“I have to go,” she cried, her stupor exploding into a fiery outburst of rage and vengeance.
“What?” Nemain screamed. “Badb, Thor’s getting away!”
“And Ninurta,” Athena yelled.
“I don’t care!” Badb screamed back. “I’m going to find Lugh.”
She ducked beneath the hail of arrows from the Greek twins and through the wall, where the Norse realm was even darker without the light from the oil lamps hanging by the wall. She put her ash sword back into its sheath so she could hold her iron blade with both hands as she crept away from the battle raging within the stone wall. A smooth, round shape ahead of her with long, thin arrows protruding from its body proved to be Svaldifari, its rider a young god who had replaced Baldr on the Norse pantheon.
“You must be cursed or something, Son of Odin,” she murmured.
“Badb,” Lugh whispered.
Badb spun around, but he wasn’t nearby.
“You’d better not be in that horse,” she groaned.
Lugh snickered and this time, she realized where he was hiding. “Are you in a cave?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m with Osiris. We have to get to Valhalla before the others so he can move the dead warriors.”
“Please tell me Loki isn’t in there with you,” she begged.
“Um… I haven’t exactly had time to look.”
Badb crouched down to crawl into the narrow mouth of the cave with her boyfriend then threw her arms around him. Once she felt relatively assured he wasn’t dead or harmed, she let go and pushed him against the wall.
“Ow,” he complained. “What did I do?”
“You scared the shit out of me!” Badb cried. “You couldn’t have warned me you were going to hang back to figure out how to get to Valhalla?”
“Sure,” he teased. “Badb, I’m going to hang back with Osiris to figure out how to get to Valhalla.”
“I’m not helping you when she kicks your ass,” Osiris told him.
“Don’t blame you,” Lugh told his friend.
“So what have you come up with?” Badb asked.
“Well,” Lugh sighed. “Valhalla is in the center of Asgard, which means it’s well guarded and difficult to get to. So far, I’ve come up with magic or invisibility.”
Badb squinted at him then turned to Osiris. “Please tell me you have an actual plan.”
“Uh… I kinda liked the invisibility idea.”
Badb squinted at him and retorted, “I’m kicking your ass too.”
“Don’t blame you,” he agreed.
“Let’s just…” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. For some reason, she was getting a splitting headache. “We need a diversion. Most of the gods are preoccupied fighting at the wall right now, so I’ll fly over…”
“No,” Lugh interrupted. “They know who you are, Badb. The Norse aren’t exactly going to mistake you for Huginn or Muninn.”
“Please,” Badb scoffed. “They’re ravens. I can outfly them.”
“We’ll come up with something else,” Lugh insisted.
“While our friends and family get massacred?” Badb shot back. “I’ll fly to Valhalla and strike it with the ash sword. When it begins to break apart, the Norse will rush to the center of Asgard to defend it, and you can both sneak in and get Osiris close enough to round up these spirits and scatter them on Earth.”
Lugh shook his head again and grabbed her arm to prevent her from flying out of the cave. “You venturing into Valhalla alone was never part of the plan.”
“And you of all gods know that’s part of war, Lugh,” she offered. “Nothing ever goes according to plan. What went according to your plans when you killed Balor?”
“Well, he died instead of me,” Lugh replied smartly.
Badb tilted her head at him and asked, “What has gotten into you lately? You’ve never been this protective of me, and I’ve lost count of how many battles we’ve fought together.”
“This is different, Badb. The rules we’ve lived by for millennia are changing, and it seems like none of the gods we fight feel compelled to follow our old laws now.”
“Using monsters like scorpion men to destroy one of our worlds? Yeah, they’ve changed the rules. That’s why we’re here. I’m still the protector of this family. I’m flying to Valhalla, and once I strike it, I’ll hide until you reach me then help you fend off these bastards while Osiris… what are you going to do with those spirits?”
Osiris shrugged. “If it works, it won’t take long. I should be able to disperse them within seconds. If it doesn’t… well, if it doesn’t, then this whole argument is pretty pointless.”
