Thor's Serpents (21 page)

“And our warriors join yours,” the draugr said, pointing as another cloud appeared from the opposite direction. Draugrs ran at the trolls with their shields and swords and maces and bows raised.

“That’s great,” Ray said. “Can we go now? Before that fight gets to us?”

Hildar grunted and eyed the draugrs. Matt had seen that same expression when she’d had to deal with Helen. Hildar’s domain was Valhalla, land of the honored dead. Helen’s was Hel, the lower realms for everything else, which included the draugrs.

“The more the merrier?” Matt said to Hildar.

Her brow wrinkled. “It is war. It is not meant to be merry.”

The lead draugr smiled, showing rows of rotted teeth. “Then, my lady, may I suggest you have not been doing it correctly?”

All the draugrs laughed. It was not necessarily a pleasant sound, given the condition of their windpipes, but Matt smiled and said, “The more the
better
, Hildar. That’s what I meant. And Ray’s right. I don’t mind a warm-up bout before my championship title, but I’d rather not face that.” He waved at the roiling mass of combatants. “Onward?”

“Yes,” she said. “Onward. You”—she gestured at the lead draugr—“cover us from the rear and do not expect to keep up.”

They mounted the horses. Matt sat behind Hildar again, Ray and Reyna with the two Valkyries immediately behind, the others fanned out in a protective circle. At a word from Hildar, they were off.

The draugrs could not keep up. While they were faster than Hollywood shambling zombies, the Valkyries rode at a pace that turned the ground to a blur. For all her grumbling, though, Hildar wasn’t eager to leave allies quite so far behind, and periodically slowed to “survey the battlefield,” which gave the draugrs a chance to close the gap.

During one of those slowdowns, the lead draugr shouted, “My lady!” and pointed overhead. Matt looked up to see that distant huge bird, still too far away to make out anything more than the shape of wings and a body.

Hildar grunted.

“What is it?” Matt asked.

“None of our concern,” she said. “It won’t attack. Not yet.”

“Okay, but I should know what—”

“We are nearly there. Onward.”

Hildar began to spur on her horse, then pulled it up short. There, rising over the cloud of dust, were three huge trolls. Or so it seemed, until the monsters’ shoulders appeared, and Matt realized it was one troll. Three heads. Not so bad, then… if it weren’t at the lead of six more trolls, all with single heads, but not one less than ten feet tall. Mountains of rock. Moving straight for them.

He hoisted Mjölnir.

“No, son of Thor,” Hildar said. “We will handle this.”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I could use a warm-up bout.”

“And we will leave you a fight. But the time draws near and you will not have a chance to rest before…” She glanced up at the distant creature still circling above them. “Before the time comes. Dismount.”

She motioned wordlessly to the draugrs. The lead warrior nodded and separated his troops. Most were to go with the Valkyries. A few, himself included, were to remain behind with the three champions, now on the ground beside their escorts.

“This will be quick,” Hildar said. “Keep your eyes open. All of you. Shout and I will return.”

Matt nodded. Hildar rode off. She looked back only once. That’s all she had time for. Then the trolls charged and the Valkyries charged, their battle cries splitting the air and drowning out the roar of the draugrs at their heels.

Matt looked at the leader of the draugrs, who was clearly waiting for instructions.

“Form a circle around the three of us,” Matt said. “Watch for attack from every direction. Reyna? Ray? Can you give us some fog cover? The dust isn’t quite going to do it.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” Reyna said.

They took up positions. All except Trjegul, who slunk off through the fog and dust to do whatever magical cats did. Or just to stretch her legs.

Matt tried not to focus all his attention on the draugrs and the Valkyries battling the trolls. There were other fights raging around them, distant clouds of dust and cries and shouts. He thought of Laurie and Fen, Baldwin and Owen, and wondered if any of those battles were theirs. After all this time fighting together, the thought that the others might be in danger made him strain to hear their voices, as if he could race to their sides if he heard trouble. He couldn’t. That part of his journey was over.

Once Matt reached his battle ring, he’d lose even Reyna and Ray, who would be led off to their own fight. Ragnarök was for champions. Champions fought alone. Had someone warned him of this a few weeks ago, he’d have looked
at them askance and said “Okay…” not understanding the problem. Alone was the only way he fought. He was a boxer and a wrestler, not a football player. Not a team player. Now thinking of fighting alone was hard enough. Thinking of his
friends
having to fight alone? Almost unbearable.

A hand brushed his, and he jumped. He looked over to see Reyna beside him. She gave his hand an awkward squeeze.

“It’ll be okay,” she said.

He nodded.

“I know I should say more,” she said. “Something better.”

“No,
I
should have. Earlier. A better speech. Rousing words of motivation and support for those about to…”

“Die?” She quirked a smile.

“Yeah, sorry. Forgot that’s how it goes. For those about to win?”

“No, for those about to vanquish the enemy and return triumphant, ready to face an even greater trial: eighth grade.”

Matt laughed.

“No kidding,” Ray said. “Seems weird, doesn’t it? We could be back in school next week.” He squinted out at the darkness. “Well, if they get the lights on.”

“And if we manage to—” Matt began.

Reyna clapped a hand over his mouth. “Uh-uh. We will. Next week, we’ll be back in class, facing down nasty teachers, bully boys, and mean girls.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Matt said.

Her brows shot up. “Why? Because you think I
am
one of the mean girls?”

“No, because I can’t imagine anyone messing with you.”

She laughed and looked down as Trjegul trotted back and yowled. “She agrees.”

“No, sis,” Ray said. “I think she’s warning us about that.”

