CHAPTER TEN
I sat nervously in the front row of a boisterous crowd of valkyries, shoulder to winged shoulder. Chesa had wandered off to look for Esther and report on our limited findings, which at the moment consisted of Tembo’s loss and Gregory’s recent drowning and resurrection. We hadn’t seen anything more unusual than . . . well, everything we had seen. But nothing suspicious. Aelwulf was keeping a tight rein on us, though, so it was hard to say if we were being steered away from anything important. Even now, he stood to one side, arms folded and impassive face locked on the stage.
“What are we supposed to be looking for anyway?” I asked Tembo as we settled into our seats. “Aren’t the valkyries supposed to be on our side? Why doesn’t Esther trust them?”
“Because they don’t trust Esther, either, and Knight Watch by extension,” Tembo said. “Meet a valkyrie in a dark alley and she’s just as likely to try to kill you as she is to welcome you with open arms.”
“Hell of a friendship,” I said.
“Our alliance with Valhalla is complicated. They were forced to sacrifice some of their powers to give Knight Watch its foundation. The magic that runs our domains and gives us some measure of authority over the mundane world stems from Valhalla,” Tembo said. “Have you noticed anything unusual about this place?”
I looked around at the crowds of sweating, wrestling warriors, most of them still bearing the wounds that sent them to the afterlife in the first place. My eyes lingered on the volleyball game that had apparently resumed, and the leather-wrapped skull that bounced over the net, complaining loudly the entire time. The valkyries gathered in clusters, apparently drawn from every culture in the world, all breathtakingly beautiful and harsh in equal measure. We had apparently caused quite a stir with our presence. Every time I looked at one of the gatherings of winged supermodels, they were staring in our direction and whispering among themselves. It made me nervous. Everything about this place made me nervous. The hall itself was larger than any structure I had ever seen in my life, and yet seemed close and intimate, like a friendly pub. The size of the place reminded me of the tree outside, as tall as a skyscraper. I looked back to Tembo.
“Not particularly,” I said. “Why?”
“Valhalla is the home of the Norse gods, where they gather their worthy dead and prepare for the end of the world with constant fighting and bloodshed and strife,” Tembo answered. He held up his index finger. “First, no gods. Faded away as the world fell into modernity. Only the servants remain, those who interacted with the real world on a regular basis. This is true of most mythologies, and the reason Matthew deals directly with angels, and nothing else. But these servants were orphaned, and have had to make do ever since. For Valhalla, that means valkyries and other lesser creatures.”
“Explains why I haven’t seen Thor,” I said. “But what does that have to do with the alliance?”
“Our own magic depends on the existence of these lesser creations,” Tembo said. “The magic that we draw into our domains, the powers that we express through our mythic selves . . . Knight Watch’s very existence depends on Valhalla. That was part of the Accords Esther and Runa keep talking about. Without Valhalla, we’re screwed.”
“So we have to trust Runa?”
“Runa, or whoever sits on that throne,” Tembo said, nodding in the direction of the massive structure where we’d first met Runa. “Runa Hellesdottir leads the valkyries by default. It is a position that she usurped from another, a sister who had led Valhalla truly astray. The war settled that, when Runa betrayed her leader because of a promise Esther made. A promise that they would be spared, should they surrender.”
“And what happened?” I asked, afraid that I already knew.
“Esther lied,” Tembo said. “One-third of the valkyries were destroyed in the fighting that followed. The rest are imprisoned here, as part of the Accords. We depend on them, but they depend on us, as well. It was not a bright chapter in our history.”
I sat back and thought about that. Runa betrayed her sisters during the war. When I was first introduced to Knight Watch, I assumed the war they kept talking about was the Second World War. I’ve since learned that, though concurrent, the struggle Esther fought in was unrelated and, in some ways, more widespread than the one I had learned about in school and through video games. There had been battles across cosmologies and mythologies, with warzones that stretched from the Americas to the Arctic Circle. The more I learned about it, the less I understood. But if Runa and Esther had been enemies during that war, and then briefly allies, only to have it undone by Esther’s lies, it would certainly explain our current situation.
