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Dainn touched her arm lightly. “Remember that most of them chose to serve you and fight for their world.”

She smiled, as if his touch had restored some lost conviction. “For now, I guess it’s just the three of us, Hel, and the Jotunar,” she said.

“Remember that you possess the power of the Eitr,” Dainn said.

“If I can use it without making things worse.”

“You will.” He summoned all his courage. “Return the beast to me now.”

“Dainn—”

“You must trust me.”

She gazed into his eyes, trying without success to find what they had shared when she had entered his thoughts and taken the beast. “You won’t let me in,” she said.

Inhaling deeply, Dainn tested the strength of the protective barrier he had built around Danny’s soul and opened his mind. When she released the beast to him, he felt claws and teeth shredding his gut and lungs and liver and heart, scraping at anything that stood between it and Danny. He fell to his knees, unable to breathe, beginning to die.

“Dainn!” A touch like cool water alleviated the worst of the pain, and a healing force welled up from the very center of his being. The Eitr of light was there, the stuff of creation and growth, tempering the destructive power of the beast.

Within a few labored heartbeats, the struggle ceased. The beast was silent, and Danny …

Danny was still there, safe and whole.

“Dainn!” Mist lifted his head between her hands. “Is it all right?”

“Yes,” he said. He let her help him to his feet. “Yes. You must—”

He never had a chance to complete his warning. “I hope you’ve finished dawdling,” Loki said. “Here he comes.”

Odin shook Gungnir, bellowing curses and battle cries. The Einherjar echoed him, one great roar of male voices, and Odin’s Valkyrie joined with their higher-pitched yells.

Lifting Gungnir over his head, Odin attacked.

*   *   *

Mist was already gathering the forge-magic as she rushed to meet the Einherjar vanguard. Dainn ran at her side, and she could feel the elf-magic awakening inside him. The Jotunar loped behind them, clubs and axes ready to swing.

Loki and Hel hung back, engaged in some kind of insanely ill-timed argument. Mist didn’t have time to find out what it was about. She struck the first Einherjar with the full weight of her body … only half that of his, but she was the one who knocked him down. He raised his ax to defend himself, and Mist hesitated, remembering a thousand other battlefields when she had saved warriors just like him.

The ax swung at her legs, and she brought Kettlingr down, severing his arm from his body. Then she was facing the next Einherji, and the next, and Dainn was awakening dormant insects and worms from beneath the grass to swarm over the warriors, slowing but not stopping them. Jotunar beat their way through the crush of Einherjar, striking wildly and randomly at whatever they could reach.

Still Hel remained behind, and there was no sign of Loki. Mist was hardly surprised that he’d turned coward. As she felled two more Einherjar, three others she’d killed sprang to their feet.

That was Odin’s great advantage, apart from his own magic. His army revived itself. There was no guarantee that any of the Einherjar would stay down without Hel and the dead to make sure of it.

But there might be another way to delay their resurrections.

“Dainn!” she shouted.

He broke off what he was doing—binding five Einherjar in writhing tree roots—and ran to join her.

“Keep them away,” Mist said, indicating the next wave of Einherjar with a jerk of her chin.

Dainn didn’t ask her what she planned to do. He pulled sandy soil from the ground beneath his feet, sang an elven Rune-spell, and flung a wall of dirt at the warriors, who coughed and stumbled as they scrubbed at their eyes.

Mist called on the forge-magic, shaping Rune-staves of iron, steel, and fire into a net of fine but immensely heavy metal filaments, each one burning red and black. As one dead Einherji began to rise, she flung it over him, and he was trapped before the transformation was complete.

As Dainn continued to cover for her, she moved forward, creating more nets and flinging them wide wherever Odin’s fallen warriors were returning to life. They began to go down in twos and threes, and the Jotunar continued to club and hack at the living Einherjar.

Realizing that she’d left Dainn behind, she spared a moment to look back. An Einherji had cut a deep laceration into his left arm, and he was losing blood quickly.

But the wound didn’t slow him. He spoke, and she felt rather than heard the incomprehensible spells he sang. Edging her way closer to him, Mist saw that Dainn’s arm was already healing.

He shouted to her, and she turned in time to deflect the blade of one of her Sisters: Olrun, who had once guarded the god Freyr’s Sword—the weapon that needed no hand to wield it.

But Olrun was definitely wielding it, and with great expertise. Mist backed away.

