Stormbringer (35 page)

Because that's the thing.
Einherjar
come back. The others don't. Dead for the
náir
is dead twice over, banished to the mist and shale of Niflhel, to lose themselves to the madness of the mists until their bodies rot into the formless lumps we call the
draugar.

In Hel, even the dead have ghosts.

Flying down I can still do, but that doesn't mean it's going to last. The ground is getting closer by the second and there really isn't any place to land, every inch covered by yelling, swarming bodies. Some pushing toward the Wall, as if to topple it by mass alone. Others are grabbing at those pushing forward, trying to drag them back.

Gungnir's madness, its meme, hasn't spread to everyone. That's good. I can work with that.

First I need to find the fucking spear.

It's not quite the needle-in-a-haystack search it could be. Gungnir Bleeds, even here. Its Wyrd oozing out and through the minds of those it drives to war. And where there's a Wyrd, there's a weave. A warp and a woof I can follow back to the source, trampled now into the mud by a thousand footsteps. Hidden beneath a fallen banner and a sign painted on wooden boards written in a language I can't quite read. Danish maybe.

My claws hit mud not two meters away, and I've got just enough time to get to my feet before I'm crushed in the press of the crowd. A woman screams in my ear, brandishing a sword above my head, and a dozen voices answer her.

“For Helheimr!” she says. “For our husbands!”

She's launching a rescue mission, leading a group of women to storm Ásgarðr's gates, looking for their kidnapped princes. They ignore me. I look enough like one of theirs.

“Daughter!” I hear, from the leader a group of men, appearing from the fray. Old men, mostly. Dead from age and disease. “Daughter, do not do this.”

“Do not stop me, Father! You saw what they did to Hræiðarr, those monsters!”

“Winflæd, be reasonable. This is no place for a woman.”

“Better women than old and cowardly men!” Winflæd shoots back, just as quickly.

They're speaking Old English, I think. It's all very
Beowulf.
At least three of the women in Winflæd's war band are wearing jeans, and another one is carrying what I swear looks like a jackhammer.

I don't know how a jackhammer got into Helheimr and, honestly, I don't want to. Mostly, I need to shoulder aside the old men with a “Hey, 'scuse me. Coming through!” They shout and mutter, and their daughters take the opportunity to escape, running to the Wall, jackhammer held high above their heads.

Somewhere, beneath mud that Bleeds the black corruption of Hel, my claws find wood.

“Got you!”

Fucking Gungnir, filthy but no worse for wear.

“They did this to us, did they not?”

I turn. Behind me, standing in an eye of calm amid the riot, is my daughter. Loki's daughter.

The woman we killed.

“Hel…”

She's looking pretty good for a dead woman. Not much different from what I remember, bar the mud that splashes up her legs and robe.

“Hel, I—”

She inclines her head, eyes hidden by her veil. “Another time,” she says. “First, tell me: Who did this to us?”

I look at Gungnir, then at Hel. Somewhere deep inside, my black heart breaks. “I don't know,” I say, which is honest.

“But you suspect.”

I nod.

Hel says a name: “Forseti.”

I nod again, and she hisses, face turning to look at the chaos all around.

“We came here to bargain,” she says. “To make peace. I
earned
my people's place within the Wall, bought it with my death.”

“Hela—” Loki starts.

Hel's head whips back around, fast enough to flash the pale white of her cheeks beneath the veil. “No! They have no honor! You know this more than any. We did not want war, only what was ours by right. And they have taken even that from us. From me. So be it. If they would have us be monsters, then monsters we will be. And may Ásgarðr's fields run red with blood and may the bodies of their dead reach into the darkened sky!”

“Wait!”

Hel's wings are mantled up and I can feel her rage twist the ground into sharp obsidian. But she stops, and she's listening.

She doesn't want to be the bad guy, not really. No one ever does.

“You can blame all of Ásgarðr for the actions of one bloodthirsty
áss,
” I say. I hold out Gungnir. “Here. This is proof Helheimr didn't start this war. People saw someone throw it. Stop the fighting long enough to talk with the other
æsir.
If they knew about this, if it was deliberate, then yeah. Wipe them off the Tree, fine. But if they didn't…”

If they didn't, if Forseti acted alone—even if the other
æsir
are prepared to pretend he did—then Hel isn't the villain in this story. Because that's all life is to things like us: story. The same plots and tropes and tales, told over and over again. And sometimes—just sometimes—we get a bit jack of it all and start looking for a change.

