The Sword of Surtur Page 19

  Tyr lost track of his companions as the red whir of battle swelled to a maelstrom of mayhem. Enemy after enemy came at him, howling for his blood. He lashed out with Tyrsfang, breaking weapons and bodies with equal ferocity. In his mind he could see the doom that had so long hovered over his father. He saw the chance to drive away the shadow of that doom, and these rock trolls were standing in his way!

  A fog seeped into his brain, clouding the images that drove him on, dulling the reflexes that spurred his sword arm. He felt the stirrings of his heart. Why should he fight? There was no reason to. All could be resolved if he would only…

  “You overplay your magic!” Tyr laughed as he struck a troll swordsman in the face and hurled him back into the midst of his comrades. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the enemies around him, but he knew Lorelei was nearby. Close enough to hear his scorn. “I fell for your tricks before because you wove your spell slowly over time. Now you reach too far and too fast with your enchantments. Amora should have taught you better than that!” Tyr punctuated that last defiant shout by smashing a troll’s ribs and sending him crashing to the floor.

  “You’ll not threaten Lady Lorelei!” Gnagrak snarled, shoving past his followers to swing at Tyr with his flail. The spiked ball at the end of the chain whipped past his ear, drawing blood as it grazed his scalp. Tyr retaliated with a parry, but the flail’s metal handle defied the bite of Tyrsfang. Too late he discovered the prince’s weapon was made of Uru, further enchanted by some sorcerer from the Realm Below.

  Gnagrak snarled and drove his knee into Tyr’s belly, knocking the wind from him and causing him to stumble back. “Fight me, swine! Let me show her ladyship how a prince attends to scoundrels!” The flail whipped around and smashed Tyr’s left arm just below the shoulder. The impact sent him reeling away to crack his head against the overturned table.

  Tyr shook his head to clear the sparks that danced before his eyes. As his vision cleared, he had a glimpse of Lorelei. She stood at a corner of the dining hall, her hands shifting in arcane gestures, grim determination on her face. Gnagrak’s sudden decision to stride into battle rather than keep directing it from behind a screen of his warriors was explained. Unable to charm Tyr’s mind, Lorelei had shifted her magic onto the troll prince.

  Gnagrak’s vicious growl warned Tyr that his enemy was upon him again. Scrambling over the table, he just gained its cover when the flail came crashing down. The spiked ball ripped through the wood, pulling a section the size of Tyr’s head away. The prince glared at him and swung again.

  This time Tyr’s sword met the attack. A fang from Fenris, even after being reshaped by magic, was far tougher than any table. The ball was struck aside, spinning as it was deflected. The chain wrapped itself about the blade, dragging Gnagrak closer. The troll strained to pull his weapon free. Tyr glared back at him and tightened his grip on the sword, slowly drawing the prince towards him.

  Hate flared in Gnagrak’s eyes, the same expression Tyr had seen so many times when Bjorn was under Lorelei’s spell and trying to impress her. The troll snarled at two of his warriors when they moved in to help. “The cur is mine!” he raged. Then he clasped his other hand around the handle of his flail and pulled. Tyr lurched forwards as Gnagrak redoubled his strength. “What will you do now?” the prince chuckled.

  “This,” Tyr told him, kicking out with his leg and sending the table slamming into Gnagrak. The sudden impact caught the troll by surprise and for just a heartbeat his hold on the flail slackened. It was all the advantage Tyr needed. He pulled Tyrsfang back, dragging the entwined flail with it. Gnagrak reeled over the table, exposing himself to the Aesir.

  Tyr struck down with the metal cup on his left arm, smashing the prince’s head. Gnagrak let go of the flail and toppled to the floor. The blood dripping down his face appeared to take with it the force of Lorelei’s enchantment. Fear, not hate, now ruled the troll’s eyes. He shook a fist at the warriors he’d warned off only a moment before. “He’s struck your prince! Kill him!”

