Stormbringer (26 page)

Somewhere in the distance, Sigmund heard more footsteps, running is his direction.

Somewhere inside, Sigmund felt a ball of rage and pain and ice, exploding into shards.

“You!”

The
dvergr
's hand twitched, reaching for something at his belt. Sigmund's sneaker came down on the digits before they could get close. Came down, and came down
hard.

“I know you!”

He did. Or rather Sigyn did. Because, in that moment, staring down into wide dark eyes, Sigmund had gotten one single perfect flash of memory:

(the house is dark the fire is dead, she hadn't left it like that when she'd gone, not so long ago, left alone in her crumbling little cottage, and she was back now, back to fill her lonely bed except the house was dark but it was not empty, for there, cowering in the corner, flinching at her touch even as the blood poured between his shaking fingers, eyes bright with pain and shame and madness and she feels it, deep inside, her own rage and fury that someone would
dare
and when she asks she gets a name and that name is)

“Brokkr!”

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, Sigyn came home to a dark house and a sobbing husband, his lips stitched cruelly shut. The sagas called it Vartari. And here, now, beneath Sleipnir's heavy claw, was the man who'd made it.

“Where is he, you stone-skinned piece of shit? Tell me!”

Brokkr gaped, large mouth slack and open.

“Now!”
Sigmund's throat felt tight and he could feel his nails gouging little crescents against his palms.

“I do-don't know what—”

“Liar!”

Sigmund closed his eyes against the scream. Took a breath, then another. Tried to sort his own anger from Sigyn's.

“My name,” he said, voice tight and cold and awful, “is Sigmund Gregor Sussman de Deus. Many, many years ago, you sewed my husband's mouth shut because you lost a bet. A day or so ago, he came through your town. He hasn't been seen since. Now. I'm only going to ask this once: Where. Is. My. Husband?”

Sigmund opened his eyes, meeting the hard stares of the three
þursar
who'd come running after him. Three
þursar,
Sleipnir, and Eisa. The latter's eyes were very wide and very round, her small hands held over her mouth.

Brokkr looked at Sigmund, then at the others, and he said:

“I will tell you nothing, surface-filth. How
dare
you. This is our town. You have no right to—”

“Shut up!” It was true, but Sigmund wasn't in the mood. Lain had been
here.
So close, Sigmund could all but smell the loam and cinders in the air. “Eisa, take off your cloak.”

“I…what? Why?”

“Do it!” Sigmund pulled out the sunstone. Brokkr's eyes went wide to see it. “You know what this is,” Sigmund said. “So here's what we're going to do. A little eye for an eye, mouth for a mouth. You're going to tell me what I want to know. And you're going to tell me now. And if you don't, Eisa here—she's the daughter of the man you maimed—”

“That was—”

“I said
shut up
!” Sigmund's hands shook. His whole soul shook so hard it felt like he'd come untethered from the ground at any moment. “If you don't tell us what we want to know, I'm going to have Eisa wrap you up in her cloak. All of you, nice and tight and dark. All of you, from head to toe, except your mouth. We'll leave you a corner. Let's say the left. No wider than a spoon. And the rest, I'm going to get that nice, smooth, soft skin, and I'm going to crumble this piece of rock. And I'm going to
burn your fucking mouth shut you piece of shit do you hear me
? Burn it shut but for that one little corner, so you can spend the rest of your miserable little life drinking your meals through a straw. Forever.”

Sigmund paused. Just long enough. Eyes fixed on Brokkr's.

“Or,” he continued, “you can tell us what we want to know.” He crouched down before Brokkr could speak. “And before you say anything, remember I am the consort of the Lie Himself. If you think any fumbling, pissweak half truths you can think of will fool me, then I leave your hands unwrapped as well. Do I make myself clear?”

Bare inches away, Brokkr's eyes narrowed. “As the water of the Skærasær,” he said.

Sigmund blinked as his mind tripped over the meaning of the name—the “Shining Sea”—flashes of primary school recitals of the national anthem cutting through his rage. He wasn't sure whether the answer was ironic or not, but maybe it didn't matter in the next moment when Brokkr said:

“Yes. I saw your beast of a husband. He came through here with the sons of Thor, looking for the hammer, Mjölnir. We did not have it, and they moved on.”

Sigmund's lip curled back. “Try again. Harder.”

“Want me to wrap him?” Eisa's green eyes were bright with vicious mischief, the dark fabric of her cloak pulled tight between small hands.

