Especially a moment later when a sword plunges into my heaving side.
“Hnnuargh!”
The sound of metal hitting metal above me. Through blurry Wyrdsight, I can just about make out the whirling storm of Magni as he murders his way across the Bleed, his own hammer in one hand, Mjölnir in the other. He’s using it as a weapon, not to call down lighting, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last against an army.
From somewhere behind, I hear Móði shouting runes: sól, sól, sól, over and over. Except the dvergar aren’t stupid. They know their weakness and they came for war. Their armor doesn’t leave much skin exposed, and so they fight.
I do, too, kicking out with a leg and tripping a dvergr who’d been sneaking up on Magni’s flank. When it goes down, its fellows notice I’m not yet out of the fight, and then I’m definitely in.
My head is still ringing and I can’t see very well, but I’m twice the size of the armored little maggots and I have big claws and sharp teeth and flesh roasts so well inside metal. Not to mention the more the squirming little pieces of shit cut and stab me, the more I bleed caustic blood all over their weapons and armor.
The dvergar are nothing if not engineers, and they figure this out after one or two shattered axes. After that, they stop stabbing and start hitting, which isn’t nearly as fun.
I heal broken bones quickly but . . . still. Broken ribs and a fractured leg make dodging a little difficult.
We’re losing. That much is obvious. I’m back-to-back with Magni and Móði, the three of us having retreated up atop a basalt column. Dvergar swarm all around, while I lash out with claws and fire and Magni is a red roaring whirl of the berserk. Móði, meanwhile, tries to hold the rune shield that’s all that’s protecting us from a well-placed arrow to the heart.
It’s precarious, and it can’t last. So it doesn’t.
Móði goes down first. He’s so busy concentrating on the runes he doesn’t notice the dvergr coming up from underneath. It doesn’t take much, just a stubby-fingered paw around his ankle and a yank.
With a cry, he tumbles from the column. The shield around us pops and, in the next instant, I’m rolling sideways in a fireball as a hail of arrows presses its advantage.
I hear Magni call his brother’s name. I try lunging toward him, but trip on the still body of a dvergr we slaughtered earlier, going down with a thud and lasting all of half a second before I’ve got six more around me, trying to hammer my bones to dust.
“Fuck!”
I roll onto my back, kicking the nearest maggot in the face and sending it flying. Up above, in the sky, the clouds begin to swirl.
Magni has Mjölnir raised.
I hear Móði cry, “Brother! No!”
But, really? What other option is there? When it was always going to come to this.
I lunge for cover, such that it exists. Mostly this involves putting as many dvergar and rocks and basalt between me and the sonic boom that’s coming in three, two, one . . .
Now.
Ground zero at a lightning strike is very, very loud. Heat and pressure, the rush of expanding and contracting air. I have my hands clamped over my ears and my hind claws digging between the cracks in the basalt, and I’m still sent flying. So are the dvergar, living and dead alike.
Everyone with eyes is blinded by the flash. I remember those, from back when I could see. They aren’t fun, either.
Nothing about Mjölnir is fun. Not the thunder, not the lightning, and not the way the heavens open after and piss down rain in endless, razor-edged sheets.
Fire doesn’t burn very well in the rain. And wet feathers are fucking awful.
I have half a heartbeat to think of this before my entire body goes rigid, tattoos bursting to electrified life. Somewhere, outside the spasms, I hear Magni howl.
With the fake Járngreipr, Mjölnir’s lightning had nowhere safe to ground. So it did what lightning usually does, jumping from the hammer to the rock by means of Magni’s hands.
The tattoo Móði left there, sympathetic magic that it is, does not fail to notice this occurrence and, therefore, neither do I.
This irony of this situation is not lost on me, even through the crackling pain and the jerking spasms of my limbs.
And then it’s over, and my mouth tastes like dirt and iron.
“Magni!” I hear Móði’s boots against the stone, the first thing on the shattered battlefield to move. Crying his brother’s name, over and over.
Magni is on the ground, hunched over. He’s breathing fast, voice keening through the sobs, armor burnt in fractals down his body.
His hands he has cradled close, fingers twisted into claws, hammers discarded on the ground.