  The troll that came in from Tyr’s left suddenly cried out. He dropped his weapon and grabbed his foot where Nilfli had struck it with the axe. The warrior to his right swung at him with a mace from across the upended table. Tyr dodged the blow and struck at the creature’s head. The troll ducked down, seeking to use the table for cover. The heavy furnishing was no barrier to Tyrsfang, and a thrust of the blade sent it sheering through the thick wood and the foe sheltering behind it. The warrior collapsed and Tyr jumped over the table in pursuit of Gnagrak.

  Except for the injured troll chasing after Nilfli, the other creatures were rallying to their prince. Four of the orange-skinned warriors in various stages of injury stood around Gnagrak and helped him to his feet. Tyr glanced aside to see that Bjorn was trying to hold one of the doors against more enemies. A force of Lorelei’s guards was attempting to push its way into the hall.

  “I thought you were going to do this yourself,” Tyr scolded Gnagrak. The rock troll glared back at him, but there was still fear in his eyes. The warriors around him, however, gave their prince surly glances. They too had heard the bold claim. It seemed they expected their leader to live up to his words.

  “Braggart,” Gnagrak clenched his fist and shook it at Tyr. “I’ve no weapon to fight you with.”

  Tyr made a whipping motion of his sword that sent the entangled flail sliding free to clatter across the floor to Gnagrak’s feet. “Any other excuses?”

  With his warriors watching him, Gnagrak had no choice but to meet Tyr’s challenge. He stooped and retrieved his weapon, making a few experimental swings with it. “You’ll regret giving this back to me.” His face contorted with malice. “I’ve taken your measure now.”

  Gnagrak lunged forward. Tyr was ready to block a swing of the flail. Instead the prince thrust his other hand toward the Aesir. The middle ring flared with light and a sheet of flame shot from the stone at its center. The treacherous attack almost caught him flatfooted. As it was, he felt the heat of the fire wash over him as he darted across the table. He crashed down on his back, hitting the floor with such force that Tyrsfang was knocked from his grip.

  “Now you die!” Gnagrak thundered, rushing after Tyr. He paused a moment when he saw the sword lying just beyond the Aesir’s reach and a vicious grin spread across his face. The troll hefted his flail, ready to bring it crashing down on Tyr’s head.

  “You don’t learn, do you?” Tyr scolded his enemy. His legs kicked the table, this time knocking it up instead of back. The edge of the table caught Gnagrak beneath the chin. The troll’s jaws cracked together with a loud smack. The prince toppled backwards, stunned by the blow.

  Tyr rolled over to recover his sword. As he did, he saw the door at the other end of the hall slam inwards and a half dozen Asgardians wearing Lorelei’s livery over their armor rushed into the room. Balked by Bjorn at the other door, some of the guards had taken an alternate route to reach the fray. As they entered the hall, Tyr saw confusion on their faces. They’d been drawn by sounds of fighting, but had little idea what they’d find.

  Tyr seized on that confusion with a ploy that would have impressed Loki. “The trolls have turned on Lorelei! Stop the trolls!”

  The guards were Asgardians and had grown up with repeated threats from the Realm Below. They were ready to believe the worst of the rock trolls and didn’t question Tyr’s words or who had shouted to them. Swords flashing, they charged Gnagrak’s warriors. Had the trolls hesitated, the infighting might have been stopped, but their savage instincts rose to the fore. They met the charge with a rush of their own. Soon the two bands were mixed in a vicious melee.

  “No!” Lorelei cried out to her men. “Not the trolls! Tyr is the enemy!” She tried to use her magic to break up the fight, but when one of her guards was seized by her spell, his faltering sword left him easy prey to the rock trolls and he was cut down.

  Tyr picked up his sword and turned
toward Lorelei. “You still have a chance to surrender,” he told her as he advanced.

  Lorelei took a step back. “I don’t know how you escaped Muspelheim, but you should have stayed there.” She reached into her gown and removed what looked like a black gemstone.

  Tyr kicked a goblet lying on the floor and sent it careening toward Lorelei. She cried out in pain as it shattered against the wall beside her and fragments slashed her hand. The gemstone clattered to the floor. “No more spells. No more tricks,” Tyr warned as he marched nearer.

