The Codex Lacrimae, Part 1: The Mariner's Daughter and Doomed Knight

Chapter 6: The Wastes of Niflheim

The fall seemed endless. Fear should have consumed Aurelius as he hurtled through space, but the plunge blasted away all thought. Freezing temperatures numbed his exposed head and hands; shrieking gusts of ice-laden winds pelted him with hailstones, and—within seconds of erupting through the glass in Hela's tower—snapping boughs of spruce trees thumped against his entire body.

Snowy branches whipped his face, slashing him with their waxy needles. He landed in a hill-sized drift with a thundering crack on his skull that sent him into darkness.

Swirling snow quickly covered his still form, and though unconscious for merely a few minutes, when he awakened, he felt strangely warm and numb. Frostbite began to set in. No one survived long in Niflheim.

He blinked and recognized the shadowed limbs of branches above him and the moans of the shambling dead nearby. He stared, disoriented. Everything seemed lifeless, yet furtive and shadowed movements were everywhere. A layer of frosty rime bound the trunks of the trees around him; thick fog carpeted the ground of the haunted landscape, and large snowflakes still fell and obscured his vision. He closed his eyes, sank wearily into the snow, and sleep began to take him again.

"You must get up," a voice growled from the embracing darkness. "Here. Let me re-sheathe your sword."

A hand brushed snow from his face, and arms lifted him from the snowdrift and threw him over an enormous shoulder, making him gasp. The hides of several silver wolves covered the gigantic man, the thick furs dappled grey and stinking of canine odor.

"My name is Fenris—I'm the wolf that tackled you and got you away from Hela." The burly man said in a gruff, matter-of-fact tone, as if explaining a shape-changing ability was similar to choosing clothes to wear.

Fenris hoisted the knight to the ground with the expectation that he should stand, but Aurelius's legs collapsed under him and he fell to his knees.

"Don't try to speak anymore, friend," Fenris cautioned. "You'd be hard pressed to make it far in Niflheim even without Hela's pursuit." He knelt in front of the seated knight with a supportive hand on Aurelius's shoulder. "We must flee from this place. Can you walk yet?"

Aurelius grunted and opened his eyes—a supreme effort, given the fact that he just wanted to fall asleep. He saw a hand near his face and grasped it. With its assistance, he stood and looked at the broad, silver-bearded face of the man helping him. His golden-yellow eyes twinkled with wry humor and complemented his currently grinning lips.

The snowfall increased in eddies about them, and the shadowed movements he'd noticed earlier came into full clarity. A pack of around twenty-five wolves rose from the snow banks and underbrush. Yellow eyes gleamed, and steam issued from slavering jaws.

The animals, without an explicit command from their master, sat on their haunches, and awaited his bidding.

The youth began to topple forward, finally succumbing to the exhaustion and cold. Fenris caught him before he fell and lifted the knight in both arms. A warm drowsiness came over Aurelius and, feeling bizarrely like a child in the massive slabs of the giant's arms, he drifted into sleep.

"Skade!" Fenris exclaimed, lowering him to the ground. "He's failing. Come here and help me tend to him!"

Aurelius opened his eyes. A cloaked woman stared down at him.

"Fenris, we've got to get out of here." The woman pulled away, barely controlling a very evident rage. "I can't believe you've revealed yourself to Hela because of him!"

"Come, come, little one; he was trapped." The burly man's voice sounded indulgently calm. "He showed no sign of using his magic, so I had to do something." He reached out and touched the woman's cheek. "Calm down. I was tired of Hela and Abbadon's games, anyway. We've learned all we could."