Badb arched an eyebrow at her boyfriend and said, “And come on. It’s the Norse. They won’t find one little crow that quickly. They’d have to possess some intelligence for that.”
Osiris poked his head out of the mouth of the cave then glanced over his shoulder toward his friends. “We should hurry though. The sun is beginning to rise, and this will be impossible for Badb once there’s enough light for the Norse to see her flying toward Valhalla. If she leaves now, they’ll have to depend on their senses to find her in the dark. We don’t need them to have their sight as well.”
“Badb, please don’t,” Lugh whispered, gripping her arm tighter. But she had to go, and she suspected he already knew that.
“I love you,” she whispered back.
Lugh let out a slow breath and kissed her then she transformed into the small, black crow that had terrified so many mortals and gods on the battlefield throughout her long life. But as she flew out of the cave and caught the tip of Valhalla’s gold roof reflecting off the first rays of Asgard’s sun, she had the sickening premonition this would be her last flight.
But there was no turning back. She’d never failed her family before, and she couldn’t fail them now, even if that meant she had to bury herself in the ashes of Valhalla.
Chapter Fourteen
Badb landed on the steps of Valhalla, and immediately drew her ash sword so she could strike Odin’s palace. The air seemed to come alive around her as misty shapes rose from the ground. Fighting off the hundreds of warriors who had shown up to defend Valhalla would be impossible. There was only one thing she could do: She ran.
The heavy doors of Odin’s annoyingly golden palace wouldn’t open though. While she had a mild telekinetic gift, it wasn’t strong enough to work in Asgard, and the doors remained locked. She cursed them under her breath then spun around as the spirits ascended the steps, their attention fixed angrily on her and the enchanted sword. Bright flashes of light joined the dead warriors and Badb cursed them under her breath too.
“Great,” she called out to the spirits. “Your fairies are here.”
“Fairies?” Gunnr repeated. “That’s your thing, Morrigan. And fitting for the Tuatha Dé.”
“I hate Valkyries,” Badb muttered. She swung the ash blade at the doors of Valhalla just as Gunnr lifted her sword. The gold plating on the doors exploded, sending metallic shards through the spirits that had descended on her. They collapsed and vanished, but killing a spirit in its own realm was impossible. The warriors and the Valkyries would return soon.
Badb hit the doors of Valhalla again, and this time, they broke apart, allowing her to run into the palace. The walls vibrated and hummed under the sword’s impact, and behind her, the footsteps of the spirits warned her she’d been followed. As the sun rose higher above the horizon, the golden interior reflected its rays, forcing her to squint as she ducked into a narrow hallway. She cursed Odin most of all. “Ostentatious bastard.”
“I always knew your ego would get you killed,” Thor said.
Badb’s heart leapt into her throat as she stopped running, the thunder god’s large frame taking up most of the width of the hallway. “And I always knew your lack of a brain would get you killed,” she retorted.
“We aren’t the ones who invaded the Otherworld with not nearly enough allies to survive, let alone win,” Thor cou
ntered.
Badb tossed her hair over a shoulder and lifted her chin in that defiant—and, admittedly, slightly arrogant—way of hers. “Call off your father’s soldiers. Let’s settle this between us.”
Thor snorted and shook his head. “You hurt Gunnr’s feelings. I think I’ll let her rip you apart instead.”
“How is that possible? Everyone knows Valkyries don’t have feelings.”
Thor looked over her head and addressed the Valkyrie who had followed her into the hallway. “Take her. And don’t let the other gods near…”
Badb twirled around and sliced the Valkyrie with her enchanted sword, but even in Asgard, the Valkyries were spirits so the blade passed through her and struck the wall. Valhalla trembled and sighed again, and Thor vanished before pieces of the gold ceiling could fall on him. The hallway cut her off from a possible escape. One end was just another golden wall, and the other that emptied into the atrium had filled with the tightly pressed bodies of dead warriors who intended to follow Thor’s orders and prevent her from completely destroying Valhalla.
