Sword of Secrets (Heroes of Asgard Book 1)

by S. M. Schmitz

  I shot Frey my best don’t-even-think-about it glare but I was too intimidated by the thought of Freyja showing up for some reason. Part of me suspected it was because I was terrified I’d meet this woman who’d shown up in my dream and she’d look exactly like she had in my imagination, and that same part of me also suspected I already knew that would happen.

  “Can’t you just call her?” I asked, and my voice may or may not have squeaked a little. I’m not saying either way.

  “She should meet you and hear this for herself,” Frey insisted.

  But for once, Keira took my side. “He can call her. We don’t have to get her over here. It’s not like she’s going to lie to us.”

  Frey rolled his eyes and argued with her. “You just don’t want her here because you know she’ll hit on him.”

  I snickered and was ready to defend Keira, who most certainly did not care about who was hitting on me—maybe she’d care if someone were literally hitting on me, but only because she was convinced she needed me for this ridiculous Ragnarok thing they had going on—but Keira crossed her arms and scowled at Frey.

  “Of course she will. And she always gets her way.”

  “Not always,” I interrupted. “If you believe any of that dream, anyway.”

  Frey laughed and told me he wanted to believe the whole dream just for that reason.

  “Besides, why would you care? Think if I sleep with Freyja it’ll detract from my mission to become the world’s most badass hero?” Considering I had just threatened to throw up in their car if I saw someone getting beheaded, I thought they had their work cut out for them in that regard. I was more than a little experienced in the bedroom though; I may as well live up to the expectations of at least one of these women. Except I surprised myself by not really wanting to sleep with Freyja, even if she did show up looking every bit as hot as she did in my dream. I couldn’t shake Havard’s dislike of her and that just pissed me off, too. The woman may have worn way too much jewelry, but she was gorgeous.

  Keira never answered me, so Tyr cleared his throat and scratched at his beard. “Don’t be so hard on her. The Seer told her—”

  “Shut up, Tyr,” she snapped then she opened the car door and climbed out, slamming it behind her.

  “Told her what?” I asked.

  Tyr looked at Frey for assistance. I thought if he didn’t really want to tell me something, he should have kept his mouth shut. Of course, I hadn’t learned that lesson well myself either.

  Frey pushed another blond curl off his forehead and smiled weakly at me. “Prophecies are tricky, Gavyn.”

  I exhaled angrily because they kept insisting they’d abducted me over one of their prophecies. If they were so damn tricky, then maybe I’d been right all along: they had the wrong guy and they should let me go home.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Frey insisted. “There’s a difference between connecting someone to their past and predicting their future. The past is gone and can’t be changed, but prophecies can sometimes seem like they’re predicting one thing but they’re actually predicting another. There are hidden meanings contained within them. If it were so easy, we’d already know who’s going to win this war and how.”

  I watched Keira as she walked away from us, her arms still folded defensively across her chest. She never turned to look at us but headed back to the table of weapons and began rifling through them again. I think she was just trying to keep herself busy because none of them seemed to interest her that much anymore.

  “What did the Seer tell her then? Sounds like it involved me. Don’t you think I should get to know, too?”

  “No,” Frey said. “It was Gunnr’s prophecy, not yours. If she wants to tell you, that’s her business.”

  “Her name’s Keira,” I said then I opened my car door and followed my own personal Valkyrie-hijacker to the table. She hardly glanced up at me as she put the handle of an axe in my now gloved hands. At least they weren’t numb anymore.

  “What? Am I supposed to chop wood now?” I asked. I was only being a half-smartass this time. I really couldn’t imagine how anyone would fight with an axe.

  Keira looked me over, but not in that my-god-I-really-did-kidnap-the-village-idiot kind of way she usually did. “No, you’re right. This isn’t for you.” She took the axe out of my hands and reached across the table for a bow. I stopped her before she could grab the quiver.

  “Keira, those look real. And there are people out here. I’m not shooting arrows. I tried this once. Both Hunter and I did and I’m pretty sure neither of us even hit the target.”

