Legendary

There wasn't a lot of chaos up at the citadel, but then, this had been long expected and everybody was prepared. People rushed around, but there was determination, not fear, in the halls as people moved with purpose. I reported to Odin, who told me to get ready and come back. I hustled to my room, pulled on specially modified, comfortable athletic wear--padded leggings, sports bra, an UnderArmour t-shirt. Then I quickly put on boots and my armor--shin guards, breast plate over a gambison that came to midthigh, shoulder protection. I grabbed my bag with every weapon I possessed and put the cestuses on top. I took a stocking cap to cushion the helmet, picked up my shield and the bag, and returned to Odin. The bag was heavy, even for me.

Serena arrived just after I did, and together we helped Odin with the armor that Emma, Reginn, and I had created for him. Visually, it was stunning, shining golden armor richly ornamented with knotwork patterns and a great tree of life on his breastplate. He wore green under the armor and looked every inch the king, Gungnir in his hand. We walked behind him as he strode toward the Great Hall, black cape billowing behind him. The capes the Asgardians favored were dramatic and regal, but I always thought of the movie The Incredibles that showed how dangerous they could be to your average superhero. Well, it was unlikely that anyone from Muspelheim would show up with a jet engine. Thor, Magni, and Modi caught up with us and Thor took his place at his father's right hand, carrying his ornamented helmet with the horns and wings. Magni winked at me and took my bag. "Thanks," I wheezed, and his smile dropped off as he realized how heavy it was. He and Modi traded off on the walk down to the elevated throne.

The rest of the valkyries joined us. We didn't look as awesome as we usually did when we were skirmishing at Valhalla--not even the oldest valkyries had chosen to wear our traditional white dresses, in the end. If not in modern athletic gear like mine, they were dressed in tough canvas pants and shirts under their gambisons. All our gambisons were crimson red, though, a nod to the lining of our old swanfeather capes. Everything else was dyed a green so dark it was almost black, showing our allegiance to the royal house of Asgard but a different shade that only we wore.

All the royal guard was mustering, forming up in ranks before Odin and Thor. Frigga arrived; unlike the valkyries, she wore a dress under her armor, but then, she would be fighting on the ground. Other gods joined us, splendid and terrible in their battle dress, armor bright in the light. Baldur was accompanied by most of the dogs he had bred, having earned back the right to care for them. En masse, they were both beautiful and terrifying, all huge, with flowing fur and teeth. Steve and Bucky reported in, followed by Emma and Tony, Loki and Torunn. Thor's boon companions, Fandral, Volstag, and Hogun, arrived and stood to the side. Hogun caught my eye and nodded gravely.

"Our time grows short," Odin said, and was rewarded with instant silence and attention. His voice carried the length of the hall without strain. The acoustics were incredible. "Our enemies approach. You have grown with knowledge of the prophesy that we will meet the sons of Muspell on the plains of Vigrior and engage in such a battle that makes the worlds split." He was silent a moment. His eye flicked to me almost imperceptibly."Fight bravely, my warriors! Fight for Asgard and your honor! Fight, my heroes, and there will be feasting in Valhalla this night!" The royal guard shouted in response, banging the butts of their spears on the hall floor. Odin walked down the steps of the throne and through the ranks of the royal guard. Thor joined him, slightly behind him and to the right, followed by the valkyries; the others came behind us.

At the massive outside door, Sif brought Sleipnir to Odin. Thor paced by his father's right stirrup, joined by Loki at the left. Serena followed directly behind, and the valkyries joined her in a v-shaped wedge. We walked to the edge of the battlefield, stopping as Odin surveyed the expanse of green, peaceful and calm. Then he made his first small deviation, positioning himself in the gap in the trees between Vigrior and the way to the Bifrost rather than in the openness of the plain. He dismounted, Sleipnir immediately lowering his head to graze. We arranged ourselves behind. Odin spoke intently to Loki, who listened closely and nodded. Loki bent his head as Odin placed his hand on his head, then gripped his son's shoulder before stepping back. Loki signalled to someone, and as he moved away toward the World Tree, I saw Torunn join him. As we stood, I hoped that things would get moving soon; both out of anxiety and because it was getting hot under all that metal.

I put on my helmet, put on the spine sheath with the short sword, the scabbard with the dual swords at the front of my left hip, the katana behind my hip. A dagger in each boot, in wrist sheaths, in pockets on my gambison. Thirty shuriken in a waist pouch, plus the first aid kit we'd devised like an uncool fanny pack. I took the rest of my personal weaponry over to the side, under the trees, driving the spears into the earth, adding two full quivers and bow with spare bowstring, and folding the bag and tucking it into the tree. I took the bundle of javelins and rejoined the army.

