Contents

The Radiance of Alfheim

Extra Resources

Skalds’ Tribe

Prologue

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Epilogue

The Cycle Continues …

Skalds’ Tribe

About the Author

Author’s Note

The Radiance of Alfheim: Eschaton Cycle

Gods of the Ragnarok Era Book 6

MATT LARKIN

Editors: Clark Chamberlain, Regina Dowling

Cover: Yocla Designs

Copyright © 2018 Matt Larkin.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Incandescent Phoenix Books

mattlarkinbooks.com

Extra Resources

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Prologue

Yggdrasil’s majestic canopy brushed the sky, seeming almost tall enough to drink from the clouds, while its roots wormed their way to the farthest reaches of the World. On the bridge leading up to the great tree, Loki paused to admire its grandeur. Naught else in the World truly compared. It was the tree that bound all the Realms together, that perpetuated the Wheel of Life, and that had first engendered the myriad creatures of the World.

Its leaves held a tether to the souls of every living person. Those must fall, of course. The end of this Era marched ever closer, as it must, as urd demanded.

Loki’s role was to ensure that happened.

Sigyn’s hand fell on his shoulder. His wife had extraordinary intuitive abilities, enhanced by her acute senses, that oft allowed her to discern a person’s emotions by the shift in their posture, their facial muscles, or perhaps even by more subtle means. Even Loki could not always disguise his discontentment from her keen observations. “I wish you’d tell me what you fear.”

“No, you do not.”

“Do you mean to imply that I wouldn’t want to know what it is you fear, or rather that I enjoy unraveling your mysteries too much to let you spoil them with straightforward answers?”

He glanced at her.

She had a wry grin spread across her face, as if to say she well knew he meant both answers.

“History doesn’t oft allow us to do what we might wish.” He drew her into an embrace and she leaned up to kiss his cheek.

“Maybe you worry too much over history. The present matters, too.”

How was he to answer such a statement? He could tell her the truth—that the division between past, present, and future could well become blurred for an Oracle. Separate, in the sense that currents in the ocean were separate, and yet, hopelessly entwined in a system of complexity beyond the scope of human comprehension. The Web of Urd reached out into infinity, connecting all the days of all the Eras into the ultimate puzzle.

His heart felt apt to burst from desire to speak thus. To unburden himself by sharing with her the terrible truths of existence, the weight of his role as a slave of urd. But he could not see how sharing such knowledge would do aught save press her down as well, and she was the last one he wanted to see suffer.

Of course, she would suffer. They all would. They’d pay for their mistakes a thousand times over, and for the mistakes of others. As would he.

“Sometimes you seem almost ready to explode, despite no longer having that Fire vaettr inside. I just wish you’d let me …” Sigyn broke off abruptly, looking to Yggdrasil, where Odin now emerged from within the tree. “This conversation isn’t over.”

It never truly was. She always thought she could save him. Or maybe she had already saved him, was saving him, simply by being here, by his side.

Watching the World die.

Again.

Odin’s gait was slow, his weight heavy on his walking stick. Time was less kind to him than to Loki and, in truth, the better part of the blame for that might also fall at Loki’s feet. Odin had foreseen the same end Loki had. The two of them would not part this Era as brothers, the way they’d lived. So desperately did Loki wish to turn away from that. To sever the strands of urd, to abate the fall, to deny the Wheel of Fate.

But there was no denying it. Even time could not last forever. So what hope did brotherhood have?

No, Odin would soon be gone.

“You’re leaving again,” Loki said when Odin drew nigh and paused in front of him.

Odin nodded. “I only came back to see to a few things. I’ll be needed in Reidgotaland soon.”

Loki forced his face to remain impassive. He had a role to play, however much it pained him. Some things could not be changed. “Your machinations will hurt a lot of people.” As if Loki was one to speak of such things. As if his hands were not drenched in blood and plastered with the suffering of more lives than Odin could even imagine. “You treat Sigurd as but a tool, a sword fit only to serve your ends.”

Odin’s gaze darted to Sigyn for an instant. “I’m doing what I have to. I’d expect you of all people to understand the burdens of foresight.”

Oh, Loki understood all too well. Odin had become a stronger Oracle than even him, but his prescience was not tempered by the experience of millennia piled upon millennia, of watching the World die in an unending cycle of destruction. One that Loki could not break, no matter how he tired of sifting through the ashes. “Are you sure you’re doing what you’re doing for Ragnarok? Or is it but to get back to Freyja?”

Still, even knowing the price he risked for trying to subvert urd, did Loki not have to try? It was a shadowed move, a subtle tug on but one strand of the web. A chance, however small, that his prodding might create a better future, unnoticed by the others.

He knew better, though. Fate shackled him, as it shackled them all.

Regardless, Odin didn’t deny Loki’s accusation, instead, just clapped him on the arm and ambled his way on, across the bridge.

“He’s going to sacrifice more people,” Sigyn said.

It wasn’t really a question, so Loki offered no answer. Aught he might have said would have tasted of bitter hypocrisy.

Besides, she was right. Odin’s plots would unravel a great many lives in the days to come.

And Loki would let him.

Part I

Year 69, Age of the Aesir

Summer

(18 Years After The Well of Mimir)

1

There is a darkness, deeper than the mere absence of light, festering in the hollow places beneath the World, where dvergar carved out tunnels long before the rise of the Old Kingdoms. Before the Vanir broke empires so ancient man has forgotten they ever existed. In such places, the Veil grows thin and Midgard draws perilously close to the Otherworlds.

Into such a tunnel, arms caked in dried blood, Sigurd descended, bearing a great sack of plunder over his shoulder and a sputtering torch in one hand. While the better portion of the dvergar had retreated to Nidavellir—those not driven from the Mortal Realm entirely—still one yet remained here, beneath Cimbria in Reidgotaland, where mountains broke the landscape.

Their peaks had naught on their neighbors further north nor to the south, or so Sigurd had heard, though they had a feral beauty of their own. They jutted along the Cimbrian highlands, rocky, but in summer, covered in moss too tough to surrender to the snows. In a few places, fjords carved out paths between the mountains, giving access to the sea and an abundance of fish.

At night—some nights—Regin let him wander the banks or swim or catch food for them. Regin himself scarce ventured beyond the network of tunnels dug into the rocky slopes, and with good reason. Thanks to the liosalfar, no dverg could tolerate the rays of sunlight and thus, none dared trek much beyond the safety of their warrens.

Sigurd’s foster father sent him out instead, to bring back food or news or on a few occasions, slave girls to sate the dverg’s lusts. Sigurd’s too, these days, for he had seventeen winters behind him and a powerful need to spend himself as oft as possible.

But this day, those traders fool enough to venture into the untamed lands had brought no women with them, laden instead with sacks of silver minted in Valland and no doubt carried on through Hunaland and into Reidgotaland. Perhaps they traded with the South Realmers, though Sigurd knew precious little of such things. Hunaland though … from Hunaland Sigurd’s forebears had come and there he must one day return.

With the tip of his tongue, he could already taste the blood of those who had wronged his kin. With the clenching of his fist, he could feel their slowing pulse as he squeezed the life from their wretched throats. His kingdom waited for him to reclaim it.

His torch cast the winding tunnels in a dance of shadows that seemed to flicker in response to his musings, writhing like his foes would soon writhe. More like than not, Sigurd could have walked this route blind. How many times had he navigated this path? More than he could count, that much was certain.

After following the route a good deal longer, he came into a hall carved out beneath the mountain. The tunnel ended at that hall, framed by columns engraved with coiling serpents that seemed to stare at Sigurd in the torchlight, and leading into a much higher-ceilinged chamber not so very unlike the palace of a mortal king. If such a king could have a roof stretching ten times his height and a hall so vast the braziers at its entrance failed to illuminate its breadth.

Sigurd jammed his torch into one of those braziers and continued onward. The clank of hammer on anvil greeted him as he passed beyond the great hall. This place might’ve once housed a hundred or more dvergar, but now it belonged to Regin alone, and he used little of it. Mostly just sleeping chambers and the forge.

Sigurd tossed the sack aside with a clank and started for the archway that led down to the deep forge.

The dverg had regaled Sigurd time and again about the wondrous craftwork of his kin in Nidavellir. The sons of Modsognir had crafted the ancient runeblades gifted to the princes of the Old Kingdoms, in their, perhaps vain, attempts to forestall the dissolution of their own empire. Those great works had changed the face of Midgard. Regin had long studied such arts, fancying himself the equal of the princes, or even of the accursed dark smith Volund.

Dverg pride, no doubt, but still Regin slaved away at his forge, crafting swords and helms and claiming one day his name would be whispered with awe throughout Midgard and beyond.

The deep forge lay beneath the great hall, down a narrow path that descended over a precipitous drop down one side that—were Sigurd to fall—would see him plummet a hundred feet or more. This path ended before a circular structure with no roof and but a single archway to enter it. Within burned fires heated from deep beneath the World, blazing hotter than any human forge could hope to achieve.

Sigurd paused at the threshold, peering inside as Regin hammered away at a sword of—unless he missed his guess—dverg steel. Adamant, they called it. Preciously rare, the metal was stronger than aught known to the Realm of men. From it, dvergar crafted arms and armor that kings would’ve emptied their treasuries and sold their own children to possess. Armaments with which they might easily win new kingdoms, in fact.

Regin had forged mail of adamant for Sigurd not so long back, and it had turned blades and arrows on more than one occasion when he ventured out to prey on caravans.

“I found men bearing South Realmer silver,” he said when Regin at last deigned to look at him.

The dverg sneered, then spat over his shoulder, the spray sizzling in the flame for an instant. “Pittances, no doubt.”

Sigurd shrugged. A decent haul, in his estimation, but Regin was not one to praise any success. “Banditry has limits in lands most men dare not wander.”

Always, some tried the overland route, perhaps hoping to avoid pirates on the Morimarusa while venturing toward the northern cities. Large groups came, sometimes too large for him to ambush, dverg-wrought armor or no. Mostly, he sought out small parties who thought themselves bold in testing the forest.

Sigurd stalked the woodlands around Cimbria, hoping to catch such brazen wayfarers, and considering women as good or better prizes than any troves of silver. While the dverg seemed to lust after all that glittered as much as any female, Sigurd found it hard to stick his cock in a bag of coins. And girls tended not to last nigh so long as Sigurd might’ve liked down here. Regin had declared the last girl he’d brought of noble blood, and thus—after using her once and allowing Sigurd to do the same—had insisted they eat her heart and consume the power inherent therein. Megin, Regin called it, a vital energy that suffused all beings but concentrated itself more strongly in some few.

Regin had given Sigurd only a mere taste of the heart, claiming the greater portion for himself.

Sometimes, Sigurd wondered how his mother or stepfather would’ve felt, had they known the dverg forced him to eat the flesh of men. Forced him the first few times, at least. All things a man could adapt to, given time.

“If silver is so scarce, why then do you let Hjalprek hold the hoards of gold and gems gathered by Volsung? Why not claim your birthright, boy, and do us both the favor?”

Sigurd flinched and shook his head.

Many miles away, by the sea, King Hjalprek ruled from his hall at Arus. Though he lay claim to a fair portion of Healfdene’s now shattered kingdom—these mountains included—Hjalprek lacked the strength to hold the lands secured. Indeed, he most like had no idea the banditry his son’s stepson now practiced here.

Further south still, in Hunaland, lay the lands of Sigurd’s true father, the fallen king Sigmund Volsungson. His wealth was legend, but Prince Alf had married Sigmund’s widow, Sigurd’s mother Hjordis.

“Hjalprek holds it in trust on my behalf.”

“Bah! Why do you think the king would foster you with me? Because he wanted to return your inheritance? Does that seem credible?” Regin spit into the flame again. “You’re a man now, but did he ever send anyone to come and claim you?”

Sigurd knew better than to glare at Regin. Though most of the tortures had stopped once Regin considered Sigurd well forged into a weapon, tempered as a mighty sword must be, still, the dverg brooked no insolence. And still, he treated Sigurd as much a slave as a ward, expecting him to always have meals prepared, always be quick to do as he’d bid.

The dverg forgot, perhaps, that a sharp enough sword might well cut its wielder, if not handled with care.

“Test them,” Regin said. “See how willing King Hjalprek is to part with any fraction of your due. Ask him for … his finest steed. A pittance, really. And his answer will reveal the shadows of his heart.”

“You truly send me south? Outside of the woodlands?”

The dverg fixed him with a glare, his narrowed eyes flickering in the firelight ever so slightly. “Should I not?”

“N-no. I mean, yes … That is … I am ready to go.” More than ready, in fact. Many times, Sigurd had considered attempting just that, even without Regin’s blessing. Some few times, he’d even tried it, much to his regret. Surely Alf had not known the things the dverg would do to his stepson. Surely no man would wish such upon the child of his own wife.

And Sigurd had not lain eyes upon his mother in a decade.

Regin nodded, seeming grimmer than ever. “Go and claim your steed, if he will let you. And if he won’t …”

If Alf refused such a small request, then Regin was right, and the king had betrayed Sigurd. Which would mean he would have to die. Sigurd dared hope it would never come to that.

He had too many people to kill as it was.

Sigurd made little sound as he moved about the woodland. While he spent far more time in the lightless expanses beneath the mountains, he’d learned woodcraft well enough in his many forays into the wilds.

Stalking men and deer, bears even. So many kinds of prey, since Regin had finally let him leave the darkened halls.

In the early days, as a boy of a mere six winters, Sigurd had wept at the tortures Regin had lavished upon him. The dverg had branded him, had sliced his flesh. Had raped him, repeatedly. Once, Regin had left him alone on the mountainside all day in winter. Frostbite had claimed two of Sigurd’s toes and Regin had relished cutting them off, then forced him to watch as he ate them.

Now, Sigurd wept at naught. A great many years he’d hated his foster father. He’d tried to run away, back to the lands of King Hjalprek, more than once. Always, Regin had come for him, dragged him back in the dark tunnels, and thought up ever more creative cruelties with which to punish Sigurd’s disobedience.

The dverg had destroyed a boy and left behind a man hard as stone. Stronger in mind and body than any who walked Reidgotaland. For fire was a forge, a crucible that immolated the weak and tempered the strong. Regin had told him that, time and again. Mercy availed no one, Regin claimed, for it perpetuated one’s frailties and left one all the more vulnerable to true foes. Such was the way of the World.

Urd, Sigurd’s one-handed friend had called it. Tiwaz little approved of what Sigurd had told him of Regin’s forging of him, so, these days, Sigurd told him little. They both had their uses. Both had, in their own ways, helped shape Sigurd.

When he couldn’t find travelers to prey upon, Sigurd oft came to call upon Tiwaz, and the man taught him swordplay for hour upon hour beneath the sunlight, while Regin slept. Even if the dverg knew, Sigurd doubted he’d much have cared. Regin offered but one command—that Sigurd not venture beyond the woodland.

Now, though, he came to its edge and peered outward, to the south. Out there, he’d find Alf’s court, a place he’d not seen in so very long.

Sigurd frowned, shaking his head. He saw men little, so he knew but pieces of the tale, most from what little Tiwaz deigned to share. And the one-handed man was not much for speaking, in general. So Sigurd could but guess how things might’ve changed in his long absence.

No one would recognize him now, grown tall and strong and—beneath his clothes—heavily scarred.

No one would recognize the boy who had left. But soon, everyone would know of the man who returned.

Nigh to a hundred years back, Healfdene had conquered most all Reidgotaland and brought it under his rule, had held it fast against threats within and without. Despite a long life, the old king had died well before Sigurd’s birth and split Reidgotaland among his three sons. Those petty kingdoms had begun to falter, though, torn between wars amongst themselves, even as some threat said to come from the Otherworlds had brought low Hrothgar’s lands.

Hrothgar’s brother, Heorogar had a son, Hjalprek, whose son in turn had become Sigurd’s stepfather, Prince Alf.

Such things couldn’t help but run through his mind, as he made the long trek through hills and woodlands, back toward Arus and Hjalprek’s hall. While Sigurd had dealt little with men in the past decade, he’d made it his business to learn the histories of this land, a whim Regin had indulged him in at great length, going so far to as to whip him should he mistake a single prince or jarl in the reign of Reidgotaland going back even to Healfdene’s ancestors.

How and why the dverg knew or cared so much of the lineage of men, Regin had refused to answer.

And the trek toward Arus gave Sigurd ample time for such musings, and more besides. What did Regin truly wish of him? What did the dverg hope to gain by sending Sigurd back to his stepfather now, and by forcing him to wonder about his grandfather’s motivations? And worse yet, what if Grandfather truly had sent him to Regin as a means of keeping the Volsung hoard to himself?

Lost in thought, he followed the banks of a river southward a great ways. Until he nigh blundered into an old man sitting on the shore, staring at the water. The man had a bushy gray beard, and the travel-worn clothes of a vagrant, all hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat. The way he looked at the river, he almost seemed asleep sitting up.

Nor did he bestir himself when Sigurd paused beside him.

“Who are you, old man?” Sigurd asked.

And still the vagabond said naught, only cocked his head to the side.

“Are you ill?”

Finally, the old man turned to look up at Sigurd, revealing a hint of his face. A patch covered one eye, not quite concealing a bitter scar around it. “You go to choose a horse for yourself, yes?”

Sigurd balked. “How can you know that? Did Regin send you?”

“You want to know the best horse?” The old man quirked a smile. “Let me tell you of Sleipnir … Have you heard tale?”

The name sounded familiar, but Sigurd couldn’t quite place it.

“The eight-legged steed of the Ás king, Odin. Sleipnir is possessed of ancient blood, of a line of mighty steeds the likes of which rarely still walk Midgard. And when the Ás has no need of him, the stallion runs free, and thus spreads his seed to mares around our world. And they hold within them, some remnant of Sleipnir’s power.”

Sigurd frowned. “How can you know such things?”

“Because I am old and have wandered far and heard the whispers on the wind and the secrets swept away by currents like this river. Bring those horses you think best here and have them swim. The one who shows no fear, who does not strive straight toward shore but rather basks in the waters, that one hails from the blood of Sleipnir, and no finer horse could come to you.”

Was the old man Mist-mad? He didn’t seem so, though Odin alone knew how long he’d sat on the water’s edge, and bearing no torch. Sigurd knelt beside him. “What do I call you?”

“Gripir, if you must truly have a name.”

Sigurd frowned at the strange old man. A hermit? A wanderer? Or seer? Most men were more like to trust such words from a völva than any male. Still, Sigurd could hardly discard the man’s advice entirely.

Assuming Hjalprek even granted him leave to test the horses.

Arus sat upon the sea in central Cimbria, a fishing town with the king’s hall upon a hill above it. Outside it, men had cleared the nearby trees and built up a stone wall not nigh tall enough to hold back invaders, yet still plenty to have slowed any assault.

The gate there stood open and, as the afternoon had not yet dragged on, none of the men there did aught to bar Sigurd’s entrance. Indeed, why would they accost a single man alone, even one bearing a sword over his shoulder? Within the hall, shields decorated large wooden columns that must have overawed most of Hjalprek’s guests. They seemed frail, pathetic things next to the dverg-wrought palace of stone Sigurd had left behind.

Still, Alf had saved his mother’s life and it was the prince who sat on his throne now, holding his court. A half dozen steps led up to the dais where Alf presided in judgment over a man protesting about the rise of banditry in the hill lands to the north in recent years.

Sigurd quirked a faint smile. It seemed his reputation had spread so far already, even if no man lived to describe him nor even to imagine a single hunter had brought low so many traders.

Alf—so named for his fair complexion and alf-like grace—agreed he’d send a war band scouting the hills. His assurances seemed to placate the merchant. Did the prince realize such efforts would prove vain? No amount of warriors would find Sigurd in tunnels deep beneath the land, nor dare to venture there, should they have even known such places existed. No, men feared that darkness, and rightly so.

The prince caught him staring though, and cocked his head. Oh … he tried to place Sigurd, no doubt, thinking him familiar yet unable to say from where. An ally in some raid? A foe faced on the battlefield? The son of some noble or other … Sigurd could see the man desperately trying to work through it and yet struggling to keep his confusion from his face.

The prince beckoned him closer, and so Sigurd approached and offered a polite incline of his head.

Perhaps best he spare the man any further consternation. “Stepfather.”

“Sigurd?”

Now Alf fair leapt from his throne, stumbled a little in his haste, and then plodded down the steps to stand by Sigurd’s side. The prince gaped at him a moment, before wrapping him in an embrace.

Sigurd flinched. No one had so warmly held him in a decade. If any had embraced him it all it had been women, and only because they’d understood cooperation was the surest way to remain well-fed.

“By the Aesir, boy!” Alf said. “You’ve grown strong.”

Oh, he had no idea. “A decade has passed, stepfather. Surely you did not think me still a child?”

Alf chuckled, then clapped Sigurd on the shoulder. “I suppose not. Come! Your mother is like to swoon to hear you’ve returned. She’s asked after you oft enough.”

To hear him speak of her left an uncomfortable hollow in Sigurd’s gut. A jumble of memories bombarded him—sensations, really. Warmth, kindness, generosity. Things Regin had spent a decade tempering out of Sigurd.

He’d retched the first time Regin made him kill a man. Only the first, though. And the dverg had beaten him to a bloody pulp for the weakness. Some lessons only took the one time to learn.

Alf led him back outside, to a garden behind the wall, tucked between an orchard on one side and a rock the size of a troll on the other. Sigurd grimaced, unable to look away. How many hours had he raced amid those trees? How many more pretending the rock a real troll, and one he alone could slay to protect his mother?

Childish fancies he’d all but forgotten until walking here.

Except, there, against an apple tree she sat, where she’d once sat with him, telling stories of Hunaland and Sigurd’s great father, whom she’d loved and claimed she’d known not nigh as long as she’d wished. Sigmund had gone to Valhalla, she said, there to feast with the Aesir and sit beside Odin.

Sigurd found his feet betrayed him now, and he stumbled, unsteady and slow in his advance.

She looked up, looked him right in the face from twenty feet away. And unlike his stepfather, it took her but a moment. And then she was on her feet, running toward him, her arms around him before Sigurd could even react.

The warmth of it, the impact, it felt like a stone striking his chest, and Sigurd could scarce breathe for it. Who was he to deserve this greeting? He, who had spent the past four years murdering and raping as if such were the fairest thing in the World.

Regin had caught him handling his own cock, once, ready to burst for need, as Sigurd so oft was. And so he’d had Sigurd go out and grab the first woman he saw and take her. Part of him had reveled at getting such permission—nay such an order—and he’d gone. But to see her, a girl nigh his own age at thirteen winters, maybe a bit older, he’d hesitated. Unsure he could do it, thinking even to ask her if maybe she’d want it …

The dverg had told him if he didn’t do it, didn’t hold her down and make himself a man, first he’d make Sigurd eat one of his own stones. Then Regin would go and use the girl himself, and leave her body floating in the lake. Thoughts like that had Sigurd’s cock wilting, and the fear that engendered only made it all the more difficult. But he’d done it.

With a shudder, he jerked away from his mother’s embrace. “I didn’t know you’d recognize me …”

“Of course I recognized you!” She patted him on the cheek, like she’d done when he was little and said things too foolish for words.

Sigurd forced a smile to his face. Let her see that, and not the hollow pit in his gut. Not the vileness that had seeped into his mind.

Alf cleared his throat. “We uh … we asked father about sending for you last summer, but he said to give you a while more in the dverg’s care. That the old ones knew fearsome truths like to make you strong.”

Sigurd snorted softly. How was he to even respond to that? Regin indeed knew most fearsome truths. Secrets ancient and vile, about the true nature of man, before the veneer of civilization had curbed animal impulses. If Regin spoke truth, then even man came from the darkness.

And much as Sigurd loathed it, the dverg had raised one point that had refused to flee from Sigurd’s mind. A revelation or a taunt, either way, it had wormed its way into Sigurd on the long trek back to Arus. “I’m a man now, and I’d have a proper steed, claimed against the Volsung hoard Grandfather holds in trust.”

Alf exchange a glance with Sigurd’s mother, then nodded. “You may claim any steed we own.”

“Actually, I’d like to take several out by the river and see how they fare.”

“As you will,” Alf said. “I’ll arrange it all with my father.”

Sigurd nodded.

Sigurd brought the nine strongest looking horses to the river and did as Gripir had bid him, driving them all to swim. As the man had foretold, one horse did not strive immediately toward shore, but rather basked and played in the waters as Sigurd had seen hounds do. Fearless.

This horse, Sigurd claimed as his own, patting his mane. “I’ll call you Grani.”

The old man had spoken the truth. Did that mean he truly was a seer?

Mounted on Grani, Sigurd returned to Arus, to the obvious surprise of his stepfather.

The man gaped at the horse. “I don’t think anyone ever managed to mount that one.”

Sigurd couldn’t help but smile at that. “No finer horse walks the World, or so I’ve been told.”

Alf scratched at his beard clearly uncertain what to make of that. “Will you ride back to Regin now?”

That question had raced through Sigurd’s mind as he’d ridden back to Arus, and the ride had proved far too short to offer any answer. “I need to speak with Grandfather myself.” A part of Sigurd still hated Regin for the things he’d done, but the dverg had succeeded in forging Sigurd into a weapon. And he could not simply ignore the doubts the creature had planted in his head.

Alf nodded and arranged for King Hjalprek to meet Sigurd in his private chambers. The honor meant, perhaps, that the king did yet consider Sigurd family, despite Regin’s accusations.

The old man sat in a fine-wrought chair, warming his hands before a fire, smiling wanly as Sigurd and Alf entered. His son he motioned to another chair, and Sigurd to a third. “Alf tells me you wish to speak to me.”

Sigurd nodded slowly. “I am a man now.” Keeping his voice steady—and free of accusation—took an effort of will. “Long you held in trust my inheritance from my father, Sigmund.”

“Yes.” Hjalprek placed his hands on the chair’s armrests and stared hard at Sigurd.

“I have come to claim it, and with it, to reclaim the land that was my birthright.”

The king sighed, then shook his head. “It is not possible.”

“You will refuse me my wealth?” Even as Regin had said he would. So Hjalprek’s greed was the reason for fostering Sigurd with Regin. And the dverg’s suspicions proved accurate.

Alf clucked his tongue. “Son, be careful where you tread here …”

Sigurd cast a withering look at his stepfather. “You married my mother. You protected her …”

“And yourself,” Alf said.

Well, leastwise they had allowed him to live. Protected seemed a stretch if they had the merest guess as to what depredations Regin had visited upon him.

Hjalprek raised a hand before Sigurd could spit further accusation at him. “The truth is … I no longer have the Volsung hoard.”

“What?”

“Our kingdom has faced recurring threats from the others, and from the Niflungar out of Samsey, too. We needed that gold to win loyalty to our cause. Without it, Cimbria would have been lost.”

“It was not yours to spend!”

“You claim to be a man,” Alf said. “So do not speak like a petulant child. If Arus fell, what do you think would have happened to your inheritance? Or your mother, for that matter? Father made the choice he had to.”

Hjalprek glowered. “I had dared hope to rebuild the hoard with raids before you came of age. But the World grows darker, not tamer. Wars spread across all lands.”

“Does my mother know?”

“She’s no fool,” Alf said. “She didn’t wish you fostered, but what mother would? I consoled her by assuring her the dverg was like to give you the strength needed to reclaim your throne in Rijnland.”

Sigurd chuckled mirthlessly at that, not bothering to explain when the pair of them cast questioning glances his way. Instead, he rose, scraping his chair over the floor. “I thought this my home. Apparently my place truly is in the dark tunnels to which you banished me.”

“No one banished you,” Hjalprek snapped. “Show a bit of gratitude, boy.”

Sigurd sneered at him. Gratitude? “You were right about one thing. I will reclaim my throne.” He spit in the fire, then stormed out before either of the men could further argue.

2

He was naked, but that hardly mattered.

An alabaster street unfolded before Odin, leading between buildings of pearl and gold, with gilded roofs that reflected the radiance in all directions. A city seemingly made of sunlight and peopled by scarcely clad men and women whose very skin seemed luminous.

They were creatures of Otherworldly beauty, a perfection of the human form so striking it made him want to weep and fling himself at the feet of these demigods and beg their worship. The liosalfar were as radiant as their Realm. Their eyes shone with sunlight. Their hair glittered. Their visages saw right through to his very soul.

While the wilds had held wonders beyond telling, this city of light was the true glory of Alfheim, and Etheric songs flitted between its rooftops and over its soaring skyways. The alabaster roads did not merely follow the ground, but soared up in graceful arcs, leading to balconies and spires and even to the great palace at the city’s heart.

A place of countless gleaming towers so tall they brushed the clouds. Atop the highest of those peaks sat the blinding sun itself, as if tethered to this place.

Within such trances, Odin oft could not tell the difference between vision or memory, if such a difference existed. In remembering the future he found it blurred with the present and left him adrift in time, as if all that happened or would happen was happening and always would be. Therein lay the danger of how thoroughly the Well of Mimir had rarified his Sight.

Odin had foreseen Sigurd choosing Grani long ago, and thus, had led Sleipnir to mate with the mare that would spawn the horse. It was strange how little different playing out the event in the present felt from living it in future memory.

He’d met Sigurd the same way he’d known he would meet him even before the boy’s birth. Given the same advice—words he’d pulled from his own circular memories. Leaving him to wonder if he could choose to say something else, to do something else when faced with the unfolding present.

Even prescience had its limits, of course, and those Odin had spent the intervening years delving into, trying to uncover, some with help from Loki, who himself seemed to impede Odin’s Sight in certain ways. The presence of another Oracle created blind spots, though such were not noticeable unless one began to look for them. After all, the mere absence of a vision did not inherently portend much. Did a vision fail to materialize because whatever might have happened was not going to happen? Because it might put him at odds with an Oracle who’s own visions might have caused him to create a shift in the timeline?

Or was prescience simply never perfect? Every vision had gaps, even when it could be separated from nonliteral imagery the Sight sometimes portrayed.

Odin and Loki had spent long nights debating the finer points of this gift, and, even so, Odin had no doubt his blood brother held back some knowledge. Nor could Odin truly blame him for that.

Either way, through their debates and his own experimentation, Odin had found one truth, bitter and hateful though it was. Loki had expressed it succinctly: “Prescience accounts for itself.”

That being the case, did it mean naught Odin could see would lead to changes in the future? That, no matter how hard he pushed his limits, never could he foresee aught that would lead him to take actions which would have invalidated the visions that created them? If so, he couldn’t choose to advise Sigurd differently, or, at the very least, he didn’t choose it.

This paradox, that Oracles were ultimately powerless to alter the future, might have explained the weight that had borne down on Loki since the day they’d met.

But Odin was resolved to go further, go deeper than Loki’s pyromancy could ever hope to take him. To find the one way, whatever it might be, that would allow him to cut through the Web of Urd and create the future he willed. For if he could not, if the web was unbreakable, then free will was but an illusion.

A revelation that Odin could not abide.

The sun had set when Odin sensed a presence in the Penumbra. It came as a tightness in his chest, almost painful, and the rising of hairs on his arms and the back of his neck.

Oft enough, Odin could feel it when something drew close to the Veil, even before embracing the Sight. He knew when his valkyries approached. He knew when ghosts or other vaettir watched from the shadows, hateful of the Realm of the living yet unable to affect it in any but the most subtle of ways. A rotted crop here, a change in the wind. An unclean thought, whispered so quietly in the ear, a person might think it their own heart’s desire.

Were these tiny, oft loathsome manipulations of reality also part of the Web of Urd?

Odin had to be careful. He had so many times lost himself in such musings, and, as now, when he was out in the World, he could little afford to be without his wits. Another danger of letting his mind loose in the shifting tides of time.

As now, passing through the woods of Cimbria, when he felt something close, searching for him. Odin could have embraced the Sight and seen his pursuer, but instinct warned him otherwise. For to look across the Veil pulled part of his soul out of this world and into the Otherworld. He would then become clear to whatever sought him. To see was to be seen.

Thus instead, he ducked behind a rock and pressed his body against it. Many vaettir became more active at night. The sun’s presence, even weakened by the mists, seemed to ward off a good many kinds of vaettir and most ghosts as well. But Odin was not convinced those who hunted him were from the Spirit Realm or the Penumbra.

Five years ago, he’d tracked down another valkyrie lodge and bound those women to his will, as he had done with Skögul’s lodge long before. Since then, every so oft when he ventured into Midgard, he felt it—the looming presence of a great power closing in on him.

The mud by the riverbank sucked on his heels and clung to his arse as he ducked low, undignified, perhaps, but he preferred to avoid a confrontation with his foe or foes for as long as possible. Certainly while he had no allies nigh at hand.

The tightness clenching around his heart slowly abated. The chill on his skin passed, replaced by the coolness of a summer night. The presence had moved on without locating him.

Of course, he knew he ought to gather his allies and deal with whatever hunted him, but he had so many things to attend to and so little time in which to do so. Always, time swept past him, and the World could not afford for Odin to become distracted.

With each passing year, Ragnarok loomed closer.

3

A strange mix of relief and loathing overcame Sigurd as he trod back into the tunnels beneath the mountains of Cimbria. This place had become home to him, yes, but after nigh a fortnight out in the World, the underground seemed all the darker and less welcoming.

The horse would never have tolerated it, so Sigurd left Grani free to roam the meadows outside. The animal had taken an immediate liking to him and Sigurd had little fear he would run off, at least not for long.

Alone, lost in melancholic musings, Sigurd made his way toward Regin’s hall. His stolen hall, in truth, for it had no doubt belonged to others long ago. The wealth of kings always seemed coveted by those of lesser ilk.

Today, the dverg waited in the great hall, watching Sigurd as if he’d known this would be the day he’d return. Sometimes, Sigurd rather thought the stones spoke to Regin, for the dverg knew things he ought not to have and seemed preternaturally aware of all that passed in his domain.

“I smell no gold on you, boy,” Regin said when Sigurd drew nigh. He sat upon an ornate chair wrought from steel and silver and grander than the thrones of most kings.

Sigurd glowered at his foster father. “Hjalprek has spent the Volsung fortunes. He granted me a horse though.”

“A horse and the contents of its arse, and little else, eh?” Regin snickered. “Such is the way of the World.”

“So it would seem.” Sigurd folded his arms over his chest and stared down at the misshapen figure who had raised him. “I would have claimed that wealth to avenge my kin in Hunaland. Now, though, I find myself ill equipped to hire anyone to strike down Lyngi or the others. Hjalprek’s greed has damned my line. Even now, I fear my father waits beyond the Veil, trapped in torment and awaiting his revenge.”

Regin cocked his head to the side. The light in his eye seemed to bespeak some knowledge Sigurd—as a mere man—could not hope to understand. Experience had taught him Regin would not part easily with any such secrets. “What if there was a way to claim a new hoard for yourself? Wealth aplenty to hire whatever mercenaries your heart desires to enact your vengeance?”

Sigurd groaned, then slumped down on the floor against a column. “Am I to spend the next three summers raiding among the islands or plundering villages along the coast of Nidavellir? Have I not waited long enough for vengeance?”

The dverg grinned his wicked smile. “Perhaps you have. My father had quite the hoard before my brother stole it from him. Kill my brother, and you may claim what share you wish, so long as I have first pick among the treasures.”

“You never spoke of any brother.” It should not really surprise Sigurd that the dverg would stoop to murdering his own kin. The gods abhorred kinslayers almost as much as they did oathbreakers, but perhaps dvergar little cared what the gods thought.

“Fafnir murdered our father to claim the hoard.”

“Fafnir …” That name seemed familiar. “Isn’t that … Gods!” Sigurd lurched to his feet. “Treacherous stone-sucking cock. Fafnir is a dragon! He rules the Poison Marshes north of the Myrkvidr. You take me for a fool, then? To believe your brother is a dragon?”

“Such was the curse of his crimes, perhaps. Our father Hreidmar was a mighty dverg, a prince of Nidavellir and a son of Modsognir himself, and as such, taught my brothers and me the secret arts of smithing. None so excelled as my brother Andvari though, and through his craft he grew rich beyond measure and thus fearful beyond reckoning. He fled the company of our own kind, broke his fealty to Nidavellir and shamed our family.”

Sigurd frowned, then resumed his seat on the floor. Never had he heard the dverg speak of such things, nor even mention why he lived away from Nidavellir.

“Andvari’s craft delved in directions I suspect not even Modsognir himself could have imagined, exceeding that, perhaps of even Durin. But Andvari fled, even from the company of his own kin, and we were long in tracking him through the wild places of his flight. Before we found him, the Aesir set upon him. He had taken the form of an otter, and they slew him, claiming not to know him for who or what he was.”

“The Aesir? The gods themselves?”

“Odin and Loki, yes. My father, myself, and my brother Fafnir, we caught them and bound them. Father thought to kill them and perhaps he should have, but Odin offered Father weregild, and so he demanded all the treasures of Andvari. All the wonders my brother had wrought and all the wealth he’d acquired in trade for his services. And Loki went and recovered the hidden hoard and gave it to us, though he claimed Andvari had cursed his treasure. In the aftermath I … cannot say with certainty.

“Father claimed the riches and planned to use them to buy our way back into the graces of the court in Nidavellir. But Fafnir … before we had reached our homeland, he murdered father, ate his heart and cast his body into some chasm or other—where I cannot say. He might’ve turned on me, as well, but I hid. And my brother claimed all the treasures for himself and fled into the wilds. After long years he came to Myrkvidr, at the borderlands, and there settled, basking in his stolen wealth.”

“But how could he become a dragon?”

“Andvari’s power was great and hard to fathom. Perhaps he did curse the ring to punish any who would steal it. Or perhaps Fafnir’s crime and his greed wrought some primordial change within his breast. Either way, some decades back he began to change, and to spread poison across the land. His domain transformed into a noxious marsh where little lives and he himself became a serpent, laying upon his hoard and ever fearing someone should come and reclaim it.”

Sigurd snorted. “And you’d have me slay him.”

“I do not fancy becoming a kinslayer myself.”

“You have not the power nor the stones for it, you mean.” Sigurd shook his head. “And what exactly do you imagine I would do against a linnorm?”

“You, a mighty heir of Volsung? You, who claim to be such a great warrior. Prove it! Do what no mere man has done and slay a dragon.”

Sigurd grunted in disgust. “Strength of arm won’t prove enough. Legends claim linnorm scales are hard as iron.”

Regin glowered, his face half concealed in shadow. “Suppose I forge you a blade of adamant, stronger even than the one you bear now?”

To slay a dragon … Yes. It would make him famed across all lands, without doubt. Men would flock to his banner and he’d have all the help he needed to destroy Lyngi’s kingdom. And the treasure … All Hjalprek had taken from him and more could be his if he but slew Regin’s vile, treacherous brother.

Skalds spoke of linnorms as terrors out of legend, threats feared even by gods and jotunnar. And the man who killed one would win such glory. Sigurd was tired of lurking in dark tunnels and waiting for the day he could reclaim his birthright.

“Make me a sword worthy of such a task, and I shall complete it.”

Regin grinned. “I’ll make a blade stronger than any you have ever imagined.”

For days Regin toiled in the deep forge, the echo of hammer on anvil filling the cavern with little respite. Oft, Sigurd came to check the progress, and oft he saw little enough. Sometimes, Sigurd took to walking the woodlands, seeking after game or forage. Other times, he fished in the streams or practiced his swordplay.

Many times he considered trekking to Tiwaz’s hut—it was but a few hours from the caves—but always the question of when Regin would at last be finished drew him back. And always to disappointment.

“My brothers toiled for nine days and nine nights to forge each runeblade,” the dverg said to one such inquiry.

And Regin seemed to think himself capable of forging a weapon worthy of mention in the same breath as a runeblade. Could he achieve such a feat? Tale spread across the North Realms that the blades returned to the World and with them, men carved out kingdoms or worked wonders.

They said Starkad Eightarms wielded one such blade, and he had slain men and jotunnar with it across Midgard and beyond. Others claimed Beowulf had wielded one, or Heidrek, or even the Ás Tyr. Oh, and old Healfdene had conquered Reidgotaland long ago, bearing the legendary Hrunting, though what became of the runeblade after the old king died, Sigurd could not guess.

All men spoke in a measure of fear of Mimung, the new runeblade forged by Volund in the days of Nidud of Njarar.

And, of course, Sigurd’s own father Sigmund wielded the legendary Gramr, lost when its master fell to Lyngi’s treachery.

Oft enough, Sigurd sat and watched the dverg work, hammering and quenching, tempering dverg steel endlessly.

The better part of five days Regin took, before finally quenching the blade once more, and handing it over.

Sigurd took it in hand, swaying it side to side to test its balance. It was indeed a finer blade than Regin had ever forged, at least to Sigurd’s knowledge, and the dverg had etched runes along its length in imitation of the blades his brethren had crafted long ago. “This will cut dragon scales? Even iron?”

“Yes, yes. It’s stronger than steel.” The dverg rubbed sweat and grime from his brow with his forearm. “Now, be about it.”

Sigurd stared at the blade. A solid weight, a good balance, yes, but fit to take on a linnorm? Capable of slaying such a creature? No, Regin was sending him to his death, almost certainly. Even if the dverg didn’t realize it—or perhaps allowed his greed to blind him. Sigurd might not fear death, but he didn’t long for it, either.

“They say Odin slew a linnorm, with a spear quenched in dragon blood.”

Regin rolled his eyes and groaned. “And a sword will do just as well. If you wanted a spear, you’d have done well to ask for one before this.”

Sigurd paced around the deep forge. “Oh, I favor a sword. If it is truly an invincible one capable of felling a dragon.” He turned toward the anvil. “Strong enough to cut steel?” Taking the sword in both hands, Sigurd cleaved down into the anvil. The blade bit into the metal surface, ever so slightly. The impact jarred his arms and the blade at once snapped off and flew free, soaring past Sigurd’s head a hairsbreadth from taking his ear with it.

“What the—” Regin bellowed.

Sigurd spun on the dverg. “You would have me place my trust, my very life on your work! And this is what it is worth. What will I do when such a blade snaps off on dragon scales? Shall I wrestle the beast to death with my bare hands? Kick it into submission?” He flung the hilt at the dverg’s feet and the thing scraped over stone, bouncing once before coming to rest. “Perhaps I shall defeat the dragon with my stare? You send me on a fool’s errand.”

Regin spat over his shoulder into the forge fire. “No blade would stand up to such abuse.”

“A runeblade would.”

Now the dverg shambled closer to Sigurd, until he could glare up at him. “That’s the finest steel we have. You want me to pull some orichalcum out of my arse, boy? If I could shit the stuff I’d be the king of Nidavellir myself. Nay, king of the whole stone-sucking World. That’s as good as it gets.”

Sigurd shook his head. “Then Fafnir shall sit on his stolen gold until this World dies. I will not throw my life away.” With that, he stormed off toward the stairs.

“Boy! Get back here, you ungrateful wretch! Boy!”

Sigurd ignored Regin and trudged off, up the stairs, and out of the vile darkness of these tunnels.

Night had settled not long after Sigurd had fled the underground, but he had little mood to make camp, much less return to Regin’s domain. Instead, he lit a torch and continued his wanderings, almost choking on his overwhelming need to beat something. To chop whatever unfortunate victim crossed his path into pieces.

Did he ask too much of Regin? Perhaps, but if so, the dverg had no one to blame save himself. In his hubris, Regin had claimed to be the match of his brothers, and Sigurd found that momentously unlikely. Besides which, Regin himself had offered not the least tolerance for failure or weakness in Sigurd. How could Sigurd now expect any less from him?

Torch beside his head, he stomped through the woods, neither knowing nor much caring where he headed so long as it was away from the dverg. The Earth vaettr could catch him, if he so desired, but Sigurd doubted Regin would do any such thing. No, the creature must know their relationship now hung by a tenuous thread of spider silk, and any further provocation was like to snap that thread.

Seething, Sigurd blundered through the wood until he came to a stream, then fell to a sudden stop. Out there, above the mist over the waters, a plume of smoke rose, large enough to have come from a campfire. What fool would dare make camp in these supposedly haunted lands where Sigurd had long slain most who trespassed? A large group, perhaps? If so, they might have food. If not … well they might have something of value worth taking.

He followed the stream’s course until he could hear voices out in the mist, then he drove his torch into the sand and left it there. In a crouch, he crept forward, to the edge of the circle where fire banished mist. Around a small flame sat his mother and with her … the old man, Gripir. What in the gates of Hel?

Sigurd rose to his full height and stalked forward.

His mother started at his approach, though the man with her did not. “Sigurd!” she said, climbing to her feet with obvious discomfort. “Praise Odin! He said we’d find you, but I had begun to doubt …” She threw her arms around him and Sigurd returned her embrace.

“How do you know this hermit, Mother?”

She pulled away and glanced back at the old man. “Gripir has aided our family many a time over the years. He’s become like a brother to me, oft warning me of danger and helping me steer around it. Please, sit.”

Sigurd did so, staring not at his mother, but at Gripir. “How did you know where to find me?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“You’re a seer.” Unmanly, for certain. Such things were best left to völvur. He didn’t give voice to those thoughts, but Sigurd imagined his face spoke them plain enough.

And indeed, the quirk of Gripir’s smile bespoke an understanding.

Now he did turn to his mother. “What are you doing here?”

“Your fostering is over, Sigurd. You returned to us only to—”

“Surely you know why, Mother. Your father-in-law has spent that which you saved for me.”

She frowned, shaking her head. “Hard times in Cimbria forced us to make hard decisions.” Sigurd scoffed, and the woman frowned, obviously shamed by what had gone on. As well she should have been. “Not everything was spent, Sigurd.”

Now he paused, turning to regard her more carefully. She’d saved some treasure for his use? If it was enough to reclaim Rijnland …

Gripir produced a satchel and tossed it in front of Sigurd.

This, Sigurd untied. Within lay a wrapped bundle he unfolded in his lap. A rose-gold sword, snapped in two pieces not so very unlike the one Sigurd himself had just broken. Along the length stretched a string of runes. Sigurd ran his index finger over their grooves.

“Is this …?”

“The shards of Gramr,” his mother said. “The runeblade your father bore when he avenged himself on Siggeir Wolfsblood.”

“I assumed this was lost after the final battle with Lyngi.”

“Not lost,” she said. “I saved it, as your father bid me. He hoped one day you would take it up again, might restore it.”

“But how could a runeblade be broken?”

“Odin willed it so,” Gripir offered. “The Ás king has many secret ways of achieving his ends. Now, perhaps, he intendeds the runeblade for you.”

Sigurd sighed. “If it broke once, what is to stop it from breaking again?” Against a dragon.

“You need not raise your sword against Odin himself.”

That drew a snort from him. No, he’d not even considered … wait. Did the seer imply Father had striven against Odin? Was he not favored of the Ás?

“It might be hard for us to understand the will of the King of the Aesir,” Gripir said. “Without doubt, he must have had good reason for his actions. And for allowing the blade to come to you now.”

Truth or wishful thinking? Either way, he could not turn his back on Gramr, not when it had come to him at long last. With a last look, Sigurd folded the cloth back over the blade, then looked to his mother. “It is not safe here. You must return to Arus and to your husband.” He turned to Gripir. “Can you escort her safely back, seer?”

“Yes. There are few with whom she would be more secure.”

Sigurd nodded and rose.

“Lyngi killed not only my husband,” his mother said, “but my father. It is not a slight I can forgive.”

Sigurd met her gaze. “Don’t worry, Mother. I’m not the kind to forget nor to forgive. It’s not my nature.”

Regin met him halfway down the stairs to the deep forge, somehow alerted to his presence once more. Sigurd did not bother to worry on such things, not now.

“You’ve come to your senses?” the dverg asked. “I’ll forge one more blade for you … maybe I can make it stronger still, but you must see reason.”

Rather than answer, Sigurd withdrew the bundle and unwrapped it, holding it low so Regin could inspect it.

The dverg’s mouth dropped open, then he reached a trembling hand to it, brushing his fingers over the metal. “How did you …?”

“Does it matter?”

“No. Most like, the souls forged into this yet remain, even though the blade snapped. I can reforge it, but it will take another nine days.”

Sigurd handed the bundle to the dverg. “Take what time you require. But see to it you create something truly unparalleled.”

Regin chuckled, then began making his hobbling way back to the forge.

After the sun had set on the ninth day, Regin shambled from the deep forge, a restored runeblade in hand and a wicked grin spread across his face.

Sigurd rose from the rock where he’d passed the time, crossing the distance without even realizing he’d moved. A glimmer from a brazier flickered off the blade, and—though it might have been but a trick of the light—the runes themselves seemed to gleam.

“It’s glorious.”

“Heh.” Regin snorted and handed it over. “And strong enough to withstand even dragon scales, I guarantee it.”

Glorious indeed. As if Regin had invited it, Sigurd trod back into the forge and stood before the anvil, grasping Gramr’s bone hilt with both hands. He looked to the dverg who—though he grimaced ever so slightly—nodded.

Roaring, Sigurd raised the runeblade and chopped downward. The blow again sent jarring reverberations through Sigurd’s arm. But this time, it sliced clean and deep into the anvil’s metal, wedging itself nigh a foot down.

Sigurd laughed. Truly unbelievable. What a wonder the sons of Modsognir had wrought in these runeblades.

He tugged to free the blade, but the anvil held it fast. Sigurd placed his foot against the surface and heaved. Slowly, a hair at a time, it began to edge free, metal grating all the while. Finally, the sword lurched loose and Sigurd stumbled backward.

Regin cleared his throat. “It needs a soul to finish the restoration, a feast to complete the rebinding.”

Sigurd felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Perfect. I’ll feed it Lyngi.”

“Later, perhaps. For now, but go and ply your banditry on whomever you come across.”

Sigurd glanced at the dverg, already shaking his head. “No.”

“What no, boy? You need this blade to slay Fafnir, that was our arrangement.”

“And I will slay the dragon. But first I’ll avenge the wrongs heaped upon my parents. This blade will bring down Lyngi and his allies.”

Regin sputtered, and lunged for the blade, but Sigurd fell back a step and the dverg stumbled, seeming close to pitching onto his face. “That’s in Hunaland! You intend to ride clear past Fafnir and take no action?”

Sigurd snorted. “I don’t intend to ride to Hunaland at all. How many warriors could I safely march through Myrkvidr? Too few, for certain. No, I’ll demand ships and a crew from Hjalprek, and he’ll oblige me, or I shall perhaps find Gramr a different sacrifice.”

“No, boy, you listen to me—”

“Stop calling me boy! I am a man, and if you were capable of bringing low the serpent yourself, you’d have done so. You need me, and thus you will allow me to claim my vengeance first. Then we shall see to yours.”

Regin spit into the forge and fitted Sigurd with a glare. Then, grumbling under his breath, the dverg shambled away.

Sigurd found himself transfixed by the blade as firelight glinted off it. Not even a scratch marred it, even after such abuses as he’d just visited upon the sword.

Truly glorious. And it would serve to end his foes such that the skalds would write verses of it for a thousand years.

4

The docks first warped then crunched into kindling as the surging wave rushed over them. The buildings closest to the sea were next, caught in the rising tide with such force they collapsed into themselves. Treading amid the chaos were even more sea jotunnar. Sallow-skinned and with legs covered in fish scales such that one who wasn’t overly discerning might mistake them for seven or eight feet tall mer.

Thor knew better, of course. Another of the brutes fell at his feet. Roaring, he brought Mjölnir down upon the creature’s skull. It struck with the sound of a thunderclap, flinging bolts of lightning in all directions. Though standing shin-high in the waters, the hammer itself seemed to protect Thor from the discharge. In fact, he only grew stronger with each such jotunn he slew.

Mjölnir thirsted for their blood, without doubt. And Thor had begun to surmise it thirsted for more than that as well. Did the mighty hammer devour their very souls? A fitting end to the beasts that had invaded all Bjarmaland.

Shin-high in water, he sloshed his way over to another of the creatures, this one armed with a trident. The weapon gave it reach, and Mjölnir seemed tiny when trying to deflect such an arm. Thor batted a blow aside and charged forward. Or tried. Damn water slowed his steps while hardly bothering the sea jotunnar at all.

Another jab from that trident, and this one took him in the shoulder, the force of the blow shearing through his mail and sending him spinning around and crashing down into the muck before the pain even caught up with him. Mjölnir let him block out even more of that pain than the apple’s Megin did.

“Thor!” Baldr shouted.

Thor’s little brother leapt in, sword flashing. The sea jotunn used its superior reach on him too, and even as Thor rose, its thrust caught Baldr in the ribs and sent the boy down hard, falling prone underwater.

Roaring, Thor smacked Mjölnir into the jotunn’s side. Another thunderclap sounded on impact. Lightning jumped along the jotunn’s side, frying its flesh as it convulsed, releasing a sickly sweet aroma that Thor had almost learned to ignore. The creature collapsed sideways and Thor paid it no more mind.

Instead, with one hand he reached into the waters and yanked Baldr up. “Brother!”

Baldr gasped, coughing up a disgusting mix of blood and seawater, looking pale and grim.

“By the fucking Tree, Baldr,” Thor grumbled. “Magni!” he shouted to his son. “Get the twins.” He pointed Mjölnir at a pair of sea jotunnar stomping through what remained of Holmgard’s market.

Then—having no choice but to trust the others to pull it off—he hefted Baldr up in his arms and trod away from the attacking jotunnar. He sloshed through the waters until finally coming into the mostly dry portion of town, kicked in a door, and laid Baldr down beside an unkindled fire pit.

His brother groaned.

Ignoring Baldr’s protests, Thor yanked the boy’s mail up and pulled away the gambeson beneath. A prong of the trident had punched through both, leaving a puncture between two ribs. Blood was pumping from it like a fucking fountain.

More groans from his brother, and the boy’s eyes began to close.

Thor slapped his cheek. “Stay with me, Baldr.” Thor was no fucking völva to know how to treat such a wound. “You’re a damned imbecile.” He wasn’t really sure the boy could hear him or would remember, but some things needed to be said. “I swore to Father I’d keep you safe here. But if you hadn’t had an apple you’d be dead already.” And Thor wasn’t certain Baldr would pull through this, regardless.

It was his fault, too. He should’ve known to prepare for it. The jotunnar had to come for Holmgard sooner or later, that he’d known. Only, he had his men watching the wall, waiting for an attack from frost jotunnar or wood jotunnar or, worse, mountain jotunnar. He’d barely even considered worrying over an attack from the sea.

Oh, he’d heard the rumors. Not long after Rollaugr’s death, the sea jotunnar had begun their assault on the Miklagardian colonies. Thor would’ve sent them along with his blessings, actually. The Patriarchs were probably worse than the damn jotunnar. Besides, all the kingdoms of men in Bjarmaland had collapsed under the assault from Jotunheim. All Thor could do these days was try to protect what bands of men he could, in between forays to thin the jotunn ranks.

Thor grabbed his flint and started striking up a fire beside Baldr. Best he could do for the moment was to sear the wound closed. The boy wasn’t like to enjoy that, but Thor had to trust the apple would keep him alive if he could stop the bleeding.

All of Midgard was doomed. That much seemed certain. All his efforts but delayed the inevitable. Maybe it bought Father time to prepare more defenses in Sviarland. Truth be told, Thor rarely had the first clue what his father got up to these days.

But Thor, his son Magni, Baldr, and the varulfur twins were about all that was keeping the jotunnar contained here.

Mostly contained. Plenty had slipped into Aujum, he knew, and news from Miklagard was scarce. Others had begun raiding into Kvenland. Thor could only be in so many places at once. Mjölnir could kill them over and over, but Thor couldn’t fight an army by himself and couldn’t really count on the locals here to help.

Those who hadn’t fled or gotten killed spent too much of their time fighting each other for a crown that was now worth less than a good pair of boots to let a man run the fuck away.

Once the blaze was going, Thor drew his dagger and stuck it in the kindling, letting it get hot.

The boy was closing his eyes again. Thor slapped him awake. “None of that. You’re not allowed to die until I say so, brother.”

Baldr wasn’t ready for an apple, but Mother had given him one anyway. She was so fearful for him, though she never said rightly why. So fearful, and she’d given him an apple even when everyone else had had to earn one or live as a mortal. But not Baldr. No, brave, stupid Baldr had to have an apple when he’d had what, sixteen winters?

Thor shook his head. Had Father approved of Mother’s choice? No one except maybe Loki ever seemed to know what Father thought of aught. And Loki … well, despite all he’d done to help, it was hard to even look at him. Thor could never forget what Hödr had done to Thrúd and had planned to kill the boy, possessed or no. But Father and Loki both had pled against it.

Grunting, he snatched up the dagger from the fire. It had turned incandescent around the point, so he figured that would have to do. With one hand he braced Baldr’s shoulder and with the other, pressed the blade to his wound. The sizzle and pop of flesh was almost worse than the smell. Baldr’s screams, those Thor could ignore with ease. He’d heard plenty of worse screaming over the past years. It became a chorus that helped him forget …

Sif.

Thor grimaced. He refused to let her image come to his mind again. He couldn’t allow …

But there she was, staring at him with accusing eyes, blaming him for her death as she did most every night.

Thinking of her brought spots swimming before his eyes, an instant before the blinding pain shot through his head. Thor tossed the dagger aside and curled up on the floor, hand pressed to his forehead.

The pain made him want to break someone in half.

Baldr’s thrashing ended as soon as Thor withdrew the knife.

Stupid boy.

Across from Thor, Geri tended the fire, though she paused a moment to sniff Baldr’s wound, scowling at it.

“Not a völva,” Thor objected before his sister could point out the shoddy care he’d provided to the boy.

“It’s fine,” Baldr managed to sputter.

“It’s not fine,” Thor snapped. “You ought to have let me handle the situation.”

“I am a warrior.”

“You’ve seen sixteen winters. I’ve had nigh to seventy.”

