Page 9 of The Last Valkyrie (Vikingrune Academy #4)

Chapter 9

Corym

THERE HE WAS. I FOLLOWED Arne’s gaze skyward, to the horizon where a lone figure stood majestically atop the hill and watched the battle transpire.

The dark cousin responsible for so much tragedy and death within our ranks. Killing the Huscarl scouts. Murdering Arne’s sister. Ruining Elayina’s home. Bringing Anvari to the brink of death.

And that was only what he’d accomplished in Midgard .

I seethed, power running through me. The dark elf turned around and vanished from sight once he realized people from the swamp were looking up at him.

I was forced back to the battle before us, as the draug continued to surround the initiates under the command of Hersir Selken and Hersir Kardeen.

I wasn’t undisciplined like Arne. I stayed near Ravinica at all times. Where she moved, I moved, and my silversteel blade worked in a frenzy.

I took my anger at seeing the dark elf out on our undead foes. They had no chance against my graceful movements, my dance of death that burned and soldered their wounds closed with sparks and lines of fire as soon as my blade touched flesh.

I took my sunstone dagger from my hip and fought dual-wielding, longsword keeping the draug at bay. The dagger lit up like a blacksmith’s forge and ignited draug bodies as if they were tufts of dry wood.

Vaguely, I recognized others fighting next to me—Ravinica with her expert spear-wielding; Magnus with his bloodsword; Grim with his axe; Sven and Arne with their swords; Damon Halldan with a sword of his own, fighting alongside Eirik and their friends.

In that moment we fought as a single unit. I only wished my people could come together like these humans seemed capable of.

Though primitive in some ways, the humans were more advanced than us Ljosalfar in other areas. We could learn a few things from the humans, I wager, despite being around much longer.

It was a startling discovery after going so many years hating the humans as much as they hated us. Ravinica had opened the door to that truth, her half-human blood shining more brightly than her half-elven blood, because of who raised her.

She had the tenacity and grit and confidence of the humans. She possessed their best qualities . . . and now the rest of her kind was showing it as well.

We were winning the fight. The tides had shifted once our people managed to come together into one cohesive host, throwing aside the notion of three distinct regiments.

Gothi Sigmund was an imposing fighter. I watched him out the corner of my eye as he barreled into a group of draug and laid waste to the bastards, dispatching them with ferocious skill.

Any idea of him “being in on this”—scheming to hurt the academy—seemed foolish now as he slew countless enemies left and right. He wielded a sword and shield like a true Viking of old. He pushed and swung in wide, determined arcs, keeping a group of undead away from his unit singlehandedly.

The Gothi put a hand to his blade, Shaped runes, and caused a ripple of orange and blue to shimmy up the opposite edges of his blade. His sword became a coruscating weapon of ice and fire incarnate, one side singeing and burning everything it touched, the other hissing and misting.

Sigmund’s cloak billowed behind him as he spun into a draug, slicing an arm off that sizzled with icy particles. He shouldered the thing, twirled the sword in his grip, and plunged the fiery side of his sword into its belly, igniting it from the inside out. He kicked through the burning embers of ash and bone, roaring at the next draug in line louder than it yelled at him.

His next swing took the head from the monster’s shoulders, a geyser of fire sprouting up instead of blood.

Three draug barreled in to flank him—

A gigantic shield landed in their path, slammed down onto the swampland by Thane Canute, the commander of Sigmund’s guard.

Canute bellowed and pushed —

The trio of draug went flying as his tower shield swept them off their feet, launched them through the air. He slammed a foot down, ripping a tremor into the earth from his large boot. Charging draug were stopped in their tracks, thrown off-balance from the sheer force of Canute’s runic stomping. It was that moment’s hesitation that gave other soldiers time to bring the enemies down.

The one-eyed man was a menace, huge as Grim and controlled like a cage fighter in Alfheim. Where Sigmund was devastating in his offensive abilities, Thane Canute was a master of defense and using the opponents’ momentum against them.

Draug came and flew aside as he rocked them left and right off his shield, using a great spiky war mace to blow apart the bodies and bones of his enemies. It almost became comical how many body parts were flying through the air around the deadly duo.

I watched the duo fight in tandem, slightly awed at their chemistry. I hadn’t had a partner-in-war like that since Ravinica in the forest near my camp, and that had come out of desperation. Before her, it had been my sister Deitryce who I danced with against Dokkalfar invading our home.

A sense of longing filled me, wishing I had that again—wanting my brethren to be witnessing this so they could help us in this deadly conflict.

I didn’t see the humans as enemies any longer. They were simply doing what elves had done in Alfheim for centuries: fighting to protect their homes; fighting for each other; fighting to extinguish the threat from their realm and minimize the death and suffering of their people.

With newfound respect, I went into melee with a draug and quickly silenced him. While moving onto my next foe, I vowed to speak to my Ljosalfar brethren after this fight concluded, if we lived.

Spirits, I’d speak to Maltor Vaalnath if I had to, in order to implore the elves to reconsider and come to the aid of the humans fighting for their survival in Midgard.

I would use the elves’ sense of honor to shame them into assisting—honor that afflicted me perhaps worst of all. Because if the jotnar were in Midgard now . . . I knew they had no plans on stopping here. Alfheim would be next.

Perhaps Ravinica’s dream of united realms can come true after all. For everything I doubted about the na?ve idea, seeing this valor out of the humans has me reconsidering my position.

Another tremor swept through the boggy swamp, sending up bubbles of black from the patchy ground, making me stumble where I fought.

I curled a smirk over my shoulder toward Thane Canute, hoping he understood I was giving him his flowers for his worthy abilities—

But my smile faltered.

Because Canute was busy fighting in close quarters, his back to me, and the unique tremor did not emanate from him.

No, it came from something behind him, in the northern distance where the plains met the mountains.

Clenching my teeth, I realized I was the only one looking in that direction, because the fighting was raging at an east-west trajectory, with the majority of the combatants south of the plains.

I raised my voice so all the humans could hear me over the clanging and shouting, my eyes bulging as I pointed toward the massive silhouetted form charging toward us.

“JOTUN!”