The Fires of Muspelheim

by Matt Larkin

  Then some kind of vapor got sucked out of the maiden and into Sif. Those icicles in her throat just broke apart, crumbling into dust, and Sif’s grip seemed to grow stronger. Tighter. Crushing the snow maiden.

  Until the fell vaettr just turned to mist once more. Only this time, she evaporated back into the vapors all around them.

  Thor offered his wife a hand up, and she took it, her touch cold and clammy. “I like fighting with you. Er … huh. Fighting … with you.” Though he had to admit, her fighting style had changed a little. He couldn’t exactly recall Sif ever sucking out souls while she was alive.

  Before he could say more, a trio of draugar came closing in on them. Fake-Mjölnir sent one flying only to land on ice and skid into other draugar, sending them toppling. Thor chuckled.

  Who said the dead couldn’t enjoy themselves? Someone who didn’t know how to be dead properly, that’s who. Thor had lived better than most, so he figured he may as well enjoy death better than the rest of them too. And that meant on with the smiting!

  Sif leapt up, flinging herself at another draug, more like a snow leopard than a person. Hissing, she bore her foe down and began to rain crushing blows onto the draug’s skull and chest.

  Thor gave a moment’s look before the third draug forced him to divert his attention. “You know you’re fucked, right?” he said, pointing fake-Mjölnir at the draug. Fucker wouldn’t know it was fake, after all. “I’m Thor, slayer of Jörmungandr. Plus a list of other trollfuckers as long as my cock. You don’t actually think you, a dead imbecile working for Hel, are going to be the one to—”

  A spear lanced through the back of Thor’s thigh and sent him stumbling to the ground. The hammer fell from his grasp and cracked the ice.

  Growling, Thor turned to see a Mistwraith behind him. One that surged forward and caught him by the throat, hefting him up until his feet dangled a foot off the floor, spear still wobbling in his leg. Bitter cold crept into his flesh and choked him, threatening to turn his eyes into balls of ice. The thing had the strength of a troll. More, maybe, and all Thor could do was clutch its wrist, which was encased in a steel gauntlet.

  Surging strength into his limbs, he jerked both hands down on the thing’s wrist. Its grip wavered but did not break.

  Right. Sif. He tried to call out to her, but had no breath to do so.

  Sif.

  Now would be a good time …

  The Mistwraith drew him up, close to its face, then placed a clawed hand on Thor’s cheek. And began digging a finger into his temple. Felt like having a nail beaten into his head by the world’s slowest carpenter. The Mistwraith drew closer and he felt himself being drawn into the abyss beneath its hood.

  A void, calling to him. And bits of himself, of his memories, his experiences, his hopes and loves and pains flashed in his mind before seeming to vanish into the wraith. He remembered …

  Sif coming to his hall on Asgard, bold, and eager to join Thor’s new team. Asserting herself, while Thor wondered if she had enough to offer.

  He remembered … Father coming in and advising him to take Sif on. Why had he done that? Thor couldn’t remember any more if he’d ever known. But back then, Geri and Freki and Itreksjod and Meili and so many others, beloved …

  It slipped from him, devoured by the wraith.

  Sif’s spear punched through the wraith’s forearm. She roared, twisting the thing’s arm, and its grip loosed on Thor, allowing him to sink to his knees, rubbing his throat.

  A snarl escaped the wraith, and it jerked its arm, snapping Sif’s spear in half. Now, the wraith seized Sif’s head in both hands. A nightmarish shriek poured from Thor’s wife, as if the wraith were tearing her to pieces.

  Thor swept up fake-Mjölnir and slammed it into the wraith’s hips. The blow had the ghost stumbling, but it didn’t release its grip on Sif. Roaring, Thor lined up another swing. A great, resounding clang sounded out as the hammer slammed into metal plates. Fucking armor!

  Sif was wailing. Bits of her essence seemed to flit off and get drawn into the wraith’s cloud of mist.

  No!

  Thor twisted around and slammed fake-Mjölnir into the ghost’s arse. That at least had the Mistwraith pitching forward, releasing Sif. “Nobody likes a hammer in the arse!” Thor shouted, even as he straddled the Mistwraith and brought the hammer down on the back of its head. “Just … Fucking! Die!”

