Runemarks

glanced harmlessly off her shoulder and lit a string of signature-sparks like crackers off the rock face.

Odin did not have to see the result to know that his blow had gone wide. Sugar squeaked in alarm and dived headfirst into a nest of rocks too small for anything much bigger than a rat to follow, and now Odin could sense her circling back, her colors flaring like ancient ice.

He reached for the runes but found them uncooperative. So much of his glam had already gone in the three days of his descent into the Underworld that there was less than a spark left now for the fight.

Skadi knew it and growled with amusement as she closed in for the kill. She had spent so much time in her wolf skin over the past few days that her true Aspect had begun to feel cumbersome and slow, and though she needed it at times (when she wanted to speak or cast runes), she’d always felt better in animal form. She growled again and crouched on her haunches for the leap that would guide her to her enemy’s throat.

It never came. Instead she felt a hand on her collar, smelled a not-quite-human scent, and was hauled backward, snarling, by six pairs of hands as Frey and Heimdall cast runes of constraint and Bragi played a farandole that bound her into helplessness. The struggle was short; snarling at her captors, the Huntress regained her natural form and faced them, white and red and spitting with rage, in her own Aspect.

“How dare you!” She might have matched them one-on-one, but against the six she could not triumph. “I had the right to this kill-”

“The right?” said Freyja. “To risk our lives for some pointless revenge? Listen, Skadi.” She handed her a cloak, which Skadi took sullenly. “We know what you did.”

“Then kill me,” said Skadi, “because I’m going to do it again the minute I get the chance.”

For a moment they stood face to face: the six Vanir and the Huntress, her fists clenched and blue eyes glaring, and lastly Odin, leaning on his staff.

Some distance behind them came the others: Ethel, Dorian, Adam, and Nat, with the Good Book clasped once more at his chest. It was a tense moment, the stillness broken only by a distant sluicing sound, and with it a vibration that pulled at their eardrums and sucked their teeth and seemed to come from everywhere, nowhere, and some other, impossible place in between.

“Listen,” said Odin. “Do you know that sound?”

Everyone turned to look at him.

Heimdall the Watchman knew it well. He’d heard it on the battlefield at Ragnarok, when the sky had been rent and the sun and moon swallowed by a darkness that had nothing to do with the absence of light.

Frey knew it: he’d heard it as he’d fallen, his sword broken and his glam reversed, into the ice.

Freyja knew it too and remembered a shadow like that of a blackbird ringed with fire-a crow, perhaps, or a carrion bird-and that where it fell, nothing remained.

Skadi knew it and shivered.

Njord, who had fought from the shores of his own kingdom, had heard it as the river Dream broke its banks and the battle fleet of the dead sailed forth out of the Underworld.

Idun had heard it and wept.

Bragi too had heard it, though no songs or poems had been written that day. Fire and ice and a blackbird shadow; opposing forces so strong that between them the World Tree had groaned and swayed. Asgard, the Sky Citadel, the First World, had fallen, crushing continents. And out of Chaos demons had come, slithering between the Worlds in the wake of the blackbird shadow. And all that had taken place in the Middle Worlds, where the powers of Chaos are at their weakest. And they’d had armies then: warriors, heroes, Tunnel Folk, and men…

“I see an army poised for battle. I see a general standing alone. I see a traitor at the gate. I see a sacrifice.”

The voice was quiet but distinct, and the Vanir stared at Ethel Parson. Only Odin did not stare, but he stiffened at the sound of her voice.

“Who’s that?”

“I’m Ethel Parson, if it please you, sir, and they tell me I’m an oracle.”

For a moment Odin froze. Then a smile touched his harsh features.

“Ethel,” he said. “I should have known.”

There was a long pause. Then he spoke again, in a gentle voice, and took her hand between his own. “You felt different. You didn’t know why. You could see things you couldn’t before. And there was a feeling inside you, wasn’t there? A feeling that you had to be somewhere, but you didn’t know where…”

Ethel nodded silently. Odin didn’t see it, but he saw its reflection in her colors and smiled. “It itched,” he went on. “And then it took shape. Show me, Ethel. You know what I mean.”

