by Matt Larkin
The city rose up in a series of terraces along the mountain. Atop that, one found Thunderhome Palace and Vafthrudnir’s Refuge. Both, she’d need to visit for her errand to have a chance of success.
A flash of lightning split the sky as she made her way up the city slope, terrace by terrace. As a child, she’d stood in awe as Father had become a giant eagle and soared between such lancing bolts. His cry had echoed over the mountain, as a comfort or a warning to his people—Thiazi watched over them all.
Before the Vanir murdered him.
Her breath frosted the air, not because of any warmth inside of her, but rather, because she needed to vent her icy rage before it consumed her. For so many years after leaving Midgard behind she had avoided coming to this place. She’d longed for home. And dreaded the memories inseparably intertwined with it. So much loss, so much pain.
Still, home was her birthright, and Father would not have forgiven her had she abandoned it. She was the Queen of Winter. If humanity thought they knew Fimbulvinter, they were in for a jarring realization as to just how cold the world could grow.
It would take time, of course. A great deal of time, maybe. Longer, if Thrym did not prove cooperative.
Wisdom dictated that she first visit Vafthrudnir and seek his support. Yet, Thrym would not take it kindly if she did not call upon him as soon as she arrived.
Above the city rose Thunderhome, its crystalline spires formed of ice grown through ancient sorcery. Its stone foundations carved with runes from before Skadi’s birth. Back when she’d served as Vafthrudnir’s apprentice, Skadi had spent long years pouring over the scrolls of his library. Ancient scrawlings upon dried mammoth hides, most of them, and some claimed the jotunnar had not built the foundations—they had found them. As if some race in another era had left this hold behind, waiting for the jotunnar to rise.
Or to rise again.
All things moved in slow circles, Vafthrudnir claimed. And the jotunnar had ruled the world even before the coming of the mists, as they did then. As they would do, again, when the age of man froze and died beneath Skadi’s inexorable march. This, she swore.
Jotunn guards watched the gates of Thunderhome, eyeing her with casual distrust as she trod through the gatehouse. Beyond lay the nine hundred Stairs of Alvaldi, carved of blocks of ice each three feet high and thirty feet wide, perfectly aligned. Rising up through the palace.
Few others seemed about. A jotunn here or there. A handful of human slaves bearing food to those stationed in the lower levels.
Much less than the bustling halls Skadi remembered from her life. Sadly, not even memory remained clear. Death and the deleterious effects of the Astral Realm had sapped bits and pieces of herself. Until what she’d once known had become like a dream, distant and ever longed for, even if not quite lucid.
After the enormous climb, a jotunn man with ram-like horns met her. He was dressed in fine armor, worked with runes no doubt intended to enhance its protection. He stood at least half again her height, meaning he’d tasted a fair amount of man flesh over the years. In life, Skadi had stood nigh to seven feet tall. Trapped in Gudrun’s body she felt like a damn dverg.
Where she could not rely on size to establish her claim, sheer audacity would have to suffice. At least by now Gudrun’s skin had taken on the pale, almost blue tinge snow maidens shared with frost jotunnar, and her hair had turned white. It made her look like a diminutive jotunnar. “Take me to see the king.”
The man remained expressionless as he studied her. “You’re not human,” he finally said.
“No.”
“But puny.”
Skadi allowed her eyes to cloud over, fill with mist. Frost coalesced around her mouth and shards of ice formed around her hands and arms. Suppressing the human tenor of Gudrun’s voice left her sounding hollow, somehow larger than she was. “I am of Niflheim.”
The guard stiffened, then cocked his head for her to pass.
While she’d asked him to escort her, his acquiescence would suffice. For now.
She made her way back through the upper levels of the palace. Even if all her memories had fled, she’d have been able to find the throne room. It stood dead ahead, rimmed by a great arch coated in rime, with dangling icicles hanging down from it like the fangs of a beast, any one of them the length of her arm. The doorway stood open—and tall enough a being five times her height could have passed through without stooping.
