Baldur and I had watched Thorin for a while, and he hadn’t moved, hadn’t uttered a sound. He made no indication he knew we were there, which was the point. It meant Baldur’s rune was working as planned. As long as Baldur touched me, I could see him. The moment he let go, he faded into mist. Therefore, I planned to keep at least one hand on his shoulder at all times.
I brushed my fingers over the burn on my chest, the place marked by Baldur’s magic. What he had done and how he’d done it remained a mystery, but he’d said the rune-maker’s willpower and intent were crucial ingredients. Baldur’s magic occupied a hollow place inside me, and where my fire felt like an eternal, smoldering ember, the invisibility rune felt like nothing. The sensation wasn’t cold or numbness, just… a notable absence of feeling.
“What do you think he’s doing?” I whispered.
Baldur and I had discussed the possibility of creating a rune that would keep others from hearing us, but we realized we might need to communicate our presence to Thorin in a hurry, possibly to shout a sudden warning. In the end, we agreed a rune of silence might be more trouble than it was worth. Whispering was easy and a lot more flexible.
“Meditating,” Baldur said.
“What—” I started, but a shimmer of light and shadows played across the field, several yards beyond Thorin. Its strangeness startled me and sent all questions out of my head.
The shimmer coalesced into the form of a man. From that distance, the early-morning gloom hid the details of his face, but the dark hair and striking stature gave him away. Seeing Rolf Lockhart again brought back memories of our fight in San Diego. An image of Tre’s crumpled body flashed across my mind’s eye, and my imagination replaced Tre with Thorin. I shook my head, blinked, and pushed aside the image. Tre was no immortal, no God of Thunder, and as if to prove my point, a lightning bolt seared across a sky filling with gunmetal rainclouds. Thunder rumbled an ominous warning, and the already dim light faded, plunging us into darkness.
Rolf brought out the sword, and the light from its flames repelled the shadows falling over the two men, standing face-to-face in the middle of the field. If they said anything to each other, their words didn’t carry over the thunder and whipping winds. I stepped forward, but Baldur caught my arm and pulled me back.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To get a better look.”
“It’s bad enough I brought you here, but I’m not going to let you get any closer. Not so you or I can get struck down by some inadvertent lightning bolt. If Thorin needs our help, we’ll reassess. Until then, let’s stay out of his way.”
I shot Baldur a dirty look but did what he said. Whether I liked it or not, he had a point. Thunder and lightning were weapons requiring a wide battlefield.
“Why do you think Rolf brought Thorin to this place that gives him such an advantage with his powers?” I asked. “Tell him he can’t bring Mjölnir, but let him have an open area where he can easily access his thunder and lightning. If I was going to fight Thorin, I’d meet him in an underground bunker. No windows, no place for the lightning to get in.”
As if to support my argument, a spear of electricity stabbed down from the atmosphere, crackling and popping and raising the hairs on my arms and neck.
“There are many things about this situation that make no sense,” Baldur said. “We can only wait and see.”
Maybe the two adversaries had said nothing up to that point because when Thorin finally spoke, his words rose above the storm’s uproar. “That was a warning,” he said. “The next one won’t be. Hand over the sword, Rolf… or whoever you are.”
Rolf smiled, baring his teeth in a distinctly wolfish way. Skoll and Hati were accounted for, and nothing in history or in all our encounters indicated either had a score to settle with Thorin, but countless other wolves peppered the ancient legends. Perhaps the forces that reincarnated some of the Norse pantheon had decided to reincarnate them all.
Rolf rolled his wrist, and Surtalogi spun in a pinwheel of flames, throwing sparks and fire like an erupting volcano. Thorin stepped back and made a gesture, and lightning exploded overhead in a complex web of veins, as if the sky had turned into a massive, pulsing heart, pumping electricity through the atmosphere.
You should run now, Rolf. Run now, if you can.
“There is no justice in letting you die in ignorance,” Rolf said, raising his voice above the storm. “But it won’t come easily for you. If you want to know who I am, you’ll have to fight for it.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
Another motion from Thorin’s hand brought the lightning down, a missile aimed at his enemy. Rolf swung, flames spewed, lightning struck, and an explosion of energy and sound rocked the space around us. It rattled my bones and battered the air from my lungs. I staggered and gasped. Baldur grabbed me and held me up.
Rolf attacked, drawing the sword up from his hip in an undercut. Surtalogi’s fire reached for Thorin, but a gust of wind and a pillar of rain deflected the flames. Surtalogi guttered, its light flickering, but Rolf flashed away from Thorin and whipped the sword into a blazing frenzy again. Another swipe of flames, another streak of lightning, and the two supernatural beings fell into an incomprehensible battle that mimicked the style of Thorin and Baldur’s earlier practice fight.
