Tur: An Elsker Saga Novella (The Elsker Saga) (3 page)

We ran through the night, down the dark meadow and past the pond. The Great Hall filled as we entered, gods and goddesses moving into ranks. Ull took his place at the head of the hall alongside Thor. Together, they were a peculiar pair – one a battle-scarred redhead who looked like the stereotypical Midgardian Viking; the other a fierce blond assassin who looked like he might moonlight as a movie star. But they shared the same set jaw, the same intense look, and emitted the same waves of fury. Whatever was going down, it was serious. Gunnar and I stood in front of Ull and waited for our orders.

“Asgardians,” Odin’s somber tone rose through the frenzy. “Svartalfheim has attacked the Bifrost. Dark Elves overtook Heimdall and are crossing the bridge. I believe their goal is simple destruction, but we must protect the Unknowables nonetheless. Anders, your team is to guard the War Cabinet. Bjorn, ensure your men protect the Treasure Room. Dagnir, oversee the Sanctimony. And Magni, patrol the residential areas. The rest of you, follow Thor to the Bifrost.”

My brain clicked into fight mode, and I clenched my rapier in my left hand. I barely noticed Gunnar’s tug on my jacket as he pulled me to the wall.

“Inga,” he whispered.  “Please be careful.”

“You too, baby.” I smiled. I knew he was worried, but I couldn’t contain my elation. I hadn’t seen a real fight in a century. Anticipation thrummed in my veins.

“I mean it. You are my life, and if anything happened to you—”

I cut him off before he could get too sentimental. “Zip it, Andersson.” I kissed him gently, melting against his soft lips. “Save it for the after party back home.” He raised an eyebrow and I curled up against him for the briefest of moments before we righted ourselves and fell back into rank. Ull moved in to my side and relayed Thor’s orders.

“The two of you are to stay with me. For some reason Thor thinks I am a target, and he wants Gunnar at my flank. Inga, you are free to follow Skadi’s group to rescue Heimdall. But, knowing how you feel about her, I asked for your assistance as well. Is that all right?”

“Thanks, Ull.” Doing anything at Skadi’s command would be suicide. She made stupid mistakes trying to prove she was tough enough for a god’s job, and I had no intention of getting myself killed because of her ego.

“Now if anything happens, Gunnar, we protect Inga first. Get her to safety.”

“Hey,” I protested. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can.” Ull chuckled. “Or I would send you back to the house right now.”

“I wouldn’t go.” I put my hands on my hips. If Ull thought he could keep me away from this fight, he had another thing coming.

“Yes, you would. No matter. Come.” He jogged into the darkness, away from the troupe filing steadfastly behind Thor. His muscular form ran lithely toward the trees, then disappeared. That was weird – protocol dictated we stay with the others. A three-person hunting party would be easy for an enemy to pick off.

Ull knew something he wasn’t telling us.

Gunnar raised an eyebrow and shrugged. I shifted my weapons to my left hand as we jogged into the woods after Ull. It’d been a long time since I’d been in the Dark Forest, and it still gave me chills. Asymmetrical trees cast shadows across uneven footpaths and the eerie silence confirmed that all the animals had fled. Someone – or something – was in here.

“Ull,” Gunnar began. Ull held up a hand, and Gunnar fell silent. We followed him deeper into the forest, for Odin knows how long, until we heard a low grumbling. Dropping behind a quintet of boulders, we held our breaths, listening to the foreign voices coming from the clearing. I’d taken Svartish in secondary school, but it’d been a while since I’d tried to conjugate the verbs.
Enter the chamber; decapitate Odin; end the bloodline
… oh Ymir. The dark elves were going after Odin. The next in the bloodline was Thor. And after that was…

“Get out of here. Now!” Gunnar shoved Ull. The three of us took off at an even sprint, two massive killers shepherding me through the thick wood. Thor was right – Ull was a target. He was the last of the royal bloodline, even if it was through marriage. If the royal bloodline was eliminated, it could take a year to go through the electoral process to select a new king. Asgard would be leaderless and totally susceptible to attacks. It would be the perfect time to incite Ragnarok.

I ran like my life depended on it. In all likelihood, it probably did. The dark elves might keep me as a hostage, but that wasn’t how I planned to spend the rest of my days. My arms pumped as I willed myself through the forest. Keeping pace with Gunnar and Ull was easy enough, but without warning a tree fell across the river, stopping us all.

