A hiss wove its way through the roots, the sound tickling my ears like the tongue of a viper. “Traitorous girl,” it seemed to whisper. “I would taste your flesh.”
I looked at my brother. “Climb, Freya,” he whispered, heaving me up. “Climb!”
Terror gave me strength. Hooking the strap of my shield over my shoulder, I scrambled through the maze of roots, squeezing between gaps and shoving my way higher.
But I could hear something coming.
Something large.
Something that slithered through the dark.
Someone screamed, the sound cutting off with a tremendous crunch of teeth closing on bone. Then another scream cut off. Then another.
If I didn’t do something, all the warriors I’d saved from an inglorious afterlife would be lost to something worse, and I couldn’t fight what I couldn’t see.
Pressing my hand to a thick root, I willed my magic onto it, sending it threading out in a web to shatter the darkness with its silver light.
Part of me wished I had not, for coiled around us was a giant serpent. Its scales were a blue so dark it seemed to swallow the light of my magic, and as it shifted its bulk, the claws on its two limbs tore away chunks of Yggdrasil’s roots and sent them falling into the darkness below.
“Traitorous woman,” it hissed, turning a head as large as a wagon to look at me with virulent yellow eyes, a mouth capable of swallowing me whole opening to reveal rows and rows of needle-sharp teeth. “Thieving woman.”
“I am no thief,” I shouted at it. “I claimed their souls. They are mine to do with what I will.”
Nidhogg tilted his head, seeming to consider, then hissed, “Lies, for there is but one lady of death. Hel names you thief.”
“She’s the liar.” I motioned at the warriors to keep climbing while I kept Nidhogg’s attention. “She gifted me her blood, which means her power is mine to claim.”
“Child of two bloods,” he answered. “I would chew your flesh. Honorless, traitorous woman.”
“You are welcome to try,” I said. “Though the list of those who have tried to kill me is long and all have failed.”
“I said nothing about killing,” he replied, and I swore his serpentine mouth curved into a smile.
Only instinct warned me, and I managed to get my shield in my grip right before Nidhogg spat black venom. Most of it rebounded off my magic, but it sizzled and burned through the roots of Yggdrasil where it struck.
The tree groaned, and I screamed, for a few droplets had struck my leg and eaten through my trousers, my flesh burning beneath.
The serpent spat venom again, and I nearly fell trying to get my whole body behind my shield, my leg in agony. The warriors above me shouted that they’d reached the top, urging me to climb, but Nidhogg gave me no respite, circling and spraying the noxious black substance, the roots crumbling aroundme.
“Go!” I screamed. “Get free of this place!”
The serpent laughed, coiling tighter, breaking off pieces of root that struck me as they fell.
Think, Freya,I screamed at myself.You have to fight!
But what could I do against such a creature? He was a thousand times my size, a thing not of the mortal realm, and I wasn’t even certain if hecouldbe killed. Not even his own venom seemed to harm him, the black fluid dripping off his scales.
“I shall keep you until the end of days,” the serpent hissed, coiling around me. “I shall make you scream and scream and scream!”
He spat again, and as I ducked behind my shield, I noticed his eyes were closed.
A weakness.
Hooking my shield over my shoulder, I scrambled into a thick tangle of roots, then pretended as though I could not get through and started to edge downward.
Nidhogg cackled. “Caught in a web, little traitor.”
Gasps of terror escaped my lips that were not feigned as I watched him slither beneathme.
