Battlestorm

by Susan Krinard

  It was the fourth circle she had to hide from him, shielding it from his consciousness without faltering in her grip on his soul. A single moment of inattention on her part might have alerted him, but he was deep into his search by then, and he passed by the circle without noting its existence.

  Odin drifted farther away, and Mist allowed herself a moment of relief. It didn’t last. Someone screamed outside the warehouse, and she bounced back to full consciousness. The scaffolding that moored Odin’s soul began to dissolve. She snatched at the soul-cord, gripping it with all her mental and magical strength.

  Odin plummeted back as the cord retracted, and the semi-solid figure of the All-father shuddered violently in his chair, still unaware of the world around him. There were more screams, cries of shock and agony, dozens of voices united in terror.

  Leaving Odin where he was, Mist drew Kettlingr and ran outside. It was already dark, the stars and moon mostly obscured by the perpetual cloud cover, but there was a shadow lying over the camp that would make an ordinary night seem as bright as noon.

  Hel had come to Earth.

  Swinging Kettlingr before her, Mist sang Rune-spells of battle as she clothed herself and the sword in heat and light. The phantoms appeared out of the murk, caught in the glare, and shrieked their own fear, abandoning the bodies of those they had already claimed for their mistress of Death. Mist chased them, knowing that few of the sleeping mortals had the means to defend themselves from the dead. Driven by rage, she called upon the ancient magic and infused her sword with the Eitr. Wherever Kettlingr struck, a shadow-soul shattered into dust.

  Alfar joined her, along with Hild and Rota, each wielding her weapon and singing her chant. Death was the Valkyrie’s province, and though these souls belonged to the mistress of Niflheim, they fled from the Choosers of the Slain.

  In minutes the last of the army of the dead were fleeing, leaving a thick coating of ash and dust and powdered bone in their wake.

  With a cry of anger, Mist ran after the creatures. She cut them down as she reached the stragglers, swinging wildly and without thought as they passed through the wards, unaffected by spells that were only meant to stop the living. She didn’t care if she fought alone; all that mattered was the killing. She followed the dead as they swept onto Twenty-Second Street and reached Third, where a few mortals waited at the light rail stop to catch the last train. The dead swept over them, and they toppled to the ground like felled trees.

  Mist stopped. The dead, too, had come to a halt. From among them walked a woman in sweeping black and red robes, her body divided into dark and light, eyes red with a narrow rim of green.

  Hel.

  She smiled at Mist. “Valkyrie,” she said, inclining her head. “My father has so often spoken of you, and I have been eager to welcome you to my halls.”

  Searching the ancient magic for a weapon against the goddess, Mist laughed. “I know you resent me and my Sisters, Mistress of Corpses, because we rob you of your prey when we carry the souls of heroes to Odin’s hall.”

  “Ah, yes,” Hel said, sounding all too much like her father. “The glorious Einherjar. But you have been sadly lacking in employment since Valhalla ceased to exist.”

  “Oh, we have employment,” Mist said, hearing the footsteps of her Sisters drumming behind her. “And right now it’s sending you back to wherever you came from.”

  “But Niflheim was destroyed with all the rest of the Homeworlds, save this one.”

  “You must have your own Shadow-Realm—”

  “Yes. But at last I have been set free by the boy you sought to protect.”

  “What boy?” Rota asked.

  Mist lost track of her spell-seeking and searched Hel’s hideously beautiful face. “The daughter of the Father of Lies can easily lie herself,” she said.

  “But I don’t. My brother is a child of many accomplishments, and he was only defending his home from attack by intruders.”

  Defending his home? Mist thought. Was Danny unaware of what he had unleashed? Dainn had said that he didn’t always understand what he did. If the boy had acted purely on instinct …

  Odin had admitted to being the intruder, leaving a trail that would implicate Freya. He had never mentioned seeing Danny.

  “I see that this disturbs you,” Hel said. “Perhaps now you will admit that my little brother belongs among his true kin.” She smiled, treating Mist to a clear view of her rotten teeth. “Think instead on what you will lose if you continue to send your warriors against Loki. I will claim all those whom my guests have slain today, all they kill tomorrow, and every other mortal who falls in this war. Do you wish such a fate on your followers?”

