A Cloak of Feathers

Chapter Three

Then Loki spake, the son of Laufey:
"Be silent, Thor, and speak not thus;

Else will the giants in Asgard dwell
If thy hammer is brought not home to thee."

Thrymskvitha, stave 17

In a certain Treasure Vault deep within the House of Odin. Four voices . . .

"Truly, my friends, of all the foolhardy tasks that we have ever undertaken, in all of the Tree's nine realms, this must undoubtedly carry away the prize. Who agrees with me?"

"I, for one."

"Two of us, then. Anyone else? Loki? Thor?"

"Enough! We may be fools, Fandral, curse it all, but what choice do we have? Bor's Bones! It's dark as Nidhoggr's breath in here. Loki, light the torch."

"I could suggest a choice. We could go to the Allfather at once, and lay this whole tale out before him."

"Thank you, Sif, but I'd prefer not. Come, we must free the gem from the Helm."

"Thor would prefer negotiation with Thrym to explanations before Father."

"What of it? Would you not feel the same, any of you? Curse it, the damnable thing refuses to budge. I require something sharper. . . Fandral! Give me your rapier."

"Have a care, brother. Don't scratch it."

"It's survived for thousands of years unscathed. I don't think a few moments of prying with a sword's tip will cause it any harm."

"Nevertheless . . . "

"It's stuck fast . . . No, I've got it!"

"Don't drop it!"

"I wasn't intending to! Here, Fandral, your sword . . . Sif, take the Eye."

"If I must."

"Where's the false one? Do you have it still? Sif?"

"Yes, here it is. . . . Thor, isn't it strange that Thrym was able to create this impostor? How could he have copied the Eye so exactly?"

" . . . You're right. That is strange. And, see here . . . it fits perfectly back into the Helm."

"So it does, brother. What an interesting conversation we will have with that dwarf when next we meet."

"Yes, we will, Loki. All of us."

"Naturally."

"Because we'll all be there when Sif confronts him."

"At her very heels."

"Disguised as her handmaidens."

"Yes, Thor. As much as it pains you. Do you want to retrieve the Hammer, or no?"

"Of course I do!"

"Well, then."

"I only wish that I could devise a less ridiculous way to do it!"

And later, along the road to Nidavillr . . .

"I don't think it will escape you."

Sif looked up, startled; her thoughts had wandered far afield while her eyes idly followed the horses as they grazed. Their haunches, streaked with drying sweat, bore mute witness to leagues of hard riding; she suspected that they were grateful for respite from the road's endless beckoning. Tall ranks of trees marched along one side of the grassy hollow where they'd halted, and, on the other, a rocky slope climbed steeply to the foot of a cliff, whose summit reared into a sky lit gold by the sun's descent toward evening. The road swung into a wide curve along the hollow's brim, and then disappeared again into the trees; on a sapling nearby, the two ravens, who'd accompanied the four of them all the way to Asgard and back here again, were perched in a quiet huddle of glossy black feathers, their weight bending the young tree's trunk. Below, in the bowl of the hollow, Loki had built a tiny, smokeless fire, and Thor was hunched over it, staring moodily into the flame. She noticed that his hand moved restlessly, tapping against Mjolnir's empty clasp.

Fandral had been crouched beside her, rummaging through his saddle bag. As she looked over at him, he straightened and unclasped the stopper on a stout, leather-bound flask. One brow quirked as he awaited her response.

"What will not escape me?" she asked.

He gestured with one finger toward her waist, and she glanced down to find her fingers resting protectively over the small pouch that hung there.

"Ah." Her lips tipped into a wry smile. "Well, this is, as you said, one of Asgard's chiefest treasures." She stroked the pouch with her fingertips, tracing the oval shape within it. "And, in any case, I would not care to collapse the roof on Loki's mad plan by losing its keystone."

He laughed, and tipped the flask up for a long swallow. "Small chance of that. Our prince could not ask for a more reliable caretaker."

