by Matt Larkin
Gasping for air.
Seeming hardly affected by the pain, Heimdall charged in once more, his attacks almost blinding in their fury. The Watcher had strength and speed that would have awed even most spirits. An incarnation of power that could have crushed a mortal army single-handedly.
Fighting him was a kind of madness, perhaps, but Loki could not allow Heimdall to kill Odin.
Sweat streamed down Loki’s back as he dodged around the Watcher once more. Even with his pneuma, he could not outlast Heimdall. The Watcher had nigh unlimited stamina.
Loki darted around a tree, trying to gain a moment’s respite.
Heimdall’s fist burst through the trunk an instant later, splintering it, sending shards flying. His kick a heartbeat later sent the whole tree crashing down, its boughs scraping against those of nearby trees in cacophony.
Loki pivoted, leapt to another tree, and kicked off the trunk to gain enough height to reach the boughs of another.
As expected, Heimdall flapped his wings and surged upward, racing at Loki like an arrow from a bow. Loki flipped over the ascending Watcher, twisted around, and—bellowing—slashed with Laevateinn as he fell. The flaming runeblade tore through Heimdall’s wing, igniting feathers, shredding cartilage, and leaving a bloody, horrid mess in its wake.
The Watcher fell screaming to the forest floor, pitching end over end, unbalanced.
Loki landed in a crouch several feet away, caught himself, and charged in once more.
Heimdall shrieked in terrifying rage, bringing that blade up over his head. Blood now streamed from his ruined wing, flopping about the rainforest as the Watcher advanced on Loki.
A sudden twinge of regret seized Loki at so mutilating the Watcher. One he pushed down. Heimdall would now stop at naught to kill him, and Loki must return the favor. He had always known it would come to this.
Roaring, the Watcher charged in, sweeping his massive blade in great arcs. The tight confines of the rainforest ought to have impeded the use of so large a weapon. But the blade had begun to glow incandescent, and it sheared through tree branches as though they weren’t even there. Where it passed, wood and leaves exploded into embers, flitting around on the wind.
Loki fell into a stance he’d learned in Old Tianxia, a dance to deflect blows with minimum force, given his arms remained numb from parrying so many blows already. He dodged, twisted, pushing blows aside with his own blade only when absolutely necessary.
A slight opening allowed him to score a hit on Heimdall’s ribs. Once again, his runeblade proved able to cut through the mail, but just barely. Not enough to slow the Watcher. Not enough to win this.
No matter what it took, Loki would not allow Odin to fail this. The world could not survive that. And that meant, at whatever cost, Loki had to stop Heimdall.
And then the Watcher’s backhand sent Loki flying, spinning through the air. Everything out of focus.
The wind knocked from him as he slammed down on roots and tumbled off them. The runeblade slipped from his grasp, and with it the extra stamina and pneuma it granted.
Heimdall stalked in. “I’m going to destroy you, then I’ll rip his soul from his body!”
Loki panted, struggling to catch his breath. “… Barely handle me … how do you … expect to fight him?”
The Watcher sneered. “You’re always so sure about him. He’s weak. He’s never become all you hoped for, has he? And now, I’m going to make sure he never does. Perhaps the time has come for the cycle to end.”
“No.” Loki patted around until his fingers closed in on Laevateinn’s hilt.
Heimdall shook his head. “You die now. After so very long, finally, you die.”
Loki grimaced.
The Watcher charged, half-leaping over the root maze, shreds of his wing flapping behind him.
He had to die. Heimdall had to die so that Odin could succeed.
The cycle could not break.
Loki jerked Laevateinn upward, allowing the Watcher to impale himself on the runeblade, even as Heimdall drove his massive sword straight down through Loki’s chest.
The impact felt like getting kicked by an elephant. It stole his breath once more. The Watcher’s blade shot through Loki’s ribs, snapping them like kindling, punched through his lung and out, pinning him to the roots below.
But Laevateinn rent Heimdall’s mail and plunged right through the Watcher’s heart.
All strength slipped from Loki, his hand opening, releasing the runeblade.