“Just … makes you old.”

Thor glared at the arrogant whelp. Boy barely had a beard, but he had long flaxen hair and a too handsome face that Thor knew had already gotten dozens of shield-maidens and local ladies on their backs. And how many more he didn’t know of? Maybe he could hardly blame Baldr for it, but the boy’s life was too easy. He got things without learning how to fight for them.

Magni, though, he was here fighting to earn his apple. And Thor’s son knew not to try to wade into a pitched melee with a sea jotunn in the damn water. The boy was a winter older than Baldr and, if Baldr had any sense, he’d have looked to Magni for guidance. Never seemed to work out that way, though.

For now, Magni dozed against the wall in one of the few undamaged houses left in Holmgard. Thor figured he’d need the rest. They’d beaten back the sea jotunnar, but this was just a raid. Sooner or later they’d face the real invasion.

There were maybe eighty families left here, give or take a few, and Thor had sworn to protect them, much as he’d rather have gone out hunting jotunnar.

The door swung open and Freki strode in, his eyes bloodshot and his steps a weary trudge before he plopped down beside the fire.

“Well?” Thor demanded.

“Rathbarth is pressing his claim for rulership of Holmgard. He’s killed Bergir.”

Geri groaned. Thor scratched at his beard. Rollaugr’s boy had died in battle a long time back. The old king never managed to sire another … uh, what was that? Another heir. No, and for fifteen years the remains of his jarls and thegns had squabbled over a kingdom that was constantly besieged by damn jotunnar. Dogs fighting over scraps.

Bergir had seemed a good enough man, and had agreed to bring his war band to the city to protect it. If he had, maybe Thor could have spared the time to go jotunn hunting. None of this would really end unless someone killed Skadi, of course, but for all Thor knew she’d returned to Thrymheim and was well out of reach.

It seemed like Thrym’s death had shattered the jotunn alliance, but still, sometimes they worked in concert. Had to be Skadi controlling them, everyone seemed to agree.

“So we go to Rathbarth,” Baldr said. Thor hadn’t even realized the boy was awake.

Geri snorted. “Rathbarth is an upstart thegn who has no claim to the throne. He’s got naught to recommend him save a talent for bloodshed.”

“Isn’t that about what we need these days?” Baldr asked.

Much as Thor hated to admit it, maybe the boy was right. He’d dared to place his hopes on Bergir, but now … now all that remained were various warlords and the former Jarl Halvar. But Halvar didn’t have half so many people and besides, last Thor had heard, he’d headed south toward Kiovia. Thor highly doubted things were like to go much better for him there. Hymir controlled most of Kiovia and unless Halvar swore to him … Well. Maybe that was exactly what the man intended.

Either way, Thor saw no alternative left but Rathbarth, unless Thor himself planned to don a crown. Which he didn’t, least of all here.

“We have to go to Rathbarth’s camp then,” Thor said. “As soon as Baldr is well enough to move. A few days, at most.”

“What of Holmgard?” Geri asked.

Thor grimaced. “Can you hold it together?”

The varulf girl frowned, clearly not much inclined to be left here. But what choice did they have, save to leave the city unprotected? “Fine. I will.”

Rathbarth had camped on the south bank of the Itil River, southeast from the city of Holmgard. The land had no fortifications, but the river itself naturally hemmed in the camp and limited the locations from which rival warlords could attack the man.

Sentries met Thor and his party at the camp’s edge and, on his introduction, escorted him to see Rathbarth himself in the largest of the tents, one warmed by a giant brazier. Corded muscles, scars old and new, and a braided beard strung with finger bones gave the man a fierce aspect, one Thor would guess had served him well in subverting so many warriors to his banner.

Plenty of women and other followers clung to the army as well. Some were no doubt slaves captured in various raids, while others, Thor assumed, had come willingly. After all, nowhere left in Bjarmaland was safe. What few towns jotunnar had not plundered where subject to the rape and pillage of warlords just like Rathbarth.

Those who followed his war bands were safe from that, so long as Rathbarth kept winning.

Thor hadn’t much cared for the man’s arrogance even when he’d still served old Rollaugr and he misliked it all the more now. Still, as they had discussed, circumstances didn’t allow Thor to choose his allies.

So he thrust an arm at Rathbarth and hid his scorn. The warlord clasped the offered arm in his own, nodding. “Welcome to the war.”

Thor bit back his response that he’d been fighting this war since before Rathbarth was born. “I’ve come to invite you back to Holmgard. The people there need someone to protect them.”

“And I’m all you have left, eh?” Rathbarth sucked spittle between his teeth before pacing back to a table with a map strewn across it.

Thor took it as an invitation to follow, though Rathbarth probably hadn’t intended it as such. The map depicted the area surrounding Holmgard, down into Kiovia and east to Qazan, though Thor couldn’t read whatever scribblings denoted these things. Either way, Rathbarth favored him with a discerning look for a moment.

“There’s very little left in that place, from what I’m told. Half the town took ship back to Sviarland or Kvenland or wherever they well pleased after Rollaugr’s death. Now, my scouts tell me the place is besieged by sea jotunnar. It’s in shambles. Holmgard is dead, Thor. On the other hand, there’s an ancient fort on the shore of Lake Ilmajarvi, some say built by the Old Kingdoms, even. Place is in the hands of a jotunn warlord now, but I aim to claim it for myself. Once it’s mine, it makes a fine seat for a new kingdom. Instead of trying so damned hard to save a dead thing, I say support the building of something new.”

Thor stared at the lake a moment. He’d seen the fort the man spoke of and, indeed, it did seem built by the Old Kingdoms. Had Loki been here, he’d have no doubt been able to carry on about which kingdom built it and why, but Thor neither knew nor cared. Worrying on that sort of thing just brought on the headaches.

Baldr moved to his side now and stared at the map hard. The boy had learned to read, and it rather vexed Thor that his brother could do something beyond him. “Which jotunn warlord?”

“Eh?” Rathbarth asked.

Baldr thumped the map with a finger. “Which warlord controls this fort you want to hold?”

Rathbarth shrugged. “I don’t know his name …”

Perhaps not, but his manner seemed to indicate he knew more than he spoke. Baldr had a way of figuring things out, too. Also vexing.

Thor let a heavy hand fall on the would-be king’s shoulder. “Then whom does the warlord serve?”

Rathbarth sucked his spittle again, the noise grating on Thor’s nerves. “Seems like … Hymir.”

“By the Tree …” Freki mumbled.

Thor glanced at his other brother but held his peace. Hymir had plagued the Aesir even back in Aujum, from all he’d heard. He’d oft wished to bring the creature low, but Odin had insisted he stay well clear of him. Perhaps because rumor persisted that Hymir had spawned Tyr on some human woman.

Either way, taking out his warlord was like to rouse the mighty jotunn to anger. “What makes this place worth the risk?”

“The lake itself offers plentiful food, access to water for transportation, and is far enough from the sea to dissuade attacks from sea jotunnar, somewhat limiting our enemy’s ability to attack us.”

“You wouldn’t risk provoking Hymir for that.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t …”

Baldr straightened. “He plans to bargain with the jotunn.”

Now Thor groaned, rubbing his beard. Only thing worse than a jotunn who thought to be king … men who helped him do it.

“The creature likes tribute,” Rathbarth admitted. “And I’d like knowing my southern border is safe. If I can make a deal with him, and get the fortress included as part of it, well then why shouldn’t I?”

Thor looked to Freki who offered a grudging nod. “Fine. Fine, suppose we go to arrange it for you?”

“You’re not much loved among jotunnkind.”

Freki snorted at that.

“Maybe not,” Thor said. “But I am feared. If I go to negotiate, Hymir will know just how serious we are about this. He’ll be more inclined to prove … reasonable.”

Rathbarth shrugged. “If you say so. So you want me to go and protect what’s left of old Holmgard in the meantime? I suppose it’s a fine enough place to pass the winter, barring more sea jotunn attacks.”

Thor nodded. “Good. Magni, go with him and inform Geri what we’re about. Baldr, Freki, and I will head south, into Kiovia. It seems we have to meet with Hymir at long last.”

5

Fifteen Years Ago

King Rollaugr was dead.

Jarl Bergir had arranged his funeral and Thor attended. Mostly because mead was served freely at such events. No one spoke much, just watched the ship burning as it drifted over the Gandvik. That suited Thor well enough. Too much commotion brought on the headaches.

Shit, he had to try not to even think of those. Thinking on them could bring them on as well. First little black spots at the edge of his vision. Then the all-consuming, gouge-your-own-eyes-out pain, as if someone used Mjölnir to hammer a spike through his brow. From the inside out.

Took a troll-sized barrel of mead to deaden that kind of agony.

Fucking wedge of flint just kept cutting into his brain. Whoever thought immortality had no … what was it called? No drawbacks! Whoever thought it had no drawbacks hadn’t had to live for years with a jotunn’s weapon lodged in his skull.

Thor sniffed, cracked his neck, and strode away from the sea, back toward Holmgard proper. Wispy little town looked even more pathetic than usual, what with the better part of its people having gone to watch their last king burn. Those who hadn’t simply fled Bjarmaland altogether. Rollaugr was dead without heir and now his three jarls would quarrel over who should be king. Bickering swine, that’s what they were.

Squabbling piglets, fighting over scraps in a land already as dead as its king. There hadn’t been much reason for Thor to come back here, but it beat staying in Asgard and listening to Magni cry. Somehow that had lost its appeal after … after …

Fuck! Stop thinking it!

Walking through the empty town, Thor beat his palms on the side of his head. Damn it. He hadn’t had half enough mead for those kinds of thoughts.

The town wasn’t completely empty though. The twins—wolves had insisted on coming here with him—they sat in the snow before they house they shared with him, whispering to themselves. Shit … what did you call that kind of thing? A … a fucking conspiracy. A conspiracy of wolves.

Damn. Words were harder to come by with a flint shard stuck in your brain.

Thor marched over to the varulfur and leaned on the fence around their yard. “Didn’t attend the ceremony.”

Geri shook her head, saying naught.

Freki, though, he shrugged. “We saw them light the pyre ship. Seemed enough.”

True, these wolves understood the discomfort of being around too many people. Always awkward. Too loud. Plus, then he had to talk, and that just seemed so damned hard these days. The twins, though, they didn’t say too much. Thor could tolerate them because of it.

Offering them a grim nod, he plodded on toward Rollaugr’s hall. What had been his hall, really, though Bergir had taken it over, arranging a feast in the fallen king’s honor. Fallen being a generous term for it. Winter came, and old melancholy Rollaugr went to his bed and never came out again. Man hadn’t recovered after his boy died in Miklagard.

Thor didn’t blame him. Some wounds can’t be healed. Some, they hurt worse than even a shard of flint digging through your skull.

Inside the hall, slaves had set the place ready for hundreds of guests. Men had hunted a whale, enough to feed more people than had even come here. Thor wasn’t overly hungry, though.

That bastard Loki was here too, just staring at the brazier like he had a mind to fuck the coals.

Thor rolled his eyes then looked about until he spotted Roskva. “Girl! Get me some fucking mead! As much as you can carry.”

Thor’s slave flinched then scampered off out of the great hall. Grimacing, Thor plopped his arse down on a bench well away from the center aisle. Further he was from the crowd once they got here, the less time he’d have to spend telling people—or showing them anyway—that he didn’t want aught to do with them. No, the whole land could go straight to Hel’s gate for all he cared. Only good thing left about Bjarmaland was here he could split jotunn skulls on a regular basis.

Roskva came shambling back into the room, laden with three flagons. After glancing around until she spotted him, the girl ambled over and eased the drinks down in front of Thor. “Aught else I can get for you my lord?”

Thor ignored her, grabbing a flagon in each hand. The first he downed without pausing for breath, though it left him gasping by the time he slammed it back on the tabletop.

Trollshit. Those damn spots were already building at the corners of his eyes.

Thor upended the next flagon, desperate to drown out the building pain before it could overwhelm him. Once, in some jarl’s hall—he couldn’t even remember the bastard’s name—the pain had gotten so bad Thor had smashed his head against the table until the wood split in half. Jarl hadn’t been too happy. Had been less happy after Thor broke his nose.

“Fuck,” Thor said, slamming the next flagon down. “Damn it!”

The pain was already crippling. Damn blasts of fire erupting inside his head. He slapped his palms against his temples. Gah! More than once, he’d considered smashing his own skull in with Mjölnir. That ought to end even an immortal.

Roskva was backing away, shaking her head.

Thor growled at her, turning his gaze upon her. “Get over here! Hands on the table!”

“Here? My lord …” She glanced around. “There’s so many other slaves in here.”

Thor lurched to his feet, grabbed her elbow and spun her around to face the table. “You’re my slave, you do what I fucking tell you. Nobody here who hasn’t seen it all before.”

As she was bid, Roskva pressed her palms on the table. Thor hiked her dress up over her hips, dropped his trousers and plowed into her. It wouldn’t give him much relief. A few moments with something to distract himself from the pain. She knew it was the only thing save drink that might stave off the headaches. Otherwise, the pain might have crippled him.

“What the fuck are you doing!” her brother demanded.

The boy came rushing toward them like some kind of champion come to rescue his lady.

Thor rolled his eyes and kept pumping his hips, heedless of the other slaves staring at him. “Wait your fucking turn,” he snapped at Thialfi.

The boy grabbed the last flagon and swung it. The clay shattered against Thor’s skull and sent him toppling to the ground, drenched in mead.

Roskva was screaming.

Thor groaned. His vision narrowed, the spots seeming to solidify into a tunnel wrapping around his eyes. Roaring, he launched himself to his feet and grabbed Thialfi by the shoulders, then slammed him down on the table. He wanted to tell him a man had the right to do whatever he pleased with his slaves, himself included. But the words wouldn’t come, so Thor just hefted the boy up again and drove him back into the table once more.

Damn girl was still screaming.

“Shut up!” he bellowed at her.

She didn’t, instead dashing around him to her brother. The boy lay senseless on the table. Maybe when he woke up he’d know better than to interfere with a man’s rights. Maybe when he …

Roskva’s screams had become shrieks of horror. She was cradling Thialfi in her arms, staring at blood soaking one of her hands. More of it had splattered the tabletop, along with … bits of skull.

“Thialfi …” Thor said.

Rough hands shoved him away and Thor spun on whoever had accosted him.

Loki. “Get out.” The other man locked Thor with his gaze, seeming to challenge him.

Oh, he wanted to go at it too? Well Thor could crush him too. He could … The pain in his head doubled him over, had him gasping and unable to catch his breath. Loki shoved him and Thor tangled his feet in his trousers, suddenly realizing they were still around his ankles.

He crashed down into the bench and slammed his head, then lay groaning.

Alone, outside the hall, Thor threw back another horn of mead. How many was that? Twelve? What came after twelve? Twenty?

He tossed the horn in the general direction of another slave.

There were a lot of men and women inside, carrying on. Thor preferred it out here. No one staring at him, judging him for murdering his slave. Trollshit. It wasn’t even really murder when it was your own slave.

A man got to do … whatever … the man … should do. It.

Except Thor hadn’t meant to do shit. Hadn’t meant to hurt the siblings. Had … uh … liked them.

And now they were dead.

No, not they. Only Thialfi was dead.

Just like Sif.

Fuck!

No!

Fuck, there wasn’t enough mead in this whole kingdom for that. He stumbled from his perch, wobbled toward the hall. “More drink!” he bellowed.

He needed a lot more fucking drink. An ocean of it.

The stench of vomit woke him. Thor pushed himself up from a pool of mud out behind the jarl’s hall. He’d been lying in a pool of his own sickness. He spit a vile chunk of … something … out of his mouth. The vomit caked his face, his beard, his shirt.

Something else under that reek. Piss? Had he pissed himself? His trousers were damp too.

“Oh, trollshit.”

He rubbed his face and only managed to smear more bile everywhere.

Actually, his arse was wet. Had someone else pissed on him? Why would … Oh.

Thialfi.

Every slave in Holmgard had seen him murder the man. Thor was lucky he hadn’t woken up with a knife in his back or spear shoved up his arse. A man had the right to do what he wished with his slaves, true. Didn’t mean none of them would take revenge on Thialfi’s behalf. Maybe Roskva herself had done it.

And Thor fucking deserved it. He was a wretch.

Groaning, he stumbled to his feet, then looked around. Something was wrong.

Something … Where was Mjölnir?

There was an impression in the mud where the hammer had lain. But the weapon itself was nowhere to be seen.

Thor turned about, squinting in the morning light. No sign of it.

Someone had stolen his hammer.

6

Arus had been Sigurd’s home, once, before Hjalprek sent him to foster with Regin, though he little remembered the place from back then. It held no warmth for him on his return, seeming cold and empty. Despite his bravado with the dverg, Sigurd could not say for certain that Hjalprek would truly grant his request for men and ships.

If Alf’s father refused, how should Sigurd respond? His natural inclination would be to kill the man, but doing so would place himself and, more importantly, his mother, in dire peril. Alternatively, could he go around Hjalprek and beseech Alf directly? The prince held less authority, true, but he remained married to Sigurd’s mother.

Such things weighed heavily upon him as he trod up to the king’s hall atop the hill. For all Hjalprek’s protestations of the hardships Cimbria had faced, Arus looked to have prospered, at least to Sigurd’s eyes. The town was thick with warriors and fishermen, though in truth, Sigurd had little enough to compare the place to. He had visited no other large towns or cities in his life.

Once he passed beyond the wall around Hjalprek’s holdings, guards met him.

“Lady Hjordis ordered I was to bring you to her on your arrival,” one said, a blond-bearded man that looked like he’d probably tried to wrestle a bear and perhaps had won in the process.

Sigurd nodded at him. Much as he wanted to get the confrontation with the king over with, he could hardly deny his mother whatever she needed.

The guard escorted him not into the king’s hall, though, but back into the town, to a fisherman’s home by the sea. With a glance at Sigurd, he rapped on the door.

Sigurd’s mother appeared from within and nodded at the man. “Thank you Erland.”

The guard inclined his head, then strode off.

Sigurd paid him little mind after his mother waved him inside. The old man, Gripir, sat in her house. On seeing him with his mother alone once more, Sigurd sneered, ever so slightly. What would people think of a man and woman spending so much time alone? What must they assume—rightly or no—about her staying in his house? And would such suspicions be truth?

His mother had called Gripir like a brother to her, but Sigurd found it hard to credit.

Still, he embraced his mother.

After she pulled away, she glanced at the sword hung over his shoulder. “He truly repaired it.”

More or less. He’d not trouble her to know it yet required a soul to feast on. Most people were not prepared to understand the dark needs of crafts wrought with the Art. “I plan to sail now for Rijnland and oust Lyngi.”

“Lyngi is in Baia, so far as I know. He placed his cousin Hjorvard as ruler of Rijnland after he seized the Volsung hall at Xanten.”

Sigurd frowned. So be it, then. First, he’d kill Hjorvard and liberate his homeland, then he’d reap his vengeance upon Lyngi. Even as his mother spoke, Sigurd found he couldn’t quite look away from Gripir, sitting as he did by the fire pit, seeming to stare off at naught Sigurd could guess.

He patted his mother on the shoulder. “I need ships and men from Hjalprek. Will he arrange this freely?”

His mother, too, glanced at Gripir.

The seer looked up now. “He will, if you promise his men can plunder the Volsung hall.”

Sigurd grimaced.

Before he could complain, his mother opened her mouth. “You cannot expect warriors to fight if there is little for them to claim for themselves.”

True, perhaps, though he misliked allowing others to raid the very kingdom he intended to restore. “Fine.” Now he moved to sit beside Gripir. “Then tell me, seer. Tell me my future.”

The old man didn’t look at him, though, instead staring off at the wall as if some skald spoke verses there.

Sigurd glanced at his mother who settled down beside him.

“Can you do that, Gripir?” she asked.

Sigurd chuckled. “He sees things a man ought not to, that much is certain. Whether he will use the gift to our benefit, that’s the real question.”

“Gift?” Gripir did look at him now, his gaze too intense, as if he was staring right through Sigurd. “Benefit? Your question presupposes you live free of the Web of Urd and could, given foresight, avert your destiny. But if you cannot, if you find yourself a prisoner of the web, then to see the future, to know it lies before you and yet you cannot change it, offers only pain.”

“My former master claims we are forged by pain.”

“Oh, indeed.” Gripir shook his head. “And you won’t relent no matter how I might wish to spare you it.”

“Do I avenge my family?”

Gripir shut his eye. “Yes.” He drew the word out so long he seemed to be speaking to someone else, someone far away. “A great many men will fall upon your blade and perpetuate the cycle of blood and vengeance unto the end of time. You slay all those who you perceive as having wronged your kin in your vain attempts to sever the threads that bind the lives of men. You find great love and marry for it too, only to have it end in bitterness and yet further cycles of death and dark oaths. Yours shall be the hand to bring down those glorious lineages who have thought to rule forever.”

“I … don’t understand. Do I kill the dragon?”

Gripir chuckled. “No, you truly do not understand.”

“The dragon?”

“A serpent will die by your hand.”

“And I will have glory and vengeance?”

Gripir frowned. “More of one than a man needs, and more of the other than most could hope to dream of.”

Sigurd pushed himself up. “Then that’s all I really need to know. I accomplish my aims in life. What more could a man ask for?”

“Indeed …”

His mother was frowning at the seer, but Sigurd didn’t see much reason for her concern. He kissed her atop the head, then made for Hjalprek’s hall.

“It is the least we can do for my wife’s son,” Alf said. “I agreed to raise Sigurd as if he were my own blood.”

Hjalprek glowered. “If he fails, Hjorvard and Lyngi will turn their eyes upon Cimbria and think to cut their vengeance from the towns and villages on our shores. A great many people will pay the price.”

The king and his son sat in the throne room, upon the dais, looking down at Sigurd, who stood with his arms folded across his chest.

“I’ll not fail,” he offered. How could he, when he bore the runeblade and when the seer himself had already foretold he’d achieve victory and slay the dragon, both? “Give me warriors and ships enough, and I’ll crush Rijnland and Baia, and then instead of foes in the south, you’ll find yourself with allies.”

Hjalprek exchanged a look with his son that, to Sigurd’s eyes, bespoke some peril to their kingdom.

“What is it?” he finally asked.

“The Niflung king has begun to stretch his hand forth again, and with none here like Healfdene, it seems he might well claim all of Reidgotaland this time.”

Sigurd frowned. King Gjuki was long dead now, but his son Gunnar had succeeded him, and, according to Regin, the king’s witch mother Grimhild had begun to reclaim her former powers. The kingdom posed a threat here, though, and from the sound of it, had perhaps even begun raiding.

“Cimbria lies perilously close to Samsey,” he finally said. “I’m sure you fear to send away too many of your warriors. But … as my stepfather mentions, if I am king of Rijnland and Baia, you’ll find yourself with a warrior ally more than ready to help ensure the Niflungar turn their eyes elsewhere. Sjaelland, perhaps, or even into Skane. If they seek easy victories to garner wealth, they’ll not find those here.”

Alf turned to his father. “I want to go with him. He is my stepson and he speaks the truth about our need.”

Hjalprek shook his head. “If you must send warriors, send Erland, but you cannot leave. One way or another, raiders are like to land on our shores this summer. I need you here to lead our people when that happens. Give Sigurd nine ships, and no more than that.”

Sigurd held silent. In truth, he couldn’t have asked for much more. Besides, he wasn’t certain he’d have truly wanted his stepfather along sharing the command or the glory.

“Give me three days to ready your men,” Alf said.

Sigurd nodded, barely containing his smile.

His stepfather insisted he stay the evening and take the night meal with them, and drink, and Sigurd could hardly refuse.

When the ships were ready to depart, Sigurd bid farewell to his mother, and trod up the gangplank only to find Gripir seated against a footlocker.

Sigurd knelt beside the seer. “You intend to make the journey, old man?”

“I would see your conquests with my own eye.”

“I thought you’d already seen them.” Sigurd chuckled at his own jest and flashed his teeth.

“Then perhaps you’d like a bit of wisdom, here and there, to keep your course true.”

Sigurd waved that away. “I assure you, my course shall remain very true.”

He’d slay Lyngi and Hjorvard, kill Fafnir, and maybe even help his stepfather make peace with the Niflungar.

All of it lay before him, unfolding in glorious tales in his mind as if he himself were a seer.

Gramr would make everything possible, this she seemed to promise him in sweet whispers he alone could hear.

“One more thing,” the seer said, even as Sigurd had started to turn away. “You seem so very sure of yourself.”

“Odin loves my line and blessed my father. He will not allow my purpose to go unfulfilled.”

The old man grunted. “I see. And … if the gods do love you … do you think that likely to prove wealful to you?”

Sigurd waved that away. “Of course it is.” Seers were known to spout their share of Mist-mad nonsense even amid their revelations.

Glory lay before Sigurd. Of this, he had no doubt.

The bitter howl of a northern wind preceded the storm. Gusts and pounding rain bombarded Sigurd’s ships as if Odin had decided to test the limits of his resolve. If so, the Ás king would not find Sigurd wanting.

Teeth clenched and face turned to the storm, he braced himself against the gunwale. He had not withstood the torments of a dverg only to succumb to the elements.

“We must lower the sails,” Erland shouted at him.

Sigurd bit back laughter. “Do you jest? Raise them higher! We’ll not be waylaid!”

No, the seer had promised Sigurd had a destiny, and even now Gripir sat wrapped in his cloak, face shielded against the pouring rain.

Over the peals of thunder, Sigurd could make out naught of what his men may have said in answer, though the looks on their faces seemed full of doubt. But they had not been tempered by the hands of Regin. They did not know the promise of victory lay already before them.

Exulted, Sigurd roared defiance at the sky.

A hand on his shoulder had him spinning around and reaching for Gramr, but it was the old man Gripir, shaking his head. “Make for the fjords south of Fyn!”

Sigurd balked. What, now even the seer had turned craven? “You promised me vengeance lay ahead in my future! What need to fear the weather?”

“Urd does not allow you to ignore all wisdom, boy! Make for the fjord before we find ourselves wrecked on some rocky island.”

Growling in aggravation, Sigurd looked to his men. “West! To the fjords, the seer says. Only then shorten the sails!”

Gripir nodded.

Sigurd spit over the gunwale. Pointless delay. Should not the seer have known a storm would crop up so soon into this voyage? They may as well have passed the time in Arus.

And Gramr sang to him, begging him to draw her and sate her thirst. Even the runeblade misliked this dawdling.

They passed the storm in Als Fjord, cold and wet and miserable, and the sailors seeming to bear it worse than Sigurd himself. What was their excuse? It was his first time at sea and he felt far less stricken than those used to raiding all summer.

When at last the winds abated, they sailed back along a rocky headland toward the sea. Before they reached open water, one of the ships closest to the shore appeared to have lowered their sails.

Sigurd peered at them, but through the mist, he could make out almost naught on the other ship.

“Bring us up beside them,” he ordered.

Erland relayed his order, and the crew shortened the sails and drew up in line with the stalled ship.

“What is it?” Sigurd shouted across the waters.

A moment later, Audhild, the shieldmaiden captain appeared at the gunwale. “There’s a man on the shore asking to join us. A mercenary out of Valland.”

Valland? Sigurd looked to Erland who shrugged. What in the gates of Hel was a South Realmer doing in Reidgotaland?

Sigurd looked back to Audhild. “Tell him to swim to my ship, then.”

The shieldmaiden nodded, then returned to the far side of her ship to relay his order.

Sigurd folded his arms and stared not at Audhild, but at Gripir. Was it coincidence that the seer had demanded they take shelter in the same fjord where a mercenary happened to have walked?

Time would tell, but Sigurd felt fair certain Gripir knew more than he let on.

The Vall, as it turned out, called himself Thrain. He wore no beard but had a thick mustache, all his hair as flame red as Thor’s was said to be, and quite long. Thrain looked as though he’d seen a fair number of winters. He was clad in furs layered over gambeson, and, from his scars, had fought in a great many battles.

“Why do you wish to join us?” Sigurd asked.

Thrain grinned. “This many ships mean raids.” His accent was thick and grating, though he seemed fluent enough in Northern. “Raids mean profit, and I aim to make my fortune.”

“I mean why are you so far from home?”

Thrain chuckled softly. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you. For now, trust I follow the call of silver.”

Sigurd looked to Gripir, who offered a slight nod. Oh yes, the seer had brought Sigurd here specifically to find this man. Was Thrain then one to help him achieve his aims against Lyngi? If so, Sigurd would gladly welcome him.

He offered his arm to the Vall and the man clasped it.

“Do you care where we raid?” Sigurd asked.

“Not if they have wealth I can claim.”

“He’ll fit in,” Erland observed.

Indeed he would.

Fair weather followed them all the way to Hunaland and they landed on the north shore of Rijnland, in the late afternoon, out of sight of any town. Much as Sigurd longed to set about pillaging, his men would need to regroup and plan their strategy. Thus he ordered a camp made, but that as few fires as possible should be lit lest they reveal themselves.

In the evening, the captains and thegns and leaders of his war bands had gathered about one such fire while others clustered around three more.

Sigurd found himself little able to hold still though. “Has anyone seen Gripir?”

Erland shook his head. Most of the others didn’t even seem to know who the old man was. It was as if the seer had simply vanished as soon as they made land. Or even before it, impossible as that sounded, for no one had seen him disembark either.

Sigurd grimaced. Where was that blasted seer when he needed the man? Gripir could have advised whether Sigurd ought to go straight for Lyngi or attack Hjorvard here first. Instead, it would fall to him to decide. As maybe it should have … but still. The seer’s words would have been welcome.

“We have two choices before us,” Sigurd finally said. “We can raid here in Rijnland and bring down Hjorvard, thus cutting Lyngi off from his support but forewarning him to our presence. Or, we can move directly on Baia. To do that, though, we have to sail upriver through Menzlin and again, risk the king getting word of our passage. And if that happens while Hjorvard remains behind, we may find ourselves surrounded by foes.”

Erland grunted. “If you take down Lyngi fast, you’ll have cut Hjorvard’s stones right off the bastard.”

“I’m all for cutting off stones,” Audhild said.

“That,” Sigurd said, “and we avoid raiding overmuch in my own lands.”

Thrain snorted. “Getting caught between two enemy forces is a good way to get your own stones cut off.” He cast a pointed look at Audhild. “For most of us anyway.”

Her smile could’ve killed a man. “I’m fond of living, either way.”

“I’ve seen these keeps in Hunaland,” Thrain offered. “You don’t have the men to take his hold if he doesn’t come out to meet you.” And was that why Gripir had arranged Sigurd’s meeting with the man? Surely the seer could have told him as much himself.

Sigurd groaned. “If Thrain is correct, it sounds as if our only chance to draw them out is raiding so bitterly, so fiercely, that Lyngi has no choice but to come and face us on the field.” Which was to say, the wholesale slaughter of entire villages, razing whatever they couldn’t carry away.

His people would little love him for such tactics, but Sigurd had to win. His father’s ghost would have vengeance.

Sigurd folded his arms and glowered at the fire. “Then we sail for the Elfr and follow it upstream toward Baia. Once we pass Menzlin, we hit every village and town we come to.”

Osmund spat into the flames. The man was Hjalprek’s most-trusted thegn, so sending him along had been a token of support, one Sigurd suspected had Alf’s hand behind it. “You’ll have a lot of blood in the river before we’re halfway to Lyngi.”

That was the point, after all. “Yes, but not the blood of my own people here in Rijnland, and that’s all that matters. Rest yourselves. At dawn we break.”

True to Osmund’s predictions, the Elfr ran red with blood. Its banks became lit by pyre after pyre, both sides blazing as Sigurd’s men slaughtered everyone they came across. Hard, bloody work, and Gramr sang for it, though Sigurd denied her. The reforged sword’s first taste of blood would be Lyngi, or at least one of his thegns, not some fisherman out on the water or cobbler having himself a piss in the wrong place.

Sigurd had oft fallen asleep to the sound of screams. His own, he’d sometimes realized, in deliriums brought on by dehydration and the torments Regin had heaped upon him. Or the screams of whatever victim the dverg worked over that particular night.

It wasn’t like this, though. Not the cacophony of dozens or even hundreds of people bellowing in discordant agony, terror, or despair. The sounds, blended with the stench of so many dead men having shit themselves, turned into overwhelming tumult upon his senses.

He could block it out when someone came within reach of his sword, of course. He could block almost aught out thanks to Tiwaz’s training.

But if he faltered for even a moment, the chaotic onslaught of horrors set his mind reeling and his gut churning. Knowing he couldn’t afford to dwell on such things, he thus pushed ever onward, until finding another village to raze became a relief—at least while caught up in the act, he need not ponder the ones he had already left behind.

Once, while he vented his pent-up energies inside a village girl he’d found hiding, he’d caught Audhild staring at him with disgust.

“What?” he’d asked her. “Jealous?”

She spit in his direction. “Just thought you had more control.”

He stared at her askance afterward, unable to even finish with the girl. What did she expect? Was this not what was done in war? Regin had assured him it was and, from all he’d seen of his men, the dverg had the right of it. Except … Sigurd had respected Audhild, and the shieldmaiden had looked at him like he’d been doing it to her. And somehow, thinking of someone forcing her felt foul. He’d have killed any man who thought to do that.

A strange thought, but … hadn’t the seer claimed he would find love?

At night, Sigurd found an odd rapport with Thrain. Prince Alf had sent all the other warriors and they remained, first and foremost, loyal to King Hjalprek. They would no doubt report back to their lords on all Sigurd said and did, and thus, even as allies, he sometimes could not help but see them as judging him. Not a sensation he much enjoyed, even as he did revel in their adoration at his prowess in battle.

He had more kills than any man in his war band, but he still remained younger than most of them, a fact they seemed well aware of even if none dared give voice to it.

Thrain though, he had pledged his loyalty to Sigurd himself, or at least to the silver Sigurd brought him.

Tonight, they walked the camp’s perimeter along the riverbank. They must be drawing nigh to Lyngi’s stronghold and still no sign of the King of Baia. Did the man flee like a craven?

“You are deep in thought,” Thrain observed. “A problem that afflicts you too often, in my opinion.”

Sigurd snorted. “You prefer a fool who cannot reflect on his own actions or learn from his mistakes?”

“Have you made mistakes?”

Sigurd shrugged. “I don’t know, that’s why I’m reflecting on such things. What of you? You have far too much learning to be some mere wandering mercenary. I’ve seen you staring at scribblings in a book. You read the Southern tongue, the one they write on paper.”

The Vall grunted, offering a nod of acknowledgment. “My line once held the throne of Valland … a long time ago, before we fell from favor and the line of Karolus took it all from us. Some few found purpose in defending Valland from the Serks, but even that has ended now.”

“Ah. So you wander seeking wealth … in the hopes of returning to Valland and restoring your family to power.”

“After a fashion, yes. I wander seeking … aught which might lead to the restoration of my line, if not to the throne, than at least to prominence.”

Sigurd cast a glance at the older man. “What else besides wealth might do that?”

Thrain chuckled. “When you came for your lands, you brought men, yes. But something else, also, worn over your shoulder but never yet drawn. Why is that?”

Did he think to claim Gramr? Reflexively, Sigurd’s hand went to the bone hilt.

Thrain backed away, raising his hands. “Peace. I don’t try to claim what is yours, my friend. You merely asked what manner of thing I sought in the North Realms.”

Sigurd nodded, slowly, eyes narrowed. What Thrain said sounded of truth, but … but still Gramr seemed to whisper in his mind, demanding he kill the Vall for her. Kill with her. The runeblade longed for death.

He would feed her, yes, but not Thrain.

“We should get back,” Sigurd said.

Sooner or later, Lyngi and his kin would have to answer Sigurd’s advance. And he hoped for sooner.

7

Oft, when they trained thus, Sigyn closed her eyes and tried to imagine what such exercises must feel like to Hödr without sight. Much as her other senses had become enhanced, she still found the instinct to rely on her eyes a constant temptation.

Hödr stood with his bow drawn back to his cheek, face tilted a little to the side, very much focused on the straw-stuffed dummy across the clearing. Sigyn made an effort to select a valley away from any of the other settled areas of Asgard, offering both her and Hödr a reprieve from the angry stares of other Aesir.

Her son had never said that he noticed the way people looked at him, but somehow he seemed able to feel it, and Sigyn had no need to force him to voice such pain. Not when she too feared the populace might never forgive Hödr for the things he’d done while possessed by Eldr, nor Sigyn for creating the situation. Indeed, much of the blame seemed to fall on Loki, and Sigyn’s husband almost seemed to encourage that in an endearing, if misguided attempt to lessen the suffering of his family. Loki seemed to forget that seeing him punished for her errors did not do much to help Sigyn’s peace of mind.

As before, though, Loki was oft away. For a time he’d watched over Thor to keep Odin’s son from doing aught more foolish than usual. Other sojourns also seemed to be forever tearing them apart, duties sometimes he could not even explain, though over the years Sigyn had uncovered just enough to become fair certain Odin was not the only one compelling Loki’s services.

“Steady,” she said. With her enhanced hearing she caught Hödr’s shuddering sigh as he focused.

It had taken many years to train her blind son to hone his senses as sharp as hers, but through the proper distribution of pneuma—which an apple greatly reinforced—the human body was actually capable of far more than most people imagined it. Of wonders, really.

Hödr loosed and the arrow whooshed forward with a small gust of wind, landing with a thwack right in the middle of the target.

“You’re getting better all the time,” Sigyn said.

“It’s easier with targets that make noise.”

“Given that you cannot be certain of what you’d be shooting at, I’d prefer we avoid attempting to fell aught that moves about.”

“I’m not like to confuse a child with a rabbit, if that’s what you fear.”

Sigyn tapped a finger to her lip and Hödr looked sharply at her. Had he heard that? If so, his senses had honed far beyond her expectations. “I think that might be enough for today.”

Hödr grunted and trotted off across the field, toward the dummy.

The rustle of soft boots on grass had Sigyn spinning around, gaze sweeping over the forest beyond. But it was Loki who strode forth, so quietly most others would never had noticed his passing.

Sigyn smiled and ran to her husband, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him close. “I didn’t know you’d returned.”

“Only this morn.” He didn’t offer any explanation of where he’d been and Sigyn wouldn’t pry. Not this time.

But she had reason to guess whom he’d been serving, and it wasn’t Odin. Indeed, since returning from the Well of Mimir, Odin seemed less inclined to seek the counsel of others. When he came to Asgard at all, he’d sit upon his High Seat, for days sometimes, lost in whatever trance he found himself in. Frigg bemoaned it, for a while, before giving that over and perhaps accepting that the husband she wished for, had he ever existed at all, had been lost somewhere along the way.

While Loki, he seemed no more free than ever, leaving Sigyn to surmise just what he did and why. Mundilfari had spoken of the Norns, claimed they laced their webs with venom, and Sigyn had thought little of it at the time. But later, she’d delved into the research and—along with bits and pieces of things Loki let slip—she’d come to realize these Norns seemed to master the so-called Web of Urd. And Loki knew them, well enough she might imagine he actually served them.

Would he admit it, were she to ask him? No. Besides, such questions seemed to pain her husband and Sigyn had no desire to watch him squirm. All she really wanted to was to understand, and, through that understanding, to help her family.

“I’ve reason to believe Narfi behind the jotunn conquest of Bjarmaland.”

Sigyn suppressed a wince. “It’s not your fault. None of it is.” She’d not lie to herself. For a shameful moment, when he’d first admitted that Skadi had used Angrboda’s body to get a child from him, Sigyn had felt hurt. For a bare instant, she’d felt pain. And then she’d realized how he must have felt, or rather, how she would have felt had someone forced himself on her and used her body to create an unwanted child.

That moment of pain would haunt her a long time, she knew. And in that instant, she’d sworn, to herself and then to him, that Narfi would be her son as well as Loki’s. Hödr might have come from her body, but now Sigyn had two sons, and she and Loki had oft discussed breaking into Jotunheim to retrieve the boy.

“I thought you couldn’t find him,” she said.

Loki nodded absently. He’d told her, after revealing about the son, that he couldn’t locate the boy in the flames. Losing control of Surtr seemed to have weakened his pyromancy, though hardly eliminated it.

He’d never truly gone into depth about why he suspected himself unable to find the boy, but Sigyn suspected it related to Loki’s fear that Narfi had some aspect of the Sight.

“You think that he doesn’t want to be found, and thus his visions block yours.”

Loki looked to her appraisingly. “You’ve been thinking on this a while.”

True. “It makes sense, though. If both of you were able to see the future and thus able to react to the actions the other would take, having seen that future, you’d be stuck in a loop.”

“A paradox.”

“Right. So neither of you can see the other in any sort of way that would allow you to take an action the other would prevent.” Sigyn studied his face. Loki was a master of keeping it impassive, yes, but even his muscles revealed a tiny twitch of emotion that told her she’d hit the mark, or close to it. “Do the Norns give you your visions?”

Now he visibly flinched, and an expression of pain came over him. “Be careful of where this line of reasoning carries you. You might not like its ultimate destination.”

Sigyn tapped a finger to her lip. What she liked was a mystery. She liked pushing puzzle pieces around until the answers unfolded before her. “The library in Sessrumnir names one of the Norns as Urd. The well beneath Yggdrasil takes her name, but the Vanir make only the vaguest of speculations about the nature of the Norns. Now I’m wondering, is the very term ‘urd’ derived from her name? Or is the name a title? More to the point, I’ve seen numerous references to the ‘Web of Urd’ as a metaphor for causal chains that essentially keep us bound to Fate. Chains so strong that you’ve implied, however subtly, that even prescience would not allow you to—”

Loki grabbed her upper arms sharply. “Listen to me, please. I implore you to let this go, Sigyn. Your curiosity is admirable and, in truth, one of the things I love best in you, and always have. But it has cost you in the past and if you cannot temper it with caution, it will cost us both further.”

Sigyn could only frown at his earnestness. Indeed, when had he ever gone so far as to beg her off a topic? She bit her lip, staring up at his crystal blue eyes.

He drew her in to his chest and held her close. Only when he released her did she realize that Hödr stood not so far away, head cocked in their direction. How much had their son heard? Maybe Loki was right.

Maybe some questions were too weighty for mortals.

Still, Sigyn did not like letting things go.

8

Lyngi held his court in the old fort of Drezdany on the banks of the Elfr. Sigurd had expected his forces to take to the field and meet him long before the fort came into view, but rather, the king had chosen to position himself on either side of the river just before the city, most of his forces on hills flanking the water.

A bold move, splitting his warriors, given that, when Sigurd landed his ships on the east bank, Lyngi’s forces on the western shore became useless. Still, it meant Sigurd could not afford to sail around Lyngi’s position, had he been in any such mind to do so.

He wasn’t.

In the time while Sigurd razed and plundered along the banks of the Elfr, Lyngi had set his defenses well, though, and arrows rained onto Sigurd’s longships before he even landed.

He held a shield up above his head, as did any warrior not at the oars. A shaft plunked down against it, sending vibrations up Sigurd’s arms. Those settlements they’d attacked thus far had not had many bows to employ against them. Sigurd found he misliked the indiscriminate hail of arrows that continually fell amid his people.

It wasn’t quite the manner he’d heard skalds speak of warfare.

A shaft caught a man beside him through the elbow. The warrior fell, shrieking like one of Regin’s victims, clutching his arm and rolling around on the base of the ship. His flailing sent Sigurd stumbling away.

Hel take Lyngi and all his treacherous followers. Sigurd would see them all pay for what the man had wrought.

More arrows fell, most imbedding themselves on shields, or on the hulls, or punching holes through sails. Some found unfortunate victims, seeming to care little for whether a man was noble or common, a master warrior or a boy on his first voyage.

Behind him, a bloodcurdling shriek rose. Sigurd forced himself not to look. Whoever had taken that one, Sigurd could do naught for him save kill the archers responsible for this. And his foes had the advantage of high ground.

When Sigurd judged the boats nigh enough to the shore, he vaulted the side, landing in the river and sinking up to his chest. Despite the summer sky, the water was still cold as Hel’s crotch, an icy shock that slowed his steps for a moment. Only a moment though. The fall of arrows kept his blood pounding, kept him warm enough.

“Move!” he bellowed at his men, sloshing his way forward.

And behind him, a battle cry rose, broken by more screams of pain.

A shieldmaiden charged at Sigurd, axe descending for a blow that would’ve cleaved his collar. He jerked his shield up, caught her axe on it, and shoved. The wooden plank slapped into the woman’s face, sending her toppling over backward.

Sigurd stomped on her throat, then turned at the bellow of a man. He whipped his sword around as the man—a lanky Hunalander with a small sword—lunged in. Sigurd’s sword deflected the man’s blade, then turned in riposte to catch him in the face, shearing off his nose and biting into his eye.

Another screaming assault and Sigurd’s reflexes took over. He ducked, swinging his shield rim in a horizontal arc. A spear rushed over his head even as his shield took the spearman in the gut. The man retched up bile. Sigurd pivoted, thrusting his blade up under his foe’s chin where his coif failed to protect.

Again and again, Sigurd felled men and women, until he could hardly tell friend from foe in the chaotic melee.

His arms ached, starting to turn sluggish. But he was still faster than those he faced.

“Hjorvard attacks our flanks,” Erland shouted.

What? How had the man crossed the land so quickly?

“Take who you need and slay him!” Sigurd shouted back. “Lyngi is mine!”

He was already panting. His mail had protected him from the blows of those lucky men who’d gotten past his guard, but even through the dverg chain and the pads from his gambeson, he felt his flesh bruising.

Blood and gore coated his face, mingling with his sticky sweat, leaving him reeling.

And somewhere, in the back of his mind, a woman’s voice sang to him. Offered him strength beyond that of other men. Offered him endurance unmatched by mortals.

But she was for Lyngi.

A pair of warriors closed in. Sigurd blocked an attack from the first on his shield and hacked his sword across the man’s face. He tried to twist aside from a sword blow from the other, but it caught his thigh and sent him stumbling into the mud.

His blade slipped from his grasp as he sloshed down, and he tumbled end over end down the hill, finally coming to rest in the silt beside the riverbank. Panting, he struggled to push himself up, even as his attacker charged down at him, shrieking in primal rage.

Sigurd gasped.

He let his fingers close around Gramr’s bone hilt. Almost instantly, he felt the aches and pain recede. Not gone, but buried in the back of his mind. Growling, he rose to meet his foe, slipping the runeblade free as he did so.

She was for Lyngi, damn it!

The man lunged at Sigurd.

Sigurd twisted to the side, suddenly once again as fast as if he were fresh in this battle. A simple swipe of Gramr along the man’s back should’ve sent him stumbling to the mud. Except the runeblade sheared right through the warrior’s chain, and bit through his spine. The man didn’t stumble, he pitched over sideways, wailing.

A visceral hunger seized hold of Sigurd’s guts and commanded his arms. Barely aware of what he did, he reversed his grip on the runeblade. Roaring, he drove the sword straight down through the fallen man’s back. It punched through mail and flesh and bone with ease.

A euphoric energy pulsated up Sigurd’s arm, not unlike climaxing inside a woman, and yet at the same time, he felt as though he gorged himself on a royal feast. The warrior’s life and soul oozed out of him in waves that had the man thrashing, though each such convulsion proved weaker than the last. Until at last, Sigurd’s victim fell still.

Sigurd jerked Gramr free with a slurch. The sword seemed to shine with Etheric light, almost as though aflame on the edges, casting a fell gleam against the mist.

And its strength fed into Sigurd, a power unlike aught he’d ever known or imagined.

By the Aesir!

He was like a god himself.

He’d meant the fallen man’s urd for Lyngi … unfortunately, he’d have to accept simply killing the king.

It did not take long before his foes looked upon him as if they, too, saw him as one of the Aesir.

Because Sigurd was godsdamned invincible.

Men came at him, sometimes three, four, five at a time. He killed them all.

Gramr sliced through shields and mail like a knife through well cooked meat. She shattered weapons. She drank rivers of blood and never seemed sated.

Until he couldn’t even guess how many men and women he’d slain this day. Two score? Three score?

No. More than that, he suspected.

Tiwaz and Regin had achieved their aims. They had hardened him into a razor-sharp edge like a blade himself, and one escaped from beyond the gates of Hel. The men around him were caught in a mire, their movements sluggish and predictable. Their tactics—or lack thereof—almost comical.

So many of them thought to rely on brute strength, and, facing one who not only matched their strength, but did so with sharpened reflexes and grace, found themselves like children fighting a man.

In the intervals, the brief respite between bouts of slaughter, Sigurd could see it on the faces of his own men.

Awe.

None of them would call him boy again.

Lyngi had clearly never imagined Sigurd’s men would claim the hills, for the man’s cavalry charge was ill considered and poorly coordinated. And Sigurd found Gramr nigh as eager to drink the blood of horses as that of men.

The day waned and twilight settled, and still he fought on, even when so many others slunk off or fell to their knees, gasping for breath.

Gramr had allowed him to become what he’d truly always been.

Blood coated his arms, indeed, drenched every speck of his clothing.

He saw Thrain engaged with a pair of men. Sigurd charged forward to help, but the Vall cut down his foes with precision. The man turned and nodded at Sigurd and together they pressed on, fighting their way through Lyngi’s forces.

But the Vall stopped soon, staring at a corpse. Sigurd made his way to the man’s side and knelt to examine the body.

A shieldmaiden, her helm knocked aside, hair covering her face. Audhild …

Sigurd blanched, looking up at Thrain. Once, he’d told the man he imagined living a life with her.

“A common warrior is no fit queen, I fear,” Thrain had said that day.

Sigurd’s breath gave out and he had to lean on the ground with one hand to steady himself. “I didn’t think …”

“Didn’t think people you knew would die?”

Thrain clapped him on the shoulder. “Maybe something to remember later. For now, best to do what we came here for, lest this all be pointless.”

Grunting in acknowledgment, Sigurd forced himself up again. He wanted to retch, but he couldn’t quite say why. He’d seen so much death in the past days. Why should this one matter so very much?

And he still found himself clenching his teeth and grimacing as he advanced.

Sigurd rammed Gramr through a man’s sternum. The runeblade tore through armor and bone so easily it allowed him to fight in a way he’d never considered with another weapon. A glancing blow went from leaving bruises to slicing a man to the quick.

He tore through the line around Lyngi, the king giving ground before Sigurd’s furious assault.

Though he’d never seen the man, the way Lyngi’s followers surged up to protect him left little doubt as to his identity. Nor the dark urd soon to befall him.

Sigurd plodded forward at a steady gait, half expecting Lyngi to turn his tail and flee back to his city. A shieldmaiden charged Sigurd. A single swipe of Gramr severed her leg at the knee, showering Sigurd in blood and adding her screams to the chorus.

And then Lyngi shoved his own men aside, clearing a path toward Sigurd.

Not a craven after all.

The king bore a sword and a heavy shield, arms fit to his station, and was clad in mail and a helm that guarded his cheek bones, with gold worked across his brow. He wanted everyone to know him as king. His mistake.

Lyngi surged forward, sword swinging in a tight arc.

Sigurd caught the blow on his shield and returned the strike. Gramr carved a gouge into Lyngi’s own shield, one so deep the king stumbled backward, gaping.

Offering a grin, Sigurd closed in with a series of small slashes. Splinters flew from Lyngi’s shield, then whole shards of wood as Gramr ate through it. The runeblade reduced Lyngi’s protection to kindling, but even Sigurd was heaving with exhaustion once that was done.

He cared little, though. Let this take time. Let Lyngi see his end coming.

“The last son … of Sigmund Volsungson … has come to you.”

The Baian king took advantage of Sigurd’s fatigue and came in with a blow toward Sigurd’s neck.

Sigurd barely jerked his own shield up in time to keep from having his head taken off.

Roaring, Sigurd swiped Gramr upward. A clumsy move, without much real power. But it was unexpected, and the runeblade sliced through Lyngi’s mail and gouged his chest. The king’s sword toppled from his fingers and his hand went to his wound.

A vicious chop from Gramr cleaved through the staggered king’s temples and sent half his head tumbling away.

Sigurd spit on the fallen body. “For Father.”

A murder of crows circled the battlefield, an army of dancing shadows above the fallen armies of men. Already, the clang of steel had dwindled, the screams of pain replaced by the moans of the dying, or those who wished they were so. Sigurd threaded his way through a sea of corpses that would all need the pyres soon lest they rise as draugar.

Not all men had the strength of soul, the will to rise as such, or so Regin had explained once. But how were the survivors to choose the weak from the strong, the valiant from the craven? The hateful from the frightened. No, someone must come to the field and burn it all. A bitter task, especially given that the march of boots and the spray of blood and viscera had turned the hillsides to stinking, muddy slush.

And when night fell, men would worry over ghosts drifting among them, unseen but eager to bring doom upon the living.

Limping, Sigurd wended his way as best he could toward the northern stretches where he’d last sent Erland. The mists had thickened as evening drew nigh, and he could make out precious little ahead. Were all battles so chaotic, unable to see your own men much less tell them from the enemy? Skalds’ verses so rarely mentioned the mist turning war into such madness.

He had not made it halfway when Thrain came to him, coated in grime, with black marks staining his face. His gait, too, seemed unsteady, as he no doubt bore wounds of his own. “Hjorvard yet lives, but Erland’s band has fallen. The thegn is dead and Osmund calls for the survivors to regroup with us.”

Sigurd grimaced, then shambled over to Thrain and clapped him on the arm. “I’m glad you survived.”

“Barely, and I’m like to be less glad of it come morning when I’m pissing blood.”

A grunt of acknowledgment was all Sigurd had to offer for that. He’d had his share of mornings like that under Regin’s forging and Tiwaz’s oft harsh tutelage with the sword.

Together, he and Thrain made their way to the north, where Hjorvard’s men were hacking down the last of what must have been three ships’ worth of Sigurd’s warriors.

He glanced at Thrain who nodded. The Vall then trod off and immediately set to cutting down Baians.

“Hjorvard!” Sigurd roared. “Hjorvard, the son of Sigmund has come for you! Your cousin already stands before the gates of Hel! Have you the stones to join him?”

Men came at him then, and Sigurd tore into them. As the first fell, a fresh surge of energy and fury boiled up from inside him. Or perhaps from Gramr, for she lusted for their blood, seeming to pull Sigurd along after her. Another and another fell at his feet.

He was growling like some berserk of legend, he suddenly realized. Severed limbs and heads dotted the ground around him where moments before a wall of men had stood against him.

Blood dribbled from his own mouth. Had he taken a blow to the head? Or had that of others sprayed over his teeth? He could scarcely tell anymore.

A man stepped from the mist, curved axe in one hand and iron-studded shield in the other. “I am Hjorvard, boy. You struck down Lyngi?”

At last. “I am Sigurd Sigmundson. And now you—”

“I don’t fucking care.” Hjorvard spat in the mud. “Lyngi was a troll’s cock, but he was my blood. Means I’ve got to split your skull, boy.”

“Stop calling me boy.”

Hjorvard grunted, then shrugged. He charged forward, seeming slightly slowed by fatigue.

Sigurd blocked the axe on his shield. It struck with a great thunk that numbed half Sigurd’s body and sent him stumbling to the ground while splinters flew from his shield.

Roaring, Hjorvard hefted his axe overhead to make good on his promise to split Sigurd’s skull.

Sigurd rolled to the side, unable to move his shield arm with much grace. The axe splashed down into the mud, splattering Sigurd’s face.

He’d never be able to rise in time. Already Hjorvard was rearing back once more.

Sigurd jerked Gramr around. The angle was all wrong, but the runeblade carved right through the bone in the man’s shin and sent him stumbling.

Now Sigurd managed his feet and stood above Hjorvard. “Your cousin murdered my kin. You …” He panted, barely able to catch his breath as the man stared up at him. “You just chose the wrong side.”

He swung Gramr down in a wide, overhead arc, splitting Hjorvard’s skull as the man had meant to do to him. Except the runeblade kept on carving, all the way down to his foe’s spine, embedding itself halfway down Hjorvard’s torso.

With a growl, Sigurd yanked Gramr free, releasing a fresh bubbling of blood in Hjorvard’s chest even as his corpse toppled over.

“Now you are bound for Rijnland?” Thrain asked.

The two of them sat across a fire from one another, outside the gates of Drezdany. Sigurd had neither the men nor, in truth, the need to claim Lyngi’s city for himself now that its king had fallen. They’d allowed those of his men who remained to flee inside.

Sigurd rubbed his chin. “Hjorvard must have his own nest of supporters in my homeland, and my allies are few. Yet I can hardly ignore my inheritance. I can offer limited plunder but … I’d still ask you to come with me.”

Thrain ran a tongue over his teeth then poked at the fire. “For a time, perhaps. Seeing a grateful king on the throne of Rijnland might have its advantages.”

Sigurd chuckled. “I assure you. It will.”

He’d have a kingdom to secure, yes.

And oaths to keep before too long.

Part II

Year 69, Age of the Aesir

Winter

9

Ice had frozen over the Rijn and allowed Sigurd to walk along it out to the tiny island where this duel was to take place. Evening drew nigh—and who fought at dusk rather than dawn?—and only made the lake seem the colder.

Still, considering the army gathered outside the gates of Xanten, where Sigurd’s father had once held court, a fight between himself and one other seemed the surest way to avoid slaughter.

Even if Hring’s champion was the legendary Starkad Eightarms himself.

No man had long stood against Sigurd, but skalds had told tales of Eightarms’ victories long before Sigurd was born and were like to continue their verses for a thousand years more. Thus, Sigurd choose his steps with slow, practiced care, torch out beside him to keep the gathering mist at bay.

The mercenary had chosen the island, away from the sight of either army, for reasons Sigurd couldn’t guess. It was fitting, though, that if Sigurd wished to hold his kingdom, he should be forced to face a worthy opponent at long last. This he’d told himself, last night, when sleep wouldn’t come, as he’d stared into a dwindling candle flame.

