Thor Read online

  The troll’s meaty hands attempted to wrap around Thor’s neck, and the thunder god countered by grabbing the creature’s wrists. Though he could not break the troll’s grip, Thor was able to keep his foe from impeding his ability to breathe.

  Thor had once met an old god named Tiwaz, who nursed Thor back to health after a particularly nasty battle against the goddess of death, Hela. Part of the healing process had been that Thor had to wrestle Tiwaz each night in order to earn his supper. Wrestling had never been a significant component of the thunderer’s combat arsenal in the past, but he learned a great deal from Tiwaz.

  Today he put one of those lessons to good use. Though the troll was on top of him, Thor was able to use his hips to shift his weight back and forth, destabilizing the troll.

  Soon, the pair was tumbling across the square, rolling toward the monument to Yggdrasil. The monument was a miniature re-creation of the ash that bound the Nine Worlds together, and Thor and the troll both crashed into it with a bone-jarring impact.

  Their respective grips broken by their violent encounter with the monument, both Thor and the troll were momentarily dazed. Shaking it off, Thor clambered to his feet, pausing only for a breath to see how fared his comrades.

  Balder was easily holding two of the trolls at bay with his sword, and a third lay at the shining one’s feet.

  Not to be outdone, Sif had left two troll corpses in her wake, and she was driving a third back toward the Temple of Titans with her blade.

  Both Fandral and Hogun were holding their own with sword and mace, respectively, against two trolls each.

  While trying to espy the last two trolls, Thor saw Volstagg sitting on the steps that led to the Temple of Titans, discoursing at great length. At first, Thor feared that the voluminous one had chosen to sit out the battle, but it soon became clear that sitting was the battle. The remaining pair of trolls were currently pinned to the temple stairs by Volstagg’s rather large bottom. Said stairs were too distant for Thor to hear Volstagg’s words, but no doubt the Lion of Asgard—who was one of the finest storytellers extant—was regaling the trolls with exaggerated tales of his exploits. Thor fully expected the trolls to admit defeat simply in a fruitless effort to get Volstagg to silence himself.

  Satisfied that his friends were holding their own—and then some—Thor turned his attention back to the leader of the trolls. While they were all charged with the protection of Asgard, as the son of Odin and the heir to Asgard’s golden throne, he had always felt the responsibility of keeping Asgard safe most keenly.

  Which was why he had taken it upon himself to engage the trolls’ leader. Cut off the head, and the body soon fell. Trolls in particular were a dim lot, and few had even a modicum of leadership skills. Thor knew that defeating this one would send the others into a tizzy.

  And that was his responsibility as Asgard’s protector. He would not allow these trolls to succeed where so many others had failed. Not while he drew breath, and not while he wielded Mjolnir.

  “You are truly mighty, troll, and the thunder god salutes your effrontery. It is a true act of gall to invade the city of Asgard when all its defenders are near at hand. You risk much—but defeat will be your sole reward.”

  With that, Thor held up his hand and summoned Mjolnir to him.

  Centuries ago, Odin approached Eitri, master of the dwarven smithies, and commissioned him to create a hammer from the enchanted metal uru that would become the mightiest weapon in the Nine Worlds. Molded from the core of an exploding star, tempered in the fires of the dwarves’ forge, and infused with the enchantment of the All-Father himself, Odin named the resultant hammer Mjolnir, which means “that which smashes.” Odin himself used it to defeat the giant Laufey. He had told his young son Thor that he would bequeath it to him if he were worthy, and Thor had spent considerable effort to make himself thus. The day Odin had at last gifted him with the hammer was the proudest of his long life.

  Since that fateful day, Mjolnir had been as much a part of Thor as one of his limbs. Odin’s enchantment meant that none but Thor could wield the hammer. Always when it flew from his grasp, it unerringly returned to him.

  Until today. For Thor stood at the base of the monument to Yggdrasil, his hand outstretched—but Mjolnir remained on the ground of the square, unmoving.

  The troll threw his massive head back and laughed. “Is the thunder god still truly that if he has not his great hammer? To mulch I’ll pound you, Odinson, for without your hammer you’re just another little god.”

  “I have heard such boasts from trolls since your kind first emerged from the caves whence you dwell, and never have I yielded.”

  “First time for everything,” the troll muttered, and then again leapt at Thor.

