by Matt Larkin
“Oww.” Thor rolled onto his side.
The clang of Skadi’s oversized blade on Geri’s rang through the hall, even overtop the whine ringing in Thor’s ears. The frost jotunn was larger than the varulf and probably at least as strong, though Geri had speed and—
Skadi parried a blow and thrust her free hand forward. A spear of ice as thick as her arm formed around it and plunged through Geri’s chest.
“No!” Thor screamed, stumbling to his feet. His traitorous leg gave out, but he still flung himself, awkwardly, painfully forward. No! A varulf could … could survive …
The giant icicle broke off Skadi’s arm and she lunged forward, wrapping her hand around the impaled varulf’s throat. At once that turned to ice, mist wafting off it. Then Geri’s throat exploded in a shower of frozen flesh that clanked as it hit the floor.
Thor dropped to one knee, unable to catch his breath.
No. Not his sister … his sister …
Snarling, Skadi thrust her hand forward again. A hail of icicles shot out and tore into Magni, flinging him backward and sending a rain of blood shooting through the air.
Choking on his cry, Thor stumbled forward, sweeping Mjölnir into a frost jotunn just to get the creature out of the way. No, he had to do something.
Skadi twisted around and her blade clanged against Hermod’s, who had somehow snuck up behind her. Thor had thought the man still behind him, but allowed no further thought to the matter. Skadi’s free hand caught Hermod’s face and he screamed.
Thor could see the flesh freezing there.
Tordis leapt forward, swinging her axe. The attack forced Skadi to twist around and drop Hermod. The man crashed to the ground in a heap. The frost jotunn’s sword deflected the axe and, before Thor could close in, Skadi had the blade buried in Tordis’s skull. Two-handed, she grabbed the blade and twisted, flinging the shieldmaiden’s corpse like a missile at Thrúd.
Skadi bared her teeth at Thor. “No fire hurler with you now? You were a fool to come here without him.”
She meant Loki.
Roaring, Thor flung Mjölnir end over end at Skadi.
She twisted to the side, knocking the weapon away with another blade of ice. Already, she was turning back to him. Flinging her wrist in his direction. Thor dropped prone even as a giant ice spear shot overhead.
Someone yanked him to his feet. Thrúd, handing him a seax. The knife seemed tiny against a foe half again his size. Skadi’s host had clearly eaten a great deal of man-flesh.
The jotunn was panting heavily, winded by the use of her foul Art.
“Take her!” Baldr shouted. “I’ll hold off the other two!”
Thor looked to Thrúd and she nodded.
Side by side they closed in on the Queen of Winter. Thor clenched his fist and brought the seax up to bear while Thrúd led with her spear.
Skadi raised her free hand and ice formed around it, crystalizing into a shield four feet tall. Thor edged around to one side, allowing his daughter to flank Skadi. He didn’t see how he was going to get past a giant shield. But one way or another, Skadi would pay for Geri’s death. She’d pay for Freki and for Itreksjod and all the others lost in this war.
As he closed in, the frost jotunn swung that shield. Thor reeled back. That edge was razor sharp. Hadn’t expected that. He tried to thrust with the knife but Skadi kept swinging her shield, not allowing him to get in range of his weapon.
The jotunn woman had to keep shifting her gaze back and forth between him and Thrúd though. It was damned hard to keep two foes in view, especially when both knew what they were about. And Tyr had trained Thor and his daughter, both. Not a man alive knew battle better than Tyr, so far as Thor could tell.
Thrúd feinted with the spear and Skadi moved to deflect it with her sword.
Thor used the chance to dodge around the shield and swipe with the seax. The blade tore into the jotunn’s thigh and sent her stumbling. The shield swept back into too fast, though, and took Thor in the chest. It cracked along his mail, but the blow hefted him from his feet and sent him toppling to the ground, landing hard and skidding.
The next he saw, Thrúd drove her spear into Skadi’s side. “Die!”
The jotunn buckled as Thor’s daughter ripped the spear free and drove it toward Skadi’s chest. This time, the jotunn got her shield around.
