The Were Witch Complete Series Omnibus

by Renée Jaggér

  Loki’s face fell and his eyes darkened. “But there is one other purpose that the throne room is capable of serving. It can act as a ritual chamber, and Fenris is likely preparing his little ceremony there, but it’s not the time to interrupt him. Soon, but not today. We are here on other business. Follow me. What we seek lies within that courtyard over yonder.”

  He led her down the shining avenue, around a corner, and through a smaller stone arch into a square with a great tree and a fountain at its center. Otherwise, it was carpeted with emerald grass, and friezes depicting scenes from heroic battles adorned the walls.

  She estimated it spanned about six acres. It seemed enormous and made her wonder how big the rest of the palace was.

  However, she wasn’t sure what Loki wanted her to see.

  The answer came without delay. Her companion raised his slender hands and announced something in what she supposed was Old Norse or a secret language of the gods, yet it registered in her brain as “Knights of the Grand Legion of Asgard, assemble!”

  At once, the courtyard was flooded with an overwhelming cascade of white light, which scattered into streams of rainbow as it struck glass, stone, wood, or the water of the central fountain. As a handy side effect of her newfound divinity, Bailey could mostly look at it, but she still turned her head half away and squeezed her eyes partially shut.

  When the light cleared, the courtyard was brimming with armored warriors, lined up and ready for battle.

  Loki turned to the girl. “I am placing them under your command. We have an incursion to deal with; the frost trolls are once again plaguing the lower slopes of our mountain. Their leader, King Imrit, has assembled a vast host, possibly strong enough to breach our defenses.”

  Gawking, the girl nodded and stared at her new army.

  The men were almost identical to one another, and they resembled Balder, she thought, though they were somewhat less radiantly beautiful, and red or golden beards adorned their chins. Their armor was much like that of the guards on Bifröst, shining steel and silver, and they all carried long lances, partizans, or halberds, as well as short swords and round, gold-rimmed shields. The capes they wore were crimson rather than blue. She guessed this was to indicate that they were a military rather than a police force.

  Loki addressed the soldiers. “Bailey Nordin is the newly-ascended goddess of sorcery and werewolves. She sits upon the seat which formerly belonged to Lady Freya, warming it as its steward, as we of the council agreed to. Obey Bailey as you would obey Freya. Follow her lead and trust her judgment, for she has commanded successful expeditions before. Furthermore, as a pupil of Fenris the Wolf-Father, she is well-versed in magic and esoterica. Thus she has the blessings of the full pantheon.”

  Before Bailey could ask about that, Loki added to her in a low voice, “What you learned last night is not yet public knowledge, nor does it need to be—yet. The time will come soon.”

  So, she surmised, the general populace here doesn’t know the truth about Fenris yet. That’s probably another reason why no one stopped him from going into the throne room.

  “They will follow you,” Loki continued, “even unto the final battle, when, or should we say if, that comes to pass. Do not fear to use their courage and strength, but hold their lives as valuable all the same, like you have in the past with your own people.”

  The werewitch put her hands on her hips. “I understand. Will do.”

  The god of mischief went on, addressing both her and the Asgardian Army. “The frost trolls have made our existence more difficult with their ill-planned harrying strikes, and it seems that now they’ve amassed a gigantic host for a full assault upon the realm’s borders, seeking to break through and overrun our capital. The hour in which we stop them once and for all is nigh.”

  Bailey told the troops, “I’ve fought the frost trolls before. It was just Fenris and me, and we made short work of the bastards. With all you men at my side, I’m sure we can handle them. I’ll give you general instructions, but I’ll otherwise assume you can fight without being micromanaged. I will provide the heaviest offense to soften them up at the start.”

  Loki touched her shoulder and whispered in her ear. “We must repel this attack, of course, but by sending you against the trolls, Fenris will continue to assume that you’re not aware of his plot. Go! And good luck.”

  “Noted. And thanks.”

