Trapped (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Five) (29 page)

Oberon growled at his words.

Stop that this instant!

“Please,” I said to him. “Say on.”

Perhaps if we had warning, horns sounded with alarm, we could have mustered a stronger defense, offered tapestries of wards and fire-tested stone. As it was, our defense faltered, heat-ravaged, and our stone doors melted, slagged to ruin by the sulfur breath of volcanoes, Loki’s fury unchained. Nidavellir opened to him, he gave vent to his spleen, gall and bitterness churning in his eyes, madness made plain, spewing the venom he had choked down for so long in his bondage, deep in the darkness of that sepulchral cave. Our guards he set aflame and then bellowed above their screaming, demanding that we produce the wretched construct, dwarf-crafted, known as Eldhár. He paused for our answer, and we bore him honest tidings that nothing did we know of such a construct, but this he refused to believe, heart hardened against the truth, he who trades in lies like the winds trade in rumors of storms. Awash in fire, orange and yellow, he shot
through tunnels and the noble caverns of Nidavellir, ancient dwarf-home, solid sanctuary until that day. Deeper and deeper he delved, past our cities and into rough-hewn mines, and even past these until he burned the raw, untouched rock, the virgin flesh of the earth. We lost him somewhere in the dark, his flames extinguished, his shrill demands for Eldhár fallen silent, grave-still, not even a whisper of misplaced anger in the abyss.

Then we wondered, and we sent out queries to Asgard, Vanaheim, and elsewhere: How had Loki won free? Was Ragnarok begun? Who was Eldhár? There are many dwarfs who hold that name, but none of the king’s smiths had crafted a construct of that calling.

We heard first from Odin Allfather, far-seeing, wise-ruling. He warned us to beware of Hel, cold and cunning, and to look for her spies in our realm; she must not learn that Loki was in Nidavellir. Straightaway we searched, seized, and questioned; her minions, death rattlers, stringy shadows of the eternal forlorn, we found in abundance, and held them captive. But our prudence came too late, availed us not!

Too open had we been about Loki’s arrival, too free with our questions and messages. Hel could not fail to hear that Loki Giantborn had come to Nidavellir, losing flame and voice and pain-racked visage in the black of some pit, far beyond where we feast and work and dwell.

To my shoulders fell the weight of the mountain, for such is the weight of my king’s command. King Aurvang, son of Vestri, golden-maned, mighty-thewed, many-wived, bold in battle, spake unto the king’s smith, who in turn spake unto me, and my task was made plain: The Stonearms, the king’s own hammers, needed armor to withstand Loki, proof against fire, wards against his wrath.

I am a Runeskald, one of seven, seniormost and filled with lore, who emblazons armor with the truth of runes, elemental forms, matched to thought and deed and purpose; weapons too, carved with kennings both old and new that I sing betwixt my workshop walls, always imbuing steel and stone with the poetry of life, the songs of war.

It had never been done before, warding armor so well against fire that a dwarf could withstand the implacable malice of Loki Kinslayer, flame-haired cruelty, molten-tempered mischief. But I was not asked if it could be done; I was told to make it so.

I sang to the steel and struggled with the runes for a sevenday, yet could not find the form and song that would keep steel cool in fire. In perversity, desperation driven, I plied my craft on leather and surprisingly found a measure of success. Pursuing it further, doubly determined, I sang of skin-sealed moisture, sinews hardened with courage, tanned hide of taut resolve that deflects danger, and of surfaces chapped instead of burned. And the runes I crafted were oblong and rounded, heat-shedding shapes of domed protection, sigils of steadiness in the face of fury, waves of quenching water to drown licking fingers of fire.

Into the smithy’s flames I tossed two shields of leather, one of my skaldic craft and one bereft of my attention. The standard shield burned, while the skaldic shield only charred and blackened around the edges. Heart-swollen and pride-puffed, I applied my hard-won skills to a set of armor, and it was during this time that Hel’s army came to Nidavellir.

