Part 9 (2/2)

He kicked the accelerator to the floor.

”Holy s.h.i.+t,” said Mist from the backseat. ”What the f.u.c.k was that?”

”Draugr,” said Grimnir. ”Shambling dead.”

”You mean a f.u.c.king zombie?”

”Yes,” Grimnir said, ”I mean a f.u.c.king zombie.”

Hermod shoved Winston out of the way before the dog could start eating the draugr's remains. Groans roiled in the fog.

”Let me guess-they travel in mobs,” Mist said.

Grimnir nodded. ”Sometimes. Back in the day we thought they were people who hadn't been given proper burial rites and had come back to haunt their loved ones. But once you've seen them come over a hill like a rotting tide, you start to think maybe something else is going on. Some think they're under Hel's control, maybe even her creations, but n.o.body's really sure.”

”What I'm sure of is I don't want to fight any more of them,” Hermod said. ”That b.a.s.t.a.r.d near chewed my hand off.” The Jeep sped forward, tires bouncing on the rough terrain as Hermod tried to steer around the parade of dead clogging the road.

A leathery pop sounded, and the steering wheel jumped in Hermod's hands. They'd lost a tire. He pulled on the wheel to compensate, and the front b.u.mper collided with a cl.u.s.ter of dead. The rest of the winds.h.i.+eld fell in, and Hermod found himself fighting at least two draugr, who reached in through the gap for control of the wheel. Then the Jeep was logrolling, and he screamed, ”Hold on to the dog, Mist!” With an explosion of gla.s.s and the crunch and shriek of collapsing steel, the Jeep came to rest on its roof.

Arms reached inside and violently dragged Hermod free of the wreck. He knew better than to consider this a positive development and looked up to find himself staring into the gruesome, hungry faces of at least a dozen draugr. They clawed and clubbed and bit one another like a pack of wild dogs fighting over a kill. He struggled in vain to gain his footing, but it seemed every time he managed to kick one draugr away, three more came to replace it. Dimly, he heard shouts that sounded like Mist's, and then Winston's vicious barks, but he could only think they'd soon fall silent.

”Enough.”

The voice wasn't particularly loud or distinct in pitch, but it cut sharply through the sounds of the struggle. To Hermod's surprise, the draugr moved off him and backed away.

Hermod shot to his feet in a defensive crouch, glancing around in search of his sword. He was bleeding from his hand and head. Everything hurt. Mist stood just a small distance away, bleeding circles of tooth marks on her cheek and neck. Winston, with a torn ear, snarled by her side. Grimnir was grunting with the effort of trying to free his sword, which was embedded in the ground through an impaled, wriggling draugr.

Just a few feet away from Hermod, his brother Baldr stood, arms crossed like a stern princ.i.p.al who'd just broken up a schoolyard brawl.

Baldr was still beautiful but not the same as on the day he'd died. He hadn't aged, exactly, or even weathered, but his time in Helheim had changed him. His face now was flawless white stone, his eyes a pale, glacial blue. He stood, cold and magisterial, in a s.h.i.+rt of white wool marred only by a spot of red in the center of his chest.

Hermod had so many questions, so many things he wanted to say. His words came out thick, and he managed to dislodge them only with great effort. ”I'm sorry, Baldr. I couldn't let her keep Hod any more than I could let her keep you.”

Baldr blinked in surprise. ”Oh, that? But it was so long ago.”

”I let too much time pa.s.s. I should have come back sooner and tried again.”

Baldr dismissed that with a wave. ”Hel wouldn't have let you back into her kingdom. If you'd tried again she would have rent you limb from limb and used your corpse as building material.”

”But she let me in this time,” Hermod said, disliking the tone of helpless confusion he heard in his own voice. More firmly, he said, ”I'm here now, and I've come to stop Ragnarok.” He indicated Mist and Grimnir. ”These are my a.s.sociates.”

”Yes, of course. The Valkyrie Mist and her Einherjar servant, Grimnir. Not to mention brave Winston.”

Hermod caught Grimnir's glance, and then Mist spoke for all of them: ”You knew we were coming.”

Baldr smiled slightly, a shadow of his old, gentle humor showing through. Then, ”Bind them,” he said.

The draugr swarmed in, gripping Hermod's and the others' wrists and arms and legs. A knee in the back brought Hermod down, and though he managed to throw a few draugr off, ultimately he couldn't stop them from pinning him in the dirt. They forced his arms behind his back and clapped rusted shackles around his wrists. An iron collar went around his neck.

Mist and Grimnir got the same treatment. A few draugr held them fast while another connected their collars with a chain. Even Winston was collared and leashed and had a strap tied around his muzzle.

Hermod spat dust. ”Baldr, what is this?”

Baldr said nothing. He wouldn't meet Hermod's eyes.

He turned to the draugr. ”Let's go.”

