Gods of the Ragnarok Era Omnibus 3: Books 7-9

by Matt Larkin

  “No,” Odin rasped. “No, I need you to go back to Asgard. Take a few of your warriors, and go back. I’ve seen … I think the war is already there.”

  Frey groaned. “If I leave this front …”

  “Sun Striding, you can make it there faster. Please.”

  Freyja’s brother nodded, dour, and trod from the tent.

  Freyja squeezed Odin’s hand.

  Beside her, Sunna picked at her own bandages. Odin found it hard to believe she had even lived through getting impaled by Gungnir. Whether her nature as a liosalf, or having had an apple long before, he’d count it as a blessing to have such hardy allies at his side.

  “This time,” Freyja said after a moment, “the vampires seemed to target the varulfur directly. Didrik tells me we lost four last night.”

  Their numbers dwindled. How many varulfur remained to them? Six? Seven?

  It hurt to speak, so Odin held his peace, instead, watching the two women. Once, long ago, they had been human, and thus Odin trusted Sunna over Saule. The liosalfar—the true liosalfar—flitted from fancy to fancy, sometimes seeming as glorious and grand as their beautiful bodies implied. And sometimes seeming capable of Otherworldly cruelty without the slightest pang of conscience. Indeed, any semblance of morality appeared incomprehensible nonsense to them.

  Odin could not forget that Saule had fed on his life force, the same as a vampire, and had done so in the midst of making love to him.

  Desperation had led him to ally himself with these creatures, but he could not allow himself to forget, they were not people.

  “Perhaps we ought to withdraw back to Valland,” Sunna suggested. “Certainly, we cannot hold out much longer.”

  Freyja shook her head. “From what I’ve heard of the Valls in this time, they’d be more like to attack us than welcome us. No, we’ll never move the Hunalander army there, though we might manage to retreat into Reidgotaland. Unfortunately, that would mean moving through the Myrkvidr, which exposes us to any number of dangers and prevents us from keeping the entire army together.”

  Odin cleared his throat, even that a painful, scratching sensation. “We have to kill the Patriarch.”

  Both women paused, looking at him now. The sadness in Freyja’s eyes unsettled him. Like she knew they would all die soon. He’d not allow it. He would save her, save them all.

  “Even if we knew where to find him, we have no means to destroy such a foe. Supposing we could, though, the Patriarch has shown himself only once. He moves in and out of the Penumbra, where we cannot follow, nor prepare in advance for his arrival.”

  They could. They could if only Odin would look into the future. Doing so drew him back into the Norns’ bitterest trap, yes, but perhaps that would not matter. Not if Odin destroyed them and thus severed their web. He could see no alternative to doing so, but nor could he set out to find the Norns while the situation here remained so very volatile.

  “I will determine where to find this Patriarch.”

  Freyja looked at him sharply now. “You said …”

  How easily you justify … even to yourself … any action … Oh, stepping across the line … must always seem needful, yes …?

  You contend with the very thrones of fate, Valravn said. You push limits mortals cannot hope to surpass.

  Mortals?

  Nor vaettr, either. Even we must abide by the bounds of time and space, and thus cannot act against these entities you name Norns.

  Not even vaettir … No. Odin refused to believe it hopeless. He would not fulfill the prophecies the Norns had given him.

  Odin grimaced, rubbing at his raw, aching throat. “I know what I said. But I see no alternative. We must kill the Patriarch. It should throw them into disarray, enough to allow the Hunalanders to retreat to Reidgotaland.”

  Freyja and Sunna exchanged glances, but each nodded in turn. They would find a way to do this. They had to.

  11

  As the bridge guardian had said, Hermod had found a cavern carved out of a glacier. Given the incredibly dense mist outside, he could not even harbor at a guess at the glacier’s size, for it disappeared in all directions. Inside, once past the first few hundred feet, the mist lessened enough he could at least see the surrounding cavern.

  Walls of irregularly cut ice stretched up twenty or thirty times his height, with the tunnel oft wide enough an army could have marched through. If Niflheim had armies. Other than Modgud, Hermod had seen no sign of any living creature in his time in this frozen waste.