News of her father had reached her pestilent ears, cold with patient malice. Swiftly, she assembled legions of
draugar
to invade our mountain, defile our homes, stain the beauty of our axe-hewn halls. They came with weapons drawn, modern rifles like our smiths
now make, shooting into our tunnels but never spreading out, always marching deeper, past our treasures and warrens of riches. Many thousands were they, yet so were we and determined to stop them, for now we thought Ragnarok had begun.

The hammer horn sounded throughout Nidavellir, and the Stonearms assembled, and with them the Black Axes, the Shield Brothers, the Maidens of Wrath, and the Guardians of Lore. Miners and craftsmen, merchants and millers, all were called to martial arms, all of them answered, abandoning the day’s cares for the defense of the realm, save for myself and the Runeskalds by especial command of King Aurvang. “You must remain in your workshops, ever diligent,” he said, “and continue crafting the armor to slay the father of lies, whensoever we find him.”

And so battle was joined without my hammer, and the king’s skalds will never sing of my valor around the hearths of my people.

Here is what they sing instead:

Grim-visaged and stouthearted, dwarfs young and old, yet Shield Brothers all, marched to meet the shambling blue
draugar
of Hel, detested queen of frosted twilight. Her army, unbreathing, steeped in the attar of woe, unleashed a hail of bullets, stolen weapons from the mines of Midgard. Deafening thunder roared through Nidavellir that day, rattling teeth and rifle fire and ringing shields and battle cries. Forearmed, skaldic runes on shields and helmets, the front line advanced undaunted, metal pieces flying back at the foe, ragged soldiers who knew no honor in life. They, heedless of any harm below the neck, bore the ricochets in silence.

The Shield Brothers pressed forward, unwitting of their coming doom.

Cunning Hel, bride of ice and despair, gave commands in tombstone whispers to her soldiers, who raised their
weapons and fired at the ceiling above the Shield Brothers, bullets whipping off rocks, tearing through flesh from above, felling many who never struck a blow for their clans, never hewed a head from its shoulders.

The front line marched on, and behind them quickwitted Shield Brothers raised their skaldic wards, redirected ricochets, foiled the efforts of Hel. And finally, when the armies met, the
draugar
learned of the strength of dwarfs! Rotted skulls flew from rotted bodies as axes swept the air over shields, while others were trampled under the vanguard and hewn apart by subsequent ranks.

The
draugar
shrank back at first, their orderly advance exploded, but then they swelled as corpses will with blowflies and maggots, filled the tunnel with their unholy bodies, halted our advance and held their line, while their back ranks emptied magazines above the Shield Brothers’ heads, ceaseless ammunition thrown up to tear us down, and some found targets after two, three, or four ricochets.

Slowly, by attrition, the
draugar
took their toll, slaying noble dwarfs in heat and noise and close rock walls with cowardly attacks. The dead soldiers of Hel pushed back, advanced again despite the best efforts of the valiant Shield Brothers, courageous warriors to the last.

Bodies of their dwarven brethren, slick with blood, impeded both retreat and advance. The wounded, no matter how they cried for help, could not be tended in that close tunnel with so many enemies to fight; naught but enduring agony, desperate breaths, and despair was their lot, until their honorable deaths brought them peace and immortal glory.

Back, back, beneath the onslaught, the Shield Brothers gave ground, slowly yet inexorably, pushed by the juggernaut of Hel’s army. Yet every footstep was dearly won, for it took hours for the
draugar
to travel
the distance a dwarf may walk in five minutes, crawling over the massed dead.

And in that time, assembling in the Grand Cavern, a mighty force of Shield Brothers awaited, ready to protect the market and residences and streets there. Ricochets would not be so effective in the Grand Cavern, and the Shield Brothers had firearms of their own. So when the tunnel forces were pushed back to the cavern, they abruptly retreated on a signal from their general, fell behind the lines, and allowed the
draugar
to walk into an ambush.

Thousands of shambling soldiers were mown down by a fusillade from dwarf-made guns, and a furious cry of victory echoed in the cavern! Blue and twitching, heads shattered by bullets, the
draugar
fell in ranks, turned to foul dust, leaving their weapons behind.

