by Matt Larkin
Roskva flinched and turned away, hiding her face against her brother’s chest. Sif was tempted to do the same.
A tremendous belch then rang out, echoing off the walls and seeming to reverberate off every column.
“Hmm,” Skrymir said, peering down at Thor. “Not up to that, are you?” The jotunn shrugged as if it was no matter.
Though she couldn’t actually see Thor, Sif could all but feel him fuming up there, probably shooting glares at his opponent and Skrymir both.
Grumbling, Thor leapt down to the bench, coated in juices and bits of fleshy leavings that left Sif gagging to see them. He hopped down again. “Can’t expect a man to eat a plate bigger than he is. Bastards.”
Skrymir chuckled patronizingly, causing Thor to cringe with such fury Sif tightened her grip on the spear. The prince was going to attack the jotunn king. And they’d all get squashed underfoot in the process.
But the jotunn just smiled. “A race, maybe?”
Thor scoffed. “First a feast, then a race? You expect me to run after that?”
“I’ll run,” Thjalfi said. “I’m fast.”
Sif spun on the farmer’s son, half inclined to slap him. “His legs are little longer than yours.” Imbecile.
“Yes!” Thor roared. “Yes, my slave shall race you.”
“Me?” Skrymir chuckled. “No, the boy shall race Hugi. More his size.”
Indeed, the jotunn who strode forth stood only a few feet taller than Thjalfi. He didn’t speak, and Sif hadn’t even noticed him among his larger brethren. In greeting, he offered but a bob of his head.
“Come,” Skrymir said. “Let’s see them race around the fortress.”
Thjalfi paled. “That’s a long course …”
“Oh, hardly,” Skrymir said. “Do not be modest, boy. Why, the Ás prince vouches for you.”
Since no one was listening to her objections anyway, Sif followed them all outside the fortress.
Skrymir beckoned them run. Thjalfi took off like a wolf, covering ground almost as fast as some who’d tasted the fruit of Yggdrasil. Sif had to hand it to him—he did have speed on his side. Hugi glanced at Skrymir, nodded, and then raced after Thjalfi. A gust of wind caught Sif in his passing, sending her stumbling into Thor.
In great leaping bounds Hugi dashed forward, swift as she’d seen Sleipnir run. In the space of a few heartbeats he’d passed Thjalfi and raced around the fortress’s edge. Even the mist seemed to part around him, trailing in his wake.
Mere moments later, he came back around the far side, coming to rest beside Skrymir. Though his chest rose and fell with great breaths, no sweat covered him.
Thjalfi, though, took long, nigh to a quarter hour to come back. The boy reached them, teetering on his feet, and collapsed before his sister, staring up at Thor. He gasped, trying to mouth something but clearly had not the breath left. An apology perhaps.
“Can we dispense with these inane contests now?” Loki asked.
Skrymir laughed again, the sound bringing to mind an avalanche. “At least one more, yes?”
“Name it,” snapped Thor.
If this jotunn didn’t kill the man, Sif would.
“Perhaps you’d consent to a wrestling match, yes?”
Thor groaned. “I cannot get leverage against someone of such size.” Even admitting that seemed to gall the prince, as though he’d tried to swallow a live eel.
“Hugi’s grandmother, then? She’s small, but she’s been known to bring down great men before.”
No. Sif shook her head. “There’s no honor in fighting a—”
“I’ll try not to hurt her,” Thor said.
Skrymir grinned, exposing those bear-like fangs.
As if she’d been waiting all this time, a woman came strolling out of the fortress, leaning on a walking stick. Standing upright, she might have stood a head taller than Thor, but she stooped over, crooked, hanging her white-haired head such that Sif couldn’t see her eyes.
Sif glanced at the others. This couldn’t be happening. Indeed, Loki’s eyes had narrowed and he seemed to be looking around as if confused. Thjalfi and Roskva, though, were snickering.
The crone tossed away her stick and held her hands wide, inviting Thor into her arms. Roaring, the prince charged into her abdomen like he was tackling a bear. She didn’t topple though. Rather, Thor wrapped his arms around her, planted his feet, and heaved as if he intended to fling her over his head.
