RuneWarriors (20 page)

D
ane and Astrid, fighting shoulder to shoulder with Blek, Orm, and Drott, found resistance as they hacked their way toward the winding staircase that led to the southern rampart wall. Thidrek's guardsmen fought hard and well. But Astrid's axes and Dane's slashing sword overpowered the first line of defense, and soon Dane and company were moving up the stairs.

Halfway up, however, they encountered more of the enemy and had to fall back. Splitting apart a tabletop and fashioning shields from the broken slabs of cedarwood and bits of rope, they mounted another attack, slowly advancing higher and higher up the stairs. After some hard fighting they finally reached the upper ramparts and could look down into the open air of the compound.

Crouched behind the stone wall, Dane could see, all the way across the courtyard, more of Thidrek's men and the
Hammer atop the north rampart, its power jolts sparking. But where was Thidrek? And what had become of Jarl, Fulnir, and the Vicious Brothers? He worried an ill fate had befallen them. He was about to call a command to his crew to retreat down the stairs and make their way to the north wall—sensing he'd find Thidrek there, near his precious Hammer—but then he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him. More guardsmen appeared. Then faces appeared in the windows of the castle tower, two stories above them, and bowmen began firing arrows down upon them.

Taking cover behind the low wall, they were trapped there, pinned down by arrows raining from above and the guardsmen on the stairs. For now, they could neither advance nor retreat. Though in desperate straits, Dane was comforted to see that all those with him—Astrid, Blek, Drott, Orm, and Lut—were, as yet, safe and unharmed. Thoughts of Jarl and the others flashed through his mind, and he hoped for their sakes that his friends were fighting well that day.

 

Meanwhile, beneath the tapestries in the great north hall, Jarl fought like a demon, taking on two, even three men at a time. With Fulnir's help, and the aid of Vik and Rik, Jarl broke through Thidrek's first-floor defenses and ran up the stairs to where the Hammer's launch catapult was stationed. He had a hunch Thidrek would hasten to the source of his power, and he was right. Rounding the
top of the stairway, he spied Thidrek out on the ramparts, gesticulating and shouting to his men, who were straining to prepare the Hammer for launch.

The Hammer itself was majestic, and the sight of it momentarily held Jarl rapt, its radiating glow a wonder to see. To be so near to something the gods had touched, something of such awesome, otherworldly power, was nearly overwhelming. Mesmerized, Jarl was unable to take his eyes away from it. But then he heard a scream, and behind him on the steps he saw Rik fall, the sight of this sending him into a fury. With a bloodcurdling war cry, Jarl ran out onto the ramparts, heading straight for Thidrek.

No one fought with more ferocity than Jarl the Fair that fateful day. Stories of his singlehanded attack on Thidrek and the five guardsmen who rushed to protect their lord and master became legend in the years to follow. Little children were to hear endless stories of the courage Jarl showed in fighting off five heavily armed men. How with his Demon Claw dagger in one hand and a newfound broadsword in the other, using all his considerable strength and agility, one by one he ended each man's life. And then turned at last on Thidrek.

And Jarl, they say, would have easily taken Thidrek apart had Thidrek not had the one thing Jarl could not defeat: the Shield of Odin. For as Jarl made his final attack on Thidrek, Thidrek brought forth the Shield, and as the stories go, no matter where Jarl's sword struck, the Shield, by some unseen force, was there to shield its owner. And
soon, fatigued by the fearsome battle, gasping for breath, Jarl fell to the stone floor, where Thidrek easily kicked away his weapons, spiked him in the face with a boot, then knocked the poor boy over the battlements.

Thidrek watched Jarl's body plummet from the high battlements and splash into the murky waters of the moat. He then ordered Redhelmet and Blackhelmet to fish out the body and cut off its head so that it could be stuck on a pike and placed atop the castle wall, the displaying of his enemies' decapitated heads being one of Thidrek's most favored pastimes.

 

Dane heard Jarl's war cry, and spurred by the sight of his friend fighting alone, leaped into action. Braving the barrage of arrow fire, Dane vaulted the ramparts, and spying a cabbage cart in the courtyard directly below, he gave an angry cry as he jumped, landing safe amid the green heads of cabbages. He grabbed a bow and a quiver of arrows off a dead guardsman, calmly took aim, and knocked out the two enemy bowmen in the tower. Then he threw a rope up and over the south rampart wall, helping Astrid, Orm, Blek, Lut, and Drott to rappel down into the courtyard to safety.

