Thor's Serpents (24 page)

“I’m glad you’re with me,” Laurie told Fen. “I wish we could be with Matt, too.”

“He’ll be fine,” Fen told her. “Come on. We have a world to save… starting with Baldwin.”

To their right, Baldwin was trying to wrap a rope around Nidhogg’s neck. Laurie couldn’t tell whether he was attempting to strangle the corpse eater or ride him like a war horse. Either way, he wasn’t doing too well. The cheers of glee were to be expected, but he looked like a small toy in a swimming pool: he was tossed about with no control at all.

“Baldwin!”

He looked down at her and grinned—but then he looked at Fen beside her. “Are you evil, too, or is Fen good again?”

“We’re on your side,” Fen yelled back.

Their yelling caught Nidhogg’s attention, and the oversized white serpent turned its gaze to them. The long blue tongue shot out, and both Brekke cousins ducked just in time.

“Pull back and help the Berserkers,” Fen ordered his pack. “Hattie and Skull, give the orders.”

Hattie nodded and instantly started deploying wolves to attack the trolls that they’d just been calling allies. Laurie knew Fen still didn’t like the girl, but he hadn’t liked the twins or Owen, either. Both Hattie and Owen were on their side, as was Skull and the rest of the pack. Liking teammates wasn’t necessary if he could work with them.
That was Fen through and through, and Laurie was glad of it today.

Skull hadn’t budged. He stayed at Fen’s side, leveled a glare at him, and pointed out, “You’re my alpha. My job is not to blindly obey, but to
help
you.” He motioned at Nidhogg and at the Jotunn that was lumbering toward them. “You two need all the help you can get.”

Fen nodded.

Then two wolves launched at them.

Skull snarled, “Not our pack.”

The two boys were side by side and punched the wolves simultaneously. Fen grinned and looked around them. The Berserkers were led by Owen—who was keeping his distance from Fen—and Fen’s pack was being directed by Hattie. Garm and Helen were rounding up trolls, and that left the four kids facing Nidhogg.

Baldwin was still managing to stay on top of the serpent, but Laurie was watching the
hrímthursar
that was headed toward them. That frost giant would need to be defeated, too, but right now, she had other plans.

“What are you thinking?” Fen asked.

She glanced at her cousin just as Skull clotheslined another wolf. Fen winced in sympathy at the gagging noise from the fallen wolf. Laurie met his eyes and said, “Chicken.”

“Playing chicken with a
hrímthursar
? That’s your plan?” Fen clarified.

“Yep.”

He laughed and shrugged. “Okay.”

It was moments like these that reminded her that they were both Loki’s descendants. She quickly explained that she needed him to play chicken so they could “steer” the creature and anger it enough to use its frost as their weapon.

Fen glanced at Skull and said, “Shift and stick with me.” Then he told Laurie, “Be right back.”

Once they were gone, Laurie looked at Nidhogg. What she was about to do would be easier without Fen being his usual overprotective self. She pulled out her bow, nocked an arrow, and called to Baldwin, “Slide down. New tactic.”

Baldwin didn’t question her. He simply let go of the rope he’d been using as a makeshift bridle and reins. In the next moment, he was sliding over the side of the white serpent and tumbling to the ground. He rolled to his feet and ran to her side.

She had to restrain herself from puking at the smell. A thick pinkish slime coated his clothes from riding the corpse eater. “Breathe through your mouth,” Baldwin offered. “It helps until you get used to it.”

Laurie nodded. She wasn’t a prissy girl, but she was pretty sure that she wouldn’t
ever
get used to the stench of rot that currently coated her friend’s clothes. She took small breaths through her mouth. It helped a little.

Nidhogg started to slither away, picking up speed as it moved toward the thick of the fight. It was far enough away
that she was starting to worry that it would begin eating the still-living fighters. Unfortunately, it wasn’t far enough that she could say that she was at a “safe distance” for what she needed to do.

“Just like in Mitchell,” Laurie whispered. “Be ready to run.”

Come on, come on, come on
, she silently urged Fen and Skull. The two wolves were darting toward the Jotunn and then retreating. Slowly but steadily, it turned on its path and veered to the left—away from the area where she now stood and where most of the Berserkers and Fen’s pack were battling with the enemy.

