The Sword of Surtur Read online

  Thirty-Eight

  Surtur’s image grew in size, swelling from the stature of a dwarf to that of a troll as more of the fire giant’s essence seeped onto Bifrost. The image began to move, aping the motions of the towering monster visible on the other side of the gate. Translocation, existing simultaneously in both worlds, yet governed by a single mind. A mind determined upon absolute destruction.

  Tyr was forced back by Twilight as the blade was engulfed in writhing flames, their heat blistering his skin. It seemed to him that the sword was responding to the nearness of its true master, growing in power as its master’s image expanded, as more of Surtur’s essence was drawn onto Bifrost. A shudder swept through him at the thought, for already he was being taxed to the utmost by Twilight’s might.

  Sindr’s face was lit by the heat of her rage. The shift between the yellow fires of her anger and the green flames of Lorelei’s poison became ever more rapid, testing Tyr’s ability to react to the changes that ravaged her. For truly the transition from strength to weakness was ravaging the giant, mauling her far worse than any of his attacks did. Sindr seemed oblivious to the toll being exacted upon her, her entire being filled with nothing but the urge to overcome her enemy.

  Around them, Heimdall and Bjorn attacked the hordes of fire demons with an almost frantic disregard. Steadily they pushed themselves against the warriors of Muspelheim, cutting them down with sword and axe. They too were assisted in a strange way by the fury of their adversaries. The demons threw themselves at the Asgardians like berserkers, fighting with the savage abandon of rabid beasts. Each one that fell was trampled by those who followed behind. Any who faltered were thrown aside by warriors more eager to join the fray. The vicious frenzy only became more desperate the larger the image of Surtur grew. One and all, the fire demons knew they were under the merciless gaze of their overlord.

  Yet, as much as it frayed and fractured, the barrier continued to resist. The chorus of ghostly whispers that accompanied Lorelei’s incantation grew faster with each utterance, words – if such they were – blending together into a babbling stream. Unversed in the ways of magic, Tyr wondered how long the sorceress could coax more power from her spell. How long she could pit her arcane art against the ancient malevolence of Surtur.

  “Asgard will burn!” Sindr howled as a blast of flame from Twilight crackled past Tyr’s ear. “My father will avenge his long imprisonment upon the gods!”

  Tyr sprang in beneath the huge blade’s shadow to stab the giant while her fires burned green. Molten ichor spurted from the wound and singed his arm. Another hurt to add to the long list of his injuries. He darted back as Sindr tried to stomp him beneath her foot. “Remember who imprisoned him in the first place! Odin All-Father remains King of Asgard!” The yellow fire that crackled around her body told him not to attempt to block the vicious thrust of her sword, but to dodge it as she drove its point into the ground. Rock sizzled under the blade’s heat. “Surtur’s impatience will be his undoing! Had he waited for the final Ragnarok, he could have let strong allies do his fighting for him instead of trotting out the dregs of Muspelheim!”

  Sindr’s body seethed with the light of her fury. She slashed at him with Twilight again and again, but her attacks were too hurried for precision. Tyr spun away from each strike and raked her arms with his sword, sending more of her fiery blood streaming from her veins.

  Then, abruptly, Sindr drew back. The flames in her eyes flickered. “You should be grateful my father didn’t wait for prophecy,” she sneered down at Tyr. “Now the Great Wolf needn’t slip its bonds to finish the meal it started long ago. Tell me, Odinson, do you think Fenris still has your taste in its mouth?”

  Tyr watched the giant with a heightened wariness. Through her rage, she’d realized the trick he’d been using against her, exploiting her anger, encouraging it to make her reckless. To make her stop thinking. Now she was trying to goad him with the same tactic. He smiled back at her. If she thought he’d take her bait, she would be disappointed.

  “You must know little of the doom that has been foretold for me,” Tyr shot back. He threw himself to one side as a sheet of fire billowed from Sindr’s hand to boil the ground he’d held a moment before. “I’m not destined to face Fenris again.” He held up his arm and let the light of Sindr’s own flames reflect off the metal cup. “The Great Wolf must have disliked my taste, or else has wits enough to avoid me after what happened before. It has been foretold that I’m to die in the jaws of Garm, that Hela’s hound will be set upon me in the final battle.”