Hel takes the spear, her rictus grin contorting into something like a sneer as she does. “Vile thing,” she says. “It should never have been made.”

What use is a spear that incites people into war? Well. A fair bit of use, really. If you happen to be someone looking to build up an army made from guys who died in battle.

Hel looks up. “Your words are clever, Father. As always. But Gungnir's own Wyrd does not heed them. The
æsir
will not speak to us while we assault their Wall.”

I nod. “Right,” I say. “About that. Where's your stage?”

I've got a meme to spoil.

It's easier to wade through the riot, trailing in Hel's wake. Even gripped by Gungnir's madness, her people don't obstruct her passage.

There is, indeed, a stage, and one that's only slightly trampled in the chaos. It's fitted out with an odd assortment of instruments, both modern and old, plus microphones and stacks of looming black amplifiers. Some things are smashed, some things aren't, but, more important—

“Lain!”

Sigmund, true to his word, is here, Em and Wayne and Sleipnir standing close behind. I don't ask how they got here first. Sleipnir is Sleipnir, after all.

“I found them!” Sigmund says, crushing his arms around my waist and his face against my chest. “They're all right.”

That might be an overstatement. Wayne is holding half her dreadlocks in one hand like some fuzzy, candy-striped octopus, and Em sniffs like she's been crying. “This wasn't supposed to happen,” she says, when she notices me looking.

I know the feeling.

I'm halfway through letting go of Sigmund, halfway through saying something to Em, when the explosion happens. It's not close, over at the Wall, but I've curled around Sigmund before the backdraft hits, my own body between him and it, wings opening up to shield his mortal skin.

“What was that?” Wayne's half risen to her feet, pile of severed dreadlocks abandoned on the stage. Em looks about five seconds from diving under it.

It happens again. This time, I catch the noise beforehand, another explosion, much softer than the first.

The dead bring things with them when they die. Sometimes that means guitars, sometimes it means bazookas.

“I think,” I say, “someone's finally brought out the heavy ordnance.”

Sigmund peers around my wing. “That was our side of the Wall!”

“Us or them?” Wayne's moved forward, squinting to see through the smoke and straining to hear above the shouting.

Somewhere behind the haze, a section of the Wall has fallen down.

“Pretty sure that's us,” says Sigmund.

I let go of him, vaulting up onto the stage. “Does this shit work?”

“Should do.” Em watches me from the side. When she's not staring, shell-shocked, through the smoke.

I pick up a toppled mic, tap it, get nothing, flick the switch on the side, then tap it again.

This time, I make my own booms.

Finding a guitar takes a little longer. There's an acoustic, a bass, and a smashed-up piece of plastic that looks like some sort of soundboard.

Finally, behind an amp, I find what I'm looking for: a good, solid, old-fashioned Fender Stratocaster. Bit beat up, with a string of runes extolling Bragi, god of poetry, scratched into the neck. But otherwise serviceable and, when I plug it into an amp and try the strings, tuned.

“Don't tell me you play guitar.” Em is standing with Sigmund and Wayne at the edge of the stage. Even Hel is watching, head tilted. Behind them, the war wages on. I think a bunch of roofs are on fire, judging by the smoke.

“Of course I play guitar,” I say. I learned in the '60s, just like everyone else. I step up to the mic, and try to remember the chords.

Three false starts later, Wayne starts booing. I flip her off, struggling to readjust my grip. I could blame lack of practice, but what it really is are the claws. They're okay on the right hand but make the chords a little tricky and the intro riff I'm trying to play nearly impossible.

Nearly, but not quite.

It occurs to me Sig and Wayne and Em might just be too young to know what I need them to do. What meme I need to start. Then Em says:

“You're fucking kidding me, right?”

And I grin, and know she's got it.

“Time for a sing-along,” I say, and start to strum.

Here's the thing. Gungnir is a meme. One that starts wars, but a meme all the same. A vicious, bloodthirsty little idea that lives by leaping from mind to mind, poisoning thoughts and turning peace to violence. Like all memes, once it's started—once it has momentum—it's difficult to stop.

