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Two days after his second of four planned weddings to the gorgeous and amazing women who had inexplicably decided to share his life, Harry sat with his apprentice, Illyana, watching as she worked through her last rote lesson for the day. After that would come a practical, a small test covering what she had learned in the past week. That this would come in the form of a duel might have surprised many, but Harry had long since learned that he taught better by emphasizing the the use of spells in a real, fluid environment rather than simple single-spell practice. To Harry, that was like practicing writing a single word rather than practicing using the word.
Even taking that out of the equation, Harry did not teach Illyana magic as he had learned it. This was obvious as Harry was teaching Illyana in one-on-one instruction, a vast difference to how Harry had been taught.
Of his other students, Ororo had learned all he could teach her, and all Gaea could in turn, and was now instructing Kitty. Indeed, young Kitty used magic more often these days than her mutant powers since the former was more useful in her day-to-day life. Not to mention the runes that Harry had already taught Kitty had made her a very rich young girl.
Further, Harry didn't organize his lessons along the same lines as the schools in his old universe had. Instead of Defense Against the Dark Arts, it was Protective and Offensive magic. Instead of Transfiguration, Harry called it Universal Manipulation, after a few tests he and Steven had run on revealed what really happened when conjuration occurred. Charms were the same, but Harry had broken the subject down into different disciplines and allocated the spells he had learned from the different grades Hogwarts had offered into each.
There was no potion class currently. Illyana had shown no interest in cooking or potion-making, so Harry saw no need to teach it to her. Besides, Dr. Druid had begun to experiment as it was, and one person on that job was enough for now.
Ironically, there were some lessons on divination magic. At its heart, Divination was the ability to try to see what was hidden; past, present and future. It was time-consuming, and Illyana wasn't all that good at it yet, but Harry was proud that she had been able to use some divination spells to help plan out her pranks occasionally in her ongoing prank war with Hela.
Nearby, Melody and dozens of kids Melody and Illyana's age were doing their own homework, most sneaking glances over to the much more interesting lesson near the front of the Great Hall. Beyond Harry and Illyana, the hall was empty beyond that group of kids, who Ororo was helping with their latest lesson.
Illyana also had normal studies, but Harry didn't control that aspect and refused to get involved. As he'd told her, "Just because you are my apprentice doesn't mean you're going to get special treatment, just like being my daughter doesn't give Melody any special treatment." Melody's special treatment was because of her mutant powers, not her relation to Harry.
As he thought about his apprentice's normal classes, Harry looked over at the other kids, watching as Ororo bent over slightly to lean over Anechka's shoulder, brushing back a bit of her currently loose silver hair as she did so. The smile on her face, far more so than the view the small amount of décolletage she was showing, caused him to breath in deeply, a smile of pure contentment on his face. Moments like this, with the kids and one of his loved ones around, these moments made all the violence and death worth it.
"Okay, I got this," Illyana muttered, and Harry turned back to her, watching intently as the young Russian girl rubbed her hands together before holding them out, flicking two fingers out while holding the others in a strange gesture that she had seemingly picked up from seeing Hela use it occasionally. Harry honestly couldn't tell at times whether Hela was a good influence on Illyana or not, but she certainly left her stamp on the girl. "You ready, Trickster?"
The Megalenhydris barbaricina familiar that Illyana had bonded with during her misadventure in the Savage Land nodded its head, turning the nod into a forward roll, then twirled around itself in place before standing upright on its back paws, tail flat on the ground and head well above Illyana's own. The aptly named Trickster was never still for very long, having the energy and boisterous nature of all of its otter brethren rolled into one.
Breathing in, Illyana began. "Enlarge," she whispered.
Harry nodded in approval. Today's lesson had been on the mental discipline needed to use silent casting but using a simple word like that rather than the actual spell was a good step forward.
At Illyana's command, the large otter grew tremendously, swiftly growing in length to match that of one of the tables, his shoulders coming up to almost Harry's. The nearby children all laughed, clapping in delight, and Ororo chuckled, her smile turning wry as she realized she wouldn't get the youngsters back on task anytime soon.
The enlarged otter twitched, looking down at itself, then bounded forward and back, moving around the tables as adroitly as if the change to his size hadn't bothered the beast at all. He sniffed at Anechka's hair, which the young girl manipulated to smack Trickster on the nose with a giggle. The other kids all reached out and began to pat the otter's legs, one of them reaching up high enough to rub his furry belly. This caused the otter to roll onto his side, displaying his belly for more attention.
"When I went to Hogwarts in my original dimension, the lake had a squid in it. It was a most playful creature, always willing to help the students if they fell in or play catch with them. Perhaps if we kept your familiar at his current size, he could be our own lake monster?" Harry quipped, placing a warm hand on Illyana's shoulder. "Though, I'm afraid he wouldn't be as much help with your pranks like this."
Ororo chuckled, watching with amusement. How Harry can instill discipline in Illyana while still encouraging her to continue pranking is beyond me. But I can appreciate the results. Indeed, Ororo and the other teachers had even linked a few fantasy-type writing assignments to Illyana's cold war with Hela, asking their students to write adventures based on Illyana's actions or the spells she used as if they were parts of epic battles between good and evil.
Now she watched as the giant otter ran around the kids, being very careful despite its massive size to not knock any of them over. A moment later, Trickster was back in front of his mistress, and Illyana was smiling up at him, patting the otter on the nose with one hand.
