by Lentz, P. K.
Safe for the moment, I look up and down the Great Host and glimpse scenes similar to the one around me. Our Host is regrouping and pressing forward. The Myriad no longer come at us in a vast unbroken wave, but piecemeal, in smaller clouds. As I watch, one such cloud is reduced to dust by a blast of magical force. The battle is not yet over, but it is close.
Until it is done, I stand with the Valkyriar and do my part, left-handed, to kill several more of the putrid things. I persist until finally a Valkyr says to me, "You are hurt. Get back. We have this."
The arm in question is numb and pouring blood from a wide gash above the elbow. She is right. The swarm is all but defeated. My presence is extraneous, and I gladly heed her advice. With some difficulty, I lay my blade to rest in its scabbard, freeing the hand to clutch my wound, and make my way toward the rear of the Great Host, to the extent that there is a rear in the chaos of this battle. Wounded are all around me, being tended by a few healers and their fellows who are less seriously hurt. Most in this area are Valkyriar. I search for two in particular.
I find them and go toward them. Sigrid lies on the ground, head resting the lap of kneeling Ayessa, whose head hangs low over that of her lover. I reach them and fall to my knees. Ayessa spares me a swift glance which contains no malice, only pain. Her eyes are damp. Sigrid's are shut, but her face is not a death-mask; her chest yet heaves under the eagle blazon of her armor.
I sit there in silence with them while all around us the shrieking of the swarm diminishes with each passing minute, until finally it is subsumed by the low howl of Medea's wind.
A cheer goes up from the Great Host, a wordless chorus of victory and celebration. It does not last long. Too many have been lost. More are sure to follow, for this is but one battle. Ask the Chrysioi, who also won battles at first, ultimately only to be driven from their world.
On the other side of the chasm, the Alvar do not cheer. Perhaps it is not in their nature. The carnage over there looks no less severe than it does on this side.
"She can't feel her legs," Ayessa says to me, a helpless whisper. "She can't feel her legs," she repeats. "What does that mean?"
"She lives," I reassure her. "The healers will help her. And if they cannot, I will carry her myself to Freya at the gates of Niflheim."
It is no empty pledge, and Ayessa's look says she knows it.
"I must go." Clutching my wounded sword arm, I rise and move toward the Vanir contingent to learn whether Gaeira has survived.
I have gone but a few unsteady steps before I see her coming toward me. Hardly a strand of her blond hair is to be seen through the film of black ichor that coats her, as it does every one of us. Though greatly relieved, I manage, like her, not to smile. I keep walking, considerably more slowly than she, until we meet, the tips of our toes nearly touching. She does not embrace me, for that is not her way, especially not in front of so many. For my part, I presently must use my one good arm to staunch the flow of blood from the other, and could scarcely embrace her if I tried. I lower my head, and Gaeira angles hers so minutely that none but I might perceive it, and our cheeks graze. This is the expression of our joy in seeing each other alive, and for us, it is more than enough.
"Thamoth!"
I look over, knowing the voice, and catch sight of its owner surmounting a hill of slaughtered Myriad. I hail Crow and allow myself a brief smile. I have lost no one dear to me this day. Later, when the dead are counted, I fear that I will be one of very few for whom that is true.
While Crow is walking to me, someone cries out, "Odinn!" Other voices join: "Odinn! Odinn!"
It is no mere battle cry or dedication of the victory just won. The All-Father himself has come to stand in person on the field of carnage. He holds in one hand a long, twisted, hollow horn taken from I know not what manner of beast. Covering its smooth ivory surface are finely drawn symbols in a script I do not know.
The Great Host, already in disarray, surges in a wave toward Odinn. I am near where he has appeared, and by running I manage to gain a place at the edge of the respectful ring of empty space that his army leaves around him. Gaeira slides in next to me. Within moments, the crowd parts to let Baldr through into the ring, and then Tyr. Odinn's third living son, Hodr, comes next, close by Hel's side. Though his eyes are blinded, Hodr has fought the Myriad and lived. Surely drained by her magical contribution to the battle, Hel leans heavily on his shoulder.
