The Norns evidently had other plans. His foot caught an errant root, and Bard crashed face first into the ground. Bitter dirt filled his mouth and clouded his vision. He rolled onto his back, wiping at his eyes, just as the vurm slithered to loom over him, putrid slime raining down from its mouthful of sword-like fangs. Bard raised his ax, turning its edge toward the lindvurm. It would do nothing to kill the beast, of course, but he would hack and saw as the creature swallowed him down. Bard would not be devoured easily, nay.
His Thuringian friend, Devin of Nordhausen, clearly felt the same.
The warrior leapt from the trees and drove his sword into one of the lindvurm’s pale eyes. It sunk in to the hilt, and the creature shrieked and thrashed its head to be rid of the offending steel. Bard jumped to his feet as the vurm reared up, taking Devin with it as he clung to his blade.
“Let go!” Bard screamed.
Devin did just that, but the creature twisted aside. Before the warrior had fallen but a hand span, the lindvurm grabbed Devin’s torso in its maw. A symphony of snaps erupted all along his ribcage as the monster clamped down. He gave one last scream, and went silent, the two halves of his body dangling at unnatural angles on either side of the creature’s mouth.
Bile filled Bard’s throat at seeing his brother so defiled, yet there was nothing he could do to free him from the clutches of the beast. And though the decision would haunt him for however many moments remained to him upon Midgard, Bard spun and ran, leaving Devin’s corpse to the lindvurm.
He said an oath to the Allfather and to the Thunderer both, wishing his brother well on his way, yet despairing that Devin’s sacrifice was not enough to see Bard clear of the hellish abomination. The lindvurm screeched, and Bard heard it resume its chase, trees giving way to its insistence. The sound set a trail of Surt’s flames to Bard’s posterior, and he marshalled every last vestige within as he flew through the woods. Death came next for him, and there was naught else he could do. A warrior might make a final stand, but the crack of Devin’s bones echoed in Bard’s head, and the sharp salt of the sea was on the wind and gave him wings.
Then, the din of hundreds of voices and the familiar ringing of metal joined the vurm’s blaring. The trees parted before him and a yellow-white field hove into view. Greycloak’s and Bluetooth’s soldiers spanned the length of the winter-washed meadow, all locked in combat with Haakon’s forces, warriors and beasts alike.
Bard stopped at the forest’s edge and gawped not at the battle, despite a nidhogg atop a nearby man, screaming as it tore into his guts, but at the stupefying vision of greedy flames cavorting amidst their longships. The wrath of Surt himself leaped between the vessels on black pinions of distorted smoke. Bard roared in desperate fury. Their way home was well and truly gone, for Haakon had set his völur bitches’ magic loose upon the víkingr fleet, razing their ships in one fell blow, setting them to bright white flame like funeral pyres atop the water.
Bard’s heart thrummed a mournful dirge, but the beast at his back offered him no time to grieve. It burst from the trees with a savage howl, Devin’s steel still buried in its eye, the warrior’s blood still staining its maw. The ground shook beneath the lindvurm, and Bard nearly lost his footing, but terror lent him renewed strength. He realized he’d lost his ax in his flight from the beast, so he skirted a fighting throng of soldiers, took up a fallen sword, and jabbed it into an enemy who had spun on him but then paused upon taking note of the lindvurm bearing down on them. The warrior fell with a peculiar expression of awe and pain, and Bard bellowed and struck a leaping nidhogg, the bloody-hafted sword ripped from his grasp as it wedged in the writhing monster’s scales. Behind him, the lindvurm struck the ranks like an angry storm, men flung wildly about on the sharpened ends of teeth and claws.
Bard fought on, heading away from the vurm and into the hue of battle, seeking his doom while wielding steel against men rather than in the belly of that crazed, Hel-spawned abomination. His lungs billowed like forge bellows as he kicked an enemy warrior in the back and snatched his spear away. He turned and barreled toward the sea, toward where he saw the chanting völur raising their blue-painted arms to the sky, waving their knotted staves as they beckoned more storms of monsters and flame.
Every step rattled his jaw as he made his way toward that chanting circle. Behind him he heard the cries of his brethren as they fell, but he never once tarried, and just as he felt he could run no further, his feet struck the sandy beach, kicking up gold in their wake. He loosed his stolen spear with foul intent.
Focused as they were on their task, the ring of nine völur saw nothing until it was too late. The spear took the first in the chest. She grunted and fell back into her companions, pulling several down with her in a tangle of thrashing limbs. Bard crashed into another before they could gather their wits about them, fists flailing. Blue lips exploded with red as Bard waded into the group, but there were simply too many to keep track of.
Pain cut across his lower back, the smell of his own charred meat filling his nostrils a heartbeat later. He spun to see a lone völva holding her crooked staff in Bard’s direction. Wisps of fire sputtered at the tip. More flames crackled, and Bard was alight with witch fire. He screamed and beat at the flames but they would not be denied. Still more of the völur closed while he battled the conflagration he’d become.
Hooves thundered close by and amidst the whirling chaos Bard saw a half-dozen riders. He recognized Haakon leading them, and the Good King pointed at him with a bloodied sword. “Kill that man!” he ordered his warriors, and the others kicked heels to flanks, urging their mounts toward Bard, spears lowered.
Disarmed and aflame, Bard turned from the charging riders and Haakon’s blue-skinned she-demons, and ran for the sea as gouts of fire roared past. A moment later the frigid water caressed his ankles, and then his knees. Waves lapped at him, and he dove into their midst. Still the fires pecked at his flesh, steam hissing off his blackening skin, but Bard denied them their victim.
He stretched above the waves and drove into deeper water, swimming toward open sea until the flames sputtered and died. Not long after, his arms gave way and he was forced to embrace a remnant piece of wood. He gathered a few more as he drifted through a field of wreckage, desperate to collect enough to hold his weight afloat so he might rest his scorched and weary arms, but there was little of substance to cling to.
He was fast growing weary, hands benumbed in the cold swell. He cast a glance at the shore he’d left behind. He saw the lindvurm prowling the beach, its prodigious size diminished by distance, a frantic shadow cavorting about the field of its slaughter. And he saw the riders had returned to the slaughter as well, while the völur resumed their chanting, minus one of their nine. Bard wished his brothers glory in the next life; for certain, he would join them soon.
He watched as the island of Frei was swallowed by the darkness. Bard felt a pang of muted joy at having escaped despite every wave that carried him further from shore, and once the isle slipped from view, so did Bard slip into the ocean, the last of his strength sapped from his limbs.
Darkness encircled him. He took one last breath of glorious air before he plummeted toward the bottom of the sea.
Then came light.
He opened his mouth to greet the Valkyr, but choked and spit water from his lungs. Strong hands clutched him. Pain speared through his veins, and Bard cursed the god who would be so cruel as to not extinguish his agony before ferrying him to Valhöll.