Thor's Serpents (26 page)

The Midgard Serpent threw his grandfather to the ground. Hurled him at the rocks below.

Matt let out a cry. He ran at the beast and loosed Mjölnir. It cracked against the giant snout. The dragon pulled back. The sudden move threw it off balance, and the beast thudded to the ground. Matt raced to his grandfather, who was lying on the rocks, groaning.

Matt grabbed his grandfather and carried him to an outcropping of rock. He laid him down between two rocks as he listened to the distant thumps of the dragon.

As soon as Matt laid him down, his grandfather collapsed. He tried to raise his head but couldn’t.

“Just wait here,” Matt said. “I’ll end this.”

“I know.” His grandfather’s lips curved in a pained smile, his blue eyes glowing with pride. “I know you will. You can win this, Matt. You
will
win this. I see that now, and I’m so sorry—”

“Shhh. Don’t talk. I’ll be right back.”

He tried to leave, but his grandfather caught his hand. “I made a mistake. I thought I was doing what was best for our people. Saving them. And yes, that meant letting you go, but that wasn’t my choice—you were the chosen champion, and I didn’t see any way to save you. I told myself you’d go to Valhalla and take your place with Thor himself, and
you’d be better off there, not here after Ragnarök, fighting for survival with the rest of us. I accepted our fate and yours because I thought it was inevitable. But I was wrong. Now I know why you were chosen, Matt. You have the power of Thor and the bravery of Thor, but it’s more than that. You will win this because you have the heart of Thor. I am so, so proud of you, and so, so sorry for everything.”

For a moment, Matt couldn’t move. It was everything he’d wanted to hear, everything he’d dreamed of hearing, everything he’d told himself he was a fool for imagining. Whatever happened with the Midgard Serpent,
this
was Matt’s real victory. His real reward, and he crouched there, mouth open, unable to get out the words he wanted to say.

“Go,” Granddad said. “You can’t turn your back on it.”

Matt nodded. He reached down to hug his grandfather.

“I’m going to really make you proud,” he said. Then he pulled back, ready to do exactly that, to kill the dragon. But when he moved away, Granddad’s head lolled, his blue eyes open, his breath stopped.

“No,” Matt whispered. “No!”

Behind him, the dragon roared.

G
randdad was dead.

Dead
.

Matt leaped to his feet. He barely saw the dragon through the rain and through his rage. He ran at it, and he launched Mjölnir, and he blasted his Hammer power, but both missed, Mjölnir flying wild, the Hammer fizzling. Even the rain seemed to slow, coming in fits and starts as if riding the roller coaster of his emotions, the fury and the grief and the fear and the confusion.

A fresh rush of anger, and he threw Mjölnir again. The dragon ducked it easily and flew at him, sending Matt scrabbling to get behind rock as flames shot out. The fire sputtered
away, but slower now, sparks still showering Matt’s face and hands.

Mjölnir returned, and Matt readied to throw it again. Then he stopped. He heard Hildar’s words—
with anger comes rage, and with rage comes weakness
—and he replayed his last few moves. They’d been fumbling and blind.

She’s right. I might feel better, hurling this hammer at my grandfather’s killer, but what am I doing besides tiring myself out? And giving the dragon time to recover?

What else had she said?
The best warrior is dedicated and passionate yet clearheaded. It is not about revenge or victory. It is about honor.

Honor.
A fine word. But was this really about honor? No. A fight for honor was a fight to defend some nebulous ideal. The stakes here were not nebulous at all. Matt flashed back to the nightmare the mara had sent him, and he shivered as if he’d been thrust into that icy wasteland again. He remembered the chasm, the voices, the cries, the people trapped in the ice, falling into Hel, all because he’d failed this fight.

Honor
was a fine word, but this was a battle for life. If he lost…? He glanced up at the stars, at Thor’s Chariot, yes, but mostly at the stars behind it, billions of stars, billions of lives.

Matt hefted Mjölnir. He looked into the sky again, and he focused, clearheaded as Hildar said. Simple and pure
focus. He had to know what he wanted and then make it happen.

