Battlestorm

by Susan Krinard

  As Dainn continued to cover for her, she moved forward, creating more nets and flinging them wide wherever Odin’s fallen warriors were returning to life. They began to go down in twos and threes, and the Jotunar continued to club and hack at the living Einherjar.

  Realizing that she’d left Dainn behind, she spared a moment to look back. An Einherji had cut a deep laceration into his left arm, and he was losing blood quickly.

  But the wound didn’t slow him. He spoke, and she felt rather than heard the incomprehensible spells he sang. Edging her way closer to him, Mist saw that Dainn’s arm was already healing.

  He shouted to her, and she turned in time to deflect the blade of one of her Sisters: Olrun, who had once guarded the god Freyr’s Sword—the weapon that needed no hand to wield it.

  But Olrun was definitely wielding it, and with great expertise. Mist backed away.

  “Olrun,” she said. “You know who I am!”

  “I know,” Olrun said, her teeth flashing. “Traitor to our lord All-father.”

  “A lord who would slay women and children and common men without mercy!”

  “He is our god,” Olrun said, and attacked again. When Mist got in a blow to her shoulder, Olrun stepped back and let the Sword fight for her.

  Mist parried and thrust, finding it difficult to predict the Sword’s next movement without a body controlling it. There was nothing of Odin’s soul left in the blade, but when she slipped in her defense and it cut the skin of her arm, she felt in her blood the hollow place left behind when Odin had drained the Sword of that part of himself.

  An empty place she could fill. She attacked, swinging wildly to drive Freyr’s Sword back toward Olrun, who hastily retreated.

  Wasting no time, Mist sketched Rune-staves on Kettlingr’s blade, letting some of her blood seep into the etching that spelled out the Sword’s name. When Freyr’s Sword came at her again, its fury redoubled, Mist made sure to parry with the part of her blade painted with blood.

  The magic Sword groaned and snapped in two.

  “Go, Olrun,” Mist said, kicking the halves of the blade aside, “or I will have to kill you.”

  The Valkyrie looked from Mist to the broken weapon and ran. As Mist caught her breath, she looked for Dainn. He was dealing with several Einherjar, but it was obvious that he was having trouble. He had resorted to using a slim elven dagger, moving with a swift efficiency that outranked any knife work she’d ever seen.

  Danny, she thought. Dainn’s afraid to take the magic too far.

  She spun around at the sound of eight hooves beating against the earth. Sleipnir was almost on top of her, but Odin didn’t seem to see her. He was using an enormous ax to behead Jotunar, one after another, his beard and mail flecked and splashed with blue blood.

  At the same time, the dead rushed forward from the back of the field, leaving the ash of straw-colored grass behind them as they came. Hel herself skimmed over the ground as if she rode on the wind of their passing, and the Wolf, Fenrir, loped in her wake—twice the size of any true wolf, intent on the one he had been destined to kill at the Ragnarok that never was.

  Now, Mist thought, she had her chance. She reached inward for the Eitr, seeking the elements that would give her some hope of taking him down and leaving him at Hel’s and Fenrir’s mercy.

  Her tattoo burned. The earth shuddered. Sleipnir reared, and the field fell silent.

  Then the assault began: not of warriors or beings of the Homeworlds, but of the very elements Mist had hoped to deploy against the enemy.

  But she hadn’t done this. Eitr or not, Odin still had great power. The dull light that leaked through the heavy clouds disappeared, as if a giant hand had closed a shutter over the city. Hail shot down like bullets, carving divots out of the ground and slicing flesh without discrimination. Lightning slashed against the clouds, never quite touching the earth. Then the snow began to fall, heavily enough to cover the field, and everything on it, within a few minutes.

  Mist peered through the fog, searching for Odin, for Hel, for anything she recognized. Then she heard wailing cries, and she slashed Kettlingr from side to side in front of her face, clearing wide swathes out of the falling snow.

  The dead, unable to contend with the challenge of the heavy weather, were being struck down by Einherjar who had fought in such conditions for much of their original lives. Odin’s Spear flashed gold as it hissed through the heavy air, taking down three Jotunar with one cast. He plunged out of the snowy veil, snatched up the Spear, and smiled right at Mist.

