The Finnish wizard looked surprised, his eyes open in an unblinking stare, focused on the spear sprouting from his chest. I closed his eyes and hoped that his soul, wherever it was, felt content with his brief contribution to the battle. I was not content, I would have liked to hear more of his stories, and more of his songs. I would have liked for him to feel he’d done right by the sea serpent he championed. And I would have liked time to mourn him properly, but the demands of battle meant I had to move on quickly if I wanted to live through it.
I hefted the spear in my left hand, deciding to hold it in reserve. Perhaps the ideal moment to use it would present itself. In the meantime, the Æsir wouldn’t be able to pick it up without dealing with me first.
Unfortunately, picking it up proved to be their plan precisely. Leif’s shouted warning saved me. I jumped frantically to my right and barely avoided Thor’s hammer, which fell from the hand of the thunder god, directly above. The earth shook with his blow and toppled our entire party to the ground, and a white splash of snow exploded from the impact, stinging me as I landed nearby. Before I could gather my arms and legs together, Thor was already back on his feet in the small crater he’d made. He had a new shield, I saw, and a new outfit of armor that indicated he was taking us a bit more seriously. The mail shirt was still there underneath, but he had a sleeveless tunic of lamellar armor over it now, made of red-dyed hardened leather. His bracers and greaves were also hardened leather, albeit the normal brown color, and he had nothing of substance over his thighs save for a mail skirt. He wore a cap helmet with a nose guard, but no ridiculous wings or horns sprouted out from the sides of it. His blue eyes blazed from underneath as they locked on mine.
“Vengeance for the slain!” he cried in Old Norse, and then he charged, hammer cocked to pound my brains to tapioca.
“Yeah, that’s what this is all about,” I said, scrambling backward in a graceless crabwalk. All I could hope for was to get out of the way again; there was no question of parrying or striking back when I was so off balance, and parrying a war hammer is damn near impossible in the best of situations. My situation—lying naked on my back in the snow—was therefore less than optimal.
The fire in Thor’s eyes cooled a smidge as he realized this wasn’t a one-on-one duel: He was now in a free-for-all. He took his eyes off me and raised his shield in time to get bowled over by Leif. They tumbled past me in the snow, the vampire hissing and the thunder god roaring, and that gave me enough time to gain my feet and worry about who else might be on the way. Gunnar was coming hell-bent for Thor, and so was Zhang Guo Lao. So eager were they to pile on that they didn’t see what was coming hell-bent for them. The Æsir had flown through the frost giants’ curtain of snow, and now they had all picked a target. “Behind you!” I shouted, hoping they would realize I was speaking to them both, but only Zhang Guo Lao took heed. He turned and set himself, an iron rod in each hand, and neatly redirected the attack of Týr, who leapt at him from the back of his winged horse. Týr was armored in a similar fashion to Thor, except the leather of his lamellar tunic had been dyed blue. He was fighting left-handed, of course, shield mounted on the stump of his right arm.
Gunnar took a boar tusk in the gut. Gullinbursti gored him from behind, the great tusk sweeping under the werewolf’s hind legs and catching him in the soft underbelly. Gunnar yelped as he was tossed high into the air, blood and maybe intestines trailing beneath him. The sheer wattage output from the dwarf-made boar was blinding with my night vision on, but the silhouetted figure on its back could be none other than the god Freyr. He was raising a sword to cut through Gunnar as he fell back to earth. I’d been hoping to sit out this part of the battle, in the faint hope that nonparticipation would ward off whatever bad karma would accrue here; the words of Jesus and the Morrigan still rang in my ears. But I couldn’t stand by and let Freyr chop Gunnar in two.
I’m not much of a lefty, but the distance was short and either the runes would work or they wouldn’t: I hurled Odin’s spear as quickly as I could toward the god and hoped it would be in time. It caught Freyr under the arm and threw him off the back of Gullinbursti, as his sword cut shallowly into Gunnar’s flesh on the right side of his rib cage. The werewolf plunged snarling into the snow, not done yet but grievously wounded. The huge golden boar—the size of a conversion van—charged past me, and I raked Fragarach along its right side as it hurtled by, eliciting a startled scream from it. It struggled to slow its rush and pivot around to make another pass, and I took the frantic second this afforded me to check the field.
