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.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m just going to stand here and wring my hands and wait for you to come back and get me!”
But Baldur couldn’t hear me anymore. The problem was, Baldur was crazy, at least a little bit. Maybe he really did think I would stand there. I moved out from the trees into a nearby clearing and spun around, searching the sky.
In the distance, a copse of black clouds disrupted the blue morning sky. Lightning crackled through their billowing darkness like glowing filaments in the world’s biggest plasma globe. The display was beautiful and amazing, and Thorin was its maker and master. How could my trivial fire compare against something like that? What a monumental ego I have, thinking he needed my help. But the same moment that thought concluded, the lightning dispersed, crackling away like an ellipsis at the end of an unfinished sentence. The clouds faded, shedding their weight and magnitude until they resembled a flock of fluffy, harmless lambs. Maybe the fight had ended. Or maybe something had happened to Thorin.
Screw standing here and waiting. I couldn’t judge distances. How far would I have to go to get back? A mile? Two? It didn’t matter. I made up my mind to go, and I went, putting my heart and lung health to the ultimate cardiovascular test. I wasn’t a runner, but adrenaline can do amazing things for the human body. It gives mothers the strength to raise cars off their trapped children. It gives soldiers the ability to hold out until backup arrives. It made my feet fly, gave them wings.
Mercury, eat your heart out.
Chapter Thirty-four
Perhaps Baldur hadn’t stranded me as far away as it first seemed. Or maybe I really had flown—a little of my shooting-star power had blossomed, giving me the extra lift and speed I needed. The trip passed without awareness, like making it home from work without remembering anything about the drive and asking: How did I get here?
When I reached the battlefield, Thorin was still in the middle of the fight, swinging Mjölnir in a blur. Rubble piles littered the field around him—lifeless remains of golem bodies making their own burial cairns wherever they fell. A handful of stone men remained, keeping Thorin occupied as Rolf danced in and out with the sword, apparently recovered from its inert state.
Warlord indeed. I had lost track of time, and it seemed as though Thorin had fought for hours while maintaining an aggressive and relentless pace. How much longer would he last? Thorin’s sweater showed singe marks, signs of Surtalogi’s close encounters. A nasty wound over Thorin’s chest peeked through a rip in the dark wool. Another slash had rent a hole in his side, over his ribs, but he fought as though the injuries didn’t bother him. While I hated being the helpless heroine who stood on the sidelines while the hero did all the grunt work, I also understood the danger of being Thorin’s stumbling block. I edged in closer, looking for an opportunity to help without getting in his way.
Baldur and I had lost physical contact, and I couldn’t see him anymore because of our invisibility runes. He could have been standing a foot away, and I wouldn’t have known. I grumbled curses at him while keeping my attention focused on Thorin. That probably explained why I didn’t see Rolf’s next trick until it was almost too late.
Only five or six golems remained, and one parted from the group, heading for Thorin. Thorin turned his back to me as he prepared to swing his hammer. A few yards separated us, but the space provided sufficient room for another golem to rise from his underground grave.
They’re like cockroaches. They just keep coming.
Thorin demolished the stone creature in front of him, but that distraction held him long enough for the new creature to grab his ankle and throw him off balance. The air behind Thorin shimmered. Rolf appeared at Thorin’s side, sword already swinging through the course of its strike. Surtalogi’s fire spewed a rain of plasma sufficient to drown Thorin—instant incineration. Thorin never saw Rolf’s attack, but I did, and I called on my flames in response. With no time to think, question, or doubt, I threw myself into the fray and raised my flames to maximum burn, shielding both Thorin and myself.
Rolf had seen the sword take my powers when I fought against Grim and probably knew if he kept Surtalogi focused on me long enough, the sword would drain me dry and render me useless.
The sword can have my fire. Just let me last long enough for Thorin to rally his counter attack. “I can’t hold him off forever,” I said. “Whatever you’re going to do, you better do it fast.”
Thorin’s dark eyes reflected my flames, and he looked like a demon freshly released from Hell. “Sunshine? I told you not to come.”
“You knew I wouldn’t listen. Be grateful. I just saved your ass. Again.”
Thorin roared something indeterminate, but he didn’t stay to argue. He blipped out of sight, and a moment later, Surtalogi’s flames disappeared. Rolf was splayed on the ground. Thorin kneeled over him, his hand wrapped round Rolf’s throat, squeezing off his air supply. Thorin held Mjölnir poised overhead, only feet away from ensuring Rolf’s death.
The remaining golems fell, one by one, as if crushed by an invisible hand—an invisible hand that no doubt belonged to Baldur.
As I retracted my flames, Rolf’s gaze settled on me, and he wheezed a silent laugh. “Knew you’d show up,” he croaked.
