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CHAPTER THIRTY

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We left the forest behind in a heartbeat. Wind tore at my face, whipping Fenrir’s fur like iron wires against my skin. Percy’s screams cut through the sky. For once, I wasn’t screaming at all. Screaming would have taken my attention away from hanging on for dear life. My arms burned with the effort, and Fenrir’s matted fur started to slowly slip through my fingers.

“Hey, fame wolf!” I shouted. “Come on, big boy. We talked about going to Folksvangr, remember?”

“Have you seen the size of this ball? It’s getting bigger!” the hound answered. “Man, I’m going to bite the living HEL out of this thing!”

“Fenrir! Fen! I don’t think you can bite the moon!”

“I think maybe he can,” Chesa said. She had crawled up close to me, her wrists wrapped in the stiff fur of Fenrir’s hackles. “John, what happens to us when he leaves the atmosphere?”

“That’s a science question. This isn’t a science situation,” I said. “For all we know he’s going to bump into the Viking ideal of the moon, swallow it whole, and then get bored and put us down.”

“It’s getting pretty cold,” she said. And she was right. I risked losing my lunch and leaned out to look around. The earth spread out beneath us like a carpet, bending slightly at the horizons. I thought I could see a glimmer of sunlight to the east, and the sky was definitely brighter in that direction. I took a deep breath. My lungs clawed at my throat for more oxygen.

“Maybe it’s a metaphor,” Matthew said cheerfully. “Like, maybe we’re the moon that—”

“It’s not a metaphor!” Chesa and I shouted in unison. I wiggled my way up the beast’s neck, until I reached the tufted crevice of his ear.

“Fenrir, you have to put us down! If you take us to the moon, it’ll kill us!”

“Sounds like a meat-person problem,” he said.

“We freed you, and this is the thanks we get?” Chesa yelled.

“I will remember your names fondly, and see that your glory is added to the Edda,” the wolf answered. After a long pause, he added. “What were your names again?”

“I’m Saint Matthew, and this is Percival—”

“Just take us to Folksvangr like you promised, and then you can chase the moon to your heart’s content,” I urged. “We need to stop the end of the world!”

“You’re . . . aware that the end of the world is kind of my thing?” he asked.

“Well, yes, but not this specific end. Or I guess it’s the same ending, but not . . .” I took a deep breath and found that I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I started to get dizzy. Chesa grabbed my shoulder and shoved me against the wolf’s neck.

“Listen up, you bastard!” she snapped. “We released you, now take us to Folksvangr!”

“But . . .”

“Now! Bad boy! Down!”

Fenrir’s hackles raised, and a low rumbling shook his ribs. I began to worry that we were about to be shaken off, but after giving the moon one last, longing look, he turned and slowly descended through the clouds. Eventually I lost sight of the moon, and the air grew warm, and my lungs stopped screaming bloody murder at me. And that’s when we arrived in the mythical Folksvangr.

There wasn’t much to recommend the place. On our initial descent, I thought Fenrir had lost his way, and was simply dropping us off at the first field he came across. A cloud-wreathed hillock framed by exposed granite cliffs, with a tumble of broken stones scattered across its crown made up the majority of the terrain. But as we drew closer I saw that the grass field was littered with bodies, laid in stately lines. Wind blew the grasses back and forth, covering up most of the corpses, so it was difficult to get any kind of count. But there must have been hundreds, if not thousands, laid to rest across that hill.

Fenrir landed hard at the base of the hill. I slithered gratefully to the ground, followed by the others. The giant wolf swung its head in our direction.

“Happy?” he asked.

“This is the place? You’re not just ditching us?” I asked.

“This is Folksvangr, the realm of Freya’s dead. Abandoned since her misdeeds of the last war, or so I’ve heard.” His attention focused on Percy, and he snorted. “Though you will know more of that than I, draugr. Be careful, mortals. Those who come here do not leave.”

Then he leapt in the air, flying straight at the moon, his enormous bulk getting rapidly smaller and smaller until he disappeared against the moon’s silver face. The trail of the Milky Way blotted out most of the sky, turning the purple night into a veil of diamonds.

“Well, there goes our ride,” Matthew said.

“We’ll find a way back, if we’re lucky enough to need one,” I said. “Now, what’s next?”

“What’s next? I thought you were the one with the plan!” Chesa said.

“Sure, I am. And my plan got us here. But I was expecting there to be a bunch of rebellious valkyries, and the creepy dude with the death sword. Not an empty field.”

“An empty field full of corpses,” Matthew said. “Doesn’t really look like Valhalla, does it? More like the battle of the Somme.”

I turned my attention to the nearby dead. Matthew was right. In Valhalla we were met by Viking warriors, bare chested and armored, dressed in leathers, with steel blades and ash-hafted spears. But the corpses lined up around us were much more modern, if no less dead. Bloodstained khaki uniforms framed surprisingly young faces, hands folded peacefully over oiled rifles or clutching bayonets. Flat-brimmed steel helmets lay jauntily over shattered skulls. They wore the kind of boots punk bands used to wear, spattered with mud so thick it was impossible to tell what color they had once been.

“Sword Beach, actually,” Percy said. “We came in with the Free French, made it nearly to Caen before the counterattack. We were expecting Panzers, you know, so when this ridiculous Jerry in a cape came marching down the middle of the street with a sword in his hand, well . . . we had a bit of a laugh.” He smiled at the memory. “Duff thought it would be funny if we challenged him to a duel, but the sarge just wanted us to shoot him. Neither worked. Took everything we could dish out and kept on coming. He cut straight through us. I remember wondering what they were going to tell the generals.”

