Dauðakoss.

Skadi took a step back. Her uncle’s words were loud in her ears as if he spoke to her directly from the past: “None may parry or block its blows. It cleaves through swords, shields, chain, flesh, and bone. All will fall before it.”

“We’ve lost,” she croaked.

Baugr stepped to the fore, his mail rent, his wounded left arm held against his chest. “We defy you, Afastr! I thought to give you a chance, but no more! For Kráka, you die!”

“No,” whispered Skadi. “We have to get away.”

Aldulfr shook himself like a wet dog, hunched his shoulders, blinked as if awakening from a daze, and began to growl.

More warriors were pressing in from behind, pushing Skadi and the others forward. Hundreds were gathered now, many wounded, but all intent on finishing the battle.

The towers loomed high, their spires blackened as if burnt.

Afastr rolled his helmed head about his shoulders, shrugged once, and began to stride forward.

“Uncle!” Skadi screamed. “He’s got Dauðakoss. Kvedulf!”

Her uncle was shoving his way through the ranks, and at her cry oriented on her position. All around them warriors and shieldmaidens were moving forward, drifting toward Afastr like fog stealing off a lake, too wary to scream and charge, but made foolishly confident by their sheer numbers.

“What?” Kvedulf gripped Skadi by the shoulder as if she were a ridge of rock as he hauled himself through the last of the crowd to her side. “What? Oh.”

His face paled, but his reaction was immediate. “Baugr! Sound the retreat!”

Jarl Baugr heard Kvedulf’s cry from across the crowd, but only spared a confused glance in their direction before moving forward.

Skadi clenched her grip on Thyrnir. “What do we do?”

Kvedulf snarled, rippled his fingers on Dawn Reaver’s hilt, and stared at the approaching Afastr. “Now we die and go to Valhöll. Let’s get our golden glory.”

And he began to march forth.

Skadi shook her head. Afastr’s fifty or more threads were interweaving in a pattern she’d never seen before, the closest being a berserker’s rage. But they weren’t twined into a rope; rather they seemed possessed of their own will, winding around and interweaving over and over without end.

Skadi’s skin broke out into goosebumps as the vanguard let out a hoarse scream and ran at Afastr.

The four völvas began to chant in unison, their hands reaching toward the sky as if they wished to lacerate the clouds and draw blood.

Aldulfr let out a bestial scream and bounded forth.

Aurnir looked to Skadi for guidance. She held up a hand, bidding him wait. Glámr and Damian also held back, and with some measure of confusion so did Úrœkja.

Afastr waded into the front line and with each sweep of Dauðakoss men died. He loomed over them all as an oak over bushes, but the sheer press of warriors coming at him drove him back, one step at a time.

But those who sought to attack him had to step over the bodies of the fallen.

“Skadi!” Glámr’s cry was half panicked. “What do we do?”

She didn’t know. Freyja help her, she didn’t know. The whole force had gathered now, Snorri and Einarr’s men—or what remained of them—streaming past them to join the rear of the advancing force. Two hundred warriors out of the original five? Two hundred blood-hungry warriors and shieldmaidens against Afastr and Aldulfr.

Surely they would win?

“Hold,” croaked Skadi, her throat parched, wishing she could see what was happening. “One moment!”

She ran lightly to the closest building, leaped, seized the upper edge of a window, and hopped up onto the ledge. Looked out over the army to where Aldulfr and Afastr were slaughtering all who came before them. And behind? The four völvas.

Whose threads were rising into the sky, stirring the heavens so that dark clouds formed, blocking out the dawn light with terrible speed. Summoning a storm? Rain wouldn’t deter them. What were they doing?

Skadi felt overwhelmed. She knew she should be at the vanguard. Even with her few threads, she might effect change. But Aldulfr was a bull amidst pups, roaring without end as he smashed through his foes, charge after charge, his bare chest and shoulders already slick with blood and wounds that seemed to not deter him, his mass of threads slowly winnowing down as he fought, but so prodigious that even so he was taking scores to their graves.

But he was nothing compared to Afastr. Already warriors were having to scramble over mounds of the dead to reach him. She saw Dauðakoss cleave through swords and shields as if they were mist, lopping off arms and heads with abandon. It didn’t seem real. So ferocious and determined were the warriors of the Draugr Coast that they kept throwing themselves at the jarl, but to no avail.

