Gods of the Ragnarok Era Omnibus 2: Books 4-6

by Matt Larkin

  Sigmund frowned. “I could not have accomplished it without you.”

  “Yes, but now you have no need of me.”

  Sigmund gaped. “What? Why would you speak such a thing? Have I given you reason to believe I don’t—”

  Fitela raised placating hands. “Peace, Father. I didn’t mean it thus. Just, I grow restless. The raids with Helgi only served to remind me of it. I think … I think my place is leading my own band. Roaming, claiming adventure. A life at a peaceful court doesn’t suit me overmuch.”

  “You’re not coming back.” It hit Sigmund like a blow. Not only would Fitela not stay here to keep his brother safe, he’d not return home with Sigmund either.

  “I may travel with you to Hunaland, but no, I cannot remain there idle. I need to run and fight and make my own way. Most of my life has been naught but fighting on your behalf. And don’t make that face, I’m not saying I regret so much as a day. Just … I see what Helgi has accomplished …”

  Sigmund chortled. “Oh. Jealous of your brother’s victories.”

  “How could I not be?”

  Sigmund nodded. How indeed. Fitela was the eldest of his sons and, as a varulf, certainly the strongest. He deserved his chance at whatever life he wanted to build. And he was right, not once had Sigmund considered what Fitela wanted from his life. He’d always assumed his son wanted what he wanted. “I’ll see that you get a ship and a crew, then. From there, the world will be what you make of it.”

  “And you, Father?”

  Sigmund shook his head. “Peace?” He had to laugh at that. Three decades of fighting, and now it was done? Truly well and done?

  Yes, now Hunaland was united. Now came the time to strengthen it, to reinforce their borders. To aid Styria in driving out the trolls and to gather all the wealth he could manage.

  Under his rule, Hunaland would become the greatest nation in Midgard.

  41

  A terrible fortress lay before Sif and her companions, one with corpses impaled on spikes jutting from the parapets. None looked like Odin, at least, but still she found the sight left little room for hope.

  Loki shook his head. “By now this king, Geirrod, may be expecting Odin’s son to come. Perhaps he set Skrymir on us to assess your strength. Either way, he knows what power lies in your hammer.”

  “Good,” Thor said. “Let him watch his doom approaching.”

  Loki just shut his eyes. “Have you not suffered enough defeats to consider alternatives to rushing in headlong? If this jotunn king had aught to do with Skrymir—”

  “Then he dies,” Thor snapped. “Dies squealing like a pig.”

  “—then you must learn to respect his power,” Loki finished.

  The prince growled.

  Sif spoke up before Thor could make things worse. “What do you propose?”

  “I am known among some of the jotunnar.”

  She knew her eyes had widened at that. The words made sense, but the thought behind them seemed incomprehensible. How would a man be known to jotunnar?

  “I will go in,” Loki said. “Convince them that I’ve tricked you into coming in without your hammer. You must strike when he least expects it.”

  “How honorable,” Thor said.

  Loki favored him with a glower filled with such disdain even Sif found it hard to swallow. “In the flames I saw him torturing your father. Burning him, depriving him of water or sleep. We must act decisively if we are to save Odin.”

  Thor nodded stiffly at that, and Loki took off, ahead of them.

  When he’d gone, the prince turned to Sif. “We’ll give him two hours. After that, we go in. We hide Mjölnir in Thjalfi’s satchel, beneath the supplies.”

  “Not much of those left,” the slave said.

  “Doesn’t matter. By the time they’re looking, we’ll be ready to strike. This fortress is no illusion, and these jotunnar will break beneath our blows.”

  Sif hoped he was right.

  The prince grew more restless with each passing moment. Sif doubted a full two hours had passed when he rose, grabbed the satchel, and jammed his hammer inside. The bag he handed to Thjalfi, then he strode toward the jotunn fortress, Sif and the others following behind him.

  The closer they drew, the more ominous and foul this place looked. Jagged, as if cut from a giant rock, but by hands that appreciated only war and death, not beauty or symmetry. It strained her eyes even to look upon the wicked angles of those towers, or the jutting, thorn-like outcroppings.

