Up at first light, we hiked out of the green gardens and away from the well-clothed, happy souls of Elysium, across a white stone bridge guarded by a tall god with tree branches for limbs and snakes coiled about his shoulders, back through the Slums of Undistinguished Dead, until we reached the bridge over the River Lethe and Hall of Judgement almost four hours later.
Lines of souls waited in queues that wove back and forth like a Disneyworld ride within the longhouse-style wooden building, yet I doubted a fun, eight-minute ride awaited them at the end. Near the far side, a fire burned and pitchers of drinks were set out with mugs.
"We don't have to wait," Baldur said, directing us to another door labelled 'INFERNALS', away from the crowded lines of souls.
He pushed through the matte black door, and a long dark hallway stretched ahead. Dimly lit, it had a hushed quality to it. Once we reached the other end, Baldur shoved the door open, and we exited into shrouded sunlight. Fog crept along the ground, clinging to us with the tenacity of fingers clawing their way out of a grave. Using a little burst of power, I pushed it away, not liking the unnatural brush of it on my skin, and I rubbed my hands over my arms to chase the prickling sensation away.
On either side, the imposing obsidian walls of the city abutted the edge of the building we'd just left and continued as far as I could see. Nagrindr, the Corpse-Fence, Baldur had called it, and skeletons of the fallen were piled against it in a grey-white contrast to the gleaming, unrelenting black. Because that wasn't ominous at all, paired with the creepy fog. If this was Hades' doing, he certainly had the flair for the dramatic.
The city itself was entirely built from black obsidian. Every tall building. Every narrow street. A copper scent lingered in the air, along with the undertone of decay. But it wasn't the souls still with some form of quasi-life to them, those few walking around at a hurried pace. No, it was the souls that had been torn from their afterlife here in Helheim. Those that fell to the predators and ended up as bones at the base of the wall.
Loki had warned that this place was dangerous.
But what were those predators, exactly? More hellhounds? Something worse? How many souls did it take to support a population of predators within the city? I didn't like the answer my mind provided based on the height and depth of those bones and the amount of scent in the chilly air.
Eyes followed us.
Nothing obvious, as there were none to make eye contact with as we moved through the streets towards Hades' palace. Instead, they skulked in the deep shadows of black buildings and narrow alleys. We were being observed as the denizens of the city tried to decide if we would be joining those at the base of the walls, or if we'd be strong enough to fight.
It had me on edge, alert to our surroundings.
"We are being watched," I murmured.
"Yes," Elatha agreed, equally quietly.
"Keep your head up and eyes out," Baldur said. "We don't want to look like prey."
"Too late," Loki snarled, drawing his sword, flames igniting along its length. He jerked his head to indicate the rooftops.
Even as my eyes followed his gaze and I pulled two throwing knives, the stench of rotting flesh wafted over us. It was blown down by four metre wingspans of... what the fuck were they? Beaks on a black head like a bird, but their wings were leathery. They had no feathers. As the creatures swooped down from the surrounding roofs, talons outstretched, released a bloodcurdling scream that made the hair stand on the back of my neck. Almost like banshees, but some kind of bat... bird?
"Sluagh!" Baldur drew his sword.
Beside me, Loki's flaming sword was a blurring streak, slicing several of the diving beasts in half. I threw both daggers, finding skulls, but the creatures didn't stop. Rapid fire, I threw four more, piercing black eyes. Even as they died, more followed.
"Fuck! There are so many," I cursed as my daggers returned to my outstretched fingers, only to throw them again.
"Blasted barnacles," Elatha swore when his sword bounced on the thick, black skin. On his other side, Baldur had better success, but it still took him multiple strikes to kill one of the bird-like beasts.
Thank the gods for my uncle's gifts.
"Here," I said, thrusting a couple of my knives into Elatha's hands before I killed several more creatures with daggers. The damn beasts were coming too fast for me to keep retrieving my thrown knives, despite their speed. I sheathed them and drew my sais.
Just in time.
Twisted talons slashed through the air toward my eyes and I ducked, slashing upwards to gut it from neck to abdomen when its flight took it over me. Black guts spilled onto the street in a fetid splash and joined the pile of stinking corpses in front of Loki.
Three dove at me at once, their screeches piercing my ears. I cut the talons off one, ducked the second, and the third exploded into chunks as Loki hit it with his telekinesis.
Wiping away the gristly remains spattered on my face, I almost didn't see the one dropping from a steep angle directly overhead. At the last minute, I thrust a sai above my head. The creature impaled itself, impacting so hard, it collapsed me to my knees on the unyielding black cobblestones. A gasp of pain escaped me as pain lanced up from my kneecaps.
Partially trapped, I shoved at the dead weight on top of me. Loki's black seidhr hit it, but instead of the bird-beast exploding, Loki groaned and clutched at his head, staggering. Alarm surged through me as his sword flame extinguished and he dropped his guard.