Ethel looked surprised, and she colored a little. She hesitated-then with a firm gesture she pushed up her sleeve to show them the new runemark on her arm, glowing with a bright green light.

Nat’s mouth fell open in surprise. Dorian gasped, Adam stared, and even the Vanir were stunned into silence.

Only Odin seemed unsurprised, and he smiled as he traced the gleaming sign.

“Ethel, the Homeland,” he said. “Second rune of the New Script. I never thought to find it here-the food of the gods combined with the Word…” Slowly he shook his gray head. “If only there was more time,” he said. “But I need to talk with you alone.”

Their talk lasted less than five minutes or so, though her eyes were wet at the end of it. “You’re sure of this?” she said at last.

“Quite sure,” said the General. He turned to the Vanir. “You all heard it, didn’t you? That sound. The sound of Chaos coming through. The lines are drawn, the enemy named. And our only hope is beyond that plain. I have to reach it, or everything will fall-not just the gods, not even the Worlds, but everything.”

Heimdall frowned. “The parson’s wife told you all this?”

Odin nodded.

“And you believe her?”

“With good cause.”

Skadi gave him a scornful look. “Even assuming she’s telling the truth, there’s a whole army between us and the river. You’ve seen what the Word can do…”

“I’ve seen it, yes.”

“And you think you can win?”

“No,” he said. “But I think we can fight.”

There was a long and thoughtful silence.

“There are eight of us,” said Heimdall at last.

“Seven,” said Skadi, “and a blind general.”

Odin grinned. “Eight of us against ten thousand. My favorite kind of odds.”

Heimdall showed his golden teeth. “My money’s on the General,” he said.

Njord shrugged. “Well, if you put it that way-”

“Gods,” said Freyja. “You’re worse than he is.”

Frey said: “I’d like another poke at that bloody blackbird…”

Bragi began a victory song.

Idun opened her casket of apples, and their scent was enough to wake the dead…

And Skadi ground her teeth and said, “All right-General-you win. But that doesn’t mean the slate’s clean. If we survive, then you and your brother owe me some blood. And this time don’t think you can fob me off with promises…”

Odin smiled. “I’ll promise you this. There’ll be more blood by the end of today than even you could ever want. But if perhaps you want to fight,” he said, pointing, “then I have reason to believe the battle’s that way.”

They didn’t look like heroes, thought Ethel, and yet with her altered vision she could definitely see something in the air around them; not a signature (she’d been seeing those for days now and knew the difference) but a kind of glow, like the sky before dawn; a promise, if you like, of transformation. She didn’t need to be an oracle to know that it might lead to the death of them all; still, she went cheerfully in the wake of the gods, humming a little tune under her breath and watching Dorian’s broad back as he led the way with Lizzy running at his heels.

All Hel was about to break loose, she thought, and finally, and for the first time, Owen Goodchild’s daughter, Ethel, knew precisely where she wanted to be.

7

In Netherworld-what was left of it-Loki definitely wasn’t where he wanted to be. He’d felt the severing of his Aspect from his physical self, and his quick mind had come to the following conclusions:

First and most importantly, he was dead.

That hadn’t come entirely as a surprise. In fact, as far as Loki was concerned, the real surprise was how far he had managed to get before it finally happened. But the face of Hel’s deathwatch told its own tale-thirteen seconds remained on the clock, which meant that for the first time in the history of the Worlds, Half-Born Hel had broken her word.

All right, he thought. Let’s look on the bright side of this. The bright side is that though my body may be dead, my Aspect remains here, in Netherworld.

Not much of a bright side. Still, he thought, the really stupid thing at this stage would have been to seek refuge in the Underworld. He’d tried to explain this to Maddy as she dragged him, protesting, toward Hel’s borders, but either she hadn’t heard him or she simply hadn’t understood, because if she’d