Yet still they came, innumerable as ants or the swarms of summer bees, and after we had slain a thousand with unremitting fire, they paused, and we entertained hopes that our resolve had taught Hel to reconsider her rash invasion of Nidavellir. But then they flooded once again through the opening, yet with this cruel difference: They held the bulletproof skaldic shields of our fallen brothers in front of their heads, and thus we could not slay them, only poke holes in their rotted flesh, slow them for a time with a shattered thighbone, a pulverized ankle, nothing more. And then the chill craft of Hel manifested itself, and we shuddered in horror at her plan, for every piece of it represented the death of a Shield Brother in the tunnel: The
draugar
began to make a wall of shields, three high, linking them together and then creating another column, by which method they created a corridor that would allow them to maneuver in safety.

And it was, indeed, a corridor. Strangely, the
draugar
made no attempt to advance in the cavern, to advance on our treasures, to reach for our lives or destroy our homes.
Putting aside their modern weapons, the Shield Brothers charged with axes and hammers to break the wall, and the resultant clash of arms thundered in the great cavern, as
draugar
were beheaded and dwarfs were shot by the defiant minions of Hel. Reports came back that the
draugar
were advancing through and past the cavern as fast as they could move, their objective elsewhere, their purpose unclear.

And then in the court of King Aurvang a Svartálf bowed, ambassador of the dark elves, longtime resident of our realm, and announced he brought a message from Hel, she having no other way to speak to us in safety.

“Speak,” King Aurvang said, his fury palpable, “and then begone from my realm! We will have no traffic with Svartálfheim henceforth for this betryal!”

“My people should not be punished for bearing you a message,” the ambassador said, “especially since it may save the lives of many dwarfs. Will you hear me in patience, rashness reined, ire checked with prudence?”

Our king made no promises. “Speak your part, Svartálf,” he said.

The dark elf simpered and bowed again. “Hel wishes me to say she has no designs on your realm and wishes no more harm to the noble dwarfs of Nidavellir. She simply searches for her father, Loki, whom she has heard is currently visiting. Her army will not attack dwarfs except in self-defense or if their progress is impeded.”

“And when she finds her father, what then?” King Aurvang roared, wrath awakened, patience fled. “Will she reduce my tunnels to rubble, set my caverns aflame, slaughter my people?”

“Nay, noble king,” the Svartálf replied. “She will leave with him if she can, containing his madness so far as she is able. Her quarrel is with Asgard and Vanaheim, not the honorable people of Nidavellir.”

“Have you aught else to say?” the king asked.

“My message is complete, sire.”

“Then remove yourself from my presence and my realm! I never wish to see you more!”

When the Svartálf had gone, chastised yet unrepentant, the king sent for me. I rushed to answer his summons on bended knee.

“Runeskald Fjalar,” he said, “long have you labored for our greater good as a poet and enchanter of armor. Now I must ask of you a service befitting a hero. Retrieve the Deadman’s Shroud and wear it yourself. Follow Hel’s hordes and discover what they intend, then report back to me. Slay none except in the utmost extremity. You must live to return the shroud and speak of her plans.”

“It shall be done, sire,” I said, and wept as I bowed deeply to him. Never had I been asked for so weighty a service.

The Deadman’s Shroud was crafted centuries before my time by the greatest of all Runeskalds, Mjotvangir son of Rathsvith, nimble-fingered, honey-throated, unmatched scion of clever craft. The shroud may be worn only by Runeskalds, but, once worn, it convinces the dead that the wearer is also dead. There is no copy, for none have ever duplicated the skald of Mjotvangir; his runes exist for all to see, but the dread words he sang while crafting the shroud are forever lost.

Orders given, I was led to the king’s treasury and presented the Deadman’s Shroud, sacred relic of my forebear’s skill. I collected my skaldic shield, fire-tested, then was ushered to the front lines of the Shield Brothers, where battle still raged. Rather than try to break through the wall, where I would be exposed to gunfire, I was vaulted bodily over it on the premise that I would draw no fire once I landed, shroud-wrapped, disguised from dead eyes.