Stormbringer (13 page)

His eyes, Þrúðr thought, looked not unlike the beast's.

One moment, nothing more. In the next, the ground beneath the beast exploded, sending it flying backward and away from Þrúðr's reach. Móði's magic, followed soon after by Magni's hammer, slamming into flesh.

The beast whimpered, cowering beneath the blow, its pack-mates lying scattered and bloodied against the trees.

“Die, monster!” Magni lifted his hammer, aiming for the head.

“No!”

And then Lain was there, exploding in a fireball against Magni's flank. They both went flying, rolling over and over like a falling star. When they came to a stop, Magni's fingers were locked around Lain's throat.

“Traitor!” He hauled himself upright, Lain unresisting in his grasp. “I should
kill
you!”

“Brother, no!” Too much death, and Þrúðr would not see more.

“If he dies, then so do you!” growled the wolf-beast, hackles raised even as it struggled to its feet. “I will tear you limb from limb and feast upon your entrails.”

“You cannot best the sons of Thor.” Magni's eyes blazed bright and mad within the darkness of the forest. “Nor will you take this wretch.” A shake of Lain's unresisting form. “Normally I would gladly let you have him, but today? Today he owes us dowry. My sister is to be wed and Ásgarðr's gift to her new groom was with our horses. The ones this thief”—another shake—“stole from us while we slept.”

Lain muttered something Þrúðr couldn't hear, and earned another shake from Magni for his trouble.

“Brother.” Þrúðr stepped forward, hands outstretched in placation. All around her, she felt the eyes of wolves watching her every move. “Enough. Whatever you think—”

“I think I am the eldest son of Thor,” Magni said, voice as hard and blunt as Mjölnir. “I think this decision is mine to make, to uphold the honor of our family.”

This time, when Lain spoke, Þrúðr could not fail to hear it.

“This is not honor.”

“This is
obligation,
” Magni said. “Mine, and yours.
You
will serve well enough as Þrúðr's dowry, in lieu of gold and trinkets. I'm sure the
dvergar
would take a
jötunn
slave in recompense for their loss.”

“No!” Þrúðr's voice was drowned out by the beast's, as it lunged forward. “I will die before I let you do this wretched thing!”

“Vala, no.” Lain again, speaking the old tongue. Shoulders slumped and face downcast. “I'm sorry. I—You must go. I'm sorry.”

The beast stopped, hesitating, feathers flattened and eyes wide and beseeching. “I—”

“Listen to the traitor, whelp,” Magni said. “Take your pack and
go.
If I see you again, I will show you just how close Loki's bindings hold him. For every leaf I hear that rustles, every flickering shadow, I will give him pain a thousandfold. Until the forest is nothing but his cries as he begs and mewls for mercy. And the only one who can give succor, in your absence, will be
you.
”

When the wolf-beast growled, Þrúðr felt the sound echoing in her heart.

“Monsters,” the beast snarled. “Ásgarðr should have
burned.
That any of you wretches live is a curse unto the Tree.” But it was backing away, hackles raised. So were the others.

“Run, dog,” Magni said. “Be grateful I have more mercy than my father.”

A moment later, the beasts were gone. Slunk back between the twisted boughs of the Myrkviðr.

Þrúðr stepped forward, “Brother?”

But Magni wasn't listening. Instead, he had thrown Lain to the ground. Lain, who was no longer chained or bleeding, and was missing a single shackle. Lain, who broke the silence with a sigh. Dusting himself off and making as if to stand.

“Well. That worked. Though I'm not sure what we would've done if they hadn't called your blu—” He was cut off by a fist against his face.

“No!” Þrúðr felt the ice settle in her gut. This was wrong. All wrong. “Magni, stop this madness. You cannot be this cruel!”

“Silence, Sister!” When Magni rounded on her, Þrúðr couldn't stop the flinch, couldn't stop the half step back. She'd never been frightened of her brother. Never. No matter how big or strong or angry he could be, he was still her little baby Maggi.

“Magni…”

“Enough. I have no more patience for your simpering.” Little Maggi, every day except today. “Do not forget who brought us on this ill-fated journey, Sister. Do not flinch now that your callow woman's heart has seen the truth. This is the place of men, to make the choices you and yours cannot. Hard choices.
Cruel
choices. You knew this. Now you will have it.”

