Skadi felt her true thread, her life-cord, bend as the norns somewhere far away placed their shears about it.

Hjörþrimul drifted into view once more, every line of her eager and burning with anticipation.

Skadi lowered her chin. Stared hard at the linnorm, Natthrafn held down and away.

The linnorm’s coils undulated, its whole body gathering itself to leap at her. Pale purple blood washed down its chest, seeping from the deep wounds in its neck.

But none of them were mortal wounds. It yet had fifteen of its threads. This was perhaps the most grievously wounded it had ever been, but it would survive.

Time seemed to slow.

She should flee. Líføy was yelling something again from the treeline. She should retreat, gather Glámr and Damian and return to their army.

Cede the field of battle to this overwhelming foe.

And yet.

And yet.

“Cattle die,” she rasped. “Kinsmen die. So, too, must you die.”

How many times had she whispered that prayer? So many that the words had lost their edge, been worn down, made smooth, made familiar. Speaking them now they felt new again, dangerous, true.

The linnorm’s lips writhed back from its fangs.

“But golden fame never dies,” whispered Skadi, lowering herself into a combat crouch, reversing her grip on Natthrafn so that she held it as a dagger by her side. “But golden fame never dies for those that earn it. Come on, you bastard. Come and get me.”

The linnorm hissed, blood dripping from its maw, and then rose up and dove at her like a great blue wave crashing down upon the shore.

Skadi leaped aside. The linnorm poured past her, serpentine body seething and blowing by as she hit the ground on the far side of the river, tucked one shoulder and rolled up and onto her feet, spinning and staggering back.

The linnorm crashed against the closest trees, poured itself up the four or so trunks that hemmed it in, then shoved off them, causing canopies to shake and roots to crack.

Skadi screamed. No threads, no wyrd, no hope.

But fortune favored the bold.

She dove at the incoming linnorm.

Natthrafn came swinging around, but she was too slow. The monster was quicksilver fast, its head turning, mouth opening, to catch her torso in its maw, to embed hundreds of wicked fangs into her flesh.

A larger than her head flew into the linnorm’s head with terrible force. Caused its jaw to clack shut, knocked it a good foot aside.

The linnorm’s neck slammed into Skadi. It was like being hit by the shoulder of a runaway horse, by a log that had slipped and rolled down a hill to slam into you. She was lifted off her feet and thrown.

Crashed down in the river, water washing over her face, flooding up her nose, blindingly cold.

Gasping, Skadi forced herself up to all fours, fought for purchase on the slippery rocks.

The linnorm had gathered itself into a furious mass a dozen yards away and was glaring, not at her, but past her.

Panting, shocked, Skadi looked back over at her shoulder.

The Stórhǫggvi had risen to his feet, water sluicing down his powerful frame along with his blood. His lips were pulled into a sneer, his hair having escaped its bun to fall in lank locks over his ugly face. Shoulders rising and falling he bent down to draw his huge axe from the rushing waters.

“Hey, ugly.” He grinned at the linnorm, showing teeth outlined in blood. “I’m not finished with you.”

Skadi felt about the rocks for Natthrafn. She’d lost it.

The linnorm hissed and snapped its jaws.

“Come here,” said the Stórhǫggvi, moving forward. “Come here so I can cut your head off.”

Water ran into Skadi’s eyes. Where was it? She knocked stones aside, her fingers numb, searching, searching.

The air grew fraught. Skadi’s gut clenched. Some instinct warned her the moment had come.

The linnorm threw itself at the Stórhǫggvi who bellowed at it.

Skadi’s fingers closed around Natthrafn’s hilt. She rose, twisted, stabbed.

The linnorm was spearing past her, a bolt of blue and white.

Natthrafn’s enchanted point cut into its hide, through scales, into flesh, into muscle and ribs.

Skadi fought to hold on, to not have the blade torn from her fingers, to continue her spin, slashing through the monster’s side, a huge cut that the linnorm’s own momentum caused.

And then she fell back down to her knees, purple blood washing away immediately in the stream as Natthrafn sank beneath its mercurial surface.

The linnorm slammed into the Stórhǫggvi even as he swung the axe, and both of them went over the edge of the cliff.

“No!” screamed Skadi, rising, reaching, but as quick as a finger snap they were gone.

Skadi staggered out of the stream and fell to her knees at the cliff’s edge. Gazed down at the forest below. Trees shook and swayed where they’d fallen amongst them, branches snapped, but the canopy was thick enough that she could only catch glimpses of white coils upon the ground.

Líføy came running up. Skadi ignored her, began working her way down the rocky slope. The muscles of her legs were stiff, the joints jellied. She half fell, half scrambled from rock to rock, ledge to ledge, and then lost her balance at the very last to slip, slide, crash down on her side and then bounce off and fall the last seven yards onto the dirt.

The breath burst out of her, but she refused to lie still. Gasping again, she rose shakily to her feet, swayed, wiped water from her eyes, and then staggered into the forest.

She found Marbjörn first. He lay impaled upon a crimson branch that extended straight up from a fallen log, his arms thrown out wide, his head lolling back, his eyes half-closed, the snow and ice about him half melted by all his blood.

Dead.

Skadi pressed the back of her wrist to her lips and stumbled on. Came across the linnorm’s tail, pebbled with white scales and twitching. Followed it deeper into the forest and into an artificial clearing, trees snapped and smashed, the linnorm’s winding body piled up like a mess of rope.

One of its arms raked at the ground then lost all strength and went still.

