Loki's Wolves

by K. L. Armstrong

  Fen jumped over the side of the longship, landing in a crouch with one hand flat on the ground, and grabbed the shield.

  As he did so, a big gray wolf padded into the park. He was as large as a full-grown wolf, but even before he shook off his fur and stood on two feet, Fen knew who it was.

  Skull grinned at him and said, “Not bad.”

  Skull was only a few years older than Fen, but he was a lot scarier than any of the guys at school. He had scars on his arms, and right now, he also had a red scrape on his cheek that kept company with a number of purple and yellow bruises. He wasn’t skinny, but he didn’t have any fat on him. Skull was nothing but muscle, scars, and attitude.

  “Where’s Laurie?”

  “Not here.” Fen shoved the shield into the bag he’d brought with him and held it out to Skull. “She helped the first time I tried to get it, but she doesn’t need to meet you.”

  Skull didn’t take the bag Fen held out. “You can carry it.”

  He turned his back and walked away without seeing if Fen had obeyed. Of course, they both knew that he could follow or fight Skull—and that fighting would either result in being hurt pretty bad or being in charge of this pack of wulfenkind. Winning a fight with the lead wolf meant replacing him. As much as Fen disliked Skull, he didn’t know that he could beat the older wolf, and even if he could, he didn’t want it badly enough to risk getting saddled with the responsibility of a pack.

  They walked at least five miles, so on top of the lack of sleep, Fen was dead on his feet by the time they reached the camp. Small groups of wulfenkind looked up with interest.

  Skull’s twin sister, Hattie, walked over and held out a chunk of some sort of meat on a stick, probably elk from the smell. “Want a bite?” She took a bite out of it, chewed, and swallowed. “It’s safe.”

  He accepted it with a nod. He wasn’t as constantly ravenous as the older wulfenkind got, because he didn’t change forms as much yet, but he was starting to notice a change.

  Skull nodded at Hattie, and she put her fingers to her lips and whistled. Once everyone looked at her, she signaled different people and then different directions. “Check the perimeter.”

  Of the almost two dozen boys and girls there, half—in two groups of six—left. Fen watched with appreciation. They were a well-organized, obedient pack. The camp was impressive, too. Gear was in small piles, firewood was stacked tidily, and sleeping bags were rolled and stowed. Camp could break and depart in moments.

  “You could stay with us,” Hattie offered. Her attention had both flattered and frightened him for years. She was one of the strongest wulfenkind he’d met, but she was also weird and kind of mean. When they were ten, he’d watched her kill several squirrels by biting their throats. If she’d been in wolf form at the time, he might not have found it so gross. She hadn’t been, though.

  “Here.” He pulled the shield out of the sack and tossed it to her. He didn’t expect it to hit her, but he might have hoped a little. Unlike fighting Skull, there were no downsides to fighting Hattie.

  She caught the shield in midair. “You brought me a present?”

  Skull laughed.

  Fen shifted his feet and said, “No. It’s the dues for me and Laurie.”

  Skull clamped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, but he told his sister, “Leave Fen alone. You’re scaring him.”

  Although he was trying not to get into too much trouble with Skull, Fen couldn’t ignore the insult. “I’m not sc—”

  “You belong with us, Fen,” Skull interrupted. “You know something big is coming. We need it to come. We’ll make it come.”

  Hattie laid the shield down on a piece of animal hide that one of the younger wolves had dragged over to her. She squatted beside it and looked over her shoulder at Fen. “This wood was from the bog. This will be used in the final fight.”

  “The what?”

  “Ragnarök,” Skull said reverently.

  “Ragnarök?” Fen repeated. He shook his head. It was one thing to remember the old stories, to know where they came from, but it was another to think that the end of the world was coming.

  “The prophecy is true,” Skull said. “The final battle will change everything. It will be the sons—”

  “And daughters,” Hattie interjected with a growl.

  Skull continued, without even glancing at his sister, “The children of Loki will rise up; the monsters will wake. We’ll rule the world, and everyone will tithe to us. We’ll reign over the world like kings.”

