by C. L. Werner
Tyr could hear Lorelei and Bjorn running after him. He pushed the scaly carcass away and raised his arm to greet them. It was only then that he noticed where the lizard’s last dash had brought him. He was back in the main complex, the tunnels that were used by Surtur’s minions. More stable in their construction than the neglected warren of tunnels they’d been following and lit by flickering torches. And they were far from deserted.
Seventeen
There were at least a dozen fire demons staring at Tyr, their weapons at the ready. Two of the foremost held the leashes of gigantic dogs with furless red hides and flame dripping from their fangs – hellhounds. Guards brought here by the sound of fighting. They looked surprised to see him, but surprised or not, there was no mistaking the hostility in their fiery eyes.
Tyr smiled at the glowering fire demons. “I don’t suppose one of you lost a lizard?”
The fire demons holding the leashes released their hellhounds. The snarling dogs barreled towards Tyr, flames crackling about their sharp fangs. He dropped his sword and spun around, seizing one of the lizard’s legs. Using his other arm for leverage, he swung back around, dragging the reptile off the floor. Whipping the heavy carcass as he spun, he sent it crashing into the beasts. The hellhounds yelped as the lizard smashed into them and sent them rolling along the floor.
The guards cursed Tyr’s feat and charged across the hall. He recovered Tyrsfang from the ground and made ready to meet them. “Please tell me you have something left in that bag of yours,” he shouted to Lorelei as she came sprinting over to him.
“Maybe. If it works,” she replied. Again her hand dropped into the satchel, this time emerging with a prism of amber-colored glass. She pressed it to her forehead. “Stay here,” she ordered Bjorn when he would have rushed ahead to meet the enemy. He drew back and stood beside Tyr while she wove her spell.
“From the peaks of Jotunheim, I call you, giants of frost!” Lorelei’s voice thundered through the passageway. “Attend my conjuring, for your mortal foes are here, the slaves of Surtur!”
Her incantation only incensed the fire demons still more. Tyr thought it was going to be a repeat of her earlier enchantment, driving the enemy into enraged abandon. Only this time he’d need to protect her from three times as many maddened guards!
Then the air began to shimmer. Tyr blinked in amazement as four enormous shapes appeared. Each was several feet taller than the fire demons, with pale blue skin and long white beards. They wore armor of dragonscales covered in clumps of ice and in their hands they gripped massive double-headed axes. By what incredible process, he didn’t know, but Lorelei’s spell had drawn frost giants into Muspelheim!
The fire demons faltered, their eyes flickering with wonder as the giants appeared before them. They drew back, anxiously muttering among themselves, even their hot tempers cooled by the prospect of fighting the hulking warriors.
Lorelei caught at Tyr’s arm. “We’ve got to go quickly,” she hissed, trying to draw him away. Tyr resisted. He didn’t know how the frost giants were here, but they were allies against Surtur and he refused to leave even a temporary friend in battle. Lorelei must have guessed the reason for his hesitance. “They’re not real,” she whispered. “It’s an illusion. Now let’s go before the guards figure it out for themselves.”
Tyr nodded in agreement, but the trick was already doomed to be undone. One of the hellhounds he’d knocked over was back on its feet. The dog limped towards the frost giants, growling at them, its hackles raised. Before one of the fire demons could call it off, it leaped at the nearest giant. Instead of sinking its fangs in an icy throat, the hellhound sailed through it and crashed to the floor.
A heartbeat later and the fire demons were shrieking in outrage, furious they’d been tricked by the illusion. By then, the Asgardians were already running down the passageway.
“I’ll look for another lizard you can throw at them,” Bjorn puffed as he ran beside Tyr.
Tyr smiled at the jest. “I think we’d need at least two lizards to slow that mob down, but maybe they’ll get tired if we keep them chasing us long enough.”
“They’ve been living soft,” Bjorn said. “Garrison duty. Nothing to do but sit around and get fat.”
“Save your breath and look for a room with pillars,” Lorelei advised them. “The forge will be in that direction.”