“Olrun,” she said. “You know who I am!”

“I know,” Olrun said, her teeth flashing. “Traitor to our lord All-father.”

“A lord who would slay women and children and common men without mercy!”

“He is our god,” Olrun said, and attacked again. When Mist got in a blow to her shoulder, Olrun stepped back and let the Sword fight for her.

Mist parried and thrust, finding it difficult to predict the Sword’s next movement without a body controlling it. There was nothing of Odin’s soul left in the blade, but when she slipped in her defense and it cut the skin of her arm, she felt in her blood the hollow place left behind when Odin had drained the Sword of that part of himself.

An empty place she could fill. She attacked, swinging wildly to drive Freyr’s Sword back toward Olrun, who hastily retreated.

Wasting no time, Mist sketched Rune-staves on Kettlingr’s blade, letting some of her blood seep into the etching that spelled out the Sword’s name. When Freyr’s Sword came at her again, its fury redoubled, Mist made sure to parry with the part of her blade painted with blood.

The magic Sword groaned and snapped in two.

“Go, Olrun,” Mist said, kicking the halves of the blade aside, “or I will have to kill you.”

The Valkyrie looked from Mist to the broken weapon and ran. As Mist caught her breath, she looked for Dainn. He was dealing with several Einherjar, but it was obvious that he was having trouble. He had resorted to using a slim elven dagger, moving with a swift efficiency that outranked any knife work she’d ever seen.

Danny,
she thought.
Dainn’s afraid to take the magic too far
.

She spun around at the sound of eight hooves beating against the earth. Sleipnir was almost on top of her, but Odin didn’t seem to see her. He was using an enormous ax to behead Jotunar, one after another, his beard and mail flecked and splashed with blue blood.

At the same time, the dead rushed forward from the back of the field, leaving the ash of straw-colored grass behind them as they came. Hel herself skimmed over the ground as if she rode on the wind of their passing, and the Wolf, Fenrir, loped in her wake—twice the size of any true wolf, intent on the one he had been destined to kill at the Ragnarok that never was.

Now, Mist thought, she had her chance. She reached inward for the Eitr, seeking the elements that would give her some hope of taking him down and leaving him at Hel’s and Fenrir’s mercy.

Her tattoo burned. The earth shuddered. Sleipnir reared, and the field fell silent.

Then the assault began: not of warriors or beings of the Homeworlds, but of the very elements Mist had hoped to deploy against the enemy.

But she hadn’t done
this
. Eitr or not, Odin still had great power. The dull light that leaked through the heavy clouds disappeared, as if a giant hand had closed a shutter over the city. Hail shot down like bullets, carving divots out of the ground and slicing flesh without discrimination. Lightning slashed against the clouds, never quite touching the earth. Then the snow began to fall, heavily enough to cover the field, and everything on it, within a few minutes.

Mist peered through the fog, searching for Odin, for Hel, for anything she recognized. Then she heard wailing cries, and she slashed Kettlingr from side to side in front of her face, clearing wide swathes out of the falling snow.

The dead, unable to contend with the challenge of the heavy weather, were being struck down by Einherjar who had fought in such conditions for much of their original lives. Odin’s Spear flashed gold as it hissed through the heavy air, taking down three Jotunar with one cast. He plunged out of the snowy veil, snatched up the Spear, and smiled right at Mist.

Suddenly Loki was there … and so were three Mists. Odin hesitated in confusion. Mist reached for the Eitr, felt it strike hard against Odin’s magic like two blades clashing in a single powerful blow.

That was when the mortals arrived: Rick, Captain Taylor, Vixen, the hundreds of recruits who were willing to risk their lives for Midgard. She searched for Dainn and couldn’t find him. As she sprinted across the field to join her allies, Loki appeared beside her. His feet barely touched the ground.

“How did
they
get here?” Mist gasped between breaths.

“I don’t know,” Loki said, “but you can be sure that Odin will use them against us, unless you harden your heart as a warrior must.”

“Where is Dainn?”

“If he is to protect Danny, he must—”

He broke off as they reached the mortal troops. Rick and Taylor faced Mist squarely, braced against the unrelenting weather.

“How in sweet Baldr’s name did you get here?” she demanded.

“We went straight back to Loki’s HQ after we were sent back to camp,” Captain Taylor said, holding his sword firmly at his side. “A woman there told us where to go.”

