Waking the Gods: Their Dark Valkyrie #4 Read online

  Just by stopping for those few seconds, I’d let his army gain several feet on us. I hadn’t destroyed enough of them to make any real difference. I caught Mjolnir, meaning to throw myself after Loki toward the edge of the realm. But Surt lunged forward right then with a swipe of his sword.

  That eerie fire it carried coursed off its gleaming surface and hissed toward us like a raging forest fire. Hod tossed another wave of shadow at the flames, and Freya cast out a waft of magic that chilled my skin as it rushed past me.

  Most of the flames sputtered out. One small lick scorched across the tiles to where Tyr had been standing and heaved him into the air.

  Surt had used his fire magic that way at the start of the battle, when he’d made his bridge launch him over us right into Asgard. Now he had it hurl my fellow god all the way to his flaming blade. Tyr tumbled onto the ground in front of the giant. Even as I jerked back my hammer, Surt sliced his sword down on the war god’s neck.

  The blade severed clean through Tyr’s neck, leaving behind a smoking stump. I lost sight of his head in an instant as it rolled into the horde of draugr.

  “One god down, just a few more to go,” Surt hollered with a vicious grin. He spun his sword in the air. “Your people rose once. Let’s see if he will again—or if that blessing ended with his second chance.”

  My gut lurched. As I hustled backward, away from the draugr’s continuing charge, my gaze shot to the field where we’d all risen after Ragnarok—the field that was now a scorched ruin. Surt snatched a spear from one of his soldiers and stabbed it into Tyr’s chest. He hefted the limp headless body in the air and brandished it like some kind of trophy.

  Our former bodies, mangled by Ragnarok’s battle, hadn’t lingered when we’d returned. They’d vanished with our resurrection. I watched Surt’s display for several thuds of my heart, willing Tyr’s form to disappear, to reform whole and well in the distance.

  The warrior god’s blackened legs dangled lifelessly. His body stayed solid—solid and dead.

  Surt left out another bellow of a laugh. He flung the spear with Tyr’s body at the nearest hall, so hard the weapon dug into the stone. My comrade’s body hung there from the building’s wall. Not just a trophy. A warning.

  We hadn’t known for sure whether Asgard’s gift of rebirth could touch us again, whether we were fully immortal or merely graced with endless life as long as we protected that life. Now the question was answered with gruesome certainty.

  It wasn’t only Ari who could die in this battle. It could be any of us.

  Surt picked up speed, running at us with a wave of his arm to urge the draugr faster too. I wrenched my gaze from Tyr’s far-too-mortal body and spun on my heel.

  Loki had reached the edge of the realm. Odin, just catching up, thumped the end of his spear against the ground. Bifrost arced out through the air and down into the clouds, its rainbow glow the most welcome sight I’d ever seen. Ari’s body huddled in Loki’s arms looked nearly as limp as Tyr’s did. My rage sputtered out beneath the chill of my fear for her.

  “That’s right,” Surt bellowed. “Turn tail like the cowards you really are. Asgard is mine!”

  Every particle of my being roared in defiance of that statement, but I couldn’t see any way to defeat him now. I dashed for the bridge with the others. Hod’s shadows snaked past me over the tiles, helping guide his way.

  He and I reached the bridge last. I grabbed his elbow, hurrying him onto the rainbow’s gleaming surface. Loki was already racing down into the clouds. As I hustled on after him, Bifrost’s surface faded behind me.

  “I won’t let him follow us,” my father said, his low voice sounding even more hollow than usual. One of Surt’s attacks had burned part of the broad brim of his hat to a crisp. Ash dappled his shoulder over his dark blue traveling cloak. “Neither he nor his fiends will set foot on my bridge.”

  I wasn’t sure the giant even meant to try. Surt’s laughter carried after us as we fled down toward the world of humankind, but it sounded distant now, as if he’d halted his chase.

  He would follow us down to Midgard before long, though, wouldn’t he? From what we’d understood, his plan was to take control over both of the remaining stable realms among the nine. It made sense that he’d started with Asgard—smaller, and easier to catch us in a vulnerable state by surprising us there. But the vast and wonderful realm of humanity would be his next target.

