Second Night (53 page)

A dark shape stood black against the bright snow in the open gateway. A dark shape balanced on four clawed feet that left no mark, its great head swaying from side to side, scenting mortal blood. Valkyrjan called once more. The hound grovelled on its belly before her. It threw back its head and howled. Howling, it turned and ran, leading the mares at a furious pace through the orchards. Above them, the bank of cloud opened and discharged its weighty burden, flinging down a blizzard of driving snow.

Rúna hurled herself at her door, screaming to be let free. Nanna kicked frantically. The heavy wooden partition between their boxes shuddered and cracked. The light went out. The yard fell silent. The hound leapt over the old iron gate and vanished into the forest. Splendid in her bright, ethereal brilliance, Valkyrjan lifted up and cleared the garden wall. Freyja followed after. The spear burst into flame.

CHAPTER 90

The hound took its own course into an alien world where all the familiar landmarks and tracks had vanished. Ghostly limbs and branches of trees reached down into the white mass of snow heaping up over the tangled undergrowth, barring the path to the mares. Caz held up the burning spear. Bolts of flame blazed a fiery trail before them. Sir Jonas drew his sword. Freyja did not falter. Caz glanced back over his shoulder to see her tracking Valkyrjan step for step.

Good girl! Brave girl! Stay with us!

Ultra-alert, he strained his senses, questing for any sign of the presence of the warriors, listening for the sounds of drums beating, horns blowing, the clash of spears on shields. Ahead of them, the hound kept up the relentless pace into a wider, clearer area where the ferocity of the snowstorm was momentarily hampered by the density of the branches overhead. Caz recognised the columns of the stately beech trees on either side of them as they ran.

Sir Jonas called out from behind. ‘Isn't this the Beech Walk?'

‘Yes! We haven't made the transition!'

‘We must prepare ourselves to meet them at Thunderslea!'

‘If we can get across the bridge!'

They chased after the indefatigable shape. Shadows stalked them, flying between the trees – shadows with great wings and bright eyes that gleamed in the light of the spear blasting a fresh passage through the snow. Others pressed in closer, snarling, thirsting to feed, as yet few in number and wary of the presence of the Galdramerr and the deadly fire of the spear.

They crossed the bridge over the first ditch into the labyrinth with the hounds closing in behind them. They had no choice but to follow the leader loping unhesitatingly through the twisting paths to the narrow gap in the hedge. The rest of the pack came leaping to attack the mares as they raced along the narrow track between the hedge and the edge of the second ditch. Sounds of a desperate struggle going on in the tunnel greeted them as they careered down the slope into the dell and turned to fight.

‘Stay close!' Caz shouted ‘Don't get separated!'

‘It is not my intention,' replied Sir Jonas grimly.

The mares stood back to back in front of the entrance to the tunnel. Stamping, kicking and lunging with teeth bared, they fought the hounds pouring down from every side upon them. The beasts shrank back from the spear and the fury of the Galdramerr, but for every one that Caz ran through, another slipped under his guard and attacked Sir Jonas and Freyja. The blue eye gleamed, moved with malevolent purpose for the fiends that would keep him from his destiny.

Freyja fought, heedless of the blood flowing down her shoulders and flanks, heedless of the sword flashing back and forth severing their enemies' heads and limbs. One great hound leapt up and sank its jaws into her neck. She reared, doing her best to shake it off while Sir Jonas hacked desperately at its cold eyes, until she stumbled and he feared they were lost.

At that very moment Alan broke out of the tunnel and felled the hound with a single blow. His sword was red to the hilt. The axe was dripping in his hand. He threw himself into the mêlée, opening up a great circle between the hounds and Freyja. They attacked with renewed determination, forcing him back towards the bank where the greatest of their number crouched unseen along the rocky over-hang, waiting to spring.

Howling, it leapt onto his shoulders and dragged him down, crushing his head between its iron jaws. Gasping, Alan wedged the fingers of one hand under his helmet strap, working to loosen it as he stabbed the sword into the weight on his back. The blade found its mark. The hound screamed, jerking backwards and falling with the helmet wedged in its mouth. Several more leapt upon the body, ripping at the broken entrails. Another threw itself at Alan as he staggered to his feet, ripping away his right ear before he swung the axe and hacked off the snarling head. Sir Jonas pushed Freyja forward to help him.

