Part 17 (1/2)
Grimnir wanted to give him a quick, noncommittal response and keep moving, but such behavior wouldn't do here, especially not when it came to discourse with Aesir.
”The name's Grimnir. And, yeah, I work for Radgrid.”
”Right on,” said Modi, grabbing four beer tankards from a pa.s.sing slave and downing them all in rapid succession. He belched fetid breath and let the tankards crash to the floor. He was wearing a pair of wraparound mirror shades, a smear of heavy-duty suntan lotion across the bridge of his nose.
”Cool party, huh?” said Modi.
”Right on,” said Magni.
Grimnir now remembered that he did not merely dislike Magni and Modi but that, in fact, he hated them. And to be asked a second time since arriving in Valhalla about his a.s.sociation with Radgrid-well, it was weird.
Claiming the need to pee, he bid the brothers farewell and fled the hall.
Grimnir kept some private rooms near the servant quarters on one of the city's lower slopes, and as he made his way there, the contrast between the revelry in Valhalla and the subdued atmosphere beyond its timbers could not have been more stark.
His breath clouded when he entered his rooms, the fire in the hearth dead despite the fact that he'd hired a man to keep it stoked at all times. It was hard to get good help in these late days. He himself hadn't turned out to be such a faithful servant to Radgrid-a source of shame but not regret. Mist needed him more. And, in the end, he'd come to believe in her cause over any others.
Feeling along the wall to the woodpile, he stewed over Tang Xiang's accusations. Who stood to profit from Ragnarok? The obvious answer was, anyone who survived to inherit the new world that was coming after. According to that old bat sibyl, that meant Baldr and Hod, Vidar and Vali, and those two faux-surfer hodads, Magni and Modi. That was six G.o.ds right there who had reason to discourage anyone from fighting against the monsters and giants at the end. Some of them might even be willing to help Ragnarok along, to speed the ascent of the survivors. That was certainly what Grimnir would do, if he were an Aesir prophesied to rule after Ragnarok. And he'd go a step further by promising afterlife favors to anyone who supported him now, even if he had no way of a.s.suring those persons' survival.
With no shortage of people who might try to game the system, Grimnir hadn't really left Mist behind to tilt at windmills. He'd left her to fight a d.a.m.ned conspiracy.
How fast, he wondered, could he get back across the rainbow bridge? If he grabbed a fresh horse while Valhalla partied, he might be able to find Mist before Hermod had a chance to drag her off on his next series of disasters.
”Grimnir.”
He drew his dagger and turned around to be struck by a flashlight beam. Even in the glare, he recognized Radgrid's silhouette.
”Bright,” he said, blinking.
”My apologies.” She redirected the beam to the stone wall, casting the room in a cone of lemon-colored light. Her hair glinted like burnished copper, framing her icicle-white face. ”I don't mean to trespa.s.s,” she said, ”but I'd heard you were seen leaving Valhalla, and I thought I might find you here.”
She's going to ask me for a progress report, thought Grimnir. She'd want to know if he'd ever managed to track down her little renegade Valkyrie. She'd eventually get around to asking about Hermod too. And she'd use the interview as an opportunity to find out if Grimnir knew about the Ragnarok conspiracy, of which he was now as certain as he was about his own shoe size.
I know nothing, I suspect nothing, don't make a face, don't make a face, think about your shoe size, don't make a face.
Radgrid's expression changed subtly, growing cooler.
Dammit, thought Grimnir. He must have made a face.
”Fourteen triple-E,” he said.
He charged her like a bull elephant, lunging to the side just in time to avoid Radgrid's side-thrust kick to his knee. He whipped his dagger around and struck for her neck, but she was too fast, and his blade made only a shallow nick in her arm. Rather than dance with her, he moved around and dove through the door.
He was not surprised to find Modi and Magni waiting for him outside.
Grimnir ran. He knew he had no chance of besting the brothers in combat, even though most of their great feats of strength were probably exaggerated, but he might have a chance of reaching the rainbow bridge if he could lose them in the labyrinthine markets near Hod's fallen-down old hall. Like most of the Aesir, Magni and Modi seldom came near this part of the city, but Grimnir knew its every stable and back alley.
He scaled the timber wall of a slave house and crept along its roof, listening for sounds of the brothers' clumsy pursuit.
”Dude, Radgrid's removed all her protections. If you die outside Valhalla, you'll be totally dead,” one of the brothers called. ”Come on out and we'll let you live.”
Leaping between rooftops, Grimnir made his way to the trades district, where hammers striking anvils rang from the workshops. The roofs were too far apart to leap across here, and he was forced to ground. His boots splashed in stinking waste as he ran down the tanners' lane, and he didn't slow as he raced through a market specializing in Alfheim p.o.r.nography. In his haste, he knocked over a cart of explicitly carved stones but kept on going. He wasn't far from the tall gra.s.sland between the city and the bridge, and if he kept low, he doubted those two lumbering clods would catch him.
An arrow pierced his back. Grimnir fell with a shocked scream.
He rolled onto his shoulder and tried in vain to reach the arrow while Radgrid slowly approached, another arrow nocked in her bow. Every movement sent spikes of pain shooting through his entire body, down to the tips of his toes. He drew his sword.
”Do your friends have the eye?” Radgrid said.
Leaning on his sword for support, Grimnir forced himself to his feet. He struggled for breath. ”Even if I knew what you were talking about, I wouldn't tell you.”
She loosed her arrow, and Grimnir's blade sang when he knocked the shaft from the air. The effort cost him. He blinked sweat from his eyes.
Radgrid nocked another arrow.
”What did they promise you, Radgrid? The chance to be some G.o.dling's lap bunny?”
She loosed the arrow, and Grimnir swatted at it. The broken shaft scratched his cheek. His knees felt like water.
”I will be no one's concubine,” she said. ”Instead, I will be a G.o.ddess myself, given a world all my own.”
”How nice for you. Who's arranging this little promotion? It's totally out of Magni and Modi's league. Vidar, then? Come on, you're going to kill me anyway. Consider filling me in on things my severance pay.”
Radgrid nocked another arrow.
”How high up the chain of command does this go? Is it Frigg? Odin himself?”
She loosed the arrow. It glanced off his sword and lodged below his collarbone, and he roared at the drilling pain.
She nocked another arrow and pulled back on the string.
”Swords, you b.i.t.c.h. Let's finish this with swords.”
The Valkyrie stood motionless for a moment, and then she slowly relieved the tension on her bow. ”As you wish, Grimnir.”
Modi and Magni stepped from the alley behind her, red-faced and breathing hard. Their sword blades resembled chain saws. Radgrid put down her bow and drew her own sword, a long, lethal needle.
With two arrows jutting from his body, Grimnir grinned. ”You wanna wait for your two thugs to catch their breath, or should we just launch right into it?”
”You can't win, Grimnir. It's hopeless.”
Grimnir coughed. He tasted blood. ”Is that supposed to discourage me? I'm Einherjar. Hopeless fights are my specialty.”
”It didn't have to be this way,” Radgrid said, with what seemed like genuine regret. ”Why didn't you bring Mist to me instead of allying yourself with her and Hermod? Your higher oath was to me.”
”The simple truth is, I like her better.” He raised his sword as high as he could, and with a cry of rage and pain, he surged forward.
He dodged Radgrid's first thrust and rammed his shoulder into her, knocking her back into Magni. With the two of them busy untangling themselves, Grimnir went for Modi, driving his blade halfway through his skull. The G.o.d collapsed with a soft squeak, his brains leaking from his crushed head, but Grimnir could not dislodge his sword. He heard Magni's footsteps thundering behind him.