Despite his slow pace, his toes still skidded along the ice. Ahead, snow-drenched evergreens covered the island, concealing its interior where Sigurd could only assume Eightarms already lurked.

A legendary warrior, perhaps, but Sigurd had been tempered by dverg cruelty and Tiwaz’s instruction. Sigurd liked his chances. And if he won, he’d have Troels’s oath of servitude and send Hring limping back to Sviarland.

Troels was no more than Hjorvard’s upstart thegn, but by allying himself with Hring he’d given the foreign king an excuse to try to extend his kingdom into Rijnland. And Sigurd had no intention of paying tribute to anyone, least of all a foreigner.

On reaching the island, Sigurd trudged through the snow, up the small slope, until he reached a narrow plateau. Large rocks jutted up from the snows, breaking up an otherwise even landscape the size of a king’s hall.

A wind from the north whipped against Sigurd’s face and tugged at his cloak. A bitter evening indeed. Sigurd wedged the torch in the snow then rubbed his hands together before it, trying to get the blood flowing once more. A little numbness in his fingers might cost him his life this day.

Against a man whom men called so fast he was said to have eight arms, Sigurd could afford no disadvantage.

“They say the last Volsung is a warrior worthy of the name.” The voice came from the tree line, deep and somehow too at ease with the coming night.

Sigurd lifted his gaze to see a cloaked figure drifting toward him, seeming hardly impeded by the snow. The man was tall and covered in scraggly blond hair, with a thick messy beard. A pair of sword hilts stuck up from behind his shoulders.

“Starkad Eightarms,” Sigurd said. “You are a legend for your prowess. Praise from you a man can be proud of.”

Eightarms favored him with a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. In fact, something fell seemed to lurk behind those orbs, a darkness that seemed to shimmer in his pupils. “In truth, I didn’t really wish for this. I’d hate to kill a man like you, with such potential. My employer rather insisted, though.”

Sigurd rose, slipping Gramr free of her sheath and taking up his shield. Had he known Hring would send Eightarms, he might not have made the challenge … maybe. On the other hand, the surest route to victory was through boldness. Through the utter refusal to bow to the whims of other men or give in to that which they called impossible.

Eightarms drew his own blades. One of them gleamed fell in the fading light. A runeblade.

And from the look on the man’s face, he’d recognized Gramr as a weapon of a similar kind.

The foreign warrior began circling Sigurd, much like a wolf, waiting to lunge. Sigurd turned with him but otherwise held very still. If Eightarms wanted to play the wolf, Sigurd could play the bear. He had strength and power, both.

Without warning, Eightarms charged in, one sword going high, the other low.

Sigurd fell back, catching a blade with his shield and ducking the other one. He swung in counter, but Eightarms got his high blade back around with startling speed. The man moved like a winter wind, blades whistling with such grace and momentum Sigurd could barely keep up.

The setting sun was in Sigurd’s face and, try as he might, Eightarms wasn’t letting him guide the fight around. Indeed, it was all Sigurd could do to keep the mercenary from lopping his head off. Sigurd feinted with Gramr, intending to catch the man in the face with his shield. Eightarms barely reacted to the feint, instead, swiping his own runeblade up Sigurd’s side.

It took a breath for the pain to catch him. Then it hit him like a white-hot brand. That sword had cut through mail, gambeson, and flesh deep enough to scratch a rib. Sigurd gasped in pain, falling back and swinging his shield wildly in a desperate attempt to buy space between himself and Eightarms.

And the mercenary allowed it, choosing not to step in and close the gap.

With his shield arm, Sigurd put a hand to his ribs. Thor’s arse, that hurt! He glanced down at his fingers, now soaked with his own blood, then jerked his gaze back up to Eightarms, advancing once more.

Now that the sun had finally dipped below the horizon, Sigurd could at last get a proper look at Eightarms. The mercenary had bared his teeth and was snarling, staring at Sigurd’s side. And his teeth … looked like wolf fangs. What in the gates of Hel?

Eightarms surged in, even faster than before, and Sigurd jerked his shield up, catching a blade against it. The impact numbed his arm and chipped his shield as though he’d tried to stop a draug’s blow. That wasn’t even the runeblade … What was going on?

By reflex alone, he parried Eightarms’ runeblade with Gramr, twisted it around into a riposte. The mercenary saw it coming and knocked his blade aside before flying into his own counter. Sigurd barely evaded that and this time came up, aiming Gramr at Eightarm’s knee.

Any thought of conscious tactics gave way to reflexive maneuvers. Forms Tiwaz had pounded into Sigurd’s head just as Regin beat metal into submission. Against this foe, Sigurd could afford no thought. No plan.

Just let instinct guide him.

His grunts punctuated the ringing of metal on metal. And the curious lack of Eightarms’ own panting. The man wasn’t tiring?

The mercenary’s blade split Sigurd’s shield down the middle.

Fuck!

Wildly, Sigurd swung the shield’s jagged edge at Eightarms’ face. Predictably, he used his runeblade to chop another chunk from it. That hardly mattered—Sigurd used the distraction to swing Gramr at Eightarms’ ordinary sword. His runeblade cleaved into the steel, slicing a chunk of it clear.

Eightarms’ fist caught Sigurd in the chest. The blow lifted him off his feet and sent him flying backward. Crashing down into the snow, breathless. Gasping. His vision turned hazy on the fringes.

Had to have … cracked ribs around his sternum.

The mercenary leapt onto him, snarling like an animal, those fangs closing in. Sigurd’s fingers closed around Gramr’s bone hilt. Her touch filled him with strength, burying his pain behind her fury.

As Eightarms landed, Sigurd jerked the blade up. Gramr sliced through the mercenary’s cheek, sheared clean through one of those fangs and took off the tip of another.

Eightarms pitched over sideways, clutching his split face, blood pouring between his fingers.

Sigurd growled himself, trying to rise, desperate to end this. But his stolen strength lasted him another breath, and then he was on his hands and knees. Unable to stand for the crushing pain in his chest. Barely able to look up.

Starkad Eightarms had regained his feet and now stumbled toward the tree line, leaving a trail of crimson in the snow behind himself.

Groaning, Sigurd let himself fall back and shut his eyes. Only for a moment.

He wasn’t sure if he slept. He was still losing blood from the cut in his side.

Sigurd rolled over—or tried. Waves of pain and dizziness churned inside his head. Spots swam before his eyes. He wrapped his hand around Gramr and she fed him strength. Enough to fight through the pain for a few moments, at least.

Now, Sigurd rolled back onto his face and pushed himself up onto hands and knees. He sat there like that, gasping. Shook his head to clear it. Discovered that had been a truly awful idea as a new surge of dizziness seized him.

When he finally looked up, he saw his torch had nigh gone out. Something glinted under the moonlight. The other runeblade …

Teeth grit, Sigurd crawled to it and wrapped his hand around the hilt. Eightarms had abandoned his weapons here. Maybe he’d die from his own wounds, though Sigurd thought that unlikely.

In fact … he wasn’t quite sure that Eightarms wasn’t some kind of draug, though he didn’t seem beset by decay as one would have expected.

Either way, with both runeblades in hand, Sigurd managed his feet.

And like that, he took slow, painful steps toward the slope. It would be a long way across the ice and back to his camp.

Given that drinking hurt as though he’d been kicked by a horse, the feast proved less enjoyable than Sigurd might’ve liked. Thrain had reminded him—twice, in fact—that such a celebration was not really for him so much as for his men. It solidified his position as the new king of Rijnland and gave Troels a formal place to pledge his oath.

Part of Sigurd wanted to see the trollfucker dead for daring to raise arms against him. But too many men of Rijnland had followed Troels, and Sigurd needed those people. Besides, he dared to hope that, shown mercy, Troels himself might prove loyal.

Certainly, he’d been cowed when Hring withdrew his support and returned to Sviarland, and without his champion, if rumors held. Sigurd had no idea what had befallen Starkad Eightarms, though he rather hoped never to see the man again.

The duel had left Sigurd with a fierce scar along one side of his chest and nigh to caved in ribs on the other. The first völva he’d seen had called him like to die. Sigurd had lived through a great many injuries, though, thanks to Regin. He refused to die from wounds or the rot. He refused.

Sigurd watched Troels during the feast. The man made every effort to look like he belonged, like he and his men hadn’t been trying to kill half the others in the hall but a few days ago. A facade of camaraderie that churned Sigurd’s stomach. Had he asked for this in choosing to spare Troels? Perhaps he had.

From the corner of his eye he caught sight of Thrain making his way over. The Vall wended between guests, only slightly more at ease than Troels. Thrain, though, him Sigurd had to offer some thanks for their victory. The mercenary had stayed at his side even when pay seemed uncertain. For that, Sigurd owed him a debt, and he misliked the feeling. Whom had he ever depended on before this, save himself?

Regin had taught him that lesson as well. A man had to be able to achieve his ends without counting on the support of others. Because that support could be snatched away at a moment’s notice.

Thrain plopped down in a chair beside Sigurd. “Fine food. Least as fine as you North Realmers ever seem to serve. I’d have liked more wine than ale, but there’s not much for it, is there?” The Vall snickered to himself. “And you? Are the ribs still holding your insides where they belong?”

Sigurd offered a faint chuckle then immediately regretted it as fresh pains raged through his chest. “More or less. I want to thank you …”

“Ha! Well now you’ve a kingdom, I imagine you can pay handsomely.”

“Indeed.” Sigurd unslung the runeblade he’d taken from Eightarms—he’d had a new sheath made for it—and let it clank on the table in front of Thrain. “I promised you friendship to help you win back your family’s honor. With this, you could carve out a kingdom.”

Thrain stared at the sword, a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth. He grasped the sheath and slid the runeblade out just enough to examine the engravings along the length of the blade. A few onlookers gaped as well, until they caught Sigurd’s disapproving glare. “This is …”

“I don’t know which one, nor how to learn such, but either way, you’ve earned it.”

“Mistilteinn,” Thrain said, his voice seeming far away.

“You can read dverg runes?”

The Vall nodded absently. Well, he was full of surprises wasn’t he?

“It’s yours,” Sigurd said after a moment more.

Thrain slid the blade back into the sheath and looked to Sigurd, his eyes seeming far away. He nodded in acknowledgment, perhaps at a loss for words, then offered his arm. Sigurd clasped it.

“I’d embrace you …” Thrain said.

Sigurd chuckled, then winced. “Let’s forego that.”

Thrain nodded.

A murmur had begun to build in the back of the hall and Sigurd turned to see what caused the stir. A misshapen figure hobbled his way toward Sigurd’s table, forcing Sigurd to stand and meet his approach.

“Regin.”

The dverg seemed heedless of the stares cast upon him, though dvergar and other vaettir rarely showed themselves to large groups of men. Instead, he shambled up to the table and stared hard at Sigurd. “The king on his throne. Quite a spectacle. Quite an accomplishment.”

Regin lunged at Sigurd and grabbed his hair, pulling his head down and sending more lances of pain through Sigurd’s chest. Dozens of hands went to weapons—Thrain’s included—but Sigurd waved them off. “You owe me, boy,” Regin said, his voice a growl.

Sigurd grunted. Despite their twisted, shrunken bodies, dvergar had strength greater than men, and Sigurd probably couldn’t have broken the dverg’s grip through sheer force even had he not been wounded. “Let us speak outside, alone, then.”

Regin released him at once, and allowed him to rise. Not wanting a scene—or no more of one than he already had—Sigurd waved everyone back to the feast and followed the dverg outside, his own steps slow and painful.

Twin braziers flanked the entrance to Sigurd’s hall, holding back a mist that had grown quite thick as the night drew on. Those, and the moon, provided the only light, and Regin seemed quite at home in the relative darkness. Dvergar were creatures of stone, yes, but hiding under the surface made them well adapted to shadows.

“You’ve avenged your father. Avenged your kin. Claimed his kingdom. And now …”

Sigurd held up a hand. “I have not forgotten my promise.”

“And yet I had to travel across the whole of Cimbria and beyond to find you here.”

“I am wounded.”

The dverg leaned in close and sniffed Sigurd’s side. “Eh. I can make a poultice that will speed the healing of that.”

Sigurd nodded, offering no thanks, considering Regin would help him only out of his own self-interest. “I swore an oath to you, and I mean to keep it.”

“Then we must be about it. I’ll give you three days to rest and let the poultice do its work. Then we ride into Myrkvidr.”

Well, he could hardly refuse, given that Regin had forged Gramr for the sole purpose of slaying Fafnir. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a feast to attend.”

The dverg chuckled, shaking his head in a way Sigurd had come to associate with the creature’s lechery.

With a grimace, Sigurd returned inside and made his way back to his seat.

“What have you to do with dvergar?” Thrain asked the moment Sigurd’s arse hit the wood.

Sigurd favored him with a cold stare. The man had been his friend, true, but some tales were not meant to be shared. Still, he might yet have need of Thrain. Finally, Sigurd sighed. “I owe the dverg a debt and I must fulfill an oath I made to him.”

“What oath?”

Sigurd glanced around, then leaned in close to make sure none would overhear. “To slay Fafnir, the serpent of the Poison Marches.”

“A dragon?”

“A linnorm, if tales hold true.”

Thrain grunted. “Well then, my friend, it has been my pleasure to know you.”

Sigurd groaned at that. Not even Thrain believed him capable of slaying the beast. “I’ve one more favor to ask of you, then. I do not know how long I will be away nor even if I’ll survive this, as you seem to doubt. I need someone I trust to rule here in my stead, at least until my stepfather Alf can come from Cimbria, if he chooses to do so. I’d not trust Troels to keep his oath overlong if I’m not here.”

“You want me to rule Rijnland for you?”

“Consider it a step in rebuilding the power of your kin. Forge alliances with Valland, even, if you so choose.”

Thrain nodded, seeming lost in thought. “And if you don’t return?”

“Then toast me, I suppose.”

Thrain nodded, frowning.

Sigurd leaned back in his chair and looked out over the feast. These were his people now, but he still knew them little. His time with Regin and Tiwaz had made him a masterful warrior, yes, but it had hardly left him prepared to rule over a kingdom or even comfortable among so many people in one place.

In truth, the adventure ahead called him. And Gramr sang to him, dreaming of quenching her thirst on dragon’s blood.

10

Winter had already settled in when Thor and his party passed into the mountainous region between the Black and Hyrcanian Seas. Not a fortnight out they’d been met by Tyr who claimed Odin had come and sent him to meet them.

Thor didn’t bother asking how Father knew about his plan to strike an accord with Hymir, but clearly the man thought their odds better if they came in the company of Hymir’s son, no matter how estranged they were. No one talked much of those old days in Aujum, but rumor held that, before Thor’s grandfather had spared him, Tyr had been a warlord in service to Hymir. A raid captain responsible for taking slaves and plunder from the Ás tribes and Bjarmaland locals to fill the coffers and bed of the greedy jotunn.

Hymir’s power had only increased in the decades since then. Either way, Tyr had marched at his side a great many days here. The journey had grown more tedious once the winter storms came, which, in truth, had been one of the reasons Thor had sent Magni away with Rathbarth. A boy who hadn’t had an apple had no place trekking through the wilds of Bjarmaland in winter.

No, and they’d had to sneak or fight past several camps of warriors, human and jotunn both. These days, anyone who happened by was prey. Everyone grew, uh … what was that word? Desperate. They were damn desperate.

Now, though, hiking through these mountains, they saw fewer camps and a lot more snow. Too much of it. Yesterday a sudden storm had forced them to take shelter in a gorge, counting on overhangs to keep them from getting buried. The winds had howled for hour upon hour and left Thor with naught to do save listen to Baldr recount stories.

His brother wanted Thor to tell them, in truth, but Thor wasn’t much for the telling of tales since the stone had wedged into his head. Tyr wasn’t much for talking at all. That mostly left Baldr and Freki to pass the time.

For a while, Thor had covered his ears and tried to sleep. Tried to pretend the hum of their voices wasn’t triggering another splitting headache. It had taken a long time before sleep came to him in earnest.

In the morning the winds had died down and the snows had lightened, so now they were on the move again, and making for the jotunn’s fortress.

Tyr led the way. “Haven’t been here in a lot of years.” He’d said that a few times, in fact.

Hedging, in case he got them lost, Thor imagined. Not that Thor would’ve known had that happened. All he could do was keep following Tyr and hope the man steered them true.

Day after freezing day passed like that, and Thor became all the more glad he’d sent Magni away. Thor’s stones seemed apt to freeze off. Even Freki shivered at night. Baldr, surprisingly, didn’t complain in the least. The boy had too much pride, that was certain, but he had courage too, and he wasn’t afraid to suffer a little. Maybe Thor was too hard on him. He certainly had a brain in his head.

High enough up on the peaks, sometimes they’d pass above the mist line. On those days, when it wasn’t snowing, the damnably bright sunlight would trigger Thor’s headaches. Splitting ones that started with blurred vision and ended with him ready to smash his own head on the rocky slopes. In the midst of one such pounding headache they came upon it—the jotunn’s fortress.

It rose up from the mountainside, looking like someone had grown it there, a multi-towered behemoth that reminded Thor of a clawed hand. Like something tried to break through from underground. Plumes of smoke rose from amidst those spires. The place was only accessible by a large stone bridge that spanned a gap between this slope and the next. All along that bridge rose smaller, spike-crested watch towers.

As they drew nigh, Thor realized some few of those towers actually had watchmen atop them. Archers, some human and at least one jotunn. The archers had a bead on them but didn’t loose.

Tyr glanced back at Thor, grimaced, and then started across the bridge. “A mistake,” he mumbled.

Well, the man certainly inspired confidence.

At the end of the path lay the jotunn’s fortress. Walls that rimmed the bridge ran right up to the portcullis, further narrowing any approach, and the bridge itself sloped upward, slowing their progress. A man would’ve needed to fly to attack this place, and Thor had sworn he’d never try that again.

The portcullis was raised and within the gatehouse stood four human halberdiers, each of whom lowered their weapons as Thor’s party drew nigh. A glance back revealed Baldr with a hand on his sword hilt. Thor didn’t really blame him. His fingers itched to reach for Mjölnir, too. It was still a damn fool thing to do, especially with them here trying to make peace.

An incline of his head at Freki, and the varulf had a hand on Baldr’s shoulder, easing his grip away from the weapon.

“Tell Hymir that Tyr has returned,” Tyr said, staring hard at guards whose own fathers probably weren’t born when Tyr had last come here. Maybe not their grandfathers, even.

The looks they exchanged told Thor the men had at least heard of Tyr, though whether that would prove beneficial or not remained to be seen.

One of the halberdiers spoke in the coarse jotunn language—strange to hear men talking that—and another took off at a trot inside the fortress.

For an awkward pause Thor stood out there, whipped by the freezing wind, not knowing what he ought to do with his hands. The guardsmen here seemed even more ill-at-ease, not lowering their weapons. Which must have begun to grow tiring.

“I have to piss,” Freki whispered in Thor’s ear.

Damn wolf. It took all Thor had not to snicker.

“No, really. If Hymir doesn’t hurry up, I’m using the wall here.”

Thor set his jaw, refusing to give in to the varulf’s attempts to amuse him.

After just long enough Thor began to think the jotunn was deliberately antagonizing them, the runner returned, this time accompanied by another ten guards, four of them frost jotunnar. “You’re to be escorted inside,” the runner said.

Thor glanced at Freki who shrugged. He couldn’t see Tyr’s face so he had no idea what the man thought. Either way, Tyr started off, following their now sizable escort.

They were led into a circular chamber as big as many thegn’s halls. The place was bedecked with tapestries, cushions, and other plunder no doubt stolen from the lands around the Black Sea. Some of the art looked Miklagardian, and the pillow style could have come from Serkland. The weavings might have come straight out of Asgard, so Thor assumed they had been taken from Aesir in Aujum long ago.

Freki flung himself on the cushions and Tyr, frowning, sat across from him, ushering Baldr to take a seat as well. Thor, though, walked the circumference, taking in the battles depicted on the tapestries. One scene, in particular, looked to show a shinning, armor-clad warrior leading a vast procession away from burning lands. The Great March of Vingethor? Thor frowned. He just wasn’t much for history, truth be told, and whatever happened back in Aujum hardly held overmuch bearing on the Aesir now.

Elsewhere, a mural depicted a man upon a boat, fishing, and seeming to have drawn up a mighty serpent from the depths of the ocean. The very thought of it seemed absurd, but still, what glory to a man who could kill a serpent of the deep. And did this represent the greatest serpent … what was it? Jörmungandr. Hmm.

The chamber door opened and a jotunn entered, this one standing well over ten feet tall, his skin tinged blue in the manner of frost jotunnar, with a shaggy gray beard strung into uneven braids. His neck was bent and misshapen, with a pronounced forward hunch, his eyes catlike and altogether discomfiting. It came as little surprise that Hymir would prove a man-eater—he’d have to be to have lived so long—and still his appearance had Thor reaching for Mjölnir’s haft before he thought better of it.

The others, too, had climbed to their feet.

The jotunn king bared his teeth, yellowed and almost sharpened looking, and settled his glare upon Tyr. “I’d not have reckoned you fool enough to come here, boy.”

Tyr cracked his neck, glowering. Thor expected him to protest he was long past being a boy, but the one-handed man said naught.

So Thor did. “We come from Holmgard with an offer of peace.”

“Peace? Was I fearing war with those little wretches and didn’t realize it? Do rats come to offer you peace, when they want to nest in your home?”

“Holmgard is not your home,” Baldr pointed out. “And unless I am misinformed, you are not allied with Skadi. The Snow Queen still thinks to claim all of Thrym’s legacy and conquer Midgard besides. Do you believe you can hold out against her forever? Sooner or later she’ll come to Kiovia and demand you bow to her and pay her tribute. When she comes, wouldn’t you rather have allies?”

Hymir growled, a low guttural sound like a bear first stirring to anger. “Who is this boy? And what good are allies who cannot even protect themselves? Your lands are ravaged, pathetic things, dying as we speak and not hardly worth the trouble to spit on. You’d offer to stand against Skadi with me, but your offer’s got no teeth. Reckon that means you waste your time. Worse, you’re wasting my time.”

Damn it, the headache was already starting, just listening to this trollfucker. Thor grated his teeth a moment. The worst of it was, the jotunn actually had a point. “Rathbarth thinks to make himself king, but he’d be willing to pay you tribute in exchange for your friendship.”

At that, Freki tossed a sack in front the jotunn. The bundle clattered and clanked, turning on its side and spilling forth a mix of plundered silver jewelry, Miklagardian coins, and gems taken from the neighboring lands. A fair ransom for a throne, maybe too much even.

Hymir knelt and grabbed the bottom of the sack, upending it and then shaking until everything piled forth. A fair haul indeed. “Hmmm.”

“As a king under your protection, he’d ask but one thing,” Thor said, and Hymir looked up sharply. “There is an old fortress on the shores of Lake Ilmajarvi. Rathbarth requests that as the seat of his kingdom.”

Hymir growled again. “Place belongs to Hrod.”

“A fine man, I’m sure,” Baldr said. “But surely he could find somewhere else to live.”

Thor shot his brother a cold look. Still, it was said and out there, and all Thor could do now was look to Hymir.

“You want to buy the fortress. Don’t reckon you can come up with this much tribute every winter. Even if you could, it’s missing something. Tyr, why don’t you tell them what the tribute is missing.”

Tyr was glowering at him, fist clenched at his side. “Hymir expects you to offer up slaves.”

“Nine slaves,” the jotunn said. “Every winter, with the tribute.”

Thor grimaced. Rathbarth might have taken some slaves in his raids, but those would be people from Bjarmaland. The very people Thor was supposed to be here protecting. And no matter how bad those slaves had it under Rathbarth’s people, their lives under a jotunn would be worse. At least under a king of men they didn’t have to worry about their master eating them when the mood struck him.

He looked to Tyr, but the man’s face was naught but a grim mask. He clearly didn’t approve, but nor did he seem to advise refusing. Leaving the choice—and the burden—in Thor’s hands. Well enough, he was the Prince of Asgard. Still rankled having to agree to such a thing. “You’ll have your slaves.”

Hymir’s grin seemed to grow darker. These creatures should be wiped off Midgard, driven back through the breach and barred from ever returning. Only, Thor could see no way to achieve any of that. Right now, Skadi was the far larger threat. “I’ll have a blood oath out of you, over a cauldron of Brimir.”

Thor didn’t have much idea what that even meant, save the blood oath part. But he’d stand by his word, so he nodded.

The jotunn king led them through the fortress, down a wide staircase with steps a little too steep for comfort, and seeming to stretch on for far too long. Eventually, they descended into a dank chamber somewhere below the mountain.

At the center of this chamber rested a giant cauldron the size of a small mammoth. At first Thor took it for bronze, but on closer examination, he saw streaks of darker metal running through it. Strange runes marked the sides, and a surrounding stone staircase led to the top.

Hardly a point in hesitating now. Thor started up the steps.

“Not you,” Hymir said. Then he pointed to Baldr. “The pretty one.”

Thor opened his mouth to object, but Baldr had already nodded and begun heading for the stairs.

Glowering—Father had said to keep Baldr safe—Thor met him halfway. Baldr just clapped him on the arm and kept going, until he stood peering down over the lip of the cauldron. He drew a knife, then slit his palm and squeezed, allowing his blood to drip into the vessel.

Steam hissed and billowed forth with each drop of blood.

“Your oath that Rathbarth’s new kingdom will uphold our bargain and pay tribute in silver and slaves to me, or your life is forfeit.”

Baldr repeated the words, squeezed a last few drops into the cauldron, then started down.

Hymir nodded.

Rathbarth should be pleased.

And Father would be furious.

11

Fifteen Years Ago

Freki crinkled his nose as he sniffed the area where Thor had woken up. The varulf shook his head slowly. “All sorts of foulness here, brother.”

Thor glowered at the varulf. He didn’t need a recount of whatever he’d done or what defilement had been spilled on him while he lay unconscious. “The hammer.”

“It’s hard to be sure under all the other scents, but I think … jotunn.”

“What?” Thor could only gape at him. A jotunn had gotten into the town, and unnoticed?

Freki shrugged as if understanding his question. “How many jotunnar have we seen that could pass for human? Those who never tasted the flesh of man might seem but tall men themselves. Saying naught of half-jotunnar.”

Like that bastard Tyr, or so it was said.

Thor ran a hand over his beard and groaned. “So a jotunn snuck in and stole Mjölnir while I was unconscious. Can you track him?”

Freki grunted. “Yes, probably, but that doesn’t mean you’ll catch him. How much head start must the creature have on us now? I might catch him alone, though.”

“No.” No, Thor wouldn’t let his brother put himself in danger to make up for his mistakes. He’d made … too many mistakes. They had already cost him more than he could bear to part with.

Sif.

Thor shut his eyes, trying to block out the thoughts. She’d died because of him. If he hadn’t lain with that damn jotunn woman, hadn’t sired Magni, she’d not have left him. Then, he could have protected her, even had they gone to Peregot at all. Thor wouldn’t repeat his mistake. He wouldn’t let anyone else he cared about pay that price.

Geri came around the corner then, her own face grim as well. “Roskva’s gone too.”

Thor sighed. He could hardly blame her for running off after he’d killed her brother. Or he shouldn’t blame her, though a sudden perverse desire to punish her crept into his breast as well. And why not? Why should he not hate himself for the vile workings of his heart? “Forget her. Find Loki.”

“Why?”

Thor grunted. “Because the bastard knows things he’s got no right to know. Like … uh … what’s the damn word?”

“He’s got the Sight,” Freki answered, and Geri nodded grimly before taking off to find their father’s blood brother.

Thor despised having the man hanging about. Father had almost certainly sent him just to keep an eye on Thor and make sure he didn’t do aught else foolhardy. If so, Loki had failed at that last night. Thor hadn’t meant to … It was all trollshit!

He followed Freki back around to the main entrance to the hall but didn’t step inside. Men would stare at him for what he’d done. No one would speak against him, of course. It had been his right, first with Roskva, and with Thialfi too. They’d not speak ill of him. But they’d think it.

Thor had no place in Holmgard anymore. Never really did have one, truth be told. No, he ought to be well away from here.

Geri met them back at the house they shared, Loki trailing behind her.

Though his face was impassive, Thor could’ve sworn those crystal blue eyes of Loki’s judged him. Mother had that look when she arbitrated disputes in Valaskjalf, especially when she knew one side was clearly in the right. A keenness about her.

“You’ve lost it,” Loki said.

“I didn’t lose it. It was fucking stolen.”

Loki didn’t respond to that, just edged around Thor and slipped into the house. Thor followed the man inside, and the varulf twins came in last.

Father’s blood brother sat before the fire pit, as always, staring into it.

Thor slumped down across from him. “Well. Where’s the jotunn taking it?”

Loki didn’t answer. Just kept looking at the flames like they were reciting skaldic poetry or something. Thor couldn’t begin to fathom quite how the so-called Sight worked. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to offer straight answers when a man needed them. And straight answers were about the only answers worth having.

Especially when a man’s head was splitting in two. Thor hated riddles and he hated—like the raging fires of Muspelheim hated—waiting for things.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know he was unreasonable most of the time. Just, that he felt he ought to be able to scream at anyone judging him and say, “my wife was murdered!” And that ought to have excused just about aught imaginable. Sif was dead and they’d never know who had done it. Not even Loki had been able to tell him that, and Thor had asked. Because, truce or not, he’d have broken into Serkland and hunted the bastard down. He’d have found the murderer and hung him by his entrails for all to see, and prayed it would appease Sif’s ghost, wherever she was.

He’d tried talking to her, many a time. Never got an answer. Maybe she watched him from the Otherworlds, but if so, she couldn’t speak back. Or didn’t want to. That was worse, wondering if she still hated him. She’d died hating him, he knew. Died that way and maybe would go on hating forever, blaming him for all her torment.

“The hammer is bound for Thrym himself,” Loki said, jolting Thor from his dark musings.

Freki groaned.

Thor scoffed. “King of Thrymheim has stones, I’ll give him that. It means the thief is headed for the breach.”

Loki nodded.

Freki was right though, Thor wouldn’t be able to catch the thief, not if he was making good time. And jotunnar always made good time.

“There’s more,” Loki said.

“What is it?” Geri asked.

Loki looked to her, dour. “They’ll launch an invasion, an army of jotunnar coming through the breach.”

Ah, trollshit. Thor didn’t have time for this right now. Sure, a day ago he’d almost have welcomed it. A war meant lots of skulls to crush. Plenty of places to vent his rage. But without Mjölnir …

“Hardly a coincidence,” Geri said.

Loki nodded. “We have to get these people ready or the whole of Bjarmaland will fall before winter is out.”

And that was another damn thing. Only jotunnar would start a war in the middle of winter. Thor grunted in disgust. “What we have to do is get that hammer back. Can’t have it used against us, and besides, I need it to hold back the invasion.”

“So Freki and I will go,” Geri said. “We can track his scent and cover ground much more quickly in wolf form.”

“No,” Thor said. No, he wouldn’t risk his brother and sister. Odin had a new son now, true, but Geri and Freki were the ones Thor had grown up with. They’d always come first for him. “I have to do it myself.”

“You can’t move quickly enough nor find it alone,” Freki pointed out.

Loki rose abruptly. “With the swan cloak I can go after it in the air, more quickly than even varulfur can run.”

“So give me the cloak,” Thor said.

“I’ll do better. I know where we can find another one.”

His own flying cloak. Now that sounded like a plan. “Fine. So the wolves stay here and get Holmgard ready for war. You and I, uncle, we go hunting swan maidens.”

Loki favored him with a stern look. “We are not hunting them. We’ll claim the cloak because we have dire need of it. That’s all.”

Thor shrugged. It was all the same to him.

Loki led the way through densely wooded hills that, much to Thor’s chagrin, proved many days walk from Holmgard. While they headed in roughly the eastward direction of the breach, still their route would hardly prove the swiftest possible way there.

“You realize if we don’t find the cloak we’ve wasted a huge amount of time coming this way,” Thor said.

Loki didn’t look back, though, infuriating as ever. “Given that you cannot fly without the cloak and cannot catch the thief on foot, you have essentially lost naught.”

Would Father mind overmuch if Thor rammed his boot up Loki’s arse? Musing on that thought at least allowed Thor to smile and hold his peace while they traveled.

“Try to walk as quietly as possible,” Loki advised.

“Why?” Thor wasn’t much for sneaking about unless setting an ambush.

“Because these woods are thick with vaettir besides swan maidens. Some much more dangerous. Believe me when I say you do not wish to find yourself face to face with an ash wife or the like.”

Thor snorted. But he did so softly, and watched where he placed his feet. It wouldn’t do to let Loki know he did hold a bit of fear for such things. No, it wouldn’t do, but he still didn’t want to have to deal with vaettir if it could be avoided.

After walking a good deal longer, the sound of a bubbling creek reached them and Loki dropped into a crouch. Here was a man good at sneaking about. Too good, to Thor’s thinking, though he mimicked the man and tried to move with just as much grace.

Behind Loki, he crept forward until he could catch a glimpse of a stream running between the hills. And there, in the waters, three women were bathing. Loki signaled Thor to wait, then dropped down to his belly and slithered forward like some fucking serpent.

The man might have been Father’s blood brother, but he was … uh, what was that word? Guileful. Too much so. A man ought to be straightforward whenever possible.

Loki crawled over to where the women had lain cloaks of swan feathers across rocks, atop their discarded clothes. Thor paid him only half his attention. After all, there were naked women not thirty feet away. A man didn’t just ignore that. Doing so would have been unnatural.

Still, he kept glancing back and forth toward Loki. The man grabbed one of the cloaks then started back.

Thor frantically signaled for him to take the others too, but Loki made no effort to do so. “What’s wrong with you?” Thor demanded through clinched teeth when Loki drew nigh. “Those could help others. The twins, maybe.”

“I’m not going to steal something we have no pressing need for.” Loki thrust the stolen cloak into Thor’s arms and snuck past him.

Thor moved to follow, debris crunching under his feet. Almost immediately, a shriek went up among the women, followed by splashing and a furious rush back to the rocks.

Then cries of outrage at finding only two cloaks.

Grimacing, Thor crept on after Loki.

12

The desolate snowfields of Niflheim stretched out endlessly before Gudrun, and behind as well, for as she glanced back, her footprints seemed to go on forever. A fell gust swept over her, turning even the light snow flurries into a storm. Somewhere ahead lay the gates of Hel, but she might walk for an age before she reached them. Given free will, she’d have turned back and fled from that destination, but her legs defied her, pushing always forward toward damnation.

It seemed she’d been treading in that direction all her life.

On the wind, fell whispers advised her to call upon the Art, extend her mortal existence and thus delay her meeting with Hel. But Gudrun had denied herself the Art for long years. Sorcery had taken so much from her and she would not heed its call to give yet more.

“Sister.”

A tremble shot through her, through all the World. An earthquake that somehow sent even the winds whipping faster, lashing her cheeks.

“Gudrun, awaken from this.”

The shaking continued until it sent her toppling down, crashing toward the snows.

She sat bolt upright, flailing about herself for a foe to strike. Her brother Gunnar stumbled backward and Gudrun herself pitched from her bed and onto the floor in a tangle of blankets. The fall sent a jarring impact into her knee and left her moaning.

Her brother groaned, snatching a goblet from her bedside. “Would that I could believe this was only wine. How much did you take this time?”

Gudrun glowered at her brother. Her head was splitting apart, her eyes were burning, and now he was lecturing her. And he’d come in here wearing the crown, so he’d either come directly from his throne room, or else he’d donned it as a reminder to her of his authority, despite him being the youngest of the siblings.

Oh, but Grimhild had crowned Gunnar king when their father had died.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.” Gunnar tossed the goblet aside and it clattered along the floor like a Hel-damned gong. “Look at you. What have you become?”

Despite herself, Gudrun followed his command, taking in her appearance. She clearly hadn’t bothered removing her gown, though it was disheveled from sleeping in it. And stained with wine. There had been some wine, among other things. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Her brother sighed and knelt beside her. “What I understand is that it’s been more than a dozen years since you came back to us.” Well, she’d had nowhere else to go, really. It wasn’t so much that she’d wanted to reconcile with Grimhild as that she’d had no choice. “Whatever Mother gave you to help you get a handle on your … sufferings … well, it’s time—”

“My sufferings!” Gudrun rose, swayed in place as her legs threatened to give out, and then managed a shaky step toward him. “You have no idea what I went through, caught under the thrall of that thing for so many years! You cannot begin to fathom what I have endured.” Nor what Skadi allowed the wood jotunnar to do to her once the snow maiden had finally released her from possession. “How I fought to regain myself.”

Are you yourself? Snegurka’s hateful whisper left Gudrun grinding her teeth and clutching her head in an attempt to silence the snow maiden.

“Perhaps you’re right. I don’t know what you went you through. I do know you’re now as much a slave to Mother’s brew as you were to the vaettr.”

Gudrun favored him with a disdainful sneer. “Fuck you, King Gunnar.” The boy still worshipped Grimhild. But then, their mother had probably never had him raped or tortured just to teach him a lesson. No, not him. Not the favored son.

“You forget yourself.”

“Not at the moment. That’s what the Hel-damned brew is for.”

Gunnar nodded slowly, looking about her chambers, gaze seeming to linger on the piles of discarded garments, the stains, the dust—Gudrun no longer allowed slaves in to clean—and the half-eaten turnips from Hel-knew-when. “You’ve slept all day. The slaves already prepare the night meal. I expect you to attend.”

You become a shade, even in life. So close to the limitless cold of Niflheim. You will be one of us, someday soon.

Now she groaned, a breath away from telling him she wouldn’t come. She had no desire to see anyone else, much less suffer the raucous din of clattering plates and goblets. But from the look on her little brother’s face, he might well have had her bodily dragged downstairs if she didn’t accede to his wishes.

Instead, she offered him a curt nod. “Excuse me, then. I need my chamberpot.”

“Yes. And sister? Please have the slaves clean that too.” With that, he turned and left.

Gudrun rubbed her face and groaned.

In the great hall, Grimhild sat at Gunnar’s right. While her brother ruled in name, more oft than not, Gudrun saw their mother’s hand guiding his moves. The woman favored Gudrun with a look of disapproval, chin lifted just high enough Gudrun wanted to slap her.

Not that she’d have ever dared it.

Grimhild had slowly begun to regaining her powers in the years since Father had died. Since Odin had murdered him. Gudrun hadn’t been here to see those early days, when Grimhild must have seemed pathetic—old and withered and struggling to manage with no power save alchemy. Her grimoire was gone and she’d lost the vaettir she’d once bound, thus severely limiting her Art. She must have blundered around, mixing what few brews she could recall.

Perhaps she’d even beseeched aid from other sorcerers to help her summon and bind a new vaettr. If so, Gudrun would dearly have loved to have seen how Grimhild must have hated so debasing herself. Sadly though, at the time, Gudrun herself was suffering far worse depredations than her mother.

Gudrun slunk into a chair beside Hogne, her middle brother, deliberately avoiding meeting Grimhild’s gaze.

The king drummed his fingers on the table while slaves deposited plates of steaming cod and leeks in front of them. A handful of other ranking Niflungar also sat at the table, but Gudrun ignored them, having no desire to see their looks of reproach if they knew about her.

Finally, Gunnar cleared his throat. “Guthorm sends reports that a new king has risen in Hunaland.”

Hardly news. Every other moon saw the rise or fall of some petty king somewhere in the North Realms. The whole World was engulfed in chaos. Hel, a number of dynasties lasted less than a year. Gudrun stared at her fish, her stomach roiling uncomfortably. She didn’t much want to eat aught, but she’d best at least try the leeks.

“Why do we care?” Hogne asked when their king failed to elaborate. “That is, I thought you wished to focus on claiming all Reidgotaland before other lands.”

“Hmm, yes. Except this man who claimed the throne is a scion of our old ally, Volsung.”

Now Gudrun looked up sharply. “I thought all Sigmund’s children had died?”

“All but one, raised here in Reidgotaland, no less, though now returned home.”

Grimhild leaned forward, lacing her fingers on the table. “Will he know of his forebear’s oath to us?”

“Doubtful,” Gunnar admitted. “Nevertheless, I’ve set Guthorm to watch him.”

Gudrun barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. Their half-brother was dead, raised as a draug by his own mother in an appalling show of her lack of maternal empathy. A draug made an excellent spy in the wilds but was like to find it hard to infiltrate a king’s court, reeking of death and rot.

Gunnar seemed to sense her disdain because he cleared his throat. “He need not watch the man’s every move, only bear witness to any further wars he fights. When the time is right, I can reach out to Sigmundson myself, or send Hogne.”

No one even suggested Gudrun should go.

Just as well. She needed more draught and a deep sleep.

13

Myrkvidr separated Reidgotaland from Hunaland. The greater part of that divide had become known as the Poison Marshes, a twisted and decaying wasteland ruled by a famed linnorm. Sigurd and Regin had ridden to the edge of Myrkvidr, but Sigurd had to walk Grani within the wood and Regin’s horse demurred to go at all.

The canopy remained oppressively thick, even in winter.

Indeed, while snow still crunched underfoot at Sigurd’s passage, it was little more than a thin layer of it in most places. And with the encroaching darkness, Regin seemed scarcely frightened of the sun, oft traveling beside Sigurd almost until dawn before he scrambled off to find some warren. How the dverg always came to locate such places, Sigurd did not know for certain, though he suspected Regin could pass through earth and stone as he wished and thus, perhaps, simply sank into the ground when he so desired. The dverg remained cagey about the extent of his abilities, as always, and thus left Sigurd to make his own suppositions.

Tale told of beasts stalking these woods—varulfur or ghosts or other, worse creatures. Trolls, even, some had claimed, though Sigurd had heard most trolls dwelt in the Jarnvid out in Aujum and had not passed much across the borders of Hunaland. His father had skirmished with the creatures some years back and now, the trolls seemed largely content to keep to the desolate wild places where men feared to walk.

Of course, such a description fit well to the Myrkvidr.

It was a place of eerie, nigh overwhelming stillness, as if the shadows themselves stifled sound and swallowed any semblance of hope for light. Those rare spots where sunlight pierced the canopy became scattered beams illuminating tiny fragments of the forest floor and seeming an intrusion upon another world.

Perhaps it was that, in truth. Perhaps the Veil thinned here, and the Myrkvidr lay closer to the woodlands in the Spirit Realm, Hoddmimis Holt. Or perhaps a root of Yggdrasil rose close to the surface here. In either case, Sigurd could see why men would flee this wood and still none would call them craven. He could see it, yes, but he’d not flee himself. So much of his life had been spent in dark places too close to the Veil, trained by a hateful being from the other side.

He was not fool enough to think on the Otherworlds without trepidation, but neither did he intend to beg for Odin’s protection at the mere mention of such things. No, Sigurd had walked in the dark a long time. Sometimes for days without light, as Regin tested his mettle and thus reinforced it.

“We draw nigh to the Poison Marshes,” the dverg said, his voice a grating intrusion on the otherwise still forest, even though he kept it to a whisper. “If we skirt the edge, we’ll come to a fjord where my brother likes to drink clean water fresh from the sea instead of the filth in which he now dwells.”

Drink seawater? Sigurd supposed it made little sense to wonder overmuch on what suited a dragon, but still, it seemed strange to think any creature would slake its thirst in a fjord.

“You suggest I fight the beast when he comes to drink?”

Regin snorted. “Would you prefer to trek through the marshes and fight the linnorm in its own domain? Even if you could find its lair, I imagine you’d regret it.”

“To the fjord then.”

Sigurd followed the dverg as he led to the edge of Myrkvidr, pausing to stare at the sky when the tree line grew thin. A few hours before dawn? But Regin was cautious. Satisfied that no danger awaited him from the rising sun, the dverg led onward. Beyond the woods’ edge they came to a steep decline down to the fjord, one Sigurd eased his way down with grace, smirking as Regin stumbled and cursed his precarious footing.

At the base of it, Sigurd walked along the water’s edge, examining the terrain. Assuming Fafnir came directly from the Poison Marshes to the north, the serpent ought to have left some sort of trail as to his passing.

Linnorms had two forelegs which they used to propel themselves forward, or so Regin had explained during the trek. Their tails dragged like snakes, and in either case, Sigurd expected to be able to find clear indication of …

He paused, gaping at a break in the trees in the distance that looked as if a jotunn had come blundering through them, casting trunks aside. And dragged a rivet through the silt ahead of him. Shaking his head, Sigurd advanced closer. Sure enough, a clawed footprint lay embedded in the snow, and others around it.

Each footprint was nigh as a large as Sigurd was. What would that make this monster? Eighty feet long? Longer?

He spun as Regin approached. “You made no mention of the size of this beast!”

The dverg shrugged. “Would it have mattered?”

Yes, Sigurd rather imagined that it might. Suddenly even Gramr, mighty though she was, seemed but a needle against his foe. “How do you propose I fight a creature capable of eating a godsdamned longship?”

Regin groaned and looked around, staring at the fjord. “He’ll come to drink.”

“And?”

“I’m thinking!” The dverg paced around the disturbed snow, examining one track, then another. “Notice how the line of his tail always follows roughly the same path?”

Sigurd shrugged.

“My brother is a creature of habit, even in his changed, bestial state. He must take the same exit from the marshes each time he comes and drink in roughly the same place.”

And if Sigurd had an army of archers with arrows capable of piercing dragon scale, he might lay an ambush. Since he had naught of the sort, he little saw how any of this mattered. He shook his head in disgust. “You’ve wasted our trip, dverg.”

“You made an oath.”

“Yes, I did, and I’ve not forgotten, or I would’ve walked from here already.”

Regin pointed to the silt. “It’s soft ground. Dig a hole beneath it, cover the hole, and hide. Fafnir will crawl right over you, exposing his underbelly.”

Huh. Was that even possible? Could he gut the serpent before the creature even realized a threat lay nigh? “Suppose he smells me out? Or otherwise detects the hole?”

Regin snorted. “Boy, did you truly suspect you might slay a dragon without taking the least risk in the process? You must choose the chance you take. Fight with guile or wait here, sword in hand and challenge him to a duel. Were I you, I’d rely on guile.”

Sigurd spat into the water. The dverg would be his death, more like than not. Still, he’d given his oath and he’d not break that. To do so was to invite a worse urd than falling prey to a dragon.

And so Sigurd sent Grani to seek feed in the forest, then drew Gramr and cut a chunk out of a tree stump, a curving piece he could use for a shovel in the wet ground. Regin watched, offering no help as Sigurd set to digging a hole.

When dawn drew nigh, the dverg fled once more, disappearing into the Myrkvidr.

And still Sigurd worked.

He had to piss. That thought niggled Sigurd almost constantly as he lay in a clammy hole on the riverbank. It was but one of innumerable flaws in this plan, him lying here not knowing if the linnorm might show up in a moment or a fortnight. How oft did dragons need to drink water? Daily? Once a moon? Who knew?

Then there was the threat of the mist, billowing over his hole, vapors no doubt seeping in with each breath.

So Sigurd found himself squirming in discomfort. Every time he rose, he risked discovery that would make all his efforts in vain. Meaning, every time he could no longer control it, he had to roll over and let loose in his own hole.

A bad plan for that reason alone, no matter how many times he told himself he could swim in the river when this was done.

Besides which, even were he not discovered, suppose the ground gave way beneath the linnorm’s weight and Fafnir thus crushed him, maybe without even realizing it? Sigurd’s glorious journey would come to an ignoble end that might preclude him from ever reaching Valhalla. Or, if he did make it there, how his ancestors might mock his urd. Flattened to pulp under a serpent, lying in his own piss.

Would skalds tell verses of such a warrior? He suspected not. Assuming they even ever learned of what befell him. No, rather, Thrain might well remain on the throne of Rijnland forever, and he alone would guess where Sigurd had gone.

Overhead, ravens croaked as though he was already a corpse.

Sigurd groaned, shaking his head in disgust with the situation and cursing himself for a fool for ever considering it. He could make out little of the sky—he’d covered the hole with branches cut from the trees—but he guessed dusk would settle in after but a few more hours. Maybe then he’d flee this accursed pit and tell Regin to develop a better plan.

Of a sudden the ground began to rumble all around him. Loose silt tumbled down from the sides of the pit onto Sigurd’s face. He clenched his teeth, trying to keep his breath to the barest sound possible, though he doubted Fafnir could have heard aught over the raucous commotion of his own movement.

Something immense passed over the branches he’d covered himself with, snapping many and showering them down onto Sigurd. It blocked out the light and left him blind. An earthy stench like putrid water choked him, polluting the air with its foulness. Trying not to gag, Sigurd gripped Gramr’s blade.

This was it.

She was ready, he could feel it. She whispered glories in his ear. Promised his name would live on in eternity for felling such an abomination.

Don’t think. Don’t plan … just act.

Sigurd rammed Gramr straight upward. The blade scraped against the serpent’s massive scaled hide. Sigurd heaved and Gramr shrieked as she punched through the scales. Driving it up required far more force than piercing mail did. Scorchingly hot blood sprayed all over Sigurd’s arms and face, stinging, searing him like acid.

He roared at the creature as it tore itself asunder, unable to arrest its own momentum.

The linnorm thrashed, bellowing in shock and rage. Its wild convulsions yanked Gramr from Sigurd’s hand and exposed a hint of daylight above him. Should he make a break for it while—

The creature crashed back down over his hole once more, wiggling so violently the pit began to cave in. Already, the hole had filled with burning blood. If Fafnir died atop this place, Sigurd would be trapped, maybe even drown.

Screaming, he punched the scaled bulk. It was like hitting a solid wall—one lined with ridges. He jerked his hand back, shrieking as blood continued to seep into his little prison.

Fuck!

But the linnorm continued its thrashing, exposing the air once more. Sigurd launched himself from the hole, scrambling out toward the river on all fours. He pitched over, slammed his face into silt that stung his eyes, then heaved himself yet onward.

Sand, blood, and grime so caked him it blurred his vision as he rolled over and scrambled back away from the linnorm.

With a final heave, the creature crashed down once more and lay still, with only faint convulsions still holding it.

A mighty clawed limb reached for Sigurd. It fell several paces short and slapped the sand in front of him, kicking up great gobs of muck. Filth and gore now coated the otherwise mold-colored serpent, and blood oozed from a terrible rent in its belly, fountaining up with each beat of its slowing heart. Horns jutted from its head at irregular angles and spurs from its spine, any one of which could have pierced Sigurd like a spear. Here was a beast fell beyond imagining, like something drawn up from some ancient time the World would have just as soon forgotten.

And it stared at Sigurd with hatred beyond his ken. Acid-like venom dribbled from its gaping maw.

“Who are you … impudent to strike at me …?” The stench of rot accompanied the creature’s rumbling, inhuman voice. As if the land itself bellowed at him.

“You can talk?” Did that mean some part of the original Fafnir yet remained?

“Who … dares …?”

“I am Sigurd Sigmundson.”

The linnorm choked, a glob of some foul mix of poison and blood oozing from his mouth. “And who urged you to face me?”

Sigurd rose, glanced about for Gramr. The blade still stuck from the beast’s hide a dozen or so paces from where he stood. “A mind hard as stone forged me into a weapon. A courageous warrior whetted me to a razor edge.” He stalked over to where Gramr jutted from Fafnir. “And with this, I fear neither man nor beast.” He placed a foot on the linnorm’s side then yanked the sword free.

This elicited a fresh spurt of burning blood spraying over him, and the dragon hissed, tracking him with its eye.

“I see … my brother’s hand … around this hilt. It wrought my death … and it shall be your end as well. In the end … he shall claim the Tarnhelm and the ring with which I secured my domain. And the hoard goes back to him after all.”

Sigurd wanted to wipe the blood and grime from his face, but since all his clothes were so soaked, he saw no way to do so. “Regin will have naught save his vengeance against you. I have taken your life and I will find your den and claim the gold.” He waved his hand. “And this helm and ring you speak of.”

The linnorm snorted, a pathetic rasp of air that turned into a shudder. “Go there. Claim riches beyond your ken. And find your doom in the cursed hoard.”

Sigurd spat. The linnorm lied now, even as he’d been a murderer and a kinslayer in life. All vaettir were treacherous, Fafnir and his brother included.

Kneeling in the mud, Sigurd watched as the beast finally expired.

Dusk had settled into evening before Regin showed himself, appearing like a specter in the mist before hobbling his way to Sigurd’s tiny fire beside his brother’s corpse. The dverg walked the length of the beast, shaking his head, mumbling something in his own coarse tongue.

He shooed away a raven that had settled on Fafnir’s horn, muttering something that sounded profane. The bird took flight but soon alighted on a nearby tree. It knew when food was about.

“Good of you to join me,” Sigurd said.

The dverg turned his sneer upon him. “You have won a victory the skalds will praise until the dying of Midgard. Be sated with that. My brother is dead. Do not think because I sought this I am wholly without grief.”

Grief? Did a dverg even feel such an emotion? Sigurd fastened Regin with a hard look, but the dverg refused to further meet his gaze, instead staring at the corpse as though it might once again begin to speak.

“Be that as it may,” Sigurd said, “I tested my mettle and my steel against the serpent and you raised not a finger to help.”

“The sun—”

“Yes, I know.”

The dverg scoffed. “Fine, what of it then? I made that sword and without it, you’d hardly have performed such a feat, would you?”

Undoubtedly not, though Sigurd would also not have attempted such a thing.

“Just … use Gramr,” Regin said. “Cut out his heart and roast it for me.”

Sigurd looked back to the massive corpse. His own brother? And why not? If a man’s heart could hold Megin, how much more might a dragon’s? What power might Regin absorb from the creature his brother had become?

Still, it would be grisly work, without a doubt. Drawing Gramr, Sigurd set to it.

Coated in fresh gore, Sigurd hauled the heart over the flame. The muscle weighed more than he did, he had no doubt, and stretched a good three feet from side to side. In order to spit it, he had to carve a spear from a nearby tree.

In the meantime, Regin stoked the flame higher and larger.

Sigurd then thrust the spit over the flame and set to cooking the grisly meal. How did the dverg intend to eat something so large? Perhaps he meant to taste but a few bites. Either way, Sigurd found himself panting with sheer exhaustion and feeling more filthy than he’d have thought possible.

While the heart roasted, he waded down into the river. Ice had formed along the banks but most of the river continued to flow. Sigurd dipped a hand in then sucked down a sharp breath. Cold as the Realm of Hel. Still, he splashed water over his face, then scrubbed it along his arms, trying to work off layer upon layer of grime, blood, and other vileness.

Another raven’s croak caused him to jump up sharply, reaching for Gramr. Damn birds. He shook his head. Between fighting the dragon and its dying curses, he was jumping at naught. He, who had long walked dark halls beneath the land. Who had grown up in shadows.

Flinging stray water from his hands, he trod back to the fire and slunk down before it. Juices had begun to bubble and sizzle from the heart, dribbling down into the flames and popping. Such a thick hunk of muscle would take all night to cook. Maybe the outside was done enough the dverg would satisfy himself with it.

Sigurd poked at it with a finger. It was searingly hot, in fact. Cooked? He sucked his finger, savoring the juices. The serpent’s flesh had a rich, earthy taste that seemed to fill his mouth and flow down it, surging through him with each beat of his heart. A wave of vertigo seized him and he slipped down onto his side, gasping. Was this the power of the linnorm’s Megin? Such that even a taste of it would overwhelm him?

Everything seemed louder, the night fair pulsing around him, abuzz with insects and birds and beasts stalking the woods. With the heartbeat of the dverg not so far away. With the low, gurgling calls of the ravens.

“Better he should eat it himself …”

Sigurd cocked his head. “What?”

“Say something? Is it ready, boy?” Regin called.

“S-soon.” Sigurd shook his head. If Regin hadn’t said that then who in the gates of Hel had?

“Better he should feast upon the heart himself and gain wisdom.”

Was that … the raven talking? Sigurd glanced at Regin, but the dverg paid the bird no heed. The animal hardly moved its beak and yet its speech seemed clear as any to Sigurd.

“Already his skin is saturated by the pneuma-drenched blood of a dragon. Consume its heart and quicken its blood to make his skin like armor, warded against flame or blade. Its power shall flow through his veins.”

“Or wait.” The second speaker was another raven, this one having alighted on a branch behind Sigurd. “There lies Regin, the one who craves the cursed gold. The one who will do aught to possess it. Now with it in sight, will he share? Or will he strike down the very fosterling he raised to a particular end?”

“Strike off the dverg’s head,” the first raven said, “and the gold falls in Sigurd’s hands. He is not wise at all if he trusts one who arranged the death of his own brother.”

“No, no. Not wise.”

The ravens were talking to him. Or … about him at least, and they knew overmuch of what had gone by. Was he to take it as a sign from Odin himself? Having tasted a drop of the dragon’s blood, he could now understand the language of birds. So how much stronger might he yet become if he ate this heart himself?

Sigurd quietly slipped Gramr from her sheath. He need not even wonder at her opinion. She would as happily feast upon the blood of her creator as on any other. Blade in hand he crept to where Regin dozed.

The treacherous dverg had sought to make Sigurd into a weapon. If the ravens spoke the truth—and Sigurd could not imagine why birds would lie—the dverg had been forging him for just this day. And now, with the day having passed, he had no further use for Sigurd. No, it was not Sigurd’s urd to fall at Regin’s hands. Rather, he’d send both brothers to Hel together.

“I hated you when I first came into your keeping.”

Regin turned over, glanced at Gramr held in Sigurd’s hand, and scowled. “What of it? I made you strong as adamant.”

“True enough.” Sigurd lunged in.

Regin immediately started to sink into the ground. But not fast enough. A single swipe of Gramr took the dverg’s head off and sent it rolling away. Blood bubbled up from his neck for the instant before his body toppled over.

