute to its demise.

“This way.” Hilde’s whisper was the mooring upon which Bard cinched his hope.

They huddled close while the blackness leeched the color from the world, the gods’ twinkling eyes yet to awaken. Distant howls were met with savage rejoinders, the song of predators growing closer as Bard and the others shuffled on. For all his earlier desire to die in battle rather than the firestorms born of the witches’ loathsome galdrar, he found himself craving life above all. He did not wish to perish on this foreboding isle, its taint so wretched as to profane the spirit of any who struck upon its shore. He gnashed his teeth and cast a prayer to the heavens in Arndt’s name before marching on with renewed vigor in his step, vowing to scrape the mud of this place from his boots.

Strange, guttural sounds dogged their heels as the party trudged north, the hours rolling by in a leaden crawl, fear clawing at their feet. It wasn’t until the stars alighted that Bard spied the deeper darkness of something looming ahead. He brought his companions to a halt, motioning to the shape that sat along their path. They waited in silence for several long moments, willing their vision to resolve.

“Another barrow?” Devin asked.

Bard shook his head, though the warrior couldn’t see the gesture, standing before Bard as he was. “It’s a hut.”

“Aye,” Hilde confirmed, not waiting for the others before she started off again, Bard and Devin following.

Shortly after, they stood hunched outside a rocky pit house, ears pressed against its cold wall. Nothing stirred within. Bard pulled away and circled the home to find its door left open. He peered inside, heart aflutter, only to find the tiny hut empty.

“There are others,” Hilde said at his back, drawing his eyes to where she pointed. And, true enough, a dozen or more similar homes were spread out behind the first, each separated by a few horse-lengths of open space and little more but weeds and thorns. No lights or sounds greeted the trespass of the three Norse warriors.

Bard drew in a lungful of brisk air and crept to the nearest of the huts to find it, too, deserted. He went to each in turn, Hilde and Devin at his back, but there was no one to be found. When the last of them also proved empty, Bard turned to his companions. “We’ve a choice.”

“Live or die?” Devin answered, a crooked smile on his lips, but no light reached his eyes.

Hilde ignored them and stared off, her thoughts tormenting her features. Bard followed her gaze to see the hazy flutter of trees a distance further north. Their leaves danced serpentine in the gloomy starlight, the barest whisper of a rustle reaching Bard’s ears.

“The woods are one of our choices, eh?” Devin said. “I’d much rather dig a hole and wait for morning.”

Bard agreed. He looked back to the nearest of the huts and was made wary by its emptiness, but the lure of shelter, after battle and wind had pecked at his marrow since he’d set foot upon the isle, was undeniable. He caught Hilde’s stare as he scanned slowly about.

“If you had a choice...?” he started.

She sighed. “If nidhoggr roam the land in the open like sheep, I’d prefer sunlight on our necks before setting foot in yonder woods.”

“Then a hole it is,” Devin said. He motioned for Hilde to enter the nearest of the huts first. “Never thought we three would share a warren on a cold winter’s night.” He winked at Hilde. “Don’t tell your faðir, now.”

She grinned and grabbed at her armored chest as she went inside. “It’ll be my blade you need worry about should you try making a nest of these pillows, boy.”

Devin glanced to Bard, an eyebrow raised.

“You’ll find no love here, either. Keep your hands on your own sword tonight,” Bard told him, stepping in behind Hilde. Hilde’s throaty laugh welcomed them, and Bard eased the door shut, setting the bolt.

“Damn Freiøya’s eyes. Leave me to spend my final hours with a swollen sack and two old maids with shuttered arses,” Devin muttered. “I could have stayed home with my wife had I wanted to die with a limp kokkr between my thighs.”

Hilde dropped into the corner furthest from the door, wiping the grin from her lips. “If we make it home, brother, I’ll let you take Dagny for an eve.”

“Your goat for a whole night? How generous.”

Bard sat near the door, muffling his laugh against the stiff sleeve of his tunic while balancing his ax across his knees. The other two prattled on in quiet voices as he settled in, resting his head against the cool stone of the wall, letting its chill sink into his fevered flesh. He blinked once, twice, resting his eyes, the quiet murmur of his companions blurring, and then darkness pulled him under.