This was not the way things should have gone, not the way they had gone, in Þrúðr's mind. Nothing should ever be this broken, this vicious.

She looked at Magni, burning and furious, then Lain, broken and defeated. And finally Móði, who would not meet her eyes.

Þrúðr swallowed, straightened her spine, and met Magni, gaze for gaze.

“I understand, brother,” she said. “It will be as you say.”

Somewhere deep within, Þrúðr felt the storm begin to rise.

They'd watched every single
Die Hard
and half of
RoboCop
by the time Hel's arm-scort made it to the gates of Ásgarðr.

Actually, if he thought about it, Sigmund really couldn't be sure how long they'd been traveling. Time seemed to work differently here, outside of Miðgarðr, fading in and out until even the trudging of the
náir
and the bellows from the Helbeasts became routine.

Maybe Sigmund was just too desensitized to the extraordinary, raised by a lifetime of comic books and video games. And Hel's army—Sigmund decided to give up trying to pretend it was anything else—Hel's army really was something straight out of a game, monsters and undead and tattered banners, flapping in the breeze. The golden road glimmered beneath their feet, and when they passed, the land around them fell to blight and rot.

Sigmund saw that, too. It hadn't been obvious when they'd been below, in Hel's own realms, but as they'd ascended up the Tree the land had gotten verdant. They'd catch sight of grassy hills or forests, streaked green against the horizon, and then watch that green fade to gray and glossy black as they passed.

“The visuals aren't exactly subtle, are they?” Em had asked at one point. They'd been rolling through a blighted forest, and Em had grabbed a handful of leaves off a passing tree.

Well, they'd probably been leaves, at one point. Now they were purple-black obsidian razors, and they left little white cuts across Em's palms.

“This is
wa-aa-ay
cooler than the Melbourne Zombie Shuffle,” Wayne had said, eyes bright and pink and sparkling.

Being in the undead horde was kind of awesome, Sigmund wouldn't deny it. Funny how no one ever seemed to show that.

Eventually, the road beneath them began to run out of gold. First just gaps in the layer of crushed treasures, then whole patches, spreading out like dark, stony cancer until the gold flecks became the accents, not the paving. And then, in the distance, Sigmund saw the Wall.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. More gold, maybe? Or lots of delicate spires. Something magic, anyway.

Instead, the Wall was…a wall. A long gray stone slash across the green, dotted by bigger square stone boxes at regular intervals. It was hard to get scale, given the distance, but it wasn't like the thing was miles high. Sigmund could see roads and buildings on the other side, all wood and thatched roofs.

“Amazing to think that was built by a horse, isn't it?” Em said.

“Huh?”

She pointed. “The wall. You know Loki's horse kid, Sleipnir?” Sigmund nodded and didn't correct the pronunciation. “His horse daddy built it.” Sigmund had known that. Kinda. Like, he'd read about it on Wikipedia, but it wasn't like he'd ever actually asked Lain for the full story. It'd felt…weird.

“How does a horse build a wall?” Wayne asked, squinting at the structure in question.

Em shrugged. “The sagas are a little vague on that, I have to admit.”

“Because Svaðilfari was not a ‘horse,' ” Sigmund heard himself say. “But the
æsir
are fools who cannot see plain the shapes of
jötnar.
So they give the names of beasts—horse, serpent, wolf—to those who do not deserve them.”

If Em and Wayne were surprised to hear Sigyn speak—with Sigmund's voice, no less—they didn't show it. Instead, they both just made “aaah!” noises and nodded.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Em said. She blinked, looking around them. “Actually, that makes a lot of things make a lot of sense.”

“It also makes the story a bit less, um,
licentious,
” Wayne said. Sigmund could see her trying not to grin.

“Sadder, though,” Sigmund said. It was him saying it, too, even if the emotion was Sigyn's. A deep and aching pit, loss and compassion, but rage and loathing, too. “Because Sleipnir wasn't a horse, either. So…” He let the implication hang, eyes looking down to where his fingers rubbed across his knuckles, over and over, pressure leaving brief pale smudges on the dark. Sleipnir might not have been a horse, but he'd been treated like one. Bound in tack and bridle and ridden, kept in the stables like a beast.

“Jesus,” Em said, picking up the thought from where it lay. “That's…that's brutal, man. I'm sorry.”

Sigmund nodded, feeling the warmth and comfort of his friends against his side. He told himself it was a long time ago, sins washed clean with blood and fire.