Sigurd glared down at the corpse of his foster father. His stomach churned at the sight, but he refused to be cowed or look away. Even if he … the roil of his gut sent him stumbling down to retch beside the broken, headless body.

No. Trollshit, but no. He had no love left for the traitorous dverg and no reason to feel aught but relief at his death. Indeed, rising, he spit on the corpse just to make certain no part of him should indulge in regret. The creature had planned to kill him—the ravens had told him so.

And still the birds watched him. Waiting, perhaps, for him to follow the rest of their advice and devour Fafnir’s vile heart.

Sigurd slunk back down at the fire and then passed several more hours waiting for the meat to cook well and grow tender. When he judged it ready, he carved off a chunk worthy of a feast and set to devouring it. The meat was chewy and he had to work at it until his jaw ached. It tasted not so very unlike venison, save more earthy and perhaps a touch acidic, for it burned his stomach. Before he’d eaten much, his gut was roiling again.

He ate a few bites more, forcing the tough meat down his throat. The birds had advised it …

A sharp cramp doubled him over in pain and he collapsed sideways, curling into a ball. Pain, like when he’d gotten his chest punched by Eightarms, save this time in his stomach. And reaching outward in pulsating waves. A chill sweat overtook him.

What in the frozen underworld of Hel was he thinking, eating a dragon’s heart? He needed to retch it back up before he—

His stomach spasmed, then his legs. Unable to control the convulsions, he was flung onto his back. Bile scorched his throat and bubbled up from his mouth, but he couldn’t heave up the traitorous meat.

His palms slapped wildly against the ground as he tried to cry out in agony, but couldn’t get a scream out past the spasms now reaching his throat. Everything around him faded in and out between a cacophony of sounds far greater than they ought to have been—the cricket’s chirp like a gong, the bubbling river a steady drum—while others seemed muffled as though heard through a wool blanket.

His vision faded into gray, losing all color, only to shift back in, all too bright. Blinding. The stars above, through the mist, they stung his eyes. The moon was an orb of fire to rival the sun.

A thousand ants crawled over his skin, biting him everywhere.

His mouth tasted of flame and ash.

His back arched in pain and a ragged gasp escaped him, before darkness finally pulled him mercifully under.

14

An enormous screech overhead ripped through the quiet and sent Odin scrambling for cover. He flung himself up against the trunk of a tree in the midst of a red forest. He half expected some hideous bird above. Instead, he saw but a shadow passing over the canopy. A very large shadow.

No, this had come about in a vision. Still, his heart pounded so painfully he had to wonder if an immortal could die of a heart attack.

Again, the giant shadow soared overhead. Odin snuck to another tree trunk where he could peer up through tiny gaps in the canopy. His visions had shown this before, leaving no doubt about the monstrosity he would see, yet still he could not stop himself. An irresistible pull drew him to look upon the creature’s majesty.

As the flying animal banked and passed overhead, Odin caught a few bare glimpses of it. Though lizard-like in appearance, it had a membrane of skin spanning its wings like a bat, and a feathered frill behind its head, with a massive, elongated maw jutting from the front.

A soaring predator unlike aught that dwelt on Midgard.

Odin jerked free from the vision and turned about, steadying himself as he trod toward the place where Sigurd had slain Fafnir. He’d sent Huginn and Muninn to converse with the young man, relaying his messages through Valravn.

By now, Sigurd ought to be well entranced in visions engendered by consuming the dragon’s pneuma-infused heart. Why should Odin not simply go and take the ring? After all, with the dragon dead, he could claim it without breaking his oath to Hreidmar. What he could not discern was why his visions had shown him taking the ring after Sigurd and the others were ash. Did that mean something would prevent him from seizing it now and being done with it?

His other plans did depend on Sigurd following a certain path and, if Odin removed Andvaranaut from the hoard, it might alter Sigurd’s future actions. But his palm itched to hold it, to call upon its power and pass beyond Midgard and onward, to the World of Sun.

Hateful, all-consuming radiance …

He could scarcely expect a wraith like Audr to relish the idea of traveling into a world of light.

Nor should you relish such strides as you intend …

Oh, but Odin had seen it in his mind’s eye. A beautiful, wondrous world of eternal architecture and bountiful flora. A paradise of light.

Are you certain you see what you think you see …?

In Alfheim, you will be without our power, Valravn said.

A Moon vaettr and a wraith—yes, Odin had considered that. But it hardly mattered. Freyja would embrace him. He’d felt their passion, so real he could still feel the warmth of her touch on his skin.

Perhaps his plans for Sigurd didn’t even matter. With Freyja—

The flash of vision was his only warning, and that only a heartbeat before a valkyrie pushed through the Veil and strode on him, sword raised. Another joined her, and another.

Reacting to the vision—or rather trusting himself to take the action it had revealed him taking—he dove to the side, avoiding a swipe of a blade that would have opened his throat.

Clearly not his valkyries.

Coming up in a roll, Odin clenched his fist around Draupnir. “Come to me.”

He didn’t even know which valkyries were closest to him now, but he had no other allies to call upon.

He jerked his walking stick up just in time to deflect a descending cleave toward his skull. His glamour fell away and the stick became a spear, which he used to drive the woman back.

A beat of her wings carried another valkyrie toward him. Armed with a spear herself, she flew at him with a thrust he barely managed to knock aside. The third was on him now, hacking away with an axe. Their attacks came so furiously, so well coordinated, he could not hope to enact a spell song. Indeed, it took all he had just to hold them at bay.

While he deflected a spear thrust, the swordswoman gouged his side. He’d not worn his mail, having not expected or foreseen battle. The bite took a moment to hit him, then it became a lance of fire. Pulling on his pneuma allowed him to block the pain—somewhat—and enhance his reflexes and strength.

He whipped the spear around in tight arcs, driving back one valkyrie then the next. The spearwoman took to the air and flew over his head, forcing him to twist around just to keep them all in view.

Growling, he latched onto Audr’s power. The wraith’s coils dug through Odin’s guts, bored into his mind, and wrapped around his throat with crushing force. Audr yanked Odin across the Veil and into the Penumbra. For a heartbeat, he couldn’t breathe, his lungs seeming filled with tar. Nausea sent him stumbling to the ground, though he caught himself and regained his footing.

For that bare instant, the valkyries moved as though caught in a mire, slowed to half their normal speed.

As expected, those valkyries too passed through the Veil.

The nearest, the swordswoman, appeared not far from Odin, and she too reeled for a bare instant. Odin thrust his spearpoint up under her chin with enough force it caught on her spine and hefted her off her feet. It must have broken her neck, for she fell in a heap, not even clutching the wound from which her blood now poured.

Odin furiously backed away as the spearwoman dove at him once more. All he could do was throw himself to the side to avoid getting impaled.

The axewoman was also aloft, circling around him while Odin scrambled to his feet, struggling to get his own spear in position to deflect the incoming attacks from the spearwoman.

Another war cry sounded in the darkened sky above, and a shadow dropped down, colliding with the axe-wielding valkyrie attacker in midair. The two figures spun round and crashed into the ground, neither able to fly while entangled with the other.

That was Altvir. He’d have to reward her later.

Roaring, Odin directed all his attention to the spearwoman. Focusing on but one foe, he could move faster than her, finally able to switch to attacking. His swift jabs forced the valkyrie back. Odin whipped his spear around in an arc, sweeping her feet with the spear’s butt. The valkyrie tumbled to the ground and Odin thrust the butt down into her face. Cartilage crunched under the blow and blood sprayed up.

A woman shrieked.

Odin glanced to see Altvir had taken an axe blow to her thigh and fallen. The other valkyrie jerked her axe free, raising it for a killing blow. Odin flung the spear at her. It didn’t fly half so true as Gungnir would have, and merely clattered off her armor. It did serve to distract her, though, and had enough force to drive her back a few steps.

Already, Odin was charging in at her. He caught her wrist with one hand before she could swing the axe. A twist and a heave flung her over his shoulder and to the ground. Odin dropped down with a knee to her chest the same instant he slammed a palm into her nose. Skills from past lives reasserted themselves at such moments, a blessing of his expanded consciousness.

Odin lurched over, grabbed her axe, and cleaved it down into her skull. Blood and brains exploded up over his face.

Teeth grit, Odin gained his feet, pausing only to retrieve his spear, then stalking over to where the last valkyrie was struggling to rise. Blood was pouring from her shattered nose.

“I’d ask you who sent you,” Odin said, wiping gore from his face. “But I assume you couldn’t tell me anyway. Shall I guess? A master in Alfheim?” He had wrested control of two lodges of valkyries from a radiant being of light. “Is it Dellingr?” That was a name for the lord of Alfheim, confirmed by Vafthrudnir.

The valkyrie hefted her spear, defiant to the last. Odin lunged in, feinted left, then jerked his spear up into her face. The woman spasmed for a moment before going limp.

Odin yanked the spear free then raced to Altvir’s side.

She had her hands wrapped around wound, a vicious gouge pumping blood out at an alarming rate.

Shit. Odin pulled one of her hands away to check. There was no staunching that with mere pressure. Her ring might allow her to live if he could close the wound fast enough. “Can you shift back across the Veil?”

Altvir nodded weakly. Her form turned hazy, then Etheric, becoming just a shadow on the other side.

Damn it. Odin latched onto Audr’s power once more, embracing the vileness that brought with it. This time, the wraith’s tendrils lanced through him like oily serpents. The feel of it sent him toppling over onto to his side, writhing in agony. His whole body twitched as Audr tried to drive his mind into subservience and become the master of this form.

Odin convulsed. Gasped.

Blood burst behind his eye and the oozing of it blinded him. Strands of darkness seeped out of his flesh.

Scarcely aware of what he was doing, he crawled to Altvir’s side. No, he didn’t. His body did. Audr had seized control.

The wraith closed its hand around Altvir’s throat. Lowered Odin’s mouth to hers. The valkyrie convulsed as Audr sucked out her soul. Every sip of it only served to inflate the wraith’s strength.

Altvir grew cold, her eyes opened wide, frozen in terror and agony. And then she was naught but a hollow husk, seeming ready to crack and blow away.

No! Odin raged at the wraith.

Manacles of shadow bound his wrists and legs and throat. They tied him down and punched through his flesh, feasting on his essence.

The wraith’s insane cackling echoed endlessly through Odin’s prison, becoming a cacophony that begged him to join Audr in hateful madness.

An urd that seemed almost inevitable now.

15

Before Sigurd spread out a gloomy expanse that seemed to have the color sucked right out of it, where the only light came from distant stars. Here, shadows moved as if of their own accord, a sea of them, dancing to a soundless melody, and he was caught by its haunting music.

In this hollow place, a shining hand reached out toward him. A woman’s hand, her form obscured by blinding light, her words swallowed by a ringing filling Sigurd’s ears.

With a groan, Sigurd lurched awake. Color seeped back into the World like blood spreading through a sheet, and with it, a wave of nausea. He rolled over onto his side, intent to retch, but found naught forthcoming. Finally, he pushed himself up.

His fire had dwindled down to embers and crows now feasted upon the corpses of both Fafnir and Regin. Two brothers dead by Gramr’s bite, or rather, by Regin’s treachery.

The morning seemed to have drawn on, for the sun was well overhead. Sigurd groaned, blinking against the brightness.

Thor’s hammer, his head hurt. It felt like he’d tried to outdrink a dverg.

Sigurd rubbed his face then found his hands still smeared with mud and dried blood. Odin alone knew how long it would take to clean it from his mail, and his gambeson might well be ruined. Certainly his trousers were done for.

With another groan, he rose to his feet, finding his strength soon returning.

He trod to the river and washed his face, then looked around. Once more, a raven was watching him.

“C-can you understand me?” he asked.

The animal stared at him as if he’d gone Mist-mad. Was that what had happened? In daylight, that suddenly seemed the more plausible answer than a raven speaking to him. But he had slain Regin based on the advice of one such bird. The raven cocked its head, cawed, and suddenly took flight. It did not, however, fly cleanly away, but rather circled, crying aloud.

“Does he wish to find Fafnir’s lair?”

At the voice, he spun, only to find yet another raven now watching him.

Oh. Stone-sucking rock bubbles.

At least that meant he wasn’t Mist-mad. Or … he was still just as mad as before, which didn’t seem so very much of an improvement at all.

Sigurd stretched, looked away, then looked back at the raven. Still watching him. “I do. I do want to find the dragon’s plundered hoard.”

Now the raven cocked its head up.

Sigurd followed its gaze to the creature’s companion, still circling overhead. “Follow him?” Oh, Aesir, this was madness. “Fine. I shall follow.”

As if the one above had heard his answer, it suddenly banked away to the north. Into the Poison Marshes where Fafnir had laired.

Sigurd grimaced. So the birds clearly understood him. And if he told anyone, they’d have banished him for Mist-madness, assuming they didn’t kill him just to be sure.

His energy returned quickly as he walked. Whether because of the dragon’s heart or simply getting some sleep, he felt charged, as hot inside as a deep forge. Like he could crush any foe with his bare hands. Like he could run for hours and swim across the sea. His whole form seemed to burst with jittery energy as if he might explode if not given some outlet soon. He needed to plow a woman. He needed to plow a half dozen women.

His fist clenched around Gramr’s hilt as though desperately seeking some way to vent his bubbling need. Something to slay and carve to pieces.

A cloying stench of decay permeated the marshes, assaulting Sigurd’s senses and mingling with foul vapors. Though the bog was not nigh so dark as the rest of the Myrkvidr, for its trees had fewer leaves, the branches seemed more numerous. They twisted about each other, bridging one tree to another like nested fingers, if those fingers were gnarled and misshapen. The raven cawed overhead, otherwise Sigurd could not have made out its path through the overgrowth.

So much of the region seemed choked in putrid waters that he trod very slowly, forced to climb upon roots where they jutted from the water, and leap to others. With such precarious progress, he wended deeper and deeper into the bog, trusting—though he could hardly say why—that the raven’s occasional cawing would keep him from going too far astray.

Eventually, he made his way to an island of relatively dry land covered in thorny bushes, at least where broken rocks didn’t jut up around a precipitous hole in the ground. Fafnir’s lair?

Sigurd climbed up to the entrance. It wasn’t quite a sheer drop. The slope looked very steep and who knew how much worse down where the sunlight didn’t reach. From what he could make out, bog water had permeated the inside, not quite filling it, but leaving a dripping, slimy cavern filled with mold and fungus. A more vile place he didn’t think he’d ever seen. Perhaps the linnorm’s power alone had kept it from flooding, and now that Fafnir was dead, maybe his hoard would soon find itself forever buried beneath this bog.

Or maybe the bog itself would dry out with the death of the linnorm.

Either way, Sigurd aimed to be far away with the gold before any of that happened. If this hoard was half what Regin claimed, he’d restore Rijnland’s coffers and ensure a prosperous future for all the Volsungs to come.

After lighting a torch, Sigurd took a careful step onto the slick tunnel surface. Another. And another. Nice, slow—

His heel sunk into the mud and slipped out from under him, spilling him on his arse and sending him sliding down the tunnel. Sigurd flailed, trying to grab hold of aught with his free hand, but found only a mess of slime that squelched under his fingers. The tunnel whooshed by him before shooting him out into a shin-deep pool of scum. Sigurd slammed his arse on the bottom and groaned in pain and frustration. Yes, this place was vile.

As he lifted his torch once more, its light glinted off something large. Splashing to his feet, he stumbled forward.

“Thor’s thundering arse …”

A pile of gold filled the cavern, more than he could even dream of carrying. More than five men could have carried. Scattered about lay gems and silver-wrought knives, jewelry fit for any Serkland princess, and goblets Odin himself might envy. There was mail wrought from gold, though he could not guess why any would craft such from the soft metal.

There was a rosy gold helm that covered one’s cheekbones, leaving free twin openings for eyes, and trailing the back of a mail coif behind it. The helm was worked with spiked rivets, and strange spiraling designs set amidst runes.

“The Tarnhelm …” Sigurd mused, taking it.

Beneath it rested the hilt of a sword, plated with gold. This too, Sigurd grabbed, only to find its blade the same rosy gold, and lined with runes. Another runeblade! He gaped at it. Fafnir’s hoard must’ve represented more wealth than any man could dream of. More than could be spent in a lifetime.

And what of the ring he’d mentioned?

A great glob of mud plopped down from the ceiling and exploded among the coins in front of him.

Sigurd grunted. How long did this place have? Days? Hours?

With no time to waste, he set about scooping great heaps of gold into his satchel. A shame he didn’t have more bags with him, in fact, though even one satchel full should solve so many of Rijnland’s woes. To make it easier to carry, Sigurd donned the mail, slung the new runeblade over his shoulder, and stuffed the helm into the satchel, not wanting his vision in the least obstructed.

He cast around for gems and the most valuable of jewelry. In search of these items, he found a ring, wrought in the same rosy gold and bearing runes. This was it. Its craftsmanship was remarkable and—unless he missed his guess—that hue meant the metal was orichalcum, same as a runeblade. Which meant its value might be immeasurable. He slipped it on his little finger.

When he could carry no more, he began a slow, deliberate climb out of the tunnel. Twice, his footing slipped, sending him skidding back into the cavern below. Finally, he managed to catch hold of a rock nigh to the top and to pull himself clear.

Once he reached the edge of the marsh, he found Grani there, waiting for him as if the horse somehow knew he would be needed. “Descended of Sleipnir indeed.” Sigurd patted the horse’s mane.

Mounted on Grani, he kicked the horse into motion. They’d have a fair ride back to Xanten.

And then … well, Sigurd could scarcely wait to see the looks on the faces of his people when he restored the kingdom to glory.

Much less spread the tale of how he slew Fafnir.

16

“We had an accord,” Odin spat at the walls of his lightless prison. He wasn’t certain how long he’d dwelt in darkness. It felt like days. Many, many days. But he was hardly sure of it.

Without light, even time melted away. Each instant seemed an eternity.

He knew pieces of himself were lost. Missing moments, missing aspects of his humanity. He’d been losing them for a long time now, but Audr had taken more since claiming control of Odin’s body.

Still, his mind—if now full of holes—remained his mind, did it not?

Audr no longer bothered with his petty taunts. At least not oft.

Perhaps that was how the other presence had slipped into this chamber. Odin felt it, rather than saw it. He couldn’t see aught, given the impenetrable darkness.

“I ought to relish your suffering.” Valravn’s voice.

Odin had to smile at that. The reason for Valravn’s discomfiture was obvious. “You can’t because while I remain imprisoned here, you starve for souls to feast on.”

“You cannot control your body, but your mind remains free. And it is your soul …”

Odin’s soul … that held the Sight.

It was difficult, trying to steady himself enough to push his consciousness into the flow of time whilst Audr’s perverse torments ravaged him. Like trying to meditate while holding his breath under the ocean.

Three times the currents slipped from his grasp. On the third, the wraith’s coils squeezed, crushing his will and suffusing him with the chill of the grave.

But then a tiny fragment caught on, and held to the light.

The river led him into a plateau where the waters plummeted into a chasm deeper than he could make out. Indeed, water poured from all directions into the void, a cascade of falls that ought not to have existed and seemed to defy the laws of nature. Whence came so much water? Yet the falls continued to flow, the sound of their roar drowning out all other noise in this strange place.

A great mist rose up from the chasm. Not a cold, fell-seeming mist like that which saturated Midgard, but a clean one, a pure spray from the crashing of water.

Across the gap rose great marble columns perhaps eighty feet tall. They ran off into the rainforest beyond the falls, perhaps leading to a city, but Odin could see no way across and his prescient visions had not prepared him for what to do from here.

So much of the ground around him was taken by the rapids, so he chose his footing with care, wending his way along the plateau. In the far distance, he at last spied a bridge spanning the chasm.

He made his way toward that bridge, smiling. For who would not smile given such warmth and such natural splendor? Indeed, he suddenly found himself wondering if the Vanir he’d sent here would actually be willing to leave. A supreme irony, really, if most of them refused his offer to bring them back to Midgard.

The bridge was carved from white stones tightly fitted together in blocks and rimmed with marble rails that, despite the moisture in the air, seemed pristine and hardly eroded in the least. Odin stepped on it, recalling his visions of doing the same. This bridge carried him over the tumultuous falls and he could not help but pause midway to gape at the glittering wonder all around.

Even the prescient memory of Alfheim’s radiance sent Audr’s withered tendrils recoiling. The dark creature hissed in Odin’s mind. He gasped, sucking in a painful breath and seeing through his real eye at long last.

Seeing a camp, in the deep of night.

Someone was whimpering.

Across a flickering campfire a man trembled, arms wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth and moaning.

Odin stared at him a moment before realizing two other men lay strewn at his feet, their eyes glazed over, faces frozen in absolute terror. Hollow, from where Audr had devoured their souls. But the wraith had not wished to tread close to the flame, or had at least not yet managed to draw the last victim away from it.

Given what the man had no doubt just seen, naught Odin could say or do was like to calm him. Instead, he drew his cloak around himself and limped off into the shadows, each step painful.

His whole body felt ravaged, as if Audr had eaten away at his insides.

He brushed a hand over his face. It seemed even more wrinkled and weathered than before. This ghost would be his end, one day.

Part III

Year 70, Age of the Aesir

Summer

17

Sigurd’s stepfather had come to Rijnland and, despite Sigurd’s return, had chosen to remain here, along with Sigurd’s mother. Seeing the two of them lifted Sigurd’s heart, though Prince Alf had pressed him on several occasions to see about dealing with the threat posed by King Gunnar of the Niflungar.

Much as making war on the last of the Old Kingdoms might further enhance Sigurd’s already expansive fame, he wasn’t sure he savored the idea. The last time he’d gone to war, he’d lost men and women he’d liked, cared for. Despite his prowess, he could not single-handedly protect all those who followed him. And when skalds spoke of glorious deaths and warriors taken by valkyries, they oft neglected to mention the bitterness those valkyries left in their wake.

Thus Sigurd took to wandering the edge of the Myrkvidr, sometimes daring the forest itself, almost wishing some beast would come to test him. Proving the strength of his arm seemed easier than knowing how to help his stepfather’s kingdom. Had the Niflungar declared outright war against Cimbria, the choice would no longer fall into Sigurd’s hands. But now, Alf asked him to be the one to declare war, preemptively.

And so he walked—together with Thrain—along a stream running through the dark woods. With a sigh of frustration he flung a stone across the waters.

Thrain hissed and made a sign of warding. “You’re like to disturb a nixie or other vaettr. I don’t fancy angry spirits coming after me.”

Sigurd frowned but didn’t deny his friend’s objections. Maybe they were true. Who knew what dark powers lurked in the places feared by men? Fafnir’s death had not deprived the Myrkvidr of its oppressive shadows. “I find myself lost.”

Thrain quirked a smile and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Xanten is that way.”

Sigurd rolled his eyes then turned his gaze out over the stream once more. Across the waters, a raven had alighted on a branch, watching him. “Oh? And what do you suggest I do?”

“It’s not for me to say,” Thrain said.

“Shh.” Sigurd stared hard at the bird.

“Wait … are you talking to …?”

“He should ride up to Hindarfjall,” the raven said. “There he might find beauty and wisdom awaiting him. The answers to questions asked and unasked, lurking in dreamless slumber.”

Sigurd glanced back at Thrain, and the Vall cocked his head and spread his hands. So he hadn’t heard it. Not that Sigurd had expected him to, but it was good to know.

The raven said no more, instead suddenly taking flight and soaring off toward the south.

“Have you heard of a place called Hindarfjall?” Sigurd asked.

Thrain nodded. “It’s a mountain between Valland and Hunaland, in the northern reaches of the Sudurberks. Beyond it lies the lands of my ancestors.”

“I must go there.”

Thrain sighed and shook his head. “Then I’ll ride with you. It’s on the way back to my lands, and I must return there in any event. Do you plan to leave your stepfather to rule your kingdom in your stead?”

Sigurd folded his arms and tried not to let his disappointment show. Of course, he’d always known Thrain would leave one day and long feared the day approached soon. Still, he had so few friends he could truly count on and without Thrain, he’d have one fewer. “I suppose I must ask him to rule here.”

“You’ve not said why you want to ride to Hindarfjall. There’s naught there, not for centuries, so far as I know.”

But the raven had spoken otherwise.

Once he had collected Grani and a horse for Thrain, and made his farewells to his mother, they rode south. Sigurd could feel Grani’s urge to run and suspected he could have covered ground much more quickly, were he not pressed to wait for Thrain. Still, he was glad of the companionship, and the man spoke oft of his intentions to wrest some measure of power back from the line of Karolus in Valland.

Sometimes, the Vall spoke like a völva, almost as if he knew overmuch of the nature of vaettir who lurked in the wild places of Midgard. Sigurd knew of such things from his time with Regin, but Thrain never truly spoke of how he came by his own arcane knowledge. His secrets were his business, Sigurd supposed.

“I’ve seen your prowess in battle,” Sigurd said, riding beside the Vall.

“Yes, well, we both know it does not match your own.”

Sigurd waved that away. “I mean to say, you were a great warrior, even without the runeblade. Still … I worry how you can hope to challenge such a mighty empire.”

“I don’t have to overthrow the entire empire. I only need to prove my claim with enough force the emperor sees fit to restore titles to my kin. I hope to claim Aquisgrana and be made a subject king, or at least a duke.”

Sigurd couldn’t see how the emperor was like to capitulate to Thrain’s demands, but his friend refused to be dissuaded, leaving Sigurd no choice save to wish him well.

In sight of the Sudurberks, they at last had to part ways.

“That peak in the distance,” Thrain said, pointing. “That is Hindarfjall. Many centuries ago there was a Sikling fortress atop it. Whatever it is you seek might lie within.”

“Somehow I have this feeling I shall not see you again, my friend.”

Thrain grimaced. “Perhaps you have some hint of the Sight and it is a foreboding of my doom.”

“The Sight?” Regin had mentioned, once, that some few Men had abilities to perceive things others could not. To glimpse past the Veil or even perceive visions of events gone or not yet come to pass.

Thrain shook his head. “Perhaps. Perhaps, not. Either way, I hope you are wrong. But in case you are not …” Thrain offered his arm and Sigurd clasped it.

“May we both find great urds and fame aplenty.”

Thrain nodded and with that, he rode off toward Valland, while Sigurd turned to Mount Hindarfjall.

For a long way more Sigurd rode, resisting the urge to kick Grani into a quicker pace. Something waited for him up on that mountain, and—though Thrain’s talk of the Sight was beyond his ken—he could almost feel the pull of urd calling him there. Was urd a physical force that it could so tug upon his heart?

Gripir had said he was bound by a Web of Urd and that not even foreknowledge of his fate could avert it. Did that urd lie upon the mountain as the pounding of his heart seemed to attest? Could he, if his will were strong enough, turn from it and ride back to his people? And if he could, would he even wish to? Gripir had also promised him glory beyond the dreams of men and fame unto the ending of the World.

Perhaps he had already earned that by slaying Fafnir or by avenging his father on Lyngi. But still, it seemed more lay before him, beckoning him onward.

Grani’s pace had increased, though Sigurd did not remember urging the horse forward. Perhaps it mattered little. He would not turn from his destination either way.

As he drew nigh, it seemed as if a great light rose up from atop the mountain, kissing the sky.

Sigurd paused a moment and donned the Tarnhelm. He’d found that while wearing it, he could simply wish his aspect to become more fearsome and he would seem to grow beyond his already impressive stature.

Content, he rode up a steep slope toward that light, until its source revealed itself. A ring of white fire surrounded a keep where shields lined the ramparts. The Sikling fortress, no doubt, but where had the flames come from and why had they not burned out? Sorcery seemed the only explanation and even the thought of it left Sigurd ill at ease. Sorcerers called upon vaettir to breach the Veil and affect the Mortal Realm—this Regin had taught him, along with the admonition that doing so carried a terrible price and Sigurd should never even consider such madness.

Even from two score feet back, he could feel the sweltering heat from that wall. Grani shied away from it until Sigurd finally hopped off the horse’s back. Then he slowly made his way toward the flames, arm in front of his face in a vain attempt to ward against the heat. Ward … The ravens had claimed that consuming Fafnir’s heart would ward Sigurd against flame and blade. Had it done so?

The surest way to test such a thing seemed to be to dive through the flames, but if the ravens spoke lies—or Sigurd were merely Mist-mad and they spoke naught at all—he’d die. Instead, he dropped his satchel, rustled through it until he found a torch, and lit it up. The flame he then held beneath his left arm. His shirt immediately caught ablaze but his skin did not, though the heat was incredibly intense. When he jerked the torch away, his skin was but slightly red, a color that soon began to fade. After tossing aside the brand, he patted out the fire on his shirt.

All right, then. So he could pass through the flames. Probably.

After a deep breath, Sigurd began to doff his mail, then his clothing as well. His satchels and everything else he tied to Grani, carrying only Gramr with him, and wearing the Tarnhelm. He could hardly enter an ancient fortress unarmed. Odin alone knew what vaettir might have taken up residence here.

Naked, Sigurd swung his arms back and forth, staring at the inferno ahead. It was much hotter than any torch and even standing before it he’d broken into a heavy sweat. Would he survive even this sorcerous flame? Well … he had to try. The ravens claimed he should come here and he’d not leave without learning what lay within.

Backing up a few steps, Sigurd launched into a mad dash. He raced through the flame wall, instantly blinded by its light and reeling from the heat. His foot stumbled and he threw himself forward, pitching onto the hard ground and rolling.

Groaning and blinking, he lay on his back until his vision began to return. First, everything was a blur of dancing lights. But slowly, things came back into focus. Much as he felt he’d just run naked through Muspelheim, he seemed unharmed.

Above him rose the fortress. An open archway led inside, the gate having been withdrawn. Sigurd pushed himself up and—Gramr out before him—made his way inward. The main gate led into a great hall. His gaze immediately fell upon a stone table in the center of the room and to the woman lying atop it.

She was clad all in mail. A shieldmaiden. Though she seemed dead, her body had not decayed in the least. Her flaxen hair was woven into tiny braids that hung about her face, and a longer braid behind her head.

After stripping off the Tarnhelm and tossing it aside, Sigurd stalked over then held a hand a hairsbreadth above her mouth and nose. A faint breath blew against his fingers, with a great many moments in between it and the next. Alive, but very deeply asleep.

Who was she? Sigurd shook the woman, but she did not stir. The ravens had sent him here, so he could only assume he was meant to gain the wisdom they spoke of from this woman. That being the case, he needed a way to wake her.

Her mail seemed to have become so tight it almost appeared to have grown into her skin, as if it was constricting her. Slowing her breathing?

Sigurd wedged Gramr between links by her neck and eased them apart. Slowly, careful not to slice open the woman in the process, he sawed through the mail down one sleeve and then the other. Oddly, she had no gambeson beneath, only a thin shift. Pulling away the sleeves freed it enough he could saw off the rest of her mail. The links had indeed cut into her flesh in multiple places, forcing him to pry it free. The process shredded her shift and left numerous red welts along her torso.

The woman drew in a sudden, deep breath, as if at last she could fill her lungs.

Despite the welts, she was stunningly beautiful, with breasts so perfect he was suddenly overcome by the terrible urge to take one in his mouth. The man Regin had forged would have done so in an instant. Would’ve been inside her trench a heartbeat later.

But Sigurd was tired of being that person.

He had naught to cover her with save her own shredded armor, but this he piled atop her, then backed away. “Wake up …” He didn’t even know what to call her. She was a warrior, clearly, not only from her armor but from the obvious build of her arms. “Shieldmaiden.”

Her eyes jolted open and she sat bolt upright, heedless of it causing the remnants of her armor to fall away. She took a wild look around the hall, then leapt off the stone, snarling at Sigurd.

“Wait!” he pleaded.

The woman cast about herself, perhaps seeking a weapon, and finding none, turned on him with her hands raised before her in fists. “Already you grow hard once more. How many times have you sated yourself on me?”

“Uh … none.”

She sneered. “And yet you go about unclad. If you haven’t done so yet, you clearly intended it.”

“N-no.” Well, he’d certainly thought of it. “There was a ring of fire outside this keep. My clothes would not have survived passing through it.”

“And yet you did.”

He shrugged. “A little fire doesn’t scare me.”

Her eyes widened a hair, and, after a moment, her fists dropped. Her mouth worked silent before she spoke. “You came to me, unafraid … A man without fear …”

Well, that was probably an overstatement. Rather, Regin had beaten undue fear out of Sigurd. “I …”

“You came to me and passed through Odin’s barrier.”

“Odin?” The Ás king had put the woman here? “I find myself rather at a loss, shieldmaiden. I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about.”

The woman quirked a smile. “And he didn’t bother to explain aught to you. Typical. I am Brynhild, adopted daughter of King Heimir. I was a shieldmaiden, as you claim, but later I became a valkyrie and fell into the service of Odin. I … I refused his order, once, and he punished me. He said I would lie in deathless sleep and suffer eternal nightmares, until the man who would be my husband came to me.”

Sigurd blanched, scarce able to wrap his mind around the audacity of her tale. A princess turned valkyrie? A servant of Odin himself? “I … You’re beautiful.” That wasn’t quite what he’d meant to say, true though it was.

Brynhild scoffed and strode toward the main gate. “It’s no accomplishment for a naked man to find a half-naked woman beautiful.” She was staring outside. “I see no ring of fire.”

“But it was there!” Sigurd raced after her and, sure enough, the flames had vanished without a trace. “I wouldn’t … I didn’t …”

She stepped in front of him, the edge of a smile on her lips. “I believe you. Odin set the spell so it would break for you and you alone, I suppose. But you haven’t told me your name.”

“Sigurd. Sigmundson, though now men call me Fafnirsbane.”

“Sigmund …”

He folded his arms, struggling to keep his gaze upon her face and no lower. “You know of my father?”

“Yes. I met him.”

“You can’t have been more than a child.”

Now she rolled her eyes. “I told you, I was a valkyrie. And after that, I presume Odin’s spell kept me from aging. I can only assume you are Hjordis’s son, yes?”

He nodded, feeling more lost than ever. As if he were caught in ocean currents being directed by forces he could neither see nor begin to imagine. Was this the work of urd? The will of the gods? “I … I am supposed to learn wisdom from you.”

Brynhild laughed, rubbing her brow with her thumb and index finger. “Oh … Sigurd. I wonder, who is it that sends you on such a quest? Odin himself? I should hate you because of him … but you were the one to free me from that …” She shuddered. “It doesn’t matter. Come, get your clothes, and then I’ll teach you.”

18

Rathbarth insisted on Thor placing the crown on his head. The man believed Odin’s authority as the King of Asgard flowed through Thor and thus legitimized his claim to the throne of Holmgard. Thor didn’t bother mentioning that Rathbarth wouldn’t have been his first choice. Or his second.

Still, the man seemed to have the right mix of courage and guile, enough that maybe he could hold the kingdom together for more than a winter or two.

Either way, Thor crowned him king, and now sat with him in the great hall, at the far side of the table. The jotunn Hrod hadn’t taken it well when Hymir promised this fortress to Rathbarth. The hate in his eyes as he left—that seemed like to prove a problem one day. Still, the ugly bastard did as his king ordered.

So Thor sat at Rathbarth’s victory feast, trying to block out the already budding pain in his head that seemed to grow worse with each raucous laugh, cheer, or boast that issued forth around him. The rest of Thor’s company sat at the king’s table, as well, and Rathbarth’s chief thegns, too. Among them, Thor figured Jary and Tait held the king’s ear the most. The former was a brawny but graying warrior, and anyone who managed to live long enough to get that gray had to have some cunning in him. Tait was young, but men called him a veritable god with his spear and shield, at least when they thought no Ás around to hear the claim.

After everyone had eaten their fill—the lake provided ample fish—Rathbarth banged his hand on the table for silence. “It’s a good day, and we must spread the word of our victory.” Victory? The man spoke as if they’d taken the place at sword point rather than traded a fair portion of Rathbarth’s wealth for it. “They must know a new kingdom of men rises once more in Bjarmaland. And this is a new kingdom, for Holmgard fell, crushed before jotunn might. Gylfi’s colony, however well intentioned, is broken. Thus I give us a new name: Gardariki!”

A few cheers went up in the hall, accompanied by the banging of fists and goblets on the tables. All enough to send the spots before Thor’s eyes swirling. Enough to make him imagine throttling every last noisy piece of trollshit filling this hall. Or enough to make him see himself—as he oft saw—digging out that flint shard with his own dagger, damage to his brain be damned.

“Are you well, brother?” Geri asked, leaning close enough to be heard over the commotion.

Thor nodded, keeping his eyes shut a moment.

“So then,” Rathbarth proclaimed. “Let us rejoice the founding of a new kingdom and new dynasty, one blessed by the Aesir!”

Oh, damn it. They’d be looking at Thor now. He opened his eyes, winced at the sudden return of light, and raised his drinking horn in salute. Let the men have their feast. Thor, he needed a mammoth’s share of mead. He rose and made his way to a dark corner of the hall, beckoning over a slave girl as he went.

“More mead,” he snapped when she drew nigh, and the girl cringed, scampering off to grab his drink.

Any number of half-drunk fools came to try to drink with him, but Thor shoved his way past them and instead slunk down upon a bearskin spread out behind a fire pit. Warriors came here to sleep off their drink. For his part, Thor would just as soon claim the spot beforehand.

Geri, though, she slunk down in front of him as if he’d invited her.

Thor rubbed his brows. “I’m your brother. Surely other men are more interesting this night.”

She shrugged. “When I’ve got an itch, I’ll scratch. Right now, I’m worried about you. Besides, didn’t you swear off feasting after …?”

It was true, though he hardly held to it. “I don’t have to drink myself senseless.” Not completely, anyway. “Just enough to let me sleep. On top of the fucking hammer, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Geri tossed aside her fur cloak, shuffling closer to the fire pit. “I think …” She groaned. “I mean we scarcely discussed …”

“Don’t.”

“She was my closest friend, you know.”

“It’s been years. I’ve moved past it.” A half-truth. “Maybe I’ll even wed again.” Perhaps not.

Geri sighed. “I think part of you kept thinking you’d somehow find whoever did it. But that man is almost certainly in Serkland, if he yet lives at all. And you’re right, it was years ago, so he might well not.”

“I didn’t say a damn thing about hunting for the murderer.” Oft though he’d considered it, he knew well enough he’d never succeed. Still, word came that Hermod had slipped into Serkland and murdered a caliph while the man was having a shit. Thor would’ve liked to have seen that.

“Fine.” Geri held up her hands in surrender. “Fine. What of this new kingdom? By declaring it openly, Rathbarth is effectively challenging all the jotunn kings dividing up Bjarmaland. He may have claimed this place in an attempt to protect his people, but someone will come to answer the challenge he’s presented.”

The slave girl returned bearing a large drinking horn. Thor took it and waved her away, then threw back a long swig before answering Geri. “I know. That’s why we need reinforcements from Asgard.”

“You do have a plan.”

“No. I’m not much for plans. Baldr does a bit better on that front.”

Geri rolled her eyes. “A child.”

Maybe. Didn’t mean he didn’t have a clever brain, even if he had three times too much pride to go along with it. “It’s not the jotunn kings I’m most worried on.”

Now the varulf narrowed her eyes. “You mean Narfi.”

“You’ve heard the rumors of a half-jotunn taking control of Taraz. It has to be him.”

“Probably.”

“Rathbarth’s kingdom is a challenge. And who best to answer it than Skadi’s own son? If he claims this fortress, he—or through him, she—becomes the ruler of Bjarmaland. It’ll open the rest of Midgard to them.”

She growled, a low sound, not threatening coming from his sister, though Thor imagined most men would’ve been looking for a shield to cower behind. “You’re right. This is Baldr talking. You risk everyone left in Holmgard to draw out one of Skadi’s pawns.”

“Not a pawn—”

“You are not Father, and Baldr plays a game he cannot begin to understand when he tries to be.”

All too true, but Father hadn’t bothered to bestir himself much about the urd of Bjarmaland. “Only way things get better for these people is if we drive out the jotunnar. To do that, we have to break their leadership. I should’ve killed Skadi when I had the chance, but I let sentiment stop me.”

Geri frowned, though Thor couldn’t say whether she blamed him for not stopping this back then or for going to such lengths now.

Either way, she rose and slipped off into the dark of the hall.

Just as well. Thor would prefer to drink alone.

Men flocked to Rathbarth’s banner, as expected. They came from all around Bjarmaland and beyond, even. Some seeking adventure or glory traveled from Sviarland, eager to join the new kingdom. Others fled all the way from Aujum, seeking shelter from the ravages of trolls and jotunnar.

And Thor, for his part, ventured out oft enough with Tyr and Geri, hunting stray jotunnar who drew too close. Freki and Magni he sent back to Asgard to request aid from his mother. So long as he kept Baldr here, Mother would send anyone to keep her youngest son safe. She was like that and Thor couldn’t really blame her.

Part of him wanted to see Magni earn his glory here, but part of him was glad to have the boy well away from the siege that should surely come. In the meantime, at Baldr’s urging, Rathbarth ordered the fortifications reinforced and as many provisions as possible stockpiled. Maybe jotunnar wouldn’t come this winter. Maybe not for several. But sooner or later, Narfi would come out of hiding.

For the past several years they’d gotten reports of the half-jotunn leading jotunnar to victory after victory. Always showing up where he was least expected. In a way, Hymir himself had proved a boon, actually managing to hold off the advance of Skadi’s people. For now.

Either way, Thor left the strategizing to Baldr and busied himself thinning the jotunn ranks as much as possible. Feeding Mjölnir their bodies and maybe even their souls. Every time he killed one, he felt a surge of power and an almost irresistible desire to go hunting for more.

Returning from a troll hunt, Thor found Gardariki abuzz with news of a princess of Skane having fled to the fortress and sought sanctuary from Rathbarth, bringing along her young son Harald. Thor found the princess sitting in a private chamber with Rathbarth.

The king rose at his entrance. “My lord Thor! Welcome back. How went the hunting?”

Thor shrugged. Trolls were deadly foes, though usually less so than jotunnar.

“Hmm.” Rathbarth turned back to his guest. “Well, this is Princess Authra of Skane, though more recently out of Sjaelland.”

Thor rubbed at the wound on his head. Itching again. “What’s she doing here?”

Rathbarth opened his mouth, but shut it with a frown and looked to the woman. “It seems her father used her as a pawn.”

Thor tried very hard to keep his face impassive. A great many men seemed to enjoy tafl far more than he did.

“King Ivar Widefathom married her to a king of Sjaelland, incited the man against his brother, and then killed Authra’s husband to claim control of the island.”

Now Thor didn’t even bother trying to hide his disdain. How he loathed all these games and politics. He could scarcely imagine how Father, Mother, Baldr, or the others even tolerated having to work through schemes, much less seemed to thrive on them. “I don’t care about the details. What is she doing here?”

Authra herself answered. “Was I to return to the man who murdered my husband and might well have murdered my son to secure his own claim to Sjaelland? I won’t let aught happen to Harald.”

Thor favored her with a weary look. Truly seeking sanctuary. But she’d bring trouble with her. “How do we know King Ivar won’t come to claim his daughter? We don’t need more enemies.”

Rathbarth frowned, then draped a hand over Thor’s shoulder and guided him away from Authra. “Your brother has advised me to marry her.”

“Oh, by the fucking Tree,” Thor grumbled.

“Baldr tells me that in doing so I not only legitimize my claim to Gardariki with royal blood, but I become the stepfather to the future king of Sjaelland. A worthy alliance.”

“Boy’s a child.” Thor barely bothered keeping his voice down. He cared little with Authra heard. “And he’s the future king of a pile of trollshit as long as this Ivar reigns over Sjaelland.”

“Baldr thinks—”

“I don’t care what he thinks. We have more than enough woes without inviting others.”

The king withdrew his arm, frowning. “You told me to heed your brother’s advice. Now I’ve already given my word to Authra and I intend to marry her. I’d like your blessing.”

Thor groaned. So Rathbarth couldn’t back out and was honor-bound to marry the woman. Thor should have just stayed out fighting the fucking trolls. Rocky bastards were less frustrating than dealing with the plots of men. “So be it, then. Have my blessing.”

Not a fortnight after Authra had married Rathbarth, rumor began to spread the princess was with child. People talked of such things and it could’ve well been naught more than that, but Thor suspected otherwise. The princess must have lain with Rathbarth well before their wedding was announced, maybe even had gotten Rathbarth to ask for her hand that way.

It would end badly, he had no doubt. How oft Thor had thought with his cock, and he’d been left with naught save regret for it. Hand to his pounding head, he climbed the stairs to the top of the fortress. Rathbarth had meant to name the whole kingdom Gardariki, but men had taken to calling this place by the same name, though others had suggested calling it Holmgard in honor of the fallen. Thor didn’t see how any of that much mattered.

He found Baldr up on the ramparts, staring out to the east where Narfi surely was. Thor’s brother didn’t look over at his approach, but his shoulders tensed enough to tell Thor he’d heard.

“Geri says that jotunnar have begun building camps to the west,” Thor said.

Baldr nodded, seeming only half listening. “They’re flanking us. Cutting off the potential for our reinforcements to join us. By the time Magni returns from Asgard, we’ll be trapped in here.”

Almost made Thor wish he’d kept the fucking swan cloak instead of handing it off to Loki. “You’ve got a plan?”

Thor’s brother now favored him with a wry look. “My plan is to wait until our cousin shows himself.”

Wait. Thor hated waiting. Tended to bring the headaches on. Not that he’d liked waiting even before his duel with Hrungnir. “Will Hymir come to our aid?”

“I sent word for him not to.”

Thor could only sputter at that. Had Baldr lost his damn mind?

His brother chuckled. “I don’t want Narfi to know Hymir’s allied with us until it’s too late. He’s trapping us, but we’re trapping him, as well.”

“All that relies on Hymir being trustworthy. To say naught of you being able to signal him when the time comes, while we’re probably besieged and trapped in here. And Hymir’s fortress is far to the south.”

“I know.”

“So?” Thor demanded. “Why would you tell the jotunn to delay?” Counting on aid from one of them rankled, without doubt, but it was better than losing to Narfi.

“He’s Uncle Loki’s son.”

“So?” Thor repeated.

Baldr chuckled. “You’ve heard the stories about Loki. You’ve fought beside him, even. I’d wager the man was already on his way even before Magni went for aid. And if he wasn’t, he surely is now.” Baldr paused as if expecting Thor to say something, then rolled his eyes. “And what does Loki have?”

Oh. “The swan cloak.” He could fly to Hymir’s fortress and give the signal. “But it would take at least a moon, probably much more, for Hymir’s soldiers to reach us.”

Baldr smiled. “Only if they were waiting all the way back in Kiovia. Not, brother, if they were hiding around the Sapsho glacier.”

Thor couldn’t help but frown at all this. It seemed so dependent on Loki and Narfi both acting exactly as Baldr predicted and that sounded of Baldr’s typical arrogance. Still, Thor had left the planning to him for a reason. Save Father or Loki himself, Thor could think of no one better suited to it.

Except, if rumor were true, for Narfi himself.

19

Fifteen Years Ago

Well, now Thor knew one thing without a doubt: he fucking hated flying. First time he’d donned the cloak one of the vision-blurring headaches had come upon him and he blundered straight into a damn tree trunk. Which also had not much improved the pounding going on between his ears. Second time, he’d made it up and over the forest canopy.

Thing was, once you got far enough over the mist, the sun was too damn bright. Almost as bright as on Asgard, and he could scarce stand to spend much time there while the sun was up. The bright light triggered another attack and he’d come crashing back down through the trees. Only to get stuck, wedged between boughs as thick as his thighs, dangling upside down.

Even once he’d gotten the hang of it, still flying over Bjarmaland left his stomach lurching with each passing current of air. Men weren’t meant to take to the sky. It wasn’t natural and anyone who thought differently was Mist-mad.

Yes, without a doubt they made good time, passing miles by with an ease he might have matched only if Father had lent him Sleipnir. Which he’d have vastly preferred, had anyone bothered to ask him. Damn swan maiden could have her cloak back as soon as he had Mjölnir back in hand. Have it back and maybe even a … uh … what did you call that? A show of some gratitude toward her.

So much of the land below them was wild, and ripe for the spawn of chaos. Dense forests of pine and birch and maple trees. Some places the leaves had fallen and he could get a glimpse—barring the mists—of the forest floor. Packs of wolves were common, and dire wolves too, though rarely close together. The heavier of the two must surely chase out their weaker cousins.

Dire wolves must’ve hunted those giant deer, too. Thor spied one with antlers that had to span a dozen feet. From his perspective, anyone hunting that thing was like to get gored. Roaming over snow-drenched plains he spied a whole herd of mammoths, any one of which could have fed half of Holmgard, had any of the men been willing to go so far out.

Then, of course, they passed the jotunn kingdoms. Mostly the bastards lived in old forts or even large huts that barely deserved the name. But he saw clusters of the brutes, sometimes a dozen or more together, and they roamed these wilds like they owned them. The closer he got to the Midgard Wall, the more of the savages he spied.

He dared to hope things would look less grim, but with each passing hour they seemed worse rather than better. Until, at last, they soared over a human village. Or what was left of one. Every structure in the town had been flattened as if a terrible gale had swept through and crushed man, beast, and house. Trees were snapped in half, trunks lying wedged in the snows. A cow had been eviscerated, its top half strewn a dozen feet from its rear. Many of the red stains Thor couldn’t even identify.

Others … men were impaled on spears stuck in the ground.

At least, he thought them spears until he caught sight of fletching. Arrows as large as spears.

Thor alighted by a trio of such victims. The jotunnar had bowmen? A new and very unwelcome development. One of the victims stared at Thor with cold, dead eyes. His flesh was sallow, but the cold had kept it from rotting thus far.

Loki landed beside him. “We cannot stop here.”

“What is this madness?” Thor demanded. “Why do this, and since when do jotunnar even fight thus?”

Grim-faced, Loki turned, taking in the destruction. “Wood jotunnar, most like from the forest of Galgvidr.”

“They serve the frost jotunn king?”

Loki’s only answer was an even grimmer frown.

Thor spat in disgust at the scene. “We should hunt these bastards down and do the same to them.”

Loki shook his head. “Without your hammer you are ill-equipped to fight one such as Thrym, and even so-armed I cannot say that we can overcome him. I don’t have the … gifts I once had. As far as hunting down the wood jotunnar, that will solve naught. Thrym directs this army and this was no doubt but one of many such war bands.” Without further comment, the man drew up the hood of his swan cloak. His form shrank and shifted, once more becoming the bird.

Thor glowered at him. Made it all the more vexing to know the bastard was right. To make any difference here he needed to split Thrym’s skull.

Finally, he pulled up his own hood as well.

They flew on, to the edge of the Midgard Wall. Around the fortress once built by Hrungnir there massed an army of jotunnar. Even high above them, Thor could recognize a few types. Frost jotunnar made up the greater part of them, but definitely there were bulky mountain jotunnar, and moss-sprouting jotunnar that must’ve been the wood ones Loki spoke of. Thor was grateful no eldjotunnar seemed to have joined the army. Bastards loved to burn everything around them.

Some of the others might have come from different bloodlines, but not ones Thor could name.

The jotunnar herded Men into wooden pens constructed outside the fortress. These great cages must’ve been built from entire tree trunks, so thick were some of the bars. Other people—women—kept getting shepherded inside the fortress itself. Probably where Thrym and his generals ravaged and perhaps ate them. Thor was going to splatter the skull of every last fucking jotunn that had dared cross the wall. He’d kill them all.

Loki banked away from the fortress and flew out toward a glacial shelf, forcing Thor to follow.

When the man landed, removing his cloak, Thor did the same. “What now?” Thor demanded. “We’ve come all this way to hide from them?”

Thor’s uncle fitted him with a heavy look. “Do you plan to march up there and demand your hammer back and hope they comply? Or perhaps to beat their army to death with your bare hands?”

The thought had certainly crossed his mind. Thor clenched his fists in anticipation. Yes, the apple’s Megin gave him the strength to match a jotunn. “I’ll pummel one and claim its weapon.”

“Alternatively, you might enter the fortress and reclaim Mjölnir and use it to fight your way free.”

Thor snorted. “Perhaps you’d not noticed, but the jotunnar only bring women inside. I imagine they’d try to bar my passage long before I got close.”

Loki quirked a wry smile that made Thor want to slam a fist into his face. “Suppose they mistook you for a woman?”

“Suppose they what now?”

“Dress ourselves as women, shave off the beard—”

“I’ll shave my beard when the sea swallows the fucking land!” His uncle had gone Mist-mad. “Dress as a woman! Maybe you care naught about acting so unmanly, but for myself, I have no intention of such a transgression.” Already the headache was building, just thinking of such an atrocity. A man could get shamed right out of his war band for even thinking something like that.

Loki stared impassively at him. “You prefer your pride over your hammer, then?”

“I prefer to have both!”

The other man’s face suddenly turned glum. “We rarely get everything we want. You must decide now what you’re willing to sacrifice for victory. You once claimed to be a champion of Mankind, but a champion must give of himself, sometimes more than can be borne, and you know naught of sacrifice, do you? Not like your father.”

“Father?” Thor shook his head. “You think I haven’t lost aught? I lost my fucking wife!”

Loki flinched, just a little. And he should be fucking scared, talking like Thor hadn’t paid any price. “I did not say you had not lost, I said you have not sacrificed. We’ve all had things taken from us, Thor. That’s not quite the same as willingly giving up something you don’t wish to lose, simply because you cannot see any other way to victory.”

Thor groaned. It was said, Father had sacrificed his own eye for wisdom. Was that what Loki meant? Thor had no intention of doing something so madness-induced as cutting out his eye. But could he do as Loki suggested? Could he dress as a woman and shave his beard?

“By the damn Tree,” he mumbled, and spat in the snow atop the glacier. “I think I hate you, sometimes. Agh! So be it. Get me a damn dress.”

Despite his best efforts to shave down by a creek, Thor’s cheeks would never pass for smooth as a woman’s. According to Loki, they didn’t need to, so long as they both kept their hoods up until they were well inside. Still, the wind stung his bare cheeks like a whip.

And that wasn’t half so bad as having his cock and stones dangling loose under a dress, stirred by every breeze that whipped over the mountains. If it weren’t summer, he might well be the first man to ever get frostbite down there.

This whole plan reeked of unmanliness, in so many ways. Who ever snuck into an enemy camp like this? Thor should have brought the armies of Asgard with him and come with fire and sword. Except that might have meant admitting to the rest of Asgard he’d gotten so drunk a jotunn could steal Mjölnir. Shit, and what would Father say about that? Naught that Thor wanted to hear, that was for damn certain.

They’d strapped the swan cloaks into little bundles tied against their chests.

Following Loki’s lead, they fell in with a group of women being escorted up to the fortress. It was easier than he’d have expected. The jotunn guards—a pair of frost jotunnar—weren’t looking for people to join, they were only watching to make sure no one ran off. Simple as pretending they paused for a piss, stepping into the line, and then the jotunnar were guiding them past their own ranks.

Except that one of the women in the back of the line kept glancing at him askance. She had red hair not unlike Thor’s own, and a simple mud-splattered dress. Probably captured in a raid and marched who knew how far to get back here to their king. Loki offered her a slightly raised hand, warding against her giving them away.

Thor had to admire her ability to return her face to impassiveness, knowing someone was back there like that. She didn’t beg for help or speak at all. Could he have managed such courage in her place?

The new jotunn lords had upgraded Hrungnir’s former fortress, at least somewhat. They’d reinforced the walls and mounted spikes on them such that the place now resembled a briar. Entering such a twisted hold made even Thor feel anxious, so how much worse for all the prisoners marched through here before them?

Once inside, guards slammed mighty doors shut.

Their line made its way into the great hall where several braziers burned, perhaps as a concession to the mortality of the jotunnar’s human captives. A wood jotunn marched up to the head of the line and leered down at the first woman. Then he grabbed her and ripped her clothes in half. Shrieks filled the hall, and some of the women ahead of Thor rushed past him, trying to escape.

Not much chance of that, given the guarded double doors behind them.

Thor pushed past the fleeing captives to the head of the line.

A hand fell on his shoulder. Loki. The man pointed to a throne. Occupied with the women, Thor hadn’t even noticed the shadowed figure at the back of the hall. A massive jotunn, four times Thor’s size or more, with wolf-like jowls. Thrym? At his side, looking like a toy, lay Mjölnir.

As each woman was stripped, the wood jotunn shoved her toward the center of the hall, where another jotunn had the women line up.

Thor continued to make his way until he was next in line. The wood jotunn towered over him, a good eight feet tall at least. The creature tore his cloak off. Thor lifted his gaze to meet that of the jotunn. And grinned. He surged strength into his limbs and landed a tight hook to the jotunn’s stones.

The creature doubled over and collapsed to its knees.

Thor’s other fist caught it under the jaw with a crack that echoed through the great hall and sent the jotunn sprawling over backward.

All the screaming stopped. Everyone was staring at him.

Even Thrym, lurching to his feet.

Thor spread his hands. “Who wants a war?” he bellowed.

20

Well into the night, Brynhild had spoken of runes and their meanings, of the secret power they might hold if carved just right, to attract the attention of a vaettr. Over and over she’d drawn symbols, patient as Sigurd stumbled to replicate them or understand their meaning.

And then, at last, sleep had taken them.

Sigurd had hunted on the morn, bringing down a reindeer that probably thought itself well safe from human predators on this mountain. While the flesh roasted, Brynhild sang cryptic songs of words without meaning—so far as Sigurd could tell—though Brynhild claimed the songs were older than the World itself. “The ancient art of Kumari Kandam,” she called it, though even she admitted she did not know who or what that place had been, save it had fallen before the rise of man.

She was not a witch and yet she knew so very much of the Realms beyond the ken of Mankind.