  And as much as Fen thought they were a little crazy before, right then he knew that they were far beyond simply crazy. The whole there-used-to-be-gods bit was true, but the gods were stupid. They were all dead. If the gods were dead, how could there be a final battle? It didn’t make any sense. Of course, that didn’t mean Fen felt like getting into it with Skull and Hattie. He tried to sound a little less disdainful than he felt as he said, “Right. Gods and monsters will fight, and a new world will be born. You’ll be in charge. Sure thing.”

  Hattie stood and instantly arranged her body for a fight. “You doubt it?”

  Ignoring her, Fen tossed the stick with the rest of the meat toward the fire and pointed at the shield. “I stole the shield. I carried it to your camp. We’re square. My dues and Laurie’s are paid. Whatever you do with it now is your business.”

  “We just need one more thing,” Hattie started.

  Fen looked from Skull to Hattie and back again. It was one thing not to start trouble with them; it was another thing to be their errand boy. “I paid,” Fen said. “Those are the rules. I paid, and now I’m done.”

  Skull punched him.

  Fen staggered. The whole side of his face hurt, and he knew he’d have a black eye for school. Great. Just great. He stepped backward.

  Hattie walked over to stand beside Skull. Behind her, Fen could see other members of the pack watching. There would be no help here. They followed orders. They protected their pack and worked toward the goals of the pack.

  “The final fight is coming. That changes things,” Hattie added.

  The temper Fen was trying to keep in check flared. “Rules are rules, so—”

  “You can help, or we can go to Laurie, and she can help,” Skull said. “The monsters will come, and they will fight alongside our champion. We need to be ready.”

  There was no way Fen was letting them near Laurie, especially after the things they’d just said. He lowered his gaze as meekly as he could. “What do you want?”

  “A Thorsen. The youngest one,” Skull said.

  Every Brekke knew there were things the Raiders did, things that were better not asked about. That didn’t mean that Fen liked the idea of helping them get at anyone he knew—even someone he disliked. Turning a person over to them was wrong.

  “Why?” Fen asked, hoping that they would say something that didn’t involve hurting Thorsen.

  Hattie sighed. “Because he’s their champion in the final fight.”

  “Right,” Fen drawled. “You need to stop a kid from fighting in Ragnarök. What are you going to do, really?”

  Skull and Hattie exchanged a look, and then Skull stepped forward and slung an arm around Fen. “The boss said to deliver the kid. We aren’t dumb enough to ask what for, but”—he paused and grinned—“if you want to ask, we can deliver you and Laurie, too.”

  “No,” Fen said carefully. “I’ll get him.”

  Skull squeezed Fen’s shoulder tighter, painfully so, and said, “Good pup.”

  FOUR

  MATT

  “PREMONITION”

  Matt lay in bed. It’d been a day since he’d unleashed Thor’s Hammer. Fen hadn’t said anything to anyone. Laurie hadn’t, either. Matt wanted to believe that meant they were going to forget it, but he couldn’t help thinking they were only waiting for the right moment. Then they’d tell everyone how he’d used something like a flash-bang and knocked Fen right off his feet, and Matt’s parents—and every other Thorsen in town—
would know exactly what had happened. Matt had broken the rules: he’d used Thor’s Hammer.

  Thor’s Hammer was the only magical power the Thorsens still had. Sure, they were usually bigger than other people, and stronger, too, but that wasn’t magic. The old books said there used to be other powers, like control over weather, but that was long gone. They were left with the Hammer, which for everyone else was like an invisible punch that they could throw whenever they wanted. Only Matt got the special-effects package—the flash and the bang. And only Matt wasn’t able to control when it went off.

  His grandfather had tried giving him different amulets, but it didn’t fix anything. His parents were right: it wasn’t the amulet messing up—it was him. The power was in the descendants of Thor themselves—the amulet was just a… Matt struggled for the word his family used. Conduit. That was it. The necklace was a conduit that allowed the power to work. Which should mean the solution was easy: take off the necklace. Except a Thorsen couldn’t do that for long before he got sick. Matt could remove his in the boxing ring, luckily, but that was it.

