Gods of the Ragnarok Era Omnibus 3: Books 7-9

by Matt Larkin

Narfi had reckoned the man would show up now. Hadn’t much liked it none, of course. No, but he knew what the sacrifice bought him.

  While Thor was here, fighting Leikn—killing her, as Narfi had seen in a vision, sad as it was—it meant Odin’s son won’t anywhere else. Not guarding the halls of Asgard up on those mountains, like a man with half a head for strategy might’ve done.

  No, Thor was too damn proud for that. Him, he’d want to be in the thick of it, always on the attack, pushing back against the invaders. And why not? Word would’ve reached him about vargar, and who better than Thor to put down giant fucking wolves, right?

  Stupid shit-brained buffoon.

  So, Narfi had sent Gunnlöd to the other island, safe from the rampaging prince of Asgard. Had waited until Odin was well and gone before he even risked his invasion. Oh, he’d deal with the damn king, of course. Once the man had lost his home and the better part of his warriors.

  Across the lagoon, Thor came crashing out of the woods, swinging that damn hammer like a shooting star, bolts of lightning leaping from jotunnar to vargar to trees. Burning his own damn forest down in the process, though he probably didn’t have brains enough to notice.

  Narfi nodded grimly.

  “Steaming sack of walrus shit,” Gangr snarled. “Best we get around the lagoon and deal with him.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  Narfi scratched at his beard. “Won’t ever a chance we’d take Asgard without losing some of our own, were there?” The other jotunn glowered. “No, ’course not. So, what matters most is, taking more than we lose. Right now, their best two warriors—Thor and Tyr—are both engaged, dealing with our …” Well, he’d been intent to say pawns, but didn’t reckon Gangr would much like hearing him talk thus. Besides, would’ve made him sound a bit too much like Odin. “Our most expendable forces.”

  “Hyrrokkin ain’t expendable, and Leikn—”

  “Wants vengeance against Thor, same as me. Only difference is, I’m planning farther ahead.” And Hyrrokkin, well, she’d never been the best at following orders, had she? Wouldn’t hurt his cause overmuch, her getting splattered on Mjölnir.

  Still grim-faced—maybe the sacrifice didn’t sit well, and regardless, he sure as Hel better look like it didn’t—Narfi turned away and pushed deeper into the wood, knowing Gangr would follow.

  By now, Leikn was dead, and Hyrrokkin would follow her, along with a bunch of wolves that would take down a few dozen Aesir before they died.

  They weren’t the point, though.

  Because while Thor busied himself with the pawns, his home turned to rubble. Narfi almost wished he could see the look on the bastard’s face when he realized it.

  Well … if he realized it.

  Thor really was dumb as frozen mammoth shit.

  13

  They’d always thought the reef would protect Asgard. That, and their deal with Aegir. Well, now the sea jotunn had turned on them, and the waters had risen well over the reef, inundating the shore and washing away any halls in the lowlands.

  Whole valleys had become turbulent lagoons swarming with sea jotunnar, and Thor couldn’t well fight them in the water. Nor was the flooding the worst of it. The waters had carried in ships that had swarmed over Asgard’s paltry navy and unloaded an army of frost, wood, and mountain jotunnar.

  Those last oft stood fifteen feet tall or more, with hides almost as rocky and tough as trolls. Everywhere Thor looked, fires spread over the mountains of Asgard. While the valleys drowned, braziers overturned in the halls had set them alight. Mountain jotunnar flung boulders bigger than Thor himself, sent them crashing through walls and demolishing the city.

  Women and children fled into the woodlands only to get skewered by wood jotunn arrows the size of spears. Like those Thor wended among now.

  A little girl, maybe five winters old, pinned to a tree by a shaft as long as Thor was tall, her insides spilled out below her. Grimacing, he shook his head. Fucking child-murdering savages.

  Just thinking about it had his head pounding. Damn little spots flying about!

  Everywhere he turned, the dead dangled from those shafts. A macabre forest of murdered non-combatants. Hundreds of them, the stench of their shit and blood overpowering. Some few, here and there, were still moaning, filling the wood with the sound of torment, making the place seem like something out of Naströnd.

  Thor was going to feed every last fucking jotunn in the world to Mjölnir. He’d crack their skulls and let the hammer devour their souls.