Tyr saw a side tunnel opening into the passageway. He ducked as one of the pursuing fire demons threw a mace at him, then diverted so that he could look down the connecting tunnel. He’d taken only a few steps before he hastily backed away. Another group of guards was hurrying through the side tunnel, a brace of hellhounds at their fore.
“Not that way,” Tyr told Lorelei, steering her ahead down the main corridor. He ground his teeth when he suddenly heard the baying of the hellhounds. The second batch of guards had set them loose. The dogs came loping out from the tunnel. They would have been on them in an instant, but their course brought the hellhounds crashing into the original group of guards. Livid curses and angry snarls rang out as the beasts collided with the fire demons.
For the moment the Asgardians were able to put distance between themselves and their enemies. Tyr knew it would only be a few heartbeats before the fire demons recovered and sent the dogs charging after them again. On a straight course, there was no chance of outdistancing the hellhounds.
“Down there!” Bjorn shouted, waving his axe at another side tunnel up ahead of them. There was no hesitation this time to investigate. All three of them rushed for the diversion, putting on as much speed as they could muster.
Tyr was relieved to see that the passage, though wide, took many turns. That would slow the hellhounds and favor them. A slight advantage, but he’d take whatever they could get right now.
Bjorn was up ahead and just a little farther beyond the next turn when he suddenly stopped. Tyr and Lorelei almost crashed into him as they cleared the corner.
It wasn’t hard to figure out why he’d stopped. The tunnel opened into a cavernous hall, cut from the mountain and supported by dozens of pumice pillars. Several corridors branched away in every direction, making the chamber a kind of nexus point, an intersection for this part of Surtur’s stronghold. Tyr thought all the main passages must eventually connect to this room. It was a supposition supported by the fact that the hall was occupied.
Arrayed around the pillars was a mob of furious fire demons. Beyond them, standing on the bottom steps of a stairway leading upwards was a being far more imposing. Fifteen feet in height with a head framed by four curling horns, was a giant woman with bright red skin and a long, bifurcated tail. Flames billowed all around her and her eyes were yellow pits of fire. In her hands she held the obsidian leash of an armored hellhound so big it might have used the colossal lizard Tyr had fought for a chew toy.
“Found the room you were looking for,” Tyr told Lorelei.
The flame-wrapt giant smiled, her face splitting in a fanged grin. “I too have found what I was looking for,” she said, her voice seething like a boiling cauldron. “Lay down your weapons and surrender to Sindr Surtursdottir.” Somehow her smile managed to become even more menacing. “Or don’t. It has been too long since I spilled Aesir blood.”
Eighteen
The daughter of Surtur! Aside from running into the fire giant himself, Tyr could imagine no greater adversary within the stronghold. Tales had reached Asgard of this ruthless monster, the enforcer of her father’s tyranny over Muspelheim. Sindr was said to be the first of Surtur’s progeny to survive the cruel tests by which he evaluated their worthiness, the first to show some ember of the fire giant’s eternal malice. She was a bold, vicious warrior who’d ventured across the Nine Worlds to strike at Surtur’s enemies and carry out his schemes to hasten the hour of Ragnarok.
Tyr met Sindr’s fiery gaze. The huge hellhound beside her snarled at him, its fangs striking sparks as they clashed to
gether. As its mistress towered over the fire demons, so was the dog a giant among its kind, as big as any whelp of Fenris that stalked the forests of Varinheim.
Sindr lost the domineering smile, her expression dropping into a scowl. “I told you to lose your weapons.” Her eyes blazed when Tyr’s hand only tightened its hold upon his sword. “Surrender, fools.” A rattle of laughter steamed over her lips. “Odin is pretentious indeed to send this trash,” she told the fire demons. “The Leavings of the Wolf,” she sneered at Tyr. “And two lesser idiots,” she added with a dismissive wave at Lorelei and Bjorn. “There’s a reason Odin didn’t send Thor on this errand. He could foresee it was suicide and didn’t want to lose his favorite son.”
“Are you going to fight, or try to talk me to death?” Tyr snapped. He brandished Tyrsfang, letting the light from Sindr’s body play across the gleaming blade. “Care to take a closer look at the ‘leavings of the wolf’?”