Difficult, but not impossible. Especially if it can be replaced by something stronger.

What's stronger than war? Anything, really. Love, peace, profiteering, self-preservation. A really strong urge not to miss the latest episode of
Hell's Kitchen.
Because it takes effort to start a war: conviction and drive.

But to stop it?

To stop it, all that's needed is apathy.

Three mortals versus the combined forces of Hel and Ásgarðr. Too easy.

Forseti had been too young to fight at Rangarøkkr.

“This is an old gods' war,” his grandfather had told him, watching Forseti with one single eye, the iris as pale and cold as an endless winter's sky. “Today, we fight for the future.”

“My father's future?” Forseti had asked.

“Aye,” said Odin, and the black beasts on his shoulders had rustled their feathers and clicked their beaks, and Forseti had believed it. Believed in Odin's war, believed in his father's sacrifice. Believed that, come the Ragnarøkkr, Baldr would return from Hel, bright and shining, and would rule over the Realms, and all would be as it should.

Forseti had believed this with all his heart. And so he had watched Grandfather and his
einherjar
march off to die, and had been content.

When the battle was done, when Ásgarðr lay in ruins, the man calling himself Baldr had returned. But he had not been Forseti's father. Something had gone wrong. Forseti knew not what. Perhaps he never would. But that did not mean he could not try to set things right.

“Archers, watch the sky! Lest the beasts flank us from above!”

Another war in Ásgarðr, this one with Forseti at the helm. And, unlike Grandfather, this was a war Forseti did not intend to lose.

He'd thrown the spear, but he still had his sword and it was sharp enough to cut through the weak flesh of the
náir.
Forseti stood on the Wall, the grasping, shriveled hands of Hel's monsters reaching toward him as they climbed. His blade singing as it struck against the stone. A clean, honest sound, even as fingers severed and their hapless owners screamed and fell backward into the writing mass below.

“There are too many of them, my lord!” Ullr, standing back-to-back with Forseti, fingers pulling the string of his bow over and over. “We will be overrun!”

“We will triumph,” Forseti countered, blade plunging into the eye of one of Hel's vicious, feathered monsters. It howled as it fell, blade sliding from its flesh, metal coated with foul-smelling purple blood. “So long as Ásgarðr stands, the
einherjar
will rise!”

Hel's army may have been thousands, but Forseti's were immortal, bound with Grandfather's oaths. So long as Ásgarðr stood, they would rise and fight anew, no matter how often they were felled.

And fight they did; Grandfather's spear had brought out that much in them. Had returned to them their honor, their pride. No more muttering in darkened halls, no more whispers, no sullen looks. War made men, Grandfather had said, and Forseti had not believed it. Not until now.

And so the
einherjar
fought, for Ásgarðr's honor, and died for the same.

Ullr's bowstring creaked, then loosed an arrow with a sound like a raven taking flight. Somewhere up above, Forseti heard the howling of another Helbeast.

“That may be so,” Ullr said, even as he fired. “But perhaps we will not be so lucky.” For a moment, his eyes met Forseti's, and there was something in them. Something wild and gleaming. Something very much like fear.

The
einherjar
died, and rose anew. The
æsir,
however, did not, and if Hel fought with sword and claw and bow alone, perhaps Forseti would not need Ullr's fears. Would castigate the
áss
for stating them, no matter how guarded his words when they emerged. Perhaps. But Hel did not fight with honor. Hel fought with the strange magics of the modern dead, and Forseti could see the smoking ruin from where he stood. Not long past, two great explosions had occurred there. Some magic of the mortals', sending stones crumbling and bodies flying.

Hel did not fight with honor. The
jötnar
never did.

Forseti looked down, at the bodies piling in Ásgarðr's fields. Many were
náir
and Helbeasts, true. But there were
einherjar
there, too, bleeding among the carnage. Limbs severed and weeping. Too many, perhaps. They had not been fighting long, the bulk of Hel's forces remained held back by the Wall. And yet still Ásgarðr lost its men.

When Forseti looked skyward, he saw Sól's daughter, gliding slowly to the west. Too slowly. The
einherjar
would rise at dawn but dawn would be hours yet.

It would be a long night, Forseti thought. A long night of too much death.

“I will not see Ásgarðr falter!” he snarled to Ullr, sword clanging against stone as he hacked at hand and face alike.