Hooded attendants had set up a stage, framed by massive curtains that reminded me of The Muppet Show. I half expected a puppet to stride onto the boards. Instead it was Mr. Valhalla. Thankfully, he was wearing clothes this time around. Blackened leather armor etched with runic ravens covered his massive chest, while more traditional iron greaves and chain mail struggled to contain his arms and legs. He even wore an iron cap with an eyeguard of shining gold, though his beard still flowed luxuriously down his chest. The crowd roared when he appeared. Waving and smiling, he stomped to the center of the stage and waited for the cheering to stop.
“Ladies!” he boomed, immediately prompting another tinnitus-inducing round of cheering and the slamming of drinking horns against shields. He motioned for silence, which only brought more cheering. Finally, the catcalls and hooting subsided. “And gentlemen! Welcome to the armor competition. We all know why we’re here! So let’s get started with the competitors!”
The muscle-mountain lumbered off the stage, and the crowd grew hushed. There was a shuffling sound from stage right. A pillar of stacked armor appeared that, after a few seconds, I recognized as a human being. The competitor wore at least three chain shirts, an oversized hauberk, and a cuirass of beaten brass that was completely out of place in the golden halls of Valhalla. I could just make out his eyes under two different helms, each one offset to limit the exposure of his face, and what might have been a pair of children’s fuzzy earmuffs. The man’s hands looked like cartoon sausages under the layers of chain mitten and lobster plate. There was a shield strapped to each of his forearms, hanging loosely from the enarme straps, while three more shields hung around his neck, forming a pendulous necklace of steel that should have toppled him. In fact, I have no idea how this man was moving at all. The tasse, meant only to cover the hips, was so long that its edges scraped against the floor. The stage creaked under the weight of his ponderous advance. Clattering like a stack of mismatched plates, he tottered to the center of the stage.
“That doesn’t look practical,” I said.
“You’ll see,” Tembo said.
“But, I don’t understand how he’s supposed to—”
“You’ll see,” he repeated.
The man cleared his throat and, from the depths of oiled steel and tightly bound leather, spoke.
“Hildr Knotte, for your consideration.”
The crowd roared their appreciation and stood as one, drawing spears out of thin air. The valkyrie nearest me hefted a spear at least ten feet long, with a haft of light-colored ash that was at least as thick as my wrist. The iron head that tipped the spear was as black as ink and several feet long. It looked like the kind of weapon you would throw at a god, while swearing an oath of eternal rebellion. I looked around. Everyone had a spear, even Runa and Revna, and the aviator-bespectacled Inge.
“What the hell is going on?” Gregory asked.
“Did I miss anything?” Solveig asked as she pushed herself onto the bench beside me. She had a quiver of short spears with heavy broadleaf heads of forged iron. “Oh, good! I would hate to miss this!”
“Begin!” Mr. Valhalla shouted, and they did. Enthusiastically.
A cloud of iron-tipped spears sailed through the air, blotting out the thatched sky and turning the stage as dark as night. I heard Hildr Knotte make a quiet squeaking sound just as the hail of projectiles fell on him. It sounded like an iron trellis bridge collapsing under the weight of ten thousand steel bells and falling into a canyon stacked to the brim with pottery.
When I looked up, poor Hildr Knotte stood naked on the stage. Well, nearly naked. He wore a codpiece of burnished brass, and a single gauntlet that had somehow migrated to his left ear, as well as three bronze torques that pressed tightly into the flesh of his forehead. He staggered slowly back and forth, eyes half-closed, emitting a low, whimpering moan. Other than that, he was untouched.
“Very good, very good,” Mr. Valhalla said. “That looks like two pieces left, and the tiniest shred of decency, to boot! Well done, Hildr!” Hildr smiled, though in parting his lips he gave four broken teeth the chance to slip free from his mouth and dribble bloodily down his chest.
“Well that’s a satisfactory result,” Bethany said. She looked around. “Are there really no more spears? Not even one? I could have a throw.”
