Stormbringer (31 page)

I feel them first, a pull on the edge of the Wyrdsight. A smell like dark forests and freshly spilled blood.

Jötunn
blood, and it comes from all around.

The rocks are crawling with them, dark shapes sliding through the sluicing wet, claws and blades flashing in the gloom. A whole second army, slipped into the Bleed when the rest of us were distracted.

Underneath the rain, I hear a sound very much like the gallop of hooves. Then a shape—like a horse but not at all—appears on the crest of a nearby column. It rears, forelegs rippling in the air like ghosted video.

There's no roar, of course. Instead, a bright light shines out from the raised hand of the beast's rider, and a voice says, in very, very familiar English:

“Nobody move! This is a bloody rescue mission.”

And it is the most beautiful sight I have ever known.

Tóki is less enthused, yanking the arrow from his hand and snarling, “This does not concern the
þursar
!”

“It concerns me.” Another voice, and another shape lumbering out into the rain. This one short and squat, rippling with displeased light. “Lay down your arms, Tóki,” Uni says. “Do not do this.”

“Magni!”

It seems like Sigmund brought the entire gang along, Þrúðr darting out as well, slipping on wet stone as she falls down beside her brother.

Meanwhile, I hear my own name called, so I raise a hand and say, “Hi!”

A moment later, I hear the sound of too many feet coming my way. Then Sigmund's presence descends on me like melted chocolate.

“Lain!”

“Hi.”

“Lain!”

“Yup.”

Sigmund's hands flutter anxiously over my wounded skin, but it's still pissing down rain and in the end he takes the risk, grabbing me around the head and holding me tight against his shoulder.

I sigh, closing my eyes, and for a moment the only thing in all the Realms is him. He smells like sweat and leather and wet wool, dressed in ridiculously old-fashioned clothes, and I bury my nose against his neck and
inhale,
long and low and slow, while he peppers kisses over my brow.

“Jesus,” he breathes. “Lain.”

“One of two,” I manage.

Somewhere behind us, gods and armies wait. They can continue doing so.

“I g-got your message.” There's a hitch in Sigmund's voice. If some of the rain that runs down his cheeks is salty, who's going to mention it?

He's clutching his phone in his hand, sheltering it, LED still blaring brightly.

“It was a good entrance,” I say. “Very hot.”

Sigmund laughs, one short, wet bark. “Jesus. Lain. I just—Fuck.”

He holds me tight enough to hurt and his mind is a maelstrom rivaling the one above us. Not all the thoughts in it are good, but, right now, relief and joy overwhelm everything else. I might be spending the night on the couch later, but not just yet.

“Can you stand?” His fingers brush over my smashed-up horn. “Someone whacked you in the head?”

“Yes and yes.” I prove myself liar on the first count by stumbling, ending with one arm slung over Sigmund's shoulder and a heavy head nudging into my back.

Sleipnir, Jesus.

“Thank you,” I tell Slippy. He huffs, stamping a foot.

“I found him in Ásgarðr,” Sigmund tells me. “Chained up in a stable. Sigyn was, uh…”

I can imagine. Old wounds, and all that.

“Also,” Sigmund adds, eyes scanning around the rain-soaked shapes surrounding us. “Um…you kind of have a lot of kids, you know that, right?”

“Long life,” I say. “It happens.”

Up ahead, I see two shapes, watching. One is big and huge, all feather and claw and horn. The other is small and slight, bow hanging limply from her fingers.

I've seen them both before.

“Vala,” I say, then glance at the girl.

“Eisa.” She raises her chin, as if daring me to deny it.

I just close my eyes, feeling an ache deep inside that doesn't belong to me. Not truly.

“You look so much like your mother,” says Loki.

Eisa bites her lip, fighting down too many emotions as she clings against her sister's side.

There's a lot more I should say. A lot more I—Loki—wants to say. Just…not here, on a rain-soaked battlefield, among the corpses of the fallen and the wary eyes of the defeated.

