Twilight of the Gods

by Scott Oden

  A look of profound sadness crossed the giant Northman’s face as a yard of bright steel bit into the thick muscles of his neck. He stumbled, clutching at the terrible wound as he turned to face his slayer. One hook-fingered hand clawed for Konraðr, a last act of defiance, but the Crusader danced aside and struck Brodir again, then a third time, and then a fourth. He struck until the berserkr sank down; struck until there was nothing left in that giant vessel save blood and regret.

  And then, Konraðr the White came for Dísa, his manner as savage and single-minded as Grimnir’s.

  Dísa met him blade to blade.

  Steel crashed and slithered. The pair fought in silence, their arena the smoke-wreathed ruin of Hrafnhaugr’s gate. Fires guttered amid the detritus of a hundred broken lives, the burning memories of the dead providing ample light for the living. Konraðr hissed and struck. Spittle flew from cracked lips as he leaned in and tried to batter the young woman to her knees. But Dísa knew better than to let the bastard gain the upper hand through his heavier weight or his longer reach. She was canny, and she fought like a skrælingr.

  She threw every trick, every stratagem Grimnir had taught her at the lord of Skara. She used her slight size, danced around his heavier blade, and tried to catch him low. For his part, Konraðr handled his sword like a hammer, with Dísa’s arm the anvil—until he needed it to be a scalpel.

  But for all the flash and thunder of their duel, it was a simple misstep that ended it. Dísa went in low, feinting left and slashing to the right. She sent him dancing back with a blow that rasped on the hem of his hauberk—that soft metallic hiss more ominous than any bellowed threat of gelding. Dísa laughed. She skipped back …

  … And tripped over dead Brodir’s outstretched hand.

  The young woman cursed, flailed, and cursed again as Konraðr’s riposte split the mail protecting the ball of her shoulder. Dísa felt hot blood and a sudden, stomach-lurching fear. Then, the pain hit her like a mallet. She stumbled back, her off hand and arm suddenly useless.

  Konraðr gave her no respite. Eyes blazing, he hammered her to her knees. His booted heel kicked her seax away, the blade spinning from her grasp to clatter among the stones. Death gleamed in his reddish eyes as he drew his sword back for a last blow.

  Without warning, the lord of Skara staggered and gasped as a hurled stone caught him square in the chest.

  Dísa scrambled after her blade, her eyes looking wildly about for her savior. She expected to see Grimnir’s choleric face; instead, through the drifting smoke came Úlfrún, axe in hand, pale eyes blazing in fury. When she spoke, her voice was the voice of the grave:

  “Wolf shall fight she-Wolf | in Raven’s shadow.”

  Konraðr stood a moment, glaring. Then, in one smooth motion he crouched and caught up a fallen shield. “So be it,” he growled, straightening.

  * * *

  DEEP IN THE BARROW, THERE were no witnesses to the duel unfolding between kaunr and dvergr, save for the sightless eyes of the long dead. By that eerie blue glow, Náli’s deadly spear darted and sang, its song one of blood and vengeance; in Grimnir’s black-nailed hands Sárklungr came alive, supple and quick, the iron recognizing its own. Breath hissed through clenched teeth; iron rasped and rang.

  Grimnir swayed like a drunkard, sidestepping thrusts and ducking under sweeps from the spear’s weighted butt; Náli backpedaled. His advantage lay in the reach of his spear, and he strove to keep Grimnir at a distance. The choice of ground, however, worked against him. Step by step, Grimnir forced him back, until Náli’s heels dislodged an avalanche of finger bones from the wyrm’s pile.

  The dwarf cursed; he glanced down to be sure of his footing.

  Grimnir used that distraction. Snarling, he seized the shaft of the spear behind the lugged head, hauled it forward, and hacked through it. Wood splintered beneath Sárklungr’s keen edge, leaving the dvergr with a nigh useless club. For the span of a heartbeat, Náli wondered what to do with his foreshortened spear.

  Grimnir decided it for him.

  Sárklungr came in low and fast; its cutting edge bit into Náli’s mail over his hip. Steel rings snapped and parted. The blade sliced into cloth, skin, flesh, and bone. The black and stinking blood of the dvergar spilled over Grimnir’s fist. With a grunt, he drew the blade back, nearly disemboweling the hapless dwarf. “Who’s the niðingr now, you wretch?”

