“Yes!” we all shouted.
My brown hair was in a tight braid that stopped just at my hips. I had it pulled away from my face and neat, so it would be easy to dress. The others didn’t think ahead like I did, their hair getting caught in straps and buckles, inside armors and braces—while mine was a smooth transition. It had to be. I was Kara’s prodigy; I couldn’t be anything less than perfect. Then again, I hadn’t trained with them. I was trained personally by Kara.
“Hrefna,” she called out to me while the others continued to dress themselves. I’d already finished.
“Yes, Kara.” I walked over to her, my leather skirt straps swaying as I moved. Her red hair was braided at the sides and clipped in the middle, letting the rest of her beautiful crimson hair fall down to her bottom.
“Do you know the meaning of your name, Hrefna?” she said, not looking at me, but at the sea of valkyries behind me.
The question caught me off guard, and my eyes widened a little. “No, I do not.”
“It means raven. Do you know why Odin named you Raven?”
I swallowed loudly. Odin loved to call me his dark raven, but I never associated it with my name. I never understood why; I thought it was because of my brown hair or olive skin.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Kara grunted and finally looked at me with annoyed eyes. “Ravens are messengers, filled with wisdom and information. They are Odin’s eyes and ears in the human world, which is why he is also known as the god of the ravens.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, not understanding where this conversation was going.
“When you were born and ripped from your mother’s breasts, the Norns gave Odin a prophecy. The birth of the dark raven. It’s why he’s been training you the way he has and treating you so special unlike the others.”
I could tell she was telling me this to upset me, but it was only making me want to ask more questions.
“What was the prophecy?” I asked instead, resting my hand on the hilt of the dagger clipped to my hip.
“They told him you would possess a strength unlike any valkyrie ever had before. You would be Midgard’s protector—”
“Kara! What was the prophecy?” I nearly shouted, and the room quieted. I looked back to see Hildr’s shocked face.
Kara’s smirk was of pure satisfaction. “The prophecy was of your death.”
19
Present Day
The mountains were ablaze when we arrived. Orange and red flames licked the air as it engulfed the trees of the forest. From the direction we were coming from, there were about five giants in the area, but until we landed, we couldn’t see what was happening on the ground. One thing was for sure, the hellhounds were in animal form. It was the only way the forest would be on fire.
“They’re five giants!” I yelled at the valkyries behind me. “Aim for their eyes and ears!” I waited until the others relayed my message then continued. “When fighting the hellhounds, tuck in your wings to avoid their fire!”
We flew in mass until we were close enough to break apart. I pointed with my right hand and waved in that direction, and the right flank dispersed, then did the same with the left flank. The middle followed me. Lilja led one group, and Mia led the other. I watched them go and then focused on the battle ahead. We had wished each other luck on the fly over here as we talked strategy. Now it was up to them.
I led my group toward the giant in the middle. He was stomping his feet, making the earth shake even more than it already was on its own. I signaled for some of the valkyries to head for the ground and for the rest to follow me. As soon as we got in his sights, he began to swat at us with his hands, but his movements were slow—too slow. It was easy for me to fly out of reach, but some of the others weren’t fast enough and were knocked to the ground.
I landed on top of his head and waded through his thick, curly hair. Some of the valkyries followed me, and I felt like I was walking through a cornfield. His hands came to bang at his scalp, and that’s when we started to run toward his forehead. When we got there, Selena was the first to meet me there, and we both slid down his face and stabbed our daggers in his eyes. He shrieked, and we jumped off, taking flight. The giant dropped to his knees, and I pulled out the Sword of Souls and slid it across his throat. Blood spurt out of his neck like a waterfall, and he began to fall. When he hit the ground, trees were flattened and a loud thud could be heard in the next county over, making the ground quake.
I flew to the ground and landed on top of the fallen giant where I got a good look at the battlefield. Hellhounds in animal form were fighting hellhounds in human form—it was the only way to distinguish us from Hel’s hounds. Some valkyries were in the mix, but most were dealing with the giants, and I couldn’t find Fen or Thor.