Baldr is first to speak, addressing Odinn with a question I do not understand. "Is this the only way?" he asks sorrowfully.
"Aye," Odinn answers heavily, in his low rumble of a voice. "A battle is won, but the war is not. Not yet. To assure Asgard's survival... we must free the Serpent."
54. On Hel's Chariot
The chariot of Hel, pulled by two black horses, at first seems to travel no faster than would any other of its kind. But slowly I begin to notice that our speed ever increases, so gradually that from minute to minute no change is even apparent. Hel sits on the chariot's floor with her one ungloved hand extending out from her robes and pressing palm-down on the inner surface of the chariot's side wall. Now and again its fingers twitch and flare with the bright yellow light of her magics.
The wind increases until it stings my eye. The hills and fields and woods of Vanaheim become a blur—and then they are gone altogether, replaced by a glowing gray void streaked with pale white lights that move and flash, a view such as one might imagine seeing from within a stormcloud. The horses vanish. The wind dies, along with all sound down to the clatter of the wheels, which also must be gone, for their spinning rims can no longer be seen above the chariot's side walls. I am left to assume from nothing more than my companions' lack of concern that we yet move, for there remains nothing else to indicate it.
After several minutes, the stillness and utter silence begin to grate. I wish Heimdall would speak to me, but I suppose the gravity of the task at hand has temporarily suppressed his usually friendly nature. He only stands there looking out with the twisted, rune-scribed Gjallarhorn clutched tightly in both hands.
A voice does break the stillness, but it is not the one I would prefer.
"Atlantis..." Hel hisses from down by my knee. "It has been a very long time since I heard that name."
My gaze snaps down to her half-masked face and the eerie eyes which peer out from it. The visible half of her mouth is upturned in a cryptic smile. What she has said banishes my reluctance to engage with witches.
"You have heard of it?" I ask eagerly.
Hel nods. "A city of ancient Midgard. Among my Golden Guard at one time was Atlantis's seventh and greatest king. Greatest, at least, according to himself. Marek-Tha was his name. It has been a lifetime since I saw or spoke with him. He may have passed back into the void fifty seasons ago, or today, or not at all. I know not."
"Midgard..." I echo. Then Afi was right. I am of that ninth, lost realm.
"Aye," Hel says. "A great city, according to him. But it must have fallen long ago, for it was unknown even when Odinn was young and the sea—the very one to which we race—could be crossed. But..." She chuckles, a sound like a dagger lightly scraping rock. "You are Atlantean. These things must be known to you."
"It was swallowed by the sea," I inform her. Then I repeat the name, "Marek-Tha..."
Now that I speak it, is familiar.
"My father was the forty-seventh king," I say. "Marek-Tha was a figure of legend, I think. He was said to have saved Atlantis from some powerful enemy."
"Is that so?" Hel's tone makes it clear that she cares not.
"I would meet him when this is over, if he remains in your service."
Hel's mask has turned away. She has finished conversing with me. Our exchange has not warmed me to the witch, but it has caused me to see her in a new light. She is Loki's daughter. It was Heimdall who told me that. He told me, too, that it was Hel's obsession with killing her father that led to her exile in Niflheim. Does that hatred persist? If it does, she might prove a useful ally—or tool
—in achieving my own vengeance on Loki.
Then again, if a powerful sorceress has been trying all her life to kill Loki and never succeeded, what chance do I have?
I cannot speak of such matters now, in Heimdall's presence. If the world is to be destroyed by the Myriad or Jormungand, or both, then there will be no need. But if she and I and Loki all survive, then Hel and I surely will share further words, and not only about dead kings of Atlantis.
It is not for much longer that we travel in the noiseless gray void. After an hour or less, with a great flash and a shudder, the wayward portions of the chariot, the wheels and horses, rejoin us. The countryside, less green now than before and more rugged and rocky, bursts back into view. I cannot see the sea in front of us, but I can smell it. Although I have not experienced it in my current flesh, I know the sea air well. It speaks to me, beckons me. I shut my eyes and savor the sharp, salty wind and realize of a sudden why I put myself forward for this duty.
