by Lentz, P. K.
I kill and kill, and the flaccid, hideous corpses pile up before me and all around me until I must climb up on them to keep from being buried. Likewise do those few Aesir in sight around me.
Some Aesir fighter screams, a sound that barely pierces the Myriad's constant high-pitched wail. I spare a glance and see the fighter rent in two. I know he is hardly the first to suffer such a fate this day, and he will not be the last. The Myriad does its best to visit the same fate upon me, and would in an instant if I dared let my sword rest. But I do not, and after another furious round of slaughter, the sorcerers of Asgard again cut down a swath of beasts in front of me, granting me the gift of another short reprieve. My arms burn and fall immediately to my sides, sword point resting on a bloated carcass. Underneath me, a tentacle stirs. I find and sever it.
I hear Baldr's voice from behind and thus know he still stands. "Stand fast, my Aesir!" he exhorts. "Victory is in sight!"
I see no such thing. Perhaps, in truth, neither does he. I set my good eye down the ranks to my right, where the Valkyriar are again embroiled, their short rest at an end, as mine soon will be. I watch as a Valkyr is hoisted bodily from the ground by a snaking limb coiled round her waist. She rises into the air, sword dropping from her hand. Another Valkyr races after her, swinging her sword at the creature as it sails off out of reach.
My blood freezes. The two figures are distant, but I know them. Perhaps it is my lone eye that tells me, perhaps some other sense, but I know. The lifted Valkyr is Sigrid; the chaser is Ayessa.
In a heartbeat, my choice is made. I know that our Host's strength, as any army's, depends in great measure on the ability of its members to know their places and to hold them. My place is here in Baldr's contingent, where the Aesir to my right and left and behind depend upon my sword.
Yet I cannot stay. The impulse overcomes all else. No sooner have I identified Ayessa than I start running toward her. I cover the distance quickly, running over piles of dead from both sides, dodging three Myriad along the way rather than taking precious time to strike at them.
At breakneck pace I race up a mountain of dead creatures and throw myself into the air on a course for the beast holding the eerily limp form of Sigrid. I collide with the thing and grab for whatever purchase my free hand can find. It finds an eyelid, wet with viscous slime, but I manage to hang on, just. I bring my blade to bear and drive it home, straight into the eye, then yank it free and stab again. A tentacle lashes my back, then clings to my shoulder, pulling. I dig my fingers into the eyelid, resisting the backward force upon me whilst I keep stabbing, stabbing, doing as much damage as I can before my inevitable fall.
My fingers slip in slime and black ichor. My grip fails, the tentacle wins, and I am launched backward into void. Falling, I witness the beast releasing Sigrid, who tumbles down. The creature flies a wild spiral, badly damaged, and hits the ground among a hundred corpses of its kin.
I also land in a bed of dead flesh, but as I hit, sharp pain shoots through the upper part of my right arm. I look over to see it has been badly sliced by the sharp, bony horn protruding from one of the dead creatures under me. Driven by knowledge that seconds can make the difference between life and death, I scramble and succeed in righting myself in the sea of gore. I have just managed to hold onto my sword, but my right arm, where my own red blood mingles with the black of the enemy's, is no longer capable of wielding it. I shift the weapon to my left and raise it in search of new threats.
A few Myriad descend, and I am ready for them—but I am saved from fighting left-handed when from behind me three Valkyriar appear and hack the things to pieces.
I let myself feel hope. The swarm must be thinning, its numbers becoming depleted, for I can see the sky. I look to where I saw Sigrid fall and there witness two Valkyriar, one of them Ayessa, hauling Sigrid onto their shoulders and carrying her away from the thickest part of the swarm.
Safe for the moment, I look up and down the Great Host and glimpse scenes similar to the one around me. Our Host is regrouping and pressing forward. The Myriad no longer come at us in a vast unbroken wave, but piecemeal, in smaller clouds. As I watch, one such cloud is reduced to dust by a blast of magical force. The battle is not yet over, but it is close.
Until it is done, I stand with the Valkyriar and do my part, left-handed, to kill several more of the putrid things. I persist until finally a Valkyr says to me, "You are hurt. Get back. We have this."
