by Nick Harrow
The jarl didn’t have much of the life energy to spare, but this surprise attack stood the best chance of cutting down the number of jötnar between him and Bridget.
A storm exploded away from the spear in midflight, raining lightning onto the crowd as thunder rolled across the fortress. Jötnar exploded with every bolt of lightning that plunged into their midst from the supernatural thundercloud that trailed behind Gungnir. The jarl raced along the path the spear had opened for him, arms and legs pumping for all he was worth as he rushed for Arthur.
Mimi kept pace with him, her short swords flashing. Jötnar screamed in pain as her otherworldly blades lopped off any limbs that came near her. Severed hands flew into the air behind her, blood sprayed in her wake, and Mimi laughed, mad with battle.
The armor the Hall of Battle had provided turned aside blows from the jötnar, though the impact still made Mimi stumble and rocked Gunnar from side to side. The storm had done its work, but it had ended, and the jötnar closed in on the pair.
With a sizzling crack, Gungnir reappeared in the jarl’s fist, and he plunged it into one body after another. It was time for the dirty work of slaughter. The weapon seemed drawn to his enemies, its tip flicking like a serpent’s tongue, guiding Gunnar’s strikes to their targets.
The jarl leaned into the weapon’s strengths, spinning and leaping like a man possessed, trusting that his strokes would find their targets as he whirled the weapon around his head. The ludicrously sharp tip worked as well as an axe head as it did a thrusting weapon, and he put it to full use.
The spear’s rotation transformed it into a blurred shield that deflected claws and clubs even as the sharp end hacked their wielders into bloody chunks. Mimi darted under the weapon, her speed and agility letting her score deadly wounds while still being sheltered by Gunnar’s defenses.
Gunnar and Mimi were only halfway across the clearing when Arthur shouted a command that snapped every monster to attention. They shook off their stunned confusion, raised their weapons, and surged to the attack.
“There’re too many of them,” Mimi shouted as a crisscross slash from her swords took the head off a charging jötunn. “I can kill ’em all, but not before noon.”
“We’ll make it,” he responded. A thrust from Gungnir impaled two jötnar, and he swung the weapon around in a savage arc that sent the dead bodies crashing into the mob on his right. With a ragged cry, he swept the legs out from another trio of monsters and stabbed them through their hearts as they fell.
Crystalline arrows shrieked through the air over Mimi’s and Gunnar’s heads to plunge into the eyes and throats of the jötnar barring their path. The slaughter continued as the jarl pushed deeper into the jötnar.
Hamingja surged away from the dead, flowing into Gunnar, Mimi, and Ray in torrents of vitality. Gunnar’s muscles swelled and the fires of berserker rage boiled within his gut like a cauldron of molten iron. The power made him faster and stronger, and he put his new abilities to use as he and Mimi danced around one another, their blades carving a bloody swath through their foes.
Ray put her share of the stolen life force into her arrows, charging their heads so they exploded like grenades when they struck a jötunn. Her assault filled the air with steaming blood and streamers of shredded meat.
“Stop him!” Arthur shouted. “Cut off that fucker’s head and bring it to me!”
“I’m coming for you,” Gunnar howled back at Arthur. “Your monsters can’t save you.”
Despite the horrific casualties the jötnar had suffered at Gunnar’s hand, though, they kept coming. Only the shamans and the warriors who guarded them stayed out of the fray. Those dedicated monsters put all their strength into bringing the ritual to fruition.
Gunnar felt the power of their chanting pound against him in relentless waves. The sun was high overhead. He had to get to Draupnir before it was too late.
But there were so many jötnar, and all of them seemed willing to die to stop his charge. A wall of blue-skinned bodies barred his path, and though he struck them down so quickly they didn’t have time to scream, more took their place.
Mimi had been right. There wasn’t time to kill all of these godforsaken bastards.
“It is time.” Bridget’s words were light as a feather in his thoughts. They gave the jarl hope, though he didn’t understand what they meant.
Gunnar clung to the hope the völva gave him and kept pushing to reach her. Mimi shrieked with rage. Black blood had soaked her to the bone, and the whites of her eyes and bared teeth looked ghostly pale in her face.
