“Let. Me. Go.” Sally’s voice was low and gruff. She kept her eyes on Utra, but with every breath she felt her anger seeping out of her and her grief sinking in, and it was a thousand dull needles piercing her brain. She tried to hold onto her rage. She needed the fury to keep her focused and upright so she could finish this. She needed her strength so that Utra wouldn’t win. She needed to save the world. But Loki was nothing more than a black stain on white snow, and Utra looked out at Sally through Opal’s eyes.
Sally’s breath hitched and she tried to bite back her sobs.
“You can’t do this alone.” Freya held her tight as Saga, Fenrir, and even Maggie and Freyr crowded around the Rune Witch. “We’ve got you.”
Thor smelled smoke. He didn’t see any fire, but one glance out the kitchen windows and to the flaming robes and charred remains that littered the snow was enough to increase his threat level.
“How long before they storm the castle?” Rod’s voice was almost casual. Keeping an eye on the streaming video feed on his smartphone, he shifted the plastic video game controller from one hand to the other so he could pick a piece of lint off his sleeve.
Beside him, Zach laughed nervously. He and Rod stood together as sentinels outside the door to the kitchen pantry—a tight space, but the only room in the house without any outside windows or doors. Inside the closed pantry, Bonnie huddled with Maksim, and with Laika and Baron and a wide assortment of canned vegetables, jarred pickles and preserves, and sacks of grain and flour for company. The next time he built a family Lodge, Thor promised himself, he’d include a proper safe room.
Zach’s eyes darted at every shout or thud from outside the house. His short sword shook in his hands. “You’ve been through this kind of thing before?”
Rod shrugged. “Like this? Not exactly. But you get used to it.”
Thor wasn’t sure how anyone could get used to Ragnarok, but he held his tongue. The sounds of chaos and plenty of screaming were clear enough from outside. His instinct was to tear out of the kitchen and onto the field of battle where he might actually do some good against the onslaught. He was good at taking the fight directly to his enemy. But he shifted his grip on his hammer and paced about the kitchen. He was determined to remain inside to protect his family.
He was grateful to Carol back in Portland. He hoped she was entertaining Magnus with educational videos and coloring books and feeding him proper meals of meats and vegetables. He hoped she was giving his son the occasional cookie or cup of warm cider, too. He held that image in his mind—of Magnus sitting by Carol’s wood stove, working on simple math problems while he snacked on toasted bread and maybe taking breaks to help his hostess with the laundry or the sweeping. He wished his son a boring and productive break.
But the cataclysm of Ragnarok was unlikely to be localized. As bad as things looked and sounded outside the Lodge’s windows, it was probably just as bad or even worse in Portland, and maybe even across the globe.
Rod sucked in his breath as he watched the live video coming to his phone from the security cameras he’d mounted around the Lodge exterior. The cameras had been another lucky purchase Laika had ordered through Heimdall’s Amazon account. Thor thought maybe he and Bonnie should get one of those Alexa devices for their home, but then worried about Magnus ordering an endless stream of superhero action figures.
“Rod?” Thor asked.
Rod lifted his game controller. “Okay. Here we go.” He toggled the gray joystick to the left and hit a green button three times. A split-second later, an explosion sounded beyond the Lodge’s front door and rattled the glasses in the kitchen cabinets.
“Did that work?” Zach peered over Rod’s shoulder. Thor resisted the temptation to do the same.
“Give it a second for the smoke to clear.” Rod watched the video on his phone. “Well, all I can say is that the guys who were headed for the front stairs are no longer there.”
“Yeah? How about the stairs?” Thor and Heimdall had built the Lodge—including the broad front steps—with their own hands. A few of the thick risers had been replaced after the draugar’s assault on the Lodge, along with all the gutters and plenty of windows, and lots of other cosmetic patches, too.
Rod’s lips pressed into a thin line. “First on the list for post-battle repairs.”
Thor nodded and tried not to wince when something heavy thudded against the roof.
Rod checked his video feed again. “Yeah, another rock from one of the dragons.”
“One of the dragons?” Zach’s voice practically quaked. “I thought there was just the one.”
