A Yank at Valhalla

Chapter XIX Swords Athirst

Vidar yelled to the warriors behind us.

"Clear the hinges, some of you! The rest of us will hold back the Jotuns!"

He sprang out onto Bifrost Bridge. Tyr, Forseti and I, with a score of Aesir warriors, leaped after him. The men behind us worked frantically to pull out the heavy spears that had jammed the hinges of Asgard's gates. We four stood abreast on the arched bridge, our warriors behind us, facing the Jotun masses as they rushed up behind Loki and Utgar.

The storm darkened the whole sky, and wild winds threatened to sweep us from the unrailed, narrow span on which we stood. Lightning flared continually across the sinister sky, and the thunder was rolling louder.

Tyr had torn off his brynja and thrown away his helmet. His great breast bare, streaked with blood, he held two swords in his hands. His cavernous eyes glared with a terrible light as he stepped in front of us. He yelled in a howl like that of a wild beast to the advancing Jotuns.

"Berserk am I! Who comes against me?"

The Jotuns pushing up onto the narrow bridge hesitated at sight of him, for he was truly terrible in his berserk madness.

"I await you, Utgar!" Tyr howled, his body quivering. "Come, for these swords are athirst!"

Utgar answered with a roar of rage. He and Loki, dismounted now, came up the arch of the bridge against us at the head of the Jotun mass. Tyr did not wait their coming. With a ferocious scream, our berserk companion sprang to meet them.

His two swords leaped like living things. Utgar's ax shore into his side — and Tyr laughed! Shouting with glee, he smote Utgar's head from his shoulders with a single awful stroke. Five Jotuns fell before him as he raged in berserk fury. Abruptly Loki's blade stabbed through his heart. Tyr swayed, staggered at the edge of the bridge. Then he crumpled and fell clear from the stone, plummeting down toward the raging, stormy sea far below.

Vidar, Forseti and I had been rushing forward with our men to support Tyr. Now we met the Jotuns, who were maddened by the killing of Utgar, urged on by Loki's silver voice.

For whole minutes we held the bridge against them! How, I do not know. Before my eyes was only a blur of flashing steel and wolfish faces, into which I struck by instinct rather than by design. I felt the red-hot stabs of sword-blades in my left shoulder and right thigh; I saw Forseti reel back, dying from one of Loki's incredibly swift, deadly thrusts. I glimpsed the arch-fiend's wrathful, beautiful face as he fought with Vidar.

We were pushed back over the arch of the bridge, toward the gates. A yell crashed up from the men behind us.

"The gates are freed!"

We staggered back through the small opening of the nearly closed gates. Instantly the gates were slammed 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.