shut in the faces of Loki and his hordes. For several moments we stood motionless, panting, wild-eyed, covered with blood. The Jotun hordes were banging vainly at the gates with sword and ax.
No more than a few hundred Aesir warriors remained as exhausted, wounded survivors of that dreadful battle. Out on Vigrid field, the dead lay in thousands. Ravens were swooping down on the pathetic corpses from the storm-black sky.
'Get to the towers and use your bows upon Loki's horde!' Vidar called hoarsely to part of our warriors.
They obeyed, and arrows began to rain down on the besiegers on the bridge. The howling of the Jotuns was loud even through the deepening thunder of the storm, as they sought to batter down the gates, yet avoid their own slaughter.
Vidar hastened with us through the guard-castle to the stone plaza beyond. There Odin lay upon the stones. Thor was kneeling beside his dying father. Odin's lips stirred, his wavering stare held a feeble, dying light as he looked up at his giant son.
'The Norns sever my thread,' he whispered 'Doom falls upon me, as Wyrd ordains — upon Asgard, too, I fear. If Loki prevails, you must do that which I ordered you.'
'I will, Father,' rumbled Thor, his big hand clenching tight the helve of his mighty hammer. 'But stay with us!'
Odin's life was already gone, though, spent by his last effort to speak.
'Bear him to Valhalla!' ordered Thor's great voice as he arose.
'Loki and some of the Jotuns move away,' called a warrior from the guard-castle tower.
We hurried back and looked through the loopholes in the gates. Loki and half the Jotun forces were striding back across the bridge and Vigrid field, marching southward. The rest of the Jotuns still battered at the gates, heedless of the arrows that fell upon them from above.
'Loki plans some trick,' Thor muttered.
'Where are our ships?' Vidar cried. 'Look!'
He pointed down at the sea east of Asgard. There the waves were running high and foam-white beneath the howling winds of the storm. I saw the Jotun fleet below, hacked and reduced to less than forty almost useless ships. But they were beating southward along the coast, parallel to Loki's marching force. Scarred and torn by battle though the Jotun ships were, of the Aesir vessels I saw nothing but floating wreckage.
'Skoal to Aegir and Niord!' shouted Thor. 'Skoal to the sea-kings who have gone to Viking death beneath the waves!'
A clanging like the din of doom beat from the gates before us as the Jotun horde upon the bridge sought to batter them down. We worked at Thor's orders, hastily piling blocks of stone to hold the sagging gates. Then into our midst a wild-faced Aesir warrior came running. He shouted over the clangor and the terrifying roll of loud thunder.
'Loki's forces come upon us in their ships!' he yelled. 'They seek to land in our harbor!'
Thor uttered a fierce cry as he stared down at the stormy sea. The Jotun fleet was moving along the coast, the ships jammed with men, heading for the unprotected fiord in the eastern cliffs of Asgard.
'They try to force entrance to Asgard from the harbor — and we have but few guards there!' Thor roared.
'Vidar, hold these gates! Half of you come with me to hold the harbor!'
The bearded giant ran with mighty strides toward the eastern edge of Asgard island. Half of us followed him. The storm was now buffeting Asgard with full force. Lightning burned in sheets and stabs across the night-black sky. Torchlight was flaring from the dark, mountainous mass of Valhalla, whence came through the tempest the dim wailing of women's voices as Odin's body was borne home.
Out of the storm-seared dusk, a slim, mail-clad figure darted to my side as I hastened with Thor and our scant force of warriors toward the eastern cliff. It was Freya, wearing her mail and helmet, holding a shield and light bow in her hand.
'Jarl Keith!' she cried. 'I feared you slain in yon terrible battle! I leave you no more!'
'You can't stay with me!' I protested. 'We go to hold the harbor against Loki's new assault.'
'Then I fight with you!' she said fiercely. 'If doom comes now upon Asgard, I meet it at your side.'
I could not turn her from her relentless purpose. She ran lightly beside me as we hastened after Thor down the first steps of the narrow cliffside stair. Lightning washed the cliffs, and the deafening crack of thunder drowned the shrieking winds and boom of the sea. By the flashing flares, we saw the Jotun ships already sweeping quickly into the narrow fiord below us. Behind them in the raging sea swam something long, black and sinuous, a great, incredible shape.
'Iormungandr comes with his master Loki!' boomed Thor. 'It is well!'
Before we were down the stair, the Jotuns were landing below. Overwhelming the small force of Aesir guards there, they rushed up to meet us.
I swung Freya behind me.
'Keep at my back,' I ordered.
'I am not afraid!' argued her clear voice in my ear. Her bow twanged, and an arrow sped down into the throat of the foremost of the swarming Jotuns. I saw Loki leaping ashore from one of the ships. Then the nearest Jotuns reached us.
Chapter XX
Ragnarok
Thor's hammer smashed down, and the first two Jotuns fell back with crushed skulls. They pitched off the stair to the depths below. Arrows from enemy archers farther down the stair whizzed up through the lightning- seared dusk and rattled off our mail, or struck down men among us. Freya's bow kept twanging. Each time she loosed an arrow, her clear cry sang loud in my ears.
I tried to keep her near me as I fought beside Thor and tall Vali, desperately trying to hold back the Jotuns. But the stair was wide enough only for three of us to fight abreast. Thor, crimson with blood from many wounds, swung his hammer like a demon of destruction. Yet we were forced up the stairs. Vali dropped with an arrow in his eye, and an Aesir from behind rushed to take his place.
Upward we were pushed, to the top of the stair, the very edge of the cliff. There we hacked with sword and ax. The terrible weapon of the Hammerer whirled and screamed with such fury that the Jotuns could not force the narrow way.
'Make way for me!' pealed Loki's silver voice from below, through the clash of battle and the storm's roar. 'I will force the way!'
'I am waiting for you, Loki!' bellowed Thor to the arch-traitor.
Lightning flared again in a continuous blinding flame. It showed Loki's golden helmet flashing up amid the Jotuns crowded on the stair. And it showed, too, a slimy, black, scaly monster whose coils rippled up the steps as it advanced before its master.
'Iormungandr comes!' cried Freya. 'The Midgard serpent!'
The Jotuns hugged the cliff side of the stair. Even they were appalled by their dread ally as the incredible snake writhed up toward us. Thor raised his hammer high. Like a shooting black thunderbolt, Iormungandr propelled himself at the bearded giant.
In the lightning streak, I saw the snake's giant spade-shaped head darting with the speed of light. Its opaline eyes were coldly blazing. Its opened jaws emitted a flood of fine, green poison-spray that covered Thor's crimsoned figure.
'My oath to Frey!' roared Thor, and his hammer flashed down.
The snake, with more than human speed, swerved to avoid that terrific blow. But not so swift as Thor's stroke was its swerve. The steel head of Miolnir smashed down upon the spade-shaped head and ground it into the rock of the stair. The hammer itself shivered to fragments from that tremendous stroke.
Iormungandr's monstrous body writhed in its death-throes, flinging Jotuns from the stair to death. Then the serpent's great body fell over the edge, dropping to the sea far below.
