My wyrd against his own, thought Skadi, staring right back into the frost jotunn’s black eyes. My wyrd will win!

And with that thought echoing in her mind, Skadi ran along the rafter, fleet as a squirrel along a branch, and leaped out into the void, flung herself at the giant, Natthrafn clutched in both hands, her stomach lurching, her heart rising into her throat, her whole body thrumming with intention.

Kagssok reared back but was constrained by the confines of the hall; that, and he’d not expected the little human to simply throw herself at him from such a vertiginous height.

Skadi flew between the twin mammoth tusks to slam her seax into the giant’s chest. The blade bit deep, but was only the length of her forearm; Kagssok’s huge pectoral was sliced open, but only superficially. The tip of her seax found no bone.

The giant roared.

The sound made the timbers of the hall vibrate, the pale flames stream, the trolls uncurl themselves from their slumbers with alarmed alacrity.

Skadi’s weight dragged her down, her blade slicing through blue flesh, through the sparse chest hairs like wires, but then the giant closed his hand about her, plucked her from his flesh, and flung her across the hall.

The world span.

Skadi held tightly to Natthrafn, tried desperately to do something, anything, but all she managed was to contort herself in mid-air before slamming into a tapestry that hung the length of the wall.

It folded about her, cushioning her impact against the wall a foot beyond it, but still the force with which she hit caused her to bite her tongue, her mouth to flood with blood, her body to bounce and then slide down the tapestry.

Reflex caused her to stab Natthrafn into the fabric, and it tore open with a wide hiss, but in doing so arrested her fall. Down she slid, head spinning, to drop to the ground and rise swaying to her feet.

Two of her threads were gone just like that.

Trolls gaped at her, their black eyes slowly turning crimson.

“The eyes!” she heard Glámr yell from above. “Aim for his eyes!”

Kagssok rumbled and raised a hand to shield his face. The arrows that pricked his palm looked laughably small. With his other hand, he seized Crag Crusher.

The closest troll roared at Skadi and charged.

No time for thought. Still dizzy, she vaulted over one of the tables, slid over its surface, upsetting the remnants of yesterday’s meal, then slipped over the bench and fell to the ground.

Never stay on the ground, she heard Marbjörn roar.

Up she popped, threw herself aside just as the troll burst through the table, savaging the wood into fragments with his claws, to blunder right through where she’d been and smash into the wall.

Skadi caught her balance, head clearing, and ran back up the hall toward Kagssok, who raised his maul and jabbed its huge head at the rafters below the fire hole.

Ancient timbers shook and shivered and cracked.

Skadi vaulted over a fallen bench, rounded a column, and then the frost jotunn was there, huge as the face of a glacier, mighty and terrible, pulling one leg beneath him to rise, the other curled under.

Seimur gleamed with impossible allure upon the floor.

Skadi through herself into a slide, passed right past the chain, and snatched it up. Four trolls were charging after her, snorting and roaring like bulls, each complete with six or seven strands of fate.

A quick glance and she saw that Kagssok yet possessed nine.

The frost giant paused his slamming at the rafters, pressed a hand to his gut, then doubled over and vomited a stream of milky wretchedness that spattered over the center of the hall.

The stench was horrific and made Skadi’s eyes water.

She reached the back of the hall. Leaped, stabbed Natthrafn into the wall, and used it as a handhold to reach higher for a crossbeam. Curled her fingers over the blackened wood, tore Natthrafn free, and yanked herself higher, got a toehold on an ancient shield hung from an iron hook, and leaped.

Stabbed Natthrafn again. The blade sank deep into the old timber and for a moment she just hung there, a good five yards above the floor, trolls swarming beneath her, reaching for her ankles with talons, those in the back casting about for objects to throw.

Kagssok recovered himself then jerked back as an arrow sank deep into his left eye, his whole body flinching, his bulk slamming into the hall’s wall causing deep, wounded groans to sound from the building’s core structure.