  Almost before Hel had completed the question, Mist found what she was looking for. The Eitr surged up inside her, all light untainted by even a hint of darkness.

  “I don’t think so,” Mist said, and cast the light toward her enemies. Hel’s face became even more hideous as the magic of life battered against her, and the dead around her began to howl in pain.

  All at once there was a scuffle among her minions, ghost turning on ghost as dull swords and axes and daggers appeared in their hands. Mist stepped back, Hild and Rota on either side of her, trying to make sense of the bizarre spectacle.

  Hel vanished. The battling dead remained behind, until suddenly one faction broke apart and began to run. Rota started after them, but Mist held her back.

  “Wait,” she said.

  The phantoms who had lingered laid down their crumbling weapons, indicating surrender. One of them moved toward Mist, limping as if he had taken a wound like any living creature.

  Mist raised her sword, but the specter halted several yards away. His blurred face began to resolve, features coming into focus.

  Features Mist knew, as she knew the texture of his hair and the weary smile.

  “Geir,” she whispered.

  “Mist,” he said, his voice as dry and barren as Hel’s heart. “I’ve been waiting a very long time to see you again.”

  24

  Mist raised her hands palm-out as if she could block the sight of him. “You can’t be here,” she said.

  “But I am,” Geir said, deep sadness in his dull blue eyes. “I am dead, Mist.”

  “You can’t be with her,” Mist said, letting her hands fall. “Not with Hel.”

  “But I died of old age,” he said. “Of sickness and my body’s failure. I was never bound for Valhalla.”

  She tried to touch him, but her hand passed through him and emerged coated with ash. “You were never a follower of the ancient religions,” she said.

  “I was Norse,” he said. “And Hel took many who should never have gone to her.”

  “Took from where? The Void?”

  “I do not know where I was before. The laws of life and death are out of balance, and there is no means of telling where any who die will come to rest.”

  “Out of balance?”

  “Hel can claim nearly anyone she chooses, including every mortal who dies in this war.”

  His story was so unexpected that Mist could hardly accept it. She had always assumed that those who died following any particular faith would go to the place they believed in, though she had often hoped that there would be some justice for the good and evil.

  This was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  “I can get you out,” Mist said. “I can—”

  “Bring me to life again?” He raised his hands, revealing layers of skin and muscle and bone all visible at once. “Even with the abilities of Freya’s daughter, you cannot restore life. But we can help you.”

  She looked beyond him to the twenty or so phantoms who waited unmoving, their faces indistinct. She couldn’t even tell if they’d been men or women in life.

  “You just slaughtered dozens of my people,” she said, blinking to clear her vision.

  “We did not,” he said, gesturing behind him, “though Hel was too busy to notice those who hung back.” His eyes flickered with something like h
ope. “Once you and I fought side by side, resisting the Nazis. There is another rebellion brewing among the dead, and we are part of it.”

  “Rebellion? Against Hel?”

  “We have no wish to fight for Loki against the living. We cannot destroy Hel, but we can reduce the numbers of her willing followers, to whom she has promised great rewards.”

  “If what you say is true, Hel must have thousands, millions…”

  “Yes. But numbers never stopped us before.” He lifted his hand and dropped it again before Mist could be reminded that he wasn’t capable of touching her, embracing her, loving her. “We must go. I will—”

  He never finished, for a voice booming Rune-spells fell like a net around the dead, sweeping them up, flinging them high, scattering them like seeds thrown carelessly onto fallow earth.

  There was no trace of Geir and his fighters when Odin strode up to Mist, pushing Hild and Rota aside.

  Mist was too numb to move. “All-father?” she whispered.

  “Did I give you permission to abandon our search?” he asked.

  Hild and Rota gaped at Odin and fell to their knees. He ignored them. Murmurs and oaths rose from the Alfar behind them.

  “What did you do to Hel’s dead?” Mist said, staring at the place where Geir had been standing a minute before.