Ranks formed. Odin swung up on Sleipnir, the valkyries behind him. Behind us were Thor, Magni, Modi, and the rest of the gods and generals. Behind them, the select royal guard, followed by the Asgardian guard. Looming over all from the rear were the great siege engines that Tony and Emma had created and built.

At last, we heard the horn, a deep and hectic note that silenced all conversations.

The space around the Observatory grew dark and turbulent, splitting with a groundshaking crack as the sons of Muspell, led by Sutr, came through the rift to ride down the Bifrost. Which was holding. Humanoid they were, but not human; their dark armor glinted sullenly in the sunlight. Drums pounded as they marched, banners fluttering. It was an awe-inspiring sight. All they needed were some floats in order to have a proper parade, I thought, trying to buck myself up.

Odin motioned and the valkyries stepped up beside him. I was on his right and Selena on his left, and the others ranged out beside us. Sleipnir reared, and the deep baying of the hounds sounded as the invaders came up the rise into view. Our initial plan was to bottleneck them; there was a rather narrow path to Vigrior--about the width of the Champs Elysees. They could come through the trees as well, but some of the guard was infiltrating that, which would slow them down.

The horse bearing Sutr came into view, a mammoth beast about the size of Sleipnir. The fire giants, like the frost giants when they weren't blending in, were visibly different from the Asgardians. Their skin was in deep tones of reds and oranges shading in and out of black like lava, their dark hair moving in the waves of heat generated by their bodies. Sutr's sword glowed brightly. It was hard to look at, but it seemed to be wreathed in flame. They moved slowly toward us, their pace increasing my dread.

Movement to the right caught my eye as a ghastly-looking ship sailed over soil and rock.The dishonored dead of Niflheim, right on schedule. And Hel at the helm, colder and harder than I'd ever seen her in her guise as Hela, half dead, half alive. Gross. There was nothing of the gracious goddess of Helheim who had welcomed us to her halls.

As the invaders drew closer, Odin issued his first command. The catapults and trebuchets rumbled to life and began to throw loads of small, heavy projectiles that splintered on impact into the oncoming forces. The first screams started from the living victims. Sutr snarled, and raised his sword, which dripped flames each time he moved it and started fires. It was as if he had an unending supply of napalm flowing out of the thing. Two flights of arrows went into the sky, theirs and ours. We raised our shields to block them and stood fast as arrows clattered off the metal. There were a few casualties, but not many, at least on our side. The other side seemed to take more. Then a group of naked men pushed through the valkyries. They were armed only with swords, and it took everything I had to stand my ground and not fall back from them. They milled around in front of our lines, psyching themselves up, I guessed. The instant that Sutr's forces were close enough, those of us valkyries with javelins threw them, taking out a few more fire giants.

Then the berserkers screamed, a sound so terrifying in its atavism that I did step back. But so did the invaders, which provoked something in the berserkers in response. They screamed again and charged the line. I didn't wait to see what happened when they crashed the Muspell lines; I remembered the chaos they caused during the scrimmage. Most of the valkyries turned and moved to our rear, climbing up the seige engines and taking flight off the tops. As I made my first turn, gaining altitude, I saw Steve and Bucky with the unit we'd trained, giving them their targets, which would be the apparent leaders of groups of invaders. I raised my hand to them and flew on. With us was a small contingent of those who would work as medics. We had the strongest of their fliers and the ones who could fight the best; the valkyries were fighters first and medics second.

Serena and I had been the first to launch; despite the gravity of the situation and the risks we were all taking, I loved flight. As we streaked forward over our forces, our passage was met by cheers.

And some leftover arrows from the other side, but I increased my altitude above them and saw the others adjust too. I drew my swords as we approached the enemy lines and dove, taking a chunk out of Sutr's arm as I passed before regaining altitude. Our army roared its approval and I heard the order for the charge. The berserkers were causing carnage and achieving better penetration than I'd thought possible in the little time they'd had. My wings beat faster. I rolled here and there to avoid spears and javelins thrown at me, then I was at the back of the enemy forces. I went higher, then stooped down on my first target. The beings looked like cave trolls from the Lord of the Rings movies, except uglier. Maybe they were nice people off the battlefield, but right now they were trying to swat us out of the air. I made diving runs on them, aiming for the necks where I could do the most damage with the smallest risk; I might accidentally embed a sword in a vertebra, but for the most part the neck is a target-rich environment with all those muscles and major blood vessels.

