by Matt Larkin
“Wait! You said willing hosts. I’m not willing.”
Rán shrugged. “Of course you are. That’s why you’re here. You just don’t know it yet. Fimafeng, prepare her.” The goddess laughed again, and disappeared back through the waterfall.
Fimafeng’s grip tightened on her shoulder and he yanked her from the room. Now Sigyn fought in earnest, straining against the merman’s impressive strength. He pulled her through the hall.
“Stop! Please, I don’t want to be a mermaid.”
Fimafeng clucked his tongue. “Very insulting, little fish. If you wanted to be a swan maiden, you should have spoken up earlier. Now it’s too late to choose. Besides, a mer spirit is a greater gift than a swan cloak.”
“I don’t want to be any—”
“Release her!” Loki’s voice boomed through the hallway.
Sigyn turned to see her lover. She’d never heard him shout before. She’d never seen such anger in him, such darkness in his eyes. A surge of hope filled her heart like the break of dawn. She could kiss that man.
“I cannot do that. Queen Rán has given the command—this one belongs to her now.”
Loki strode purposefully toward them. Sigyn’s heart raced, surged with relief not only that he had come for her, but at seeing him again. Maybe she would have to start doing what she was told. One day.
“Sigyn is mine.”
Loki’s words made her feel surprisingly warm inside. Part of her wanted to see him beat the mermen who’d dragged her here. She had not seen Loki fight, but he often traveled with Odin’s warriors, and she’d felt the incredible strength in his limbs, the fine muscles of his body.
Fimafeng shoved Sigyn and she fell into a pool of icy water, once again overcome by the sudden shock of it. She tried to put her foot down, but the water was too deep. She splashed around, flailing, trying to keep her head above water. A few short dips in the river with Agilaz had not made her an apt swimmer.
Sigyn slapped for the side of the path, missed and went under. Not like this. She wasn’t going to drown like this, not after everything.
Loki splashed down beside her, then she was wrapped in his arms and hefted toward the surface. He surged upward, flinging them both onto the path. Sigyn gasped, trying to catch her breath. A few feet away, Fimafeng lay on the stone, blood pouring from his mouth and nose.
How long had she been down in the water?
“My lady,” Fimafeng shouted—or rather, sputtered loudly.
Loki dashed over to him and landed with a knee on his chest. Then he punched the merman in the throat.
Sigyn choked on the sudden violence of it.
An instant later, Loki was pulling her to her feet again. “Sigyn, are you all right?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“We have to move. Aegir will learn of this. That mer was a favorite of his. He will be displeased.”
Then why did Loki have to kill the man? “What does that mean? He won’t help us now?”
Loki frowned. Yes, fine. It was a foolish question. They had just murdered the sea jotunn’s right-hand man. Help was out of the question. Just how much harm would they be talking about instead?
Sigyn shivered from the cold. She missed the hot spring. The spring where those swan maidens swam … “There’s women here. They have cloaks that let them turn into birds.” Women or spirits or whatever they were.
Loki rocked back on his heels. “Swan maidens. Where?”
Stupid, stupid maze of a palace. It was left first, then … Sigyn shut her eyes. She could do this. “That way.”
She took off running, Loki right behind her, leading the way back to the hot spring. The girls inside shrieked in surprise as the two of them burst into the room. Before they could recover, Sigyn sprinted for one of the numerous feather cloaks lying around beside the spring.
“Stop!” one of the girls wailed. The girl ran over as Sigyn tried to don the garb.
Sigyn punched her in the face, then grimaced as the girl pitched over, grasping her bloody nose. “Sorry.” She flung the cloak around her shoulders and watched Loki do the same. She pulled up the hood. “How do I—”
A wild energy rushed down from her shoulders. The cloak began encircling her of its own accord, and a shock rushed out her fingertips. She’d heard it pained varulfur and berserkir to shift, but she felt only elated. Instinct took over, and a beat of her newfound wings hefted her upward. Another beat and another, and she was flying, soaring.
