Stormbringer

by Alis Franklin

  “We should burn them,” Eisa muttered. “Let Ásgarðr know they are not welcome in our lands.”

  “That would be war, sister,” Valdís replied.

  A snippet of mythology tugged at Sigmund’s mind. “Don’t they, like, come back alive or something?”

  Eisa nodded. “At the dawn. Meanwhile, their bodies will be left out in the fields for the ravens.”

  “Eww.”

  “You bought us dinner, little one.” Sigmund’s reappearance had been noted by the þursar, three of them coming over to investigate. They were . . . they were really freakin’ huge. Eight or nine feet tall at least, broad across the shoulders and rippling with more muscle than a Frank Miller film. Except, unlike a Frank Miller film, they were women. Sigmund thought. At least two of the three. Maybe.

  “The boy is not for you,” Eisa snapped. Sigmund tried not to bristle at being referred to as “boy” by someone who not only looked like a child, but was also his sort-of daughter.

  “I do not think you will be the judge of that.” The speaking þursar had skin the color of old mahogany and feathers like a forest after rain. She loomed, even over Sleipnir’s back, and her teeth were very sharp and very white where she bared them at Sigmund. “I am Skinnhúfa,” she said. “Tell me, little meat, why you are not dinner.”

  “Um” was about what Sigmund could manage. “Well, um. I’m Sigmund. You could eat me, I guess, but actually I’m just trying to look for my friend. He passed through here not long ago.”

  Skinnhúfa’s bright yellow eyes narrowed. “There have been no others.” Which was a bald-faced lie.

  “He’s a jötunn.” Sigmund decided working around it was better than going through. “Bit shorter than you. Charcoal-y skin, orange feathers. Big glowing tattoo thing . . . was probably traveling with some æsir.”

  That got a reaction, Skinnhúfa’s lips drawing back from her sharp teeth in a snarl. “Bölvasmiðr,” she said. Not for the first time, Sigmund wondered just how many names Lain needed in one lifetime. “That featherless traitor’s name will get you nowhere in these woods, meat.”

  From his left, Sigmund heard Valdís growl, deep and low. Eisa none-too-subtly reached for her knife. “Watch your mouth,” the former snarled. “That ‘featherless traitor’ is our father.”

  Skinnhúfa spat. “And every day we wake hoping you will forget it. He is an honorless beast, and his allies will find no comfort here.”

  “You have seen him, though,” Sigmund said. “And he doesn’t look like he used to, I bet you noticed that, too. You might not help me for his sake, but you’ll definitely help me for yours. I mean, don’t you want to know why he was getting dragged through the middle of your lands?”

  This earned Sigmund a scoff, and a, “I have no interest in the schemes of æsir.” Which was also a lie.

  “After the Ragnarøkkr,” Sigmund said, “a bunch of things went missing. Mjölnir was one of them. Ásgarðr wants them back, and they’re using Lain—Bolvaswhatsit—to do it. Now, if you’re still not interested, then I guess you’ll have to eat me. If you are, well . . .” Sigmund shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll be able to help each other out, won’t we?” As he spoke, he wasn’t watching Skinnhúfa. She was doing a good job of feigning disinterest, but the þursar behind her weren’t. Loki and Thor’s kids, on a quest to regain the one weapon whose sole purpose was to hammer þursar into the ground. They didn’t have to like Lain to want to stop that from happening.

  In the end, Skinnhúfa’s self-preservation won out. And Sigmund avoided winding up as dinner.

  For a little while, at least.

  Chapter 16

  Meanwhile, somewhere else, dawn broke over Ásgarðr.

  It brought with it a remarkable sight. One that had Munin cawing laughter, from where it circled high over the Wall.

  The Wall, which this morning was a flurry of activity, enough distraction for Munin to land on the battlements without fear of a cold iron welcome from Forseti’s misappropriated thugs. Ásgarðr had more fat and lazy ravens than the Tower of London, and if one extra happened to blend in with the flock, then who was going to notice in comparison to what Hel’s brood had been getting up to in the night.

  “What is it?” That was Forseti, scowling and angry after being woken too early by an overeager einheri. He was still holding Gungnir. Munin wasn’t sure what it thought about that.

