Asgard

by Fynn F Gunnarson

  As the rainbow bridge loomed large before them, one last and, possibly, terminal throw of the dice came into Sharp Axe’s head: it was a long shot but, he reasoned, it had to be worth a try.

  ‘Tanngnjóstr! Tanngrisnir!’ he bellowed, above the thundering chariot wheels. ‘I command you – in the name of Thor – to slow down!’

  Perhaps it was the mention of Thor’s name. Perhaps it was the mention of the goats’ names. Perhaps the driver had finally hit upon a command they recognised. Whatever the reason, Sharp Axe’s order to the goats seemed to work. To its passengers’ undisguised joy and surprise, the chariot immediately began to decelerate, as the goats slowed right down to something approaching a canter.

  Sharp Axe and Mithrén looked at each other, wide-eyed, delighted, excited, but most of all, relieved.

  ‘You’ve done it!’ declared the elf maiden, sounding astonished and suddenly full of admiration for her beloved.

  ‘Oh… ’ shrugged Sharp Axe, modestly, ‘ ... it was nothing… I just – ’ but his humble acceptance speech was cruelly interrupted when, suddenly, the goats picked up speed again. Sharp Axe then realised that Tanngnjóstr and Tanngrisnir had slowed down for no reason other than to adjust their approach towards Bifrost, in order to ensure that they negotiated the bridge at a more manageable angle. Having convinced themselves that they were approaching the bridge absolutely straight-on, the goats rapidly accelerated back up to what had been their previous speed or, rather worryingly for the passengers, even beyond that previous speed.

  ‘Hang o – !’ yelled Sharp Axe, but the impact of the stone wheels against Bifrost rising curve and the start of the chariot’s steep ascent cut short his warning.

  Up they climbed – goats, chariot, driver and passenger – following a now-familiar arc (although the familiarity did nothing to make the anticipation of what was to come any less terrifying). In similar fashion to the first occasion on which Sharp Axe and Mithrén had travelled along the rainbow bridge, at the highest point, the stone wheels parted company with whatever it was that constituted Bifrost and the chariot flew the remainder of the distance down to Asgard, hitting the hard ground with a near-deafening clatter. The chariot bounced high into the air again, lifting Tanngnjóstr and Tanngrisnir with it and, for one horrifying moment, it occurred to Sharp Axe that the vehicle might land on top of the goats (he did a quick mental assessment of the probable sentence he would face in Asgard for the combined crimes of chariot theft and capricide, which did nothing for his already-fragile current state of mind) but, fortunately, Tanngnjóstr and Tanngrisnir managed somehow or other to hit the ground running and stay safely ahead of their troublesome cargo (perhaps, Sharp Axe reasoned, because they were used to such manoeuvres being carried out intentionally by their absent master).

  ‘They did that on purpose – slowing down and speeding up again like that!’ called Mithrén over the noise, as she clung on, desperately, with both arms wrapped around Sharp Axe who, in turn, struggled to keep some kind of control over the steering-process. The chariot veered from side to side, occasionally feeling as though it might overturn, first on the left, then on the right, but Sharp Axe’s strength, the goats’ experience and sheer good luck kept it trundling along at high speed upon its two wheels.

  On raced Tanngnjóstr and Tanngrisnir, dragging the burden of the stone chariot and its two battle-weary passengers through Asgard towards Odin’s palace, Valaskjálf and, Sharp Axe and Mithrén assumed, beyond it to the gathering of Aesir and Vanir. It was, more or less at this point, that Mithrén asked a most pertinent yet, at the same time, most unwelcome question.

  ‘How are you planning to stop this thing?’ she bawled, wide-eyed and frantically. In response, Sharp Axe bawled several commands at the goats, aimed at encouraging the animals to come to an immediate stop and, when this had no effect, screamed several specific, quite detailed and completely unsuccessful threats at them, then hauled back on the reins with all his might – all to no effect whatsoever.

  Just when it seemed there was nothing which could be done to stop the goats, however, they decelerated suddenly and, seemingly, of their own accord. As the goats slowed to something approaching a casual trot, they both looked skyward, to a point almost directly above their heads.

  Sharp Axe felt a shiver run down his spine; Mithrén seemed to have experienced a similar feeling, for she turned to him, questioningly.

