Gods of the Ragnarok Era Omnibus 1: Books 1-3

by Matt Larkin

  At the shrine’s threshold, eight more Vanr prisoners lay bound in chains. The Aesir had not had orichalcum enough for so many prisoners, but these men had eaten no apples. Indeed, this was no doubt the closest they had ever been to Yggdrasil. Now, they sat in front of it, some trembling in fear, others staring at him in defiance. As leaves fell and lives ended.

  It was almost time. He had to do this at sunrise. Carving the final glyphs would take too long. Odin sighed, then drew a dagger and slit his palm. In blood, he began to paint the glyphs on the bridge, and on the foreheads of each of his sacrifices.

  “I do this so the rest of your people can survive,” he said to one who resisted. Still the man squirmed under Odin’s grasp. Damn. Odin backhanded him into unconsciousness. His words were small comfort, he knew. But he had naught else to offer. His course was set.

  As he worked, he began to incant, evoking the names of vaettir, hundreds of them. His voice rose, beginning to echo through the chasm. He looked to the sky. Any moment now, dawn would break through the clouds. And then … then he would have a few instants only to complete the spell. Static built in the air, set his hair and beard frizzing.

  “Lord of sunlight, master of radiance, I invoke thee. Surya, I call upon you now with all your servants to split the skies.”

  Audr recoiled within him at the invocation of the sun god’s old name.

  The canopy above trembled, followed by a quake that set the whole bridge shaking. Odin continued chanting, speaking in the forgotten language—if language it even was—of creation. The sounds, vibrations of order holding reality together, resonated, echoing.

  Runes began to sizzle, and the air rippled then popped, like bubbles rising from a bog. Odin grabbed one sacrifice by the hair and slit his throat, never letting his chant falter. The runes on his skin burned. He had neither the strength nor the will to look into the Astral Realm, to see the innumerable entities he had called here. If he lost control now, if he gave in to fear, he might create a breach nigh to as terrible as the one Hel had ripped open five thousand years ago.

  He killed another sacrifice, and another. With each life that expired, the heat and pressure in the air built and the quakes intensified. At the far end of the bridge, the fighting had faltered as warriors on both sides fled the bridge and fell to their knees at the sight of the shimmering nightmare before them. Another sacrifice fell at his feet.

  “Stop!” someone screamed from behind him. “Cease this!”

  Odin turned. Frey had appeared there, behind the lines. The bare-chested warrior held his mighty sword Laevateinn, blade crackling with flame. The sunburst tattoo on his back reached his arms, glittering, revealing a power Odin at last understood. For as Naresh, he too had once held that power: the Sun Stride, the ability to appear anywhere, to move at inhuman speeds.

  That sword …

  Audr’s runeblade, before the wraith had lost it. Ironic, that Odin would now have to cut down one wielder of the blade, while himself hosting another.

  “You cannot interrupt me now,” Odin said, then resuming chanting. His rune circle was complex, probably magnitudes more complex than any sorcery the Vanir had attempted in their tenure here. Or at least, any Vanir save the First Ones, the very ones banished for their own hubris. Perhaps they had tried such things as he now tried on their descendants. Another irony not lost on him.

  Frey roared at him and vanished.

  Odin spun while falling to one knee and jerking his fist backward. It connected with Frey’s abdomen as the man appeared behind him, swinging that blade. The Vanr blew out a sudden breath and stumbled backward. Odin shook his head, continuing to chant. Frey was a fool. If he succeeded in killing Odin now, the spirits pushing against the Veil would rupture it. Vanaheim would become a feeding ground for hungry vaettir eager for souls to feast upon and bodies to inhabit.

  In his rage, perhaps the Vanr did not consider it. Perhaps he did not care. The man lunged forward, swinging again and again. Odin twisted out of the way and glanced to where he had left Gungnir lying on the ground, twenty feet away. He rolled under a blow, then twisted as a sudden prescient insight warned him. Frey appeared over him, hacking away at the spot Odin would have occupied. Flames licked his flesh, scorching it. Continuing his movement, Frey spun, swinging at Odin.