  More moaning sounded ahead, sending those spots swimming before his eyes.

  “Not … now …” he growled at the damn spots, making his way closer.

  A woman had a tremendous shaft impaled right through her bowels. Despite it, she still tried to crawl along the ground. Thor glanced around until he spotted her goal. A dead boy, six, maybe seven winters, hung upside down from branches overhead.

  “Fuck these jotunnar,” Thor mumbled. He leapt up, grabbed the boy, and yanked him down, heedless of the blood and guts that spilled over him in the process.

  The boy’s limp body hardly weighed aught. Holding him like that, it sent a void opening in Thor’s own gut. Grimacing, he yanked the arrow out. The shaft squelched, tearing out more flesh in the process, but that hardly mattered to the dead. He carried the corpse over to the woman—his mother?—and laid the body down beside her, putting a hand on her head.

  “You cannot be saved.”

  Her eyes trembled when she looked at him, but they didn’t show any sort of shock. Instead, she just grabbed the boy and pulled him close.

  There was no reason for the jotunnar to kill people like this. People who couldn’t have fought them. Fuck them all. They wanted to eradicate the entire Ás race? Well, Thor would do it to them first. When he was done, all Midgard—and Jotunheim too—would be drowning in jotunn blood. This whole world would belong to men, he swore it.

  “I will send you to him,” he said to the woman. Her eyes met his again, and she didn’t object. Didn’t even try to speak.

  Deaths like that, they’d be reaching the gates of Hel. But what could Thor do about it? Not a fucking thing. He drew a knife and slid it along the woman’s throat. Mercy. Not much to offer, but that—and vengeance—were all he had to give.

  He’d come back to burn the bodies later. There were no mists on Asgard, so no draugar. Those who still lived, they needed his attention first.

  Asgard didn’t have enough warriors left. Not nigh to enough to face down a threat like this. The remnants of several war bands lay strewn upon the mountain slopes, while other warriors remained engaged with dozens of frost jotunnar.

  Thor wended his way among the melees, smiting with Mjölnir when any jotunnar came into range, but heading ever upward. Valaskjalf burned atop the greatest peak of Asgard. It was like a great pyre, lighting the evening sky, billowing a cloud of smoke a man could see from miles around.

  Growling, Thor smacked Mjölnir into a frost jotunn’s face. A crack of thunder resounded, and a blast of lightning sent that trollfucker tumbling backward into a rock. The jotunn pitched over sideways and rolled down the slope.

  Thor would’ve spit after him, were he less fatigued. What energy remained to him, he needed to save for killing whoever dared to defile Valaskjalf, so he kept charging upward, relying on the apple’s power to give him speed and endurance.

  How dare these bastards destroy the greatest work on Asgard? How dare they—

  The silver-plated tower where Father’s High Seat rested cracked, the sound like a gong. Sheets popped out sideways, bent and twisted, leaving Thor gaping in horror. For more than three centuries the tower had served as a beacon to the court of Asgard.

  An instant later, another crack resounded, and the stonework beneath the plating began to crumble inward. The ground beneath Thor’s feet rumbled as the entire tower collapsed into itself, blowing out walls and and sending a shower of debris down the mountain.

  Those trollfucking
… Wait. Mother might have been in that tower!

  Drawing on as much of the apple’s power as he could, Thor broke into a mad sprint up the rest of the slope. He didn’t stop even as he reached the threshold and the blaze within. Just blundered right through the doorway, arm out before himself.

  Flames shot up along the rafters, and clouds of black smoke concealed the better part of the hall. Almost immediately, Thor fell into a fit of choking coughs, and had to hold the back of his hand over his mouth. Tongues of fire licked at his exposed arms.

  “Mother!” he bellowed. “Mother, where are you?”

  No answer. The flames had become a roar, a cacophony accompanied by the continuing collapse of the once-glorious hall. Thor would have to pull back. For all he knew, his mother had already withdrawn. And joined the other women and children in the woodlands?

  Fuck.

  Thor pushed forward once more. He had to be sure she wasn’t in here before he—

  His foot thumped into something wet on the ground. Thor glanced down and almost retched.