  Sindr lashed at him with her sword, narrowly missing him as it whipped through the air. Tyr retaliated with a glancing slash that cut her from knuckle to wrist. “So you see, this is all for naught. I’m to be eaten by a dog. Do you think I’d succumb to a lesser fate?”

  The giant had been striving to maintain some measure of control, but her pride was too great to ignore Tyr’s insults. Flames surged all around Sindr, an aura of fire that blazed across Bifrost’s edge and seared wounded fire demons with its fury. She rushed at him, each step leaving a molten furrow behind when she stepped from the Rainbow Bridge onto the edge of Asgard. The sight of her awesome rage was such to make Tyr appreciate the formidable foe with whom he was playing his dangerous game.

  In her surge forward, Sindr expended the momentum of the anger that revitalized her poisoned frame. The green fire washed out the yellow flames, and her attack faltered as weakness assailed her body. Tyr charged in, slashing once again at the leg he’d been concentrating on. If he could render the giant immobile, he might yet prevail over her before it was too late.

  If it wasn’t too late already. Farther down Bifrost, Tyr could see Surtur’s image had grown to a height of twenty feet. Now the giant was starting to advance down the bridge, the aspect’s motions copied by the far greater colossus still in Muspelheim. Lorelei’s spectral barrier was burning away in the fire giant’s heat. While he looked on, the fiend’s horned head broke through the ghostly curtain. Surtur towered over the span now, twice the size of his daughter and surrounded by billowing flames. He imagined that the fiery light cast by the monster could be seen from the city of Asgard’s mighty walls.

  The thought gave Tyr an idea, a ploy by which he should whip Sindr into such a fury that she’d exhaust her formidable stamina and collapse under the blight of Lorelei’s poison. “A foolish notion, to throw away the Gjallarhorn,” he mocked the giant, dodging the angry slash of her sword. “Did you think we have no other way to alert our people that Asgard is under attack? Already the alarm has been given in the city and Odin is marching with his forces to clear away your army and thwart this feeble invasion.”

  Sindr’s eyes flared. “You lie, Odinson! Your people will be trapped like rats in their city and there will be no escape for them when Surtur puts it to the torch!”

  Tyr struck again at her weakened leg, but only managed a shallow slice below the knee before he had to avoid her whipping tail. He had to stoke the fires of her temper still further, make her abandon all restraint. The thoughts running through his mind were manipulative and unsavory. He wondered if he’d spent too much time in Loki’s company and something of the trickster had infected him that he should conceive such a tactic. Yet not for one moment did he doubt the necessity of the lies he shot at Sindr.

  “You still believe you can win?” Tyr mocked her. “The moment you revealed yourself, Odin knew your plan.” He swung at her arm when she made a grab for him, gashing one of her fingers. Twilight gouged the side of the Himinbjörg as he threw himself from its deadly path. “You’ve been allowed to get this far only because the All-Father intends to trap Surtur in a prison still more inescapable than Muspelheim. Perhaps he thinks to make a gift of the fire giant to Ymir.”

  The flames that blazed around Sindr were nearly blinding in their intensity. She took a few steps toward him, then slumped as the green fire drained her strength. “I will still your lying t
ongue,” she panted through the pain ravaging her.

  Tyr darted in and managed a stab at her foot before she rallied and forced him back. “Be quick about it, First of the Flames. Every moment you dawdle brings Odin’s army closer.” He saw the determination in the giant’s face when he spoke of imminent failure. Like the fire demons, Sindr would not relent while the eyes of her father were upon her.

  No, Tyr corrected himself, it was more than that. More than the fearful obedience of a slave or the honor-bound duty of a warrior. Sindr was striving for something else, something he’d recognized in her before. He felt disgusted to use it against her, but it was the only way to overcome her.

  “Surtur’s plan almost worked,” Tyr called to Sindr as he avoided the blast of fire she unleashed from Twilight. “Now he’s caught in the trap he thought to set for others.” He drove the crux of his provocation home like the tip of a spear. “All because he entrusted his daughter with a task she was unequal to.”

