Battlestorm

by Susan Krinard

  “Mist,” Rota whispered.

  The street was littered with dead. Not only the ash that was all that remained of Hel’s minions, but at least twenty Einherjar and two dozen men and women, mortals all, some struck down by the same warriors and magic that had destroyed the enemy.

  “Yzhas,” Hild swore. Mist closed her eyes and opened them again.

  It was no illusion. Odin sat on Sleipnir, erect in the saddle, Gungnir braced against his thigh. The Einherjar stood around him, weapons leveled as if they expected the dead mortals to rise as they themselves had done, ready to fight for Hel.

  But the mortal dead remained silent. Mist walked to the nearest body, an elderly woman with a grocery bag of vegetables torn open on the ground beside her. Her eyes were staring, but they were an ordinary brown. Mist knelt beside her and passed her hand over the woman’s face.

  “Sweet Baldr, welcome and protect her,” she whispered. Surely no one else in Hel would. If that was where her soul had gone. The idea of this old woman with some ghastly weapon in her hand, slaughtering her own kind …

  Mist rose, her jaw clenched so tight that she felt the bones would split her skin. She made her way through the ash to Sleipnir—past Valkyrie who had been lost to her so long—and stared up at Odin, seeing nothing but a halo of reddish light.

  “Mist,” he said, reaching down to touch the top of her head. “Well done.”

  But there was something wrong about his voice, and suddenly Mist could see him properly again: only a god on a horse, a strange look in his blue eye. He smiled, and the look was gone.

  “If all our victories are so easy,” he said, “we will win this city within a week.” He kicked Sleipnir’s barrel, and the horse picked his way among the bodies without a single twitch of his ear.

  The Sleipnir she had known was gone. And Odin looked down at the dead mortals with as little interest as he would show a can of beer crushed under the horse’s hooves. With hardly a glance in her direction, the Valkyrie Odin had claimed—Olrun, Hrist, Regin, and Skuld—marched at his heels. Einherjar ran out into the street to collect the bodies of their own fallen.

  Mist turned aside and retched. Rota laid a plump hand on her shoulder. “It was not … what we thought it would be,” she said in a very quiet voice. “We never expected so many innocents to die.”

  With a grim look, Hild folded her arms across her chest. “All is not well in the camp,” she said.

  “Danny,” Mist said, the sickness threatening to turn her stomach inside out. “I felt—”

  “He is dead,” Hild said. There were tears in her eyes. “It was an accident.”

  Mist swayed on her feet. “Who did it?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry, Mist. It was Dainn.”

  * * *

  Dainn wasn’t in his cell when Mist returned to camp. He was chained up to a pile of rebar-laden rubble tossed outside one of the refurbished warehouses, his clothes filthy and a bloodstained bandage wrapped around his right hand. Four Alfar surrounded him, alert and well-armed. One of them blocked Mist’s path with his spear as she approached. She looked him in the eye, and he bowed and raised the spear, stepping out of her way.

  If he hadn’t, Mist thought, she would have punched him in the face.

  She knelt level with Dainn, her empty stomach still heaving, and tried to get him to look at her. He didn’t. In fact, everything about him reminded her of Danny when he was in his detached state.

  But it wasn’t ordinary grief that had turned him silent and expressionless. He’d been that way many times before. Even horror and guilt weren’t enough to cause this emptiness, create this hollowed-out husk that felt as dead to her as any of the mortals she’d seen lying on the street.

  Neither Rota nor Hild had been able to tell her who had witnessed the death, or how it had come about. She didn’t need the details to know what hadn’t happened.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said softly. “They say it was the beast, but you had it under control.”

  Dainn continued to stare at some spot on the cracked concrete a dozen feet away.

  “I felt something, when it happened,” she said. “I felt that he wasn’t really dead.” She shook Dainn’s shoulder. “Dainn, listen to me.”

  “He will not speak,” said the Alfar with the spear, his tone respectful and apologetic. “Would you have me try to wake him?”