Heimdall vomited a torrent of blood down onto Loki’s face and slumped to his knees, his expression a war of shock and rage. Disbelief at his death after eons of life.
Choking.
Choking on his own blood. Everything turning dim, distorted.
Loki’s mind not working. Body giving out.
His blood filled his throat, his mouth. Dribbled from the corners.
His vision fading. The slight awareness of the Watcher pitching over, falling beside him.
Couldn’t let Odin … fail …
The cycle …
Cycle …
22
No amount of dragon flesh would give Thor back his missing toes, missing finger, or missing teeth. That said, he felt strong. Really strong. The last linnorm, it had struck him with a claw and—though the hit had sent Thor flying—it had only barely broken his skin. A blow that might’ve disemboweled him not long ago.
Tyr had helped him slay four dragons.
Four. Fucking. Dragons.
Which meant Thor was … ugh … what was that word? Magnanimous! Er, wait … no. Magnificent! Thor the Magnificent!
Shame Tyr had run off after, insisting on meeting with some river mer and hunting down Fenrir.
Well, that hardly mattered anymore. Mjölnir overflowed with lightning. Even hanging from his belt, the hammer felt apt to erupt into storm any moment. And Thor … well, Thor had never felt stronger.
Just as well, given the rumors he’d heard. Oh, he’d intended to make for Idavollir, but then tale had come of another linnorm. The greatest linnorm, some said. Jörmungandr itself, surrounding the ruins of Asgard.
Which meant Thor knew what he had to do, and thus had made his way down through Valland, taken a small ship, and sailed for Andalus. Because Thor the Linnorm Slayer had a task before him.
Jörmungandr, if it truly was that fabled serpent, could wreak havoc unlike any other dragon in the world. Who knew, maybe it was even as powerful as Nidhogg, that Father so feared. So, Thor sailed for the beast, hand on the tiller, guiding his ship through mist and storm, south.
Home.
The home the jotunnar had stolen from him.
Well, maybe Thor the Magnificent-Linnorm-Slaying-Jotunn-Crusher would just have to take back Asgard while he was there. Once that was done, he’d go ahead and kill Hel and Nidhogg for Father. That, ought to earn him some tales from the skalds.
Maybe he’d even commission a tale. He’d call it … Thor Slays the Whole Fucking Cosmos. Children would ask for that tale as they sat around the fire pits! Men would cheer. Women would get wet.
Thor loved the poem already.
Spots swam before his eyes as his ship continued south. A great rumbling storm had cropped up, and for a time he’d fought with it, until passing through. The mists had begun to thin, though he didn’t think he was actually close enough to Asgard to have seen that yet.
Like the fires all over the world had begun to burn away the cursed vapors.
Hard to imagine, honestly. The mists … had just always been there. Everywhere, save for Asgard.
And now … Well, now maybe the whole world had changed. Was it better? Thor didn’t even have a guess. Damn eldjotunnar and the Sons were rampaging all over Midgard. At least the frost jotunnar had plans, strategies. They had goals beyond simply lighting everything in sight on fire.
Ah, well, once Thor had slain the serpent and reclaimed Asgard, he’d attend to the Sons. He’d smite and smite until they begged for mercy. Then he’d smit
e them for being such cravens and begging.
The mists were mostly just a haze now, preventing him from making out what lay far away, but he could have almost sworn, up there … glowing embers. Asgard was on fire, too.
Thor clucked his tongue.
Somebody would pay for this outrage.
Somebody would …
Ahead, something glistened, out in the mist. A slick … wall?
Oh. Fuck.
Thor jerked the tiller to starboard before he rammed clean into a wall of scales. A serpent, immense beyond imagining, was swimming in slow circles around Asgard.
The wind was up, and it carried him along the same path as Jörmungandr. Little doubt, now, that it was that legendary serpent he faced. Naught else could be so immense. Did it truly encircle the whole of the south island?
Thor shook his head.
