Stormbringer (30 page)

Sigmund swallowed, throat suddenly like sandpaper. “I—I need to make a call” was all he managed.

He got through on the second try.

“What?”

“M-Ms. Arin?”

“Yes. Speak.”

“Th-this is Si-igmund. Sigmund Su-ussman, I—”

“I know. I said speak. Why are you calling? Where is Hale?”

Nicole Arin, VP of LB, Inc., and a god in her own right. Sigmund didn't believe in prayer, but he did know how to name-drop to the switchboard, and he was really, really hoping Arin was…what he thought she was.

“I-I need your help,” he said. “I'm in.” He looked around. “Actually, I don't know where I—”

“About a hundred and fifty kilometers southwest of Sydney.” Sigmund could practically feel the razors in Arin's voice. Everything about Arin was razors, from her voice to her haircut to her suit. He liked her, but Jesus, she was scary.

But if she knew where he was, that meant she could help. He hoped.

“I need you to trace a call.” When he looked up, an entire ring of eyes watched him. Somewhere, in the background, tourists walked blithely around the grass, oblivious to the collection of monsters in their midst. “The last call to this phone,” Sigmund added. “I need to know where it was made from.”

Silence on the end of the line, then:

“Welby. Around sixty kilometers to the east. From the phone of one Eva Juric.”

The name meant nothing, but at least Sigmund had a direction. And Arin, apparently, didn't ask a lot of questions.

“Thanks,” he said. “I just…I think La—Travis is in trouble.”

A burst of static that, if Sigmund didn't know better, he'd say was a sigh. “When is he not? Are we done?”

“Yeah. Um. Thank you?”

But the line had already gone dead.

Sigmund put the phone back into his belt pouch, suddenly highly aware of just how itchy wool was under the Australian sun.

“I know where we're headed,” he said, scanning his eyes across the crowd. “We just. Um. We just need to, uh. To…get there?”

Sixty kilometers. That was a—what? Three-day walk? Sigmund had done twenty in one single miserable day back in high school. Said “fun run,” quote-unquote, had not only not been as advertised, but had left Sigmund wrecked for weeks afterward. Now he was supposed to do three times that, with an army following behind and Lain screaming in pain up ahead and—

From behind, Sigmund heard the roar of an engine and the blare of a horn. Not a car horn. Something bigger.

Sigmund jumped and turned. Behind him loomed an enormous tour bus in black and chrome, no maker's badging bar a single skull on the front. Almost a horse, but not quite.

“Well,” said Sigmund. “That solves that problem.”

He decided not to look gift coaches in the mouth.

In the end, it was always going to come down to this. A betrayal. Not mine, even. At least, not exactly.

I feel the magic, thrumming down my horns and into my bones. Runes bending the Wyrd, folding space and time, air around us blurring, then solidifying. Turning from ionized gas into the four-foot-tall, armor-clad shapes of two score
dvergar.

No prizes for guessing who's at the head.

I'm not surprised by our sudden company, but Magni and Móði are. From the ground, Móði drops into a combat stance, hands raised and the edge of runes dancing on his tongue. From above, on the pillars, Magni goes to pick up Mjölnir.

“I would not, if I were you.” From the throng of his army, Tóki steps forth.

“Dvergr!”
Móði never did quite get the notion of people preferring to be referred to by their names. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Step away from the hammer, little godling,” Tóki says. “It belongs to the
dvergar,
you will not have it.”

Móði looks to me and he looks to Tóki. Then to the army, surrounding us on every side. His eyes go wide, and I feel the beginning edges of suspicion begin to fray.

“We had a deal,
dvergr.
” Magni does not share his brother's hesitation. “We have no quarrel with you, but you cannot have Mjölnir. Nor can you hope to defeat me when I wield it, no matter your numbers.” His gauntlets close around the haft, hefting it upward. All around us, lightning snakes across the heavens.

Tóki's rock-stiff lips crack into the grimace that passes for his smile. “Before you do this,” he says, “perhaps you should ask your ‘bondsman' if he thinks it wise.”

Magni's eyes shift to me, taking in my relaxed stance and utter lack of surprise over our new company.
“Jötunn,”
he snarls. “If you have betrayed us—”

“Oh fuck
off
!” I've had enough. Really, truly enough. “ ‘If I've betrayed you'? Of course I fucking have, you brainless piece of shit. Just who do you think I
am
?” Dragging me across the fucking Realms like a fucking pet. Beaten and chained and tortured.

Magni roars, hefting his new prize. “Then your blood will be the first to spill!”

“Come at me!” I snarl, every feather on my body fluffing out, pulled by the static charge Magni's rage is building in Mjölnir's metal. “Do it! It's what you want, isn't it? To spill the blood of
jötnar
? To have everyone think you worthy to pick up your father's bloody banner?”

Magni roars, arm raised, ready to loose the storm, when Móði says, “Brother, no! He goads you! Look to the
dvergr
instead. His hands, Brother. Look at what he holds!”