This time, Illyana didn't need to use a word to help concentrate her mind on the effects she wanted. Instead, she simply touched Trickster's nose and the spell she wanted flowed out into her familiar. Slowly, he shrunk, the spell only ending when Trickster was the size of a mouse. A second after the spell ended, Illyana giggled as Trickster raced forward and up her leg, climbing her as the otter would one of the trees in the Savage Land before perching on her shoulder for a moment. Then, he climbed further until he was up onto the top of her head. There the tiny otter circled around a few times before standing up like an explorer who had just discovered new lands and was declaring his presence to the world.
"Well done!" Harry announced ruffling Illyana's hair. Trickster rolled forward onto his open hand, and Harry gently dropped him down onto the nearby table. There, Trickster gamboled around for a few moments before, at Harry's nod, Illyana returned him to his normal size. By the time that last spell was done, the otter was back on the floor, closely watching his mistress and her teacher for whatever came next.
Harry waved him off. "We're done with you for now, my little friend. And I meant it, Illyana, that was very well done. Always remember that mentally preparing the image in your mind of what you want your spell to do will help you not need the actual spell incantation. Whatever the discipline, that aspect doesn't change. It's hard, and for some spells, it's impossible thanks to how much concentration they take, such as high-end attack spells or the Patronus Charm. But eventually, you'll get so good that you can create the mental image in a split second and use the spell without any buildup."
Illyana nodded, and Harry ruffled her hair before going on more seriously. "And now, let's see what you can remember from last week."
The youngest Rasputin nodded eagerly, moving into the open space between two tables. Harry moved to stand across from her, smiling faintly. The two of them stood in silence for a moment as Ororo moved her pupils further away from the upcoming duel, her students joined by Trickster as they settled in to watch. All present eyed the twosome avidly. Despite some of them, like young Anechka or Melody, having lived in Camelot for months now, the sight of magic was just as wondrous to them now as it had been when they'd first arrived.
Harry made certain their audience would be safe by covering the area around himself and his apprentice, along with the tables to either side of them, under Protego shields. Right as he finished, Illyana attacked, hopping up and away from her starting position onto the nearby table as she launched a spell towards Harry.
"Points for remembering to move, and remembering that in a real fight, waiting for your opponent to be ready is quite foolish," Harry commented even as he waved a finger, catching the spell, a stunning charm, and flicked it sideways, redirecting it rather than using a spell of his own. Then he too was moving, darting forward and around, pushing Illyana to turn with him on the table, although he kept to the speed the younger girl was capable of. The idea of these duels wasn't to overwhelm Illyana after all, but to see what she could do.
And see he did, as Illyana raced along the table, sending spells Harry's way, one after another.
A spell chain? I hadn't thought Illyana was up to that just yet, even if Ororo and I used them in our mock duel last week. The two adults had spent the entire evening with the kids, putting on the play duel after watching the Sword in the Stone before leaving the kids to their pizza and having a nice in-castle date for themselves. The memory of how that date ended brought a smile to Harry's face, so much so that he nearly missed that one of the spells that Illyana was using wasn't aimed at him. Rather, it was aimed at the floor below his feet.
"Glacius!" Illyana called between muttering Stupefy and Immobilis under her breath.
Harry felt the stone underneath him turning slick with ice and quickly leaped to the side onto the table opposite Illyana. He paused for a moment, then went on the attack, launching spells at Illyana First, he bracketed her with low-level attack spells, then he aimed directly at the young girl. As Harry had hoped, this forced her to use a Protego, covering her entire front.
"Good, but remember, if you keep the image in your mind and continue to funnel energy into the spell, you can manipulate what the shield does. Just like you were doing last week with the Rubik's cubes and changing their colors several times in a row," Harry explained calmly, slowly launching another low-powered spell at Illyana's shield.
Illyana grimaced but continued to concentrate on the protective spell, and the magical shield slowly shifted. It had started as a simple half-circle in front of her, but now it expanded into a wall and then shrank until it covered her entire body like a poncho. "Urgh… this is tough, and I don't think I can do this and concentrate on another spell."
"The fact that you can do it at all at your age is enough," Harry said, hopping down from his perch on the table and flicking his fingers upward, canceling the Protego around them. "These duels of ours aren't for you to try your best to win, although if you can, that's great. The main point behind them is to show me what you've learned. And I have to say you are learning extremely well. The spell chain was impressive, as was the trick with Glacius."
Illyana smiled cheerfully at that but waited until Harry said the duel was over before canceling her own Protego. That was another lesson Harry had drilled into her, and he smiled at her caution and helped her down from the table by lifting her into a brief hug before setting her down the ground, ruffling her hair. "Now, was there anything else you wanted to do? Because we're done with my lesson for you for the day."
Illyana beamed at that, then paused, thinking about it, before nodding. "I wanted to try a few divination spells. I want to learn how to find something lost, and then wanted to… predict the future," she ended cautiously, watching her master's reaction.
Thankfully Harry didn't really have a problem with trying to see into the future, so long as those involved weren't going to base life and death decisions on all-too-vague prophecies anyway. "Well, looking into the future is quite wooly, as I've stated before. How far into the future are you talking about, and whose particular future?"
"Hela, and three days from now," Illyana chirped instantly.
"Ah, I should have known. And… well, that's something different," Harry said with a laugh, ruffling her hair again. "Come on, you know I'm not good enough at divination to teach you without books on hand. To the tower!"
Illyana nodded eagerly before she scampered over to the other kids, where she excitedly asked Ororo if she could take Melody with her. Harry didn't hear the explanation, but his mocha-colored lover eventually let them go, and Harry led the two children up to Ravenclaw Tower.