“Gunnar, look!” she shouted.
There was a flash of steel on the platform, and Bridget’s hands flew apart, the thick ropes dropping to her feet. She jumped up, raising a knife in the same motion. The völva spun around and plunged it toward the throat of the female jötunn behind her. The attack was shockingly quick, but the monster managed to shift out of the way so the deadly strike only caught her shoulder.
With a snarl, the female jötunn threw herself off the edge of the platform, clutching her shoulder, and vanished in a haze of smoke and shadow. Before Bridget could chase after her enemy, the Jarl called out to her.
“Bridget!” Gunnar shouted. “The ring!”
The völva’s eyes glowed white as she thrust her hand toward the jarl, fingers outstretched. “Throw it,” she shouted.
Gunnar knew what she needed. He ripped the battle axe from the weapon belt over his shoulder and hurled it over the heads of the jötnar.
Arthur lunged for Bridget in the same instant. His hand closed around her throat, the golden band sizzling where it touched her flesh. Bridget didn’t take her eyes away from the axe as it spun through the air. She grabbed Arthur’s wrist, dug her heels in, and pushed backward with all the strength she could muster.
The thrown battle axe spun through the air in a golden blur. Its blade sang as it slammed into Arthur’s outstretched arm and severed it. With a wild grin, Bridget grabbed the axe’s haft before it could fall away.
Arthur slammed his clenched fist into the side of Bridget’s head. The blow knocked her from the platform, and her body flew over the crowd of jötnar around the platform, blood streaming from her lips. But even as the white light faded from her eyes, Bridget focused all of her strength and wrenched Arthur’s dead fingers from around her throat. She hurled the lifeless limb toward Gunnar.
The jarl surged forward, desperate to reach Draupnir before the jötnar snatched it away. This was his chance to end the ritual and stop Hyrrokkin from sending her armies swarming into the ruins of Vegas.
If he failed, though, the jarl would have a front-row seat to the end of the world.
Chapter 26
THE JÖTNAR SURGED TOWARD Gunnar, a wall of screaming faces, whipping blades, and thrashing horns. One after another they fell before his spear, heedless of their wounds, eager only to stop him from reaching his goal. Hyrrokkin’s mad eyes stared back at him from every face as she pushed her minions beyond the limits of sanity. Black claws seized the edges of the jarl’s armor, only to be snapped or cut off as the jarl dragged himself forward in a desperate rush to catch Arthur’s severed arm before it vanished into the crowd.
Mimi’s voice split the air in a banshee’s wail. She sang a song of destruction as her blades hacked into the jötnar. The völva was far faster than the monsters she faced, so nimble she slid under their swiping weapons and leapt over their savage kicks. An enormous jötunn tried to grab her with outstretched arms, but she drove her sword into its stomach, pulled herself up to drive the second weapon through its heart, then scrambled onto its shoulder to make a spinning leap over the blades thrust at her. She vanished from Gunnar’s sight, but her song went on as she plunged back into the crowd behind her blades.
The bodyguard was no match for his partner’s agility, but he was far stronger and taller. Inspired by her acrobatic escape from the crowd, he rammed the tip of his spear through a jötunn’s thigh and used the weapon to vault into the air. He
ripped Gungnir out of the beast he’d stabbed and thrust it out in front of him.
The enchanted weapon impaled Arthur’s severed forearm a split second before one of the jötnar could snatch Draupnir. With a howl of victory, Gunnar pulled the haft back and grabbed his prize. He tore Arthur’s finger away from the rest of the hand, and the golden ring fell into his palm. The bodyguard closed his enormous fist around the relic as he reached the end of his vault and crashed into the jötnar crowd.
The savage beasts went wild when he landed amongst them. They stomped, howled, and hammered at Gunnar with their weapons. The air reeked of their filthy bodies and the wretched, sulfurous smoke of their fires. The jarl could scarcely breathe from the miasma, and his head swam with the effort of surviving the mosh pit from hell.
Gunnar rose to his knees and rammed his spear through the guts of a jötunn. He hammered his clenched fist into the groin of another. He was so close to victory, but he needed a few more seconds and space to inscribe the blood rune on his arm.