Despite the rain, there’s smoke coming from his gauntlets.
His melted gauntlets.
Magni. You fucking idiot.
The three of us are crowded around a rise of basalt. Magni is out, I’m not doing much better, Móði is exhausted. We’re surrounded by dvergar bodies, broken and thrown into grotesque rag dolls by the physics of a lightning strike. Among the corpses, however, others begin to rise.
Tóki is among the living. Because of course he is.
“Not enough, boy,” he sneers, boots clanking over stone burnt and cracked by the same mad patterns as Magni’s skin.
Móði gets halfway to a crouch, sword in his hand and runes on his lips. “Stay back!”
As befitting the threat, Tóki merely laughs. “Ásgarðr’s ruin is long coming,” he says. “Undone by pride, greed”—he flashes a look my way—“and bad allies. You’ve fought well enough. Now. Submit, and take the deaths that you deserve.”
Behind him, half a dozen bowmen raise their bows.
God are, in general, not all that susceptible to death. Not permanent death, anyhow.
Still. If it ever does come, it comes for us like this. And if Móði surrenders—if he’s slaughtered outside of battle and washes up on Náströnd’s corpse-lined shores . . .
Well. Let’s just say Helheimr is no place for an áss.
I see Móði think the same, feel the swirls of Wyrd as he calls another rune song to his lips. Better to die fighting, and all that.
Tóki grins. “As you wish,” he says, raising his hand to signal his men.
The gesture signals someone, all right. One minute Tóki’s hand is raised, the next it has an arrow sticking through it.
Tóki howls. Around him, his men fall into panic, whirling to see what new attack besets them.
I feel them first, a pull on the edge of the Wyrdsight. A smell like dark forests and freshly spilled blood.
Jötunn blood, and it comes from all around.
The rocks are crawling with them, dark shapes sliding through the sluicing wet, claws and blades flashing in the gloom. A whole second army, slipped into the Bleed when the rest of us were distracted.
Underneath the rain, I hear a sound very much like the gallop of hooves. Then a shape—like a horse but not at all—appears on the crest of a nearby column. It rears, forelegs rippling in the air like ghosted video.
There’s no roar, of course. Instead, a bright light shines out from the raised hand of the beast’s rider, and a voice says, in very, very familiar English:
“Nobody move! This is a bloody rescue mission.”
And it is the most beautiful sight I have ever known.
Tóki is less enthused, yanking the arrow from his hand and snarling, “This does not concern the þursar!”
“It concerns me.” Another voice, and another shape lumbering out into the rain. This one short and squat, rippling with displeased light. “Lay down your arms, Tóki,” Uni says. “Do not do this.”
“Magni!”
It seems like Sigmund brought the entire gang along, Þrúðr darting out as well, slipping on wet stone as she falls down beside her brother.
Meanwhile, I hear my own name called, so I raise a hand and say, “Hi!”
A moment later, I hear the sound of too-many feet
coming my way. Then Sigmund’s presence descends on me like melted chocolate.
“Lain!”
“Hi.”
“Lain!”
“Yup.”
Sigmund’s hands flutter anxiously over my wounded skin, but it’s still pissing down rain and in the end he takes the risk, grabbing me around the head and holding me tight against his shoulder.
I sigh, closing my eyes, and for a moment the only thing in all the Realms is him. He smells like sweat and leather and wet wool, dressed in ridiculously old-fashioned clothes, and I bury my nose against his neck and inhale, long and low and slow, while he peppers kisses over my brow.
“Jesus,” he breathes. “Lain.”
“One of two,” I manage.
Somewhere behind us, gods and armies wait. They can continue doing so.
“I g-got your message.” There’s a hitch in Sigmund’s voice. If some of the rain that runs down his cheeks is salty, who’s going to mention it?
He’s clutching his phone in his hand, sheltering it, LED still blaring brightly.
“It was a good entrance,” I say. “Very hot.”
Sigmund laughs, one short, wet bark. “Jesus. Lain. I just—Fuck.”
He holds me tight enough to hurt and his mind is a maelstrom rivaling the one above us. Not all the thoughts in it are good, but, right now, relief and joy overwhelm everything else. I might be spending the night on the couch later, but not just yet.