“They’ll be here soon.”

Bard snapped upright, eyes flying wide at the familiar voice. Arndt stood before him. Blood had crystallized upon his chest, and the wound at his throat pulsed – a gaping black crevice in his pale skin, as though it clasped at the air, trying to draw breath.

“How…?” Bard asked, barely able to get his tongue moving in the dry well of his mouth.

“No time,” Arndt answered, drawing Bard’s gaze to his friend’s face. It was there that Bard found his answer as to how the warrior he’d thought dead could be there beside him.

Eyes a deeper blue than Lake Votka stared back at him. Bard’s gaze sank into their abysmal depths, will o’ the wisps drawing him deeper with every passing moment. He shook his head to clear the sluggishness from his limbs and scrabbled to his feet. Though his gaze never left Arndt, he avoided the warrior’s eyes, focusing instead on the man’s broad nose.

“Why have you come?”

“The hounds are loose. They have come upon your scent.” His spectral hand swept the room, motioning first to Devin, and then to Hilde. “Flee now, but beware the roan that has shorn its coat.”

“Arndt?”

Hilde’s questioning voice cut through the gloom. Bard looked to her as she clambered up from the floor, and then back to the warrior spirit only to find he was no longer there. Only the barest scent of grave dirt remained in the wraith’s stead.

Hilde pawed at the space where Arndt had just been, fingers stirring empty air. “Was he truly…?” The question was devoured by the bestial roar that set the night to trembling.

“Merciless Hel,” Devin muttered as he came to stand alongside Bard and Hilde. “What was that?”

“We need to leave.” Bard retrieved his ax and went to unbar the door.

“No,” Hilde called out. “We can’t just—”

But Bard had no ears for her. When the dead warned of doom, those who wished to live heeded their words. He shucked the bar free of the door and yanked it open, charging outside, ax leading the way. Only the empty village greeted him, but there was no mistaking the corruption that wormed its way amidst the darkness. It set his skin afire.

Another guttural roar thundered, this one nearer than the last. Whatever Haakon had loosed would be upon them soon. The sound faded, and he heard Hilde’s and Devin’s shuffled motions over the last of it as they followed him, their reluctance nipped in the tail. He spun about, his companions but a blur to his side, and instinct made his choice for him. Bard sprinted for the trees.

Though the darkness crowded about, the stars lent him their sight. He cut straight across the grassy terrain, doing nothing to hide his presence from whatever witchery dogged his heels. Neither stealth nor subterfuge would serve him now. His companions followed where he led, their huffed breaths keeping pace.

They reached the line of trees just as something crashed at their backs. Wood splintered like shattered bones and stones clattered, heavy thumps sounding as they rained down from the force of the blow that had demolished the hut they’d only just fled. The ground shook beneath Bard’s feet, but it did nothing to slow his headlong flight. He barreled through the clustered trees, branches and leaves slashing at his face, each fresh sting spurring him on.

“This way,” Hilde called as she darted past, her long legs slicing away at Bard’s lead. She ducked low and veered left, and Bard turned after her. He heard Devin do the same just behind.

Trees whipped past as they ran, humus crunching beneath their boots. Whatever hounded them stayed the course, malevolent shrieks peppering their spines with sharpened knives of terror. Branches snapped in discordant rhythm as the creature entered the woods.

Bard set his eyes on the back of Hilde’s head, her blonde hair a beacon in the darkness, and matched his pace to hers as best he could. She ran as if Fenrir himself chased after them, and that was not far from the mark.

“Lindvurm!” someone yelled, and Bard glanced back at the outline of the enormous monster, for it was indeed a lindvurm of sorts, a massive serpentine shadow that parted the trees and crushed the undergrowth as it came slithering and grunting.