  The time for words was past, as Thor raised his arms to defend against the troll’s punches. Their battle was hard-fought, no quarter asked nor given. First Thor struck the troll in its belly, but then the troll struck a blow on Thor’s chest. Thor kicked his foe in the leg and heard the crack of bone, but even with a leg hobbled, the troll was able to backhand Thor so hard that he skidded across the square, coming to rest near where Sif fought her own troll.

  “Need you aid, Thor?”

  “Nay, fair Sif, tarry with your foe a while longer. I will show this knave that Thor is not one to be trifled with.” Even as he spoke, Thor got to his feet and spied his hammer. Though still it would not return to him, he could clasp its haft in his hand.

  But even as he lifted it, he knew something was amiss. Mjolnir was a tool of great power, and every time he held the hammer, Thor could feel its power almost as if it were a living thing.

  What he held now was but dead weight.

  So distressed was he over the seeming loss of his hammer that he failed to acknowledge the troll’s speedy approach until it was almost too late. At the last second, Thor was able to roll with the troll’s mighty punch, tumbling once again to the paving stones of the square. Had he not done so, surely the blow would have severed his head from his neck.

  Again the troll laughed, raising his arms in premature triumph. “Is this the mighty thunder god of whom so many speak in fearful tones? For lo these many seasons I have heard Geirrodur and Grundor, Kryllik and Ulik speak in frightful whispers, cautioning us of Thor, for he is the mightiest of the Aesir and he will defeat you as he has defeated trolls for many ages.”

  Turning to scream at the heavens, the troll continued his rant. “I laugh at those pitiful fools who cringe in terror at Thor’s might! I am Baugi! And today I will forevermore be known as Thorsbane, for I will have defeated the son of Odin!”

  And then Thor belted Baugi in the jaw, sending the troll flying across the square and landing atop the Warrior’s Walk.

  “My thanks, Baugi, for your breathless rant,” Thor said as he ran across the square toward the Walk, “for it gave me the opportunity to become less breathless myself and rejoin the battle properly.”

  He grabbed Baugi by the strap of his loincloth and threw him back toward the Yggdrasil monument. Though not as sturdy as the world tree itself, the monument was resilient enough to withstand the impact of a tossed troll.

  “Be wary of boastful words, Baugi,” Thor continued as he leapt down from the Walk toward the monument where the troll struggled to rise, “for it is actions by which one is judged, whether god, mortal, giant, dwarf—or troll.”

  Having holstered the now-powerless hammer in his belt, Thor wielded it again as he landed at the foot of the monument, and swung it downward at Baugi’s head.

  Though seemingly no longer carrying Odin’s enchantment, the hammer was solid enough. Mindful of its name, Thor used it to smash the head of the vain Baugi, backed by the immortal strength of the thunderer.

  Baugi slumped to the grass at the base of the monument. He drew breath still, but he did not move.

  “Rise, mighty Baugi. Face the god of thunder and defeat him as you boasted!”

  When the insensate Baugi declined the invitation, Thor turne
d to see how fared his friends.

  Sif had finished off her foe, and Hogun had done likewise for one of his. While Hogun swung his mace toward his remaining enemy, Sif had drawn off one of Fandral’s sparring partners for herself. Meanwhile, Volstagg continued to regale the two prisoners of his expansive posterior with tales of bravery from his own youth.

  Holding up his arms, Thor cried, “Minions of Baugi, behold your leader! He is defeated at the hands of the protector of Asgard! Yield now and you will be spared, or fight on and join foul Baugi in defeat!”

  The trolls took very little time to mull. Hogun’s foe held up his arms, and the two who faced Sif and Fandral did so but a moment later. As for Volstagg’s audience, one of them cried, “Please, thunder god, either kill us or send us home to the Realm Below, but spare us further crushing by this crushing bore!”

  “Hmph!” Volstagg said as he slowly and awkwardly rose to his feet. “So very like a troll to fail to appreciate the wisdom of their betters. Why I recall one time—”

  Fandral held up a hand and said, “Enough, voluminous one! Thor promised to spare them if they yielded.”

  Volstagg let out a harrumph of annoyance, but spoke not further. Thor couldn’t help but chuckle as he retrieved his helmet from the ground and replaced it on his head.