He pointed. At first Matt saw nothing. Then he looked just above the dust clouds to see a swarm of something coming at them. White and feathery like…

“Mara, incoming!” Matt shouted.

“Hold hands!” Reyna said. “Matt? Close your eyes. Ray and I will work on—”

They disappeared, and he started to turn her way to see what was wrong, but when he did, he kept spinning, whirling right off his feet and falling into—

Snow. Matt landed in a snowbank. He lay there, on his back, fingers digging in, snow melting against his warm fingers.

Did I do this?

“Reyna?” he called. “Ray?”

His voice echoed back to him. That’s when he realized everything had gone silent. So silent that he rubbed his ears, as if they were plugged.

He pushed to his feet, sliding on the snow. It was so dark he could barely make out the white snow.

But I can see it, meaning there’s light coming from somewhere.

He craned his neck back to see one cluster of stars. Just one. The Big Dipper. Also known as Thor’s Chariot.

He blinked hard, and the world got brighter. Or as bright as it was going to get, because there was nothing to see. Snow and ice stretched in every direction.

“Reyna? Ray?” Then, “Hildar? Owen?” Louder. “Fen? Laurie?”

Silence answered. Absolute silence. When he took a step, the crunch of snow beneath his shoes sounded like a gunshot, and he wheeled, hammer raised.

Nothing there. Nothing at all.

Then a sound. A voice. A very weak cry. He started toward it, running, shoes digging in and giving him traction as he raced across the snow-covered ice.

Gaze fixed on his path, he saw white, white, more white, and then… black. A crevice in the ice, nearly as wide as he was tall. That’s where the voice came from. Someone trapped in the fissure, like the Valkyrie had been.

He dropped to all fours before he reached it and crawled forward, carefully. When he reached the edge, he peered down and saw…

Faces. Dozens—no,
hundreds
of people partially embedded in the ice, moaning and waving their free arms. Faces going down, down, down into darkness.

One looked up and its eyes were black pits of despair.
Matt couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. Ice spiked its hair and covered its face, leaving only those dark eyes and a gaping mouth.

“Help us,” the person moaned. “Please, help us.”

Help them? Hundreds of people trapped in ice and all he had—

He raised Mjölnir.

Maybe I can’t free them all, but I can try.

He lowered himself carefully into the icy fissure. It was easier than with the dirt one—this almost had steps leading down. He kept going until he reached that first person. Then he drew back his hammer and slammed it into the ice wall and—

The entire wall shattered. Bodies tumbled out, people screaming, falling, pitching, and dropping into the blackness below.

“No!” Matt screamed.

“You can’t help,” a voice said.

Matt looked to see the person who’d called to him—a woman—suspended in midair, as if by magic.

“You can’t save us. You’re the one who doomed us.”

She reached out and grabbed the hammer and yanked Matt into the crevice. As he fell, turning end over end, tumbling into the blackness below, he saw Thor’s Chariot dimming against the night sky above him.

Then it went out.

F
en had thought a lot about the final fight, the big showdown, the epic moment when he and his friends would face impossible odds and
win
because that’s what heroes do. Now that it was here, he didn’t feel like a hero. He felt afraid. He didn’t want to die or let anyone down—but he wasn’t sure that was possible. If he won, that meant his cousin and his friends would lose and probably die.
They
were the heroes now, and he was a villain… except he didn’t
feel
like a villain. He felt the same way he’d felt when he was with Matt and Laurie and Baldwin, but now they were on the other team. It wasn’t as simple as “teams,” though. This wasn’t gym class. These were legions of people
and monsters who were fighting to decide if the world would end. Today.

Initially, ahead of the front of the horde of monsters was one of the frost giants, but it had charged forward when flaming arrows started hitting it. He knew Laurie was there, facing a monster without him. He could tell by how the arrows all hit the frost giant; every arrow flew sure and true.

“Wait!” he called, when the rest of the troops started to speed after the
hrímthursar.
It was the best he could do—buy her a few minutes of time.

The monsters all stopped. Even the second frost giant halted. They looked to him and listened. They didn’t even ask why. He was Loki’s champion for these monsters, and if they defeated the descendants of the North, it
would
be a better world for the monsters.

I am not a monster
, Fen reminded himself. He had to do right by his pack, but that was all. He tried to think of how to make his duty to his pack mesh with the way the horde of monsters waited for his command. He couldn’t tell the monsters not to attack. He couldn’t think of anything to do other than say, “Raiders near me, not in the front.”

No one questioned him, although both Skull and Hattie looked a little pleased.

Quietly, he told Skull, “I protect my pack. The monsters are bigger than us.”

Skull grinned, looking a little horrific with his discolored bruises.

But then a chattering noise came from the ground by his feet, and Fen looked down to see an enormous squirrel staring up at him. No, not at him, but at the sky. If this had been any other day and any other place, Fen would’ve gotten far,
far
away, but this was Ragnarök.

Fen followed the squirrel’s gaze to the sky—where he found the largest eagle he’d ever seen.

“Wretched inchworm,” the eagle called.

At first he thought it was talking to him. Aside from the oddity of such oversized animals existing, the fact that it was
talking
was enough to make Fen unable to move or speak. Then the squirrel chittered and dove into a hole in the ground. The eagle circled overhead almost lazily.

As weird as it was, Fen couldn’t stay any longer. He motioned his pack forward. A bird shrieking insults wasn’t reason to stop advancing, even if that bird was as big as a dairy cow. He started to march forward again, not in wolf shape because he didn’t really want to rush, but not exactly dawdling, either.

He’d gone a few more yards when the squirrel popped back out of the ground, chattering and staring at the sky again.

The massive eagle dove toward the ground, talons outstretched and screamed, “Lazy decay feeder.”