The woman hardly budged. Grunting, Thor twisted, pivoted, and shoved her toward the ground. And still she did not give way beneath him.
Skrymir’s chuckles grated on Sif’s nerves until even she wanted to see Thor thrash the old woman. Some trickery was at play here.
The crone planted a hand upon Thor’s head, fingers spread wide, and strained, pushing him down. Slowly, a hair at a time, he edged toward the mud. Thor thrashed, but seemed unable to break her grip. Until she was actually holding his face in the muck. His bucking became wild. Suffocating.
“Enough!” Sif screamed. “Release him!”
“Oh, there’s only one final release from her grasp, little Ás. She who saps the bodies and will of all who live, she devours cities and civilizations. She swallows the world, bit by merciless bit.”
“No!” Sif whipped her spear up and lunged at the old woman.
At once, the figure vanished. As did Hugi. And the entire fucking fortress, turned to mist.
Skrymir chuckled again, even as Sif yanked Thor up. The prince gasped, sucking down air, panting. Wild-eyed. Drenched in dripping mud.
“You think yourselves mighty, humans,” Skrymir said. “You think you can master the world, but you do not understand how petty, how insignificant you are in the greater scheme. The wheel turns and crushes you over and over, and you are too caught up in your worthless self-aggrandizements to even notice. Master the world? You cannot master your senses.”
Thor growled, lunged for Skrymir, but the jotunn stepped back.
Thjalfi raced over, bearing Mjölnir, handing it to his master.
Skrymir sneered. “A prince who thought to eat faster than flame itself? A boy who would race the wind? And then, as if it were not enough, you, little Thor, would try to pin down time itself. Befuddled by the simplest of illusions you become useless. Weaker and more helpless than even your father, flailing in the dark for answers to questions he dares not ask.”
“Who are you?” Loki asked.
Thor lunged, swinging Mjölnir. “Dead! He’s fucking dead!”
But the giant jotunn vanished into mist himself. And Thor just kept swinging, round and round. Hitting naught but air. He turned on rocks where the fort had stood and began to pound them into dust. He smashed trees, heedless of Sif’s pleas or Roskva’s screams.
On and on the prince vented his rage at faint whispers out in the mist.
Helpless, Sif glanced at Loki. A grimace had settled upon his normally impassive face.
Odin’s blood brother could see Sif’s husband losing his mind to the stone in his brain. She knew he could see it. Could see that something—perhaps a vaettir or perhaps an actual jotunn—had bewitched them all.
In the end though, all Loki did was start walking once more, in the direction he’d claimed Odin had traveled.
Leaving Sif to wait as Thor burned off his violent rage, cringing at each fall of the hammer. A long, gut-clenching, heartbreaking wait.
37
The Vall Empire had once established numerous outposts along the southern shores of Andalus, along the rivers, and atop hills, all trying to forestall invasion from the Serkland Caliphate. They had failed. Those outposts had long since fallen, forcing the Valls back into their own kingdom.
Now it too lay besieged out of Andalus.
Some years back, Loki had told Sigyn that the war between Serkland and Miklagard had flared up. That conflict—in which she couldn’t help but see Odin’s hand—had spared the Valls conquest for the moment. But they’d lost their great emperor and his champions.
If not for the intervention of the Aesir, the Utgard men would no doubt have taken this land already, and through it, threatened Hunaland. Sigyn could not say whether Odin truly cared aught for the Vall plight, but the king had ordered the Aesir to honor the oath Tyr had made to Karolus, even long after the man’s death. Since then, she doubted Odin had taken much notice of the war that had raged nigh every summer for decades. Lands were claimed and lost, forts razed, and the dead grew more numerous as the living dwindled.
She and Mundilfari rode between two hills, heading toward Peregot at the fastest trot she could drive the horse to without killing it. The Vanr sat behind her, arms around her waist tighter than necessary, she thought.