"Or a more reluctant one." She sighed and rolled her eyes, and moved to look away, but his gaze held her, and she wondered at the warmth in it; camaraderie and friendship, yes, but something more, as well? Or was she seeing only what she, perhaps, would like to see? She shrugged, and said, "I suspect that's why Thrym insisted that it be I alone who returned with the cursed thing. He found Loki too eager for battle."

"The more fool he, if he truly views you as the less dangerous option." He lifted the flask in silent invitation.

She reached out to take it, and then paused, frowning in mock consternation. "No cakes?"

"Not this time."

She grinned, and took a sip. As she handed it back, she said, "He did seem uncertain about my spear."

"Thyrm? As well he should." He stoppered the flask and tossed it back into the open mouth of the saddlebag. "Since in your grasp it's a most formidable weapon."

She tilted her chin, a tiny smile curving the corner of her mouth. "Most formidable? More so than, say, a sword?"

He gave an exaggerated grimace, running one hand along the back of his neck. "Perhaps?"

"Oh, really?" A brow rose. "In that case, my friend, perhaps you'd like some lessons? In the art of close combat with a spear?"

He pursed his lips thoughtfully, nodding, eyes gleaming with amusement and a deeper, subtle heat. "I might, if you're making such an offer."

"I think . . . not. On further consideration, I've decided that it's not advisable, after all." Her smile widened.

"Oh?"

"Your skill with the sword has already won you the admiration of many a maiden. If you were to add to that a prowess with the spear . . . ," she paused, and frowned with mock solicitude. "No heart in Asgard would remain unconquered."

But to her surprise, he didn't laugh as her jest thrust home.

"I would not be so ungallant as to disagree with a lady," he said, and he looked away. "And I have enjoyed the company of many a pretty maid, true enough, but . . . I believe there is one heart in Asgard that I have not touched, for all that I am Fandral the Dashing."

On the last word, his gaze slid back to hers, a potent en garde. His lips were bent into an ironic smile that did not quite reach his eyes.

She studied him, in that instant, which for all its fleeting speed seemed to stretch and enfold a multitude of similar ones. She allowed her eyes to rove his face as she sought the meaning behind his words, and her mind to notice the contrast between the strong planes of his jaw and the chiseled curve of that lip. But, as she did, her eye was caught by a stealthy movement in the trees behind him, and the malevolent wink of light on metal or polished stone. Her shoulders snapped upright, her lips parted in a warning shout, and then she threw herself forward against him. They crashed to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs; something hummed viciously as it pierced the air over their heads, and, from their nearby perch, the ravens hurled themselves skyward, squawking in alarm.

Fandral's voice, muffled beneath her, drawled, "This is certainly an unexpected pleasure."

"Quiet!" she hissed, and rolled off him into a crouch. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Thor had leapt to his feet, down by the fire, and, beside him, Loki stood with a dagger in each hand.

She scanned the trees, the slope, the nearby ground. Fandral was on his feet, drawing his sword, when her eyes found an alien shape among the tufts of grass, where it had come to a rest after failing to find its mark in Fandral's back.

She seized his arm, and pulled him about, pointing. "Trolls. It's a troll dagger."

Loki came running forward and scooped up the weapon, his face cold, eyes skimming the shadows under the trees as he ran a thumb along the edge of the finely-hewn stone. His gaze met Sif's, full of portent, and he was opening his mouth to speak when a guttural war cry erupted all around them, and an avalanche of huge, ponderous bodies rumbled out of the forest.

At once, Sif squared herself to meet them, body poised and taut even as her mind raced.

How many? Too many!

But, without a pause, the trolls surged past, heedless of Fandral and herself, sweeping around Loki, thundering toward the bottom of the hollow where Thor stood alone. They converged upon him in a maelstrom of spear and bow. For a bare instant, Thor waited, hands curling into fists, eyes gauging the oncoming threat, the noose they were attempting to draw around him. Then, with a roar, he spun and catapulted himself through a gap in their circle, twisting to avoid a wild thrust from a spear. He pounded forward in the only direction open to him, up the slope toward the base of the cliff, with an angry, milling knot of trolls in his wake.