Thor struggled to his feet. Without Mjölnir’s added power, it was hard to block the pain of his broken leg. Things had turned against them now, but he’d do something. He had to close in, had to save his daughter, had to …
A crack of thunder deafened him and lightning sent Skadi flying face-first into the ground right in front of Thor.
Baldr was standing behind her, Mjölnir in one hand and a sword in the other. Thor’s brother shrugged.
Thrúd shrieked and leapt forward, driving her spear through the jotunn queen’s back.
Wanting to take no chances, Thor crawled forward and jammed the seax into the back of Skadi’s skull. The jotunn spasmed, then lay still.
Thrúd whimpered, released her spear, and dashed past Thor. He twisted around, trying to join her, but she was much faster than him at the moment. She fell to her knees beside her brother.
“Is he …?” Thor managed.
“Still breathing, barely,” she said, her voice a mask of pain. “Some of the shards punched through his mail. I don’t know …”
“Hermod will know what to do.”
Thor twisted back around to where Baldr knelt beside Thor’s father-in-law. The man was moaning.
“I think one of his ears is lost to frostbite,” Baldr said. “But I suspect he’ll live.”
“Get him up.” Thor had no time for sympathy for the wounded warrior. “Let him help Magni.” Thor would not lose his son. Could not lose him. He looked to Thrúd. “Eir is among Tyr’s camp. Go and find her and tell her … just bring her here!”
Thrúd offered a nod and took off at a dead run.
Baldr had Hermod up, supporting him as he made his way to where Magni now lay. Thor’s brother was right—Hermod’s face had turned pale with frostbite and one of his ears looked like it had frozen solid. Another heartbeat in Skadi’s grasp and they’d have lost him.
Hermod grit his teeth through his own pain and set to bandaging Magni. Thor prayed the man could save his son.
He had to.
Magni’s condition meant Thor couldn’t leave Skadi’s fortress at the breach while the boy rested. So instead, he joined Baldr in hunting down any jotunnar fool enough to have remained on this side of the wall.
Bursting into one chamber, he found an aging woman, huddling in the corner under furs.
Human.
“Have no fear,” he said. “You’re free now.”
She looked up at him with hate-filled eyes.
Roskva. Her hair had gone mostly gray, making her look older than she really was. A hard life here.
Thor tightened his grip around Mjölnir.
“Going to kill me now?”
He shook his head. The temptation was there, very true. But he’d earned her betrayal, so maybe this made them even. “No. I suggest you join the others fleeing this place. Choice is yours.”
Thor had greater worries now.
Someone was going to have to make sure the jotunnar didn’t try this again.
42
A piercing scream of agony shocked Gudrun awake and she sat upright.
And then her scream joined Sigurd’s cry of pain.
Her husband was pinned to their bed by a sword driven through his abdomen. The runeblade Hrotti. Which he had given to Gunnar.
Guthorm backed away from the scene, his face splattered with blood.
Sigurd was wailing in agony. Despite the pain of it—Gudrun couldn’t even imagine—he twisted over to grab at Gramr. His motion tore Hrotti through his flesh.
Guthorm lunged at the other runeblade, probably intent to snatch it before Sigurd closed his grip around the bone hilt. Sigurd reached it first and swipe
d it up at Guthorm. The runeblade sheared through the draug’s hip and out his side. His torso toppled backward, away from his legs.
Gudrun knew she was still screaming. Dimly, she knew she’d even paused an instant for another breath. Only to scream further.
Blood now drenched their bed. It had splashed over her.
No, no, no, no …
Frantic, finally able to stop shrieking—although not to catch her breath—she grabbed blankets already drenched in blood to try to staunch the massive wound now rent in Sigurd’s gut. Hrotti was still sticking out of him.
Hel!
Should she remove it? Would that not make the bleeding worse?
“It’s all right …” Sigurd’s words were slurred with pain. How could he even speak at all? “I knew … I knew … Gripir said … Our son …”
Oh, Hel, Sigmund! Svanhildr! How complete was Brynhild’s betrayal? She threw her arms around her husband. And how was she to leave him like this?