Badb backed away from them, attempting to peek into rooms as she passed doors, but so far, each door remained inexplicably closed even though she’d struck the castle hard enough to cause the walls and ceiling to crumble. They were most likely locked with their own enchantments, so she silently cursed Odin again, even though the only reason her sword worked was that her boyfriend could also cast spells.
“Badb,” one of the spirits hissed. “You cut me down in Gaul. I’m surprised you were stupid enough to enter Asgard, even with a magical sword.”
“Gaul?” she repeated. “Why would I have fought against men unless you were helping the gods steal believers from us?”
“Who says I was just a man?” he asked.
“Demigod,” she sighed derisively. “Guys like you always have an inflated sense of self-importance.”
“Look who’s talking,” he taunted.
Badb shrugged and took her final step backwards. She’d reached the end of the hallway. “I’m a goddess. I’m supposed to have an inflated sense of self-importance. It’s in the contract.”
The demigod drew his sword, completely unafraid because he couldn’t die twice, so Badb prepared to strike the wall again, hoping the resulting reverberations would at least scatter the spirits about to decapitate her. Before the tip of her blade could touch a hard surface, Lugh shouted her name and distracted the spirits. They turned toward the sound of his voice, and the hallway lit up with the red-hot flames of a pissed off sun god.
But as always, his fire didn’t harm her. She’d stopped fearing his flames long ago, even when it looked like the fire dripped from her body.
The spirits temporarily disappeared, reforming in the atrium behind Lugh. As he rushed down the hallway toward her, the demigod called out, “Don’t you know we can’t be killed, Sun God? We’ll rise again at Ragnarok and only then will we be mortal again.”
“True,” Lugh agreed, standing protectively in front of Badb. “But we didn’t come to kill you. Good luck with that Ragnarok thing from Earth though.”
“What?” the demigod asked, but if there were more to his question, it was cut off when Osiris appeared among them, and they all vanished, even their Egyptian friend.
Badb gasped and grabbed Lugh’s arm, who pulled her back toward the atrium. “You know, it’s not that easy to fight your way through Asgard to Valhalla.”
“Osiris,” Badb breathed. “Is he…?”
“He’ll be back,” Lugh assured her.
“How did you get here so quickly?”
“Your sisters are moving toward us,” Lugh explained. “We’ll be able to feel the effects from their ash swords soon. The outer edge of Asgard where we entered already lies in ruins, and the Norse are scrambling to fight us and round up all of their gods who can’t fight to get them out of here.”
“And how many Sumerians are in Asgard?”
Lugh paused in the atrium and looked around, wrinkling his nose at how golden everything was. “Three. Ninurta, Nergal, and Enlil.”
“Shouldn’t Osiris be back by now?” Badb asked.
“You can be so impatient,” Osiris teased.
Badb jumped at the unexpected sound of his voice, and he grinned at her. “Turns out, you were right. I can drag spirits to Earth from here.”
“Of course I was right,” she responded. “When am I ever wrong?”
Lugh snorted and said, “Don’t answer that. Pretty sure it’s a trick question.”
Osiris nodded smartly. “Any chance you killed Thor when he came in here after you?”
“Um… I’m honestly not sure we can,” Badb replied. “Not now anyway. Asgard is falling, and we don’t have time. We might have to settle for vengeance against Asgard itself. We’ll meet Thor and Odin again.”
As Lugh had predicted, the ground shook as her sisters moved closer to the center of Asgard, and Osiris grunted at the reminder that when it came to the Norse, no one would ever win. As long as they and the Tuatha Dé lived, they would hate one another, and that hatred was older than either Badb or Lugh. It was as much a part of them as their love and loyalty to the Greeks, who had first introduced them to the Egyptians.
“There are more spirits outside,” he said. “I’m going to round them up. Bring this pretentious palace down. It’s giving me a headache.”
“Let’s head back outside too,” Lugh suggested. “Getting crushed to death by a golden panel in Odin’s gaudy house isn’t exactly the way I want to go.”
“I think he’s overcompensating,” Badb said.
“Obviously, although I have to admit I’m more than a little curious as to how he fathered those kids with giants.”
“I’m not at all curious,” Badb responded. “In fact, don’t even put that image in my head.”