  The band had stopped playing deep into the evening, guitars going silent and mics hissing themselves to sleep. This morning, náir swarmed all around the place that had been cleared for the impromptu concert, erecting what looked like it was going to be a much more permanent stage. Meanwhile, the entire army had fallen back a good few dozen feet, and it was the vacated space that was currently putting the lines in Forseti’s brow.

  “I don’t know, my Lord.” The hapless einheri was just as flummoxed. Too old by a good thousand years to figure out the trick.

  Munin, of course, had worked it out straightaway.

  “Are they . . . spells?” The einheri was trying, Munin would give him that. It doubted the guy could even read, just recognize the shapes of the runes that’d been cut into the earth, furrows marked by rocks, pale against the blighted ground.

  “No.”

  Forseti could read, so he’d know the runes spelt out a name: Sölvi. Not a special name, no one notable that Munin knew of. The woman who’d cut the name was sitting next to it, patiently knitting socks with a single needle.

  Forseti scowled at the word for a moment longer. Then, “Tell me if others appear.”

  The einheri straightened at the order, then bowed, watching in obvious confusion as Forseti stalked off in silence. Forseti, who could read . . . and knew a lot of other people inside Ásgarðr couldn’t.

  Munin waited until the golden-haired jackass was back inside before fluttering down to land next to the perplexed guard.

  “Hey, kid.”

  The einheri startled, eyes whipping around to find the source of the words. He was young. Thick and dumb and dead too soon. Kept that way by a thousand years locked up preparing for a war he had no option but to lose.

  A war that was over. Leaving him minus one job. More or less.

  “Who speaks?”

  “Me. The bird.” Munin cawed, flapping and hopping for emphasis. It knew when the kid caught on by the way his back straightened and his eyes were suddenly everywhere that wasn’t black and feathery.

  “Begone, vile thing,” he said. “Speaking with birds is wicked magic.”

  Amazing, really. How quickly Odin’s successors had tried to bury his legacy.

  “Whatever,” Munin said. “You don’t have to talk to me, anyway. But you should probably talk to Sölvi.” That was a hunch, but it was a good one.

  Countdown: one, two, three, fo—

  “. . . Why?”

  A vindicated one.

  “’Cause I’m betting he’s gonna wanna see those runes out there in the dirt.”

  In the war between curiosity and obeying the edicts of an asshole like Forseti, Munin thought it really wasn’t any contest.

  And Sölvi? Well, turned out he couldn’t read much, but he could read his own name. Not to mention recognize his wife’s voice as she called for him across the no-man’s-land between Hel and the Wall.

  By midday, it had turned into quite a scene, Sölvi demanding to be let out the gate to see the wife he hadn’t held or kissed or heard for more than a thousand years. And Forseti, storming out of his hall and demanding order, Gungnir’s haft striking against the dirt.

  “Hel is Loki’s daughter,” he’d told the crowd. “As wicked and twisted as her skin. She seeks to lure you from your duty, into the maws of the vicious beasts she births from her fetid wake. Do not fall for her deceit! Stay true to Ásgarðr, and your duty.”

  There’d been lots of stern-faced nodding, Sölvi slinking off somewhere to brew resentment from shame mixed in a cauldron of a too-long neglected heart. The men—and the shiledmaidens—of Ásgarðr
vowed they would not be swayed.

  Meanwhile, outside the walls, their children and mothers and wives began to weave their fate.

  The gates opened sometime a little after midday, at least by Wayne’s estimation. The clock on her phone was reading somewhere north of three a.m., but the sun was riding high in cloudless blue and all around people were sitting down to lunch, which, considering most everyone was dead, Wayne found maybe more amusing than she should’ve.

  For her part, Wayne was not eating lunch. Instead, she was standing next to Em and slightly behind Hel, right on the edge of the Helbleed’s line. Hel had been insistent it be only the three of them at the front, and her various advisers and commanders and so on had liked the notion about as much as could be expected, which was to say not at all.

  “We are not here for war,” Hel had told them, and Wayne had wondered what Sigmund would’ve thought about the line.

  The negotiations came first.