“Can you stand?” His fingers brush over my smashed-up horn. “Someone whacked you in the head?”
“Yes and yes.” I prove myself liar on the first count by stumbling, ending with one arm slung over Sigmund’s shoulder and a heavy head nudging into my back.
Sleipnir, Jesus.
“Thank you,” I tell Slippy. He huffs, stamping a foot.
“I found him in Ásgarðr,” Sigmund tells me. “Chained up in a stable. Sigyn was, uh . . .”
I can imagine. Old wounds, and all that.
“Also,” Sigmund adds, eyes scanning around the rain-soaked shapes surrounding us. “Um . . . you kind of have a lot of kids, you know that, right?”
“Long life,” I say. “It happens.”
Up ahead, I see two shapes, watching. One is big and huge, all feather and claw and horn. The other is small and slight, bow hanging limply from her fingers.
I’ve seen them both before.
“Vala,” I say, then glance at the girl.
“Eisa.” She raises her chin, as if daring me to deny it.
I just close my eyes, feeling an ache deep inside that doesn’t belong to me. Not truly.
“You look so much like your mother,” says Loki.
Eisa bites her lip, fighting down too many emotions as she clings against her sister’s side.
There’s a lot more I should say. A lot more I—Loki—wants to say. Just . . . not here, on a rain-soaked battlefield, among the corpses of the fallen and the wary eyes of the defeated.
Not far away, another family struggles through their own reunion.
“Do it! Do it now!”
Magni’s voice is strained, harsh and broken beneath the roaring of the storm.
“There must be something you can do? Please?”
Þrúðr is on her knees, dress soaked, hands fluttering over Magni’s hunched and smoking back. Móði stands nearby, all oozing broken anguish.
He looks at me when I approach. “You!” he says. “Please, I—Help me. He needs healing.”
Shit.
“Oh my god.” Beside me, I feel Sigmund hitch back a gag as the smell hits him. Even through the rain it’s strong, like burnt bacon. Magni got hit by a lot of lightning. It melted the gauntlets onto his hands and scarred his skin. Mostly, it charbroiled his insides.
Gods are tough; we don’t die easy. But . . . Magni’s not doing too well right now. He’s holding his broken hands out, begging. For Móði to amputate, I think. And there’s something else, too. A hum, just on the edge of hearing. A well of magic that’s almost right to burst.
I look at Magni, just for an instant. Remember the feel of his boots in my guts and his spit through my skin. A sneer boils over in my heart, black and filthy, but it’s Baldr who says:
“I can help him.”
“D-don’t need your help. Beast.” Magni looks to Þrúðr. “Do it! Quickly.”
Þrúðr looks at her brother, then she looks at me. All around us, the rain sluices down like tears.
I meet Þrúðr’s gaze, and she meets mine.
“It is his will,” she says.
Then grabs Móði’s sword, and swings.
“Oh Jesus.” Sigmund buries his head against my chest, eyes jammed shut and trying not to gag.
It’s over in a blood-soaked heartbeat. Þrúðr is strong, and she knows how to use a sword. She’s tearing up her dress an instant after, makeshift bandages to tend to her brother’s bloodied stumps.
Móði’s eyes are wide, his mouth wider. He can feel it, now. Þrúðr’s deft cut severing that one last final thread.
“What have you done?” Móði says. I don’t know whether he’s talking to me or to his sister.
In the next moment, Magni howls, head thrown back, arcing from a pain that has nothing to do with his now-missing hands.
Þrúðr falls backward from the shock, on her ass in the wet. Móði stumbles away, too, runes of protection dancing on his tongue.
Something’s shifting under Móði’s skin. Beneath his clothes, beneath his hauberk, wool and metal bulging in some horrific, churning way.
Beside me, I hear Vala’s startled breath. She knows what this is, and she turns to me.
“Father—?”
“It is what it is,” I say. Old oaths, broken open by steel and lightning. “I don’t think they know.”
Actually, I know they don’t. One of Odin’s dirtiest little secrets.