Sigyn did not like coming here. The very air felt thick with ghosts, saturated with their anguish and rage. Even the places where one did not see the hills painted in blood, the scent of it had soaked into the ground. The final battle for Midgard would be called Ragnarok. Seeing the south of Valland, Sigyn could not help but wonder if the Andalus Marches represented the dawn of that conflict.
“The Art …” Mundilfari said. “Oh, we thought ourselves gods … So very wise … So fortunate to tap power from beyond the Veil.”
“You learned the Art from Svarthofda,” she said.
“Oh. Oh, yes.” He giggled. “Plowed her night and day … and more nights … Hard. She liked it that way—”
Sigyn grimaced as the sorcerer’s erection pressed against her tailbone. “I don’t need to know that.” He wasn’t in control of himself. He was not in control. She had to remind herself of that, otherwise she might have slammed her elbow into his face. Though, a sorcerer not in control of himself might even be worse than one who was.
“That’s the cycle of it, you know. Oh, yes. The apprentices, they fought over who would share my bed each night. On occasion, I allowed more than one and we all … ah, mmmm. Oh, and Freyja … By the Tree!”
Sigyn clenched her jaw and tried to edge away from his body. Failing that, she dismounted, her movement so sudden the sorcerer pitched off the horse sideways and crashed into the ground. She could not quite manage an apology.
Hands on her hips, she waited for him to stand and brush himself off. “I don’t care about your sexual conquests.”
“Oh. Oh, yes, I see. Mmmm. You are a virgin, I suppose? Delicate sensibilities offended? No, I think not.” He chuckled and started down the path again. “You, clever girl, you know how to get answers through your trench.”
“You are a vulgar man, and under other circumstances I would leave you here.”
“Oh. Yes, hmmm. Very good.” He held up a finger and spun around to look at her. “But … but … are you certain threatening to leave a hermit alone … is an effective threat? I … I spent many years wandering the world alone. Left with … fading memories. The highlights, the good times … overshadowed by the …” He shook his head and turned away, stumbling for a moment. “So many errors …”
Sigyn frowned and led the horse by his reins.
“It was a question, you know,” he said without looking at her. “The order of it, I mean. Were the more sexually voracious more adept at the Art because of their appetite, or did their aptitude itself engender their bodily appetite as a side effect? Or, perhaps, were the two mutually entwined—an ouroboros without beginning or end.”
She groaned. “I don’t fucking care.”
“Oh. Oh, but you should. You who wanted to understand, who had the audacity to touch something from beyond the Veil. To bargain with powers ancient beyond your imaging … and think you might come out ahead. Had you but spread your legs for the right man first, you might have saved all the worlds the heartache you have now engendered.”
She flinched. “If I did, it sure as fuck would not have been you.”
“Oh.” The smugness he infused that one word with made her want to kick him in the stones.
His erratic behavior and obnoxious words she might blame on his befuddled mind. Telling herself this, however, did not wholly expunge the niggling fear that, behind the vulgarity, might have lurked a grain of truth. He said the Vanir’s greatest failing was in thinking themselves wise, and, Sigyn, in her own arrogance, had thought herself smart enough to attempt something the Vanir might have spent centuries understanding.
She was, of course, unwilling to ever betray Loki. But still, she thought to defy the traditions of teacher to student she had known existed. Maybe that made her as guilty as Mundilfari himself.
Peregot Fort was not especially large, but it was well provisioned and guarded by dozens of men, including Tyr. The Vall knight commander had lent them his study—if a small room stocked with naught but a few maps and a footlocker could be called thus—and sent Tyr to meet them.
Sigyn had not seen the man in years, but he was far from verbose and she had little time, so after brief pleasantries, she cut to the issue as Tyr settled in front of the knight’s desk.
“Where is my son Hödr?”
Tyr shook his head, look grim, even for Tyr. “Dead, if I catch him. Worse if Thor or Sif do.”
“What?” Sigyn had a hard time making sense of his words.
Mundilfari pulled on the footlocker, and, apparently frustrated with the lock, kicked it.
Tyr scowled at him. Sigyn knew the feeling. “He mist-mad?” the warrior asked.