  This time, Odin caught Frey’s arm by the shoulder, twisted, and flipped the Vanr, using the man’s own momentum to hurl him at the bridge. Frey hit hard, the sword skittering away. Its flames flickered out. The man groaned.

  Odin ran to the next sacrifice and cut his throat as well.

  “What was that?” Frey asked, pulling himself to his feet.

  Odin glanced at him, then moved in on Lytir. “Silat.” The fighting arts of a distant age. Frey bore the mark of the sun god, but his people had forgotten much.

  The priest watched him with defiant eyes. The last, the final sacrifice. The quakes had grown stronger, spread even to the nearby mountains, where tiny avalanches began crashing into this valley.

  Frey appeared between Odin and Lytir, swinging his fist. Odin blocked it on his arm, caught the man’s wrist, and spun him around. In one movement he broke Frey’s arm and let the screaming Vanr fall.

  Kill him …

  No. Odin would kill only those he must.

  He grabbed Lytir by the hair and lifted him upward. He wanted to ask for forgiveness, but to do so now would have seemed even more arrogant. No. There was no forgiveness. There was only necessity. There was urd, and through it, choices were revealed as illusions. The only real choice became whether to resist the coming darkness or give in to it. Those who refused to take a side were, in truth, aiding the fall of man.

  With a grimace, he cut Lytir’s throat and let the priest fall to the bridge.

  Sunlight burst through the clouds in a single ray, one falling upon the dying Vanr. More rays shot down, a cascade of light shining over every sacrifice. Then more and more rays, until the whole tree seemed to be glowing, radiant, even as it shook. As leaves fell.

  “Frey!”

  Odin spun at Freyja’s voice. She was there, running to her fallen brother.

  No. No!

  “Freyja …” Odin’s mouth fell open and he tried to reach for her. His chant faltered. At the far end of the bridge, a warrior suddenly dropped dead. A leaf fell from Yggdrasil. More leaves fell, and Aesir and Vanir began to fall with them.

  Odin’s spell was drawing energy from Yggdrasil, and because of that, lives across Midgard were being snuffed out. A dozen lives with every passing heartbeat. Gods above and below, what had he done? He had started this because it seemed mercy, because he could not bring himself to kill all these people.

  He stumbled forward, reaching a hand for Freyja.

  She was still running in his direction, tears in her eyes. And terror. She must have guessed what he had done. And it was done. Now, if he did not finish, the breach would widen, feasting on the energy of Yggdrasil. Thousands would die, and Vanaheim would fall. Maybe all of Midgard.

  She wasn’t supposed to be here. Not like this.

  He had not seen this. Tyr was supposed to … Tyr … Thinking of the man suddenly granted him a vision of the warrior, in agony. In desperation, holding the chained werewolf. And Tyr, forever maimed. One more sacrifice.

  “I love you,” he whispered to Freyja.

  She faltered and fell to her knees. She was too far, and could not have heard his words. Maybe she had read his lips. Maybe she had seen it in his eyes. Or maybe her own Sight told her what had to happen now. Given the choice between saving the world and saving the woman he loved … what choice would she have him make? He knew the answer.

  Choking on his voice, he continued chanting. With his bloody palm, he drew one last glyph on the bridge. The mark of Surya himself. “Sun god … I … I invoke you.”

  As one, the Vanir screamed. Those standing fell to their knees. White light poured from their eyes and noses and mouths. Odin’s gaze remained locked on Freyja. Surely she could not
see like that, but she did not turn away from him. He looked at her even as the light grew blinding, as radiance reached into the sky.

  A tremendous pop echoed through the valley, and the bridge cracked, pitching Odin forward. Unable to see, he caught himself on a flagstone and held on at an angle. The screaming had stopped, though faint ripples of air pressure continued to pass over him. Aftershocks from a quake between the worlds. He blinked until he could see once again. Spots flickered in front of his eyes.

  He climbed the flagstone back onto level ground. An enormous chunk of the bridge had pitched into the chasm. Freyja had been on that chunk, but Odin doubted she had fallen. Not here.

  A numbness had settled up his chest and swallowed his heart. With it done, he could step off the edge and fall into the abyss. Leave this torturous life behind. But neither urd, nor his people, were done with him. He had a duty to them now, as ever. They needed their king to be strong. They needed him to be infallible.