Slowed by an onslaught of more arrows, they took cover behind the cabbage cart. Trapped, with nowhere to go and no way to help, all Dane and the others could do was watch in agony as Jarl tried in vain to defeat Thidrek. They bore witness to Jarl's final moments of heroism. And when the
awful end finally came, and his body went toppling over the battlements, disappearing from view, Dane felt a sudden pain in his chest, as if an enemy arrow had just pierced his heart.

Moments later, Dane was shaken to his senses as Orm pulled him up onto the cabbage cart. His head clearing, Dane saw that Drott had secured a team of horses to the cart and that Astrid and the others were already aboard.

“Ho!” Drott bellowed to the horses. He snapped the reins and the cart took off, clattering across the courtyard. Still dangerously outnumbered, with arrow fire raining down upon them, they raced past rubble and throngs of villagers streaming out the castle gates. Two Berserkers ran up raising broadswords, but Astrid flung her last axe to finish one off and Dane speared the other. Orm hurled a barrage of cabbages, knocking several more in the head, and soon they were through the castle gate and on their way to freedom.

O
nce past the rabble streaming from the castle, they sped up. Drott drove the horses hard down the rutted dirt road, winding round the base of the mountain toward their village, where Dane's people were in hiding.

Dane's mother and the other families were in mortal danger and had to be warned. For now, like a nest of vipers disturbed, Thidrek's death squads would be sent in all directions, wreaking vengeance on those villages that had shown the poorest attendance at the day's festivities. And since Dane and his folk had caused the uprising and escaped, it would no doubt be Dane's village that would first feel the brunt of Thidrek's wrath.

No one in the cabbage cart spoke, still grieving over Jarl's demise.

Dane, lost in worry, felt Astrid take his hand. Their eyes met.

“It's not over, is it?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

Dane shook his head no but mustered a brave smile. He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. The soft wisps of her hair brushed his lips, giving him momentary comfort.

“Will he send men?” she asked.

Dane grimly nodded, throwing a look back at the castle, fearing Thidrek would send more than just men.

 

Back on the battlements, Thidrek was in an exhilarated rage. He'd just killed Jarl, the kid with the great hair, and watched his limp body fall into the waters of the moat. Oh, the joy of killing! With the Shield he'd felt invincible! But the girl? Where had she gone? How could she have slipped from his grasp? She was the prize he yearned to possess!

He scanned the horizon, desperately scouring the countryside for a glimpse. And there, on the road northward, he spied Dane and Astrid escaping in a wagon with the other renegades.

“There she is, Grelf!” he cried. “With the defiant one and his friends, in the cabbage cart!” Thidrek's eyes were ablaze with vengeance as Grelf came rushing up, anxious to report.

“Sire, I'm afraid the people are rioting,” said Grelf, breathless. “We've lost three quarters of our men, the Berserkers have deserted us, and our manpower is running
dangerously low. And the shopkeepers—well, the sell-through on the merchandise wasn't great and they all want their money back. I say we cut our losses and retreat, sir, before they overrun us and we wind up in the dungeon ourselves!”

“Retreat?
Retreat?
” Thidrek's eyes burned in their sockets, his cheeks aflame with fury. He took Grelf by the throat, choking him. “I am Thidrek the
Terrifying
! I don't retreat, I
attack
!” Thidrek then shoved Grelf aside and turned to Redhelmet and Blackhelmet, who'd just appeared on the battlement.

“Proceed with countdown. We launch in thirty seconds!”

“But sire—” said Grelf, as the awful truth sank in. “The Hammer! You're not actually thinking of
using
it, sir! It's strictly a deterrent!”

“Yes! I'm using it to
deter
those bloody bastards from escaping! And that girl—no one runs out on me, understand? My kingdom could
use
a little fireworks!” Thidrek's eyes then went to the Hammer. “And so could I!” Mesmerized by its magical halo of light, drawn to its supernatural power, he moved, unafraid, directly into its shower of sparks, bathing in the glowing energy field, as if wishing to become one with the Hammer itself. He reached out to touch the Hammer, and his body arched backward and shook, as if seized and shaken by the gods themselves, sparks dancing across his body. Grelf heard a mad cackle issue forth from his master's lips and then watched as Thidrek stumbled, released from the
Hammer's otherworldly grip.

