Thor

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  When at last the frost giant was a full league in the air, Thor released the twister. It blew off, and Hrungnir plummeted to the ground.

  Where Thor was waiting.

  Just before the giant hit the ground he was met with Mjolnir, held by the strong right hand of Thor, who reared back and put everything he had into a swing with the hammer that sent Hrungnir flying across the snowy lands.

  He then twirled Mjolnir overhead, gripping it tightly as it carried him to the far-off place where Hrungnir had landed. Falling more than landing, Thor was barely able to keep to his feet, and also barely able to avoid further aggravating his broken left arm.

  His left arm now useless, his right arm still holding his hammer, Thor instead used his legs, kicking Hrungnir as hard as he might. Again, the giant flew through the air, and again Thor whirled his hammer and flew after him.

  Back in Hrungnir’s keep, all the giants had gathered in the large room where Frigga was held. Except for Thjasse, they all stood at the windows, watching the fight.

  “Go Hrungnir!”

  “Look at that punch he threw!”

  “Thor ain’t got a chance!”

  “Hey, look, he’s gettin’ back up!”

  “Hrungnir’ll just take him down again, don’t you worry.”

  Frigga was concerned that the greater number of giants who had fled to the castle to protect themselves from the storm Thor had called down on Jotunheim would make it harder for her to escape her bonds. But none of the newcomers paid her any mind. Indeed, the only one who even acknowledged her was Thjasse, and all he did was give a quick look to make sure that she was still there.

  She had made some progress in getting her gag to slide off her face, but not enough to actually free her mouth sufficiently to cast spells.

  “Ha! Lookit, he broke Thor’s arm!”

  “He’s gonna feel that in the mornin’!”

  “Nah, he ain’t, ’cause in the mornin’, he’ll be dead.”

  “Yeah, him an’ the rest’a Asgard.”

  “You bet, we’ll be ridin’ into Asgard and takin’ all the gods! With Goldfaxi an’ that armor, we can’t be stopped!”

  “Can he even ride the horse with that armor on?”

  “If he can’t, I wanna ride him!”

  “Wait, what’s Thor doing?”

  Frigga kept rubbing her head against the floor on which she lay, trying to keep moving the gag farther down.

  “Wow. I didn’t think anybody could punch that hard.”

  “You obviously ain’t never been punched by Thor before.”

  “I have, and I’ve never seen him punch anybody as hard as he just hit Hrungnir.”

  “Geez, I can’t even see them anymore!”

  Thjasse then left, to Frigga’s relief. She had been observing Hrungnir and his band of giants for most of a day now, and Thjasse was the only one besides their leader who had even a modicum of cleverness. With only the imbecilic followers left, Frigga would have an easier time of things.

  And then, at last, she managed to lower the gag enough to free her lips.

  Slowly, quietly, she began to mutter an incantation. It was one her own mother had taught her millennia ago when she was a child in Vanaheim.

  “Be wary, daughter,” her mother had warned her. “This is spell only affects those who are already weak-minded. Those who are strong of character and self will not be swayed. In addition, this incantation should only be used sparingly and, most of all, wisely.”

  “But, Mother,” young Frigga had said, “all spells should be used wisely.”

  That had prompted a happy smile from her mother. “Yes, my sweet girl, exactly. You have learned your lessons well.”

  Frigga had soon perfected the spell. It had been centuries since she’d cast it, but she was certain she would be able to wield the incantation again.

  She also mourned her inability to impart the same sense of wisdom into Loki with regard to spellcraft that Frigga’s mother had imparted to her. Frigga had few regrets in her life. She was the wife of the greatest god who ever lived. She was respected by all of Asgard, and if that regard didn’t necessarily extend to all the denizens of the other of the Nine Worlds, at the very least she knew she had the admiration of those whose opinion was worth considering. And she had nothing but pride in her heart and soul for Thor and all that he’d accomplished.

  But she regretted deeply that she had been unable to do better with Loki.

  She supposed that all mothers had their issues with their children. For all the influence mothers had, sons and daughters were still their own people.