  Behind them, more and more families were waiting to take their turn at the front of what Em insisted they start calling “the march.”

  “This isn’t an army” had been her reasoning, echoing Hel’s words. “It’s a protest rally. Asgard just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Ásgarðr didn’t, but Helheimr did. Word had spread quickly overnight, taken on the wings of drekar. Today, lines of people—men and women, old and young—had formed, carrying everything from farm tools to shields to enormous tapestries. Anything they could use that would get the attention of their einheri family members, trapped behind the Wall.

  Magnhildr had been the first, carving her husband’s name into the ground and setting stones into the grooves. The letters hadn’t quite been the ones Wayne had expected, at least compared to the bag of cowbone runes she’d bought as a teenager. Em said it was because Wayne’s runes were at least a century or two too old for their current company. Either way, the sign had exactly the impact Em had predicted, Magnhildr and her boy exchanging heartbreaking cries, at least until the latter’s superiors had come to drag him away. After that, there’d been no more sound from Ásgarðr’s side. But no one had failed to notice more and more heads were peering over the battlements.

  Em was planning to give them something to look at.

  In the meantime, it was Hel’s turn.

  Hel, who’d been very clear it be only the three of them out to meet Ásgarðr’s delegation. Unsurprisingly, Ásgarðr had no such compunctions, and as soon as the gates opened no less than two dozen men poured out, mail clanking and spears bristling like an angry mechanical echidna. The warriors walked in a ball around a woman, dressed in gold and silks and furs, head held high and regal. That was Nanna, Baldr’s wife and possibly Ásgarðr’s regent in her husband’s “absence.” Wayne could see why Sigmund had been worried; the ásynja was stunning. Hollywood-level Photoshop stunning, skin smooth and pale, sun-blond hair woven into a cascade of gems and flowers.

  She was also kinda short, shorter than Em even, meaning Hel towered over her when she approached. Nanna’s eyes were bright and pale and unafraid, even as she looked up into the veiled face of Death, and the fearlessness was in contrast to the twitching of her escort, half of whom kept scanning around as if expecting an ambush at any moment.

  “Hel, sister of the Wolf, caretaker of the dead,” Nanna said, bowing slightly. “Ásgarðr greets you.”

  Hel returned the gesture, the metal charms hanging from her horns chiming with the motion. “Nanna, lady of grief, bringer of courage. Helheimr seeks your wisdom.”

  It was all very formal. Hel had already arranged for seating and a table to be assembled across the Line; she took one side while Nanna perched on the other. Wayne thought it looked a little like the world’s most unallegorical chess game, made doubly so by the pale cream of Nanna’s clothes. Wayne wondered what that metaphor made her and Em. Knights, probably, zigzagging across the board, fast and mobile. Or maybe Wayne was the castle, stalwart and resolute, with Em as one of those priest-hat guys, always running crosswise to everyone else.

  Em, whose atheism hadn’t been swayed in the slightest by the discovery of the literal reality of gods, would absolutely loathe the comparison. Wayne decided to mention it at the first possible opportunity.

  Not now, though. Now was for standing stern and watching.

  “Ásgarðr grows restless, honored sister,” Nanna was saying. “Some inside believe you have brought war unto our doorstep.”

  “I am the caretaker of the dead, not their Queen.” Hel’s voice was flat and calm, but Wayne could see the shifting beneath the fabric of her sleeves. Like someone clenching and unclenching their fists. “I cannot decree what they do or where they go. Odin gave me dominion over their care, not power to command their will, and it is in the first capacity that I have come.”

  “Is all well in the lands of mist and shadow? I had understood the Realms to be quiet, resting after the excess of Ragnarøkkr.”

  “As it should have been.” Hel inclined her head, just slightly. “Yet, forgive me, my lady, but there are those who look on Ásgarðr’s actions as of late with consternation. There is a belief that you seek to topple the uneasy peace won through blood and fire. Your husband’s recent . . . campaign in Miðgarðr . . .” She trailed off, raising one hand to gesture, as if in apology for bringing up awkward subjects.