Loki was already halfway up the slope, running at an angle toward his brother, slipping through the jumbled rocks like a wildcat on the hunt. Sif caught a startled, grim glance from Fandral, and then he shoved his sword into its scabbard and plunged forward, mirroring Loki's movements. Sif hefted her spear and followed; the muscles at the back of her neck tightened mercilessly against the evil prospect of a sharp stone dagger embedded between her shoulder-blades.

They scrambled up the slope, bodies low and bent, toward Thor, who had pulled himself up onto a narrow ledge near the cliff's foot. In another moment they had vaulted up onto the rocky shelf to join him, whirling to face the oncoming trolls. From overhead, the two ravens came swooping out of the sky, and secreted themselves with a flurry of wings into a sheltered niche in the cliff's stone face.

"Cowards!" Thor growled at them; Loki chuckled and gave them a salute, fist to chest with one hand even as a dark-bladed dagger appeared in the other. There was a stifled chirp in response, and then the trolls were upon them.

'We've come in peace, you rock-brained cretins."

Loki ducked swiftly beneath the swing of a troll's oddly-jointed arm. He spun, and his booted foot scythed one of the creature's legs out from under it; it teetered, arms windmilling, on the other. As the snarl on its lips morphed into a chagrined howl, Loki straightened, pressed two fingers against its chest, favored it with a friendly wink, and pushed. With a scream of rage it fell backward down the steep slope it had just laboriously ascended, bouncing with a stony thud off several large boulders as it went.

"Be at peace, will you?" Loki called after it.

A gasp of laughter slipped through Sif's clenched teeth. She had scooped up a melon-sized rock, and, as she hurled it against a troll's skull, she said, "They don't seem willing to accommodate you."

Thor, fighting back to back with Fandral, sent two more of the creatures tumbling away with a mighty blow of his fist. He looked up to meet Loki's raised eyebrow.

"Can they not see that we are merely harmless travelers?"

Fandral grunted. Another troll had pulled itself onto the cliffside ledge and hurtled toward him with a red-eyed roar. As he plunged his rapier's thin blade into the unarmored gap between its low-slung jaw and heavily armored collarbone, and then kicked the body off the sword and back down the slope, he said, over his shoulder, "I can't imagine why not."

Sif reached down for more ammunition; she came up with a stone hardly bigger than an egg, cupped in the palm of her hand. Beside her, Loki arched a brow at it.

"Terrifying."

She rolled her eyes at him, and cocked back her arm to let it fly regardless, when her gaze snagged on an enormous boulder perched on the furthest edge of an outcropping overhead. She rifled the small missile directly into the eye socket of an advancing troll, and, as it dropped its spear and fell howling to its knees, clutching at its face, she jerked a thumb upward. Fandral caught the gesture and turned to followed it; he grinned and swept her a tiny bow that turned into a graceful sidestep as he bent and twisted to avoid a stone dagger thrown from below. "That's all yours, my lady."

Loki moved to cover her back as she flung herself upward, pulling with one hand and drawing her spear out of its scabbard on her back with the other, her eye on the precariously balanced stone. Fandral lifted his blade and sighted along the edge, shaking his head at the nicks and gouges inflicted by troll hide on the fine steel. He glanced over at Thor and said, "I believe I've indulged in some harmless travel, a time or two over the course of my life. This isn't it."

Thor growled, "They have no cause to attack us! And they'll regret it soon enough."

"I'm sure they will," Loki murmured. "Because this is all going so well."

Above their heads, Sif said, mildly, as she forced the head of her spear beneath the overhanging boulder, "Oh yes. We've lured them into trapping us here, where we've no way to escape. Very clever of us." She paused, and raised a brow, and added, "Duck."

Fandral's eyes widened, and Loki wheeled backward; she wedged the spearhead another finger-width further under the stone with a final clench of her jaw, and then threw all her weight upon the metal shaft. With a groaning crack, the stone fell away, crashing like the footfalls of a giant down the hillside, and taking a dozen trolls with it.

Thor strode to the ledge's rim. "They're gathering their wounded. They'll retreat now."

"For the moment." Sif leaped down from her perch.