  Tension wound around my lungs, sharpened by the still-seeping wound on my side and the other on my arm, and by the sight of Midgard’s forests and towns below the clouds. I was meant to be the protector of humanity, more than any of the other gods. This realm was my responsibility. I hadn’t managed to protect my own realm from the invader. I had to do better by the mortals here, who were so much less equipped to fight back than we’d been.

  First, though, I needed to know that my recently human companion had made it through.

  I pushed myself faster, but even my well-muscled legs couldn’t beat Loki’s enchanted shoes. He’d already reached the ground. Odin had set Bifrost down by a barn that, from its sagged roof, hadn’t been used in some time.

  The trickster carried Ari into the barn. Baldur flew after him. When I reached the doorway, Loki had lain Ari on the straw-strewn floor. The musty smell that reached my nose must have been why he was wrinkling his, but his amber eyes were fixed on the valkyrie.

  Her wings had contracted into her back, making her look as if she were fully human still. Her face had escaped the worst of the damage from Surt’s attacks, but her eyes were shut, her lips parted and jaw slack. The rest of her was a mess of charred fabric and skin mottled black and red. My fingers clamped around Mjolnir’s handle so tightly my knuckles ached.

  Ari wasn’t just a fighting companion and a friend. She’d seen parts of me even I’d almost forgotten existed and helped me recover them. She’d shown me tenderness and affection I’d never thought I’d find again.

  I’d started to think I’d get to spend the rest of my days with her by my side—and if the trickster and the twins shared her affections too, that didn’t diminish what she and I had, only showed the capacity of her heart. She captured my heart, with a depth I hadn’t entirely known until right now, watching Baldur bend over her ravaged body, feeling that pounding vessel inside me nearly tear itself apart.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I asked, every muscle in my body clamoring to be put to use.

  The god of light shook his head without glancing up. He rested his hands gently on Ari’s chest. A glow began to seep from them through her body.

  “Her heart is still beating,” he said, his voice ragged with relief. “She’s breathing, just barely. It’ll take some time, but I can save her.”

  Loki stood up, his mouth twisting. He’d managed to pull his lips into one of his usual sly smiles by the time he met my eyes.

  “Let’s give the healer room to work his magic without distraction, Thunderer.”

  Reluctantly, I stepped back from the doorway. Hod stayed turned toward his twin, his stance tense, but the blind god couldn’t speed up Ari’s recovery any more than I could.

  Odin had sunk down by the weathered fence along the dirt road that divided the farmland from the forest. Freya was crouched next to him. Where she’d moved aside his cloak, his trousers were darkly damp with blood. One or more of Surt’s soldiers had gotten to my father too.

  Baldur was going to have his work cut out for him, patching up the lot of us.

  A fresh surge of fury gripped me. I stalked toward the road, tossing Mjolnir in my hand. With a satisfying heave, I hurled the hammer at one of the nearest trees.

  The trunk burst like the one draug’s body had, splinters pattering against the neighboring trees. The top of the pine crashed down into the forest. My momentary pleasure drained away. This wasn’t accomplishing anything. It was senseless destruction.

  “You’re leaking,” Loki said lightly, nodding to my wound. “I might not be able to magic it better, bu
t I could cauterize it for the time being.”

  “I’m fine,” I grumbled, which might not have been the most sensible response either, but the thought of dealing with my injuries when Ari was still unconscious from hers made my spine stiffen.

  I prowled along the line of the fence all the way around the abandoned farm, telling myself I was keeping guard. As long as I was in motion, my worries and aggravations could only nip at my heels, not gnaw right into me. I’d just finished my eighth circuit when a thin but clear voice carried through the barn doorway.

  “Where are we?”

  My heart leapt. I barged through the doorway, only managing to make it there ahead of Loki and Hod because I’d been closer to begin with.

  Ari was sitting up against the wall. Her cheek was smudged with ash and her clothes still hung in burnt tatters on her small frame, but her limbs were only mottled pink now instead of the raw horror they’d been before.