The library of the deceased wizards who had attempted to fort up in the castle against this universe's Dementors had remained unchanged despite all of the other changes Harry had made to everything else in the castle. Soon, the trio were sitting in chairs hovering around the third floor of the tower, an open book and Illyana's chosen method of Divination rattling in a cup. These were several dozen sticks of different sizes and shapes, each with a word painted on them.
Melody sat holding Illyana's hand as she shook a small tumbler and tossed them down onto the table, with several of them on top of one another. "Where is Melody's favorite hair squeegee?"
The two girls then flew over into Harry's lap, and the three of them looked at the words visible on the sticks, then checked with the text, and finally Illyana sighed. "Well, it looks like your lost hair tie is either gone or deep under frozen water, which I would assume means snow."
Melody sighed, unhappy it wasn't anything specific. "I liked that hair tie. It was soft, squishy, and had lots of colors in it. Ororo got it for me the first time she and you, Father, took me out shopping."
Harry chuckled, pulling his daughter into a hug, then gently pushed the two kids off his lap before standing up, leaving the two kids floating gently in the air. Moving to the nearby wall, the stone turned see-through thanks to one of the enchantments on the castle's towers he had seen no reason to change. Indeed, the opacity spell was probably the best non-protection-based enchantment on the castle thanks to how much it helped with Ororo's claustrophobia. "Then we can't have it be lost now, can we? Accio Melody's hair tie!"
"I have to learn how to do that. I can pull things to me if I see them, but for some reason, I just have trouble with the general kind of out of sight pull thing," Illyana muttered as the three of them looked outside over the gray landscape of Camelot's grounds in winter. It had snowed the day after the wedding, adding another foot onto the snow already on the ground, and it was now so cold out that only Garm and the few truly dedicated runners went out without warming charms.
"We can work on that next week if you want? But I want to get your existing spell work in transfiguration and protection magic up to the point where you don't have to verbalize the last few spells we've covered first. Then we'll go on to tougher stuff," Harry told Illyana before something flew out from a small grotto near the edge of the woods and towards the library tower, smacking into the tower's outer wall with a splatter.
A moment later, Hedwig appeared from out of nowhere, swooping down on the hair clip before it could slide down to the ground. Harry's familiar appeared above them within a second, landing lightly on the table before holding out the soaked squeegee to a grateful Melody. The owl accepted the girl's feather stroking as her just reward and bobbed her head in thanks to Melody's promise to save some bacon for her the next time she had any.
"Well, I have to say, those sticks were a lot more accurate than I thought," Harry mused, looking over as Illyana gleefully gathered the sticks into their cup and began to shake the container again.
Laying down a picture of Hela in the middle of the table, Illyana tapped it three times with her fingers as the book dictated, then asked her question. "Which meal will Hela eat in the main hall in four days, and which entrance will she enter by?"
With that, Illyana dumped the sticks over the picture before picking up the book from where Harry had left it. Harry watched as her brows furrowed in intense concentration, then in a real frown. Before he could offer to help, she looked up. "Er, Master Harry, I think that we might not have time to prank Hela like I planned to. It says here that there will be new challenges and a darkness that must be vanquished appearing {that day} for Hela. Nothing about her eating in the main hall."
Harry frowned, looking over her shoulder for a few moments, and then slowly nodded, seeing that Illyana had interpreted the fallen sticks as correctly as possible. Normally I wouldn't put much truck in Divination, but the sticks just proved they were kind of accurate. And let's face facts, with our lives, it isn't exactly unusual to have a new challenge pop up just like that.
More to the point, Harry now had two very worried-looking kids staring at him. "Well, that isn't ominous at all," he drawled, "But then again, it isn't as if we are unused to such situations. It just means the next disaster is coming a little earlier than scheduled. Disasters often do."
The tone of uncaring amusement carried over, and both girls smiled, their momentary trepidation quickly disappearing. It was soon helped along by Harry suddenly conjuring a snowball into one hand. "I'm not going to worry about it right now. I have a much better way to spend the rest of my day off in mind."
With that, he hurled the snowball towards Melody across the table,, causing her to squawk as she fell backward. She rolled end over end through the air as she slowly descended to the ground thanks to the various weightless and levitation enchantments on the tower.
"Vengeance!" Illyana cackled as she also conjured a snowball. She tossed it at Harry before ducking down to try to find some cover, with Melody doing the same, and Harry laughed, letting the pair gather enough snow to launch back his way. Whatever would happen in the future, they would handle it when it came. Beyond the general warning to the various teams to be ready, there was nothing Harry could do about it now. So why bother worrying?
OOOOOOO
"Fall back! Fall back to the woodlands!" Balder bellowed. His men, a mix of Asgardians and human warrior spirits known as karls, or common warriors whose original deaths had been deemed worthy of joining Odin in Valhalla, fell back, barely keeping a shield in front of themselves as the fire jotun advanced. Towering over all but the tallest, with strength that no mortal men could match, they had made a shambles of any attempt to hold a line against them where they had first invaded Asgard, slaying the border forces almost to a man.
The keyword being 'almost', as since then, Balder had led his men in a few sharp ambushes, which had taught the invaders some caution. This was but the latest, built around two light cavalry charges that had pinned the enemy's vanguard while Balder led his footmen to attack one group which had ended up furthest away from the rest of the fire jotun's forces.