I tucked in my wings and slid off the arm of the giant and fell into his open hand. As soon as I popped up, a flaming hellhound was barreling toward me. Tightening my hand around the hilt of my sword, I swerved the flame it threw my way and then chopped its head off clean. I ran after that, going deeper into the forest, toward the Yggdrasil tree. That must be where the others were located.
Fire hit my back, and although I had armor, I could feel the heat making me fall on one knee, digging my sword into the ground. Feeling the pounding of steps behind me, I waited until they neared and then struck my sword behind me, driving it into the chest of a hellhound.
A banshee’s wail made me stand up quickly and look toward the direction of the tree. That was Charlie; she must have made it to the Yggdrasil, which meant Will was with her.
I cut through hellhounds, taking fire and blocking it with my armor and running further into the woods. An earthquake rattled the earth, knocking me to the ground, and then thunder boomed in the sky. That was no earthquake. That was Thor’s hammer.
I scrambled to my feet and ran faster. When I got to the clearing, there were dozens of hellhounds, and more were coming out of the Yggdrasil. Charlie was shrieking, trying to keep more from coming out, but I could see she was getting exhausted. Fen was in a half shift and clawing his way through the mass of hellhounds that once answered to him. Thor, on the other hand, was embroiled with Loki, which was a stall tactic to get Thor out of the fight. That much I knew.
Will’s gun went off, and it startled me out of my stupor. He was shooting at the hounds frozen in Charlie’s wails. But she was losing breath and wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. I jumped in and started to decapitate the ones in the outer areas of her sound waves where I could reach. I couldn’t enter without getting hit by her wail. I’d withstand it, but it would take a lot of my energy that I couldn’t afford. When I was done, I went to help Thor.
“Fancy seeing you here,” I said as I spun my sword in my hand.
“This is between me and Thor, little girl,” Loki chided.
“Not anymore,” I said. “I’m not an idiot. You think you can distract him while the rest of us fight the oncoming onslaught? I don’t think so. Thor, I got this one.”
“Are you sure, Hrefna?” Thor asked.
I nodded.
Thor grinned and walked backward, leaving us alone. Loki and I circled each other like wild animals, waiting for the first one to strike. Thunder and lightning struck, and I knew Thor was back in the game, which was what we needed.
“You think you’re so clever, don’t you, Hrefna?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes. You just aren’t clever at all.”
Loki’s black eyes narrowed, and he tightened his hand on his sword just as he swung it my way. It clashed with mine, and we parried each other’s strikes, the force of the hits making my steel vibrate. He was a god after all, and there was no way I’d win against him. I had to think. What could I do? I couldn’t kill him, but I had to take him out of the fight somehow.
I struck right, left, right, left, faked right, and hit left again, striking Loki right in the gut and ramming him straight back and pinning him to a tree. He dropped his sword
to the ground and groaned, unable to move. I hit him at a certain angle where I pierced his spine.
“You bitch,” he growled.
I grinned. “Yes, I am.”
I picked up his sword and drove it into his gut in the same angle, making him scream. I pulled out my sword and let it soak in all the blood.
“You’ll pay for this,” he stammered.
“Oh yeah? I look forward to it.” I got in his face.
He only gave me a sly look. “Why don’t you look behind you?”
My stomach tightened at who could be behind me, so my hand went to the dagger at my hip and I gripped my sword tightly as I spun around. No one was there. I only saw the others fighting.
Thor and Fen were a perfect team together, tearing through the hellhounds, and Charlie was preventing anyone else from coming out of the Yggdrasil with Will watching her back. She was tired, but there was determination on her face. She was tough; she was a fighter. She—
An arrow flew through the air, whizzing through the trees, and struck Charlie right in the middle of her throat, cutting off her banshee wail. Her eyes widen as blood spurt out of her mouth. She wavered on her feet until she finally fell back.
