by Matt Larkin
Even if it was false or vain courage. Seven of Odin’s people had taken the apples, but Frigg and Sigyn were not warriors. Ve was gone. That left Odin, Vili, Loki, and Tyr. Four men-become-gods to fight an army born of Niflheim. Berserkir and varulfur might match a draug. Maybe. Tyr would bet on the draug. And humans were even worse off. The truth was, many of the Aesir would die for this. Tyr could not save them all, but he could help them meet their ancestors with pride. Maybe that was all a warrior could ever do.
With the Thing dismissed, Tyr moved to begin gathering his warriors. He needed the best, the bravest. A decisive victory against this threat would ensure the Aesir morale held. And a failure … Best not dwell on such an event.
By the time he had finished selecting, Odin stood before him, cloth-wrapped bundle in his arms.
“A moment, Tyr.”
“My lord?”
“In private.”
Tyr nodded and led Odin back to his own tent. Inside Odin crouched on the furs, so Tyr slunk down beside his king. The man’s eyes had grown dark—darker than usual, even for these days.
“An army of draugar,” Odin said. “An army of the undead …”
Tyr folded his arms, not certain what Odin was implying.
“It’s the Niflungar,” Odin said at last. “The draugar are born of the mists, and the Niflungar command those mists. I killed their prince, Tyr.”
Tyr nodded. Odin had told him all this some time ago.
“My family,” Odin mumbled. “Tyr, I want you to do something for me. My children, my wife, I cannot lose them. Please, protect them.”
Children? Odin now thought of those varulfur, Geri and Freki, as his own children. Apt, perhaps, given the king had killed their mother. Tyr placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You know I would protect them with my life, my lord.”
“No,” Odin said, shaking his head. “No, I … I lost Ve … I lost Father … I can’t …” Odin shook himself, then unwrapped the bundle, revealing a sword. Runes covered the length of its blade, woven steel that spoke of ancient times long forgotten. Ice-blue gems were set in its crossguard and bone-hilted pommel. “This was the blade I took from Guthorm.”
The Niflung prince. Odin had said the man carried a runeblade, one supposedly forged by dvergar. Blades of power, legends now.
“Take it.”
Tyr placed a hand over its hilt, but hesitated. “I have my own sword, given to me by Borr.”
“Keep it, please,” Odin said. “There may come a time …” The king shook his head, clearly once again lost in his own mind.
Tyr closed his palm around the hilt. It was cold. Colder even than the bone handle ought to be on a day like this. Rather than draw the blade, he took it sheathed and set it aside.
The moment he did so, Odin nodded and rose, staring at something beyond Tyr’s vision. Beyond his understanding, perhaps. The king ducked out of the tent without another word, leaving Tyr alone with this magic-wrought blade. Would wielding such a weapon fill him with the same bloodlust Gungnir did? Would it make him savage, like a berserk or varulf?
But it would grant him power—maybe the power to save lives. To protect his people. This he needed.
He was still staring at it when Idunn slipped into the tent shortly thereafter, a skinned rabbit clutched in one hand.
“The hunters caught it this morning. I thought maybe it was time for some of that famous Tyr stew.”
Tyr shook himself and looked to her, but her gaze had fallen on the blade. “I have not the time,” he said. “We go to battle soon.”
“With that?”
Now Tyr glanced back at the blade, too. “You know it?”
Idunn knelt in front of him, setting the rabbit aside. Her red dress settled around her, shimmering in the soft light that filtered into the tent. To call Idunn the oddest woman he’d ever met would be like calling a jotunn taller than a man. Her skin was rich like it had been stained with mead. Her hair darker than was oft found among Aesir. At first, when she had taken to visiting him, he’d been as entranced with her as any other man in the camp had. But over a hundred such conversations she had eventually put him at ease. Mostly.
The Vanr goddess picked up the runeblade without any sign of fear. In truth, Tyr couldn’t recall her ever showing fear. Idunn ran a slender finger over the gems in the pommel, then the runes in its sheath. “Gramr.” Then she looked up at his face. “Oh! Well, I know its reputation. Weapons like this, Tyr, they have their uses. Frey carries one. But they have dangers, too.”