And when Thidrek turned again to face them, Grelf and his men recoiled in shock. Thidrek's face was now the mask of a fiend, a man possessed. As if all the perverse and deviant desires inside him, all his hatred, all his destructive impulses, had been made manifest at last and could be seen upon his face, his true nature revealed. His eyes burned madly as he continued the countdown, intoxicated by the power he soon would unleash.

“Fifteen!…Fourteen!…Thirteen!…” he shrieked, eyeing his target, doing last-second calculations as to distance and trajectory, and shouting instructions to his guardsmen as they moved the catapult into position.

Grelf stood back in horror, now realizing where Thidrek was aiming the weapon and what he intended to do. The wagon was speeding down a road that led to a small valley of tiny villages scattered along the base of the snow-covered mountain. If the Hammer were to hit high on the mountaintop, near the outcropping of granite peaks, the resulting avalanche, comprised of both glacier ice and huge boulders, might be of such monumental proportions as to—well, it could be catastrophic. Grelf gulped. The death toll would be…in the thousands. Mass destruction, indeed. Oh, my, he thought, am I to be a party to such wholesale devastation? “Five!…Four!…Three!…” But then he thought of the unique opportunity to be had in plummeting land values, which would allow certain savvy speculators, like himself, to snap up most of the valley at
bargain prices, thereby giving him the comfy retirement property he had for so long coveted.

So he just stood and watched as Thidrek screamed, “Two!…One!…Fire!” and Redhelmet threw the launch lever and the catapult sprang loose, unleashing the unknown upon the world….

The flight of Thor's Hammer was like nothing Grelf had ever seen. End over end it spun, soaring through the sky, arcing ever upward on its trajectory, spinning faster and faster, blue sparks radiating off it like miniature bolts of lightning. As it reached its apex, the Hammer itself began to glow redhot from within, as if some inner force at its core had been triggered. And then an even more amazing thing happened. From directly above it, bolts of lightning shot down from the clouds and zapped the Hammer, instantly turning it whitehot and sending out a silver-and-blue light show of sparks, connecting and commingling with more jagged bolts from above, as if the Hammer were getting recharged by the gods—its source of power.

And then far, far in the distance, at the very peak of the mountain where snow met rock, the Hammer struck, exploding, sending an apocalyptic cloud of fiery smoke and debris into the sky. Even miles away, the concussive sound it made was thunderous. Grelf heard a yelp of pleasure from Thidrek. And then, getting a sick feeling in the pit of his belly, Grelf saw that his worst fear was coming true. The explosive power unleashed in the Hammer had been of such an earth-shattering magnitude, half the
mountainside had been blown away and was now slowly, inevitably rolling down, a gigantic wall of rock and ice that looked like it would not only swamp the wagon with Dane and Astrid, but easily engulf all the villages of the valley as well.

A
strid's hand found Dane's and held fast. The horses pulling the cabbage cart stopped and they, too, looked up to see what had caused the thunderous noise. Was it a volcanic eruption this far north?

“The Hammer…,” said Dane, realizing what had happened.

And then they saw what was coming. Though the avalanche was still high above them on the steeply sloping mountainside, Dane quickly calculated that there was nothing they could do. The avalanche was too high and too wide and coming too fast for them to get out of the way, even on horseback. He grabbed the reins of the horses and urged them on, faster and faster. But in his heart he knew he was finished.

Then the wagon wheel hit a rock and broke, and the cart
itself fell apart, and Astrid, Drott, Fulnir, Blek, and Dane went tumbling to the ground, as the horses ran on with the remains of the cart dragging behind them. Instinctively taking Astrid by the hand, Dane stood there and looked up, unable to take his eyes off the descending wall of ice and rock. The sound of it was now deafening.

No one spoke. With the certain knowledge that these were the last precious moments of his life, Dane turned for what he believed to be his final act: kissing the woman he loved. But he was surprised to see Astrid turn away and point up the slope. What now?

Then Dane saw it too. Something moving down the mountain. It wasn't the avalanche. It was Thrym the frost giant! Dane's heart lifted at the sight. Obviously, he'd gotten the message and traveled south along the snowcapped range of mountains that connected his Mount Neverest to their much smaller peak, traversing in mere hours what men would take days or even weeks to travel. And now, carrying what looked to be an armload of fir trees, Thrym was bounding down the mountainside, crossing far too low below the snowline for his own safety.