The arm in question is numb and pouring blood from a wide gash above the elbow. She is right. The swarm is all but defeated. My presence is extraneous, and I gladly heed her advice. With some difficulty, I lay my blade to rest in its scabbard, freeing the hand to clutch my wound, and make my way toward the rear of the Great Host, to the extent that there is a rear in the chaos of this battle. Wounded are all around me, being tended by a few healers and their fellows who are less seriously hurt. Most in this area are Valkyriar. I search for two in particular.
I find them and go toward them. Sigrid lies on the ground, head resting the lap of kneeling Ayessa, whose head hangs low over that of her lover. I reach them and fall to my knees. Ayessa spares me a swift glance which contains no malice, only pain. Her eyes are damp. Sigrid's are shut, but her face is not a death-mask; her chest yet heaves under the eagle blazon of her armor.
I sit there in silence with them while all around us the shrieking of the swarm diminishes with each passing minute, until finally it is subsumed by the low howl of Medea's wind.
A cheer goes up from the Great Host, a wordless chorus of victory and celebration. It does not last long. Too many have been lost. More are sure to follow, for this is but one battle. Ask the Chrysioi, who also won battles at first, ultimately only to be driven from their world.
On the other side of the chasm, the Alvar do not cheer. Perhaps it is not in their nature. The carnage over there looks no less severe than it does on this side.
"She can't feel her legs," Ayessa says to me, a helpless whisper. "She can't feel her legs," she repeats. "What does that mean?"
"She lives," I reassure her. "The healers will help her. And if they cannot, I will carry her myself to Freya at the gates of Niflheim."
It is no empty pledge, and Ayessa's look says she knows it.
"I must go." Clutching my wounded sword arm, I rise and move toward the Vanir contingent to learn whether Gaeira has survived.
I have gone but a few unsteady steps before I see her coming toward me. Hardly a strand of her blond hair is to be seen through the film of black ichor that coats her, as it does every one of us. Though greatly relieved, I manage, like her, not to smile. I keep walking, considerably more slowly than she, until we meet, the tips of our toes nearly touching. She does not embrace me, for that is not her way, especially not in front of so many. For my part, I presently must use my one good arm to staunch the flow of blood from the other, and could scarcely embrace her if I tried. I lower my head, and Gaeira angles hers so minutely that none but I might perceive it, and our cheeks graze. This is the expression of our joy in seeing each other alive, and for us, it is more than enough.
"Thamoth!"
I look over, knowing the voice, and catch sight of its owner surmounting a hill of slaughtered Myriad. I hail Crow and allow myself a brief smile. I have lost no one dear to me this day. Later, when the dead are counted, I fear that I will be one of very few for whom that is true.
While Crow is walking to me, someone cries out, "Odinn!" Other voices join: "Odinn! Odinn!"
It is no mere battle cry or dedication of the victory just won. The All-Father himself has come to stand in person on the field of carnage. He holds in one hand a long, twisted, hollow horn taken from I know not what manner of beast. Covering its smooth ivory surface are finely drawn symbols in a script I do not know.
The Great Host, already in disarray, surges in a wave toward Odinn. I am near where he has appeared, and by running I manage to gain a place at the edge of the respectful ring of empty space that his army leaves aro
und him. Gaeira slides in next to me. Within moments, the crowd parts to let Baldr through into the ring, and then Tyr. Odinn's third living son, Hodr, comes next, close by Hel's side. Though his eyes are blinded, Hodr has fought the Myriad and lived. Surely drained by her magical contribution to the battle, Hel leans heavily on his shoulder.
Baldr is first to speak, addressing Odinn with a question I do not understand. "Is this the only way?" he asks sorrowfully.
"Aye," Odinn answers heavily, in his low rumble of a voice. "A battle is won, but the war is not. Not yet. To assure Asgard's survival... we must free the Serpent."