  ‘What’s happening?’ she asked, puzzled.

  Sharp Axe looked up, as the goats had done. Some way overhead, a bird had overtaken them and was flying with apparent purpose, carrying in its claws what looked like a short, sharpened wooden spear or dart, towards the place where the gods and goddesses were assembled.

  There was a brief pause, during which Sharp Axe and Mithrén absorbed the information, thought about it then, simultaneously, came to the same, terrible conclusion.

  ‘Loki!’ they concluded, as one.

  ‘He knows!’ breathed Mithrén and looked pleadingly at Sharp Axe. ‘How can that be? What can we do?’

  The goats had come to a complete halt, now; they were frightened and, Sharp Axe had already concluded, going no further.

  ‘We get out of this thing… ’ he told Mithrén, resolutely, ‘… and we run!’

  *

  Loki the hooded crow was feeling very pleased with himself. His plan, hatched at a moment when all had seemed irretrievably lost, had worked better than even he had dared to imagine. Frygga had been unexpectedly forthcoming but, then, Loki had been meticulous in his preparation: he had played to the goddess’s two greatest weaknesses: her kind heart and her unwavering, all-consuming love for her son, Baldr.

  In fact, as he flew through the sweet Asgard air, mistletoe dart in his claws, Loki almost chastised himself for not having hatched the plot before he did. It was so obvious, that he should have seen the solution long ago: gain Frygga’s confidence; win her sympathy; ply her with compliments about her beloved son; extract the secret of how to end his life and, as a result, discover a way to initiate Ragnarøkkr.

  Perhaps, Loki reasoned, he could have done things differently, found a way sooner. But, he told himself, there were no time constraints to this; the essential thing was that Ragnarøkkr was on the verge of beginning. Nothing, Loki knew, absolutely nothing in all the Nine Worlds, could stop him, now.

  *

  Sharp Axe and Mithrén had abandoned the stone chariot; they had left the goats tethered to it and run, for all they were worth, towards the Aesir and Vanir gathered amongst Asgard’s luscious trees, in a desperate attempt to save the life of one of their number: the most beautiful and the most beloved.

  There was, of course, more at stake than simply the life of an Asgard deity, however beautiful or beloved he might have been: the survival of the Aesir and, with that, the very existence of the Nine Worlds in its present form was also very much in the balance.

  ‘We’ve lost him!’ cried Mithrén, disappointedly and close to exhaustion and tears, as she searched the skies ahead of her in vain, for some sign of the hooded crow.

  ‘We have to keep running!’ called Sharp Axe, without looking round at Mithrén. ‘We might still be able to stop him!’ though, deep down, he had already resigned himself to accepting that their all efforts would, in the end, almost certainly have been for nothing.

  *

  Unnoticed by the gods of Asgard, as they continued their game, throwing objects of every description at Baldr, a hooded crow landed on the grass behind a chair, having first released the cumbersome load it had been carrying in its claws. In that chair was seated Hødr, God of Winter, twin brother of Baldr: blind, miserable and unable to join in the game his fellow deities were now playing.

  In the twinkling of an eye, the crow changed its form to that of an old woman: wizened, unkempt, largely toothless and, all in all, not terribly pleasing to the eye, twinkling or otherwise.

  The crone leaned forward until her rather unattractive mouth was almost touching the right ear of Baldr’s sco
wling sibling. ‘You could join in, Hødr,’ she whispered, choosing her words carefully. ‘Baldr gets all the attention,’ she continued in a sympathetic tone and could tell, from Hødr’s facial expression, that she had chosen the right approach. ‘Why shouldn’t you have a little fun, as well? Go on… I shall guide your hand… help you to take… aim… ’

  *

  As Sharp Axe arrived breathlessly at his destination, with his equally-breathless intended still some way behind him, the events which then began to unfold before him seemed to take place in some kind of terrible slow-motion.

  Sharp Axe took in the scene, up ahead: a group of Aesir and Vanir was happily throwing all manner of objects at a smiling Baldr who, for his part, was calmly standing still, allowing the objects to hurtle toward him, safe in the knowledge that each one would undergo a self-inflicted diversion and fly past his delicate form, or else simply drop harmlessly, out of the air to the ground, before reaching him.