Not far away, another family struggles through their own reunion.

“Do it! Do it now!”

Magni's voice is strained, harsh and broken beneath the roaring of the storm.

“There must be something you can do?
Please?
”

Þrúðr is on her knees, dress soaked, hands fluttering over Magni's hunched and smoking back. Móði stands nearby, all oozing broken anguish.

He looks at me when I approach. “You!” he says. “Please, I—Help me. He needs healing.”

Shit.

“Oh my god.” Beside me, I feel Sigmund hitch back a gag as the smell hits him. Even through the rain it's strong, like burned bacon. Magni got hit by a lot of lightning. It melted the gauntlets onto his hands and scarred his skin. Mostly, it charbroiled his insides.

Gods are tough; we don't die easy. But Magni's not doing too well right now. He's holding his broken hands out, begging. For Móði to amputate, I think. And there's something else, too. A hum, just on the edge of hearing. A well of magic that's almost right to burst.

I look at Magni, just for an instant. Remember the feel of his boots in my guts and his spit through my skin. A sneer boils over in my heart, black and filthy, but it's Baldr who says:

“I can help him.”

“D-don't need your help. Beast.” Magni looks to Þrúðr. “Do it! Quickly.”

Þrúðr looks at her brother, then she looks at me. All around us, the rain sluices down like tears.

I meet Þrúðr's gaze, and she meets mine.

“It is his will,” she says.

Then grabs Móði's sword, and swings.

“Oh Jesus.” Sigmund buries his head against my chest, eyes jammed shut and trying not to gag.

It's over in a blood-soaked heartbeat. Þrúðr is strong, and she knows how to use a sword. She's tearing up her dress an instant after, makeshift bandages to tend to her brother's bloodied stumps.

Móði's eyes are wide, his mouth wider. He can feel it, now. Þrúðr's deft cut severing that one last final thread.

“What have you done?” Móði says. I don't know whether he's talking to me or to his sister.

In the next moment, Magni howls, head thrown back, arcing from a pain that has nothing to do with his now-missing hands.

Þrúðr falls backward from the shock, on her ass in the wet. Móði stumbles away, too, runes of protection dancing on his tongue.

Something's shifting under Móði's skin. Beneath his clothes, beneath his hauberk, wool and metal
bulging
in some horrific, churning way.

Beside me, I hear Vala's startled breath. She knows what this is, and she turns to me.

“Father—?”

“It is what it is,” I say. Old oaths, broken open by steel and lightning. “I don't think they know.”

Actually, I know they don't. One of Odin's dirtiest little secrets.

I was there when Þrúðr was born. I was there when Thor was, too. Truth be told, I have more memories of the former. The latter is a blur, hazy with blood and screams. Live births don't come easy to the
jötnar,
but that's our curse when we lie with featherless things.

That's what the
þursar
are: half-breed descendants of the
risar,
of my people, and the
æsir.
And that's what Thor was, too.

He had a tail when he was born. A tail and stumpy little wings, the spikes of new feathers lined like teeth along the edge.

Odin hadn't liked it. He'd stared down at the baby and given an ultimatum: three months. Then he'd weave the skin curse. In the interim, no one in Ásgarðr could know what had happened. When we brought Thor back into Odin's hall, it was minus a mother and his feathers, and plus one ugly tattoo.

Same tattoo I've got, somewhere beneath the scars. Same tattoo Sigyn never really forgave me for passing down to our kids, in the same way Thor passed it down to his.

And that same tattoo whose magic is finally breaking open. First for Vala, then for me.

And now for Magni.

The transformation is…not pretty. Electricity, lifting up from Magni's heaving, building skin. His clothes tearing, mail splitting.

When the limbs break through the flesh of his back, Þrúðr screams. She has her sword raised, and I throw my hand out in a gesture for her to stop.