  At that moment an agonized shriek rang out over the bedlam of battle. Tyr spun about to see the troll with the gashed foot staggering about the hall. The warrior was bathed from head to toe in crackling flames. He floundered through the room, pawing at himself in a futile effort to douse the fire. Combatants broke away as the stricken troll stumbled near them. Tyr wondered if the warrior’s doom would have been his own had Gnagrak hit him with his ring and a shudder pulsed through him. He looked around for the treacherous prince.

  Lorelei gasped, drawing his attention back to her. She was shivering from fright. “How did you escape from Muspelheim?” Then her gaze was drawn by Nilfli as the dwarf scurried out from under one of the chairs. The moment she saw him, her face went pale. “What have you done?” she muttered.

  Thirty

  Before Tyr could move, he saw Lorelei’s hands weave in arcane patterns. Gnagrak appeared from the other side of the table, blood streaming from his mouth. The troll’s eyes had a glassy, distorted look to them now. This was more than a mere charm to tease control over his mind. Lorelei had blotted out everything except the command she placed there. The prince smashed his flail through the table and shoved the broken halves apart as he stormed through. Tyr readied himself to meet his enemy, but Gnagrak didn’t even glance his way. The troll was focused entirely on Nilfli.

  Tyr ran after Gnagrak, but it was already too late. In a blinding motion, the prince drew back his arm and hurled the flail at Nilfli. The weapon smacked into the dwarf, bowling him over and sending him slamming against the wall. Tyr brought his sword slashing across the troll’s back, ripping through the purple cloak and the orange hide beneath. Gnagrak was tossed aside by the fury of the blow, sent crashing into one of the chairs.

  Tyr gave no further attention to the troll, but hurried toward Nilfli, even though he was certain the dwarf had been killed by the cruel blow he’d suffered. He stopped in amazement when he saw the smith stir and unwind the flail’s chain from around his neck. The blood that dripped from the dwarf’s battered head had a strange color to it.

  “What have you done?” Lorelei cried again. She turned and threw herself against a portion of the wall. It pivoted inward, exposing a hidden panel. The mechanism tried to close behind her, but it wasn’t fast enough. Managing more haste than he’d seen from the dwarf before, Tyr watched as Nilfli ran after the fleeing sorceress.

  Tyr started to follow them, but before he could move, he was seized from behind. Gnagrak’s massive arms held him in a crushing embrace. Treacherous and craven he might be, but there was a reason the rock trolls who followed him had taken the brute as their leader. Tyr could feel the mounting pressure as the prince poured all of his remaining strength into a last attack.

  “You’ve killed me, Aesir,” Gnagrak coughed, blood spattering Tyr’s armor. “But I’ll drag you with me down to Niffleheim.” He gnashed his teeth and redoubled his effort. He expected to hear Tyr’s bones cracking. He couldn’t understand why his victim wasn’t crying out in pain.

  Gnagrak’s nose broke when Tyr drove his head back into the troll’s face. The crushing grip faltered, and he pulled himself free. He glared at the dying prince and thumped the magic armor he wore. “A gift from your ally, Lady Lorelei,” he said. “A kraken couldn’t crush me while I was wearing this, much less one of King Geirrodur’s whelps.” A last flicker of hate in Gnagrak’s eyes and the prince crashed to the floor.

  The last rock trolls howled when they saw Gnagrak fall. They fought through the remaining guards and fled into the corridor, Lorelei’s soldiers chasing after them. Their departure gave Tyr the chance to help Bjorn secure the door where the other group of guards was still trying to force their way in. Sheathing Tyrsfang, he dragged part of the broken table across the room and, with Bjorn’s help, wedged it against the wall.

  “A giant couldn’t break through now,” Bjorn declared as he stepped back and admired their work.

  “It only needs to hold them for a moment,” Tyr said. He led Bjorn across the room to the panel by which Lorelei had made her escape. “This is where she went. Unless I’m much mistaken, she’s gone to fetch Twilight before she abandons her castle.” He nodded and added “Nilfli is already…” His eyes caught a flicker of motion on the floor. He looked over and saw that there were little specks of flame where the dwarf had fallen after being struck by Gnagrak.