  “The slayers of my servants? I gave them true death. Loki has made his move too soon.” His eye narrowed. “How did he set her free?”

  Mist knew she couldn’t answer his question, or Danny would be in even greater danger. She looked from Hild to Rota with a plea in her eyes, hoping they understood. Rota still didn’t know anything about Danny, and Mist had asked Hild not to speak of him to Freya. But if they told Odin what Hel had said …

  “Hel said that Loki knew you’d raided his mansion,” Mist said, “and he brought her through from Ginnungagap.”

  “Then he has advanced further than I thought possible,” Odin rumbled. “Who was this phantom with whom you spoke?”

  At least now she could tell the truth. “There’s some kind of rebellion among the dead,” she said, “a group that doesn’t want to follow Hel or Loki against you.”

  “Indeed?” Odin’s ferocious expression began to clear. “What more did it say?”

  “He … it and its companions didn’t have anything to do with killing—” She clenched her teeth and turned back for the camp. “I have to get back to my people.”

  “Yours?” Odin said.

  “Some victims may still be alive,” she said, hardening her heart. “With your permission, All-father.… Rota, Hild, please see to the mortals at the light rail stop. If they’re dead, we have to dispose of the bodies.”

  “And witnesses?”

  “Will anyone else believe what they might have seen?”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Rota said, giving Mist a long, probing look as she and Hild got to their feet.

  “Valkyrie,” Odin said, “Alfar. Say nothing of my presence here. The time has not yet come to reveal myself.”

  Hild and Rota exchanged glances, but they bowed acknowledgment, and the Alfar murmured agreement. They scattered, leaving Mist alone with Odin again.

  “This attack was no coincidence,” Odin said, glaring at Mist as if she were responsible. “Assign others to see to the fallen. You and I will resume our search at once.”

  No one saw him return to the warehouse. Mist hung back. Alfar and mortals were already walking among the dead, checking pulses and counting the losses.

  Captain Taylor found her and spoke softly in her ear. Forty-six. Forty-three mortals and three Alfar driven from their bedrolls, their bodies gaunt and leached of color, their eyes unrelieved black.

  Shaking with impotent rage, Mist returned to the warehouse, and she and Odin began again. He passed by the circles of Mist’s magic without pause, and this time there was no incident to interrupt his work.

  When he returned to his physical body, he was smiling in a way that chilled Mist to the core.

  “It is done,” he said. “I have found him.”

  Arrangements were made quickly. It was obvious that Odin could no longer maintain his invisibility among the troops he chose to accompany him, so he summoned eight of his hidden fighters … the Einherjar he had been so reluctant to waste on “minor skirmishes.” Mist was grateful that she didn’t recognize any of them from her years in Asgard, especially the warriors she’d whisked away from mortal battlefields centuries ago.

  Unable to think of any way to delay Odin further, Mist braced herself for the worst. But as soon as she, Odin, and his guard reached the deserted crack house in the mission, Mist realized that the All-father had made a rather crucial mistake.

  Danny and Sleipnir were there, together. But they weren’t alone.

  For a handful of seconds, Mist shared the advantage of Odin’s concealing spell and caught a glimpse of a strange tableau, frozen as if in the flash of a camera. Sleipnir was tied up at one side of the filthy room; Ryan was trussed like an underfed turkey on the other side; and Dainn, his hand resting lightly on Ryan’s shoulder, watched Loki speak urgently to Danny beside a sagging couch in the center of the stained and littered floor.

  A dozen thoughts flashed through Mist’s mind in those few seconds: who had found Danny and Sleipnir first, Dainn or Loki? What had happened to Fenrir? How had Ryan gotten himself mixed up in this Nornsforsaken mess? And why in Hel wasn’t Danny doing anything to get himself, his father, and the horse out of this place?

  All eyes, even Sleipnir’s, snapped to Mist as she moved forward, breaking the spell. Dainn met her gaze, his eyes filled with misery, anger, and shame. She understood what he was trying to tell her; he wasn’t with Loki willingly, but Ryan’s situation had tied his hands.

  Loki’s face betrayed genuine shock, and she realized that he hadn’t expected to be found here. She gripped Kettlingr’s sheath, a profound hatred seething in her gut.

