by Renée Jaggér
Jörmungandr still lived. It blinked, and smoke rose from its scales, then it glared at them with a fury that made Bailey want to turn around, run, and pretend none of this had ever happened.
No, she ordered herself. We don’t do shit like that. We stand and fight, no matter what.
“Bah!” Thor roared, waving his hammer. “Come on, then! Let us tussle with this thing like men!”
With a long howl that faintly resembled a cheer or a laugh, Thor launched into the air, straight toward the lord of monsters.
Bailey sighed and followed him, her sword at the ready.
Jörmungandr’s head, the size of an apartment building, snapped toward them, its motion creating a wind. It wasn’t even moving all that fast, the girl realized. It was so big that it didn’t have to.
She thought of how easy it was for her to reach out and squash a tiny bug that was desperately scurrying at top speed away from her, and she shuddered.
Thor wheeled around, narrowly dodging the biting strike of the serpent, and his hammer whacked it in the chin. Sparks crackled from the point of impact, and the monster’s head jerked aside enough to suggest that the blow had had some effect.
But not much.
Bailey had dodged the attack by shooting upward and in the other direction, and she swung her sword at the side of the serpent’s neck as she flew past it. The blade, to her horror, bounced off the creature’s scales like a nail file against plate armor.
What the fuck? She was on the verge of panic, and since she rarely panicked, that scared her still more. This sword can supposedly kill gods. What in the name of all the worlds is that thing?
But the impact of Thor’s hammer had done more than nothing, so it wasn’t invincible.
However, Thor had faltered and stumbled after his successful strike. His wounds had reduced him to fifty or sixty percent of his normal fighting ability.
Bailey flew into the air, trying to think of what might hurt the beast as she kept a close eye on its movements. It seemed more interested in Thor than in her.
The thunder god bellowed and launched a stream of lightning at it. Jörmungandr twitched, and its movements became irregular. The bolts didn’t exactly stun it, but they interfered with its ability to attack.
Bailey breathed, “Okay, then.” She commanded the clouds overhead to discharge a sequence of six columns of lightning, five of which struck the black serpent directly. The sixth landed in the sea and electrocuted the water enough that it likely contributed to the effect.
Jörmungandr squawked in a way that rattled the pebbles on the beach. It froze in place for a second or two, then it shot a hateful glance at Bailey. It turned back to Thor, but a huge loop of its body crashed out of the ocean to whip toward the girl.
She dove away from the gargantuan coil, wondering if the monster’s apparent susceptibility to electricity had to do with it being an elemental creature of water. Perhaps it was something more mundane.
Thor and Bailey began a game of cat and mice, each of them harrying the abomination with concussive blows or lightning bolts, trying to wear it down as it thrashed and snapped at them with movements that could have leveled half of Greenhearth.
Soon, though, the World Serpent started to demonstrate intelligence. Rather than attack them with its body, it attacked them with huge waves of water, which also absorbed their lightning strikes.
And each time they were disoriented, it moved in for the kill with its hideous jaws. Bailey noticed venom dripping from the fangs.
Thor called, “Don’t let it swallow you either! It tried to do that to me. I lodged myself in its throat until it had to spit me out, but if the beast gets you down its gullet, you’ll never get back out.”
As if on cue, Jörmungandr snapped its mouth toward the thunder god, who barely escaped the fate he’d warned against. Instead, the side of the serpent’s lower jaw bashed into him and sent him splashing and rolling back onto the shore.
Bailey threw lightning at the dragon’s eye to distract it for a second as she rushed to Thor’s side once more.
The red-bearded deity was weaker still. “Bailey! I’m having trouble lifting my hammer. Link with me, and I will give you a portion of my power so that you can heft it.”
She frantically recalled the lessons of Loki and Fenris on how to share magical ability between deities and an invisible siphon-tendril emerged, locking into Thor and establishing a conduit with him.
A surge of strength entered her, and it made her want to fight. It was like a rolling storm within her heart.
Jörmungandr was bearing down on them again.
Bailey let out a loud war cry and seized Mjölnir, imbuing the hammer with an entire storm’s worth of lightning and then hurling it straight into the serpent’s face. The weapon ricocheted off the beast’s nose and lips, lighting its face with flashing sparks, and it trembled in pain, immobilized.
The hammer flew back, landing in Thor’s hand instead of Bailey’s, but the thunder god’s infusion had given her an idea.
“Thor,” she said, “lightning hurts it more when it’s out of the water, and it can’t move as fast, and I think our whole problem is those damn scales. If I can slip my sword under one, I might be able to drain some of its strength and give it to you, and then we can barbecue it with the biggest thunderclap in known history.”
Hope and vitality flowed back into the heavy, bearded face. “Haha! That might work. Let us try then.”
They linked arms, Bailey helping Thor move as they levitated, coming eye to eye with Jörmungandr. Thor hurled his hammer again. It moved in an irregular pattern, striking the serpent’s chin despite its attempt at dodging, though it landed with less force than Bailey’s blow had.
Still, it was enough to stun the monster for a second or two. The werewitch moved them around the side of the creature’s head, and they planted their feet against its neck. Bailey found the edge of one of the huge black scales and inserted her sword’s point beneath it, then stabbed hard.
