The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten

by S. A. Ashdown

  THEY WILL BETRAY YOU, GATEKEEPER.

  I looked at Malachi. ‘They already have! But the Norns of Fate spun this web for us nonetheless. Give us access, or every last one of us meets the abyss!’

  SO BE IT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. YOUR SOUL WILL BEAR THE BLAME.

  What?

  The stars receded, flying away as if sucked through a tunnel. The crypts thickened with the scent of decay, creeping up from the ground. I choked, gasping for air. Penny spluttered and buried her face into my arm.

  Shadows crawled over the walls and flittered about: solid, blackened creatures that screeched and laughed through gnashing teeth. One of the shadows plucked the ship from Malachi and threw it down, and suddenly the ground crumbled away and we were falling into the fiery cauldron below, the ship spinning and growing beneath us until it crashed onto a huge river with steep, rocky banks. I felt like a rag doll as I was flung onto the now massive deck, the sail billowing in some icy, ethereal wind.

  Penny crashed into me and we rolled along, entangled. Ricarda and Faflon caught the rigging on the way down, their screams coming to an abrupt halt once they realised they weren’t dead. Strix flew in, owl wings sprouting from his bare back. The rest hit within seconds of each other, and Lorenzo landed like a cat, fangs ready.

  Malachi, where was he?

  I scrambled to my feet. The ship lurched in the water and I lost balance helping Penny up – the oars manned by ghost-white corpses with unblinking, inky eyes, rowing in flawless unison.

  And at the prow of the ship – a great dragon figurehead rising above him – was Malachi, only far larger than he’d been a finger-snap ago, and his honey-eyes burned like twin suns in his skull despite the distance between us. ‘What happened to him?’ I shook Penny’s arm, drawing her attention away from the terrifying armoured soldiers that were prowling between the benches.

  ‘It worked,’ she whispered. ‘Not as we expected it. But it makes sense. Loki has commanded his body. He will lead us in battle.’

  She stared at the Libros Carminum.

  ‘What’s happening to your nails?’ I asked, as she held them up to the lanterns hanging on posts along the deck. Her nails hardened, sprouting into thin daggers with curled tips, marbled red and black. ‘What deal did you make with Hel?’

  ‘I am one of her children now,’ she said, and the colour bled from her skin as she spoke. ‘Her weapon. Magic and immortality.’ She dropped the book and swung her arms around my neck, a white streak marring her ebony hair. ‘It worked!’ she shrieked, and twirled. ‘We are Lamia! Let us feed from the blood of our enemies!’

  The coven had converged in the centre of the ship, and at this victory cry, they cheered, tilting pale faces to the endless sky, tearing at it with their marbled claws.

  ‘So that’s what they wanted from the Black Widow,’ I said, disbelieving, as Lorenzo arrived at my side. ‘And Malachi is invulnerable as long as he shares a body with Loki.’

  ‘God of chaos,’ said Lorenzo. I looked at him. ‘What? I read, remember?’

  ‘If these are the Hordes,’ I said, ‘Menelaus must be here somewhere.’

  Lorenzo pointed at the sides of the ship. In the confusion, I hadn’t clocked the bodies that formed its hull, the faces blending into the darkness. ‘Hopefully he’s one of the crew.’

  We searched the rowers, peering into expressionless faces. ‘I killed many of these,’ Lorenzo called from farther down the ship, his usual cocky, sly expression filled with horror and guilt.

  ‘Blame him,’ I said, nodding towards Malachi as he hopped along the rowing benches, savagely knocking soldiers out of his way. He shot me a vicious, inhuman smile and grabbed Penny, who despite her bestial form, looked like a vagabond child in his grasp.

  ‘We have a pit stop to make in Priddy. Find armour and weapons in the hold.’ He didn’t shout, but his voice ripped across the deck, violent as the wind. ‘Row!’

  The oar-bearers heaved, and a great pounding echoed from Hades’ rocky slopes like the beating of drums, the thudding of heartbeats, the boots of marching, marionette soldiers. Moonlight glinted against breastplates, swords, and spears. The ship creaked as it churned through the great river, the groans from the hull matching the land army’s clamour.

  Acrid water sprayed over the hull. I summoned my sword, and Uncle Nikolaj’s Sarrow armour plate gathering dust in the family temple. It moulded to my shape as if recognising my blood. Runes lit its surface and faded once I’d adjusted its position. Thank Jörð for Elvish magic, I thought.