  “Nilfli’s following her,” he said, but now the words had an edge of dread in them. Tyr thought of the burning troll, the one that had been chasing Nilfli. He thought of Lorelei’s terror when she saw the dwarf. What, indeed, had he done?

  “Hurry.” Tyr dashed to the panel and flung it open. “There might still be time!”

  Bjorn plunged in after Tyr, following him down the dark passage behind the wall. “We’ll stop Lorelei,” he assured him. “She’s already beaten.”

  Tyr shook his head. “It isn’t Lorelei we have to stop now,” he growled. “It’s the thing I brought with me from Muspelheim!”

  The winding network of passages eventually opened into a vast underground vault. Tyr was impressed by its scale and the mighty pillars that rose up from it to support the ceiling above. He judged that they must be down under the very foundations of the castle.

  Orbs of arcane light bound into crystal spheres illuminated the cavernous chamber. A crypt-like table of stone was at the center of the room, otherwise the place was devoid of appointments. Near the steps that led out from the passage, Tyr spotted Lorelei lying on the floor. He rushed to her and picked her up. Blood stained the back of her head where she’d been struck from behind. More alarming to him, however, was that the hair around the injury was singed.

  “Too late,” Lorelei shuddered, staring up at Tyr.

  “Not yet,” Tyr told her. He handed her over to Bjorn. Turning back to the vault, he started towards the stone crypt. His fingers tightened around Tyrsfang’s grip. He would still set this right.

  Nilfli emerged from behind the crypt. The dwarf’s face glowed with wicked triumph. “Just in time,” he laughed. “I only now finished undoing the wards.” He smiled and pulled at his beard. “She really should have brought in a sorcerer better versed in that sort of magic. It was almost too easy banishing these.”

  Tyr kept advancing towards the dwarf. “I brought you here. I’m not going to let you win.”

  “Poor fool,” Nilfli said. “There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

  A slap of the dwarf’s hand and the slab on top of the table went crashing to the floor. Nilfli rose and reached his hand down into the space beneath. Tyr was surprised by the action, for a moment before the smith had been too short to perform such a feat. Now he saw that the dwarf was growing, a growth that continued when he lifted Twilight from its hiding place. The sword of Surtur flared with coruscating flames as Nilfli held it high.

  The growth continued. Nilfli was now taller than Tyr. As he increased in size, so too did Twilight, keeping pace with the being that held it. Tyr had seen this once before.

  “Sindr,” Tyr whispered as the full magnitude of how he’d been deceived was borne home. As though conjured by her name, Nilfli’s body was consumed from the inside by fingers of fire. As the semblance of the dwarf burned away, the flame-wrapped shape of the giant emerged.

  The giant continued to increase in size, her fingers tight about Twilight. She was fifteen feet tall now, and becoming larger with
each moment. The flames that shone in her eyes had a mocking quality to them.

  “Tyr Wolf-tamer.” Her voice rumbled through the vault. “I owe you something for all you’ve done to help me. What shall it be?”

  An inarticulate howl of rage rose from Tyr as he charged at the giant. Sindr was twenty feet tall now, and Twilight was increasing its size to match her. Before he could come near enough to strike at her with Tyrsfang, she dealt him a glancing blow with the burning sword. He was flung back across the vault to crash against one of the pillars.

  Sindr smiled at the crack that snaked through the masonry where Tyr had struck the column. “I have it!” she said. She continued to grow, now fifty feet tall, her horns almost scraping the roof. Twilight now had a length of thirty feet and more, its flames scorching the floor. “I will give you what any warrior should be happy to have.”

  Tyr raised his head and stared at the giant. He tried to rise, but found the effort was too much. He slumped back against the pillar, his face filled with anguish. More than physical pain, it was the torment of knowing he’d brought her into Asgard and helped Sindr recover Twilight.

  “Such pain,” Sindr said as she watched Tyr. She hefted Twilight, letting its fire sear the ceiling. “In my father’s hand, this weapon will be Odinsbane.” She stared longingly at the black blade, as though to draw its infamy into herself by sheer force of will. Then her eyes shifted back to Tyr. “In the hands of Sindr, it will be Tyrsbane! My gift to you – a quick death!”