  Keira’s eyes sparkled with amusement as she glanced up at me. “First of all, were you sober?”

  Goddamn it.

  “Um…”

  “And secondly, were you shooting real arrows from a bow or were you at a bar throwing darts?”

  Shit.

  “Okay, but I still don’t think I hit the target and darts should be easier than a bow and arrow, right?”

  Keira grabbed the quiver and told me to follow her. As I sluggishly dragged my feet behind Keira’s amazingly perfect body that would probably be just as erotic in the dark denim jeans she was wearing or red lace lingerie, Tyr trudged along behind me. We stopped about a hundred feet away from a tree at the edge of the field and Keira said something about aiming for the trunk but I’d gone and gotten my mind all fixated on Keira showing up in my hotel room in a red lace bra and thong. And then Tyr said something, which just reminded me he would be in that hotel room and my fantasy crumbled, so I stared grumpily at the tree.

  Keira had to repeat what she wanted me to do. She wanted me to fire an arrow at the trunk of the tree to see if my aim was any better sober. She handed me an arrow from the quiver and I held it in my hand then looked at the bow. It couldn’t be that hard to figure out how to shoot one of these things. I’d seen 300. The Persians made it look pretty easy anyway.

  I rested the arrow on the shelf and pulled the string back, releasing it when I thought I had it aimed pretty straight. But that damn arrow wobbled and flew into the ground before it even reached the tree. Keira handed me another arrow. “Try again,” she instructed.

  Maybe she thought I was screwing this up on purpose. I kinda wished I was. The second and third arrows didn’t meet their marks either, and Tyr got bored. “I’m getting a sword,” he told us.

  I watched him for a few seconds before turning to Keira and asking her, “Can I go with him?”

  Keira looked at the arrows sticking out of the ground and sighed. “Don’t give up, Gavyn. We were able to trace the legends of the other heroes so we knew what kind of weapons run in their blood. You mentioned Havard having some kind of magic sword, which isn’t uncommon, but I’ve never heard of one specifically like that.”

  “And you’re assuming these people are my ancestors. Seems highly unlikely considering no one has heard of them.”

  Keira’s bright blue eyes bore into me and I think I might have actually blushed. Between this and the squeaking—which still may not have happened—I was never getting my balls back.

  “Yes, I think that’s why you’re having these dreams now. He’s trying to help you, Gavyn. You need to let him.”

  I walked away from her to retrieve the arrows I’d shot into the ground, but she followed me. “If Freyja has never heard of him either, will you let it go?” I asked her. I pulled one of the arrows free and handed it to her.

  Keira didn’t answer me right away so I glanced at her, and she was watching me, biting her lip nervously so I concentrated on freeing the other two arrows that had been unceremoniously plunked into the dirt. “Something happened,” she finally said.

  The last arrow was stuck on a root or a rock or a troll and I had to yank on it pretty hard to get it free. “Something is always happening,” I told her.

  Keira actually smiled at me. “No, I mean something to Havard and Arnbjorg. I’m willing to bet that’s why no one can remember them. If he was powerful enough, then he could hav
e convinced a völva to—”

  “A what?” I interrupted with a mischievous grin. That sounded suspiciously like a female body part and I had flashbacks to Mr. Higginbottham’s biology class. I couldn’t help wondering if Keira would show me her völva.

  Keira rolled her eyes and muttered something in Norse at me and even though I don’t speak Norse, I’m pretty sure “pain in the ass” was in there somewhere.

  “They’re like prophets and magicians. And I think something happened that compelled Havard to seek one out and erase the memories of Arnbjorg and him. He didn’t want anyone to remember them.”

  I shivered but I wasn’t sure if it was from the frigid air or the effect Keira’s words had on me. It shouldn’t have even bothered me, because I didn’t even believe in any of these stories. But I heard myself asking her anyway. “Why do you think he’d do that?”

  Tyr called out to us to hurry up; we were wasting what little daylight we had. “I don’t know, Gavyn. But I think you’ll eventually find out.”