  His blows had the Mistwraith reeling, breaking apart, like it could not contain its essence under the barrage. Thor roared, hammering down, over and over, crushing the fell thing.

  A sudden tremor shot through the ground below Thor and had him stumbling to one knee. Others, closer to the hole, pitched over and fell screaming. Thor looked up to see Hel was chanting, her hand actually stuck down into the ice like it was just water. Instead of … ugh … frozen water.

  The bitch goddess was chanting something, the words seeming to echo through the cavern unnaturally, even over the sounds of battle.

  Father was fighting his way toward her, but a trio of snow maidens had barred his way.

  Well, fuck. Thor didn’t know what the goddess was about, but he had to figure …

  A crack split the ice, rending it asunder, opening up a chasm that shot past Thor. Probably two score einherjar fell into it and landed on a steep incline that had them shrieking, falling down into the darkness.

  She’d made a tunnel? Why the fuck had she dug a tunnel? For the dark dragon? The passage wasn’t anywhere close to big enough to allow out something of the size Thor imagined. Unless Nidhogg was much smaller than he’d thought. In which case, he may as well get to smiting.

  He returned his attention to the Mistwraith, only to get a backhand to the face. The thing’s gauntlet caught his jaw and sent him spinning around to land face-first on the ground.

  A war cry sounded above, and by the time Thor had rolled over, Gondul dropped down on the Mistwraith. Ramming her spear up under the ghost’s armor. The valkyrie screamed defiance at the fell shade, twisting her lance.

  All right, then.

  Thor cleared his throat and gained his feet. Hefted fake-Mjölnir. Lined up a swing and … Clang! Right in the Mistwraith’s temple. “That’s right, trollfucker!” And again! Overhanded, onto the top of its helm.

  One more time, and the wraith collapsed to the ground. Thor dropped down atop it and rained blow after blow upon its hollow head. Until finally, at last, the creature’s form dissipated back into mist.

  Thor moved to help Sif up, but she was already gaining her feet.

  A roar echoed up the tunnel Hel had dug in the ice, and Thor spun, only to see a black-and-green linnorm fling itself up out of the darkness. A heave of its forelegs actually sent it airborne for a bare instant, before it collided with Skalmöld, jaws closing over the valkyrie in mid-flight. The dragon bit her almost in half, and her leg flew free even as it crashed back to the ground. The thing rolled over with surprising agility, chomped on its gory meal, and swallowed before bellowing again.

  Thor was already running at it. He was pretty much an expert on killing linnorms. Why should the spawn of Nidhogg be the least bit different?

  Syn must’ve seen his intent, because the shieldmaiden launched herself at draugar in his path, assaulting them viciously.

  Damn, but Thor missed real Mjölnir. There was just naught like it.

  Syn cut down a draug, and Thor jumped, landing on its doubled-over form, and kicked off it, flying at the linnorm. Bellowing his own roar, swinging. The dragon lunged at him, but Thor was faster, slamming fake-Mjölnir into its snout, then landing in a roll. Coming up and smashing the hammer into one of the linnorm’s toes.

  No one liked that, either.

  The beast roared, and a sudden shift of its bulk had its coils swiping sideways into Thor, sending him hurtling through the air, pitching through draugar and einherjar. Everything spun end over end before coming to a stop in an awful heap.

  Groaning, he worked to disentangle himself from the pile of bodies.


  Syn was engaged with the linnorm now, fiercely dodging around its darting attacks, while Gondul had landed on the dragon’s back and was jabbing with her spear.

  Stealing all the fucking glory.

  “If you think being dead is going to stop me from winning glory, you’re … ugh …” Thor kicked a draug in the face when it tried to grab his leg. “Trollfucker.”

  Then he broke into a lopsided run, closed in. Closer. Closer.

  Those massive jaws closed on Syn’s leg and she screamed as it hefted her into the air. It shook its head from side to side before releasing her, sending her smashing into the cavern wall.

  Perhaps drawn by his wife’s cries, Hermod was there, running a blade through the linnorm’s underbelly, drenching himself in a shower of acidic blood. The dragon craned its head around toward the man.

