The Sword of Surtur Page 8

  The haze of heat billowing up from the roiling lava was intense. Bjorn recoiled from the searing aura and had to nerve himself before climbing out onto the bridge. He tamped his foot against the stone to test its stability, pleased to find the slab remained firm. It was clear it would take much more than their weight to dislodge it.

  “I’ll cross first,” Bjorn told them. He slung his bow over his shoulder and set off. Tyr watched him intently while also trying to keep his eyes on the other side of the stream. When the huntsman was halfway across, he noted a strange undulation in the lava. Tyr focused upon the disturbance, but it wasn’t repeated. A moment later Bjorn was hailing them from the other side. “It’s safe.”

  Some indefinable sense of unease made Tyr less certain of that than his friend. “Keep your bow ready,” he told him. “We’re going to cross together.”

  “I can manage for myself,” Lorelei started to object as Tyr led her over the span.

  “This is a bad place to linger,” Tyr said. “If anyone… anything… were intending an ambush, here is where it would offer the best advantage to them. The sooner we put some distance between the bridge and us, the better it will suit me.” His eyes kept drifting back to the stream that flowed beneath the span. Once again, he saw a weird undulation. This time it didn’t fade away, but instead seemed to multiply. Four different spots below them were writhing, shifting with motion that went against the stream.

  “Move! Now!” Tyr shouted to Lorelei, certain that danger would soon be upon them. His fear was almost instantly borne out. Up from the fiery flow an enormous tendril erupted. It shook in the shimmering air, lava dripping from it in blazing blobs that sizzled upon the bridge. The thing was a gigantic tentacle twenty feet long, crimson speckled with yellow, the great suckers along its underside lined with jagged black hooks that might have been carved from obsidian. Soon after the first tentacle emerged, two others surfaced and writhed in the air.

  “Lava kraken!” Lorelei shuddered, paralyzed with dread. On the shore, Bjorn was gripped by the same debilitating terror. Tyr could feel a numbing fear trying to overwhelm his own mind. He knew it was more than just his emotions, but some horrible emanation from the beast itself. Stubbornly he shook the influence off. Removing his hand from Lorelei’s arm, he snatched Tyrsfang from its sheath.

  The sword flashed not a moment too soon. The kraken’s tentacles were already reaching out for its paralyzed victims. Tyr swatted aside the coil reaching for him with his shield, hearing the metal sizzle as the lava-coated tendril struck against it. Then his blade was chopping down into the tentacle snaking toward Lorelei. The gleaming edge raked across it, his Aesir strength powering it through the massive trunk. The grasping tentacle was cleaved in twain, its severed end slamming down on the bridge and squirming in mindless confusion.

  Tyr’s attack broke whatever terrifying influence the kraken exuded. Lorelei rallied at once and reached into her satchel. “The ice of Niffleheim!” she shouted.

  “It has me!” Bjorn cried out from the shore. Without someone to guard him while he was paralyzed, the wolfhunter had been caught by one of the tentacles. Only the heat-resistant mail he wore kept him from cooking in the beast’s grip. The wolfskin, unprotected by the armor, smoked in the kraken’s clutch.

  “Get to the shore!” Tyr shoved Lorelei forward. More tentacles were emerging from the stream now and if she remained on the bridge, she’d be easy prey to them before she could work her spell. Nor could he remain to guard her if he were to have any chance at saving Bjorn.

  Satisfied that Lorelei was on her way to the shore, Tyr made a standing leap for the tendril that held his friend. The tentacle was already dragging him back to the molten stream. Bjorn tried to reach his axe, but his arms were pinned by the constricting bands of flesh wrapped around him.

  “You’ll not have him!” Tyr cried as he hurtled down. Tyrsfang ripped into the crimson flesh, slashing through it and sending its severed bulk crashing to the shore. He had a glimpse of Bjorn freeing himself from the dying mass as its strength fled from it. No more than that brief look, however, for almost the moment his own feet touched the shore he was seized, caught in the crushing grip of still another tendril.

  The armor he’d taken from Lorelei’s castle resisted the constrictions of the kraken, but Tyr was powerless to keep from being lifted off the ground by the beast. His sword was pinned against his side; the best he could manage with it was a slow sawing motion that bit through the monster’s pulpy flesh far too slowly. The heat around him was of such fury he knew he would succumb quickly if he couldn’t extricate himself.