By the time the infantry closed, the cavalry had already been forced into a retreat. Even from the top of a horse, a jotun towered over Aesir and karl alike. This use of cavalry had been doomed from the start, only speed and surprise letting the cavalry make any impact, and the majority of the men who had ridden out would not be returning to their homes. But that assault, and indeed this entire battle, had been designed to buy time.
Time, time, ask me for anything but time! Balder nearly sang to himself mentally as he charged forward, getting his shield in front of a spear that would've stabbed its target through. The other man fell back, pulling an arrow from his quiver and letting it fly at a fire jotun barely a few feet away. Balder parried another blow before the arrow struck. Enspelled by Freya before they set out with powers of the wind, the arrow, like the rest of their arrows, the steel point of the arrow had been given greater penetrating power. In this case, it impacted the jotun's face right below one of its eyes, causing it to cry out in pain and fall back a step, despite the arrow not digging very deep.
That was all Balder needed, and his sword was up and striking across the jotun's stomach, spilling intestines onto the snow. Such as they were, anyway. The jotun might look human, but they were anything but. Their insides were an example of this, being composed mostly of magma somehow contained in thin, skin-like outer shells. That outer shell was tougher than old wood and worked almost as well as the fire jotun's black stone armor at stopping most unenchanted weapons.
Unfortunately for the jotun, most of the weapons Balder and his men were using weapons enchanted to penetrate or cut better than normal blades. They were cheap weapons, enchanted by Freya or the other seidr users rather than with the magic worked into their making by dvergar. But the magic could last at least a few battles.
A moment later, Balder ducked under yet another blow from another jotun, his riposte nearly chopping its arm off, as another attacked from nearby. That jotun's spear was blocked by his shield, and for a moment, Balder danced among the jotun, blocking and hewing, using his smaller size to good effect.
One of the invaders went shield to shield with him, and Balder gave way, nearly bowled off his feet. But in doing so the jotun overextended. As he pushed forward, Balder was able to twirl around, slamming his shield into the jotun's side and knocking him into one of its brethren before falling back with his men. Both died to hurled spears from his men, while another fell screaming in agony from a blow to the knee from a warhammer-wielding warrior who then danced away from a sword chop with a laugh. The blow hadn't broken skin, but the bone beneath had proven to be less resistant.
Wielding only his hammer, the man, a berserker, had given up any pretense of defense for greater speed. Now turning, he quickly caught up and began to run alongside Balder, snorting. "Balls, knees and ankles, they can't be protectin' all three!"
Balder chuckled at the man's good spirits. "Aye, Harnell. But there be too many of them to kill even if we took all day doing it and they were so kind as to let us. Pity that none seem so inclined."
Harnell and the other men nearby laughed at the Bright One's words, taking heart in his presence as they did in his courage in battle. The courage and determination he instilled in them was a near-physical thing, bolstering their flagging spirits. Above them, the sun shone all the fiercer, blinding their enemies with its radiance for a time, giving the last of Balder's men cover as they entered the nearby woods.
The battle, such as it was, had occurred on the road leading up into the mountains nearest to where the jotun had begun their invasion. Out in the wilds as it was, this road was the only real sign of any civilization, which was precisely the way Lord Odin had wanted it. To really hurt the Asgardians, a force would have to make their way weeks inland at the pace a fire jotun could march per day.
As the invaders came closer, arrows and even a few heartily flung spears lanced out from the woodlands, striking the chest and legs of the jotun. The enemy was taken completely by surprise and their advance crumbled into disarray until one of their number blew a horn, and soon they reformed into a makeshift shield line. These shields, massive slabs of sharp black metal like their armor, were soon festooned with arrows and spears as they advanced doggedly after Balder and his men. And in the distance, still more came on, hundreds strong and fresh for battle.
Thank all the gods the jotun do not breed like men! This invasion is dire, but this army looks to be the majority of their numbers if Lord Odin's estimates of yore were accurate as to the size of Muspellheim and how low their population size is. If the Fire Jotun could make up their numbers so quickly every generation, we would have long been overrun.
Balder nearly shivered as he watched the inexorable advance. He had personally snuck forward to view the main invasion force several days before and counted more than fourteen thousand jotun in the enemy army. That was barely a fifth of the numbers Asgard could muster, but each jotun was normally more than a match for any four or even five warrior spirits who made up the vast amount of the Lord Odin's army. Small attacks such as the ones Balder had been leading played to the strengths of the spirits, as the jotun lacked any ability to work together and were easily confused unless a chieftain was nearby. And while those chieftains were rarely seen with the vanguard, in a larger-scale battle out in the open, the odds would shift to that of the jotun.
After a few moments, Balder nodded to the nearby men, two of whom pulled out horns and blew interspersed notes. The different tones of the horns, one low, the other almost akin a flute, were a signal. Instead of continuing to fall back, moving in the same direction that he and his men had been retreating in the past few days along the road, everyone turned to the left, now racing through the woods lengthwise.
When the jotun inevitably reached the woods, they set several trees on fire in a fury at yet another ambush from Balder's reserves, which came out that night and hit the forward units before fading back into the darkness. When they continued to move forward the next day, they also began to run into traps. Large beams suspended in midair by ropes swung downward with force when jotun burned through their trip lines, while weights fell from above. Pits dug in the earth of the forest swallowed jotun whole. Metal stakes hidden in the underbrush stabbed through unprotected feet.
