by Matt Larkin
“You do have a plan.”
“No. I’m not much for plans. Baldr does a bit better on that front.”
Geri rolled her eyes. “A child.”
Maybe. Didn’t mean he didn’t have a clever brain, even if he had three times too much pride to go along with it. “It’s not the jotunn kings I’m most worried on.”
Now the varulf narrowed her eyes. “You mean Narfi.”
“You’ve heard the rumors of a half-jotunn taking control of Taraz. It has to be him.”
“Probably.”
“Rathbarth’s kingdom is a challenge. And who best to answer it than Skadi’s own son? If he claims this fortress, he—or through him, she—becomes the ruler of Bjarmaland. It’ll open the rest of Midgard to them.”
She growled, a low sound, not threatening coming from his sister, though Thor imagined most men would’ve been looking for a shield to cower behind. “You’re right. This is Baldr talking. You risk everyone left in Holmgard to draw out one of Skadi’s pawns.”
“Not a pawn—”
“You are not Father, and Baldr plays a game he cannot begin to understand when he tries to be.”
All too true, but Father hadn’t bothered to bestir himself much about the fate of Bjarmaland. “Only way things get better for these people is if we drive out the jotunnar. To do that, we have to break their leadership. I should’ve killed Skadi when I had the chance, but I let sentiment stop me.”
Geri nodded, frowning, though Thor couldn’t say whether she blamed him for not stopping this back then or for going to such lengths now.
Either way, she rose and slipped off into the dark of the hall.
Just as well. Thor would prefer to drink alone.
Men flocked to Rathbarth’s banner, as expected. They came from all around Bjarmaland and beyond, even. Some seeking adventure or glory traveled from Sviarland, eager to join the new kingdom. Others fled all the way from Aujum, seeking shelter from the ravages of trolls and jotunnar.
And Thor, for his part, ventured out oft enough with Tyr and Geri, hunting stray jotunnar who drew too close. Freki and Magni he sent back to Asgard to request aid from his mother. So long as he kept Baldr here, Mother would send anyone to keep her youngest son safe. She was like that and Thor couldn’t really blame her.
Part of him wanted to see Magni earn his glory here, but part of him was glad to have the boy well away from the siege that should surely come. In the meantime, at Baldr’s urging, Rathbarth ordered the fortifications reinforced and as many provisions as possible stockpiled. Maybe jotunnar wouldn’t come this winter. Maybe not for several. But sooner or later, Narfi would come out of hiding.
For the past several years they’d gotten reports of the half-jotunn leading jotunnar to victory after victory. Always showing up where he was least expected. In a way, Hymir himself had proved a boon, actually managing to hold off the advance of Skadi’s people. For now.
Either way, Thor left the strategizing to Baldr and busied himself thinning the jotunn ranks as much as possible. Feeding Mjölnir their bodies and maybe even their souls. Every time he killed one, he felt a surge of power and an almost irresistible desire to go hunting for more.
Returning from a troll hunt, Thor found Gardariki abuzz with news of a princess of Skane having fled to the fortress and sought sanctuary from Rathbarth, bringing along her young son Harald. Thor found the princess sitting in a private chamber with Rathbarth.
The king rose at his entrance. “My lord Thor! Welcome back. How went the hunting?”
Thor shrugged. Trolls were deadly foes, though usually less so than jotunnar.
“Hmm.” Rathbarth turned back to his guest. “Well, this is Princess Authra of Skane, though more recently out of Sjaelland.”
Thor rubbed at the wound on his head. Itching again. “What’s she doing here?”
Rathbarth opened his mouth, but shut it with a frown and looked to the woman. “It seems her father used her as a pawn.”
Thor tried very hard to keep his face impassive. A great many men seemed to enjoy tafl far more than he did.
“King Ivar Widefathom married her to a king of Sjaelland, incited the man against his brother, and then killed Authra’s husband to claim control of the island.”
Now Thor didn’t even bother trying to hide his disdain. How he loathed all these games and politics. He could scarcely imagine how Father, Mother, Baldr, or the others even tolerated having to work through schemes, much less seemed to thrive on them. “I don’t care about the details. What is she doing here?”