  He should just tell his parents what happened. He’d started to last night, then chickened out and told Dad he’d seen some kids messing around at the longship, and Dad said he’d have his men patrol for a while. He’d lectured Matt, too, about taking more responsibility for their town, how he should have done something about it, not come home and tattled to his parents. That stung, especially when Matt had done something. He already felt bad about it. He should have been able to handle Fen without setting off the Hammer.

  Don’t think about that. Focus on something else. Think of your science fair project.

  Oh, yeah. That helped. Let’s focus on another example of how badly you can mess up, Matty.

  He’d totally blown his science project, and he needed to do a new one before tomorrow night’s fair. He’d overcomplicated things, as usual. He’d been trying extra hard because his family always won the eighth-grade science fair. First his dad. Then his brothers, Jake and Josh. If it were any other subject, Matt would be fine. But, as usual, if his family was good at it, he wasn’t.

  Maybe if he slept on it. He got some of his best ideas at night, when he could relax and stop worrying.

  When he finally fell asleep, he did dream about his science project… all the ways he could mess it up again and embarrass his family. He kept dreaming about building the best project ever, only to accidentally unleash Thor’s Hammer and blow it to smithereens in front of the entire school. Then his brain seemed to get tired of that and plunked him down in the middle of a field.

  It was daytime. He was standing there, staring up at the sky. He wasn’t alone; he could sense someone behind him. But he didn’t turn to see who it was. He was busy staring at the sun—and at the wolf chasing it.

  The wolf was a huge, black shadow, all gleaming red eyes and glistening fangs. The sun was a glowing chariot pulled by three white horses.

  “It’s Sköll and Sól,” Matt murmured.

  “Huh?” said a girl’s voice behind him. He felt like he should know the voice, and in the dream, he seemed to, but his sleeping self couldn’t place it.

  “A Norse myth. The sun circles the earth because she’s trying to escape the wolf Sköll. And the moon—” He squinted against the bright sun. Behind Sól’s chariot, he could make out a paler version, chased by another shadow wolf. “There he is. Behind her. Máni, chased by Hati.”

  “Looks like the wolves are catching up.”

  Matt shook his head. “That won’t happen until Ragnarök.”

  “Ragnarök?”

  “The end of the world. It’s supposed to begin when Loki kills Balder. Then Sköll catches Sól, and Hati catches Máni, and the world is plunged into endless night and winter. But that’s not going to—”

  The wolves leaped and closed the gap. The chariot riders whipped their horses, and they pulled ahead.

  Matt exhaled. “Okay, it’s just—”

  The wolves lunged again. They caught the chariots in their powerful teeth and wrenched. The chariots toppled backward, horses flying. The sun and moon tumbled out. The wolves dove after them, opened their jaws, and…

  Darkness.

  Matt bolted up in bed, his heart thudding so hard he swore he could hear it.

  Ragnarök.

  The end of the world.

  He blinked hard. Then he shook his head. Yes, his family did believe in Ragnarök, and the Seer was always looking for signs, but they’d been looking since before the old gods had died. Because the gods had been… well, stupid, they’d all managed to get themselves killed long ago. According to the Seer, that meant that when Ragnarök did come, some of the descendants would have to stand in for the original gods in the final battle. They’d be filled with the gods’ powers and would fight the monsters as it had been foretold. Luckily, Ragnarök wasn’t coming in his lifetime. What was coming was the science fair. Not exactly apocalyptic, but it sure felt like it.

  He rubbed his face and yawned. Every time he closed his eyes, though, he saw the wolves chasing the sun and the moon.

  He shook his head. That wasn’t going to help his science…

  Or could it?

  Matt smiled, stretched out again, and fell asleep.

  “Rakfisk!” Josh yelled, thumping open Matt’s door. “Hey, Mini-Matt. Don’t you smell that? Mom’s making rakfisk.”