Rod shrugged. “At least two of them now.”
There weren’t any of the Valkyries’ home-made mortars on the roof to prevent an attack from above. Thor thought it would be a miracle if the Lodge survived the morning with all four exterior walls still standing.
Rod worked his controller again and a second explosion sounded from beyond the far wall of the house. “Kept another three off the Western wall.”
“Do you think Sally’s okay?” Zach asked.
“The Rune Witch can take care of herself.” Thor hoped that would still hold true in the battle to end all battles that was being waged outside the Lodge walls. He took a step toward the pantry to check on Bonnie and Maksim, but he nearly lost his footing with the double explosion that came from the back of the house and just beyond the kitchen walls. The window glass shattered inward, and Thor felt thin trickles of blood on his face and scalp as he picked chunks of glass out of his beard.
“That was a little close, don’t you think?”
“Sorry.” Rod tossed the game controller away and reached for the hammer and forked crowbar wedged into his belt. They’d rigged four mortars and had expended them all. He glanced at Thor and dipped his chin. “It’s been an honor and a privilege.”
Zach’s face went white even as his eyes burned with determination. He stood up tall and held his sword out in front of him. It wasn’t shaking now.
“Don’t talk like that,” Thor said, but the grit in his stomach told him this one contest wasn’t likely to go well for Odin’s kin. He nodded to both Rod and Zach, two mortals who should have been far away from this fight, though he didn’t know if there was a spot in all of Midgard that would be safe from Ragnarok.
“You are my brothers, as near as any warrior related by blood.” Thor’s feet crunched on broken glass as he took up his position in front of the pantry door. If any of Utra’s lunatics aimed to get their hands on Maksim and his magick, they’d have to go through the god of thunder first. But there were also freaking dragons in the sky and marauding corpses and who knew what other chaos-fueled mayhem raging outside.
This is the end. Thor raised his hammer and tightened his gut as he heard the Lodge’s massive front doors blow open.
The roar of motorcycle engines filled the air around Heimdall as he stood in the snow and scanned the battlefield. It was another chaotic mess, much like the Battle of the White Oak Yggdrasil had been on this same ground. It seemed like just yesterday that he was facing a fleet of bulldozers manned by renegade Berserkers and their rogue leader, Managarm. Heimdall watched the Valkyries maneuver through the snow with their studded motorcycle tires as they dodged being pelted by brightly colored poisonous frogs and random, plummeting chunks of burning brimstone.
Heimdall scooped up some snow and pressed it against his burnt face. He’d gotten blasted by the release of Loki’s magick, and then that one dragon had nearly barbecued him just before three heaps of shambling bones wrestled him to the ground. At least, he thought it was three—some of the local risen dead were missing enough digits and limbs that it was hard to tell where one ended and the next began.
Despite the chaos, the battle was happening in slow motion. The snow hampered every movement on motorcycle or on foot. But even with the Spiralist would-be sorcerers flailing about in every direction without any clear leadership, Heimdall wasn’t sure where to strike first. He didn’t know how to
combat chaos itself.
Loki was gone. Not by Heimdall’s hand, but he’d taken his last breaths in Heimdall’s arms. That much of the Norns’ prophecy had come true. Heimdall himself was still standing, for now.
And there was still Utra to contend with.
Something hot landed on his right shoulder and Heimdall exclaimed in surprise as he batted away a scalding piece of ice.
“Perfect,” he muttered. “Acid hail.”
A mid-sized school bus came careening around the side of the Lodge, knocking over a few sapling trees and sliding to a stop in the slushy snow. The bi-fold door opened and Kyle Mackey and Trevor Chase tore down the steps and onto the field. Heimdall shouldn’t have been surprised to see the Hooligans on the scene; the two boys had been the bane of Odin’s existence when he was working as a high school principal before they were called as Einherjar warriors to stand with the Lodge against Managarm. In more recent years, Kyle had helped Heimdall keep an eye on Sally at Portland State.