“W-what—?” she manages, as Magni howls.

“His true self,” I say. I'm not sure if Þrúðr hears me.

The transformation does do one thing, and that's give Magni back his hands. After a fashion. The claws that regrow are twisted and broken. Flesh shiny from the scarring, fingers gnarled and painful. Magni claws them at the ground, then at his face, howling as his siblings lunge toward him, holding him down.

He doesn't turn on them. Instead, when the transformation's done, he slumps beneath them on the stone, hopeless and defeated. Þrúðr and Móði call his name, stroking red feathers and a mass of endless fractal scars.

All around, dozens of bright-eyed
þursar
bear witness to the one truth Odin never wanted told. So, for that matter, do a host of
dvergar.

Meanwhile, a hammer lies forgotten in the rain.

There were whispers in the corridors now.
Æsir
and
ásynjur
who would not meet his eyes. Mother's doing, Forseti knew. Weaving rebellion and discontent amid Ásgarðr's bright and shining halls.

“You must call the
þing.
” Víðarr had said, seated beside Forseti at morning meal. “This cannot go on.”

But it could. How else could anything go? How could Forseti, god of law and justice, be seen to be brought low by the gossip and conspiracies of women? Of Hel and her foul beasts, who danced and wailed every night beyond the Wall, brewing madness and discontent.

The halls of Gimlé had been empty last night, the endless feast of the
einherjar
abandoned. Today, when Forseti walked the Wall, many of the warriors turned from him, stiff-backed and defiant, gazes fixed out across the Line. Behind the shields and banners, the runes and signs, Forseti heard laughter. Singing. The beat of drums and the strumming of the strange modern lyres the new dead brought with them to the grave.

In contrast, Ásgarðr was cold and empty. Anger and sadness dripping from its gold-lined eaves.

Weakness, all of it. Men ruled by the whims of their fluttering hearts and aching loins, not by the cold rigor of word and law. But Forseti was the keeper of the latter, not the former, and his place was sure.

Ásgarðr must hold against her enemies. To do aught else would be desertion. A desecration of all fought and won on the bloodied fields of Rangarøkkr. A renewal of the old traditions, the rebirth of Ásgarðr's ascendancy among the Realms. Among the mortals of Miðgarðr. More sending their prayers and their souls now than Forseti could recall for a thousand years.

The traditions were true. The mortals knew it, though they may have forgotten for a time. And who would Forseti be if he did not endure in the face of such belief?

Let the
einherjar
and
ásynjur
brew their shame and weakness. Ásgarðr would survive. Forseti would ensure it.

And so he walked the Wall. Not just the front, but the back. Gazing out over the vast, dark expanse of Myrkviðr.

Ásgarðr, surrounded by her foes. Forseti felt it now more keenly than ever.

Above, in the sky, a dark shape drifted closer, wheeling to and fro with the weaving of the winds. Munin, Grandfather's wicked, lying beast. Forseti didn't trust it, not after watching the way it sat on the shoulder of the thing that wore Father's skin.

“Oi. Kid. Don't shoot.”

Forseti scowled. Munin spoke the mortals' tongue. Forseti trusted nothing that did.

A flutter of black feathers, and Munin was sitting on the Wall.

“Begone,” Forseti told it. “Ásgarðr has no place for you.”

“Yeah yeah.” Munin hopped, beak open in its rictus avian grin. “But you might wanna hear this, first.”

“There is nothing you can tell me I would want to know.” Forseti turned, took one step, then another.

“Þrymheimr is massing warriors in the forest.”

Forseti stopped. Þrymheimr, stronghold of the
þurs.
A brooding, malevolent presence sat far too close to Ásgarðr's wall. As a boy, Forseti had thought it only suffered so it could breed monsters to sate Thor's thirst for hunting. Prideful folly. When Mjölnir was returned, Forseti would see Þrymheimr the first to fall beneath its thunder.

“You lie.”