He stopped at a ridgeline at a dangerously low elevation, putting himself right in the path of the avalanche, above the spot where Dane and his friends stood. And then,
Plop! Plop! Plop!
The giant jammed the trees upright into the snow, one right next to the other, quickly forming a rather crude but serviceable wall, a barrier with which to brake the onrushing calamity.

Would it work? They held their breath.

The thundering mass of snow and rock hit the wall of trees with a deafening crash and, to Dane's utter amazement, it held. Dane, Astrid, and the others cheered as they saw the avalanche churn to a grinding halt, the rock and ice boulders piling up behind the tree wall.
Hurray!
Thrym's plan had worked! But no!

The huge avalanche piled up and up and
spilled over
the tree wall. And now, like water through a spout, a mass of countless ice boulders, many more than ten feet tall, came rolling and tumbling straight for Dane and his friends, and straight for the village behind them—Dane's village.

All at once Thrym bounded forth—
Boom! Boom! Boom
!—and in one heroic leap he flung himself in front of the advancing avalanche, using his own body as a shield to block its flow. And this
did
work, though sadly, all too well. Hitting his body, the avalanche lost its momentum, and the onrushing rubble of rock and snow came to a rumbling stop. The giant's entire body disappeared under a great mound of ice and trees and other fallen debris. The village was saved, but the giant had been buried alive. The last Dane had seen of Thrym, before he disappeared under the heap of ice and earthen rubble, had been the giant's left hand, balled into a fist, bashing in vain at a boulder that had fallen on top of him, and soon that boulder too had been covered, and Thrym was gone.

They waited, hoping for some sign of life or movement, but nothing stirred.

Finally, Thor's Hammer itself came tumbling end over end down the slope and landed with a thud on the pile of rubble. The long handle was dented in one or two places and the iron of the hammerhead scuffed a bit, but otherwise it was none the worse for wear, a few sparks still buzzing off it.

The whole of the sky now eerily darkened with storm clouds. Rain began to fall, a light pitter-patter at first, spattering Dane and Astrid and the others as they ran to the mound of rubble and began to dig furiously, trying to get to the frost giant in time. Dane did not know if the wet spots on Astrid's face were from the pelting rain or from the love she felt for the giant, and he did not ask.

For several minutes they worked side by side in silence, digging furiously, lifting off the chunks of glacier ice and granite rock, the rain sheeting down now as the sky opened up and shed its own tears for the fallen giant. Soon they found him, lying motionless beneath the rubble, his deep-freeze sheen beginning to melt in places from having come down too far into warmer climes.

Astrid touched his face, and a piece of his beard broke off in her hand. His features began to dissolve into watery slush. The pelting raindrops only worsened it, drenching them all and washing away the tears of those who were crying, which was pretty much everyone.

 

Thidrek sat atop his horse at the rise in the road, watching this pathetic display of sentiment.
Pig slop
, he thought.
Putting yourself out to save anyone but yourself? What a pointless waste of time and effort. This was weakness of the worst order. Feebleminded frailty. Something his father most certainly would have approved of—and at the thought of this, Thidrek spat in anger.

Thidrek dismounted. He stood in the rain, waiting for Dane and the others to finish, a bitterness rising in the back of his throat. The boy known as Dane was to die: that was all he knew. All he craved. Drawing his sword from his scarred leather scabbard, Thidrek strode down the muddy trail toward the shambles of huts they called a village. Amid the hard rain, all Thidrek felt was the cold hatred rising inside him and the anticipation of blood about to flow.

 

“You dare defy ME?”

Dane's whole body went rigid, the voice sending a jolt up his spine. He turned to face the one man he hated with all his heart, the man who had killed his father.

Prince Thidrek stood in the sheeting rain, holding the Shield of Odin in his left hand, a broadsword in his right. His usual smug smirk now gone, Thidrek's face, Dane saw, resembled a death's head, with a cruel grin and eyes incandescent with rage.

“Thidrek, you're not looking too well.”

“Well enough to kill you, boy,” Thidrek muttered, stepping toward him with purposeful strides. “It'll be an unspeakable pleasure to rid this earth of you once and for all.”