“Charlie!” I screamed as no one else had noticed what had happened.
“I told you, you’d pay,” Loki sneered behind me, but I ignored him. I had tunnel vision. All I could see was Charlie’s dead body on the ground. In my peripheral vision, I saw more hellhounds start to come out of the Yggdrasil.
“Will, behind you!” I yelled as I ran toward him and Charlie. He turned and noticed Charlie wasn’t there, then looked at the ground. His eyes grew to the size of golf balls, and he gasped, dropping to his knees as an onslaught of hellhounds came toward him. “William!”
I slid on the ground, my sword cutting through multiple throats as fire burned through my arm braces and the side of my face. But I couldn’t feel anything. Not in that moment. When I got to Will, I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet.
“Shake it off!” I shouted. “You’re not dying next!”
A hellhound pounded toward us, and a gust of fire was blown toward Will. I jumped in front of him and took the brunt of it with my armor.
Valkyries began to show up and assist us with the oncoming hellhounds that were pouring out of the Yggdrasil. I took that moment to pick Charlie’s body up and put it to the side. I didn’t want it getting mauled by anyone.
“Who did this?” Will demanded to know as he followed me into the woods. I laid her body down and closed her eyes, brushing her strawberry blonde hair away from her face.
“It was one of Loki’s minions,” I said. “He was teaching me a lesson. Do you see what I mean now?” I shot up and got in his face. “This is what happens when you involve yourself in things you shouldn’t be a part of! I told you both to stay behind!”
“This isn’t your fault, Raven.”
“Yes, it is!”
Will wasn’t listening. Instead, he grabbed me and pulled me into his arms. “She will not have died in vain,” he whispered.
No, she would not. Because I knew what I had to do.
When we made it back to the clearing, the fires had grown out of control, but the number of hellhounds was reduced. Loki was still pinned to the tree, so he was good for now. I was about to join Thor and Fen when a ripple came from the Yggdrasil and a body came out of the tree. Two to be exact.
Hel and Verdandi.
Will and I froze in place as we watched them enter the clearing and take stock of their surroundings. Verdandi’s gaze fell on me immediately. She nodded once, and I thought I knew what she meant. What she’d been trying to tell me all along.
I grabbed Will’s wrist and dragged him along behind me. I left him with Fen, and then I went to Thor. I drove my sword into the hellhound coming up behind him, and he swung his hammer knocking out about five hellhounds in a row.
“I need you to promise me something,” I said to him as we stood back-to-back.
“Anything, Hrefna. What do you need?” he said, a little out of breath.
“I have to do something, but you can’t stop me. Do I have your word?”
“You have my word, Hrefna.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and was about to walk away when I saw Hel at the edge of the Yggdrasil; she was dressed in all black shiny leathers with chains, her skin sickly pale, and she raised her arms up slowly, looking up at the sky, and the ground began to split open. Everyone froze as we watched in horror as skeleton hands poked out of the ground and began to crawl out of the earth.
“Hrefna …,” Thor murmured.
“She’s raising the dead,” I said with wide eyes. If we thought it was too much with the giants and hellhounds, we weren’t going to make it with the dead.
A bony hand grabbed my ankle, and I cut it off in an instance.
“Hel, stop!” Fen yelled at his sister. “You don’t have to do this!”
“But I do, brother. I do.” She grinned and raised her hands higher. Hundreds of the dead crawled out, surrounding us completely.
Some of the valkyries flew down, including Lilja and Mia, who landed beside me and Thor.
“More valkyries? Why, this is a development,” Hel smirked. “How come you didn’t tell me, Norn?”
Verdandi looked at her with a neutral expression. “I didn’t know.”
I didn’t believe that for a second. Verdandi knew everything. She’s seen this all play out and knew how it ended. She just hadn’t said a word about it.
The sounds of groaning snapped me out of the Norns’s direction, and I saw everyone struggling to keep the dead at bay. They were encircling us, pushing us all to the center, and we were letting it happen. Thor’s hammer was shattering them, but there were too many for him to handle on his own.