  Before entering the cavern, the wind had whipped through the forest, scalding his face like a flame. Once, he dared lean up against a twisted tree trunk, just to keep its bulk between himself and the cold, an effort that had offered him limited success and left him even more certain the trees themselves moved, slowly writhing and perhaps intent on grasping him.

  Ever-present snowfall had his beard blanketed in frost within moments of entering this world. He’d wrapped a cloth around his face, only to find that had frozen solid. Too, he’d wrapped his hands in linens, but despite his precautions, his fingers had felt apt to freeze and snap off at the joints. Hermod couldn’t imagine any living man who hadn’t tasted the fruit of Yggdrasil could survive that bitterness.

  Once he’d trod inside these caverns, the wind no longer gnawed at his flesh. The coldness down here remained deep, though, permeating everything in any direction.

  Cold, manifested as a building block of creation …

  Sleipnir didn’t complain—Hermod had wrapped wool blankets over the horse, as well—but he could feel the animal’s relief to have found shelter from the weather. Inside, the cold went from apt to kill an immortal, to only enough to freeze a man’s stones into solid blocks of ice.

  His breath still frosted the air, and now, Sleipnir’s hooves clomped down on solid ice rather than hard-packed snow. It created ethereal echoes that bounced back through the massive cavern and could have fooled Hermod into thinking an entire war band rode through here.

  “Is it better than the shadows of the Roil?” he whispered to Sleipnir.

  The horse snorted, whether in acknowledgment or denial, he couldn’t say.

  Niflheim. World of Mist, land of cold. Even if not inhabited by the primordial abominations that seemed to dwell in the Astral Roil, this world was ancient beyond the ken of man, and Hermod could not help but feel that timeless power that saturated it. Primal, unknowable, and far from benevolent.

  Keuthos cackled in his mind, a terrible, gut-wrenching sound that made him want to cut his good ear off. Not that it would have helped against a voice in his head.

  She is old beyond your reckoning … And she rules this world, absolutely …

  Every world of the Spirit Realm had its horrors from before the dawn of time. Still, he could not help but think of some as worse than others, even if that came down to ignorance. He’d seen Svartalfheim, Alfheim, and now Niflheim. Of the three, he’d have chosen to visit Alfheim any day over the others.

  Hateful Sun … Do not think of it …

  Huh. So the wraith didn’t even want him imagining memories of that world. Well, Keuthos, thus far, had served as a passable guide, as it had promised. The least he could do was try to avoid thinking of things the wraith feared.

  Hermod rode forward until a wall of ice several times his height blocked his passage. The cavern ceiling rose much higher, vanishing into darkness his torch could not begin to light, but he could see no way forward save scaling the ice cliff.

  “Unless you can jump that,” he said to the horse.

  Sleipnir snorted and began to back up.

  “Whoa, whoa.” Hermod dismounted, pulling Sleipnir to a stop. Then he tightened the girth and checked the straps on his saddle bags—which had grown precariously light as his supplies dwindled. Only when everything looked secure did he remount. “All right. Let’s see how high you can really jump.”

  Sleipnir turned, trotting back a hundred feet or so from the ice wall. The horse snorted, scuffing one
hoof on the ground. Then he broke into a gallop that sent a rush of bracing wind sweeping over Hermod, forcing him to lean low over the horse and hold on desperately.

  His stomach lurched as Sleipnir’s hooves left the ground. Freezing air snared the hood of his cloak and jerked it off his head. Everything whooshed by, and the ice wall passed clearly underneath them. Then they were falling, Sleipnir’s eight legs flailing in midair. Hermod’s gut in knots.

  The horse’s hooves crashed down on ice, forelegs first, cracking the floor for a dozen feet in all directions.

  “Fuck me.” Hermod finally dared to breathe again. He shook himself. “All right. Well done.”