Skadi hiked her legs up to avoid a snatching claw, reached for a ridge, hauled herself up, and gained the lowest rafter. Scrambled up, her body flowing with strength and determination, and took her bearings.

Glámr and Yri were loosing arrow after arrow at Kagssok’s face, but he’d turned away from them and cared nothing for the shafts that bristled on his cheek or which lost themselves in his beard.

A massive bowl of iron sped right at her head, tossed with unerring accuracy by a troll. It should have decapitated her, but she jerked back at the last moment through instinct alone, and it deformed itself upon impact with the underside of the roof.

Another of her threads disappeared.

Crag Crusher’s head rested on the floor, the haft rising to Kagssok’s hand. She dared not throw the chain again. Couldn’t afford to miss.

Instead, seized my madness, wanting to laugh, to scream, she raced along the rafter once more and leaped into the air.

Landed squarely on the frost giant’s shoulder. The iron pauldron was as huge as the underside of a ship, each hammer blow evident in the striations that marked it, its surface broken up by dull spikes. She fell back against one as the giant heaved again, wrapped an arm around it, then threw herself forward to reach the back of Kagssok’s neck.

Black hair spilled forth from under his steel helm, thick as ship ropes. She grabbed the helm’s edge and sought a place to stab, but was defeated by the oiled density of the hair, its sheer thickness.

Kagssok shook his head as if seeking to dislodge a fly.

For a moment Skadi’s legs swam out through the air, her whole body horizontal, but she stabbed Natthrafn into a coil of black hair and held onto the helm. Crashed back down against his neck, then saw his other hand coming at her like a specter of death.

Giving up on any thoughts of stabbing through his spine, she scrambled back along his back to his shoulder and then had an idea.

She placed the chain upon his shoulder and whispered, “Seimur.”

The effect was immediate.

Kagssok roared in surprise as his shoulder was shoved down to the ground, his back crashing against the wall, his other arm jerking forward in an attempt to counterbalance. The hall’s wall cracked and groaned, and then the frost giant twisted onto his side so that this shoulder could slam down upon the ground.

For a moment Skadi felt victory surge in her chest, but then Seimur slipped off his shoulder and fell to the ground.

It wasn’t magically affixed to whatever it lay on.

But Kagssok was momentarily off-balance, his leg having kicked out to knock over trolls, shatter tables.

Skadi leaped lightly to the ground, dove for the chain, snatched it up, considered her options.

Kagssok righted himself even as he vomited again.

He’d lost another thread in the process of getting Seimur off his shoulder. Down to eight. She ran forward, crouched by his monstrous hammer, and carefully draped the chain over its haft so it wouldn’t fall off.

“Seimur,” she whispered.

The wood beneath the chain crunched.

Another three threads disappeared from Kagssok, reducing him to five.

A troll came barreling toward her, roaring with claws outstretched, but the frost jotunn kicked out a leg as he continued trying to right himself and knocked the troll flying.

Another of Skadi’s threads disappeared. She was down to one.

They were so close!

Hefting Natthrafn, Skadi ducked under the giant’s knee and leaped, slashing her silver blade across the massive tendons.

Her cut was sure, but the result was slight, a thin red line as the giant moved his leg away.

But another thread disappeared.

Glámr and Yri continued to rain arrows upon the jotunn, several more finding their mark as the giant roared and finally sat upright. The arrows affixed one eyelid shut, pinning it to the black sphere beneath, and Kagssok wiped his face with one palm, tearing them free.

Another thread disappeared.

The giant seized Crag Crusher, tried to heft it.

Failed.

Glared at his weapon, tried again, the huge muscles of his arm bulging with strain. Roared in true fury now, and began to rise.

Kagssok the frost giant had had enough.

His shoulders burst the rafters, his head smashed its way through the roof, and with a tremendous bellow, he swung his arms free, punching at the wall as he fought his way out.

Skadi lost track of her companions. A troll was closing, its movements wary, and it kept casting glances at the ice giant as it approached.