Magni hesitates, just enough. Just enough to take one look at Tóki.

Tóki, who holds Járngreipr in his stumpy paws.

Magni looks down at his own hands, to where his fingers are stuffed inside the exact same set of gauntlets. He hesitates.

“What's wrong, tough guy?” I snarl. “I'm still waiting for my smiting. Show me what a true son of Thor can do!”

Móði, ever the clever brother, has turned to Tóki. “What betrayal is this?” he demands.

“Your pet came to me,” Tóki says. “Offering wicked deals in exchange for its freedom. It would have me forge a new pair of gauntlets for Mjölnir's wielding. False ones, ones not woven with the true runes of Járngreipr.” He gestures to the gloves in his hands. “The true gauntlets are with me. And you will not have them.”

Móði's eyes widen, his mouth dropping open as he turns to me with “Why?”

I don't even deign him with an answer. If the self-righteous piece of shit can't figure it out himself, then he doesn't deserve to know.

Instead, I pull the memory of a cigarette from nowhere, light it, and take a long and satisfying drag. My mind is thinking contracts and connections, steel and industry and the taste of home, when I hear Tóki say.

“Now die,
æsir
thieves! For the honor of Niðavellir!”

I stop. “Whoa. Wait, Tóki. What are you doing?”

Tóki snarls. “Silence,
jötunn
cur! You will die with them.”

All of a sudden, the guys surrounding us are looking significantly more armed.

“This wasn't the deal, kid.”

Tóki laughs. “I make no deals with oath-breaking scum like you. I am no fool like my uncle was. He sought to please Ásgarðr in his vanity and received nothing for his labor! For my father's labor. Today, I redress this wrong. Take back some of what was once stolen from us, and take blood in payment for the rest.”

Oh.

Shit.

“Brokkr made a fucking deal. It was fair, and he got what he bargained for. Don't fucking pin his greed on me!”

“Why would I need to? Father told me of the fly that broke his concentration on the forge. All know it to have been you, liar and cheat. There was no fair deal. Ásgarðr got what it always did, bleeding the Realms dry for its amusement. Because of your tricks, Mjölnir's forging was imperfect. Now may you choke on the justice of your own demise! Kill them all! For Niðavellir.”

Like I said: It was always going to come down to this. A betrayal. The only thing ever really in question was whose it was gonna be.

A thousand years ago, a fly bit at a
dvergr
as he worked the bellows of a forge. Because of this, the handle of the hammer he was forging was made too short. Because the handle was too short, it wasn't enough to ground the lightning called by the runes forged into the hammer's head. Anyone trying to do so would be fried. And because of that, a separate set of gloves were forged. To protect the hammer's wielder.

So. Here we are. In the place where, it turns out, irony is not just a descriptor of Mjölnir's metal.

As one, the
dvergar
howl, lunging forward with weapons raised. I take a step back, cigarette falling from my lips, winding up shoulder-to-shoulder with Móði, who growls, “See the price of your betrayal!”

“Fuck you!” I snarl.

Then the
dvergar
are upon us and there's no more room for talking.

Forty versus three. Skewed odds, but I've had worse.

I also have a secret, and it's time to fess up.

A
dvergr
lunges at me with an ax and I roll sideways in a flash of feathers, leaving a line of flames in my wake. He steps around them, coming at me again even as ten of his fellows close in from all around. I have fractions of a second before they hit and, in the space between two breaths, I reach
inside.
Down beneath muscle and flesh and scars, to where a golden heart beats beneath the surface. Burning with the glory and the fury of the sun, and I crack it open and call it do—

Pain explodes on the side of my head, the world going dark as I fly sideways from the impact, trailing streamers of noxious blood. When I hit the ground I roll, over and over, feeling things snap until I finally come to a stop by hitting something hard and armored that goes “Oof!”

My head is still ringing. A morning star, maybe, my thick skull saved only by my horns.

Of course, I need my horns to see and do magic. But hey. What use are either of those things on a battlefield?

Especially a moment later when a sword plunges into my heaving side.

“Hnnuargh!”

The sound of metal hitting metal above me. Through blurry Wyrdsight, I can just about make out the whirling storm of Magni as he murders his way across the Bleed, his own hammer in one hand, Mjölnir in the other. He's using it as a weapon, not to call down lightning, but I don't know how long that's going to last against an army.

From somewhere behind, I hear Móði shouting runes:
sól, sól, sól,
over and over. Except the
dvergar
aren't stupid. They know their weakness and they came for war. Their armor doesn't leave much skin exposed, and so they fight.

I do, too, kicking out with a leg and tripping a
dvergr
who'd been sneaking up on Magni's flank. When it goes down, its fellows notice I'm not yet out of the fight, and then I'm definitely
in.