A voice broke through the darkness, speaking in English. “Going somewhere?”

I whipped around, my back against Gunnar’s in a defensive position. I held my rapier at eye level, keeping my dagger at my hip. The muscles in Gunnar’s back tensed against mine as I felt him flex his crossbow. Without having to look, I knew his chin was down, his knees were bent, and his arms were raised to pull the trigger. He was ready to fight.

“Show yourself,” Ull commanded, now two feet ahead of me. His shoulder blades were pulled back and his elbows were slightly bent. A lock of blond hair ruffled in the breeze, but other than that he didn’t move; he’d taken up a protective stance.

“Ah, but what would be the fun in that? I would much prefer you meet my friend.” A muffled voice erupted in laughter from somewhere in the shadows and another tree fell across the river. The tree rose, then fell again, closer to us. My knees buckled, and for the first time I felt the tiniest bit of fear. That wasn’t a tree at all. It was…

“A giant,” Gunnar whispered, pressing his back closer to mine. No doubt he was thinking about what happened the last time a giant breached Asgard. I’d been kidnapped; a half dozen warriors died saving me. It ended well enough, with Gunnar charging to my rescue and realizing I was
the one
for him and all. But, it hadn’t exactly been a pleasure cruise for me. Or for my saviors.

“It’s all right. I’ve got this.” I did. Of the three of us, I’d been the only one to spend any goodly amount of time with a giant. I knew they had a weakness for pretty girls. And I knew they got distracted by shiny things. I stepped into the creature’s sightline and tossed my white-blonde hair behind my shoulder.

“You want me?” I raised my chin to shout into the sky. It was generally understood that giants were somewhat hard of hearing.

“What are you thinking? Stop that!” Ull hissed.

“I know what I’m doing.” I shushed him. Gunnar gave me a nod. “Down here, you want me?”

The giant looked around until his eyes focused. Slowly, he bent down with a hand outstretched. I stood very still.

“That’s it,” I called up. “Come and get me.”

From the corner of my eye I saw a spiky-haired warrior aim his bow.

“Now,” I screamed.

Gunnar let the arrow fly, catching the giant in the eyeball. The beast roared and stumbled backwards, yanking the object free.

“Again, Gunnar!”

My avenging assassin leapt from the trees. He soared through the air, arms cocked with his crossbow held at eye level. When his body was parallel with the giant’s waist, he let four arrows fly in succession. They struck the monster’s chest with a wet splice, blood dripping from the points of impact in a thick stream. The giant tripped over a fallen tree and fell into the stream, cracking his skull on a sharp boulder.

“One down.” Gunnar lifted one corner of his mouth in a grin. But there wasn’t time to celebrate. A unit of dark elves quickly filed out of the forest, their swords glinting in the filtered light. Ull raised his blade to draw their attention.

“Get Inga out of here,” Ull instructed.

Gunnar pushed me into the trees. Ull stood his ground, swinging his sword at the onslaught of dark elves. They weren’t the brightest beams in the Bifrost, and although they outnumbered us by twenty, they hadn’t undergone the centuries of training we had.

“Stay here. Please.” Gunnar cupped my cheeks with warm palms.

My hand twitched around my weapons. “I can’t.”

“I know.” He sighed. “But I had to try.”

We ran back to Ull’s side and took up arms.

“I told you to get Inga to safety.” Ull grunted as he struck an elf between the shoulders.

“You know she doesn’t listen to me.”

“I’m not sitting this out.” I swung my rapier over my head and plunged it into an oncoming sternum. I tossed my hair over my shoulder as I withdrew my blade. “Do you know me at all?”

“I know you all right.” Ull shook his head as he raised thick arms and brought them down at a ninety-degree angle, decapitating one of Svartalfheim’s finest. Blood shot everywhere. “Stubborn… pigheaded… unbelievably frustrating…”

“Asgardian beauty queen, award winning baker… patience of a saint to put up with you,” I countered as I fought off the next attacker.

“Stop it you two,” Gunnar groaned. He delivered a series of jabs to his opponent’s face. “You’re distracting me. Oh, enough of this hand to hand
dritt
. We’re wasting time.” He swung his crossbow around and started to fire. He quickly eliminated ten of the intruders with his arrows. I took down two more.

It was incredible.

Years of frustration at not being taken seriously by the Asgardian aristocracy were wiped clean with each thrust and parry. These elves were flat out stupid to try and mess with Ull. Nobody was going to come after my family and get away with it.

