"Vidar, hold these gates! Half of you come with me to hold the harbor!"
The bearded giant ran with mighty strides toward the eastern edge of Asgard island. Half of us followed him. The storm was now buffeting Asgard with full force. Lightning burned in sheets and stabs across the night-black sky. Torchlight was flaring from the dark, mountainous mass of Valhalla, whence came through the tempest the dim wailing of women's voices as Odin's body was borne home.
Out of the storm-seared dusk, a slim, mail-clad figure darted to my side as I hastened with Thor and our scant force of warriors toward the eastern cliff. It was Freya, wearing her mail and helmet, holding a shield and light bow in her hand.
"Jarl Keith!" she cried. "I feared you slain in yon terrible battle! I leave you no more!"
"You can't stay with me!" I protested. "We go to hold the harbor against Loki's new assault."
"Then I fight with you!" she said fiercely. "If doom comes now upon Asgard, I meet it at your side."
I could not turn her from her relentless purpose. She ran lightly beside me as we hastened after Thor down the first steps of the narrow cliffside stair. Lightning washed the cliffs, and the deafening crack of thunder drowned the shrieking winds and boom of the sea. By the flashing flares, we saw the Jotun ships already sweeping quickly into the narrow fiord below us. Behind them in the raging sea swam something long, black and sinuous, a great, incredible shape.
"Iormungandr comes with his master Loki!" boomed Thor. "It is well!"
Before we were down the stair, the Jotuns were landing below. Overwhelming the small force of Aesir guards there, they rushed up to meet us.
I swung Freya behind me.
"Keep at my back," I ordered.
"I am not afraid!" argued her clear voice in my ear. Her bow twanged, and an arrow sped down into the throat of the foremost of the swarming Jotuns. I saw Loki leaping ashore from one of the ships. Then the nearest Jotuns reached us.
Chapter XX
Ragnarok
Thor's hammer smashed down, and the first two Jotuns fell back with crushed skulls. They pitched off the stair to the depths below. Arrows from enemy archers farther down the stair whizzed up through the lightning-seared dusk and rattled off our mail, or struck down men among us. Freya's bow kept twanging. Each time she loosed an arrow, her clear cry sang loud in my ears.
I tried to keep her near me as I fought beside Thor and tall Vali, desperately trying to hold back the Jotuns. But the stair was wide enough only for three of us to fight abreast. Thor, crimson with blood from many wounds, swung his hammer like a demon of destruction. Yet we were forced up the stairs. Vali dropped with an arrow in his eye, and an Aesir from behind rushed to take his place.
Upward we were pushed, to the top of the stair, the very edge of the cliff. There we hacked with sword and ax. The terrible weapon of the Hammerer whirled and screamed with such fury that the Jotuns could not force the narrow way.
"Make way for me!" pealed Loki's silver voice from below, through the clash of battle and the storm's roar. "I will force the way!"
"I am waiting for you, Loki!" bellowed Thor to the arch-traitor.
Lightning flared again in a continuous blinding flame. It showed Loki's golden helmet flashing up amid the Jotuns crowded on the stair. And it showed, too, a slimy, black, scaly monster whose coils rippled up the steps as it advanced before its master.
"Iormungandr comes!" cried Freya. "The Midgard serpent!"
The Jotuns hugged the cliff side of the stair. Even they were appalled by their dread ally as the incredible snake writhed up toward us. Thor raised his hammer high. Like a shooting black thunderbolt, Iormungandr propelled himself at the bearded giant.
In the lightning streak, I saw the snake's giant spade-shaped head darting with the speed of light. Its opaline eyes were coldly blazing. Its opened jaws emitted a flood of fine, green poison-spray that covered Thor's crimsoned figure.
"My oath to Frey!" roared Thor, and his hammer flashed down.
The snake, with more than human speed, swerved to avoid that terrific blow. But not so swift as Thor's stroke was its swerve. The steel head of Miolnir smashed down upon the spade-shaped head and ground it into the rock of the stair. The hammer itself shivered to fragments from that tremendous stroke.
Iormungandr's monstrous body writhed in its death-throes, flinging Jotuns from the stair to death. Then the serpent's great body fell over the edge, dropping to the sea far below.
"Slain — my wolf and serpent slain!" raged Loki's voice. "Vengeance, Jotuns! Vengeance on Thor!"
The giant was staggering almost helplessly. The helve of his broken hammer suddenly fell from his hand. His red face grew pallid through the blood and green poison that coated it. I sprang with Freya to support him. The few score Aesir warriors left were trying to hold back the Jotuns. Loki's sword was stabbing in deadly strokes among them.
"I am sped," gasped Thor. "The poison of Iormungandr enters my wounds. Help me to Valhalla, for Asgard is lost. There still remains that which Odin bade me do."
Freya and I stumbled with the reeling giant away from that hopeless battle. Our last Aesir warriors could not hope to hold back Loki and his ravening horde. The unending drum-roll of thunder was crashing over Asgard. By the sheeted lightning, we saw Aesir women running calmly to stand beside their men in death. We staggered with Thor into the torchlit entrance of Valhalla castle.
"To the chamber of — the pit-road — to deep Muspelheim — take me there!" Thor gasped.
As we entered Valhalla castle, I heard a wild, wolflike shout of triumph behind us. I looked back. The last Aesir resistance had been overcome, and Loki and the Jotuns were pouring onto the lofty plateau of Asgard. Some of the Jotuns already were running to open Asgard gates to those who battered them from Bifrost Bridge. Women who had rushed out to seek their dead mates were being cut down everywhere.
"Asgard has fallen!" moaned Freya, her blue eyes stricken in the lightning flare. "Loki triumphs!"
"No!" cried Thor in a startlingly great voice. "Never shall Loki reign triumphant in these halls. Lead me on!"
Freya snatched a torch from a socket as we entered the passages of Valhalla. We stumbled past the great hall where Frigga still sat motionless beside Odin's body. On we went, down into the dark passages to the chamber of the pit that led to fiery Muspelheim.
Swaying blindly, Thor pressed the runes on the door with a swiftly failing hand. The door swung open and we entered. Immediately the bearded giant crumpled standing against a wall. Fighting to retain consciousness, he pointed to the square silver box that held the remote control of the sea-gate in the roof of the fiery underworld.
"Give me that control box, Jarl Keith," he whispered in a weakening voice, "that I may open the gate far below and let the waters of the sea rush down into Muspelheim upon the atomic fires. It was my father Odin's order to me. Yes, the atomic fires will be smothered and their radiations will be ended. This will no longer be a place of eternal youth and warmth."
"But when the sea water strikes Muspelheim, there will be an explosion that will wreck this land!" I protested.
"And that, too, would be well!" Thor shouted, swaying. "Let the land be wrecked before Loki and the Jotuns reap fruit of their victory and become a dread menace to all the rest of Earth. It was Odin's warning — Loki must not be allowed to menace all the world!"
He fell heavily to the floor. But he raised his great head and his voice came chokingly:
"Give me the box!"
I heard the quickly approaching roar of Jotun voices from Valhalla's halls above. I heard the shriek of the last Aesir women being cut down by the followers of Loki. In my mind unfolded a shocking vision of Loki, using his overwhelming powers of evil science to dominate all the outside world. I sprang toward the silver control box and was turning to hand it to dying Thor, when Freya screamed.