“Funny,” Dane said, “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

The fight then began, and a great one it was. A furious clatter of sword against shield, of steel against steel, of man against monster—at least that's how the storytellers were later to tell of it. An epic battle between right and wrong, between him who saw love as the source of human strength and him who saw it as the source of human weakness. Armed with only a broadsword, and a dented one at that, Dane delivered his own share of terrible blows. But the Shield of Odin that Thidrek had firmly in his grasp turned away each thrust, blocking every move Dane made, no matter how much strength or speed the young man could muster.

And as the fight grew fiercer, so did the storm, the sky turning so black with roiling thunderclouds, it blocked the sun. A great gale began to blow, taking the roofs off huts in the village, bending back trees, and blowing down fences. Soon the ground had grown so soupy with mud, the two men kept slipping and falling in it as they fought, so begrimed and bespattered with mud and slush, Dane's friends could barely tell them apart. Those watching from the village would later say that, in the end, all they could see were the silhouettes of two mud-darkened figures, one standing with a shield, the other on his knees, as they were illuminated in the flashes of lightning that came more and more frequently.

Scarlet slashes of blood ran from Dane's wounds as the
gleaming purple light of the Eye of Odin stared out at him, all-seeing, all-knowing. His clothes hung in tatters from his rain-slicked body, as with his last bit of strength Dane brought his broadsword crashing into the Shield, breaking the sword in two.

Thidrek gave a grunt of pleasure. Dane, now without any weapon or strength to continue, fell back and lay in the mud, his spirit broken. Looking up into the heavens above them, he could see that a cyclone-like funnel had descended from the lead-gray sky. He and Thidrek were standing in the very eye of the storm, the winds whipping round them with such force, they created a deafening roar.

Then Dane saw Astrid. She'd run out to him from the safety of one of the huts she'd been watching from. Another figure—Fulnir, it was—ran behind and grabbed her, trying to pull her back to safety, but she wouldn't budge. She stood there, fighting the winds, shouting something to Dane. But no words reached his ears, for he could hear nothing save the howling wind. Objects were being sucked up into the funnel now—leaves, twigs, chunks of ice. Then Dane saw what she was trying to do. She'd taken a knife from her boot and was reaching out with it, trying to give it to Dane. Once she saw that
he
saw it, she threw it; but the knife itself was so light, it was sucked straight upward into the tornado. And she was pulled back to the huts by Fulnir and out of harm's way.

Thidrek stepped toward Dane, raising his sword. The
closer he came, the closer came the Eye of Odin, its bejeweled centerpiece agleam, Dane's gaze fixing upon it; it seemed to be calling out to him. All the world dropped away then, and all he could hear was the shrill and wailing cry of the wind; all he could see was the glittering bits of starlight in the Eye. Then it seemed that his mind had entered the Eye itself, had
become
the Eye, in fact; for now, from a completely different vantage point, he could see himself lying there in the mud, the wind whipping his hair and his tattered tunic. And then even the wind seemed to fall away, and the only sound that came to him was the voice of his father intoning the words, “He who fights blindly will be defeated.”

In a flash of pure white light Dane saw what he must do.

He tore from his body his mud-spattered tunic and, in one swift movement, flung it deftly over the Shield, covering up the Eye. Now covered, it could no longer see! Thidrek tried to shake the Shield to remove the rain-soaked tunic. But it stuck there, as if glued, the mud adhering it to the Shield. In a flash Dane was up and fighting again, surprising Thidrek with his speed, and before Thidrek could react, Dane had kicked the Shield of Odin from Thidrek's grasp and grabbed it up in his own left hand.

Now the tables were turned. Thidrek slashed away with his sword, but wherever the sword went, Dane's unveiled Shield was instantly there, blocking the blow. And finally, when Thidrek raised his sword to strike, the very sword
itself was swept out of Thidrek's hand by the force of the cyclone and sucked up into the black hole above them.

Thidrek panicked, defenseless now, and looked around for something to use as a weapon. His eyes fell upon the Hammer. He ran to it. In a desperate frenzy, he climbed up on it and clung to it, pleading with the gods to please unleash its powers again to defeat his foe.

And then, as if in answer to Thidrek's plea, Thor's Hammer began to teeter upward, the handle end beginning to rise up into the sky. Seconds later, the force of the gale was so great that the entire Hammer, with Thidrek still astride it, lifted off the ground and was sucked up into the vortex, whipping in circles, tighter and tighter, and soon disappeared completely into the maelstrom as if gulped into the maw of a giant beast made of wind. And both Thidrek and the Hammer were gone….