The Sword of Surtur Read online

  It almost worked. By a hair’s breadth was Sindr able to intercept Tyr’s gleaming sword as it flashed at her. The white tooth of Fenris crashed against the dark blade of Surtur with an impact that echoed through the tomb. Sparks flashed from the weapons as the two enemies strove against each other’s strength. At first Tyr was able to prevail and forced Twilight back towards the bondswoman’s face. Then, with a swelling of might, Sindr forced his arm back. He brought his left arm up against Tyrsfang’s guard, driving more of his own weight into his effort to hold her.

  “Hai! Murdering beast!” Bjorn shouted. He charged at Sindr, swinging his axe at the woman’s body. The giant caught him with a kick that sent him flying back into one of the decayed chests. Bjorn crashed through the rotten wood and sprawled in a pile of tarnished coins.

  The wolfhunter’s distraction allowed Tyr to press his advantage. He shoved Twilight back and brought the edge of his blade against Sindr’s face. From brow to chin, his sword cut into the flesh and created a furrow of blood.

  Sindr hissed, more from anger than pain. Her body expanded, growing in size as the appearance she wore cracked and crumbled into cinders, exposing the giant’s true shape beneath. Horns sprouted from her head, fangs lengthened in her jaws. Her strength surged in keeping with her growth and Tyr was forced back. Even then he might have held her a little longer had the giant’s tail not snaked around his leg and tripped him. Tyr pitched over, slamming onto his back.

  “One less son of Odin,” Sindr sneered as she loomed above him. Before she could strike with Twilight, her eyes were blotted out by a sheet of hoarfrost. She snarled in fury and whipped her sword against the floor. The instant of blindness was enough for Tyr to scramble away, and the blade slashed only earth instead of flesh.

  Sindr turned, and steam billowed from her eyes as the fires within evaporated the frost. She glared straight at Lorelei. “You’ve played that trick on me before, witch. You’ll not do so again!” The giant had now grown to a height of ten feet, Twilight still keeping apace. She pointed the sword at Lorelei as she retreated toward the steps. From the tip of the sword, a swirl of coruscating fire shot at the sorceress. Lorelei cried out and dove to one side as the flames whipped around her, scorching her clothes and blistering her skin.

  Tyr’s tactical mind at once saw the threat that could bring immediate doom to them all. Should Sindr continue to grow, she could bring the barrow crashing down on them all, as she had nearly done with Lorelei’s castle. The only chance he saw for them was to keep the giant distracted, enrage her so much that she didn’t pause to consider employing such a strategy.

  “The son of Odin is still here!” Tyr sprang at Sindr, his move taking the giant by surprise. Had she been braced for his lunge, she might have defied the god’s strength, but, as it was, she was carried back by his momentum. Both of them went crashing into the stone table. It disintegrated under the giant’s weight, sending the thane’s bones rattling across the tomb.

  The giant took the worst of the impact, but Tyr wasn’t left unphased. His head glanced off the rubble and his right arm was pinned under Sindr’s bulk. He strove to bring his sword against her body, but found all he could do was slide it slightly back and forth in a sawing motion. It might take hours to saw through the tough hide and reach her spine.

  Unable to visit a serious hurt against Sindr, the motion of Tyr’s sword was enough to agitate her. She struck at him with Twilight, but as he twisted away she nearly slashed her own leg. She snarled in frustration and grabbed him with her other hand. Forcing him up, she held him in place while she made ready to strike again with her sword.

  “Did you forget about me?” Bjorn howled as he charged the giant. His axe chopped down, biting deep into the hand that held Tyr and breaking Sindr’s grip. She snarled in pain and rolled aside as the huntsman drove another blow at her chest.

  Tyr whipped away from the giant, his arm free again. He slapped it with the metal cup on his left wrist, trying to knock feeling back into the numbed limb. He could be thankful he was Aesir – a less powerful being would have had their bones pulverized under the giant’s weight.

  While he tried to regain sensation in his sword arm, Tyr saw Bjorn press his attack on Sindr. His friend managed a deft blow to the giant’s leg as she rolled across what was left of the shattered table. The stroke was expertly delivered, but the giant’s hide was thicker about the leg than the hand. The axe rang off it as though he’d struck solid stone, and the cut it left behind was little more than a scratch.