  But then Thor was there, hammer slamming into the dragon’s eye.

  Everyone really hated that one. He roared as warm jelly exploded around him, coating him in gore. He punched his hand into the empty socket and grabbed on to a nest of gore to gain purchase. The dragon jerked its head up, hefting Thor into the air and twisted around wildly, in a vain attempt to dislodge him.

  The creature’s pained cries only attested to its ripping out its own insides in the process.

  The moment its flailing eased, Thor brought fake-Mjölnir down on its brow. Again. Again!

  The linnorm collapsed down to the ice, and Thor released his grip to two-hand the hammer. Bellowing in fury, he slammed the hammer down again. Felt skull break and splatter beneath his blows.

  And just kept on hammering. Pulverizing dragon skull. It hadn’t ever been this hard in life, with real Mjölnir. He and fake-Mjölnir were going to have to have a long talk. Maybe a training session or two.

  With a final bellow of fury, he smashed the hammer down once more, reducing the dragon’s head to pulp.

  And then the tunnel burst apart. A dozen more linnorms broke through the cracking ice, flying upward, crashing into the ranks of the einherjar, the roars a chorus of nightmares.

  “Oh, fuck,” Thor mumbled, shaking his head. He cast a sidelong glance at the first linnorm’s corpse.

  Then, groaning, Thor advanced at the small army of dragons now slaughtering his allies.

  Time to smite some more.

  37

  Odin tore into the ranks of Hel’s legion with fury, but these were far better warriors than those she’d brought to bear before. Her elite, gathered from the greatest of the damned down through the millennia, and formed up as her vile guards. Every time Odin managed to draw nigh to the Goddess of Mist, more draugar, Mistwraiths, or snow maidens seemed to rise up from nowhere to impede him.

  He’d lost track of how many he’d sent to their dooms.

  He twisted around one draug, impaled another, then ducked an attack from a third while positioning himself to wrap his arm around a fourth and flip it over his shoulder, into its fellows.

  Kill. And kill. Shattered bones. Impale corpses. Send them careening down into the abyss above Naströnd.

  Kill.

  Move.

  Kill.

  A draug thrust a sword at Odin. He shifted around the thrust, caught the thing’s wrist, and twisted, until he could ram the blade into a snow maiden’s face. An elbow strike sent the attacking draug flipping arse over head.

  “You but delay the inevitable!” he shouted at Hel.

  And then the ground burst apart as a horde of linnorms billowed forth, tearing into his einherjar.

  And Hel was still chanting. Her foul sorcery was intended to release something much worse than a dozen of Nidhogg’s hatchlings. The dark dragon itself was stirring beneath them, Odin could feel it. Its rage saturated the air, seeming to warp and twist it, already beginning to unmake reality. Entropic forces had the whole cavern shuddering, threatening to break apart and dissolve into darkness.

  Another draug. Another fallen draug.

  He had to trust to the others to attend to the linnorms and Mistwraiths. Only Hel mattered.

  The goddess’s incantations had reached a fever pitch, and Yggdrasil groaned. The runes she’d carved into its roots now glowed, and the roots themselves writhed in convulsions that had the whole cavern trembling. Great chunks of ice broke from the glacial ceiling and pitched down into the pit.

  One landed before Odin and he leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding getting splattered by ice the size of a hill.

  Then he was running at her again.

  One of the roots in the pit broke apart, as if layers of skin were being flayed. It peeled back into a fibrous center, then even that collapsed into a withered husk and turned to ash. The sudden removal of the root caused a massive shift in the support of the ground beneath them, and a tremor shot through the cavern, so intense it sent Odin stumbling to his knees. He skidded out of control a bare instant before managing to arrest himself.

  The pit wall split, and lumps of rock fell in great showers.

  Another root broke apart. Those roots formed a cage, trapping the better part of Nidhogg’s bulk in Ginnungagap. Without them …

  Its roar reverberated up the pit and only seemed to intensify the tremors running through this crumbling place. It was at once the nightmarish cry of the damned and the fierce bellow of a dragon. And deep below, it was shifting, starting to pull its bulk free from the abyss of infinite darkness that underlaid the cosmos. She was actually doing it. Hel was close to destroying reality.