  Putting such self-indulgent thoughts aside, she finished the spell and saw that the giants were no longer gaping out the window, but instead staring straight ahead, waiting for Frigga to tell them what to do.

  “Untie me,” she said.

  This, she realized, was a mistake, as all twenty or so of them immediately moved toward her, bumping into and stepping all over each other to try to follow her instruction.

  “Stop!” she cried out, then pointed at one of them. “You, untie me.”

  Silently, the giant she pointed at shuffled over to her and undid her hands.

  She shook her wrists out and then stretched her arms, trying to get feeling back into them. This was, she knew, only the first step.

  Unfortunately for her next step, Thjasse chose that moment to reenter the room.

  “What is going on here?”

  Frigga was still too drained from her battle with Hrungnir on the mountain to do aught but maintain the spell on the giants, so she bellowed, “Attack him!”

  All the giants started to amble toward Thjasse in a menacing manner, but Hrungnir’s lieutenant quickly barked, “Stop, you fools! Do frost giants now take orders from puny Asgardians?”

  Most of the giants stopped their forward motion and stood in confusion. Frigga’s spell made the weak-minded open to the spellcaster’s suggestion, but these giants were already used to taking orders from Hrungnir and Thjasse, and so this new instruction confused them.

  And she didn’t have the wherewithal to strengthen the spell.

  One of the giants remained in her thrall completely, however, and attacked Thjasse.

  Or, rather, he tried to. Thjasse countered the giant’s clumsy attack, grabbed him, and threw him directly at Frigga.

  She tried to run, but the giant was too large, her own legs too short by comparison, and her fatigue too great.

  The weight of the now-insensate giant atop her was overwhelming, and Frigga found that she had to focus all her strength on keeping herself from being crushed.

  A moment later, the weight was gone, and Frigga saw that Thjasse had removed his erstwhile attacker from atop her. While this was a laudable short-term result, the looks on the faces of the other giants that now all stood over her spoke ill of her long-term prospects.

  “Bind her,” Thjasse said. “And I would advise not making any further attempts to free yourself, my lady. The only reason I do not kill you is because Hrungnir gave explicit instructions that you were not to be harmed until the battle with Thor was ended. But if you give me reason, I will forego that instruction and kill you myself. Your value was in getting Thor to arrive in Jotunheim alone that he may be thrashed by Hrungnir, and that particular coin has been spent. Do not tempt the fates any further.”

  Even as one giant held her down, another bound her hands with the same ropes—more tightly this time—and then replaced the gag.

  “Uh, Thjasse?” said Frigga’s original guard, who was now back at the window.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure Hrungnir’s the one doin’ the thrashing.”

  That got all the giants to return to the window, leaving Frigga once again bound and gagged on the cold floor.

  What they saw was Thor continuing to kick Hrungnir’s armored form about. They were farther and farther away from the keep, nearing Ymir’s Ridge, named after a previous leader of the frost giants.

&nbs
p; Thor had been treating Hrungnir as if he were a Midgard soccer ball, refusing to give the frost giant a chance to recover before Thor kicked him again.

  But the pain in his left arm and chest was starting to grow roots, and he knew he could not continue on this course for much longer.

  His latest kick had brought Hrungnir to the base of Ymir’s Ridge, and Thor realized what he needed to do now.

  Holding Mjolnir aloft, he commanded the lightning to strike at the ridge.

  At his command, the lightning burst forth from the gray skies, shattering the ridge, and sending rock, dirt, and snow cascading downward onto Hrungnir’s prone form.

  The ground shook further, as the lightning’s damage had a cascade effect, sending even more of the ridge collapsing atop Hrungnir. Realizing how bad it was getting, Thor quickly used his hammer to take to the air, letting the avalanche do its work.

  But Thor was only able to go a short way before he had to land once again. The thunder god could take very little more, and if the frost giant was not defeated at last by this final blow, Thor was not at all confident that he could continue the fight.

  Eventually, the avalanche ran its course. Ymir’s Ridge was broken and jagged, and below it, a massive pile of snow and dirt sat unevenly upon the ground.

  The echoes of the ridge’s agonized wounding faded from earshot, and soon all was quiet, save for Thor’s labored attempts to breathe with his ribs so badly damaged.