My head is still ringing and I can't see very well, but I'm twice the size of the armored little maggots and I have big claws and sharp teeth and flesh roasts so well inside metal. Not to mention the more the squirming little pieces of shit cut and stab me, the more I bleed caustic blood all over their weapons and armor.

The
dvergar
are nothing if not engineers, and they figure this out after one or two shattered axes. After that, they stop stabbing and start hitting, which isn't nearly as fun.

I heal broken bones quickly but…still. Broken ribs and a fractured leg make dodging a little difficult.

We're losing. That much is obvious. I'm back-to-back with Magni and Móði, the three of us having retreated up atop a basalt column.
Dvergar
swarm all around, while I lash out with claws and fire and Magni is a red roaring whirl of the berserk. Móði, meanwhile, tries to hold the rune shield that's all that's protecting us from a well-placed arrow to the heart.

It's precarious, and it can't last. So it doesn't.

Móði goes down first. He's so busy concentrating on the runes he doesn't notice the
dvergr
coming up from underneath. It doesn't take much, just a stubby-fingered paw around his ankle and a yank.

With a cry, he tumbles from the column. The shield around us pops and, in the next instant, I'm rolling sideways in a fireball as a hail of arrows presses its advantage.

I hear Magni call his brother's name. I try lunging toward him, but trip on the still body of a
dvergr
we slaughtered earlier, going down with a thud and lasting all of half a second before I've got six more around me, trying to hammer my bones to dust.

“Fuck!”

I roll onto my back, kicking the nearest maggot in the face and sending it flying. Up above, in the sky, the clouds begin to swirl.

Magni has Mjölnir raised.

I hear Móði cry, “Brother! No!”

But, really? What other option is there? When it was always going to come to this.

I lunge for cover, such that it exists. Mostly this involves putting as many
dvergar
and rocks and basalt between me and the sonic boom that's coming in three, two, one…

Now.

Ground zero at a lightning strike is very,
very
loud. Heat and pressure, the rush of expanding and contracting air. I have my hands clamped over my ears and my hind claws digging between the cracks in the basalt, and I'm still sent flying. So are the
dvergar,
living and dead alike.

Everyone with eyes is blinded by the flash. I remember those, from back when I could see. They aren't fun, either.

Nothing about Mjölnir is fun. Not the thunder, not the lightning, and not the way the heavens open after and piss down rain in endless, razor-edged sheets.

Fire doesn't burn very well in the rain. And wet feathers are fucking awful.

I have half a heartbeat to think of this before my entire body goes rigid, tattoos bursting to electrified life. Somewhere, outside the spasms, I hear Magni howl.

With the fake Járngreipr, Mjölnir's lightning had nowhere safe to ground. So it did what lightning usually does, jumping from the hammer to the rock by means of Magni's hands.

The tattoo Móði left there, sympathetic magic that it is, does not fail to notice this occurrence and, therefore, neither do I.

This irony of this situation is not lost on me, even through the crackling pain and the jerking spasms of my limbs.

And then it's over, and my mouth tastes like dirt and iron.

“Magni!”
I hear Móði's boots against the stone, the first thing on the shattered battlefield to move. Crying his brother's name, over and over.

Magni is on the ground, hunched over. He's breathing fast, voice keening through the sobs, armor burned in fractals down his body.

His hands he has cradled close, fingers twisted into claws, hammers discarded on the ground.

Despite the rain, there's smoke coming from his gauntlets.

His melted gauntlets.

Magni. You fucking
idiot.

The three of us are crowded around a rise of basalt. Magni is out, I'm not doing much better, Móði is exhausted. We're surrounded by
dvergar
bodies, broken and thrown into grotesque rag dolls by the physics of a lightning strike. Among the corpses, however, others begin to rise.

Tóki is among the living. Because of course he is.

“Not enough, boy,” he sneers, boots clanking over stone burned and cracked by the same mad patterns as Magni's skin.

Móði gets halfway to a crouch, sword in his hand and runes on his lips. “Stay back!”

As befitting the threat, Tóki merely laughs. “Ásgarðr's ruin is long coming,” he says. “Undone by pride, greed”—he flashes a look my way—“and bad allies. You've fought well enough. Now. Submit, and take the deaths that you deserve.”

Behind him, half a dozen bowmen raise their bows.

Gods are, in general, not all that susceptible to death. Not permanent death, anyhow.

Still. If it ever does come, it comes for us like this. And if Móði surrenders—if he's slaughtered outside of battle and washes up on Náströnd's corpse-lined shores…

Well. Let's just say Helheimr is no place for an
áss.

I see Móði think the same, feel the swirls of Wyrd as he calls another rune song to his lips. Better to die fighting, and all that.

Tóki grins. “As you wish,” he says, raising his hand to signal his men.

The gesture signals someone, all right. One minute Tóki's hand is raised, the next it has an arrow sticking through it.

Tóki howls. Around him, his men fall into panic, whirling to see what new attack besets them.