"And not very far." Thor pointed, as the hulking shapes below began to regather in the shadows under the trees at the far side of the hollow. Several of them were pulling the bodies of their fallen fellows, obeying the roughly shouted commands of a huge troll covered with a mottled pattern that could only be battle-scarring. It turned, as if suddenly aware of Thor's gaze, and glared at him. Then it lifted one fist and pumped it upward, three times, sharply. Thor coughed and turned his head to meet Loki's amused gaze, as his brother came to stand beside him.

"Really," Loki shook his head. "I think I'd prefer to decline that invitation . . ."

"They're angry," Sif said. "They won't stop until they or we are dead."

But as she said it, her eye lingered on Thor, and her fingers itched to pull him back from his exposed position; an image played across her mind's eye: the circle of trolls closing in on Thor, ignoring herself and Loki and Fandral to do so.

Loki was bending a thoughtful eye upon his brother, as well. "Or until someone is dead," he said.

Any answer Sif might have offered was lost in an explosion of sound: huge rocks shattering on the ledge behind them, peppering them with razor-edged fragments. As one, they whirled and dived for the meager shelter of the cliff face.

"What's up there?" Fandral asked, craning his neck to look upward past the beetling cliff. A smaller rock, cleft in two by an impact further up, struck his armored shoulder with a low clang. Spitting out an oath, he flattened himself against the rock and slid his eyes sideways. "Anyone?"

Loki eased along the wall toward the far end of the ledge, his face tilted upward, eyes narrow. He lowered his gaze to catch Thor's eye, and his brother dodged forward to slide into place beside him, pausing for only a moment to swing his fist like a club. A stone thumped off the vambrace on his forearm and went whistling out into the void in front of them.

The ledge was bounded at its furthest end by a seam in the cliff, a dark vertical gully etched deeply into the rock, the chute of a long-dead waterfall, now dry and choked with dead brush and fallen boulders. It provided a clear sightline to the top of the cliff. Loki was peering upward, carefully, his body pressed against the stone. Thor followed his gaze, and then muttered, "Surtur's balls. . . " and motioned Sif and Fandral forward.

"More of them, up above," he said, voice low. "At least four."

"They must have circled around and climbed up, blast them." Fandral grimaced as another rock smashed into the ledge before them, showering them with glassy splinters. "This is becoming a bit grim."

Sif eyed him. "A bit? We're as vulnerable as nesting pigeons up here! We must find a way off before this becomes a great deal worse than merely grim."

"We could scale the cliff." Thor gazed upward, uneasily.

Sif shook her head. "They would pick us off, one by one." She pointed downslope, where they could all see the trolls moving forward again, and their leader's face turned up, watching them hungrily.

"Well," Loki said, "let's summarize, shall we? We have a war band of trolls below, slavering for our blood. We've got several more up above, lobbing stones at our heads, and we are enjoying an enforced holiday on a ledge several paces wide."

Thor grinned, a sudden flash of steely humor. "All true."

"And our assets?" Loki pointed at Fandral. "One sword, several daggers, and assorted quips."

Fandral's shoulders pulled back, as he frowned in mock offense. "Quips?"

Loki ignored him, turning a finger toward Sif. "One spear, several more daggers, and. . ."

She bared all her teeth at him. "And what?"

"And unmatched skill in battle, naturally."

He gestured to Thor, "Two large fists, with optional bellowing," He lifted a hand to his own chest, "As for myself. . ."

"An unending fount of talk, apparently," Thor said.

Loki grinned. "You wound me, brother.

"So, an even match, then." Fandral smoothed a hand along his chin. "Poor doomed trolls. I pity them."

Sif had leaned further to the side, and was peering down the long chute in the rock.

"It appears the pitiful doomed trolls are attempting to stack the odds," she said.

Below, three of the creatures were packing armfuls of brush into the bottom of the chute: broken branches, pine boughs thick with green needles. And then, from further downslope, they all heard the lead troll's voice rasp, "Bring a torch. From the fire."

She looked up to meet three pairs of eyes narrowing with varying degrees of consternation.