The wind picked up, and it might have been the dragon beating its wings, but Matt wouldn’t believe that. Wouldn’t accept that. For once in his life, he wouldn’t doubt and deprecate his abilities and his powers. That wind was his. He controlled it. He
owned
it.

The sputtering rain began to fall straight and true. Then the wind caught it, blowing it like icy cold bullets, and Matt thought of earlier, when the dragon’s beating wings seemed to turn the rain to hail, and that’s what he asked for. No, that’s what he
demanded
.

And it fell. Slow at first, slushy rain that soaked him to the bone. Then the rain hardened, and he lifted his shield over his head as he strode from his hiding place. The hail beat down like golf balls, pounding against his wooden shield, the sound deafening, but Matt kept going. He walked straight into the middle of the open stretch of land. The dragon flew above him. He couldn’t hear it, but its shape cast a shadow, blocking what little light the storm let through.

Then he saw the beast, diving straight at him, its claws extended. He whirled out of the way and launched Mjölnir. It hit one of the gaping wounds on the dragon’s chest, and the dragon let out a roar that resounded over the pounding hail.

Matt caught the hammer. The beast dove again. Matt spun—and slid on the sleet-covered ground. One foot shot left, the other right, and he started to go down. The dragon let out a piercing cry of triumph. Giant claws wrapped around Matt. His shield fell. He fought madly, swinging the hammer wildly, but the claws closed and the dragon lifted him into the air.

Matt twisted and looked up and saw only darkness. A sky of endless night. He knew that wasn’t what he was seeing at all—it was the belly of the dragon blocking everything else—but in his mind, he saw that nightmare sky, every star extinguished, and he thought a clear, calm, deliberate
No.

I will not let those stars go out.

He lowered Mjölnir, testing the weight as if it were a baseball bat. Then he swung it at the dragon’s thin, birdlike leg. The beast screeched. He hit it again, in the same spot, and the claws opened.

Matt fell. He didn’t look down to see how high he’d been. He didn’t let himself look. He closed his eyes, and he focused on the wind and a gust of it lifted him, slowing his fall. He still hit hard enough to gasp in pain as his knees screamed with the impact. But he landed on his feet.

He saw the shield and left it where it lay. The hail pounded down like softballs now, and with each hit, he felt
a future bruise and he thought,
So I’ll have bruises. I’ll live to see those bruises, and that’s all that matters.

The dragon landed. The hail was too much, covering its back in icy sleet. It landed right in front of him and met his gaze, one of its eyes half-closed, its snout bashed in on one side, pain and rage blazing in its good eye. It looked at Matt, standing there, and it let out a noise, a deep rumbling noise, and it wasn’t a growl or a snarl. It was a laugh.

The dragon looked down at him, a mortal boy, no bigger than its head, holding a puny hammer, this boy, standing his ground, far from any shelter. And it laughed.

Then it snarled, opening its jaws as wide as they would stretch, giant fangs flashing… and Matt threw Mjölnir. He threw it straight into the gullet of the beast.

The dragon stopped short, its injured eye widening. Then it began to choke. Matt stepped away, looked up at the sky, and stopped the hail.

The dragon’s head swung wildly, jaws still wide. Matt jumped back, and again he slid on the ice. When he twisted to catch himself, the serpent’s fangs slashed at his jeans. As he felt the fabric rip, his mind flashed to the mural back in the Blackwell hall—Thor versus the Midgard Serpent at Ragnarök. The god defeating the beast, only to turn away and have it, with its dying breath, bite him with its poisoned fangs, killing him.

Matt danced out of the way, his brain screaming, “No!” But the serpent had only ripped his jeans. It slashed down at him again, still choking, still dying, but fighting with everything it had.

Matt looked up into the sky, at the stars, and he made his final demand to the god of storm and thunder. The skies opened in answer. One perfect bolt of lightning shot down, striking the dragon. It lit up, blazing red against the darkness. The giant body convulsed. Then it fell.

The serpent dropped onto the earth, splashing up mud and water. It kept convulsing, the very ground shaking beneath it. Matt tensed, his Hammer power at the ready. But then, with one final shudder, the beast lay still. Poison dripped from its fangs and a puff of smoke curled from its throat. Then Mjölnir came hurling out and smacked into his hand.

