“The jarl is enchanted,” Skadi said firmly. “We must defeat those who have ensorcelled his wits.”

“I shall focus on the Snærún,” called Ásfríðr.

Marbjörn hefted his axe. “Let’s leave the witchery to the others. Give the jarl wide berth, and we’ll begin by slaughtering the troll.”

The warriors were clearly off-balance; they gazed wide-eyed at their implacable jarl, at the great ice queen behind him, but when Marbjörn broke into a jog, moving out wide around the columns to come at the huge troll, they followed.

Aurnir let out a rumble and hefted his dire flail. The chain clinked and the huge head rose off the ground. His normally benign expression was replaced by one of cold certainty, and he began to stride toward the warriors even as the troll roared its defiance.

Skadi rushed to intercept the half-giant. “Wait! Aurnir, stop!”

Her friend looked almost small in comparison to the troll and the ice queen. His pink skin was goosepimpled with cold, and his lips were cracked and bleeding.

But his eyes.

They were as dark and pitiless as those of a raptor.

“Aurnir!” cried Skadi again, backing up with her hands raised. “Stop!”

The half-giant scowled. Muscles as big as slabs bunched beneath his skin and with shocking strength, he brought the dire flail up and around at her.

Skadi leaped back as the weapon smashed into the ground, embedding itself in a crater and sending shards of ice and rock flying.

“Aurnir, please!”

Battle had begun with the troll, who roared and waded into the warband, fists flying. Kvedulf was content to watch with dull eyes, even as Grýla comforted her dire wolf, who growled so deeply in its chest it sounded as if its heart were tearing in twain.

Aurnir pulled the six-bladed flail’s head from the ground.

He didn’t recognize her.

“You’ve starved him, the poor dear,” said Grýla, and with a shock, Skadi realized the queen was addressing her. “Kept him small and weak and stupid. Such cruelty. We’ve fed him plenty since he arrived, unleashed his true nature. He’ll be forever stunted due to his time lost with your people, but with time and more volcanic rock he’ll at least become a shadow of that which he could have been.”

Aurnir did look bigger. A foot taller, perhaps, though it was hard to say.

“No,” said Skadi, and in desperation, she sheathed her seax. “Aurnir! I know you can hear me. Stop. Please. We need you. I need you. Don’t do this.”

The half-giant reared up tall and swung the flail around his head. The weapon bruised the air, the sound of its passage a growing moan.

“I won’t fight you,” said Skadi, opening her arms wide. “I know you remember me. Skadi. Your friend.”

And she closed her eyes and trusted to her wyrd.

The sounds of battle continued, the screams and bellows, but the blow never shattered her to pieces.

Skadi opened her eyes.

Aurnir was gaping at her, his old, bewildered expression returned.

Half of her threads had disappeared all at once, lowering her to four.

“Skadi?”

“Aurnir! Thank the gods!” She fought the urge to run forward and hug his leg. “Aurnir, it’s all right. I’m here. I came for you. We’ll fight our way free of this place. But we need to help our friends.”

“Friends?” He wrestled with the concept, looked around blinking, then met Grýla’s furious glare and flinched.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, half-rising out of her throne. “Crush the human!”

“Skadi friend,” said Aurnir, moving to stand before her defiantly.

Grýla smashed her fist on the arm of her throne. “So be it. Die for her. You were crippled anyways.”

And at some mental command, the dire wolf by her side leaped down the stairs to come charging toward them both.

Ásfríðr was pleading with Freyja. The bog witches were hissing and gesturing still to Kvedulf. The troll battle continued.

Aurnir backed away from the charging wolf.

Skadi drew her seax and moved out wide to help engage the beast, though it was so massive it would clearly bowl her over.

A spear flew past them to bury itself in the wolf’s chest, only to have missed and fly right over its shoulder to shatter against the throne’s steps.

Glámr stepped forward, blinking drunkenly. “Hello, Aurnir. How have you been? Well, I trust?”

Aurnir blinked at the half-troll, and then the wolf was upon them.

Skadi yelled and raised her shield as she threw herself forward, but at the last second, the wolf veered away from the half-giant so that instead of her hitting its flank it smashed full-on into her, paws on her shield, knocking her back and crashing to the floor.

Its head was huge, the size of a wheelbarrow, its maw startling red, its teeth a galaxy of white burning stars. It snapped down at her and then jerked away as she tried to stab it in the maw with Natthrafn.

It was crushing her to death. She felt her left arm, trapped awkwardly under the shield and the wolf’s weight, twist to the point of dislocation. It snapped down at her again, the jaws clacking, hot saliva spattering off her face.

Glámr was shouting.

The world reduced to the dire wolf and her attempts to stab it in the face.

And then a mass of axe blades blurred into view and collided with the wolf’s shoulder.

The internal architecture of its body, its collarbones, ribs, organs, vertebrae—all of it jellied beneath the sheer force of the blow. The wolf was lifted clean off of Skadi, half of its body shredded by the wicked edges of the flail’s head and sent tumbling to crash upon the stone floor and slide away, leaving a thick trail of black blood in its wake.

“Skadi friend,” said Aurnir defensively, turning to glare at Grýla as he lowered his flail.

Grýla rose to her full height, her axe which was as large as Aurnir held easily in her fist. “You slew my puppy.”