After they had eaten, she showed him more runes. “Signs of victory that shall strengthen your sword. Here, see how it mirrors the one on the center ridge of Gramr?”

Sigurd did see the rune, though he’d never before given overmuch thought to the meaning of any one of those symbols.

Other runes she showed him, to carve into the hull of a ship and ward it against storms.

Runes to carve into a drinking horn to ward it against poison. Runes to cut into a mother’s palm to aid in childbirth. So many runes Sigurd’s mind swam with them, and he could make little sense of the lot. The longer he stared at them, the more they seemed to shift and change, mercurial as the sea.

In the evening he massaged his temples. “I think my eyes are like to start bleeding from this.”

Brynhild chuckled, shaking her head. “Oh, Odin. You knew it all along. Bastard.”

Sigurd flinched at her blasphemy.

Brynhild, however, suddenly drew the shirt he’d loaned her up over her shoulders.

Sigurd gaped, gaze locked on her breasts. The welts from the mail had shrunken, now just hints, and she seemed all the more beautiful for having deliberately shown herself to him.

She smiled wanly, looking at him sideways. “Do you know of pneuma, Sigurd?”

He nodded, hardly trusting himself to speak. She meant Megin.

“Pneuma saturates us, our flesh. You might share it with another, though, through release.”

“You mean … uh …”

Brynhild quirked a smile. “Such has always been the way of mystical instruction. Sorcerers and sorceresses bed one another in order to pass intuitive knowledge between them. Wisdom, as you call it. The wisdom to understand the lessons I try to put before you.”

So when the raven said he would come here to learn wisdom, it meant Sigurd should lay with her.

Still, he hesitated.

“Those with strong pneuma pass a greater amount of it into their partners on climax.”

“Women can … um … I mean how do you …?”

Now she broke into a chortle, shaking her head. “The dverg did you a disservice, Sigurd. But they always do. They hate us. Come now. It seems there are so many things for me to teach you.”

As Brynhild had claimed, Sigurd felt her energy pass into him in a rush of euphoric bliss that—had she not forewarned him of it—he might have overlooked as part of his own pleasure. And by Thor’s mighty cock, was there pleasure. Far more to make love to a woman who truly wished it. To find her excitement compounding upon his own in an unending circle of lust that left him disdaining the vulgar emotions Regin had forced him to indulge in.

Every time Brynhild climaxed, she would laugh and hold him close and they’d fall asleep entangled together.

And the lessons would resume on his waking, and seem, somehow, the smallest bit clearer.

Thus went many days, perhaps a fortnight even, before he began to wonder how long he might live upon this desolate mountain. His supplies had dwindled and, though he could hunt, he could not easily replace the oil for torches.

The shieldmaiden must have sensed his disquiet, for she laid her chin upon his shoulder as he stood on the rampart, staring out over the mist.

“Tell me more of your wisdom,” he said.

“Hmm. Honor your kin and don’t try to take vengeance for their misdeeds against you.”

“That … was not the sort of wisdom I had in mind, though I shall try to remember it.” He twisted around in her arms, then held her back so he could look her in the eye. “What if … what if we became kin?”

Brynhild smiled, saying naught.

Sigurd slipped the dragon’s ring from his little finger. Fafnir had thought it especially precious. “By this ring, I would make you my wife. You are wiser than any I’ve ever known and I … I swear I would do right by you.”

The woman swallowed. “He said I would marry the one who was to come.” She looked faraway, like she was seeing something else. “And I swore only to take a man without fear. But he knew you’d come and marry me. And I have known from the moment you told me you passed through the fires.” She held out her hand.

Unable to form words worthy of such—for if Odin had foretold it nigh to two decades back it must truly be urd—he slipped the ring upon her finger. And kissed her, swearing to love her alone, always.

She embraced him and he lifted her in his arms and carried her downstairs and to the bed they’d claimed together.

“We cannot stay here forever,” Brynhild said, lying on her side, clad only in a bearskin rug.

Sigurd nodded. “At some point I have to return to my kingdom and see to it. And you should come with me.”

“I … I have to go back and see if Heimir yet reigns in Laaland. He was good to me and it’s been a great many years since I saw him. You ought to instead return with me. He is all the family that remains to me, and I want you to meet them at least once before we can make a life together.”

Sigurd could hardly refuse a request like that. “Heimir still rules. To reach Laaland, we’d have to pass close by my kingdom. I will stop there for a few days and see all is fine, then we’ll go to your foster father’s island.”

Brynhild nodded in agreement, so Sigurd found Grani, and together they rode from Mount Hindarfjall.

It was the first time in his life he could ever remember feeling truly content.

21

From the High Seat, Odin watched Brynhild’s continuing betrayal of her oath, teaching Sigurd of runes and other lessons a mortal man was never meant to understand. He’d foreseen this long ago, of course. He’d known the moment would come, even if his vision was ever broken by strands he could not yet see.

Still, he saw it as she spoke of Otherworldly things. He watched as they made love in between passing secrets and strange musings. In its own way, it was all so similar to how Freyja had once taught Odin, back when this place was yet Vanaheim. Back when the World seemed simpler and he had, for a time, set aside all his burdens and felt peace.

Part of him wished he could delve so easily backward as forward and relive those blissful moments. But perhaps it was better that he couldn’t. Had he such an ability he might dive into that time and never surface again, pretending, as Sigurd now must, that all wouldn’t be torn away from him by the merciless Web of Urd.

No, it was both easier and more meaningful to let his mind flit into the future, even if it should prove more damning.

The play of prescient memory had Odin, and he lived an endless cycle of foreknown sensuality that stripped away time. A woman had mounted him and another had lowered her trench over his face for him to massage with his tongue. Hands were all over his body. His fingers squeezing someone’s nipple.

He found himself continuously hard, finding new partners over and over.

In a daze, he realized Freyja herself had mounted him. Her body warm and slick with sweat, her sweet lips brushing his. He couldn’t stop touching her, nor find words to express his desire. At once he wanted to hold her so close that they became one soul, and to weep, for the relief of finally having found her.

On and on the orgy went, for hours. Perhaps days, as time lost all meaning.

The former valkyrie had fallen for Sigurd as much as he had for her, enough that Odin almost mourned their love. Maybe, lifetimes ago when he was whole, he’d have found enough pity for them to try to help them avert their urd. Now, he could scarcely bestir himself from this seat.

Not yet, at least, though he’d have to do so, eventually.

The time would come when his son would need him, and Odin would have to be there.

But he had not yet recovered from the ravages Audr had visited upon his body. In truth, he might never fully recover. Certainly the aging could not be undone. Every time he tapped the powers of the Otherworlds, they consumed bits of who and what he had once been.

He ought to grieve for that man. He’d grieved for the death of his mother. Of his father. Of his brothers.

He even still feared his own death.

Fenrir.

The varulf lord flying through the air, lunging at Odin. His jaws closing around Odin’s throat. Squeezing the life from Odin’s frail body. Tearing out neck and spine in one feral movement. A fleeting glimpse of his own headless body as he died.

Yes, he’d felt himself die to the varulf lord. Felt that pain a hundred times. Maybe Freyja could help him find a way to break that strand of urd.

Odin groaned, letting his head fall into his hands.

Freyja.

That passion alone remained undimmed.

He couldn’t grieve for losing the man he’d been long ago, fierce and proud and one who at least attempted a life of honor. That man was gone, lost to the ages, and Odin could not bring himself to mourn.

But for Freyja, still a fire burned in his chest, so fierce he sometimes thought it would consume him whole.

For her, he’d do aught imaginable.

Forcing himself to wait, to let Sigurd and Brynhild’s romance play out, it tore at what remained of Odin’s soul. But wait he must, for there were a few other ends he could not ignore.

Chiefly, the one other pull that compelled Odin forward.

Ragnarok.

All the strands from the Web of Urd led back to that battle. Every action he’d taken, every twisted path, it inevitably brought him back there.

His hands wrapped around Loki’s throat. The wolf’s jaws tearing out his own. The dying of all Odin held dear, perhaps, even of the very World itself. The end of time.

If Odin could not find a way to change the outcome, all else he had done would prove for naught.

Frigg waited for him, in his private chamber when Odin at last dragged his weary body from the High Seat. His wife, the glorious Queen of Asgard, sat with her hands folded in her lap, face impassive and yet somehow stern.

“You stay up there for days,” she said.

“Time doesn’t mean what it used to mean.”

A slight downturn of her mouth, immediately covered. “I don’t care much for the way you and Sigyn bandy your meanings in riddles.”

Odin slumped down into a chair across from his wife and stared at her. The truth was, Frigg was a great queen and would have made a great wife, had Odin been a less wretched husband.

“I cannot help but feel a premonition,” she said. “A foretelling of darkness coming for us.”

Odin had known this conversation would come, though he hadn’t realized it would be now until he’d settled into the chair. The order of things was hard to unravel, sometimes. And Frigg, despite her gifts as a völva, had nowhere nigh to his abilities as an Oracle. Her vague premonitions and metaphoric dreams had cast her into her role as witch of the Hasdingi, true, but they had not crystalized into the damning certainty of the unfolding of time that so weighed upon Odin.

An irony, really, given that she had helped awaken the latent Sight within him. But she could not understand his burdens, if he’d wished for her to do so—and he’d not wish such an urd upon his wife. Even if he could not lie to himself and think himself in love with her, still, he loved her after a fashion, as the mother of his sons.

He’d come back from the Well and known he must lay with her, known she would bear another son. Known, even, with torturous insight, that Baldr must one day meet a foul end. Alone, with no one to look upon him nor hear, he’d railed at the night when Baldr had been born. Tried to deny urd.

Maybe there was still a way, but if so, it lay on the other side of Alfheim.

Baldr was a key to Ragnarok. He knew that much. Still some truths remained concealed. He had to find a way to change what he’d seen.

“Well?” Frigg asked. “Have you naught to say?”

Odin swallowed. “There will come a time when I must wander farther than I have ever wandered before. You will probably think me lost forever.” Maybe he would be. “That’s when you must prove the strongest of us all.”

“Then you’ve seen the darkness, too.”

With a grunt, Odin leaned forward and patted her knee. He’d seen such darkness as she would not believe. Such, that he could not even speak of it.

22

As a valkyrie, Brynhild had surrendered her mortal life for an immortal one. She had cut ties with all her kin. All save Bekkhildr, her favorite niece. As the years had stretched, however, Brynhild had taken to referring to Bekkhildr as her sister, for they could have passed for it. The woman had married Heimir of Laaland and thus became its queen.

Brynhild had tried to follow Heimir’s exploits before Odin had taken her from her former master and pressed her into his service. Now, so many years had she slept, she could not say for certain what she’d find in Hlymdalir. The town was nestled in a valley on the island of Laaland, and she and Sigurd sailed there in a small ship out of Xanten.

The days with him were so pleasant and she longed to tell him all the truths she had yet withheld from him. The way Odin had used and betrayed his father, and her bitter part in the whole affair. The plans the Ás must still have for Sigurd. And more, the secrets from beyond life, though of the last, she could not speak, even if they had not already begun to fade from her memory, lost in a dreamlike haze.

No, she could not tell him everything, but still they talked of so many things. He spoke of the lands of Reidgotaland and Hunaland and how they had changed in the years she had slept. She had slumbered his entire life and Brynhild could not help but marvel as he expounded on fallen kings and wars and new developments.

He spoke only a little of his time being raised by that dverg, and Brynhild could guess why. All vaettir were warped by their own torments and dvergar, especially, suffered eternal agonies. They longed to obviate their suffering for even a moment by visiting the same upon mortals. Even from the few stories Sigurd did tell, Brynhild would have hunted Regin down and killed him herself had the creature yet lived.

Sigurd told her, too, of his tutor with the sword, the one-handed warrior Tiwaz. Brynhild found it too much coincidence to swallow that a one-handed master swordsman should happen upon Sigurd and train him for years. But that, too, she could not say how Sigurd would react to if she spoke of her suspicions as to the man’s identity. The Aesir had done their work well, convincing the better part of the North Realms they were gods.

The valley ahead was drenched in mist and covered in fir and maple trees, seeming almost concealed from the World. At the center of the town rose Heimir’s hall, a partially restored Hilding fortress. A woman standing atop its ramparts could overlook the valley and catch sight of any approaching the town.

Indeed, as they drew nigh, warriors from Heimir’s hall came to meet them.

“What do you wish here?” the lead of three men asked. He didn’t brandish his spear, but he seemed more than willing to use it if necessary. Brynhild could always tell those comfortable with violence from the rest. He had the look, a bearing a man gained when he’d slain many others in combat.

“I’ve come to see my … aunt, Lady Bekkhildr.”

“And him?” He nodded at Sigurd. “He’s your guard?”

“I am King Sigurd Sigmundson of Rijnland. Her husband.”

Now the warriors exchanged a look. Clearly, they had heard of Sigurd. They beckoned them to follow and escorted the two of them through the town and to Heimir’s hall. Outside, several young men were tossing a ball about between them, and others had set to wrestling.

One of the young men broke off and trotted over, exchanging a few words with their escort before presenting himself to Brynhild. “You claim to be kin to Lady Bekkhildr?”

“I do not claim, boy, I am her kin. Who are you?”

“Her son, Alsvid.”

Brynhild did her best to keep a straight face. The man had to be Sigurd’s age. Her niece had a son Sigurd’s age. How was she to handle such news? Maybe this was why valkyries were told to sever all connection with their mortal lives. “A pleasure to meet you then, cousin.”

Alsvid grinned and inclined his head to Sigurd. “And an honor to have you here, King Sigurd.”

Sigurd clasped his arm, then Alsvid led them all around the back to find Heimir and Bekkhildr sitting in the sun playing tafl. Neither looked up at first, so Brynhild studied them. The pair had grown old, losing some of their vibrance, with hints of gray in their hair, especially in Heimir’s beard. What did he have now, forty winters? Was it more than that?

How merciless time was to mortals. And now, thanks to Odin, Brynhild could count herself among them once more. How long before the passing of winters would weather her, as it had her precious niece?

Alsvid spoke into his mother’s ear, and she rose so suddenly she bumped the table and sent several pieces scattering.

“Alsvid,” Heimir complained. “Can you not simply concede?”

His wife didn’t even look at him, instead striding for Brynhild and flinging her arms around her neck. Brynhild returned the embrace, sighing in sudden, unexpected relief at finding someone still left to her.

Finally, Bekkhildr pulled back, staring at her face. “Why did you not come for so long?”

“Brynhild?” Heimir said. “Odin’s grace, woman. You look as though time dare not touch you.”

Brynhild nodded absently. Maybe someday she’d tell Heimir the truth, since Bekkhildr clearly had not thought it her place to do so. “It touches me.”

“Yes, well, please come in. We prepare for Sumarauki. Already the boys celebrate and gather from around the neighboring valleys.”

Was it time for the summer solstice already? Brynhild could not have chosen a more opportune time to return. Everyone would be in good spirits to welcome in the new year. She cast a smile at Sigurd—he was already grinning.

Heimir gave them fine chambers in the upper reaches of the fortress. From their window, they watched Alsvid demonstrating his skills at falconry, his hawk soaring high and always returning. With Sumarauki well underway, the games and contests never seemed to stop here.

“We’ll have a son like him one day,” Sigurd said. “And daughters too, no doubt.”

“Do you think urd will be so kind to us?” Odin had known Sigurd would come to her when he placed the sleeping spell upon her. And he’d not have done so unless he had some reason, some scheme he set in motion. Brynhild found it unlikely their happiness factored into the Ás king’s plans.

Sigurd laughed. “As long as we’re together, I think we can bear most aught urd has to throw at us. Apart … perhaps not.”

Brynhild smiled, wanting so very desperately to believe him.

Sumarauki passed and the new year dragged on. With summer on the wane, Sigurd insisted he needed to return once more to Rijnland and see to things in his kingdom. Brynhild was half inclined to go with him, but he promised to return before the onset of winter, so instead she watched as his ship disappeared off into the mists.

Alone, she made her way back to the valley, lost in thought. Sigurd had offered her the chance to come and reign as queen of Rijnland and, though the idea of such prestige certainly appealed, Brynhild could not abandon Laaland while they stood at the very edge of war with Samsey. Instead, she found herself contemplating an attack on Castle Niflung, though such an effort must surely lead to slaughter of Heimir’s warriors. Still, with enough numbers—perhaps gained in alliance with one of the other kings of Reidgotaland—they might destroy King Gunnar and thus remove the threat.

Of course, that would leave the other kingdoms poised to conquer Laaland in Gunnar’s stead.

Either way, come next summer it seemed more like than not, war would hold this land in its crushing grip, and Brynhild’s place had long been among those who fought—first as a commander, and later as a valkyrie.

But could she, a fair unknown these days, truly get all the kings of this land to let her command their forces? She would need to visit Hjalprek and perhaps Beowulf during the winter and hope to secure their support. The former she felt fair certain she could count on, but King Beowulf was famed for his pride and might not prove keen to fight under her banner.

Brynhild shook her head as Hlymdalir came back into view. Could she spare this valley the tide of blood she saw brewing? Try as she might, it seemed unlikely.

23

The dreams grew worse, and stranger. Oh, the visions of Niflheim Gudrun might attribute to torments wrought from her own broken mind, or those visited upon her by Snegurka, or even premonitions of her eventual urd. Those she could dismiss. But at other times, Gudrun dreamed of her brothers on a hunt, yet falling before a golden stag. She dreamed of hawks, soaring high above. She saw an army of rats swarming over Castle Niflung.

Unfathomable portents with meanings naught in her experience would allow her to unravel. A shame, in truth, for if these dreams represented some development of the Sight, they might have proved useful. But without context or interpretation, they served only to leave her restless.

Maybe that was why, despite herself, despite lifetimes of loathing for the woman, she found herself treading down to Grimhild’s underground sanctuary. A long staircase led to dungeons, and beneath those, the Pit. A landing before the dungeons held an iron-banded door engraved with sigils.

Gudrun pushed the door open, revealing a long hall lit—barely—by flickering candles spaced every so often. A number of chambers along the way held unguents, reagents, and Hel-knew-what else Grimhild kept around for her alchemy, stinking of piss and sulfur and putrescence. Past those doors lay the sorceress’s brewing and evocation chamber, it too behind a warded, iron-banded door.

After pausing for a time to make certain no chanting sounded within—one never interrupted a sorceress—Gudrun knocked.

A moment later, the door drew open and Grimhild stared at her, a hint of a frown creasing her otherwise once again smooth face. She’d regained her youth, or at least the appearance of it, by sacrificing young girls and bathing in their blood. Three girls murdered on each solstice, so Grimhild could feel beautiful.

“Are you out already?” Grimhild demanded.

Gudrun had to give her mother her due for one thing at least—the woman did not begrudge Gudrun the draught she made. When Grimhild first offered it after learning Gudrun slept little, and fitfully at that, it had been with the explanation it would help her drift into deep slumber. Now, Gudrun couldn’t sleep at all without it. Besides which, it did give her dreams which might have held some portent worth understanding.

“Not yet. May I come in?”

Grimhild nodded, waving Gudrun inside.

The chamber had sigils carved into the floor, ceiling, and walls, and yet others painted in blood. In a corner, outside a circle of runes, sat a giant cauldron the queen used to brew her tonics. Two tables were laden with various compounds, scrolls, and tomes. Did Grimhild think to try to recreate the grimoire she’d lost? She still had no idea Gudrun had taken it, though now she’d lost that to Odin.

“Well then,” Grimhild said. “Was there something you needed?”

Gudrun turned slowly back to her mother. How she had hated this woman. How she had loathed her and wished for her suffering. While Skadi held possession of her, she’d tortured and tormented Grimhild without mercy. And yet, when Gudrun finally returned to Castle Niflung, broken and alone, Grimhild had welcomed her back. Had helped her recover.

Because she too had once suffered possession by Skadi? Because she knew the profound self-loathing it left a person with?

Gudrun grimaced, finding it hard to find the words. “Do you … do you know much about oneiromancy?”

The queen opened her mouth, then murmured something under her breath, shaking her head. “Interpretation of dreams was never within my purview. The problem lies in separating the metaphor from literal prophecy, even assuming we could tell the difference between dreams brought on by manifestations of the Sight and those engendered by bodily fatigue.”

As far as Gudrun could tell, her own gift with the Sight, while not extraordinary compared to that of some Oracles, significantly exceeded the capacity of either of her parents. She could clearly see into the Penumbra, though she avoided doing so these days, wanting no reminder of the awful things lying just beyond normal human senses. Even before taking her mother’s draught, she’d had dreams that clearly held some prophetic import.

Now, though, those dreams seemed both magnified and muddled, wrapped in the chaotic turmoil of her mind.

“So you cannot help me learn what these strange visions mean?”

Grimhild frowned and raised her knuckles to her mouth for a moment. “We just received word that Heimir’s foster daughter has returned home after long away.”

A rather abrupt change of topic. “Fascinating.”

The queen favored her with a withering glare that, in the past, would have had Gudrun grinding her teeth and half ready to piss herself. “While I can never be certain of such things, I have reason to believe the woman may have passed across the Veil. Bodily passed across it.”

Well that was different. “She’s a sorceress?” Outside of the Niflungar themselves, the witch-queens of Pohjola, and a handful of wandering wizards, Gudrun knew of few true practitioners of the Art left on Midgard.

“I think she is, or was, a valkyrie.”

Gudrun scoffed. “You jest.”

“Rarely, daughter. Do you think the priestess of Hel knows naught of our mistress’s enemies? Valkyries served the lord of Alfheim, but in the past decades, I believe Odin has been bending them to his will.”

All Gudrun could do was stare openmouthed at her mother. Not only that the woman knew such things, but at the sheer breadth of the Ás king’s temerity. It was truly boundless. He now thought to contest his will against that of both Hel and the Elder God of Sun? And somehow, despite such actions, he yet lived. Urd seemed to favor Odin. The man should have been dead a hundred times over for all the chances he took.

“I don’t understand,” Gudrun finally managed to say. “What does this have to do with my visions?”

“Those who have passed beyond the Veil oft know many things. If you befriend this woman, perhaps she can help you. At the very least, no harm comes from having an ally in a king’s daughter.”

Gudrun nodded. It seemed to her this all might well have been Grimhild’s own way of getting Gudrun out of her lethargy, forcing her to leave Castle Niflung and take action. Still, if this princess had any chance of helping her, she’d have to take it.

24

In the last days of summer, a train of women and their guards landed on the shore of Laaland and made for Hlymdalir. When the slaves informed her, Brynhild donned her mail coat and rode to meet them at the valley’s edge, bringing a small war band behind her.

These women wore deeply embroidered gowns, especially the one at their center, a blonde woman with a silver crown atop her brow and a long braid.

“Who are you?” Brynhild demanded.

The woman quirked a smile. “Princess Brynhild,” she with an incline of her head. “I am Princess Gudrun of Samsey.”

A Niflung, and Gunnar’s own sister no less. Brynhild forced her face to remain impassive. Since Gudrun came here with but a few warriors, this had to be some kind of peaceful envoy. Why? Did the Niflungar think to bargain?

“Be welcome in Hlymdalir, then,” Brynhild said. “Come. I’m sure King Heimir will have food and ale brought for you.”

The Niflung smiled in acceptance, and Brynhild guided her and her ladies to Heimir’s fortress. When she told her foster father of the envoy, he ordered every servant and slave he had to wait upon Gudrun and the others. They spread plush cloths over the floor and carried platter after platter of fish and vegetables and reindeer meat to them. And ale—lots of ale.

Gudrun’s ladies-in-waiting fell into various games with the women of Heimir’s court. Gudrun, however, sat alone, her back against a pillar, watching without seeming to even see. From across the hall, Brynhild studied the Niflung princess. The woman had not yet bothered to explain her presence. Heimir would have considered it rude to ask, of course, but Brynhild could hardly fail to see some import for having Niflungar under her very roof. Surely Gudrun had not travelled here to wrestle or to play tafl—at least not on a board.

Finally, Brynhild drifted over to where the Niflung sat and slunk down beside her. “Does the feast not amuse you?”

Gudrun turned her gaze on Brynhild, wearing an obviously forced smile. “It’s been said you are wiser than any woman on Midgard.”

Brynhild scoffed. “A gross overstatement, without doubt.”

“Then you don’t bring knowledge from the Otherworlds?”

Brynhild’s smile faltered. Could the Niflung know about her? Did she suspect Brynhild had been a valkyrie? Sorcerers had, on some occasions, tried to overmaster valkyries and enforce their will upon them as they did upon vaettir. Such efforts most oft ended poorly for both sorcerer and valkyrie. “Why do you ask?”

“Honestly? I … I have dreams.”

Brynhild scooted around so she could more clearly look into Gudrun’s face. “What sort of dreams?”

Gudrun ground her teeth a moment, shutting her eyes before meeting Brynhild’s gaze. “I … I have been through a great many things. I need to know … is it true that you have seen worlds beyond our own? That you hold knowledge beyond the ken of mortals?”

Brynhild swallowed. She wasn’t about to admit that to anyone, much less a Niflung. Was this all some elaborate ploy to uncover the depths of her power? “Tell me about the dreams, Gudrun.”

“I dreamed I had a hawk with golden feathers. It sat upon my wrist and I loved it more than aught else in the World.”

“Maybe the dream means you should take up falconry.” And give over attempts to conquer Midgard.

Gudrun frowned, then rubbed her hands along her cheeks. “I’ve been taking … tonics to help me sleep. They drive me ever deeper into depths I cannot fathom. Symbols, I think, or portents.”

Portents. Certain brews could enhance the Sight, without doubt. If the Niflung sorceress had the Sight and combined it with drug-induced trances, she might well have seen portents of both literal and symbolic futures. But that she’d come here, seeking insight from Brynhild, that seemed to indicate the Niflung princess had grown desperate. Unless this was some scheme of hers, or of her mother’s.

Brynhild spread her hands. “The hawk might mean you are destined to marry a prince.”

“There’s more. I dreamed … of you. I knew who you were the moment I saw you, for I’d seen you before in my dreams.”

Brynhild cocked her head at that. This grew more disturbing with each passing moment. Why would the Niflung dream of her?

“We … you and I and my brothers, we walked in the woods on Samsey and we saw a magnificent stag, larger than any other deer. His fur was gold—not only golden in color, but as if strands of actual gold were beaten into fine hairs.” Gudrun bit her lip a moment. “We all wanted to catch the stag, but I was the one who did. It was … I marveled at it.”

“And?”

“And then you shot it.”

Brynhild frowned. The problem with interpreting dreams was that they could mean any number of things, or—perhaps more likely—mean naught at all. Sometimes, the mind played tricks when overwrought or when the night meal sat poorly. Other times, such portents seemed specific to the viewer and thus lacked any sort of general meaning. “Is there more?”

“I wept in despair on my knees as the stag died … and you … you gave me a wolf cub, drenched in the blood of my brothers.”

Brynhild shuddered. She forced it down, tried not to let the other woman see, but from the way Gudrun suddenly looked sharply at her, the princess hadn’t missed it. “I think … I think there will be war between us. And it will cost the both of us all we hold dear.”

Gudrun was already shaking her head. “No, no … I’ve already been through too much. You don’t know what they’ve done to me.”

Brynhild’s gut began churning. Gudrun’s dream—assuming it did portend the future—seemed to confirm her worst fears. That all of their lives would be wrapped up in a maelstrom of suffering that would unravel them both. “You touched the Otherworlds … and they touched you back.”

“How petty it seems when you phrase it thus. I have lost so much already.” Gudrun suddenly reached out and grabbed Brynhild’s hand. Instinct at the unexpected motion had Brynhild’s other hand already clenched into a fist before she realized Gudrun was imploring her. “How do we avert this?” the Niflung asked. “How do we stop the portent from coming about?”

“I … I don’t know that we can.” Brynhild didn’t claim to be an expert in the Web of Urd. Could such a destiny be changed?

“We have to try.” Gudrun was shaking her head. “I don’t want to see any more … just … no more. Send someone to meet with us. Let there be peace, Brynhild. I would choose to be your friend rather than your enemy. I’m so … tired of fighting.”

The woman’s eyes brimmed with unshed tears. Brynhild couldn’t believe she could fake such earnestness.

On impulse, she drew the other princess into an embrace. “If the Niflungar truly want peace, then we have to try, don’t we?” She nodded, even as Gudrun held her. The woman was actually trembling, actually frightened. What frightened a sorceress? “I will send someone to Samsey to strike up negotiations. If both sides want peace, how can we not achieve it?”

Gudrun pulled away, smiling, though still sniffling in the process. “I’m glad I came to you.”

Brynhild stroked Gudrun’s hair. “You’re not what I expected.”

Gudrun chuckled at that. “A few lifetimes of regret can have that effect, I guess.”

Brynhild nodded. “All right. All right. Now, please, enjoy the feast, or Heimir will surely take offense.”

At last, the Niflung princess waved over a slave and took a plate of cod. She and Brynhild shared a horn of ale, then played tafl. Despite herself, Brynhild truly wanted to like Gudrun.

To believe the woman actually meant well.

“You told me,” Brynhild said to Sigurd, “that Alf and Hjalprek had wanted you to visit the Niflungar and try to make peace with them.”

Sigurd nodded. He’d returned a fortnight after Gudrun had departed. Already, the snows had begun, and a winter storm rumbled outside. The wind’s howl reached inside the fortress, threatening bitter cold in the moons ahead. “They’re not far from breaking, truth be told. Hjalprek doesn’t want to surrender his pride, but he’d rather lose that than his kingdom. Somehow they hope my name and reputation will let them keep both. I’m honor-bound to try, at some point.”

Brynhild sat in front of an oil lamp, warming her hands by its flame, with Sigurd across from her, lounging on his side. Brynhild studied the lines of his face. Naught came without risk, but still, she hated to send him for this. “Gunnar’s sister called upon me while you were away. She too wants to talk of peace—is desperate for it, in fact.”

“Why should the Niflungar be desperate?”

“I don’t think they are, just their princess.”

Sigurd grunted. “So you’d have me try, as well. Of course, I must. Come summer, I’ll sail for their lands.”

“I don’t think it can wait that long. I got the impression that if we do not salve the tensions soon, come summer Samsey will make war.” Or at least those dreams gave that impression. Assuming Gudrun spoke the truth of them. Brynhild rubbed her knees. “Still, I don’t want you to go, least of all now.”

Sigurd grimaced. “Right. Travel in winter is difficult enough. But it’s not far to Samsey, I can make the voyage if I must.”

Brynhild could only groan at that. “I’m sure you can. I mean to say … I’m with child, Sigurd.”

He sat up abruptly, gaping at her. “Truly?”

Now she let her hand fall to her belly. “I’m fair certain, yes.” As a valkyrie, she once had moderate control over such things and could avoid or allow conception as it suited her. And it never had before.

“Then it has to be me. We cannot risk you traveling in winter, not if it would place the babe at peril.”

“I know.”

He scooted around the side of the lamp and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry. I’ll leave as soon as this storm breaks, and I’ll be back within a moon or so.”

“Be wary, Sigurd. These people are treacherous. Gudrun might be the only one among them I’d even consider trusting.”

Her husband nodded. “I’ll bear it in mind.”

“And Sigurd? Whatever else happens, you come back alive.”

25

Castle Niflung rose from the mountain slopes on Samsey like claws scraping out of the mist, grasping to hold the sky. All Sigurd saw of this place bespoke a land thick with ghosts and caught out of time. An apt thought, no doubt, given that the folk of Reidgotaland feared the Niflungar as an ancient people they may have wished were lost to the mists of history. Even Regin—especially Regin—had cautioned him to remain ever wary of the descendants of Halfdan the Old.

The Niflungar were one of the original bearers of a runeblade, of Gramr, in fact, and they were famed as sorcerers and worshipers of Hel. Savvy ones, though, who had nigh swept over all Reidgotaland before Healfdene united the land under his rule. Some claimed the Niflungar resisted even the Aesir.

The death of Gjuki some decades ago had broken the better part of Niflung strength, but still, they remained a dark shadow hovering over the Morimarusa and Gandvik, and Regin claimed no one knew the full extent of their influence. They trafficked with the Otherworlds and thus knew secrets beyond the ken of Mankind. But then, Sigurd knew far more than any man ought to, as well.

The mists danced about his feet as he climbed the rocky slope toward that hidden castle. Its tower must have reached eighty feet up, an architectural wonder ending in a spear-like point. While Sigurd wasn’t given to fear such things, still, this place left him feeling small, and weak. Not given to fear, no, but he could understand why men would be.

In the mist, shadows seemed to move like hints of men, almost invisible but following his progress toward the open gate. An escort? An illusion? Either way, it was probably intended to intimidate him, so Sigurd kept his face plain and his gaze locked on the gate. Let them think he cared naught for their trickery.

A raven cawed, having alighted on the wall. “Beware treachery.”

Sigurd nodded at the bird.

Frost tickled his skin as he passed onward, forming crystals on his clothes and in his short beard.

He passed through the gate unimpeded, but in the hall beyond, a dark-haired man met him with a full retinue of warriors. The man bore a crown of gold, a glittering pendant, and silver rings. At his side he had belted a silver-hilted sword.

“King Gunnar?” Sigurd said, nodding at the man.

The king returned the gesture without expression. “King Sigurd. We’ve been long expecting you. Come, be welcome in the lands of the Niflungar and trust all of your desires shall be fulfilled in this blessed place.”

Expecting him? Sigurd wasn’t certain he much liked to hear that. Still, the king seemed more than gracious and hardly the vile aggressor others painted him as.

“My thanks,” Sigurd said.

The Niflung king led him up a spiraling staircase. “We do not have guests so very often here, so you’ll forgive the staff for gawking.”

Indeed, servants eyed him with obvious nervousness as he crested the top of the stairs. As if Sigurd did not find large groups of people awkward enough to begin with. “It’s of no worry.”

“May I be honest with you?” Gunnar asked, glancing at Sigurd as he led him toward a pair of double doors beyond the landing.

“Please.”

“My sister had a foretelling of your arrival. She has a gift with the Sight, you see, and it plagues her dreams sometimes.”

Sigurd grunted. “Your sister Gudrun? She came to call upon Heimir in Hlymdalir not so very long ago.”

“Because of the dreams, yes.” Gunnar waved his hand, and servants flung open the doors revealing a great hall set with stone tables. Between the tables, engraved columns supported a vaulted ceiling, all of it speaking of opulence that still paled before the jewel-encrusted thrones in the back of the room.

In one of these thrones sat a beautiful blonde woman with piercing eyes. Gunnar’s sister?

“I give you my mother, Queen Grimhild.”

Mother? The woman didn’t look half old enough to be mother to a grown man. Had her sorcery forestalled aging? It must have. The way she looked at Sigurd made his skin crawl with a sense of guilt, as if he’d been caught up to some mischief as a child.

The woman inclined her head, never releasing Sigurd from her discomfiting gaze.

“Word came of your arrival at the shore,” Gunnar said, “so I’ve already had the servants preparing a feast in your honor. I doubt it’s ready, however, so please, come and sit, and drink with us.”

Gunnar beckoned him to a table where already several others sat, among them a man decked with silver rings himself that, save for his lighter hair, might have been a twin to Gunnar. “My brother, Hogne.”

Sigurd took the offered seat across from Hogne, giving a nod to the man. The prince raised his silver flagon in Sigurd’s direction.

No sooner had he seated himself than a servant appeared—a girl of perhaps ten winters—bearing two flagons to match the one Hogne had. One she handed to King Gunnar and the other to Sigurd. It was filled with rich amber ale, and Sigurd took a long swig before setting it upon the table.

“Your hospitality is most gracious,” he said.

“Not what you expected?” Hogne asked with a grin.

“Uh … no, in truth. Most of Reidgotaland thinks unkindly of you and your intentions. I come here as a representative of Cimbria and Laaland, both, in the hopes we might avoid conflict with your people.”

Gunnar rubbed his short beard then groaned slightly. “I understand, King Sigurd. I want you to know that I truly do. In fact, I’m glad it was you that has come. Your exploits have already become legend in the North Realms. Slaying Fafnir, claiming a throne. I daresay you surpass even your famous father. And you care for the lands of your foster family and of your wife, Lady Brynhild.”

Sigurd sipped his flagon, not certain what to say. He had far more experience making peace with Gramr than with words. “Deeply.”

“I’m going to ask something of you,” Gunnar said. “Something I hope will not be a burden. Remain here on Samsey with us a while, a moon perhaps. Go riding and hunting in the woods with my brother and I. Tour the villages and let me show you some of our other fortresses.”

“Not an onerous request, but I have to ask—to what end?”

“Because, you see us as villains, your vision clouded by the perspective of those who told you to fear us. And indeed, perhaps there is truth to that, for we know things the rest of Mankind has long forgotten. Therein lies the perspective you must consider. Our perspective. For centuries we waited, idle, while the World around us decayed from the glories of the Old Kingdoms. Every land in the North Realms was splintered and divided among petty kings. But still, we waited, gave them their chance to hold Midgard together.

“And what did they do with that chance? Slaughter each other and continue to descend into further depths of ignorance. How could we not see such so-called kings as aught more than children needing guidance and a firm hand? Tale tells it that you yourself were trained by a dverg, yes? Did you gain your strength by being coddled? Did you find the courage and prowess needed to lay low a linnorm by being left to grow as your whims decided? Or, as I find more likely, did the wretched creature beat you into submission like iron ore until you became stronger than steel?”

Sigurd sighed. “What you say is true … Regin did not foster me with … generosity.”

“Perhaps you sell him short,” Hogne said. “Surely you owe the creature for making you into who you are.”

Sigurd wanted to spit but who knew how these people would react? “A debt I repaid in full.”

Gunnar chuckled as if he somehow knew of Regin’s urd.

Sigurd rubbed his forehead. “I agree to your request. I will stay, I will ride with you, I will hear your words. For a moon. Then I return to Brynhild and I’ll give her your answer, whether it be peace or war. For all our sakes, I hope I give her an answer of peace.”

Gunnar nodded, smiling ever so slightly.

A feast of seven kinds of fish was served, and none of the Niflungar raised any talk of politics again, rather speaking of glories of fallen kingdoms and tales of great warriors from days long ago. And Sigurd couldn’t help but like them.

During the feast, Gunnar’s sister Gudrun appeared and she was very much her mother’s daughter, with golden hair and beautiful blue eyes. She ate little, though she drank many flagons of ale. After the first two, she grew cheerful, laughing and carrying on like one of her brothers.

Sigurd found himself easily caught in the merriment.

Only when they gave him chambers to rest in, when he lay abed, did he stop and feel lost. For if he could not convince Gunnar to give up his ambitions to rule Reidgotaland, Sigurd would have no choice but to fight these people he liked. No choice but to kill them.

26

Drenched in mist and built from rocky soil, Castle Niflung had no gardens, a fact that Gudrun had oft lamented. Still, the cliffs by the sea had their own unique beauty, and along those she walked with Sigurd. The Hunalander king had asked to tour Samsey, and Gunnar had promised to take him around the island on the morn. In the meantime, Gudrun had shown him the castle, and now, beyond that, the mountain upon which it was built.

The man spoke of his travels, of how he’d slain the linnorm Fafnir, a dverg somehow transmogrified into a dragon. Gudrun did not think that possible unless the creature had long born some magical artifact that had somehow warped him. And if that were so, surely Sigurd must have taken that artifact after slaying the beast.

He spoke a little, too, of how the dverg Regin had fostered him, harshly. Though he did not let slip any details, Gudrun knew all too well the cruelty of vaettir. Dvergar, in particular, had a reputation for wanting others to share their eternal suffering. From the gaps in his tale, Gudrun could guess what shame, pain, and rage the creature had inflicted upon the man. Somehow, he still seemed to somewhat grieve Regin’s murder, though she imagined he’d have welcomed it had someone else slain the bastard.

“You know he’s not dead, right?” she said. Would that be a comfort or a burden? “Vaettir don’t die just because you kill their mortal host. They just get weakened and sent back to the Spirit Realm.”

“I suspected something of the sort, from things he said in passing, but no, I did not know it for certain.”

Gudrun nodded and paused at the cliff’s edge. Out here, you could hear the lapping of the waves, far below, though the mist prevented her from seeing the waters. “You should not be troubled for sending one of those bastards back where it belongs.”

“Perhaps not.” He shrugged. “I mean, I am not. I’m not, truly.”

Gudrun watched him from the corner of her eye. He too was staring out over the mist, perhaps searching for the sea.

“Brynhild spoke highly of you,” he said. “She hoped I’d be able to come to an accord with your people, but your brother seems more inclined to try to convince me of your right to rule all Midgard.”

Gudrun chuckled. “Well, Gunnar is … earnest. He believes he does have that right, and more than that, I think he truly wants you to believe it too. He was always like that, so very certain of himself. Not all of us have that luxury, but I guess that’s why mother chose him as the new king after father … after he passed.”

Sigurd nodded. “I’ve enjoyed talking to you and I appreciate your honesty. I will travel with Gunnar as I agreed, and I’ll give him the chance to convince me.” His wry grin told her that her brother had about as much chance of that as a snow maiden had in taking over Muspelheim.

And that thought somehow pained her. Part of her wanted Gunnar to succeed in winning over the Hunalander king. As if his approval somehow validated everything she’d been through. As if knowing the Niflungar had the right and duty to take command of Midgard would have made her suffering worthwhile.

With the sun setting, she guided him back inside.

Gudrun sat alone in her chamber, sipping Grimhild’s draught mixed with ale and staring out her window at the moon. Would she dream tonight? What would the visions show her? Most oft, they brought pain, yes, but that did not mean she could turn away from them. They had foretold Sigurd’s coming a fortnight before his arrival.

In her dream he had looked much as he did in life, and they had laughed and talked all through the night. He’d made love to her and it had seemed so real she’d woken up drenched in sweat and so aroused she’d called in a slave to sate her.

And then he had arrived and she felt her heart lurch. Was she a fool maid to pine over a man she’d seen only in a dream? Or had the dream itself created her reality such that she now so craved his touch? So many times she’d verged on tracing her fingers along his arm, offering him a sign of her willingness to take him to her bed.

Except he kept mentioning Hel-damned Brynhild. Yes, Gudrun had liked her, true, but she’d had no idea the woman’s husband would leave her feeling so overwrought.

Her door slipped open and she leapt up, half expecting Sigurd to have come to fulfill her unspoken desires. Instead, her mother strode in, leaving Gudrun to slump back down on the windowsill.

Grimhild shut the door behind herself then—after casting a disdainful look at Gudrun’s still unkempt chambers—brushed aside blankets so she could sit on the bed. “You spent the evening in private conversation with the King of Rijnland.”

Gudrun nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak. Already, her vision seemed cloudy, hazed from the draught. It would slur both her thoughts and her words, she knew from vast experience. All she wanted now was to lie down on the bed her mother had occupied and hope to dive into another such dream.

“You have feelings for him.”

Gudrun meant to deny it. Instead she managed a chittering laugh that she knew should have mortified her.

Grimhild nodded. “Well, I don’t blame you. He’s handsomer than most men I’ve ever seen. To be honest, I’m just glad to see you showing some interest in aught save your bed.”

“I … want him.” Oh, fuck. Had she just said that aloud?

Her mother nodded, her smile seeming fragile as porcelain, like her face was about to crack. Gudrun definitely needed to lie down now. “You’ve been through so much,” Grimhild said. “I wanted to make you strong, daughter. I didn’t want … not this. Whatever it takes to give you back to yourself, you’ll have it.”

Gudrun rose, swayed, and stumbled over toward her bed. “I need …”

Her mother caught her arms and eased her down. “I’ll get you what you need.”

Two days after they had departed, Gunnar, Hogne, and Sigurd returned to Castle Niflung in the evening. Grimhild ordered another feast set, clearly intent to impress their guest, and Sigurd joined them.

Gudrun noted a conspicuous absence of the better part of those Niflung nobles that had attended the last feast, leaving only those few who showed the greatest loyalty to the queen. Grimhild had surrounded herself with only her lackeys. Did she hatch some plot?

Once everyone had sat, Grimhild took a drinking horn from a slave and handed it to Sigurd. “We’re grateful you came all the way here in the name of peace. Please, enjoy the fullest extent of our hospitality. Drink.”

Sigurd took the horn and threw it back, seeming intent to chug its entire contents himself. Amber liquid sloshed over his beard and dribbled down his shirt before he at last handed it off, gasping.

Grimhild laced her fingers in his hair, slowly turning the king’s head toward Gudrun. “You are like a son to me, and my son like your brother. And our princess must surely then be as a queen to you.”

“A … queen?” Sigurd wiped his mouth. “Beautiful queen.”

Gudrun had hefted her own drinking horn. Now it slipped from her fingers and clattered on the table, splashing its contents over her and everywhere else nearby.

Sigurd leapt up at once to help her dry her gown, while Hogne chuckled and Gunnar stared.

Oh, Hel. What had Grimhild done?

“My … love,” Sigurd said. “Are you well?” Asking her? Talking to her.

“I …” Gudrun couldn’t help gaping at her mother, who just offered a nod. Now she looked to Gunnar, and her brother, stern-faced, glowered at their mother, then nodded at Gudrun as if to say, yes, it was done. So enjoy it? “I didn’t … I think I need to rest.”

“Sigurd, dear,” Grimhild said. “Won’t you take Gudrun to her chambers?”

“Of course, it’s my pleasure.” He took her hand and guided her toward the door, then beyond, to the stairs.

Gudrun couldn’t do aught save play along. She had tried something like this before, with Odin, and it had ended badly. But Odin had eaten the fruit of Yggdrasil, and besides, Grimhild had interfered with Gudrun’s potion by trying to claim him herself. Would the queen’s potion hold Sigurd forever? Her mind raced too fast and she could make little sense of what was happening.

Much as she’d lusted after him—or was it deeper than lust?—she hadn’t intended to go about it like this. So much woe had resulted from using the Art. But … maybe, just this one time.

She hadn’t even realized they’d reached her chamber until Sigurd shut the door behind himself. Then his palms were on her cheeks, turning her face up to meet his. He was so tall she needed to rise up on her toes to reach his lips. His tongue brushed over her teeth and soon was exploring her mouth.

If she’d intended to resist this, she’d definitely forgotten. She tore at the laces of her gown, growling in frustration when they wouldn’t come undone fast enough. Sigurd grabbed both sides of the garment and yanked, ripping those laces apart and exposing the linen shift beneath. This he yanked over her head so fervently she stumbled backward.

Sigurd caught her, hefting her up in his arms and taking her left breast in his mouth.

They pitched over, onto the bed. Giggling, Gudrun pulled her gown up around her hips while Sigurd yanked off his trousers.

And then he was inside her, just as in her dream.

Three times they made love that night. And finally Gudrun slept.

When she woke, the first thing she realized was Sigurd was gone. The second was that she had slept without taking the draught for the first time in over a decade.

Gudrun sniffed, rubbing her face. Where had the man gone? Had he realized what had happened and remembered his real wife? Oh, Hel. Not that.

After scrambling around to wash and dress, she blundered down the stairs, only to find her brothers—and Sigurd—in the great hall. Taking the day meal.

“Gudrun!” Sigurd said, leaping from his seat. “I thought to let you sleep. You hadn’t seemed much for mornings in the time I’ve been here.”

“Indeed,” Gunnar said somewhat dryly. Was he angry about this? Did he think any of it had been her idea? “And mother has already left to plan for your wedding. A small ceremony, she said, but still she wishes to invite all the prominent families on Samsey.”

Yes, an edge of judgment laced his voice, but, perhaps also one of hope. Because he knew that if Sigurd joined them, their chances of restoring the Niflung dynasty to glory rose immensely. As if that had not factored into Grimhild’s plans.

Of course, all Gudrun could do was smile. So she did.

A great many days passed thus, a moon perhaps, and Gudrun found herself craving the draught less and less. Sigurd didn’t force her to refrain, but his look of a disapproval when she imbibed it made Gudrun switch more oft to mere ale. What need to fear insomnia when there was someone to talk to her until exhaustion finally claimed her?

But this night, Sigurd was late in returning and Gudrun sat alone in her chamber, sipping Hunalander imported ale and flipping through a tome on theories regarding the history of the World before the rise of the Old Kingdoms. Since no records persisted among men, people were left to speculation, or to believing the self-serving lies spread by the Vanir.

And Gudrun knew them for lies, for Skadi had known of the ancient jotunn empire of Brimir. The Vanir had all but destroyed the jotunn races, but all Niflung scholars knew of it came from fragments gleaned from occasional conversations with the jotunnar themselves. And indeed, few of those remained who’d seen the old days. All the great empires of the World had crumbled, it seemed. The Old Kingdoms, the Vanir, the dvergar, Brimir. All fallen, as if naught built could endure for long anymore.

Gudrun gently flipped another page—the parchment was so old it threatened to crumble if not handled with extreme care. Assuming the scholar had the right of it, nigh to five thousand years had passed since the coming of the mists. A breach to Niflheim had let the mists flood the Mortal Realm and those freezing vapors had lowered the temperature across the World. It was hard to imagine what the land might have looked like without that cooling. Perhaps there would have been more—

Her chamber door opened and Sigurd entered, a slight unsteadiness in his footing giving away his drunkenness. He had a cloth wrapped around one palm, though blood had seeped through and stained the linen crimson.

“What happened?”

Sigurd grinned. “I thought there was no reason Gunnar and I should not be brothers in blood as well as in our hearts.” He chuckled. “I think the king was honored almost beyond words.”

Gudrun forced herself to smile. Blood brothers? Considering Gunnar well knew Sigurd’s memory had been affected by Grimhild’s potion, it was beyond bold to invoke such old magic. Such a bond ran deeper than any mortal understanding of the Art and could not easily be broken.

Perhaps Gunnar had simply felt he had no recourse but to accept Sigurd’s offer, or else risk giving unforgivable offense to the man. But now … now Sigurd was bound to them by more than the bonds of marriage.

It ought to please her, of course. But she couldn’t help but feel a nameless dread that only ill could result from so abusing a man’s trust. A foreboding from the Sight or merely her own fears? Either way, it was done and naught could undo it.

Sigurd was one of them for good now.

Part IV

Year 72, Age of the Aesir

Summer

(Two and a half years later)

27

Wearing the Tarnhelm, Sigurd trod amidst the warriors of Menzlin, transformed into their new king Kensley. Men and shieldmaidens hailed him as he passed in the night, never even suspecting such a ruse. Some few stared at him oddly, perhaps having thought their king already in his own tent, as he no doubt was.

In truth, Sigurd misliked the plan, but Gunnar had insisted that by assassinating Kensley rather than leading an open assault, they’d eliminate the need for mass slaughter. If Kensley lived and paid tribute to Etzel, joining their forces, the Niflungar might well find themselves embroiled in another prolonged conflict.

Sigurd had already slain four kings who opposed Gunnar’s unification of the North Realms. Perhaps this one more would ensure the rest fell in line.

Thus, he ducked into the king’s tent.

The enclosure was large, with a fire pit dug in the center, though the flames had dwindled down to embers now and the shadows grew thick. The king slept beneath a bearskin, his arm around a naked woman, the both of them snoring lightly.

Sigurd eased a seax from its sheath at his waist, shaking his head. Killing a man in his sleep was despicable. Indeed, what if such a fell death denied the otherwise courageous Kensley his place in Valhalla? This was the vilest of murder, and he couldn’t see how the gods could let it stand. Did Sigurd invite damnation on himself by carrying out Gunnar’s will here?

Yes, he’d sworn loyalty and brotherhood to the Niflung King, but this tactic still left him filled with self-loathing.

He clucked his tongue softly. So what was the alternative? Wake the king and challenge him here? Even if Kensley agreed to fight such a duel, it might prove difficult to escape the Menzlin camp. The Tarnhelm allowed him to disguise himself as anyone he liked, appear as tall as a jotunn, or even seem as insubstantial as a shadow. He might fight his way out and conceal himself once the deed was done. On the other hand, the helm’s trickery would prove less effective if someone saw him turn translucent.

No, he had to do this the way Gunnar had advised.

Sigurd stalked over to Kensley’s bed. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see how he’d kill the man without dealing with his woman as well. Grimacing, he slapped a hand over the woman’s mouth. At the same time, he sliced the seax across Kensley’s throat.

The King of Menzlin jerked awake, flailing. He struggled to cry out, but Sigurd had cut clean through his throat and all that escaped was a wheezy gurgle. Sigurd sliced through the woman’s throat next, then dropped the blade by his feet, and held both victims down while they bled out. Their pooling blood stained the bearskin and seeped onto Sigurd’s boots, but all he could do was grimace as their struggles slowed.

What a wretch he was to take such an approach. The others he’d slain in battle. This was treachery.

When the thrashing had ended, he bent to retrieve the seax.

Disgusted with himself, he adjusted the Tarnhelm. It warped to his will, and his form became almost imperceptible in the darkness.

After checking no one lurked close to see the tent flap move, Sigurd slipped out into the night.

Murder had never been so easy. Too damn easy.

On the ship, Gunnar threw an arm around Sigurd’s shoulders embracing him. “You ought to smile a little, brother. You just ended a war before it began.”

Sigurd wished he could look at it that way, he truly did. Gunnar’s cheer was infectious, though, and by the time their longship was away from shore, the whole crew had burst into song, praising the might and beauty of Rán, the mercurial mermaid queen.

After patting Gunnar on the back, Sigurd made his way to the bow and stood watching the ocean. He couldn’t help but give in—just a bit—to the jovial mood of the other Niflungar. Yes, it was another kingdom weakened and made ready for Niflung rule.

At this rate, they’d control everything around the Gandvik within another five years or so. Well, all save Holmgard, perhaps. Word had come that sea jotunnar had destroyed that settlement, though Sigurd found that hard to credit.

Jotunnar ought to have been on the far side of the Midgard Wall in Jotunheim, not sacking towns a few days’ sail from here.

Hogne trod up beside him. “You did well.”

“I know.” Sigurd shrugged, still staring at the waters.

“Worried about a kraken?”

Sigurd snorted. “Why worry? If such a behemoth exists and comes for us, there’s not a damn thing we could do about it, yes? Fearing that which lies entirely beyond our control is pointless.”

Hogne snorted. “Men say you fear naught at all, regardless.”

Perhaps Regin had beaten it out of him. Sigurd couldn’t see much use for fear—not since he was a child. Which wasn’t to say naught niggled at him. “I wonder if we should prepare Samsey for these sea jotunnar.”

Hogne shook his head. “If they come for us at all, it will not be soon. They know we make sacrifices to Hel, as do the frost jotunnar. The sea jotunnar won’t come at us unless all the lesser kingdoms of men have fallen. In that sense, bringing other nations under our rule actually serves to protect them.”

Put that way, perhaps they weren’t moving fast enough. Thus far, they’d not struck against the strongest kingdoms, but maybe that needed to change soon.

Once they returned to Castle Niflung, he’d have to talk it over with Queen Grimhild and with Gunnar. Given the state of the World, men would need Niflung strength, and soon.

28

As Baldr had predicted, Loki arrived, along with his wife Sigyn. Thor couldn’t guess how she felt about Loki having a bastard child with Skadi, but here she was. Did that mean it rankled her less than Thor’s affair with Gridr had done to Sif?

Tale told Skadi had taken Loki’s seed without his consent, though Thor found that a bit hard to fathom. Maybe Sigyn believed him, though.

Either way, most all had unfolded as Baldr had said. Narfi closed his net around Gardariki, until no other free land remained in Bjarmaland. Maybe Loki’s bastard would work to take Kiovia from Hymir, too. He’d already forced all the other jotunn kings to bow to Skadi, though Thor had received no word of attacks yet launched on Hymir.

But Gardariki lay besieged now, and at Baldr’s insistence, Thor and his party weren’t even in the damn fortress. No, he had to trust to Rathbarth and his thegns to hold it. Well, he supposed they had Tyr, and never had Thor met a grimmer warrior.

Thor, the twins, Loki, Sigyn, Magni, and Baldr were all camped in the forest south of Lake Ilmajarvi. From inside the wood he couldn’t see a damn thing about the siege, but sometimes the sound of battle carried on the wind. Thor misliked hiding here while others fought and died, but Baldr insisted on avoiding a frontal assault.

Thor’s brother said the key to ending this was in going after Narfi and hopefully even catching Skadi. But thus far, the twins reported they hadn’t seen Loki’s bastard. So where was he hiding?

Worrying over it oft seemed to bring on the headaches. Sometimes, he could block out the pain. Others, not so much.

With little else to pass the time, Thor found himself oft watching his aunt and uncle. Loki and Sigyn seemed able to hold whole conversations between them with but a look. They were both too clever, without doubt, and neither of them had objected to Baldr’s plans, so Thor figured there must be sense in it all.

The forces Mother had sent harried Narfi’s northern front. Thor longed to join them, but Baldr said they wait.

Just keep waiting.

Thor hated it.

Freki returned from scouting late one evening, slumping down by the tiny fire—a small crackle was all Baldr allowed them. “Some news of interest,” the varulf said. “Ivar of Skane brought a fleet here, probably intent to reclaim his daughter.”

Thor grunted. He’d known Rathbarth’s ill-conceived marriage to Authra would cost them. He’d known it, and no one had listened. No one ever fucking listened.

“The king apparently had no idea what went on here in Bjarmaland,” Freki continued. “Hardly a surprise, I supposed, since no one has been able to leave Gardariki. Regardless, Ivar blundered straight into one of Narfi’s camps, maybe thinking it belonged to Rathbarth.”

Magni chortled. “Wait, so King Ivar thought to raid a camp full of men and instead stirred up an army of jotunnar?”

Freki nodded. “I imagine he regretted his mistake. Briefly, at least. He’s dead.”

