"Odin is slain!" pealed Loki's silver voice. "Now falls Asgard. On, Jotuns!"
Loki had recovered from the stunning slash that had been Odin's last. He was urging the Jotuns forward, his eyes flaring with unhuman rage at the slaying of his wolf. The Aesir charge had halted, our warriors dismayed by the fall of Odin. And now, as the Jotuns rushed forward on us, we were pushed back by their superior numbers.
Back toward the end of the field, the cliff-edge from which Bifrost Bridge sprang, we were forced. Though the Aesir fought like madmen, they were falling in ever-increasing numbers before the yelling hosts of Jotuns. Thor had taken Odin's body and was bearing it back with us as we retreated. From all sides except the rear, the Jotuns surged upon us. The slaughter here was terrific. I seemed to be fighting in an unreal dream.
There was no standing against the heavier Jotun mass. Our shattered forces streamed over the high arch of Bifrost Bridge, through the gates of Asgard. Vidar, Tyr, Forseti and I came last.
Now all our surviving forces were safe within the gates. Utgar and Loki were leading the Jotuns hastily up onto the bridge after us. But as the winches inside the guard-castle creaked hastily, the gates were slowly swinging shut. Loki yelled an order. As though obeying a prepared plan, a score of Jotuns flung heavy spears into the hinges of the closing gates. The spears jammed the hinges, and the gates stopped closing.
"Push shut the gates!" Vidar yelled to the men at the winches.
"We cannot, for they are jammed!" was the frantic answer.
Across the rainbow bridge, Loki was leading his men forward and crying to them triumphantly.
"Forward, Jotuns! Over the bridge! The gates of Asgard are open to us!"
Chapter XIX
Swords Athirst
Vidar yelled to the warriors behind us.
"Clear the hinges, some of you! The rest of us will hold back the Jotuns!"
He sprang out onto Bifrost Bridge. Tyr, Forseti and I, with a score of Aesir warriors, leaped after him. The men behind us worked frantically to pull out the heavy spears that had jammed the hinges of Asgard's gates. We four stood abreast on the arched bridge, our warriors behind us, facing the Jotun masses as they rushed up behind Loki and Utgar.
The storm darkened the whole sky, and wild winds threatened to sweep us from the unrailed, narrow span on which we stood. Lightning flared continually across the sinister sky, and the thunder was rolling louder.
Tyr had torn off his brynja and thrown away his helmet. His great breast bare, streaked with blood, he held two swords in his hands. His cavernous eyes glared with a terrible light as he stepped in front of us. He yelled in a howl like that of a wild beast to the advancing Jotuns.
"Berserk am I! Who comes against me?"
The Jotuns pushing up onto the narrow bridge hesitated at sight of him, for he was truly terrible in his berserk madness.
"I await you, Utgar!" Tyr howled, his body quivering. "Come, for these swords are athirst!"
Utgar answered with a roar of rage. He and Loki, dismounted now, came up the arch of the bridge against us at the head of the Jotun mass. Tyr did not wait their coming. With a ferocious scream, our berserk companion sprang to meet them.
His two swords leaped like living things. Utgar's ax shore into his side — and Tyr laughed! Shouting with glee, he smote Utgar's head from his shoulders with a single awful stroke. Five Jotuns fell before him as he raged in berserk fury. Abruptly Loki's blade stabbed through his heart. Tyr swayed, staggered at the edge of the bridge. Then he crumpled and fell clear from the stone, plummeting down toward the raging, stormy sea far below.
Vidar, Forseti and I had been rushing forward with our men to support Tyr. Now we met the Jotuns, who were maddened by the killing of Utgar, urged on by Loki's silver voice.
For whole minutes we held the bridge against them! How, I do not know. Before my eyes was only a blur of flashing steel and wolfish faces, into which I struck by instinct rather than by design. I felt the red-hot stabs of sword-blades in my left shoulder and right thigh; I saw Forseti reel back, dying from one of Loki's incredibly swift, deadly thrusts. I glimpsed the arch-fiend's wrathful, beautiful face as he fought with Vidar.
We were pushed back over the arch of the bridge, toward the gates. A yell crashed up from the men behind us.
"The gates are freed!"
We staggered back through the small opening of the nearly closed gates. Instantly the gates were slammed shut in the faces of Loki and his hordes. For several moments we stood motionless, panting, wild-eyed, covered with blood. The Jotun hordes were banging vainly at the gates with sword and ax.
No more than a few hundred Aesir warriors remained as exhausted, wounded survivors of that dreadful battle. Out on Vigrid field, the dead lay in thousands. Ravens were swooping down on the pathetic corpses from the storm-black sky.
"Get to the towers and use your bows upon Loki's horde!" Vidar called hoarsely to part of our warriors.
They obeyed, and arrows began to rain down on the besiegers on the bridge. The howling of the Jotuns was loud even through the deepening thunder of the storm, as they sought to batter down the gates, yet avoid their own slaughter.
Vidar hastened with us through the guard-castle to the stone plaza beyond. There Odin lay upon the stones. Thor was kneeling beside his dying father. Odin's lips stirred, his wavering stare held a feeble, dying light as he looked up at his giant son.
"The Norns sever my thread," he whispered "Doom falls upon me, as Wyrd ordains — upon Asgard, too, I fear. If Loki prevails, you must do that which I ordered you."
"I will, Father," rumbled Thor, his big hand clenching tight the helve of his mighty hammer. "But stay with us!"
Odin's life was already gone, though, spent by his last effort to speak.
"Bear him to Valhalla!" ordered Thor's great voice as he arose.
"Loki and some of the Jotuns move away," called a warrior from the guard-castle tower.
We hurried back and looked through the loopholes in the gates. Loki and half the Jotun forces were striding back across the bridge and Vigrid field, marching southward. The rest of the Jotuns still battered at the gates, heedless of the arrows that fell upon them from above.
"Loki plans some trick," Thor muttered.
"Where are our ships?" Vidar cried. "Look!"
He pointed down at the sea east of Asgard. There the waves were running high and foam-white beneath the howling winds of the storm. I saw the Jotun fleet below, hacked and reduced to less than forty almost useless ships. But they were beating southward along the coast, parallel to Loki's marching force. Scarred and torn by battle though the Jotun ships were, of the Aesir vessels I saw nothing but floating wreckage.
"Skoal to Aegir and Niord!" shouted Thor. "Skoal to the sea-kings who have gone to Viking death beneath the waves!"
A clanging like the din of doom beat from the gates before us as the Jotun horde upon the bridge sought to batter them down. We worked at Thor's orders, hastily piling blocks of stone to hold the sagging gates. Then into our midst a wild-faced Aesir warrior came running. He shouted over the clangor and the terrifying roll of loud thunder.
"Loki's forces come upon us in their ships!" he yelled. "They seek to land in our harbor!"
Thor uttered a fierce cry as he stared down at the stormy sea. The Jotun fleet was moving along the coast, the ships jammed with men, heading for the unprotected fiord in the eastern cliffs of Asgard.
"They try to force entrance to Asgard from the harbor — and we have but few guards there!" Thor roared.