The jötnar wouldn’t give it to him. They crushed in around him in a relentless tide, driven by Hyrrokkin’s rage and fear. “You are finished,” her voice howled from a dozen throats. “You will go no further, pawn of Odin.”
There was nowhere for the jarl to escape to, no way to carve a path through the writhing ring of flesh, horns, and blades that surrounded him. For a moment, he considered drawing on the power he’d used in the Luxor. But activating that vision had weakened the völva. With both Bridget and Mimi locked in battle with the jötnar, he couldn’t afford to do that.
A crystalline arrow shrieked through the air next to Gunnar’s head and caught a jötunn in the eye. The monster pitched back into the crowd, pushing its allies back a few inches. Another arrow found its mark, then another, and another. Ray’s battle cry pierced the din, as clear as a hunting raptor’s call.
Mimi emerged from the mob to Gunnar’s left, and Bridget from his right. The wounded völva give him a lopsided grin, her split lips oozing blood as her battle axe lopped off jötnar limbs and heads.
“Do it!” she shouted, velvet light pouring from the dot on her forehead. “This is the moment. I have foreseen it!”
Gunnar rammed his spear’s tip into the ground, smeared blood from his wounds onto his fingertips, and began drawing the blood rune. First an uppercase Y with the center stroke extended up between the forks. Then a diamond, sharp and angular, drawn with the Y’s stem bisecting it. The runes Algiz and Inguz, runes of healing and growth.
Nothing happened.
“What the fuck!” Gunnar roared. “Why is it—”
“Put it on!” Mimi shouted.
Gunnar had been so caught up in the heat of battle he hadn’t even considered that. He slipped the golden band around his right ring finger and clenched his fist.
The hamingja they’d stolen from the jötnar rushed into Draupnir and erupted in a circle of devastation. Blood and bodies flew into the air, and the jötnar died screaming. The corrupted runes etched into the bones scattered around Arthur’s base went up like fireworks, exploding in sprays of blackened shards and green flame.
The shamans gathered around the fire wailed as their ritual unraveled. With no focus to contain the hamingja they’d harnessed, the energy rebounded into them with a terrible fury. Their bodies burst like dropped melons, steaming blood spurting from their ruined corpses. The warriors who protected them were caught in the backlash. Bolts of power pierced them, snuffing out their lives in the blink of an eye. They fell to the ground, their eyes reduced to smoking craters, their tongues burned to ash.
“Holy fuck,” Mimi said. “Way to bring down the house.”
Gunnar chuckled and pulled the völva into a bloody embrace. “Go big or go home,” he said with a grin. “Ray, get your ass down here. We’ve got some celebrating to do.”
“This isn’t over,” Arthur shouted. The stump of his arm sizzled and popped, flames crawling along the tattered edges as if stitching him back together. “I won’t let you take this from me, Gunnar.”
The völva tensed on either side of him, and Gunnar felt Ray’s bitter anger burning through their connection. He knew she had her bow drawn, an arrow nocked and ready to fly true into Arthur’s heart.
But he wasn’t sure that would kill the jötunn. Arthur was the only one of the creatures that had survived the relic’s activation. There was more to him than met the eye.
“I’ve got this,” Gunnar murmured to his allies. “Just hang tight.”
He pulled Gungnir from the ground and strode toward his enemy with the weapon’s tip aimed at his heart. “You’ve lost, Arthur,” he said. “Surrender and I’ll give you a clean death.”
The jötunn let loose with a harsh, barking laugh. “I’ve beaten you every step of the way, Gunnar. I took your job. Cost you your woman. And now, finally, I’ll take your life.”
“Come and get it, you arrogant fuck,” Gunnar snarled. “There’s no one left to protect you now. You can’t hide behind Kyrolina’s skirts anymore. It’s just you and me. Let’s see if your balls are as big as you think they are.
Arthur circled the bodyguard. The jötunn wielded no weapon, but the sharp tips of his horns glinted beneath the noonday sun and his remaining fingers ended in jagged nails that looked sharp enough to take out a man’s throat. His eyes burned with a hateful intensity, tracking Gunnar’s every move. He bided his time, waiting for the jarl to make the first move.