“No, my lord,” Ullr agreed, but his voice still spoke of fear.

Forseti cursed, eyes flicking up toward the sun once more. As they did, Forseti caught the movement of black shadows circling overhead. The shapes were hard to make out, flying against the sun, but they were higher than the Helbeasts. So ravens, most likely, black feathers glimmering in the afternoon's fading light.

Light. Ravens. Light…

“Of course…” The words came out as barely a whisper, Forseti doubted any heard them. He made certain their heard his next command: “Hold the line, men! I will return!”

“My lord?”

But Forseti did not stop to heed Ullr's question, was instead running along the Wall, toward one of the raised watchtowers placed along its length.

He was at the top within a moment, long legs leaping up the stone stairs two at a time, face tilted upward and eyes searching the sky. Searching for the one larger shape among the circling shadows.

“Munin!” he called. “Bird! Show yourself!”

Nothing stirred, none of the circling ravens showing any indication they had heard him. Forseti called, louder this time, then louder still when his second cry remained unanswered. He was halfway through the fourth call—halfway through biting back the rage that simmered in his heart—when he heard the voice behind him.

“Sheesh. All right, all right already. I'm here.”

Forseti turned. There, on the battlements, waited Munin. Its head tilted, the light glinting on the charms it wore around its neck.

“You will deliver a message,” Forseti said without preamble, voice loud to carry over the battle.

“I will?”

“Yes, you will.” Forseti was in no mood to bargain with birds. Munin had obeyed Grandfather, and he would obey Forseti, too. “You will fly unto Sól's daughter,” he said, “and you will tell her to double—No. To
triple
her speed across the heavens. Her brother, also. As fast as they can manage.”

“You…want me to command the sun and moon to speed up?”

Across the chaos of the Wall was a sea of blood and screams and the endless
rat-tat-tat
of strange modern weapons. “This is war, bird,” Forseti said. “And I would have it done.”

Munin mantled its wings, head turning to regard Forseti with one single bloodred eye. It seemed to be about to speak, but, at that moment, an awful shriek was loosed across the plain.

Forseti turned, eyes scanning out beyond the Wall. He'd heard that noise before. It was the sound made by the awful mortal “music,” and, there, yes. On the stage. It was—

“Loki!”

Forseti felt something clench within his breast. Something dark and hard. The stage was far, but the
jötunn
's form was unmistakable, bright orange feathers shimmering against the Helbleed's rot. Three mortals stood around him. The dark-skinned boy he called his “wife,” plus Hel's two black-clad
valkyrjur.
Hel herself stood close as well, something long and thin held within her grasp.

“No…”

The word came from Forseti's lips as barely a breath, drowned by both the sounds of battle and by the shrieking coming from the strange lyre in Loki's claws. He was not, Forseti thought, adept at playing, bursts of atonal screeching issuing from the stage. Forseti sneered. “Does he plan to irritate us into surrender?” he asked.

Munin had hopped closer on the wall, and it, too, was watching the stage. Before it could speak, the sounds coming from Loki's instrument resolved from stuttering discord into something smoother. Not much, by Forseti's reckoning, but he had listened to far too much of the awful stone songs as of late, and was sadly now familiar with their wails.

So, it seemed, was Munin.

“Hah!” it said, hopping from foot to foot. “That ragbag little mullet-topped bogan.”

“What is he doing?”

Below the stage, the fat
valkyrja
had extended one fist into the air and was whipping her head back and forth in spastic fury. Perhaps that was Loki's spell?

“He's singing,” Munin said. “The Angels, I think.”

“Angels?” Angels were barbarian monsters from the southern lands, worse than the
jötnar
with their grotesque, malformed shapes. They had no place upon the Tree. If Loki thought to summon them…

But Munin said, “Not angels. The Angels. They're a band. They wrote this song.”

Out across the Line, Loki began to howl. The words were in the mortal tongue, and Forseti strained to hear them. Something about traveling, perhaps, and a storm.

“A
mansöngr
?” he asked. “Loki attempts to bewitch us?” Surely not. Such things may turn the hearts of lonely warriors during peacetime, but not when fighting Gungnir's war.

“Not really a love song, no,” Munin said. “It's…well. You'll see.”