The sea calls to me. Given what I have learned from Hel, that my old life was lived in Midgard, the sea which I now can smell might be that very same one which in another life I attempted to cross with my bride. The nearby shore might be the very one on which another Thamoth collapsed, half-dead, and then regained his strength for a return to reclaim his father's throne. This sea may be the very one which devoured Atlantis in the moment of that Thamoth's triumph.
We travel overland, bumped and jostled by the rocky terrain, for less time than we spent in the void and then, ahead of us, a hazy blue line rises up to become the horizon. Even though my recovered memories of the sea are not all good—some of them horrific—the sight puts a smile on my lips which remains there until the chariot halts. Heimdall and I dismount to stride up a rocky ridge from which we can look down and see the waves explode in great bursts of white spray on the big black rocks of the shore.
I have learned something about myself this day. Although the sea brought me misery, I love it still. I am home, a part of me says. That same part wishes to find a craft this very moment and set sail for the horizon and what lies beyond it, for Midgard. But I cannot. I have Ayessa and Crow to think of, among others, and my service to Odinn. And there is another most of all who has never spoken a word to me. Besides, until we free the beast that we have come here to free, the sea is uncrossable. Ship and sailor would only wind up feeding the Serpent.
I may wind up feeding it anyway.
"Be ready," Heimdall says to me on the ledge. Hel has remained behind in the chariot, too drained to stand after the exertion of bringing us here. I only hope that she can get us back.
I take out Odinn's bloodstained glove and hold it ready. Heimdall inhales deeply, sets the Gjallarhorn to his lips—and blows. The single, deep note soars out over the waves to fill the sky. It lasts as long as Heimdall's breath can sustain it, which is quite some time. Then the note fades, and again I hear the comforting sound of the breaking waves.
We wait.
Not for long. Out on the waves, a shadow appears and begins to spread. When it has grown so large that I would have to pivot my head to behold it all, even if I had two eyes, the black water begins to boil and froth, turning to white. The waves flatten, and the very surface of the sea rises up in a mound. The water falls away, and a huge, black shape breaks the surface. It is smooth and it glistens, and many feet away its twin rises at the same pace. They are two blunt horns, I surmise, atop the great Serpent's head.
It is larger even than I imagined.
It continues to rise, water roaring and rushing, now cascading from a vast ridged brow sheathed in ebon scales. Next emerge the eyes, and they are the eyes of my vision from the Well, golden and malevolent with black, vertical slits for pupils. The sea heaves anew, and from it erupts a great snout which ends in two flared, cavernous nostrils, then an upper lip.
Then we see the Serpent's teeth, and those, too, are the ones of my nightmare-vision, taller than men and sharp as swords, and the great mouth in which they are set could swallow a hundred frost giants in a single bite or tear down the towers of Asgard.
A sleek, black neck, thicker around than any tower, is the next to surge up from the boiling sea. Behind it, a great distance from us, and giving further indication of Jormungand's sheer size, one wing bursts free, then another.
"We must go," Heimdall says. Frozen until now, he begins to backpedal, dragging me with him. I am glad for the aid, as my own feet are rooted to the shore with fear, my fingers white around Odinn's glove. I have no clear conception of how I will deliver it to the Serpent's mouth. Would that I had thought to bring a bow, that I might tie the glove to an arrow—not that I could use a bow with my right arm its present state. Better yet, would that Kairos had come instead of me and put his luck to good use.
Heimdall and I backpedal faster and faster, unable to tear our eyes from the rising beast. I clutch the glove and manage, barely, to think... I think back to my first days in Jotunheim, before Neolympus, when we Atlanteans were on our own and improvising tools for the hunt.
I know what I must do.
While Jormungand completes his emergence with the appearance of four massive, taloned claws, from which seawater pours down in great torrents into the roiling foam below, Heimdall and I reach the chariot where Hel waits, gilt mask unable to conceal the awe on her face. As we move, I work at unwinding about half the length of the bandage covering the wound on my arm.
"Cut it!" I tell Heimdall, clambering behind him into the chariot.