  Lorenzo rapped his knuckles against the plate. ‘I could do with my bow and arrow. They wouldn’t let me into the courtroom with it.’

  ‘You’re still wearing the necklace that comes with it. Didn’t Sayen say they were linked?’

  He pressed the centre of the silver pendant, etched with the Sarrows’ fractal crest. The air quivered behind his shoulders and his longbow appeared in his hands, the quiver strapping across his chest. ‘At least you’re not naked,’ I said. ‘Want some armour?’

  ‘Chain mail? Don’t fancy being staked through the heart again.’

  ‘No problem.’ I prayed Uncle Nikolaj wouldn’t need the mail he kept stashed in the hidden compartment at the back of his wardrobe. ‘It’s a relic from the Elven-Fae war,’ I said, trying not vomit from motion sickness. ‘It’ll protect you.’

  My coven climbed out from the hold in pairs, decked in studded metalwork with leather linings, brandishing cutlasses and knives. ‘This is going to be a massacre,’ I said.

  The ship dived impossibly, and I flung out my arms to balance, only to fall backwards as we surged up, the oars tearing through a fortress of earth. Bodies spilled out of the soil and clattered onto the deck. The sky brightened and we accelerated into the daylight, Malachi dancing up and down the ship, still butt-naked and unaffected by the sun. Clouds streamed past us and I risked a glance over the side. I recognised the shape of the hills, the Jurassic coastline. ‘We must be invisible,’ I mused, as my ears popped in succession.

  ‘Theo – look!’ Lorenzo yanked me away from the side.

  Menelaus staggered to his feet, a second ruby smile gashed across his throat, his runaway blood rusting his own chain mail. I ran over to him and bolstered his weight with my shoulder. ‘Time to earn your second name,’ I said, grinning at him.

  He spat on the deck and wiped his mouth. The scar on his chin pulsed beneath his ragged hair and beard. ‘Knight or Minotaur?’ he asked, voice like sandpaper.

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Great. Can I kill Malachi?’

  ‘Mutiny against the Captain, already? You’ve been reanimated for five seconds.’

  He laughed, if you could call it that.

  The road to Hellingstead Hall was blocked off by an armoured truck. Alastair Braec slowed his jeep and radioed to the truck they had, ahem, borrowed from the military a few years back. ‘We need the big guns,’ he said.

  A thick, highland brogue crackled back at him. ‘Just a minute.’

  Alastair hung his head out of the window. ‘Chesus Christ, the Cultri Argentei have buggered up the approach.’ He punched his old chum Johnag in the arm, startling him awake. Johnag wiped his sleepy drool across his chin. ‘Sleep when you’re dead, Jo. There’s fucking craters in the road, I said.’

  Johnag grunted. ‘Fucking Silver Knives.’

  Alastair jerked round as the truck doors slammed behind the jeep. His cousin Calumina walked up to the window. Gods on high, the woman looked like his daughters, those same moss-eyes and flaming hair. But where Isobel and Elspeth had been nymphs, Calumina had thighs like the lairds of old, and a kick to match. Those muscle-roped arms of hers could swing an axe, slicing through wood and flesh like phantoms move through walls.

  Her black leather outfit crunched against the door. ‘Silver Knives always quick to get back in their masters’ pockets, Al. Probably blew up the road and left already. What are they after, do you think?’

  ‘Espen, my grandson? Chesus, how should I k
now?’ He paused. ‘We’ll go on foot. Get the men.’ She gave him a filthy look. ‘And the woman,’ he sighed. ‘Let’s pray it’s Espen who answers the fucking door.’

  ‘Time to put the Hel in Hellingstead!’

  Malachi leapt up onto the prow of the longship, the dragon’s scales turning molten beneath his touch. He thrust his sword into the sky, the light dancing off its emerald-encrusted hilt. Penny was leaping around him, waving her cutlass about. ‘She should be careful where she swings that thing,’ I said. ‘She wouldn’t want to lop off that monstrosity between his legs.’

  Menelaus frowned. Apparently, he wasn’t in the mood for jokes.

  ‘Do I detect a hint of jealousy?’ asked Lorenzo, gripping the hull as he peered over the stern.

  ‘None,’ I said, turning away from Penny. How does she move her hands like that?