Authra herself answered. “Was I to return to the man who murdered my husband and might well have murdered my son to secure his own claim to Sjaelland? I won’t let aught happen to Harald.”
Thor favored her with a weary look. Truly seeking sanctuary. But she’d bring trouble with her. “How do we know King Ivar won’t come to claim his daughter? We don’t need more enemies.”
Rathbarth frowned, then draped a hand over Thor’s shoulder and guided him away from Authra. “Your brother has advised me to marry her.”
“Oh, by the fucking Tree,” Thor grumbled.
“Baldr tells me that in doing so I not only legitimize my claim to Gardariki with royal blood, but I became the stepfather to the future king of Sjaelland. A worthy alliance.”
“Boy’s a child.” Thor barely bothered keeping his voice down. He cared little with Authra heard. “And he’s the future king of a pile of trollshit as long as this Ivar reigns over Sjaelland.”
“Baldr thinks—”
“I don’t care what he thinks. We have more than enough woes without inviting others.”
The king withdrew his arm, frowning. “You told me to heed your brother’s advice. Now I’ve already given my word to Authra and I intend to marry her. I’d like your blessing.”
Thor groaned. So Rathbarth couldn’t back out and was honor-bound to marry the woman. Thor should have just stayed out fighting the fucking trolls. Rocky bastards were less frustrating than dealing with the plots of men. “So be it, then. Have my blessing.”
Not a fortnight after Authra had married Rathbarth, rumor began to spread the princess was with child. People talked of such things and it could’ve well been naught more than that, but Thor suspected otherwise. The princess must have lain with Rathbarth well before their wedding was announced, maybe even had gotten Rathbarth to ask for her hand that way.
It would end badly, he had no doubt. How oft Thor had thought with his cock, and he’d been left with naught save regret for it. Hand to his pounding head, he climbed the stairs to the top of the fortress. Rathbarth had meant to name the whole kingdom Gardariki, but men had taken to calling this place by the same name, though others had suggested calling it Holmgard in honor of the fallen. Thor didn’t see how any of that much mattered.
He found Baldr up on the ramparts, staring out to the east where Narfi surely was. Thor’s brother didn’t look over at his approach, but his shoulders tensed enough to tell Thor he’d heard.
“Geri says that jotunnar have begun building camps to the west,” Thor said.
Baldr nodded, seeming only half listening. “They’re flanking us. Cutting off the potential for our reinforcements to join us. By the time Magni returns from Asgard, we’ll be trapped in here.”
Almost made Thor wish he’d kept the fucking swan cloak instead of handing it off to Loki. “You’ve got a plan?”
Thor’s brother now favored him with a wry look. “My plan is to wait until our cousin shows himself.”
Wait. Thor hated waiting. Tended to bring the headaches on. Not that he’d liked waiting even before his duel with Hrungnir. “Will Hymir come to our aid?”
“I sent word for him not to.”
Thor could only sputter at that. Had Baldr lost his damn mind?
His brother chuckled. “I don’t want Narfi to know Hymir’s allied with us until it’s too late. He’s trapping us, but we’re trapping him.”
“All that relies on Hymir being tru
stworthy. To say naught of you being able to signal him when the time comes, while we’re probably besieged and trapped in here. And Hymir’s fortress is far to the south.”
“I know.”
“So?” Thor demanded. “Why would you tell the jotunn to delay?” Counting on aid from one of them rankled, without doubt, but it was better than losing to Narfi.
“He’s Uncle Loki’s son.”
“So?” Thor repeated.
Baldr chuckled. “You’ve heard the stories about him. You’ve fought beside him, even. I’d wager Loki was already on his way even before Magni went for aid. And if he wasn’t, he surely is now.” Baldr paused as if expecting Thor to say something, then rolled his eyes. “And what does Loki have?”
Oh. “The swan cloak.” He could fly to Hymir’s fortress and give the signal. “But it would take at least a moon, probably much more, for Hymir’s soldiers to reach us.”