  An old woman stood, stooping over a figure Sharp Axe did not know (Baldr’s blind brother, Hødr), who was sitting in a chair. She placed something in his left hand: a short, wooden spear or dart. He felt the weight of the weapon, raising and lowering it in his hand, to get used to it. The crone said something in his ear and he drew back his arm – the arm holding the spear – and listened intently to what appeared to be the old woman’s instructions.

  Sharp Axe wanted to call out a warning to the unknown figure, to the other gods and goddesses but, as if the events he was witnessing were taking place in a dream, he found himself unable to do so; truth be told, even if he could have found the words in time, he doubted the deities would have taken any notice of him. If he were to be able physically, somehow, to avert the disaster he felt sure was just about to take place, he had only his speed upon which to rely to get him to his destination in time. On this occasion, however, mere speed was insufficient.

  Whilst he was still some distance away from the group, Sharp Axe saw the spear he knew to be fashioned from mistletoe, fly silently through the air, on its journey to Baldr’s heart: a journey which would be short but which would, nonetheless, eventually have extremely far-reaching and truly catastrophic consequences.

  Sharp Axe saw, all too vividly, the missile hit Baldr in the chest, which it penetrated easily up to about half of its length. Initially, Baldr appeared mildly amused that someone and something had actually found a way to strike him, so convinced had he been of his invincibility. The amusement did not last long, however, as the realisation came to him that his heart had been pierced cleanly by a sharpened dart, made from the only object in the Nine Worlds which could harm him.

  To the horrified gasps of the Aesir and Vanir who held him in such high esteem, his parents Frygga Odin amongst them, Baldr fell to the ground, mortally wounded by the hand of his own, unsuspecting brother.

  By the time Sharp Axe arrived at the scene, the old woman had vanished, to be replaced once more by the now-familiar hooded crow, which had taken to the air immediately after the mistletoe dart had left Hødr’s hand, apparently confident that it would find its innocent target.

  ‘Loki!’ gasped Sharp Axe as loudly as he could, breathing heavily, hands on knees, to the despondent crowd of deities, every one of whom had been ready to blame Hødr. ‘See how he flees, disguised as a crow!’ and he raised a weary arm, to point a finger at the rapidly-disappearing bird.

  The faltering voice of Odin who was, even now, calculating the unthinkable consequences of his son’s untimely demise, rang out above the chaos.

  ‘Sharp Axe… follow Loki! We must capture him… take Thor’s chariot! I shall prepare Sleipnir and collect Thor from Jøtunheimr myself. Týr, Freyr… I would speak with you – quickly!’

  Not even hesitating to consider how Odin could have known he had Thor’s chariot at his disposal, Sharp Axe managed a dejected nod in the Allfather’s direction.

  ‘As you wish, Odin,’ replied Sharp Axe obediently, though fighting inwardly to suppress the rising panic. ‘But, first,’ he continued, diverting the Chief God’s attention back to him, away from Týr and Freyr, and sounding rather bolder than he had any right to sound, under the circumstances, ‘I have to take the chariot on a journey to Midgard… there is someone there whose help I shall need if I am to have any chance of finding Loki!’

  Chapter Thirty

  The Beginning of the End

  ‘Please! Don’t leave me here!’ begged Aldaron, shortly after Sharp Axe’s and Mithrén’s arrival in Grimstad and the latter’s concise announcement that he required Fynn’s services. Aldaron had heard the distant rumble of the chariot’s wheels long before anyone else in the Wolf-Wrestler household and had decided to exit the house and walk towards the noise in order to meet the chariot, believing that its return presented an opportunity for his eagerly-awaited departure from Midgard. In truth, he wanted to plead for a lift back to Álfheimr out of earshot of Sharp Axe’s family, for fear of causing offence. As it turned out, the Light Elf misjudged the speed at which the chariot was approaching its destination and, consequently, had managed to walk only fifty or sixty paces before Sharp Axe (now getting the hang of controlling the goats’ movements, perhaps because he was now using the vehicle by Odin’s decree), brought it to a halt. Aldaron was surprised to see that Thor was not amongst the vehicle’s passengers, but this had initially lifted his spirits even higher for, in his eyes, Thor’s absence had only increased the chances that Sharp Axe, Mithrén, Fynn and he could travel out of Midgard together and soon. On hearing that Sharp Axe had come back simply to collect Fynn, Aldaron had felt crushed, betrayed, murderous and suicidal all at the same time, but was not willing to give in without a fight.