  The Praetoriani Headquarters broke through the screen of wispy clouds, and Malachi barked orders to the rowers. We sailed down in a zigzag, gentle as a feather falling through the sky.

  Descending into chaos.

  45

  Hel in Hellingstead

  ‘Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster. When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.’ —Freidrich Nietzsche

  ‘Remember!’ I shouted to the crew and my coven. ‘Don’t kill anyone unbranded by Hel’s mark. The innocents are off-limits!’

  As the ship plunged, some magic kept us stuck to the deck.

  ‘I’m not certain I can choose who I kill,’ Menelaus said, taking my elbow. ‘Stop me if I go too far.’ We locked eyes. ‘Please.’

  I pulled my elbow away. ‘Do your best.’

  He nodded.

  Lorenzo said nothing, though the way he kept his distance from Malachi suggested his fears matched Menelaus’s. I assumed we were cloaked by the Black Widow, for as the mast sank below the tree-line, no one directed their cries at us.

  ‘Is that your dad?’

  I squinted at the hill. Yes, Father was running at full pelt towards the throng of shining, golden carriages bearing Akhen’s symbol, currently streaming down the Headquarters’ idyllic driveway. His cloak billowed behind him, Tobias and the ex-prisoners clashing against a group of infantries, yellow-caped men brandishing an assortment of guns, knives, bows, and everything in between. The Golden Knives.

  A man on horseback charged across the lawn, pointing a gun to Father’s head.

  He fired.

  He shook his gun and tried to fire again. The chestnut horse stomped his front hooves, in sync with his master’s anger.

  Father slowed and jogged closer to the horseman, withdrew a long knife from his belt, and threw it in a perfect arc. The man stared into the sky, taking his eyes off the useless gun a fraction too late. The knife pierced the man’s eye socket. Father held out his hand and the knife dislodged, flying back to him.

  ‘Guess Father still has a few tricks up his sleeve,’ I said.

  Belle shoved the dead man off his horse and flung herself onto the saddle. Those of Akhen’s army, carrying guns, paused, attempting to shoot, and failing. The Cultri Aurei threw the useless weapons aside, some running back to the coaches to rearm themselves with medieval replacements. Father – or was it the Solem Umbra? – had been busy with their wards since I’d left home.

  As soon as the ship’s hull grazed the ground at the edge of the sloping lawn, it disintegrated around us, tipping out bodies and leaving the Hordes stranded. Malachi let out a blood-curdling war cry, and charged naked and divine into the field, swinging his enormous sword like a scythe. The undead army lumbered after him, hacking at anyone who dared to come close. Menelaus pursed his bloodless lips and stumbled forward, as if an invisible hand yanked him onwards.

  ‘Lorenzo, fight with me. And remember, you’re not allowed to die on me twice in one day.’

  He clapped me on the back and bared his fangs. ‘I was made to kill,’ he said, ‘Malachi is right about that. I can feel Raphael’s blood strengthening me. Hel wants those men? Hel can have them. I’ll send them to her in a pretty red bow.’

  He leapt six feet in the air and had aligned an arrow in his bow before he hit the ground. As I caught up with him, he said, ‘Oh, and thanks for saving my life and everything. And I mean everything, Syphon.’

  I grinned. ‘You’ve seen nothing yet, Dökkálfar.’ I opened up to the emotional energy curling like steam from hot earth and let the Gatekeeper suck it in.

  Thank Odin, Thor, and Freyr that Father taught me how to use a sword. Thank Thor that I’m a living weapon.

  Espen whirled around and flung out his palm, an arrow of green fire slicing through Sven’s leg. The mercenary – an adaptable son-of-a-bitch – had abandoned his machine gun for a crossbow.

  His fat fingers were too clumsy.

  ‘You don’t bear the mark like the others,’ Espen hissed, pointing to the receptionist busy darting up and down the Praetoriani’s front steps like a headless chicken. ‘Take my advice, take the woman and gather any staff who don’t have a black streak across their face. Find Julian Knight and escort them underground and you’ll live to see another sunset. Understood?’

  Sven grimaced, clutching his injured leg, and hobbled away.

  ‘Vengeance! Entropy!’ Espen looked up and got an eyeful as Malachi roared into the centre of the skirmish, lopping off heads and skewering men in pairs. Dead faces and bony limbs spread out like a plague across the land, unfazed by clawing maces, rising unharmed from grenade-blown holes, brushing off arrows like flies.