“In three… two… one…” At each count she launched an arrow at Nidhogg. It turned to see what was attacking it, and then at one, she let a volley of them fly toward its face. As arrows stuck in its face and eyes, it lurched toward them, pulling its massive coils into the air and darting toward them in a move between a hop and a slither.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Laurie and Baldwin ran full out, but there was no way to completely dodge the serpent. It was bigger, faster, and angrier. She didn’t have a better plan to lead it away from the crowd, and the only weapon she had other than her bow was her mind. If she could get it near the
hrímthursar
, she could use one monster’s weapon—the frost—against the other.

Then one of the Berserkers went flipping by her and
tossed a black feather to her and Baldwin. “Odin’s ravens’ feathers,” he yelled.

As Laurie and Baldwin grasped the feathers, she realized that they were suddenly moving so quickly that their feet barely touched the ground. They weren’t exactly
flying
, but they were moving fast enough that they were sailing over the ground.

Nidhogg was surging toward them, its hisses loud behind her. Apparently, like many snakes, it didn’t need to rely on its sight to locate them.

The Jotunn was chasing Fen and Skull now, firing blasts of ice at them as they darted and dodged in front of it.

And it felt like everyone was going to converge in one big heap of chaos and pain.

“Fen!” she yelled. “Incoming!”

Her cousin ran toward Nidhogg.

The Jotunn finally saw the massive white snake headed its way. Wrongly interpreting it as an attacking enemy, the
hrímthursar
roared.

Nidhogg hissed and raised its gaze to the giant.

The blast of frost was so close to her that Laurie heard a crinkling sound as some of her hair froze.

The snake and Jotunn flew at each other in a battle that was far better matched than kid versus either one. Nidhogg twined around the Jotunn, crawling up its body rapidly at first but growing sluggish by the time it reached the
hrímthursar
’s neck. Until that moment, Laurie hadn’t known if the corpse eater was cold-blooded like other reptiles, but as it grew slower in its movements, she realized happily that it was.

Icicles fell to the ground like spears as the slime of decayed things that clung to Nidhogg’s body froze and sloughed off.

Still, Nidhogg didn’t give up. It tightened its coils around the
hrímthursar
’s throat and simultaneously tried to sink fangs into the Jotunn’s face.

The blast of cold and snow knocked all four kids to the ground.

“Way too close to them,” Skull said from Laurie’s left side. She flinched without meaning to. He’d been the enemy since before she knew he existed. Seeing him at her side any day before now would’ve been dangerous.

“What were you thinking?” Fen snarled at her. “It could’ve killed you. I thought you had given
me
the dangerous one.”

Laurie flashed her cousin a grin. “I did. I just gave me an equally dangerous one.”

Skull laughed, and Laurie’s discomfort with him decreased a little.

As snake and Jotunn wrestled, seeming almost evenly matched, Laurie looked at the rest of the fights. The Berserkers and
wulfenkind
that fought on her side were winning. Various
trolls were sitting around looking dazed or fleeing. One was facedown with Garm sitting on its back. The gate guardian from Hel was surveying the fights, too. The doglike creature flashed teeth at her when their gazes crossed in what she thought was a smile.

Garm made a growling noise, and Helen turned to stare at Laurie.

The ruler of Hel started to stride toward Laurie just as the Jotunn got a good grip on Nidhogg and tossed it.

The massive serpent hit the ground hard enough to crack the earth—and create a crater.

“Hush, you,” Helen told the snake as it hissed and started to move slowly toward the kids again.

The cold had obviously made the great reptile all but unconscious. Its tongue flicked slowly, and it moved at a near glacial speed. It might be struggling, but it wasn’t done.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Helen continued as she approached Nidhogg. She patted it on the nose gently. “My niece is a clever little beast, I said. My side is with her, I said.” She
tsk
ed at Nidhogg. “Now, do we kill you or will you retreat?”

Although Laurie was no expert on reptiles, when it eyed her and flicked its thin blue tongue, she was pretty sure there was hatred in Nidhogg’s expression.

The serpent hissed something else, and Helen smiled.

With a flick of Helen’s hand, the two-headed fire Jotunn
that Laurie had seen in Hel came lumbering forward. At its approach, the snake almost glowed. Laurie could see it warming back up.

All that for nothing!
she thought.

But then, instead of turning to face the kids who had tricked a frost Jotunn to attack it, Nidhogg slithered off and vanished into the crack in the ground that Helen had opened.

“Silly thing,” Helen murmured as it vanished back into the earth. Then she turned and flashed them a smile. “Well done.”

Of course, this still left the
hrímthursar
to contain.

Laurie pulled out her bow and, as before, mentally requested arrows she could light.