“These are your men?” I asked.

“Not my unit, no. These are Suffolk boys, from the 8th. I was with the 185. But they didn’t get to go home to their mothers, either, so I guess we’re more alike than most.” Percy rubbed his eyes, then looked out across the field. “They’re all here. Germans, Yanks, a pack of Finns they used to test out the sword. The whole damned army of the dead. Every soul that bastard killed and raised again.”

“How many do you think it is?” I asked quietly. This place had a serene quality to it, almost like a graveyard, without the burying. It felt weird to talk too loudly.

“Thirteen hundred and thirty-seven,” Percy said. “Well, thirty-six, I suppose. Present company excluded. Built up a little at a time. A patrol here, a brigade there, cut off and cut down. They could have turned the whole invasion back, if Esther and her people hadn’t intervened.”

“We can’t fight back thirteen hundred zombies, John,” Chesa said. “Especially since you’re the only one with any magical power. I’m a pretty good shot with this bow, and I imagine Matthew can cludge a couple over the head with that staff, but other than that we’re feeling pretty underpowered.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said, not feeling fine at all. Chesa had a point. She and Matthew probably only had a glimmer of power remaining, and I had only passed through my domain on my way to Fenrir’s den. Whatever we had in our tanks, it probably wasn’t enough to go up against a cadre of valkyries and their pet necromancer. But what other choice did we have?

“That’s the spirit, John. Can do! Team spirit!” Matthew strolled between the bodies. “And these guys don’t look so tough. I could probably take most of them in a fistfight.”

“Even if that were true, these men are more than they appear,” Percy said. “The power of the Totenschreck gives them inhuman strength and durability. They could crush your skull with one hand.” To demonstrate, he picked up a discarded rifle and broke it in half. His hands turned the color of grape jelly. “It damages our bodies, but we heal. And nothing hurts anymore. Not really.”

“Looks like you’ve been holding out on us, Perce,” I said. “We could have used that superhero energy back at the B&B.”

“It is not in my nature to be violent. I just want to go back to my garden.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t always get what we want. So, not only are we facing thirteen hundred and thirty-six soldiers, each one is a slightly moldy Superman. Swell.”

“Thirty-eight,” Chesa called.

“Hmm? I think I did that math correctly. Unless Percy has his count wrong?”

“No. But there have been some additions,” Chesa said.

She was standing off to one side of the hill, pretty far down the hill. The grasses there were higher and less beaten down, with few bodies to separate them. The nearby forest was overgrown, almost too thick to walk through. I trotted down to see what she was looking at.

Greg and Bethany lay in perfect state, hands folded over their weapons of choice. They looked like statues in a mausoleum, except for the bloodless wounds at neck and heart. Their skin was pale, their eyes closed. Matthew went to one knee and started mumbling something in Latin.

“Them too, huh?” I said quietly. “I suppose we should have expected it.” I looked up to where Percy watched at a slight distance. “What does this mean for us? You seem pretty together. Are we going to be able to talk to them? Get them to fight for us?”

“No,” Percy said sadly, shaking his head. “When the Totenschreck calls, it wipes clean all memory, all thought. They will be entirely under the sword’s thrall.”

“So what happened to you? How come you’re all . . . gardens and tea and nonsense?”

“Clarence broke the first sword. It took a long time for me to remember what I had been. The other memories remained, of course. Everything I did under the sword’s influence.” He smiled weakly. “They will not be your friends if they awaken.”

“Fine, fine. Matthew, see if you can do anything for them. Maybe we tie them down or something,” I said.

“I’ve got this,” Chesa said. She produced a ribbon of thin pink material from under her sweatshirt.

“Gleipnir? You stole the ribbon used to bind the world wolf?” I asked.

“It’s a nice pink,” she said. “And Fenrir clearly didn’t want it anymore.”

“Whatever. Tie them up. Hopefully its magic works as well on zombies as it does on wolves.” I scanned the woods and rocky field while Chesa bent to her task. Matthew came to stand next to me. “So what do you think happens now? Why aren’t they here yet?”

“Perhaps you were right. Perhaps they weren’t ready to end the world, and we beat them to the punch.”

“If we hide among the bodies, maybe we can get the drop on them,” I said. “I just don’t understand why they’re waiting.”

“Beats me,” Matthew said. “Don’t know much about this place. Maybe it’s difficult for valkyries to come here or something.”

“In the old times, they served both Valhalla and Folksvangr,” Percy said. “A true valkyrie would have no trouble finding their way to this place.”

“Hmm. Well, then I’m not sure what’s going on. But at least we’ll be able to get the drop on them,” I said. “They have no way of knowing we’re here.”

“Well . . .” Matthew shielded his eyes, peering skyward. “I think that’s probably going to get their attention.”

Impossibly, Fenrir appeared on the horizon, so large that he dwarfed the sky. The great wolf bounded across the Milky Way and pounced on the moon, shaking it like a rag doll before throwing it. The moon . . . somehow . . . bounced across the starry expanse and rolled over the horizon. The sun popped up from the treeline, instantly turning the world into day. Fenrir barked enthusiastically and loped after the moon.

No sooner had night passed and day risen than the sky split along the seams. A longship tore through the fabric of the air, appearing from nowhere, traveling fast. It was gray, and shaggy, and crowded with black-armored valkyries. They spotted us as soon as they came through. Several leapt from the boat, pinwheeling in our direction, while the Naglfr continued on to the crown of the hill.

On the prow on the ship, sickly green blade held high, stood the edgelord. He stared down at me. Even at this distance, I could see the wicked smile on his face.

All around us, the dead began to stir.


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