Turns out that there was one more spear, hurled from the back with great force. It arced slowly over the crowd, then descended like a thunderbolt. It struck Hildr squarely in the chest, piercing flesh and bone and whatever organs his death in glorious battle had left him. It seemed he still had a heart, though, because when the spear ran him through, Hildr cried out and collapsed to the ground, as dead as a doornail.
“Who threw that?” Mr. Valhalla shouted. “Hertha Grunsdottir, was that you?” He stomped to the center of the stage, looming over Hildr’s dead body and casting his gaze back and forth across the audience. “You know the rules, Hertha! No killing the competitors. Gods almighty, now we will have to delay the rest of the competition until poor Hildr can rejoin us in the morning. Such a bloody inconvenience!”
“Perhaps it is for the best,” Revna said, standing up. “Our friends from Knight Watch have joined us, and one of them has entered the armor competition. It is a rare privilege. We don’t often allow mortals to take part. Come, Sir John of Rast. Three hundred spears, thrown by the strongest arms in all of Valhalla. We will see how you fare.”
“You are going to do great!” Solveig said, patting me on the knee enthusiastically. “I can not wait to see how you perform.”
“Wait, this is my contest? I thought I could at least . . . wrestle? Or maybe demonstrate some clever poetry skills? Aren’t there poets in attendance?” I looked hopelessly around the crowd. They did not seem the poetic type. Bethany pulled me to my feet.
“What’s the matter, John? Performance anxiety?”
“But . . . I’m not wearing a codpiece . . .”
“Yay!” Bethany and Solveig crowed in unison.
Under the gleaming eye of Mr. Valhalla, I crossed the stage and stood on the spot where just a short time earlier the unfortunate Hildr Knotte had met his end. There was a fresh bloodstain to help me find my mark. In fact, looking around, the stage was mottled with bloodstains of various size and quality. I swallowed hard, then looked up at the audience. Aelwulf watched from the wings, arms still crossed, but the look on his face was almost anxious. At least he understood how much danger I was in. Solveig waved at me from the front row as she lay half a dozen spears across her muscular thighs. Bethany was weighing a spear in her hands and asking Solveig a series of questions.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever stared down a couple hundred valkyries eager to throw spears at you. It’s not the sort of thing that comes up in everyday life. But if you have, I’m sure you’ll understand my predicament. Rows and rows of battle-hardened shieldmaidens loosening their shoulders and testing the tips of their iron spears, discussing with one another the best points of impact for maximum disrobement. Add in the simple fact that I wasn’t really wearing that much armor, certainly not in the way that Hildr had been, and I was really beginning to feel like I had reached the top mast of a sinking ship, and was quickly running out of places to go.
“Quite an interesting strategy on this one,” Mr. Valhalla bellowed. He pinched the top of my head and turned me back and forth for review. “Perhaps he hopes to make it difficult to hit the armor at all?”
“Or that no one wants to see him naked!” a voice called from the crowd. That met with a round of jeers. I swallowed nervously for, by my count, the millionth time that day.
“They’re not all going to throw at once, are they?” I asked.
“Probably not,” Mr. Valhalla said. “They will want to knock your armor off one piece at a time. You’ve so little of it on that they might accidentally kill you otherwise. Kind of defeats the purpose of the competition.”
“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” I said. “I really thought this was going to be dangerous.”
“Oh for you it is very dangerous! But look on the positive side,” He leaned close and winked. “If you do very well you might prove yourself worthy of Valhalla, and then we can play this game together for the rest of eternity.”
“Ah . . . shit,” I turned back to the crowd and set my feet. The valkyries were still talking among themselves. I hitched my shield against my shoulder, keeping it in its traditional heater configuration, then drew my sword and prepared to face the onslaught.
“Look, he has a sword! He is going to cut your spears, like a true champion!”
“Don’t be ridicu—” I started.
“BEGIN!” Mr. Valhalla boomed.