Fandral's mouth quirked. "Smoking us out? That's so . . . dull." His voice was pained.

Sif snorted. "Trolls aren't known for their creativity."

A crackle of fire, from below. Small puffs of heavy white smoke appeared, drawn up the dry waterfall's chute like wisps through the throat of a finely-masoned chimney. They crowded upward, malevolent ghosts overflowing into the open space created by the ledge's intersection with the chute. Within moments air was shrouded in a choking haze.

The four pressed back along the ledge, away from the thicker smoke, careful to remain tucked beneath the meager shelter of the overhanging cliff face. The occasional smack of a rock on the ledge's surface was reminder enough of the enemies that still waited, above. The troll's leader, in the hollow below, bellowed up at them, gleeful menace oiling its rasping voice.

"Breathe deep, Asgardians!"

Thor snorted, and hefted a fist in return. Sif bent and drew a dagger from her boot. Fandral's hand went to the hilt of the sword and drew it out a few inches, and then, after a look down at the assembled rank of trolls that awaited them, sheathed it again.

Loki shook his head. "While you all consider the alternatives, perhaps it's time I took this in hand?" he suggested.

Thor leaned closer. "And how do you propose to do that? Fly?" He swept one hand up toward the raven's niche in the rock. "That's an option for our erstwhile guides alone, I'm believe."

A low croak emerged from their hiding place, and then, with a hop and a single flap of a wing, one of the birds emerged and glided off into the smoky air, followed closely by the other. In a banking curve, they wheeled over the length of the ledge and then down the slope, a few spans above the trolls' heads.

Loki watched them, a frown etching itself between his brows. He took a half step forward, and, when Sif reached out to caution him, shook his head, cocking it to one side as he absorbed the sudden silence below. After a moment, Sif leaned forward, too, just enough to scan the entire hollow.

The trolls' muttering growls had changed in tone; some were gesturing upward as the ravens drifted in slow circles, limning the rocky slope at the cliff's foot where the trolls had gathered. Several were cringing backward, as if to escape the birds' black-eyed gaze, and they began to mutter two harsh syllables, over and over.

"What are they saying?" Sif asked. She looked over at Loki's face and intercepted equally puzzled glances from Thor and Fandral, on Loki's other side.

"Of course . . . ," Loki murmured. A breath of amusement sussed through his teeth. "Ka'khet."

A sideways grimace from Fandral. "Excuse me?"

Loki was tapping a fist against his chin, eyes intent. "Ka'khet," he repeated, absently.

Thor's eyes narrowed at Sif, a silent question. She blew out a breath and spread her hands, and shifted her gaze to Fandral, who shrugged.

Loki rocked back on one heel, shaking his head. "Can it be that it was I alone who paid our lessons any mind, when we were children?"

Thor lifted his chin. "Possibly, yes. Out with it, Loki! What is this?"

"Not 'what'. Who. Ka'khet. A battle goddess much feared by our friends down there."

A memory glimmered. Sif said, slowly, "And who is always accompanied by. . . "

"Two ravens. Yes."

He gestured out toward the birds, just as, with wings dipping in unison, they soared off over the treetops. They were lost almost immediately in the gray haze, and the trolls' harsh muttering boiled up out of the clearing once more.

"Ah," said Fandral. "Not unlike the two ravens who have just abandoned us to our fate?"

"It doesn't matter," Loki said. "The trolls are on edge now. Look at them. Imagine how they might react if they were presented with a vision of Ka'khet herself."

Thor looked over at him. "A vision? You could create it?"

"I could, with pleasure, but I would require a form to work upon, so that it can move fluidly." He tilted his head, leveling a measuring gaze on his brother, a glint of humor lighting his eyes. "And Ka'khet is large and menacing . . . "

"What? Are you suggesting . . . "

"And possesses just such a roar. My compliments, brother."

"Loki, I have no wish to impersonate a troll battle-goddess!"

There was a pause, and then Loki's jaw hardened. "Surely you realize," he said, "that they will be expecting nothing less from you than a thundering bellow and a frontal assault."

Thor crossed his arms over his chest. "So they should, since that is what they are about to receive."