  It occurred to her that she felt somehow faster and that her understanding of magic had deepened. The power she’d drawn from King Gormyr must have settled within her.

  Loki opened a portal wide enough for five men abreast and motioned for Bailey to go through first. Sucking in her breath, she did, and the soldiers of Asgard marched through behind her.

  The locale into which they emerged looked familiar; it was the same broad snowy plain narrowing behind her as it ascended into a mountain pass where she and Fenris had teleported before. Up ahead lay the dense forest where the frost trolls had gathered before their prior attacks. Fat snowflakes drifted down from the clear sky.

  This time, the enemy army was assembled. Half the plain was covered by a dense mass of hulking humanoid bodies, grunting and waving their clubs and crude swords and axes in the air. Bailey and the divine army had caught the trolls mere moments before they’d launch their invasion.

  Their numbers were far greater than what she and Fenris had faced previously, thousands rather than hundreds. The rear echelons stretched beyond the plain and into the woods. For all she knew, the entire forest might have been packed, every available space between the trees filled with trolls.

  She raised her arm and bellowed, “Get ready!” She herself wasted no time.

  Bailey pointed at the horde, which had perked up and started to howl upon noticing her and the Asgardians. A nuclear explosion went off, front and center of the host. Bailey immediately conjured a powerful shield in front of her, keeping the effects of the blast from harming her allies.

  The destruction it wrought on the trolls was terrifying. A high dome, virtually a column, of blazing light ascended into the sky, along with a roar that shook the earth. Smoke and debris spread out to the sides. An entire third of the troll army, or at least the portion visible on the treeless plain, had been vaporized, leaving only blackened earth behind. Snow by the edges of the blast radius melted and turned the scorched ground to mud.

  Bailey produced her sword. She did not fully understand how, but she had bonded to the weapon in such a way that it came to her whenever she commanded it to, regardless of where it had last been left. She raised it over her head.

  “Charge!” she screamed.

  She and the trolls did exactly as she’d said, barreling toward one another at top speed. When she looked back over her shoulder, she saw the Asgardian troops advancing, though at a trot rather than a sprint. Furthermore, instead of plunging straight ahead, they moved sidelong toward an elevated position where boulders and the foothills of the nearby mountain covered part of their right flank and rear. Then they assumed a phalanx formation.

  Good for them, Bailey thought. They’re the smart type of warriors. Isn’t that a Greek formation, though? Whatever. I probably should have hung back and waited for them.

  But there was no time to change her mind.

  She crashed into the first dozen trolls, blowing half of them into the air with a burst of sonic, kinetic, and electrical force that broke most of their bones and liquefied their brains. Then she darted about, zig-zagging between them, jumping over their heads or ducking under their weapons while she slashed.

  Her movements were frenzied yet controlled. The enchanted blade cleaved through limbs and organs, and she conjured enough shield matter around her to deflect most of the force of their powerful blows, knocking them off-balance if they struck the arcane barriers. Then they became easy prey.

  As trolls died around the girl, she spared a quick look at her allies. They’d drawn off half or more of the monstrous host and were fighting defensively against the und
isciplined charge of the creatures. Their long polearms stabbed knees and hearts, felling the majority of the trolls before they could get in range to smash at the Asgardians with their brutish weaponry.

  Bailey dashed to the side, seeking to fight her way back to the troops. It was better for them not to be divided. She blasted a cluster of trolls away from her, then concentrated and threw her sword laterally so it spun like a buzzsaw through the monsters’ ranks, killing twenty of them before burying itself in the snow near the phalanx.

  She shifted into wolf form, allowing herself to swell to full size so she was as big as the trolls. She could magically reconstitute her dress clothes later. In the heat of battle, she had more pressing things to worry about.

  Bounding at the full speed of a beast of the woods, she tore through the already-shaky lines of her foes, shouldering some aside, slashing them with her claws or ripping out throats or hamstrings as needed. Axes and clubs struck at her from the sides, but her shields were still up, and the mightiest of their blows only knocked her slightly off-course.