Lugh smiled at her, but it quickly faded as they realized they were no longer alone in Valhalla. But they’d sensed him a moment too late. On Earth, he wouldn’t have reached them undetected. Humans believed gods could travel instantaneously, but it was only their perception. Mortals couldn’t comprehend how quickly gods could move. And by the time they realized Odin had arrived in his atrium, he’d already thrown Gungnir.
But worst of all, he hadn’t thrown it at Badb.
The enchanted sword fell from her hand as she watched Odin’s spear pierce her boyfriend’s side. He stumbled then collapsed, blood pooling around the handle of the spear, staining his shirt an angry crimson. As Lugh’s ash blade touched the floor, a crack formed and split open, leaving a gaping chasm where pieces of Valhalla tumbled as the palace began to break apart from the impact of the enchanted sword. Badb fell to her knees and moved his hands away from the wound in his side. But she couldn’t heal him. There was no one left among the Tuatha Dé who could.
“Go,” he whispered.
“No,” she insisted.
Gungnir had returned to Odin’s hand, and he’d been prepared to throw it again, but he looked at the fissures in his palace growing longer and wider and narrowed his eyes at the Irish gods. “I will slaughter you both,” he growled.
Badb didn’t even rise. She’d let the leader of her most despised enemies kill her. Without Lugh, she was already dead anyway.
A mace sailed past her, surprising her because she didn’t normally see maces being thrown, but Odin vanished before it could strike him, and the ground quaked as the ceiling threatened to bury them both.
The Dagda collapsed next to her and groaned, “No… Lugh, we’ll get you home.”
“How?” he asked. He was trying to hide the pain in his voice but failing. Badb’s heart threatened to burst open. “Both of you… go finish what we started.”
All around them, Asgard was falling. His Blades of Ash had worked far better than any of them had expected. Only Lugh, the master of all things, could have engineered Asgard’s downfall. How could any of the Tuatha Dé continue in an increasingly violent and uncertain world without him?
Badb
buried her face against his shoulder and cried, “You know I’m not leaving you.”
“Badb,” he begged. “Our family needs you.”
“They need you more,” she argued.
The worried screams of the Norse gods outside Valhalla who had become powerless to stop the enchantment of Lugh’s swords mixed with the deafening noise of Asgard’s last breaths. Badb clutched him tighter as her mind raced, because she couldn’t bring him home quickly. It had taken them so long to reach Asgard, and even if Bifröst somehow survived Asgard’s own apocalypse, they’d have to carry him there, and he likely wouldn’t survive being carried that far. She simply couldn’t conjure enough of her power in this world to get them both back to Earth or Murias.
They were trapped here.
Her sisters’ voices joined the panic of the Norse as they struck more buildings and the ground itself, and the gaping fracture inside Valhalla widened further. Lugh’s eyes trailed past her to the floor where the sword he’d made for her lay.
“Badb,” he whispered.
She shook her head and grabbed the Dagda’s arm. “You have to leave us here. Now!”
“Badb,” Lugh begged again. But she wouldn’t consider any plan that didn’t involve her staying by his side and dying with him.
The Dagda sighed sadly and kissed the top of her head before grabbing his mace and running back outside where Macha and Nemain dealt the final blows to Asgard. The Norse shouted to one another to leave before they became trapped in a dying world, their anger and fear mixed with equal amounts incredulity that this was their fate after all.
“Thor!” a woman’s voice shouted.
Badb glanced over her shoulder and saw Sif emerging from one of the locked rooms in the hallway. She must have been hiding. Thor had most likely asked her to remain inside then her father-in-law had enchanted the door to keep the invaders from hurting a goddess who was defenseless against them… not that any of them would have hurt a goddess who wasn’t fighting. It was one of their oldest rules of warfare. Non-combatants should never be killed.
As Sif stepped into the atrium, a splintering crack above them warned both goddesses that the ceiling really would crush them all… and Sif would be the first to die. And even a Norse goddess didn’t deserve to die that way.
Blades of Ash: An Unbreakable Sword Series Prequel (The Unbreakable Sword Book 5) Page 10