Brokkr spat. At the ground, not on Sigmund. “I tell no lies.”

“You tell half truths.” Sigmund grinned, putting every ounce of Lain into it that he could manage. “I can feel those, too. They
itch.
Very uncomfortable. You wouldn't like me when I'm uncomfortable.”

Brokkr's expression suggested he didn't like Sigmund now, but he said, “Mjölnir's forging was imperfect. To wield it, one would need a special belt and gloves, also. These were dredged from the sea in our fishing nets, after Rangarøkkr. We traded them to Thor's sons.”

Sigmund's eyes narrowed, something queasy turning over in the pit of his stomach. “Traded them for what?”

Brokkr grinned. “What do you think?”

Bastard.
It was a question, not a lie or a half truth. There was something there, something Sigmund couldn't see and—

“The girl.” That was Eisa. When Sigmund looked up, her face was twisted in horror. “He keeps saying ‘sons,' ” she told Sigmund. “But there was a girl with them, also. Father protected her, from Valdís.”

“You will not have her,” Brokkr said. “She was betrothed to my son in fair exchange. She—”

“You bought a
girl
for some fucking
fashion accessories
? A fucking
person
?” Sigmund had heard enough. He stood up, disgust warring with rage in his heart. “No. No, that's not—Jesus fucking Christ.”

“The girl has honor. She was proud to do her part to protect her Realm from monsters like you.”

But Sigmund was done with listening. Instead, he turned to Eisa. “We've got to find her. The girl.”

Eisa's eyebrows hiked into her hairline. “But Father—”

“Is gone. He wasn't lying about that. We can follow them, but—” Suddenly, Sigmund spun back on his haunches in front of Brokkr. “Where are the others? Your guards. Whoever. This place is fucking abandoned.”

Brokkr grinned, broad, flat teeth like alabaster poking through his gums. “That I do not know.”

Shit. That was the truth. “And Thor's sons? Where did they take Lain?”

“I do not know this, either.” Sigmund thought he'd never seen someone so happy over his own ignorance. “They took a boat across the Sea. To Miðgarðr, I know not where beyond that.”

Miðgarðr. Shit. That would've almost been convenient, if not for the fact Lain didn't have pockets in his
jötunn
skin. Meaning he didn't carry his phone when he was in it. Meaning Smoke—Pyre's stolen phone GPS locator app—wouldn't be useful. Fuck.

Sigmund stood again, pacing away from Brokkr. “Bring him,” he said over his shoulder. “Tie him up somewhere, I don't care. Don't hurt him. Tell everyone you can find they're looking for an
ásynja
girl. Don't hurt her, either.”

Lain had protected the girl. That meant she was important. Even if she hadn't been, Sigmund wasn't going to let her rot down here in the dark, sold out by her family for bloody trinkets. This wasn't the bloody dark ages anymore. Brokkr hadn't been lying about her willingness, but, well. People believed a lot of shitty things about themselves in shitty circumstances, in Sigmund's experience.

Behind him, he heard
þursar
scrambling to obey his orders. Not that he had a single ounce of authority over them, but he had just chased down someone kind of important, then threatened information out of the guy. He hadn't missed the glint of respect in their gazes as he'd left.

A respect that, Sigmund thought, would probably have lasted exactly as long as it took for him to get out of sight, behind the big building.

Whereupon he promptly threw up.

Eisa found him first, standing staring at a pile of puke. Hand clamped across his mouth and tears and snot streaming down his face.

(oh gods what was that what happened what is wrong with me I)

(“you did what was needed, as we always do”)

(yeah but Jesus I)

“Sigmund?”

Sigmund scrubbed his face on his sleeve quickly at the voice, smearing snot and tears all over his glasses. “Y-yeah?”

Through the darkness and the haze, he could just about make out Eisa.

“The girl?” she said, her voice more hesitant than Sigmund could remember ever hearing it. “They think they've found—” A pause, then, “Are you…are you—?”

“I'm fine.” Much too harsh, so Sigmund tried again. “I-I'm fine. Really. It…uh. It's been a long day.” A long…however long it'd been since he'd left home. A thousand years and another lifetime.

Eisa nodded, looking unconvinced. She gestured for Sigmund to follow, and he did. Around the side of the town's main building. The plaza outside contained a big tarp-covered lump, with rings of smashed sunstones around the edge, and a bunch of
þursar,
plus Sleipnir, standing around, looking grim. The tarp shifted, and it occurred to Sigmund there were
dvergar
underneath.