“You can read the runes.”
“Immortality gives one time to learn all kinds of interesting things.”
Given her mischievous smile, Tyr doubted she was speaking merely of scholarly learning. He could not afford to dwell on whatever she meant, not now. Instead, he looked back at Gramr. “Is there reason not to use it?”
“Oh, yes, for certain. But you never seem too interested in hearing stories about the supernatural world, dear sweet warrior.”
An understatement. Given the choice, Tyr might not have eaten the apple at all. Though it had made him stronger, faster, and more resilient than any man. He would not now be marching on Vanaheim nor waging war against draugar without it. But Tyr had sworn his oaths to Borr and his sons, and he would never turn his back on those vows. Where Odin led, he must follow. Even into the mists, into realms man had no business treading.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
Idunn snickered. “I’m not that kind of goddess. I don’t answer prayers for guidance, Tyr. Really, I’m just a woman.”
“I never knew a woman afraid to tell a man what to do.” The words slipped out of his mouth before he realized he’d said them, and he immediately flinched. Perhaps he was a bit too at ease with this woman.
But her smile grew wider for a moment, before she looked away. “You still miss her?”
Now Tyr rose, leaving the sword resting where it lay. It had been another moment of weakness, telling Idunn of his wife. “No.” Did he miss Zisa? “I have preparations to make.” He slipped from the tent without another glance at Idunn. He had no desire to dredge up the past, not with the Vanr woman. Not with anyone. Practical matters were, more oft than not, a reprieve from the torments of days gone by. His only reprieve.
He needed to kill something.
11
“The pass is the shortest route, and the safest,” Loki said. “They’ll know that.”
Snow flurries obscured Odin’s view of the rocky, snow-crusted path Loki indicated. Odin hadn’t wanted to do this at night. At night it was harder to see, too easy to slip on the mountain slopes. But Loki insisted their enemies would not show themselves in daylight.
“And you’re certain that qualifies as a pass?” Vili asked. At Loki’s appraising stare, Vili shrugged. “I mean we have children, elderly. Rough trek, that.”
“It will be rougher if we don’t clear the draugar before the others reach us,” Odin said. He nodded at Tyr, who in turn motioned a dozen of his best men forward.
The so-called pass was a route through these ancient mountains, and one Odin prayed would offend no vaettr dwelling within such a timeless place. Jagged peaks jutted at irregular angles in all directions, each covered in ice and snow, bare hints of the rock beneath poking through. The path was barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast—or a single man in Vili’s case, as Odin’s brother pushed his way forward. Not to be outdone by Tyr and his warriors, of course.
And off the side, that drop had to be as tall as ten men. More, perhaps, for he could see no end through the mist. A misstep, a patch of hidden ice, and a man could know what it was to fly—for a moment, at least.
A sudden brisk wind whipped the snow flurries into Odin’s eyes.
“Fuck me,” one of the men ahead cursed, the lot of them throwing themselves against the rock face to avoid being blown off.
“Vaettir don’t want men here,” Vili mumbled, himself hugging the mountainside.
There was no g
etting around a man of his size, so Odin shoved his brother forward. “Keep moving.”
Those things were here somewhere. Their small party was all that stood between the undead and the Aesir who had followed Odin into these mountains. All that stood between the monsters and Odin’s family. If they didn’t deal with these bastards before—
Metal creaked on bone from above. A shriek that sent a shudder down even Odin’s spine ripped out of a black form. The creature fell upon a man in the middle of the line. The man’s scream was brief. Odin tried to push forward, but through the press of bodies and the Hel-damned snow he couldn’t …
Grunting and shrieking, both man and draug tumbled over the side. Odin spun, rushing to the edge, though he knew himself too far and too late to help the fallen man. Even as he watched the forms disappear into the darkness of the gorge, the snow beneath their party erupted. The impact tripped Odin and sent him careening over the edge himself, his grip on Gungnir lost.
