Tormund watched her walk between the burial mounds with seemingly no care.
“Do you want me to hold your hand?” Haakon muttered.
“My good Christian mother warned me not to get involved with this madness when I was a boy. And I didn’t listen. I told her you would not lead me astray. I promised her I would die a good, natural death, surrounded by my grandchildren and languishing in my bed.”
“It’s all right,” Haakon said in a soothing voice. “We all have fears. I promise I won’t let a big, bad draugr eat you.”
Tormund shuddered. The thought of dying in battle wasn’t something that bothered him; but being eaten alive by something that had crawled out of the grave….
“I hate you. I just want you to know that,” he shot back, before he strode after Bryn. “Can you kill the draugar, Sirius? From a nice, safe distance?”
The Blackfrost could freeze the heart in a man’s—or dreki’s—chest with a single thought, and could rouse a storm to icy, chilling lethality.
“They’re undead,” the dreki replied tersely. “I can freeze them and slow them down, but I can’t explode their hearts with my magic. Or I can, but it won’t affect them. They’re not alive.”
Damn it. “A pity you can’t breathe fire like your cousin Rurik.”
Sirius bared his teeth. “True. All the better to roast you alive.”
“Is that why he’s king? I never did work out how you dreki proclaim such things.”
Sirius hissed under his breath. “Rurik is king because I do not want to sit on his throne.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Haakon grumbled, “Can’t the two of you be quiet for once? I feel like I’m dealing with children.”
“What is the plan? What are we facing here?” Tormund knew little about draugr, except for the fact they were undead, difficult to kill, and best avoided.
“We talk to the völva,” Bryn called over her shoulder. “Politely. We offer her coin for information. We leave. Preferably with our heads.”
“I like this plan. But what happens if the völva takes exception with our visit?” To his right, one of the burial mounds loomed. A shiver passed through him as he stepped within its shadow.
“We run,” Bryn replied. “Pass back through the rune stones and sprint toward the village. Regroup at the church. I don’t think they can cross consecrated ground.”
“Also acceptable,” he said.
Every step felt like he crossed the threshold to Helheim. The temperature plunged, and he walked directly into a wet, cool mist. The sound of their footsteps muffled until silence settled over them like a shroud. Even he didn’t feel like breaking it, and he was remarkably fond of the sound of his own voice in situations like these.
Soft whispers seemed to stir the mist.
“Look at the lights….”
“Over here…. There is gold and jewels….”
Tormund stared steadily ahead. “Don’t listen to the voices,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t listen, don’t listen, don’t listen.”
An eerie green light glowed to his right, like a firefly—except there was something about the way it drifted through the air that told him it wasn’t.
“Nearly there,” Bryn whispered, and even she was stepping carefully, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.
Out of the mists loomed a tall, hooded figure leaning on a staff. Tormund’s heart skipped a beat, and he choked down a curse as Bryn stopped.
“Good völva,” she called. “We come in peace.”
“You’re not welcome here,” the völva replied in a hollow, guttural voice that made Tormund wonder how long it had been since she crawled out of the grave herself.
Two hundred years old? He was betting that dark bargain she’d made had cost her more than the usual gifts to the gods.
“We come with gifts,” Sirius called, looking as though the entire situation raised his hackles. “We seek information.”
“As did the other.” This time, there was a hint of a smirk about the völva’s wrinkled chin.
“Marduk?” Sirius called.
Silence.
“He is the one we are seeking,” Sirius added. “If you tell us where he went and what he wanted, then we shall leave, and in so doing, leave our gift behind.”
The völva leaned closer. “What makes you think he’s not dead? My draugar are hungry, after all. It takes a lot to fill their bellies.”
Little green marsh lights glowed in the dark. Tormund’s nostrils flared and his hand came slowly to rest upon the hilt of his axe. They’re awake, he wanted to mutter, but didn’t dare.
“He is not dead.” Sirius gave an arrogant shrug. “The four winds would have carried the tale all over the world. Nor is he the kind who would fall to a mere draugr. He is a dreki prince with the gift of fire in his veins.”
Tormund exchanged a glance with Haakon.
I thought we were trying to placate the völva? Not antagonize her.
Haakon winced.
“Dreki.” The völva spat on the ground. “Dreki think they are invulnerable, but there are means to destroy them.”
“Peace, my friend,” Tormund called, gesturing with his hands. “My cousin and I are dragon-hunters, and well know the arrogance of dreki.” He ignored Sirius’s sharp glare as he held up the purse they’d agreed to offer. “If we didn’t need this overgrown bat, we’d have left him in Iceland. But my cousin’s wife is desperate for the safe return of her beloved brother. You would be doing us an immense favor if you would tell us where Marduk was going and what he wished of you. And we have two hundred kroner for the information.”
That caught her attention.
The völva flipped her hood back, revealing white, filmy eyes. She’d painted a black line across her brows, and the ink dripped into runnels in her aged skin. It also welled between her teeth, as if she’d bitten into the source of the ink.
“Ask three questions, dragon hunter, and I will answer them,” she spat. “But mind your words, for I am no mere mortal to be trifled with.”
“What did Marduk want of you?” Tormund asked.
“He came searching for the source of the song only he can hear.”
“The song only he can hear?” Bryn muttered.
“And what did you answer?” Tormund continued.
“I gave him a gift: a dwarven listening horn which can hear the music between the notes of the world. With it, he could track the source of this music.”
“Sirius seems to think he went east when he left, which means he was tracking this song, but do you know his precise destination?”
The völva knelt and rested a palm flat on the ground. Closing her eyes, she cocked her head and listened.
A pebble skittered across the ground. Tormund’s nostrils flared.
“Ragnarök’s breath,” Bryn said, her hand falling to her sword hilt. “What is she doing?”
“Communing with the dead, I think.” He’d have never said those words six months ago. Sometimes he wished he’d left Haakon on Iceland’s bleak shores and sailed home to visit his aunt and cousins, where he could safely say he’d never met a dreki—or gotten involved in their mess.