The ice queen was a mass of wyrd. Skadi couldn’t begin to guess at her storied life, her many accomplishments, which gods favored her, which weapons of power she carried. But she knew in her bones that she and her friends couldn’t stand against so potent a force.

There was simply no way they could overcome Grýla’s wyrd, no matter how skilled their fighting, how fortunate their luck, how persistent their own destinies.

There was only one man in this chamber who could.

“Aurnir!” Skadi tried to keep the fear from her voice. “Kill the Snærún! Please! It’s our only chance.”

The half-giant looked down at the dire flail in his hand with distaste, then at the Snærún who was engaged in some struggle against Ásfríðr. The völva was losing. She was down on one knee, her hand outstretched, blood flowing from her nostrils and ears as she called out a chanting song.

The Snærún in turn had one fist upraised, the golden leashes that bound the bog witches to his command gathered tight, his other hand extended toward Ásfríðr, from which he seemed to be drinking in the völva’s power.

“Please?” Skadi touched Aurnir’s hip. “Please stop him. It’s the only way we can survive.”

“Skadi friend,” said Aurnir sadly, and then his face solidified into an expression of determination. He jogged forth, dragging the flail behind him.

The mass of axe-heads dug furrows in the stone, set up a horrendous screeching squeal of tortured rock, and then the half-giant roared and brought the flail up and before him, sweeping the head in a great, impossible arc. It descended upon the Snærún from some thirty feet above, a terrifying meteor of unstoppable power.

But the Snærún’s wyrd was also powerful; its six threads disappeared as it leaped aside, all six of Aurnir’s vanishing from view at the same time, leaving both unprotected by the fates.

Ásfríðr let out a cry of agony as she slumped, her flow of words breaking at last.

The Snærún wheeled about, glared at Aurnir, and flung out his hand, his long fingers grasping at something invisible, something dire.

Skadi screamed and went to hurl Natthrafn, but a blade slid into view from the Snærún’s chest, emerging like the stem of a steel flower from a bank of snow.

Black blood welled around its base, flowed in a rivulet down the Snærún’s sternum.

It spasmed, jerked forward, and fell to its knees, revealing Yri behind it, her sword in hand, eyes wide in shock at what she had just done.

The Snærún fell on its side and stared up at the blonde warrior.

“No,” whispered Skadi, a terrible premonition falling upon her. She raced forward, Glámr staggering behind her. Grýla descended the steps of her throne with unhurried grace.

The Snærún gestured up to Yri.

Skadi felt it gather some fell power. Saw runes appear around its talons, runes a sickly green of poison.

This was how Yri died.

This was her fate.

To be the agent of Kvedulf’s liberation and to suffer death for her victory.

Almost Skadi could see the threads warping, preparing themselves, the fabric of the world anticipating her death, her foreseen fate.

Skadi didn’t know how she did it, but she gathered her own wyrd, twisted it into a single great cord, and pushed its power into one impossible throw.

Her seax flew from her hand. Flew straight and true as a spear and slammed into the Snærún’s wrist, piercing it clear through and knocking its hand away just as it unleashed its curse.

Vile green energy flew in a futile spasm into the air and dissipated.

The Snærún cried out in loss and fury and fell back against the floor to lie still.

A second later Skadi collided with Yri, her momentum such that they both staggered, catching each other.

“You… you stopped him,” said Yri.

Skadi couldn’t speak. Didn’t dare believe.

“How?” Yri stared at the fallen seiðr witch then back at her. “I could feel it. My death. Heard the cries of the valkyries. But…”

Skadi had no words, no time. She grasped the nape of Yri’s neck, kissed her fiercely, then turned to collect Natthrafn from the Snærún’s wrist.

Only to hear Aurnir rumble fear and anger and step back.

Grýla stood hugely before them, easily twenty feet high, grim and furious and with her huge axe lifted overhead.

“Fate goes ever as fate must,” hissed the ice queen, and brought her axe down with all her savage strength upon Yri.

The blade clove her head, cut through her chest, shattered her sternum, tore through her stomach, and burst out between her legs to cut deep into the rock beneath her.

Blood spattered Skadi’s face and side, hot and voluminous, and she screamed, a brief, world-negating cry of horror and denial.

Her bicep bulged, and the ice queen tore her axe free as that which had been Yri fell to the ground in a welter of gore.

Aurnir moaned in horror and covered his eyes.

Glámr stood slack jawed.

Skadi couldn’t breathe. Her throat had closed up. Her head was spinning, a terrible roar filled her ears.

Grýla smiled coldly at her, her whole being surrounded by coruscating threads. Skadi was down to one. The ice queen had over forty.

This was the end.

The air flickered. Grýla cried out in alarm and lurched aside, jerking away from a wicked, scything blow that would have lopped off her leg. Turned and caught her balance, face twisted into a snarl, her bloodied axe raised in anticipation of another attack.

Kvedulf brought Dawn Reaver back around and held it overhead, point aimed unerringly at the ice queen’s face.

“Odin watches over me,” whispered the jarl. “I am blessed in battle by the Victory Giver himself. Your charms and sorceries will never succeed. Today your long life ends.”

“Enough.” Grýla rose to her full height. “I can see my hopes were in vain. I’ll end your life and that of your every follower, then lead my forces down to reduce Kráka to ashes.”

Kvedulf grinned, and Skadi thought she heard the distant cry of two ravens, raucous and piercing.

“You have to get through me first, jotunn. Let’s see whose wyrd it is to die today.”