Light seemed to be coming from within the metal, as if the fucking thing had been forged from the heart of a dying star. Standing within a molten halo, her red braids gleaming like the wings of a phoenix, she screamed something incomprehensible at the draugr.
Tormund sat up breathlessly as the draugr turned to face her.
Instead of ducking the club, she swung her sword up to meet it.
A cataclysmic shockwave of force and sound detonated out from the blow. The draugr was flung off its feet, landing several yards behind Tormund. But Bryn stood with her feet planted, every inch of her face carved with a motley of fierce shadows.
“Holy. Shit.” He tried to wave the lights away from his vision. “Where the hell did you find that sword?”
“Don’t look at it!” she screamed, her eyes settling on something directly behind him.
The ground beneath his boot shivered.
Tormund threw himself to the side, swinging under the blow of the club. The whistle of its passage whined past his ears, and then he was rolling to his feet, still blinking through his half-blindness. The stench of decay almost knocked him on his ass again.
But he was under its guard for a crucial half-second.
Lifting the axe high, he drove it into the draugr’s foot, cleaving it in half. “If we can’t kill them, then incapacitate them.”
It wasn’t as though they could grow extra limbs.
Could they?
“Behind you!” Bryn screamed.
He caught a glimpse of an enormous form blundering toward him.
Bryn sprinted toward him, her gaze locked on the creature over his shoulder. Tormund recognized her intent, and dropped to one knee, cupping his hands for her.
Her weight met his cupped palms, and then he was thrusting her high over his shoulder.
Grabbing for his axe, he rolled to the side, coming up in a fighting stance—only to realize he wasn’t needed.
The moment took his breath away.
Bryn flew through the air, high over the sweep of the draugr’s club. For a second, it looked as though she had swan-like wings. She plunged her shining sword right into its eye, and a flare of light exploded from the weapon as the draugr screamed.
The concussive force almost knocked him off his feet. He staggered back, his cloak whipping around him as the draugr’s body slammed into the ground. Bryn wrenched her sword from its eye and hopped off its chest, her face spattered with mottled clots of dark blood. In that moment, he could have sworn he saw his future laid out like an arrow forging toward its fate.
This woman was the one.
He’d jokingly said she would be his wife, but he hadn’t meant it until this moment.
Bryn shot him a savage smile, and wiped the black blood off her sword. “And that’s how you kill the undead, big man.”
Four
The völva had fled, leaving behind the remnants of her draugar.
Bryn made short work of cleaning her sword before sheathing it—and its brightness.
The second she put it away, the Blackfrost advanced upon her, radiating menace. “Where did you find that sword?”
Dreki could smell lies. So Bryn tipped her chin up and looked him in the eye. She’d been prepared to face these questions. “It was gifted to me by the Valkyrie, Kára.”
“You’re lying.”
“Do I look like I’m lying?” She laid a hand on the hilt of the sword. “No hand can steal a Valkyrie’s sword, milord dreki. The powers bound into the steel will refract back upon an unlawful hand and the consequences are dire.”
The Blackfrost’s lip curled back from his teeth. “No Valkyrie gives away blessed steel.”
True. Bryn’s smile slipped. “Sometimes the sword chooses a new mistress.”
A part of her had expected the sword to cleave from her hand the second she was cast from Valhalla, but though it had warmed to the touch, it had stayed true. Both a cruel blow and a relief.
She remained Valkyrie enough to wield it, though she would never be welcomed within the golden halls again.
There’s still a chance. Bryn’s breath escaped her lungs. All you have to do is find this precious princeling and you can return home. You’ll finally be able to clear your name.
Tormund stepped between them and rested a hand on the Blackfrost’s chest. “The lady said she’s not lying. How about you give her some room to breathe and uh, perhaps go take a bath in a fresh icy lake?”
The Blackfrost turned that snarl upon him.
“Don’t snap at me,” Tormund replied mildly. “It’s not my fault your lady wife is never going to want to kiss you again. I didn’t tell you to eat it.”
“I didn’t eat it. I bit its fucking head off.”
“Yes.” Tormund winced. “I think we all practically tasted that. And with you breathing down my neck, I can almost taste it now.” He tossed a flask toward the dreki. “Perhaps rinse your mouth out.” Backing away, he gave a winning smile, his hands held in the air. “And, uh, keep the flask.”
Bryn let go of the sword hilt as the Blackfrost strode away, bristling in fury.
For all his arrogance, Tormund had a way of defusing difficult situations. At first she’d mistaken him for merely being the foot soldier of the group, but over the past day she’d seen him placate the others with a laugh and a jest. Haakon seemed prone to staring broodingly across the mountains, but Tormund would tease him out of such bleak moods within five minutes. And the Blackfrost—despite threatening to eat him on a regular basis—seemed to find him amusing.
It was a little baffling. She’d known many a mighty warrior—she’d often carried them to the golden halls of Odin herself—but she’d never seen one who used his wit and charm to defuse dangerous situations instead of drawing a sword.
“You’re welcome,” Tormund said.
“Pardon?” She tore her stare from the irritated dreki and met the mortal’s eyes.
Brown and rich and so, so human….
“I said, ‘you’re welcome.’”
And she realized what he meant.
Spine stiffening, she turned back to the fallen corpses, ostensibly checking them to ensure they wouldn’t rise again. “Do you think I needed your help?” She kicked one of the draugar’s heads toward him pointedly.
Tormund shook his head. “Prickly,” he muttered under his breath.
“What was this song that the völva spoke of?” Haakon demanded, wiping black clotted blood from his blade.
The Blackfrost paced the clearing, examining the corpses of each of the draugr. He poured a small pile of ash onto each of their bodies, and then with a snap of his fingers, ignited all three with a white-hot fire that burned blue. “Perhaps you should ask your mate. The old stories say that the Great Goddess, Tiamat, forged the world out of Chaos and Order.” He stomped a foot on the ground. “This is real. This is solid. This is order.” Bending low, he picked up a handful of dirt and let it trickle through his fingers. “You can see it. You can feel it.
“But there is another piece of the tapestry of life, and that is Chaos. The beautiful weft that binds the reality of the world together. Silent. Invisible. A song of power and fury and disorder that very few creatures can ever see or hear. Árdís is one of the few who can channel such powers. Her mother was another. But Marduk never owned such a gift—it is usually only females who can sense the song of Chaos.”