  A roar of unmatched fury echoed across the battlefield. A conflagration of white-fire exploded from Sindr’s skin, searing earth and stone, even discoloring the prismatic bands of Bifrost. She swung at Tyr, sinking Twilight so deep into the ground that he thought it would hew through to the underside of the realm.

  Smoke rose from Tyr’s garments, and he slapped the fires that smoldered in his braided hair with his arm. His skin felt as though he’d been plunged into boiling water, even the slightest motion filling him with pain.

  The ploy had worked, though. After unleashing her full fury, Sindr was spent. The noxious green fires crackled about her, and she sagged to her knees. Her eyes were the merest flicker, hollow and empty. Tyr knew that gaze. He’d seen it many times in Midgard after battering down the gates of a city following a long siege. It was the stare of abject exhaustion.

  The frenzied assault by the fire demons intensified, pushing Heimdall and Bjorn back. The two had wrought a terrible toll upon the creatures, but there were still dozens of Muspelheim’s warriors trying to strike them down. Beyond, Surtur’s gigantic image continued to expand, copying the horned tyrant visible through the hazy portal to his fiery realm. Surtur’s merciless gaze was locked upon the city’s walls, his mouth curled with murderous anticipation. Lorelei’s ghostly barrier was in tatters, but still she strove to maintain the spell and delay the fire giant’s advance. Tyr didn’t want to consider what would happen when the strain was too much for her magic.

  Tyr started toward the drained Sindr. “It’s over,” he told her, brandishing Tyrsfang. She made an effort to lift her horned head, but even that much appeared to be beyond her. Tyr approached more boldly, ready to subdue the giant and capture Twilight. Then Surtur would have no choice but to withdraw.

  His confidence was nearly his undoing. The flaming sword erupted up from where it was buried in the ground. Tyr was swatted aside by a glancing blow, almost pitching over the edge of Bifrost. He raised himself from where he fell, looking aghast as he saw Sindr lurch forward again. Green fire still swathed her, and her eyes were no more vibrant than they’d been before. Twilight, however, rippled with deadly purpose.

  Tyr realized that Sindr no longer controlled the sword, but had instead become its puppet. Twilight was using her, forcing her into motion, dredging up not strength but the giant’s vitality itself. He could actually see the life being sucked out of her with each step she took. How long she could last, he didn’t know, but he feared long enough to achieve the sword’s purpose. Directly in the giant’s path sat Lorelei, surrounded by the macabre materials of her necromancy. The sorceress was aware of the doom that stalked toward her, but she was unwilling to break off her conjuring and remove the last barrier to Surtur.

  Hand clenched around the grip of his sword, Tyr charged at Sindr. “Odin!” he invoked his father’s name in a mighty war cry. Dominated by Twilight, the giant paid no notice to him. Her huge arm raised the dark sword. Energy crackled down its length and a gout of fire swept over Lorelei and her morbid tools. The dead tongues flashed and were reduced to ashes instantly. The sorceress was thrown back to crumple against the Himinbjörg’s doorway.

  “Lorelei!” Tyr was stunned by the emotion he still felt for the sorceress despite all her plotting and intrigues. Ultimately, she’d been an Asgardian and when the realm was threatened she’d stepped forward to do her utmost to defend it. That was something to be lauded. And avenged.

  Tyr came at Sindr from behind and struck at her already weakened leg. The giant slumped as he sliced his blade across the back of her knee. A swat from her tail knocked him flat, but with far less impact than he’d expected. He rolled away as the tail tried to smash him again and sprang to his feet.

  Twilight continued to blaze with savage energies. Despite the damage done to her, its influence compelled Sindr to stand again. She teetered unsteadily, a prisoner to her own flesh.

  Tyr lunged at the giant, hoping that there was some limit to how much Twilight could command Sindr. If the sword had to focus its energies to make her stand, it might be lax in other respects while doing so. His leap bore him towards her arm and with another war cry he slashed his blade across her fingers.

  Sindr howled in pain as Tyr’s blow knocked Twilight from her grip. The monstrous sword slammed to the ground, its impact reverberating through the rocks. Devoid of a wielder, it retained its imposing size. The giant, however, didn’t. She rapidly diminished, shrinking before Tyr’s gaze from dozens of feet tall, to a form only slightly bigger than himself. The green fire lessened and some animation returned to her fiery eyes. She glared at him and turned her horned head. When she saw Twilight, she started to crawl towards it.