  And Odin could not get to her, not with the ground shaking so violently.

  Gondul dropped down from the sky, diving at the goddess. Hel spun on the valkyrie, the red gleam in her eye seeming brighter than ever. She caught the haft of the valkyrie’s spear, ripped it from the woman’s grasp, and kicked her in the chest. Gondul hurtled backward only to plummet into the pit.

  “No!” Odin cursed, redoubling his efforts to reach Hel.

  She turned to him, perhaps forty feet away, and flashed him a grin. A look of utter madness, of one given into complete depravity. Tormented by her own withered soul.

  Hel stepped off the edge of the pit.

  Odin drew up short, gaping. What was she …?

  Then, realizing he could afford no delay—the cosmos could afford no delay—he raced to the pit’s edge himself. Hel had landed on a platform that must have broken away from the pit’s side—a shelf thirty feet across supported by a nest of roots below, all of which were now bearing the glowing glyphs of her power.

  In fact, glyphs had begun to form up along the entire depth of the pit, their fell glow casting a hint of light into those foul depths, though hardly enough to see all the way down to where Nidhogg thrashed.

  Perhaps it was his imagination, but Odin could have sworn he heard a root snap in half, torn by Nidhogg’s wild gyrations.

  For a bare instant, Odin could but gape at Hel. It was really happening. The eschaton cycle was breaking. Hel was … ending everything.

  A flutter of wings, and Gondul landed on that platform by Hel.

  Odin braced to jump, but a horde of draugar came surging toward him. If he allowed them down there, he’d hardly be able to focus on Hel. But even a moment’s delay …

  But Tyr came crashing into their ranks, hewing and hacking, and leading an army of furious dead escaped from the gates of Hel. Those tormented by Hel’s legions for so very long might at last begin to claim their revenge.

  Tyr’s missing leg was restored. Odin had bid him focus, to stop thinking on what he’d sustained and imagine himself as he had been. For the dead, self-image shaped them. Tyr could not restore his lost hand, for that injury was so old it had embedded itself in his personality. But man’s very nature was to deny a recent injury, and in embracing that denial, Tyr had regained his leg.

  And his fury.

  Odin turned back to Hel and, after pulling back several steps for a flying leap, ran and jumped, clearing the distance and landing on the platform.

  Hel had Gondul by the throat, and ice seep
ed into the valkyrie. It spread through her flesh, until—Odin knew—her heart froze solid. The goddess dropped the woman, and Gondul shattered on the ground. Odin winced at the sight.

  But the valkyrie had forestalled the incantation for a moment, a time long enough for Odin to reach Hel. To end this. Growling, he charged at her.

  A scythe-like blade of ice extended from her arm and she swung, carving through the air. Odin dropped down, beneath the attack, and kicked her legs out from under her, then twisted, catching her in the gut with his heel. Hel tumbled backward with an oomph, and Odin scrambled forward, half jumping to pound his fist into her face. She rolled to the side and her heel caught him in the chest, sending him flying backward.

  It would have knocked all wind from his lungs, had he still breathed. Instead, Odin managed to twist around in midair and land in a crouch. Momentum had him skidding precariously close to the edge of the platform. She had strength many times that of any other draug. Had to keep that in mind.

  Odin held a hand to his half-crushed chest, flexing his shoulders.

  Hel, too, stood, snarling at him like some beast. Coils of mist slithered from her mouth and wafted around her. She reached a hand out behind herself, then jerked it forward.

  A shard of ice and rock as long as a house ripped free from the pit wall and launched at Odin like a flung spear. He broke into a mad dash forward and hurled himself to the ground an instant before the missile crashed into the edge of the platform. It blasted down in an explosion of debris that punched through both stone and the root below, sending a huge chunk of the platform tumbling down into the void.

  Hel advanced on Odin even as he scrambled to his feet, her face a mask of fury and madness. “You think to fight me here … in Niflheim, the heart of my power? I will feast upon your soul … before I toss its dregs to Nidhogg.”

  Tendrils of solid mist now wafted off her like writhing manifestations of her rage. Her one eye had turned opalescent, glowing with pale light. The vapors engulfed her lower half, obscuring her movements.