The flames billowing from Sindr flared angrily. Her body expanded in size, increasing a few feet in height and several inches in width. “Arrogant cur! I am Sindr Surtursdottir! With these hands have I pulled Nidhogg from the roots of Yggdrasil and plucked fangs from the dragon’s mouth! Twenty champions of Malekith fought with me and none so much as scratched my skin! I broke down the walls of King Eitri’s castle and–”
“As I thought,” Tyr interrupted Sindr’s boasting, “you mean to talk me to death.”
Sindr’s entire being was engulfed in a nimbus of white-hot flame so intense even the fire demons recoiled from her. “Kill them!” she roared. The leash in her hand melted from the heat of her body. The huge hellhound bounded forward to ravage Tyr with its fangs.
For just an instant Tyr felt fear flash through him as the enormous beast came for him. His mind shuddered at the image of Fenris, the Great Wolf’s jaws gaping to devour the rest of him as it had his hand. The nightmarish vision itself broke his fear. Compared to Fenris, Sindr’s hellhound was a feral mongrel sniffing for scraps.
Tyr met the dog’s rush, his blade flashing out and gouging the black armor that protected it. The hellhound’s charge faltered as it whipped around, the armor across its foreleg hanging by a mere shred and fiery ichor bubbling from its slashed shoulder.
“Come and fight!” Bjorn yelled as the fire demons swept in to attack. His axe hewed through the sword arm of the first to close with him. A second stumbled back with a gash across his stomach. Other guards charged towards Lorelei, but she snapped a hasty incantation that sent whorls of light jumping from her fingers and had the demons clutching at their blinded eyes.
The wounded hellhound lunged for Tyr once more. He dodged the beast’s attack and chopped at it with his blade. More of the dog armor was shredded by Tyrsfang’s keen edge, but the brute kept coming. This time it slammed into him and sent him sprawling. A fire demon rushed in to exploit his distress, but the hellhound jerked its head around at the sudden motion and bit at him instead. The guard jumped back as the fangs narrowly missed his arm. Satisfied that the fire demon wouldn’t trespass again, the hound turned back to its prey.
Only now that prey wasn’t so helpless as he’d been only a moment before. Tyr drew his legs close to his chest, and when the hellhound sprang at him, he kicked both feet into its muzzle. The impact against its nose stunned the hound. While it was dazed, Tyr rolled onto his feet and pressed his attack. He brought his sword crashing down, striking the beast at the center of its back. A sickening crack echoed through the hall, and the brute sank to the floor, its spine broken by the god’s blow.
“You will suffer as none of my enemies have suffered.” Sindr’s threat came in a sizzling growl. Tyr spun away from the hellhound as the giant leaped down from the steps. Her clawed fist slammed into his breastplate and threw him back a dozen feet. Tyr could feel his bones shiver from the impact. When he glanced down, he saw the imprint of her knuckles in the metal.
Tyr shook his head and tapped the metal cup against the dented armor. “You call that a punch? I’ve taken worse hits from Thor… when he was still a child.”
The mockery made Sindr even more livid. She shoved aside the fire demons converging on Tyr. “The braggart is mine!” she hissed at them. Stomping forward she glared at him. “We’ll see how funny you are after I cut that wagging tongue from your mouth.” She held her fist out. One instant it was empty, but in the next a sword of flickering flame billowed into her grip.
Tyr glanced aside to see how Bjorn and Lorelei were faring. They were on the verge of being overwhelmed, their backs brought up almost against the hot wall. If they were to have any chance of living through this, Tyr had to exploit the only thing that could help them now: Sindr’s volatile temper.
“Prove it,” he scoffed. To heighten Sindr’s fury, he didn’t give her the chance to initiate the attack, but instead sprang at her. Tyrsfang flashed, sweeping for the giant’s leg. She parried with her blazing sword, sparks flying as the two blades strove against one another.