‘Hold your position!' yelled Caz, but it was already too late.

The main body of the pack had surged between them, forcing the old man and the mare into the tunnel.

Alan shook the blood out his eyes. ‘I'll get after them! Leave it to me!'

‘I'll be right behind you!' shouted Caz. ‘They mustn't get to the tree! Don't let them get to the tree!'

Sword in one hand, the axe in the other, Alan hacked into the hounds retreating towards the tunnel. The others scattered, falling to the spear. Only one made it through, scrambling over the bodies and barging its full weight into Alan's back. He staggered and fell, cracking his unprotected head on a rock and crumpling unconscious into the snow.

Caz saw him fall. He heard Sir Jonas shouting, but Valkyrjan did not go after them. She stood fast, long familiar with the approach of an old enemy whose fate she had foreseen and would not hinder. For once Caz bitterly regretted the lack of a bridle to help him as he begged her desperately to go on. ‘Please, Kyri! Freyja can't do this alone! We've got to help her! We've got to save her!'

The Galdramerr ignored him. She reared, calling her challenge, deep and menacing. The crystal light blazed around her. The spear glowed white hot in Caz's hand. Bryn stood at the top of the slope. She was still the elegant, powerful presence that he always remembered. He screamed out to her, ‘Help us, Bryn! They've taken Freyja! We've got to get to the tree before it's too late!'

She snorted, pawing the ground and tossing her head before she turned and galloped back along the track to disappear into the labyrinth. Valkyrjan raced after her. Confused and dismayed, Caz shouted, ‘No, Kyri, no! We must go back! We'll lose Freyja!' But he was powerless to stop her.

She bore him swiftly in pursuit of his beloved mare, too swift for him to get his bearings in the maze of pathways, while the other was abandoned to face the ordeal of World Tree alone. The great hedges loomed over them. He heard a distant horn-call and the baying of hounds, and he wept in frustration and despair for Freyja. ‘Don't do this, Kyri! Don't do this!'

Bryn was waiting for them at the end of a long, winding path that stopped hard up against the hedge. Unperturbed by the power and the authority of the Galdramerr, she answered the challenge… prancing… defiant. Valkyrjan raced straight for her. The mares collided. The jarring impact almost unseated Caz as they reared and locked together in ferocious combat. The spear blazed. Still Caz hesitated to use it.

The moment of indecision cost him dearly. What he had imagined was Bryn's head rose up and snaked around him, the long white neck coiling in a deathly grip around his waist and rib cage to crush the air out of his lungs. The head looked down at him. He recognised the eyes and the voice – the mocking, never to be forgotten voice of the torturer, who was well practised and confident in his art of delaying death without mercy until the final anguished breath. ‘We await you, Heartbiter.'

The apparition vanished. The spear flamed and guttered and went out. Caz felt it growing rapidly cold in his hand. The white light around them dimmed to a faint luminescence. Too late he understood.

‘Stinking Shape-Changer! Get back here and fight! Stinking, miserable coward!' he yelled into the silent and empty night. ‘Freyja! Freyja!'

He sent Kyri galloping madly back the way he thought they had come. Every path finished in a dead end. He pulled up distraught, beside himself with anger and fear for Freyja, unable to find the way out, unable to return to Thunderslea. ‘They've gone! Just like last time! They've taken Freyja and the old man and left us behind!'

Had they taken Alan too? ‘Hey, Al!' he shouted. ‘Al, can you hear me? Where are you?'

There was no reply. A long, almost straight path opened in front of them. He urged Kyri forward, at first heartened and then despairing once more when the path turned a corner and ended in front of a towering and seemingly impenetrable hedge. But Valkyrjan did not hold back. Before he could check her, she had pushed forward, forcing her way into the mass of densely packed branches and huge, spiny leaves. Barbed spikes beat at his helmet as he tried to protect his face. Giant thorns tore at his hands and ripped his cloak. Then he heard quite clearly the sound of water falling over rocks.

‘We're at the spring! We can get to the tree! This night's not over yet! Fight, Freyja, fight! Be strong! I'll be there for you!'

