“All right, then.” Sif squeezed his shoulder and then helped him to his feet.
They hurried out of Amora’s secret apartments into the frost giant-sized workroom beyond, recovering their swords as they went. At first, with every few steps, sounds swelled to an unbearable volume or vision and threatened to overwhelm him with intensity and detail, but he was able to reassert control, and the effort became easier and the moments less frequent with repetition. Sif kept a concerned eye on him until, he inferred, she decided he truly was able to function normally again.
He thought wryly that he could scarcely blame her for wondering. The abilities he’d acquired from the destruction of the head seemed miraculous, transcendent compared to the way ordinary people saw and heard. Difficult as it was, it surprised him that he was gaining control of them this quickly. He suspected that even though it had seemed to have no effect at the time, drinking from Mimir’s Well had helped.
He and Sif circumvented the pit trap and, bounding along, descended the staircase. The small courtyard encircling the tower of sorcery was as deserted as before. The fugitives darted on into one of the adjacent buildings, one that, if they were lucky, would provide a relatively direct path to a way out of the citadel. Heimdall hoped stealth, their relative smallness, and the gloom of night would keep them safe from detection along the way.
His pulse ticking in his neck, he and Sif hid under a bench while two giggling frost giant children, embarking on some sort of clandestine late-night adventure, padded by them. As they waited for the young giants to pass, Heimdall took the opportunity to exercise Mimir’s extraordinary hearing once again.
The chortling waxed louder, as did the Jotun children’s footsteps. So too did Sif’s respiration and heartbeat and his own. At the same time, he caught countless other sounds that had been inaudible before.
The trick now, he thought, was to sift through all the noises in the citadel and lock on to the one he wanted if, in fact, it existed. He heard giants snoring. Slumbering oxen wheezing in their stalls. Disgruntled because he thought he always drew the least desirable duties, a sentry grumbled to himself as he walked the battlements.
Then Heimdall caught Amora’s voice, still musical but now strident with urgency. “… smashed Mimir’s head!” she said.
Heimdall felt a pang of disgust that the sorceress was already reporting what had happened. Probably she’d run straight to Skrymir himself, the sorcerer king who knew all about the head and could quickly turn out the castle guard to search for the intruders.
The deep voice of a male frost giant snarled in response. “You swore it was safe! How did Asgardians even get into the citadel, let alone find the thing?”
“I don’t know, but–”
“Well,” said the frost giant king, sounding marginally calmer, “the war is all but won, and we have our own cunning and our own magic. Maybe we don’t need the head any more.”
“I trust not, Majesty,” Amora said, “but you still must catch the intruders.”
To keep us from denouncing you to Frigga, Heimdall thought. As I vow we will do, if we ever make it out of here.
“Oh, we’ll catch them.” Skrymir raised his voice back to a bellow. “Guards! Attend me!”
“Run,” Heimdall said. “We’re out of time.”
He and Sif dashed through the citadel. Meanwhile, shouts boomed and echoed as frost giants relayed the warning that two Asgardian warriors had infiltrated the fortress. Using his augmented sight, Heimdall peered into the gloom ahead. Shadow slid, the slightest difference between one darkness and another encroaching on it, and he frantically motioned for Sif to stop. There was no cover within reach, so the intruders simply crouched.
A moment later, a frost giant warrior hurried into view with battle-axe in hand. Heimdall let out a sigh of relief when, intent on reaching some other part of the castle, the Jotun didn’t turn or even glance in the Asgardians’ direction.
Brother and sister ran on as soon as the Jotun warrior passed by. When he chose to hear them, Heimdall caught the sounds of beds creaking as giants rose from their slumbers, wood clattering as they pulled spears from the racks made to hold them, doors slamming and their bolts dropping.
The entire citadel was rousing to hunt the intruders. He took a long, steadying breath and told himself not to take fright at the noises but rather to assess what they revealed. When he did, he reversed course.