“We heard the Horn, too,” Rick said. “Hell, everyone this side of the bay must have heard it.”

“The whole city’s smothered in snow and ice,” Taylor said. “Nothing is moving. Every mortal in San Francisco is a sitting duck.”

“But Odin can’t attack everywhere at once,” Mist began, “even to—”

“Where the fuck—sorry—
is
that rat bastard?” Rick asked.

“Don’t worry,” Mist said. “He’ll find
us
. Taylor, fall back as far as you can. Don’t move unless I give the signal.”

She waited until the mortals faded behind the wall of snow. Muffled footsteps alerted her, and she found herself facing Horja.

And not Horja. This was the Anna she’d seen standing beside Odin’s throne, but her gaze was blank. She opened her mouth.

“The … pendant,” she said hoarsely. “Give it to me.”

“Anna,” Mist said. “Listen to me. Remember who you are. Leave Odin, and come back to us.”

Extending her arm, Anna reached toward Mist’s neck. The pendant jumped under Mist’s shirt. Anna lunged forward to grab it. The moment her fingers touched it, she fell.

And vanished. Lying in her place was a child with a familiar face and an expression of mingled fear and defiance.

“Mist,” Rebekka said in a very small voice. “Don’t kill me.”

32

Listening to her heart instead of her head, Mist took Rebekka’s hand and pulled her to her feet.

“Will you listen to me now?” she asked.

“I’m scared,” Rebekka whispered. “Where am I?”

Mist hiked Rebekka up on her hip and called out to Dainn in her mind as a new wave of Einherjar charged toward her. Dainn stepped through a screen of snow, his hair nearly white with it.

“Take her!” Mist said, pushing Rebekka into Dainn’s arms. She turned to face the Einherjar. Loki charged up beside her, urging his Jotunar to meet the attack.

Even as she fought, Mist was aware that something was wrong with Dainn and Rebekka. She retreated, fighting all the way, until she had a clear view of elf and child.

Rebekka was trembling wildly in Dainn’s arms, and Dainn himself was as pale as the snow, his jaw clenched against some tremendous pain. Abruptly Rebekka squirmed out of his hold and turned to stare at Mist with eyes that had never belonged to a refugee child in Norway.

They were Danny’s eyes, as dark as Dainn’s, as old and wise as the eldest god’s.

“Danny?” Mist stammered.

“No!” Dainn shouted. He grabbed at Rebekka as she—Danny—burst into a run, dashed past Mist, and ran between the strolling giants and Einherjar with no sign of fear. He reached Odin, who was overseeing the mêlée, and touched Sleipnir’s broad shoulder with the palm of Rebekka’s hand.

The horse’s eyes shone white, and he reared, cutting at the Einherjar within reach, his hooves severing veins and carving deep slashes in the warriors’ flesh. Odin lost hold of the reins and snatched at Sleipnir’s mane, but he couldn’t stay on as Sleipnir bucked and crow-hopped and bounced the All-father out of the saddle.

In an instant Danny-Rebekka was astride the stallion, and they were galloping away, literally disappearing before Sleipnir could leave more than four sets of hoofprints behind him in the snow.

Mist ran to Dainn, who was curled in on himself as if he had lost a part of his body. Loki appeared and grabbed hold of Dainn’s arm.

“Where is Danny?” he asked Mist, panic in his voice.

“Gone,” Mist said, stunned by Danny’s act of coercion. “Anna took on Rebekka’s shape, and Danny stole it, along with Sleipnir.”

“The beast … began to break free,” Dainn gasped. “Danny fled in the … only way he could.”

He doubled over, coughing blood into the churned snow. Mist looked around wildly, hearing but unable to see the battle.

“Where are the Jotunar?” she asked Loki, lifting Dainn by the shoulder.

Loki shouted. Mist heard the giants’ heavy feet pelting toward them, but suddenly the fog cleared and she saw that Odin was up again, red-faced and ready to kill. She had no sooner begun a defensive spell than he grabbed Gungnir off the ground, passed it over the Jotunar within his reach and killed every one of them.

Flinging back her head, Mist grabbed for the Eitr with both hands. Power flowed into her—from the earth, from the sky, from stone and snow and the blood of the fallen. Her tattoo blazed with agony. There was no direction to the magic, no control. She hurled every element straight at Odin’s vengeful face.