  Náli sank down against the bones beneath the wyrm’s skull. The mound shifted, until it looked like Malice-Striker’s skeletal head bent over Náli’s bleeding body in an attitude of concern. The dvergr didn’t curse or rail; no threats or imprecations spilled from his slack lips. Indeed, he smiled up at Grimnir, the light in his one eye undimmed.

  “I was c-certain,” he said after a moment. “Certain you’d k-kill the bitch. That would have b-been easiest. But this … this will d-do.”

  “What are you yammering on about?”

  Náli spat a gobbet of black blood. “You’re a f-fool, son of Bálegyr, but a useful fool.” He rested his cheek against the wyrm’s temple. His strength ebbed. “It was n-never about … the sword.” Thus died Náli son of Náinn.

  Grimnir stared at the dwarf’s corpse. In death, something ripped away from the body, something grim and cold and reeking of the frosts of Ásgarðr. The Allfather’s hamingja, his luck. Náli’s corpse took on its original form: a gnarled and twisted shadow of what he’d been under the Allfather’s aegis, hunchbacked and foul. Grimnir, though, did not crow and caper in his victory. Instead, he puzzled over the dwarf’s dying words. Things didn’t make sense, and Grimnir had a niggling feeling he was missing something, some colossal jest leveled at him. Nevertheless, he thrust his doubts aside and readied himself to strike the last blow—the blow that would remove Malice-Striker’s head from its neck.

  “This will do, he said,” Grimnir muttered. “This…”

  Suddenly, the truth struck him. This was no duel. It was a sacrifice. Náli had meant for him to strike down Úlfrún. But this will do!

  “Ymir’s blood!” Even as Grimnir sprang forward, intent on striking the juncture of the dragon’s head and neck, a feral green light kindled deep in the wyrm’s left eye socket. The nightmarish head, clothed in a loose veneer of bony scales, lashed to the side, striking Grimnir in the shoulder. The blow sent him spinning; Sárklungr slipped from his grasp.

  And as Malice-Striker, mighty Niðhöggr, the wyrm of Ragnarök, roused itself from its centuries-long slumber, the stones around them began to tremble and shake …

  25

  By the greasy orange light of a hundred dying fires, the Ghost-Wolf of Skara met the she-Wolf of the North.

  Dísa watched them crash together. Having only one hand did not hamper Úlfrún in the least; her axe twirled and sang, as nimble as any sword. Its iron-banded haft took blows that might have snapped the handles of lesser weapons, and its bearded blade thrust as easily as it slashed. For good measure, she battered his shield with her iron hand.

  But Konraðr the White was no craven bench-hugger. Forged in the crucible of the East, a veteran of the sack of Constantinople and a survivor of the rout at Adrianople, he wielded his sword with a canny skill. Edge, point, and hilt—all were tools that served a purpose, whether that be to gouge, to cut, or to batter. Nor did he ignore the iron-banded edge of his shield, or its dented central boss.

  After the first clash, both grew more wary of the other. They circled, panting; Konraðr slung sweat from his reddish eyes.

  “You’ve been gulled, Skara,” Úlfrún hissed. “There were never any saints’ bones, here.”

  “Liar!”

  Úlfrún chuckled. “I was gulled, too. I came looking for a sword, left by my kinsman, Sigfroðr the Volsung, after he’d slain his cursed dragon. That was a lie.”

  “The sword was Saint Teodor’s,” Konraðr said. “The skrælingr has bewitched you.” Konraðr came at her hard; he led with his shield, thrusting over its rim and turning her parry into a pair of whistling slashes that, had they connec
ted, would have taken off the top of her head at the brow. Úlfrún’s riposte, a stiff-armed thrust with her iron hand to the center of his shield, staggered the lord of Skara. Wood cracked and splintered; her axe forced him to relinquish the shield if he wanted to save his hide.

  Úlfrún stepped back, disengaging from the fight. Panting, she watched the Crusader warily. “Let me guess: an old man with one eye told you where the sword of your blessed saint was? Who was the old man to you?”

  Konraðr ducked his head and spat, hiding a sudden frown. “A ghost. The ghost of a man I’d slain in the streets of Constantinople. How—?”

  “To me, he took the guise of the Grey Wanderer.”