  I shook my head at her but she was ready to meet Tyr so I was only shaking my head at myself. After the first dream, I’d been convinced this young nameless god was a disgusting excuse for a man. Or a man-god. Or whatever the hell they were. But after the second dream, his confessions about his mother and his anger toward his father, his love for this girl and his respect for her boundaries until she wanted him too—what could have made him feel so guilty that he wiped out everyone’s memories of them both? If it was guilt. But why else would he do it?

  And then I realized I was standing by myself on the edge of a field in Iceland pondering the meaning of ridiculous dreams with gods who lived in a mythical land and carried magic swords and rings. And nothing had made me feel more stupid since this whole abduction thing started than that.

  I caught up to Tyr and Keira at the same oblong table they’d studied all morning, hoping to find some miracle weapon that would turn me into a badass warrior hero, but I didn’t see any light sabers, so I figured they were shit out of luck. Tyr handed me a knife and I held onto it, looking around me like I was supposed to have something to cut with it. “Are you offering me a steak dinner? Finally?”

  Keira tilted her head to the side and I tried not to notice how her long blond hair fell over shoulders and caressed her breasts or the way her full pink lips pulled into a pout when she was deep in thought like that, but I obviously failed. “Give him a sword again,” Keira instructed.

  I put the knife down but didn’t want to take the sword Tyr was thrusting at me. Okay, he wasn’t actually thrusting it at me, but I still didn’t want to take the sword from him. “Take the gloves off,” he ordered.

  “No way. It’s minus four hundred degrees out here.” And just to prove I had no intention of relinquishing the gloves I’d only gotten because I told Frey about the dreams I hadn’t wanted to talk about, I dug my hands as deep into my jeans pockets as I could.

  “You can’t learn the feel of a sword with gloves on,” Tyr insisted.

  “Fencers wear gloves,” I countered.

  Tyr muttered something under his breath that sounded like “pansies” but I couldn’t quite hear over the chattering of my teeth. I’m also not sure if he was talking about fencers or me. “I’m going to teach you how to use a sword, Gavyn, and you’re going to learn my way. Now take the gloves off.” Tyr pointed the sword at me like that was supposed to convince me.

  “Dude, you have one hand. How are you going to fight with a sword?” That would also rank in my top-three-dumbest-things-I’ve-ever-said list.

  Keira offered me a sexy, take-the-sword-and-you-can-take-me-on-this-table smile—okay, not really, but she did smile at me—and told me if I’d just shut up and let Tyr train me, I’d find out how well a one-handed man could fight with a sword.

  “That’s Norse code for expediting my decapitation, isn’t it?” I took the sword just so I wouldn’t be weaponless when I was beheaded.

  Tyr cracked a smile at me and picked up another sword from the table, examining its blade in the sunlight and when he was satisfied it was suitably sharp enough to separate my head from my body, he led me out into the field. “Stand there,” he told me, pointing with his prosthetic hand to a spot on the field that apparently looked like it could use a little of my blood to fertilize it. And then I just started wondering if blood would help anything grow while Tyr kept talking and I didn’t hear a thing he said.

  “Gavyn,” he sighed, “have you been listening?”

  “You told me to stand here. You didn’t tell me to listen, too.”

  Keira was standing near us and I heard her make that grunting sound that either meant I was retaining my title as the world’s most obnoxious man or she found me devilishly charming and sexy. And then thinking about Keira finding me devilishly charming and sexy just made me think of her showing up in my hotel room in nothing but that red lace bra and thong, so whatever Tyr repeated, I missed again.

  Tyr glanced at Keira. “Go get Agnes.”

  I almost dropped the sword on my foot. “No. I’m listening. This time, I mean. Last time you have to repeat yourself, I promise.”

  That witch wasn’t coming anywhere near me. I wondered what she was doing to my best friend. Tyr spoke slowly, since I was clearly having trouble with English. “Forget everything you’ve seen in movies about fighting with a sword. The person who’s trying to kill you is going to do just that: he’ll either cut or thrust to injure you or kill you, and the first thing you’ve got to learn is how to defend yourself from an attack.”

