SIXTY-SIX
Sacrifices
I don’t know why it broke me so badly.
I didn’t even like Gunilla.
But when I saw Surt standing over her lifeless body, his eyes smouldering in triumph, I wanted to fall down in the pile of bones and stay there until Ragnarok.
Gunilla was dead. Her lieutenants were dead. I didn’t even know their names, but they’d sacrificed their lives to buy me time. Halfborn was dead or dying. The other einherjar were not much better off. Sam and Blitz and Hearth were in no shape to fight.
And Surt was still on his feet, as strong as ever, his burning sword ready. Three of his fire giants were also still alive and armed.
After all we’d been through, the fire lord could kill me, take my sword and cut the wolf free.
Judging from the smile on his face, Surt expected to do just that.
‘I am impressed,’ he admitted. ‘The Wolf told me you had potential. I don’t think even Fenris expected you to do this well.’
The Wolf thrashed in his new magic bonds.
A few feet from the fire lord, T.J. crouched, his bayonet ready. He glanced at me, waiting for a sign. I knew he was ready to charge one last time, distract the giants if it would help me, but I couldn’t let another person die.
‘Go now,’ I told Surt. ‘Go back to Muspellheim.’
The fire lord threw back his head and laughed. ‘Brave to the end! I think not, Magnus Chase. I think you will burn.’
He thrust out his hand. A column of fire shot towards me.
I stood my ground.
I imagined being with my mom in the Blue Hills on the first day of spring, the sunlight warming my skin, gently thawing three months of cold and darkness out of my system.
My mom turned to me, her smile luminous: This is where I am, Magnus. In this moment. With you.
A sense of serenity anchored me. I remembered my mom once telling me how the town houses in Back Bay, like our family’s ancestral home, had been built on landfill. Every so often, engineers had to sink new pylons beneath the foundations to keep the buildings from collapsing. I felt like I’d had my pylons reinforced. I was solid.
Surt’s flames rolled over me. They lost their intensity. They were nothing but ghostly flickers of warm orange, as harmless as butterflies.
At my feet, the heather began to bloom – white flowers spreading across the landscape, reclaiming the trampled and burned areas where Surt’s warriors had walked, soaking up the blood, covering the corpses of the fallen giants.
‘The battle is over,’ I announced. ‘I consecrate this ground in the name of Frey.’
The words sent a shock wave in every direction. Swords, daggers and axes flew from the fire giants’ hands. T.J.’s rifle spun from his grasp. Even the weapons lying on the ground were expelled from the island, blasted into the darkness like shrapnel.
The only one left holding a weapon was me.
Without his flaming scimitar, Surt didn’t look so confident. ‘Tricks and childish magic,’ he snarled. ‘You cannot defeat me, Magnus Chase. That sword will be mine!’
‘Not today.’
I threw the blade. It spiralled towards Surt, passing over the giant’s head. Surt grabbed for it and missed.
‘What was that?’ The giant laughed. ‘An attack?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘That was your exit.’
Behind Surt, Jack slashed the air, ripping the fabric between the worlds. A zigzag of fire burned on the ridge. My ears popped. As if someone had shot out of the window in an aeroplane’s pressurized cabin, Surt and the other fire giants were sucked screaming into the rift, which closed behind them.
‘Bye!’ Jack called. ‘Catch you later!’
Except for the outraged snarling of the Wolf, the island was silent.
I stumbled across the field. I fell to my knees in front of Gunilla. I could tell immediately that the Valkyrie captain was gone. Her blue eyes stared into the dark. Her bandolier was empty of hammers. Her white spear lay broken across her chest.
My eyes stung. ‘I’m sorry.’
For five hundred years she’d been in Valhalla, collecting the souls of the dead, preparing for the final battle. I remembered how she’d scolded me: Even gazing upon Asgard, you have no sense of reverence.
In death, her face seemed full of wonder and awe. I hoped she was gazing upon Asgard the way she wanted it to be – filled with Aesir, all the lights burning in her father’s mansion.
‘Magnus,’ called T.J., ‘we have to go.’
He and Mallory were struggling to carry Halfborn Gunderson. X had managed to dig his way out from under the fire-giant corpse pile and was now carrying the two other fallen Valkyries. Blitz and Hearthstone stumbled along together, Sam close behind.
I picked up the body of the Valkyrie captain. She was not light, and my strength was fading again.
‘We have to hurry.’ T.J. spoke as gently as he could, but I heard the urgency in his tone.
The ground was shifting under my feet. I realized my glowing aura had done more than blind the wolf. The sunlight had affected the texture of the island. The island was supposed to disappear at dawn. My magic had hastened the process, causing the ground to dissolve into spongy mist.
‘Only seconds,’ Sam gasped. ‘Go.’
The last thing I felt capable of was a burst of speed, but somehow, carrying Gunilla, I followed T.J. as he led the way to the shore.