  Seconds later, she stood before her sword. The girl shifted back to human form and retrieved it, conjuring a decent replica of her former outfit as she drew it from the snow.

  One of the soldiers, probably an officer, stepped forth. “Lady Bailey, are you all right? What orders next? They’ll be upon us again in a heart’s beat.”

  It was true. Though they’d devastated huge numbers of the beasts, thousands remained, and they were closing in, snarling and furious.

  “I’m fine,” she answered the lieutenant. “We’ll hold off the next charge, then we need to go on the offensive. I’ll hit them with everything I have magically and break up their lines. You guys follow me and finish off the stragglers.”

  The officer nodded. “As you wish.”

  Another wave of trolls piled toward them, kicking up the mud from the earlier explosion combined with meltwater. Once they reached the deep snow again, Bailey raised all of it in a white rushing cloud, melting it further and driving the beasts back on a torrent of water that thickened with mud as it flowed over the barren patch.

  Then she clenched her fist, freezing it all solid. Some trolls were trapped within the ice and died quickly. Others were stuck half-in and were easy prey for the lances of the Asgardian soldiers. The phalanx advanced.

  More trolls streamed out of the woods. Aside from the piles of scattered bodies, it was as though Bailey’s force had barely made a dent in their numbers.

  She hoisted her sword, using it to channel all manner of destructive spells, and bolted ahead. She tried to keep from outdistancing her men too far but nonetheless worked gradually ahead of them, cleaving and blasting left and right, wreaking havoc and dividing the enemy.

  The werewitch didn’t stop to kill the wounded or disoriented, leaving that to her troops. Soon, the field was clear of living adversaries. Many still hovered around the edge of the field or regrouped in the shadows of the trees.

  Bailey caught her breath, wiping sweat from her face and blood from her sword.

  Most of the trolls had withdrawn, but they had not retreated. They were rallying, tightening their formation around a central point beyond the edge of the forest. Bailey cut through two more of the stragglers to get closer, then jumped into the air and floated fifty feet above the battle to see what was going on.

  The frost trolls’ king, Imrit, had taken the field, emerging from the trees. He was the biggest of them all, and his presence had instilled renewed confidence in his warriors. Not to mention he was giving them orders, forcing them to obey simple tactics instead of fighting as a mass of individual berserkers.

  Worse still, trolls from the rear guard were pushing forward contraptions that Bailey recognized as catapults. They were so crudely-built that she’d almost mistaken them for totemic idols, but they had counterweighted arms and were loaded with odd bluish projectiles.

  She flew back toward the ground and also closer to the troll army. The things in the catapults were huge chunks of ice that blazed and shimmered with unknown magic.

  “Crap!” she growled, plunging to the ground and cutting a half-dozen trolls down with a blade-thin wave of concentrated plasma.

  The king bellowed something and the siege engines fired. Bailey shot down two of the frosty boulders with bolts of fire, but one landed near the front of the Asgardian phalanx. It struck the ground, kicking up snow and releasing a blue shockwave that flash-froze at least twenty soldiers. Their bodies turned into statues of ice, fell over, and broke apart.

  The girl gritted her teeth. “No, goddammit!” They’d lost only a small fraction of the hundreds of soldiers who’d come with her, but she refused to lose any more.

  She turned and glared at King Imrit.

  I’m supposed to kill him and take his power, right? she reflected. Pretty sure that’s what I’d do regardless. Get ready, you son of a bitch.

  Chapter Ten

  Bailey hurled herself into the center of the maelstrom. The sky was blotted out by the tall, thick bodies and hairy limbs of the trolls, and the air was filled with the powerful swipes of their weapons. She battered aside all comers, or split the creatures asunder with her sword, or blasted them to pieces.

  Each time she heard the thunking sound of the catapults being fired, she immediately created an inverted rainstorm of plasma, thousands of blazing projectiles streaking into the sky to destroy the ice-bombs before they could reach her soldiers.

