Winterfire

Chapter Thirty-two

Lif

Garm held me down, his sharp claws digging into my shoulders, and growled viciously in my face. If he were a normal dog, he would not have paused to torment me before tearing out my neck, but he was not a normal dog. While he snapped his razor-sharp teeth at me, apparently enjoying my terror, Baldur wrenched Breyta from Hel’s corpse and drove the blade into Garm’s hip. Baldur reached up and struck as high as he could, but Garm was over eight feet tall, and Breyta was not Baldur’s weapon. Balder could not reach the dog’s neck. Garm turned and snapped at Baldur, and this time, he was not playing. His fangs grazed Baldur’s nose as I kicked the dog’s feet out from under him. An ordinary dog would have been, if not dead already, than at least mortally wounded and unable to fight. Not so, Garm. With Breyta lodged in his hip, he writhed in the sand and sprung back up on his ridiculously long legs before I had even begun to stand. The time for menace was over; Garm leapt at me again, this time, to kill me.

As Baldur yelled and dove at Garm, a rope sailed over his head and looped around the dog’s neck, arresting Garm’s movement. I scuttled backward, wondering what had stopped Garm, when he was jerked off his feet. I watched in disbelief as the dog swung in a high arc far out to sea. I heard a faint splash as he hit the water, but something in the shallows blocked my view.

Njord stood in the bow of his dilapidated ship shaking his head in disgust. “Why in the Nine Worlds does everyone wait so long to call me?”

Baldur lay back, panting on the sand, relieved. He knew what had happened: Njord had arrived just in time to save us. I struggled to stand, taking the opportunity of the temporary reprieve— which I still didn’t understand— to prepare myself for another attack. I saw a stranger standing in a rickety ship right beside the shore, where none had been even one moment before. “Who are you?” I asked. “What just happened?”

“Who am I?” said Njord. “What just happened?” Njord sighed heavily and shook his head. “Unbelievable. What do they teach these kids in school? I am the god of those who travel on the seas. I am the wind in their sails. I am the fish in their nets. I am the crabs in their pots. I am the welcoming shore. I raise the storms. I calm the seas, blah, blah, blah. I’m the reason you live to ask such a question. I came because someone— I’m guessing it was you, Hodur— summoned me with the Laguz. I just lassoed that flea-bitten mongrel and hurled him into the sea as he was about to devour you, head first.”

Njord leaped over the gunwale and staggered over to the carnage of Hel and Ganglati. “What happened to her?” he asked, nudging Hel’s body with his bare toe.

“I killed her,” I said.

“You? A child of Midgard? I didn’t think it was possible for a human to kill a god.”

“She is not just any child of Midgard,” said Hodur. “She is Lif.”

Njord turned around to face me. He stared at me for a moment and then turned his attention back to Hel and Ganglati. “Did you use the hammer?”

“Yes,” I said. “I used Breyta, but now it is far out to sea, lodged in the dog’s body.”

Njord looked thoughtful and nodded, as if everything made sense to him now. “My sea, my responsibility.” He looked out to sea and whistled. “Get ready,” he said to me. Without thinking, I raised my hand above my head and held it there. In less than a minute, Breyta erupted from the waves and sped toward me. I caught it just as Thor had caught Mjölnir so long ago.

“All right you three,” said Njord. “We’d better get moving.” Baldur took my arm and led me into the shallow water beside Njord’s ship, putting his hand upon Hodur’s shoulder as we passed. He hoisted me up and I clambered shakily over the gunwales. Hodur and Baldur climbed aboard and stood beside me. Njord struggled aboard clumsily and the ship immediately began to move.