  Even that fate looked doubtful. The molten stream was churning again. Now there were a dozen tentacles breaking the surface and, close beside the bridge, the gargantuan bulk of the lava kraken’s body. Tyr could see its saucer-shaped eyes studying him with hungry intensity. The air sacs to either side of its body expanded and popped in a weird parody of a roar. The sharp beak, much like the hooks on its suckers, seemed shaped from obsidian rather than bone. It gaped ever wider, eager for the Aesir morsel that had inflicted harm upon its limbs.

  The tentacle gripping Tyr started down towards that greedy maw, but before it could reach its objective, a blast of glacial cold engulfed him. He could see the coil tighten, though his armor kept him from feeling its pressure. The crimson flesh became dull and ridged, the lava dripping from it hardened into a black crust. The rest of the kraken was even more afflicted, quick-frozen by the arcane surge. The surface of the stream was turned into a rock-like scum. The bridge itself creaked and groaned as it shifted between the heat of the lava and the chill of Lorelei’s spell.

  The freezing surge chilled Tyr to the core of his being. Most Asgardians would have been turned to ice by the shard’s magic, but the mighty legacy of an Odinson was within his veins. As Thor had endured the frigid exhalations of Ymir, so Tyr was likewise able to defy the power of Niffleheim. While the kraken froze, its captive remained active. He worked his sword viciously against the tentacle that held him. The freezing blast had made it brittle, and he was able to manage much better than he had before. Still, it seemed much too slow. Held in the kraken’s grip, he could feel the strength that still pulsed through the beast. He looked across to the shore. Bjorn had his axe out and was testing the solidity of the frozen stream. It seemed he intended to come across and help him.

  “Hurry!” Tyr called to the wolfhunter. “It isn’t dead.”

  His shout to Bjorn appeared to rattle him. He glanced up at Tyr, then at the frozen lava. A moment before, Bjorn had been ready to risk crossing the doubtful surface, now he appeared timid. Or was it something more than that?

  “Help Tyr!” Lorelei shouted. At her cry, Tyr saw a look of bitter resentment flash across his friend’s face. He drew his foot back from the stream. Then an expression of disgust came upon him and he started running toward the tentacle holding Tyr.

  A pulse of animation rippled through the frozen limb. Tyr was nearly halfway through the brittle flesh, but he knew now that he’d never cut completely through. There wasn’t any more time. “Get back!” he bellowed to Bjorn. “It’s too late!”

  The frosty sheen that had encased the kraken steamed away as the monster broke Lorelei’s spell. The creature’s eyes glared hatefully at her and its entire being shifted in color, darkening to a sooty hue veined with bands of angry orange. The beast propelled itself forward, crumbling the rocky shell that covered the stream and exposing the molten flow beneath.

  “You don’t learn, do you?” Lorelei taunted the kraken, raising the Niffleheim ice and repeating the magical gestures with her hands.

  She’d made a mistake, however, for the kraken had indeed learned. As she unleashed another freezing blast upon the creature, its body jetted a cloud of smoke and embers into the air around it. Tyr coughed as the blistering fume billowed over him, his body scalded as the burning smog engulfed him. What he suffered was provoked by
the least degree of the kraken’s expulsion, for the coil that held him was raised above that searing cloud.

  From his vantage, Tyr could see what followed. Lorelei was shocked by the lava kraken’s resistance. She tried to compensate by loosing another blast from the glacial shard, but before she could, one of the monster’s tentacles whipped out from the smoke. It struck her and tried to latch on, but the scaly armor she wore refused the hooks any kind of grip. As the coil sought to lift her into the air, she slipped from its grasp and fell to the ground. When she landed, the impact jarred the chunk of ice from her hand. Panic gripped her as it went rolling away towards the lava stream. Before she could reach it, the precious ice fell into the molten channel, taking with it its invaluable magic!

  Bjorn rushed to Lorelei’s aid, hacking away at the tentacle as it tried to grab her again. More tendrils were groping towards them now, slithering from the smoke like a nest of vipers. Tyr could see that they would swiftly be surrounded and overwhelmed.