Rocks snared his furs and caught on his mail, tearing both as he tumbled downward. For a heartbeat he was breathless, plummeting. Then all wind blasted from his lungs as he impacted a rock outcropping some fifteen feet below the pass. Odin struggled to catch his breath, staring at the icicle-laced overhang above. Like the jaws of a dragon hovering above him.
How was he going to get back to his people?
Gods above, his people. How many of the fucking draugar had been waiting under the snow? Odin hadn’t even considered it … The draugar didn’t breathe.
A dark form dropped from above. Odin rolled to one side, barely avoiding the impact and almost flinging himself off the outcropping—a ledge not much larger than he was. The creature landed in a crouch where Odin had lain, fist embedded into the ice caking the rocks. It lifted its head up, revealing a red gleam in its eyes. Black, corroded armor concealed its gaunt arms and sallow flesh. A helm hid much of its face beyond the eyes. When it smiled, it revealed a missing tooth.
With a grunt, it yanked its fist free of the ice, spiderwebbing cracks all across the ledge. The ground shifted beneath Odin’s feet, and he slipped, banging his knee on the ice. It was all the time the draug needed to bear down on him. The creature moved with uncanny speed, leaping atop Odin and driving him to the ground with its sheer weight and ungodly strength.
The creature’s hand on his throat was cold as hoar. Cold as the grave. The hatred of all life filled its eyes, trying to swallow up Odin’s very soul. He had but to give in. To accept the rage and the curse …
To give up.
The one thing Odin would never do.
The edges of his vision faded from lack of air. But Odin had been practicing the use of his apple-granted boons. They came at will now. Strength flooded his limbs—the strength to match even this Hel-spawned monster. Odin’s grip tightened on the draug’s arm, and he at last pulled it away from his throat. Gods-blessed air rushed back into his lungs in gasps that left him even more lightheaded. The draug yanked him upward with its other hand, pulling them both back to their feet.
It shoved Odin, trying to hurl him from the precipice into the gorge. Odin flung himself forward, driving them both toward the mountainside. He rained blows against the draug, heard its bones breaking even beneath the armor. Odin’s knuckles split, his blood caking the undead. If the draug felt aught, it gave little indication. Instead it countered, catching Odin with blows first to the ribs, then the face. Odin struggled to get his arms up, to block blows that could challenge his own supernatural strength.
At last he caught the draug’s arm and landed a mighty blow to the side of its head. The impact knocked away the thing’s helm and seemed to stagger it, if only for a moment.
“Die!” Odin shouted at it. Why would the cursed thing not die?
Again the draug advanced. Odin blocked its blow with one arm and scored another uppercut to the thing’s chin. Once again, it staggered for an instant. Was it vulnerable to blows to the head?
Before the draug could attack again, Odin roared and slammed shoulder-first into its chest, knocking it back against the mountainside. He leapt up and caught an icicle as long as his arm. Then he slammed it straight into the draug’s eye and out the other side.
The monstrosity continued to twitch in the snow, but gave over attacking.
“Odin!” Loki shouted from above. The man’s face peeked over the ledge, followed a moment later by a rope.
Odin grabbed on and half-climbed the rope as Loki pulled him upward. He crested the ledge back onto the pass, then faltered at the sight. A draug crushed one of Tyr’s men’s throats with his bare hand, chuckling as it did so. Another beat a man’s shield to kindling with its axe, then tore into the now-exposed warrior. Tyr spun, cut off one draug’s legs, then kicked another in the chest, sending it toppling over the cliff.
Vili had assumed bear form and was mauling one of the creatures, but most of Odin’s soldiers had fallen. More and more of the draugar surged forward, converging from the pass ahead and the seemingly unscalable cliff above them.
Odin retrieved Gungnir from the snow where it had fallen. The moment he held it, its ancient power filled him. His pain dulled, his fear vanished. “I am Odin! Son of Borr! Come to me and die again!”
He lunged forward, his thrust punching through a draug’s shield, its armor, and its flesh. Odin jerked it to the side, flinging it free of his spear and straight off the mountain. The creature did not scream as it plummeted into the gorge, leaving Odin to wonder if even such a fall would break these unholy things. Vӧlvur said one had to burn them.