  They needed him to be a god.

  Despite exhaustion doing its best to drag him into unconsciousness, he crawled to Gungnir. Using it as a walking stick, he rose to survey what he had done. A crack had spread along Yggdrasil’s trunk. Odin had likely done as much damage this morning as Nidhogg did in a century. Thousands of leaves had fallen.

  But the only bodies here were the Aesir and that of Lytir. Even his other Vanr sacrifices were gone.

  Gone to what Odin dared hope would be a better place for them.

  61

  Tyr lay against a tree, head in his remaining hand. He had lost his sword hand. What did that leave him? Maimed and immortal. And lacking both the women he had cared for.

  Fenrir snarled and spit in his direction. Not for the first time, Tyr cursed the Hel-spawned wolf. And wished he had the means to kill such a monster. Slowly, he rose, and stalked over to the creature.

  Tyr kicked him in the face. The varulf’s head collided with the trunk where he was bound. The werewolf went still.

  “Damn you.”

  Tyr cracked his neck. What was he to do? He had a promise to keep. He had sworn to send aid to the Vall emperor. Back then, Tyr had imagined going himself and fighting in glorious battle. Maybe his days of glory were done forever. Hard to fight like this. Maybe not so hard to die, though. Maybe one last glory, against the armies of Serkland. A bitter end. Fitting.

  He spun at the sound of footfalls.

  Odin and Frigg both approached. The queen, fortunately, had left her varulfur twins behind. From what Tyr had seen, Fenrir would be able to turn them against their own people on a whim.

  “I know what you’ve lost, my friend.” Odin clapped him on his shoulder. “And I know what you achieved. I asked you to prove your valor once again. And you have done so much more than that.”

  Tyr swallowed, looking up at the sun. The beast had ripped Zisa to pieces before his very eyes. He had awakened to Idunn’s screaming, to see her consumed in light. And now, Gramr, slung over Odin’s shoulder, was wailing for him.

  “I failed. If I had gotten the women away from Vanaheim … would Idunn have …” Hel, but she was crying for him.

  Odin shook his head and backed away, seeming to see Tyr’s pain. “That was not your urd. What had to happen is what did happen.”

  Tyr sighed, glancing at Frigg, who nodded. “So you would take me back as a thegn, despite it all?”

  Odin grunted. “I would make you a jarl. Many tribes have lost their leaders. Whatever crimes you did under the influence of this blade, they were not in truth your doing. And all will know of your valor here, glory unlike any Ás has ever earned before.”

  A jarl? He did not deserve it. He had failed Odin and Zisa and Idunn, all. And his hand drifted for the blade. She needed him.

  Odin raised a hand to forestall him. “The runeblade is no longer for you. You, I will appoint to watch over this beast for now, until his prison can be prepared.”

  “Prison?”

  Odin grunted. His eyes seemed glazed over. “There are rock cells, deep beneath the mountains of Vanaheim, unused in long ages. We will bury the wolf so deep he will not see the sun until … until the dying of this world.” Odin shook himself, his gaze clearing. “And you, Tyr, have but to name a leaderless tribe, and I will make you its jarl.”

  “Skaldun.” The word left his mouth before he even had time to think.

  “Tyr, they … are not fond of you,” Frigg said.

  Indeed, they loathed him. But because of his actions, the tribe had no jarl. And Starkad and his brother Vikar had neither father nor mother. It was one duty Tyr would never shirk and never fail in. No, it was not time for him to die just yet.

  Maybe Odin read that on his face, for he nodded.

  Tyr had lost Idunn. Had lost Zisa. Had lost himself along with his fighting hand. All that remained to him was his son.

  62

  Head in his hand, Odin sat inside Sessrumnir, resting on a throne Frigg had insisted he claim. The remaining jarls stood about, bickering over who would be the first to receive the apples.

  He had called this Thing because it was expected of him. He, King of the Aesir, had done as he promised. He had taken Vanaheim for the Aesir, had defeated their so-called gods. Once, that had been his greatest aspiration. Once, he had thought from Vanaheim he would save the world, drive out the mists. The Norns had tried to warn him. Knowledge not only had a price, it was a price. Knowledge of the future was a burden weighing upon his shoulders, beating him down and stripping from him the right to choose his own path.