  Straining himself to the utmost, Tyr pushed against the tentacle gripping him. The halfsevered flesh was unequal to the god’s strength and ripped apart. Tyr was ready for the sudden jolt as he freed himself, stabbing his sword down into the stump and holding fast so that he wouldn’t be pitched into the stream below. Bracing his legs against the writhing tendril, he steeled himself for another mighty leap across the chaotic battlefield. He saw an opportunity, though it would expose him to tremendous risk.

  Using the kraken’s truncated limb as a fulcrum, Tyr sprang back to the stone bridge. Unlike the monster, the span remained brittle from Lorelei’s spell, and a frightening groan shuddered through it when Tyr landed upon it. A grim smile filled his face. It was precisely this hazard that his ploy depended upon.

  “Ho, slinking monster! Have you lost your appetite for me?” Tyr taunted the kraken. It cared nothing for his words, but when he hurled a chunk of stone he had cut from the bridge into one of its eyes, he had its total attention. Popping its air sacs in rapid, angry spurts, the beast undulated through the molten stream toward him. Tentacles whipped and slashed at him, but he fended them off with his shield and Tyrsfang.

  “A little closer, beast,” Tyr muttered as the kraken surged nearer. He ducked another cascade of grasping tentacles and brought Tyrsfang slashing down upon the bridge.

  Without the strain placed upon it by Lorelei’s spell and the kraken’s fiery exhalations, Tyr might not have been able to break the massive slab as he did. In its present condition, however, it splintered under his blade. He jumped for the shore as the bridge collapsed beneath him. The monster, its snapping beak poised just beneath the span, wasn’t so agile. The severed halves of the immense stone came crashing down into it, slamming into its savage bulk. The central mass of its body was driven back under the molten stream. The tentacles continued to flash and writhe in the air for a time, then they too sank into the flowing lava.

  Tyr rose from the ground and watched as the monster disappeared. Lorelei and Bjorn rushed over to him.

  “I lost the shard from Niffleheim!” Lorelei cried to him.

  “Its magic was powerful, but its loss can’t be helped,” Tyr said. “We’ll find a way to prevail without its enchantments.”

  “Your defeat of the kraken was spectacular!” Bjorn congratulated him. Tyr gave him a dark look.

  “You hesitated to help me when I was in the kraken’s grip,” Tyr told the huntsman. “I would know why.”

  “Is this necessary?” Lorelei interjected, but Tyr waved aside her objections. He wanted to hear an answer from Bjorn.

  “I was afraid the surface wouldn’t hold me,” Bjorn said after some hesitance.

  Tyr shook his head. “I’ve seen you dash across a frozen lake to save a drowning dog without breaking stride,” he reminded Bjorn. “Don’t tell me now that you’re a coward.”

  Bjorn bristled at the word, but he accepted it just the same. “We aren’t all gods. My courage isn’t without its limits.”

  The words still rang untrue to Tyr’s ears. Whatever had taken hold of Bjorn for that moment when their eyes met while Tyr was caught in the tentacle was something so dark that he preferred to claim cowardice than confess to it. Tyr glanced over at Lorelei. He knew what had stirred that resentment of him. What he didn’t know was how deep that jealousy ran, or whether it was wholly a creation of his friend’s heart or if it had been placed there by enchantment.

  “The hero is the one who strives beyond their limits,” Tyr said, his tone sympathetic. “I’ve seen you do heroic deeds before. I know you will do so again.”

  Strangely, Bjorn took more umbrage from his sympathy than his scorn. “I’ll scout the way ahead,” he said as he turned away and started walking across the crater-pocked ground.

  “I am sorry a rift has grown between you,” Lorelei told Tyr, placing her hand on his shoulder.

  “Are you?” Tyr asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, but started after his friend. Magic! If it weren’t for sorcery he’d be surer of how things were. Whether Lorelei was influencing Bjorn with her spells.

  And whether those same spells were slowly working on him, for Tyr was beginning to discover he was developing his own admiration for Lorelei.

