Stormbringer: Book 2 of the Wyrd

Nine

They'd watched every single Die Hard and half of RoboCop by the time Hel's arm-scort made it to the gates of Ásgarðr.

Actually, if he thought about it, Sigmund really couldn't be sure how long they'd been traveling. Time seemed to work differently here, outside of Miðgarðr, fading in and out until even the trudging of the náir and the bellows from the Helbeasts became routine.

Maybe Sigmund was just too desensitized to the extraordinary, raised by a lifetime of comic books and video games. And Hel's army—Sigmund decided to give up trying to pretend it was anything else—Hel's army really was something straight out of a game, monsters and undead and tattered banners, flapping in the breeze. The golden road glimmered beneath their feet, and when they passed, the land around them fell to blight and rot.

Sigmund saw that, too. It hadn't been obvious when they'd been below, in Hel's own realms, but as they'd ascended up the Tree the land had gotten verdant. They'd catch sight of grassy hills or forests, streaked green against the horizon, and then watch that green fade to gray and glossy black as they passed.

"The visuals aren't exactly subtle, are they?" Em had asked at one point. They'd been rolling through a blighted forest, and Em had grabbed a handful of leaves off a passing tree.

Well, they'd probably been leaves, at one point. Now they were purple-black obsidian razors, and they left little white cuts across Em's palms.

"This is wa-aa-ay cooler than the Melbourne Zombie Shuffle," Wayne had said, eyes bright and pink and sparkling.

Being in the undead horde was kind of awesome, Sigmund wouldn't deny it. Funny how no one ever seemed to show that.

Eventually, the road beneath them began to run out of gold. First just gaps in the layer of crushed treasures, then whole patches, spreading out like dark, stony cancer until the gold flecks became the accents, not the paving. And then, in the distance, Sigmund saw the Wall.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. More gold, maybe? Or lots of delicate spires. Something magic, anyway.

Instead, the Wall was . . . a wall. A long gray stone slash across the green, dotted by bigger square stone boxes at regular intervals. It was hard to get scale, given the distance, but it wasn't like the thing was miles high. Sigmund could see roads and buildings on the other side, all wood and thatched roofs.

"Amazing to think that was built by a horse, isn't it?" Em said.

"Huh?"

She pointed. "The wall. You know Loki's horse kid, Sleipnir?" Sigmund nodded and didn't correct the pronunciation. "His horse daddy built it." Sigmund had known that. Kinda. Like, he'd read about it on Wikipedia, but it wasn't like he'd ever actually asked Lain for the full story. It'd felt . . . weird.

"How does a horse build a wall?" Wayne asked, squinting at the structure in question.

Em shrugged. "The sagas are a little vague on that, I have to admit."

"Because Svaðilfari was not a 'horse,' " Sigmund heard himself say. "But the æsir are fools who cannot see plain the shapes of jötnar. So they give the names of beasts—horse, serpent, wolf—to those who do not deserve them."

If Em and Wayne were surprised to hear Sigyn speak—with Sigmund's voice, no less—they didn't show it. Instead, they both just made "aaah!" noises and nodded.

"That makes a lot of sense," Em said. She blinked, looking around them. "Actually, that makes a lot of things make a lot of sense."

"It also makes the story a bit less, um, licentious," Wayne said. Sigmund could see her trying not to grin.