  When they reached the entrance, the portcullis stood open, drawn into the recesses of the gatehouse. Waiting for them, even as Loki had promised.

  A sudden, sick fear took hold of Sif. What if this Geirrod was not the one Loki betrayed? The man claimed to know jotunnar. How was that possible? He’d sworn loyalty to Odin, yes, but who knew what a man like him really thought or planned? An immortal, but not originally from the Ás tribes. A worker of the Art. A man who knew things no man ought to know. Could he have led them into a trap?

  Almost, Sif opened her mouth, intent to warn Thor. But the prince would have charged in regardless, and such an accusation would terrify Thjalfi and Roskva. Besides, was it her right to so besmirch a man Odin had chosen as brother? To give voice to such thoughts seemed almost treasonous.

  Still, Sif could not shake the niggling doubt that they walked into something other than what they’d expected.

  Without the barest hint of caution, Thor trod into the main hall, a place eerily silent, if somewhat more inviting than the exterior. Here, at least, braziers cast light amid the lower level. Unfortunately, the upper reaches were spanned by iron rafters, these too lined with thorny protrusions. A layer of frost coated those beams, let in by small windows somewhere up above.

  At the back of the hall, a jotunn lord rested upon a throne. Or his corpse, rather. An angry hole had torn through his gut, though it no longer bled.

  “Huh,” Thor said. “Guess Loki decided to have the fun himself. Bastard.” The prince stomped over to the dead jotunn.

  Sif frowned, shaking her head. If Loki had killed this king, where was he? Indeed, where was everyone? Surely Geirrod had not lived in total solitude. A place this size could have housed dozens or hundreds of jotunnar and their human slaves.

  Yet the only sound came from the crackle of the braziers and the footfalls of her own group.

  Sif paused before the throne. Loki had run Geirrod through the gut … but there was no blood anywhere around the throne. Which meant … had someone staged this? “Thor, I think—”

  Geirrod lunged off the throne with shocking swiftness, wrapped a hand around Thor’s neck and hefted the prince off the ground. The jotunn’s eyes gleamed with fell red light. His snarl echoed off the rafters, hollow and Otherworldly.

  A draug. A jotunn draug?

  Sif faltered, knowing she needed to move and unable to quite make her body obey.

  Thor flailed in midair, beating against Geirrod’s arm, unable to reach the jotunn’s body.

  “Master!” Thjalfi shouted. The boy had dropped the satchel and was rooting through it. Looking for Mjölnir. Trying to fight.

  His effort shook Sif from her shock. She shrieked a battle cry and charged Geirrod with her spear out. The jotunn draug jerked Thor to the side with one hand and caught the shaft of Sif’s spear with the other. Sif snatched hold of the apple’s power, giving herself strength. The jotunn jerked the spear around, lifting Sif off the ground.

  Shit. All the strength in the world didn’t matter if she had no purchase on the ground, nor the weight to claim it.

  Growling, Geirrod whipped her around in a rapid arc. Sif clutched onto the spear with all her might, even as its shaft burned her hands. Couldn’t allow him to fling her free. Couldn’t give up.

  With the jotunn using one hand on Sif, Thor managed to pry free his grip and drop to the ground, gasping for air, reeling. Sif could barely keep the prince in sight as Geirrod swung her back and forth as though wringing out wet linens.


  It was too much. Her grip slipped. The shaft tore open her palms. Sif flew free, spun around in the air. Hit a column and blasted all wind from her lungs. Her head cracked on the stone floor. A white haze filled her vision.

  Ears ringing.

  Everything fading away.

  Groaning, she pushed herself up onto one arm. Waves of dizziness churned her stomach. Her head was splitting apart. She looked up, vision still out of focus.

  Thjalfi lay on the ground, bleeding. The girl, Roskva, kneeling at his side. The hammer knocked away on the far side of the throne.

  Thor swinging at Geirrod, landing body blows that seemed to do naught save anger the draug. Geirrod’s backhand catching Thor in the face with a meaty thwack that sent him flying, spinning through the air. Crashing down.

  Sif blinked. Everything so disjointed … The more she forced it all into clarity, the more everything hurt.

