Stormbringer: Book 2 of the Wyrd

Twenty-Three

There were whispers in the corridors now. Æsir and ásynjur who would not meet his eyes. Mother's doing, Forseti knew. Weaving rebellion and discontent amid Ásgarðr's bright and shining halls.

"You must call the þing." Víðarr had said, seated beside Forseti at morning meal. "This cannot go on."

But it could. How else could anything go? How could Forseti, god of law and justice, be seen to be brought low by the gossip and conspiracies of women? Of Hel and her foul beasts, who danced and wailed every night beyond the Wall, brewing madness and discontent.

The halls of Gimlé had been empty last night, the endless feast of the einherjar abandoned. Today, when Forseti walked the Wall, many of the warriors turned from him, stiff-backed and defiant, gazes fixed out across the Line. Behind the shields and banners, the runes and signs, Forseti heard laughter. Singing. The beat of drums and the strumming of the strange modern lyres the new dead brought with them to the grave.

In contrast, Ásgarðr was cold and empty. Anger and sadness dripping from its gold-lined eaves.

Weakness, all of it. Men ruled by the whims of their fluttering hearts and aching loins, not by the cold rigor of word and law. But Forseti was the keeper of the latter, not the former, and his place was sure.

Ásgarðr must hold against her enemies. To do aught else would be desertion. A desecration of all fought and won on the bloodied fields of Rangarøkkr. A renewal of the old traditions, the rebirth of Ásgarðr's ascendancy among the Realms. Among the mortals of Miðgarðr. More sending their prayers and their souls now than Forseti could recall for a thousand years.

The traditions were true. The mortals knew it, though they may have forgotten for a time. And who would Forseti be if he did not endure in the face of such belief?

Let the einherjar and ásynjur brew their shame and weakness. Ásgarðr would survive. Forseti would ensure it.

And so he walked the Wall. Not just the front, but the back. Gazing out over the vast, dark expanse of Myrkviðr.

Ásgarðr, surrounded by her foes. Forseti felt it now more keenly than ever.

Above, in the sky, a dark shape drifted closer, wheeling to and fro with the weaving of the winds. Munin, Grandfather's wicked, lying beast. Forseti didn't trust it, not after watching the way it sat on the shoulder of the thing that wore Father's skin.

"Oi. Kid. Don't shoot."

Forseti scowled. Munin spoke the mortals' tongue. Forseti trusted nothing that did.

A flutter of black feathers, and Munin was sitting on the Wall.

"Begone," Forseti told it. "Ásgarðr has no place for you."

"Yeah yeah." Munin hopped, beak open in its rictus avian grin. "But you might wanna hear this, first."

"There is nothing you can tell me I would want to know." Forseti turned, took one step, then another.

"Þrymheimr is massing warriors in the forest."

Forseti stopped. Þrymheimr, stronghold of the þurs. A brooding, malevolent presence sat far too close to Ásgarðr's wall. As a boy, Forseti had thought it only suffered so it could breed monsters to sate Thor's thirst for hunting. Prideful folly. When Mjölnir was returned, Forseti would see Þrymheimr the first to fall beneath its thunder.

"You lie."

"Send your own scouts if you don't believe me. I'm sure that'll turn out just as well as the last lot did."

First Magni and Móði, then the thief Loki's wife. Then Ullr and his men. There had, Forseti thought, been far too many people entering the forest as of late. And only the latter had returned. Minus their quarry and, in the case of the einherjar, their lives.

And, suddenly, on the top of the Wall, overlooking the Myrkviðr, Forseti saw it. Hel's plan, to keep Ásgarðr weak and soft, looking over its front, sapping the will from its men, fomenting dissent inside its walls.

Meanwhile, the þursar prepared to attack them from behind.

Forseti felt Gungnir's rune-scarred wood, cold beneath his hands. He turned to Munin. "Where are Magni and Móði?"

The bird hop-skipped backward. "Oi oi oi. Say please."

"Tell me! Now!" Forseti slammed Gungnir down on the stone of the Wall. "You were Grandfather's spy. I am his heir, his oaths bind you to me. You will obey me."

"I hate to break it to you, kid, but your father—"

"Has been dead for a thousand years! You have no right to use his name." Forseti spat the words, thick and heavy on his tongue. "Any promises his usurper made to you in his stead hold no weight. I, Forseti Baldrsson, command you now. And I command you to find Magni and Móði. Now more than ever must Mjölnir return to Ásgarðr's halls. Convey this haste, then return to me with news of their arrival. Succeed for me in this, bird, and your betrayal of our blood will be forgiven. Now go!"

Munin blinked, tilting its head. Something around its neck caught the light, five glinting stones; green, red, black, blue, white. Finally, it said, "Yeah. Sure. Let's do that." Then, in a rush of feathers, it was gone.

Forseti did not watch it go. Instead, he strode to the front of the Wall, past the sullen einherjar, to where Rígr was taking watch.

Rígr nodded at Forseti's approach. "Little change," he said, gesturing out across the wall. "Mad revelry, nothing more."

"It is a distraction!" Forseti snarled. "Hel plays us for fools, dividing us with discord and sentiment even as the þursar mass within the Myrkviðr."

Rígr inhaled sharply. He was watchman of the Wall, carrier of Heimdallr's legacy, commanded with warning Ásgarðr of the approach of its foes. And this, he had not seen.

"Are you . . . certain of this?"

"No," Forseti said. Better to put Rígr at ease over his failure, to offer a chance for redemption. "The source was . . . unreliable."

"I will confirm it at once. Though . . ." He hesitated. "The forest is thick. Enough that even my sight has difficulty."

"Do as you can." Forseti put his free hand on Rígr's shoulder. "Ásgarðr's foes close about her. We must be ready."

Rígr glanced out over the mass of writhing náir. "They outnumber us. A hundred to one, perhaps."

Forseti scoffed. "Villains and old women. Cowards who died abed and in the hangman's noose. A single of our einheri could take on a thousand."

"They may have to. And more besides." Rígr's expression fell, scowling and uncertain, teeth biting back his words.

"Speak," Forseti said. "Now is not the time for lies and whispers."

Rígr sighed. "The men . . . they will not fight the dead. Their wives and children."

Hel's wicked plot. To keep soft the hearts of einherjar.

"They will," Forseti said, and he knew it to be true. War was coming. "When they see it is not their families they battle. Merely monsters that wear such skins. That desecrate memories, spreading corruption and dishonor." The einherjar would learn, and soon. The proud honor of men prevailing as it ever did.

"Very well." Rígr turned, stepping away from his vigil at the Wall.

Forseti remained, gazing out across the horde. So many, but not a brave soul among them. They had numbers, but Ásgarðr had courage, and it had the Wall, and it would not falter.

Forseti's grip tightened on Gungnir's weathered haft.

Ásgarðr would prevail. Forseti would ensure it.