The four völvas let out a scream of triumph, and a great pulse of power flew up into the air. It was storm magic, yes, but like nothing Skadi had ever heard.

“These mistresses of mighty Thor

Beseech his thunderous aid.

Wreck ruin!

Let living fire sear

Let lives burn in fear

Tear the land with your lighting

Tear the flesh and end all fighting!”

The dark clouds roiled, grew thick and pregnant, and with that, the world seemed to shatter apart as four bolts of lightning speared down to strike at the gathered army, living columns of leaping, livid white power that didn’t fade, didn’t end, but rather began to crawl through the ranks, continuous, unending, searing her vision, electrifying and scorching all whom they touched, four fingers that scorched endless doom across the helpless warriors.

Afastr’s laughter boomed across the battlefield, and now he reversed the tide and began to press forward, cutting his way through the massed warriors.

“Skadi!” Damian’s cry came from far away. “Do something!”

Wide-eyed, she watched the four bolts of lightning draw their course through living flesh, leaving corpses in their wake, anguished screams cutting off as the smell of burned flesh filled the air.

She couldn’t breathe. Already a third of their forces were destroyed.

She had to act.

Had to do something.

“Glámr.” Her voice was a croak. “Glámr,” she said again, more strongly. “Lead Aurnir against the völvas. Damian… see to the wounded. And I…”

She stared in horror at Afastr. His wealth of threads was undiminished. Dauðakoss glistened with blood in his fists. He’d not suffered a single wound that she could see.

What could she do?

Skadi dry swallowed. Hurl Thyrnir? Her remaining threads were nothing compared to that malevolent juggernaut’s. Contest the völvas’ lightning? She hadn’t enough power to contest the four of them together.

Already Aurnir was wading through the crowd, following Glámr as the half-troll led him out wide toward the flanks.

Call on Freyja?

Her mind balked. What had she left to give the goddess?

Each second that passed more warriors fell.

Aldulfr was almost as monstrous as his father, but he wielded a normal axe; the accumulation of blows was starting to tell, his thread count having dropped from the thirties to the twenties, and now slowly starting to edge down to the teens.

Skadi inhaled sharply and hefted Thyrnir.

“Úrœkja.” The scarred shieldmaiden had remained close. Eight threads remained of her original twelve. “Get to Aldulfr. I will weaken him so that you may deal the killing blow.”

Úrœkja’s eyes widened. “Me? Strike him down? I’m no Stórhǫggvi!”

“You!” Skadi’s voice was a whiplash. “I can see your wyrd, and by Freyja and Odin I swear that you are destined to be his slayer!”

Úrœkja nodded jerkily, hefted her blade, then plunged into the crowd. Fought her way toward the rampaging old warrior, almost swimming through the bodies. Skadi hefted Thyrnir.

One throw.

All she had left.

The old warrior howled as he cleaved through a woman’s legs, cutting clean through her thighs. Turned as another stabbed a spear into his side, the head leaving a superficial gash as another of his threads disappeared, and buried his axe in his attacker’s head.

One blow. He killed everybody he faced with one single blow. How many had he killed? Twenty? Thirty?

Úrœkja broke out into the space before the old warrior and raised her sword. Aldulfr paused, recognizing on some instinctual level a worthy foe, then roared and leaped at her, axe rising high to deliver a blow that could split mountains.

Skadi threw her halfspear.

It leaped hungrily from her hand, soaring of its own accord over the heads of those who remained to fly at Aldulfr’s face.

At the last second, he sensed it coming and swung his axe, deflecting the spear.

He lost eight or so threads in the process.

Landed, staggered, and turned just in time for Úrœkja to step in and stab her slender sword deep into his chest.

Aldulfr froze. Úrœkja glanced down at where she’d stabbed him, and with a savage jerk shoved the blade in all the way to the hilt.

The hoary old warrior laughed, blood gushing out of his mouth, and dropped his axe. Reached forth with both hands for Úrœkja’s head, his intent clear, but at the last second, she jerked away, burning her last thread and dancing back.

The old warrior grasped her blade and pulled it free. Blood poured forth as he raised the blade to the air, studying it in the electric light of the interweaving bolts, and then he fell and was gone from Skadi’s sight.

“Yes!” she screamed.