Skadi let out a cry and rushed to its center where the Stórhǫggvi lay wrapped in its embrace, its jaws closed over one shoulder and having crushed his chest. More blood, dark and arterial, mixing with the purple.

The Stórhǫggvi’x axe was buried nearly to the hilt in the linnorm’s head.

He yet lived. Propped up by the coils that were gathered around him, held in place by that final mortal bite, he blinked, sought to focus his gaze, his expression stupefied.

“Wait, wait,” she cried, trying to see where she could begin unwrapping the linnorm from his mangled frame. “Damian will be here, just wait!”

“Shut up,” he said tiredly. “Let a man… have some dignity… while he dies.”

Skadi bit her lower lip and gave up on trying to pull him free. The linnorm’s body was too massive, too entangled. She’d have had to cut him out.

“How?” she whispered instead. “Its fate wasn’t yet sealed. It had over a dozen threads. How did you kill it?”

The Stórhǫggvi grimaced, blinked again, focused on her, and grinned his bloody grin. “My axe. Blessed. Cursed. I was told. I’d kill whatever killed me. My wyrd. No fear. Pity. To be killed. By a worm.”

Skadi hesitated then thrust Natthrafn into its scabbard. She could hear others approaching.

“I will tell your tale,” she promised. “They will sing of this deed.”

“One regret,” whispered the Stórhǫggvi.

“What is it?”

He smiled, closing his eyes. “Wanted to die shagging.”

Then his head nodded forward and he went still.

Skadi stared at him, then snorted, half in disbelief, half in horrified amusement.

Líføy, Damian, and Glámr entered the clearing and froze.

“He killed it,” whispered Damian in hoarse amazement.

Skadi felt suddenly exhausted. She took a few steps back and sank down onto a freshly toppled tree.

“Geirr?” asked Glámr.

“Dead,” answered Líføy.

Nobody spoke. The purple blood ceased to seep from the linnorm’s many wounds. Glámr tore out Thyrnir and held it out to her. Skadi considered the halfspear, then took it.

“Are you injured?” asked Damian softly.

Skadi honestly didn’t know. She began to shiver violently and looked down at herself. No blood. Some gashes where rocks had slashed her open. Her shoulder felt strange. Wobbly, loose.

“Let me,” said Damian, and pressed his thumb tips together to raise his hands over her, his eyes closing, his voice turning sonorous.

He spoke then in the liquid, complex language of his people, which sounded almost the same as that of the Archeans. There was a ritualized cadence to it, a rise and fall, and his hands burned gold at the end as one of his threads sank into them.

Skadi sighed as warmth and ease flowed into her. The numbness receded, her shoulder strengthened, her gashes closed up. A pain she hadn’t even noticed in her hip faded away, and she sat up straighter, rejuvenated.

“There,” he whispered. “I don’t think I can do more. It took almost all my strength to heal Glámr.”

She looked inquiringly at him.

The half-troll frowned. “I’m fine.”

“He’s not fine, but we don’t have much we can do about it.”

Líføy pulled some of her arrows free of the linnorm’s corpse. “We need to get you dry, Skadi. You’ll die of cold if we don’t.”

“Yes.” Her mind was having trouble working. It was hard to look away from the Stórhǫggvi, wrapped in pearlescent coils, his face at peace.

The others dug dry items from their packs. She didn’t even know where she’d left her own. Shivering again, she stripped and donned a new outfit. It made little difference. The cold had entered her core, Damian’s healing already receding.

“You need to move,” said Damian, pulling his cloak about her shoulders.

“There’s nothing we can do for the fallen,” said Glámr. “They’re gone to Valhöll.”

“Let us lay Marbjörn down with dignity,” said Skadi, and led them out of the clearing to the fallen log and her friend’s corpse.

They tried to heave him clear of the branch that had impaled him, but it was futile. Eventually, Glámr simply cut the branch at its base and together they toppled the huge man onto his side. Damian drew the branch out, and they laid him flat, covered his corpse with a blanket.

“He deserves a proper warrior’s funeral,” said Skadi, stepping back. “At the very least a cairn. But we’ve no time. When all of this is finished, we shall return here and collect them both. See what we can recover of Geirr, and take them home to be given the honor they are due.”

Skadi stared at Marbjörn’s still features. It felt like yesterday that her dragon ship had pulled up at Kráka to be met at the docks by Marbjörn, Nokkvi, and Auðun. All dead now.

Brief memories flashed through her mind. His mocking amusement when she’d first asked for lessons. Their feasts together. Fighting side by side against Grýla’s forces. Endless bouts of glima. How he’d looked at her at the All-Thing, seeing her as more than a student.

So filled with life, with humor, with an irrepressible fire.

Now dead.

“Cattle die,

Kinsmen die,

So, too, must you die.

But golden fame

Never dies

For those that earn it.”

“Cattle die,

Kinsmen die,

So, too, must you die.

I know

That which never dies:

Judgment of a dead man's life.”

“You died fighting a linnorm, Marbjörn Aðalmærki. Fighting for your home’s honor, to bring vengeance to our dead. You died as a true warrior, without fear, against a monster out of legend. Your golden fame shall never die.”

The others bowed their heads.

Skadi inhaled sharply and glanced about. Hjörþrimul was gone. “We’ve half a day’s running left. We must bring word to Kvedulf and the other jarls that Afastr’s rear is now unguarded. We’ll move as fast as we can on the mountain road, and not stop till we’ve reached our camp. Are we ready?”

Líføy nodded. Glámr adjusted his small pack and nodded.

“Are you all right?” asked Damian.

To which she could only respond with a hard, bitter smile, and start picking their return route through the forest, leaving the dead behind.