  I nodded like I’d just understood any of what he told me. Maybe I really was having trouble understanding English. But Tyr felt a little more confident now that I’d managed to pay attention for five entire seconds, so he gripped the hilt of his sword and swung it slowly to show me what he meant. “This is a horizontal cut. See how the edge of the blade is aiming toward your midsection?”

  He had a sword pointed at me. Of course I noticed where it was directed. I swallowed and watched it as it just as slowly retreated from my body then Tyr repeated the same motion. “You’re going to be fighting men that are stronger than regular humans, so these kinds of cuts can be particularly deadly. Your best option is not to let anyone close enough to you to deliver that kind of blow.”

  I snorted and reminded him my best option was to go back home to Baton Rouge where I belonged. And go figure. He ignored me.

  “But if you find yourself in close combat like this,” he went on like I hadn’t even said anything, “you have a few ways to get out of being cut in half.”

  I looked at Keira wide-eyed, wondering how the hell I’d gone from complaining to Hunter in my living room right before the LSU game started about having to work a double-shift on a Monday, which was always our slowest day and the worst for tips, to standing in the middle of a field in Iceland with some massive guy trying to teach me how to survive being attacked by some crazy bastard with a sword. Keira motioned to Tyr. “Pay attention. This is important.”

  “You know what else is important?” I hissed at her. “Living. And this is not boding well for me.”

  “Most of the time,” Tyr just kept talking, and if he weren’t holding a sword, I would’ve punched the guy again, “you’ll want to void. In other words, get the hell out of the way.”

  I squinted at him because for the past few days, all I’d wanted to do was get the hell out of their way. But Frey sprinted up to us and took the sword out of my hand to demonstrate what Tyr was talking about. I backed away from them until I was standing next to Keira and she leaned closer to me to whisper, “Frey is an excellent swordsman. Watch how quickly he can void when Tyr attacks.”

  I was actually trying to watch them, but the smell of Keira’s shampoo, some mixture of flowers and apples, was intoxicating and I just felt dizzy instead. Frey held the sword out to me and told me to come try it myself now.

  “Are you crazy?” I asked him. And I heard myself asking him and thought that was also going onto
my list of top-three-dumbest-things-I’ve-ever-said because of course they were all crazy.

  “Don’t worry, Gavyn. I won’t hurt you,” Tyr promised.

  I wasn’t budging though. “Shouldn’t we be learning with sticks or something that couldn’t actually disembowel me?”

  Frey smiled at me and pushed his blond curls off his forehead, which was damp with sweat. “You don’t need to learn with sticks. You just need to trust yourself. It’s in your DNA, Gavyn.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I muttered. “You managed to kick up the crazy to a whole new level.”

  Frey reached for my hand and put the sword in it anyway. I gawked at it like it was every bit as crazy as the man who’d just insisted I wouldn’t get killed if I just had a little faith that my DNA would kick in and make up for my lack of experience or knowledge or even desire to learn how to kill someone with a weapon. “Can I just have a sharp pencil?” I asked.

  Frey pushed me back out toward Tyr who thought this was incredibly entertaining. I narrowed my eyes at him and Keira and said, “I hate you all, just so you know.” I’m pretty sure no one cared.

  “Remember,” Tyr said, “step to the side. Pretend like you’ve got a knife or dagger on you and if you can get a good thrust in, go for it. We’re not going for theatrics. You want to kill your enemy and move on. That’s it.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I complained, “why not just give me a gun then?” I didn’t really want a gun either, but it had to be better than standing next to a mountain of a man who was about to thrust a sword into my abdomen.

  “Guns will work on heroes, but not on gods. You’ll have both.” Tyr moved like he was about to attack me and the bastard hadn’t even given me any warning. I panicked and forgot everything he told me about voiding or stepping or running or whatever the hell I was supposed to be doing, and I swung my sword at Tyr’s. There was a brief clinking of metal then Tyr stumbled backwards and looked at me, something like awe and disbelief in his features, but honestly, I was too busy concentrating on not pissing all over myself.