These last two were particularly effective. Thanks to their size, the average Fire Jotun had a lot of trouble seeing below their chests and stomachs. This meant that simple traps like could truly slow them down, especially in this terrain. After all, they can't burn the whole forest, not at this time of year. Not unless they burn each tree in turn. Pine might be flammable, snow is not, and if they melt the snow, the tree becomes wet and hard to set alight, regardless of type, Baldur reflected as he marched through the woods beside his men, hearing the roars of rage behind him.
And even this far removed from Asgard City, Freya and the court could offer some aid. While Thor was still missing Njord, the Vanir lord of the oceans and Freya had worked together to send a cold, wet wind towards the border where Balder's campaign was taking place. Njord could control the weather to a certain degree, not enough to call up storms or utterly change the weather as Thor could, but with Freya helping with her magic, he had calmed the weather in other areas of Asgard in such a way that it created the wet wind at need here at the front. It was a subtle rather than brute force measure, but it worked quite well.
With the jotun slowed, Balder and his men moved through the woods to the left of where they had previously been retreating, joined by still other karls Balder had sent back earlier. One of them, a massive man named Arnolf, reported. "We shattered the Bridge, my Lord. Hard thing to do to such a beautiful thing, but this be a hard time, aye?"
"I know, lads, but it had to be done. Queen Freya herself ordered us to delay this invading army, and that bridge was the easiest way across the gorge."
The gorge's name was forgotten to all but the wisest, but Queen Freya was the one who had originally enchanted with her magic and craft the aforementioned bridge. Made by dvergar craftsman in ancient times, the Bridge of True Beauty, as it was called, a place for lovers to come and pledge their troth to one another. The trip out so far, weeks from the nearest hamlet, let alone the mighty city of Asgard for which the realm was named, served as proof of the fidelity of those who made the journey.
It would do so no longer. The bridge was sacrificed to give the realm more time for Asgard's host to muster.
"Aye, my Lord, but we're leading them straight to another bridge. It would be bad luck if our work on destroying such beauty were for naught."
Balder smirked, showing a hint of teeth in the expression. "Indeed we are, and I sent Barnabas to the town of Anvilcroft for more arrows and spears. After all, a bridge can be described as more than simply a means of getting from one side of an obstacle to another, my friend."
While no jarl in life, there was nothing wrong with Arnolf's brain, and he instantly understood what his war chief was talking about. "A narrow place to defend my Lord. Made worse by the sheer size of the damned jotun."
Laughing, Balder clapped him on the shoulder and urged him over to an Asgardian named Togrun, who carried some of the day's supplies. Every day six of the men were chosen to carry the war band's supplies in terms of food and what limited bandages and so forth they had available rather than take part in the battle. It was chosen by lot, so there could be no hard feelings among karls or Asgardians. Even Balder had to take a turn early on, which neatly removed any kind of annoyance with the duty.
Not that there had been much of that. While the war band had been hastily pulled together from the outermost villages nearest the point of the invasion when the initial defenders had taken such horrendous losses, all of them were warriors. They knew this particular dance all too well. The Asgardians had recently seen action against the dark elves of Svartalfheim both in short sharp campaigns and in skirmishes since. The karls might've been slightly rustier in terms of real warfare, but they were far more numerous and burned with an urge to prove themselves to Lord Odin and Lady Freya, who had chosen them.
The battles in the forest continued for another two days while the jotun's vanguard chased after them, desperate to envelop Balder 's men. While Balder led the majority in small, scattered ambushes at random ridges, outcrops of stone or ditches, the rest of his forces concentrated on putting down more and more traps. To avoid friendly fire incidents, the traps were marked out differently each day so that the jotun, sadly no fools, wouldn't understood where the traps were, but the retreating Asgardians did.
But always, the fires and strength of the jotun continued to drive them back. While traps and sneak attacks worked very well in the forest, the woodland underbrush also negated much of the advantages the karls had in terms of teamwork. And with most Asgardians being weaker than Fire Jotun's in terms of pure strength, the environment left them to fall back on their skill with their weapons, which were always of higher quality. Luckily the skill of the karls was such that even most Asgardians were not their equal in pure swordwork.
Both groups took losses in the woods. Here a man would go down, split through by a jotun. There, a karl would be torn asunder by a blade coming down too fast to dodge, or a karl would burn as a Fire Jotun's blood splashed him, an Asgardian run through nearby.
Blood painted the snow, and fire wound its way through the woodlands as the enemy army kept on pressing hard, bringing up more and more of their people.
Grimly Balder led the enemy a merry dance, slowing the enemy advance as best he could until a report from one of his scouts announced that they had finally reached the next bridge. That was the signal, and Balder led the fittest of his warriors into one final holding action as the rest of his men fell back, creating a wide area of traps through the woods.
The woodland campaign continued as long as Balder could hold it, using their last arrows and spears before breaking contact entirely, fleeing away in smaller groups. One of his scouts led each band in the proper direction towards the bridge. This split seemed to confuse the jotun and allowed the survivors of the action in the woods to get away far more cleanly than Balder had dared to hope.
Meeting up once more later, the warrior band wearily made their way towards the secondary bridge. Soon they came out of the woodland and saw it ahead of them. This bridge hadn't been named anything special and was as such a much more prosaic thing, made of metal and wood rather than the stone and metal masterpiece of the dvergar that the Bridge of True Beauty.
But at the other end of its span stood groups of people who were nowhere near as prosaic as the bridge. A war-party of armored women, forty strong, sat on winged horses, gilded bows in hand, while nearby, large two-story-tall walls of wood and stone had been piled, with arrow slits scattered through the makeshift barriers. And alongside that was a veritable pile of arrows, spears, and shields.