“I can’t keep up,” I said to Baldur. Wind tugged at my hood, and wayward rain gusts rattled against me like BB-gun pellets. “Who’s winning?”
Baldur’s gaze followed Thorin’s and Rolf’s movements, his eyes flickering as if experiencing a waking REM cycle. “Magni has the advantage in attack, but Rolf is quick in his defense. But he’s tiring. If Magni maintains his strength, Rolf’s defeat will be swift.”
“Could you maybe pop in there and grab the sword?” I asked.
Baldur huffed. “One doesn’t simply ‘grab’ a sword made of fire, Solina. Rolf isn’t going to let go of it easily either. Trust Thorin. Let him do his job.”
Another concussion of light and sound underscored Baldur’s conclusion. Thorin and Rolf stopped several yards before us, both heaving for breath, both wearing matching expressions of viciousness and obstinacy. Thorin stood, shoulders thrown back, fists raised. With his head tilted back, he peered down at Rolf, who stooped on one knee before him, empty-handed. The sword lay several feet away, cold, inert, and as ordinary as an artifact in a history museum.
“Will you tell me now?” Thorin asked. “Have I not earned the right to know your name? Your real name?”
A cold smile formed on Rolf’s lips. “Maybe I’ll tell you when I see the light fading from your dying eyes, Magni, Son of Thor.”
Thorin bared his teeth and growled. “That’s not going to happen.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
Rolf threw back his head and roared something in their ancient Aesir language. The ground shook, and the earth roiled, heaving and splitting open in a scene from a horror movie. Instead of spitting out half-rotted, undead corpses, the ground spewed forth an army of darkness, a battalion of horrors I had hoped to never see again. Helen Locke’s stone men rose to their feet, faster and more fluid than anything formed from mud and rock should have managed. They circled around us, twenty or thirty golems, all wearing their stolid, emotionless expressions and waiting for Rolf’s command.
Guess that explains the need for the open field.
Baldur huffed a harsh breath beside me. He hadn’t let go of me throughout the battle, and his hands tightened around my arm, either stopping me from moving forward to join Thorin’s side or stopping himself.
“You said you wanted a fair fight,” Thorin said.
Rolf snorted. “As if a fight against the Allfather’s warlord could be fair in any situation. Even without your hammer, we both know you are the superior warrior. I am only trying to level the battlefield.”
“I told you he was going to be tricky,” I hissed in Baldur’s ear. I yanked my arm, urging him to let me loose. “We can’t stand here and watch. Thorin’s going to need help.”
Baldur glared at me, and blue flames burned in his eyes. I’d seen that same look in Val’s eyes before, and the resemblance between the two half-brothers was uncanny.
“Not yet,” he whispered. “Too soon.”
I gritted my teeth. He’s right. We’ve still got the element of surprise on our side. Use it when it’s going to make the biggest impact.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve battled Hela’s legions,” Thorin said.
Rolf laughed. “You haven’t encountered her new and improved version, though. Twice the speed, twice the strength. Twice the fun.”
He shouted another word, and the golems moved in. Thorin reached overhead, and the skies responded, a netting of electricity crackling across the heavens before falling apart into individual lances of light, heat, and energy. The hair on my arms and neck rose. A hum filled my ears, drowning out everything else. As the barrage of lightning bolts screamed toward the stone army, Baldur threw an arm around me. My ears popped, and a swirling blackness filled my vision.
My senses returned moments later, revealing that Baldur and I were standing in a grove of trees. No thunder, no lightning, no golems. No Thorin and Rolf, either. I whirled on Baldur and shoved a hand against his chest. “What the hell did you do?”
Baldur leaned forward, and his eyebrows drew together. He turned on his godly mojo and shook his finger at me. “You wouldn’t have survived that attack, Solina. It might have knocked me out of commission for a while, too. Thorin held nothing back—he had no reason to. That’s why he didn’t want you there in the first place. He can’t fight at full capacity if he has to worry that the by-blow could kill you.”
“So you just left him?”
“No. I’m going back. You’re staying here. Give me the hammer and the cuffs.”
I glared at Baldur and opened my mouth to refuse, but he didn’t give me the chance. He locked his arms around me. I struggled while he raided my pockets and pilfered Thorin’s bracelets. If I really had wanted to stop him, I could have burned him, but deep down, Baldur and I both wanted the same thing: to give Thorin his weapons. A small voice urged me to let Baldur have his way. He stood a better chance of returning Mjölnir to Thorin than I did. Baldur grabbed the chain around my neck, and Mjölnir’s lanyard broke free. I let out a scream of protest, but it did little good. Baldur was gone, and so was Thor’s hammer.
