Sword of Secrets

by S. M. Schmitz

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Sword of Secrets

  Heroes of Asgard Book One

  S.M. Schmitz

  Contents

  Mythology Glossary

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  4. I Dream about a Huge Dick

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  7. Havard Buys Two Maids with a Ring

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  10. Havard Commits Fratricide

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  13. Arnbjorg Tours Asgard

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  19. The Fate of Arnbjorg’s Family

  Chapter 20

  Sneak Peek at Sword of Light

  Also by S.M. Schmitz

  Mythology Glossary

  If Gavyn gives one of the characters a nickname, I’ve put it in parentheses right after his or her actual name

  Ægir—in Norse mythology, Ægir is a jötunn (“giant”) associated with the sea.

  Aesir—one of the two tribes of gods in Norse mythology, and the tribe associated with most of the Norse gods such as Odin, Thor, and Tyr. The other tribe is the Vanir.

  Arnbjorg—isn’t a real mythological figure; I made her up for this story, in which she’s the love interest of Havard. It’s a slightly anglicized version of Arnbjørg.

  Asgard—the realm of the Aesir, one of the two races of gods in Norse mythology. The other is the Vanir (who originally lived in Vanaheim).

  Badb (Agnes)—Irish goddess of war. One of the triune of goddesses who form the Morrigna.

  Balder—son of Odin and Frigg and the most beloved of the Aesir. Balder is killed by a mistletoe arrow that Loki convinces Balder’s blind brother, Hödr, to shoot at him. Now wait: it’s not quite as cruel as it seems. After Balder dreams about his death, his mother has every object swear an oath that it will never harm her son, except she didn’t get the oath of mistletoe. Since nothing would hurt him, the gods would take turns hurtling arrows and objects at Balder, which bounced off, leaving the much-loved god unharmed. But when Loki learns about the mistletoe loophole, he makes a dart, spear, or arrow from it (gotta love it when sources conflict), and poor Balder is murdered by his twin brother.

  Belatu-Cadros—Celtic god of war. His name is also given as Belatucadros.

  Brokkr—One of the dwarfs of Norse mythology who created Thor’s famous hammer, Mjölnir, and Odin’s self-replicating ring, Draupnir.

  Frey—Norse god of prosperity, fertility, and peace. He and his sister, Freyja, are members of the Vanir and were brought to Asgard to live among the Aesir when the war between the two tribes ended.

  Freyja—Norse goddess of love, sex, fertility, and war. Known for her unparalleled beauty, she’s often coveted by different gods and mythological figures, while she tends to covet jewelry, particularly Brísingamen (her necklace).

  Gunnr (Keira)—a Valkyrie. In Norse mythology, Valkyries would select which men would fall in battle and bring them to Valhalla.

  Havard—isn’t a real mythological figure. He’s made up for this story, in which he’s a god of war. Havard is an anglicized version of Hávarđr, which contains old Norse elements that translate as “high defender” and I thought that was fitting for his character.

  Heimdall—Norse god whose impeccable sight and hearing make him an excellent watchman for the unfolding of Ragnarok. He also possesses the gift of foresight (ability to foretell future events).

  Idun—Norse goddess whose apples grant the gods eternal youth.

  Inanna—Sumerian goddess of beauty, love, sex, war, and justice. Yeah, I have no idea why the ancient Sumerians decided to lump all those different characteristics together. Maybe they just ran out of deities.

  Mjollnir—Thor’s famous hammer. Alternate spellings include Mjölnir and Mjöllnir.

  Nergal—ancient Mesopotamian god of war and pestilence. He wreaks havoc in The Guardians of Tara series, so he’s taking a backseat to some other gods at the moment.

  Ninurta—another ancient Mesopotamian war god, Ninurta played a small enough role in The Unbreakable Sword series to warrant a bigger part in this series. His enchanted weapon, Sharur (sometimes a talking mace, sometimes a talking spear) will be back in book two, but unfortunately, it doesn’t talk to Gavyn.

  Odin—the All-Father of the Aesir, Odin is one of the most famous gods of Norse mythology. Although he’s a war god, Odin is also associated with magic and wisdom. His wife is the goddess, Frigg.

  Róta—one of the Valkyries.

  Thor—god of thunder, storms, and fertility, Thor probably shares the top-honor of being the most recognizable Norse god along with his father, Odin. He defends Asgard with his hammer, Mjölnir, and is also known for being a protector of humans.

  Tyr—Norse god of war who lost his right hand when he put it in a wolf’s (Fenrir’s) mouth so he could be restrained. So look: Fenrir would only allow himself to be restrained if some dumbass stuck a hand in his mouth because he suspected the fetter the gods had brought was enchanted. And Tyr was apparently that dumbass. I mean, the gods did bind the wolf that was prophesied to be such a terror, and supposedly he’s gonna stay bound until Ragnarok just like his dad, Loki (yeah, because Norse mythology is F.R.E.A.K.Y y’all), but he’ll just break free then and kill Odin anyway, so what was the point?