Leif and Thor were still entangled, as were Zhang Guo Lao and Týr; the other four Æsir had plowed into the frost giants, and several large blue corpses lay in the snow. I recognized two of the Norse by sight—Odin and Freyja. Odin wore the same spectacled helmet I’d seen him wear before, but the simple reindeer tunic over mail was gone. His leather armor was articulated with broad lames, tooled with Nordic runes, and doubtless enchanted to be as strong as plate without the heaviness or movement restrictions of metal.
Freyja, for her part, was not quite as hot as I had expected. In fact, I wasn’t sure at first why the frost giants were so taken with her. She was fair, to be sure, but not excessively so. I could walk on a beach in Rio or the south of France and find dozens of women with more sizzle in their bacon. She was blond, her hair gathered in two long braids and falling out of a helmet wreathed in flowers. Over mail and a green leather cuirass she had draped a white cloak, fastened at the right shoulder with a brooch. Her belt was slim and golden, and thin flowering vines trailed down from it, resting on top of a green lamellar skirt. It was an odd juxtaposition of images, but she was an odd deity, equal parts fertility, beauty, and war. I think the fertility and war must have appealed to the frost giants every bit as much as the beauty—and the influence of war, no doubt, colored her appearance somewhat. Her jaw was just a bit too square, too mannish, to be called truly beautiful in my eyes. She worked for the frost giants, though.
At a guess, one of the other Æsir might have been Odin’s son Vidar; his armor was a gloomy black studded with steel, and he had no beard on his chin. The last one, with the bow, was most likely Ullr, and he had parted his brown beard and braided it. Perun was attempting to reach Odin, but Ullr was behaving like a bodyguard and firing arrows at the Russian as fast as he could nock them. Some of these Perun had either dodged or swatted away, but I saw at least two shafts sticking out of his left arm.
That was all I could take in with a frenzied glance around, because true battles don’t allow for leisurely vistas and the taking of tea. They are quick and savage and likely to end abruptly for all concerned.
I was likely to end abruptly if I didn’t move. I was currently standing between a wounded boar and a wounded werewolf, either of which could churn me to gravy. Fragarach was going to be useless if I had to face Gullinbursti head-on. Even if I poked him between the eyes, he’d run over me on sheer inertia.
I waited until the boar had a good head of steam, then I tossed Fragarach toward the fallen body of Freyr and shifted to a hound. I sprinted after my sword, and the boar swerved to pursue me. He was faster than I was—but not faster than Gunnar. The snarling werewolf took advantage of the angle I’d provided and leapt onto the boar’s back, his claws digging savagely into the creature and knocking him off my tail. The boar squealed and tried to buck the werewolf off, but Gunnar was all tooth and claw and methodically tore chunks out of the beast while ropes of intestines kept sliding out of his own belly.
A cheerful bark welled in my throat as I saw Gunnar rip huge, vital, pulsating things out of the boar—those had to be important. But it turned into a whine as the boar toppled fatally to the earth with a final peal of anguish, crushing Gunnar underneath his massive bulk in the process. I ran over to where he fell, ready to shift back to human form to try to lift the boar off my friend, but Gunnar was undergoing the shift himself—his final one, bereft of pain for this time only. Wounded beyond his wolf’s ability to heal, he
expired, and his face smoothed with a peace he’d never possessed in life.
I tried to scream “No!” but forgot I was a hound. It came out as a strangled yip.
I’ve had friends die on the battlefield before—more than that, for my wife, Tahirah, died on the battlefield—and it always has the same effect on me. There is a quick stab of sorrow, but it is quickly shunted to the back of my mind until I have leisure to indulge it; my Celtic rage is kindled to white-hot temperatures in the meantime, which only the blood of enemies can ever hope to quench. Gunnar’s passing flipped a switch inside my head, and I turned into the Celtic warrior—a fearless, unreasoning creature that kills until he cannot kill anymore. A red haze clouded my vision and spittle frothed from the sides of my mouth, as an inchoate roar swelled from my lungs.