  Menelaus? ‘For Nainai!’ the Guardian screamed, plunging his cutlass so deep into a Golden Knife’s chest that the tip ripped through the golden cape at the back.

  Theodore really did it.

  Espen ducked and jumped to the side as a soldier on horseback swung a scythe, skimming the air above his head. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Hrimfaxi and Skinfaxi galloped out of the trees, saddled and ready for riders.

  ‘Father!’ Ah, his son, fair as Baldr, strode over the battlefield, an electric sphere frying any weapon – and its bearer – that tried to pierce it.

  Wouldn’t the boy see sense and not play the flame in the cave for once? Did he have to announce his arrival on the battlefield?

  Admit it, Espen, he’s ready for this. He’s innocent enough to win.

  ‘Theodore!’ He grabbed Skin’s reins and heaved himself up, his son thinking clearly enough to mount Hrim before anyone else got the chance.

  ‘Won’t they scare?’ Theodore said, lowering his electric shield so not to barbecue his horse. ‘They’re glorified pets.’

  Hrim snorted.

  ‘Elvish pets.’ Their great nostrils flared as Lorenzo glided past, using the severed heads he held in each hand like gory bowling balls, but despite the scent of death, the horses didn’t buckle.

  ‘Father, I’m letting them out – the voices. The Gatekeeper wants to breathe fire.’

  ‘You’ll expose—’

  ‘I’m already exposed, Father.’ He twisted Hrim round. ‘Watch Malachi; he’s possessed by Loki. And the coven, they’re Lamia now,’ he said, before galloping away.

  Lamia! Vampire-witches – only made, not born like Menelaus. Espen swung out his sword, taking off the returning scythe-bearer’s arm. He flung himself forward as a grenade arched over his back. ‘Theodore!’ he called.

  His son, the Gatekeeper, turned back. Espen raised the Viking sword. ‘For your mother!’

  Theo’s eyes lit up, glittering opal, even at a distance. Espen watch his son slaughter the Knives gathering about him, the first lives he had taken in his young life.

  March. Kill. Repeat.

  Death’s drum beat in place of his heart. Menelaus felt numb as he jerked his arm out, soft eyes popping in someone’s skull. Who was it? Doesn’t matter. March. Kill. Repeat.

  March. Kill. R—

  Theo galloped past, Penny riding behind him, clawed hands wrapped around his waist, long, pale legs stai
ned with soil and…other things. March. Kill…

  March…

  Penny screeched with glee as Theo cut through a squad of Golden Knives, though his cousin’s expression was as grim and blood-slicked as his flaming sword.

  Mar—

  My cousin.

  Guillaume and Sarah walked like stiff white sails, arms linked as they dodged spears and axes, puncturing stomachs and staking hearts.

  And here came the vampires under Akhen’s command, streaming out of the windows of the Palladian-fronted building. Menelaus recognised some of them as they teamed up with the loyal bravos, lictors, and mercenaries, those who could wield more than guns and bullets.

  Malachi, or the creature that was Malachi, tore over to the steps, his victims’ gory deaths streaked across his naked flesh like war paint. The vampires that faced him broke like twigs under his forceful attack.

  March. Kill. Repeat.

  Menelaus hobbled after his master.

  I didn’t get to Arabella in time. A dozen yellow-caped warlocks had her pinned between two carriages. Four fell in the attempt, one staggered away, eyes scratched out, but the remaining seven sliced her apart with their magic.

  Tears welled, burning trails down my cheeks. Penny soared through the air, bat-like, and attacked her murderers, backed up by Ricarda and Faflon.

  The sound of screaming women caught my attention. Malachi was tossing corpses down the steps, tearing out the throats of whoever walked out the Praetoriani’s doors, whether they bore Hel’s mark or not. ‘Stop!’ I roared, spurring Hrim on against the horse’s better judgement.

  The women, wearing the patches of the auxiliaries on their uniforms, were trapped between him and the crowd pushing from inside, next to fuel the vampire-god’s thirst. Hrim charged up the steps, blocking Malachi’s path. ‘Go!’ I yelled. ‘For Odin’s sake hide!’

  ‘You can’t hide from death!’ Malachi grinned, his fangs as red as his face, but he retreated back into the battle. I peered through the doors to find Michele tearing through the entrance hall, the massacre unravelling across an extravagant stage as men and women perished, overlooked by heavenly frescos and the portraits of those sworn to protect them.