Sigyn got her revenge, in the end. Made Ásgarðr pay for every cruelty and humiliation given to her husband's blood. Maybe she still was, and that's why Sigmund was sitting in a wagon, slowly dragging the blight of death unto the gates of heaven.

From somewhere up ahead, a horn sounded. It echoed through the army, repeated by others and by the bellowing of the Helbeasts and the
drekar.
Sigmund covered his ears against the pounding noise and, when it stopped, so had the wagon.

“I think we're here,” Em said.

“Now what?” Wayne was standing up, peering out across the crowd. They hadn't stopped right up against the wall, but close enough that anyone standing on the battlements would notice their arrival.

“Now,” said a voice from outside the wagon. When they turned, it was to see Hel, hidden arms folded and watching them with veiled eyes. “Now I must call on your escort.”

Wayne's teeth were very white against the darkness of her skin.

“Cool,” she said.

There was a delegation waiting to meet them.

Sigmund couldn't think of any other name for it: three guys in shining chain mail and freshly sharpened swords who emerged from the gates and stood there, watching Hel's army roll to a stop. From the front of the pack, Sigmund saw Hel's rot bleed forward, shriveling grass into jagged shale and twisting shrubs into black-briar curls, before stopping in a sharp line about a hundred meters from the Wall. The border between Ásgarðr and Helheimr, Sigmund supposed. Bright and lush and green on one side, dead and twisted on the other.

Standing beside Hel, flanked by half a dozen of the
náir,
they stepped forward.

So did their welcoming committee, each side coming to a standstill on their respective sides of the Bleed-line.

“Halt, sister of the Wolf. This place is not for you. Turn your armies around and return to whence you were once banished.” The guy in the middle was speaking. In Godstongue, which made Sigmund's head ache and his throat itch, but which he could understand. Sort of. He was getting better at it, anyway.

“Stand aside, Rígr, third son of Heimdallr,” Hel said in reply. “Helheimr comes to Ásgarðr's gates to mourn its favored daughter. Felled in combat with none other than Ásgarðr's king, she comes unto you now, with
valkyrja
at her side, to take her rightful place in Valhöll's gilded halls.” Hel spread her hands as she spoke, wings opening in unison and rictus grin…slightly more rictus than usual.

The guys flanking Rígr flinched, eyes going wide and sharing nervous glances. The one on the left was a redhead; the one on the right was dark. Their armor was noticeably less shiny than the talking guy. Sigmund wondered what kind of metaphor it was he was looking at. It had to be something.

The son

(“sons”)

of Heimdallr and the daughter of Loki, facing each other down outside the gates of Ásgarðr. Oh, this would go well. For sure. Uh-huh.

“Those are grave claims you make, daughter of lies.” Rígr's eyes narrowed, glancing at Em and Wayne. Also, calling Hel a liar was kinda mad rude. Sigmund scowled to show his disapproval, for whatever the gesture was worth.

“And yet I have right to make them,” Hel said. “With Hrist and Hlökk as witness. Would you question the word of those chosen by Odin himself to pick warriors from the slaughter?”

“The oaths of the
valkyrja
died with Odin,” Rígr said. “Their loyalty is to death and death alone, not Ásgarðr.”

Rude! Very rude.

Except Em said, “The oaths with Odin stand, carried by his heir.” Hlökk, the Screamer, who fought battles with words. When Rígr didn't answer, just sort of gave Em the side-eye, she added, “You know me, third son of Heimdallr, as you know those I stand beside. Hel's claim of place is just. To deny it is to deny Asgard's honor, and the oaths of your king.”

Em was speaking English, of course, and her accent was a little off and her words a little broken by her fear. She hated public speaking, which was maybe ironic, because she hated being silent even more.

Rígr scowled, and the other two shifted with what Sigmund thought might just be nerves rather than anger. Something Em had said, maybe?

“If you will not honor your king's obligations,” Hel added, “then I would see you bring him forth, that I may make my case before him.”

More awkward shifting, and suddenly Sigmund knew the cause. Even before Rígr said, “Our Lord is not taking visitors. This is a time of grieving, not one for your vile machinations.”

They were stalling because they didn't have a king to bring, as it were. Gaps had said as much, with Baldr “missing” and his son and—Sigmund made himself think the word—
wife
fighting over the throne. Hel must've realized this. Had been counting on it, maybe.