I sprinted to the body of Freyr and shifted back to human once I reached him. He was dead, Gungnir having done its work, and I yanked the enchanted spear out to employ it further. I searched eagerly for new targets, but all were partially blocked by allies—until I looked up. There I spied two enemies circling above the mêlée between the few remaining frost Jötnar and the Æsir: Hugin and Munin. I had no clue which was which, but if Odin’s unconsciousness could drop them from the sky, could the death of one or both ravens drop Odin? Time to find out. Choosing one, I hurled Gungnir with all the strength of my right arm and watched it fly. It bent in the air like a well-struck football will swerve toward the corner of the goal, heading for its target with infallible accuracy. It spitted the bird through the breast. When the raven fell spiraling to the snow, Odin seized up in the midst of swinging a blow at Hrym and allowed the Jötunn to bat him away powerfully with his ice club. The one-eyed god flew like a sack of bones through the air, and his journey attracted the dismayed attention of Freyja, who called out and broke off her own attack, wheeling her chariot around to render assistance. She forgot entirely in her haste that frost giants have very long arms. Suttung snatched her out of the open back of her chariot and instantly caused a sheath of ice to freeze her from head to toe; she was a goddess Popsicle. The chariot, pulled by Freyja’s cats, flew on toward Odin.
“Graah!” Suttung bellowed jubilantly, holding his prize above his head. “I got her!”
“Father!” the Æsir in black cried, confirming his identity as Vidar. He disengaged from the giants more successfully than Freyja had and rushed to the allfather’s aid. This would have been the best time to sound a retreat and get out of there while we still could, or at least help Leif or Zhang Guo Lao or Perun with their Æsir deathmatches, but instead I scooped up Fragarach from where it lay in the snow and chased the son of Odin, all the warnings from Jesus and the Morrigan forgotten now that I had taken leave of my reason.
I really should have heeded those warnings.
Something punched me hard in my left side as I ran, knocking me off my feet to tumble gracelessly in the powder. Pain followed shortly afterward, and my arm swung into an arrow shaft underneath my ribs. I couldn’t breathe for the excruciating agony this caused, but I understood what had happened. Ullr had taken a shot at me instead of at Perun, knowing an easy target when he saw one. I drew on the magic in my bear charm to squelch the worst of the pain and staggered to my feet, twisting around in time to see Perun cleave the bastard in two with his axe. That relief allowed me to gasp in a lungful of cold air, but my will to fight on left me when I exhaled. Reason returned: Let Vidar tend to the broken body of Odin, I thought, and I’ll tend to my torn intestines.
I was a bloody mess inside, and it was only going to get worse. The tip of the arrow hadn’t gone all the way through, and it would have to before I could snap it off and remove the shaft. Perun, looking around for another foe, spotted me floundering in the snow and I waved him over weakly. He had three arrows in him, all on his limbs on the left side. The two I had spotted earlier were still in his arm, and a third was lodged in his thigh, causing him to half-limp, half-hop to me. The five surviving frost giants were huddling together to admire the frozen Freyja, still clutched triumphantly in Suttung’s hand.
Two vicious battles continued as Perun made his way to my side. Týr was discovering that he had no way to anticipate the drunken boxing moves of Zhang Guo Lao. His thrusts whiffed through the air or caught nothing but the voluminous material of the immortal’s robes, and it was all he could do to keep his shield in front of Zhang’s attacks.
Farther away, almost all the way back to the wall of ice the Jötnar had erected upon our arrival, Leif’s duel with Thor raged on. Considering Leif’s speed and skill with swordplay, I would have thought he’d have finished it one way or another. But Thor was lightning fast himself—go figure. And that new shield of his was holding up very well compared to the first one; there was probably an enchantment of some kind on it.
Perun ducked under my right side and draped my arm around his hairy shoulders. Together we limped back toward the root of Yggdrasil.
“Is Odin killed?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. I got one of his ravens, so he’s currently functioning without thought—or maybe it’s memory.” The remaining raven was circling over the spot where Odin fell. Vidar was bent over him, trying to get him to respond. “Plus whatever it feels like to have Hrym tee off on you with an ice club.”
The Russian thunder god laughed. “Is good enough for me, then. For wise one to be crippled in mind is fate worse than death.”