“What are you doing?” asked Sif. “The nearest way out is just ahead.”
“The frost giants already have that exit secured. Trust me, I can tell. There’s another in this direction.”
But to his dismay, they had to stop shy of that door too, as Jotun warriors blocked it off as well. When he told Sif, she said, “If there’s no way out, we’d better go to ground.”
He considered the idea and then rejected it. “I don’t think that will work. The frost giants are going to search thoroughly.”
But what would work? Trying to come up with a plan, he cast about the space they were currently traversing, some sort of minor council chamber perhaps, furnished with a table and benches. When he looked thoroughly, well above the normal sight line of two Asgardians scurrying through the enormous hold like mice, he spied the high windows. On this overcast night, they admitted so little light that ordinary eyes might have missed them, but thanks to Mimir’s gifts he could see them clearly.
He pointed, and Sif looked up at them. “Could you jump high enough to clamber onto one of those sills?” he asked.
“Not from the floor,” said Sif, “but from the top of one of those benches, yes.”
Taking opposite ends, they shoved a crudely made wooden bench up against the wall. The legs grated on the stone floor, and Heimdall winced at the thought that some Jotun would hear the squeal. But there was no sudden rush of pounding footsteps to indicate such was the case.
He and Sif clambered on top of the bench. From there, they leaped, caught the edge of a window ledge, and pulled themselves up.
To Heimdall’s surprise, the windowpane was made of shaped and crafted ice. He and Sif battered a hole in it with their swords. He winced at the cracking, crunching noise that made as well, but, as before, no frost giant came rushing in response.
On the other side of the window was an iron grille. Sif squeezed through and jumped down to the ground underneath.
Heimdall tried to follow, but his broader shoulders jammed between the bars. He struggled to squirm onward. His cloak ripped, and the iron of the grille rasped against the steel of his armor, but after a moment the widest part of his body popped through. He heaved the rest of him out and dropped beside his sister.
They’d reached an outer courtyard, and Heimdall peered across the open space before him. A couple dozen frost giant warriors were striding about. That was far too many for safety’s sake, but Heimdall was glad to see most were forming up into search parties, which then hurried toward one or another of the doors in and out of the central buildings of the fortress. The Jotuns plainly believed the trespassers couldn’t have gotten this far yet. Yet, even so, the postern, the only gate anywhere nearby, was closed as it likely always was unless there was some particular reason to open it.
“What now?” asked Sif.
This time, an idea came immediately. Heimdall hoped that wasn’t because it was a bad one. He pointed to stairs leading up the citadel’s curtain wall. “We climb to the battlements and jump.”
Sif cocked her head. “The fall won’t kill us?”
“Maybe not if we jump in the right spot.”
They ran across the courtyard to the steps, then ascended them in the same leaping, scrambling fashion that had taken them up the staircase in Skrymir’s tower of sorcery. Every second, Heimdall had the terrible feeling that some enemy would surely notice their frantic clambering, but no one did.
Once atop the wall-walk, the Asgardians scurried along,
and Heimdall peered out over the merlons and down at the ground beyond. Thanks to his enhanced sight, he was confident of recognizing what he sought at the foot of the wall. Finally he spotted it, but it was still a way ahead, and there was a Jotun sentry armed with a spear and shield tramping toward Sif and him from the same direction. The guard was on the far side of the object of Heimdall’s searching, but likely to reach the jumping-off spot ahead of the two Vanir if they didn’t make haste.
Heimdall sprinted again, and Sif dashed after him. After a few more moments, she too caught sight of the approaching guard, though likely only as a towering silhouette against the night sky. She growled an obscenity and reached for her broadsword.
“No!” Heimdall said. “We’re here!” He turned toward one of the crenel gaps between two merlons… and hesitated.
Even the sight he’d taken from the head of Mimir had its limits. He’d been able to tell the Jotunheim-sized snowdrift heaped against the foot of the wall was an especially deep one, but he wouldn’t know for certain whether it was deep enough to cushion his long, long fall until he plunged down in the middle of it. He might leap to his death, and Sif might follow him to the same end.