The dreadful burning at the side of his head brought Alan quickly back into consciousness. Someone had been calling his name. He sat up. His sword was bent and notched. He put a tentative hand to his ear. It was still in place and icy cold to the touch. He got to his feet and limped back to the entrance of the tunnel. The blizzard was ending as abruptly as it had begun. The trampled snow was covered with the unmistakeable staining of freshly spilled blood. He knew he must have killed at least a dozen of the hounds and maimed many more, but there were no bodies and no severed limbs to be found.

The silence was complete in the forest. He wondered if he was deaf, and then he heard a branch cracking and crashing down under the weight of the newly fallen snow. Frantically he searched around for the axe and found it almost buried under a heap of broken branches and shattered rock at the foot of the bank. He pulled it out and ran through the tunnel.

Thunderslea slept under a pristine white blanket, save for a single set of iron-shod hoof prints leading straight for the old tree. Alan leaned on the axe, looking up into the hazy, star-glimmered sky.

‘Good hunting, boy,' he whispered. ‘Would that I were with you.'

CHAPTER 91

Valkyrjan burst through the hedge into a wind-racked landscape of barren rock and stone under a clear, starlit sky. A vast, pyramid-shaped mountain lifted up its majestic bulk at the end of the deep valley before them. A stream bubbled in a series of pools and waterfalls alongside a raised causeway of gigantic stones stretching to the foot of a flight of steps carved up the sheer side of the mountain, where the tiny figure of a single horseman galloped his grey mare towards the white-clad heights.

The spear burst into flame. The horseman turned. He raised his hand and started back down the stairway. Running on a rush of wild exhilaration, Caz sent his Galdramerr racing along the causeway to meet him.

We've made the transition! We'll find you, Freyja! We're on our way!

A silvery fish was splashing upstream, leaping from pool to pool just ahead of them. It cleared the lip of rock at the head of a torrent of cascading water and sunk out of sight in a deep sink-hole as they drew level. Caz glimpsed glittering eyes in the dark water. He raised the flaming spear.

‘Come on, Shape-Changer!' he shouted. ‘Come out and fight, you miserable coward!'

A high-pitched whining vibrated his eardrums to bursting. He looked up and saw a huge insect, covered in spiky black hair, hovering on scaled wings over his head. Its long, scabbed proboscis whipped against his face, tearing open the skin on his left cheek. He held the spear high, spinning great arcs of flame while he stabbed with the seaxe at the evil creature. The whining intensified. The effect on his ears was agonising as the proboscis lashed at the broken flesh hanging on his cheek, tasting the fresh, bright blood.

The horseman had reached the bottom of the steps. He fired arrow after arrow in quick succession at the dancing insect, but none found their mark. Caz failed to hear the humming of the bow and the whistle of arrows clattering on stones, until one streaked past his face, missing the insect by the breadth of a single hair. For less than one crucial breath, he lowered the spear and the insect darted under his guard, driving its proboscis deep into the open wound. He felt the poison bubbling under his skin. His ears began to bleed, but the pain only served to spur him on to greater ferocity. Red mist floated before his eyes. The weapon in his hand glowed white-hot. The rune ignited and he threw the spear.

The speed of his reaction distracted the malevolent mind bent on his destruction. The insect drew up its dangling legs and darted sideways, but not fast enough. One wing dissolved with a great hissing and spattering and stink of burning tissue, before the weapon thudded into the stone in the middle of the causeway. The maddened creature tumbled out of the air and crashed into the stream. Icy waters dragged it to the lip of the falls and threw it down on the rocks below.

Caz grasped the flaming shaft and yanked the spear free of the cracked and blackened stone. The horseman pulled up in front of them. He bowed low to the Galdramerr and raised his spear in salute.

‘Heartbiter, the Son of Vídar sends his greeting!' he cried. ‘Your name is sung in the Hall.'

There was something sharply familiar about the voice. Caz recognised the man's lean face. ‘You were the Haggard Man at the Tree!'

The horseman bowed again. ‘That is a worthy title. It is my honour to be pledged to the great one that bears you, as I am honoured to name you brother. We are both Sons of Skuld.'

‘But I saw you sacrificed,' said Caz wonderingly. ‘I saw you and the mare die.'

‘You saw us chosen,' replied the Haggard Man proudly. ‘You saw us found worthy to hunt with those whom the Master leads over the great abyss against the day of our last riding, when we will answer his summoning to stand against the giants on the plain.' He gestured to Caz's bloodied and swollen cheek. ‘Have a care. You are already marked.'