Bard turned to keep running but before he could spot Hilde, or spy where Devin was behind him, he collided with something that gave way with a howl of pain – albeit a howl from a human throat. They both hit the hard ground, and Bard found himself sprawled alongside a man in mail who wore the sign of King Harald Bluetooth on his coat. The man spared him a brief glance, then looked agape at the lindvurm as it came on. He left his sword and helm among the leaves and scrambled to his feet.

“Wait,” Bard growled, fetching his ax and clambering upright, but the man dashed into the darkness of the woods.

Bard cast about, noticing more of Bluetooth’s raiders fleeing in the same direction. Toward the sea. Had they been coming this way to join the battle? Perhaps decamped here at the coming of early night due to the völur’s accursed fog? Mayhap the sea was closer than he thought, and mayhap Bluetooth’s ships awaited.

A scream grabbed Bard’s attention before he could sort his thoughts, and he looked to see a warrior snatched within the massive lindvurm’s jaws. The man’s howls were cut off as the monster’s snout snapped shut. It swallowed the warrior down, tossing its head back, and shafts of white moonlight illuminated the beast. Atop its snake-like coils swiveled the head of a dragon and a spiky mane of bleached spines. The bulk of the monster was seemingly made from a motley transgression of slain nidhoggr, patched in spots with rivulets of grave dirt, while here and there jutted the moldy bones of the long-dead, as well as much fresher, battle-fallen corpses.

Bard started as something gripped his shoulder, raising his ax before seeing Hilde and Devin standing there.

“What are you doing?” Hilde looked at him as if he were a fool.

“Bluetooth’s men…”

“Aye,” Devin hissed. “Let’s move!” He jerked his head toward the men fleeing northward, or at least Bard believed so.

“Get down!” Hilde suddenly yelled, shoving Bard.

“Too late. It’s spotted us,” said Devin. “Go!”

The lindvurm, glaring at them from two nacreous pairs of eyes atop its scaly skull, barked a croaking howl. Chewed up corpse-meat dropped from its maw as it slid toward them, snapping saplings and scrub beneath its daunting bulk.

Bard was yanked backward as the lindvurm’s maw clacked shut where he’d only just stood. He felt the air of its passage, a fetid stench hammering against his nose. Hilde’s hand was a vice about his wrist while she tugged at him, pulling him along with her, but Bard knew it to be futile. In close, the vurm was just too quick to be outrun, too powerful to be faced down. If there was to be any hope, it lay in wit, not brawn.

“Separate,” Bard shouted as he shook Hilde free and shoved her aside. “Find a way to get behind it, out of its line of sight.”

Hilde stumbled, hesitant, but Devin seemed to see the sense in his words. The warrior bolted between two large trees that had grown clustered together, leaving his companions to stare down the monster.

Bard gave the creature no time to choose between him and Hilde. He snatched the sword left behind by Bluetooth’s man and hurled it at the beast. It rang out against the lindvurm’s skull, bouncing harmlessly aside, but it had done its duty. Hilde was forgotten as the vurm reared up and loosed a fearsome roar, its blood-red gaze latching onto Bard with flash fires of fury burning inside. Ragged claws tore at the trees that separated them, clearing the way.

But Bard was already gone. The moment its attention was solely on him, he had run. For any of them to survive, he needed the lindvurm’s focus. He stomped and screamed and struck out at the trees as he fled. His breath scorched his throat at every exhalation while he pushed on, the monster tearing up the ground between them. Though every footfall was a minor victory, it would be on him soon, and he envisioned much more than a momentary reprieve.

Then, just ahead, an unfortunate hope appeared.

Huddled in the trees, steel helms poking up from the ground like rigid mushrooms, cowered dozens of King Bluetooth’s soldiers. Their eyes went wide upon seeing him leading the vurm in their direction. Curses rang out and chaos took hold, the warriors scrambling from the path as Bard plotted a course through the trees. There was no avoiding them, scattering as they had. He growled and dug his boots into the soft earth to turn away from the men. He’d hoped to find a ravine or someplace he could duck into and hide as the creature stormed past, not sacrifice his allied king’s own liegemen.