“Can’t … change … urd …” Great pools of blood dribbled from his mouth with every word. He had a hand to his side, the other hanging limp off the bed. “Brynhild did … this …”
Oh, of that Gudrun had no doubt, though she couldn’t seem to manage to get a word out. Just incoherent moaning. Feeble attempts to bind a fatal wound. Guthorm had stabbed him in the gut, clearly intending him to be long in dying. The draug had no pity.
Gudrun cast a hateful glance at her dead brother. What had he done? Guthorm would not have acted thus without word from either Grimhild or Gunnar. And Grimhild would not have ordered him to kill the husband she’d secured for her daughter.
“I … kept my … oath … to him …”
Oh, and Gunnar had broken his own in the most vile way imaginable. He’d employed their accursed dead brother to do what he could not.
Sigurd whimpered in pain. Him, the strongest man she’d ever known, reduced to this. The sudden stench meant he’d shat himself. Hel. There was no hope for him.
Moaning, Gudrun put a hand to his cheek.
“Son …” he mouthed the word more than said it.
The pain and blood loss had stolen his powers of speech. His mind would go soon.
Tears streamed down Gudrun’s face. No. No. Please, why like this? Why?
Trembling, she closed her hand around Hrotti’s hilt. He was right. She had to see to little Sigmund. She had to … but couldn’t leave him to die alone.
Sigurd’s hands were convulsing on the bed. His thrashing only rent the hole in his stomach worse. Screaming, Gudrun closed her other hand around Hrotti’s hilt. Then she jerked the runeblade free.
Sigurd gasped weakly. A fresh well of blood oozed up immediately from where she’d drawn the blade.
“I’m sorry …” she whispered.
Weak. Pathetic.
No. No, not this time.
Gudrun slapped her hand over Sigurd’s mouth and nose, clamping both shut. His already slowed struggles ended all too quickly.
Damn them. Hel damn them all.
Still weeping and clad in naught but a bloody shift, Gudrun burst from her chamber and out into the hall, storming past the frightened slaves. She ran the short distance to the children’s rooms where they slept with their nursemaid.
The door was cracked open. Gudrun flung it wide and charged in.
Hogne spun around, crimson staining his sword. On the middle of the floor, little Sigmund lay in a pool of his own blood. Gudrun gaped at her brother and he too, stood, openmouthed, shaking his head.
Runa, the nursemaid, too lay dead at Hogne’s feet.
The awful realization hit Gudrun. The woman had died interposing herself between Hogne and the cradle where Svanhildr slept. The babe was crying, Hel be praised.
Shrieking, Gudrun lunged at Hogne.
Her brother deflected Gramr with casual ease. Probably he could have cut her down in his sleep. Gudrun didn’t fucking care. Screaming, she hacked away at him. Hogne didn’t try to attack, merely deflecting her blows.
“We had to,” he managed to grate out between his parries.
Gudrun wasn’t interested in conversation. He’d murdered her son! Sigmund! Betrayed Sigurd! She gripped the runeblade with both hands and brought it crashing down.
Hogne’s own broadsword snapped under the blow, but it overbalanced her. He caught her arm and twisted, until Hrotti tumbled from Gudrun’s grasp, then flung her to the floor.
“Enough,” he said. “I’m sorry, sister. I … I’ll spare the girl. Maybe it’s enough that the male heir is dead. We … we had no choice.”
No. No. Gudrun was shaking her head, glaring daggers at him.
Even after so many years of pushing it down, denying the power. It was still right there for the taking. Gudrun felt the ice coalescing along her fingers, even as cold seeped into her heart. Snegurka was still there, desperate to escape into the world.
Snarling, Gudrun thrust her open hand at Hogne. A shard of ice the size of a dagger launched from her fingers at him, driving through his throat and embedding itself in his spine. Blood sprayed out from him in a geyser, in the bare instant before he toppled over sideways.
Coated in the blood of yet another man she’d once loved, Gudrun crawled over his body to reach Svanhildr’s crib. She pulled the babe close to her breast and held her dear, unwilling to let aught ever come between them.
She was all Gudrun had left.
43
Gudrun’s wails echoed through Castle Niflung, reaching out into the mist and—at least Brynhild fancied it so—carrying even across the sea. Certainly they filled the courtyard where Brynhild sat, not far from the hateful place where she’d married Gunnar.