My first miscalculation occurred when I got too close, coming in from a risky angle. I sliced the cave troll's throat open and was rewarded with a fountain of blood that sprayed my right side as I passed, only to be hit accidentally as the cave troll went down. I bounced off another cave troll and splatted on the ground, having to retract my wings instantly and roll to avoid being stomped. It was more frantic on the ground, but I aimed for the hamstrings to help my sisters who were still on the wing. We gradually took down all nine cave trolls, and the other valkyries got me and a couple others who'd been knocked down airborne again by grabbing our hands as they passed by us in pairs and flipping us into the air. It wasn't the easiest way to get back aloft but it worked, and our first objective met, we headed back for our lines, each of us taking a slightly different path back so that we could give the best intelligence. Unexpected movement to my left drew my attention; one of the enemy had thrown a javelin that had impaled Brynhildr. I saw her body go lifeless and plummet. There was no point in trying to help. I flew on.

I saw that the berserkers had made it to the midsection of the invaders, their paths marked by bodies and red. Only a few were left, but their fury and bestiality were keeping them going. I would have shuddered, but you can't do that while you're flying. I took another cut out of Sutr's back as I passed, and landed beside Odin.

We'd done a good job of keeping the enemy from getting onto the plains; our lines had both spread out and there was fighting in the trees, but we hadn't been forced back much. Odin took our reports, and I saw a couple other gaps in our rank. We must have lost more valkyries on the ground. We reported the success of our objective, summarized the conditions we'd seen as we overflew the enemy, and waited as he gave orders to the runners, who peeled off to find the generals. As Odin turned back to us, we heard a howl that froze my blood. Serena sent Eir into the air; she was the best of us at getting airborne from the ground. While we waited for her report, I took a packet of energy gel from my first aid pack, then another. The actual combat was taking a lot out of me. Eir reported the approach of a great wolf that had what looked like a broken golden leash around its neck.

"Fenrir approaches," Odin said calmly. "My valkyries, I am proud of your skill. Your service to me and Asgard has been exemplary. My thanks to each of you. Fly, attacking the knots of the fire giants and those from Niflheim that stand fast until you can fly no more, then fight on foot."

We saluted one last time as he turned Sleipnir toward Fenrir, and we pivoted back toward the siege engines. Serena assigned our positions, then I detoured for my spears, bow, and arrows, and was one of the last into the air. We flew along the path of Odin, flying past him and splitting off to our assignments. I put three spears into the side of Fenrir before diverting.

Serena had sent me where the fighting was currently fiercest. I gained height in the air and dove, using my spears and my mass to cause chaos among the fire giants, knocking them aside when I couldn't land a killing blow. Periodically I perched in a tree to tape up a wound or suck down some more energy gel. Or give my wings a rest; they'd cramp now and then, which made flight hazardous. We'd never gone full tilt against each other in practice, which was a mistake. I was working more than I ever had in practice, going faster, taking more chances, driven by urgency and adrenaline, which made my muscles work harder when I needed to evade. When I was recovering in a tree, I'd see who I could pick off with an arrow. Unless I got lucky with a shot into an eye or between the ribs, one arrow was never enough, and it didn't take long to exhaust my supply. I flew, using the spare bowstring as a garrotte whenever I ran across somebody with the right sized neck. I whipped the bowstring around their necks, planted my feet on their backs, and pulled. Sometimes strangulation killed them; other times, the bowstring cut into their necks and severed blood vessels.

I wearily labored into the air, thick with smoke on shifting winds, and flew high, seeking a place where I could be the most effective. I saw the body of the great wolf, surrounded by bodies in green and gold armor. Sleipnir was down, not far from his master. Another valkyrie was unmoving on the ground; I was too far up to see who it was, but it was one of us who had retained white wings. And on a knoll, I could see my uncle fighting with Steve and some of the guard and losing. I set my spear and dove for the enemy combatants. My spear broke and I let it go immediately. I felt white hot pain searing through my wing and hit the ground hard. One of the guard helped me to my knees and took a look at the wound; it was an arrow that had gone between the feathers. I sorted through the medical pack for medical-grade superglue and the last packets of energy gel, managing to tell him not to glue his fingers together, then panted in pain as he yanked the arrow all the way through the wing and applied the glue to set. My helper mopped off the feathers as best he could--wing wounds bleed like crazy. I couldn't put away the wings, they hurt too much, so I folded them as tight to my back as I could, and rejoined the fight.

Just in time to see my uncle go down. I carved a path to him and Steve guarded us while I put a pressure bandage on Bucky's leg; it was too close to the artery for me to be easy about it. I had to remove his breastplate; a spear had punched through it and into his side. I slapped a bandage on that one too. Looking around, I couldn't see any valkyries in the sky, so I covered Steve's retreat as he dragged Bucky to the back of our lines. I was looking around for my next target when I heard familiar sounds and managed a faint smile. "Sparky," I said, smiling at Iron Man as he set down next to me. The guards gaped at him.

"Hey Tiger, I brought you some water." He handed out big bottles of water around, and I chugged mine. I couldn't remember ever being so thirsty.