But the guard would see them in another moment. Heimdall told himself he’d made a plan, and now he needed to trust his judgment and carry it through. He sprang out into space.
Twenty-Six
Heimdall slammed down in the snowdrift and for a moment lay there stunned. When his mind resumed working, he tried to move and discovered that, though he was sure to be bruised and sore presently, all his limbs still worked. It was a relief and a bit of a surprise as well.
Now that he was thinking again, he realized Sif needed to jump too, and quickly, to avoid the sentry’s notice, and he needed to make sure she didn’t smash down on top of him. He floundered clear of the snowdrift, and she thudded down an instant later, the impact throwing white powder into the air. She then lay motionless, half buried.
Fearful for her, he rushed to her side. “Sif! Are you hurt?”
She groaned and sat up. “Have I told you before how much I hate all your ideas? But I think I’m all right.”
He gave her his hand and helped her crawl out. She slapped clinging snow off her body, and then they ran away from the castle and into the city beyond.
They hadn’t had to traverse Utgard proper before. The wagon in which they’d stowed away had done it for them. But they knew the port and the sea were downhill, and Heimdall’s sharpened senses helped them avoid the attention of Jotuns abroad late at night as they made their way along.
He judged he and Sif had nearly reached the wrecked-ship shanties and the docks when he paused again to listen. To his dismay, at his back, the citadel’s primary gate was groaning open and a company of giants was trotting through, feet thumping the frozen ground.
“They know we made it out of the citadel,” Heimdall said.
“How could they?” asked Sif.
“Amora’s sorcery? Skrymir’s? I don’t know, but they’re venturing out into the city.”
“So it’s time to run again.” Sif flashed a grin. “By now, I know the routine.”
They dashed down to the street that ran alongside the docks and onward. In time, the street ended, and beyond it, the trail began its steep, zigzag course up to the crags. A howling wind blew veils of snow across the path. Heimdall shivered at the chill.
He and Sif started up. When he judged they’d climbed high enough, he stopped and surveyed the lower reaches of Utgard from above and felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “They’re going to overtake us,” he said.
Sif turned and likewise looked down at the port and the streets and buildings bordering it. “How can you tell?”
He pointed at a particular bit of the city. Faint blue light gleamed on one wall then another as the source moved rapidly along the street at the base of the buildings. “Can you see that?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s the light of that cold blue fire on the ends of torches or inside lanterns, maybe. Either way, it shows the warriors didn’t split up to search the town at random. The whole company is coming straight at us.”
“Again, thanks to magic, no doubt, and there’s no hope of making it to the horses before they catch up. But maybe the horses will come to us.” She turned and shouted up at the crags looming overhead. “Bloodspiller! Golden Mane!”
The winged steeds didn’t come.
“They can’t hear you over the wind,” Heimdall said.
Sif scrutinized the scarps and the unappealing prospect of trying to cling to icy treacherous handholds on a cold and gusty night. “Do your magic eyes see anywhere to hide?”
“Even if they did, I imagine the frost giants’ sorcery would continue to point right at us.”
Sif faced back down the trail and drew her broadsword. “This is it, then. Just as well. I’m tired of sneaking and hiding. You keep climbing and I’ll hold the Jotuns back as long as I can.”
Heimdall reached over his shoulder for the hilt of his own blade. “No. You never abandoned me.”
“Don’t be stupid. The mission isn’t over. We deprived the frost giants of Mimir’s head, but it turns out Amora’s a traitor. Somebody needs to warn Frigga.”
In the abstract he agreed, but found it didn’t matter. “Then we’d better win,” he said, gripping the two-handed sword, “because I’m not leaving you.”
