Valkyrie Rising

by Ingrid Paulson

  “How did you get here?” Astrid snapped, growling low in her throat. I recognized the way her shoulders tensed, preparing to strike. Only there was a hesitation this time. Wariness.

  Astrid was afraid of my grandmother.

  “It seems I’ve kept a few friends, even after all these years,” Grandmother said cryptically, even as the look she cast toward Astrid’s band of Valkyries made me wonder if one of them had risked Astrid’s wrath and released her. “We collect and lead the dead, Astrid. Not the living.”

  “Who brought her here?” Astrid demanded, her eyes piercing each member of her squad in turn. “I’d hate to think one of my loyal sisters disobeyed me.”

  “I brought her.” The brunette Valkyrie I recognized from my skirmish in Bergen shifted anxiously on her feet, but she looked Astrid square in the eye as she said, “Hear Hilda and the girl out. I agree with them.”

  “See, Astrid, she too is doing what you should have done.” My grandmother laid one hand gently on the brunette’s arm. “She’s questioning her leader when she knows her leader is wrong.”

  “How dare you?” Astrid growled, shifting to the balls of her feet as if she would lunge forward at any moment. “Don’t you dare judge me for things I can’t control. You left us too weak to stop Odin when you abandoned us—and your responsibilities.”

  “I’ve been right here this whole time, Astrid. Watching,” Grandmother said softly. “I came back when you needed me. I never gave up my responsibilities. I just changed the way I upheld them. Because I have competing priorities now.” Her eyes met mine, unleashing a ripple of pride that threatened to burst right out of me.

  “Now it’s your turn to reevaluate your priorities,” Grandmother continued. “Because whatever spell Odin was under all those centuries, slumbering away, has driven him mad. And you can bet Loki planned it that way. So he could humiliate Odin, as he’s tried to do so many times before. Do you really want Odin to start a war you know he can’t win? And even if he could win, do you really think we should return the world to the old ways?”

  Murmurs erupted in the crowd, until above the din, a man shouted, “No! Stop him and bring our boys back.”

  The other Valkyries looked from Grandmother to Astrid and back to Grandmother again, visibly unsure who to side with. But I could tell by the way their eyes lingered a few seconds longer on Grandmother that their loyalty was shifting.

  Astrid had a frown on her face that reminded me of how I felt around Graham, when I was once again being shown how young and inferior I was. And I felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy.

  “I can’t stop him,” Astrid spat. “He won’t listen. But that doesn’t mean I’ll betray him. Not all of us cast aside our oaths as easily as you have, Hilda.”

  Grandmother looked away, a troubled crease appearing between her eyebrows. “I did what was right,” she said, but her words were weighed down with regrets I couldn’t even begin to fathom.

  “But there are other, older promises you’ve made, Astrid,” I said, picking up the thread of the argument. “Even I can tell that the connection between all of us is far stronger than any fleeting promises you made to Odin. And that’s just after a few days of knowing what I am. You disagree with Odin. You belong with us, not with him. If I can feel it, I know you can.”

  Grandmother stepped up beside me, her resolve strengthened by my words.

  Astrid watched me in that cold, dismissive way she had. But she looked almost longingly at Grandmother’s hand as it curled gently around my shoulder. I couldn’t give up just yet.

  “In Bergen, you told me that I couldn’t stop Odin because you’d failed,” I pressed on. “You were right. Alone, I don’t stand a chance. But now, together, all of us—with you—we can do it. Odin doesn’t stand a chance against us if we’re united.”

  As Grandmother approached Astrid, one hand extended, Astrid’s expression hardened into a look I recognized as resolve. She’d made up her mind. I braced myself for whatever that decision might be.

  But before Grandmother could reach her, the ground beneath us began to rumble, rattling windows and setting off a car alarm. A low, throaty chuckle rocked the earth until my bones rattled. “It seems Hilda’s power can’t be diluted. Even after two generations.” It was a deep, disembodied voice that pulled at the newly discovered corners of my mind. But this was different from the way Astrid and the others made me feel, as if we were sharing a collective awareness of the world around us. This new force felt like it was sucking away my strength. And my will to stand up to it.

