Kevin Hearne - Hammered

“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 death 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.