Baldr smiled. “Only if they were waiting all the way back in Kiovia. Not, brother, if they were hiding around the Sapsho glacier.”
Thor couldn’t help but frown at all this. It seemed so dependent on Loki and Narfi both acting exactly as Baldr predicted and that sounded of Baldr’s typical arrogance. Still, Thor had left the planning to him for a reason. Save Father or Loki himself, Thor could think of no one better suited to it.
Except, if rumor were true, for Narfi himself.
19
Fifteen Years Ago
Well, now Thor knew one thing without a doubt: he fucking hated flying. First time he’d donned the cloak one of the vision-blurring headaches had come upon him and he blundered straight into a damn tree trunk. Which also had not much improved the pounding going on between his ears. Second time, he’d made it up and over the forest canopy.
Thing was, once you got far enough over the mist, the sun was too damn bright. Almost as bright as on Asgard, and he could scarce stand to spend much time there while the sun was up. The bright light triggered another attack and he’d come crashing back down through the trees. Only to get stuck, wedged between boughs as thick as his thighs, dangling upside down.
Even once he’d gotten the hang of it, still flying over Bjarmaland left his stomach lurching with each passing current of air. Men weren’t meant to take to the sky. It wasn’t natural and anyone who thought differently was mist-mad.
Yes, without a doubt they made good time, passing miles by with an ease he might have matched only if Father had lent him Sleipnir. Which he’d have vastly preferred, had anyone bothered to ask him. Damn swan maiden could have her cloak back as soon as he had Mjölnir back in hand. Have it back and maybe even a … uh … what did you call that? A show of some gratitude toward her.
So much of the land below them was wild, and ripe for the spawn of chaos. Dense forests of pine and birch and maple trees. Some places the leaves had fallen and he could get a glimpse—barring the mists—of the forest floor. Packs of wolves were common, and dire wolves too, though rarely close together. The heavier of the two must surely chase out their weaker cousins.
Dire wolves must’ve hunted those giant deer, too. Thor spied one with antlers that had to span a dozen feet. From his perspective, anyone hunting that thing was like to get gored. Roaming over snow-drenched plains he spied a whole herd of mammoths, any one of which could have fed half of Holmgard, had any of the men been willing to go so far out.
Then, of course, they passed the jotunn kingdoms. Mostly the bastards lived in old forts or even large huts that barely deserved the name. But he saw clusters of the brutes, sometimes a dozen or more together, and they roamed these wilds like they owned them. The closer he got to the Midgard Wall, the more of the savages he spied.
He dared to hope things would look less grim, but with each passing hour they seemed worse rather than better. Until, at last, they soared over a human village. Or what was left of one. Every structure in the town had been flattened as if a terrible gale had swept through and crushed man, beast, and house. Trees were snapped in half, trunks lying wedged in the snows. A cow had been eviscerated, its top half strewn a dozen feet from its rear. Many of the red stains Thor couldn’t even identify.
Others … men were impaled on spears stuck in the ground.
At least, he thought them spears until he caught sight of fletching. Arrows as large as spears.
Thor alighted by a trio of such victims. The jotunnar had bowmen? A new and very unwelcome development. One of the victims stared at Thor with cold, dead eyes. His flesh was sallow, but the cold had kept it from rotting thus far.
Loki landed beside him. “We cannot stop here.”
“What is this madness?” Thor demanded. “Why do this, and since when do jotunnar even fight thus?”
Grim-faced, Loki turned, taking in the destruction. “Wood jotunnar, most like from the forest of Galgvidr.”
“They serve the frost jotunn king?”
Loki’s only answer was an even grimmer frown.
Thor spat in disgust at the scene. “We should hunt these bastards down and do the same to them.”
Loki shook his head. “Without your hammer you are ill-equipped to fight one such as Thrym, and even so-armed I cannot say that we can overcome him. I don’t have the … gifts I once had. As far as hunting down the wood jotunnar, that will solve naught. Thrym directs this army and this was no doubt but one of many such war bands.” Without further comment, the man drew up the hood of his swan cloak. His form shrank and shifted, once more becoming the bird.