  Odin.

  I knew it was him. The recognition was hardwired into my bones.

  The people gathered in the street began to scatter, running toward the trees or the boats bobbing in the water, crowding under awnings and in doorways, as if there was a way to take cover against a force with this kind of power.

  “Odin is coming,” my grandmother said as she looked up the road. “Stand together. He’ll try to drain our strength. It’s the only way he can keep control of his soldiers.”

  Astrid’s fingers curled around my wrist and sent a jolt of warmth up my arm, building toward the numbing heat I’d felt all those days ago in the bar with Kjell, when she’d put her finger to my forehead. Startled, I tried to shake off her hand. “Stop resisting me,” she snapped. “You want to stop Odin? Let me in.”

  I didn’t know what she meant, but then the connection that was always snapping at the edges of my consciousness suddenly reached out and wrapped me in its arms.

  There was a ripple of satisfaction as Astrid’s decision spread among the other Valkyries. Their silent allegiance shifted, leaving Odin and locking in on Skavøpoll. They’d defend the town and the people gathered in the street at any cost.

  Margit took a step forward, choosing her place in the front, right in the middle of the road. She may not have been a Valkyrie, but she was one brave girl. I smiled, fiercely proud to have her standing with us.

  It was a grave tactical error that Astrid had been so focused on collecting boys, when the girls in this town were more than twice as worthy.

  Other people followed Margit’s lead, breaking away from their hiding places and making their way back to us cautiously, sticking to the shadows of the buildings. A group of kids climbed up onto the top of a delivery van to get a better view.

  I could taste the fear in the air, see it in Margit’s trembling hand and quivering upper lip, even as she stood straight and tall.

  An uneasy silence settled over the town. Seconds ticked past until my muscles ached with eagerness to act.

  Then my grandmother went rigid at my side. Not with shock, or fear, but with readiness. A man appeared, emerging from a mist that hadn’t been there an instant earlier.

  None of the other impossible things I’d seen over the last few days had prepared me for my first sight of Odin. He was massive and thickly muscled, with a broad chest and shoulders, like a rodeo bull. A gruesome network of crisscrossing scars covered his neck and arms. I couldn’t believe anyone could survive so many wounds—if he had even been alive in the traditional sense. And when I looked into his lifeless eye, I definitely doubted it. I shuddered, imagining what was underneath the patch secured over the eye he’d traded for wisdom.

  “Impressive,” he said, letting his gaze drift over the town. “Winning my Valkyries back right under my nose. A simple, elegant plan.” That merciless eye scanned the crowd until it landed on me, seeming to rake through my very soul.

  “It’s not often someone marches against me.” He said it mildly, saving all his malice for his next words. “It’s never.”

  Somehow that wasn’t a surprise. Icicles were forming in my blood, crystallizing along my spine. “We don’t want to fight you,” I told him, somehow managing to control my terror.

  “I don’t negotiate,” Odin growled.

  Astrid’s hand tightened around my wrist. “Stop talking.”

  It was too late. Odin had me in his crosshairs. “You will be an example.
To them. This world. Of what happens when you challenge Odin.”

  “I’m not challenging you,” I said, my voice cracking. “We just—we just want the living soldiers back.”

  “Are you certain?” Odin’s lips curled into an inhumanly cold smile as he surveyed the crowd behind me. “That would be a fitting punishment indeed.”

  “Odin, don’t do this,” Astrid said. Her voice held an edge of desperation I never wanted to hear coming from someone so strong. “It’s too cruel.”

  My heart stopped beating. Astrid’s threshold for cruel was as high as the moon. Something monstrous was about to happen.

  “You have no right to address me,” Odin snapped at Astrid. “You surrendered your position when you sided with the deserter.” His eyes shot pure, unadulterated malice right at Grandmother. “You’ve forgotten, too—you’ve all forgotten the old ways. Our way. Perhaps this will refresh your memory.” Odin inclined his head, and a breeze drifted in off the fjord, carrying with it the scent of pine trees and the crisp, clean air from the glaciers.