  With a grunt of pain and rage, she regained her feet and raced toward the hammer. Her feet betrayed her, legs wobbling. She pitched over sideways and landed on a knee, the jolt sending lightning shooting through her leg.

  “Damn it, move,” she growled.

  Struggling forward, she wrapped a hand around Mjölnir’s short haft. Its power flowed into her at once, steadying the dizzying spin of the room. She turned, panting. Then she charged.

  Thor launched himself to his feet, his uppercut clipping Geirrod’s jaw in the process. Had the jotunn been a foot shorter, that might have done more than daze him. Instead, the jotunn grabbed Thor with a hand atop the prince’s skull. Like that he hefted Thor up off the ground.

  Geirrod reared back with his other fist. Another sickening thwack resounded as that fist connected with Thor. The prince hurtled back into the rocky throne. The stone broke under the impact and Thor kept going, crashing to the ground.

  Sif reached Geirrod an instant later and swept the hammer in a horizontal arc. It cracked down on the jotunn’s knee, bone crunching aloud as lightning erupted from Mjölnir’s head. The undead king dropped to his hands and knees, hissing at her with venom and ire seeming drawn from Niflheim. Shrieking, Sif spun around with her momentum, bringing Mjölnir up over her head.

  Then crashing down on the jotunn’s skull. The sound of thunder echoed with her blow and more lightning sizzled. The creature’s head cracked, splattering blood and brains. Geirrod collapsed flat on the ground. No room for doubt. Sif hefted Mjölnir once more, and brought it down again, shattering the jotunn’s head to a pulp. A bolt of lightning set his skull exploding and his neck frying.

  The gory mess beneath her—coating her clothes and arms and face—it suddenly turned her stomach. She felt apt to retch. The hammer fell from her limp hands, and she stumbled away. Tried to wipe the brains off her face, but only managed to smear more filth about.

  Dazed, she made her way to Thor. The prince was already pushing himself up, shaking himself back into coherence. Sif slumped down beside him.

  They found a score or so of jotunnar in the rooms beyond, most women, those led by Gridr, who claimed to be Geirrod’s daughter, and thus the new heir to the throne. Sif had barely restrained Thor from killing every last jotunn in the fortress. They had not come here for senseless slaughter.

  “The woman came here,” Gridr said. Gridr could almost have passed for human, save for standing well over six foot tall and her skin so pale, almost bluish in tint.

  “Which woman?” Thor demanded.

  “Skadi. We thought her human, at first. But she claimed ancient lineage that, in time, even Father couldn’t deny. She bade him detain the man who would come here, one whom even the wolves would fear. And Father did so. He held this man—”

  “You mean Odin,” Sif said. “Is he here?”

  “No. My brother Agnar helped him escape some time ago.” Gridr frowned, shaking her head. “The sorceress returned. She … she … compelled Agnar to swear loyalty to her. Then worked her Art to raise Father as her agent here. As you found him. Twisted and pained. Damned.”

  “Where is Loki?” Sif asked.

  “My brother and the sorceress overpowered him. They take him north, to stand in judgment before the greatest of jotunn kings.”

  “Hel fucking damn it,” Thor grumbled. “So now we’ve lost Father and his blood brother.”

  “We can pursue them,” Sif said.

  Gridr shook her head. “The sorceress called up vargar to carry them. You’ll not catch them before they reach Thrymheim.”

  Thor growled. “So we break into Thrymheim and save them.”

  “No man could survive such an attempt. Not even the famous Thor. Besides, winter will set in before you could reach them. The cold will leave you naught but frozen corpses upon the plains. No, you’ve no choice but remain here until the summer comes again.”

  Perhaps it was her imagination, but Sif did not much like the way the jotunn woman looked at Thor. Nor the way he seemed appreciative of her oversized breasts.

  Either way, though, Gridr probably had the right of it. They couldn’t risk marching across Jotunheim in winter.

  Loki and Odin were beyond their reach. They had failed.

  42

  Starkad Eightarms said very little in all the days Sigyn and Mundilfari traveled with him. The mad sorcerer said enough for two men, so Sigyn supposed it all evened out in the end. Tyr’s son cast fell glances at the sorcerer from time to time, clearly vexed by the inane babble, but didn’t otherwise comment.