  Suddenly Loki was there … and so were three Mists. Odin hesitated in confusion. Mist reached for the Eitr, felt it strike hard against Odin’s magic like two blades clashing in a single powerful blow.

  That was when the mortals arrived: Rick, Captain Taylor, Vixen, the hundreds of recruits who were willing to risk their lives for Midgard. She searched for Dainn and couldn’t find him. As she sprinted across the field to join her allies, Loki appeared beside her. His feet barely touched the ground.

  “How did they get here?” Mist gasped between breaths.

  “I don’t know,” Loki said, “but you can be sure that Odin will use them against us, unless you harden your heart as a warrior must.”

  “Where is Dainn?”

  “If he is to protect Danny, he must—”

  He broke off as they reached the mortal troops. Rick and Taylor faced Mist squarely, braced against the unrelenting weather.

  “How in sweet Baldr’s name did you get here?” she demanded.

  “We went straight back to Loki’s HQ after we were sent back to camp,” Captain Taylor said, holding his sword firmly at his side. “A woman there told us where to go.”

  “We heard the Horn, too,” Rick said. “Hell, everyone this side of the bay must have heard it.”

  “The whole city’s smothered in snow and ice,” Taylor said. “Nothing is moving. Every mortal in San Francisco is a sitting duck.”

  “But Odin can’t attack everywhere at once,” Mist began, “even to—”

  “Where the fuck—sorry—is that rat bastard?” Rick asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Mist said. “He’ll find us. Taylor, fall back as far as you can. Don’t move unless I give the signal.”

  She waited until the mortals faded behind the wall of snow. Muffled footsteps alerted her, and she found herself facing Horja.

  And not Horja. This was the Anna she’d seen standing beside Odin’s throne, but her gaze was blank. She opened her mouth.

  “The … pendant,” she said hoarsely. “Give it to me.”

  “Anna,” Mist said. “Listen to me. Remember who you are. Leave Odin, and come back to us.”

  Extending her arm, Anna reached toward Mist’s neck. The pendant jumped under Mist’s shirt. Anna lunged forward to grab it. The moment her fingers touched it, she fell.

  And vanished. Lying in her place was a child with a familiar face and an expression of mingled fear and defiance.

  “Mist,” Rebekka said in a very small voice. “Don’t kill me.”

  32

  Listening to her heart instead of her head, Mist took Rebekka’s hand and pulled her to her feet.

  “Will you listen to me now?” she asked.

  “I’m scared,” Rebekka whispered. “Where am I?”

  Mist hiked Rebekka up on her hip and called out to Dainn in her mind as a new wave of Einherjar charged toward her. Dainn stepped through a screen of snow, his hair nearly white with it.

  “Take her!” Mist said, pushing Rebekka into Dainn’s arms. She turned to face the Einherjar. Loki charged up beside her, urging his Jotunar to meet the attack.

  Even as she fought, Mist was aware that something was wrong with Dainn and Rebekka. She retreated, fighting all the way, until she had a clear view of elf and child.

  Rebekka was trembling wildly in Dainn’s arms, and Dainn himself was as pale as the snow, his jaw clenched against some tremendous pain. Abruptly Rebekka squirmed out of his hold and turned to stare at Mi
st with eyes that had never belonged to a refugee child in Norway.

  They were Danny’s eyes, as dark as Dainn’s, as old and wise as the eldest god’s.

  “Danny?” Mist stammered.

  “No!” Dainn shouted. He grabbed at Rebekka as she—Danny—burst into a run, dashed past Mist, and ran between the strolling giants and Einherjar with no sign of fear. He reached Odin, who was overseeing the mêlée, and touched Sleipnir’s broad shoulder with the palm of Rebekka’s hand.

  The horse’s eyes shone white, and he reared, cutting at the Einherjar within reach, his hooves severing veins and carving deep slashes in the warriors’ flesh. Odin lost hold of the reins and snatched at Sleipnir’s mane, but he couldn’t stay on as Sleipnir bucked and crow-hopped and bounced the All-father out of the saddle.

  In an instant Danny-Rebekka was astride the stallion, and they were galloping away, literally disappearing before Sleipnir could leave more than four sets of hoofprints behind him in the snow.