Huh. Welcome news, though it meant the thrones of Sjaelland and Skane lay vacant. In theory, Authra’s son Harald ought to have held claim to both, but that only mattered if they survived this siege.

Though she said naught, the appraising look Sigyn cast upon Freki left Thor wondering what went on in that head of hers. And she’d caught him staring at her, for she raised a brow in question.

Thor slapped his knee. “How long are we to wait here while the jotunnar kill our people?”

Every so often they tested the defenses, Freki and Geri had both reported several half-hearted attempts to gain the walls. Tyr held them off, but that couldn’t last forever.

“Until the wolves locate their leader,” Baldr said. The boy was laying on his back, seeming scarcely interested in the conversation.

Thor grunted, turned his gaze on Loki. “We should’ve killed her back then.”

“What would you risk to save your child?” Loki asked.

More than he could put in words, which was why Magni was here by Thor’s side and not in the fortress. Thrúd had joined the Ás forces to the north, though, and Thor longed to bring her here where he could watch over her. She’d suffered more than anyone ought to, and still he couldn’t stop her from being a warrior.

“Are we going to lose?” Magni asked, the question seeming to bubble up from nowhere, as if it had been roiling within him from all the moons they’d spent here.

Thor looked at him sharply—such thoughts invited disaster—but his son wasn’t looking at Thor. No, he’d addressed the question to Loki. Everyone knew the man saw glimpses of the future. Which was the only reason Thor stopped himself from chiding the boy.

Loki, he looked more weary than Thor ever remembered seeing him, and he took a long time in answering. “Eventually.”

Thor stared at him, sure he’d misheard or misunderstood. But Loki said naught more, and he and Sigyn lay down to sleep, huddled close to together.

Did the man mean they’d eventually lose this battle? The war? Ragnarok, that Father so feared? Or did Loki imply they would lose something else entirely, something Thor hadn’t even considered?

Thor’s head hurt. And those spots were swimming before his vision once more.

The summer grew late and still Baldr would not order them to attack. “Attack where?” Thor’s brother had asked, pointing out that all they had before them now were dozens upon dozens of jotunn war bands, with no sense of where their true leader lay.

Narfi had stubbornly refused to reveal himself, nor fall into Baldr’s trap. So instead, Thor and other Ás warriors sat on their arses while men died.

“There’s one obvious answer,” Sigyn said without prompting.

It was late in the afternoon and the mist was chokingly thick, allowing Thor to see no more than ten feet ahead of him despite the daylight.

Baldr scowled at her. “Answer to what?”

“The reason you cannot seem to outsmart or outmaneuver your cousin.”

That, even Thor could guess. Narfi was cleverer than Baldr, and they’d all wasted their time.

“He’s inherited some level of his father’s gift of the Sight,” Sigyn said. “You cannot outmaneuver a seer.”

“Except with a stronger seer,” Loki said, and turned slowly to the southwest.

A weathered figure in a wide-brimmed hat stepped out of the mist, leaning heavily upon a walking stick.

Thor leapt to his feet. “Father.”

The man nodded first at Thor, then at Baldr and the others. “You haven’t so very much time left. Skadi has returned to the fortress at the breach, leaving Narfi to lead the siege upon Gardariki.”

Thor grunted. “We haven’t been able to find him.”

His father looked to him. “He anticipates your attempt to corner him and so he’s kept on the move, hopping from one war band to the next so you cannot locate a center of command. But I can tell you where he’ll be three days hence.” His father knelt and drew a map in the sand with his stick, one centered around Lake Ilmajarvi. “Here, a day’s march from your location.”

“Then we’ll hit his war band and crush their leadership,” Thor said.

Baldr grumbled something under his breath and Thor looked sharply to him. His brother just shook his head. “A frontal assault on a war band of jotunnar isn’t like to end well for us, even if we won. If we make an attack that looks genuine and then retreat, though, Narfi might attempt to pursue us into the woods.”

“You have to account for his prescient insight,” Sigyn said. “He’s not going to just walk into a trap.”

Loki sighed. “He might if I choose the location.”

“Why?” Thor asked. “What difference does that make? Won’t he know what you’ve chosen?”

Loki and Father exchanged a glance that Thor couldn’t begin to guess the import of. “Prescience accounts for itself,” Loki finally said.

“Huh?” Magni asked, saving Thor the trouble.

It was Father who answered though. “When the Sight is literal rather than symbolic, the only visions an Oracle can behold are those where we cannot, or at the very least, will not alter the course of events. Whatever is revealed is what will happen in spite of, or because of, what we’ve seen. That is the true Web of Urd. Oracles are bound to Fate, in some ways even more so than those who blunder blindly through time.”

Magni cleared his throat. “I think ‘huh’ was maybe not a strong enough way of expressing my confusion.”

Loki let a hand fall on the boy’s shoulder. “Imagine a duel. You watch your opponent’s moves and react to them, yes?” Magni shrugged. “At the same time, your opponent is reacting to your moves, oft before you make them. A challenge of wits as much as of might. When two Oracles come into conflicting ends, their prescient insights may cancel one another simply because any vision that would have allowed one to act on the other might have been prevented by the visions of the other. That other cannot receive those visions, however, because if he were able to act upon them, it would create a paradox that the timeline cannot abide. So instead, each Oracle is essentially rendered blind by the other.”

Magni grunted, looking from his grandfather to Loki and back. “That doesn’t make the tiniest bit of sense.”

In truth, Thor didn’t much disagree with his son.

Sigyn rolled her eyes. “What matters is this. Loki and I will be waiting in the forest with the ambush. Narfi won’t be able to predict our location because Loki will be there limiting the reach of Narfi’s Sight. The reverse will also be true, though. We won’t be able to accurately predict his actions or time of arrival.”

“Either way,” Loki said, “I won’t agree to any of this unless I have everyone’s word that Narfi will not be slain. I will not lose my son.”

Sigyn nodded first, then Geri and Freki. Thor didn’t see much point in arguing, given he’d already spared the boy once. Magni groaned, but nodded, as did Baldr.

Fine then. “So we come to who should make the feint and who should lay the ambush.”

Father stood, stretching his back. “You need me to make the feint for the same reason you need Loki here. Without another Oracle blocking his Sight, he might foresee the trap too quickly and have time to pull back his forces. Besides, if need be, I can disappear with an ease few of you can match.”

Baldr looked to Freki. “The wolves will be fastest.”

“We’ll need more than three people to make it seem real,” Thor pointed out.

Baldr nodded. “So I’ll send for jotunnar from Hymir. They can push the attack, maybe even see it through, only falling back if things turn against us.”

“I can go as well,” Sigyn said. “The swan cloak means I can escape the battle like Odin.”

Loki frowned at that suggestion, but he didn’t object. Maybe he’d even foreseen it. Who even knew how the Sight worked? Thor swore he understood less now than he had before they’d tried to explain it.

Either way, it seemed like he’d finally get the chance to finish what he should’ve done all those years ago.

29

Fifteen Years Ago

There were nine jotunnar in the great hall, and all had fixed their gaze upon Thor. He’d have preferred better odds than this. Him and Loki against nine didn’t seem like to end well. Still, there wasn’t much to do now save charge in. He’d come this far.

Roaring, Thor surged forward, dashed around one jotunn, and dodged the next in his headlong rush toward Thrym.

The closer he drew, the bigger that bastard king seemed. His skin had turned blue as a glacier and frost billowed forth with each of his breaths. He wore skull-shaped armored plates on his knees, shins, and forearms, and was otherwise draped in mammoth hide. His teeth were like fangs. By the Tree, his whole aspect seemed rather too canine for Thor’s liking. Jotunnar got like that by eating man-flesh.

One more crime Thor would have to pay him back for.

Thrym didn’t heft Mjölnir, rather taking up a sword half again as tall as Thor. Roaring, the jotunn king surged forward with terrible speed. Thor flung himself to the ground, skidding by as the sword whooshed over his head like a gale. He’d barely managed to regain his footing before the jotunn brought the blade back around again.

Thor dashed between the jotunn’s legs and dove into a roll, coming up behind him.

From the corner of his eye he caught Loki beset by at least three jotunnar and possibly trying to bar the door, Thor couldn’t really tell. Either way, it meant a good number of the creatures were probably closing in on him as well.

Drawing all the Megin he could from the apple, he slammed a fist in the back of Thrym’s thigh. The blow made the jotunn stumble, just a little. Thor narrowly avoided getting kicked as the massive creature twisted about, trying to get a line of attack on him. It took all Thor had to keep moving and avoid getting flattened.

Screams filled the hall, the captives adding to the chaos and most like actually serving to help Thor’s situation by generally getting in the way. Thor dodged about, wending his way around Thrym. Any swipe from that sword would end him, so he needed to stay ahead—

Thrym’s knee caught him in the face and sent him hurtling through the air. Even through his Megin, his vision turned hazy. He slammed down on the floor, hard, almost losing his grip on the apple’s Megin. Ow.

Bad plan.

This was a bad plan.

Thor struggled gain his feet. Another jotunn plowed into him, a creature half again his size. The impact might have sent him flying once more, but Thor wrapped his arms around the jotunn’s waist. Roaring, he planted his feet and heaved, managing to heft the flailing jotunn over his head. Not so very strong without its feet on the ground, was it? Screaming, he bent backward until he could drop the jotunn head-first on the stone floor.

Something crunched, whether the ground or the jotunn’s spine, he couldn’t say. Either way, Thor rolled to the side as yet another of the creatures closed in on him. By the damn Tree, he needed that hammer!

None of these other jotunnar had weapons though. Maybe they hadn’t thought to need them for what they’d planned with the women. The creature lunged at him. Thor darted away from the jotunn’s wild swings. He came up under the creature’s reach and caught it with a right hook to its knee. The jotunn shrieked and toppled over.

An instant later, Thor flung himself to the side as Thrym’s hideous sword descended. The blade cleaved into the other jotunn with a meaty thwack. The king bellowed, planting his foot on his dead follower’s body to jerk his sword free.

Panting, Thor used the chance to make a break for the throne where Mjölnir still rested. Run. He drew as much Megin as he could—he could feel it dwindling inside him, making each breath more difficult—and pushed it into his legs. Snarling, he leapt up onto the seat of the throne, catching Mjölnir’s haft in the process.

At once, a rush of fresh energy surged through him. Power drawn from whatever source had forged this mighty weapon. Grinning, Thor spun back to watch as Thrym charged him.

“Rules are different now,” Thor said, still panting.

That giant sword descended on him. Bellowing, Thor swung Mjölnir to intercept the blade. The hammer itself seemed to roar as it flew upward. It collided with the sword with a crash of thunder. Bolts of lightning shot up along Thrym’s blade and into his arm, the blast enough to send him tumbling away. He landed face down, with tendrils of smoke rising up off his scorched arm.

Everything had stopped. The women had fallen silent. The jotunnar had ceased closing in on him.

Thor hopped off the throne and hefted Mjölnir high. “Let the feast begin!”

He’d never quite understood how Mjölnir had developed its power to release lightning on a blow. But it had built and built over the past years. Now, Thor was the one charging a jotunn. The creature swung a clumsy haymaker at Thor’s head.

Ducking under that, Thor slammed Mjölnir into the jotunn’s ribs with another thunderclap and a rush of lightning that coruscated up the creature’s body and came crackling out of its mouth in billowing smoke. Blackened, the jotunn crumpled to the ground. To be certain, Thor dropped to one knee and brought his hammer down to splatter the creature’s skull.

“Is that all you’ve got, wretches?” he shouted.

Another creature rushed in—this one had found a man-sized club somewhere—and tried to flatten Thor. After sidestepping that, Thor swung Mjölnir at the club. The wood exploded as if a bolt of lightning had hit a tree. It sent slivers of wood punching into Thor’s arm, but Mjölnir helped him block the pain. A worry for later.

The jotunn, though, stood gaping at its smoldering club and the splinters now embedded in its hide. Thor kicked it in the knee and swung Mjölnir in an uppercut that exploded its head and sent brains and gore raining down over him.

“I don’t even need pants to kill you trollfuckers!”

Thrym had regained his feet and came plodding at Thor in a mad dash, having abandoned his damaged sword.

All right then. Thor grinned at the charging jotunn king. He was going to evade and—

A meaty hand slapped him and sent him soaring through the air. He slammed into the back wall, lost his wind and his grip on Mjölnir, and crashed down onto the floor with an impact that left him dazed and breathless.

Dimly, he heard the crash of thunder. Blinking, he tried to clear his vision, but it was like the mist had somehow seeped into the fortress. Everything so blurry … everything shifting.

“Thor!” That was his uncle Loki’s voice.

More thunder, and now sparks of lightning, and the stench of cooked flesh.

Loki had Mjölnir and had beaten down a jotunn—no, two of them—with it. They lay in broken, burnt heaps, smoke rising from their misshapen corpses.

“Thor!” Loki shouted again.

And then Mjölnir was flying at him. Thor caught the tossed hammer an instant before Thrym snatched him up, his massive hand wrapped around Thor’s waist. The jotunn king held Thor aloft, squeezing.

Everything went dim at the edges once more, and even with his Megin, Thor’s ribs were cracking. The angle was wrong, but still he brought Mjölnir down on Thrym’s arm, sending bolts of lightning crashing all around. The creature bellowed, yet somehow his grip tightened.

Couldn’t … breathe …

Thor brought Mjölnir down again, but it felt limp in his hands. His fingers had opened … hammer falling from …

A crash on the floor. Stones split.

More screaming.

A blow slammed into Thor’s chest and his whole body seized up, naught responding to his will. Thrym crashed down to one knee and released Thor. He pitched to the ground and lay convulsing for a moment.

Again, Loki was handing him Mjölnir. Again, its power seeped into him.

Thor finally managed to draw a breath. A ragged, painful breath that felt like he sucked it through ashes. Must’ve gotten hit by the lightning when Loki struck Thrym. And still the jotunn was trying to gain his feet.

Why wouldn’t he just fucking die?

Gasping in agony, Thor swung the hammer upward. The motion sent fresh pain lancing through his ribs. It also crashed into Thrym’s jaw, shattering bone and, as lightning coursed through his head, sending wolf-fangs shooting out. Roaring in a vain attempt to drown out his own pain, Thor hefted Mjölnir and brought it down twice more upon Thrym’s skull. The second time, blood and bits of bone exploded up around him.

The satisfaction of that helped ease his pain. A little.

He dropped to his knees, arm around his throbbing ribs. By the Tree! Gah! Breathing was torture.

Jotunn had damn nigh turned him to a pulp back there.

Two more had gathered round. Come to think of it, someone was beating against the doors. Loki must’ve barred them, but that wouldn’t hold long. They were going to die, weren’t they? He’d killed Thrym, but they were still going to die.

“There’s got to be a window out of here somewhere,” Loki said. “We find it and don the cloaks, we can fly clear.”

Oh. Well damn. Thor had forgotten entirely about the cloaks.

One of the jotunn warriors was struggling to rise.

“Kill him with Mjölnir,” Loki said.

Not that Thor minded killing jotunnar, but he had to wonder why Loki would bother worrying about one who could barely stand. After casting a confused look at his uncle, Thor trudged over to the jotunn and smashed in his skull with another explosion of lightning. Yes, satisfying. Enough to make the pain a little less.

Loki moved to his side and pointed to a door.

Thor nodded and made for it, though each step hurt. Loki trotted ahead—come to think of it, the man looked badly battered himself—and flung it open. Beyond, a jotunn female charged out, thrusting a spear at Loki. The man caught the shaft when it ought to have impaled him and twisted it around, slamming a palm into her elbow.

The jotunn woman shrieked, dropping her weapon and stumbling away. Loki surged in and kicked her feet out from under her. “Kill her too.”

Sure. Why not? Thor trudged over and ended her with Mjölnir, then breathed once more, the pain seeming far away now. His second wind was on him, it seemed.

Together they made their way down the hall and into another chamber, this one filled with a half dozen jotunn women, including one sitting on what Thor assumed must be a throne. And a large window letting in the mist, some ten feet off the ground.

“Skadi,” Loki said.

The blue-tinged woman rose, her gaze shifting from Thor to Loki and back. A satisfying hint of fear fell over her face. So this was Skadi, the so-called Snow Queen. Some claimed she’d married Thrym.

And … there, cowering beside her throne. Roskva.

“Y-you helped them?” Thor couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that. Even trying brought the spots swimming in front of his eyes.

Roskva spit in his direction.

Well, he deserved that. Thor turned to Skadi. “King’s dead. Guess that leaves you in charge. Briefly.” Mjölnir was just hungering for her now. He could feel some fell power writhing inside the hammer, just itching to devour her as well. “Shame you all have to join him, but considering what you’ve been up to …”

Skadi reached out to her right. Another jotunn woman moved to her side and handed her a bundle. A very young child, probably only a single winter behind him.

Thor glowered. “You seriously plan to hide behind a babe? You steal that from one of the women out there?”

Skadi’s mouth turned up in a sneer. “You might say I stole it from your companion.”

Thor looked to Loki. His uncle had turned pale, his breath seeming irregular.

“Your son, Loki. I’ve named him Narfi. He has your eyes, I think. See how they sparkle blue?”

Loki took a threatening step toward the jotunn woman.

“It’s true?” Thor demanded. Loki had slept with this creature? Thor had always thought him utterly dedicated to Aunt Sigyn. Loki glanced at him, but didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His face spoke for him.

Thor hefted Mjölnir. “Fine. I smash your skull, woman, then we take the babe.”

Loki spun on him. “We cannot fly holding an infant.”

Huh. And was that the reason, or did Loki not want the mother of his child turned to pulp? Either way, it did seem true. Their means of escape relied on them donning the cloaks and Thor couldn’t imagine carrying a babe as a swan. Even could the child have survived the cold flying over the mountains.

Loki, though, he just kept staring at Skadi like he could burn her with his gaze. Thor quirked a smile at that thought.

“I will be back for my son, Skadi. However long it takes, I’ll not allow you to raise him.”

Skadi leaned back on her chair and cradled the boy to her chest. “Appearances notwithstanding. Shall you suckle him yourself? Surely that little wench of yours can’t have milk.”

“See,” Thor said, pointing Mjölnir at her. “Vulgar, arrogant words like that make me consider killing you regardless and taking our chances saving the babe.”

Loki’s hand fell on his arm and Thor lowered Mjölnir. A shame, though. Especially given Skadi’s condescending smirk.

“You cannot do aught to me without worse befalling the child. Oh, believe me, I have grand plans for this one. After all, how truly magnificent the father’s daughter turned out.”

Eh? Loki had a daughter? Since when did Loki have a daughter? Thor might not have spent much time on Asgard anymore, but he was pretty sure he would have heard about it if his uncle had another child. After all, the man’s son had turned out so very poorly. In fact, Thor had almost killed Loki when he learned what Hödr had done to Thrúd, possessed or not.

Loki, however, didn’t seem inclined to answer Skadi’s taunt, instead drawing up the hood of his cloak and becoming a swan. The man flew to the window, alighted on the sill, and then looked back to Thor.

This was it, really. Thor could end Skadi right now. He could probably kill all these women and then fly away. Yes, it would doom Loki’s son, but how many other lives might he save by destroying the Snow Queen? How much better might their world grow knowing the jotunnar were broken? Loki himself had spoken of sacrifice this very morn. But … but Thor had almost lost Thrúd, and he’d not have wished that pain on any father.

For that alone, he’d not risk this Narfi. So he cast a last rage-filled glance at Roskva before he pulled up the hood and became a swan, then flew up to where Loki sat, cringing as Skadi cackled.

Letting her live was like to come back to haunt them, wasn’t it? Thor had a terrible feeling he’d regret this mercy.

30

Sigurd chuckled as he strode through Castle Niflung at Gunnar’s side. He could almost feel Hogne fuming behind him, at Gunnar’s jesting. Hogne, the elder brother, might’ve been king, had Grimhild not chosen Gunnar for the honor, having seen something special in him. Hogne claimed to harbor no ill-will because of it. Still, the man could be easily riled which only made it the more entertaining.

“Asger!” Gunnar called to one of the slaves. “My horse is laden with a reindeer we felled. Have it prepped for the night meal.”

The man bowed to his king and scampered off, back outside.

It had been a good hunt and Gunnar had fared the best of any of them, at least as far as that went. On occasion, they practiced arms together, and Sigurd could easily overmatch either of the brothers, skilled as they were. It had become a matter of pride for him that no one in the whole of the kingdom could equal him in swordplay.

They came into the great hall beyond, where Queen Grimhild sat overseeing a small number of ladies drinking and gossiping.

Sigurd had made it but a few steps when little Sigmund came stumbling toward him, the boy’s awkward attempts to run so endearing Sigurd burst out laughing once more. His mother Gudrun came following behind and threw her arms around Sigurd’s neck and kissed him. He lifted her in his arms and held her close. Much as he enjoyed riding out with his brothers-in-law, naught could compare to the joy of seeing his wife and son.

“Am I mistaken,” he whispered in her ear. “Or is there a slight bulge in your belly once more?”

Gudrun laughed again, the sound so free Sigurd thought it might burst his heart. “It could be. It could be.”

Gunnar chuckled as Hogne slipped out of the room. “For the life of me, I cannot recall the last time my sister laughed like that. You do so well by her I almost envy her.”

Sigurd rolled his eyes and slumped down on a bench. “Surely you, King of the Niflungar, could find any wife you chose.”

The queen cleared her throat. “About that. Gunnar, you prosper in all ways save one—you remain unmarried. Your alliance with Sigurd has secured us tribute from most of Reidgotaland. The raids you two have been on have brought us wealth. But still, the throne needs an heir and a man needs a wife.”

Gunnar frowned looking at his mother, and then strode closer. “Do you have someone in mind?”

“I do. Lady Brynhild is among the fairest in all the North Realms.”

“Who is Brynhild?” Sigurd asked.

“The foster daughter of King Heimir,” Gudrun answered. When Sigurd looked to her, his wife was frowning, staring hard at her mother. She turned her gaze on her brother, but he was still looking at Grimhild.

“I am not unwilling …” Gunnar said, then glanced at Sigurd.

He nodded in encouragement. Why should his blood brother not have a most beautiful wife? “Marrying the princess of Laaland will only strengthen their ties to us. You should do it.”

“And you,” Grimhild said to Sigurd. “You shall ride with my son and help him secure the match. No one will deny you aught when Kings Gunnar and Sigurd ride together to command it.”

Gudrun groaned, drawing Sigurd’s glance. “What?” he said. “It’s not so very far. I’ll be gone a few days. A fortnight at most. You’ve naught to fret on.”

His wife cast another glance around the hall. “So be it, then.”

Sigurd kissed her on the cheek. “Come, brother. Let us prepare and we can set out on the morn.”

Sailing to Laaland took two-and-a-half days. The fair weather made the voyage pleasant, and Gunnar took to singing songs of the glorious days of old, before the Lofdar betrayed the Niflungar and brought ruin upon the whole of the Old Kingdoms. The mournful song carried out over the water, through the mist, and echoed around them.

Sigurd found himself closing his eyes and imaging wars long gone, ancient powers that ought to have lasted until the end of the World. How great was the sorrow of the Niflungar, how much they had lost along the way. And if there was hope for Midgard, they might be the last ones left who could reunite the World.

Thus had Sigurd lent his aid in swaying all the kingdoms of Reidgotaland to accept Niflung rule. Wearing the Tarnhelm and with Gramr, he had trod among those unwilling to capitulate and had wrought flame and devastation until they understood what urd demanded of them. He’d given the other runeblade—Hrotti, Grimhild called it—to Gunnar so that the king too could be mighty, and Gunnar had in turn offered his blessing for Sigurd to continue to wield Gramr, though she might have once been Gunnar’s own legacy.

Sigurd sent word to his kingdom in Rijnland and they too had pledged themselves to King Gunnar. Within a decade, Sigurd suspected Gunnar might be High King of both Reidgotaland and Hunaland. Sviarland, though, that was like to prove more challenging, caught in its unending internecine wars.

Still, thinking of Sviarland remained premature when obstacles yet remained in Reidgotaland. Chief among them, King Beowulf, who refused to bow before any other. Sigurd feared one day he’d have to fight and maybe kill the great king, slayer of Grendel. Part of him longed to test his strength against such a warrior … But he did not much look forward to having to slay him.

“I thought myself tired of war,” he said, when Gunnar finished singing. So many died in wars, oft at random. It seemed … tedious.

“Indeed.”

“Yes, but I’ve come to see, it perhaps has its uses. It serves to unite the land behind us.” A necessary evil.

Gunnar nodded, still staring out over the mist.

The ship arrived in Laaland, and Gunnar led a small retinue on to Heimir’s hall in Hlymdalir. The king of Laaland had long since married a woman named Bekkhildr, some distant relative of Brynhild’s, and thus—Gunnar had told him—had come to take Brynhild in as his adopted daughter. Sigurd’s blood brother had no details about the arrangement, but it hardly mattered. Adopted or not, as the daughter of Heimir, Brynhild was a princess, and thus would further serve to legitimize Gunnar’s rule over Reidgotaland.

Maybe, with such a marriage, even recalcitrants like Beowulf would acknowledge the inevitable and thus obviate the need for another war. Sigurd dared to hope so, at least.

Heimir’s hall was built upon another ancient fortress from the Old Kingdoms, but unlike Castle Niflung, this place had not stayed in repair by its original builders who were now long gone. Regin had taught Sigurd that the Hildings had ruled here, before the Niflungar betrayed them and cast them out. Gunnar, however, had explained that it was the Hildings themselves who had broken their truce. And they had paid for it, fading into the oblivion of history and leaving their places behind as naught but ruins.

Heimir’s archers manned ramparts that had crumbled in places. Stonework far inferior to the original patched obvious holes lower down in the walls. This place was strong by modern standards, yes, but it would not have kept an army out for long.

The King of Laaland received them graciously, inviting them into his great hall and bidding them to sit beside him in chairs almost as fine as his own. The man showed but the first signs of gray in his beard and still had the look of a warrior. Sigurd could respect that.

Heimir rose from his chair as Sigurd drew nigh and offered his arm. “Praise Odin, you’ve finally returned to us.”

“Er … returned?” Sigurd took the offered arm then glanced at Gunnar, who shrugged.

“Yes, indeed!” Heimir said. “My daughter will be most pleased. We’d begun to wonder if you would ever arrive.”

Sigurd frowned. If Heimir had ever sent an invitation, Sigurd had not received it. “Well, it is for your daughter we come. My lord, King Gunnar, seeks her hand in marriage.”

“K-king …” Heimir glanced back and forth between the two of them. “You jest?”

“No, my king,” Gunnar said. “I am quite in earnest in wanting to marry Brynhild. Word of her beauty has spread across all the islands of the Morimarusa and beyond. Besides which, the union of our houses can only serve both of our interests.”

Heimir looked to Sigurd with a raised brow. “And you are … amenable to this arrangement?”

“Of course, my king. I encourage it!”

Heimir nodded, his face drawn surprisingly tight for a man receiving such joyous news. The chance to bind his house to that of his king he had sworn loyalty to should have had him calling for a feast to last for days. “I’ll inform Brynhild, then. In the meantime, my servant shall see you and your men receive chambers.”

The room granted to Sigurd overlooked the sea, or at least the mist gathered above it. He stared out over it, feeling it call to him, as if those vapors held his destiny upon them. Sigurd, Champion of the Niflungar, who must help the World to see what he had seen. The glory of King Gunnar and his people. The last glory of man.

The door to his room creaked open and he spun, hand over his shoulder on Gramr’s bone hilt. A woman slipped inside, her long flaxen hair in braids, her aspect fierce but stunning.

“Sigurd,” she said and, though he could scarce understand why, he could not help but think a hint of reproach lurked behind her tone.

“Lady Brynhild?” Surely it must be her, for who else but the famed shieldmaiden princess would be so bold as to burst into his chamber?

She frowned, staring hard at him. “Where have you been these past years?”

“My lady? I … I have been with my blood brother, Gunnar, securing his kingdom. Surely you know this—your father swore fealty to him.”

“Because you left him no choice!”

Sigurd flinched back from her vehemence. Of course she spoke the truth and, in fact, that had been the entire reason behind his public pledge to Gunnar. It showed everyone that they had no choice unless they wanted to face a war they could not hope to win. Nevertheless, Laaland had acquiesced without a fight and Sigurd hadn’t begun to suspect Lady Brynhild would have harbored such resentment. What would that bode for Gunnar’s intended proposal? Woe, no doubt.

The woman shook her head. “You … you don’t know who I am, do you?”

“Of course I know. You’re the adopted daughter of King Heimir, a shieldmaiden come to him through his wife. Your aunt, I believe?”

Brynhild grimaced. “As you say. I … suppose then I shall give Gunnar his answer in the morn.” She turned to go.

“Lady Brynhild?”

When she looked back, he could have sworn she hid a slight smile.

“You know that to refuse the king’s offer would weaken Laaland’s position greatly. You do know that?”

The woman scoffed and slammed the door behind her.

“My daughter,” King Heimir said, “has agreed to marry only the man who can walk through fire to reach her, and then must best her in combat.”

Sigurd glanced at Gunnar, who stood before the king, terribly still. Why would the princess ask such a thing? Was it not nigh to the same as a refusal? Sigurd could pass through flame, yes, but what other man could do so?

Gunnar growled under his breath. “If that is her will, then so be it. Where is she?”

“She has borrowed a hall from one of my jarls and has set a ring of fire around it, claiming it will bar all but her true love from reaching her. You’ll find it up the road to the north, an hour’s ride.” Heimir frowned as if not even he approved of his daughter’s antics. Yet he clearly indulged her in her decision.

“Then loan us horses, my king,” Gunnar said.

And Heimir did so.

Gunnar left his men behind at Hlymdalir and called only for Sigurd to accompany him, which, of course, Sigurd agreed to. He’d come on this errand to help his blood brother claim a wife and would scarcely turn away now, despite Brynhild’s outlandish request.

They rode in silence, Gunnar looking grim and perhaps on the edge of despair, until at last they came to a jarl’s hall on a hill above a small farming town. On their approach, a woman tossed a torch from a brazier onto the ground. Immediately, the ground caught flame and fire shot around the hall in a ring that seemed somehow familiar to Sigurd, though he could not recall quite why.

Gunnar ground his teeth, shaking his head. “This horse will never ride through that … I have to pass through on my own.”

Sigurd frowned. “You’d be like to die from such flames.”

Gunnar looked to him, shut his eyes and shook his head once more. “Damn you for this, Mother …”

“I don’t understand. What does Queen Grimhild have to do with Brynhild’s strange conditions for marriage?”

Gunnar opened his eyes and looked hard at Sigurd. “Naught worth mentioning. No, but we both know I cannot pass through flame. It is especially hateful to a Niflung. But you, brother, are unharmed by fire. And you have a helm that will let you take on my aspect.”

Sigurd sighed. “Which gets me inside the hall looking like you. It does not get you inside to fulfill her other condition and best her, much less to …”

“Bed her? No,” Gunnar said. “No, it doesn’t. But what choice is left to me? Go in as me and prove your strength. Conquer her completely, such that no further tests become necessary.”

Sigurd blanched. “You cannot be serious. Your sister—”

“Need not know. Nor will Brynhild. Ever.”

“I shall know! I’ll know I betrayed Gudrun to lay with another woman. Under false pretenses, no less.”

Gunnar frowned, laying a hand on Sigurd’s shoulder. “Do you think I like this? To send another man—even you—to fuck my future wife? But I must have her. You have seen her, yes? Her beauty. By Hel, Sigurd! I cannot sleep since laying eyes upon her in Hlymdalir. And yes, damn my mother for putting such an idea in my head, but it’s too late now.” Gunnar withdrew his hand, clenching his fingers. “To say naught of the need for this alliance. It can help secure my claim to Reidgotaland. Even Beowulf will not rise against us once we are so united with Laaland.”

Sigurd spit in the dirt by Gunnar’s feet. “You’d build your future on a lie. Naught built such can end any way save poorly.”

“I beg you to see it done. Is it so truly onerous to lay with such a beautiful woman?”

Sigurd glowered, refusing to answer that. Not least because he had surely imagined it, alone in his chamber at night. But imagining bedding another woman and actually betraying Gudrun were two very different things.

“I beg you,” Gunnar repeated. “I must have her. And I see no other way, save deception.”

Sigurd sighed, but nodded, and looked around. Certain no onlookers might catch sight, he withdrew the Tarnhelm from his satchel. This he placed upon his head and then imagined himself as Gunnar, studying the other king’s every aspect until he was certain the illusion had taken hold.

Once it had, it felt like he no longer wore the helm at all.

Grumbling, Sigurd drew Gramr and advanced toward the flame. He cast a look back at the real Gunnar, who now moved to hide in a copse of trees just outside the town. Not even looking back.

Damn it all.

Then he had to do this. He truly had to.

Teeth grit, Sigurd ran through the blaze, grimacing at its heat, though it did not burn him. The sleeves of his shirt caught flame, and his trousers. On the far side of the blaze, Sigurd flung himself into a roll, then patted down his clothes until the flames went out.

Well. Like that, he lay panting a moment.

Finally, he rose, and trod up to the hall. It had a single large oak door and this Sigurd flung open.

Inside, Lady Brynhild rested upon a chair, one leg draped over an armrest, a sword laying across her thigh. This she tapped lightly up and down. Her glower could have set the smoldering braziers freshly alight. She wore shining mail bound with a gem-crusted girdle, well clad for battle.

“I have passed through the flames for you, my lady,” Sigurd said.

Brynhild’s face drew into a yet deeper grimace. “So it would appear.”

“With blessings from your foster father, I come to offer you marriage.”

“And I hardly know how to respond.”

Sigurd frowned. She was not going to make this easy. “I’m offering you more gold and precious treasures for your hand than you can begin to imagine.”

Brynhild grunted, then stood abruptly, her sword scraping along the mail skirt covering her thigh in the process. “Do not dare speak to me of such things unless you have the courage to back them up. I have slain hundreds of men in battle. I have turned the tides of war to favor one king or another. I have stained my sword with the blood of more foes than you can guess.” She strode forward, sword point out before her. “Would you kill for my hand? Would you kill all others who try to claim it?”

“Must it truly come to that? Was striding through the flame alone not enough to come back with me?”

“I will come with you. If you can prove yourself.” She held the sword out to her side, then dropped it, and it clattered on the hall’s wooden floor. “Best me. Prove you are stronger than those hundreds I have slain and fill me with your seed, if you can. And if not, I’ll send your useless cock back to that witch mother of yours.”

Sigurd flinched. Damn it. He slid Gramr back into her sheath and laid her carefully on the ground.

As he rose, Brynhild rushed in with a sudden hook. It caught him off guard, smacking into his jaw and sending him stumbling backward. Thor’s hammer, she was strong! He barely had time to wipe the blood from his lip before she was on him again, leaping at him, her elbow descending toward his head.

Sigurd jerked out of the way and caught her in midair with both hands on her mail. All the strength in the World didn’t matter with no footing and she had little weight. Before she could launch another blow at him, he flung her at one of the wooden pillars supporting the hall. The impact sent her stumbling down to one knee.

“How did you slay hundreds of men without knowing to keep your feet on the ground?”

“Your blood brother could’ve answered that, before he met your mother.”

What? Did she mean Sigurd himself? For she thought him Gunnar, so—

Brynhild’s foot snared his ankle and sent him toppling to the ground. She leapt atop him, snarling like a cat. Her fist snapped down into his jaw, slamming his head on the floor and sending black spots swirling in front of his eyes. If not for Fafnir’s heart, he’d probably have been knocked senseless. As it was, he barely got his arm up to block the next blow, and even then it felt like a mule had kicked his arm.

Sigurd flung her bodily off him. Brynhild regained her footing in an instant, and before he had gotten past his knees, he was again blocking crushing blows to his face. How in the gates of Hel was she so strong?

Knowing it would hurt, he allowed her to connect with a blow. Just so he could land an uppercut of his own at the same time. Her punch sent him tumbling back to the ground. By the time he rose, shaking his head, she was wiping blood from her own lip and clearly struggling to rise. So she had great strength, but it didn’t render her immune to his blows.

The gems on her girdle reflected the firelight oddly, almost seeming to hold their own inner shimmer. Hadn’t Regin once mentioned dvergar had crafted other wonders besides the runeblades? Did that belt give her strength?

“Can we not stop this now?” he asked.

Brynhild spit blood on the floor, gaining her feet. “If you’re ready to surrender your cock.”

She launched herself at him, low, with a clear intent to tackle him. Sigurd dodged to the side and caught her legs with an arm around them, then heaved, sending her flipping through the air. The shieldmaiden crashed down awkwardly. As she lay there, groaning, Sigurd dropped atop her and worked free the clasp of her girdle.

“Uh!” She grabbed his wrist with one hand and drove the other into his side. Even through his mail, through his gambeson, that stung and drew out an oomph.

But with his free hand he managed to pop loose the clasp. The wrist holding his instantly lost the better part of its force—though she remained stronger than many men he’d known—and he yanked the girdle out from under her, then cast it aside.

Sigurd rose, panting. “It’s done. All right? It’s done.”

Brynhild stood, her own breath ragged. “It’s not fucking done yet. Do it! If you can, finish it!”

“No, I don’t want—”

Her haymaker soared in at his face. He got one arm up to block and grabbed her shoulder with the other, shoving her away. But again she came at him, twisting one way, then the other. He realized her feint too late and took a blow to the jaw for his mistake. Though it stunned him, it didn’t seem to cause much harm to his dragon-hardened skin.

Brynhild glanced down at her hand, wringing it in obvious pain. Her discomfort didn’t stop her from aiming a knee at his stones. It came up so fast he had to twist sideways to avoid it, allowing her to land a punch between his shoulder blades. That was enough to send him stumbling into a column.

The shieldmaiden roared as she came at him again. Sigurd dodged to the side, grabbed her elbow, and slammed her against the same pillar. Brynhild staggered, sputtering.

He pried her arm around behind her back and leaned in close. “It’s over.”

She snorted, though even her breath sounded pained. “Ironic. Another man I have to teach how sex works.”

Something about that sounded so very odd. Why was his mind so hazy all of a sudden? He’d come here to do this. He’d already promised his blood brother he could. So what was …?

“Do it!” she shrieked. “Fucking do it, you craven sorcerous trench!”

Damn. Sigurd shoved her harder against the pillar. With his free hand, he reached around to the laces of her trousers. It took him a moment to pry them loose.

“Do it!” she screamed again. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

He finally got her trousers down, then had to fumble with his own. “Not like this, please,” he said. “Please, just accept the proposal or reject it. This isn’t how marriage is supposed to be …”

“It has to be this way.” The last sounded spat through gritted teeth.

Oh, Hel. She was too short, making it awkward to even get a good angle. If he could just get under a little more …

And then he slipped inside. He couldn’t help but linger on memories of those he’d forced himself on under Regin’s tutelage. And how he’d later learned to so disdain himself for it.

Did his mind seek refuge? Did he flee from the furious pumping of his hips, from the shieldmaiden’s grunts and groans and occasional taunts? He should not have come to this place. If only Brynhild had just accepted Gunnar’s proposal. Or, Hel, even if she had refused it. But to demand this?

Yet she kept demanding he continue. Screaming at him not to stop. Until it was finally done.

After he pulled out, Brynhild slumped down on the floor beside the pillar and fitted him with a glower. She yanked a rose gold ring from her finger and flung it across the floor. “Consider that your wedding ring.”

Sigurd took it. Runes marked it and it seemed so familiar, yet he couldn’t quite say from where. But he knew he’d seen it before. Uncertain what else to do, he slipped it on his little finger, then dug through his bag to find another ring, one drawn from Fafnir’s hoard. This he handed to Brynhild.

The shieldmaiden shuddered, took it, and slipped it on the same finger where the other one had been. “And now I am for you, King Gunnar. And for you alone.”

Sigurd crawled to where he’d set Gramr and laid down beside her, looking across the sword at the shieldmaiden princess.

He tried to sleep, but something denied him rest. A sick feeling in his gut that something was terribly wrong with the World.

In the early morning, before sunrise, Sigurd snuck outside and removed the Tarnhelm, resuming his own form. The real King Gunnar met him with horses already set to ride back to the ships. “It’s done?” Gunnar asked.

“It’s done.”

31

One thought kept running through Brynhild’s mind as she sat on the floor of Heimir’s hall, arms wrapped around her knees. One bitter, terrible thought: the Niflungar had bewitched Sigurd. They had stolen his memories and taken him from her.

As you tried to interfere in my choice of victors, so shall you never again enjoy the sweet mead of victory, woman.

Odin’s curse bombarded her.

Even as Sigurd had succeeded in winning the peace, still Brynhild had lost everything. And now … now she must marry Gunnar. Yes, it saved Hlymdalir, all of Laaland, all of Rijnland even, from the ravages of war with the Niflungar.

But, the price was higher than Brynhild had ever imagined.

Hel damn Odin for any part he’d played in it. The Ás was a monster. And Brynhild had been twice over a fool to defy his will and try to spare Sigmund.

Once, Brynhild had dared to think she owed Odin a debt, for his machinations had delivered Sigurd to her and given her happiness she had not imagined was missing from her life. And she’d known Sigurd had felt the same. But Odin’s curse would not allow Brynhild such easy joy, not in the long run.

Giggling, little Aslaug chased Heimir’s wolfhound around pillar after pillar. They two of them blundered through the great hall while servants narrowly avoided being bowled over.

Bekkhildr sat across from Brynhild, watching Aslaug. Brynhild’s daughter with Sigurd was beautiful beyond words. And he seemed to have forgotten she even existed. Was that the bitterest part of this all?

Her niece reached over to pat her knee. “What are you going to do?”

With a groan, Heimir climbed off his chair, then plodded over to where they sat and plopped down beside them. “There’s not much to be done now, is there? You bargained with them, said you chose the man who fulfilled your dire conditions. Well, now, that’s Gunnar. So you either break your oath to him—and probably plunge us all into war in the process—or keep your oath and marry him.”

Bekkhildr cast a fell glare her husband’s way. “These are the people who stole her husband. Not murdered him, but worse, actually stole him away. We all know he’s under their spell.”

Heimir nodded. “Certainly, it seems that way. Does it make a difference? Does it change aught now, from where we sit? The choice remains simple. Break the oath or keep it. It’s not pretty and I don’t like it, but what else is there to do about it?”

“Not a damn thing,” Brynhild answered for her niece. “There’s no getting Sigurd back.”

“You don’t know that,” Bekkhildr said. “Maybe once you’re there … once you’re with him, you can …”

“Be his whore?” Brynhild asked. “However it happened, he belongs to Gudrun now. I won’t be a second woman to her. Not to anyone.” Was the Niflung bitch princess responsible for that, or merely the one who benefited from it?

“So call them out,” Bekkhildr said. “What they’ve done is an act of war. If they’d murdered Sigurd when we sent him to make peace, would we be having this conversation?”

“They didn’t murder him,” Heimir objected.

“No!” Bekkhildr agreed. “No, this is worse. They … they stole him. They made a mockery of our ally, of Brynhild’s husband.”

Brynhild had wanted to weep, but tears wouldn’t come. She had never really been the weeping kind. “Listen to me, both of you. I need you to raise Aslaug.”

Bekkhildr put a hand on her shoulder. “Brynhild …”

Brynhild grabbed her niece’s hand and held it tight. “Before any of this happened, Gudrun came here. She told me of the dire dream she’d had, and I warned her it portended disaster for both her and I. Somehow, I’d hoped sending Sigurd to make peace would avert that dream. But maybe there was no turning away from it. Maybe urd … is urd.” And Hel-cursed Odin had known. Two decades ago, he’d known it would come to this. “So raise Aslaug as if she were your own daughter. I … I don’t think I’ll return from Castle Niflung. And the Niflungar must not learn that Sigurd has a child with anyone else. Queen Grimhild must not learn of her.”

“Y-you plan to take your revenge …” Bekkhildr said. “Brynhild, if that is your aim, then stay with us and let us all make war.”

“No. Heimir was right, I gave my oath to marry Gunnar. Besides which, I have no plan anymore.” Odin’s vengeance had fallen upon her soul like a weight around her neck. It crushed her down to helpless pulp.

“Naught remains to me save to accept my urd. I will go to Castle Niflung and I will marry Gunnar.”

Bekkhildr—who seemed to have no trouble weeping, as now—flung her arms around Brynhild’s neck. “You don’t have to do this!”

If only that were true. If only she could stay here and watch her daughter grow up into the woman she would become.

But urd had snared Brynhild many years ago and there was no breaking free of that web. Not now, not ever.

32

Oft, the jotunnar attacked even at night, and while Sigyn could see far in darkness, the mist still limited the extent of her vision, which had forced her to scout their perimeter for a time to get a feel for their plans.

Jotunn war bands dotted the land around Gardariki, hardly seeming to work in concord in their attempts to claim the fortress. Hardly, at least, to the undiscerning eye. After watching them for a time, Sigyn had noticed a definite pattern to the ostensible randomness of their efforts. Rather than any sort of continuous assault, each war band probed the defenses in an intersecting order that ensured defenders—especially those unable to determine the rotation—were constantly pushed to alternative locations around the walls.

Such tactics meant Tyr couldn’t focus his archers on any given location, besides serving to further discomfit the citizens since they’d never know when the fighting would start again. A ceaseless attack would have worn down the defenders more quickly, but this strategy would, instead, drain their morale.

Perhaps with Loki and Odin nearby, Narfi’s prescient insights had become limited and thus he had developed this unusual method of testing out his foes while remaining concealed himself.

Sigyn now crouched beside Odin, watching as Loki’s son’s war band—assuming Odin truly was a powerful enough seer to overcome the prescient blind spot Narfi should have engendered for him—withdrew from another fake push against the fortress.

Odin’s capabilities raised whole other questions that her mind couldn’t let go of, much as she knew she should direct her entire focus to the task at hand. The Well of Mimir had fortified Odin’s prescient abilities such that they now seemed to exceed even Loki’s, or perhaps anyone else’s. Sigyn had not yet determined whether the Norns delivered such visions, but whether they did so or not, how would they have felt about so powerful an Oracle now walking the World and using his prescience to essentially create his own Web of Urd? Were Odin’s machinations a part of the greater web, or did he begin to pluck at the strands the Norns had laid in place?

Further, if Odin had somehow begun to diverge from a grander scheme, what did such a plan entail and what would the Norns do to protect it?

“Focus, Sigyn.” Odin’s whisper—no doubt caught by Geri and Freki as they knelt just behind—jolted her, not least because he ought not to have been able to realize her mind drifted while she stared at the camp. His perceptive abilities had begun to become alarming, though others no doubt thought much the same of her.

“There are men among them, for certain,” she said, pretending to have been fixated on the task at hand. “There’s no easy way to tell if any given man is half jotunn, though, other than ruling out the shortest among them. Any of those could be Narfi.”

Odin pointed to a fur-lined tent on the outskirts of the jotunn camp. “That one.”

A man using the Sight to garner information almost seemed like cheating, sometimes. For all her honed senses and deductive abilities, she could not hope to match someone with senses she didn’t have. While Sigyn might infer probable futures, Odin and Loki sometimes just knew. Of course, such a frustration was as petty as it was pointless, so Sigyn always chided herself for indulging in that line of thinking, but still, there it was.

She unshouldered her bow and nocked an arrow. “You have a plan?”

Odin nodded, then beckoned to the jotunn warriors Hymir had lent them. “A mad charge that will catch him off guard. The boy’s young and very accustomed to counting on his insights to warn him of potential danger. With me here, he’d probably never have foreseen an ambush from this direction. He needs to think the attack and danger real enough, which means our allies must show ferocity sufficient to keep him from considering his actions, relying instead on instinctive reactions.”

In other words, Odin planned to sacrifice the better part of Hymir’s warriors to give the attack verisimilitude and thus ensure Narfi would believe the retreat for at least long enough to enter the wood and fall into the trap. And the dozens who would die for this plan? Did Odin think on their lives in the least?

Whether he did so or not, he signaled the jotunnar forward. They blundered past Sigyn’s hiding spot in a fury she could only imagine would well serve to accomplish Odin’s goal of making the assault believable, especially under cover of darkness.

Sigyn’s attuned ears caught the rustle as the varulf twins raced forward in wolf form.

The jotunnar didn’t have fires, which only exacerbated the difficulty posed by the mist. Unable to get a shot from so far off, Sigyn began to creep closer. Odin, though, rose, his walking stick rippling and becoming a spear as he did so. The old man strode forward with a purpose, an obvious intent to join the melee.

Long before she reached the enemy, the tumult of battle came to her. Screams and the thwack of metal on wood, the clang of steel on steel. And the meaty sound of flesh cleaved away.

While Hymir’s jotunn warriors might well have blended with Narfi’s own, the relative positions early on allowed her to determine—with reasonable certainty—who was on what side, though that ability would diminish as the melee turned to total chaos. Sigyn loosed on a jotunn charging out of a tent. Her shaft caught him in the throat.

She drew a bead on another, and another, sticking to only those shoots she felt confident represented Narfi’s soldiers and—more importantly—those too tall to have been human. A half jotunn might push six and a half feet, maybe a little more. Taller than that and it had to be a full jotunn, and probably one who had tasted man-flesh.

Calculating the effects of air currents on the flights of her shafts had become second nature. Sigyn no longer even thought about it. Predicting the likely positions of targets in motion presented a greater challenge, of course, and Sigyn missed more than a few shots when a jotunn moved erratically. Still, many arrows found their marks. Some of those embedded in thick animal hides the jotunnar wore as armor, but others hit vulnerable spots on jotunn faces, throats, shins.

Then the melee grew so intense she couldn’t risk taking further shots, even could she have identified friend from foe. So, instead, she crouched, watching as jotunnar tore into one another. She could only guess, but it did seem Narfi’s troops had gained the upper hand. Sigyn frowned. It had always been part of the plan that Odin and the others would have to retreat and draw them back to the forest, which had always meant Odin needed to lose.

Still, the rampant loss of life didn’t sit well.

Odin’s cry for retreat came sharp, even over the cacophony of the battle. A few jotunnar broke away as soon as that cry went up, but others seemed trapped in combat with their foes. One of the wolves raced past her, and Sigyn lost track of Odin who—as he’d claimed—seemed to have disappeared.

The other wolf came dashing for the wood and Sigyn gained her feet, ready to draw up her swan cloak.

Then a wood jotunn with a massive bow drew a bead and Sigyn flung herself flat before a shaft as tall as she was could impale her. She scrambled to get her bow into position.

That massive shot flew by. A yelp sounded behind her, but she couldn’t afford to turn.

Sigyn rose to one knee, arrow nocked. She loosed. The jotunn archer had already drawn another arrow back, so Sigyn ducked once more, even as her shot caught her attacker in the eye. His next arrow flew wild as he pitched over backward.

At once, Sigyn twisted around. One of the wolves lay on the ground far behind her, almost completely concealed by the mist, but still she could see it—the giant shaft sticking from the body.

A hollow dread opened in her stomach as she scrambled toward the fallen varulf. She pumped pneuma into her legs to cover the distance more quickly. As she drew closer, the shallow gasps became less frequent.

No, no, no. One of the twins was …

Before she even reached the wolf, his body shifted back. Freki lie face down, naked in the mud, the arrow still punched through from his shoulder blade and out his gut.

“Shit!” Sigyn dropped to her knees beside him, struggling to seize her pneuma. Her heart was pounding so fast she couldn’t make her head work, and the energy kept slipping through her mental grasp. “Shit!” She pressed her hands on the wounds and, finally grasping the pneuma with her mind, shoved it into the wolf.

Naught happened.

“No … Freki …”

Shifters resumed human form when they perished.

In the distance, a small army of jotunnar was swarming toward her.

“No …” Sigyn forced down a wail of despair. Left with no choice, she raised the hood of her swan cloak.

33

The smash of timber sounded first, like a herd of mammoths ran wild through the woods, crushing everything that went before them. Thor closed his grip around Mjölnir’s short haft. The commotion was already triggering a headache. One he could not afford before a battle.

He had crouched behind bushes, Loki beside him, and the rest of his men—plus a score of frost jotunnar loyal to Hymir—spread out across the wood. His legs had begun to cramp and his shoulders to ache from holding this position too long.

In the night, without torches, he couldn’t make out anyone else save Loki. The whole forest seemed too dark, too thick with mist. Like he’d crossed into Niflheim, if not quite so cold.

Loki glanced at him and lowered a hand, as if to remind him to wait. Thor didn’t need the reminder. He hated waiting, but he wasn’t like to forget Baldr’s plan.

The boy was across the path now, no doubt itching to unleash his blade upon Narfi’s warriors.

Screams reached him next, and the clash of metal, the sound of men and jotunnar dying.

Thor grit his teeth and clinched his other hand around his shield. Any moment now. Any moment, and he’d be unleashing Mjölnir’s wrath, feeding jotunn souls to the hammer, as he knew it longed for.

Loki’s hand fell on his shoulder, drawing Thor’s gaze. “Narfi,” his uncle mouthed.

Thor nodded. Yes, he’d spare the boy, though Narfi had no doubt sent thousands of Bjarmalanders down to the gates of Hel in his rampant slaughter across this land. But Thor had given his word and that was one thing he’d never break.

The crashing grew closer, a cacophony of battle sounds and chaos that brought on a pounding behind Thor’s temples. Those damn hazy spots floating in front of his vision like buzzing insects gnawing away at his brain.

One of the wolves came loping by in canine form, a shadow in the mist making a mad scramble past. Thor couldn’t tell which one or what had happened to the other. Either way, pursuit came in hard and fast behind the wolf.

A jotunn blundered by, and another, then another.

Could any of them have been Narfi? No easy way to know it in the dark. Magni had promised to strike up torches once the battle was well set in. That, and a plan he’d worked out with Loki. Thor had to trust his son to follow through.

More jotunnar came rushing forward.

Then Baldr’s war cry went up. Thor couldn’t even make him out in the mist, but that was the signal, sure enough.

Thor launched himself at the nearest jotunn, swinging Mjölnir with a roar of his own. The hammer crashed into the creature’s side with a sound like a thunderclap. Its flash of lightning, however brief, illuminated the chaos of battle all around the wood for a single, stark moment. And then it was dark again.

Another blow felled the jotunn, and another flash of light that revealed a second of the beasts charging in on Thor. Again and again his hammer fell. He felt his speed and fury build upon themselves with each life claimed, with each soul devoured, leaving no remaining doubt about what the hammer really was. It was a fucking leech. But it was Thor’s leech and he couldn’t fight without it.

Skulls crunched.

Flames sprang up some distance away, faint lights.

Then that light spread like a wave, fire jutting up along a line of whale oil Loki had poured from here to the river, cutting off any hope of retreat for the frost jotunnar. Even Thor’s own jotunn allies let up an alarmed shout. But those flames also served to help burn away the mist and let Thor make out his foes more clearly.

Magni had done well.

Thor turned about to see Loki ram a sword through a jotunn’s throat. His uncle jerked the blade free, kicked out the knee of another jotunn, and then hewed into the creature’s neck as it stumbled. The man was fast, Thor would give him that. And he had a way of fighting with his whole body that didn’t quite match the wrestling techniques Thor had trained in. Had all kinds of strange learning in him, truth be told.

A fleeting thought, then another jotunn was upon him. Thor swiped Mjölnir upward and took off the jaw of his would-be attacker. That energy compounded in him until he felt strong enough to rip a tree trunk in half.

Screaming in bloody rage, Thor tore into jotunn after jotunn, barely sure whether the ones he killed were Narfi’s or Hymir’s warriors. Any who came up before him were a threat—or a feast for the dark hammer. One he could not deny the weapon.

Thor must have slain a score of the creatures, for oversized corpses littered the forest all around him. Most of them stood well over seven feet tall, like mockeries of human form, now beaten to shapeless lumps.

Lightning crackled and leapt with each blow, coruscating over bodies and igniting foliage. Indeed, the fire had grown into an inferno. And if Narfi was toward the back of it, that’s where Thor needed to be.

He needed to see this through. He plodded toward the flames, felling another jotunn along the way.

A shadow rose behind the wall of fire, then vanished, only to reappear on the near side, roaring in feral rage and brandishing a spear. It took Thor a heartbeat to even recognize his father.

Thor had, on the rarest of occasions, seen his father roused to anger. But not like this. The man flung his spear at a jotunn with casual disdain, seeming not to even notice as the missile punched through the creature’s eye. Rather, Father plowed forward and snatched a man about the throat with both hands, then bodily swung him into the trunk of a tree with enough force the wood cracked.

Hand raised against the now billowing smoke, Thor closed in.

Though he’d not seen him since the boy was a babe, surely this was Narfi, with those piercing blue eyes, now bugling as Thor’s father choked the life from him.

“Father!” Thor shouted. He understood the rage and bloodlust all too well. Still, he’d given his word to his uncle. “Father, we swore to Loki!”

Snarling, his father dropped Narfi, who slumped down to his knees. He’d not quite left his feet when Father’s fist caught him in the jaw and sent his head snapping back into the tree, sending bark flying.

Thor winced. Could the boy even live through that without an apple? Half jotunn or no, it seemed—

Loki barreled into Thor’s father and the two of them hit the ground, rolling through ash and smoldering undergrowth. “Leave him be.” Loki’s words were muffled through their struggle and the tumult raging around them.

Thor glanced to Narfi, saw he was still breathing, and spun back to grab Loki by the back of the neck and haul him off his father. Loki was tall, so Thor couldn’t easily hold him off his feet. Instead, he flung the man away, though Loki came up in a fighting crouch with such grace, he seemed like a damn snow leopard.

“Father,” Thor said.

His father too had gained his feet, face a mask of fury, staring a hateful glare at where Narfi lay prone. “Your brother … is dead.”

“Baldr …” How could …?

“Freki,” Father spat.