I was there when Þrúðr was born. I was there when Thor was, too. Truth be told, I have more memories of the former. The latter is a blur, hazy with blood and screams. Live births don’t come easy to the jötnar, but that’s our curse when we lie with featherless things.
That’s what the þursar are: half-breed descendants of the risar, of my people, and the æsir. And that’s what Thor was, too.
He had a tail when he was born. A tail and stumpy little wings, the spikes of new feathers lined like teeth along the edge.
Odin hadn’t liked it. He’d stared down at the baby and given an ultimatum: three months. Then he’d weave the skin curse. In the interim, no one in Ásgarðr could know what had happened. When we brought Thor back into Odin’s hall, it was minus a mother and his feathers, and plus one ugly tattoo.
Same tattoo I’ve got, somewhere beneath the scars. Same tattoo Sigyn never really forgave me for passing down to our kids, in the same way Thor passed it down to his.
And that same tattoo whose magic is finally breaking open. First for Vala, then for me.
And now for Magni.
The transformation is . . . not pretty. Electricity, lifting up from Magni’s heaving, building skin. His clothes tearing, mail splitting.
When the limbs break through the flesh of his back, Þrúðr screams. She has her sword raised, and I throw my hand out in a gesture for her to stop.
“W-what—?” she manages, as Magni howls.
“His true self,” I say. I’m not sure if Þrúðr hears me.
The transformation does do one thing, and that’s give Magni back his hands. After a fashion. The claws that regrow are twisted and broken. Flesh shiny from the scarring, fingers gnarled and painful. Magni claws them at the ground, then at his face, howling as his siblings lunge toward him, holding him down.
He doesn’t turn on them. Instead, when the transformation’s done, he slumps beneath them on the stone, hopeless and defeated. Þrúðr and Móði call his name, stroking red feathers and a mass of endless fractal scars.
All around, dozens of bright-eyed þursar bear witness to the one truth Odin never wanted to
ld. So, for that matter, do a host of dvergar.
Meanwhile, a hammer lies forgotten in the rain.
Chapter 23
There were whispers in the corridors now. Æsir and ásynjur who would not meet his eyes. Mother’s doing, Forseti knew. Weaving rebellion and discontent amid Ásgarðr’s bright and shining halls.
“You must call the þing.” Víðarr had said, seated beside Forseti at morning meal. “This cannot go on.”
But it could. How else could anything go? How could Forseti, god of law and justice, be seen to be brought low by the gossip and conspiracies of women? Of Hel and her foul beasts, who danced and wailed every night beyond the Wall, brewing madness and discontent.
The halls of Gimlé had been empty last night, the endless feast of the einherjar abandoned. Today, when Forseti walked the Wall, many of the warriors turned from him, stiff-backed and defiant, gazes fixed out across the Line. Behind the shields and banners, the runes and signs, Forseti heard laughter. Singing. The beat of drums and the strumming of the strange modern lyres the new dead brought with them to the grave.
In contrast, Ásgarðr was cold and empty. Anger and sadness dripping from its gold-lined eaves.
Weakness, all of it. Men ruled by the whims of their fluttering hearts and aching loins, not by the cold rigor of word and law. But Forseti was the keeper of the latter, not the former, and his place was sure.
Ásgarðr must hold against her enemies. To do aught else would be desertion. A desecration of all fought and won on the bloodied fields of Rangarøkkr. A renewal of the old traditions, the rebirth of Ásgarðr’s ascendancy among the Realms. Among the mortals of Miðgarðr. More sending their prayers and their souls now than Forseti could recall for a thousand years.
The traditions were true. The mortals knew it, though they may have forgotten for a time. And who would Forseti be if he did not endure in the face of such belief?
Let the einherjar and ásynjur brew their shame and weakness. Ásgarðr would survive. Forseti would ensure it.
And so he walked the Wall. Not just the front, but the back. Gazing out over the vast, dark expanse of Myrkviðr.
Ásgarðr, surrounded by her foes. Forseti felt it now more keenly than ever.
Above, in the sky, a dark shape drifted closer, wheeling to and fro with the weaving of the winds. Munin, grandfather’s wicked, lying beast. Forseti didn’t trust it, not after watching the way it sat on the shoulder of the thing that wore father’s skin.
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