  Soldiers appeared in the middle of the road, armed and standing rigidly at attention. The other Valkyries shifted closer, preparing our defense. Somehow I knew my place in the coordinated motion. My role. It was the oddest sort of exhilaration, to be part of something so much larger and more powerful than myself.

  My grandmother turned, meeting my wide-eyed look of wonder with a slow, ferocious smile.

  The ragged force Odin had assembled was no match for us. We would crush their bones. They were young and unprepared; there was an obvious lack of combat experience in how they stood and how they gripped their weapons too tightly. But the very same moment I tasted our victory on the wind, their features emerged from the mist that seemed to emanate from Odin.

  Forming faces I recognized.

  This wasn’t a bloodthirsty undead army. It looked more like a high school track team.

  These were living boys. Our living boys.

  There was a redhead in the third row who looked just like Margit. That had to be her brother, Eric. And the blond-haired boy who I’d seen working at the gas station was standing right next to a milky-eyed and scowling Kjell.

  Anguished voices behind me called out to long-lost brothers and sons. Kjell’s father had to be held back when he tried to rush forward. A tall blond woman with Kjell’s pale blue eyes wrapped her arms around him, urging him to stay calm.

  With mounting panic, I scanned face after face, desperate for a glimpse of Graham or Tuck.

  “What’s wrong, Elsa?” Odin asked. “Can’t find what you’re looking for?” He lifted one hand and curled an index finger, beckoning someone closer.

  Just as motion in the crowd of frozen boys caught my eye.

  Tuck stumbled forward, pushing his way through the frozen soldiers toward me. Relief was a physical force, practically knocking me off my feet. I couldn’t believe our luck, that the soldiers were still as statues, letting Tuck slip around them like a stunt driver dodging orange traffic cones.

  His eyes found me, latching on in surprise and relief. He too looked confused that they had let him pass.

  But Tuck was no more than a few steps clear of the ranks of boys when a massive soldier stepped forward, materializing out of the mist. Unlike the untrained boys gathered in front of us, this was a real warrior. In his size and agility, I saw the powerful, dangerous adversary I’d feared all along. Odin was finally unleashing his finest on us.

  With lightning-fast reflexes and deadly strength, the giant soldier reached out and caught Tuck’s arm. Tuck jerked back, landing flat on the pavement. The giant stepped forward, the threat of pain echoing in each footfall. Tuck rolled over, pushing up onto his elbows with exaggerated care, as if he was still stunned from the impact.

  Horror grabbed hold of my soul when the giant’s face came into view. It was Graham, only now I was seeing him in a whole new light. As an enemy. Stripped of his easygoing smile, Graham was terrifying.

  “My new favorite has something to teach Elsa and the rest of you.” Odin locked eyes with me. “Loyalty. He’ll follow my orders. At any price.”

  Then Odin’s gaze shifted to Graham. His fingers moved lazily through the mist as it coalesced into a long serrated knife. “Kill him.” He tossed the knife, and Graham snatched the blade from the air with one hand.

  “No!” I shrieked, sounding far more helpless than a Valkyrie ever should.

  Graham looked up. His milky-white eyes carried only indifferent curiosity at who had just screamed.

  Then Graham’s entire focus snapped back to Tuck and the task he’d just been given. He would perform it with the swift and effortless perfection that had always made him Graham.

  There was a flash of silver as Graham flipped the blade in his hand in a full rotation, like a juggler. If there was any doubt Graham wasn’t in his right mind, that sealed the deal. Graham had never used a knife unless eating was involved.

  Odin’s voice rang out again, slicing my torn heart into two equal halves. “Kill them all.” The mist returned, wrapping around Odin like a winter coat as his words settled over us.

  In the world as it should have been, the colorful, churning mass of people in the street would have been a parade or a festival to be celebrated. Instead, a fight for survival had pulled together this mottled mess of grandparents and parents, brothers and sisters.

  My path to Tuck and Graham disintegrated in a crush of charging boy soldiers colliding with the townspeople. Through gaps in the colliding crowds, I glimpsed Graham thrusting the knife toward Tuck’s chest. Tuck managed to roll to the side, catching only the edge of Graham’s boot as it lashed after him with rib-crushing force.