The Norns evidently had other plans. His foot caught an errant root, and Bard crashed face first into the ground. Bitter dirt filled his mouth and clouded his vision. He rolled onto his back, wiping at his eyes, just as the vurm slithered to loom over him, putrid slime raining down from its mouthful of sword-like fangs. Bard raised his ax, turning its edge toward the lindvurm. It would do nothing to kill the beast, of course, but he would hack and saw as the creature swallowed him down. Bard would not be devoured easily, nay.

His Thuringian friend, Devin of Nordhausen, clearly felt the same.

The warrior leapt from the trees and drove his sword into one of the lindvurm’s pale eyes. It sunk in to the hilt, and the creature shrieked and thrashed its head to be rid of the offending steel. Bard jumped to his feet as the vurm reared up, taking Devin with it as he clung to his blade.

“Let go!” Bard screamed.

Devin did just that, but the creature twisted aside. Before the warrior had fallen but a hand span, the lindvurm grabbed Devin’s torso in its maw. A symphony of snaps erupted all along his ribcage as the monster clamped down. He gave one last scream, and went silent, the two halves of his body dangling at unnatural angles on either side of the creature’s mouth.

Bile filled Bard’s throat at seeing his brother so defiled, yet there was nothing he could do to free him from the clutches of the beast. And though the decision would haunt him for however many moments remained to him upon Midgard, Bard spun and ran, leaving Devin’s corpse to the lindvurm.

He said an oath to the Allfather and to the Thunderer both, wishing his brother well on his way, yet despairing that Devin’s sacrifice was not enough to see Bard clear of the hellish abomination. The lindvurm screeched, and Bard heard it resume its chase, trees giving way to its insistence. The sound set a trail of Surt’s flames to Bard’s posterior, and he marshalled every last vestige within as he flew through the woods. Death came next for him, and there was naught else he could do. A warrior might make a final stand, but the crack of Devin’s bones echoed in Bard’s head, and the sharp salt of the sea was on the wind and gave him wings.

Then, the din of hundreds of voices and the familiar ringing of metal joined the vurm’s blaring. The trees parted before him and a yellow-white field hove into view. Greycloak’s and Bluetooth’s soldiers spanned the length of the winter-washed meadow, all locked in combat with Haakon’s forces, warriors and beasts alike.

Bard stopped at the forest’s edge and gawped not at the battle, despite a nidhogg atop a nearby man, screaming as it tore into his guts, but at the stupefying vision of greedy flames cavorting amidst their longships. The wrath of Surt himself leaped between the vessels on black pinions of distorted smoke. Bard roared in desperate fury. Their way home was well and truly gone, for Haakon had set his völur bitches’ magic loose upon the víkingr fleet, razing their ships in one fell blow, setting them to bright white flame like funeral pyres atop the water.

Bard’s heart thrummed a mournful dirge, but the beast at his back offered him no time to grieve. It burst from the trees with a savage howl, Devin’s steel still buried in its eye, the warrior’s blood still staining its maw. The ground shook beneath the lindvurm, and Bard nearly lost his footing, but terror lent him renewed strength. He realized he’d lost his ax in his flight from the beast, so he skirted a fighting throng of soldiers, took up a fallen sword, and jabbed it into an enemy who had spun on him but then paused upon taking note of the lindvurm bearing down on them. The warrior fell with a peculiar expression of awe and pain, and Bard bellowed and struck a leaping nidhogg, the bloody-hafted sword ripped from his grasp as it wedged in the writhing monster’s scales. Behind him, the lindvurm struck the ranks like an angry storm, men flung wildly about on the sharpened ends of teeth and claws.

Bard fought on, heading away from the vurm and into the hue of battle, seeking his doom while wielding steel against men rather than in the belly of that crazed, Hel-spawned abomination. His lungs billowed like forge bellows as he kicked an enemy warrior in the back and snatched his spear away. He turned and barreled toward the sea, toward where he saw the chanting völur raising their blue-painted arms to the sky, waving their knotted staves as they beckoned more storms of monsters and flame.