At the sight of the horsewomen and the assembled gear, the men with Balder whooped in delight, racing forward. Several of them ran across the span, reaching up to pull this woman or another down into a kiss. They were laughingly told off, or, more infrequently, a woman allowed herself to be pulled down into a brief kiss before pushing the man away.
These were the Valkyrie of Freya and Odin, who meted out fate to those fallen in battle. Ages past when Midgard was connected entirely to Asgard and a warrior died in battle in a glorious (or memorable, which wasn't quite the same thing) manner, a Valkyrie would come to offer their spirits the chance to ascend to the realm of the gods. Here the jarls and karls of men could make new lives for themselves. Most were then joined by their loved ones later as they too died. Once here in Asgard, any children they had would grow up normally following in their parent's footsteps, providing new blood.
Despite ages having passed since their deaths back on Midgard, many a karl still recognized the particular Valkyrie who had chosen him. And regardless of how many warriors were chosen by this or that Valkyrie, there always remained a kind of connection. Not, as many would've thought, a bond of lust or love, save in a few special cases such as Gudrun and Helgi, but a link just the same.
Normally, the Valkyrie wouldn't not be seen as warriors, but they were all renowned archers. Further, their arrows were marked by Freya and crafted by the greatest dvergar craftsmen.
"Hail, fair Balder !" The leader of the company of Valkyries greeted Balder, dismounting and going to one knee in front of Balder. A few of those nearby could see a faint blush visible on the woman's visage, though none would've blamed her for it. Balder was reckoned one of the fairest of all the Asgardians, and many women, Valkyrie and Asgardian alike, had pined for the Bright One over the centuries.
Balder nodded in turn, gesturing with one hand towards his men as he asked what food had been prepared, going on in a jocular tone. "Though the action be hot enough, and the woods be burning to cinders behind us, we have rather ironically not had enough time for any hot meals of our own. We broke contact last night, but they will be coming on swiftly enough. Even if we have taught them caution. Isn't that right, boys!?"
Around him, his men gave a ragged cheer, but the surviving warriors cheered much more heartily when they saw that over a dozen womenfolk from the nearest town had come along with the rest of the supplies for the war group. Hot soup and roasted venison and boar awaited them. Even Balder , the strongest of the warriors here, could not help but feel some hunger at the sight.
The warriors had time to eat and rest for roughly half a day before the first of the invaders found the bridge. Those first few died to arrows from the Valkyrie, who could shoot further and aim truer than any Asgardian save the absent Skadi, their enchanted recurve bows deadly beyond measure. Fate Ending, those arrows were called, used to cull those spirits unworthy of joining Lord Odin or Lady Freya's side in Asgard.
And yet even they are not the shot Skadi is. I wonder where Skadi and Thor and the rest of that band are now, Balder idly mused. We could use their strength here, one and all.
watched the jotun on the other side of the gorge die to the accurate, powerful shots of the Valkyrie. No armor that any jotun could make could stop the enchanted arrows wielded by the horsewomen. And although the Fire Jotun were unbelievably hardy, none of the jotun to leave the protective cover of the woods survived to retreat.
The enemy attack began in earnest swiftly after that. The local commander of the Fire Jotun, Balder had no idea of his identity, was surely no fool. Faced with the skill of the Valkyrie, the jotun quickly melted nearby stone into large shields, bringing their creations forward and setting them up under cover of their own spear throwers and archers, mirror images of the walls the locals had prepared for Balder and his men.
They still took losses, though. The Valkyrie could simply ride their flying horses up into the air and fire down on the Fire Jotun from above. But the work continued despite this, and then several larger-than-average Fire Jotun joined the fight. These behemoths, who had shapeshifted themselves into these larger, less wieldy forms, soon began to cut their palms on small daggers and hurl their blood into the air, where the molten droplets instantly became large fireballs the magma of their blood acting like a spell component. Winged or not, the Valkyries' horses were still only horses. The fear of fire could not be trained out of even such legendary mounts, and they shied away, ruining many a Valkyrie's aim.
"Fall back across the bridge," Balder bellowed. "Give us fire from down here!" The Valkyries had all spread out in a vague dome around the area, spreading out on either side of the bridge to fire at the jotun from as many angles as possible including directly above them. But with this new trick, and importantly the speed of the fireballs in relation to the hurled spears the jotun had been previously using, that tactic was no longer viable.
The lead Valkyrie obeyed reluctantly, her horse soon stomping to the ground nearby, her mouth quickly opening to deliver an angry retort. But Balder held up a hand, shaking his head. "We are fighting for time, not to the last man. Losing your Valkyrie would hurt our cause more than any number of karls or Asgardians."
It was the truth. There were far fewer Valkyrie than there were Asgardians, let alone karls. Indeed, there were fewer Valkyrie than even there were Álfar, the light elves who served in Odin's hall as servants and messengers. There were several armies worth of karls, a powerful host of Asgardians and some thousand dvergar with eight hundred or more Álfar. But across the lands of Asgard, there were only two hundred or so Valkyrie all told.
"And when it becomes time for Lady Freya to take the field with our main host, it is you and your sisters who will be our eyes and ears. You know this. Do not throw their lives away. Do not throw your life away," Balder ordered his tone intense.
The Valkyrie commander blushed under Balder 's gaze, her earlier anger evaporating as she nodded at the Bright One. "Your pardon Lord Balder , you are right, of course."