  Moments later, the lines of the dying trolls parted and their titanic monarch stood before her, hefting a gargantuan club made from an entire tree trunk which was spiked with magically-augmented icicles.

  “Imrit!” she cried, “King of the frost trolls! I am Bailey Nordin, called Nova, and I challenge you to single combat. Cease all fighting and let the battle be decided by us alone. Winner takes all!”

  He stared at her with beady eyes full of primitive anger and dull arrogance. He barked something to his warriors, presumably telling them to stand down since they stopped where they stood and parted to form a broad circle.

  “Yes,” Imrit growled, “we will fight, Bailey Nordin. No magic or deal is off. You will die without magic, and then Asgard falls!”

  She said nothing, only stood with her sword aimed at his face, nodding her agreement to his conditions.

  Roaring like an enraged bear, Imrit flew at her, wielding his great club with a speed and ferocity that belied his ungainly appearance.

  Her first instinct was to shield herself, ignoring the deal they’d made, but that would be both dishonorable and stupid. She’d end up having to fight all his warriors as well, and they’d resume their bombardment of the Asgardians.

  Instead, she relied on the enhanced agility she’d siphoned from Gormyr, added to the superhuman speed and strength she already possessed as both goddess and werewitch.

  Fast though he was, Imrit lacked subtlety and telegraphed his moves with brief yet obvious wind-ups. Speed and pure force were on his side, but he hadn’t heard of feinting.

  Bailey hopped over his swings or rolled under them, prepared to dash to one side and then darted to another. Imrit resumed his berserk whirlwind of wrath. The ground vibrated under the stomping of his feet and the impacts of his swings. He struck with greater intensity, but not with greater intelligence.

  I can outlast him, the girl concluded, but without a magic shield, one hit and I’m done. It’ll be tough to hit him without leaving myself open.

  Against such a huge opponent, whose offensive reach was nearly triple her own, her longsword didn’t seem particularly long. She tried rolling between Imrit’s legs as he prepared an overhead strike and extended the blade upward as part of the motion, cutting through the troll king’s thigh.

  He howled in pain and whirled to face her as she regained her feet and backed away. Drool ran around his tusks. He raised his off-hand and the air shimmered with a deep-blue glowing mist that coalesced in his grip as a double-headed battle-axe made of the same ensorcelle
d ice as the catapults’ payloads.

  “Hey!” Bailey protested. “That’s magic!”

  “Only weapon!” he barked. “Now fight!”

  Frowning, she raised her sword and surrounded it with heat so that the blade burst into golden flames. “Only fair,” she pronounced.

  Imrit was too intent on killing her to renegotiate the deal. He plunged ahead, spinning as he moved, both his giant weapons filling the air with the potential for violent death.

  At first, Bailey reacted as she had before, concentrating on dodging the monarch and hoping to tire him out, but his strength didn’t seem to flag. She opted to try a gamble; it was risky, but...

  She extended her sword in such a way that Imrit’s axe would strike it straight on at a ninety-degree angle. The blue blade streaked through the air.

  Then it shattered into a mass of glowing ice chunks against the flaming blade of Bailey’s divine sword.

  “What?” Imrit raged. “No! No!”

  Bailey seized the initiative by leaping over his club-arm, landing on his shoulder, and stabbing down into the place where his neck and chest met. He raised a hand to crush her and fling her off, but she jumped away, slashing him down the back as she descended.

  Imrit again attacked, furious but slowing. Spots of his blood appeared on the snow.

  The werewitch evaded him. Now his attacks were flagging. She’d be able to deliver the coup de grace as soon as he made a mistake.

  Imrit lost sight of her briefly as she ducked under an overextended swing on his part. It was the last error he ever made.

  Bailey shot upward behind him, raising her sword like an icepick and plunging it into the back of the troll king’s neck. His cry turned into a gurgle, and he fell to his knees. As his life seeped out, the girl, knowing she’d won, sent out her tendrils, locking them into his aura to drain his power.