  My stomach felt like I’d been the one who took that blow as the first wave of boys crashed into us. A woman’s tortured voice called out to her son, only to end in a howl of horror as he must have clashed with our group of Valkyries, in a blur of broken arms and dislocated shoulders. One-sided struggles erupted in the streets behind us as the first few kidnapped boys broke through our ranks. Tortured shouts and pleas to stop reverberated off the buildings. A middle-aged man to my right was trying to restrain a boy who had to be his son. The boy slammed his fist into his father’s nose with a sickening crunch of cartilage. I pried him off just long enough for his father to secure his arms with a length of rope.

  My heart was beating so hard and fast, it felt like a cage match in my chest. I was doing my best to hold my position, but my attention was torn between the fights raging around me and the flashes of Graham and Tuck I caught through the crowd. Tuck was putting bodies and space between him and Graham, using people as buffers to avoid fighting him directly.

  There was resignation in Tuck’s strategy, in the way he ducked and dodged, twisting out of Graham’s reach without lifting a hand to defend himself. Fast as Tuck was, he had to know it was only a matter of time before Graham caught him. Tuck would never hurt Graham—or me. Loki was wrong. I’d seen it the moment Tuck’s eyes had met mine, just minutes ago. But I knew it now in a whole new way. Tuck would give his life for us, Morrigan or not. And there was no way I would let that happen.

  I had to stop them from fighting. Whatever it took. But if Graham was bent on killing Tuck, there was no easy way to restrain him; he was strong and fast, I could see that from here. If it came down to it, was I prepared to let one of them be hurt—or worse still, to sacrifice one to save the other? I was frozen in place at the thought, paralyzed by the mere idea of a choice I could never make.

  “Go!” Astrid shouted, shoving me from behind. “Stop stalling. I know you don’t want to choose, but you have to.” I turned and caught her eye, surprised. She pointed toward Graham’s golden head. A surge of ferocious power flowed from the other Valkyries straight into my heart. Reminding me that I wasn’t alone in trying to save the town and everyone else. Astrid, my grandmother, and the others could hold their own while I stopped Graham and Tuck.

  I catapulted through the crowd toward Tucker, knock
ing over a tall, lanky boy in a soccer uniform who tried to block my path.

  “Get out of here, Ells.” Tuck pushed me back, and not gently. “He could hurt you. Go away!”

  “He could hurt you, too,” I hissed back. “Graham, stop, it’s me.” I tried to knock the knife out of his hand, but Graham shoved me out of his way with the same minimal effort he’d use to brush the hair out of his eyes. It seemed Valkyrie blood did some pretty interesting things to boys, too. “You don’t want to hurt us. I’m your sister.” My voice broke over the words.

  But Graham didn’t hear me. At least not the part of him that I knew—the part that was my brother. His eyes were on the prize. Tucker.

  Graham lunged with the knife, and it bit into Tuck’s arm, slicing a line of red from his elbow to his wrist. Tuck winced and dodged away, right as Graham pulled back, preparing to strike again. But Tuck recovered in time and caught Graham’s wrist, dropping to the ground and using his downward momentum to slam Graham forward into a brick wall. Graham hit the corner of the building hard enough that it took him an instant to catch his balance.

  Tuck fumbled in his pocket, looking for something. Then he pulled out a metal necklace like the ones Grandmother had given to Graham and Kjell.

  “Hold him!” Tuck shouted. Without hesitating, I dived onto Graham’s back in a massive bear hug. It took every ounce of strength I had to keep Graham in place, and even then he was thrashing like a fish on a line, shaking me off.

  Fortunately, those few precious seconds were enough time for Tuck to slide Grandmother’s necklace over Graham’s head.

  The instant the metal disk settled on his skin, Graham’s brow furrowed, and he massaged his forehead like he had the mother of all migraines. Even though his eyes were still milky white, I could see his consciousness stirring to life behind them. He was fighting to clear the haze in his brain, and as he did, he gave up his struggle against my restraining arms. Graham sagged backward, against me, as if all his energy was focused on regaining control over his mind and not a single ounce could be spared—not even to keep himself upright.