Gods of the North Read online

till hesaw the wide plains give way to low hills, marching upward in brokenranges. Far to the north he caught a glimpse of towering mountains, bluewith the distance, or white with the eternal snows. Above thesemountains shone the flaring rays of the borealis. They spread fan-wiseinto the sky, frosty blades of cold flaming light, changing in color,growing and brightening.

  Above him the skies glowed and crackled with strange lights and gleams.The snow shone weirdly, now frosty blue, now icy crimson, now coldsilver. Through a shimmering icy realm of enchantment Amra plungeddoggedly onward, in a crystaline maze where the only reality was thewhite body dancing across the glittering snow beyond his reach--everbeyond his reach.

  Yet he did not wonder at the necromantic strangeness of it all, not evenwhen two gigantic figures rose up to bar his way. The scales of theirmail were white with hoar-frost; their helmets and their axes weresheathed in ice. Snow sprinkled their locks; in their beards were spikesof icicles; their eyes were cold as the lights that streamed above them.

  "Brothers!" cried the girl, dancing between them. "Look who follows! Ihave brought you a man for the feasting! Take his heart that we may layit smoking on our father's board!"

  The giants answered with roars like the grinding of ice-bergs on afrozen shore, and heaved up their shining axes as the maddened Akbitananhurled himself upon them. A frosty blade flashed before his eyes,blinding him with its brightness, and he gave back a terrible strokethat sheared through his foe's thigh. With a groan the victim fell, andat the instant Amra was dashed into the snow, his left shoulder numbfrom the blow of the survivor, from which the warrior's mail had barelysaved his life. Amra saw the remaining giant looming above him like acolossus carved of ice, etched against the glowing sky. The axe fell, tosink through the snow and deep into the frozen earth as Amra hurledhimself aside and leaped to his feet. The giant roared and wrenched theaxe-head free, but even as he did so, Amra's sword sang down. Thegiant's knees bent and he sank slowly into the snow which turned crimsonwith the blood that gushed from his half-severed neck.

  Amra wheeled, to see the girl standing a short distance away, staring inwide-eyed horror, all mockery gone from her face. He cried out fiercelyand the blood-drops flew from his sword as his hand shook in theintensity of his passion.

  "Call the rest of your brothers!" he roared. "Call the dogs! I'll givetheir hearts to the wolves!"

  With a cry of fright she turned and fled. She did not laugh now, normock him over her shoulder. She ran as for her life, and though hestrained every nerve and thew, until his temples were like to burst andthe snow swam red to his gaze, she drew away from him, dwindling in thewitch-fire of the skies, until she was a figure no bigger than a child,then a dancing white flame on the snow, then a dim blur in thedistance. But grinding his teeth until the blood started from his gums,he reeled on, and he saw the blur grow to a dancing white flame, andthen she was running less than a hundred paces ahead of him, and slowlythe space narrowed, foot by foot.

  She was running with effort now, her golden locks blowing free; he heardthe quick panting of her breath, and saw a flash of fear in the look shecast over her alabaster shoulder. The grim endurance of the warrior hadserved him well. The speed ebbed from her flashing white legs; shereeled in her gait. In his untamed soul flamed up the fires of hell shehad fanned so well. With an inhuman roar he closed in on her, just asshe wheeled with a haunting cry and flung out her arms to fend him off.

  His sword fell into the snow as he crushed her to him. Her supple bodybent backward as she fought with desperate frenzy in his iron arms. Hergolden hair blew about his face, blinding him with its sheen; the feelof her slender figure twisting in his mailed arms drove him to blindermadness. His strong fingers sank deep into her smooth flesh, and thatflesh was cold as ice. It was as if he embraced not a woman of humanflesh and blood, but a woman of flaming ice. She writhed her golden headaside, striving to avoid the savage kisses that bruised her red lips.

  "You are cold as the snows," he mumbled dazedly. "I will warm you withthe fire in my own blood--"

  With a desperate wrench she twisted from his arms, leaving her singlegossamer garment in his grasp. She sprang back and faced him, her goldenlocks in wild disarray, her white bosom heaving, her beautiful eyesblazing with terror. For an instant he stood frozen, awed by herterrible beauty as she posed naked against the snows.