  ‘Please take me with you!’’ persevered the Light Elf, somehow sounding even more desperate than before. ‘If Fynn wants to travel in the chariot with you two, I’ll hang on, outside it… somehow.’

  ‘No, Aldaron; I’m sorry, but it’s just too dangerous,’ returned Sharp Axe, quickly, forcefully and with only the slightest trace of sympathy in his voice. He gave a quick, awkward, sideways glance at Mithrén, standing next to him in the chariot. ‘Besides,’ he continued in what was barely an audible mutter, ‘Mithrén will be here... to keep you company.’

  The elf maiden’s reaction was swift, resolute and totally predictable. ‘No, she won’t!’ snorted Mithrén.

  ‘Look... ’ began Sharp Axe and, ignoring the piercing look she was giving him, he turned to face his intended and placed a large hand on each of her shoulders, ‘... I can’t take you with us.’

  ‘Because...?’ pressed Mithrén, expecting Sharp Axe to present some poor, unconvincing, half-formed argument about her being a feeble maiden and, consequently, of little or no use during the mission to intercept the Trickster God.

  ‘Because,’ replied Sharp Axe without hesitation, ‘Loki could control me by threatening to harm you. Or worse, still... forget the Nine Worlds: Loki could end my world in an instant, by taking your life.’

  Mithrén opened her mouth to argue but stopped herself, closed her mouth, nodded thoughtfully, cleared her throat, swallowed hard and wiped an eye furtively.

  ‘Aha... to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?’ cried a bold, bright, cheerful voice, which Sharp Axe did not recognise; reluctantly, he looked away from Mithrén and was surprised to discover that the unfamiliar voice had belonged to his father, who was now standing a few paces in front of the chariot, wearing what looked suspiciously like a smile and draping a paternal arm around his other son, Fearless.

  ‘Loki has just slain Baldr and fled – or, rather, he made Hødr kill Baldr,’ replied Sharp Axe, not expecting for a moment that anyone would be able to follow the plot, but wondering briefly whether the trauma of recent events had started to give him hallucinations featuring his father and brother. ‘Odin sent me to find Loki,’ he continued, ‘to... er... well, he didn’t actually say why – maybe he knew I was the only one in Asgard today mad enough to drive Thor’s chariot – but I can’t think ab
out that now, because I really need help, so – ’

  ‘So... ’ interrupted Harald cheerily, smiling even more broadly now and adopting a look of heightened expectation, ‘... you’ve come for the Wolf Slayer to help save the Nine Worlds!’

  ‘Er... no… ’ replied Sharp Axe slowly and in some confusion, caused mainly by his father’s good mood, ‘… I need... sorry – who?’

  Harald looked wounded. ‘Your brother, here, of course!’ he said, patting Fearless on the back proudly and with uncharacteristic care. ‘Finest warrior in the Wolf-Wrestler family!’

  ‘Yes… ’ sighed Sharp Axe, suspecting that a generous quantity of Wolf-Wrestler mead had recently seen the light of day, ‘… very funny, Father. But this is serious!’

  ‘I am serious!’ insisted Harald and although the intensity of his smile had eased a notch or two, it had not disappeared by any means. ‘Slaughtered a wolf with his bare hands, didn’t you, boy?’ he exaggerated, playfully slapping his son’s cheek a few times, again in a more gentle fashion than might normally have been expected of the Wolf Wrestler. Fearless looked unsure whether to laugh or cry, but said nothing.

  Sharp Axe ignored Harald, who was clearly either very drunk or suffering from some inexplicable form of delirium and looked past him, Fearless and Aldaron, towards his mother and Fynn, who were both just arriving on the scene. ‘Is he ill, or something?’ enquired Sharp Axe of his mother, indicating his father with a sideways movement of an extended thumb.

  Gunnhildr merely smiled, whilst Fynn approached Sharp Axe. ‘No,’ muttered Fynn, ‘Fearless really did kill a wolf. Harald’s treating him like the son he never had. If you’ve come for me, just let me in that two-wheeled death-trap and let’s get out of here. Explain why later; the reason really doesn’t matter.’