Air rushed over her feathers, filling her with such a profound joy she would have wept, could she have done so in this form. Loki, a black swan now flying beside her, flew for one of the giant windows high above. Sigyn followed him outside, out above the sea and into the night sky.
Above the mists and up, up toward the clouds. Naught bound her anymore. She was free of all constraints.
A fell roar rumbled from the castle, and the waters outside it began to swirl. And then he rose out of the sea. A man’s torso, stretched into the sky twenty feet, a long white beard streaming around him. His arms were thick as tree trunks and knotted with muscles, but it was the glowing runes covering them that drew Sigyn’s eyes.
Loki passed in front of her then beat his wings even harder, drawing her to follow. They were racing for the cliff beyond the sea.
Almost immediately, the sky darkened and the winds picked up. A sudden gust flung Sigyn back out to sea and nearly sent her toppling out of the sky. She dove down, trying to cut under the air currents. Streaks of lightning lit the night sky. Loki circled back again, clearly seeking some way to aid her. But this was on her.
Sigyn banked in one direction, then quickly turned as the winds shifted to block her. Her maneuver allowed her to cut through the prior gust and soar above the cliff. Loki skidded onto the ground and yanked off his cloak. Sigyn did the same, another gust of wind threatening to fling her back out to sea even as she shifted.
Instead, she stumbled to the ground.
Loki leapt to her side and caught her, then pulled her to feet. “Run! We have to get as far from the sea as we can, beyond the reach of their power.”
His hand wrapped around her wrist, they ran.
Lightning coursed through the sky behind them.
22
At night, they weathered the barrage of trolls, hiding in the fortress and praying for daylight to send the monsters scurrying back into their holes. By day, Odin allowed his people some sleep while sending others out to forage for food. Agilaz reported local Vall farms and towns had been smashed to bits by the trolls, the animals and women taken. And night by night the Aesir’s supplies dwindled, almost as quickly as their resolve.
Odin stood at the gate, beside Tyr, waiting. Another night was fast approaching. The trolls would try to climb the walls again. A few had gotten inside last night, and a score of men had died to bring them down. When would it end? Ve was out there, Odin knew he was.
And unless Odin did something, this would continue until the Aesir at last broke, having never even laid eyes upon Vanaheim. So really, only one choice remained to him now.
“Tonight, we open the gates.”
Tyr grunted.
“Choose the finest warriors among us, but leave the archers to man the walls. You and I, your chosen, we will head into the mist.”
“To what end?”
Odin clenched his fists at his side. Indeed. What could do? “Trolls don’t act with such deliberateness. It means a leader drives them, and we both know who that leader must be. I have to go out and find him, face him.”
“And if you do?”
Odin glowered. Ve. Son of Borr. Odin’s blood.
Urd was cruel.
A fell wind swept through the mountains and into the hills, washing over Odin’s army as they clashed with the trolls. Odin was done with hiding. He would take the fight to the trolls and end this threat, avenge the fallen, find a way to save his brother, to get through to him. They had headed out to valley between two hills, knowing the trolls
would follow, thinking them easy prey.
But tonight, the Aesir were the hunters.
From atop the taller hill, Odin reared Sleipnir, fully conscious of the silhouette he created for his people. He hefted Gungnir into the night sky behind him. The trolls would not come out to fight during the day, and his people dared not chase them into their burrows. And so, now, on this night, he was going to end this.
“Tyr!” he shouted, then indicated a cluster of the trolls trying to charge up the hill.
The mists had taken his brother. They would not take his son, nor any more of his people. Tonight, these Mist-spawned trolls would be the ones to fear men. Odin leveled Gungnir like a lance.
Vili, as instructed, rampaged among the trolls, lining them up. The bear’s claws could score a troll’s hide, but wouldn’t easily slay them. He would, however, drive them into position.
