Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Four

Einer’s white bear stood over his body. It looked down at him and tilted its head.

The Alfather was heaving for breath for the first time since Hilda had joined him. His anger made the earth shake around them. Einer’s chainmail clattered against the golden shield he had fallen on. He didn’t get up.

The white bear looked up from Einer to Hilda. Its eyes were green like Einer’s own. It felt like he was watching her, recognising her. Even if it was in death. He was dead. The earth was still trembling, and Einer’s body shuddered along with the rest of the battlefield. He did not rise. He did not move at all. The tremors of the Alfather’s wrath made Einer’s head fall to the side of the golden shield. Hilda stared down at his face.

His eyes were open, but he wasn’t looking. Not at her. Not at anything.

His white bear gave a sorrowful roar. It didn’t leave, though it was supposed to. Corpses needed no fylgjur. But Hilda supposed that it had nowhere to go. Everywhere she looked there was death and sorrow. Einer was dead before he had truly seen her. Before she had spoken to him, or he to her. He was gone. Before she could tell him that she had missed him. She had. More so now that she looked at him; really saw his blooded face, and the little lock of straw-coloured hair that escaped from his tight helmet. She had missed him, and standing over his dead body, she still did.

Einer’s death shocked not just her, but the entire crowd. The Alfather was shaking in anger. Beasts and warriors and giants stood back, afraid. Not only of the Alfather’s anger, but of something else.

A wolf growled. Startled, Hilda turned around. Her heart raced with worry that Fenrir had arrived at last. Her thigh wound hurt all the more at the thought.

The growl came, not from Fenrir, or another beast, but from the Alfather himself.

‘Traitor,’ he growled with such fury that Hilda couldn’t look away. His braided, bloodied beard was trembling. Blood splattered off the Alfather’s shaking face and off his jewelled chainmail. He looked drowned in blood, and he had been. Monsters were keeping their distance on all sides. The Alfather’s left hand rose, to show off his jewelled chainmail. He rubbed the blood off his neck. Tapped his blood-red hand all around the edge of his chainmail, at the neck. Almost as if searching for something.

The battlefield had grown quiet. The clash of weapons and shields grew distant, far away from the widening circle around the Alfather.

Around them, giants and wolves and warriors gasped for breath. It sounded, and looked, like they were all taking in the same breath. Their chests rose and fell in the same heartbeat. The sound came in a steady wave. No one attacked.

Weapons were still held high, but they were not used. Shields still protected the faces and hearts of warriors, but their eyes peeked over the edges.

The mountain of corpses they stood on trembled below them all. Maybe Asgard itself trembled in the Alfather’s anger. Maybe all the nine worlds, united by Yggdrasil, felt his fury.

A pain had formed in Hilda’s heart. It wasn’t like her wounds. Not like her thigh that made her limp, or the still-bleeding injuries she had suffered on the battlefield. A pain like an ache. An itch she couldn’t reach. It stirred at the Alfather’s growling.

‘It’s your fault,’ he hissed, and his single eye landed on Hilda. His pupil was shaking. ‘You said the wolf was dead! Traitor!’

His left hand quit his neck and darted for Hilda. She ducked out of his reach, but his hand caught her hair and wrenched off a handful. Hilda backed away into a valkyrie. Odin lifted his spear.

Still beasts stood back and watched. Warriors, from Helheim, and from Valhalla, too. Her bench-mates watched, and Einer’s white bear. It reached out towards her, as if it wanted to help. As if he wanted to help.

No one else would save Hilda from Odin’s wrath. She only had herself.

‘Fenrir won’t kill you,’ she blurted before the Alfather could strike. Had he not been so angry, he would have moved faster, and Hilda would already be dead. She knew that, but it was no relief. The Alfather’s anger scared her more than death itself. Hilda had died before; death was swift, a pain and then something else. Or nothing at all. A pain, and then it was over.

There was no end to the Alfather’s wrath. He looked like he wanted to tear her apart. The wind swept in with unhelpful visions of the past. Beasts watch the Alfather on Ragnarok’s battlefield. The vision disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, replaced by another. Elsewhere. The Alfather lifts a warrior by the throat. Again, the vision was no more than a flash.

At a great feast, all eyes on him, the Alfather tears the wing off a cooked bird. He wrenches off the legs. Hilda blinked and the vision was gone, replaced by another. The warrior still dangles from the Alfather’s grip. He struggles to breathe. Another. The Alfather brings a dagger to his catch. A deer lies before him. The Alfather’s knife is steady as he skins it. Hilda panted for breath. A dead bird lies on the grass. The Alfather steps on it with muddy boots.

The visions faded. They had come suddenly, almost as a warning.

Hilda knew enough of visions to know that they had been exactly that, and who had conjured them.

These were the Alfather’s intentions. Hilda had no future, and no past, but this was what her future would bring now. Torn apart, limb by limb. Skinned and left alive, to rot as giants marched across her. Her future as it would be, unless she prevented it from happening.

‘If I die, your future is as clear as you want mine to be,’ Hilda said.

Visions didn’t startle her. She had seen horrors in life. She had seen her village burn. Her friends murdered, her father dying. Her uncle, her aunt, her cousins slain by warriors. She had seen children murdered, corpses defiled. She had seen worse things. Pain and death no longer frightened her. The worst pain could do to her, was hurt.

What it would do to the Alfather was much worse. If he hurt her, he was doomed. He would die, as he was destined to do. Never to wake. Unless…

‘You can prevent this,’ he seemed to realise, then. Hilda was no longer shielding her thoughts from him. She had meant for him to hear.

‘Only if I can reach the nornir’s cave in time,’ Hilda said aloud.