“No.” No, he was a whole other kind of mad. “He’s with me.” For now. “What happened with Hödr?”
“Got information out of a girl. Raped her. Burnt her alive. Left her for dead.”
No. No, that was … no. She knew she was shaking her head, trying to form words. This was her fault. How was she to admit what she had done, or to speak her fear aloud to anyone, let alone to Tyr? He was brave to a fault, a trait that had cost him his good hand, but he was never known for his understanding. Still, after what he had suffered under Gramr’s thrall, maybe he would sympathize.
And she needed an ally besides the Mad Vanr.
“My son is … like as not affected by the same sort of Fire vaettr that the Serkland sorcerers use.”
Tyr growled and slapped his palm against the desk. “Naught good ever came from the Otherworlds. It’s all touched by Hel, Sigyn. Vileness men ought to leave alone.”
Mundilfari chuckled. “Oh. Oh, you have no idea, warrior. Hel, is vile, yes, but there are yet other dangers beyond the Veil. As bad … worse, perhaps …”
“Worse than Hel?” Tyr glowered, as if unwilling to accept aught could ever be worse than the Queen of Niflheim.
The thought of it made Sigyn shiver, but they could not afford to become drawn into such a debate. “Supposing he is possessed by a Fire vaettr. What might we expect?”
“Don’t know for certain. Serkland caliphs don’t get directly involved. Not much. When they do, men die. A lot of men, on both sides. Ashes, flames. Smoldering flesh. Them, and we’ve seen these Sons of Muspel. Could be either, I suppose. Explains the burns.”
“Sons of Muspel?”
“Serklander elite warriors. Somewhat akin to berserkir, I think. Leastwise they’ve got something fell inside them. Strong and fast as a man who’s had an apple. They tear through our ranks when we see them. Damn nigh killed us all a few moons back. Lost a lot of men. Real commander here among them.”
Sigyn groaned. “What if Hödr went to meet them?”
Now Tyr grunted, staring at the wall.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Girl he raped? You didn’t ask about her?”
Sigyn flinched. So obsessed with her son she couldn’t worry over another woman’s plight? Especially one so horrible. “I … how is she?”
“Probably still like to die. She’s Thor’s daughter, in case you care.”
&n
bsp; Sigyn’s knees gave out all at once. They just turned to water and she was on the ground. Sputtering. Stammering nonsense.
Tyr rose and knelt beside her. “Hermod went off tracking the boy. Thought Hödr was already heading for Andalus. I guess now we know why. Still, wouldn’t want to be Hödr if Hermod finds him. His granddaughter.” Tyr grimaced, shaking his head.
“They will take him if they can,” Mundilfari said. “Oh, yes. The Caliphate are oh so eager for more jinn, and to find one, already here, on this side of the Veil … hmmm … Yes, I think so.”
Sigyn’s mouth had gone dry. “Take him for what?”
Mundilfari shrugged. “They don’t need the host, I would assume. They probably have apprentices lined up six deep … all waiting for their chance to bond a jinn. Hmm. Oh, yes, I think so. What use is a fully possessed foreigner to them? None, I would think … so … expendable? Probably.”
Sigyn’s mouth hung agape as she turned from the sorcerer back to Tyr. Was he right? Would they murder her son simply because he was of no use to them? Why not? These Utgarders might be capable of aught at all. And she would not allow it. Would never fucking allow it.
“I need to cross behind their lines …”
He shook his head. “Suicide. Hermod, others tried it a few summers back. Took one of the old forts there and held it for half a moon before they were forced back. Lost forty men. Out of fifty. Hel, I went myself not long back. Sons of Muspel nigh wiped us out.”
Trying to keep her voice from breaking, she reached out and grasped Tyr’s single hand. “I am not going there to conquer and hold ground. Mundilfari and I will sneak past their lines and find my son, and we’ll exorcise the jinn before aught else befalls him. Please. Help me get past their troops. What would you do for your son?”
Starkad’s falling out with Tyr had become legend, but then, Sigyn knew well enough that Tyr would still take any risk to aid his son, whether the man wanted his help or not.
“He’s here, actually.”