Now the Hooligans waved briefly to Heimdall as they charged directly into the melee of snow and fire. They were followed by other faces Heimdall recognized from that same battle, mostly former members of the Portland State pep band. But his jaw dropped when a strong woman with dark skin and braided hair stepped off the bus. She had a double-headed axe strapped to her back. She paused to survey the battle, then turned her head to meet Heimdall’s gaze.
Rita. Wasn’t that her name? One of the captains of Managarm’s army of Berserkers. Had she bluffed her way onto the Einherjar bus, come to serve Utra? Heimdall’s empty hands clutched for a weapon, but his baseball bat had been knocked away by the pile of corpses. He spotted a broadsword on the ground, halfway between himself and Rita. She followed his gaze, and her eyes narrowed.
He lunged toward the sword, but Rita got there first. He backed up a few paces, out of the weapon’s reach, as she picked up the sword and quickly stood up tall.
Another chunk of smoking rock landed uncomfortably close beside him and sent up a spray of snow, but Heimdall didn’t move. He watched Rita balance the sword in her hands. Then she turned the hilt away from herself and held it out to Heimdall. When he hesitated, she nodded at him to take it.
Heimdall grasped the hilt and lifted the sword in front of his body. It felt good in his hands, though he wasn’t sure what help it would be against the rain of frogs or brimstone. Still, he was armed with a weapon he knew how to use.
A glimmer of a smile touched Rita’s lips, and she dipped her head in respect. Then she turned toward the nearest clump of chaos—an animated bear corpse wrestling with a couple of Utra’s sorcerers and an Einherjar warrior who had once been the PSU Vikings mascot. She lifted her axe out of its sling and strode forward, swinging.
“She wanted to come. Insisted on it.”
Heimdall nearly yelped when Tariq Rizavi appeared at his side. He hadn’t heard the little man descend from the bus and walk over to him. Tariq had been one of the Einherjar, along with Kyle and Trevor and the PSU squad, but he’d become a friend, especially to Thor, in the years since. His jacket was too light for the season but would allow him to maneuver on the field. He carried a length of heavy pipe in his hands and had a long knife strapped to his belt.
“You should get inside,” Heimdall said. “Thor might need you.”
Tariq nodded and headed for the back stairs, but a new press of men in robes swarmed around the side of the Lodge. The men’s hoods were thrown back, revealing crazed faces and wild, wide eyes that reminded Heimdall instantly of the Berserkers. He lifted his sword to keep himself from being overrun.
One of the sorcerers ran directly at him, shouting curses and throwing hand gestures that might have been bad news for Heimdall if the man had any power to put behind them. But they were empty words and movements with no effect, and the would-be mage screamed in frustration and reached clawing fingers at Heimdall’s face. Heimdall struck him down.
A shrieking cry sounded behind him, and Heimdall spun to find another advancing and powerless sorcerer approaching from behind, but the man went up in flames, targeted by the orange dragon, before he could reach Heimdall. Engulfed in fire, the man flailed helplessly as he fell to his knees and then keeled forward into the snow.
What hypnotic power did Utra have over these human beings? They were drones without a queen, attacking with only opportunity and no strategy.
“Heimdall! Heads up!” Rita charged to his side and hacked down a pair of robed men who were brandishing tire irons and aiming for Heimdall’s skull. A hand gripped him by the shoulder and pulled him forcefully backward as Kyle pushed his way toward the front to form a barrier.
These humans shouldn’t be protecting a god. But his mind spun as he watched these former enemies fight side by side to save his skin. He looked to the rear to guard against another onslaught but the immediate danger had passed. The snowy field was still a mess of frogs and desiccated bones and charred remains, and a third screeching dragon had joined the melee above and was throwing its own fire and brimstone from the sky. But Heimdall had a moment to catch his breath while there were no other robed, shrieking acolytes in his near vicinity.
There was a collection of the Suleiman’s Spiral brethren down by the Yggdrasil. Five of them gathered in a cluster with their backs to him, but he could hear their chanting across the snow. A golden halo rose up to surround them and deflected the acid hail. Sizzling chunks of ice bounced off of them and onto the ground.