The entire hall beyond was carved from a single block of ice. The spiraling columns the size of trees, the throne as tall a human house, the statues of snarling beasts looking down from a mist-filled space eighty feet above—all cut from a glacier when Skadi’s ancestors dug down to this place.
Upon that throne now sat a jotunn at least four times her size, draped in mammoth hides and armored plates engraved with runes and the likeness of skulls. His breath was mist. Ice had formed around his hands, cracking as he tightened his gauntleted grip around a sword easily eight or nine feet in length.
“Do you know how many men I’ve devoured?” The king’s voice was like the rumble before an avalanche, ready to burst forth into destruction any moment.
Skadi would imagine he’d have had to consume terrible quantities of man flesh to get like that. Excessive indulgences, perhaps even profane rituals all in the pursuit of ever increasing his size. As if physical might were the only measure of power.
“I take it you know who I am?”
Thrym chuckled, another rumble. “The so-called Winter Queen? The one who thinks to rule all Jotunheim …”
Skadi allowed herself to smile. “I’ve taken Glaesisvellir and Gastropnir, and their kings have sworn to my service. The wood tribes of Galgvidr answer my call. I sent Hrungnir to watch the breach to Midgard, and none come or go save by my sufferance. Jotunheim already falls to me.”
The king chortled. “Petty lords and woodland kingdoms in the south? You do not control Thrymheim, nor shall you.”
Skadi spread her hands. “But you still don’t know who I am. I am the daughter of King Thiazi, upon whose throne you now sit. I am returned from the fells of Niflheim to claim what is mine. But …” She raised a placating hand. “We need not be enemies. Surely a king needs a queen?”
Thrym shifted his shoulders, breaking more bits of ice off in the process. “A queen? One to give me an heir? I could never fit my cock inside your pathetic human trench.”
Somewhere, deep in the corner of her mind, Gudrun whimpered. Delicious. “The human host is disposable. I’ve but to claim a sufficiently powerful jotunn woman.”
The king waved her away. “Return with such a body, and then we’ll see what you may be queen of.”
Skadi suppressed her glower. It wouldn’t do to show the king her ire. Not now, not yet. Soon, he’d be the one imploring her for an alliance. And then … then Midgard would know the true meaning of Fimbulvinter.
4
Seven petty kingdoms divided Sviarland, and though some had worked to unify the land, those divisions remained. North of Dalar and beyond even Jamtla, Lappmarken formed the northern boundary with Kvenland as well as the western one with Nidavellir. In the south of this great northern stretch, Odin rode along a narrow mountain pass, arm raised against dense flurries of snow. He sat astride Sleipnir, whose steady hooves allowed the creature to climb where no mortal horse could hope to walk.
Out ahead, Odin’s ravens flew in all directions, scouting for the place he sought. His Sight had guided him to the vicinity, but Huginn and Muninn would allow him to find the specific location with much greater efficacy.
A sudden gust tore Odin’s hat from his head and sent it spiraling down into a ravine clogged with mist.
“Damn it.”
Sleipnir neighed in response, plodding forward with practiced care. The angle was nigh steep enough to send Odin pitching over backward, forcing him to keep his free hand tangled in the horse’s mane for support.
The wind continued to howl, freezing Odin’s cheeks even beneath his bea
rd. To say naught of turning his stones to solid ice. In his mind’s eye, Valravn relayed an image, a broken ruin upon the slope, more than half buried in the snows.
“Around the next peak,” he said to Sleipnir, barely catching his own voice over the howling wind.
His nose stung from it. Snot dribbled down into his mustache. This close they’d moved nigh into dverg domain. The perilous Earth vaettir might try to bar his passage, at night, leastwise. Odin peered up at the sky. He’d drawn nigh to the tip of the mist, but it made it hard to make out much. A few hours of daylight, perhaps.
Enough to ride around the peak if he pushed Sleipnir.
He slapped the horse’s shoulder.
As the raven’s sight had revealed, the valkyrie lodge poked out of snows that must’ve stretched thirty feet deep. Those snows rose up to crust over half the doorway, while rime coated what little remained exposed. The edges of a broken stone tower broke above the snow, but ice caked that as well.