  Sindr’s roll ended in a crouch, and from this pose she lashed out with Twilight. The flaming sword came so near to Bjorn that it caught his hair on fire when he ducked beneath its sweep. The wolfhunter cried out and threw himself to the floor, grabbing a fistful of charnel dust to smother his burning scalp.

  Before Sindr could attack Bjorn again, Tyr intervened. His sword crashed once more against Twilight. He whipped his blade along the flaming edge and drove at the arm that gripped it. Fire flashed from the giant’s mouth, scorching his hand. The flare of pain nearly made him lose his grip, but as he twisted away from the searing blast, he drove the metal cup on his arm against her jaw. Sindr lurched back at the impact, stunned just enough by the blow to spoil the pursuing thrust with Twilight.

  “The cold air of Asgard doesn’t agree with you,” Tyr told the giant. “You’re getting clumsy here. You should have stayed in Muspelheim.”

  The mockery infuriated Sindr. Her body swelled in size, bigger than the confines of the barrow could comfortably contain. Dirt pattered down from the roof as her horns scraped the ceiling. “When I bring my father across the Rainbow Bridge, Asgard will be Muspelheim!”

  Tyr smiled at her. It was a dangerous game to play, but he recognized that the weakest link in Sindr’s armor was her caustic temper. If he could keep her angry rather than thinking, they might just have a chance. “Your father must think highly of you to send you off to die,” he jeered, punctuating the slight by piercing her hand with Tyrsfang. He had to keep her reacting rather than thinking, focusing on fighting rather than using her size to take proper advantage.

  Tyr didn’t expect the unbridled rage his remark provoked. The flames that erupted from Sindr’s body reached across the whole tomb, charring the walls. Her eyes were infernos now, her size such that she had to remain kneeling on the floor for there was no longer room for her to stand. Twilight was big enough to run a mastodon through from trunk to tail. In her fury, however, she didn’t think to grow still larger and shatter the crypt. She was too fixated on cutting Tyr down with her blade.

  “My father knows my worth!” Sindr snarled at Tyr. Her hand raked across the ground and sent a fistful of bones and rubble pelting the Aesir. While he tried to shield himself from the debris, she stabbed at him with Twilight. Only a hasty dive to one side kept him from being speared by the giant blade. “I am the First of the Flames, the first of Surtur’s children to earn his respect!” She sent another fistful of rubble at Tyr, then stabbed again with Twilight. Tyr saw what she was doing. She was herding him into a corner, but there was nothing he could do to keep it from happening.

  “Earn this!” Bjorn shouted as he rushed the giant from the side. He had his axe in one hand, in the other was the wolfskin he’d thought to offer Sindr when she seemed naught but a frightened Asgardian. He threw the cloak full into her face. The fires of her eyes ignited it almost instantly, but as the pelt erupted into flame, the smoke of its destruction billowed outward and obscured her vision. Bjorn seized that opportunity to clamp both hands on his axe and drive the edge into her shoulder.

  The axe struck deep, and fiery ichor spurted from the wound. Sindr snarled in pain and snatched the wolfhunter away, flinging him across the tomb. This time he slammed into the rack of armor and sprawled in a heap beneath it on the floor.

  Tyr darted in while the giant was distracted. He slashed at the hand that had thrown Bjorn, slicing open Sindr’s p
alm. His real objective, however, was the axe still buried in her shoulder. Using his metal cup like the end of a hammer, he pounded the weapon’s heft and drove it still deeper into her flesh. Sindr twisted her head around and slashed him with a downward jab of her horns. Now it was the Aesir who was sent tumbling across the barrow.

  Sindr licked the cut across her palm and glowered down at Tyr. “I’m going to enjoy bringing your head to Surtur, Odinson.” She started toward him, but the confines of the tomb made it difficult for the giant to move. Another moment and she might have calmed her temper enough to shrink back to a more advantageous size, but that moment was to be denied her.

  After being scorched by Twilight’s flame, Lorelei had kept away from the battle. Her choice was tactical, not timid. She’d been working her way around the barrow, putting herself in a position from which she could attack the giant from behind. While Tyr braced himself for Sindr’s attack, he saw the sorceress spring from the shadows and strike.