Odin’s chest shook, a rumble building in it. These creatures had taken his brother from him. They had slaughtered hundreds of the Aesir, the people who looked to him for protection, for guidance, for a champion. And, by his ancestors, he would give them one. Men needed something to believe in, a symbol. And Odin … he needed to keep his family and his people safe. Whatever the cost.
A war cry erupted from his throat, and Odin charged down the hill. Sleipnir’s hooves kicked up snow and rocks as the horse flew forward, men and trolls rushing by in a blur. Odin slammed into a troll, Gungnir punching straight through its chest. His momentum lifted the troll off the ground, the beast’s bellows now turned to whimpers.
The weight already threatened to yank Gungnir from his grasp, but Odin held on, and Sleipnir turned just enough. A heartbeat later another troll was impaled on Odin’s dragon spear. This time, Odin didn’t fight the momentum. He let it carry him off Sleipnir, then flipped over the trolls and used his own weight to yank his spear free.
Odin landed in a roll and immediately launched himself forward. He could not slow. These trolls were animals. And animals feared those more savage than themselves. He whipped the spear in a wide arc, cutting a gash through a troll’s nose and another’s chest. The beasts recoiled, clearly stunned by a human not only charging into their midst, but able to pierce their rocky hides.
Odin used the distraction to ram Gungnir through a third troll’s face, roaring as he did so.
“I am Odin! Son of Borr! Fear me, beasts!” He didn’t know whether these creatures could understand him, but they did begin to draw back from him. He cut out a troll’s leg with the undulating blade of his spear.
Other trolls buckled, at least two actually turning tail and running.
“Not … your subjects.” The voice was rough, like gravel.
Odin turned to face the speaker. The creature before him no longer resembled Ve, but Odin knew. The Troll King was much like other trolls—an elongated nose, tusks, and a hide like moss-covered rocks. Scraggly hair hung past his shoulders. But his eyes held more than animal cunning. They held wisdom and hatred beyond the capacity of a mere beast.
“Brother …”
Ve rose up to his full height, now half again as tall as a man, and raised arms as thick as tree trunks. “You … kneel.”
Odin swallowed. That had never been an option. The trolls would like as naught eat his men and claim his women as troll wives. He just had to reach his brother, find a way to bring out his human side. Ve was still in there, he had to be.
“Are you working for the Niflungar, Ve? Why? Why betray me?” Why, after Odin had spared Ve’s life in the Jarnvid? There had to be some semblance of his brother left behind the Troll King. A remnant of the young man Odin and Vili should have done better by.
“I am … King. I … work for … no one. We work with … Mist.”
“Ve! Please, brother. Heed me.”
Ve snarled, his hands balling into massive fists.
Odin leveled Gungnir at Ve. His brother knew the dragon spear, knew its power. Even through the haze that now seemed to blanket his mind, he had to know he could not win against such a weapon. “Send your … people away, brother. Don’t make me do this.”
Indeed, how could Odin fight his own blood? Fight another son of Borr? He wouldn’t—he couldn’t. Ve would come back to him, Odin just had to figure out how to reach through the mist that blanketed his brother’s mind.
Ve grinned, revealing the full horror of his tusks, then bellowed, beating his hands upon his chest. The sound of boulders cracking together like an avalanche. And Odin felt all the other trolls look to their leader.
The same symbol Odin had tried to be to the Aesir. A god among them. And if Odin allowed Ve to rally the trolls, the Aesir would pay the price. They would die in droves, carried off by the trolls as breeding stock or feasts.
And Odin could not allow that. He had to protect his son. His father would have done it for him. His father … Ve’s father. But if he did not fight the trolls would take them all. Father … How could he fight his own brother? How could he kill his father’s son?
“I’m sorry, Ve,” Odin mumbled, shaking his head. “Father … forgive me.” He charged Ve, spear thrusting forward.
Ve leapt forward, slamming both hands straight into the ground. Odin dove to the side and rolled to avoid the blow, as it shook the earth. Odin rose quickly, but Ve was faster, flinging a giant fistful of snow at him.