“We could light it off that,” Baldwin said, pointing at the flaming Jotunn that was now talking to itself. The two heads were discussing whether the Badlands looked like home or home looked like the Badlands.

“Hey, you’re a big wolf,” Baldwin said to Skull. “How about you shift, and I’ll ride you? You run toward the fire and—”

“How about
no
.” Skull shook his head. He was staring at the ground. “I just need a couple of good rocks…”

“Or we could simply do this,” Helen suggested. With another wave of her hand, she sent the two-headed Jotunn
toward the frost Jotunn. “Come, dears, we need to finish up with the trolls.”

Then she strolled away, humming a little song like Laurie’s mother did when they went walking to go to an afternoon picnic.

“Your aunt is scary,” Skull said.

“You’re related to her, too,” Laurie told him.

The once-intimidating Raider shivered.

Anything he might have said was lost under a roar, as behind them the two-headed Jotunn from Hel clashed with the
hrímthursar
. Fire and frost smashed together, and soon the air was hazy. It rolled out like a fog around them and made it hard to see at all. It was like standing inside one of those steam rooms at the gym that her mom liked—hot and hard to breathe.

“Back up,” Laurie ordered.

“Be careful of the crevice,” Fen added.

A rumble shook the ground under their feet and the earth seemed to rip open again. The movement sent them all tumbling to the ground. Laurie rolled down a sudden hill, stopping with a jolt as she slammed into a rock.

“What was that?”

“Thor’s child is facing the Midgard Serpent.” Helen’s voice carried across the distance. “It doesn’t sound promising.”

No one else answered or even spoke.

When Laurie got to her feet, she couldn’t feel any of the boys near her. She said their names, swept her arms around, and… discovered that she was alone at the bottom of whatever hill she’d tumbled down.

The clash of fire and frost also made loud hissing noises over and over… which was scarier than usual when they’d just faced a giant snake. In a matter of moments, Laurie could barely see in the fog around her. Several times, she stumbled, fell to her knees, and got back up.

Even though the haze made it hard to see, she could still hear cries and grunts. Waves of cold and heat surged at her, and flashes of red from the fire Jotunn lit up the mist like explosions.

“Fen! Baldwin!” After a grudging pause, she added, “Skull?”

No one answered. All she heard was the sounds of fighting and the hiss of steam.

Carefully, Laurie started crawling back up the inclined ground to where she thought she’d been, hoping to at least get herself back to the rocks so no one could sneak up behind her. She’d gone about ten feet when she felt the brush of fur against her arm and yelped in surprise. The wolf nudged her hand with its muzzle and then nipped her sleeve and tugged.

“You’d better be Fen,” she muttered as she allowed the wolf to lead her out of the small ravine where she’d fallen when the ground under her feet had convulsed.

T
he serpent landed. No, not a serpent. A giant snake was certainly nothing to scoff at, but if you stayed away from the fang-bearing end, it could be managed. This? This was a dragon the size of Matt’s school.

He’d seen the serpent, twice, wriggling through the ground, and very clearly, this was no earth-dwelling snake so it could not be the Midgard Serpent, right? Yet it took only one close look to realize that excuse didn’t hold. It might have the head and the wings and even the front legs and claws of a dragon, but the rest was pure serpent—emerald green on the back with a pale green stomach—and that’s what he’d seen in the ground.

A serpentine dragon. Able to burrow through the ground or soar through the air. A dragon with wings that could batter his puny body against the rocks. A dragon with claws that could rip him to shreds. A dragon with fangs the size of his forearm, one scratch of which would send deadly poison racing through his veins.

The serpent landed. Matt raised his shield. It was the size of one massive dragon nostril.

This. Was. Not. Fair.

The dragon opened its mouth. Matt saw tendrils of smoke and a faint red glow, deep in the creature’s endless black throat.

No. No way. Please don’t let it be the kind of dragon that breathes—

Fire blasted from the Midgard Serpent’s mouth. Fortunately, Matt already had his shield up. Unfortunately, it was like blocking a geyser with his finger. The flames whooshed past the shield and wrapped around its icy surface, and Matt fell back with a yelp.

The serpent took a deep breath, preparing for blast two. Matt dove behind a rock, barely making it in time. Then he crouched there, his brain spinning.

Not fair. Not fair. Not fair.

The words kept looping through his brain. Meaningless. There was no crying foul here. Hildar had tried. The Norns apparently couldn’t do anything to fix this. All’s fair in war and the apocalypse.