Afastr paused, sensing perhaps on some level his loss. He had been laughing all this while, but now he let out a cry of rage and raised Dauðakoss to the sky.

One of the lightning bolts distended, bulged toward him, and then tore free like a weed yanked from the soil to dart over and sink its burning wrath into the huge black axe.

Lightning coursed over Afastr who seemed unaffected by the charge, massive worms of rippling light racing up and down his frame, and with a cry of rage, he launched himself against his foes.

One man against a hundred.

And Skadi knew he would win.

He swung his axe at the closest warrior, but then Kvedulf was there, Dawn Reaver spearing forward to parry the attack.

The clang that sounded when electrified axe met blade was as shattering as a thunderbolt.

The gathered warriors drew back, and Kvedulf shrugged Dauðakoss off his blade as he squared off against Afastr, who stepped back to consider his foe.

“Been looking for you, you big bastard,” rasped Kvedulf. “You’ve a debt to pay.”

“My debts extend back centuries,” boomed Afastr. “And none yet have managed to collect. You will die as your wife did, squealing for mercy.”

Kvedulf screamed and threw himself forward. Skadi could hold back no more; she leaped down from the windowsill just as she heard Aurnir’s roar off to the side; he’d broken free of the press and now approached the völvas, his dire flail ripping around his bare head.

The völvas drew back, lowered their hands from the heavens, and aimed their palms at the half-giant.

The four lightning bolts tore themselves away from the remnants of the army and Afastr’s axe and leaped at Aurnir, slamming into him as one. They played over his wooden armor, caused his entire body to appear as little more than a silhouette amidst a glory of white light, and then his flail collided with the völvas, tearing through all four women and lifting them clear off their feet to hurl them sidelong.

The golden ring that yet hovered in the air however did not give way; their chains went taut and the rings held, so that all four bodies for a moment strained sidelong in the air, and then as one collapsed to remain propped up by their collars.

Aurnir groaned, his skin split and charred, and collapsed.

Tears filled Skadi’s eyes.

Another victory, but too late. Their army wavered. At least half their number lay dead here, a mass of scorched and dismembered corpses. Skadi had never seen such brutality. Everywhere she looked she saw horror.

But she pressed on, Natthrafn in hand, yelling over and over again, “For Kráka!”

And where she passed the army’s morale strengthened, but she knew the men were holding on but barely.

At last, she broke free of the last rank and saw Kvedulf and Afastr dueling. But it was already over. While Afastr’s fifty or more threads yet coruscated, Dauðakoss livid in his fist, Kvedulf was completely without his own wyrd, his right arm broken, his left eye closed under a wash of blood from a scalp wound.

But somehow he still held Dawn Reaver in one hand, and with great effort, he raised it to parry another blow from the monstrous jarl.

A blow that finally sent his bright blade flying from his hand.

Afastr raised his leg and booted Kvedulf square in the chest. The blow lifted her uncle right off the ground and dropped him with a crash onto the dirt.

“You are all dead men walking!” boomed Afastr. “None can stop me. Come, children. Come witness the greatest warrior that has ever walked Midgardr.”

The warriors, harried and battered, bleeding and broken, drew back. Glanced at each other. Of the two or three hundred who had streamed into this fight, somehow only seventy or so remained.

And even though only Afastr remained, it was clear that he was invincible.

The first of the warriors turned and ran, and soon the whole remaining force was racing back toward the Raven’s Gate.

Skadi slowed, stopped. Lowered Natthrafn. Stood there as the last of their army fled, until at last she stood alone but for a handful of individuals. Úrœkja. Tryggr Ramundrson, leaning heavily on a spear, his left leg dark with blood. Snorri. Líføy.

Damian was crouched beside Aurnir, both hands raised toward the dark clouds. Glámr stood guard over him, bow drawn, arrow nocked and aimed at Afastr.

But that was all

Six left amidst hundreds of butchered corpses to face Afastr. Six left from the army of five hundred that had left Kráka.

Skadi reeled as Afastr turned to face her.

So many dead.

So many lost.

And for what?

“Ah,” said Afastr, and removed his helm. He tossed it aside and raked back his sweat-matted black hair. Fixed his piercing gaze on her, and smiled. “Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir. Didn’t I tell you I always get what I desire? The gods smile down upon us. Let me finish killing the last of your friends, and then I will wed you, and then I will bed you, and then all shall be as it should.”