  Baldur was gripping her shoulder as he explained where we’d ended up. His white-blond hair clung to his forehead, damp with sweat from all the energy he’d expended.

  Ari’s gaze leapt from him to the rest of us as we came in. A smile lit her face all the way to her blue-gray eyes. “All right,” she said. “So, how are we getting Asgard back?”

  Here she was, just restored from the verge of death and already eager to leap right back into battle. A laugh of joy tickled up my throat. But the sound had hardly fallen from my lips when my chest tightened all over again.

  How were we getting Asgard back? I didn’t have the faintest idea where to start.

  3

  Aria

  The gods set up their little council in the barn, mainly so that I didn’t have to try to walk anywhere yet, I suspected. I wasn’t keen on being carried around, but my body still throbbed enough just sitting propped against the rough boards of the wall that I didn’t trust my legs to hold me up yet. Baldur might have had magic hands, but even divine magic had its limits.

  That truth of that thought hit home even harder when I glanced around the circle of figures that had hunkered down around me and noticed we were one short.

  “Where’s Tyr?” I said, my stomach already clenching with dread in anticipation of the answer. Somehow I had the feeling he hadn’t just gone for a stroll.

  The gods all glanced at each other as if hoping someone else would take on the task of replying. Odin sighed, adjusting his grip on his spear, which he’d leaned against his shoulder as he sat on an old crate.

  “Tyr fell in the battle as we retreated,” he said. “A worthy companion lost.”

  “Lost,” I repeated. “So he didn’t—he isn’t going to— You weren’t sure whether any of you could really die or not.”

  “Now we’re sure,” Loki said, his tone arch but a little subdued by his standards. “No more do-overs. We fall and we’re gone.”

  I sucked in a deep breath full of the dry smells of straw and dust. The possibility that the gods might die had hung over us in every battle we’d found ourselves in, but now, looking at them in the beams of dwindling sunlight that were streaking through the gaps in the barn walls, it felt as real and solid as my hands. Because it was a fact now and not a possibility. Because for the first time we’d faced an enemy strong enough that he’d sent the gods on the run from their home.

  Of course, maybe they wouldn’t have needed to run at all if they hadn’t been trying to save me. My hand dropped to my knee to rub an achy spot there. The outer marks of Surt’s attacks were fading, but I could still trace the lines his magical fire had carved into me.

  “He took us by surprise,” I said. “When we’re ready and properly equipped—when we can take him by surprise—no one else will have to fall on our side. Right? So what’s the plan?”

  “I’d imagine the most difficult part will be getting back into Asgard without walking straight into an ambush,” Hod said, his dark green eyes instinctively moving over the faces around our circle even though he couldn’t see any of us. I knew he had a clear enough picture of where we all were from every small sound of our movements, our breaths. His boyish face had always looked harder than his gentle twin’s, but now his expression was outright strained.

  “Surt knows where Bifrost connects to Asgard,” the dark god went on. “He knows the only other entrance into Asgard is through the paths along Yggdrasil. He’ll have both the head of the bridge and the base of the great tree surrounded by his draugr. We won’t take him by surprise that way.”

  “Are there really no other ways in?” I asked. “Surt managed to show up right where he wanted with his fire magic. Aren’t there any gods who can do something like that?” I looked to Odin. “Can you make your rainbow touch down in some other spot?”

  Odin shook his head, his silvered brown beard swaying. “Bifrost is born from Asgard. I call it forth from the place of its origin. It’s only the other end I can aim at my whim.” From what the gods had told me, the abandoned farm he’d set us down in today was somewhere in the middle of the French countryside.

  “But there might be other ways of creating a bridge,” Loki said. “The five of us know we aren’t any use for that—we gave it a shot when you were missing, Allfather—but if we could track down one of the gods with a closer affinity.” He snapped his fingers. “Heimdall.”

  “He was the bridge’s guardian,” Thor said. “Nothing to do with creating it.”

  Loki waved his hand dismissively. “He rules over connections and the binding of one thing to another. That sounds bridge-like enough to me.”