  Sleipnir—In Norse mythology, this is another of Loki’s misfit kids. Sleipnir is an eight-legged horse that Loki (who actually gave birth to Sleipnir as he’d shifted into a mare to mate with the stallion) gave to Odin and since it does have eight legs and all, it’s not surprisingly the fastest horse in all the nine realms.

  Ull—Norse god associated with archery. Not much is known about him, but it’s always good to have expert archers on your side.

  Valaskjalf—one of Odin’s halls. While Valhalla is the hall associated with his dead warriors, Valaskjalf is where he watches over all the realms.

  Valhalla—one of Odin’s halls. Famously portrayed as having a golden roof, slain warriors are brought to Valhalla by Odin’s Valkyries. Here, they fight each day in preparation for Ragnarok and those who fall again rise each night when they all dine with Odin himself. Peachy afterlife, huh?

  Vanir—one of the two tribes of Norse gods, the other being the Aesir. Frey and Freyja are from the Vanir.

  Vigrid—field on which many battles of Ragnarok are prophesied to occur.

  Völva—contrary to what Gavyn thinks, these are female seers in Norse mythology.

  Yngvarr—doesn’t exist in Norse mythology; I made him up for this story. Brother of Havard and also a god of war.

  Zababa—ancient Mesopotamian war god.

  Zigurrat—a rectangular tower with a flat top in Mesopotamia, kind of like a pyramid without the pointy part. Ziggurats sometimes had temples on top of them.

  Foreword

  I began this story in 2015 but for various reasons, decided not to finish it and moved on to other projects. One of those projects was Dreamwalkers, for which I borrowed the idea of the protagonist having dreams about an ancestor with an important story to tell. I even kept the name Gavyn for my protagonist in Dreamwalkers and the sce
ne in the conference room where Gavyn and Hunter annoy the hell out of Frey was carried over as well (although it’s their boss rather than a god). Other elements from this story were used in The Unbreakable Sword series, like Badb’s terrible driving and the reference to Gozer in Ghostbusters.

  But this story was always there in the back of my mind, begging to be finished. Maybe Havard himself was kinda pissed I shelved his novel. I decided to dust it off, finish the first book, and complete the series. Ultimately, despite the handful of similarities to other works I’ve published, Sword of Secrets—and the entire Heroes of Asgard series—is its own unique story, rich in mythology and, of course, snark. Gavyn, our reluctant hero, has had quite a journey to get here, and he’s waited a long time for his story to unfold. Well, the wait is over Gavyn. It’s time to save the world.

  Chapter One

  When I was a little boy, my mother would put her thin hands on my shoulders and look me in the eyes and tell me, “Gavyn, one day you’re going to change the world.” And I believed her because I was a child, and as children, we believe the lies our parents tell us. I believed her up until the day she died when I was twelve, and then I stopped believing in a lot of things. My father used to tell me I shouldn’t be angry at God for something cancer had caused, but if I couldn’t be mad at God, then what was the point of believing in one? By the time I was in junior high, I had no use for gods. But as I would learn, just because I had no use for them didn’t mean they had no use for me.

  As an adult, I was even more convinced my mother must have been a little crazy. Maybe it had been the cancer. Because the only thing I’d changed in my twenty-eight years was my best friend’s attitude about football. He’s British so he’d stubbornly refused to accept football was any sport that wasn’t actually played with the athletes’ feet. It took almost six years, but I finally convinced him to pay attention to the game and got him hooked. And I always considered that my world-changing success. Or at least a start: I would get American football to catch on, one Brit at a time.

  He’d just arrived to watch the LSU-Ole Miss game with me and I emerged from my kitchen to find him lounging on my sofa—my upholstered sofa. I put his beer on my counter and scowled at him. “Hunter, get your shoes off my couch.”

  Hunter looked up at me and kicked off his shoes, but shook his head and scowled back at me. “For a straight guy, you’re entirely too neat.”

  That was Hunter’s response to everything. Apparently, I always failed to live up to his expectations of typical masculine behavior. I handed him his beer and he scowled at that, too. “Gavyn, seriously?”

  I glanced down at the beer bottle like I didn’t know what I’d just bought for us to drink. “It was on sale,” I protested. Truthfully, I liked Coors Light, but Hunter already knew that.

  “I should have known to bring real beer,” Hunter sighed. It wouldn’t stop him from drinking it anyway.

  Hunter and I had known each other since we were teenagers. He and his parents had moved to Baton Rouge when he was thirteen as his dad was a philosophy professor and had accepted a teaching position at LSU. He was the cool new kid with an accent everyone liked, and I was the quiet loner who’d lost his mother and didn’t want to talk to anyone or even be noticed. I was good at being invisible until Hunter showed up. And for some reason, he decided this shy quiet kid who didn’t want to be his friend was the one guy he was going to keep sitting with at lunch and talking to at recess and the stubborn bastard just wouldn’t leave me alone. He always insisted he didn’t know why he got the idea in his head that we just had to be friends, but once Hunter got an idea in his head, it was impossible to get it out. That’s why I still consider getting him to appreciate football such a monumental success.