  Thor stood and waited in the quiet and the stillness. Cold air seared his lungs as he tried and failed to keep breathing without pain.

  As the seconds passed, he hoped that victory was his, at last, and Hrungnir had been defeated.

  But then the snow started to stir. The dirt began to shift.

  And then snow and dirt exploded upward as Hrungnir, his magic armor chipped but intact, leapt to his feet.

  Hrungnir himself was exhausted almost to the point of collapse, but he was physically unharmed beyond that. Besides, he had the stone armor to sustain him and keep him upright. And Thor was too far gone to be a worthy foe any longer.

  “Look at you, Thor. You can barely stand. Surrender! There is no shame in giving in to your superior. You have given this fight your all, and truly I have never beheld a foe so worthy as you. If you surrender now, I promise that I will deliver you to Hela’s embrace with speed and as little pain as possible.”

  Thor shook his head, an action that made his head swim. “Do you truly believe, Hrungnir, that I would accept so perfidious an offer as that?”

  “Perfidious? I treat you as an honorable foe, and you—”

  “Honorable? You threaten the very gates of Asgard over an imagined slight, you kidnap the woman who raised me from a baby, you—”

  “Imagined!? Odin made a fool of me!”

  “Nay, mighty one, the fates did that. My father merely cast a light upon it. Odin was but travelling alone to be with his thoughts. ’Twas you who harassed him and dragooned him into your absurd contest. For that, you have brought havoc down upon Asgard, endangered the lives of dozens of gods and giants both, and for what? Vanity? Ego? And then to issue this challenge by toying with the life of the mother of all Asgard, and to change the expectations of battle with your eldritch armor. There is no honor in you, Hrungnir, nor in your actions. And you may rest assured that Thor will never surrender! Not even after I draw my last breath will I succumb to the likes of you!”

  To punctuate his point, Thor threw his hammer with all the might he could muster—which, to be fair, was far less than usual—directly at Hrungnir.

  The giant saw how weak the throw was, and opened his hands as if to catch Mjolnir.

  Instead, the hammer slammed into the giant’s hands, pushing them back into his chest. The momentum of Thor’s throw sent the giant flying back, and while it didn’t hurt Hrungnir, it did cause him to crash into the jagged remnants of Ymir’s Ridge.

  The hammer flew back to Thor, his right hand wrapping around the haft.

  Hrungnir struggled to his feet, furious. “So be it, Thor! If you wish to fight until your dying breath, allow me to provide it!”

  Thor said nothing. Instead, he twirled Mjolnir in front of him, which sent more and more snow and dirt churning up.

  The giant was forced to raise his hands before his face to keep the dirt and snow out of his eyes and nose and mouth.

  Every muscle in Thor’s body cried out in suffering. Every bone felt as if it were either already shattered or about to be. Every pore felt as if it were on fire.

  But still he moved forward, his hammer’s twirling continuing to kick up more rocks and snow and dirt. He knew it was naught but an irritant to Hrungnir, yet it was hitting him in the one area in which he was vulnerable: his face, which the armor left exposed. And Thor needed the distraction of the detritus cutting into his face so he could get close.

  Once he was near enough, he stopped twirling the hammer, dropped it, and then leapt into the air and punched Hrungnir directly in the nose.

  Unprotected as it was, the nose was smashed, blood flying in all directions, even as Hrungnir stumbled backward into the ridge.

  Teeth clenched, breaths hissing through them, Thor advanced on Hrungnir, unwilling to give the giant pause. He grabbed the armor at the seam between helm and chestpiece with his right hand, turned, and then threw the giant with all his waning strength back toward the keep.

  Never was Thor more grateful for the fact that his power of flight came from Mjolnir rather than himself. That last throw took all Thor had, and he could barely stay upright. He had drawn on every last ounce of strength, and was still on his feet only by dint of the tattered remnants of his will power.

  But Mjolnir’s enchantment remained undimmed, and so with even the slightest throw, the hammer carried Thor to the ground outside Hrungnir’s shabby castle.

  Thor landed clumsily in front of Hrungnir, even as the giant unsteadily rose to his feet.