  “It only helps us if we can find Heimdall,” Hod put in. “We did spend a good chunk of the last couple weeks searching for the other gods, and Tyr is the only one we turned up.”

  “We didn’t have Muninn with us then,” I said. “She might have spotted one of them in her travels around Midgard.” My pulse stuttered. “Where’s the raven?”

  Odin’s former raven of memory had become a part of our group so recently and been an enemy of sorts for so long before that, I hadn’t immediately been thrown by her absence. Had she been caught or even killed by Surt and his draugr too?

  “We don’t know,” Freya said, with a slight edge. I suspected it was going to take her a while to completely forgive the raven woman for imprisoning her husband and allowing Surt to torment him.

  “None of us saw her during the battle,” Baldur said, his voice as clear and melodic as ever. “I wouldn’t blame her if she fled from the start. She isn’t a warrior.”

  My shoulders tensed. “If Surt catches her, he might kill her. He’s got to know by now that she betrayed him to us in the end.”

  Thor tipped his head toward the doorway. “Baldur laid out a bit of a light display that she should recognize if she’s searching for us. If the giant has her, we’ll just have to hope we make it back to Asgard before he takes his full revenge.”

  Back to Asgard. An idea jarred loose in my still pretty muddled head. “I can jump straight back to Valhalla,” I said. “Obviously I can’t fight Surt and his army on my own, but I could at least take the lay of the land, see where the guards are…”

  Anything else I might have said caught in my throat at the darkening of Hod’s face. “No,” he said. “We know there’ll be guards in Valhalla, lots of them, watching the entrance to Yggdrasil, remember? They might even be on guard specifically for you to appear if Surt’s aware of that valkyrie skill. He’s not going to give you any opening. He’d just take the opportunity to kill you.”

  It was strange to think that a month ago, Hod hadn’t even wanted me around. Now, his anguish at the close call I’d already met at Surt’s hands threaded through his words. My connection with each of the four gods who’d summoned me had deepened in all sorts of ways, many of them very enjoyable, since I’d found myself with them, but Hod had opened up the most. He’d offered me his heart, his love, whether I could bring myself to say the same to him or not.

  I hadn’t managed to repeat that sentiment to any of my gods yet. Lo
ve wasn’t an emotion I had a whole lot of experience with after years of my mother’s abuse and worse at the hands of her boyfriends. I tried to show them how much they meant to me in other ways, though. In that moment, I wished I could put my arms around Hod and show him how much I really was still here, alive and unbroken. That might not be a very productive move for getting on with this meeting, though.

  “But Surt’s guards might not be watching for me,” I said. “They could be all at the end of the hall by the hearth. I think I can control, at least a little, which part of the room I appear in. If I landed between the tables, they might not even notice me sneaking by.”

  All of the gods were frowning, even Freya. Loki reached out and squeezed my arm. His touch sent tingling warmth over my skin without any magic involved. “For once in my existence, I agree with Mr. Doom and Gloom. It’s not worth the risk. We have time to attempt other strategies.”

  Not worth the risk. Just like it hadn’t been worth the risk of continuing to fight when I’d been wounded? A lump rose in my throat.

  “Yggdrasil may be the key, nonetheless,” Freya said. “They can guard the entrance, but no one but those of Asgard can open it. If we found one of the gateways from the other realms, and we assembled enough of a force, we could possibly take whatever draugr he’s stationed in Valhalla by surprise and slaughter them before they can raise the alarm. We’d just need to be ready to strike directly at him right after that.” The goddess of love and war set her mouth in a firm line.

  “Do we know where the gateway from Midgard is?” I asked.

  “There isn’t one,” Thor said. “It was closed at this end ages ago, after it became too likely some human would stumble on it and get himself into trouble.” He glanced at Hod. “But we do know where at least one gate to Nidavellir is, and the location of their gate to Asgard.”

  Hod nodded slowly. “I could go and plead our case to the dark elves. I think it would shatter all the good will we’ve managed to restore with them if we simply demanded the right to barge through their home at our convenience.”