  “God’s teeth, you lying—”

  Úlfrún chose that moment to strike. Quick as a cat, she darted inside Konraðr’s guard and dealt him a blow to the stomach with the butt of her axe haft. The albino lord of Skara doubled over, his breath exploding from his lungs. As he struggled to breathe, to fight, and to survive, Úlfrún of the Iron Hand sent him sprawling with straight punch, her fingers stiffened by the handle of her axe.

  Konraðr toppled sideways, dazed.

  Dísa whooped and scuttled for her seax. She wanted to be there for the kill, to watch the Witch-man’s blood pour out over the soil of what was once Hrafnhaugr, her home. But a sharp word from Úlfrún brought her up short. She glared at the older woman, confused.

  On the ground, Konraðr clawed for his sword; Úlfrún kicked it away. The lord of Skara sighed, cuffing the blood from his split lip. He eyed her upraised axe. “End it, then, but cease your lies, bitch.”

  Dísa started forward, eager for the last blow to fall …

  * * *

  WHILE THE WOLVES OF PROPHECY strove and struggled on the surface, deep in the heart of the barrow Grimnir fought a battle of his own. He dove for his fallen sword, black-hilted Sárklungr. Above him, the wyrm stretched its long neck, skeletal vertebrae popping and crackling; it opened its mouth as if to speak, but all that came from that yawning darkness was a deadly foetor. It hissed at the crawling thing.

  As Grimnir came to his feet, he finally understood the game. It wasn’t vengeance for a slain father Náli wanted, nor was it vengeance for what befell him two hundred years ago when he and Grimnir clashed on the Ash-Road, between worlds. He’d engineered this, placing a geas on Úlfrún and haunting that hymn-singing wretch, Konraðr, because the iron blade of Sárklungr, forged from the heart of a fallen star in the dark fires of Niðavellir, kept Odin’s witchery from working. That one-eyed starver of ravens wanted his wyrm back, so he’d hatched a plan …

  Grimnir swore he saw a smile curl the bony lips of that thrice-cursed beast. It stared at him, its greenish gaze unsettling. Nevertheless, he put himself between that thing and the lake leading to the barrow’s underwater exit. Sárklungr’s honed edges reflected the eerie blue light. Grimnir bared his teeth in a snarl of rage. Here was the slayer of Orkahaugr, the beast who murdered his mother. “This is your tomb, wretch!” he growled. “You’ll leave it over my broken corpse!”

  And with an angry cough, Malice-Striker took Grimnir up on his offer.

  That skeletal neck, armored by tatterdemalion scales and bony spines, snapped forward, driving its wedge-shaped head. Its jaws yawned; rows of razor-edged teeth snapped on empty air as Grimnir dove aside. Its tail flicked whiplike, made nearly weightless by the loss of its sheathing muscle and sinew. What drove the thews of the beast, now, was hate and the last shreds of sorcery culled from the Elder Age.

  The son of Bálegyr skidded under that lashing tail. Sárklungr flashed; a chunk of scale sailed off—not enough to damage the wyrm, but enough to enrage it. The thing’s shriek was as piercing as nails across slate. Again, its head darted around, and only a last-minute leap kept Grimnir from being bitten in half.

  “Show me that blasted head,” he snarled. It had no vitals, no heart or lungs; his only choices were hack it to pieces or return Sárklungr to its resting place, nestled in the bones of the beast’s skull.

  Malice-Striker understood him. Rising to its full extension, it kept its head out of the fray. But it needed room. It needed to feed on the rich red gore that foamed from the hearts of men. And it needed to kill this worm dancing before it.

  The dragon screamed. It arched its spine, driving itself back on its thick-boned legs. It struck the wall of the barrow like a battering ram. Again and again, it pummeled the stone of its prison, until the black waters of Skærvík sprang from cracks in the wall.

  Grimnir cursed. He had no target. The thing’s head was out of reach and its body was a collection of bones and rotting scale knitted together and given life by sorcery. It had found a way to escape into the world and drown him, for good measure.

  With a deafening shriek, it crashed one last time against the wall; Grimnir heard stone break. He heard the roar of water. But before the rising inundation could seize him, before it could sweep him into range of the beast’s clashing jaws, Grimnir chose discretion over valor and dove for the fissure leading to the surface, Sárklungr clutched in a lover’s embrace.

