Winner Takes All (Were Witch Book 9) Read online

  She flew back toward the ground and also closer to the troll army. The things in the catapults were huge chunks of ice that blazed and shimmered with unknown magic.

  “Crap!” she growled, plunging to the ground and cutting a half-dozen trolls down with a blade-thin wave of concentrated plasma.

  The king bellowed something and the siege engines fired. Bailey shot down two of the frosty boulders with bolts of fire, but one landed near the front of the Asgardian phalanx. It struck the ground, kicking up snow and releasing a blue shockwave that flash-froze at least twenty soldiers. Their bodies turned into statues of ice, fell over, and broke apart.

  The girl gritted her teeth. “No, goddammit!” They’d lost only a small fraction of the hundreds of soldiers who’d come with her, but she refused to lose any more.

  She turned and glared at King Imrit.

  I’m supposed to kill him and take his power, right? she reflected. Pretty sure that’s what I’d do regardless. Get ready, you son of a bitch.

  Chapter Ten

  Bailey hurled herself into the center of the maelstrom. The sky was blotted out by the tall, thick bodies and hairy limbs of the trolls, and the air was filled with the powerful swipes of their weapons. She battered aside all comers, or split the creatures asunder with her sword, or blasted them to pieces.

  Each time she heard the thunking sound of the catapults being fired, she immediately created an inverted rainstorm of plasma, thousands of blazing projectiles streaking into the sky to destroy the ice-bombs before they could reach her soldiers.

  Moments later, the lines of the dying trolls parted and their titanic monarch stood before her, hefting a gargantuan club made from an entire tree trunk which was spiked with magically-augmented icicles.

  “Imrit!” she cried, “King of the frost trolls! I am Bailey Nordin, called Nova, and I challenge you to single combat. Cease all fighting and let the battle be decided by us alone. Winner takes all!”

  He stared at her with beady eyes full of primitive anger and dull arrogance. He barked something to his warriors, presumably telling them to stand down since they stopped where they stood and parted to form a broad circle.

  “Yes,” Imrit growled, “we will fight, Bailey Nordin. No magic or deal is off. You will die without magic, and then Asgard falls!”

  She said nothing, only stood with her sword aimed at his face, nodding her agreement to his conditions.

  Roaring like an enraged bear, Imrit flew at her, wielding his great club with a speed and ferocity that belied his ungainly appearance.

  Her first instinct was to shield herself, ignoring the deal they’d made, but that would be both dishonorable and stupid. She’d end up having to fight all his warriors as well, and they’d resume their bombardment of the Asgardians.

  Instead, she relied on the enhanced agility she’d siphoned from Gormyr, added to the superhuman speed and strength she already possessed as both goddess and werewitch.

  Fast though he was, Imrit lacked subtlety and telegraphed his moves with brief yet obvious wind-ups. Speed and pure force were on his side, but he hadn’t heard of feinting.

  Bailey hopped over his swings or rolled under them, prepared to dash to one side and then darted to another. Imrit resumed his berserk whirlwind of wrath. The ground vibrated under the stomping of his feet and the impacts of his swings. He struck with greater intensity, but not with greater intelligence.

  I can outlast him, the girl concluded, but without a magic shield, one hit and I’m done. It’ll be tough to hit him without leaving myself open.

  Against such a huge opponent, whose offensive reach was nearly triple her own, her longsword didn’t seem particularly long. She tried rolling between Imrit’s legs as he prepared an overhead strike and extended the blade upward as part of the motion, cutting through the troll king’s thigh.

  He howled in pain and whirled to face her as she regained her feet and backed away. Drool ran around his tusks. He raised his off-hand and the air shimmered with a deep-blue glowing mist that coalesced in his grip as a double-headed battle-axe made of the same ensorcelled ice as the catapults’ payloads.

  “Hey!” Bailey protested. “That’s magic!”

  “Only weapon!” he barked. “Now fight!”

  Frowning, she raised her sword and surrounded it with heat so that the blade burst into golden flames. “Only fair,” she pronounced.