The tone of the song changed, just slightly, the lyrics changing to a question. This one, Forseti heard clearly:
“Am I ever gonna see your face again?”

And, all as one, the mortals beneath him shouted something in reply. Forseti couldn't hear it, not over the wail of guitars and the clash of swords.

“What is this foolishness?”

“Some Australian thing,” Munin said. “They're all mad down there. It's the heat.”

This made very little sense to Forseti, but, lately, a great many things were making very little sense to Forseti. Unsurprisingly, Loki was at the heart of all of them.

Once more, Loki howled his question, and once more the mortals answered. And this time, Forseti saw a scattered handful
náir
do the same.

“Magic!” he hissed. “It is magic!”

“It's a meme, is what it is,” said Munin, but Forseti wasn't listening. Instead, he'd turned on his heel, and was heading toward the tower's steep stone staircase.

“Go, bird,” he called as he went. “Do as I have commanded you!”

He didn't wait to see if Munin obeyed, instead hurrying back down and along the Wall. Back toward Ullr, Loki's shrieking spell ringing through his ears, vicious words echoing in his mind. A sad, lonesome wail that sought to tear his soul asunder.

Magic. Of course the
jötunn
would resort to such honorless, cowardly ways.

Ullr was up ahead, bow discarded and sword drawn, fighting hand-to-hand with a
náir.
There were more atop the walls, now, and more dropping from the sky with every moment. A great shadow passed over Forseti's head, and he looked up just in time to see the wicked claws of one of the Helbeasts descend upon him.

Forseti lunged to the side, sword raised. The metal sliced through the Helbeast's shoulder and the monster roared.

“You will pay for that,
áss
scum!” it said, voice thick with rot and sickness.

It landed on the wall, heavy enough to shake loose the mortar, and lunged forward, jaws open to show row after row of wicked, curving teeth.

It was big, and fast, but Forseti was faster. It lunged and snapped, he duck and wove, his blade dancing across the beast's flesh, trailing iridescent purple ribbons in its wake.

“You will not triumph, monster,” Forseti spat. “These are our lands! For Ásgarðr!”

He was halfway through a thrust, aiming for the exposed flesh of the beast's neck, when his left foot came down on something that did not stay put beneath the weight. A chunk of loosed rock, shaken free of the Wall, skidded across the flagstones even as Forseti fell. There was one awful moment of nothing, a weightless floating in the air, before agony jarred up his spine and arms. He'd fallen on his backside and caught his weight on his hands. He heard the clatter of metal as his sword was jolted free from his grip, and had no time to think more on it as the Helbeast pressed its advantage.

A second later, the beast's foreclaw slammed into Forseti's chest, pinning him down. A snout the size of Forseti's torso lowered itself, one fist-sized eye regarding him with hungry malice.

“I'll enjoy devouring you, little
áss,
” the Helbeast growled. Then it opened its jaws, and Forseti saw teeth and teeth and teeth.

Somewhere, beyond the Wall, Loki asked:
“Am I ever gonna see your face again?”

Much closer, the Helbeast stopped long enough to answer. This time, Forseti could not fail to hear the words:

“No way! Get fucked! Fuck off!”

The beast roared them into the air, voice accompanied by the howls of others, all around. Loki's wicked magic, whatever it was, and for once Forseti would not question it. Not when the Helbeast above him had its head raised, the soft flesh of its neck quivering and exposed.

Forseti's sword may have been lost, but his dagger was still about his belt. He grabbed it now, loosing it from its scabbard and bringing it around to drive the blade into the Helbeast's skin.

The thing roared again, and this time the sound was thick and wet, gurgling with blood that spilled over razor teeth.

Forseti kicked upward, into the beast's stomach, and it staggered backward, the pressure of its claw lifting from his chest. An instant later he was on his feet, his hand closing once more about his sword, which he brought around in an arc, the blade connecting with the Helbeast's neck with a heavy, satisfying
thwup.

Forseti did not stay to finish the creature off. Perhaps it was dead, perhaps not, but another one of the strange shouts rose up in answer to Loki's spell, and Forseti knew he had little time. For, on the far side of the Wall, he could see places where the battle had stopped. Instead of fighting,
nár
and
einheri
stood side by side, watching the stage, watching Loki. Answering him when he called.