Matt looked down at the hammer, dripping wet.

“Serpent drool,” he said. “Great.”

Then he laughed. He threw back his head and laughed.

There was a moment, holding Mjölnir over the dead Midgard Serpent, when all he could think about was that he’d won. He’d defeated the serpent. He’d defied the myth.

And then he remembered the others and their fights. As fear crept in, he remembered something else. His granddad. Lying dead in the rocks.

Matt clenched his hand around Mjölnir, and any last
traces of that victory laugh died in his throat. He picked up his shield and started toward his granddad’s body. As soon as his foot touched down, burning pain shot through it. He looked down to see the pant leg the serpent had ripped. Under it, blood dripped down his leg. Blood and poison, burning a trail down to his sneaker.

“No,” he whispered. He fell to one knee, dropping the shield and the hammer. He ripped back the torn fabric. There it was. A single puncture wound, blistering now as the poison worked its way through his body.

Did you think you could cheat fate, Matty? Really?

Exhaustion washed over him. He blinked hard and felt himself toppling. He tried to stay upright, but the darkness fell, and as it did, he swore he heard the serpent laughing.

T
he worst of the monsters were contained, and Aunt Helen was coordinating the stragglers with an almost cheerful efficiency. Fen, however, still felt the lingering threads of fear twisting throughout his body. He’d just seen Laurie roll down a hill and dangle perilously close to that gash in the earth. He’d rather face more monsters than anything like
that
moment ever again.

He decided to keep her by his side by any means necessary as he led Laurie away from the gorges that led down to Hel. Honestly, Fen was ready to bop her on the head and send her home whether she liked it or not—and he already knew that her answer would be a big
not
. Unfortunately, she
was the one with the ability to open portals, so he was left linking his arm with hers to keep her from falling to her doom again.

Being around her now that she was acting… well, acting like
him
, was almost scarier than watching her being pursued by a massive snake that had arrows in its face. If they survived the end of the world, he was going to assign some of his pack to guard her twenty-four hours a day. This whole adventure had turned his previously trouble-avoiding cousin into a girl version of him. It was not good. Not at all.

“She could lead the pack,” Skull said in awe. “Are you sure she’s not a wolf?”

“I’m a fish, actually,” Laurie interjected.

“
Fish?
” Skull echoed. His mouth gaped open.

Fen shrugged. “Dude, our family is weird in so many ways, and it’s the fish thing that surprises you?”

“Salmon,” Laurie added.

“Oh.” Skull stared at her and then shook his head.

Fen glared at him. It was bad enough that Owen looked at her in awe; he wasn’t going to tolerate any of the wolves looking at her, too. Family kept family out of danger. Skull and Owen were both dangerous—especially now that Laurie seemed to enjoy battles and adventures. There was no way those two weren’t both likely to end up in peril. Owen had a horde of fighters; Skull had been pack alpha.

Fen pulled Laurie closer to his side. Bopping her on the head and putting her in a fortress sounded like a better plan by the minute.

The remaining small fights were fading. Most of the monsters were finding their way to Aunt Helen, who looked like an orchestra conductor directing the lot of them into that gash in the earth that would lead them to her domain. She was meandering around the crags and crevices, her face seeming almost lifelike for the first time. The ruler of Hel looked strangely
happy
.

“She’s as much a hero as anyone else,” Laurie murmured, catching the direction of Fen’s gaze.

Helen looked up, finding them unerringly. “I expect visits, children. I’ll even spare you the journey next time since you’ve proved that you can complete it successfully.”

Fen gaped at her.

“It was a test,” Laurie said, half questioningly.

“Of course,” Helen agreed with a smile that Fen had seen on his own face often. They really
were
related. There was something strange and a little awesome about realizing that this immortal being really was part of his family. She nodded at him and went back to herding the monsters into Hel, where, as she put it, “They’ll be more comfortable.”

“Thank you,” Laurie told their aunt.

Helen looked suddenly sad and added, “Father would have enjoyed it.”