  “He’s not asleep,” she said. She looked up at the elf. “What is your name?”

  “Styfialdr, Lady.”

  “You know why Dainn is here?”

  “It is said that he killed his own son.”

  So, Mist thought, someone had informed the camp about Danny’s identity. She wondered how the humans and Alfar had reacted to the revelation, and how much they actually knew.

  Why did she still feel as if he wasn’t dead at all?

  “Where is the body?” she asked the elf.

  “I do not know. I have heard that it disappeared.”

  Mist digested the information with narrowed eyes.

  “Do you think he killed his son?” she asked.

  “Odin himself witnessed it,” Styfialdr said. “They say the Faith-breaker was mad, and the child was Loki’s.”

  Odin witnessed it, Mist thought with a sinking heart. He had to be wrong. He had to be.

  “Dainn loved Danny more than anything else in the Homeworlds,” she said, pushing the words past the lump in her throat. “What does the All-father intend to do with him?”

  Glancing at his companions, Styfialdr hesitated. “Lady, he has said that he is too deadly to live.”

  “Then he plans to execute him.”

  Again, Styfialdr lowered his gaze. Mist could think of only one solution short of violence.

  “Konur said all the Alfar will follow me now,” she said.

  “That is our duty.”

  “And does your duty include obeying me, even if what I ask directly contradicts Odin’s command?”

  The elf met her gaze. “What would you have us do, Lady?”

  She told him, and a few minutes later he and the other guards had disappeared around the corner of the warehouse. Mist looked for the locks on the several heavy chains that held Dainn pinned to the rubble like Loki under the serpent. She didn’t believe it was coincidence.

  Odin must really think that Dainn was unable to fight, Mist thought as she broke the locks. Or that no one would fight for him. The beast could snap these bonds as easily as a daisy chain.

  But when she’d freed him, he still didn’t move. He continued to stare at that same spot until she hooked her hands under his arms and pulled him to his feet. She thought she would have to carry him, but after she’d walked him a few feet away from the rubble, he stood on his own.

  “Good,” she said, as if she were talking to his son. “Just walk with me. You don’t have to do anything.”

  He went with her, never speaking, moving his legs as if they belonged to someone else. There was a small, unrefurbished factory on the other side of the fence, and she led him to it, slicing through the chain links with a murmured spell and mending them seamlessly behind her.

  The only useful object in the room was a torn, sprung couch someone had left lying on the factory floor, butted up against defunct machinery. Mist eased Dainn onto the couch and arranged his arms and legs. He “helped” her just enough to keep his full weight off her arms.

  She crouched before him and put her hands on his knees. “I know you’re in there,” she said. “I know you’re grieving for him. I—” Her eyes teared up. She stopped them with a fresh upwelling of anger. “I’ve never had a child, so I can’t know what it’s like for you. But I … I love him, too. I want to help.”

  His head moved just enough for her to notice. She squeezed his knee gently. “I need your help. Odin won a victory over Hel. But he was responsible for … we were responsible for a lot of unnecessary deaths. Innocent people died just because they were in the way, and no one bothered to separate friend from enemy.”
She closed her eyes. “It was dark, Dainn. Dark and ugly. I was part of it.”

  When she opened her eyes, Dainn’s lips were slightly parted, though his eyes continued to stare at nothing.

  “I’m going to try something, Dainn,” she said. “We’ve shared our minds and our thoughts even when we’ve been far away from each other. I think you’re very far away now. Try to listen.”

  I’m here, she said into his mind. Can you hear me?

  There was a vast, terrible silence where Dainn should be. She wandered through his mind, hearing the echo of her own thoughts, knowing he had to be hidden away in some dark corner where he didn’t have to think or feel.

  You can come out, she said. You’re safe with me. She listened for an answer, and after a span of uncounted time she caught a breath of sound, a distant howling.

  The beast, she thought in panic. That’s all that’s left. But she followed the sound to its source, and it was no beast. The child looked exactly like Dainn, with his long black hair and indigo eyes. A bandage was wound around his hand. He clutched a black-haired stuffed animal close to his chest as he lifted his tearstained face to hers.