  Mist ran to Dainn, who was curled in on himself as if he had lost a part of his body. Loki appeared and grabbed hold of Dainn’s arm.

  “Where is Danny?” he asked Mist, panic in his voice.

  “Gone,” Mist said, stunned by Danny’s act of coercion. “Anna took on Rebekka’s shape, and Danny stole it, along with Sleipnir.”

  “The beast … began to break free,” Dainn gasped. “Danny fled in the … only way he could.”

  He doubled over, coughing blood into the churned snow. Mist looked around wildly, hearing but unable to see the battle.

  “Where are the Jotunar?” she asked Loki, lifting Dainn by the shoulder.

  Loki shouted. Mist heard the giants’ heavy feet pelting toward them, but suddenly the fog cleared and she saw that Odin was up again, red-faced and ready to kill. She had no sooner begun a defensive spell than he grabbed Gungnir off the ground, passed it over the Jotunar within his reach and killed every one of them.

  Flinging back her head, Mist grabbed for the Eitr with both hands. Power flowed into her—from the earth, from the sky, from stone and snow and the blood of the fallen. Her tattoo blazed with agony. There was no direction to the magic, no control. She hurled every element straight at Odin’s vengeful face.

  * * *

  “Do you feel Danny now?”

  Loki’s voice beat on Dainn’s eardrums like pile drivers, and his arm ached where some weapon had sliced through his sleeve. But it was the gaping wound in his chest that hurt most.

  He began to rise, but Loki pushed him down.

  “Concentrate,” Loki said. His face was unusually pale, his expression stark and sober. “Is he safe?”

  “The beast,” Dainn whispered, closing his eyes against the snow that blinded him.

  Loki gripped Dainn’s injured arm, twisting the slashed sleeve. “How?” he demanded.

  “Too much … power,” Dainn said, grateful for the pain. “Find Danny. I…” He convulsed again as the other spirit began to fill the hole Danny had left.

  Dainn fought it. But he knew his hold on the beast was broken, and the temporary balance he had found with Danny’s presence was shattered.

  The beast laughed. It expanded, consuming flesh, mind, and spirit, twice as strong as it had been before.

  A shock ran through Dainn’s body, bending his spine and making him shake and jerk uncontrollably. He tasted fresh blood on his tongue, and opened his eyes. The beast’s eyes.

  Distantly, faintly, he heard a voice call his name. He ripped upward with his claws, felt them tear flesh. His prey fled out of his reach, still shouting, running.

  He heaved himself to his feet and shook out his coat. Swinging his head left and right, he sniffed the air for the smell of his enemy.

  One of them had to die, because there was no room in the elf’s soul for both of them. He knew that if the boy won, the beast would cease to exist.

  He broke into a run, glorying in the rush of wind and snow over his thick coat, the grip of his paws on frozen ground, the scent of death in his nostrils.

  He had just caught the scent when he heard the hoofbeats. He charged the horse and the child on its back—the girl that was not a girl at all. He leaped, raking his claws across the horse’s chest. It squealed, lashing at him with its hooves, but he dodged them easily.

  The child looked down at him with wide, fearful eyes. The beast bunched his muscles to leap again.

  A thickly furred body struck him from the side … a beast almost as large as he was, as heavy and powerful, but without his claws. He knew the name: Fenrir. Fenrisulfr, son of Loki Scar-lip, who had kept him weak and helpless so long.

  Rage kindled in his heart as the Wolf seized his foreleg in its jaws. He felt pain and the flow of blood, but his own coat had taken the brunt of the bite. He doubled back on himself and snapped at the Wolf’s neck, puncturing flesh. The Wolf howled and broke free to pant and glare.

  Kicking snow into the Wolf’s face, he looked again for the horse and child. Dark shapes rose in his path, led by a female of two colors and a body that stank of carrion.

  He knew her, too. Hel, daughter of Loki. He charged again, and the dead ones fell upon him, clutching at his coat, clawing at his eyes, snatching at his tongue and his tail.

  Then Hel touched him, and a great weariness came over his body. He wanted to lie down and sleep for a very long time. But he understood what she was doing to him, and he shook off the dead as if they were fleas.

  The boy, he thought. When the boy was gone, only he would remain.