“We have to get out of here,” I said. “If the Einherjar or more of the Æsir arrive, we won’t make it.” Two of us and fifteen of the frost giants were dead. We could have left with only two frost giants dead, with Väinämöinen and Gunnar still alive; the thought made me want to weep.
“Da. Is truth. But Thor still lives and fights.”
“Leif could probably use our help.”
Perun chuckled wryly. “I do not think we help much at this point.”
Leif was now trying to get past the shield by circling around the thunder god. All he needed was one good strike against Thor for Moralltach to do its work. Unlike Fragarach, Moralltach couldn’t cut through shields or armor, but its power was to kill with one blow. Lopping off a pinky, a flesh wound to the calf, a pound of flesh from the forearm, it didn’t matter: All were fatal wounds when Moralltach delivered them. At least, that was how it was supposed to work. I’d never seen it work like that, because when I decapitated the Norns with Moralltach, its magic was redundant. But Thor was pivoting easily to meet Leif’s blows. Occasionally he lashed out with his hammer, but Leif was never there.
That told me my friend was a fraction faster than the thunder god. Leif hadn’t figured out how to get around that shield, though. He needed to try something new. Even as I thought this, his blurred circle around Thor came to a halt and he squared off perhaps ten yards away from the thunder god’s shield. A human’s chest would be heaving for breath at this point, but Leif was perfectly still, a statue of a pale blond ninja in a field of white. His booted left leg was bent in front of his right; his right arm was cocked to the side, with the hilt of Moralltach held at ear height, its blade a cold blue gash in the dark above Leif’s head.
A silence fell on the plain. Zhang Guo Lao flipped backward three times to put some distance between himself and Týr, holding up his hands in a clear signal to hold. The warrior god held. The frost giants tore their gazes from Freyja and stopped grunting long enough to listen.
“Do you know who we are, thunder god?” Leif said into the silence. I translated the Old Norse for Perun’s benefit.
“I care not!” Thor sneered.
“That is precisely why we are here. You are a careless, thoughtless god wrapped in protective myths of goodness. You are a slayer of innocents. You killed my family a thousand years ago and dared me to become a vampire. You probably do not even remember, do you?”
The thunder god’s voice rang with icy scorn. “No. Why should I remember a moment’s amusement from a thousand years ago?”
“Amusement? My family’s deat
h was amusing to you? It is as I thought. Come on, Thor,” Leif said, beckoning to him with his left hand. “Your destiny awaits.”
He wanted Thor to charge, thinking he would gain some advantage by it, but I could not see any. Thor bellowed and rushed him, shield and hammer held high. Leif remained immobile, and as I watched the headlong progress of Thor, Leif’s plan became clear to me.
“No, Leif,” I breathed.
In order for Thor to follow through on his hammer blow, he’d have to lower his shield and rotate it to his left side. For the space of a split second, his left shoulder would be unguarded, and Leif wanted to take advantage of it. But, in so doing, Leif could not avoid the hammer.
Their collision was a blurred, dull explosion of crunching bones. Thor’s hammer burst Leif’s skull apart like a watermelon, and he collapsed to the plain without a head. Thor remained standing.
“Ha!” he shouted. “Who has met his destiny? Not I!” But then his shield dropped and he turned to face the spectators. Moralltach was lodged in the muscle above his collarbone, between his neck and left shoulder. It had missed the brigandine and successfully parted the mail; Thor had worn no gorget. It was bleeding well but not gushing by any means. Thor dropped his hammer and wrenched the sword loose with his right hand, tossing it away from him.
“Ha!” he said again, and bent to pick up Mjöllnir. But his face, flushed with victory, darkened to a frown. The skin around the wound began to blacken, and then it spread quickly to his neck and down his arm like an oil spill.
“Eh? What sorcery is this?” the thunder god growled. Those were his last words. The malignant rot reached his heart and perhaps his spinal cord as well, withering them and snuffing out his life. He fell face forward, already dead, the putrefaction continuing to turn him black and greasy.
It was Fae sorcery, of course. A moment of stunned silence settled across the snow as the onlookers absorbed what had happened.