  Matt lifted his head, inhaling in spite of himself. He groaned and clenched his teeth to keep from barfing into the pillow. Nothing smells as bad as raw fish. Unless it’s raw fish that’s been left to rot for months, then served on toast. For breakfast.

  Jake grabbed Josh’s shoulder. “Don’t wake the baby. More for us.”

  Josh was seventeen and Jake a year younger, but they were both so big that Josh practically filled the doorway by himself, and all Matt could see of Jake was a shock of red hair over his brother’s shoulder.

  They took off, thudding down the hall. Matt lifted his head, nose plugged. He tried breathing through his mouth, but that didn’t help, because then he could taste the rakfisk. If there was one thing that totally ruined Norse holidays, it was the food. Ancient Viking traditions, his mom would say. Traditions the Vikings should have kept to themselves, he thought.

  He found his mom in the kitchen, working at the counter while his brothers sat at the table and devoured plates of rakfisk on toast. He opened the fridge and found two milk containers. The first was filled with a thin, bluish-white liquid. Whey—the stuff that’s left over after you curdle milk for cheese. He groaned and shoved it back in.

  “Whey’s full of protein, Matty,” his mother said. “You won’t get any bigger drinking pop.”

  “Oh, he won’t get any bigger no matter what he drinks,” Jake said. “Or no matter how many weights he lifts. Josh and I were both bigger than Matt at his age.”

  Josh shrugged. “Not by much. There’s still time. Maybe if he’d join the football team…”

  “I like boxing.”

  His mother tried not to make a face. She didn’t like boxing. Or wrestling, which Matt also did, although he wasn’t as good at it. She said she worried he’d get himself hurt, but he knew she just didn’t get it. Football was the only real sport in the Thorsen house. Or in all of Blackwell.

  “Oh,” she said. “Your granddad asked about you last night. You haven’t had any more…” She gestured to his amulet. “Outbursts?”

  Matt struggled to keep his expression blank. “No, not since the last time.” Which, technically, was true. Just not the “last time” she knew about.

  His mom exhaled in relief. “Good,” she said. “Now, let me get you some rakfisk for breakfast.”

  Science fair night. There were about a hundred people milling about the gym, pretending to be interested in the projects.

  Hunter stood beside Matt’s table. “I don’t get it.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re too lazy to read.” Cody waved at the explanation Matt had posted. “Which isn’t a sur
prise, since you’re too lazy to even do your own project. Did you think no one would notice you borrowed your brother’s?”

  Hunter’s project was supposed to be a volcano, but after three years in storage, the “lava” kept running out through the holes mice had chewed.

  Matt heard a snort. He glanced over to see Fen, who sported a fresh black eye. He was there with Laurie, keeping his head ducked down like he was trying to hide his shiner.

  As Laurie approached Matt’s table, Fen scowled. Laurie just gave him a look, and then asked Matt, “What’s it supposed to be?”

  Matt started to explain, but then noticed his granddad and two of the Thorsen Elders heading over, so he switched to his grown-up lecture.

  “It’s from a Norse myth,” he said. “The wolves, Sköll and Hati, chase the sun, Sól, and the moon, Máni.”

  He waved to the board, where shadow wolves were supposed to be chasing two glowing balls on a modified railroad track. It hadn’t quite worked, though, and they weren’t actually moving. Biting off more than he could chew, his dad had said. Still, it looked okay. Granddad and the others had stopped now for a better look.

  “In the story, they finally do catch them.” Matt leaned over to push the wolves around the track, and they picked up speed until they moved over the balls, and the toy globe in the middle went dark. “That marks the beginning of Ragnarök. The battle of the gods. From a scientific point of view, we can see this as an explanation for eclipses. Many cultures had a myth to explain why the sun would disappear and how to get it back.”

  He motioned to a second board, covered in eclipse pictures and graphs and descriptions. It was a rush job, and it looked like it, but it wasn’t as bad as some… or so he kept telling himself.

  “That’s very interesting, Matty,” his grandfather said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Where did you come up with an idea like that?”