“If it wasn’t me who fucked you over, it would’ve been somebody else,” the jötunn taunted. “For such a big guy, you’re a weak man. I wasn’t even trying to get rid of you. Did you know that? I wanted to test you. See how hard you’d fight for that job. But I pull one little prank and you dried up and blew away without raising a hand to defend yourself.”
While ginning up evidence of corporate espionage went way past the level of a prank, Arthur wasn’t entirely wrong, and that made his words sting all the more. Gunnar would have fought the accusations his former peer had raised to Kyrolina, but he’d worried about how it would affect Ray’s career. He’d sacrificed himself for her.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Gunnar said with a shrug. He feinted with his spear and grinned wolfishly when Arthur backpedaled out of range. “Now it’s my turn to see how hard you’ll fight when it’s your ass on the line.”
He unleashed a flurry of quick jabs that drove Arthur back, half stumbling over the bodies that littered the ground. The bodyguard had to admit his foe was quick on his feet. This would be no easy battle.
“Was it worth it?” Arthur followed the question with a spinning kick that knocked Gunnar’s spear to the side. The jötunn didn’t follow up with an attack through the opening he’d created. He smiled and crooked his fingers at Gunnar. “You gave up your entire life for what? A piece of ass that’s not even that hot?”
Those words were eerily close to something the old man had said toward the end of his days. He’d been so pissed at Gunnar for trying to save everyone instead of just looking out for himself. The bodyguard hadn’t known how to explain to his father why he’d left YmirRe. He’d thought about that conversation for years, though, and now he had an answer to that question.
“Yeah,” Gunnar said. “It was worth it. I made my way just fine, and Ray climbed the ladder at YmirRe a lot faster than you did. Who do you think Kyrolina valued more, Art? A piece-of-shit security guard who backstabbed everyone he worked with or the data scientist she entrusted with her company’s secrets?”
Arthur responded just as Gunnar had hoped. Rage made him barrel forward, horns lowered like a rampaging bull. A guttural roar ripped free of the jötunn’s throat, and his feet churned up bloody mud with every step. He was far, far faster than the jarl expected.
Gunnar planted his spear and braced for Arthur’s charge. He clenched his jaw and took in a deep breath. One of them was not walking away from this moment.
Arthur didn’t even try to dodge Gunnar’s spear. His headlong rush carried him straigh
t onto the tip, which plunged through his gut and burst out of his back. He roared at the instant of impact, his steaming spittle spraying the jarl’s face. Momentum carried the charging jötunn down the length of the spear, and he bellowed again, whipping his head left and right, trying to tear Gunnar’s throat out with the tips of his horns.
The slashing attacks flayed Gunnar’s left check and right temple to the bone, unleashing gouts of blood that poured down his neck and over his armor. A cold wind blew against the gashes, chilling the jarl. Less than a second later, though, he felt the itch of wounds knitting closed. The ring was patching him up.
“Fucking die!” Gunnar shouted and wrenched the spear left and right, using the haft still inside Arthur to open the jötunn’s wounds. Black blood gushed over Gunnar’s hands, but still the fucking monster wouldn’t give up the ghost.
“None of this had to happen,” Arthur spat, blood drooling over his chin. “You and your bitch fucked up everything.”
Gunnar let go of the spear with his left hand and hammered the side of Arthur’s head with a savage punch. Draupnir’s gold split the jötunn’s flesh, revealing blackened bones shot through with threads of crimson fire. Blood boiled from the wound, carrying the foul stench of rot into the air.
“Ray stopped Kyrolina,” Gunnar said and delivered another punishing blow. “You’re the one who fucked everything up.”
Arthur laughed and grabbed Gungnir with both hands. Before Gunnar could react, the jötunn pushed the haft sideways with tremendous force. The wooden rod tore through Arthur’s body, ripping flesh, muscles, and organs as it burst free of his flesh.
For a moment, Gunnar believed Arthur had committed suicide right in front of him. But the jötunn didn’t so much as stumble as he held his guts inside his body with both hands.
He grinned at Gunnar as his flesh stitched itself back together.
The jarl tried to stab the jötunn again before he could finish healing, But Arthur twisted on one heel to let the spear slide harmlessly past him.