  Before him, someone had carved what looked like a mighty temple into the glacial wall. Up high, it melded with the rest of the rough ice, but for forty feet or so, a facade displayed architecture of impressive—if haunting—talent. The pillars rose at irregular angles and, the longer he stared at them, the more they seemed engraved with watching faces. Indeed, now that he looked closer, he caught sight of reliefs of human visages, twisted into expressions of terror or agony.

  Yes … a shrine to damnation … in this world, so many souls are brought …

  For judgment?

  Judgment is immaterial, for we are all damned from before our births …

  “He sees it …” The sibilant voice came from just behind him.

  Feeling his heart clench for an instant, Hermod twisted around in the saddle and jerked Dainsleif free. Sleipnir, too, pranced about, bringing the entity into view.

  The woman had porcelain white skin and even whiter hair, though she looked young. Or, at least, timeless. Her eyes were the palest of blues, and her fingers ended in nails as long as his hand and looking sharp as claws. The woman wore a dress that seemed made of mist, ever shifting about her figure, even as she slowly drifted about the cavern without seeming to walk.

  “Snow maiden,” he said.

  Bean sí … lampades …

  Hermod had no idea what that meant, but he couldn’t worry about the wraith at the moment, regardless.

  The snow maiden’s smile held such malevolence it chilled him to the core. “I see your death …”

  “My death? You mean to kill me?”

  “No need.” Despite the seeming glee on her face, her voice sounded sad, almost on the edge of tears.

  They revel in it … but, given the choice … prefer to allow the terror of impending death to creep upon you … it ripens your soul for feasting …

  From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of another of the snow maidens, drifting out of the tunnel. He glanced in her direction. Several more followed after her.

  “Shall we weep for you? We so oft weep for those soon to join us. So they will know what urd awaits them.” She whimpered. “They called us weepers …”

  They pretend to bemoan your suffering … only to enhance your own dread …

  Hermod raised Dainsleif a hair, to ward her off. “I have no quarrel with you.”

  A half dozen of the vaettir drifted around him, surrounding Sleipnir, seeming half made of mist, half women clad in pale dresses. “We have not come for your soul just yet,” another of them said.

  “Hardly needful, when your death draws so very nigh.”

  “Oh, he rides to her abode.”

  “Do you think that’s how he’ll die?”

  “Passing few have made it so very far.”

  “There is yet farther to go before he can reach her.”

  They spoke in such rapid succession, Hermod found himself constantly twisting about to keep the speaker in view. “What do you wish of me, maidens?”

  “Naught.”

  “We’ve no quarrel with you, either.”

  “But we hope to see you again.”

  Do not attempt to strike them … or they will freeze your heart … They will not attack first … least of all with a wraith inside you …

  A snow maiden had attacked Sif, in Jotunheim.

  Provoked … or compelled to it …

  That, Hermod didn’t know, exactly, though the experience had terrified his daughter. So, should he sheath the runeblade?

  No … Keep it in hand …

  In case someone did compel these vaettir.

  “Let me pass, then,” he finally said.

  Whimpering, two of the snow maidens drifted apart, clearing a path which he immediately guided Sleipnir through. The more distance he could put between himself and these chilling abominations, the better.

  The horse broke into a trot the moment he had cleared the snow maidens, and Hermod encouraged it, riding deeper into the cavern while casting occasional glances back over his shoulder. The vaettir had vanished, though, perhaps becoming one with the mist wafting around outside the temple.

  By the Tree, he misliked this place.

  Worse than the Roil …?

  That was like comparing being flayed with being boiled alive. A pointless distinction between two abominable ends.

  What he missed was Midgard.

  Where the world is ending …?

  Yes. Even so.

  A good many hours more he rode through the cavern, having twice passed shades making the same march as himself, each group guided by a snow maiden. The dead here seemed solid enough, and had looked to him with imploring eyes, as if he might spare them their urds and keep them from having to pass the gates of Hel.

  Keuthos had advised against it, not that Hermod had felt overly tempted. His mission here mattered too much to allow himself to be swayed by sentiment for strangers. Those who died—those he could—he’d guided to Valhalla through the valkyries and …

  Oh. Well, fuck.