Jörmungandr tensed, and she knew it was about to throw them off. The sword was little more than a pinprick to it, but it still represented a breach in its defenses.
“Thor!” she exclaimed, “help me hold the sword!”
“Aye!” he agreed. One of his big hands closed around the handle beside hers. As the earthquake-like force of the monster’s sudden whipping of its neck threatened to dislodge them, their combined strength held them in place.
Bailey began to steal Jörmungandr’s essence, funneling it not into herself but into her companion. The effect was instantly noticeable, and the werewitch could feel her share of the burden diminishing as Thor drove the blade in still deeper.
The girl cast a quick spell to fuse the flesh beneath the scale to her blade, then she shouted, “Up!”
Both gods gripped the hilt, wrenching upward with the full reserves of their respective divine strength. Jörmungandr, shrieking horribly, resisted with its considerable physical might, yet somehow the two humanoid deities prevailed. The serpent was slowly dragged upward, more and more of its unimaginably huge body emerging from the sheltering waves into the open air above the sea.
Thor raised his hammer. “Lightning!” he bellowed. “Power of the storm—of all storms—come forth! Bailey, help me invoke it. We need as much as we can imagine!”
Thunder crashed around them, and white flashes appeared in the roiling dark clouds overhead. Soon, despite the World Serpent’s intense thrashing, the clouds began to close around them like a dense bluish fog.
Bailey struggled to hold onto the sword and control the wrenching movements of the monster, but she spared as much of her willpower as she could to aid Thor’s spell. She spread her mind across all of the Other, seeking out every neutron and electron of power she could find and bringing them all to the point of their battle.
Sparks and bolts leapt through the clouds around them, and the flashes became more frequent, to the point that they resembled a strobe light.
Jörmungan
dr, its primeval brain grasping what was about to happen, bellowed in fear and rage and committed its full strength, enough to split the world asunder, to trying to break free of the sword and the deities who held it.
Bailey’s mind was stabbed with a note of panic as she almost lost her grip. She had to abandon the lightning conjuration in order to focus everything she had on not letting go.
But it was too late for the serpent. Thor had control of the storms that were his purview, and Bailey had done her part by channeling half a dimension’s electricity to where he could use it.
The wrath of the heavens was unleashed. A column of lightning a quarter-mile across fell from on high, striking Jörmungandr square atop the head. At the same instant, a thousand other bolts struck the beast across the half of its body that was exposed above the World Sea. The electrical energy coursed through its form and reacted violently with the water where the other half was still submerged.
The werewitch screamed in pain and Thor did likewise as both struggled to repel the incredible power surge that threatened to leap through the sword into their forms, overloading them.
But they held firm, finally withdrawing the blade from the serpent’s neck once its death scream faded and its colossal body went limp.
The flashing lights in the clouds faded as Jörmungandr fell, its head and neck flopping sideways to impact the ocean below in a mile-long line. The sea exploded, and a tidal wave rose from the impact, flooding and overwhelming the shore. After some moments, the waters retracted, and the ocean was once again calm as the World Serpent sank forever into its unfathomable depths.
Bailey and Thor drifted earthward from the sky, landing on a blasted hill a quarter-mile or so back from the water’s edge. Pools of black water lingered in low places around them, left there after the great wave receded.
Despite the dose of stolen strength Bailey had given him, the thunder god did not look good. Bruises were visible everywhere there was exposed skin, and the non-bruised parts of him were pale and sweaty. He also seemed to be succumbing to severe exhaustion.
“I’ll live,” he assured her before she could ask. “I’ve had a bad day, you might say, yet it was also a great day, was it not? We defeated the monster said to be nigh undefeatable!”
He laughed, though the sound transformed into a cough. “My wounds are merely from the pounding it gave me. I escaped its fangs. The prophecy stated that I would overcome and slay the monster but be bitten and die of the venom. That isn’t what happened. We have defied destiny.”
The girl blinked as the magnitude of what he’d said sank in. “Shit. Not bad. I suppose that means we can also defy the End of the World.”
Chapter Fifteen
Loki, to his credit, responded to Bailey’s summons within about forty seconds.
He took her and the thunder god in at a glance, dismissing the portal behind him and surveying the now-scorched heath that abutted the World Sea.
“What in the universe happened here?” he marveled, wrinkling his nose at the smell. “Did you conjure up a forest and then burn it down?”
Bailey scowled. “I tried to nuke it. The World Serpent, I mean.”
“Oh.” Loki sighed. “Well, I’ll assume it didn’t work, yet both of you live, so you must have done something right.”
Thor raised his head. “Indeed. We live, and Jörmungandr does not.” He wheezed and fell back into semi-consciousness.
Bailey locked eyes with the lord of mischief. “He needs help. He’s gonna make it, but you can care for him better than I can or get him to those who can so he can recover his strength. Right?”
“Yes,” Loki confirmed. “I will stabilize his condition myself—beyond what you’ve, er, attempted—and then take him back to Asgard for further healing.”
“Good.” She scowled again. “How come you couldn’t help us fight that thing? I’m amazed that two gods were enough to take it down.”