  “Welcome, Freya’s daughter,” Loki said, rising quickly as Danny broke away to huddle beneath Sleipnir’s massive forelegs. “What an unexpected pleasure. May I offer my congra—”

  He broke off as Odin made his grand entrance, clad in a literally gleaming shirt of mail, Gungnir in hand and his Einherjar behind him. He paused to stare at Loki in surprise, which quickly turned to calculation.

  “Slanderer,” he said. “Did you really think to stop me with a few hundred of Hel’s minions?”

  This time, Loki did a better job of hiding his consternation. “All-father,” he said with a very slight bow. “How I have missed our little chats.”

  “You will miss them even more when you are dead,” Odin said.

  “I shall regret not sharing the paradise you will create out of this world,” Loki said. “How many of Midgard’s people must die to make it suitable for the All-father?”

  Mist wondered if Odin would throw caution to the winds and attack Loki here and now, when the enemy was alone and vulnerable. Loki was clearly preparing to repel a magical assault. But Odin seemed to dismiss his enemy as he would a yapping mongrel. His gaze swept over Dainn and Ryan and came to rest on Sleipnir, who tossed his head and snorted.

  “Come, my pretty one,” he said, holding out his free hand.

  The horse danced away on his eight legs, and Danny, who had been staring at Odin with wide, fearful eyes, clutched at the trailing ends of the horse’s mane and retreated with him.

  “Ah,” Odin said. “And here is the child. Do you remember me, boy?”

  Mist started. Odin had seen Danny before. Loki’s eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t think my sons wish to see you at the moment,” he said with a little too much nonchalance, his eyes darting back and forth between Odin and Mist. “They are engaged in a private conference.”

  “It is not honorable to teach your children to ignore your guests,” Odin said, hooking his thumbs in his wide leather belt. “But Mist assures me that you turned this boy against her and my other servants, and that he is innocent of your evi
l.” He smiled through his beard. “She also suggests that you may have some affection for the child. Now you have the chance to spare him the fate that will befall the children of Angrboda.”

  “Your arrogance outpaces your wisdom, Lord of Gallows,” Loki hissed.

  Odin’s lid dropped over his eye in an expression of boredom, and he looked at Dainn. “How did this treacherous mongrel come to be here?”

  Dainn stepped away from Ryan, head lowered and eyes dark with hatred. Loki spoke before Dainn could open his mouth.

  “I took him from her,” he said with a poisonous glance at Mist. “Or didn’t you know he was Mist’s prisoner?”

  “Oh, I knew,” Odin said, neatly disabusing Mist of her hope that he had been unaware of Dainn’s presence in camp. “Do you expect me to believe that you set him free?”

  “No,” Dainn said quickly. “I escaped myse—”

  “You do not guard your resources adequately,” Loki said, interrupting Dainn and letting Mist off the hook for reasons she couldn’t fathom. “Or perhaps you are simply too arrogant to value them. I knew the elf could find my son, since he and Danny became fast friends while he lodged with me.”

  “Fast friends,” Odin said, as if he found the notion amusing. “Perhaps the boy’s friend can save his own life by convincing your son to return my mount. I would be reluctant to harm the child.”

  “You will never touch—” Dainn began.

  “Dainn cannot help you,” Loki said, talking over him again. “The Steed is no longer yours, Murderer of Children.”

  Mist knew that Loki was referring to the Aesir’s killing of his own Jotunn son, Narfi, in Asgard. The taunt was effective. Odin advanced on Loki, Gungnir raised.

  Sleipnir reared, thrashing the air with his forehooves. Dainn started toward Danny, paused, and looked back at Ryan with eloquent distress.

  “All-father,” Mist said, stepping in front of Odin, “there will be time enough to kill the Slanderer, and make him suffer before he dies.”

  A heavy hand struck out at her shoulder. The blow was painful, but Mist had achieved her purpose. Odin stopped.

  “Watch Laufeyson,” he said coldly. He stared at Dainn. “You. Bring the horse to me, or I shall kill you and take the boy.”