  Thor then regarded each of the surviving trolls in succession. “Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg shall escort you and your dead back to the Realm Below. Be sure to tell your fellows of Baugi’s ignominious defeat, and that Asgard still stands.”

  The trolls said nothing, simply collecting their dead and then moving toward the outskirts of the city alongside the Warriors Three. Thor noted that the two on whom Volstagg had sat were walking gingerly.

  Turning to his oldest friend as well as the woman who meant second-most to him among all the females of the gods of Asgard (behind only Frigga), Thor said, “Balder, Sif, I would beg that you bring Baugi to the dungeons that the troll may await my father’s justice.”

  Sif said, “Of course.”

  “What of you, Thor?” Balder asked.

  “I must go to the All-Father directly.” He held up the hammer. “Something has happened to Mjolnir. Still do I sense its presence, yet what I hold here in my hand is but an ordinary tool. I doubt the trolls are responsible—if Baugi had such magicks as could neutralize my hammer, they would not have been so easily defeated this day.”

  A voice came from all around them in the square. “Ah, but where’s the fun in an easy defeat, brother?”

  Loki Laufeyson materialized in front of Thor. No doubt he had used his sorcerous abilities to shield himself from the battle until it was over. Ever the coward’s route did Loki travel.

  Odin’s adopted son grinned widely and held out his arms, garbed in the green robes he preferred. “You did well, Thor, to defeat Baugi and his minions without your oh-so-precious hammer.”

  Reaching out with his empty hand, Thor clasped Loki’s robes and pulled the trickster close. “Speak, Loki, what have you done to Mjolnir?”

  His voice remaining calm despite the threat of violence from his brother—not to mention Balder and Sif, who had unsheathed their swords at Loki’s appearance—the son of Laufey said, “I have done nothing to your hammer. I have, however, altered the air around it. If you don’t mind…?” To accentuate the point, Loki looked down at Thor’s left hand.

  Frowning, Thor let go of his adopted brother’s raiment, and only then did Loki make a simple gesture.

  Even as the false hammer crumbled to dust in Thor’s right hand, the very air near the stairs to the Temple of Titans seemed to shimmer, revealing Mjolnir itself on the ground where Thor had earlier dropped it.

  Clapping his hands to get rid of the remaining dust of the false hammer, Thor then held his own right hand out and Mjolnir flew to it, as ever.

  Wrapping his fingers around the haft, Thor said, “What possible reason could you have for such a ploy, brother?”

  “I did observe Baugi and his dozen thugs as they approached the halls of Asgard.”

  “Then why,” Sif asked, “did you not aid us in defending the city against them?”

  “I have always felt, fair Sif, that the defense of Asgard against such base foes is best left to those of greater physical strength and concomitant limitation of intellect. However, I did observe, in case Baugi’s campaign threatened my own interests, and what I saw was a simple battle against a dull-witted fool.” Again Loki grinned. “So I took the fool’s hammer away.”

  Thor shook his head. “Were there two of you, Loki, you would comprise a single wit.”

  “And for how many decades have you been working on that bit of jocularity, thunder god? Nonetheless, my jest is complete, and so now I return to—”

  “I say nay, Loki, you will come with me to see the All-Father.” As Thor spoke, he placed the hammer in its strap upon his belt. The familiar weight was a tremendous comfort.

  “For what purpose?” Now the trickster sounded nervous. “I did reveal myself precisely to avoid a confrontation with our father.”

  “You say you observed the trolls’ approach, but even Heimdall himself did not spy Baugi and his legion until they were within the city gates. You will explain to Odin how you were able to discern what the guardian of the rainbow bridge could not.”

  Shaking his head, Loki started to make gestures to form the spell that would take him away to his keep. “I will do no such thing. The time of Loki is not to be wasted on such frivolities.”

  Again Thor reached out, grabbing Loki’s arm before it could complete the sigil. “You will come at my urging—or at Odin’s. Choose.”

  Loki did pretend to consider his options, but in truth he had no choice. Odin would, of course, do as Thor requested and summon Loki to speak before the All-Father. It was best if he not incur his adoptive father’s wrath unnecessarily.

  “Very well, brother, I will accompany you to Odin’s throne room.”