  This was the being who could speak a language older than the oldest Elvish tongue, and he was utterly helpless. She knew instantly that she didn’t dare ask him how Danny had been hurt. The question would destroy any hope she had of reaching him.

  “Dainn?” she said. “I’ve come to take you back.”

  The boy said nothing. She knelt and held out her hand.

  “I know it hurts,” she said, “but you can’t hide forever.” She hesitated. “I need you, Dainn.”

  “It’s dark,” Dainn whispered. “I can’t see.”

  “I can see for you. I know the way.”

  “There are monsters.”

  “I have a sword. See?” She showed him the imaginary Kettlingr. “And you’re very strong, Dainn, even though you’ve never believed it.”

  “You never believed it, either,” Dainn said. “You can’t fight it.”

  At first she didn’t understand him, but the connection between their minds filled with an image, a sensation that couldn’t be mistaken.

  The Eitr. Not the bright healing magic, but the destructive force, the poison that had claimed her during the battle with Hel. It spun around her now, as if she were at the center of a hurricane, still quiet in the midst of chaos.

  Dainn knew she had lost control. Suddenly he threw the stuffed animal to her. She caught and looked into its blunt-muzzled face.

  The beast. Small, harmless, not even alive. But the dark Eitr converged on it like a swarm of flies on a corpse, and the stink of rot rose from torn seams.

  Evil. Yet the ancient magic conveyed another message, and she realized as she held the toy that it was no separate being trapped in fake fur and fiberfill. She felt the invisible cord binding it to the center of boy-Dainn’s chest.

  Slowly, Mist began to understand. The revelation was as startling as the knowledge that Dainn himself was not aware of it, though the truth lived there within his own mind, so deeply buried that only her outsider’s eyes could detect it.

  The beast was not the creation of Odin’s curse. It was a manifestation of the dark Eitr, as much a part of Dainn’s being as the elf. When he fought it, he fought that darkness … and the forces that made it what it was. Yet each time he used magic, especially the Eitr, he was at constant risk of literally giving way to his other half.

  It was very old, this unwilling symbiosis. Yet the beast could not be destroyed—only denied, driven back, crowded into a small space where it had no power.

  For a long while, before Freya had found him in Midgard, he had kept it caged. Emotion and conflict had broken down the walls. And Mist was as much responsible for that as anyone else.

  “He was very bad,” Dainn said in a small voice.

  What could she say? Even this child-Dainn knew what the beast had done. The guilt … the terrible, searing self-contempt …

  “I have it now,” she said, clutching the stuffed animal more tightly in spite of her loathing. “It’s safe.”

  “No.” He shook his head wildly, dark hair snapping around his face. “They made it worse.”

  The onslaught of memories assaulting her mind nearly bowled her off her feet. She could see the men he spoke of: the big one with a single eye, red-blond hair shot with gray, a full beard and mustache, and undeniable authority; the other a slender young man with bright red hair and green eyes, ever mocking.

  Odin and Loki. Both had pushed Dainn even further past his limit, Odin with his threats and contempt, Loki with—

  Gods. Until this moment, Mist had only witnessed Dainn’s shame, felt it in his thoughts. She had never lived it. Now, as the child Dainn cowered in his corner, she knew exactly how he had felt every moment he had remained Loki’s captive … helpless, abused, without hope. Unable to protect the one he loved most.

  She saw the scene in the stable play out as if it were on a movie screen: Loki taunting Dainn, making himself look like Danny for Norns knew what reason, and then Odin striding in …

  The rest became a blur. But Loki had been there. Odin had seen him.

  What if Loki was ultimately responsible for Danny’s death? He could have used a spell on Dainn …

  To kill his own son?

  Dainn whimpered. Mist cut off the terrible thought.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, gripping the plush toy until the stuffing seemed near to bursting out between the seams. “I should have tried harder to understand, to see…”

  Dainn stood up. “I want to hurt them,” he said.