Thor glowered at him. Made it all the more vexing to know the bastard was right. To make any difference here he needed to split Thrym’s skull.
Finally, he pulled up his own hood as well.
They flew on, to the edge of the wall. Around the fortress once built by Hrungnir there massed an army of jotunnar. Even high above them, Thor could recognize a few types. Frost jotunnar made up the greater part of them, but definitely there were bulky mountain jotunnar, and moss-sprouting jotunnar that must’ve been the wood ones Loki spoke of. Thor was grateful no eldjotunnar seemed to have joined the army. Bastards loved to burn everything around them.
Some of the others might have come from different bloodlines, but not ones Thor could name.
The jotunnar herded humans into wooden pens constructed outside the fortress. These great cages must’ve been built from entire tree trunks, so thick were some of the bars. Other people—women—kept getting shepherded inside the fortress itself. Probably where Thrym and his generals ravaged and perhaps ate them. Thor was going to splatter the skull of every last fucking jotunn that had dared cross the Midgard Wall. He’d kill them all.
Loki banked away from the fortress and flew out toward a glacial shelf, forcing Thor to follow.
When the man landed, removing his cloak, Thor did the same. “What now?” Thor demanded. “We’ve come all this way to hide from them?”
Thor’s uncle fitted him with a heavy look. “Do you plan to march up there and demand your hammer back and hope they comply? Or perhaps to beat their army to death with your bare hands?”
The thought had certainly crossed his mind. Thor clenched his fists in anticipation. Yes, the apple gave him the strength to match a jotunn. “I’ll pummel one and claim its weapon.”
“Alternatively, you might enter the fortress and reclaim Mjölnir and use it to fight your way free.”
Thor snorted. “Perhaps you’d not noticed, but the jotunnar only bring women inside. I imagine they’d try to bar my passage long before I got close.”
Loki quirked a wry smile that made Thor want to slam a fist into his face. “Suppose they mistook you for a woman?”
“Suppose they what now?”
“Dress ourselves as women, shave off the beard—”
“I’ll shave my beard when the sea swallows the fucking land!” His uncle had gone mist-mad. “Dress as a woman! Maybe you care naught about acting so unmanly, but for myself, I have no intention of such a transgression.” Already the headache was building, just thinking of s
uch an atrocity. A man could get shamed right out of his war band for even thinking something like that.
Loki stared impassively at him. “You prefer your pride over your hammer, then?”
“I prefer to have both!”
The other man’s face suddenly turned glum. “We rarely get everything we want. You must decide now what you’re willing to sacrifice for victory. You once claimed to be a champion of mankind, but a champion must give of himself, sometimes more than can be borne, and you know naught of sacrifice, do you? Not like your father.”
“Father?” Thor shook his head. “You think I haven’t lost aught? I lost my fucking wife!”
Loki flinched, just a little. And he should be fucking scared, talking like Thor hadn’t paid any price. “I did not say you had not lost, I said you have not sacrificed. We’ve all had things taken from us, Thor. That’s not quite the same as willingly giving up something you don’t wish to lose, simply because you cannot see any other way to victory.”
Thor groaned. It was said, Father had sacrificed his own eye for wisdom. Was that what Loki meant? Thor had no intention of doing something so madness-induced as cutting out his eye. But could he do as Loki suggested? Could he dress as a woman and shave his beard?
“By the damn Tree,” he mumbled, and spat in the snow atop the glacier. “I think I hate you, sometimes. Agh! So be it. Get me a damn dress.”
Despite his best efforts to shave down by a creek, Thor’s cheeks would never pass for smooth as a woman’s. According to Loki, they didn’t need to, so long as they both kept their hoods up until they were well inside. Still, the wind stung his bare cheeks like a whip.
And that wasn’t half so bad as having his cock and stones dangling loose under a dress, stirred by every breeze that whipped over the mountains. If it weren’t summer, he might well be the first man to ever get frostbite down there.