  He hadn’t felt any different for having given away Draupnir, but … Odin had used the ring to bind the valkyries. Now it was gone, would they yet serve Odin or Hermod? He’d not bothered summoning them or issuing them specific commands in many decades, had almost forgotten about them, as they went about their assigned tasks. But without the ring …

  Desperation leads us to difficult choices … one must sacrifice one thing or another …

  Except, Hermod hadn’t made a choice, specifically. He’d been so obsessed with reaching Baldr and Sif, he’d not considered the consequences of giving up Draupnir.

  And it was far too late to do aught about it now.

  Grimacing, he continued to ride forward.

  Besides the rare, wordless encounters with the dead, he’d seen no one. His only company in this desolate place was the horse and a wraith inside his head. After days in the dark and at least a day in the cold, he felt he might soon go mad from the isolation.

  Are you not mad, already … you, who willingly ride to Hel’s abode while yet alive …?

  Keuthos might have a point, but still, Hermod would’ve killed for someone real to talk to.

  What dwells here … you would not wish to converse with …

  He snorted at that. Again, perhaps the wraith spoke the truth.

  And so, Hermod rode through endless icy caverns in profound silence, edging ever closer to his terrible destination.

  The snow maidens had claimed he would meet his end soon. Perhaps they taunted him. Perhaps they lied.

  But given that he sought the gates of Hel, he could not help but suspect they truly did foretell his doom.

  Will you then turn back …?

  No. There was no going back. Hermod was finding his daughter. No matter the cost.

  12

  The way Narfi reckoned it, Asgard looked better inundated. The sea jotunnar had come to him, finally flocked back to old Aegir’s banner, and flooded the valleys. They brought the sea crashing down—especially Aegir. Whole ocean seemed poised to obey his whims, and his wife’s too. Crusty bastard had betrayed the Elder Council, true enough. Sided with Mundilfari when the Accursed One raised the fucking wall. Gone then, and married a mer instead of one of his own kind.

  Well, but he’d had a seat on the Elder Council, was a progenitor to the sea jotunn race. Didn’t
matter if someone was man or jotunn, really. They always came back to their parents.

  Just like Narfi. Avenging his brother and come to see his father and stepmother.

  Actually, just like Leikn, too, and her rage might almost have matched his own. She didn’t talk too much, but she’d demanded to come on his first war band. Always thirsting for vengeance for Vörnir, a wrong done by the Aesir before Narfi was even born. Done by Thor, no less, same as just about all the other wrongs they laid on the Aesir.

  She wanted blood for her dead father, and Narfi couldn’t half blame her for it.

  Now, he watched from across the new lagoon, while Leikn set into another of the Asgarder war bands. Weak-looking, in fact, probably hadn’t had apples, the poor wretches. She tore into them, with help from Hyrrokkin, riding one of her vargar.

  Couldn’t well have gotten the giant wolves across the sea without Aegir’s help, so Narfi reckoned he owed the old jotunn that, too.

  “Should be over there,” Gangr said. “Should be helping.”

  Narfi didn’t bother with a response on that one. They all knew they had to strike all over the both of the islands, and hard and fast. Catch the Aesir unawares, much as they could, and prevent them from mounting a real counterattack. It meant he’d split his people all up, with Suttungr taking his brother and daughter to the north island, and Narfi breaking the jotunnar into groups to strike all abouts on this isle.

  By now, Thrivaldi ought to be wreaking some havoc inland, and Hyrrokkin’s wolves were terrorizing the woodlands, while Narfi himself set to securing the coasts. Sea jotunnar were making sure no one came to help the Aesir, true, but Narfi won’t taking no chances of letting his prey escape. They’d scuttle every boat they found, kill the sailors, and make damn certain Asgard didn’t have much more than a fortnight left to live.

  An enormous crash of thunder resounded out across the lagoon, followed by exploding trees.

  “Oh, fuck a mammoth,” Gangr complained. “Don’t tell me that’s him.”