Skadi felt obliterated. Overwhelmed. Nauseated.

And then she felt nothing but the purest hate.

Heaving for breath she clenched the hilt of Natthrafn so tightly the leather creaked and raised it to point the tip at Grýla’s smirking visage.

“Hear me, Freyja.” Her voice had a hollow, echoing sound to it. A wind immediately blew up, gusting through the throne room and making torches stream. “Hear me, goddess of battle, of witchcraft and death! Hear me now, as I stand soaked in the blood of Yri, as I face the being who slew her without care, without thought, without concern. Hear me!”

This last cry blasted forth, louder than she could have ever screamed on her own, and even Kvedulf narrowed his eyes as he stepped back.

Grýla’s smile disappeared and she raised her axe protectively across her chest, her chin lowering, her eyes locked on her foe.

“I swear by my blood and my honor, by my dreams of glory and eventual afterlife in Sessrúmnir. I swear this by Freyja and her valkyries, in the name of my father and mother, my blood, my spirit, my luck, my wyrd: I will slay Grýla. Norns! Hear me now! Draw back your protection from her threads! Jotunn! Your hour is come at last!”

All combat had stilled. Even the huge troll and the warriors about it had drawn apart, to stare at where she stood.

And a mantle of glory descended upon her, a benediction, a blessing from Freyja. Natthrafn began to burn with a golden flame, and Skadi saw her threads restored to her, ten in all, each vividly burning and surrounded by runes.

“Impressive,” said Grýla, her tone growing in confidence by the moment. “But it will take more than squalling for your mother to bring me down. Think you mighty? Come learn the meaning of the word.”

Skadi smiled. Her whole body thrummed with the power of her oath. “Here I come, then.”

And she exploded forward, running full tilt at where the giantess reared massive above her.

Kvedulf roared his own battle cry and surged forward, Dawn Reaver flashing, even as Aurnir began to swing his dire flail about his head, the hugely bladed head moaning and whirring ever faster.

Grýla swiped her axe at Skadi, wielding the vast weapon as if it were weightless; Skadi dropped to her knees, back arcing down so that her head touched the ground as she slid forward and beneath the fell axe’s blade, and then she was back up, leaping, her seax slashing at the giantess.

Who wheeled to parry Dawn Reaver, both weapons exploding into sparks where steel met steel.

Natthrafn skittered off the giantess’s mail and Skadi landed lightly on the far side, spun on the ball of her foot to attack again, and then Grýla cried out in her native language.

Words of power.

A cage of white fire burst into existence, surrounding them all, the bars leaping like living bolts of lightning, vibrant and blinding, and Grýla cried again and they wrapped around Skadi and Kvedulf, binding their arms to their sides, burning through their clothes, crushing them.

“Think me but a fighter? Idiots. I was a sorceress before you were born!”

“And I am but a humble völva,” gasped Ásfríðr as she stepped forward. “Born of mortal parents, doomed to die a few years hence. But I know my magic, and my seiðr-weaving is strong. And this I can defy.”

She cried out then, a song of power, swiftly spoken as she slashed with a small, silver blade:

“I tear the thread

And stop your throat

With voiceless void,

Your magic fails

Your might falters,

The world is as it was

The world is as it should be.”

Her slash sent a wave of power through the air and the lightning cage fell apart, releasing Skadi and Kvedulf.

Just as Aurnir bellowed, the sound panicked, and pounded forth to swing his dire flail at Grýla’s chest.

The ice queen was almost caught flat-footed, staring in shock as she was as Ásfríðr. At the last moment she extended her hand and caught the dire flail’s head as one might catch a punch, stopping it cold as the blades sank deep into her fist.

“Child,” growled Grýla at Aurnir, who blanched and released his flail. “You defy me?”

Kvedulf lunged, spearing Dawn Reaver at Grýla’s knee, but she cast the flail at him, blood flowing from the deep wounds in her palm, and the jarl was forced to parry the weapon instead.

Grýla painted a rune in the air with one red fingertip, and her wounds sealed.