The snow caught Odin in the face, blinding him. An instant later, a mountain slammed into him, flinging him back. The impact slapped Odin into the snow, and he sunk at least an arms’ length beneath the surface. Odin gasped, struggling to suck air into his lungs, fighting the pain of cracked ribs. Gods, where had he dropped Gungnir?
He flailed, trying to dig himself out of the snow.
Calm, he had to be calm. He needed to call on his power within to fight the pain. If he could just focus for a moment—
A giant rocky hand yanked him out of the snowdrift and flung him through the air. Odin crashed against rocks poking out of the snow. He heard his own arm break, the sickening sound registering even over the shock of another impact.
When at last he managed to get a breath, he coughed up blood. Gasping, unable to rise from the pain, Odin tried to crawl to where Gungnir lay in the snow, ten feet away. Ve covered the distance between them in a single bound, his landing blanketing Odin in a fresh dusting of snow. Before he could even clear his vision, Ve hefted him up again.
A fist like a hammer slammed into Odin’s face, and everything blacked out. Merciful unconsciousness threatened to swallow him. Ve was—his brother was going to kill him.
Odin’s mind clawed at his powers, trying to pull it up and block his pain.
“Odin!” Tyr’s voice sounded far away. “Where are you?”
Odin forced himself to focus, to look up. A solid wall of mist had encircled him and Ve, cutting off his view of aught else.
“Here,” Odin croaked, knowing his voice would never carry.
Ve lifted him again. His grand quest ended here. And Odin had failed, had led his people to their destruction.
All you build will turn to ash, your children shall die, and your dreams shall burn.
The ghost’s words echoed in his brain over and over.
His children. His child, Thor. His own blood, the blood of Odin’s father and forefathers. Rage cut through his pain, and he grabbed Ve’s wrist. Finally he caught his power, allowing him to match—or at least challenge—Ve’s strength.
Odin tried to yank himself free of Ve’s grip.
“That will be enough,” a voice said. “Release Odin.”
Ve snarled, then looked at the speaker.
The mists parted to reveal a man with long black hair, a raven perched on his shoulder and a golden crown upon his head.
Gjuki.
Odin tried to speak, but blood burbled out of his mouth.
The Raven Lord seemed to drift over the ground, a faint wisp of shadows trailing off him. A mere hint in this realm of the endless shadows he cast in the Penumbra. Gjuki placed a hand on
Odin’s head, and Odin’s vision began to dim. His power slipped from his grasp, and with it, consciousness fled.
“Worry not, Odin,” Gjuki said. “You will have your chance to say all you wish.”
Everything went dark.
Part III
Sixth Moon
23
Another body, but still not Odin, Njord be praised. Tyr had searched the hills hours past the dawn, walking like a man in a daze. The mist itself had turned on them in the battle. Odin must have been right. Niflungar must have come for him. And now, with all the bodies laid to rest on the pyres, and still no sign of their king …
Now what? If Tyr could not protect his king, his charge, what was left for him? The shame of his failure. Of his broken oath to Borr. Of living on.
Yes, the Aesir had taken down dozens of trolls in Odin’s charge. In the sunlight their corpses looked like boulders covered in black ichor. But hundreds of warriors had been taken by valkyries this night, their bodies now burning to keep them from rising as draugar. And Odin himself captured. It was the only explanation Tyr could think of—no sign of the king or his body. And where would they take him? Halfway back across Midgard toward Reidgotaland? Or somewhere closer?
Perhaps Tyr could use the varulfur to track Odin and his captors. That was what they were best at. His legs felt numb as he trod back toward Idavollir fortress. Back toward Frigg, where he would have to recount his failure. For all the power in his sword, still he could not even find his foes.
Inside the fortress, he found Frigg’s maid, fretting about.
“Where is she?”
“U-up on the battlements,” Fulla mumbled. “Did you kill all the trolls full dead as dead?”
Hardly. “We killed many of them.”
Fulla wrung her hands, then busied herself tending to the wounded. Of which there were many. Trolls had cost them all a great deal.