“Send your own scouts if you don't believe me. I'm sure that'll turn out just as well as the last lot did.”

First Magni and Móði, then the thief Loki's wife. Then Ullr and his men. There had, Forseti thought, been far too many people entering the forest as of late. And only the latter had returned. Minus their quarry and, in the case of the
einherjar,
their lives.

And, suddenly, on the top of the Wall, overlooking the Myrkviðr, Forseti
saw
it. Hel's plan, to keep Ásgarðr weak and soft, looking over its front, sapping the will from its men, fomenting dissent inside its walls.

Meanwhile, the
þursar
prepared to attack them from behind.

Forseti felt Gungnir's rune-scarred wood, cold beneath his hands. He turned to Munin. “Where are Magni and Móði?”

The bird hop-skipped backward. “Oi oi oi. Say please.”

“Tell me! Now!” Forseti slammed Gungnir down on the stone of the Wall. “You were Grandfather's spy. I am his heir, his oaths bind you to me. You
will
obey me.”

“I hate to break it to you, kid, but your father—”

“Has been dead for a thousand years! You have no right to use his name.” Forseti spat the words, thick and heavy on his tongue. “Any promises his usurper made to you in his stead hold no weight.
I,
Forseti Baldrsson, command you now. And I command you to find Magni and Móði. Now more than ever must Mjölnir return to Ásgarðr's halls. Convey this haste, then return to me with news of their arrival. Succeed for me in this, bird, and your betrayal of our blood will be forgiven. Now go!”

Munin blinked, tilting its head. Something around its neck caught the light, five glinting stones; green, red, black, blue, white. Finally, it said, “Yeah. Sure. Let's do that.” Then, in a rush of feathers, it was gone.

Forseti did not watch it go. Instead, he strode to the front of the Wall, past the sullen
einherjar,
to where Rígr was taking watch.

Rígr nodded at Forseti's approach. “Little change,” he said, gesturing out across the wall. “Mad revelry, nothing more.”

“It is a distraction!” Forseti snarled. “Hel plays us for fools, dividing us with discord and sentiment even as the
þursar
mass within the Myrkviðr.”

Rígr inhaled sharply. He was watchman of the Wall, carrier of Heimdallr's legacy, commanded with warning Ásgarðr of the approach of its foes. And this, he had not seen.

“Are you…certain of this?”

“No,” Forseti said. Better to put Rígr at ease over his failure, to offer a chance for redemption. “The source was…unreliable.”

“I will confirm it at once. Though…” He hesitated. “The forest is thick. Enough that even my sight has difficulty.”

“Do as you can.” Forseti put his free hand on Rígr's shoulder. “Ásgarðr's foes close about her. We must be ready.”

Rígr glanced out over the mass of writhing
náir.
“They outnumber us. A hundred to one, perhaps.”

Forseti scoffed. “Villains and old women. Cowards who died abed and in the hangman's noose. A single of our
einheri
could take on a thousand.”

“They may have to. And more besides.” Rígr's expression fell, scowling and uncertain, teeth biting back his words.

“Speak,” Forseti said. “Now is not the time for lies and whispers.”

Rígr sighed. “The men…they will not fight the dead. Their wives and children.”

Hel's wicked plot. To keep soft the hearts of
einherjar.

“They will,” Forseti said, and he knew it to be true. War was coming. “When they see it is not their families they battle. Merely monsters that wear such skins. That desecrate memories, spreading corruption and dishonor.” The
einherjar
would learn, and soon. The proud honor of men prevailing as it ever did.

“Very well.” Rígr turned, stepping away from his vigil at the Wall.

Forseti remained, gazing out across the horde. So many, but not a brave soul among them. They had numbers, but Ásgarðr had courage, and it had the Wall, and it would not falter.

Forseti's grip tightened on Gungnir's weathered haft.

Ásgarðr would prevail. Forseti would ensure it.