Balder simply smiled at her, patting her on the shoulder, careful not to notice her trembling at the touch before gesturing her back to her women. They spread out to either side of the bridge, giggling among themselves like farmgirls for a moment. Yet even as they did, their arrows still flew, further and stronger than even a jotun's spear could be thrown.
And at the same time, a wind picked up from within the gorge. Every time a jotun attempted the fireball trick, the wind picked up and dispelled them. Yet still the jotun came on, now coming within range of the karls as they moved to cross the bridge at last. As they did, the jotun once more made use of their skills in self-transfiguration to change their bodies, becoming thinner and smaller to allow more of their number to press across the bridge at a time.
"Remember, lads. Smaller the seidr-users might have made themselves, but their strength is still the same," Balder warned, earning laughter from the warriors around him. After all, being male and using magic was a sign of weakness and femininity that no true warrior could stomach. Using magical weapons was fine, but using magic yourself, especially on your own body, was simply wrong.
As he finished speaking, Balder moved forward, rubbing elbows with Pazi, another Asgardian, Arnolf and Mactan, another karl. While Balder and Pazi were armed with swords and shields, the karls only held swords, which were both longer than the long swords that the two Asgardians used. No armor or shield a human could carry would stand up against a Fire Jotun's blow after all, so it was best not to wear them at all and make use of speed instead.
To either side of the bridge, the defenders hidden behind the prepared walls were now taking losses. The walls might've been a good defense, but any spear that managed to get through an arrow slit would kill a karl, and even an Asgardian could be slain by a lucky hit to the head.
Still, they were also killing the enemy two for every one of their own that fell. Already several of the advancing jotun had died, having been knocked off the bridge or lost their footing, falling to their doom. But it still took several wounds to slay a jotun, and the horde came on.
"Brace, brace," Balder said, crouching low behind his shield, hiding his head from view, Pazi doing the same. "Brace… now!"
As the enemy entered sword range Balder and Pazi charged the few steps forward, counter-charging them, smashing swords and spear to either side in their mad rush. This opened up the jotun's defenses and the karls to either side thrust out, their blades passing the two Asgardians and into the guts or privates of the jotun.
Two jotun fell, magma splashing down onto the bridge's stone. While the stone was proofed against the heat, the rapidly cooling bodies got in the way of their fellows until they were unceremoniously kicked out of the way by the jotun behind them.
Spears and swords thrust once more but were deflected, and for a moment, the warriors four stood there, hacking and hewing. The Asgardians provided defense, the karls offense. Then Pazi fell back, a blow to his shoulder having deadened his sword arm.
Instantly, Mactan twirled around the larger Asgardian, his great sword cleaving into the side of the jotun who had struck him. He quickly pulled out and retreated, with two other warriors taking his place as that jotun leaked still more magma onto the stone of the bridge, where it ran to one side, hissing as it fell.
Balder did not move even as Arnolf also fell back. Instead, he shouted, "For Queen Freya and Lord Odin!"
Above them, the rainy day sent by Njord faded swiftly, and a bright blast of sunlight fell onto the bridge, giving heart to those around Balder . Though it did not dismay the jotun, it did empower Balder with a defensive spell, an enchantment his mother had devised when he was young and Balder had been plagued by terrible nightmares of his eventual death. While it wasn't perfect, the enchantment granted him an insane level of durability even among his own kind.
So arrayed, the Bright One held firm, slaying seven more jotun, taking the arms and hands of still others who were then kicked or knocked out of the way off the bridge by their fellows. He stayed until the firing of arrow and spear from his side of the bridge began to die down, the karls and even a few of the precious Valkyrie dying while returning fire upon the jotun.
Even as they fell, still more invaders joined the battle, spreading down either side of the gorge across from the defenders and hurling spears or fireballs. Where before there had been perhaps one hundred to two hundred when the Fire Jotun had first started across the bridge, now there were so many it looked as if the burning forest had sprouted thousands of new, massive bodies. It was only a matter of time before their ever-increasing numbers finished off the brave warriors of Asgard.
"Now!" Pazi shouted, having retaken his place beside Balder once more. Now his sword flicked out, stabbing into one jotun's forearm, ruining a blow meant for Balder . "Balder , we must do it now!"
Balder took another blow on his shield, a third to the head, while a fourth sliced into his leg, twisting so that his thigh guard absorbed the blow. Yet while is mother's enchantment was upon him, none of these attacks could truly harm him, Balder knew arrogance was a dead man's friend. His sword flicked out, killing the jotun who'd gone for his leg, while his shield battered aside a second blow from the one who had attacked from his other side, opening that opponent to his fellow Asgardian.
But even as he fought, Balder knew Pazi was right and shouted out, "Do it!" He didn't want to give the jotun any hint on what was about to happen and kept his command simple.
At his cry, several spells from the Vanir Ganu, who'd been kept in reserve especially for this moment, lanced over the bridge. A student of Freya, the spells the handmaiden cast didn't hold much power behind them. As the bolts of magic struck the stonework of the bridge, the structure began to come undone. Nails popped from their holds the wooden frame fell apart, and stones as big around as Volstagg's chest shook loose from their fellows.
The best countermeasures the jotun's own few magic users could do was for naught. There just weren't enough of them nearby to defend against such an assault.
The bridge collapsed along its length, coming apart all at once and dumping more than fourteen jotun into the gorge to their doom, forever closing this route of invasion. The Fire Jotun would now have to skirt far to the north to find a way across the gorge now.