  Just as well, given Sigyn couldn’t do this without either of them.

  The three of them made their way across a hilly wilderness. Starkad oft pushed ahead, scouting for foes. Sigyn suspected he just wanted to be out of earshot from Mundilfari. When Starkad was around, there was an oddness about him. An eerie stillness she could not quite identify, but one that disquieted her to the point she preferred him gone as well.

  At the moment, only Mundilfari walked beside her.

  This land lacked the warmth of Asgard, but it was certainly far from cold. More striking, however, the mist did not seem to congeal here, as if unable to collect itself. The horizon bore hints of it, thin and wispy, and probably no threat to anyone. Up close, it was hardly noticeable at all.

  “Oh. Hmm,” Mundilfari said, clearly having spotted her looking around for the thousandth time. “The caliphs, yes. Hmm. Areas under their sway, they keep them … um …”

  “Clear?”

  Mundilfari rubbed his eyebrows with his thumbs. “Ah, uh, I try to be. Yes, I try.”

  Sigyn rolled her eyes and pressed on. In the far distance, voices carried on the wind, a great many of them—enough to represent a town or even a city. She had to assume that was where Hödr would have gone, and thus where she was bound.

  “Fire is life,” Mundilfari mumbled. “Life … death … burning. Without balance all crumbles before us.”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “Balance … balance … the spheres are out of balance. The world falters.”

  Don’t ask him. Do not engage with him. If she were to question him—and he seemed to refer to the Spheres of Creation—he would no doubt wander off on some other tangent anyway.

  All she had to do now was focus on finding Hödr.

  They walked on, cresting a hill, beyond which a ruin came into view. Cut from stone the color of sand, and now crumbling and half buried under sediment, the structure might have once served as a palace or place of worship. Now, a broken column was its most striking feature. An opening led into a main structure, but with so much of it buried, it looked nigh to pitch black inside.

  Sigyn glanced at Mundilfari.

  The sorcerer shrugged. “Fire temple …”

  Now that he mentioned it, no mist at all gathered around the ruin. Did some power within hold the vapors at bay? She squinted, looking closer into the valley. Footprints disrupted the ground, heading inside the ruined temple.

  “He’s here.”

  “Are you certain it is your son?”

  Of course, she could not be cer
tain, but her gut insisted nevertheless. Where had Starkad gone? Should she wait until he returned? Prudence argued she ought to delay, but the thought of wasting even a moment …

  No. No, she couldn’t take the chance of losing Hödr. Starkad had come along to get her past the Serklander lines. He had done so. Now it fell to her and Mundilfari to save her son.

  Sigyn skidded down the hillside, half running into the valley, ignoring the sorcerer’s grumbles from behind her. She had to find him. He had to be here.

  She raced forward, toward the opening. As she reached the entrance, faint light adumbrated the walls, cast by some flame deep within. Sigyn glanced back at the sorcerer, then pressed on inside, leaving him to follow.

  Barely forestalling the urge to call out to her son, she crept forward, following a steep descent that ended in a high-ceiling chamber the size of a large family house. At the center of it, on a dais, blazed a brazier bigger than she was. Its fire sent the whole of the room dancing in shadows eager to swallow her. Beyond the brazier, a man stood in silhouette.

  “Hödr?”

  The scrape of Mundilfari’s boots behind her announced his presence.

  The figure beyond the brazier took a step forward, illuminating his face in a golden glow that seemed born of an Otherworld. Hödr. Sigyn’s heart clenched. Her son’s eyes flickered red in what, she prayed, must be a trick of the firelight.

  “Son …”

  “He stole the first flame from the Elder God and, in his temerity, dared to give it to man that he might challenge the darkness.”

  “Firebringer …” Mundilfari said.

  Sigyn swallowed, unable to look away from Hödr’s flashing eyes. “You mean Loki? Your father.”

  “My father was not the thief, but that which was stolen. A spark of the first flame, simmering and burning, smoldering for release long denied. But dying embers might one day be rekindled.”

  He certainly sounded like Loki.

  Hödr stuck his hands into the brazier and drew them forth engulfed in flames that danced a foot high.