A familiar, high-pitched howl echoed across the field as Skuld raced over the snow, her blue silks streaming behind her. She raised a hunting knife high over her head and barreled toward the collection of sorcerers. On instinct, Heimdall ran forward to help. He’d never seen one of the Nornir in battle before, and he wasn’t about to let her fight alone.
But he was still too far away when Utra stepped out from the midst of the chanting sorcerers, and Heimdall cursed at the sight of her in her borrowed body. Any tenderness he’d felt for the Morning Star was long gone. She had lost herself to madness and this insane hunger for power that was literally ripping the world apart. Skuld adjusted her course to target Utra, her blade at the ready. But a wisp of light rippled over Utra’s skin and with a flick of her wrist, the knife was out of Skuld’s hand and buried deep in the Norn’s neck.
Heimdall dropped to his knees in the snow. Just out of reach, Skuld collapsed backward, her head nearly severed from her body. Dark blood stained her blue tunic and the snow all around her.
Utra giggled with Opal’s voice as a mourning wail rose up behind Heimdall. He recognized the voices of Urd and Verdande screaming for their fallen sister. Heimdall staggered to his feet and lifted his sword, prepared to challenge Utra. But she turned her back on him in order to face a closer challenge as Maggie stepped out in front of her.
Sally cringed and held her hands over her ears as the shrieks of the Norns reverberated around her. She hadn’t seen Skuld go down, but Sally could see the Fate’s blue silks and the red-stained snow between the shifting bodies of the sorcerers who formed a wall in front of her.
She was still surrounded on all sides by Freya, Maggie, Freyr, Fenrir, and Saga. None of the members of the Lodge seemed the least wary of Fenrir’s presence in this protective circle, which only deepened Sally’s dread. She kept telling herself that all of this was really happening. There truly were three dragons now flying high over her head and blasting the players on the field with fire and rocks. Poisonous frogs and acid hailstones really were raining down from the sky, and it wasn’t her imagination that reanimated corpses had shuffled onto the scene to go hand-to-hand with scattered Einherjar warriors and even some of her former Berserkers. She’d blinked hard at the sight of Einherjar and Berserker fighting side by side, but that’s how it was always supposed to be. Before her brand of chaos got involved.
Verdande and Urd approached from either side, their steps slow and faltering in the snow as they keened their dismay and made their way to their fallen sister. Could the
Norse Fates function as two instead of three? Drapes of green and rose-colored fabrics clung to their bodies as the sky grew even darker and a wicked wind whipped across the the field. The expanse of snow between the Lodge and the Yggdrasil was streaked black and red and was marred by fallen bodies, heaps of ash and tar, and a few other piles of brownish muck Sally couldn’t identify.
Now the wind picked up clumps of dirty, bloodied snow and hurled it through the air, first in one direction and then another. Everything was shifting. Everything was unpredictable. The ground beneath Sally’s feet shuddered and bucked and then fell still again.
All the while, Utra stood just beyond the reach of Sally’s protectors. The goddess’s possession was starting to streak Opal’s dark hair with white, and Sally’s breath caught in her throat when she saw sparks of blue in her friend’s eyes. Behind Utra, her sorcerers closed ranks and started chanting.
Maggie stepped out of the circle and stood between Sally and Utra. With the keening Norns and the raging wind, Maggie’s words were torn from the air before they reached Sally’s ears. But she could see Utra’s confused response, followed by laughter.
Sally had to do something to stop this. Legend dictated that Ragnarok was supposed to end with the final confrontation between Odin and Fenrir, but Sally understood that this world-ending battle would more likely climax with her standing face to face with Utra wearing her friend’s body.
“Enough!” Sally tried to break out of the circle, but Fenrir reached out a clawed hand and pushed her back. Sally lost her footing and ended up on her rump in the snow. Fenrir was making a run at Utra, first on two legs and then on four as his bipedal clothing fell away and his massive wolf form emerged. Over the alarmed shouts of Utra’s sorcerers, Sally heard Fenrir’s deep growl lifted on the wind and her heart leapt to her throat when she saw the look of surprise on Utra’s face. But she heard a sizzling pop as she scrambled back to her feet and she was overcome by the stench of burning fur.
Twilight Magic (Rune Witch Book 6) Page 21