Page 66 of The Fanged One

An eerie sound whistled and chimed across the dead plain a long time before they reached the source of it. It was like a thousand drawers of cutlery being thrown down the stairs, and the closer they walked, the more the sound jangled Linnea's nerves. The thread of the river spread, and the shine of it broke apart into a thousand moving points of light, each one winking and turning and gone.

That is not water, her wolf said and went low and uneasy inside her.

What gave it away? Linnea answered bitchily because it was either that or piss her pants in fear.

The fast-moving river was made entirely of blades. Knives and swords and daggers and broken edges, blade over blade over blade, turning in the current like fish, catching the gray light and throwing it back. There was no water under them and no water over them. The blades were the river. They poured past in their thousands, edge-first, slicing the air menacingly, and the whole churning weight of them gave off a smell that coated the back of her throat. Blood, cold iron, and something rotten underneath, like the killing floor of an old abattoir.

There was no bridge over it, and the far bank was a low gray nothing, swallowed in mist after twenty feet.

"Slíðr," Von said quietly beside her. He had his pack open and rifled through it until he pulled his leather journal out. "This is the River of Blades. Gjöll is the river of water in this realm, the one with the bridge that features in the story about when Hermóðr rode Sleipnir down here to try and get Baldur back." He turned through the pages of his journal. "This one runs through valleys of poison, and it cuts apart anything that tries to cross it uninvited. No exceptions."

"Eyvindr, that priest, wrote down in his story that the Wanderer crossed it," Fenris said, eyes not moving from the bristling blades. "There has to be a way."

Von didn't look up. "Yeah, yeah, let me find the exact wording. I'm just double-checking if I made notes anywhere about other stories where this river is mentioned."

Ciara stepped up to the edge, drew one of the bread rolls she had pocketed at breakfast, and lobbed it out over the river.

The blades caught it a foot above the surface. There was a puff of crumbs, sliced to nothing, and swept downstream with the rest.

"Kind of hoped it was an illusion," Ciara said with a sigh.

"What? Like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?" Layla asked her, and Ciara nodded. "Damn, I didn't think of that one at all. Shame, it would have been awesome."

"If we don't end up turned into bloody confetti, maybe you can give Hel some pointers," Arne suggested.

The talk started up behind Linnea, low and fast. Arne asked about the narrowest point. Tor asked how far portal magic could throw a person, Ciara said something grim about ropes, and none of it mattered.

Linnea stopped listening to them. The river could not be fought. A blade raised against it only fed it. Strength was the wrong tool, and so was steel, and so were the warriors at her back who had kept her safe the whole way down and could do nothing at all for her here.

It could not be fought, but it wouldn't have been in the story if Havi hadn't figured it out. It had to be possible, or otherwise this would be the only trial Hel created.

Linnea stepped forward, past Ciara, and walked to the very lip of the bank.

"Linnea?" Fenris asked, uncertain.

"Give me room." She didn't turn around but kept her eyes on the shifting blades. "Whatever happens, do not touch me until I tell you to move."

She knelt on the shingle, closed her eyes, and dropped into the quiet place where her magic lived. She tried to remember what the story had said about the river. You had to have a good memory for song and story to be a volvä, and she had drilled her recall skills for years.

The lines of the poem came back to her like a whisper in her ear, I came first to the river of swords, where I could not cross with strength, so I crossed with a song's feet…

Instead of the words, she saw a small boat on a black sea. The sea heaving it up and dropping it, white teeth of foam reaching over the rails, and a single voice on the deck singing the water flat, telling it to lie down.

"Song and stillness," she whispered, opening her eyes. She pulled out the soft bag of her runes, and she drew two at random.

Laguz, water, and Ísa, ice, and stillness. They confirmed what her vision had revealed to her. She set them at the water's edge where the spray of cut air could almost reach them, and she pressed her palm flat to the cold ground.

The whole of her seidr power rose up at her call, more of it than she had ever let herself reach for. Her whole life, she had been told the wolf was the only power worth having, and when her wolf had stayed silent, she had learned to be ashamed of the empty place where four paws should have been.

That was not power. This roiling wave rushing through her was, and it came from her alone. No father could beat it out of her. No cult could bleed it out of her. This was magic and soul and song.

She opened her mouth, and the first note was a single held tone that was the sea itself, vast and dark and patient, and she poured the rune power into it.

"Laguz, heyr mik. Ek nefni þik. Sær eggja, ek kann nafn þitt…."

Laguz, hear me. I name you. Sea of edges, I know your name….

The blades faltered.