  An arm. A woman’s arm, not severed, but ripped out in a gory mess. Only once had he seen something like that.

  Hödr, when Thor himself had done it.

  “Mother!” Thor shouted. Fuck! No! Shit! Fuck! He stumbled forward, half-blind from the billowing smoke. “Mother!”

  A rafter behind him snapped in half and crashed down.

  “Where is the queen?” he shouted, though he knew it unlikely anyone remained in the hall. She’d be fine. There was no proof that arm belonged to her.

  But there, on the floor, lay another arm, this one having caught fire.

  Beyond it lay a leg ripped off at the knee.

  And … on the throne … sat his mother’s head. The pulpy mess, the trailing spine, it meant something had ripped her head off.

  Thor sank to his knees, arms dropping to his side. His mind refused to focus. Like that … had she been alive …? Had she felt …? No.

  A nightmare.

  Mother …

  He was haunted by a … ugh, what was it … a mara? Had to be a mara? A nightmare.

  Wake up! Please, let him wake from this. Please do not let this macabre end have befallen his invincible mother. Please … someone … say …

  More crashing sounded around him.

  A monstrously large shadow stepped through the smoke, so tall it almost brushed against the flaming rafters. Shoulders too wide.

  A head poked through the dark cloud.

  Then another.

  And another.

  The creature that stepped through looked like a mountain jotunn, gray, rock-like skin, carved with strange sigils, and mighty bull-like horns jutting from its head. Except, there were too many heads. Three about its shoulders, and then two more torsos jutting from its waist, each with three heads.

  Nine? Nine heads?

  Thor gaped at the monstrosity. He’d seen jotunnar with two heads, sometimes even three. But this … this unfathomable abomination …

  It had killed Mother. It had wrought this destruction.

  Snarling, Thor climbed to his feet, Mjölnir raised before him. “I’ll send you to Hel!”

  Two of its hands grasped a hammer bigger than Thor, with a stone head.

  As Thor closed in, the jotunn swung the hammer. Thor leapt aside. The blow shattered the floorboards, breaking through down to stone foundations and sending up a shower of ash and dust.

  Roaring, Thor raced back in, dove between the massive creature’s legs, and came up in a roll. The jotunn reached down with another arm and giant, rocky fingers closed a hair away from Thor’s ankle. He scrambled up, swinging Mjölnir. The hammer roared like a thunderclap, knocking a chunk of rock from the jotunn’s calf and sending lightning bolts leaping about the hall.

  The jotunn stumbled a step forward but didn’t fall.

  Not the effect Thor had hoped for.

  Two-handing Mjölnir, he brought it around for another swing. A hand the size of his torso smacked into his chest and sent him flying. Everything whooshed past him and Thor crashed through a wooden support column, splitting it in half. His momentum carried him on, into a roaring flame that ignited his hair, beard, and furs.

  Desperate, he rolled to extinguish the flames, and managed to come to a stop on ground not yet aflame. Gasping, he lay there for a heartbeat. Whole damn room kept spinning. Thor tightened his grip on Mjölnir.

  Let it give him strength for this. For at least one more battle.

  Blood dribbled down his brow as he stumbled to his feet, stinging his eyes and further blurring his vision. There were times, with the apple’s power drawn and Mjölnir’s fury raised, when even the spots no longer bothered him. When all he could see was rage, focused in a singular direction. Absolute, unbridled fury.

  Maybe Hel would pity the object of his wrath. Thor had none.

  The nine-headed jotunn came blundering toward him, its weight crushing more of the floor and sending ashes tumbling down from above.

  “Welcome to your pyre,” Thor growled. And he raced back in.

  The jotunn swung with that hammer. Thor leapt up, over the weapon, and came down swinging Mjölnir not at the jotunn, but at the other hammer’s haft. Mjölnir shattered the wood in the jotunn’s grasp, sending bolts of lightning coursing along it, even as shards of wood exploded. The stone head flew free and crashed into another support column.

  Bellowing, the jotunn stumbled backward, gaping at a sliver of its own weapon that had wedged into the crook of one of its elbows.

  “Mine’s better,” Thor said, wiggling his hammer.