"Predictability is not a virtue, brother." Loki's voice had chilled.

He turned toward Fandral, who backed away hastily, both hands raised, and then was obliged to dodge a stone lobbed down from above. "Oh, no. No, I am here today strictly in pursuit of a dashing exploit, and that is most definitely not it."

Loki's eyes narrowed, and, without moving his head, his gaze shifted to Sif. "You, my lady, with your well-known esteem for practical measures: I'm certain that you can see the advantages of this plan . . . "

"I'd sooner don a veil and dance the kyssa maer."

Sif felt Fandral's gaze slide sideways to rest, for a single, fascinated moment, on her face. He cleared his throat.

"Truly?" he asked.

"No," she said flatly.

"As arresting a prospect as that may be," Loki said, "I doubt very much it would weave its magic satisfactorily on rock trolls! But a vision of Ka'khet will put them all to heel! The smoke grows thick, it will add to the illusion . . . "

Thor was glaring back down the slope. "It will also obscure our movements, when we attack."

Fandral shook his head. "We are too few to attack them, Thor.

"We have the high ground, the tactical superiority."

Below, their forms growing indistinct in the hazy light, the trolls had shaken off the fear and uneasiness that the ravens had provoked. Sif could see them forming rank once more, pounding the butts of their spears against the ground in a ragged beat that grew steadily stronger. Her hand tightened on the dagger. "If we seek to attack, we must do it now, before they take the offensive."

Fandral gripped the hilt of his sword. "If we attempted Loki's ruse first, to unnerve them . . . "

Thor snorted. "I'm not impersonating Ka'khet!"

"We must to do something," Sif said, her voice rising. "Now. They're bracing themselves to attack."

Thor lifted a fist. "Then we will attack them first."

Loki's eyes flashed, though his face was still and stern. "That's too large a risk."

"It's my risk to take."

"It will be ours, as well, brother, if we're forced to defend your back!"

Sif reached behind to free her spear from its scabbard; Fandral had drawn his sword.

And then, from the clifftop overhead, came a shouted alarm, a harsh bellow of fear. It was echoed by a ringing caw that rattled off the cliff's rocky face. Two black shapes sliced through the drifting smoke, wings whirring, and at their tails came dozens, hundreds more, a great swirling current of inky black feathers, a river of ravens.

In an instant, Sif found herself in a vortex of flickering shadows and gleaming eyes. The flock skimmed the boundaries of the ledge; the air rustled with the beat of their wings. She whirled, trying to track the flow of their soaring flight, as they wheeled as one and plunged downslope like a cresting wave.

At her side, Fandral's sword dropped from his slackened grip. He shot a stunned glance at her, and muttered, "What in all the Hels . . . ?"

In the hollow below, the beat of the trolls' spears against the ground faltered. Their heads tipped back; their black eyes widened. The flock dived at them, wind whistling through stiff flight feathers, and the spears began to topple as their wielders threw up their arms in gestures that were half defensive fear, half worshipful supplication. A moan rose from several of their throats, hardly audible in the cacophony of raven voices, a tattered sound that formed itself into a name: "Ka'khet . . ."

Loki whirled, his face set and urgent, his voice low and fierce. "We must do it now! Attack them, brother, as you wished, but do it as Ka'khet!"

Their eyes locked; Sif could feel the strain of will between them, and a knot of echoing tension pulled itself tight in the midst of her throat. Beside her, Fandral shifted uneasily. For a moment, the only sound was the discordant choir of ravensong. Then, suddenly, Thor ground out, his face set in harsh lines, "So be it. I will attack, Sif and Fandral will back me, and you will frighten them off with your tricks."

"Frighten them? You underestimate me, brother. I will perform a far greater wonder." Loki held up his hands; glimmering power outlined every joint in his fingers. "I will make them believe."

Cliffhanger! I'm very very sorry!

So, obviously I went a bit afield from the bare structure of the Thrymskvitha with this chapter, but I couldn't help myself, and it does provide a way for Thor to unleash his inner goddess . . .

Thanks so much for reading!