Mirthless laughter burst from Brynhild’s chest on hearing the other princess’s lamentations. The wretched Gunnar had truly done it, hadn’t he? Sigurd was dead.
Sigurd was … dead.
Sigurd … was … dead?
Finding it hard to breathe, she slipped the orichalcum ring from her pouch and slid it on her finger, where Sigurd had once placed it. Her husband … in those few days she’d been happy.
Gunnar came stumbling into the courtyard, blood covering his hands and arms, Gramr dragging on the ground behind him.
“You did it.”
“Guthorm did.” He tossed the runeblade at her feet in obvious disgust.
Brynhild frowned, ever so slightly. Gunnar getting his mysterious half brother to perform the deed lacked the poetic irony she’d hoped for, but from the look on his face, Gunnar still blamed himself, as well he should.
Gunnar sniffed, rubbing his brow with the back of his hand, heedless of the way it smeared blood over his face. “You laugh at such a tragedy, but I doubt you are the least bit happy for it. Your flesh has turned deathly pale, wife.” He shook his head. “You would dare threaten us with the wrath of King Etzel? You deserve to watch the man die in front of you for the horror you’ve wrought here. My half brother and my brother-in-law are both dead. Even my nephew.”
So Sigurd had taken Guthorm with him. More the better, and only a shame he hadn’t claimed Gudrun in the process.
Brynhild shrugged, knowing it would infuriate him. “I doubt anyone would claim there hasn’t been enough killing here, though it’s not yet done. Nor do I imagine Etzel cares in the least for your petty threats or your impotent rage. He’ll outlive your whole line, I suspect.”
Gunnar gaped. “You said if I … if I killed Sigurd and his son …”
“That I wouldn’t go to Heimir and Etzel with your crimes?” Brynhild nodded. “And I won’t. Though they may hear of them in time, regardless. Either way, what do you think will happen when men hear the great King Sigurd, champion of the Niflungar, died under your very roof? Will they think kindly on you?”
Gunnar placed his palms on his temples as though he expected his head to burst. It would have proved a fitting end to this mockery of marriage. “You mean there was no way out, no matter what happened.”
Brynhild let her smirk spread. “Of
course not. You may not have slain Sigurd with your own hands, but still you plotted his death, forgetting that you had mixed your blood with his. Sigurd will no longer ride at the head of your army. Your advance into Midgard is broken by your own actions. And you are now an oathbreaker yourself. I dreamed of the fall of your line, brought down by your evil deeds.” She spread her hands. “Such is the glorious will of urd.”
Or the will Odin. Or both.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t mean for any of it to go so wrong.”
Brynhild grit her teeth just to keep from screaming or weeping. She shut her eyes, shaking her head. Perhaps no one had intended it all to unfold thus. What if … what if even Odin, that Ás bastard, had not wanted this, so much as planned for it, knowing it inevitable? How then could she hold on to her loathing of him? And without that, she would burst apart, consumed by the fires of grief threatening to rise up from her breast and devour her, body and soul.
She’d clinched her hands into fists so tight her nails dug into her palms. The pain of that was all that kept her grounded. “I dreamed that you ride into the hands of your enemies, Gunnar.” Her voice sounded weak in her own ears. Hatefully weak, like some maid unable to master her heart. “All that’s left now for me is an ignoble death and the torments of Nidhogg.” She opened her eyes to see him staring at her. “For you, too, soon to follow.”
Gunnar dropped to his knees and flung his arms around her shoulders. “Brynhild … Don’t do this.” He was shuddering, as weak as she was, and that, somehow, was a comfort. “Whatever happened, I’ll pay weregild, I’ll do aught you ask, only don’t give up your life.”
Why should she not? Certainly naught remained here for her. Gunnar? No. Never him. Odin had foreseen this all and it was time to let the Ás’s schemes play out at long last. Maybe … maybe she owed him that, for the oath she had once forsaken to him. If she had lived as an oathbreaker, she might at least die with some semblance of honor left.
She pushed Gunnar away. “One last request. Lay me on a pyre with Sigurd.” She grimaced. “And … his son by Gudrun.”