  And in that instant she flung her arms toward the lights that glowed inthe skies above her and cried out in a voice that rang in Amra's earsfor ever after:

  "_Ymir! Oh, my father, save me!_"

  Amra was leaping forward, arms spread to seize her, when with a cracklike the breaking of an ice mountain, the whole skies leaped into icyfire. The girl's ivory body was suddenly enveloped in a cold blue flameso blinding that the warrior threw up his hands to shield his eyes. Afleeting instant, skies and snowy hills were bathed in crackling whiteflames, blue darts of icy light, and frozen crimson fires. Then Amrastaggered and cried out. The girl was gone. The glowing snow lay emptyand bare; high above him the witch-lights flashed and played in afrosty sky gone mad and among the distant blue mountains there sounded arolling thunder as of a gigantic war-chariot rushing behind steeds whosefrantic hoofs struck lightning from the snows and echoes from the skies.

  Then suddenly the borealis, the snowy hills and the blazing heavensreeled drunkenly to Amra's sight; thousands of fireballs burst withshowers of sparks, and the sky itself became a titanic wheel whichrained stars as it spun. Under his feet the snowy hills heaved up like awave, and the Akbitanan crumpled into the snows to lie motionless.

  * * * * *

  In a cold dark universe, whose sun was extinguished eons ago, Amra feltthe movement of life, alien and un-guessed. An earthquake had him in itsgrip and was shaking him to and fro, at the same time chafing his handsand feet until he yelled in pain and fury and groped for his sword.

  "He's coming to, Horsa," grunted a voice. "Haste--we must rub the frostout of his limbs, if he's ever to wield sword again."

  "He won't open his left hand," growled another, his voice indicatingmuscular strain. "He's clutching something--"

  Amra opened his eyes and stared into the bearded faces that bent overhim. He was surrounded by tall golden-haired warriors in mail and furs.

  "Amra! You live!"

  "By Crom, Niord," gasped he, "am I alive, or are we all dead and inValhalla?"

  "We live," grunted the Aesir, busy over Amra's half-frozen feet. "We hadto fight our way through an ambush, else we had come up with you beforethe battle was joined. The corpses were scarce cold when we came uponthe field. We did not find you among the dead, so we followed yourspoor. In Ymir's name, Amra, why did you wander off into the wastes ofthe north? We have followed your tracks in the snow for hours. Had ablizzard come up and hidden them, we had never found you, by Ymir!"

  "Swear not so often by Ymir," muttered a warrior, glancing at thedistant mountains. "This is his land and the god bides among yondermountains, the legends say."

  "I followed a woman," Amra answered hazily. "We met Bragi's men in theplains. I know not how long we fought. I alone lived. I was dizzy andfaint. The land lay like a dream before me. Only now do all things seemnatural and familiar. The woman came and taunted me. She was beautifulas a frozen flame from hell. When I looked at her I was as one mad, andforgot all else in the world. I followed her. Did you not find hertracks. Or the giants in icy mail I slew?"

  Niord shook his head.

  "We found only your tracks in the snow, Amra."

  "Then it may be I was mad," said Amra dazedly. "Yet you yourself are nomore real to me than was the golden haired witch who fled naked acrossthe snows before me. Yet from my very hands she vanished in icy flame."

  "He is delirious," whispered a warrior.

  "Not so!" cried an older man, whose eyes were wild and weird. "It wasAtali, the daughter of Ymir, the frost-giant! To fields of the dead shecomes, and shows herself to the dying! Myself when a boy I saw her, whenI lay half-slain on th
e bloody field of Wolraven. I saw her walk amongthe dead in the snows, her naked body gleaming like ivory and her goldenhair like a blinding flame in the moonlight. I lay and howled like adying dog because I could not crawl after her. She lures men fromstricken fields into the wastelands to be slain by her brothers, theice-giants, who lay men's red hearts smoking on Ymir's board. Amra hasseen Atali, the frost-giant's daughter!"

  "Bah!" grunted Horsa. "Old Gorm's mind was turned in his youth by asword cut on the head. Amra was delirious with the fury of battle. Lookhow his helmet is dinted. Any of those blows might have addled hisbrain. It was an hallucination he followed into the wastes. He is fromthe south; what does he know of Atali?"

  "You speak truth,