  Imrit was too intent on killing her to renegotiate the deal. He plunged ahead, spinning as he moved, both his giant weapons filling the air with the potential for violent death.

  At first, Bailey reacted as she had before, concentrating on dodging the monarch and hoping to tire him out, but his strength didn’t seem to flag. She opted to try a gamble; it was risky, but...

  She extended her sword in such a way that Imrit’s axe would strike it straight on at a ninety-degree angle. The blue blade streaked through the air.

  Then it shattered into a mass of glowing ice chunks against the flaming blade of Bailey’s divine sword.

  “What?” Imrit raged. “No! No!”

  Bailey seized the initiative by leaping over his club-arm, landing on his shoulder, and stabbing down into the place where his neck and chest met. He raised a hand to crush her and fling her off, but she jumped away, slashing him down the back as she descended.

  Imrit again attacked, furious but slowing. Spots of his blood appeared on the snow.

  The werewitch evaded him. Now his attacks were flagging. She’d be able to deliver the coup de grace as soon as he made a mistake.

  Imrit lost sight of her briefly as she ducked under an overextended swing on his part. It was the last error he ever made.

  Bailey shot upward behind him, raising her sword like an icepick and plunging it into the back of the troll king’s neck. His cry turned into a gurgle, and he fell to his knees. As his life seeped out, the girl, knowing she’d won, sent out her tendrils, locking them into his aura to drain his power.

  The well of it was deeper than she’d expected. For all their primitive stupidity, the frost trolls were ancient beings with well-developed lore, tremendous endurance, and magical protection from the elements of snow and ice, along with a limited ability to manipulate those same elements. The rush of strength and wisdom was nearly paralyzing.

  Imrit fell face-down in the snow and moved no more. Bailey withdrew her sword and stood facing the circle of his fighters.

  “Okay,” she ground out, “as per the deal I made with your king, I won, so that means—”

  “Kill her!” one of them choked.

  The girl’s face fell. “Shit.”

  A virtual avalanche of trolls and troll-clubs and troll-axes descended on her. The werewitch launched herself straight up into the sky, evading their blows by a heartbeat, then flying over them to regroup with the soldiers of Asgard.

  The troops rushed to meet her as the horde spun and made ready to begin the pitched battle anew.

  “Okay,” Bailey told the warriors, “that didn’t work. Looks like we have to kill ‘em all.”

  The catapults fired. Bailey turned, instantly conjuring a shield and adding to it part of the new magic she’d absorbed from Imrit. The translucent barrier took on a distinctive blue tint.

  The enchanted ice boulders ricocheted cleanly off the shield with extra force, relative to the velocity they’d come in at. The effect was like two magnets of the same charge repelling one another. The projectiles landed amidst the trolls and exploded. They had a natural resistance to cold magic, so they did not flash-freeze or die, but the burst still seemed to cause them pain and slow their movements.

  “Hah!” Bailey hefted her sword. “All right, let’s try this again. Charge!”

  Fenris watched as the Asgardian legion, with the werewitch at its head, finished off the last of King Imrit’s mighty horde. Carl stood a pace or two behind him and to the side, peering over his shoulder into the mirror-like disc that disclosed the scene to them.

  The scion whistled. “My, my. Qu
ite the slaughter, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Fenris stated, his voice low and monotone. “She has grown stronger, and destroyed most of the trolls who were willing and able to fight. Of course, some of their species still remain: women, children, the elderly, and small splinter tribes beyond Imrit’s authority. But it will be another generation, perhaps two or three before they can attempt anything on this level again. Not that it matters. They have served their purpose.”

  He waved his hand, and the crystal disc went dark. It was one of two mounted on wooden stands in the throne room, the Eye of Huginn to the right of Odin’s seat. The Eye of Muninn sat to the left.

  The wolf-father turned back to the business in which he and his apprentice had been engrossed before they’d checked on the girl.

  The throne room was both grand and austere. Its walls were of smooth gray stone hung with blue and red tapestries depicting knots, ships, warriors, and wolves. The chamber had no furniture nor decoration save the mirrors, the dais of the throne, a pair of golden braziers, and the throne itself. The chair was of oak, tall but spartan, with only a blue cushion to adorn it. There were no windows. The air of the place was somber and contemplative, like Odin the All-Father.