Fortunately, the valkyries didn’t really seem to know what to do with me. For the Hildr Knottes of the world, all they had to do was throw three hundred spears and see what was left when they were done. But I was in just a steel cuirass with interlocking pauldrons over a chain shirt. I wasn’t even wearing the lower half of my usual battle kit because . . . well, frankly, because it was uncomfortable to sit in it for a long period of time, and the benches on the Naglfr are notoriously hard. It’s almost as if toenail clippings weren’t the best material for ergonomic seating. I was regretting that decision.
A few desultory spears arced in from the back of the crowd. Two I was able to simply sidestep, which drew biting jeers from the crowd, and the last I took on my shield. The valkyries started to mutter, and then there was a quick outpouring of spears, at least a dozen, that came from all directions, all thrown with sharp precision and the kind of velocity you’d expect from a ballista. One slammed into my shoulder, piercing the steel and peeling the armor there back like a can opener. I staggered under the impact, huddling behind my shield as iron points dimpled the surface. I felt steel sting the top of my head, and the heavy shaft of a spear rattled against my skull from a near miss.
This seemed to get their blood up. With a roar, a new wave of spears came at me. There had to be at least a hundred this time. I lost sight of the crowd, and the thatched sky, and even the flickering torches that lined the pillars surrounding the stage. All I saw was a swarm of angry spear points bending down toward me like a black-toothed storm wall.
“Ho-ho, here it comes!” Mr. Valhalla hooted.
“You’re doing great!” Bethany shouted.
“Screw you guys,” I said, then pulled the rip cord on my shield.
Not a literal rip cord. Just the big cooldown, the emergency release, the break in case of fire . . . basically, my best trick. I started by flicking the shield into its tower formation. The steel rim of the shield slammed against the stage. The first spears were already reaching me, glancing off the heavy face of the shield to bury themselves in the wooden planks of the stage. Lumber splintered, and steel dimpled, torquing against the straps and threatening to wrench the shield from my hands. The weight of the falling spears was enough to flatten me if I didn’t act soon. I strained against the impetus of their assault, then continued the transformation.
Panels folded out of the side of the shield. One sliced a spear in half as it flew past, sending the shaft clattering across the stage and into Mr. Valhalla’s voluminous chest. He was looking at me with growing concern. The blossoming shield hid him and his majestic smile from my view, as it wrapped around me, quickly enveloping me in a cocoon of solid steel. It even sealed at the top, until I was thoroughly protected from the valkyries’ attack.
The sound of spears shattering against my shield continued for a few moments. I slumped against the inside of my bulwark until the deadly rain subsided, breathing heavily, thankful for the rest.
“Egress in five seconds,” the shield whispered. It never spoke to me at any other time. I had to wonder why it bothered now. I nodded and grabbed the enarme straps that hung from the middle of my steel tomb. “Four . . . three . . . two . . .”
I closed my eyes and braced for impact. On “One!” the panels of the shield blew outward, sending the remnants of the cloud of spears into the crowd and showering the valkyries with the splinters of their own failure. It also only left me with a single panel, a shield slightly smaller than my usual heater and completely drained of its magical power. It was the kind of thing I had to recharge back in my domain, like Matthew’s Brilliance, or Tembo’s flames, or Gregory’s . . . hair care products, I guess?
The crowd sat in stunned silence, staring at me. Splinters and bits of broken spear stuck out of their finely braided hair, and poked through their armor. The panels of the shield had blown far and wide, burying themselves into pillars or the ground. The rest of the Knight Watch team slowly got off the ground. They must have dived for cover when I castled up, familiar as they were with the final form of that transformation. There was a Mr. Valhalla–shaped gap in the debris cloud, and the man himself stood to one side, shaking splinters out of his beard. For the first time since I had met the man, he was not smiling. I laughed.
“Ha! How you like that? Huh? Whatcha think of me now, kids? Not what you were expecting, was it? Was it!” I shouted. From the wings, Aelwulf pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head sadly.
Because it is never wise to taunt valkyries. Especially when they still have around a hundred spears to throw at you, and your magic shield is out of juice.
Let me repeat: one hundred spears. They only needed the first twenty. The rest were for the fun of it.