  The weird piece of horn, that weathered fragment from a sea serpent, was clenched in Lorelei’s fist. She raked it across Sindr’s back, in the very spot, Tyr estimated, where his own sword had sawed at the giant’s hide. Where his effort had been a mere irritation, Lorelei’s proved more efficacious. Sindr’s entire body contorted in a pained spasm. The flames crackling about her body took on a green and sickly hue. Her face had a tortured expression Tyr would have thought impossible for such a diabolical visage to convey.

  Pain ended the giant’s attack, but what ensued was nearly as deadly. Sindr reared up, driving her head and shoulders against the roof, breaking through to the antechamber above. By blind accident, the giant provoked the catastrophe Tyr had hoped to avoid. Rubble crashed downwards into the tomb and, unlike in the castle, there was no tunnel to escape into. Tyr plunged across the chamber, diving past Sindr’s legs to seize Lorelei and draw her back before the falling earth and stone could smash her.

  Thirty-Five

  Maddened by anguish, Sindr crashed against the side of the barrow. The packed earth and rock spilled outwards, tumbling down the hillside. The giant smashed against it again and again until the fissure was no longer narrow enough to hold her back. With a ghastly howl she hurtled out the gap and down to the plain below.

  Tyr caught up one of the old shields that now lay scattered on the floor and used it to brace himself as the ceiling above gave way. His legs set, both arms pressing against the shield, he formed a living arch under which Lorelei and the dazed Bjorn were able to shelter. The Aesir grunted under the strain of holding his position. It felt as though the whole of the hill were pushing down on him, trying to drive him into the ground.

  “I don’t know how long I can brace it,” Tyr warned through clenched teeth. “Look for a way out.” Tons of earth had already sealed the gap through which Sindr had fallen. He couldn’t see if there was any way back to the stairs. It seemed to him that Lorelei’s light showed only earth and rock all around them. Though he’d managed to keep them from being immediately crushed, loose earth was spilling down around the edges of the shield and quickly flooding into the pocket.

  “This way,” Lorelei gasped. She urged Bjorn onward, pushing him into an area just beyond Tyr. Here the roof had managed to hold, though part of the wall had been smashed through by Sindr’s thrashing bulk. The glow from Lorelei’s light revealed another tomb, albeit one that hadn’t been devastated by a giant.

  “Hurry,” Tyr urged as he watched his companions duck into the neighboring crypt. As Lorelei hid inside, she drew the light away and he was left in utter darkness. The pressure pushing down on him seemed to be magnified by the blackness, grinding him down inch by inch. He felt his knees start to buckle.

  A glimmer of light off to his left showed him the gap into which his friends had gone. The loose earth spilling into the pocket was now up to the level of Tyr’s waist. When he shifted to face the opening into the other tomb it was as though he were wading through mud. The turn caused the weight above him to grow heavier. He knew he had only a moment to act or he would be lost. Drawing upon the last reserves of his superhuman stamina, Tyr let the shield fall and leaped for the opening.

  Tyr hurtled through the broken wall just ahead of the collapse. He felt the tremor of the shifting hill shake everything around him. Then he felt loose earth rushing down over his legs, spreading across him like a smothering blanket. He dashed to his feet and waved his sword at Bjorn and Lorelei. “Up!” he shouted to them as they ran towards the steps at the front of the tomb. “Stay here and be buried!”

  Loose earth rapidly poured through the hole in the wall, sweeping aside the funerary offerings in the tomb. Like a stormy sea, a wave of dirt crashed against the stone table on which the entombed chieftain was laid. As the tide surged onward, Tyr nearly lost his footing as he rushed for the stairs. Bjorn turned back to help him, but he waved at the huntsman to keep moving. The bottom-most step was already buried when he reached the stairs. The level continued to rise as he hurried up from the depths.

  Only when they reached the antechamber above was Tyr certain of their safety. The displaced earth would level itself out and rise no higher. Since all of the barrows had been built at the same height, he knew the entry could only be a little lower, if at all, than the tomb they’d escaped from.

  As in the other grave, the antechamber was littered with the bones of animals and the wretched remains of a meal laid out only for the dead. Bjorn leaned against one of the walls, trying to draw breath into his panting lungs. Tyr noted that he’d availed himself of another axe from one of the tombs.

  “Getting to be a habit with you,” Tyr said, pointing at the weapon.