HEL'S HALL was not constructed of bones, as some poets insisted, and the roof was not made of woven serpents. Her hall wasn't terribly large, it wasn't a hive of congealed blood and s.h.i.+t, nor did its angles defy the fundamental norms of Euclidean geometry. It was just a hall made of gray timbers, perched on a mesa of gray stone, and what made it dreadful was the simple fact that Hel resided within.

”So, how long have you been Hel's b.i.t.c.h?” Hermod asked for perhaps the tenth time as the party made their way up steep, narrow switchbacks, the draugr walking them on their leashes. Despite the exhausting march of the past three days, Hermod had managed to badger Baldr almost nonstop, increasingly more determined to goad his brother out of the silence he'd maintained since their capture. Baldr rode a few yards ahead on a cigarette-ash gelding. He dropped back to pull up even with Hermod.

”Some advice for you, brother. You're entering the hall of Helheim's ruler. You'd do well to observe the courtesies here.” His voice was mild, his tone sincere. This was not a dressing-down. This was helpful guidance. Baldr was always so helpful. Hermod couldn't believe he used to fall for it.

With the draugr constantly keeping tension on Hermod's chain, the collar bit into his skin, and it was painful to look up. But he wanted to see Baldr's face as they spoke. ”There's something funny about you lecturing me on courtesy when your zombies are dragging me and my friends around in chains.”

Baldr didn't respond.

”Brother, what's wrong with you?” Hermod said plaintively. Watching Baldr fall with a spear embedded in his heart had been bad enough. Seeing the cold thing he'd become was almost unbearable.

Baldr brought his horse to a stop, and the procession halted with him. He turned in his saddle and faced Hermod, his face like a funereal statue. ”I died,” he said.

Grimnir snorted. ”I've died plenty of times. Doesn't mean you have to be an a.s.shole about it.”

Upon reaching the top of the mesa, Baldr dismounted and commanded his draugr to remove the prisoners' chains. Then, with a draugr escort, he led the party into Hel's hall, a high-roofed s.p.a.ce filled with dead soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder in ranks. They were as motley a crew as the Einherjar, a living museum of military uniforms and arms, from spears to blunderbusses to automatic rifles. Most warriors entered Helheim without their weapons, but Hel's handpicked army carried quite an a.r.s.enal.

The ranks parted to leave an aisle that led to the front of the hall, where a pair of wooden thrones loomed before a cold hearth. Baldr made his way up the aisle and a.s.sumed his place on one of the chairs. Beside him, on the other chair, sat Hel, regal and somber in voluminous black robes. Her hands rested lightly on the chair's arms, the left hand delicate with long, tapered fingers, the flesh a pale, healthy pink. The right was grotesquely swollen and rotted black. With great effort, Hermod forced himself to look up at her face, the left half of which was pleasingly shaped, the cheek blushed with a rosy glow. The right half was dark, mummified skin. But it was her eyes that seized Hermod's heart, for they contained every sorrow suffered by every denizen of Hel's kingdom, and it was impossible to look upon them and not weep. Staring into them, Hermod felt his mother's suffering at his own birth, and the first time he'd ever felt hungry, and the first time he'd been scared, and the first time he'd been lonely. He felt Baldr's death anew and his shame at coming home alone when he'd been sent to bring his brother back to Asgard, and he felt every hopeless night of his long life. These were not memories but pains felt just as strongly as though the events were happening now.

But, no, they weren't happening now. This was Hel's doing. He made himself look hard into her eyes. I see you. I know what you're doing. I've already faced these things down, and I'm still walking, you half-rotted b.i.t.c.h.

”Where's Hod?” he said.

Baldr glanced over at Hel before answering: ”We have had a parting of ways.”

”That speaks well of Hod,” said Hermod, drawing a sleeve across his nose. ”What happened?”

For the first time ever, Hermod saw an expression so alien on Baldr's face that it took him a moment to recognize it for what it was: peevishness. And then his placid expression resumed.

”I begged Hod to accept the queen's hospitality,” Baldr went on, unperturbed. ”He could have been a prince here.”

”And what is he instead?”

”He is a fugitive. But we will have him back before the last day is done. And, in the meantime, we have you.”

”Collecting the whole set, are you?” Hermod addressed this to Hel. Things squirmed beneath her rotten skin. ”We are still alive. You have no right to hold us.”

There was a graceful movement to Hel's robes, like a billowing of smoke, as she rose to her feet and spread her arms wide. ”You think me covetous,” Hel said in two voices, a sensuous alto and a thick, viscous rasp that coated Hermod in clammy sweat. ”But I have never asked for more than my due. I was cast into this land, and to me was given stewards.h.i.+p of the dead. I have never complained. For the second time you make an incursion into my kingdom. You rush to my embrace. Every step a man or a G.o.d commits brings him closer to death, so do not complain, seam-walker, when you arrive at the destination you set out upon.”

<script>