But it cost her. Skadi saw a thread, one of many, disappear.

“Skadi!” Glámr threw something at her, and with raw reflexes she snagged it out of the air. A hand-axe.

Skadi took a deep breath and ran at the giantess again, who wheeled, slashed with her axe. But Skadi swayed aside, worked her way into Grýla’s guard, and hacked with Natthrafn and axe at her knee. Again and again she hit, slashing through leather and furs, finding flesh, cutting deep into bone and muscle.

But then Grýla pounded the axe’s butt into her chest, shattering her ribcage and spine.

Or almost.

Skadi turned her shoulder in time so that the blow became glancing, and was knocked to the ground with such force she slid away.

Lay there, fetched up against an ice column, her shoulder throbbing. Looked up. Damian was locked within the ice, hand outstretched, yell frozen in time.

Gritting her teeth she rose.

Grýla was swinging her axe repeatedly at Kvedulf, driving him back.

With a shout, Skadi took three steps and hurled her axe.

It blurred through the air, only for Grýla to knock it aside with a contemptuous flick of her weapon.

But that opening was all Kvedulf needed; he rushed in and plunged his blade into the giantess’s gut. Only for her armor to deflect the tip.

Ten threads disappeared from both the jarl and the queen’s wyrds.

Skadi took a deep breath. Saw that Kvedulf was driving the queen back toward her throne. Ran out wide, Natthrafn reversed in her grip, to come up by the throne’s side. She leaped, caught hold of the dais’ edge, hauled herself up.

Sword rang on axe.

Not allowing herself to hesitate, Skadi activated her trackless ability. A second thread glowed green.

Grýla’s back was to her.

Come on, Uncle! Drive her to me!

Such was the ferocity of her uncle’s attacks that the ice queen was forced to retreat. Ásfríðr was crying out curse after curse, her hand outstretched, and their combined assault drove Grýla back, step by step.

Skadi timed it right, waited till the last moment, then ran forward, placed a foot on the throne’s arm, and leaped.

Flew through the air.

And landed right between the queen’s shoulder blades.

Natthrafn sank to the hilt.

Grýla screamed and a thread disappeared.

Skadi’s seax hadn’t sunk home, but slid off the mail again.

Frustration boiled up within Skadi. She immediately began to fall and grabbed a fistful of the giantess’s furred mantle.

Swung from one arm as the queen whirled about, then with gritted teeth stabbed anew.

Another thread disappeared.

Natthrafn failed to sink home once more.

How had Kvedulf and the others expended so many threads at once? How had they risen above the torturous need to pare away a foe’s wyrd, thread by single thread?

Then it came to her.

How she’d imbued her hurled seax with four threads at once in her vain attempt to save Yri.

Fury. White and livid like magma in her core. She summoned again her hatred, her oath, her need.

She had eight threads left.

With all her heart she bound them together and poured the force of her wyrd into Natthrafn—then surged up to plunge the blade into the queen’s back again.

And this time it sank home to the hilt.

Grýla screamed, her back arcing, and scrabbled over one shoulder with a hand, trying to grip her.

But Kvedulf pressed her mercilessly.

Grýla tried to gesture, to paint once again her healing rune, but a spear flew forth and plunged clear through her palm.

A parting glance as Skadi swung from her fistful of mantle, and she saw Glámr tripping over himself as he failed to recover from his throw.

Somewhere the huge troll bellowed and collapsed to the cheers of the surviving warriors.

Kvedulf waded in, knocked aside Grýla’s axe, and slashed a deep cut in the jotunn’s leg.

Who screamed and fell to one knee. Reached out and caught Kvedulf by the torso, fingers wrapping around both arms.

She lifted him off the ground, his blade trapped along his side.

“I loved you,” she half-sobbed, half-snarled. “We could have changed the world!”

And raised Kvedulf so that she could bite off his head.

“No!” screamed Skadi, and with supreme effort she tore Natthrafn free and surged up once more, the muscles of her left arm burning as she slashed her slaughter seax alongside the queen’s neck.