  Leaving Balder and Sif to take care of Baugi, Thor and Loki proceeded to the palace, located at the very center of Asgard. Up the gleaming golden staircase they went, through the huge double doors guarded by two warriors—who, naturally, did not hesitate to allow ingress to the sons of Odin—and thence to the grand throne room.

  They entered on the far side of the great space, which was large enough to hold hundreds of Asgardians, but which today was completely empty. Thor’s footfalls echoed as they strode across the hall; Loki’s own tread was light and silent.

  Odin himself sat in the massive golden throne, his hands gripping the armrests, as his ravens, Hugin and Munin, flitted about his shoulders. The All-Father was receiving some manner of intelligence from the ravens, who served as Odin’s eyes and ears throughout the Nine Worlds.

  But as Thor and Loki approached the grand throne, Odin turned away from the ravens and fixed his one good eye on the pair of them. At the base of the stairs that led to the throne, both Thor and Loki removed their headgear and knelt before the ruler of Asgard. Thor did so quickly and eagerly, Loki slowly and reluctantly.

  “Welcome, my sons. I assume you bring glad tidings of the troll invasion of our fair city?”

  “Indeed, Father.” Thor rose, as did Loki next to him. “With the aid of Balder, Sif, and the Warriors Three, the trolls were driven from Asgard’s streets. Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg are returning all to the Realm Below, save their leader Baugi, whom Balder and Sif are even now escorting to the dungeons, to await your judgment, All-Father.”

  “And judge him I shall, at a later time. But now I wonder why Loki’s name is left out of the list of those who drove the trolls from our home.”

  Loki provided his most insincere grin. “I held myself in reserve, All-Father. A half-dozen gods seemed more than sufficient to deal with an arrogant, ambitious upstart such as Baugi.”

  Thor whirled to face his brother. “How now, brother? Why do you characterize Baugi thus?”

  Loki blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Upstart, ye
s, Baugi was, but to name him as arrogant and ambitious indicates a knowledge of his character beyond what could be observed in battle.”

  “To you, perhaps,” Loki said dismissively. “Some of us are keener observers of character than others.”

  Looking back at Odin, Thor added, “In addition, Loki did claim to observe Baugi’s approach before Heimdall—and he hindered me in battle by keeping Mjolnir from my hand.”

  Up until this moment, Odin had been the picture of calm. He knew that matters were well in hand, for were they not, his sons’ entry into the throne room would have been urgent and quick rather than calm and slow.

  However, once Thor mentioned yet another example of treachery from Loki, Odin’s face grew hard and he stared at his adopted son with his one good eye.

  “Does Thor speak true, Loki?”

  “Technically, yes, I—temporarily!—cloaked his hammer in a shroud of invisibility and covered it in an eldritch casing that physically restrained it from returning to Thor’s hand. However, I did leave him a simulacrum of Mjolnir that served its purpose rather well. Indeed, his final defeat of Baugi was done with the ersatz hammer I provided him.”

  Fists clenched, Thor started to move menacingly toward his adopted brother. “All you ‘provided,’ dear brother, was a means by which Baugi could defeat me.”

  Loki did back up a step, but his expression remained one of amusement. “Ah, so the rumors are true, then? Without his hammer, Thor is as helpless as an old woman? Without the crutch of Mjolnir, he is truly crippled?”

  “Enough!” Odin cried out, his voice echoing across the empty hall, cutting off any attempt by the thunder god to reply to the slander. “Your japes and jests are ill-timed, Loki, and foolish.”

  “Did the All-Father not receive notification that his second son is the god of mischief?”

  “He did,” Odin said slowly, “and I would ask in return if the god of mischief recalls that Odin is the All-Father, all-seeing and all-knowing. Whatever I do not see myself with my good eye is observed by Heimdall from his post or by my faithful ravens.” Odin gestured behind him and to the right at the secondary throne, where Hugin and Munin had alighted. At times when Odin was unable to rule Asgard for whatever reason—lost in battle, say, or having succumbed to the Odinsleep—his proxy ruler would do so from that smaller throne, as none were willing to occupy the All-Father’s seat. “Indeed, Hugin and Munin just informed me that they espied Loki Laufeyson travelling to the Realm Below himself not so long past. I wonder now if your observation of Baugi’s personality traits came, not from seeing him in battle this day, but from a prior meeting? One in which you provided the troll with the means to enter Asgard’s gates unnoticed by Heimdall or any other sentry?”