Thor stumbled backward. His heel caught on a root and he crashed down onto his arse. That was impossible. The varulf twins were … they were fucking invincible. Shifters who’d had an apple couldn’t die. They could, they had, but … not Freki. He’d always been there, by Thor’s side, and able to survive wounds that would’ve felled even other Aesir. How could an apple-enhanced varulf lose?

“Narfi killed him?” Thor asked, knowing he should get up but finding that hard to focus on.

“His jotunnar did.” Father took a threatening step toward Narfi, and Loki rose to block his way. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t see because I couldn’t see what Narfi would do. His Sight must have blocked mine and I didn’t …” Father drew in a sharp breath and then roared in wordless rage.

Loki raised his hands in front of his face as if warding against a sudden attack. One even Thor wasn’t sure wouldn’t come.

Indeed, his grip on Mjölnir had become so tight, it felt his own hand would break. The hammer seemed to beg him to feed it Narfi. To smash his cousin’s skull into pulp and allow Mjölnir to devour his soul.

Panting, Thor finally gained his feet and stalked up to his father’s side.

“He was raised by Skadi,” Loki said, hands shifting from focus between Father and Thor and back. “He did what his mother taught him. Give me the chance to teach him better and he can be a boon to us.”

Thor hefted Mjölnir. “My brother is dead. There has to be a reckoning.” Thor was so damn tired of losing those he loved. And no one ever really paid the price of it.

“He is my son!”

A swan dropped down beside Loki, pulling back the hood of her cloak and transforming into Sigyn even as she fell. “Any son of Loki’s is my son, as well. And the plan was to capture him. We succeeded. Turn your wrath on Skadi, where it belongs.”

Thor’s father growled at the two of them. If Father decided to push the issue, Thor had no doubt the two of them could take Loki and Sigyn.

The sounds of battle continued to rage around them, but Thor couldn’t afford to take his eyes off his aunt and uncle. “I intend to show Skadi the full aspect of my fury,” he said.

Father at last rose from his slight crouch and dropped his hands. “Our families seemed destined to tear us apart, brother. How oft your children have wrought chaos into Midgard. I wonder how long we can continue to forestall what’s coming.”

Loki released a shuddering breath. “As long as possible. I do love you as a brother, Odin.”

Father glowered and turned on his heel. “One day that won’t be enough.”

Thor chased after his father. While the battle wasn’t done, some things could not be borne any longer. “Where are you going?” he demanded. “We have to end this and eliminate Skadi.”

His father looked to him though didn’t pause in his stride. “You will see her dead, of this I have no doubt. I am needed elsewhere and I am already later than I’d wish.”

“Elsewhere?” Thor gaped. “Avenge your fucking son!”

Now his father did pause.

Thor hefted Mjölnir. “You think I don’t know what this is? You think, after decades with it, I’d never uncover the truth? Why did it only begin to issue thunder after so many years? What happened to the jotunn souls you had me devouring before that?”

His father frowned, shaking his head. “You would not understand.”

“Then help me. You sent me to the Midgard Wall to deal with Vörnir. You had me provoke the jotunnar all so Mjölnir could consume their souls. Do you deny it?”

His father fitted him with a hard look, offering no answer.

“No, you don’t deny it.” And now that the words were bubbling forth from him, Thor could no longer control them. The dark suspicions that had begun so long ago, they seemed all confirmed now. A slaughter between men and jotunnar … and Father had sought it from the beginning. “You started all of this.”

“I didn’t start it, Thor. I’m the one who’s going to end it.”

“Avenge your son!”

“Avenge your brother,” his father snapped back. “While I work to protect all of Midgard.” With that, he started off again.

“Father!”

But the man did not pause, vanishing into the mists.

34

Kings and princes and jarls came from all around Reidgotaland, Hunaland, and even Sviarland for the wedding of King Gunnar to Princess Brynhild. Queen Grimhild had set a feast to rival those held by the Old Kingdoms, or so she herself told it, and indeed, Sigurd could not say he’d ever seen so generous portions of food.

There was shark and whale meat, as well as seal, and clams. There were over a dozen kind of fish served, and crab besides, with carrot and cabbage and many other vegetables. And there was wine and ale and mead aplenty, so much that Sigurd imagined the queen must have taken every drop of honey her army of bees could produce.

Skalds were called upon to recite verses—the Niflungar most favored sagas of the Old Kingdoms, of course—and musicians to play tunes both mournful and lively in turn. They played on lyres, on many kinds of flutes and pipes, and upon drums.

Sigurd took in the spectacle at his wife’s side, her belly clearly showing now—for which they received hearty praise from many guests. Another son, or perhaps a daughter, but either way a new heir for his kingdom in Rijnland.

And of Rijnland, even Prince Alf had come to heed Gunnar’s invitation. How could he not, after Sigurd had convinced him to pledge his fealty to the Niflung king?

When all the guests were gathered, Grimhild banged her scepter upon the floor. “Now comes to the time for the couple to make their vows. For this, they must stand in the courtyard.” In the mist, she meant, though she did not say so. Balconies above and covered walkways would allow the guests to see the couple as they pledged themselves to one another in the old Niflung way. Sigurd had enjoyed such a ceremony when he wed Gudrun, what now seemed so long ago.

Arm-in-arm with his wife, they strolled up toward the balcony. The way she laid her other hand on her belly, perhaps the babe had kicked, or perhaps—as Sigurd thought quite likely—she simply wanted to remind everyone of another child on the way.

Of course, his beautiful wife couldn’t even imagine that he’d lain with Brynhild in order to secure her as Gunnar’s bride. That knowledge bit into his heart like the fangs of a viper and refused to release him, instead letting slow poison suffuse his soul. And when they made love, always, he found his mind drawn back—against his will—to penetrating Brynhild.

He’d given Gudrun the ring he’d claimed from Brynhild in a vain attempt to bury his remorse. A futile gesture …

They took the stairs slowly, though Gudrun need not have bothered this early in her pregnancy. Still, he saw no hurry. Grimhild would not conduct the ceremony until the moon had risen, regardless. So, with Gudrun, he made a leisurely course around the balcony, selecting a good spot to watch the wedding from.

“Last time, we were the ones down there,” Gudrun said.

“I had just been thinking the same thing.” That, and of having betrayed his wife with another woman. The bitter guilt of it felt apt to choke him.

“We had not nigh to so many guests, though.” And she sounded at least a little offended at that slight.

Sigurd sighed. “I am king under Gunnar, sworn to him as my high king. Surely you understand the wedding of a high king must draw in more spectators than any other event.”

Gudrun shrugged as if to deny what should have been painfully obvious to her.

“Gunnar will save Midgard from conquest by Serkland or Miklagard or any other power. We must show him our utmost support.”

“I know my brother’s burdens better than most.”

Gudrun—much as he loved her—was given to bouts of melancholy with no clear source. These she fought or perhaps encouraged with overmuch mead or sometimes wine or ale. Being elder than Gunnar, perhaps she thought she should have been the heir to the throne. But Grimhild had made her choice, and Hogne and Gudrun both had to live with it.

As the sun set, the crowd grew, many still holding goblets sloshing with one liquid or another, and all, so far as Sigurd could tell, caught in wild gossip.

“We have not had guests in such numbers here in centuries. We let so many forget we existed until not so very long ago.”

Sigurd shrugged. “All things much change with time. If you wish to restore the glories of old, you must step out of the shadows.”

As if in response to his invitation, Grimhild strode into the courtyard. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the mist seemed to follow on her heel, thickening in the gathering darkness. The Niflungar allowed but a few torches lit for this, and those spaced at great distances apart, and only up on the balcony. Grimhild would no doubt have preferred no flame at all, but had to make concessions to the need to see at night.

The queen raised her hands, looking terrible and regal, so at home in the mist. Like a specter of a bygone time when men were capable of greater glory than they now were. “People of the North Realms! Behold the rise of a new age. With this marriage, King Gunnar begins his ascension as protector over Midgard!”

Some few in the balcony murmured about the Aesir and about Thor protecting them. They kept their voices low, though, clearly daring not openly question the sorceress queen.

Grimhild continued on, even as Gunnar and Brynhild strode out into the courtyard. She spoke of the blessings of the mist and the need to pay homage to Hel, goddess of the frozen world Niflheim. For Hel’s power had no equal and she alone could save or damn all souls on Midgard.

From the corner of his eye, Sigurd caught many making the sign of the Aesir, and still others begging for Thor’s forgiveness. But the Aesir had not come here and had naught to do with this day. If they wished to save Midgard, they had not done so yet.

The couple exchanged rings once more, Brynhild slipping a ring onto Gunnar’s finger. The real Gunnar this time. And they spoke their vows and kissed one another.

And a dam broke in Sigurd’s mind. A flood of memories drowned his soul, choking him, until, gasping, he leaned on the balustrade. Gaping at Brynhild. The love of his life. How … how had he forgotten her? He’d longed for her before he’d ever known her. He’d come here to protect her kingdom and somehow … had lost track of that. He’d married Gudrun.

Sigurd slowly turned to the woman at his side. She had a hand on his back, patting it. Asking if he was ill. He shook his head, forcing a smile.

Oh, by Hel. No! By Odin. What had happened to him? He was married to Gudrun … they had a child, and another on the way.

Brynhild! Brynhild had just married Gunnar. If she knew Sigurd remembered, would she run back to his arms? Or would she curse him for eternity, maybe even suspect the role he played in tricking her into marrying the Niflung king?

Such a revelation would destroy the peace without doubt. It would crush Gudrun, ruin the lives of their children. It would leave all Reidgotaland embroiled in war.

Regin’s hammer began to beat on Sigurd’s chest. To cave in his heart. To crush his lungs to a bloody pulp.

To salvage what he still could … he had but one choice before him.

To live the lie and carry the truth to his grave.

35

Much as Odin preferred to avoid sorcery, sometimes the situation rather demanded it, especially when confronted with the workings of other sorcerers. Breaking Grimhild’s hold on Sigurd had proved difficult. Her potions had so thoroughly entranced the young man that Odin had required a goat to sacrifice in order to restore Sigurd’s memories.

Now, covered in sweat and goat’s blood, Odin slumped down just outside his conjuring circle.

He carved runes into rocks on a deserted plateau on Cimbria. Ideally, he’d have worked the Art on Samsey, close to his target, but doing so might have alerted the Niflungar to his presence, a risk he wasn’t quite ready to take.

Not yet, but soon. The time would come when the Niflungar would fall, undone by their own reliance on the vile Art and the subtle prodding of an old man who’d suffered too much under their schemes.

Knowing Grimhild would die at his hands had provided a comfort, and Odin had oft indulged in that vision. Just the knowing that he would at last be revenged … That, though it had taken seven decades, his vengeance would tear apart those who had taken so very much from him.

Now he advanced on her with the spear. “To which of your many crimes should we trace the origin of this tragedy, great queen? The deception of Sigurd? The abuses you visited upon your own children? Or perhaps your greatest miscalculation lay in sending Ymir to kill my father!” Odin rammed the spear through Grimhild’s sternum, hefting her up off the ground. He held her aloft for a moment, staring into her hateful eyes, relishing the pain and fear there.

Then he planted the shaft in the ground.

In her helpless flailing, Grimhild only managed to sink deeper upon it as she died. Odin spared her no more thought. Grimhild may have executed Hel’s will that day, but the goddess of Mist herself lay at its source. And one day, Odin would see to her as well.

Before that, he needed the ring.

Thus he fell to his knees and dug through Sigurd’s ashes. Prescient visions had revealed this moment many times before. He knew exactly where to dig. The ashes were still warm enough to prove uncomfortable, but little more. He flung them aside until his finger brushed over the rose gold ring.

Andvaranaut. Andvari’s Gift. The ring with the power to break through any barrier, to carry him between worlds.

Oh, he was so nearly there. Already, he tasted the clean winds rushing over the rainforests of Alfheim. Even sitting here, on the cool shore in Reidgotaland, he could feel overwhelming heat from the Alfheim sun. He could hear the songs of the alfar, beautiful and clear, coming to him across the gap of time.

A song had begun to fill the rainforest, not of birds, but of voices carried on the wind, high and melodic, and somehow Ethereal. Odin wandered along this path until he came to a lake where a half dozen women were bathing, and where she would come to him. Not Freyja, he hadn’t seen her here. Did he meet her later? For he must meet her, this he knew without doubt.

The women spied him, standing there waiting, and their song drifted away, though none of them seemed the least bit abashed at their nakedness. One of them cocked her head to the side and then started for him, a deep skinned, beautiful woman he’d known so very long ago.

“Idunn.”

The woman didn’t speak, but rather stooped to grab a sheer white dress that she slung over her shoulders. It had no sides, but belted in the middle, offering a hint of modesty, if only a hint. Despite her unabashedness, he was left with the memory of her being the granddaughter of his own past life, and thus found himself squirming at her manner.

They were waiting for him in Alfheim, Freyja, Idunn, and the others. He would, perhaps, need to make some amends for his mistake in sending them there. He’d believed the only way to spare the Vanir and yet still make himself king of Vanaheim had been to cast them out of this world. Knowing their new home had indeed proved a paradise offered some comfort, yes, small though it was.

But still, he’d offer his regrets.

Oh, how he had missed her. Freyja had become his own little sun, gleaming in the distance, begging him to find her. To climb across the sky and take her hand. For so long, for so many years he’d lurched in one painful step after another, desperate to take her grip.

He was so close now, he could feel it.

All he had to now was wait.

Sitting upon a rock by the sea, Odin waited.

Not having embraced the Sight, Odin didn’t see it when Hermod drew nigh, but still he knew. He’d sent for the man some time back, and he’d known Hermod must invariably catch him here in Cimbria. For a heartbeat, a face pushed against a membrane as Hermod stepped through the Veil.

The man shook off the disorientation with remarkable ease, enough that Odin could not help but be a little jealous.

Practice …

No. Audr had well taught Odin that he could afford to rely on the wraith’s power only under the direst of circumstances. If even then.

Hermod turned to him, and offered a nod. “Another lesson?”

Odin chuckled. “You speak as if you think I don’t know where you’ve been or what you do.”

Hermod glowered at him before slumping down beside him. “If you see so very much, why haven’t you seen who murdered my daughter?”

That question had become a thorn between Odin and his apprentice, one he could not pluck, no matter how oft he tried to explain that prescience was never perfect, and looking into the past was less so. “You know I don’t see everything.”

“So very much, though.”

“Yes. And I’m telling you to leave it be. If you ignite a fresh war with Serkland, Sif will have died for naught. Either way, we may never know who murdered her.”

Hermod folded his arms, offering no answer.

“I can’t give you any more lessons,” Odin said after a moment. “Soon, I’ll have to go away for a time, and you’ll need to govern Valhalla in my stead. And … to watch over Midgard.”

“Go away where?”

“Far. The details need not concern you.” Odin unslung a runeblade from his shoulder and handed it, sheathed, to Hermod. “This is Dainsleif, the legacy of the Bragnings. Use it to defend against whatever threats you must, but never forget that aught forged with the Art is forged from souls. They will ever bring suffering to match their own.”

Hermod pulled the blade half free, inspecting the runes without comment before sliding it back in.

Odin reluctantly slipped Draupnir from his finger. “The ring should give you some measure of command over the valkyries, though they remain bound to me and you won’t be able to bind more of them. But you might use them to further fill Valhalla’s ranks.” He dropped the ring into Hermod’s open palm.

The man’s frown only deepened when his hand closed around the ring. “I mislike the way you speak. Just how long will you be gone?”

Odin shook his head. “I don’t know, in truth. A while, at least. When I return … everything will be different.”

When he returned, Freyja, Idunn, and the Vanir would be by his side.

Maybe then he could finally heal the World.

Part V

Year 73, Age of the Aesir

Summer

(One year later)

36

Brynhild shuddered at the lap of the ocean on her heels. Even now, in summer, the waters were colder than the rivers she was accustomed to.

“Just get it over with,” Gudrun called. The Niflung princess had already waded out into the sea and was waving at Brynhild. Probably she meant her taunts playfully. She had been the one to invite Brynhild to come swim with her and Brynhild would be twice damned if she’d let the other woman demonstrate even a morsel of more daring than her.

The summer breeze whipped against her bare skin, raising gooseflesh over her arms and legs and making the water about her ankles seem all the colder.

“It’s not bad once you’re accustomed to it!” Gudrun shouted.

Brynhild shot her a look of mock scorn. Despite herself, she almost wanted to like the other woman. A year together had been nigh enough to convince her Gudrun knew naught of what she’d stolen from Brynhild.

Her mother Grimhild was another matter altogether, and Brynhild found herself oft considering eviscerating the sorceress, could she but have found a way to do so without provoking terrible retribution down on Heimir and Bekkhildr.

Forced to take Gudrun’s advice, Brynhild rushed into the ocean, letting the cold hit her all at once rather than one painful nip at a time. The sudden shock of it left her almost paralyzed for a moment, and gasping.

“A little bad, maybe,” Gudrun said, chuckling to herself.

Teeth chattering, Brynhild turned her gaze back to the other princess. From what she’d heard, Grimhild’s unnatural long life had withered, and yet now the woman’s beauty seemed restored. Though hardly schooled in sorcery, Brynhild could guess at the means by which the Niflung Queen Mother had achieved this end. Indeed, it must have involved the sacrifice of innumerable young girls, siphoning off the life they ought to have had to further extend her own.

It was a shame Odin had failed to kill the vile creature thus far. Had he but done so, everyone might have been saved a great deal of grief.

“It’s not that cold,” Gudrun said. “You seem as if it’s driven you into a torpor.” She splashed water at Brynhild, though she was too far out for more than a little spray to rush over Brynhild’s face.

Treading water, Brynhild made her way out to where the Niflung princess waited, but found herself too lost in thought to form much of an answer.

“I’ve been reading of late,” Gudrun said.

Brynhild turned to her, drawn from her musings by the utter suddenness of Gudrun’s statement. “The Niflung library is vast.”

“Yes, well, I’m told it’s but a fraction of what it once was, back in the days of the Old Kingdoms.”

“And that is what you read of?”

“Hmmm.” Gudrun was panting a little from treading water. “I was actually looking into the decline of the Odlingar.”

“Why them?”

“I … I used to have an amulet they’d held, one that far predated them. It allowed me to take the form of a seal and swim beneath the sea. In my whole life, I have never known such freedom as that, though the depths do hold a certain terror, an unknown presence down there. Still, to swim free, it felt like flying.”

Brynhild grimaced at that, though she doubted Gudrun could see it. As a valkyrie, she’d been able to fly, both on her own or in the form of a swan. It was a grace she dearly missed, though it seemed distant now, most days.

“In any event, the Odlingar were masters of the Gandvik Sea and had trafficked with mer, which is where I suspect they got the amulet in the first place. I wonder only how they managed to call up such creatures.”

Brynhild could not help but groan at that. “Tell me you are not fool enough to delve into the Art once more?” Gudrun did not speak overmuch of her past, but it was enough to know she had been a sorceress and had suffered having her body possessed by the vaettir she tried to control. To have recovered from that put her ahead of most any sorcerer Brynhild had ever heard tale of. Since then, Gudrun appeared to have controlled the addictive desire the Art created in its practitioners.

“No … no … I just wanted to know.”

Scoffing, Brynhild swam farther out. The Niflung princess might be short of breath, but Brynhild had long training as a warrior. And since Gudrun had insisted they come here, she would at least use the opportunity to truly work herself a little.

“What are you doing?” Gudrun demanded.

Brynhild chuckled and kept swimming.

“That’s too far!”

Now she turned about so she could look back at the Niflung princess. “Maybe for one who needs an amulet to swim. I spent my life honing my body. I imagine I could swim to the mainland if I had to.”

“You’d freeze to death first. Stop being a Hel-cursed fool.”

A fool, was she? Sneering, Brynhild kicked herself out further. The Niflung princess thought she knew so very much about Brynhild, but she had no idea what they had brought into their midst. Gudrun’s family had invited an adder into their very beds. They had bespelled Sigurd and yet had the temerity to send their prince asking for her hand. While Gudrun might have known naught of all these things, Brynhild still had half a mind to drown the other woman out here just to punish Grimhild.

No, but it would bring about the same bitter end to Bekkhildr. Besides, part of her almost liked Gudrun. Sometimes.

“What in Hel’s name does this mean, Brynhild?” Gudrun snapped.

“Why do you expect me to pretend to be your equal?” Brynhild asked. “I am not bound by your limits, Niflung.” No matter how hard she tried, sometimes Brynhild could not deny the venom bubbling in her gut. Odin and Grimhild and all the others had bound her to this bitter urd. “I am stronger than you. My husband is greater than yours and has traveled through the fire to claim me, while yours bows down to mine.”

Gudrun blanched, then reddened. The other princess swam back toward shore.

Oh, no. Brynhild wasn’t done with her yet. She dove under the water and covered the distance quickly, coming back up beside Gudrun. “It seems you are not much of a swimmer without that amulet, are you?”

“What do you want to hear, Brynhild?” Gudrun asked, now able to put her feet down and wade toward shore.

“Admit you are less than me.”

Gudrun scoffed.

“Why not? Your precious husband was practically a thrall to King Hjalprek, and now even Hjalprek has sworn loyalty to Gunnar.”

The other princess spun on her. Her slap was clumsy and slow, even considering the water. Brynhild caught her arm and twisted it around behind her back.

“Do you have any idea of the evil your mother has wrought?” The words left her mouth before she realized she meant to speak them.

“Hold your Hel-damned tongue!” Gudrun snapped, then grunted as Brynhild pulled harder on her arm.

“Why? Ashamed for poor Sigurd, a thrall to better kings?” Brynhild cooed the words into the woman’s ear. Part of her longed to take it all back, but it was as if a dam had burst inside her and she could not forestall the words. They rushed from her in a torrent, the venom that had so long choked her now grown beyond her ability to stomach. “He does not seem so very great to me, little princess.”

“Bitter to have lost your first love?”

Brynhild released Gudrun of a sudden and the Niflung stumbled underwater, before coming up, backing away.

She knew. She knew all along, while pretending to be Brynhild’s friend?

Gudrun rubbed her arm while continuing to back up, until she stood on the beach, shivering. She stormed toward her dress and knelt, grabbing something from a pouch. “Sigurd slew the linnorm Fafnir. Sigurd passed through flames, you wretched bitch. You thought it was my brother? Your precious Sigurd came to you in Hlymdalir, though you thought it was Gunnar.”

“No.” Brynhild stomped toward her, but the waters slowed her steps. “No.”

“I’ve oft wondered just how he fucked you that day.” Gudrun held up a rose gold band between her fingers. The ring Brynhild had tossed to Gunnar. How did Gudrun have it …?

Brynhild froze, waist deep in the water, gaping at the ring. Gudrun knew everything. And Gunnar—no, Sigurd—had given her the ring. Somehow, he had changed shapes with Gunnar. And he had done this to her. Betrayed her, utterly.

They knew.

Everyone knew.

Even Sigurd knew what he’d done to her. Lain with her under false pretenses. Delivered her to the bed of a man he knew she had no desire to marry.

She sank down to her knees, the water suddenly up to her neck, splashing her face with each passing wave, though she hardly noticed.

Dimly, she watched as Gudrun dressed. The princess dropped the rose gold ring on the sand, then fled, afraid of Brynhild’s wrath, perhaps.

But Brynhild couldn’t summon wrath anymore. Just a horrible, soul devouring numbness.

37

Brynhild did not attend the night meal, nor the day meal the next morning. As she paced about the balcony around the courtyard, Gudrun cursed herself over and over for losing her temper and handing over that accursed ring. What had she been thinking? Yes, Brynhild had pushed her beyond the limits of what could be endured, for certain, and yet, in losing control of herself, Gudrun had endangered everything. Indeed, what if the woman went to Sigurd with this?

Would such a claim risk undoing the hold of Grimhild’s potion on the man? Hel take Gudrun for a fool. Her pride had brought the risk of disaster upon the Niflungar. If Brynhild wanted to show herself above Gudrun, well, then Gudrun should have simply accepted that as part of the price of the deception they had all worked upon the woman.

Huffing, she leaned on the balustrade. If Sigurd learned the truth, Gudrun would lose him. Worse yet, the Niflungar would lose him, and their budding empire with him. Just how far would the affronted man go to seek vengeance? War? Almost certainly. Sigurd had cut off the head of his own foster father, and for crimes some might call less than those Grimhild had committed against him.

Gudrun slapped the rail. Hel damn it all!

She finally had her life under control.

You’ve never had control.

Gudrun ground her teeth, pretending not to hear the snow maiden, though they both knew better.

You are weak. Governed by your emotions like the sea tossed by the wind.

Hel could have Snegurka. Gudrun slapped the balustrade once more, then stormed off. There was naught for it save to find Brynhild and … and apologize? That would end well, wouldn’t it? Sorry we stole your husband and convinced him to give you to another man. She couldn’t mind that, really.

Gudrun huffed out a sigh then made her way to Brynhild’s bower. The place was a shaded balcony overlooking the cliffs, not far from the chambers Gunnar had given Brynhild as her personal space. They oft slept in separate chambers, but Gudrun’s brother had claimed not to mind, saying he understood her desire for solitude from time to time.

A pair of ladies-in-waiting clustered just outside the bower, apparently banished from Brynhild’s company this morn. Gudrun waved them away. “Find somewhere else to be.” As soon as they’d left, she stepped out onto the bower herself, squinting against the brightness in the sky. Brynhild sat in a chair, staring off into the distance. “A warm summer day, it seems.”

Brynhild didn’t even bother looking in her direction.

Not that Gudrun could blame her.

How you wriggle and writhe, squirming to avoid the urd you wrought for yourself.

No! No, Gudrun had never asked Grimhild to bespell Sigurd. She hadn’t planned it, hadn’t done this.

Even now, you shirk responsibility for your circumstances.

“I … uh …” Hel take that vile snow maiden. She was making this harder. “I hope our conversation did not distress you overmuch.”

Brynhild did face her now, leveling the most withering gaze upon her that Gudrun could ever remember seeing. Even Grimhild would have been impressed. Gudrun couldn’t help but shrink a little under the woman’s merciless stare.

“Listen,” Gudrun said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

“Sorry?” Brynhild lurched to her feet, knocking over the chair in the process. “Sorry? Malice governed all you’ve done, from years back. You allowed me to believe our friendship real, and plotted against me. Then, even after you had won, you felt the need to twist the knife you’d jabbed into my back. And now, after all that, you have the temerity to apologize? Your mother would be proud of your merciless heart.”

Gudrun blanched. Brynhild had this wrong. Gudrun had never intended for any of it to work out quite the way it had.

And yet you allowed your mother to know of your desire for the man. And when he was yours for the taking, did you refrain? Did you try to break the spell and send him home to his love?

Gudrun ground her teeth, desperate to shut out the prattle in her head.

“Well?” Brynhild demanded.

“I … Please don’t think that of me,” Gudrun stammered. “It was all more complicated than that. Things just happened …”

The woman stalked closer, seeming intent to strangle Gudrun, enough that Gudrun backed up until she hit the outer wall of the castle. “You accidentally fucked my husband? What, you slipped and fell on his cock? You didn’t mean to marry him? And, oh, the part where you and your brother conspired to have my own husband rape me while I thought him someone else? Also probably just an oversight, I’m quite certain.”

“I didn’t do aught with intent to grieve you. Surely you understand that … urd …”

“Urd!” Brynhild raised a hand close to Gudrun’s face and she braced for a slap, though none landed. “You’d blame urd for your own actions?” Now she chuckled, though her eyes remained dark.

“Tell me whatever you need to say.” Hel, her voice sounded pathetic even in her own ears. She was.

Worthless.

“It must have been so easy for you to fall into that life, to live in satisfaction as your desires were filled.” Brynhild shook her head and leaned close to Gudrun. “You are a wretched bitch, and I swear you’ll suffer more than anyone for this. I cannot bear that you stole him from me.” Her breath was hot, her voice nigh to a whisper. “Yet I’m inclined to let you live knowing a fall comes for you. Oh, I know you are not the true architect of our tragic urd. I only hope I can see you squirm when it closes in around your throat.”

“I didn’t … didn’t know …”

Brynhild sneered at her. “Now you further insult me with your lies. Even had you not come to call upon me in Hlymdalir, no one can claim ignorance of the marriage of one of the greatest kings in the North Realms. Nor can you expect me to believe you had no knowledge of it when he came to you. You knew exactly what you were doing: betraying me. And betrayal must be avenged.”

Gudrun slipped away from Brynhild, putting some distance between the two of them. Who did this woman think she was to threaten her thus? Gudrun may have acted wrongly—Snegurka cackled in her mind at that thought—may have, yes, but still, she was heir to the last great kingdom in the Mortal Realm. She was the daughter of Gjuki and Grimhild themselves. And this fallen valkyrie from a pathetic, petty kingdom thought to threaten her. “You are married far above your station already. Gunnar is king of the Niflungar. No other race yet living comes close to our history, our glory, our power. Yes, you lost Sigurd.” Gudrun threw up her hands. “Such things are but fog, blown away by the wind. You cannot see that you received a husband beyond yourself, caught in your own pride. How many should suffer because of it?”

Brynhild’s hand twitched like she thought to reach for a weapon, though she did not wear her sword at the moment—Hel be praised for that. “I did not ask for Gunnar. I already had the man I loved and you stole him from me. You took my life! Snatched what I had chosen from me. And you ask me to be grateful you gave me a different life in return? Gunnar is a crawling worm next to Sigurd.”

“He is king of the greatest—”

“He is a slave to the whims of his own mother. And do not think me ignorant of the witch’s part in all this. Hers is the most wretched soul I have ever encountered.”

Maybe that was true. But Grimhild had worked to salve Gudrun’s pain, and at a time Gudrun had thought herself wishing for death. “The woman has treated you like her own daughter.”

“Then I pity you.”

Gudrun flinched at that.

“Oh. Did that strike close to your heart? No, I don’t care to know what vileness that bitch put you through in the past. Not now, not after you have showered bile upon our friendship. As for Grimhild, she contrived all the woes we both now suffer. My dearest wish is that her schemes shall finally come back to devour her as well. I may not have much gift for the Sight, but I have a fair reckoning of what must ensue from here. Enough to know you’ll all pay for this.”

What was she talking about? Did Brynhild have a foretelling regarding the Niflungar? Did she know something that would happen to Gudrun? To Grimhild?

Brynhild snickered. “Was it one of her potions that stole Sigurd’s memory of me? Was that how she achieved this?”

“No … it’s a lie.”

The other woman cocked her head and stared openmouthed at Gudrun, as if struck speechless that Gudrun could bother denying what seemed so plain to her. “Then enjoy Sigurd and pretend you never betrayed me. While I wait to see how things will play out for you. You are not the spiders in the Web of Urd, Niflung. Not anymore, if ever you were.”

“I will enjoy him! I deserve some happiness!” Hel, how petulant the words sounded, but Gudrun couldn’t stop herself.

Brynhild raised her hands in mock surrender, the effect broken by her smirk. “Before long, I suspect you’ll regret this conversation. But … as you wish. No more hateful words. Enjoy your happiness.”

Delicious.

No. Gudrun would not let her have the upper hand. Not like this. “You’re the one who spoke maliciously to me first, Brynhild. Your hatred is the root of all our discontent.”

The other woman snorted and once more drew uncomfortably close to Gudrun. “I wonder if you honestly believe that. But it doesn’t matter. My hatred, as you say, slept silently in my breast for the past year.” Brynhild thrust a finger at Gudrun’s chest. “You’ll know how I’ve felt, sooner or later.”

Then, mercifully, the woman backed away and strode from the bower.

Heart pounding, Gudrun stumbled over to the chair then slumped into it.

Oh, Hel. Oh, fuck.

She ground her teeth, slowly shaking her head, stifling the urge to scream.

Hel!

It was all coming crashing down around her. And naught Gudrun could do was like to stave off the end.

38

Clad only in an undershirt, Brynhild stared at the ceiling to her chambers. She’d sent away the pestering slaves who tried to take her to wash or change her clothes. She denied those who brought her food or drink. She forbade any from entering.

Outside, the sun had risen and set and risen again, and Brynhild rose only when her body forced her to piss. Even that came less and less frequently now, with her taking no drink in.

It left her free to drift in half wakefulness, her mind touching far places, almost as though she could still cross the Veil and move through the shadows beneath this world. No, but that power was taken from her, along with all else, by the scheming King of the Aesir. Odin had known all of this, back when he cursed her to the nightmarish sleep. He had known and yet had offered her no semblance of mercy, nor why would he?

He believed she had betrayed him. In truth, she had. After swearing her oath, still she’d defied the king, believing she could save a worthy man. Maybe Odin had always known she’d make that betrayal, too. How did one contend with a man who could see the future? Oh, the answer was obvious.

One lost.

No hope of winning such a struggle existed. No, she’d been like a pig, trapped in a pen and fleeing the butcher, unaware that there had never been anywhere to which she might escape. The Web of Urd stretched out forever, in all directions, and no one could free themselves from it.

Lying like this, she turned her head when someone dared open her door.

Gunnar shut the door behind himself, then moved to sit down beside her.

Brynhild looked away, back up at the hateful ceiling. He deserved every drop of her scorn but bestirring herself from her current position seemed an insurmountable task at the moment. Still, she mused over going for her sword beside her bed.

“They tell me you are ill,” Gunnar said. “That you refuse your food and speak to no one.”

And yet he somehow expected her to speak to him. His subtle hubris would have made her scoff, had she the energy to do so.

“Tell me what vexes you, Brynhild.”

Just let him leave. He had no business here and she was done pretending to live happy in this marriage. Let all the Niflungar burn, and Sigurd and Odin with them. Let Hel claim every last soul on Samsey and draw them into her gates.

“Please, speak to me.”

Brynhild shut her eyes. “What did you do with the ring I gave you on our first night together? You do not wear it.”

“I …”

“If a woman gives a man a ring, and he allows his sister to claim it, what should the woman think of that?” Brynhild turned her glower on him. “I swore to marry the man who would ride through flame to reach me. The one who could best me at arms. And though you pretended otherwise, it was Sigurd who fulfilled the conditions. I should have realized …” She swallowed. “I should have, given I’d already thought he alone could complete the tasks I had set. But he wore your form and he seemed to have forgotten me. So I broke my oath to him and made a new one to you.”

Gunnar gaped at her, working his mouth.

His shock gave her the strength to sit. “Did you truly think I would not learn of the evil Grimhild had wrought? That your lies and deceptions would last a lifetime? These wretched deeds will be the ruin of all of you, her most of all.”

Her husband lurched to his feet, his shock melting away, replaced with a glare. “You blame a woman far above you. They say you were once a valkyrie and tormented the dead, forcing them to serve the god-king. But still you mock my mother who has held together our most ancient kingdom despite foes within and without.”

All she could do was scoff at that. “You make her sound like a hero.” She shook her head. “But you are nigh to as guilty as she is.” Brynhild lunged at her sword, caught it in one hand, and rolled off the bed to her feet, holding the blade between them. “And for that I think I’ll kill you. All of you!”

Gunnar stumbled backward, yanking free the runeblade Sigurd had given him. “Put it down.”

Brynhild answered by charging around the bed, unleashing a flurry of strikes. Gunnar dodged, parried, and countered. He was good. Not quite as good as Sigurd, though.

His blade pinned hers to the ground and he jerked his elbow up into her jaw. The impact sent a flash of white before her eyes and next she knew, she was lying on her arse.

Gunnar kicked her blade away. “You’re underfed and fatigued and you thought to fight me?”

An instant later the door flung open and Hogne burst in. “I heard fighting.”

“My wife attacked me.” Gunnar wasn’t looking at his brother, nor even at Brynhild, his gaze seeming to be fixed at naught Brynhild could see.

Hogne groaned. “I told you such would happen, eventually. You were fools to go along with this.”

Brynhild stared from one brother to the other. Everyone knew. Every single person in the godsdamned castle knew.

“Chain her,” Hogne said. “Put her in fetters and bind her in the Pit until we decide what to do with her.”

Gunnar glanced back at her, his face looking like he’d drunk sour milk. “I … I don’t want her to live in chains.”

Brynhild climbed to her feet, slowly, careful not to make it look like an attack. If she raised a sword against him again, she would make damn sure it would be a killing blow. “Don’t fret over that, husband dear. From this day forth I have no intention of coming into the hall with you.”

“Brynhild—”

“No! Did you think we could just go back to feigning happiness? That I’d play tafl with you, offer my counsel, tell tales over the night meal?” She spat at the floor in front of him. “It is the greatest woe of my life that I broke my oath to Sigurd and married you.”

Gunnar backed away, to stand beside his brother. “You were right before. My mother has wrought things she ought not—”

“Enough!” Brynhild screamed at him. “You think I want your condolences now? Get out! Get out! I’ll see no one! Any who dare to come into my chambers I shall strangle with my bare hands. You disgust me, the lot of you. You have so long festered in the dregs of your Art-rotted souls, you cannot see the disgrace you have made of all our lives.” A crushing rock had settled upon her chest, making it hard to even get the words out. “You would cast the blame on your mother or sister or wherever else, but you knew exactly what you were doing when you had Sigurd take your shape. You are all to blame for this.”

The king nodded grimly, then guided his brother out, shutting the door behind him.

Brynhild stormed over to the shutters, flung them open and screamed her fury at the desolate land around this accursed place. She screamed her throat raw.

39

Stavns, the tiny port off the fjord, was about the only place to make anchor on Samsey, and thus Sigurd, on his return from Rijnland, landed there and reclaimed Grani. The mist-drenched fishing town had grown more accustomed to visitors in the past few years, and to Sigurd in particular, but still people watched as he rode through their single street and up the path back to Castle Niflung.

He’d been long away from here this time, on the quite plausible excuse of needing to oversee things back in Hunaland, where, with the rise of the warlord Etzel—a man who styled himself king of all Huns—Rijnland stood on the brink of total war. Given Gunnar’s ambition to claim the land under the Niflung banner, a conflict seemed inevitable. Indeed, Etzel’s sudden ascension to power might well be a direct result of pushback against Gunnar’s own attempts to claim Hunaland through Sigurd.

And part of Sigurd almost thought to throw in his support with Etzel. To forsake his wife. Though he cared for her, to even look at her now served as a blade through his chest. A reminder of his broken vow to Brynhild, his first wife, and the one he could not bear to gaze upon in the least. Did Gudrun know? If so, her kindness toward Brynhild and the friendship she’d cultivated there became a perverse thing, a slow poison masquerading as a tincture.

But still he returned here, because he had given his oath to Gudrun and to her brothers. Because he loved his children and thus found leaving almost as painful as staying. Because, were he to join Etzel, those children might pay the price, and the rest of the North Realms most certainly would.

Sitting astride Grani, he smiled and waved at the fisherfolk he passed, offered nods to the few soldiers garrisoned at Stavns, and generally strove to seem as peaceful as he had once felt here.

He’d spare everyone else the truth, even if the lie suffocated him.

Stable hands took Grani’s reins once Sigurd reached Castle Niflung. The Niflungar kept few horses here, and Grani was by far the finest, such that Sigurd had insisted on bringing the horse across the sea, back in times when his heart had been lighter. When he’d believed—and why he could not quite say—in the veracity of Gunnar’s claim to be the rightful lord of all the North Realms.

And Gunnar did speak truth, insofar as the lands were shattered. Where the nine Old Kingdoms had ruled now lay broken remnants divided among so many petty kings, no man could hope to keep track of them all.

Sigurd took the stairs slowly, ascending to the tower room he shared with Gudrun. He found his wife sitting on the floor holding little Svanhildr in her arms, with the girl’s nursemaid Runa beside her. Of Sigmund, he saw no sign.

“You’re home.” Gudrun handed Svanhildr off to Runa and shooed her away, throwing her arms around Sigurd the moment the other woman had shut the door.

Sigurd stiffened, then forced himself to return the embrace. He’d chosen to continue this lie because he could see no alternative. That remained the case and thus he must live with his choice and see it through.

Returning from Hunaland, he had considered casting himself over the side of the ship and letting the net of Rán drag him under. But such was the craven’s way out. No, Sigurd would die in battle and let a valkyrie carry him away to Valhalla and perhaps even meet his father at long last.

“The passage back was tumultuous,” he said.

Gudrun nodded. “Less so than things here, I think. Brynhild has grown … dark. She’s …” The woman hung her head.

So Gudrun knew. Some sorcery had wrought this, that was the only conclusion Sigurd could come to. Grimhild was a sorceress and there were others here—maybe even Gudrun, though she’d not worked the Art in Sigurd’s presence. But Gudrun knew of the way Sigurd had deceived and lain with Brynhild to win the shieldmaiden for Gunnar. And now, Brynhild knew it too.

Sigurd folded his arms, staring blankly at Gudrun. Maybe it was better this way. Better to let the bitter truth out rather than allow it to continue to fester in his breast, a rot eating away at his soul. Better if he no longer had to hold his false smiles. “She has learned the truth.”

Gudrun flinched and turned her face away, probably despairing to realize he, too, knew. If not everything, if not how he’d somehow forgotten his own wife, at least Sigurd knew enough. And Gudrun was complicit if not outright guilty. “She’s slept for seven days.”

Sigurd chuckled mirthlessly. “Oh, I don’t think she’s sleeping, my wife. I think she plots her vengeance upon us all for the dark deeds we have done.” Vengeance well deserved, in fact.

His wife looked back, tears welling in her eyes, shaking her head. “I cannot lose you. Please, Sigurd, I … I beg you. Whatever happened, I truly love you. So go to her, convince her to let this go.”

Sigurd snorted and rubbed both hands down his face, groaning. The bitter grasp of urd had them all, and he could see no ending before him that would not leave them all reeling. “Some deeds are dark enough they cannot be undone. Some cracks cannot be repaired.”

“You have to try.” Gudrun grabbed his shoulders, seeming on the verge of collapse. “Try, husband.”

Oh. He was her husband, a fact that would bring ruin upon both the Volsungs and the Niflungar. This seemed inevitable now. But would he deny his wife’s fervent plea? No. No, he would play out the lie just a little bit longer.

Brynhild’s chambers were not locked and Sigurd slipped inside, shutting the door behind himself. With the shutters drawn, the room was cast in terrible gloom, so he flung those open and let a hint of sunlight peak through.

The woman lay under her blanket, hands folded atop her stomach and eyes closed.

Shaking his head, Sigurd pulled back the cover and sat down beside her. “Brynhild. Brynhild, it’s me. Wake up. You’ve slept enough, I think. Whatever your sorrow … just … cast it off now.”

The shieldmaiden did open her eyes then, and sat up, staring too intently at him. “How dare you come to me!” She slapped him. The blow itself barely stung through his hardened skin, but it felt like a nail in his heart. “You, who were the worst of all the villains in this whole wretched affair! And you dare come to me and ask me to forget it all?”

Sigurd rubbed his cheek, frowning. “I never wanted any ill will between us. I have never thought harshly of you in the least.”

“Of me!” She shoved him off the edge of the bed and he collapsed onto the floor. She fair leapt onto him, grabbing his shirt in both fists.

“Y-you received the man you chose as your husband.”

“No! Liar! You passed through the flames for me then, as you had done on our first meeting. I cannot believe I did not know you then. Not even when you pushed yourself inside me.” She spit on his face and it dribbled down his nose. “I was so stricken by my shock and despair that some other man could fulfill my conditions. Conditions I set that only you should have been able to accomplish. And you did! Gunnar never entered the flames, never bested me, and did not lay with me until after our marriage. I should have known …” She chuckled darkly, seeming somewhere between weeping and utter rage. “Odin knew. He knew I would be blind to my urd and blunder into it. He knew when he cast me into Hindarfjall. Before you were even born! He made me arrange for Sigmund to marry Hjordis. He made sure your father died so you would be there, to come to me. I only cannot see why.”

Sigurd gaped at her, unable to work his mouth nor even make sense of his thoughts. Odin, King of the Aesir, had arranged Sigurd’s very birth? Had arranged the death of his father Sigmund, whom men said Odin favored above all others? Had planned everything … Was the god the spider at the center of the Web of Urd? “I …”

Brynhild shoved away from him. “Fool of a man.”

Sputtering, Sigurd wiped the spittle from his face. “You have Gunnar, the son of Gjuki. He is also a great man, no less than I. He has slain many princes, kings … won great fame …”

Now she burst into bitter laughter. “Oh, Sigurd. You but help to remind me of all the wrongs I must revenge against the Niflungar. No. You, Sigurd, killed the linnorm and passed through flame to join me, whether it was by Odin’s hand or no. Gunnar did neither of those things.”

“And yet you married him.”

“I had no choice! Do you believe I ever loved that bastard? Son of the direst sorceress in the North Realms? I loathe him and have but concealed it to ensure peace through our lands. But I have wearied of the lies.”

Sigurd pushed himself up, shaking. Was this what he had wanted in hoping it would all come out? This vehemence now directed at him from the woman he loved most in the World? “What do you want, then? What would you have me do?”

Brynhild stalked closer, her lips trembling, until she finally stood a hair from his face. “What do I want? I want you to die, Sigurd Sigmundson. I wish only that it would be my blade stained by your blood. The Ás lord will betray you, as he betrayed me, as he betrayed your father.”

A shard of bitter ice seemed to pass through Sigurd’s gut. A pain so real it left him short of breath. “If you believe naught else, believe I love you. I love you more than I love myself. I didn’t choose any of this! I was bespelled and deceived, Brynhild! You must know that.”

Still shaking, she raised a hand to his cheek. “It’s too late. Maybe … if you had told me sooner, maybe …” She shook her head.

“It’s not too late.” Sigurd grabbed her face and kissed her hard, forcing his tongue into her mouth, massaging hers with it until she began to kiss him back. He hefted her in his arms to carry her to the bed, but she jerked backward and pulled violently away, stumbling.

Her slap caught him on the mouth. “I said it’s too late! I am Gunnar’s wife now, like it or not.”

“I never divorced you. We are still husband and wife, you and I.”

Brynhild clenched her teeth and shook her head, then looked away from him and braced herself against the wall. “We are naught at all, Sigurd.”

“They deceived me as well! I didn’t even know who you were until after you’d wed Gunnar. When the spell finally broke, so did my heart.” Now tears had begun to well in his own eyes. He hadn’t cried since those early days with Regin, as a boy of six winters. The dverg had whipped and cut and raped the tears out of him until all that was left was steel. Or so he’d thought. Now … he cared little whether it made him seem unmanly. “It tore me apart.”

Brynhild turned back to him. “When the spell broke … when we wed?” She raised a hand to her mouth. “That … that was a year ago, Sigurd. A fucking year!” She lunged suddenly toward her sword and came up bearing it.

“What was I supposed to do?” Sigurd demanded, forcing himself not to draw Gramr. If she wanted to strike him down, he’d not stop her.

“Leap over the godsdamned balustrade and put a stop to the ceremony before he bedded me! Had you told me then that it was you who came to my hall, you who lay with me, then I would have at least had the chance to …”

“I wanted naught more than to do what you claim. But it would have meant war. Terrible war that would destroy this land. And though I hate what she has done, I still love the children Gudrun bore me. They are my blood, Brynhild.”

“War is inevitable. It is always inevitable. You remember now who I am? What I was? I have seen more war than you can imagine, Sigurd. I lived every day for it. And war would have been preferable to this facade of life. We could have fought side by side and died the same way and I would have gladly shared your pyre. Now all I want is any death.”

He strode to her again, heedless of the sword, nor did she strike him when he reached to hold her elbows. “No … I … I will forsake Gudrun and marry you, I swear it. Even if it means bitter war.”

She jerked her arms free, then tossed the sword aside. “Oh, Sigurd … I don’t want you. I don’t want anyone. Get. Out.”

All he could do was stare at her, willing her to take back her words. But she didn’t.

Finally, he raised a trembling fist to his mouth. The awful truth was, no words could mend this, nor even any deed he might now do. Niflung sorcery had destroyed all their lives, and all that remained was to see whether the end came in fire or bitter cold.

Caught in the grip of despair, head hung low, he fled from Brynhild’s chambers. And beyond, he fled from Castle Niflung, and into the chill winds that marked the end of summer.

Outside, on the mountain’s slope, he screamed. He roared at the setting sun in defiance of the urd given to him. He bellowed until his voice was gone. Then he collapsed to his knees, tore off his shirt and cast it aside.

He knelt there, alone, in the darkness, until slaves finally came to find him and guide him back inside. They warmed him with flame and blanket, but it didn’t matter. For his heart would never know warmth again. That had shattered and left but a bloody ruin in his chest.

40

On the edge of a cliff just beyond the walls of Castle Niflung, Brynhild sat, legs dangling as she stared into the mist swirling around before her. She had not bothered to bring a torch. What fear was Mist-madness when her life was already warped beyond hope of joy or even that it might get better?

“You have forsaken your oath of service,” Odin said. “And oathbreakers are damned to feed the dark dragon with their corpses. As you tried to interfere in my choice of victors, so shall you never again enjoy the sweet mead of victory, woman.”

Brynhild shook her head. Even in death, she could not escape her torments, else she would cast herself from the cliff and let her miserable life finally end. No, as a mortal warrior she’d led armies of Huns in battle after battle. As a valkyrie she’d fought still, at the behest of two different vile masters. And now, returned to her mortal existence, she yet found the greatest suffering.

The question that remained, though, was, could she lay the root of all her suffering upon urd, or did she have to shoulder the blame herself? Or was it Odin she should hold to account? Odin had not forced her to break her oath, perhaps, but in knowing she would and yet putting her in the situation regardless, had he not knowingly created her urd?

The trudge of footsteps on the rocky ground announced the arrival of another before his form appeared out of the mist. Gunnar strode toward her—and of course the Niflung bore no torch—only a hint of hesitation in his steps. At her side, he settled down, staring out himself, as if he might somehow imagine what dark thoughts ran through her mind. But while the sorcerers plied at the Veil and tried to use the hateful entities beyond it to evoke their will, few of them could begin to imagine the things a valkyrie saw between life and death.

It left her to muse on urd more than most. Some claimed the Norns wove urd about them, though Brynhild had but rarely seen their hand—at least that she could be certain of. If those dire sisters wrought the workings of urd, they did so in secret places.

“Did you know I am kin to King Etzel of Hunaland?” she asked.

“No. Only that Heimir fostered you, making you a princess.”

Brynhild snorted. Whoever she’d been in her previous life mattered little, she supposed. “I imagine he’d welcome me if I fled from this place. And were I to tell him of all that had passed here … In my mind, I see the endless span of ships besieging this island. I see the dark powers Grimhild would call up from the sea in an attempt to turn away the tide of death descending upon your line. Her might is not so great she can undo an army.”

“Your talk is dangerous. Treasonous.”

Brynhild ignored that. “And still she tries. Her dark Art is loathsome to the lands of men, though, and all your allies abandon you. Those who do not join Etzel’s fleet in his quest to wipe the Niflungar from the face of Midgard. The last of the Old Kingdoms dies not in the fires of the Lofdar, but in ignominy, undone by the arrogance of their queen.”

Gunnar put a hand on her shoulder, gentle, as if he still thought she could be his. “Come back with me. Leave over this madness.”

Brynhild favored him with a sneer. “No. I will go from here, back to Heimir and tell him what has happened, and then to Etzel and see how much he values the bonds of kinship. You, dear Gunnar shall watch as all your wealth and glory and power turns to ash.”

“Brynhild—”

“Unless you do as I bid. Kill Sigurd. Kill his wretched son by your sister. Let their line end instead of yours.”

Gunnar pushed himself away from her, stumbling as he tried to gain his feet. “I … I have sworn an oath of brotherhood to Sigurd. He is my blood brother!”

Brynhild shrugged. “It hurts, doesn’t it? Being forced to break one oath because of another? Being driven to do dark deeds you’d not have dreamed yourself capable of? Your treachery, your deceit subverted my oath and made me your wife. It seems fitting I should repay you both in kind. Or deny me, if you wish. See if my vision comes to pass. I do not think the World would mourn the passing of the Niflungar.”

Hand to his mouth, her husband backed away into the mist. To the last, he stared at her as if he had no idea who she was.

Which was true. When he had claimed her hand by his tricks, he clearly had not the first clue as to whom he was so wronging.

Gunnar’s face was pale when he called in Hogne. Brynhild sat grim-faced in Gunnar’s chamber, while her husband explained her demands to his brother. She forced herself to remain motionless as Hogne gaped at her, shaking his head.

“I gave my blood oath to Sigurd,” Gunnar said. “I cannot break such an oath. I cannot strike against him.”

Hogne finally shut his mouth, his look turning hateful. “Let the woman leave you then. You can do better.”

“No!” The vehemence in Gunnar’s objection caught Brynhild off-guard, though she forced herself to remain still. If they thought she might relent they’d never carry out her wishes. And she had sworn her own oaths now. “No,” the king repeated. “We have to do it. We kill him, claim the wealth he took from the dragon. With such power, men will beg us for our sister’s hand.”

Gudrun. The noxious bitch deserved to die herself, but Gunnar would never have agreed to that. Besides, perhaps the greater torment for her would come from seeing her World burn.

Hogne shook his head. “I also swore an oath of friendship to Sigurd. We’d have to send our warriors to do it.”

Gunnar groaned. “Sigurd would slaughter them like sheep. He is nigh invincible, as you well know.”

“Then I ask you again, let this go. It’s not fitting for us to break our oaths. Your wife brings all this about. Cast her aside.”

Brynhild’s fingers closed around her sword. It was so very tempting to slay him, but still, her best, greatest vengeance would not come by cutting down Hogne.

Gunnar swallowed. “We made oaths to him … but Guthorm never did.”

Brynhild pursed her lips. She’d heard of their half-brother in rumor only, for he never showed his face in the court, and spoke to no one. Of those rumors, some even claimed he had died long ago, and yet rose. A draug. But Brynhild little cared if they used a ghost to enact her will.

Hogne cast another hate-filled glare Brynhild’s way. “This is madness, brother. Even if Guthorm succeeds, you think we will pay no price for it? For betraying a man like Sigurd, famed throughout the North Realms?”

“One of us …” Gunnar blanched, then set his jaw. “One of us must die.”

Hogne sighed, but shook his head. “So be it. Tell me what I must do.”

41

The Aesir had made their camp upon the glacier where Thor had once fought Hrungnir. Being back here was enough to make his head start pounding, but it was as close as they could get to Skadi’s fortress at the breach without engaging the jotunn army. So, almost a city of tents spread out across the plateau.

A year spent hunting down Skadi’s armies had taken its toll on so many. Hundreds of Aesir were dead, and thousands of Bjarmalanders with them. Even Thor’s uncle Annar had fallen not a fortnight ago.

It would end soon, though. The jotunnar were breaking. The better part of all Aesir were here now. Not Father—no, he hadn’t shown himself in the year since his argument with Thor. Hard to say if that was for the best or no. With both Father and Loki gone, they had no Oracle to provide advanced warning of the enemy tactics.

Instead, Tyr had taken command of the armies. That suited Thor well enough—he preferred to be well in the thick of it, where commanding others wasn’t half possible. Instead, he kept a close few Aesir with him.

Geri and Hermod served as their scouts. Thor had always thought Hermod blamed him for Sif’s death, but the man had volunteered to join Thor’s war band and Thor could scarce turn away his father-in-law. Besides, Father had given him a runeblade, and with it, Hermod seemed almost unstoppable.

At present, Thor sat in his tent with Thrúd and Magni, whom Mother had granted an apple not so very long ago. They both had received one, or Thor wouldn’t have agreed to their presence here. Thrúd still bore the burn scars on her face, a constant reminder of Hödr’s treachery. Every time Thor looked on his beautiful daughter’s torment, all he saw was Mjölnir crushing Hödr’s skull. Actually, first he’d crush the man’s stones for the rape. Then he’d crush his skull for the torture.

“You’re stewing in rage again, Father,” Magni pointed out.

Thor turned a glare on the boy. It wasn’t his fault, of course. So Thor forced his frown away. “You two are to watch each other’s backs, you hear me? Whatever else happens, whoever is in danger, naught is more important than each of you keeping the other alive. Do we understand one another?”

Thrúd scowled. “If we are fated for Valhalla—”

“No!” Thor slapped his knee. “Not now.” Not anytime, if he could help it. “I won’t lose either of you.”

Thrúd’s scowl only deepened. The woman hadn’t forgiven Thor for Magni, and the two of them had never really got on well since. Still, family was family.

Thor sighed. “I need to know you’ll do this, Thrúd. I need to know my children are safe.”

The shieldmaiden smiled, a slightly disturbing smile, given that only half of her face could upturn. “I’ll watch the boy.”

“I’m a man,” Magni protested.

Thor clapped him on the shoulder. “Right you are, boy. And listen to your sister.”

He took another look over his children. Sif would’ve been proud. Even thinking of her had the spots swimming before his eyes and a pounding building inside his head. She was the pain he deserved.

“Find us something to drink,” he ordered Magni, rubbing his aching head as the boy left.

They’d attack at dawn. Geri had wanted to do it at night, but the Aesir had only a few varulfur and berserkir left, and Tyr had judged the jotunnar would have more advantage, seeing better in the dark than men. It was best this way, really.

“Skadi wrought so much chaos,” Thor said, not even sure if he was talking to Thrúd.

Either way, his daughter just grunted in acknowledgement.

The first time Thor had gone after the Snow Queen, she’d been in a different host. She’d gotten Itreksjod killed, then, and had done worse since. Without her schemes, maybe Sif would still be alive. Certainly a great many others in Bjarmaland would be. And Freki. The snow maiden needed to die, but the best Thor could hope for would be to kill her host.

Hardly as satisfying, but he’d have to content himself with it.

Magni returned with a horn of ale, and they drank. Not enough to kill the pain in his head, but just enough to blunt it. He couldn’t allow himself more than that. He’d need all his wits come morning.