Tyr could feel the giant’s awesome strength as it pulsed through the weapons at the moment of impact. She was over twice his height, at least five times his mass. In a contest of sheer brawn, Sindr would overwhelm him. But the Aesir were old enemies of giants, whatever realm they stirred from, and they’d prevailed not by trying to match their foes on their own terms but by exploiting their weaknesses. Tyr might not be able to outfight Sindr, but he might outthink her.
He whipped aside, throwing himself to her left, away from the sword clenched in her right hand. As he dove, Tyr struck at Sindr, his blade raking across her leg. Molten liquid that smelled like brimstone oozed from the cut. The giant snarled and whipped at him with her tail. He ducked beneath the sweep of the bifurcated lash and it battered the floor instead, driving with such force that the rock split.
“Careful,” Tyr chided Sindr. “Your father won’t be happy if you start breaking his castle.”
Sindr spun about and lunged at him with her flaming sword. Tyr darted back, letting it flash only a few inches from him. He slashed his own blade across her extended arm, cutting her from wrist to elbow. She reared back, roaring in pain.
Sindr’s injury incensed the fire demons. Several charged at Tyr, determined to avenge their mistress. Tyr slammed the metal cup covering his stump against the head of one howling guard and sent the creature spilling to the floor. His sword slashed a second, ripping through his glaive to smash his chest. The force of the blow threw the stricken enemy backwards, knocking three of his comrades to the ground. Another fire demon, a wicked mace clenched in her fist, charged at him, but a sidewise thrust of Tyrsfang turned her attack into a lifeless slide that ended when she crashed against the wall.
More fire demons were close behind the first that Tyr vanquished. He turned from them as Sindr returned to the fight, her wounds sealing themselves and showing now only as glowing scars on her crimson flesh. He met the descending sweep of her sword, catching it with Tyrsfang and using the giant’s own strength against her. Instead of resisting the force of the blow, he let himself be propelled by it, only using his blade as a barrier between himself and the searing edge of Sindr’s weapon. Tyr’s feet slid across the floor as he was driven back. A twist and he used the stolen momentum to add speed as he dashed across the hall between the furious giant and the outraged demons.
“Coward! Stand and fight!” Sindr bellowed as she stormed after Tyr.
“Laggard! Come and catch me!” Tyr jeered back at her. The flames crackling off her body became still more intense as his barb added to her anger. Sindr’s pace increased as she sought to make him regret the insult. One of her strides was the equal of three of his. He could only win a sprint by putting obstacles between them.
A veer to his right provided the first such impediment. Fire demons were moving to cut Tyr off and hold him for Sindr, but the Aesir was faster than they were. He rushed past them, and when they turned to pursue it placed the guards between himsel
f and the giant. A demon shrieked as he was trampled under her pounding feet, the others scattered to give her room and avoid their companion’s doom.
Ahead, Tyr saw what he was striving towards. One of the massive pillars that supported the roof of the chamber. A pair of fire demons blocked his way. Tyrsfang met the lunge of the first, cleaving his skull as he struck at him with an obsidian axe. The second guard drove at him with a glaive. She fared no better than the first, felled by a sword blow of such force that it sent her body flying twenty feet across the room.
Tyr braced himself against the pillar and spun to face Sindr. He smiled at her as she ran towards him. “Very good,” he cheered with mock approval. “You aren’t as clumsy as you look.”
The insult achieved its purpose. Tyr worried that Sindr might wonder why he’d suddenly stopped to face her, but he drew her temper to the fore. Anger blotted out any caution she might otherwise have shown. Snarling in almost bestial rage, she swung for him with her blazing sword.
Tyr waited until the last moment before moving. Using his left arm as a fulcrum, he swung around and aside. The mighty slash intended to sunder him from crown to hip instead slammed into the pillar. The searing heat of the blade and Sindr’s tremendous strength combined to bite through the toughened rock. A gouge several inches thick now marked the pillar.
“Thanks,” Tyr shouted as he swung back around and raked his own sword in the groove made by Sindr. His maneuver was the reverse of the giant’s, slashing from bottom to top. Already weakened by her, his thrust expanded on the damage. By the time Tyrsfang cleared the cut, only an inch of rock maintained the pillar’s cohesion.
An inch wasn’t enough.