Without asking why, he produces a knife and cuts my bandage. In the shadow of the great Serpent's outspread wings, our chariot begins to roll, pulled by horses who are glad to flee the terrible beast. Heimdall crouches at the reins, Hel stares out the chariot's open back while I fumble with Odinn's glove and my length of bandage. The Serpent beats its wings and rises higher, exposing some but not all of a sinuous, snake-like tail as long as the walls that encircle Asgard. Seconds later, the wind from its wings hits us. Buffeted, our chariot wobbles, tipping up on to one wheel before crashing back down, thankfully with little speed lost. Pushing skyward, the Serpent, its neck and tail writhing, opens its enormous jaws and looses a cry of freedom. It is shriek and bellow and roar all in one, and its sharpness and sheer volume are like a stiletto plunged deep into the ear. I want to cover mine, but my hands must keep working.
Our chariot gains speed, and Jormungand's cry fades as he soars up and up, and I wonder if I will even get the chance to see my duty discharged. I have just finished securing the glove to the end of the bandage when the Serpent stops ascending, beats its wings and turns toward us. I extend my good left arm overhead, holding in its hand the bandage's free end. Just as in the days before Neolympus I would hunt by snaring the legs of a hind with a weighted cord, I begin to spin the glove over my head. Round and round it whirls on its tether. When I release it, it will sail much farther than I could ever throw it unaided. But the time to release is not now, not yet...
Screaming its ear-splitting scream, venom streaming from its open mouth, Jormungand descends. There can be no doubt but that it comes for us, whether drawn by the Gjallarhorn or Odinn's glove or something else. Our chariot gathers speed with every second, but it cannot hope to race the Serpent. If it wants us, it will have us, unless—
I spin the glove and I wait... and wait... while Hel's chariot speeds on and Jormungand gains, soaring on spread wings that blot the sky. I wait until I can see the slits in its gleaming yellow eyes, the house-sized drops of venom that cause the ground to belch smoke where they land. I wait until its maw looks set to devour us—and then release my grip. The glove sails up and out behind us on course for the Serpent's mouth. I think that it will enter, and Jormungand will taste the blood of the enemy who so long ago imprisoned him—
—but I am not to learn, at least not now. With a brilliant flash the chariot bursts into the gray void, the horses and spoked wheels vanish, and we are safe.
55. The Second Battle of Ragnarok
I sink down besid
e Hel on the cramped floor of her chariot. No one speaks, deepening the already profound silence of this realm-between, or whatever it may be. Soon Hel's eyes fall shut, and her head slumps. I set my hand over hers to ensure her palm stays firmly planted on the chariot wall, for I do not know what would happen were the contact to break, and I have no wish to find out. Her hand is chill. I have held it in place for some seconds when her head jerks up. She blinks at me and uses her other, gloved hand to push mine away.
Still, no one speaks. We speed through the void and do not know what we will find upon exiting it. The return feels longer than did the outward journey, though surely I imagine it. Finally, when I think I can take no more of staring at the inside of a thundercloud, the flash comes, the horses reappear, and we burst onto a landscape of green hills which I instantly recognize as Vanaheim, not far from the chasm. When we have traveled by unmagical means for but a few minutes, my ears alert me to a faint sound, just audible over the thunder of hooves and clatter of wheels. The sound evokes a feeling in me as if Hel's cold hand grips my heart.
It is the inhuman shriek of a Myriad swarm.
Hel falls fully unconscious, drained by the battle and the journey, and Heimdall and I share a grave look, knowing that our return will be a return to battle. At least we are rested. Ahead of us, the horizon glows pale green. Heimdall halts the chariot and leaps down long before we come within sight of the battlefield. He need not tell me why. Hel is defenseless, and to lose her to the swarm would be a great blow to Asgard; we must complete the voyage on foot.
Running, Heimdall bellows at the top of his voice, "Odinn! The Serpent comes! The Serpent comes!"
I start to follow, but then have a thought and race back to grab the Gjallarhorn. Chasing Heimdall, who continues to shout, I call out, "Heimdall! Blow the horn again, and he will know! Heimdall!"
He looks back, sees the twisted horn under my arm, stops and races back to take it. He sets his lips to it and blows. The resonant note cuts easily through the swarm's shriek, filling the sky such that no one in this part of Vanaheim can fail to hear it.