Sleipnir

"I thought Hel was only interested in dead men."

His smile was sincere enough. "True; but this is her world, after all, and we are but guests in it. She would not be pleased if you refused an audience. And believe me, no living mortal within her sphere of influence would want to anger her. I am not complaining, understand. She's a good hostess. But you are out of place here, so the same rules don't exactly apply to you."

I didn't bother to observe that so far none of the rules had applied to me.

"Come, pack up your strange belongings and follow me; I'll take you to Hel."

I didn't care for the sound of that; but didn't see that I had much choice.

We struck out along the shoreline. Baldr said conversationally, "I couldn't help noticing that the Sly Biter is with you."

"The what?" I glanced around involuntarily.

"The Sly Biter. Your knife. I'd always wondered what had become of it. Somehow, I'm not too surprised it wound up in your hands. It has a way of turning up precisely when and where it's needed. How'd it find you?"

I started to comment; then shut my lips. I shouldn't have been surprised.

"You recognize this thing, huh?" I slipped the knife out of its sheath and watched in satisfaction as the tail wrapped around my arm.

"Of course." He sounded surprised. "I used to see it frequently when I was younger. It disappeared, though," he added thoughtfully, "right before I was killed."

Interesting. Maybe I could finally get some answers.

"Where'd it come from? What exactly is it?" Green light caught the blade and sang gleefully along the invisible edge. The scaly haft was warm against my palm. It pulsed with an arcane life.

Baldr's voice warmed to his subject. "The Biter has been since before I was born. Some say it was carved from the living root of Yggdrasil." He gestured toward the cavern "ceiling," and the familiarity of swirling light patterns clicked.

"Others claim... Well, it just is. The Norns probably would know for sure where it came from. My father had it for a while; that's how I know it. But it's an odd creature, the Biter."

"Then it is alive?"

"Oh, yes, without a doubt. Well, not perhaps alive in the sense you might think; but it is not just a soulless artifact. It chooses those who will carry it, not the other way around, though I'm not terribly clear on why or how."

He gri

"I know what Ragnarok is," I said dryly.

He smiled, unoffended. "Most of your contemporaries don't. It's sad, you know, being forgotten."

"Yeah, life's a bitch and then you die."

"How very Norse!" He chuckled.

I wasn't laughing.

Instead, I stared at the Biter. Worked its will on me, did it? We'd just see about that. Light sang off its black skin, glinted in its black eyes. Something Baldr had said had begun to bother me. If the Biter did its own choosing—and had deserted Odin—what, precisely, did that mean to me? What did it want? And just whose side was it on, anyway? Could I trust it or not?

Whatever the answer, Odin had been upset to lose it. I gri

"It's a temperamental little bastard," was all I said.

I carefully resheathed it. At Baldr's request, I related a few of my adventures with the Biter, leaving out key bits of information here and there. Baldr laughed merrily when I told him about the entrenching tool and the ragheads. I managed to keep the conversation light and humorous.

Then, as he took up the thread of conversation and began an improbable tale about the Biter and a frost giant, a biting wind picked up, seemingly out of nowhere. I shivered hard. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was just about at the end of my strength, and I wasn't dressed for freezing wind. Given the state of my clothes, I was barely dressed. When I fell behind, wheezing loudly in the cold air, Baldr slowed and stopped.

"I fear I must apologize again," he said ruefully.

Baldr assisted me over to a large boulder, which sported flecks and speckles of glowing yellow phosphorescence. It wasn't a warm phosphorescence, though, so I just sat wearily, shivering.

"Yeah? What for this time?"

"You are injured, tired, and undoubtedly suffering from hunger and thirst, and I've kept you walking all this time when there was no need."

A gust of wind caught us, and I wrapped both arms around myself, trying to get warm.

"And you are cold, as well. I really am sorry... ."

"I know, I know, it's just that the dead don't get tired and thirsty, right?"

"Well, yes; but that's no excuse when I'm responsible for your welfare. By the time you've caught your breath they should be here."

"Who?"

He put fingers to his lips and emitted an extraordinarily shrill whistle. It was the loudest sound I'd yet heard from an inhabitant of Niflheim, and I was surprised when it echoed off the distant ceiling.

I was just getting my wind back—and the racing of my heart under control again—when a low rumble of thunder shook the ground. Before I could open my mouth to ask what was up, two enormous horses burst into view from beyond a nearby house-sized boulder. Their sharp hooves churned up the dark soil as they slid to a halt in front of us. They were bridled, and saddled, and obedient as big, shaggy dogs.

They didn't appear to be breathing hard from their run. In fact, I couldn't detect any breathing at all. When I thought about it, I realized that—except for drawing air to speak—Baldr hadn't been breathing, either.

I eyed our mounts. "Dead horses?"

"What else? Several of your ancestors were thoughtful enough to bury horses with themselves, which has provided us with a wide variety of excellent mounts and draft animals. These were once war horses." He grimaced, and sighed. "Their unfortunate masters died of old age in their sleep. Poor souls; no man deserves such a fate—but we can't all die in glory, can we?"

"No," I said dryly, "I don't suppose we can. The species wouldn't survive it, if we did."

He gri

Baldr urged one of the horses forward, and I wondered what I was supposed to do. I'd never been on a horse in my life.

He glanced at my face—did a quick double take—then halted the animal several paces away. He rested one hand casually on the animal's—shoulder?—and lifted one shaggy blond eyebrow in apparent surprise.

His question came out sounding droll. "Not a horseman?"

"Uh, no."

He gave me a look that seemed to ask what the hell we learned on Earth these days. But he didn't say anything; just patiently explained how to mount, steer, start, and stop. I struggled aboard, envious of Baldr's graceful leap to his animal's back.

"We'll go at a slow trot," he said, urging his horse forward. I followed suit, and my horse obeyed, tossing its head briefly in irritation before settling down to the job of nursing me along.

Riding was marginally better than walking, except for the cold wind; but I couldn't grasp properly with my injured knees, so I just sat loosely, hanging on to the reins and the mane, and flopped along as best I could. Each jolt sent agony through the tear across my tailbone. Gradually the seat of my pants grew warm and sticky. I'd almost rather have walked.