  A flickering in his mind warned him even before the Ás warriors brought Eostre in. None dared lay a hand on her, and she walked, head high and back stiff. Her eyes revealed only the barest hint of the emotion she must surely feel.

  Idunn, too, had failed to escape Vanaheim before the spell had taken effect. Odin wanted to blame Tyr for his failure, but then who could have succeeded under such circumstances? No. It was Odin’s own folly to think he could spare those he loved the consequences of his, and their, own actions. Had they not lingered in Vanaheim, the spell would not have reached them. But that was not urd, after all.

  In truth, he found himself forever separated from Freyja—from Chandi. She was always connected to him, always bound to find him. Always, destined to be taken, oft as not by his own folly. Or by his accursed urd.

  And Eostre now was one of only four remaining Vanir. Enemies certain to hate Odin until the end of time. An enemy who could never even understand that she, in a way, was Odin’s own daughter. For hours he had weighed the consequences of telling her. Even if she believed it, it would not abate her rage at what he had done to her daughter. Indeed, she might hate him all the more for it.

  “I wished to spare her,” he said.

  Eostre glared. “And where have you sent her, in your mercy?”

  Odin folded his arms over his chest. “Alfheim.” The World of Sun would be, he hoped, familiar in some way to the Vanir. It was a land of greenery and spring and light. The same world to which they had once banished their own ancestors, the First Ones. But Odin’s spell had been targeted to anyone born on Vanaheim and, thus, had not affected the few remaining First Ones like Eostre or Lytir. Nor, in fact, Bragi, who had joined the Vanir in later days.

  Eostre shut her eyes as if she had known he would say that.

  “They can find peace there,” he said. “They did not want to fight for Midgard. Now they need not.”

  “Peace?” Eostre strode forward until a thegn of Hoenir’s barred her way. “Peace? Do you think they will have it in the Spirit Realm? Do the vaettir you have encountered strike you as peaceable, as beneficent toward mankind?”

  “The alternative—” Odin began.

  “Oh, yes. I should be grateful you did not send them to Niflheim or Svartalfheim or some other even more dire world!”

  “The alternative would have been to kill all who opposed me. I did not intend to cast out Idunn, but it is done. I have not the strength nor ability to reach her now.” If he
did, he would have gone after Freyja first. But Idunn too, he would have died to rescue, had that ever been a choice before him. Were there, in fact, any choices before him?

  Eostre sneered. “Then what of me? Am I to face your alternative, Lord Odin?”

  Never. No, he could never bring himself to kill his daughter, not even his daughter from another lifetime. Nor, however, was she like to ever see him as an ally. In Vanaheim, Eostre might sow seeds of discontent, forever proving a liability to his rule. And rule he must, for the final war was coming, and now he had to prepare for it. Ragnarok, if it could not be averted, must at least be won.

  After a moment he spread his hands, taking in the whole Thing. “Lady Eostre, I give you a choice. You can remain in custody as my guest.” Possibly until the end of the world. “Or, you can take up the quest your mother once undertook. You can go out into the world and bring hope to mankind. Spread the word of spring, help them survive Fimbulvinter until I finally find a way to break it.”

  Eostre shut her eyes again, silent a long time.

  Odin resisted the urge to fidget.

  After an interminable pause, his daughter opened her eyes. “And you will offer the same choice to the other remaining First Ones.”

  Odin had not really decided on that. But Eostre had not made it a question. And he owed her a debt he could not repay. Allowing the others of her kind to walk the world with her was the smallest favor he could grant her. After pretending to think on it a moment more, he nodded once. “You will give your word that neither you nor any of the others will act against me or the Aesir.”

  At that, the woman sneered.

  “Your oath, Eostre. That is the price for your freedom.”

  She sighed. “I swear it … King Odin.”

  Odin looked to Hoenir. “Lady Eostre is to be taken to Andalus. The other two First Ones as well.”

  “And Bragi,” Eostre said.

  The god of poetry had never proved a friend to the Aesir, least of all Odin. And yet … neither did Odin fancy keeping him prisoner for centuries.