  “We betting on this one?” he asked. We rarely bet money. Our wagers usually consisted of drunken dares that had miraculously not gotten either of us killed yet. At least we were both sober at the moment. How bad could our wagers be?

  “Sure. Win by seven, and you call Keira and ask her out.” Keira was my ex-girlfriend, and she and Hunter hated each other. Yeah, it was totally assholey of me to make that wager, but I’d never claimed to be a saint.

  Hunter sat up and glared at me because he knew it would be a humiliating loss for him. I could tell by the way he was eyeing me that he was trying to come up with something worse than asking out his arch-nemesis. His eyes had just lit up, and I knew I was screwed when the game was interrupted by one of those breaking news reports. We both groaned because the media’s idea of breaking news almost never actually warranted interrupting a football game.

  A middle-aged woman with a blond bob who was actually kinda hot for being a middle-aged news reporter came on. I finished my beer and wondered how much of the game we were going to have to miss to learn that Congress had managed not to shut down the government. Again.

  “Another one?” I asked Hunter. He glanced away from the television at his beer bottle and nodded but unlike me, he was actually trying to pay attention.

  I had just opened the refrigerator when I heard Hunter exclaim, “Holy shit!” And I figured this news report might be slightly more interesting than a Congressional compromise. I handed him the beer bottle, and didn’t even shake it first—I mean, I thought about it, but I didn’t want to have to clean up that mess—and tried to make sense out of what the pretty blond reporter was saying but it didn’t make any sense.

  “What the hell?” I murmured.

  “Sh,” Hunter hissed. He was still focused on the reporter.

  Part of me wanted to hit him for the shushing thing, but by now, I was too drawn into the television. “This is a joke,” I added. I was still holding my own unopened beer bottle, but I didn’t sit down. Because it had to be a joke, and soon, they would cut away from the kinda hot blonde to a kinda hot brunette who would be laughing at us and claiming, “See? You stupid Americans really will believe anything as long as it’s on TV!”

  So I stood there in my living room and watched the kinda hot blonde as she kept talking about the sudden appearance of these people who weren’t really people in southern Iraq who were pissed off and demanding all sorts of shit to appease them or the entire world was going to blow up or something. And as they cut away to this ziggurat, there these people stood who just looked like people to me.

  “Hunter, this is bullshit,” I started, but he cut me off again. I rolled my eyes. They might be terrorists, and yeah, this beat out Congressional hearings and patting themselves on the back for doing their damn jobs, but LSU was playing. I could catch this later on the six o’clock news.

  Whatever language these people were speaking wasn’t English so Hunter finally looked away from the television. “Did you catch all that?” he asked me.

  I shrugged. “Sure. Bunch of crazy people in southern Iraq claiming to be Sumerian gods are threatening some kind of godly war if they don’t get what they want. Delusional terrorists are at least more interesting than the regular asshole terrorists.”

  Hunter snickered but an explosion on the screen shut us both up. The ziggurat the people had climbed onto crumbled into a massive cloud of reddish brown dust that filled the screen and turned the sky black. It was just past 8:00 p.m. in Iraq and the lights that had illuminated the ziggurat were shattered. Hunter and I stared at the TV in silence but the screen was dark.

  “They just blew themselves up,” I mumbled stupidly. Hunter just nodded.

  The cameras didn’t cut away though, and as we listened to the debris from the ancient tower settle back to the ground, light gradually filled the screen again. This time, we weren’t sure where it was coming from. And there, standing in the same spot, in a crater now instead of on a tower, were the people claiming to be gods who wanted appeasement and vengeance. Hunter dropped his beer bottle. Lucky for him, it was still sealed.

  “It’s a camera trick,” I told him. Because people didn’t walk away from explosions unharmed. Hell, they weren’t even dirty.

  One of the men moti
oned at the camera, and it zoomed in on him, and for the first time, I wondered who the hell was out there in the middle of a desert holding these cameras for a bunch of crazy people claiming to be gods no one had ever heard of. But now, the man spoke English—perfect, unaccented English, and when he stared into the lens of the camera, it made the hair on my arms stand up. I couldn’t help feeling like he was glaring at me.

  “My name is Ninurta. If you heroes wish to avoid catastrophic consequences for humans, then you will submit to us and will be enslaved for our pantheon. If you will not submit to us, then the humans you will want to protect will pay for your intransigence. You have seventy-two hours.”

  The screen turned completely black and after a few seconds, the kinda hot blonde, who didn’t seem that hot anymore, came back, looking as bewildered and confused as I felt. Hunter picked the beer bottle up from the floor and set it on the coffee table. “Who the hell are these heroes? Think they know they’re heroes and are supposed to sacrifice themselves to be some asshole’s slave?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?” I shot back. “And put that bottle on a coaster.”