How was he even to fight such a monstrosity? Much as he loved smiting, the sea serpent didn’t present a convenient target. It was just a wall of gray-green scales, stinking of brine, and glistening with water. Like the other linnorms, Jörmungandr had great spurs jutting from its spine. In this case, spurs larger than most jotunnar. The serpent must have a maw large enough to swallow Thor’s whole ship.
Heh. Imagine how bad its breath must be. Toxic fumes and acid and so forth.
Thor felt apt to retch at the mere thought of it.
But, Tyr had said the way to kill a dragon—or pretty much aught else—was to destroy head or heart. Thor didn’t have a fucking clue where the linnorm’s heart would lie, so maybe he’d have to go for the head.
Eventually, the serpent’s path took it out of the line of the wind. Which meant, Thor was no longer closing in on the thing’s head.
That left him with an unenviable choice. Bring the ship about and wait for the serpent to circle all the way around—and spot him, come right at him—or mount the serpent and run along its bulk to try to reach its head.
“Which would make the better tale, Thor?” he grumbled under his breath. “Oh. I’ll tell you which makes the better tale. The one where Thor mounts the serpent and puts Sigurd Fafnirsbane to shame. Sigurd who? That’s what they’ll ask when I’m done.”
Sounded like a plan. Be bold. Show that serpent that it might be big, but Thor’s stones were even bigger. Big as … fucking … uh … mountains.
Thor backed up to the far side of his ship, drawing the apple’s power—he refused to call it pneuma, the stupid made-up word—into his legs. Then he took off, running, leaping, a heartbeat flying through the air.
He collided with the scale wall. Which turned out to be slick and wet. His body slid down it, hands flailing, slapping, trying to gain purchase. His fingers lodged behind a scale and he dangled there, holding on by one hand—one missing a damn finger, even—legs kicking against the slick surface for a moment, before finally managing to climb enough, and catch a scale with another hand.
The scales themselves were almost the size of his torso, tough but somewhat pliant. And the serpent didn’t even react to having Thor pull on them. Maybe it didn’t even notice. To the dragon, he must seem like a tiny pest.
Well, this ant had a fucking stinger. One that shat out lightning bolts.
Thor climbed upward, forcing himself higher, and higher, until he managed to crest the top of the serpent. It swam in such a slow, steady course, he could walk along it without falling, assuming he was careful of his footing.
Especially careful, given his lack of toes on one foot. Damn Narfi for that nonsense.
Sweat plastered the back of his shirt, and seawater had drenched his beard. Wet and uncomfortable was what he was. Oh, but the tales! Skalds would hardly even believe this, he suspected. They’d have called it fancy, mist-madness. Except Thor aimed to have a corpse the size of an island as proof. Hard to deny a feat when a miles-long stinking carcass was there right in front of you.
Grinning—no one here to see this missing teeth anyway—Thor plodded on, careful of his footing, but going with as much speed as he could muster. It was time to get this done. Time to let the so-called Midgard Serpent feel Mjölnir’s wrath!
How dare the serpent … er … swim around! How dare it swim around Asgard? For such a … crime … Thor would bring down the greatest smiting in all of history! Today, he would give new meaning to the word smote!
As it turned out, Jörmungandr was really, really fucking long.
Running for miles over a brine-reeking, slick, scaled beast was not only a little tiring, it was … ugh, what was that word? Disheartening! Just how long could this thing really be?
Huffing, Thor faltered a moment. There, a hundred feet more, that looked like its head. Great horn-like spines rising out of the water, taller than towers. The biggest rose straight up from its back, but other curving horns jutted out at other angles, like the whole head was a forest of misshapen spires.
And this thing could’ve eaten a fucking longship.
Thor stood there, hesitating, gaping at the thing. What was wrong with him? Had he gone craven? All he had to do was rush in there and beat the creature to death with his hammer … which suddenly felt like someone trying to stab Thor with the clipped end of a fingernail.
Thor worked his shoulders.
All right.
All right.
He’d eaten from the hearts of four dragons. He held the mightiest weapon in the world.
And also, he was Thor.
Not many could say that.
“All right, then.” He unstrapped Mjölnir. As soon as he touched the hammer’s haft, its awesome power flooded into him, eroding even that tiny hint of doubt that had cropped up in his mind.