Suddenly, Balder gasped as a hurled spear crashed into him so fast that he'd barely even seen it coming in time to raise his shield. The spear punched straight through his shield, right below his arm, the point of the spear going on to impact his breastplate with enough force to send Balder sprawling backward.
Landing hard, he gasped for air, a suddenly heavily bruised chest making the effort incredibly painful. From where he'd been flung, Balder could only watch in shocked disbelief as both Arnolf and Pazi quickly fell to hurled spears as well, the weapons clearly thrown just as hard as the one that had caught him by surprise.
This left the madman Harnell standing alone, and to Balder's awe, the karl didn't retreat. Instead, he stayed there at the edge of the gorge, cackling madly as he faced down the army of Fire Jotun. "Ar, yas got the big tools but yas don't know what ta do with 'em! You fire humpers be so slow, a tree could grow on ya. Yer fire's not hot, it's ju…""
As Balder pushed himself to his knees, Harnell's cackling tirade was cut off by another flung spear. Larger than the karl was tall and thicker around than Harnell's thighs, it took Harnell's head clean off, his skull exploding from the pure force of the strike.
Across the span, Balder sawa particular Fire Jotun now standing, balefully staring him down. Half again the size of any other, broader in the shoulder than any two combined. Wearing a visage filled with both maliciousness and an expressive, glaring hatred towards Balder set over a long, magnificent black beard, this jotun was truly a nightmare born.
"You have but delayed the inevitable!" The king of Muspellheim, Surtur, bellowed. "Soon Balder , you and all of your fellows will roast in the fires of Ragnarök!"
In response, a volley of arrows from the Valkyrie slammed into the king.
It did nothing. Many burnt to ash before they even reached the enormous king. Others that survived only pinged off his shining black armor, which covered him from the neck down. Surtur's equipment was well-wrought, completely unlike the other jotun and even arrows spelled to cut the lines of Fate could do nothing against the king of the Fire Jotun's durability and magical presence.
When no further volleys came, Balder realized those had been the last of the Valkyries' arrows. Indeed, all of the supplies that had been gathered over the past few days for this battle had been exhausted. He could also see the bodies on his side of the gorge, and there were many of them. The death toll had certainly not been one-sided. Yet the Valkyrie had pulled back completely by that point, and with them, Baldur saw more than two dozen of his men yet alive. It wasn't any kind of victory in his mind, but it would have to do for now.
As Balder began pulling his somewhat scattered wits together, Surtur pulled back his arm again, and his spear returned to his hand. Instantly, the king of the Fire Jotun hurled the weapon towards Balder, leaving the Asgardian hardly any time to raise his pierced shield to block. This time, the shield shattered above his arm under the brunt of the attack, Balder's shoulder and pectoral taking the hit almost full force. His armor dented badly under the blow and he could feel the bruising of the skin underneath something fierce despite his enchantment as once again, Balder was hurled off his feet.
When he again hit the ground, Balder rolled desperately and kept on rolling, putting more and more distance between himself and the fire king by using the slight slope of the ground to his advantage. Then a hand grabbed his leg, a voice shouting, "Over here, milord!"
Balder forcefully stopped rolling at the words and was immediately pulled behind the cover of a rock outcropping. The natural rock formation instantly shattered under the blow from Surtur's spear, but it held long enough for Balder and the Valkyrie who'd grabbed him to race away until they had put a slight hillock between them and their enemy.
"You cannot escape your destiny!" Came a shout from Surtur. "You can only delay it! Asgard will be mine, and the pyres of your death will be glorious!"
Looking around, Balder saw worried and even a few frightened expressions among the Asgardians and karls. The Valkyries were harder to read, although they too seemed unsettled given how they held their bridles or bows and seeing those faces in the growing twilight, Balder knew he had to say something to break the despondent spirit of his command before it could become addled by grief or give in to fear.
Standing straight and ignoring his wounds, Balder shouted back, his voice easily carrying over to the jotun. "You have but faced a pittance of our might! I held you up for days on end with barely two hundred warriors! You will soon face the full might of Asgard and Lord Odin, and it is your legions who will despair! Come meet us in the north if you are so eager to die!"
His only answer from Surtur was a roar of fury, but Balder 's men seemed to take heart in his words, and he nodded firmly at those about him. "This was but the last line of skirmishes, my lads."
"And lasses," the lead Valkyrie interjected.
"And lasses," Balder allowed, sending her a wink that caused her to blush like a maiden and turn away rapidly. "You have all performed magnificently here and before this day in our grim work. By our blood and toil, we have given Asgard time to muster our full might. And it will be enough, as it has always been before, to rid our lands of the Fire Jotun and send them packing back to their own fiery realm."
A ragged cheer went up from the survivors of his war band, and he nodded firmly at them all. "Now, come. Let us get on our way. After all, none of us would wish to miss a battle so grand as that, would we?"
Laughter abounded, but smiles could now be seen on many faces as they began to make their way west. Balder could even hear a few of the men beginning to sing. There were ribald drinking songs or boat shanties that won many an eye roll from the Valkyries. At least from those that weren't already joining in at the choruses anyway.
Balder even joined in a few times, his clear tenor cutting through the evening as they made their way away from the battlefield, joking and laughing, slapping backs and smiling at everyone and sundry. Yet at the back of his mind, an exhausted Balder wondered. The full might of the Fire Jotun nation had never been released like this before, and he wondered what ill this augured for the realm.