  The floor differed from the walls and ceiling in being matte black marble. All across it, Fenris and Carl had drawn a sequence of signs and sigils in the traditional red-ochre ink used for rituals of high ceremonial magic. The last couple of runes still needed to be completed.

  Fenris dipped a slant-cut reed into the hollow sheep skull in which he’d stored the dye. As he returned to work, he spoke.

  “Bailey should be ready. If not entirely, then so close as to make little difference. We ought to put her through at least one more battle. There are two more armies of monsters massing. That should bring her up to exactly the level of my power. And, of course, it will keep her busy while we enact the final steps.”

  He touched the reed-quill to the floor and traced a curious design, linking it to one he’d drawn a short while before. When the sequence was complete, they would be ready to cast the spell at the veritable heart of the Norse divine realm and the Asgardian empire, which would bring about the Beginning of the End and the Twilight of the Gods.

  Only the sacrifice would remain to be performed.

  “Hmm,” Carl opined. “Yes, probably a good idea, my lord. We don’t want her too powerful though, do we? And she jumped the proverbial gun on the frost trolls. Will we have time to complete our preparations before she takes on the rock giants or the draugar?”

  Fenris grunted. “I had planned to set her against Imrit as soon as we were finished with the runes, anyway. It makes no difference that she came to that conclusion on her own, or possibly at the council’s urging.”

  “Speaking of which,” Carl interjected, “aren’t there a few more ‘targets’ for us to eliminate? Balder was only the beginning, wasn’t he?”

  The hooded man nodded. “We should go after Thoth next. As the god of wisdom, he may be among those smart enough to grasp what is happening and attempt to interfere before we’re done. Leaving him alive too long could create unnecessary hassles.”

  “Agreed.” Carl beamed, pleased with himself in advance. Clearly he had something to share. “In fact, because I agree, it shouldn’t shock you to learn that I’ve been tracking the old Egyptian prick on and off, and I just checked up on him recently.”

  “Oh?” Fenris inquired without looking up from his rune-work.

  The scion went on. “Yes. He’s having a nice leisurely stroll through a nasty desert stretch of the Other, a place that reminds him of the sandy wastes on either side of the Nile, I suppose. It seems he was weary of his duties and wanted to recharge before the shit hit the fan here in Asgard, so he retreated to that godforsaken spot seeking clarity, reflection, peace, and that sort of thing. In isolation, naturally.”

  Now Fenris did look up, and he smiled. “How nice of him to be alone and far from help,” he commented. “Help me finish this final sigil, then we will ambush him together.”

  “Certainly.” Carl knelt, taking up a spare reed and smoothing the edges of Fenris’ bold lines. The runes were completed in minutes.

  They both stood. They had no fear of interruption or discovery since they’d surrounded the throne room with multiple spells: one to discourage the will of any who might peek in, another to create an illusion of the chamber being empty and normal, and a third to physically repel anyone who tried to step in regardless. If that raised suspicions, most Asgardians would assume they were put there by Odin.

  None of them had any idea about what was coming.

  Fenris concentrated on Thoth’s energy signature as Carl helped him narrow it down by describing the section of the Other in more detail. It lay near the red-rock canyon realm where the witch-specters had recently aggregated, far from the swamps that formed the main central region. Fenris knew of the place but had little experience with it.

  “Ah,” the wolf-god murmured, “I’ve found him. Let us pay him a visit.”

  He raised his hands, chanted, and opened a purple gateway in the air before Odin’s throne. They stepped through and closed it behind them.

  Moving from the mild climate of Asgard to the brief cold of astral travel, the two then emerged under a blazing hot sun. The sky, a flat, nondescript metallic color, was clear of clouds. The landscape around them was featureless save for endless dunes of pale brown sand.

  There was no sign of the lord of wisdom. Fenris touched the side of his head and looked toward a line of dunes tall enough to be mistaken for low mountains. “He is beyond those. Come.”

