splotches of vitiligo sent to haunt the dead with memories of what real light did to the eyes. The clear air is redolent of dishwater and mildew, and the mist is formed from the moist, clammy exhalations of snuffed dreams and hopeless sighs, which collect in the lungs like clotted cream.
Freyja drove us into the mists at some predetermined point, but I saw nothing to indicate that this stretch of sickly mist was a waypoint of some kind. It was, to me, an unkind plunge into air that felt like spiderwebs and snot.
Behind us, the black dwarven ships followed, eerily silent, running on compressed rage, I suppose, or some other inventive fuel.
Granuaile started to choke and cough a whole second before I did. The mists crawled up our noses and into our lungs and settled about our brachia like wet snow. We both looked at Freyja, who appeared undisturbed—but also appeared to be holding her breath. I guess she just “forgot” to suggest that we do the same. I turned around, letting my back serve as a breaker through the mist, and was able to take a couple of clear breaths that way, enough to hold for a while. Granuaile followed my example.
I was tempted to “accidentally” jostle Freyja and cause her to expel her breath, but I decided to let her have her petty revenge. I had killed her twin brother, after all; this was a small fraction of the grief I deserved.
Until we landed on the icy rocks of Hel, we didn’t get clear of the mist. It hung over us at a low ceiling of ten feet, depressing the horizon and swirling slowly like dead leaves in a current. Nothing moved nearby. Behind us, the dwarf gunships landed single file, forming a wall in the process. Their guns all swiveled to face behind us.
“It would be no use turning all those guns on Fenris, would it?” Granuaile asked.
“Hel loves her beastly brother,” Freyja practically snarled, yanking a spear out of a slot in her chariot. “She surrounded him with a kinetic ward long ago. Not arrows nor bullets nor Odin’s spear can reach him now. We have to kill him up close.”
Granuaile’s green eyes found mine. She smirked and put up her fist. I bumped it.
“So where is he?” I said.
Freyja pointed with her spear into the mist in front of us. “That way. Not far.”
“Why can’t we see anything?”
“The mist is like that. Though you think you can see the horizon, you can’t. Your functional visibility is less than twenty yards.”
“Great. Can he hear and smell us now?”
“Most likely.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Yes. Go that way and kill him.”
I waited patiently for more detail.
“Preferably,” she added, “before Hel finds out we’re inside the walls and sends everything she has against the Black Axes. Once they start firing, it’s going to draw a horde. Some of them will get through and over the ships, and then our army of five thousand won’t stand a chance against her hundreds of thousands.”
Freyja’s sentence was punctuated by a shuddering hiss, followed by more all along the wall of gunships.
“What kind of guns are those?” Granuaile asked.
“Circular-saw launchers,” Freyja said, grinning at us for the first time. “Aimed at the neck, but they take off arms and legs too. Don’t you love the dwarfs?”
“They’re charming, yes,” Granuaile said.
“Let us go,” Freyja said. “Time escapes us. I’ll speak to Fenris and front him. You attack from the flanks. Beware: He is very fast and can change his size.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“He is a son of Loki Shape-shifter, giant-born. Like Hel and Jörmungandr, he can grow or shrink as he sees fit.”
“Lovely. So if we run across a wolf puppy, don’t believe it.”
“Precisely.”
I cast camouflage on myself and drew Fragarach, plus the knife hanging out on my right thigh. I carried that in my left hand, and once I used it I would have another waiting on my left thigh. Granuaile held her staff in her left hand and spoke the words for invisibility as she drew a large knife in her right. She disappeared from view.
“I’ll take the left and Granuaile will flank right,” I said.
“Forward, then,” Freyja said.
I padded into the mist on bare rock and checked my connection to the earth. As in Asgard, the magic was still there but strained and weak, like getting only a single bar of wireless signal. If I needed a surge of power, I’d have to draw it from my bear charm. I quietly boosted my strength and speed as I walked, knowing I’d need both against a monster like Fenris.
Behind us, the sounds of the gunships swelled as they brought heavier firepower online. There must be a whole lot of
I failed to find him after twenty yards. Nor did I find him in the next twenty. But I heard Freyja’s voice call out to my right and behind me shortly afterward and a rumbling reply directly to my right. I turned but saw nothing in the thrice-damned mist. Still I moved toward the husky voice.
“Freyja, is it? I have heard from my sister that you lost your brother some time ago. Such a shame. I forgot to send my condolences, did I not? Please accept them now.”
Freyja told Fenris what he could do with his condolences. The wry chuckle fell from above. I looked up and to my right again, following the noise, and spied two massive legs stretching up into the mist. Poking out beyond them was half a snout—the nose and open maw of Fenris. Clearly he had decided to confront us in the Economy Size. Much larger than Garm, who was a monster at six feet at the shoulders, Fenris was at least twice that, maybe more. With jaws that size, he could handle us like large Milk-Bones, except we would be much more squishy. Quietly and quickly as I could, I minced my steps to the left in search of his rear legs. Freyja kept talking to distract him—that was excellent work. Still, he sensed us.
“Who do you bring with you?” he rumbled. “I smell others.”
“There are dwarfs fighting the
“I rather doubt it,” Fenris said after a couple of loud sniffles. “This isn’t the stench of dwarfs. This is something else. Humans. Living ones. Where are they?”
Granuaile had beaten me to the rear legs, for at that moment Fenris yelped and the muzzle disappeared from the ceiling as he whipped around to snap at something painful on his left side. His right rear leg shot forward for balance, planting itself right in front of me. There was a red ribbon tied around it, which I recognized as the fabled Gleipnir, so I swung Fragarach with all my enhanced might just above it, hoping to hobble the beast and turn his attention my way. It worked! Sort of.
Fragarach cut cleanly through his entire leg, amputating it with one strike, but I had now freed him. Instead of turning around to his right, where he could no longer rest any weight, he kept turning left and down, circling around so that his giant tail caught me smack in the chest and sent me flying backward. I dropped Fragarach and the knife and stretched my hands beneath me to make sure my head didn’t hit the rocks first. It didn’t, but it wasn’t a happy landing either. My left hand took the brunt of it and I sprained my wrist. I also banged my elbow hard enough to make me cry out; it was a taste of what Bacchus must have felt under Granuaile’s staff. My left arm would be useless for the near future; sprains don’t mend themselves in seconds, even magically assisted. My tailbone would no doubt give me a bit of pain later on as well. For now it was a dull ache underneath the adrenaline.
My ears pounded with the sound of cannon fire and the howls of a giant wolf, but I longed to hear something from Granuaile, anything that meant she was still alive. I hadn’t heard her since we moved forward.
I clambered to my feet and retrieved Fragarach from where it lay, then looked up to see Freyja charging a much-reduced wolf, as he was still spinning counterclockwise, snapping at something … invisible. Granuaile lived! I charged too, though a bit awkwardly without the free use of my left arm.
