All right, then. Let him fall. Let the stubborn old man fall. I wouldn’t shed a tear for him. Let him fall, and let his last, desperate, dying moments be infused with sorrow and regret and the knowledge that his downfall was all because of his monstrous pride.

He’d driven me to it, I told myself. Hadn’t he?

Hadn’t he?

Lesson 5 Settling Scores

LESSON 5

Settling Scores

There goes free will.

Lokabrenna

ON THE NINTH DAY, we attacked. Nine is the perfect number. Nine Worlds: nine days, nine nights till the end of the Worlds. There is a curious poetry to such an equation. Nine days, nine nights. And on the ninth day, everyone died.

Everyone who matters, that is.

Of course, the sun didn’t rise that day. Nevertheless, we followed tradition and attacked more or less at dawn. The Ice and Rock Folk launched a two-pronged assault to the north and east of Asgard, while the rest of our army gathered to wipe up the rest of the Folk and, as Heidi’s people moved up out of Iron-wood to challenge Bif-rost, I, in Wildfire Aspect, at the helm of my fire-ship, led my fleet across the plain to scour the land in a thin red line.

Finally, I knew what to do. I was in my element. Lighting up the darkness in glorious red-gold, deadly bursts; eating through wood and bone and flesh; clashing joyfully on steel. Within an hour, the snowfields of Ida were nothing but a grid of flame, and Bif-rost’s gleaming parapet was alive with capering figures. Wolves howled; witches flew; ephemera surged out of Dream to take any shape they chose to take from the fears of those who assailed us. The gods were outnumbered ten thousand to one. Ice Folk here; Rock Folk there; Wildfire in the middle. And on the Bridge, our champions, howling their defiance and rage at the beleaguered Aesir; Fenris, the Wolf; Jormungand, lolling in his sheath of slime; and a host of vile ephemera dragged from the bed of the River Dream.

The air was black with smoke and ash; the plain of Ida slick with blood. Of course, in my Wildfire Aspect, I could not hear the blood in my veins; or smell the stench of carnage; or see the millions of ephemera flying like moths towards the Bridge; or taste the salt of sweat on my tongue; or feel the fear in the back of my throat like an animal trying to get out; or hear the howl of battle like the voice of ten thousand winds . . .