53. Enemy of Life
With the Great Host of Asgard I stand, ready for battle. To my left and right are peerless Einherjar, mighty Valkyriar, and every man and woman of the Aesir and Vanir capable of wielding ax, spear, or sword. Leading us is Tyr, son of the All-Father Odinn. Beside him are two of his brothers, shining Baldr and blind Hodr, who insists he is able to fight thanks to enchanted sight bestowed upon him by his lover, Hel. A fourth Odinnson, the mightiest of them, Thor, has fallen, mourned by the sky itself. The All-Father himself has gone in search of answers, and presently lies entranced by Mimir's Well, deep within the tangled roots of Yggdrasil.
Swelling our ranks are forces more accustomed to challenging Odinn's rule than heeding it: towering frost giants and the undead thralls of Hel. My own folk stand with the Host, too, reborn souls doomed to wander between worlds. They are unaware that they are led by an impostor wearing the face of their rightful leader. Of all who were summoned this day, only the fighters of Svartalfheim declined to take the field. The sons of Odinn have sworn that once the threat is past, they shall be made to pay for their refusal.
If the threat passes, and if any sons of Odinn survive it. If Odinn himself survives. Those things are hardly certain. I have drunk of the Well of Mimir, and its waters granted me four visions of the future. One thus far has come to pass. Three remain, the worst of them.
Two lives have I lived, in two worlds. The second brings me here, to a battle which may be the last this world ever knows.
Early on the third day after the assembly of the Great Host, a wretched shrieking fills our ears. A green mist issues from the chasm before us—and then is quickly dispelled by a steady wind conjured by Medea. Next come a few of the vile creatures which are named the Myriad because they are endless in number and form. They hover and watch, staying out of our weapons' reach.
And then, behind them, comes the swarm, rising from below like a great wall of writhing, multicolored flesh. The second of my four visions becomes real. Ragnarok is upon us.
***
When this day began, I did not possess a clear sense-impression of how I, Thamoth, wearing other flesh, felt on first looking seaward from a palace roof and seeing the sky eclipsed by a great wave coming to engulf me. That memory was impressed upon me by Mimir's Well and thus feels as a dream, once removed from true experience.
Now, gazing up at another great wave made not of water but of monsters, I recall the terror, the helplessness, the despair, the sense of inexorable doom, for I feel it afresh.
One cannot battle the sea and win. One cannot even try. It is just as possible that one cannot battle the Myriad and win.
But we will try.
For a few moments, looking at the swarm, its shriek filling my ears, I stand paralyzed, I and every other man and woman of the Great Host. The last time I faced this enemy, it came cloaked in green mist. Now, thanks to Medea's gale, it stands exposed, a nightmare deluge of a thousand colors, a million eyes, a million mouths and ten times a million limbs and teeth.
Up and up the swarm rises, its shadow swelling to cover our Host. From the frozen army, a great many voices rise at once in a ringing war cry: "ASGARD!" I add my voice, as countless others add theirs, and the defiant cry sails up on Medea's wind to combat the eerie, incessant shrieking of the Myriad swarm. We defenders stand fast, hands tight on grips of blades as the screaming, life-devouring wave crests—descends—and crashes into our ranks. There is no front line, as there would be if we faced a foe which walked on legs. All ranks of our Host, from front to rear, must fight equally from the first instant.
I swing my blade, and it slices mottled flesh. On the backswing, it cuts again. It does not stop cutting. Writhing tentacles wrap about my body. I sever them, sometimes before, sometimes after, their spikes or thorns or ridges pierce my skin. To either side of me, a sword-length away, Aesir fighters likewise battle for their lives and for mine, just as I strike in their defense whenever I am able. The sky stands filled with monsters, and we swing and swing at whatever is in reach while black ichor coats us head to foot. We may not stop slashing for a heartbeat, lest all be lost.
But our army fights not only with blades. I have fought unceasingly for long minutes when I feel a rush of intense heat on my neck. The swarm's shrieking momentarily subsides, and the sky brightens a shade. The creatures above my section of the Great Host blacken and wither and fall from the sky, victims to the sorceries of Hel and other enchanters of Asgard unknown to me.