  Water boiled and foamed around him, but he dragged himself from the stony heart of the barrow and collapsed against the slime-fouled stones. Overhead, an eerie curtain of green radiance played across the star-flecked heavens. The island-barrow heaved. “Ymir’s blood and piss!” Grimnir scrambled to his feet, lost his balance; he tumbled and skidded, Sárklungr ringing against the stones as he slid into the cold waters of Skærvík. Though sodden cloth and mail weighted him down, he nevertheless scissored his legs and kicked back to the surface. From there, he bore witness to the emergence of Niðhöggr.

  The wyrm exploded through the fissure, sending rocks and water cascading off its scaled hide. At first, its sole green eye swept the night, seeking for its ancient foe, but then its nostrils caught the war-reek of Hrafnhaugr—the stench of blood. Whatever energy animated it recognized the rich red gore, the heart-broth of weakling men that would restore its sinews and harden its armor.

  The thing clambered up the slope, over the ruins of Gautheimr, and into the broken streets of Hrafnhaugr.

  * * *

  TO DÍSA’S DISMAY, ÚLFRÚN DID not kill the lord of Skara even though he was at her mercy. Instead, she squatted on her haunches, her axe across her knees. “Call me a liar one more time, you milky bastard, and I’ll do to you what Dísa is eager to see me do! We’ve been gulled, I tell you. Led by the nose like a pair of sacrificial bulls, for more years than we can count.”

  “But if what you say is true, that means all of this…” A gesture from him encompassed more than the field of destruction, but the whole of the land around them.

  “Was for nothing,” Úlfrún finished for him. “And we fight here, now, because a hundred seasons before either of us was born, a prophecy was uttered about the breaking of the world. And it was a lie.”

  Konraðr shook his head, glaring sidelong at her. “No, no … everything spoken of in the prophecy has come to pass.”

  “Because we have made it come to pass.”

  Dísa charged into their conversation, her seax leveled at the lord of Skara. “Why do you yammer on? Kill him and have done, or stand aside!”

  Úlfrún eyed the albino. She was a good judge of men, and the lord of Skara was a good man—for all that he was a Christian. “There’s no need,” she said after a moment, rising.

  “He owes me a life!” Dísa hissed. Tears of rage, of frustration broke from the corners of her eyes and tracked down her cheeks. “He killed my friends! He destroyed my home, and for what? For what?”

  “For the sake of war,” Konraðr replied, suddenly weary. He leaned back on his off hand, reclining like a man with nothing left to fear. “For that is what warriors do, little bird.”

  “Don’t call me that!” she screamed. “You haven’t earned the right!”

  Konraðr acquiesced, nodding and raising his free hand. “My apologies.”

  “We’ve all lost,” Úlfrún said. For the firs
t time, she felt the true weight of her years. “Friends, those we’ve loved. We’ve lost time we can never get back to the schemes of an Elder World.”

  Konraðr raised a fine-haired eyebrow. “Your skrælingr?”

  “This wasn’t Grimnir’s doing,” Dísa snapped. She, too, sat, straddling a broken paling with her naked seax across her lap—as though unsure if she’d kill the albino or not.

  “She’s right,” Úlfrún said. “There was another, a dwarf called Náli. He was our old man, our Grey Wanderer. He’s the one who gulled us into killing each other.”

  “So,” Konraðr said, looking at the two women through a veil of sweat-damp white hair. “What do we do now?”

  “Bury our dead. Then you go your way, Skara,” Úlfrún said, glancing sidelong at Dísa. “And we’ll go ours.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to crawl to my cousin, the king, and explain why I’m not reinforcing his crusade in Estonia.” Konraðr shook his head.

  “You hymn-singers and your wretched crusades.” Dísa spat. “Just let us live in peace.”

  Konraðr started to reply, but his words were lost to the wind as the ground underfoot resumed its chaotic quaking. Flames leapt; screams echoed across the ruined village. And over the women’s shoulders, beyond the far edge of Hrafnhaugr where Gautheimr once stood, Konraðr the White glimpsed something that would have driven another man mad. Even so, the lord of Skara crossed himself with a trembling hand.

  “Mother of God!”

  Úlfrún and Dísa followed his wide-eyed gaze. Curses fell from their lips, for cresting the end of Hrafnhaugr they beheld the single burning eye and bony visage of the dread wyrm, Niðhöggr.

  The Malice-Striker had awoken from centuries of slumber, and it had a terrible thirst for human blood …