  They trudged through the erg, making little effort to conceal themselves. Thoth had not bothered to hide his aura since the region was uninhabited, and he would have had no reason to suppose anyone was hunting him. If anything, he wanted to keep himself easy to find in case he was needed back in Asgard. And he was stationary, probably meditating.

  Fenris crested the tall dunes first, with Carl close behind. They looked down into a curiously shaped narrow little valley between two serpentine ridges of sand. Thoth sat at the bottom, cross-legged, his eyes shut. Beside him was a tiny pool of water beside which a single date palm tree and a handful of green fronds grew.

  Without opening his eyes or turning his head, Thoth greeted them in his deep voice. “Hello, Fenris the Wolf-Father. Hello, Carl the Scion. I am not surprised you’ve found me.”

  “Oh?” said Fenris. “It was not difficult.” He took two slow, heavy steps down the slope, dislodging a small, hissing flow of sand.

  The Egyptian deity did open his eyelids then and slowly rose to his feet to look up at his visitors. “I was quite aware you were up to something. The precise nature of it, no, but you would be a fool to assume that your recent irregularities of behavior were lost on me. Perhaps you are a fool at that. You’re certainly not as smart as you like to think.”

  Fenris stopped, frowned, and then advanced again. “And you,” he stated, “are, as the humans say, too smart for your own good. Your supercilious and pretentious attitude has always made a fine counterpoint to the ignorance and naïveté of Balder. The late Balder.”

  Carl had begun to circle toward Thoth’s flank. “Since you’re so wise, O Great God of Wisdom,” quipped the scion, “you were aware that Balder was dead, right?”

  Thoth didn’t answer. His dark, aged face only grimaced. His eyes were clear and open, not bothered by the bright sun.

  Fenris stopped at the base of the tall dune. “It will be good to be rid of you. Balder was wounded and weak, so he did not give me as much sport as I would have liked. But you, old one, are at full strength, or as close to full as can be expected at your age.”

  “At my age,” Thoth retorted, “I have seen the rise and fall of greater beings than—”

  Fenris struck him full in the chest with a sudden bolt of lightning, while Carl sprang in and kicked the wisdom-god’s legs out from under him. But before he struck the ground, he was gone
. In his place, a hissing swarm of poisonous asps moved through the dust.

  Carl sprang back, searing the sand beneath him with a gout of blue-white flame that turned it to glass. Two of the snakes were destroyed, but the rest had separated and made toward Fenris.

  The wolf-god leaped into the air, hurling bolts of concentrated percussive force into the base of the great dune, collapsing it in an avalanche of sand that buried the serpents. By the time he landed on the earth next to the small oasis, Thoth had sprung free of the particulate mass, back in human form, his eyes glowing white with wrath.

  At a motion of his hand, the water in the tiny pool surged upward in a gout far larger and more powerful than anything the oasis could have mustered under natural conditions and formed into an ibis-like construct of foaming liquid. The bird dive-bombed Fenris, its body separating into a storm of icy knives.

  The wolf-god was in motion, springing past the impact point of the icicles and shifting into his huge wolf-form. He tackled Thoth in a flurry of sand, and the two figures wrestled while Carl moved in to harry the Egyptian with plasma lances, tripwires of condensed atmospheric metals, and psionic waves of confusion.

  Thoth faltered, but he summoned all his strength and threw Fenris off of him, causing the massive wolf to roll to the bottom of the valley.

  Before the lord of wisdom could counterattack, Fenris struck him from three sides simultaneously with lightning, briefly paralyzing him. Carl moved in from the fourth side and punched him in the jaw after surrounding his fist with an arcane shield. Thoth’s head snapped back, and he collapsed in the dust.

  He regained his feet quickly enough, but the interplay of the two combatants—a god who was his equal and a demigod only marginally weaker than himself—wore him down. Soon Thoth could barely defend himself.

  Fenris roared in vicious triumph and seized the aged dark-skinned deity in his jaws, whipping him back and forth, then hurling him to the ground and stomping on him with his clawed forelegs, while Carl continuously blasted him with arcane and elemental attacks.