Skadi ran out a side door as a mass of rafters and roofing fell into the hall.

Out into the back yard.

Kagssok was tearing himself free, emerging into the street as the first light of dawn began to lift the darkness. She was barely able to make out Glámr as he leaped from the collapsing roof to land with impossible skill upon one of the mammoth tusks. His weight pulled the giant’s chin down to his chest, but before he could react, the half-troll hurled a hand-axe with all his lean strength straight into the giant’s face and leaped clear.

Skadi saw a golden thread flicker away from her friend as he landed on a rooftop and punched clear through the thatch to fall inside.

The axe flew at the jotunn’s anvil-like visage, but the giant jerked his head aside and the weapon clanged off his helm.

Another thread disappeared, and he was down to two.

The jotunn saw Skadi and snarled, his fury becoming hatred. He strode toward her, roared, then coughed as Yri loosed an arrow down his gullet.

He backhanded the rooftop where she perched, and sent a mass of tiles, beams, and shattered wood flying, and Yri with it.

The girl spun and crashed into a tree that grew beside the pig pen, disappearing between the branches.

Her wyrd was strong. She’d survive the blow.

Wood and debris fell about Skadi. She snatched up a pole and raced away from Kagssok, down the length of the hall. Tore off her belt as she ran, then ducked around the corner and dropped into a crouch. Set Natthrafn’s hilt against the pole’s head, and with all her strength wrapped her belt around it, affixing the blade fast, only to find that the buckle was just out of reach of the first hole in the other end.

The ground shuddered as Kagssok came striding toward her.

Straining, pulling with all her might, knowing she had but seconds, Skadi hauled on the leather, yanked till she felt like she’d split the belt in two, and finally got the iron tongue through the hole.

She dove forward as a hand smashed down upon where she’d crouched, came up with her spear in hand, and stared at the arrow-pocked face of the giant.

“Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir,” he rumbled. “I will eat you alive.”

She stabbed her spear into the hand that yet rested where she’d crouched. Natthrafn’s tip sank deep into the flesh between thumb and forefinger, and he tore his hand away with a snarl.

“Do so, and I’ll cut my way out of your stomach!” she yelled, spear held at the ready.

Kagssok reared to his full height, then lifted his boot to stomp on her.

Skadi leaped aside, the ground shuddering as his foot smashed a crater into the ground, and then tore free her last hand-axe. With all her strength she hurled it up at the giant’s face, a wild, ferocious throw, but it was but a feint—she immediately ran forward, between the giant’s legs as he swatted the axe out of the air, and slashed her spear overhead at the huge, hanging furs as she ran out the other side.

Natthrafn slashed through fur, through cloth, through more.

Kagssok’s roar became a howl.

The last of his threads disappeared and he straightened, face pale, lips pursed to a savage line.

Skadi grinned.

Now he could die.

She backed up a half-dozen steps.

Kagssok turned ponderously, trying to track her.

She lifted one arm, pointed her hand at his face, and drew back her Natthrafn spear.

Kagssok inhaled deeply, his chest swelling, and then a ripple of nausea flowed through him, causing his gut to visibly flutter, his torso to bend forward as he fought the poison.

With a cry, Skadi took three skipping steps forward and hurled Natthrafn with all her might.

Her last golden thread disappeared.

The spear flew from her hand, and as the uppermost ridge of the highest western crag caught fire from the rising sun, her slaughter seax’s point impaled the giant through one huge black eye.

And sank deep, sliding in to disappear completely, blade, hilt, and pommel.

Kagssok stilled.

Swayed.

Reached up with his massive fingers to gently touch the slender pole that emerged from his right eye.

For a moment he simply seemed confused, and then he toppled forward, all strength leaving his legs, to crash down upon where Skadi stood.

She leaped aside with a scream, barely getting away, and when she rose to a crouch she saw the frost giant laid out full length along the training yard, massive as an overturned dragon ship, his cloak settling upon his form, his fingers flexing, flexing, and then finally going still.