  The jotunn lunged at him, and Thor couldn’t fall back fast enough. A pair of hands grabbed him around the waist and hefted him into the air. They squeezed, pressing all wind from his lungs while holding him up into the smoke, choking him. It felt like a mountain pressing down on his sides. Those arms guided him toward a massive head, jaws lined with wolf-like fangs that seemed carved from stone.

  Bastard intended to literally bite his head off.

  Unable to get enough air to even scream, Thor whipped Mjölnir around in a clumsy arc. The hammer slammed into the jotunn’s jaw, knocking it off in a shower of blood and rock and bone.

  A chorus of eight other heads bellowed in agony, even as the jotunn dropped Thor to the ground. He landed in a crouch, but rose immediately, swinging up over his head to crack Mjölnir into a kneecap. Lightning lit the hall, leaping over rocky hide and across the jotunn, who stumbled backward, leaving a shower of blood in his wake.

  “One head for mother’s head,” Thor said, panting. He hefted the hammer. “How many appendages did you rip off, you trollfucking, stone-headed, rock-cocked piece of linnorm shit?”

  The jotunn fell into a battle crouch, eight heads all roaring at Thor, six arms raised, drawn back in threat.

  Thor didn’t give a fuck. “You killed my mother!”

  He whipped Mjölnir around to slam onto the forefinger of one hand, then back up to catch the wrist of another. Blasts of lightning erupted around him, but Mjölnir protected him from it.

  Thor pushed in, swinging over and over, each blow knocking out chips of rock and drawing forth springs of dark blood.

  Roaring, the jotunn grabbed a support column with four hands and yanked it free, splintering wood in the process.

  Huh. That didn’t seem like a good—

  The tree-sized club caught Thor in the chest and sent him hurtling. Everything blurred in a haze of white. A rush of wind. Something slamming into his back. Stealing what breath remained to him.

  A vague sensation of falling. Over and over, spinning round and round.

  Then stillness. A ringing filled his ears, drowning out all other sounds.

  He blinked, but the white light covered everything. That and pain. Vast oceans of pain, limitless, as if everything within him had broken.

  “… ince …”

  Someone shaking him.

  “My prince!”

  Slowly, his vision began to clea
r. Tyr was standing over him, slapping his cheek. Blurry though, as if seen from behind a waterfall.

  Tyr rose, growling, and jerked free a runeblade stuck into the ground. What …? Everything kept fucking spinning. Thor wanted off this damn boat, wherever the fuck it was bound. He wasn’t interested in a ride.

  That nine-headed jotunn had crashed through the main doorway to Valaskjalf, taking out half the wall in the process. And Thor lay on the mountainside, halfway down the slope. With Tyr racing up there, runeblade in hand, to engage the monstrosity.

  “Thrivaldi!” Tyr bellowed.

  Thing had a name. Oh. Of course it had a fucking name. Thor just didn’t care.

  Grunting, he pulled himself up to his side. Pain threatened to crush him. Pain like every rib was broken. Desperately, he seized the apple’s power. It pushed down the pain a bit. Just barely.

  Mjölnir. The hammer lay two dozen feet away. Without that, he’d never be able to stand.

  Shit. Fucking jotunn. Groaning, Thor began to drag himself toward the hammer.

  He glanced up. Somehow, Tyr stood on the jotunn’s shoulder, ramming that runeblade down through one of its necks. How the fuck had he done that? Most of Thor wanted to sit there and watch, try to figure out how the man pulled such stunts. Mightiest warrior in the world, they called Tyr. Most of the time, Thor found that insulting. Sometimes, though …

  Shit. He needed Mjölnir.

  Teeth grit, Thor continued to crawl toward the hammer. Felt like knives dug deeper into his guts with each foot he managed like that. Felt like something crushing him. Ruptured internal organs? Was he going to die, despite the apple? If so … he’d die on his fucking feet. Ramming his hammer down all nine of Thrivaldi’s throats. At the same fucking time.

  His fingertips brushed Mjölnir’s banded haft. Even that faint contact fed a lick of energy into him. It didn’t help his injuries. It just let him ignore them. His fist closed around it. Power flooded into him. The power of hundreds of damned, tormented, fury-filled souls eager to visit their suffering upon any and all they might encounter. Eager to devour that jotunn who’d murdered Mother.