At that news, the petrified warriors and beasts and giants decided to move, all in the same heartbeat. They launched at her. Kill Hilda, and they might kill the Alfather.

Odin was faster than them all. He knocked Hilda to the ground. Not to kill her; he was protecting her, now. For only she could wake him from death. Hilda pushed herself up. She limped towards the Alfather, and he pushed her behind himself. The Alfather and four of his valkyries formed a small circle of protection. The corpses at their feet had stopped trembling. The Alfather was no longer angry.

Once more, Hilda chanted her runes silently in her mind, to shield her thoughts from her god. So that she could think freely.

The white bear still stood over Einer’s corpse. She could see it under the Alfather’s arm, through the crowd of agitated warriors lunging for her.

The bear refused to leave Einer. She supposed her own snow fox had been the same. Even after Hilda had passed on, her snow fox had chosen to stay. It had followed her even without a chain tying them. Together they had travelled through Asgard. Now, it was gone, but it had stayed with her for much longer than any fylgja should stay.

Maybe that was different. Hilda and her fox had been tied together by more than destiny: by blood and by runes. They were both the same, always tied. Einer’s white bear stayed out of choice. They were not bound by anything other than experiences.

‘Give her your skin,’ the Alfather hissed to the air. Hilda looked up. Crows and ravens were fighting above. Against eagles, and hawks, and mostly giants. They swarmed around giants, scratching out their eyes and shrieking into their ears.

A crow folded up its wings and shot straight down. Hilda protected her face with her arms. The crow landed right there, on her arm, its claws folding softly around her wrist. And she felt the weight of it. It grew larger, pushed her arm down, and then it went limp. An empty bird skin hung from her wrist, and she felt someone press up against her back. Leather armour rubbed against her chainmail.

The valkyrie who had come out of the bird skin pushed away, to fight with her bench-mates, and her god. Hilda cradled the precious crow skin in her hands. The feathers on the left wing had burned, and it was slick with sweat, inside and out.

Protected by Odin and his valkyries, Hilda set her axe away. She knew exactly what to do and how to do it. Once before, she had put on a bird skin in a hurry. The problem was getting out of it again, once she had put it on, but she hadn’t known the runes then, and she knew them now. She wasn’t worried about getting out this time. If Freya had been able to free her from the skin, then a norn like Hilda would certainly be able to do the same.

Hilda slid her left foot into the sweaty skin. It was warm on the inside. She got her right toes inside as well and forced the opening on the back to become wider. She wrestled it up her legs, coming closer and closer to the ground as she pulled herself into the skin. At the hips, she gently tipped her Ulfberht axe into it, to make sure that it didn’t get stuck outside. At the waist, she stopped and inserted her left hand. She pushed the skin all the way up, so it rested at her armpit. Then, she forced her head inside. Her helmet was smooth with blood, and she struggled to keep it on. It kept sliding to the side so she could hardly see out one eye. With a frustrated grunt, she pulled off the helmet and forced herself inside without it. Right arm and head at the same time.

The valkyrie who owned the skin must have eaten onions at the last feast before Ragnarok. The skin stank sourly of sweat. Hilda pushed her head all the way in and wriggled her nose until she could feel her beak. The stench of sweat wasn’t nearly as bad, smelled through the beak. It was subtle, and almost pleasant.

Hilda flapped her wings and stretched her long-clawed toes. The thigh of the corpse beneath her felt soft at the touch of her claws. She tested the beak and let out a little shriek, and then she flapped her wings, slowly at first, and then with all the strength she had in her.

Her slick black body rose into the air. Harder, she flapped her wings. They took her up fast. Hilda let out a longing sigh. She loved flying. The skies were black, and so were the wings of the valkyries and Odin’s surviving raven. They were so fast, she couldn’t follow.

She kept flying up. In a straight line.

A giant hand swept in over her. Hilda made a sharp turn. She collided with another bird. They both tumbled down and tried to flap away. Their wings kept hitting each other. Again, the giant’s hand reached for them. Hilda hacked out after the giant with her sharp beak. One of her claws slid into his skin. She was swept through the dark air, but unhooked herself and flapped to get away. She brought herself up fast, and high, out of the giant’s wide reach.

For five more heartbeats she rose straight into the air. At last, she stopped struggling and let her wings keep her afloat. She glided over the battlefield.

Seen from above, there was something beautiful about it. Three flame demons raged through the crowd in a valley between huge corpse mountains. They shone in the near dark. Faces of horrors were illuminated around them. Shadows were cast on the rest of the fighting crowd. Everything was moving at once. She had always thought that Ragnarok was chaos, but there was a certain order to it, seen from high above, and from far away.

At last, Hilda caught sight of the white fur she was searching for. She stared down at Einer’s white bear. Watched it mourning Einer’s death. The crowd parted around the bear, leaving it alone and exposed, and Einer’s body too.

At the bear’s back someone advanced. One of the hundreds of wolves, but not just any wolf: it was Fenrir himself, at long last.

Hilda no longer knew if she should be fearful at the thought of the Alfather dying, or happy. He had hissed at her in the end. At least Loki had never treated her like that. She had never imagined that she would see the Alfather spit in anger. Other gods, perhaps—certainly Thor—but not the grand Alfather. He was always composed. At least, he had been, before the fear of dying had reached him.

The crowd parted for the great wolf, leaving a direct path from Fenrir to the Alfather. Soon, Odin would be dead. Unless Hilda did something, and the Alfather was right: she hadn’t lied to him. She could do something.

Three winters ago, Loki had delivered her to the nornir. There, she had been taught how to revive a dead giant. She knew the way, and Hilda was certain that a god, still alive, would be much simpler to save.