  The words were flat, almost matter-of-fact. They would have been obscene coming from the mouth of a real child.

  But now he is a child, she thought. As innocent and deadly as Danny.

  “No,” she said gently. She held her free hand palm-up and summoned a soft bed of glowing coals that warmed but didn’t burn. “You always said I could learn to master the ancient magic, and you can do the same. Maybe we can help each other walk through this darkness. Together.”

  Dainn stared at her for a long time, unblinking, weighing, judging. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust himself. She was about to offer her hand when an explosion of magical power pummeled her like a vicious north wind, parted around her, and howled through the emptiness behind her. Strange Runes appeared in the air between her and Dainn. She tried to sound them out, but they tore apart and flew away like scraps of shredded paper.

  The toy beast leaped in her hand, and she felt it fighting to return to Dainn. Acting on instinct, she pulled several strands of hair from her head, sang them into steel, and wrapped them around the toy’s neck, tugging until they formed a snug and unbreakable collar. The beast seemed to shudder, and then went still.

  “You don’t need to be afraid now,” she said, tucking the toy under her arm. “It can’t hurt anyone.”

  Dainn gazed at the toy, shivered, and held out his hand. She took it and led him back the way she had come, into the light. Just as she felt the dream-world grow dim, she thought she saw a shadow behind Dainn—another child, trailing behind him. The shadow laughed, and a gentler wind blew past her, ruffling her hair.

  She opened her eyes. Dainn was huddled on the couch, deep, wracking sobs shaking his body. She put her arms around him and held him, stroking his dusty hair and holding her own grief in check until he was quiet again.

  Quiet, but changed. There was no trace of the little boy in him now. He got up and walked away from her, and she felt the small space between them widening into a chasm. A void without a bridge to cross it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He stared at the door. “I killed my son.”

  “Dainn, listen to me,” she said. “I don’t believe he’s really gone.”

  “Then where is he?”

  “I don’t know. But what happened was not your fault. I know that Loki was there.”

  “Allow me to take responsibility for my
own evil.”

  “It wasn’t—” yours, she almost said, and then remembered what she had discovered inside his mind. But did he know it now? Had she freed the memories so thoroughly hidden in the most primitive corners of his brain?

  She prayed he’d be spared that knowledge just a little longer.

  “You will take responsibility for your own life,” she said, “and the part you still have to play in this fight.”

  His eyes were dull when he looked at her. “What is that part now, Lady Mist?”

  “You’ll have to lie low until we can figure that out.”

  “The beast will return.”

  Mist thought about telling him that the beast was part of him, not the result of Odin’s curse. But she couldn’t bring herself to burden him with that knowledge now.

  “Not while I have it,” she said.

  There was a beat of silence, and he blinked several times. “You have it?”

  “Think, Dainn. You gave it to me. I bound it inside me, and it’s not going to escape unless I let it go.”

  His pupils expanded, eclipsing the indigo blue of his irises. “It will destroy you.”

  “I don’t think so. It doesn’t have any power over me, Dainn.”

  “You do not understand what you have done,” he said quietly.

  “I understand that it’s crippled you, and I can hold it as long as it takes for you to move forward without the constant fear of what the beast will do.”

  He turned away, his eyes gone dull again, and to Mist he seemed more than merely detached, more than grieving and hopeless. He felt empty.

  But Mist felt … hope. She didn’t know where it had come from, or how it could gain any kind of foothold after what had happened today. Yet she could imagine Danny taking her hand, smiling up at her, and telling her that everything was going to be all right. It was if he was right there with her.

  She grabbed Dainn by the shoulders and forced him to look at her again. The Eitr, a live cable of energy, jumped the chasm between them.

  The contact was electric, painful, and ecstatic at once, as intimate as any sharing of thoughts could be. Dainn’s muscles stiffened and then relaxed, his expression coming alive again. Her body became his, his hers. Desire and desperation intermingled and became inseparable.