Thor was no craven.
If it lived, he could kill it.
He worked his arms. He cracked his neck. He bellowed a war cry.
The serpent didn’t even bother looking at him.
Hardly mattered. Thor charged forth, Mjölnir raised over his head. He’d bash Jörmungandr’s brains in if it was the last thing he ever did.
Rushing forward, he charged around one of those great, towering spurs rising from the serpent’s spine. The thing had to be forty feet long, maybe longer. Roaring, Thor smacked the spire with Mjölnir as he passed.
Thunder crashed, the clap so loud his ears rung. Bolts of lightning leapt off the horn, crackling along flesh, jumping to other spurs. Scales exploded in a rain of gore and acidic blood.
And Jörmungandr bellowed.
The force of its roar had Thor stumbling, the sound so powerful it felt like his head would blast apart. It set his teeth hurting, feeling like they would crack. But the power of dragons ran through Thor, and he wasn’t done yet.
Continuing forward, he slammed Mjölnir into another horn, unleashing a web of lightning that erupted all around him in blinding chains of power. The serpent’s flesh burned, peeled, and ruptured, unleashing geysers of blood in Thor’s wake.
“Who’s big now?” Thor shouted, unable to even hear his words over the ringing in his ears.
He couldn’t hear, but he could feel the serpent roaring once more, the power of it sending vibrations through Thor’s whole body.
And then Jörmungandr reared up, spun around.
Its bulk surged, creating waves the size of mountains crashing over the islands below. It twisted around, trying to catch sight of Thor, though he was too close to its head. He fell, tumbling through the air, before colliding with a scale his attacks had blown loose.
He caught it.
The scale ripped off the monster and Thor fell again.
Slammed back first into a spur.
Jörmungandr was vertical now, rising up, hundreds of feet above the waters. Thor caught a rough edge of the spur and dangled, clutching Mjölnir with a death grip, his feet kicking wildly below him in desperation.
Oh. Fuck.
A fall from this height might not kill him, infused as he was with dragon power. But … could he keep his grip on Mjölnir? Could he even hope to assault Jörmungandr again?
> His attack had been madness.
Even with the hammer screaming in his mind, seeming to beg for the soul of so mighty a monstrosity, he could see his arrogance in thinking to fight such a creature. Now, his only shot at victory, at survival, lay in not letting go.
But he couldn’t climb with one hand holding the hammer.
He had no way to regain his footing.
And his hand was slipping.
A sudden, swift jerk of its head. And Thor flew free, sailing through the air like a shooting star. Wind stealing his breath, swallowing his screams. Threatening to tear out his hair and beard.
Desperately, he clutched Mjölnir to his chest with both hands, refusing to let the hammer go.
Couldn’t lose it.
No matter what else happened.
He was flying, hundreds of feet. More.
The wind wanted to rip him apart.
The waves were rushing up at him now.
Oh, fu—
The ocean slammed into him as if he’d fallen into solid rock. He skipped along the surface, three times, tumbling end over end, before shooting beneath the waves. Saltwater surged up his nose, choking him.
Overwhelming currents seized him, flung him about.
He ought to be dead. At least unconscious.
He could feel pain tugging at his mind. Trying to drag him under. Mjölnir’s rage blocking out pain. The power of dragons hardening his bones so that none had broken. Toughening his skin like armor.
But the currents! A maelstrom stirred up by the swimming bulk of the serpent.
And there, ahead, eyes glowing hot, furious, as that head shot toward him, lancing through the water so fast he couldn’t even—
Jaws the size of a palace snapped down on him and Thor snared his arm around a rough, serpentine tongue. Caught a breath—couldn’t see a damn thing—as the seawater surged down the dragon’s gullet.
And he’d been right before: now that he drew a breath, the stench in here had become overpowering. A toxic cloud of poison vapors, acid, and rotting meat that had Thor gasping for breath. He could feel the serpent’s poisons saturating him. They seeped in through his clothes, through his skin. Eitr, unlike aught he’d ever experienced, now trying to unmake him from the inside out.