As they awaited the giants, however, that we’d better win felt more and more like the hollow bravado it was. Even two skilled Asgardian warriors had no hope of prevailing against an entire company of giants. But perhaps, he thought, Mimir’s sight could provide a way out. He turned back and forth examining his surroundings with his newly honed senses for anything he and Sif could turn to their advantage.
There was nothing. But as he pivoted, the Gjallarhorn dangling from its leather cord bumped against his hip. He glanced down at it, and even though his preternaturally keen sight revealed nothing new about the way it was made, his mind abruptly grasped something that had eluded him before.
“I know why there’s a stopper in the small end,” he said, excitement in his voice. He took the ox horn in hand.
Sif gave him a wry look. “Is this really the time?” Below them, the pursuing frost giants started up the trail. At a distance, the torches some carried looked like blue fireflies.
“Yes. Mimir may have used the Gjallarhorn to drink, but its maker intended it to be a trumpet.” Heimdall pulled the stopper out. A protruding ring of brass remained attached to the horn. It was a bugle’s mouthpiece.
Sif grinned. “Bloodspiller and Golden Mane couldn’t hear our voices, but they might hear that, and Valkyries use horns to signal back and forth.”
“Yes, although I don’t know any of the signals.”
“Just blow!”
Heimdall filled his lungs, brought the instrument to his lips, and blew. Likely amplified by enchantment, the resulting note was loud enough to make Sif recoil in surprise. It was also loud enough for the frost giants to hear. Their leader bellowed an order, and they charged. Now that they were running flat out, their long legs would carry them up the track in a matter of moments.
Heimdall peered up at the crags. There was still no sign of the Valkyrie steeds, so he sounded the Gjallarhorn again.
“It was a good idea,” said Sif, “but if the horses still aren’t coming, you might want to stop tooting that thing and ready your sword.”
He wondered for an instant if he should, and then Golden Mane and Bloodspiller came to the edge of the ledge on which their riders had left them and peered over the side. Heimdall sounded the horn a third time. The mounts sprang off the edge and spread their wings as they plummeted.
Golden Mane and Bloodspiller were swooping down through the air while the giants were pounding up a mountainside on foot, but by now the latte
r had drawn so close that for a couple heartbeats Heimdall couldn’t tell which would reach his location first. Much to his relief, it was the steeds.
As soon as they touched down, he and Sif flung themselves on their backs. He wished the horses still had their bridles and saddles, but their riders would just have to manage without them. He tapped on Golden Mane’s neck as he’d formerly used flicks of the reins to tell the black steed up or down. Golden Mane sprang off the edge of the trail, lashed his pinions, and ascended. Bloodspiller and Sif followed.
Roaring, the frost giants threw their enormous spears. Golden Mane and Bloodspiller swooped and veered to avoid the missiles while their riders held on. One spear passed just under Golden Mane’s galloping hooves like a tree trunk streaking by below, but after that the Jotuns at the forefront of the horde had flung all their spears, and the steeds and their riders were still climbing and still unscathed. One furious giant warrior followed up by throwing his battle-axe as well, but the weapon spun away into the night without coming anywhere close to either Asgardian.
Sif laughed. Plainly, she was certain she and Heimdall had escaped. For a moment he believed the same, and then a flicker of light on the battlements of Skrymir’s citadel caught his eye. He peered at it with the sight of Mimir that rendered the darkness and the distance back to the fortress inconsequential.
The biggest frost giant Heimdall had ever seen stood on the battlements snarling words of power and sweeping a staff made of ice back and forth in ritual passes. The passes left wisps of blue-white glimmer in the air. The giant – King Skrymir, surely – wore a crown made of ice and had several other Jotuns hovering in attendance. Amora was also present and floating in midair at the height of Skrymir’s head but otherwise not working any overt magic.
Heimdall tensed to see it didn’t appear that Skrymir needed any assistance. Shadows writhed in the air above the frost giant ruler and congealed into a dozen huge black owls. The conjured birds flew fast as arrows in the fugitives’ direction.
The Head of Mimir Page 22