Mark Chadbourn - Destroyer of Worlds

'Is it time?' She cradles a doll made for her by one of the kitchen staff who had hoped it would bring back some aspect of childhood.

'Not yet. But soon. I need to ask you if you are prepared to do it.'

'You have asked me twice already.'

'Now I'm asking you a third time.'

'Yes,' she says without hesitation. 'I will travel with you to the Enemy Fortress, and show you the secret way I discovered under the walls.'

'You know what it will mean?'

'You want to protect me, Mallory,' she replies in too-old tones, 'but it is too late for that. I am ruined.'

Mallory cannot look in her face; it makes him too desperately sad.

'She'll be fine.'

Frequently, these days, he never hears Caitlin come up on him. She stands at the entrance to the maze's central rest zone, still slick with sweat, holding her axe loosely. Mallory searches her eyes to see who is in control this time. He doesn't know why he tries, for even when he sees the bright innocence of Amy, there is always the dark of the Morrigan just behind.

'It's me, Mallory. Caitlin. The one, the only, the original.' She smiles, kisses him on the cheek.

Virginia hugs Caitlin tightly, the first time she has looked like a little girl. 'Have you come to play with me?'

'I said I would, didn't I?'

With a whisper of desperate thanks, Virginia buries her face in Caitlin's midriff. 'No hide and seek,' she says. 'I don't like that.'

When Virginia has raced away to fetch a board game from her room, Mallory observes, 'She likes you.'

'We have an understanding.'

'I still don't want to take her to that place.'

'She's tougher than you think, Mallory. When it comes down to it, we all are.'

He watches the bees, and the clouds scudding across the blue sky. 'Do you think it's enough?' he enquires. 'Wanting to do the right thing?'

'No, it's not enough,' she replies. 'But we do it anyway.'

And so you move again through the twisting, ever-multiplying branches of the World-Tree, and now you watch the walls of Asgard crumble. From out of the swirling blizzard, blazing rocks crash with a steady beat of destruction. The Enemy's siege machines never rest. The monstrous troops wash out of the snow in a black tide that Hunter wills to ebb but which never does. They swirl around the foot of the walls, throwing up ladders as quickly as the Aesir can despatch those who scurry like insects to the ramparts. But their greatest weapon is insubstantial: a potent atmosphere of despair radiating from every fibre of their being, infecting any who allow their defences to slip; a moment's doubt is all that's needed. Hunter sees shoulders sag, heads bow, weapons fall to their sides.

'It is only a matter of time before we are overrun,' Baldur mutters in a daze of abject disbelief.

'This is a taste of what's to come,' Hunter intones above the din of battle cries, clashing weapons, the screams of the dying and the constant howl of the icy gale. 'Nobody survives on their own.'

Amidst peals of deafening thunder, a storm cloud races along the ramparts towards them, lightning bolts flying in all directions. Only when it nears does Hunter recognise Thor, his face consumed by volcanic fury. Swinging Mjolnir with the devastating force of a hurricane, he shatters the face of a Redcap attempting to climb over the wall. The god grips the siege ladder and thrusts it back out into the blizzard. Howls rise up from those falling below.

'Asgard shall not fall!' he bellows to the wind.

At intermittent points along the walls, the lie is being given to his words. Hordes of decaying Lament-Brood haul themselves over the ramparts, losing an arm here, even a head there, but continuing relentlessly. Aesir warriors run to confront them at the points where they have broken through the defences, but the Lament-Brood attack the moment their feet touch the walkway.

An Aesir warrior is impaled on a rusty sword embedded in the handless wrist of one of the Lament-Brood. The sword is roughly twisted and the warrior explodes in a cloud of golden moths gleaming against the white snow, a single moment of beauty at the instant of his death.

All along the walls, the Aesir stop what they are doing and watch, aghast, disbelieving, fixated on each individual moth as it struggles to pick a path through the gusting snowflakes.

A single teardrop rolls slowly over Thor's cheek.

And then along the ramparts bursts of golden moths rise up here and there, the interval between each explosion growing shorter, like bursts of smoke and light in a magician's stage show.

'No!' Thor thunders, and renews his furious hammer-attack.

The Aesir return to action, blades and axes flashing, but Hunter can see something has gone out of them. Their attacks are less sure; they glance at each other, seeking reassurance, finding none.

Forseti, one of the younger gods who had been responsible for justice in the city, is surrounded by six Redcaps. Before Hunter can react, the god is hacked to pieces.

As the moths soar, Baldur cries out, 'My son!' Consumed by grief, he races towards the Redcaps.

'We must leave.' At Hunter's shoulder, Math's four-fold mask turns implacably. 'There is no hope left here.'

From his backpack, Hunter removes a silver-scaled gauntlet with brass talons. 'It would be impolite to leave at the height of the party.'

'What is that?' Math asks suspiciously. 'A weapon?'

'The Court of the Final Word called it the Balor Claw.' Gritting his teeth, Hunter slips on the gauntlet. 'And now it's mine.'

He arrives at the fray as the Redcaps surround Baldur, as they had done his son. One sweep of the Balor Claw takes the first Redcap apart. Another falls as he turns, the Claw breaking the bonds of his body at the molecular level. After his slaughter in the Court of the Final Word, Hunter has grown used to the sight of bodies unfurling, but the other Redcaps are, for the first time in their existence, rooted. In a frenzy of despair, Baldur despatches three with his sword and Hunter kills the last. Catching his breath, the god represses his grief and looks Hunter deep in the eyes. In that one moment, he accepts everything Hunter has attempted to communicate to the council.

'The age of gods and men is passing,' Baldur admits. 'It is time to make the final stand.'

The Aesir fight furiously, but the Enemy keep coming, devoid of fear, wave after wave with no purpose save destruction. Their atmosphere of despair is corrosive. The clouds of golden moths are now indistinguishable from the snow.

'Fall back!' Baldur yells. 'To the Groerland Square!' Piercing the crackling lightning, he grips Thor's arm. 'This is no place to make a stand. We must leave with the Brother of Dragons.'

'But the Golden City will fall!'

'Stone and wood, brother. It can be rebuilt. The true glory of the Aesir is a light that must never be extinguished.'

Thor weighs the words for only a second and then roars, 'Fall back! Do as the Bleeding God says!' He grins at Baldur. 'Lead the way, brother. I will protect your back.'

Baldur snatches the horn from his side and blows one blast, loud and clear, rising up above the howling gale and the thunder of battle. Along the walls, the gods retreat, down the steps to the avenues of Asgard radiating out from the Groerland Square.

'You've made the right choice,' Hunter says as he and Math follow Baldur into the streaming mass of warriors.

'Asgard is surrounded. You can free us from this place?'

'As long as your man with the hammer can keep the Enemy off our tails for a little longer.'

'He does not stand alone.' Baldur indicates a balcony on a tall tower where Freyja stands, arms raised to the sky. 'She uses her seior in the city's defence.' The direction of the wind changes suddenly, hurling many of the Enemy to their deaths from the walls.