With only three to go, we closed ranks and moved in. The survivors were the strongest fighters, and for the first time, I began to fatigue. I pocketed my dagger, using both hands to exert the full force of the rapier on my attacker. He was strong, and I was exhausted. He backed me a good twenty feet from my partners, down the river. I fought back, but he outmaneuvered me. This guy was seriously quick for a dark elf. They were supposed to be slow in movement and thought. But this one was too fast for me to keep up. He had the long legs and slender build residents of Svartalfheim were known for, but something about his face was off. Instead of being angular and sallow, it was rounder, with a slightly bluish tint. If I didn’t know it was impossible, I would have thought he was some kind of hybrid.

“Well, Inga,” my attacker seethed. It was the voice I’d heard from the shadows. “It seems you’re quite literally up a creek. Who will save you now?”

“How do you know my name?” I jabbed at his torso and he expertly sidestepped my move.

“Silly girl.” He knocked my sword aside and in one swift move had me suspended by my hair. “I know everything.” He ripped the dagger out of my pocket and held it against my throat.

In the nanosecond it took me to register what was happening, I sought out Gunnar. The boys were locked in battle with two enormous residents of Svartalfheim. Gunnar threw a punch at his opponent, then sent two arrows through the perp’s chest before his victim hit the ground. Man down.

Gunnar looked up and saw me dangling from a dark elf’s fist. His anguished cry ripped through the woods. “No!”

It was equal parts adorable and insulting. I might have been minus a rapier, with my own dagger jammed against my throat, but this was nothing I couldn’t handle.

“I’ve got this,” I muttered for the second time that day. And with strength that most titled gods would have envied, I ripped my rival’s hand from my neck. I tucked my knees to my chest and somersaulted out of the surprised elf’s grasp, landing on my feet. I reached into the river and pulled out a rock. It was too smooth to cut elf skin, but I lobbed it at his head anyway. The smashing of bones produced a sickening crunch. He reached up to catch the blood oozing from his nose.

Before he could retaliate, I followed up with a graceful roundhouse to his jaw. The slap of my boot on his flesh echoed all the way up the river.

“Atta girl!” Gunnar’s voice pinged with pride. “You need me?”

“No, baby.” My palm closed around a suitably sharp stone as I ducked just in time to avoid a fist to my face. “Go help Ull.” I wedged the crude weapon between my middle and ring fingers.

“Done,” Gunnar called out, apparently satisfied that I did, indeed, have this fight under control.

Stone in place, I landed a left hook on my challenger’s cheek. His face was going to be seriously bruised at the end of this – if he survived. I wasn’t feeling terribly benevolent. The jerk had taken my best dagger.

“Oh, Inga.” The elf seethed before landing a fist to my stomach. It knocked the wind out of me, and I doubled over.

“Go to Helheim.” I took a deep breath and let loose with a kick sequence I’d been preparing to teach my unit that week. Left roundhouse, right hook, hitch kick. He stumbled back. Front kick to his chest. He stumbled again. Side kick, side kick, one more hitch. To finish him off, I planted a jab to his face, piercing him between the eyes with the sharp end of the rock.

He went down hard, hitting his skull on one of the boulders resting in the river. His eyes locked on mine, widening just a fraction before I delivered a kick to his head.

“That’s for taking my dagger.” I bent and ripped my beloved blade from his hand. Some fighter he was; he hadn’t even scratched me with it.

I kicked him in the torso, and he bent in half, clutching his freshly fractured sternum. “And that’s for getting my sword wet.” I stood over him for a good minute but he didn’t move. Satisfied that he wasn’t going anywhere, I scoured the water until I found my rapier. I picked it up and slowly made my way back to the dark elf writhing in the river.

“Gunnar?” I called upstream. “What’s the verdict?”

“No survivors,” he shouted back.

“Fair enough.” I raised my sword and held my breath, feeling the impact of my rapier piercing the elf’s flesh. It was combat 101 – there was no way to survive a strike to the heart.

When I was sure the elf wouldn’t get up again, I cleaned the blood off my sword in the river. Then, I dried the blade on the edge of my shirt and made my way back to Ull and Gunnar.

“Nice work, boys.” I held up my palm, and Ull slapped me a high five, a grin lighting up his angular face. He had drops of sweat lining his forehead, and a lock of dirt-caked blond hair fell over one twinkling eye. For a guy retired from the Elite Team, he sure seemed to enjoy a good fight.