“Charlie!” Will yelled and pushed past me toward the throngs of the dead. I grabbed him by the back of the collar and pulled him back.
“What the hell are you doing?” I screamed in his ear.
“She raised Charlie!” He pointed in the opposite direction where I saw a strawberry blonde with an arrow sticking out of her neck stumbling out of the woods. She was ghostly white and walking toward Verdandi.
“We can’t do anything about it,” I murmured in Will’s ear, gripping his face. “Unless we want to die, we have to leave her be.”
“Charlie’s dead?” Fen said, startled. I turned to him with a sour expression and nodded. Fen’s face fell, and then he turned angry. He clawed and ripped apart as many of the dead as he could with a loud, animalistic roar.
“Stay behind me, Will. Your gun won’t help you now. Take this dagger.” I handed him the blade. He did as he was told, and with the Sword of Souls, I swung at everything in our way. But there were too many of them, and they kept pushing us back until we were finally cornered. It was me, Will, Fen, Thor, Lilja, Mia, a couple of hellhounds, and valkyries. We were swarmed by hundreds of the dead, and more were flooding in.
“Make room!” Thor yelled.
“We can’t!” Lilja said as she elbowed a hellhound next to her.
“Try,” Thor said, and we all backed out of the way, pushing the dead back. Thor lifted his hammer and slammed it on the ground, making a tidal wave disperse on the ground, throwing us all back, including the dead. But it was just what we needed to get us out of that circle.
The blast scattered everyone in the clearing and dimmed the fires while knocking down trees in the process. I was thrown away from Will, and when I scrambled up to my feet, I scanned the area for him but couldn’t find him. Fen came up beside me and put a hand to my cheek.
“Are you okay?” he asked, those obsidian eyes drilling into me.
“I’m fine, but I lost Will.”
“We’ll find him. Let’s—”
The dead started to rise around us again, and Fen grasped my wrist, his claws scraping my skin.
“There’s too many of them,” he said. “And they’ll just keep coming ba
ck.”
Fen pulled me in for a kiss suddenly, catching me off guard, and then twirled me around so we were back-to-back. With my sword in hand, I cut the first skeleton in half, shattering the bones. But following was a horde of the dead, and I flattened myself against Fen. Even our little fighting tricks couldn’t get us out of this. We were good together, but right now, we needed a miracle.
We were surrounded, and I was slashing at as many as my sword could bring down. Fen was clawing and ripping apart whatever he could get his hands on, but there were too many. One grabbed my sword arm and dug its bony fingers into my flesh. Reflex made me loosen my grip on my sword, and when it fell, I quickly caught it with my other hand. Another bony hand went to my neck and started to choke me.
“Fen!” I gasped, but either he was subdued or he was having troubles himself. I swung my sword and heard bones shattering, but it wasn’t the ones that had me in a vice grip. Soon my vision was dimming, and the corners were turning black. My grip on my sword finally gave way, and it dropped to the ground. The dead swarmed me, and I was lifted off the ground. I tilted my head slightly to the side and peered down to see Fen pinned down. My gaze traveled along the clearing before it gave out, and I saw the others were overwhelmed as well. Lilja was being dragged by her wings, and I worried they’d tear. Mia was being held down by her arms, and they were about to be ripped off. Everyone was at Hel’s mercy, everyone but Thor; he was still fighting strong, swinging Mjölnir and striking lightning in precise spots. But even with Thor, this was it. We were about to lose, and all of humanity would be lost, including supernaturals.
“Raven!” Fen yelled for me, but I couldn’t speak. My body started to jerk from lack of oxygen.
Suddenly, the Yggdrasil started to rumble, and the sound of trumpets invaded the chaos. A gust of wind blew, and then a burst of gold light shone out of the tree like sunlight, the trumpets announcing their arrival.
The valkyries.
The Last Valkyrie Series Complete Boxed Set Page 51