This style looked more like a dverg outpost than aught built by the Old Kingdoms. Solid, blocky, and ominous, built by those of dire purpose and fell convictions. Runes might well have marked the walls, but under the ice Odin could make out no sign of them. What ice didn’t conceal, though, were jutting stone edifices like the maws of vile beasts drawn up from chthonic depths.
Up on that tower, a square window led inside.
No angle of the slope would let Sleipnir tread up onto the roof, meaning Odin had no easy access to the tower window. So it was either dig out a front door that looked coated in a thousand years of winter, or climb the damn wall.
“Just how high can you jump?” Odin asked Sleipnir.
The horse snorted, then backed up. Huh. Intent to try it, was he? Well, Odin wouldn’t stop him from—
Sleipnir took off at a mighty sprint that sent wind sheering over Odin’s face with painful force. His stomach dropped out from under him as the horse leapt, forcing Odin to lean forward and clutch Sleipnir’s mane to keep from pitching over the side.
The horse’s eight hooves crunched into snow, barely cresting the roof. His hind legs skidded, two of them flailing in midair.
Damn it!
Odin leaped free and landed on the roof, allowing Sleipnir greater maneuverability. The horse tromped around—hooves falling a hairsbreadth from Odin’s face—before regaining his balance.
One eyebrow raised, Odin stared up at Sleipnir.
The horse snorted.
“Right you are,” Odin grumbled, pushing himself up. Frost had already crusted his beard, but now snow caked his clothes and hair as well. “Already missing that damn hat.” He turned to Sleipnir. “Just stay here.”
Another snort, as if to ask if Odin truly thought the horse about to climb through a window.
Eh, perhaps not.
Careful of his footing, Odin trudged to the tower. Even with the snows uplifting him, that window still rose well above his head. Grabbing the ledge, Odin flooded pneuma into his limbs to enhance his strength, then hefted himself up.
Inhuman strength or not, crouching on windowsills was for younger men. His back ached as he pulled himself up to stare down into the ruin. Not overmuch to look at inside. A table, and clearly not one from centuries ago, as rabbit bones still littered its top, along with the dregs of a jug of mead. Even up here, he’d know that smell.
With a sniff, he dropped down into the relative warmth of the lodge, landing on a support buttress maybe fifteen feet over that table. A crisscross of these supports covered the interior, leading to a stone ladder carved in the wall. The dvergar must have used it to get up here to the windows in order to fire arrows on whatever fools dared assault them here.
So how had this place fallen? Had one of the Old Kingdoms driven them back? Well, it mattered little now.
Arms spread for balance, Odin edged over to the ladder, then climbed down to the lower level.
A fire in a raised pit had burned down to embers, but must have roared some few hours ago. They had been here.
Unless … unless they still were.
Oh. Yes, if they waited across the Veil, they’d have seen him as a shadow. Maybe they didn’t know him for who he was, and wouldn’t consider him a threat. But as soon as he embraced the Sight, he would snap into clarity, as plain to them as they would be to him.
Well, that was, after all, the reason he’d come.
Odin ran his fingers over Draupnir where it rested on his right hand. Though his flesh had healed, the ring felt seared into his very bones. Like it would tear him to pieces to remove it.
Audr.
The wraith responded at once, its vile coils slithering up Odin’s guts and clawing at his mind. His stomach lurched as the wraith jerked him out of the Mortal Realm and into the Penumbra. Vertigo threatened to steal Odin’s feet from beneath him, even as the room rushed into new clarity while losing color.
Chairs at the table toppled over backward as a warrior woman spied him.
Her golden armor glittered, even in the pale light of the Astral Realm. Her hand lay on the hilt of her sword. Seven of her sisters stood at her sudden rise, including one at the head of the table.
Stifling a grunt of discomfort and disorientation, Odin forced Audr back down. It was not the time for the wraith to test him. Indeed, even Audr seemed keen to learn whether Odin might pull off the audacious scheme he’d now set in motion.