“Grandfather!” Thrúd screamed, as a wood jotunn’s giant arrow punched through Hoenir’s chest.

Roaring, Thor flung Mjölnir at the archer. The hammer crackled as it spun end over end, and erupted in thunder and lightning on impact, scorching and flattening the jotunn who’d felled Hoenir.

Thor charged in after his hammer, leapt in the air, and slammed a fist into the jaw of another jotunn. He landed, caught the knees of a third jotunn and heaved, sending the creature toppling to the ground. Then he stomped on its head and kept going, bending to retrieve Mjölnir without slowing his stride.

His battle cries sent even the jotunnar on the defensive. They formed up before the entrance to the fortress.

Tyr had the greater part of Skadi’s army engaged up on the glacier, leaving Thor to bring down the queen, as they’d agreed.

Mjölnir sparked as he waded into their midst, swinging left and right, crushing bones and flinging bodies away with blasts of lightning. Naught like this hammer had ever existed, so far as Thor knew. It was a roiling storm, a manifestation of Thor’s rage fed with each foe it devoured. Whatever Father had intended in having this crafted, now it served Thor’s ends as well.

An upswing splattered a frost jotunn’s jaw and broke its neck backwards. The creature flipped around in the air before landing in a floppy mess.

Thor bellowed a challenge, but none of the jotunnar wanted to wade into the blasts of lightning that leapt all around him.

He twisted around to catch sight of Thrúd ramming a spear into a frost jotunn’s throat. Magni, he fought beside her as Thor had ordered, axe in one hand and shield in another. He was a torrent of death himself, and a comfort to know they’d keep each other safe.

Freeing Thor to crush jotunn after jotunn. His foes had strength and reach, but they could not match his fury. Some bore shields, but those exploded under Mjölnir’s blows. A mountain jotunn stood fifteen feet tall or more. Thor kicked off the body of a falling wood jotunn, flinging himself into the air. Lightning crackled about him as he soared and he’d swear the mountain jotunn’s jaw dropped in fear. For the instant before Mjölnir crashed down on its rocky skull. Shards of stones exploded outward, forcing Thor to shield his face, even as the blast of lightning coruscated down through the jotunn’s body and into those allies closest to it.

And then there was no one else between him and an iron-banded gate. Roaring, Thor swung the hammer at the doors. The first blow had it shuddering and cracking. The second sent splinters flying outward and left metal warping. The third snapped the barricade and sent the doors flying inward.

A snarl sounded behind him, then a bellow of pain.

Thor twisted around, but Geri had driven a seax into the thigh of a frost jotunn coming up on Thor’s flank. The varulf girl had fought with a savagery beyond even her kin for the past year. A recklessness, in fact, that bespoke a wish to join her brother in Valhalla. Much as that crushed Thor’s heart, he’d failed to talk her down from it.

Geri yanked the blade free, then sliced into the jotunn’s gut with it. Then she launched herself past Thor, barreling into another jotunn coming from inside the fortress.

In fact, a whole army of them were blundering forward, far more than Thor had expected Skadi to hold back in reserve.

Somehow, from their midst, Hermod appeared, ramming his runeblade into the back of one. The chaos that engendered broke the jotunn charge.

And allowed Thor to make one of his own. Mjölnir crashed through a jotunn’s knee, then came back around to crunch a skull. Lightning leapt between the tightly packed jotunnar, forcing Thor back.

Hermod. He hadn’t considered …

Except Hermod wasn’t where Thor had last seen him. Rather, the scout had come up at the back of the jotunn line, tearing into them once more. He seemed like a shadow, constantly flickering, too fast or too insubstantial for the jotunnar to close in on him.

Thor had no guess how the scout did it, but he couldn’t afford to waste the confusion. With Geri and his children beside him, he set into his foes with a fresh fury. He slammed Mjölnir into a jotunn’s shin and watched the bone snap out the side of its flesh. He brought the hammer up to crush a wood jotunn’s sternum. He splattered brains and bones in all directions.

Stian, a spearman Thor had taken on, thrust forward into the gap, killing another jotunn. His spear wedged into a wood jotunn’s gut and he seemed to struggle to pull it free. Before Thor could act, a frost jotunn’s axe cleaved through Stian’s head and split his skull down to his shoulders.

Snarling, Geri leapt up on the frost jotunn and repeatedly stabbed it in the neck with her seax. It all happened so fast that Stian’s killer was falling over backward before Thor had even recovered.

Another jotunn stepped in front of him, blocking his view. Thor swung Mjölnir, but the jotunn caught the hammer on its shield. The wood exploded, flinging both Thor and the jotunn several paces back.

Magni raced in and hewed its leg with his axe.

A moment of panic seized Thor at seeing his son in the front of such a chaotic melee. All he could do was keep fighting, though, and try to crush his foes before he lost any more allies. He waded back in, shouting until his throat hurt, letting Mjölnir fell jotunn after jotunn.

Then he broke through and into the great hall where Skadi herself stood waiting, surrounded by a half dozen frost jotunnar and two mountain jotunnar. The rock-skinned mountain jotunnar stood at least twelve feet tall, lumbering behemoths each armed with clubs that looked more like small tree trunks.

Panting, Thor strode forward into the hall and paused some distance from his foes.

Behind him, he heard his allies forming up as well. He wasn’t sure how many he’d lost in the push coming here. Thor had insisted on only bringing those who had tasted the fruit of Yggdrasil, but still, he’d lost at least seven getting here. At least. Part of him wanted to look back and see who still stood, but doing so would have bolstered the jotunnar’s confidence. And he wanted them scared. He wanted them fucking terrified.

“You should have stayed on your side of the wall,” Thor said.

Skadi spread her arms wide. “Once, all this, all this Realm was ours. Before the Vanir decided to divide our world into Utgard and Midgard. Outer and middle. Before that, all of it was just the Earth. Our glorious empire held relative peace across all lands. But the Vanir thought themselves better than us. They believed, in their arrogance, that immortality made them more fit to rule this world than us. Thus, they launched their wars. They slaughtered our children alongside our warriors. They shattered the peace that had held this world together, and the wars have never ceased since then. Yet they called us the instruments of chaos. So you tell me, little man, which of us holds more right to these lands? Your kind are thieves.”

Geri stepped up beside Thor, now having drawn a broadsword. “Do you truly believe we care about wrongs done to you by those who are now gone? We cast out the Vanir for their many failings. We will not be held to account for their crimes. But you,”—she pointed the sword at Skadi—“you will pay for yours. No one forced you to bring slaughter and war to Midgard.”

Skadi snickered. “History forced me. Urd forced me.”

“Then you can blame urd when my sword is buried in your breast!” Geri surged forward, not even waiting for everyone else and leaving Thor no choice but to charge in after the varulf.

With Mjölnir hefted, Thor slammed into a mountain jotunn. These giant bastards were twice the size of a man and they’d crush all Thor’s people in bare instants unless he dealt with them. The descent of a massive club forced Thor to draw up short. It impacted on the floor with such force the ground shook and the sound of it left Thor’s ears ringing, as they so oft did when he carried Mjölnir into battle. He raced forward before the jotunn could get the club back up, but had to duck and dodge as the jotunn swung a massive foot his way.

Thor danced around behind the mountain jotunn and slammed Mjölnir into the back of its thigh. The creature pitched forward as the thunderclap roared. Thor vaulted onto the jotunn’s back and rained blow after blow upon the behemoth. Shards of rock flew up with each impact, slicing Thor’s face and arms as they shot up like tiny missiles.

Mjölnir crunched into the jotunn’s neck and flattened it.

Gasping for breath, blood dripping into his eyes, Thor twisted around.

Hermod had once again somehow come up behind a frost jotunn and driven his sword through its gut.

Thrúd and Magni stuck together, switching off against two more frost jotunnar, while pivoting to keep the mountain jotunn away from them. Baldr had already felled another frost jotunn. Tordis was hewing into a frost jotunn with her axe. Geri was engaged with Skadi, launching from one snarling attack into the next in a mad rage.

Thor hated leaving her, but that mountain jotunn was going to crush his children if he didn’t intervene, and the varulf had far more experience than either of them. Bellowing his challenge, Thor raced toward the giant jotunn, Mjölnir raised behind his head. The creature locked its gaze on Thor then blundered forward, making great sweeps of its enormous club.

Surging Megin to his legs, Thor leapt over a sweep, landed, and swiped Mjölnir. The hammer clipped the jotunn’s knee but the backswing of his club slammed into Thor and sent him flying away.

Everything turned into a blur of tumbling, crashing along the floor, rolling, and coming to a painful stop. With a groan, Thor rolled over and tried to rise. His legs gave out beneath him before he’d even managed his knees. Not even Mjölnir quite blocked the pain of a broken shin. Gasping, he called on his Megin to further dim the ache, but still couldn’t manage more than an unsteady limp.

And that mountain jotunn was stumbling toward Thor, his own gait now uneven but with the momentum of an avalanche.

Seeming to come from nowhere, Hermod drove his blade into the back of the mountain jotunn’s knee. The creature pitched forward with a rumbling scream, tearing the runeblade from Hermod’s hand.

Thor limped forward as fast as his broken leg allowed, and swiped Mjölnir into the jotunn’s skull. His movement cost him his balance and he pitched over sideways, smacking his elbow on the stone floor. That sent a jolt of pain through him that had him gasping.

“Oww.” Thor rolled onto his side.

The clang of Skadi’s oversized blade on Geri’s rang through the hall, even overtop the whine ringing in Thor’s ears. The frost jotunn was larger than the varulf and probably at least as strong, though Geri had speed and—

Skadi parried a blow and thrust her free hand forward. A spear of ice as thick as her arm formed around it and plunged through Geri’s chest.

“No!” Thor screamed, stumbling to his feet. His traitorous leg gave out, but he still flung himself, awkwardly, painfully forward. No! A varulf could … could survive …

The giant icicle broke off Skadi’s arm and she lunged forward, wrapping her hand around the impaled varulf’s throat. At once that turned to ice, mist wafting off it. Then Geri’s throat exploded in a shower of frozen flesh that clanked as it hit the floor.

Thor dropped to one knee, unable to catch his breath.

No. Not his sister … his sister …

Snarling, Skadi thrust her hand forward again. A hail of icicles shot out and tore into Magni, flinging him backward and sending a rain of blood shooting through the air.

Choking on his cry, Thor stumbled forward, sweeping Mjölnir into a frost jotunn just to get the creature out of the way. No, he had to do something.

Skadi twisted around and her blade clanged against Hermod’s, who had somehow snuck up behind her. Thor had thought the man still behind him, but allowed no further thought to the matter. Skadi’s free hand caught Hermod’s face and he screamed.

Thor could see the flesh freezing there.

Tordis leapt forward, swinging her axe. The attack forced Skadi to twist around and drop Hermod. The man crashed to the ground in a heap. The frost jotunn’s sword deflected the axe and, before Thor could close in, Skadi had the blade buried in Tordis’s skull. Two-handed, she grabbed the blade and twisted, flinging the shieldmaiden’s corpse like a missile at Thrúd.

Skadi bared her teeth at Thor. “No fire hurler with you now? You were a fool to come here without him.”

She meant Loki.

Roaring, Thor flung Mjölnir end over end at Skadi.

She twisted to the side, knocking the weapon away with another blade of ice. Already, she was turning back to him. Flinging her wrist in his direction. Thor dropped prone even as a giant ice spear shot overhead.

Someone yanked him to his feet. Thrúd, handing him a seax. The knife seemed tiny against a foe half again his size. Skadi’s host had clearly eaten a great deal of man-flesh.

The jotunn was panting heavily, winded by the use of her foul Art.

“Take her!” Baldr shouted. “I’ll hold off the other two!”

Thor looked to Thrúd and she nodded.

Side by side they closed in on the Queen of Snow. Thor clenched his fist and brought the seax up to bear while Thrúd led with her spear.

Skadi raised her free hand and ice formed around it, crystalizing into a shield four feet tall. Thor edged around to one side, allowing his daughter to flank Skadi. He didn’t see how he was going to get past a giant shield. But one way or another, Skadi would pay for Geri’s death. She’d pay for Freki and for Itreksjod and all the others lost in this war.

As he closed in, the frost jotunn swung that shield. Thor reeled back. That edge was razor sharp. Hadn’t expected that. He tried to thrust with the knife but Skadi kept swinging her shield, not allowing him to get in range of his weapon.

The jotunn woman had to keep shifting her gaze back and forth between him and Thrúd though. It was damned hard to keep two foes in view, especially when both knew what they were about. And Tyr had trained Thor and his daughter, both. Not a man alive knew battle better than Tyr, so far as Thor could tell.

Thrúd feinted with the spear and Skadi moved to deflect it with her sword.

Thor used the chance to dodge around the shield and swipe with the seax. The blade tore into the jotunn’s thigh and sent her stumbling. The shield swept back into too fast, though, and took Thor in the chest. It cracked along his mail, but the blow hefted him from his feet and sent him toppling to the ground, landing hard and skidding.

The next he saw, Thrúd drove her spear into Skadi’s side. “Die!”

The jotunn buckled as Thor’s daughter ripped the spear free and drove it toward Skadi’s chest. This time, the jotunn got her shield around.

Thor struggled to his feet. Without Mjölnir’s added power, it was hard to block the pain of his broken leg. Things had turned against them now, but he’d do something. He had to close in, had to save his daughter, had to …

A crack of thunder deafened him and lightning sent Skadi flying face-first into the ground right in front of Thor.

Baldr was standing behind her, Mjölnir in one hand and a sword in the other. Thor’s brother shrugged.

Thrúd shrieked and leapt forward, driving her spear through the jotunn queen’s back.

Wanting to take no chances, Thor crawled forward and jammed the seax into the back of Skadi’s skull. The jotunn spasmed, then lay still.

Thrúd whimpered, released her spear, and dashed past Thor. He twisted around, trying to join her, but she was much faster than him at the moment. She fell to her knees beside her brother.

“Is he …?” Thor managed.

“Still breathing, barely,” she said, her voice a mask of pain. “Some of the shards punched through his mail. I don’t know …”

“Hermod will know what to do.”

Thor twisted back around to where Baldr knelt beside Thor’s father-in-law. The man was moaning.

“I think one of his ears is lost to frostbite,” Baldr said. “But I suspect he’ll live.”

“Get him up.” Thor had no time for sympathy for the wounded warrior. “Let him help Magni.” Thor would not lose his son. Could not lose him. He looked to Thrúd. “Eir is among Tyr’s camp. Go and find her and tell her … just bring her here!”

Thrúd offered a nod and took off at a dead run.

Baldr had Hermod up, supporting him as he made his way to where Magni now lay. Thor’s brother was right—Hermod’s face had turned pale with frostbite and one of his ears looked like it had frozen solid. Another heartbeat in Skadi’s grasp and they’d have lost him.

Hermod grit his teeth through his own pain and set to bandaging Magni. Thor prayed the man could save his son.

He had to.

Magni’s condition meant Thor couldn’t leave Skadi’s fortress at the breach while the boy rested. So instead, he joined Baldr in hunting down any jotunnar fool enough to have remained on this side of the wall.

Bursting into one chamber, he found an aging woman, huddling in the corner under furs.

Human.

“Have no fear,” he said. “You’re free now.”

She looked up at him with hate-filled eyes.

Roskva. Her hair had gone mostly gray, making her look older than she really was. A hard life here.

Thor tightened his grip around Mjölnir.

“Going to kill me now?”

He shook his head. The temptation was there, very true. But he’d earned her betrayal, so maybe this made them even. “No. I suggest you join the others fleeing this place. Choice is yours.”

Thor had greater worries now.

Someone was going to have to make sure the jotunnar didn’t try this again.

42

A piercing scream of agony shocked Gudrun awake and she sat upright.

And then her scream joined Sigurd’s cry of pain.

Her husband was pinned to their bed by a sword driven through his abdomen. The runeblade Hrotti. Which he had given to Gunnar.

Guthorm backed away from the scene, his face splattered with blood.

Sigurd was wailing in agony. Despite the pain of it—Gudrun couldn’t even imagine—he twisted over to grab at Gramr. His motion tore Hrotti through his flesh.

Guthorm lunged at the other runeblade, probably intent to snatch it before Sigurd closed his grip around the bone hilt. Sigurd reached it first and swiped it up at Guthorm. The runeblade sheared through the draug’s hip and out his side. His torso toppled backward, away from his legs.

Gudrun knew she was still screaming. Dimly, she knew she’d even paused an instant for another breath. Only to scream further.

Blood now drenched their bed. It had splashed over her.

No, no, no, no …

Frantic, finally able to stop shrieking—although not to catch her breath—she grabbed blankets already drenched in blood to try to staunch the massive wound now rent in Sigurd’s gut. Hrotti was still sticking out of him.

Hel!

Should she remove it? Would that not make the bleeding worse?

“It’s all right …” Sigurd’s words were slurred with pain. How could he even speak at all? “I knew … I knew … Gripir said … Our son …”

Oh, Hel, Sigmund! Svanhildr! How complete was Brynhild’s betrayal? She threw her arms around her husband. And how was she to leave him like this?

“Can’t … change … urd …” Great pools of blood dribbled from his mouth with every word. He had a hand to his side, the other hanging limp off the bed. “Brynhild did … this …”

Oh, of that Gudrun had no doubt, though she couldn’t seem to manage to get a word out. Just incoherent moaning. Feeble attempts to bind a fatal wound. Guthorm had stabbed him in the gut, clearly intending him to be long in dying. The draug had no pity.

Gudrun cast a hateful glance at her dead brother. What had he done? Guthorm would not have acted thus without word from either Grimhild or Gunnar. And Grimhild would not have ordered him to kill the husband she’d secured for her daughter.

“I … kept my … oath … to him …”

Oh, and Gunnar had broken his own in the most vile way imaginable. He’d employed their accursed dead brother to do what he could not.

Sigurd whimpered in pain. Him, the strongest man she’d ever known, reduced to this. The sudden stench meant he’d shat himself. Hel. There was no hope for him.

Moaning, Gudrun put a hand to his cheek.

“Son …” he mouthed the word more than said it.

The pain and blood loss had stolen his powers of speech. His mind would go soon.

Tears streamed down Gudrun’s face. No. No. Please, why like this? Why?

Trembling, she closed her hand around Hrotti’s hilt. He was right. She had to see to little Sigmund. She had to … but couldn’t leave him to die alone.

Sigurd’s hands were convulsing on the bed. His thrashing only rent the hole in his stomach worse. Screaming, Gudrun closed her other hand around Hrotti’s hilt. Then she jerked the runeblade free.

Sigurd gasped weakly. A fresh well of blood oozed up immediately from where she’d drawn the blade.

“I’m sorry …” she whispered.

Weak. Pathetic.

No. No, not this time.

Gudrun slapped her hand over Sigurd’s mouth and nose, clamping both shut. His already slowed struggles ended all too quickly.

Damn them. Hel damn them all.

Still weeping and clad in naught but a bloody shift, Gudrun burst from her chamber and out into the hall, storming past the frightened slaves. She ran the short distance to the children’s rooms where they slept with their nursemaid.

The door was cracked open. Gudrun flung it wide and charged in.

Hogne spun around, crimson staining his sword. On the middle of the floor, little Sigmund lay in a pool of his own blood. Gudrun gaped at her brother and he too, stood, openmouthed, shaking his head.

Runa, the nursemaid, too lay dead at Hogne’s feet.

The awful realization hit Gudrun. The woman had died interposing herself between Hogne and the cradle where Svanhildr slept. The babe was crying, Hel be praised.

Shrieking, Gudrun lunged at Hogne.

Her brother deflected Hrotti with casual ease. Probably he could have cut her down in his sleep. Gudrun didn’t fucking care. Screaming, she hacked away at him. Hogne didn’t try to attack, merely deflecting her blows.

“We had to,” he managed to grate out between his parries.

Gudrun wasn’t interested in conversation. He’d murdered her son! Sigmund! Betrayed Sigurd! She gripped the runeblade with both hands and brought it crashing down.

Hogne’s own broadsword snapped under the blow, but it overbalanced her. He caught her arm and twisted, until Hrotti tumbled from Gudrun’s grasp, then flung her to the floor.

“Enough,” he said. “I’m sorry, sister. I … I’ll spare the girl. Maybe it’s enough that the male heir is dead. We … we had no choice.”

No. No. Gudrun was shaking her head, glaring daggers at him.

Even after so many years of pushing it down, denying the power. It was still right there for the taking. Gudrun felt the ice coalescing along her fingers, even as cold seeped into her heart. Snegurka was still there, desperate to escape into the Mortal Realm.

Snarling, Gudrun thrust her open hand at Hogne. A shard of ice the size of a dagger launched from her fingers at him, driving through his throat and embedding itself in his spine. Blood sprayed out from him in a geyser, in the bare instant before he toppled over sideways.

Coated in the blood of yet another man she’d once loved, Gudrun crawled over his body to reach Svanhildr’s crib. She pulled the babe close to her breast and held her dear, unwilling to let aught ever come between them.

She was all Gudrun had left.

43

Gudrun’s wails echoed through Castle Niflung, reaching out into the mist and—at least Brynhild fancied it so—carrying even across the sea. Certainly they filled the courtyard where Brynhild sat, not far from the hateful place where she’d married Gunnar.

Mirthless laughter burst from Brynhild’s chest on hearing the other princess’s lamentations. The wretched Gunnar had truly done it, hadn’t he? Sigurd was dead.

Sigurd was … dead.

Sigurd … was … dead?

Finding it hard to breathe, she slipped the orichalcum ring from her pouch and slid it on her finger, where Sigurd had once placed it. Her husband … in those few days she’d been happy.

Gunnar came stumbling into the courtyard, blood covering his hands and arms, Gramr dragging on the ground behind him.

“You did it.”

“Guthorm did.” He tossed the runeblade at her feet in obvious disgust.

Brynhild frowned, ever so slightly. Gunnar getting his mysterious half brother to perform the deed lacked the poetic irony she’d hoped for, but from the look on his face, Gunnar still blamed himself, as well he should.

Gunnar sniffed, rubbing his brow with the back of his hand, heedless of the way it smeared blood over his face. “You laugh at such a tragedy, but I doubt you are the least bit happy for it. Your flesh has turned deathly pale, wife.” He shook his head. “You would dare threaten us with the wrath of King Etzel? You deserve to watch the man die in front of you for the horror you’ve wrought here. My half brother and my brother-in-law are both dead. Even my nephew.”

So Sigurd had taken Guthorm with him. More the better, and only a shame he hadn’t claimed Gudrun in the process.

Brynhild shrugged, knowing it would infuriate him. “I doubt anyone would claim there hasn’t been enough killing here, though it’s not yet done. Nor do I imagine Etzel cares in the least for your petty threats or your impotent rage. He’ll outlive your whole line, I suspect.”

Gunnar gaped. “You said if I … if I killed Sigurd and his son …”

“That I wouldn’t go to Heimir and Etzel with your crimes?” Brynhild nodded. “And I won’t. Though they may hear of them in time, regardless. Either way, what do you think will happen when men hear the great King Sigurd, champion of the Niflungar, died under your very roof? Will they think kindly on you?”

Gunnar placed his palms on his temples as though he expected his head to burst. It would have proved a fitting end to this mockery of marriage. “You mean there was no way out, no matter what happened.”

Brynhild let her smirk spread. “Of course not. You may not have slain Sigurd with your own hands, but still you plotted his death, forgetting that you had mixed your blood with his. Sigurd will no longer ride at the head of your army. Your advance into Midgard is broken by your own actions. And you are now an oathbreaker yourself. I dreamed of the fall of your line, brought down by your evil deeds.” She spread her hands. “Such is the glorious will of urd.”

Or the will Odin. Or both.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t mean for any of it to go so wrong.”

Brynhild grit her teeth just to keep from screaming or weeping. She shut her eyes, shaking her head. Perhaps no one had intended it all to unfold thus. What if … what if even Odin, that Ás bastard, had not wanted this, so much as planned for it, knowing it inevitable? How then could she hold on to her loathing of him? And without that, she would burst apart, consumed by the fires of grief threatening to rise up from her breast and devour her, body and soul.

She’d clinched her hands into fists so tight her nails dug into her palms. The pain of that was all that kept her grounded. “I dreamed that you ride into the hands of your enemies, Gunnar.” Her voice sounded weak in her own ears. Hatefully weak, like some maid unable to master her heart. “All that’s left now for me is an ignoble death and the torments of Nidhogg.” She opened her eyes to see him staring at her. “For you, too, soon to follow.”

Gunnar dropped to his knees and flung his arms around her shoulders. “Brynhild … Don’t do this.” He was shuddering, as weak as she was, and that, somehow, was a comfort. “Whatever happened, I’ll pay weregild, I’ll do aught you ask, only don’t give up your life.”

Why should she not? Certainly naught remained here for her. Gunnar? No. Never him. Odin had foreseen this all and it was time to let the Ás’s schemes play out at long last. Maybe … maybe she owed him that, for the oath she had once forsaken to him. If she had lived as an oathbreaker, she might at least die with some semblance of honor left.

She pushed Gunnar away. “One last request. Lay me on a pyre with Sigurd.” She grimaced. “And … his son by Gudrun.”

The Niflung king rose and backed away, dour, not taking his eyes from hers as she too rose, taking up Gramr as she did so. Brynhild swallowed, unable to beat down the hint of fear that tugged at her gut. Maybe it was better to just do it, for there could be no turning back. She grabbed the blade of the sword, heedless of how it sliced her palms or the icy cold that sent running up her arms.

She, the oathbreaker, would finally earn her own justice. And dare to hope she might somehow see Sigurd once more. With a sudden cry, she drove the blade into her chest.

It slid through with surprising ease, biting into her heart. At once, numbness spread from its bite. Her legs gave out from beneath her and she pitched forward, half aware as her fall drove the blade deeper, piercing out her back.

As light slowly dimmed.

44

The sorceress queen rooted through the ashes of Brynhild and Sigurd’s pyre, as Odin watched from across the Veil. So eager was Grimhild, she did not bother to check her surroundings nor wonder what vaettir might also be drawn to Andvari’s Ring. Odin didn’t know how long the queen had known of the ring or why she had made no move to claim it before now, but he could scarce let her have it, regardless.

No, while the ring lay amid the dead, no oath forbade Odin from claiming that for which he had done so many of his works.

And so, drawing upon Audr’s power, he pulled himself across the Veil and back into the Mortal Realm, swaying slightly as he did so, though stifling his grunt. Every time he performed such a crossing it cost him. Sometimes it aged him. Sometimes it sapped away his early memories. Sometimes, he knew he had paid a more subtle price, as the human part of him withered away and became more like the wraith upon whom he relied.

After what Audr had taken from him, he used the power only with the gravest of care.

Steadied at last, he removed the glamour concealing his spear as a walking stick, then trod toward the Niflung queen. She’d come alone, in the middle of the night, without anyone to watch her stealing from her dead children-in-law. A fine plan, had she been alone in the night.

“Shall I tell you the future of your line, sorceress?”

Grimhild spun abruptly on him, ash-covered hands going to a dagger at her waist.

Odin smirked at her pathetic defiance. This sorceress had once been like a goddess of mist, calling upon fell powers of Niflheim Odin had barely understood. The real irony was, her own treachery and cruelty toward her kin had wrought her undoing.

He could see it on her face as she warred with the idea of calling for guards. As she realized there was no chance anyone would reach her before he skewered her. Yet still, the proud queen did not want to surrender. Not to him, whom even her mistress so loathed.

Odin shook his head. “I’ll tell you, because I want you to go to Hel knowing all you have built has ended utterly. You see, I kill you now.” He nodded in feigned sympathy. “In desperation to hold his failing empire together, your son Gunnar bargains away Gudrun in marriage to King Etzel of Hunaland. I suppose we can assume he considered it punishment for her, as well, for murdering Hogne.”

Grimhild looked as though she wished to deny it, but instead just stood there, trembling and transfixed, as he’d known she would.

“She’ll try to resist,” Odin continued. “It will not avail her, nor Gunnar. No, he’ll send her all trussed up to marry Etzel and try to maintain his throne. But Gudrun will hate him and hate Gunnar for forcing it upon her. Etzel’s ambition knows no bounds, as seems ever the curse of kings, and he’ll thirst for the gold that was Sigurd’s. Thus, he’ll draw Gunnar to him and betray him, leaving him to die in a pit of writhing serpents.”

“No …”

“Oh, yes. Within the passing of a few winters, he’ll feed Nidhogg. And Gudrun herself … well I wish I could say her suffering will end soon. But Etzel is hardly the last of her woes. In the end, I see her taking her own life, imagining that even the torment that awaits her at Hel’s doorstep would seem a reprieve from the anguish of her life.” Odin closed his eye a moment. A long, long time ago he’d loved Gudrun, though her potion had engendered that love. Still, he hated to imagine what would befall her in life, much less what awaited her in death.

He shook his head as he opened his eye. “Well. She’ll be a while before she joins you. But in the end, even her children will be dead. And after thousands of years of power, the Niflungar will at last be broken. All the heirs of Naefil will be dead. In time, men will forget you ever lived.”

Now he advanced on her with the spear. “To which of your many crimes should we trace the origin of this tragedy, great queen? The deception of Sigurd? The abuses you visited upon your own children? Or perhaps your greatest miscalculation lay in sending Ymir to kill my father!” Odin rammed the spear through Grimhild’s sternum, hefting her up off the ground. He held her aloft for a moment, staring into her hateful eyes, relishing the pain and fear there.

Then he planted the shaft in the ground.

In her helpless flailing, Grimhild only managed to sink deeper upon it as she died. Odin spared her no more thought. Grimhild may have executed Hel’s will that day, but the goddess of Mist herself lay at its source. And one day, Odin would see to her as well.

Before that, he needed the ring.

Thus he fell to his knees and dug through Sigurd’s ashes. Prescient visions had revealed this moment many times before. He knew exactly where to dig because it was where he had always dug. The ashes were still warm enough to prove uncomfortable, but little more. He flung them aside until his finger brushed over the rose gold ring.

Andvaranaut—Andvari’s Gift. The ring with the power to break through any barrier, to carry him between worlds.

Odin’s hand trembled as he slipped the ring on his finger.

The others who had so recently borne this had no idea, none whatsoever of the power that rested upon their hand. Odin had seen this moment so many times, unfolding in his prescient visions since the day he drank from the Well of Mimir. All of it had led him here. And, as in those same visions, he could not steady his breath, could not suppress the murmur in his chest. An almost overwhelming power seemed to seep into him.

Rising, he embraced the Sight and looked through the Veil into the Penumbra.

You risk everything …

Yes. Yes, he would risk everything for the chance to get back to Freyja. Because she was his soul mate. But even were she not, still, the Vanir held the key to victory at Ragnarok, he knew they did.

Stepping through the Veil was not quite like being pulled through by Audr. Rather, cloying shadows seemed to cling to him like cobwebs as he tried to move forward. The chill from the grave rushed through him at the touch of such an Etheric barrier, sucking light and life from him, until, of their own accord, the shadows drew him into their world.

Though lit as by starlight, the Penumbra lacked color, everything instead cast in cold, muted hues of gray and midnight blue. No matter how oft Odin looked into it nor even stepped here through Audr, he’d never quite become accustomed to the oppressive darkness. It was an emptiness, a hunger that gnawed on souls and memories and left those who lingered here hollow shades.

But it didn’t matter. Odin had no intention of staying here. No, he was bound for a world of light, the World of Sun. Alfheim awaited him. In the sky, it glittered like a star. A heretofore unreachable sphere of crystal far above the Penumbra.

Odin strode forth, toward that star, and hateful whispers built into a chorus all around him. Ghosts and darker entities felt it, as he warped reality with Andvaranaut. The sky folded upon itself and starlight magnified in a streak that unfolded before Odin’s feet, an iridescent rainbow of color in stark contrast to the monochrome that infused the rest of this Realm.

As he trod upon the bridge—and it was solid beneath his feet—he dimly wondered if the projection of this bridge, or the similar one guarded by Heimdall, was a literal one, or if perhaps his mind perceived this as a bridge of shifting colors because it could not otherwise interpret his passage through a nonphysical space.

Such musings fell away as reality blended with the prescient visions he had so long foreseen. Indeed, even the shadows below gave way to a swirling miasma of stormy colors, a picture of reality without material form. On and on he pushed upward, toward Alfheim. With each passing step that light grew a little brighter, until the radiance before him grew overpowering, brighter than white. Brighter than he had ever seen the sun, scorching his eye and leaving him blinded.

Odin was left gasping as the ground beneath him turned pliant, and he sunk to his knees, blinking away the brightness, vision slowly returning. Before he could see, he heard the rumble of a waterfall, and closer, the chirp of hundreds upon hundreds of birds.

He knelt on a grassy knoll, overshadowed by a tree massive enough to dim the radiance of the sun and make it bearable. Through the canopy, though, pierced rays of light of such intensity they seemed almost physical strands dotting the hillside. Not only bright, but too close. The sun was too close to the land here, leaving little doubt he had, at long last, reached the paradise of Alfheim.

Ahead lay a forest of trees that glittered in the light, glistening as though soaked with raindrops. Amid those boughs sat birds of every color of the rainbow, uttering their chittering cries. In past lives, Odin had stood in rainforests, and even those seemed to pale in comparison to the barrage of color and variety of life that had exploded around him.

A river cut along between this hill and another, coursing steadily, its waters reflecting the blinding gleam of the sun above. Palm trees like those of Asgard dotted along the banks before giving way to the denser foliage of the rainforest.

Blinking and shielding his eye with the back of his hand, Odin rose and made his way down to the river. Some plants actually grew right from the waters, oft sprouting flowers of brilliant shades.

The river must run to the falls. In his visions he had followed its course, so he did so now, knowing it must soon lead him to his objective. There would be liosalfar cities somewhere in this world and the Vanir must have taken shelter in those very cities.

Both the birds and monkeys watched him from the edge of the tree line as he made his way along the shore. Sometimes they leapt from branch to branch, even following him for a time, curious about the strange interloper.

And how strange he was.

Odin loosened his cloak and then the laces of his tunic. Sweat plastered his hair to his face and he longed to remove his hat, but it offered at least some shield for his eye against the brutal sun. This world was hotter than Asgard. Hotter even that Odin’s past life memories of rainforests and his time amid jungle islands.

The river led him into a plateau where the waters plummeted into a chasm deeper than he could make out. Indeed, water poured from all directions into the void, a cascade of falls that ought not to have existed and seemed to defy laws of nature. Whence came so much water? Yet the falls continued to flow, the sound of their roar drowning out all other noise in this strange place.

A great mist rose up from the chasm. Not a cold, fell seeming mist like that which saturated Midgard, but a clean one, a pure spray from the crashing of water.

Across the gap rose great marble columns perhaps eighty feet tall. They ran off into the rainforest beyond the falls, perhaps leading to a city, but Odin could see no way across and his prescient visions had not prepared him for what to do from here.

So much of the ground around him was taken by the rapids, so he chose his footing with care, wending his way along the plateau. In the far distance, he at last spied a bridge spanning the chasm.

He made his way toward this bridge, smiling. For who would not smile given such warmth and such natural splendor? Indeed, he suddenly found himself wondering if the Vanir he’d sent here would actually be willing to leave. A supreme irony, really, if most of them refused his offer to bring them back to Midgard.

The bridge was carved from white stones tightly fitted together in blocks and rimmed with marble rails that, despite the moisture in the air, seemed pristine and hardly eroded in the least. Odin stepped on it, recalling his visions of doing the same. This bridge carried him over the tumultuous falls and he could not help but pause midway to gape at the glittering wonder all around.

Light saturated everything here, from the trees to the waters, to the vibrant animal life. All Alfheim seemed suffused with primal energy and warmth.

Beautiful though it was, still Odin had not come here to bask in wonder, but to find Freyja. Toward that end he had waited seven decades. He would wait no longer to find his lost love. So he pushed on, coming to the opposite side of the gap and there found another set of columns forming an aisle for him to follow.

Standing beneath the giant marble edifices, Odin could not help but feel tiny in their shadows. Did the liosalfar build them? If so, why? What purpose to columns that supported no roof? Of course, Odin well knew the folly of trying to ascribe mortal reasoning to vaettir, but still, the question taunted him.

Regardless, his visions pulled him ever onward, like walking in a dream he had dreamed so many times before, mesmerized by his own footfalls on the soft forest floor. Along the path of columns he trod until he came to a path that branched away from them, and this he took, knowing only that he had always taken it, would always have taken it. It called to him.

Indeed, a song had begun to fill the rainforest, not of birds, but of voices carried on the wind, high and melodic, and somehow Ethereal. Odin wandered along this path until he came to a lake where a half dozen women were bathing, and where she would come to him. Not Freyja, he hadn’t seen her here. Did he meet her later? For he must meet her, this he knew without doubt.

The women spied him, standing there waiting, and their song drifted away, though none of them seemed the least bit abashed at their nakedness. One of them cocked her head to the side and then started for him, a deep skinned, beautiful woman he’d known so very long ago.

“Idunn.” He didn’t recall noticing before, but her eyes seemed to glow, as if tiny suns lurked behind them. Time had somehow changed her. Even her skin seemed slightly luminous.

The woman didn’t speak, but rather stooped to grab a sheer white dress that she slung over her shoulders. It had no sides, but belted in the middle, offering a hint of modesty, if only a hint. Despite her unabashedness, he was left with the memory of her being the granddaughter of his own past life, and thus found himself squirming at her manner.

Idunn studied him not as a friend, but as a hawk might look at a mouse. Almost like she might intend to attack him. “Time has not been kind to you.”

If aught, her voice seemed more musical than before. “It was a rough ride to find you here.”

“If you wanted to find me, it might have proved more expedient to not cast me into another world.” A sharp edge underlay her words, like a knife hidden in a flowerbed.

Odin flinched at her reproach. “I never wanted to hurt you, nor Freyja. I took the only step I could see that would achieve our ends with the minimum of life lost.”

Idunn chuckled, the sound darker, more wrong than any he’d ever associated with her. “Our ends?”

“You were the one that asked me to overthrow the Vanir.”

Her smile grew painfully bitter. “I did not ask for this.”

Maybe it had been too much to hope for that the Vanir would be pleased with this world. A fool’s fancy in thinking he would not face judgment for his actions. Odin could do naught save sigh and shake his head in weary apology.

Idunn, though, took his hand and guided him away from the lake and back into the forest. “I think you have no idea, really, what you’ve done. How living in this place for so long has changed us. Alfheim has seeped into our bodies and souls and made us not so very unlike the liosalfar themselves. The radiance flows through us now, and our humanity already … it fades, bleached out by the merciless sun.”

“You live with them?”

“Some of us interbred with them, in fact. And the distinctions between us have eroded.”

“Is it truly so terrible then?”

Idunn spun on him. “Would it be so terrible for you to think you had become like a denizen of Niflheim? They are vaettir, Odin. They are not like what you … what we were. The millennia the Vanir lived had already blurred some of that line, but what you’ve done has all but destroyed it.”

“You’d compare the beautiful liosalfar to the snow maidens?”

She shook her head and turned about, arms spread, inviting him to take in all the World. “You think that where there is light there cannot be cruelty? We are still in a place that is not a place, far removed from the reality we once knew.” Idunn sniffed. “And sometimes the brightest light only serves to conceal deeper darkness. This seems a paradise, doesn’t it, Odin?”

“Yes.”

“But it is both more and less than that.” The woman pointed off into the wood. “I do not think you came here for me. The one you seek has her own hall in the Redwood Grove south of the city.”

“I … I did come for you.”

“In part, perhaps, but if so, a small part. Have we not been through too much together to begin lying to one another?”

Odin let a hand fall on her shoulder. He wasn’t lying. He’d always planned to bring her home as well. “Come with me, Idunn. Let us find a way to leave Alfheim together.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head. “There are boundaries I dare not cross over. You must go alone.”

Though he could not quite understand her dismay, Odin felt his chest clench at it. At seeing Idunn, of all people, teetering on the brink of despair. He had brought her to that. Which meant he alone must work to save her from it.

First, he’d find Freyja. Then he’d fix all else he had done.

The trees Idunn had called Redwood Grove had not only red-tinted trunks, but their very leaves seemed painted in a thousand hues of orange and red, as if the canopy above Odin’s head was aflame. Here, the monkeys and birds had fallen silent and all but vanished, leaving him in eerie silence broken only by the leaves crunching under his own feet as he trod forward, and by the faint murmuring of a creek somewhere in the distance.

Despite the scattered construction that looked much like a city, Alfheim seemed overrun by nature, as if the bountiful sunlight had caused the plants here to grow totally unbounded. So much so, Odin could almost have mistaken this place for the World of Wood whence ash wives hailed, though he had imagined that place a far murkier forest.

An enormous screech overhead ripped through the quiet and sent Odin scrambling for cover. He flung himself up against the trunk of a tree, half expecting some hideous bird above. Instead, he saw but a shadow passing over the canopy. A very large shadow.

Hadn’t he seen this in his visions? Still, his heart pounded so painfully he had to wonder if an immortal could die of a heart attack.

Again, the giant shadow soared overhead. Odin snuck to another tree trunk where he could peer up through tiny gaps in the canopy. His visions had shown this before, leaving no doubt about the monstrosity he would see, yet still he could not stop himself. An irresistible pull drew him to look upon the creature’s majesty.

As the flying animal banked and passed overhead, Odin caught a few bare glimpses of it. Though lizard-like in appearance, it had a membrane of skin spanning its wings like a bat, and a feathered frill behind its head, with a massive, elongated maw jutting from the front.

Odin swallowed, part of him wishing he could have seen the wondrous beast more clearly and the rest of him glad it could not make him out. He could not even hazard a guess as to what that thing might have been, though it had haunted his visions for years.

After taking a moment to steady himself, he pushed onward, following the sound of water and plodding through the wood until he at last came to the brook.

This he followed onward to a network of trees where the branches had grown together to form a series of platforms, like a town in the canopy. Walkways of pearl ringed around the trees, leading upward, and creating spires and balconies and galleries supported by great buttresses. Water streamed down over the sides in numerous tiny falls, collecting and running into the brook. The waters seemed to come from the trees themselves, bubbling up from the trunks above this wondrous town.

All of it glittered, sparkling in the sunlight, and so bright and warm it left Odin a bit dizzy. Knowing he must, he climbed the pearl walkway up to one of the platforms. From this he had access to a pearl and wood house. The place had no door, only an archway and windows, and light flickered within those.

As he drew nigh, the sound of people moaning in ecstasy grew louder than the murmuring of waterfalls. He knew what he’d find. Already his body reacted, his cock growing hard at the sight he’d seen so many times. And still, as he entered the archway, he gasped.

Over a dozen naked men and women lay about the floor in a great heap, their skins shining so bright they seemed to radiate light themselves. They pleasured each other with mouths and tongues, with hands or—in some cases—in the more traditional manner. The wild orgy went on and on, and he didn’t know how long he stood there, transfixed by the sight and sound of such lasciviousness.

One of the girls broke away from the group and crawled over to Odin. She had hair so pale it seemed silver and shining. She took his hand and drew him over, and Odin could not resist. It was like a dream when these people—be they liosalfar or Vanir or both—stripped away his clothes and cast them aside.

The play of prescient memory had him, and he lived an endless cycle of foreknown sensuality that stripped away time. A woman had mounted him and another had lowered her trench over his face for him to massage with his tongue. Hands were all over his body. His finger squeezing someone’s nipple.

He felt it, as his pneuma poured out from him in waves, somehow not only shared through his seed, yet bits of it stolen every time his body climaxed. And still he found himself continuously hard, finding new partners over and over.

In a daze, he realized Freyja herself had mounted him. Her body warm and slick with sweat, her sweet lips brushing his. He couldn’t stop touching her, nor find words to express his desire. At once he wanted to hold her so close that they became one soul, and to weep, for the relief of finally having found her.

On and on the orgy went, for hours. Perhaps days, as time lost all meaning. Bits and pieces of his own soul began seeping out, he felt himself losing them. His pneuma almost gone, his essence fading, withering away with each passing moment of ecstasy.

Someone else was mounted on him now, her eyes no longer a faint gleam, but bright as the sun. So bright it burned his eye to see them, yet he could not look away. Her hair was red as liquid flame cascading down her back. Her fingers dug into his shoulders deep enough to draw blood. Her mouth was an abyss, a hole of light, devouring his soul.

Odin trembled, spasming, but as powerless to stop the consumption as he had been to stop the orgy.

And that blazing light in her eyes became everything. It sapped him away and left him hollow.

It brought to him the terrifying realization that he had seen so much, yet never understood.

Thus must he finally pay for his hubris and his crimes, as the Web of Urd demanded.

Consciousness tugged at Odin’s mind, finally forcing itself upon him, and he realized, though he’d felt himself asleep, he’d been walking along a path. No one had bothered to restore his clothes.

An alabaster street unfolded before him, leading between buildings of pearl and gold, with gilded roofs that reflected the radiance in all directions. A city seemingly made of sunlight and peopled by scarcely clad men and women whose very skin seemed luminous.

Stepped pyramids—oft covered in greenery—dotted the cityscape.

They were creatures of Otherworldly beauty, a perfection of the human form so striking it made him want to weep and fling himself at the feet of these demigods and beg their worship. The liosalfar were as radiant as their Realm. Their eyes shone with sunlight. Their hair glittered. Their visages saw right through to his very soul.

While the wilds had held wonders beyond telling, this city of light was the true glory of Alfheim, and Etheric songs flitted between its rooftops and over its soaring skyways. The alabaster roads did not merely follow the ground, but soared up in graceful arcs, leading to balconies and pyramids and spires and even to the great palace at the city’s heart.

A palace of countless gleaming towers so tall they brushed the clouds. Atop the highest of those peaks sat the blinding sun itself, as if tethered to this place.

In the distance, hard to make out for the blazing sun, rose a tree as massive as Yggdrasil, towering over the jungle beyond. Not as massive, Odin suddenly realized. It was Yggdrasil. The tree grew here as well.

Blinking, Odin at last took in the men and women flanking him. A march of a dozen warriors, all clad in glittering golden armor not so unlike what valkyries wore. Resplendent and invincible, though it left sizable gaps around the thighs and hips. Perhaps for ease of movement or perhaps for airflow in this merciless heat, but either way, Odin could see slipping a dagger into the gaps and crippling a warrior.

Then Odin started at the one beside him: Frey.

The Vanr must have felt Odin’s gaze, for he looked to him now, a vicious grin on his face, and a promise of pain lurking behind his luminous eyes. He raised a hand revealing a rose gold band.

Odin gasped, grabbing his own hand. Andavarnaut. It took a fair effort for him to swallow his surprise and force himself to impassiveness.

“Your temerity in coming here has left us speechless, despite being foretold by the seer.”

“Return my ring.”

Frey snickered. “Even the queen thought herself unequal to punishing the scope of your blasphemy. You are being delivered to the Elder God of Alfheim, the great and unfathomable Dellingr, High Lord of the Sun. Concern yourself less with your foolish means of ingress and more with the probability your soul shall be charred in sacred light until naught remains but ash.”

Odin almost tripped over his own feet trying to wrap his mind around what Frey had just said.

Someone shoved him forward and he stumbled, though Frey grabbed his arm and forced him up.

Odin glanced to the person who had shoved him. It was the fiery-haired woman who had sucked out pieces of his soul while making love to him. Odin could do naught but gape at her. He still felt so very weak.

“Saule,” Frey answered his unspoken question. “I believe you’ve met.”

Frey and Saule guided him up the long path toward that palace, and with each step the heat grew more intense, until the road scorched his bare feet. His skin felt on fire from the sun. His arms had turned a painful pink and even begun to peel in a few places.

If the heat or light bothered the others, they gave no indication. Indeed, if aught, their skins but grew brighter.

They reached far above the rest of the city, so that, glancing over the edge, he was looking down on the pyramids, sky roads, and numerous pearl spires.

A mighty archway led inside the palace, one large enough to admit beings taller than any jotunn. Water streamed down giant marble columns inside, pouring out from a crystal ceiling at least seventy feet above. Though a gap opened up in that ceiling, Odin could see no stairs. How did they intend—

Frey grabbed his arm and at once Odin’s vision shifted so violently his stomach lurched and he toppled sideways—only to be caught by Saule.

They now stood on that crystal floor, and looking down at it had a wave of vertigo sweeping over him.

His captors offered him no respite, though, instead, guiding him forward further.

They repeated the sudden leap in locations up to another crystal floor, and this time Odin judged they must be nigh two hundred feet above their original point of entry, which was itself probably a thousand feet above the city.

He felt lightheaded and nauseated, but Frey shoved him forward, toward an enormously wide staircase plated in gold.

Odin lifted his gaze from the stairs to the figure sitting on a mighty throne atop it. The entity stood well over human height, nine or ten feet tall. Light radiated off all his body so brightly Odin could but make out an outline. An extra set of arms jutted from beneath his shoulders. Four arms. The very figure Odin had confronted when wresting control of the valkyries from their former master.

The Elder God, Dellingr. Lord of Sun.

Above the god, the ceiling was another crystal dome, and the sun itself seemed to rest atop it, blazing down onto Odin’s unprotected flesh.

Odin found himself powerless to do aught save gape at the ancient, implacable entity glaring down at him. In deep soul memory he knew that, in some past lives he had worshipped this being, though he had probably never truly looked upon him as he did now.

“Odin Borrson.” The entity’s voice was resonant as a gong, hollow yet seeming to come from all directions, a force of nature. “The Destroyer. Welcome to Alfheim. For your crimes, there can be but one answer. Your soul is to be seared to its core. You shall beg for shadows that will never come to you again, whilst you writhe in an eternity of light. I sentence you to eternity in the radiance of Alfheim.”

Epilogue

Asgard was changing. Returning after even a single year away, Loki could not help but note the way it grew and shifted. Its towers stretched higher than ever before, its harbor was flush with ships, and its armies swelled with the ranks of immortal warriors, despite Yggdrasil bearing less fruit with each passing year.

He trod up the path leading to his hall.

Sigyn appeared in the doorway long before he reached it, no doubt having heard his soft footfalls on the road. Beaming, she ran to him as she so oft did, and leapt into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. Giggling and drawing from him a laugh too, in the instant before her mouth was pressed against his.

Once she finally hopped down and pulled away, he placed his hands on either side of her face. “I missed you.”

“Hmm, you too.” Sigyn pinched his chin. “I’m running out of books to read in Sessrumnir.”

Loki suspected she spoke in jest, though in truth, she’d certainly had enough time to delve into the better part of the library.

Sigyn led him behind their hall, to sit on the cliff side and stare at the waves.

“Where’s Hödr?” he asked.

Sigyn sighed. “He insisted on going out into Midgard again. I think he’s in Valland, but I was hoping you’d be able to tell me that.” She rubbed his knee. “How was Narfi?”

Loki shook his head. A painful topic, knowing that had to end badly, even if so many of the details eluded him. “The jotunn tribes grow restless under his rule. He might hold the frost jotunnar together, but he’s looking at a budding war with the mountain jotunnar.”

Narfi had claimed his mother’s throne, but it had never been easy for him, not even after so many years.

“Something else vexes you,” Loki said.

“The better part of Hunaland now worships the Deathless God.”

“You were in Hunaland?”

Sigyn nodded. “Investigating for Frigg. They found an enclave of the Odinic cult and slaughtered them all.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of the Aesir casting themselves as gods, regardless.”

“I don’t. These people are … they still think he’s coming back. No one’s seen Odin in well over three hundred years, but these cults keep popping up. All it does now is create senseless slaughter.”

Loki grunted.

“Oh. Oh, damn it, Loki!” She’d read it in his expression? “You’re encouraging them, aren’t you? Why not just let Hunaland go? Why do you even care if people worship us? Do you think he’s coming back? Have you seen something?”

Loki shut his eyes and shuddered. “I wish I could go after him, but he’s well beyond my aid now.”

“So he is alive. But you didn’t answer my question.”

Loki opened his eyes but kept his gaze locked on the sea, hoping she could not read too much in his expression that way. “I cannot see him, but … He’ll return.” Before the end.

“There’s something else. Something you’re not telling me.”

There were so very many things, and he wished he could explain. He so desperately wished it.

Her hand fell lightly on his arm. “What is it?”

“I …” No matter how many times he went through this, it still came upon him with the weight of a mountain, crushing his heart, pulverizing his soul.

“Tell me.” She leaned her chin onto his shoulder. “You know you can tell me.”

“We’ve only … only a few years left.”

Sigyn pulled away abruptly, looking at him with a slightly cocked head. “You mean Ragnarok. It’s still coming? No one spoke of it again after Skadi fell. I guess I thought …” Now she shivered, rubbing her arms despite the afternoon sun. “How do we stop it then?”

“Oh, Sigyn.” Loki sighed, shaking his head. “My love. We cannot stop it … I … I’ve been causing it.”

The Cycle Continues …

Next Book: Odin has reached Alfheim. And the alfar have held him prisoner. For centuries. What could be worse than a prison of light? When Odin escapes into the shadows of Svartalfheim, he’ll find out.

The Shadows of Svartalfheim: books2read.com/mlshadowsofsvartalfheim

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About the Author

Matt Larkin writes retellings of mythology as dark, gritty fantasy. His passions of myths, philosophy, and history inform his series. He strives to combine gut-wrenching action with thought-provoking ideas and culturally resonant stories.

Matt’s mythic fantasy takes place in the Eschaton Cycle universe, a world—as the name implies—of cyclical apocalypses. Each series can be read alone in any order, but they weave together to form a greater tapestry.

Learn more at mattlarkinbooks.com or connect with Matt through his fan group, the Skalds’ Tribe:

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Author’s Note

“To know the future absolutely is to be trapped into that future absolutely. It collapses time. Present becomes future.”

— Children of Dune

Frank Herbert has always been one of my influences, if not necessarily in style, then at least in scope and theme. And while he was writing science fiction, he expressed conceits that tie in well with mythology. Namely, a rather significant portion of mythology assumes a certain or absolute degree of fate, often expressed in prophecy. While prophecy itself is so overplayed in fantasy as to become cliche, one cannot have an expansive scope in a retelling of myths—especially Norse myths—without it.

My particular fascination here comes not from the prophesied hero (the so-called “chosen one”) but rather with the prophet him or herself. In Greek mythology we’ve got Cassandra, who’s cursed to see the future and be able to do nothing to change it. In Norse myth, we have numerous heroes that supposedly had prophetic insight (including potentially Sigurd and Brynhild depending on the version of the story), and Odin spends so much of his time seeking knowledge about Ragnarok.

For Gods of the Ragnarok Era, from the very beginning, I had envisioned Odin’s course as being headed in that direction. The existence of prescience, perfect or otherwise, would necessarily reveal a sort of causal determinism in the universe (albeit functioning a little different than the ideas Herbert put forth). One of the other conceits Herbert posited was the idea that Oracles would create blind spots for each other, which is almost a necessary conceit for a story about Oracles.

Odin sees so much, but he has to have things he doesn’t know or, as we kind of see here, things he might not have the context for. One of the reasons becomes his inability to precisely see the machinations of other Oracles such as Narfi or Loki, or more prominently, the workings of non-human entities. He sees the future, but he remains a slave to fate, and cannot change what he’s foreseen.

Within the scope of Sigurd’s story, I drew my influences from the Volsung Saga, Nibelungenlied, bits and pieces of the Eddas, and some from Wagner’s interpretation for his Ring Cycle. My goal here was to present a version of a well-known myth that was both familiar and different. One of the interesting aspects of the source material is it tends to agree that Sigurd is young when he sets out, yet never is he regarded as a youth in his actions or by others. Obviously, I tried to shift this mindset a bit, while the tale remains one intended for adults.

In Sigurd, we see the culmination of Odin’s decades-long machinations to reclaim Andvari’s Ring and try to undo his mistake of banishing the Vanir. For the sake of clarity and a cohesive narrative, I did away with several of Odin’s other aliases, folding them into Gripir (who in the original myth was an actual brother of Hjordis, and an Oracle himself). Similarly, instead of picking up Fjolnir (Odin) during a storm, Sigurd picks up another anti-hero (Thrain), who serves as a bit of an older foil for him.

The Volsung Saga proved a difficult narrative to adapt. While the connections to Odin’s tale—the overall focus of the whole series—required me to incorporate Sigurd and his father, the nature of the generations-long saga also required me to gloss over some parts and create a trilogy spanning decades. Among the parts that simply did not fit: Gudrun’s eventual fate. Odin hints at what lies ahead for her after she leaves our tale. What remains of her tragedy lies outside the scope of this main narrative, though I do hope to someday write a standalone to bring her tale to a final conclusion.

Regarding Narfi, in the traditional myth he is a biological son of Sigyn and Loki. I changed this for obvious reasons. As with some of the other strange genealogies for the Norse pantheon, Loki’s offspring required a bit of streamlining.

As far as the rest of the tale plays out, we see Thor for the first time from his own perspective. Compared to many of the other characters, he’s more direct. Kind of an oaf, in fact, and belligerent, though I have sympathy for him given the constant migraines. Through Thor, we see the effective wrap-up of the jotunn plot line involving Jotunheim, Skadi, and Thrym. Thor, despite his failings, ultimately creates a tenuous peace that keeps the jotunnar from swarming over Midgard. For now.

With the second trilogy complete, we must now hurtle headlong into Ragnarok. The end is here.

And for that … Thanks to my wife for helping me reach this point. Thanks to Clark for helping me work out some of these tricky plot points. Also, special thanks to my cover designer and to my Arch Skalds (in no particular order): Al, Tanya, Kimberly, Jackie, Dale, Missy, Grant, Lisa Marie, Bill, Rachel, Barbara, Bob, Kaye, Mike, and Regina.

Thank you for reading,

Matt

For my wife and daughter. Your light drives me.