  To Thor’s horror, he saw that Hrungnir’s landing point was proximate to where his club had gone flying after Hrungnir had lost his grip on it. The giant now held the weapon in his hands once more.

  Hrungnir was grinning. “Did I not tell you, thunder god? Bring me down as many times as you may, I will always rise again to destroy you!”

  He held the club aloft.

  Thor tried to raise his right arm, but he found he had not the strength even for that action.

  It seemed that the battle had ended. Thor had nothing left to give, and he would soon be en route to Hela’s waiting arms.

  Hrungnir swung the club downward toward Thor’s head.

  And then the club shattered upon impact with Thor’s helmet.

  At first, both combatants merely stood in shock. Hrungnir and Thor both stared at the tiny, jagged bit of the club’s handle that was all that remained in his stone-gauntleted hands.

  Finally, Hrungnir spoke in a confused whisper. “How can this be? The club was indestructible!”

  “Your use of the past tense serves you well,” Thor said with a weak smile of his own. Again he reached out to the spot he had grabbed moments ago, right at the top of the chestpiece.

  The stone crumbled in Thor’s grip.

  “No.” The word escaped Hrungnir’s lips with a gasp.

  Buoyed by his foe’s sudden vulnerability, Thor straightened. “It would seem, mighty Hrungnir, that the enchantment upon your armor had a time limit. ’Tis a pity for you that the same cannot be said for Mjolnir’s magic. For while your armor’s extraordinary gifts came from an inferior source, my hammer’s comes from the All-Father himself!” Reaching back, Thor swung the hammer around right at the frost giant’s chest. “Behold the eternal power of Mjolnir, hammer of Thor!”

  Upon impact, the armor shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Even though he dwarfed Thor in size by a considerable margin, Hrungnir now cowered so much that he seemed smaller. Again he whimpered a pathetic “no” as he backed away from the thunder god.

  Placing his hamm
er in its belt loop, Thor advanced upon the giant, gathered what he could of his strength, and punched Hrungnir in the belly.

  The giant fell to the snowy ground.

  “I have brought you down, Hrungnir. Now, I believe, is when you rise again to destroy me.”

  Hrungnir did not move.

  “I am waiting, Hrungnir! Surely your boast was not an empty one!”

  The giant remained still upon the cold ground.

  Behind him, Thor heard the sound of heavy footsteps crunching into the snow. Slowly, he turned around to see Thjasse and several other giants exiting the keep.

  Thor looked up at Thjasse. “I believe the terms of our bargain were quite clear. I was to meet Hrungnir alone in combat, and the Lady Frigga would be freed. The god of thunder has met those terms, and I would now ask, Thjasse, that you meet yours.”

  Thjasse raised an eyebrow. “They are not my terms, Thor, but Hrungnir’s.”

  “Are you not his lieutenant, sworn to uphold his rule?”

  “For the moment, I am, yes.”

  Thjasse’s face was inscrutable, and Thor feared that he would get not the rest and recovery he so desperately needed to mend his battered body, but instead yet more battle.

  In an endeavor to forestall it, Thor said, “Consider your next move carefully, Thjasse. Asgard has played fair with Jotunheim. Hrungnir took Odin’s wife, an action that would, in the usual course of events, lead to a far stronger response than this. But the All-Father did abide by the terms set out by the base villain who would besmirch the mother of all Asgard—as did I. Do not presume to try the patience of Odin, or me, or the other warriors of Asgard by taking back the word of your leader. Even now, Sif, Balder, and the Warriors Three stand ready with all the soldiers of the Realm Eternal and the Einherjar of Valhalla to storm the battlements of this land should any harm come to Frigga.”

  “Do they?” Thjasse asked with a smirk.

  “Yes. They do.”

  Still looking at Thor, Thjasse called behind him. “Bring the woman!”

  One of the giants dashed back inside.

  Thor tried not to let the relief show in his face.

  “You have done me a favor today, son of Odin, for Hrungnir’s rule was far more predicated on his horse than his skills. Your victory is also a victory for me. That also gives me little reason to abide by any agreements Hrungnir may have made.”