The magic gives us our arms brief respite. Too brief. It will be scant seconds before more Myriad fill the gap. Before they come, I look all around at the other contingents of the Great Host. First I scan the Vanir, but my eye fails to pick out Gaeira. Beyond, towering above them, frost giants swing their massive hammers at the swarm, batting Myriad from the air like bloodthirsty birds, smashing them against the ground. I whip my head the other way to see how fare the Valkyriar, but I can see only the swarm before time runs out and I must return to the bloody harvest.
I kill and kill, and the flaccid, hideous corpses pile up before me and all around me until I must climb up on them to keep from being buried. Likewise do those few Aesir in sight around me.
Some Aesir fighter screams, a sound that barely pierces the Myriad's constant high-pitched wail. I spare a glance and see the fighter rent in two. I know he is hardly the first to suffer such a fate this day, and he will not be the last. The Myriad does its best to visit the same fate upon me, and would in an instant if I dared let my sword rest. But I do not, and after another furious round of slaughter, the sorcerers of Asgard again cut down a swath of beasts in front of me, granting me the gift of another short reprieve. My arms burn and fall immediately to my sides, sword point resting on a bloated carcass. Underneath me, a tentacle stirs. I find and sever it.
I hear Baldr's voice from behind and thus know he still stands. "Stand fast, my Aesir!" he exhorts. "Victory is in sight!"
I see no such thing. Perhaps, in truth, neither does he. I set my good eye down the ranks to my right, where the Valkyriar are again embroiled, their short rest at an end, as mine soon will be. I watch as a Valkyr is hoisted bodily from the ground by a snaking limb coiled round her waist. She rises into the air, sword dropping from her hand. Another Valkyr races after her, swinging her sword at the creature as it sails off out of reach.
My blood freezes. The two figures are distant, but I know them. Perhaps it is my lone eye that tells me, perhaps some other sense, but I know. The lifted Valkyr is Sigrid; the chaser is Ayessa.
In a heartbeat, my choice is made. I know that our Host's strength, as any army's, depends in great measure on the ability of its members to know their places and to hold them. My place is here in Baldr's contingent, where the Aesir to my right and left and behind depend upon my sword.
Yet I cannot stay. The impulse overcomes all else. No sooner have I identified Ayessa than I start running toward her. I cover the distance quickly, running over piles of dead from both sides, dodging three Myriad along the way rather than taking precious time to strike at them.
At breakneck pace I race up a mountain of dead creatures and throw myself into the air on a course for the beast holding the eerily limp form of Sigrid. I collide with the thing and grab for whatever purchase my free hand can find. It finds an eyelid, wet with viscous slime, but I manage to hang on, just. I bring my blade to bear and drive it home, straigh
t into the eye, then yank it free and stab again. A tentacle lashes my back, then clings to my shoulder, pulling. I dig my fingers into the eyelid, resisting the backward force upon me whilst I keep stabbing, stabbing, doing as much damage as I can before my inevitable fall.
My fingers slip in slime and black ichor. My grip fails, the tentacle wins, and I am launched backward into void. Falling, I witness the beast releasing Sigrid, who tumbles down. The creature flies a wild spiral, badly damaged, and hits the ground among a hundred corpses of its kin.
I also land in a bed of dead flesh, but as I hit, sharp pain shoots through the upper part of my right arm. I look over to see it has been badly sliced by the sharp, bony horn protruding from one of the dead creatures under me. Driven by knowledge that seconds can make the difference between life and death, I scramble and succeed in righting myself in the sea of gore. I have just managed to hold onto my sword, but my right arm, where my own red blood mingles with the black of the enemy's, is no longer capable of wielding it. I shift the weapon to my left and raise it in search of new threats.
A few Myriad descend, and I am ready for them—but I am saved from fighting left-handed when from behind me three Valkyriar appear and hack the things to pieces.
I let myself feel hope. The swarm must be thinning, its numbers becoming depleted, for I can see the sky. I look to where I saw Sigrid fall and there witness two Valkyriar, one of them Ayessa, hauling Sigrid onto their shoulders and carrying her away from the thickest part of the swarm.