"What's the news?"

"I'm sure you saw that Odin's down," he said, and I nodded. "We're holding our own. Those guys from Niflheim are mostly dead again and we're making headway into the fire giants. But Sutr has started a bunch of fires. And it looks like Jormundgand--that big snake?--is making its way toward us."

"Which way?" I asked, and Tony pointed. I drew my swords again and took a deep breath. The guard were looking at me. I pointed in the direction Tony had indicated. "Let's go!" I shouted at the guard, and started marching. It wasn't as heroic as I'd have liked, but I couldn't fly and even with adrenaline, I was tired. Tony slightly rose in the air and cleared a path for us. I picked up speed and started jogging.

I was pretty focused, and started violently when something landed beside me. It was Serena, on one of the winged horses. She smiled at me and a second horse touched down too. I took a moment to bind up a wound on her arm that was dripping down her and the horse, and one of the guard boosted me up on the second horse's back, there not being a saddle. I had the guard scout me a couple of spears since mine were gone, and Serena told them not to go after the snake due to the venom it was spraying in copious amounts, but to collect others and go after Sutr.

"Freyr is making his way over there," she said, and they nodded and departed.

"So, snake or fire?" she asked me.

"Let's do a little bit of both," I said, and she smiled fiercely. "Let's see what we can do to that snake, even if it's just a little distraction for Thor. Then let's go after that fire giant."

"You still have your bow?" she asked, and I looked around, seeing it where I'd crash landed. The horse ambled over and carefully picked it up by one of the limbs. I leaned forward to take it and Serena passed me a double handful of arrows, sticky and smeared with blood. I didn't comment, just put them across the top of my thigh where I could hold them against my hip by raising my leg a little.

"Ready?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Alex, it's been a privilege," she said, and I smiled.

"It has been," I agreed, and we clasped arms like badasses before urging the horses on.

I didn't feel like much of a badass when I saw that snake. It looked considerably larger than the skeleton of Titanoboa I'd seen, the largest snake in the Midgard fossil record that was in excess of forty feet long and a ton in weight. It looked like an albino, red eyes and white scales with a big white frill behind its head. Its fangs looked to be longer than my forearm and the holes in the fangs from which it spit venom were clearly visible, even at a distance. Venom dripped continually except when the snake sprayed the environment. It wasn't discriminating; it got the dishonored dead as well as fire giants and Asgardians, and where the venom touched vegetation it withered. And it moved a lot faster than I thought something that big ought to be able to. Thor was in his protective suit, I was glad to see, and a few more valkyries on horses rendezvoused with us. They didn't have distance weapons, though, so Serena had them fly lower, harassing any of the fire giants who might try to use us as target practice. We stayed behind the snake, up high enough where we could distract it, letting the horses take care of evading the ropes of venom that the snake shot at us. When Thor looked like he was going to attack the snake, Serena and I alternated; I fired arrows then threw the spears, and Serena threw a spear or javelin. The snake seemed to get pissed, and swung its head between us and Thor, trying to decide who was the bigger threat. Its indecision cost it. Thor darted in for the kill, using an enormous two-handed sword before calling the lightning.

The great snake thrashed in its death throes, convulsing, the ground beneath it vibrating with the force of it. Thor jumped free, and I counted his steps with bated breath. When he'd taken ten, I relaxed marginally. We hovered until the snake lay still, just in case, then we turned the horses to the last great battle, Freyr against Sutr.

The leader of the fire giants saw us as we closed in and swung his great sword, which dripped flame into the trees. My horse reared back and I slid off her back, falling about fifteen feet. I landed badly, messing up my wings something fierce, breaking my right arm and doing something to that ankle. I managed to get the right-hand sword back in the scabbard and diverted a guardsman to help me put a sling on my arm. There was nothing that could be done for the wings; the guard wound a bandage around my waist, securing the wings to me so that they didn't flop and get hurt worse. I made myself walk on toward the fight.

Smoke from the fires that Sutr had set made the air thick and hard to breathe down here; it would be too dangerous to fly as heat from the fires rose and was whipped into cyclones of flame. Ash drifted down thick as snow, the trees popping into brighter flame as the fire penetrated and lit the sap. I got as close as I dared, following a couple of guardsmen. They engaged one of the few fire giants left, and I decided to try the distraction gambit again. I sank to the ground on my knee, laying out all the knives I had and the shuriken, then threw them, trying to time my projectiles when Sutr was attacking. They didn't hurt him much, but they were an annoyance and allowed Freyr an advantage. Sutr roared, brushing my dagger out of his thigh, and pointed his sword in my direction. One of the other fire giants whipped around and kicked me. I felt myself flying through the air, my body going limp, and searing pain as I hit the ground again. My head bounced off something hard.