Every step rattled his jaw as he made his way toward that chanting circle. Behind him he heard the cries of his brethren as they fell, but he never once tarried, and just as he felt he could run no further, his feet struck the sandy beach, kicking up gold in their wake. He loosed his stolen spear with foul intent.

Focused as they were on their task, the ring of nine völur saw nothing until it was too late. The spear took the first in the chest. She grunted and fell back into her companions, pulling several down with her in a tangle of thrashing limbs. Bard crashed into another before they could gather their wits about them, fists flailing. Blue lips exploded with red as Bard waded into the group, but there were simply too many to keep track of.

Pain cut across his lower back, the smell of his own charred meat filling his nostrils a heartbeat later. He spun to see a lone völva holding her crooked staff in Bard’s direction. Wisps of fire sputtered at the tip. More flames crackled, and Bard was alight with witch fire. He screamed and beat at the flames but they would not be denied. Still more of the völur closed while he battled the conflagration he’d become.

Hooves thundered close by and amidst the whirling chaos Bard saw a half-dozen riders. He recognized Haakon leading them, and the Good King pointed at him with a bloodied sword. “Kill that man!” he ordered his warriors, and the others kicked heels to flanks, urging their mounts toward Bard, spears lowered.

Disarmed and aflame, Bard turned from the charging riders and Haakon’s blue-skinned she-demons, and ran for the sea as gouts of fire roared past. A moment later the frigid water caressed his ankles, and then his knees. Waves lapped at him, and he dove into their midst. Still the fires pecked at his flesh, steam hissing off his blackening skin, but Bard denied them their victim.

He stretched above the waves and drove into deeper water, swimming toward open sea until the flames sputtered and died. Not long after, his arms gave way and he was forced to embrace a remnant piece of wood. He gathered a few more as he drifted through a field of wreckage, desperate to collect enough to hold his weight afloat so he might rest his scorched and weary arms, but there was little of substance to cling to.

He was fast growing weary, hands benumbed in the cold swell. He cast a glance at the shore he’d left behind. He saw the lindvurm prowling the beach, its prodigious size diminished by distance, a frantic shadow cavorting about the field of its slaughter. And he saw the riders had returned to the slaughter as well, while the völur resumed their chanting, minus one of their nine. Bard wished his brothers glory in the next life; for certain, he would join them soon.

He watched as the island of Frei was swallowed by the darkness. Bard felt a pang of muted joy at having escaped despite every wave that carried him further from shore, and once the isle slipped from view, so did Bard slip into the ocean, the last of his strength sapped from his limbs.

Darkness encircled him. He took one last breath of glorious air before he plummeted toward the bottom of the sea.

Then came light.

He opened his mouth to greet the Valkyr, but choked and spit water from his lungs. Strong hands clutched him. Pain speared through his veins, and Bard cursed the god who would be so cruel as to not extinguish his agony before ferrying him to Valhöll.

When at last he could squint through cataracts of brine, he saw the wide-set blue eyes and freckly cheeks of the Valkyr who’d collected him. “I’d thought the choosers of the slain…might be hideous to behold,” he muttered, pressing a weak smile to his lips. “I thought…true.”

“Aye,” Hilde answered, drawing him higher onto the makeshift raft of splintered boards with a quiet chuckle. “And I thought I’d caught a fish worth keeping.”

Bard coughed and hooked sea sludge from the corner of his mouth. “Seems we’re both wrong,” he said, and clasped his blistered hand about hers.

She gave his a firm squeeze in return, both going silent as thunder serenaded them from above.

Bard’s stomach knotted at the sound. He stared over Hilde’s shoulder at the dark clouds boiling overhead, choking the flickers of dawn in their sullen advance. He spied dots of cankerous blackness growing in the distance, looming over the swell, riding its building fury toward them. Bluetooth’s ships or Haakon’s? They would know soon enough.

Bard gripped Hilde’s hand tighter, an oath to the Aldaföðr – the Allfather – playing at his lips. It seemed Óðinn’s hounds, ever ravenous and slaughter-greedy, had yet to give up the chase, and the halls of Valhöll still called.