  * * *

  Power.

  That was what Mist loosed now: such unrestrained power that it could not be contained except by the most extraordinary effort. She had no body, no form, but the Eitr caught fire within her, burning outward through invisible bone and flesh. She screamed. More power poured into her, and when the bolt struck, she struck back. Everything around her exploded like a gigantic star in its death throes.

  “Mist!”

  Something touched her, and suddenly she felt her fingers, her hand, her arm, all rematerializing as Ryan gripped her wrist. She blinked snow from her eyes and looked up into the young man’s anxious face, becoming aware that she was lying in a hollow of mingled snow, ice, and dirt, and that smoke was rising from her clothes.

  “Odin!” she said, ready to spring to her feet. Dizziness caught her, and Captain Taylor helped her sit again.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Odin attacked you with his magic, but you put up one hell of a fight.”

  Mist felt her aching head. “I’m all right,” she said. “How long have I been out?”

  “Maybe five minutes,” Taylor said. “We were about to move you when Ryan said you were coming out of it.”

  Five minutes, Mist thought. She’d gone into the fugue state at the moment she’d met Odin’s attack … or at least she couldn’t remember anything of the attack except a brilliant flare of light.

  An explosion of light, as if from a dying star.

  “Where is Odin now?” she asked.

  “You forced him to retreat,” Taylor said with grim satisfaction. “You knocked over a couple dozen of his fighters, and put the fear of God into him. I think he’ll be licking his wounds a little while longer.”

  Mist nodded and met Ryan’s gaze. “Where did you come from?” she asked. “You should have stayed in camp.”

  “I had to be here,” Ryan said, sitting back on his heels. “This is where it happens.”

  Of course. She’d been stupid to think that anything could keep the kid away from the denouement of his visions.

  But she couldn’t ask him what was going to happen. And she knew he wouldn’t tell her.

  “Have you seen Sleipnir?” she asked Taylor. “Dainn? Loki?”

  “They’ve disappeared,” Rick said, kneeling beside Taylor. He glanced at the captain. “Hel’s retreated, and—”

  “Why?” Mist asked.

  “Some kind of internal trouble with her army of the dead. We’re still outgunned.”r />
  “How many have we lost?” Mist asked Taylor.

  “It’s impossible to tell in this storm,” the captain said.

  Mist made another effort to get up. She made it to her knees. “Listen,” she said. “We need to find Sleipnir. He got away from Odin, and a little girl is riding him. I need you to find that girl.”

  “A little girl?” Rick asked. “Who the hell is she?”

  “We can talk about that later,” Mist said. “Taylor, try to keep our fighters in a holding action until—”

  “Is that the girl?” Rick asked.

  Mist followed his stare. Sleipnir was galloping toward them, Rebekka’s small figure dwarfed by the huge saddle. Mist knew immediately that Danny still had control of the body. He slid off the stallion’s back and ran to Mist.

  “It’s coming!” he said.

  “Stand behind me,” Mist said. She drew Kettlingr.

  “Don’t hurt Papa,” Danny-Rebekka begged. He reached for Mist’s free hand and clutched it tightly. “He saved everyone.”

  Mist looked down at him. His eyes swallowed her up, and she saw the exploding light, flinging out thousands of sparks … souls, living beings, cast into Ginnungagap from the Eight Homeworlds.

  But alive. Alive, when they would have been killed at Ragnarok, as prophecy foretold.

  The Dispersal.

  Her mind erupted with ancient Runes and memories, and she became Danny, cradled in Loki’s womb, a creature born to magic and utterly innocent. Then she was Dainn, who had tried to prevent Ragnarok with diplomacy … Dainn, ravaged by the beast and swimming in dark Eitr, cursed by Odin to kill Loki Laufeyson. Rage, and a flare of lost memory, a time before Asgard and Aesir.

  Knowledge, understanding, revived at the perfect balance between dark and light. Dainn unconsciously sensing that to kill Loki would be to kill the son he hadn’t known he had. Finding the means to stop Ragnarok … with a final act of magic that would split him in two.

  But the magic hadn’t been lost.

  “I understand,” Mist murmured, squeezing Danny-Rebekka’s hand. “I know how to reach him.”