He swallowed. “The, uh…the people…?” He gestured, Eisa shrugged, and Sigmund decided not to ask any more questions.

The inside of the large building was ornate, if still heavy and claustrophobic in spite of the high ceilings. It reminded Sigmund of a high school trip to the National Gallery: all strange concrete blocks jumbled on top of one another at weird angles, every surface gray and industrial. There weren't many paintings inside the
dvergr
hall, but there were a lot of mosaics. Not of anything, as far as Sigmund could tell, just geometric shapes and patterns, stone and gems set into flowing bands of color that glittered as they walked by.

Þursar
patrolled the halls, and small heads and large eyes peeked through doors and retreated at their passage.
Dvergr
children, maybe. It hadn't occurred to Sigmund there would be children.

Eisa took him down a flight of stairs, then another. Valdís and two other
þursar
were assembled at the bottom, pressed against the wall.

“The girl ran,” she growled to Sigmund, voice low. “Followed by a
dvergr.
There is a vault at the end of the corridor, he pushed her inside. He stands guard in the hall.”

“We get her out,” Sigmund said. “Then we go find Lain.”

Valdís nodded, gesturing to the others. A moment later, they were bursting around the corner.

Sigmund followed. Hesitantly, just in case of firearms or magic or arrows or
something.
He needn't have bothered; there really was only one guy in the hall, armed with one spear, and
armed
was stretching the definition. The guy looked terrified, the bioluminescence of his skin rippling like a startled cuttlefish. The
þursar
had him cornered in an instant. From somewhere behind, Sigmund heard the creak of Eisa, drawing her bow.

“Monsters!” the
dvergr
spat. “You will not take her!”

“We're not here to
take
anyone,” Sigmund said. “We're here to free her.”

“The solarium opens from the inside.” The
dvergr
raised his chin, defiant. “Kill me if you must, but you will not harm Þrúðr!”

(…wait, “solarium” what?)

Sigmund blinked. He'd definitely heard
solarium.
Or, well, Sigyn had heard the words the
dvergr
had spoken, and Sigmund's brain had done the translating. But unless there was some idiom he wasn't getting, he was pretty damn confident the guy had called whatever he was guarding the
sun room.
And, now that Sigmund was looking, he noticed the curved shape at the end of the hall did look an awful lot like an artistic representation of a sun.

Also, now he had the girl's name: Þrúðr.

(“Thor's daughter, and eldest child”)

“Um…” How the hell had Sigmund gotten himself into this mess? What
was
this mess to begin with?

“Look,” he started. “I think maybe there's been a bit of a, um. A misunderstanding? Here. Maybe? My name is Sigmund Sussman. I'm from Midgard, and I'm looking for my boyfriend. I was told he'd been brought here not long ago. Um. Tall, red feathers, can be kind of an asshole…?”

“Meinkráka,” the
dvergr
said. The name meant something like
harm crow
or
mischief bird
or whatever.

Sigmund shrugged. “Sure.” It fit. “I call him Lain. I've come to take him home.”

The
dvergr
's eyes flicked between Sigmund and the
þursar.
In the end, some of the tension seemed to leave him, though he didn't lower his spear. “I am Uni,” he finally said. “Eldest of Brokkr”—Sigmund tried not to wince—“husband of Þrúðr. Your
risi
is no longer here. He is Þrúðr's bondsman, and was sent forth with her brothers.”

“Whoa whoa whoa.” Sigmund held up his hands. “The only anyone's anything Lain is is my boyfriend. The
æsir
took him prisoner. They're torturing him. Let's make it really, really bloody clear I am not okay with that. And I'm not okay with selling girls into slavery under pretense of ‘marriage,' either. And these guys”—a gesture to the others—“aren't okay with Asgard going off on a quest to retrieve a magic superweapon so things can go back to the bad old days when they used to get hunted for sport. They're about to go to war with Asgard to try to preempt that, plus the dead have risen out of Hel and are about to do the same. Meanwhile, it hasn't escaped our notice that your city seems a little bit short on guards and soldiers. So, like. The way I see it, half the Realms are ready for war and whatever went down here is somehow the key. Now. I always prefer to pick the diplomacy dialogue tree, but I've also had a shitty couple of days. So if you don't want to do things my way, I'm gonna walk out of this corridor and it'll be up to my immensely patient friends here to decide how to handle things. But between you and me? I'd try talking first.”