"Loki!" I screamed, using air to shove at the heavy beast that pinned me down.
A large wing hit him in the back of the head, the creature tumbling after having lost its other wing to Baldur's blade. As he fell forward, another came at his back, racking its talons along his armour and catching the back of his neck. Twisting, I threw a dagger into its ribs and finally managed to free myself, tumbling sideways from the beast's dead weight.
Blood poured down Loki's neck in a thick river, but he blinked, shook his head, and got his sword back up to fend off the next attack. Yet no flames adorned his sword.
"Are you—"
"I'm fine," Loki growled, holding a hand out to help me to my feet.
Agony speared my knees as I rose and I gritted my teeth. On my other side, Baldur was helping Elatha free himself from a decapitated creature with its talons embedded in his hip and thigh, dark with blood. Baldur wasn't unscathed either, with a gash on one cheek and another on his outer left bicep down to his forearm that dripped onto the black street.
We turned to face the next onslaught of Sluagh. But their attack had paused. Instead, they landed on all the surrounding rooftops like a scene from that Hitchcock movie 'The Birds', and it took me a minute to figure out why.
"By the Norns," Baldur breathed, the words barely audible.
I followed the direction of his stare and saw three... humanoid females, I assumed by the presence of ponderous breasts restrained in black and red leather tops with buckles and straps at the waist and shoulders. Larger than the Sluagh, the females shared in the black leathery bat-like wings and twisted black talons, but instead of a bird's head, they had more human features with bloodshot eyes, stringy black hair, lumpy noses, and sharpened predatory teeth.
"What are they?" I asked, unable to look away as they flew down the street towards us, the Sluagh giving way for them to pass.
"The Furies," Loki growled. "Sisters. Handmaidens of Hades."
The Furies landed in the centre of the street. Now that they were closer, I could see slight differences in them. The sister on the right was the shortest of the three, with narrow lips pulled back into a snarl and deep furrows to her forehead, whereas the sister on the left had a wart on her cheek and another on her chin. The tallest, and least ugly of the three, the sister in the centre had a viper coiled around her neck like a lethal necklace.
"Submit," squawked the centre Fury, talons extended toward us.
"We are on our way to see Hades, Tisiphone," growled Loki. "Why are you and your sisters attacking us?"
"Hades is not pleased that you've been in Helheim for days and didn't come see him first." Tisiphone's voice was a high-pitched screech that took me back to elementary school with nails on a chalk board.
"Yet you impede our progress now when we are on our way to him," Loki said.
"Not at all. Put down your weapons and we will escort you to the House of the Dark One," Tisiphone said.
Loki snorted. "I'm not walking through Youdu unarmed."
"If you put your weapons down, we guarantee your safety until you reach Hades. If you don't, we will take them from you and can't guarantee all of you will make it to Hades," Tisiphone said.
Loki turned to meet our gaze, worry clearly evident in his green eyes. "I don't like it, but each of us is already injured. The Furies are vicious and deadly. I don't know if we can beat both the Slaugh and the Furies together right now," he murmured, his voice a bare thread of sound.
"I think we have to risk it, Brother," Baldur said.
"Whatever you decide, I'll back," Elatha added.
I winced, hating the idea of giving up my weapons, but Loki and I could call them back to our hands, regardless. "Yes, if we can avoid more fighting, we should."
Loki took Baldur and Elatha's swords and my sais. Walking to Tisiphone, he said, "We're giving you our swords, but not smaller weapons. Surely we don't need to be completely disarmed, as you are more than formidable warriors."
"Yes, yes, you can keep your little knives," Tisiphone said, and gestured for her sisters to take the weapons from Loki's outstretched hands. "This way." She turned and flew down the street, her sisters taking up position behind us.
My neck itched, walking past the Sluagh as they eyed our progress. Yet, I didn't feel any more relieved when we passed the last of them and turned the corner to see the House of the Dark One.
It was not a house.
Built from the same black obsidian, it was an enormous palace that stretched as high as the city's walls in a central tower, with two shorter wings adjoining the back and one side. In front of the palace, in an open square, stood a massive red statue of a winged dragon that snarled down at passersby.
"Who is the dragon?" I asked as we approached. The damn thing looked like it would come to life and burn me to a crisp any second.
"Hades when he wants to be. Like me, he's a shapeshifter from his half jotun heritage. As a fire giant, he can breathe fire in dragon form, making him a formidable opponent if you get on his bad side," Loki said.
My gut clenched. "Are we on his bad side?" I asked, dragging my eyes from the dragon to meet Loki's gaze.
Loki winced, touching his bleeding neck, then looking down at his blood-coated fingers and back to meet my eyes. "I hope not."