The trickster deity knelt beside Thor, not looking at the girl. “As I mentioned previously, Jörmungandr is—or was, pardon—one of my children. Confronting it myself would have caused complications I don’t wish to discuss at the moment, and it’s best if you don’t ask again. Or think about it too hard.”
The werewitch decided to drop the issue. “Okay, fine.” She briefly wondered who, or what, Jörmungandr’s mother might have been, then instantly blotted the thought from her mind.
Loki performed a couple of healing spells and Thor fell into a cozy slumber, though he still looked weak.
Bailey just breathed in and out, watching them. For the moment, she felt warmth, peace, and relief. She wanted it to last and had no desire to risk plunging herself into further chaos, and strife, or uncertainty.
But her desires were less important than her duties. “All right,” she inquired, “What do we do next?”
It occurred to her that she probably sounded tired and scared. It also occurred to her why: because she was tired and scared.
Ever since we learned about Fenris’ plans, she mused, we’ve had to rush around in a constant state of worry and anxiety, wondering what he’s going to try next and never knowing when or where the next domino will fall. I’m getting sick of it. I just want to face him down and put an end to this once and for all.
But it was impossible to say how she would deal, emotionally, with the final confrontation. She’d been trying not to think about it too hard.
Loki calmed her somewhat by giving her a straight answer.
“Next,” he began, “you should head to the realm of the draugar. The undead, as I believe you people rather crudely refer to them. They’ve marshaled their forces near the boundary between their realm and ours, and, well, you know the rest. It’s much the same as with the dark elves, frost trolls, and stone giants.”
Bailey tilted her head back and groaned. “Goddammit. How many armies does Fenris have? It’s like he’s turned the whole universe against you guys. Against us, I mean.”
Loki held up a finger. “Not all of it. Only a fraction, albeit a rather significant fraction. But you should make haste. Things have proceeded far enough that the draugar lords may provide the last distraction Fenris requires. If they make any progress, Asgard will have to divert its forces to confront them, potentially leaving my son open to perform the ritual that will bring about the end.”
“Noted,” Bailey responded, inhaling and steeling herself for the battle to come. She wondered when she’d get time to rest again.
The god of mischief went on. “There is one other thing to note. We are quite confident that Fenris considers the best-case scenario to be sacrificing you in his stead to bring about Ragnarök and then rule over the ensuing wreckage, but there is something that remains nebulous to us. He may, if he pushed to utmost desperation, decide to trigger the Beginning of the End according to the original prophecy. In other words, sacrifice himself after all, simply to destroy Asgard and the cosmic order that depends upon it. Thus, even in death, he would be victorious. After a fashion.”
The girl’s blood went cold. “Does he hate you guys that much? Why would he do that?”
Loki shook his head, and his eyes and the lines of his face were drawn and sad. “I do not have the answer to either of those questions. As I said, it’s uncertain. He might be willing to surrender if he fails to sacrifice you. There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
She sighed and nodded. “Yup. Okay, how do I get to the draugar’s world?”
Loki clapped his hands, and a doorway of shifting, glimmering amethyst light appeared before him. “That way,” he stated. “Call your Asgardian regiment and have them join you. I will locate your other friends and provide portals for them as well.”
The werewitch stepped toward the gate, then remarked, “What would I do without you, Loki?”
He shrugged. “Fail, most likely.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled. “Whatever. Thanks, though.”
* * *
Bailey stood at the head of her regiment
. A few of the Asgardian troops, the Weres, and the witches had been rotated out due to injuries, exhaustion, or shellshock. Townsend also needed to recover, given his weakened constitution and bad leg, but the Agency had sent an extra four men to more than compensate, and Asgard had dispatched an additional platoon of soldiers to further swell her ranks.
The world in which they found themselves was perhaps the least pleasant place Bailey had ever seen, with the possible exception of the dark alfar’s homeworld. That realm could claim, if nothing else, to a sort of austere desert majesty.
The homeworld of the draugar, by contrast, was like a scene out of a nightmare. The landscape consisted of frozen swamps and tundra swept by a bitterly cold wind so vile that Bailey had had to draw upon the powers she’d gleaned from the frost trolls to protect her people and herself from it.
Low, jagged mountains the color of dark ash streaked across the bogs, resembling broken ribcages. Diseased-looking trees rose here and there. Bones were scattered throughout the icy morass. The worst thing, though, was the greenish sky through which black clouds raced. Bailey tried not to look at it.
The draugar themselves, thus far, had been no match for the combined forces of Earth and Asgard, let alone the goddess of witches and Weres. Hundreds of their corpses were strewn about, adding to the grotesque morbidity of the environment. The humans watched them warily as if half expecting the undead they’d slain to rise a second time.
They remained still, however. The only movement came from the occasional wafting of ice fog from the frozen marsh-pools.
Bailey addressed them all. “Okay, we’ve kicked the shit out of them so far, but next up is storming the castle over there. Once again, I want you all to let me do the heavy lifting out in front. I’ll clear the path, and you secure it while watching my back. From what Loki told me, no draugar will fight without being ordered to, so they ought to collapse back into neutrality once we take out their leaders.”