  Eleven

  Tyr reasoned that several days had passed before they began to close with the mountains. Time in Muspelheim was a nebulous quality, for no sun rose to illuminate the sky. It was a world of perpetual night lit by the fury of volcanoes and the plumes of flame that flickered up from the earth. The only way to judge how long they’d been traveling was the fatigue that set into their bodies. Even for Tyr, there came a limit to his stamina, though he could push himself far in excess of even many Aesir and Vanir.

  Necessity demanded they rest at intervals. Whenever Bjorn found a likely spot that appeared defensible, Tyr would call a halt. Such places were too infrequent not to take advantage of when they appeared. Here they could keep watch for the creatures that roamed Muspelheim. Twice they’d met horrible monstrosities somewhere between a giant crab and a spider that sprang at them from concealed burrows. They’d battled a pack of furless red wolves, huge brutes with fire burning in their mouths. Many times since, they’d heard the seething howls of more packs off in the distance. Then there was the vast crawling thing that looked to Tyr as though a bog of pitch had lifted itself from its mire to seek out a new resting place. Fortunately, that amorphous horror took no interest in them and had simply kept shambling off into the distance.

  Their camps were “cold”, though that term was itself bitterly ironic. The oppressive heat made the very thought of lighting a fire hateful and the perpetual glow that reflected down off the smoke clouds gave them all the light they needed. Provisions from Lorelei’s castle were dispersed, but Tyr had to admonish his companions about drinking too freely of the water. Until they found some way to replenish their supply, they had to be cautious with what they had. Enough to maintain survival but not enough to quench thirst. Their food, at least, was a different matter. Bjorn had tried a steak cut from one of the wolves and while it had a burnt taste, he found it to be edible.

  “At last we near Surtur’s fortress.” Lorelei sighed with relief as the mountains loomed before them.

  “Aye, there is the fire giant’s home,” Tyr said. He pointed to a great volcano, its caldera aglow with the lava within, steam venting into the air. Around the lip of the cone, black walls and spires could be seen. “You can see his castle if you look a little down the mountain’s slope.”

  Bjorn whistled. “The stronghold must be enormous if we can see it this far away.”

  Tyr was silent, his face somber. Bjorn’s words worked both ways. “If we can see the castle, then those in its towers may see us. The closer we get, the more apt they are to spot us.” He looked aside at Lorelei. “You spoke of a magic veil that could hide us.”

  Lorelei nodded slowly. She reached into her satchel and drew out
a long bone flute. “The breath of the dragon Fafnir is trapped within here. When I blow into the flute, it will expel a cloud of smoke to hide us.”

  There was an anxiety in Lorelei’s voice that disturbed Tyr. “Is there some weakness in the spell that worries you?”

  Again Lorelei nodded. “The smoke will hide us, but I don’t know for how long. I don’t know if it will be enough to hide us until we reach the castle.” Her fingers tightened about the enchanted flute. “There is a way to strengthen it, but I fear it would be unpalatable to you. I can draw the essence of living things into it to heighten the magic.”

  She was right. The idea was unpleasant. Sorcery wasn’t viewed with suspicion by the Asgardians without good reason. There was always a price to be paid for magic. Sometimes the cost was minor, at other times it fell into abomination. Tyr wasn’t sure where Lorelei’s proposal fit into that scale. Only the prospect of saving his father prevented him from immediately rejecting the idea.

  “Don’t look at me.” Bjorn meant it for a joke, but the laugh that followed his words was strained. It pained Tyr that his friend would have any doubt that he’d consider the wolfhunter’s life as an option.

  “The essence needn’t come from a rational being,” Lorelei assured them. “Anything with a life force. Bird, beast, or reptile, as long as its heart stirs blood through its veins.” She tapped the flute against her palm. “Or whatever fiery ichor it is the denizens of Muspelheim possess.” She looked up into the smoky sky. “Even those should suffice.”

  Tyr followed her gaze. Until she’d pointed them out to him, he’d been unaware there were birds soaring in and out of the smoke. At least he thought they were birds. Without anything to gauge how high above them they were, he couldn’t judge their size, but it was still unsettling to know they’d been up there without his knowing.

  “I could entice one down here,” Lorelei offered. “In that school of magic, I surpass my sister. But I’ll need both of you to be ready to strike the creature when it dives.” She frowned and gave each of them a warning look. “My spell will fascinate only one of them, but I can’t say how many others might follow it of their own accord.”