Stormbringer: Book 2 of the Wyrd

Eighteen

There were a lot of þursar in the forest. A lot. Like, a whole army's worth, Sigmund following along behind Skinnhúfa, stumbling over roots and running into branches the whole way.

When they got to the camp, Skinnhúfa barked at Sigmund to stay put, left six huge jötnar to guard him, then vanished off into the crowd. Valdís followed, Eisa and Sleipnir stayed behind.

It occurred to Sigmund, as he sat himself down beneath the watchful gaze of his excessive detachment of guards, that he was a prisoner. Again. He'd never been a prisoner before all of this. The closest he'd ever gotten was detention once at school for calling out his year-seven comp sci teacher, Mr. Hennessey. That'd been a long time ago, and sort of how he'd become friends with Em. They'd gotten back an assignment, Em's had been marked wrong in a way Sigmund's hadn't, for more or less the same answer. Em had tried to argue her case before the class. Mr. Hennessey had told her she was wrong, and Sigmund had known the guy'd been lying about it. So he'd said so, and wound up in detention.

The net result of that had been Em's mum had made Mr. Hennessey apologize to Em for being an asshole, care of a quick word to the principal about equality in STEM fields. Sigmund's dad, meanwhile, had sighed and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, then had launched into a lecture about appropriate times and places to speak truth to power.

Sigmund had been a lot more careful about calling out liars after that. Em, meanwhile, had dropped out of comp sci until uni, and she'd never forgotten what Sigmund had done. Nearly a decade later, and Em was organizing rock concerts for an undead horde and Sigmund was being eyed off like dinner by a bunch of scowling jötnar.

Life. Go figure.

"There, um. There's a lot of people here," he said at one point.

Eisa looked up, eyes as sharp as her arrows. "War is coming," she said. "Hel sends her armies to Ásgarðr's door. When the time comes, we will be ready."

"I, uh. I don't think she really wants war."

Eisa narrowed her eyes, looking at Sigmund as if she could strip him raw with gaze alone. "Nor do we," she lied, grinning her father's grin.

* * *

It wasn't that Sigmund was unused to being stared at with open hostility. After all, he'd been followed around in department stores by sneering middle-aged white women since he'd been a child. But those women had mostly just been worried he was going to steal things. They'd never looked at him with the violent hunger he found himself regarded with now.

It wasn't that eating him would make the þursar cannibals or anything, what with them being a different species. And Lain did say jötunn meant eater, and that name had to have come from somewhere.

Sigmund closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.

He was still trying not to think about it, in fact, when he heard heavy footsteps approach, coming to a standstill just in front of him.

"Get up, boy. The Hersir has seen reason."

When Sigmund opened his eyes, he saw Valdís looming overhead.

"Um," he tried. "That's nice?" He scrambled to his feet, trying not to groan as the aches of the last few days made themselves known.

Valdís huffed. "Hm," she said. "Perhaps. There is great hunger for blood among the þursar, a desire to finish what was left undone at Ragnarøkkr."

"You mean war." Sigmund tried not to think about every way he ached. "Against the æsir."

"The mortals have forgotten their gods," Valdís replied. "There is no reason Ásgarðr should retain its primacy upon the Tree."