Odin turned on another draug, driving it too toward the edge. Dead or not, from the chasm below, these fucks were a lot less worry.
A sudden bellow from Vili stole Odin’s attention. A draug stood atop Odin’s brother, having driven a sword straight through the bear’s shoulder and out the other side.
“V-Vili?” Odin stammered.
The draug Odin had engaged leapt at him. An axe soared through the air and impacted the creature, driving it over the edge. Odin barely glanced at Tyr, too distracted to even acknowledge the man who had saved him.
Gods above and below. Odin had lost one brother because of his pride, because he hadn’t been strong enough. He’d lost one of Father’s sons, failed both brother and father. He couldn’t lose Vili. Not now. Not now!
Odin roared and charged forward. He saw naught but the draug atop his brother. He barreled into the thing and bore it down, then proceeded to beat his fist into its skull. Again and again he pounded the fiend, crunching bone and decayed brain beneath. And finally, finally it lay still.
Loki yanked him away. “We have to get him to a vӧlva.”
Vili.
Odin nodded, unable to form words over the lump in his throat.
Tyr charged another draug, now fighting with a mere dagger. He’d lost his sword somewhere. The draugar’s numbers were growing, and so few of the Ás men remained. “Fall back, my lord! Your brother is beyond saving.”
“No!”
Loki glanced between Vili and Odin, then knelt beside the fallen bear, who still weakly tried to crawl toward the fight. “I have to remove the sword so you can shift back. We cannot carry you in this state.”
If Loki pulled that sword out, even a berserk might bleed to death. But if Vili lost consciousness and shifted back to a man with it still in him, the injuries would prove even more dire. Loki waited for no further answer. With one hand he jerked the sword free, then cast it aside.
A rumble left Vili’s chest, then he collapsed into the snow. Slowly his body began to shrink, the fur retreating back within his skin. Odin moved to carry Vili, but Loki lifted his brother before he got there.
“Clear the way,” Loki said. “We must move with haste. They will pursue us until the sun rises.”
“How long?” Odin asked.
“Two hours,” Loki said.
Even with his apple-granted endurance, that was a long time to flee these creatures. Calling on supernatural strength and stamina gav
e him energy, but would drain him all the more afterwards. And would Odin lead the undead back to his people? There was no choice. He had to get Vili help now.
Odin rushed forward, batting another draug off the mountainside as he did. It didn’t matter what it took or how long he must fight. He was getting his brother out of this. He was saving Vili.
He owed it to Ve.
He owed it to his father.
12
Sigyn brought another bowl of steaming water from the fire and set it beside Frigg. Her sister still worked fervently over Vili, hands drenched in the berserk’s blood. Sigyn had seen Frigg work miracles with her vӧlva healing arts, but this wound must be beyond even her sister’s skills. The look on Frigg’s face told her that much. Vili was no mere man, of course, which was probably the only reason he yet lived.
“Please,” Odin said, his voice nigh to breaking. “Please, Frigg … I can’t lose him too. I … I beg you.” Odin seemed to stare at something beyond Frigg, as if seeing visions in the shadows. “I won’t fail you again.”
Was he speaking to someone else? His eyes barely took in any of the people here. Idunn and Loki lingered on opposite ends of the tent, as always, seeming to avoid each other. Sigyn had no time for their rivalry now.
“I won’t,” Odin mumbled.
Sigyn swallowed as Frigg frantically applied herbal poultices. Men said a berserk could live through almost any wound that didn’t kill him instantly. But even a berserk needed blood to live, and Vili couldn’t have much left. Not with the rivers of it he’d lost on the way here. Perhaps the otherworldly spirit within him could save him.
“I don’t know what to do,” Frigg whispered, her voice clearly pitched only for Sigyn.
Sigyn bit her lip. She was no vӧlva. Instead, she looked to Loki.
Her man shook his head, but did approach. “His life energy is depleted,” Loki said. “Even the Moon spirit inside him needs more energy to recover from such a wound.”