The queen was down to a dozen threads. Another disappeared, but it required her to jerk aside, nearly overbalance. Skadi lost her grip and fell to the ground, landed hard, crashed to her side.

Kvedulf was still seized.

“How swiftly love turns to loathing,” hissed Grýla and raised her fist to crush the jarl’s head.

Only for the dire flail to come roaring down and embed itself deeply in her shoulder with such terrible force that Skadi heard bones break within the queen’s torso.

She screamed.

Aurnir staggered back, clapping his hands to his ears in horror.

Kvedulf fell from Grýla’s grip and landed with ease. Attacked without hesitation, slashing and cutting, lacerating the queen’s mail so that it soon hung in strips. Her threads dropped, the golden cords flickering and disappearing under the onslaught. Eight. Six. Three.

One.

Grýla shrieked again, but now with frustration, swatted at Kvedulf and drove him back.

Which had been her intention. She punched her fist full into the ground, which reacted by erupting in spikes of ice. They roared forth, surrounding her, a frosted crown that knocked Kvedulf back and raised Skadi amongst their sloping vectors so that she was trapped between columns and near crushed.

Grýla, momentarily isolated and heaving for breath, drew a glass bottle from a pouch. Blood drenched her shoulder and side, ran down her back, poured forth from numerous slashes and wounds across her front. Reeling, she raised the bottle to her lips and tore the cork free.

Within was a swirling wind of pure frost.

To Skadi’s sharpened vision, it burned pure gold.

In the periphery of her vision, she saw an armored figure, regal and perilous, hovering in the air above them all.

Hjörþrimul, watching with avid hunger.

Vision blurred, the pain extreme, Skadi raised Natthrafn. “Freyja,” she whispered. “Please.”

And threw her blade.

The seax plunged clear through the bottle. The glass shattered just as Grýla placed its neck to her lips, and the blue wind exploded outward, a cyclone of terrible energy, coating everything in a fresh layer of ice and snow, and then gone.

Grýla screamed in frustration.

The frost spikes fell away, sinking back into the ground, and Grýla lunged for Skadi, snatching her up where she lay.

“You. You ruined everything. You are nothing, your goddess—”

And then Grýla stiffened, every sinew, every tendon, every muscle going taut.

Her grip on Skadi tightened into a vise, such that she heard her bones creak.

But then the jotunn’s grip loosened and Skadi dropped to the floor in a crouch.

Kvedulf stood there, Dawn Reaver’s hilt clasped in both hands, its blade sunk to the crossguard in the giantess’s side.

Grýla blinked, panic and shock in her blue eyes. Staggered back, unskewering herself in the process, and clapped a hand to the wound.

“Not like this,” she said, gaze unfocusing. “This cannot be my ending. My future is bright. Endless. This…”

She dropped to one knee.

Kvedulf let out a roar, bounded forth, and leaped.

Hewed.

The ice queen’s head flew clear of her shoulders, to spin, bounce, and then roll across the stone floor and fetch up against the base of her throne.

The huge body toppled forward and crashed to the ground.

For a moment all was silence.

Then the sound of ice cracking filled the hall. Every column shivered, manifested deep fissures, and then burst.

Men and women toppled forth, falling to the ground amidst the icy rubble, where they stirred, groaned, lifted their heads.

Kvedulf remained posed where he’d landed, Dawn Reaver’s blade crimson, and swung down to one side.

Slowly he straightened.

Scowled at the severed head, then turned his bleak gaze to survey his people.

Skadi groaned. Aurnir knelt gently by her side and with his huge hands helped her sit up.

“It is done,” shouted Kvedulf.

Marbjörn and the remaining five warriors stepped up. Thirty others raised their heads from their ice-bound stupor and fixed their eyes on their jarl.

“I have fulfilled my oath to Odin!” Kvedulf’s voice rang with fierce conviction. “Grýla the ice queen is no more, and Kráka is freed of her jealous shadow.”