“Then bid me entry into Ásgarðr,” she said, “and I will stand before the
þing.
”

“Absolutely not.” Rígr was blustering, even as he tried not to show it. Because a whole goddamn army was standing on his doorstep, its queen demanding something he could never give, not with Ásgarðr weakened and—

Lain. Lain was here, somewhere, wasn't he? And if he wasn't coming out to greet them—all smug grin and gleaming crown—then something had happened.

And nothing that ever happened to Lain was simple.

In his mind, Sigmund saw the threads, saw the weave. This was it, he realized. This was the Wyrd, the story, the thing Lain talked about. Sigmund had felt it before, back in the Helbleed, and he was feeling it now, too. A building crescendo of plot all working its way up to—

“Let me into Asgard.
Now.
”

Rígr and Hel had been arguing, but they fell silent when Sigmund spoke, turning their eyes his way. Sigmund tried not to squirm under the scrutiny, and definitely tried not to look over to where Em was making
what are you doing?
expressions over her glasses.

Sigmund pushed his own up his nose, swallowed, and repeated. “Let me through the gates. You can deny Hel entry but you can't deny me.” He managed to avoid glancing Hel's way with an added “…right?” but, given the nod he saw from the corner of his eye, maybe she heard it anyway.

Rígr didn't look impressed. “Who are you, mortal,” he said, “to ask such things of me?”

They will know you,
Hel had said, and Sigmund could feel the lie dance around the edge of Rígr's question. Because Hel had been right. These shiny, gate-guarding assholes knew
exactly
who Sigmund was.

“I'm Sigmund Gregor Sussman de Deus,” he said, proud of the way his voice broke only a single time. “And I'm also Sigyn, wife of Loki. An
ásynja.
And I've got a right to enter Asgard.”

Rígr spat, and Sigmund didn't miss the way his fingers curled on the hilt of his sword. “Using that
jötunn
traitor's name will get you nowhere.”

“I'm not using his name,” Sigmund said. “I'm using mine. You can keep my friends out but you can't keep me.”

“I can keep out whomever I want, boy.”

But he was lying. Sigmund could
feel
it.

“Try me,” he said, stepping forward.

The sound of Rígr drawing his sword was very, very loud. So was the pounding of Sigmund's heart, at least to Sigmund's ears. He made himself keep walking, step after step, until the crunch of Hel's blight beneath his sneakers was replaced by soft and spongy grass, the
crackle
of passing through the edge of the Bleed setting every hair on his body straight on end.

“Put down the sword, man,” Sigmund said. “Think about it. There's an entire army standing behind me. Don't give them a reason to dislike you.”

Rígr looked at Sigmund, then over Sigmund's shoulder. At Hel and her “escort.”

For a moment, nothing moved.

Then Rígr stepped back, blade lowering as he huffed. “And what will you do within our walls, boy?” he asked.

“Speak to Nanna.” Sigmund surprised himself with the name. He hadn't really thought this far ahead, but: “Just…ask her to listen to what Hel has to say.” That seemed reasonable, right?

Rígr at least seemed prepared to entertain it. “Which is?” he asked. Not to Sigmund, and when Hel replied, she said:

“For good or ill, Ragnarøkkr is over. Ásgarðr has no more need for
einherjar,
and few mortals from whom to choose. Meanwhile, Helheimr's cities swell to bursting. A new accord must be struck over the fates of the dead who come unto the Tree. I would seek to make it. That is all.”

Rígr huffed and, in that moment, Sigmund didn't envy the guy his job. TSA agent to the gods, just him and his two mates standing between Ásgarðr and the legions of Hel herself.

“Very well,” he said. “The boy, only. If he can persuade the
þing
to hear you, then you will be heard. But know this, serpent's sister. If you or yours should make move to cross into Ásgarðr's lands, you will meet an end such that even mortals shall forget your tales.”

When Sigmund glanced back, he was pretty sure that Hel was smiling. Em and Wayne definitely were.

“Of course,” Hel said. “We will wait. Death is nothing if not patient.”

That was, more or less, how Sigmund got himself a ticket into Ásgarðr.

He was escorted through the gates by Rígr and what turned out to be the guy's two half brothers, Þræll and Karl. They introduced themselves as they were passing through the gates, Rígr watching them all with a haughty squint Sigmund immediately distrusted.