  “That sword has worked enough evil,” Tyr told her. He stood above the fallen giant and once again the point of his sword was at her throat. “Leave it where it lies.”

  “Twilight has done its work,” Sindr gloated. She pointed her gashed hand across the Rainbow Bridge.

  With the disruption of Lorelei’s spell, the last restraint upon Surtur’s aspect was gone. Tyr saw the fire giant stride boldly down the bridge, the titan on the other side of the portal still matching the motions, but now beginning to grow smaller as more of the fiend’s essence spilled onto Bifrost. Surtur was a colossal figure wreathed in flickering flames, his skin glowing from the inferno that blazed inside him. With each step he took, Surtur’s stature grew. Fifty feet, then sixty, then seventy. Tyr wondered if the tyrant of Muspelheim would even need to break the city walls or if he would merely step over them.

  Thirty-Nine

  It was Heimdall now who gave way to rage. Charged with guarding Bifrost and protecting Asgard, now the Vanir saw the realm’s deadliest enemy on the verge of triumph and the ultimate failure of his duty. A wave of celestial force emanated from Hofund, sending the last fire demons tumbling away in every direction. He stepped past his vanquished foes and pointed the massive sword at Surtur’s avatar. “The way is closed to you,” the sentry declared.

  Surtur’s aspect crackled with laughter. His humor faltered when Heimdall unleashed a beam of cosmic force at him, the energy of the heavens blasting into the fire giant. The hazy breach behind him collapsed in upon itself, unable to withstand both Hofund’s power. The vision of the colossal fiend that yet remained in Muspelheim vanished. But even the fury of Hofund couldn’t consume that which had already manifested upon Bifrost, the image of a titan who had emerged from the Eternal Flame at the dawn of time. Surtur raised his hand, appearing to catch Hofund’s beam in his palm. With the other hand, he unleashed his own fire, a searing storm that Heimdall struggled to resist. Tyr dared hope for a moment that the sentry would withstand the firestorm, but at last the might of Surtur overwhelmed him and the Vanir was hurled back. Bjorn rushed over to help the fallen guardian. The fire giant grinned and marched forward, eager to claim his first victims.

  Tyr’s mind raced. He looked down at Sindr and back at that portion of her monstrous father which had
emerged onto Bifrost. There was, perhaps, a way to make Surtur desist without the need of vanquishing him.

  “Surtur!” Tyr shouted at the fire giant, raising his arm so the metal cup might draw the monster’s notice and leave him in no doubt with whom he treated. “My blade is poised at your daughter’s throat! Your scheme has failed! Already the All-Father’s armies are moving to secure Asgard against you!” This time he was certain it was no idle boast. Gjallarhorn or no, someone had to have seen Surtur’s fire from the city walls. “Return to Muspelheim and I guarantee I will spare Sindr!”

  A demonic leer spread across Surtur’s visage as he looked across the Rainbow Bridge to where Tyr stood over his daughter. Though the avatar had ceased to grow, enough of the giant had been drawn into it to bristle with infernal might. “All will burn,” the fire giant snarled. “You, your army, and the All-fool who leads them. Nothing will escape.” His eyes narrowed, focusing not on Sindr, but on where Twilight lay on the ground. He stretched out his hand and the enormous sword rose, lifted into the air by Surtur’s command. Crackling with flames, it sped across Bifrost and returned to its master. Surtur’s fingers tightened around the sword as it grew to match his tremendous size.

  Tyr glared back at the colossal fire giant. “I mean what I say!” He knew even as he made the threat that his words were hollow. However villainous she might be, he couldn’t slaughter Sindr while she was helpless beneath his blade.

  Surtur shifted his gaze and this time he did train his focus upon Sindr. Tyr was stunned when he learned just how evil the fire giant was. “She’ll burn too,” Surtur declared. Whether he knew Tyr’s threat was empty, he didn’t care.

  “Father!” Sindr cried out, and for the first time Tyr saw an expression he never expected to see on her face: despair.