Audacious … arrogant …
Perhaps.
“Odin Borrson,” Svanhit said, hand still wrapped around her sword. Her deep brown wings had erupted from her back, twitching ever so slightly and somewhat obscuring his view of the others. “Has the mist taken your mind, old man?”
Odin chuckled. “You call me old?” Indeed, while he’d now returned her ring, years without it had taken their toll upon the valkyrie as well. To say naught of the fact she must have lived well before Odin’s birth.
“This is the Ás king?” the woman at the head of the table demanded. “The great and glorious Odin Borrson?” Her sneer would have withered the heart of any mortal. Her black wings seemed like jet in this color-drained realm. She pushed away from the table and stalked closer.
Odin truly missed Gungnir, as much for something to lean on as for the weapon itself. “Skögul, I presume.”
The valkyrie paused mid stride, then cast a glare at Svanhit before turning back to Odin. “I take it you’ve come to turn over your soul at last?”
Odin chuckled. It was good he wasn’t the only one capable of temerity. He cocked his head to the side. “Rather, I’ve come for yours. All of yours. You will bow and serve me.”
Another valkyrie, this one blonde with white wings, approached. “He’s been in contact with Volund.”
Skögul rolled her eyes. “Your failures seem to never stop haunting us, then.”
Odin paced around the hall, taking it in, heedless of his aching knees. “I spent long years planning this, you know. I walked across Midgard many times over seeking out all the secrets of bygone years. The whispers of forgotten peoples. The … songs of older times and fallen lands.”
“Songs?” Skögul asked.
Odin smiled at her, shaking his head sadly, almost pitying her for the fall before her. Before them all. But neither the maid he’d slain for this, nor the valkyries themselves, could be afforded pity when weighed against the destiny of Midgard.
And so he sang, a hint of a rasp slipping into his song, unable to mimic the perfect clear notes Väinämöinen had taught him, and yet, close enough.
Skögul gasped, her trembling hand going to her sword, even as her fingers betrayed her, twitching, unresponsive. The valkyrie edged toward Odin, clearly expecting her body to react differently. “Song-crafter …” Barely a whisper escaped her, almost drowned out by Odin’s song.
Others struggled to their feet. Svanhit’s sword flew free from its sheath, but she managed only a single step before she froze in place, staring at the wobbling blade in her hand. That blade began to flake away, bits of rust drif
ting along on a faint breeze that ought not have flowed through this hall. The sword crumbled into dust.
Another of the valkyries screamed in defiance, managing several awkward steps before dropping to her knees. Her fingers curled up into claws as agony washed over her face.
The song reverberated inside Odin’s chest, leaving him trembling with the effort of its magic. It seeped out of him and into the world, drawing some portion of Odin’s pneuma into it. His own knees wobbled. No matter what happened, he could not afford to stop singing.
More valkyrie weapons broke apart and scattered on the breeze.
All the women had fallen now, some laying prone and writhing, some still on their knees, struggling to reach him. A vain struggle. The song’s power had them so deeply in Odin’s thrall they could not hope to raise a hand against him.
Their golden armor began to flake and chip, bits of it vanishing up into the sky like smoke.
“Cease,” Svanhit moaned.
Part of Odin wished he could. He wished many things, in the deep recesses of his mind, where none save bound vaettir might be privy to his misgivings.
You think it … destiny …
Odin thought it necessity first, and urd second.
A light built before his eyes, searing white, like staring into the sun. With each passing note, the radiance grew in intensity. So white it threatened to blind him. It scorched his mind with its heat.
And slowly, the light coalesced into a figure of yet greater luminosity. Man-like, though towering over Odin at half again his height. Angry, incandescent rays poured out of the entity’s head as it drew closer. An extra pair of radiant arms jutted from beneath his shoulders, all four hands reaching toward Odin.
Its will slammed into him with a physical force, driving Odin to his knees. A scorched, agonized, breath escaped his lungs. The air itself seemed ignited by the heat. One set of hands closed on Odin’s biceps, hefting him up off the ground while the other closed around his throat.