  “Awkward” being an understatement. Wayne had always been a little unclear on what would’ve happened if Sigmund hadn’t stabbed Baldr through the heart and Lain hadn’t . . . eaten his soul. Or whatever the (a-har) Hel had happened. “Lots of bad things” was about as far as she’d ever gotten.

  Nanna scowled, just slightly. Just one tiny crease in her otherwise flawless brow. “My husband . . .” she started, trailing off and reconsidering with, “His death and seclusion from our realm was difficult for him. Through no fault of your hospitality toward us, of course.”

  “He killed me.” Flat, no emotion, no malice or blame, but—in that one moment—Wayne felt the whole of Helheimr hold its breath. “Your ‘husband’”—Wayne heard the quotes like the sound of steel in flesh—“decided I would be better dead than alive. He broke the compact between our realms, so intent was he on using my dismembered corpse as a weapon against the one that he called foe.”

  Nanna shifted, faint line deepening. “That was—”

  But Hel wasn’t done. “My people are not here for war,” she said. “But could you blame them if they were? When I washed up on Náströnd’s shores I was greeted by every soul I had ever taken in for succor. They had come dressed for battle, wielding sword and ax and spear, shovel and skillet, kings and warriors and serving girls. All ready to ride once more against Ásgarðr, to demand blood for ill-spilled blood.”

  That was quite some image. Wayne didn’t turn around to look behind her, but it was difficult. No wonder Helheimr had emptied to march behind their Lady.

  Hel said she wasn’t a queen, only a caretaker. Wayne wondered if she really believed that. Or maybe Hel didn’t see there being any difference.

  Hel continued:

  “I told my people great Yggdrasill had been watered by blood enough for another thousand years. That I had fallen in honored combat to Ásgarðr’s king, and that I was einheri for it. Ásgarðr’s gates could no longer be closed to Hel, its lady or its people.” Hel gestured to Wayne and Em. “Witness the valkyrjur, Hrist and Hlökk. They bear testament to my place.”

  “Já, vit gerum.”

  Em had been practicing her vocab. She’d never been a great public speaker, but Wayne thought doing the MCing during last night’s concert had been a bit of a confidence booster.

  Nanna’s little line deepened. “Odin’s oaths died with Odin. Even if—”

  “With all due respect, my lady.” Hel’s voice, Wayne thought, did not sound very respectful at all, the very first edge of sharpness creeping in. “Odin’s oaths are preserved in Gungnir.”

  “Which was lost after Ragnarøkkr.”

  “And reclaimed by the man y
ou call husband.” Cute, the way Hel wasn’t quite lying about that. “Not so many days ago, Gungnir returned to Ásgarðr, we both know this is true. If Ásgarðr has the weapon, then it has the oaths upon the wood. And it is honor-bound to meet them.”

  Wayne could practically hear Nanna’s teeth grind.

  “Ásgarðr cannot hold this many dead. We are not Helheimr.”

  But Hel had an answer for this objection, too. “Nor would you be asked to. All I would desire in recompense for my slaying is that the gates between the realms be opened. Let the dead themselves decide on where they dwell. And with whom.”

  With their wives and daughters, husbands and sons. Families spilt in half by some weird edict made by a long-dead asshole. It wasn’t the most unreasonable request in the world. The fact Hel had done . . . whatever she’d done to make it happen . . .

  “I will present your case before the þing.” Which sounded much more Valley Girl than it was. “I cannot be certain they will hear it.”

  Hel inclined her head, magnanimous. “Of course,” she said. “I understand your position may be . . . tenuous, in this affair. Of course I would offer recompense to your for your fair regard.”

  Nanna blinked, shoulders stiff. “Which would be?” Wayne wondered if she was regretting coming out here.

  Because Wayne liked Hel, she really, truly did. Hel was cool, and had been really nice to them, and she seemed lonely and like she could do with a friend or two to hang around with.

  All of those things were true, even when Hel said the thing that convinced Wayne—beyond any kind of doubt—that she was, indeed, her father’s daughter. Manipulative, cruel, deceitful: the whole kit and caboodle.

  Because Nanna loved her husband, anyone could see that. And when she’d asked what reward Hel would give for “fair regard” to her proposal, Hel had said:

  “I will tell you your husband’s fate.”

  Nanna