  “He’s gotten all the use of it he could.” Bjorn gestured with his thumb at the grave below them. “No sense leaving a good axe to go to waste.” He struck it against the wall, knocking some of the dust and grit from it.

  Tyr smiled at Bjorn’s remark and turned to Lorelei. She still had one hand around the horn she’d stabbed Sindr with, only now it had turned an ugly green and had a slimy texture. When she noticed that he was looking at it, she cast it aside hastily and wiped her hand in the dust.

  “Whatever that was, it made Sindr howl,” Tyr said, walking over to take a closer look at the discarded horn.

  “Don’t touch it!” Lorelei’s voice was emphatic. “It’s a creation of the dark elves, steeped in a dozen venoms of lethal potency.” She gestured at the many cuts and bruises Tyr had suffered in the fight. “Let the horn brush against any open wound and the poison is drawn out to afflict the one who touched it. Let it enter the bloodstream…” Her voice trailed off. “Well, you saw how it hurt Sindr.”

  Tyr pointed at the bag. “Did you carry that with you into Muspelheim?”

  “In case we ran afoul of Surtur,” Lorelei explained. “To be truthful, I didn’t want to use it against the fire giant. I wasn’t certain it would work against him.”

  Lorelei’s doubt made Tyr uneasy. “What about Sindr, then?”

  “You saw how it hurt her,” Lorelei said. She shook her head. “We haven’t the time for me to explain the intricacies of magic, how and why a certain spell is potent or how it works. Sindr wasn’t immune to the poison. That should tell you she’s done for.”

  “I saw her hurt, not killed.” Tyr marched toward the door of the tomb. “She might have survived.” He drove his shoulder against the stone portal, forcing it outward. He pushed his way from the barrow and out onto the summit. The subsidence caused by the collapsed tomb had changed the ground considerably, altering it from a level plateau to a rolling, uneven crest. Several of the barrows had been broken in the turmoil, their roofs caved in or their sides caved out. It took Tyr a moment to orient himself. He listened for the giant’s cries, but the only sound was the wind rippling across the plains.

  “She’s done for,” Lorelei said as she scrambled after Tyr. “She has to be.” Bjorn emerged from the tomb after her,
his new axe resting across his shoulders.

  “I’ll believe that only when I see it,” Tyr said. He strode past what remained of the first barrow and approached the side of the hill. He moved as close as he dared to the edge. Below him he could see the earth and rock that had been knocked loose by the giant. Any idea Sindr might be buried under there was banished when he saw a line of smoldering footprints leading away.

  “So she did survive,” Bjorn grumbled when he joined Tyr. “Figures that Surtur’s daughter would be hard to stop.”

  Lorelei shook her head in disbelief. “There was enough poison in that horn to kill twenty frost giants,” she claimed.

  “Our problem is, she isn’t a frost giant,” Bjorn reminded the sorceress. He waved his hand at the trail of prints. “Doesn’t look like her tracks go very far.”

  Tyr frowned at the optimism in his friend’s tone. “That’s because she changed her shape again. She won’t make it easy to follow her now.” He locked eyes with Lorelei. “For better or worse, she knows we can hurt her.”

  “So what will Sindr do? Hide?” Bjorn patted his axe. “It would take some doing, but I’m sure I can pick up her trail again. Wherever she tries to hide, we’ll find her.”

  “We can’t risk it,” Tyr said. “If we don’t catch up to her, if she gives us the slip, then she might get past us.”

  Lorelei ran her fingers through her singed hair. “She’s been hurt. That means she’ll either try to find someplace to recover or she’ll try to rush ahead and accomplish the task Surtur has set her.” She pulled a strand of burnt hair from her scalp and scowled at it before letting the wind pluck it from her hand. “From all I’ve seen, Sindr won’t step aside if she thinks she has any chance at all of completing her mission.”

  Tyr considered the violent reaction he’d provoked from Sindr and what had caused it. “She wants to impress Surtur.” He gave Lorelei a knowing look. “We each of us have felt that drive to prove ourselves a credit to our families, to show those with whom we share our blood that we are their equals. To show our parents the measure of our worth.” He was silent for a moment, reflecting on his own desperation to earn Odin’s esteem. “That same passion dominates Sindr. The quicker she opens the Rainbow Bridge to him, the more she’ll impress him.”