Chapter 4
"They're children, Sigurn," Frigga hissed, her voice cold and angry. "They should never have gotten this far in the first place."
A perpetual cramp had seized her belly, a slow-burning terror that allowed her to function whilst simultaneously existing on the very edge of losing control and vomiting. Having appeared in Svartalfheim moments ago, she still was having trouble making her mind believe what her eyes were seeing. Black blood coated the naked blade of her sword from having dropped a dark elf scrambling to escape over the side of a cliff, but the true horror lay in the valley below where she could make out Asgardian soldiers and dark elves lying broken from recent combat. Even from the distance separating them, she could hear the moans and desperate cries of those who had yet to succumb to their wounds.
"The guards were unprepared, Your Majesty, because they were in the middle of shift change when the young princes infiltrated the portal tower."
"I don't care if they were in the middle of witnessing the birth of their own children. That tower chamber is never to be left unmanned again. Do you understand me, General?"
Sigurn was quick to duck his head in submission and respond, "Yes, Your Majesty. Your command will be fulfilled upon our return to Asgard."
Henceforth and for the duration of the rest of the millennium, her sons were grounded. No parties. No play dates with their friends. No sleepovers. No cake. Their behinds were being permanently affixed to their beds, and they would enjoy protein shakes and vitamin-infused broth for the next thousand years. Trouble was, she was so worried about their safety, punishing them would be the farthest thing from her mind when they were reunited, and they would be reunited. Allowing herself to think of any other possibility would make her cease to function. Unfortunately, there was no way to determine where her sons currently were. Had the dark elf she'd killed been a long straggler, or had her sons been abducted by other enemies previously waiting by the portal?
Where was her husband?
Odin had taken the bifrost, which allowed him to transport a number of soldiers at once, to Svartalfheim mere days ago in response to a series of attempted invasions. Dark elves had killed four soldiers stationed in the nexus portal tower and had gotten so far as arriving on the Rainbow Bridge before they could be stopped. Though her husband valued peace, nothing short of military force would have adequately answered the last attempted invasion when a young Asgardian girl had been killed on the Rainbow Bridge.
Stomach cramping in dread, Frigga, her blade still exposed, picked her way down the long series of stairs that would take them into the valley below. Her eyesight was excellent, but given the gloom of Svartalfheim's atmosphere, she couldn't be certain her eyes weren't playing tricks on her when she spied movement below. An Asgardian soldier finally extricated himself from the knot of bodies he'd been buried under and stood in the middle of the chaos looking rather dumbfounded.
"Sigurn." She swept her hand toward the young man.
No further command was required to illustrate her point, as the simple motion sent Sigurn hurrying past to jog down the remainder of the stairs. Upon his arrival, an arm eased around the man's waist in an effort to help support a soldier apparently known to the general. "Captain Asolf, what happened here?"
She drew closer, scanning the battlefield while keeping her ear open to Asolf's response.
"They were waiting in force when we arrived on Svartalfheim," he began, voice pained and breathing ragged. "Dark elves held the field and bottlenecked us against the cliff face, preventing us from coming at them in numbers. Worse still, they possessed some manner of device that seemed to swallow every blast from the All-Father's spear."
"Where is the All-Father, Captain?" asked Sigurn.
The captain was momentarily overcome by a cough, breath rasping in and out of his throat while a hand pressed against a growing bloodstain spreading across the side of his garment. A jagged hole had been opened in his breastplate.
Gliding toward the soldiers, Frigga dropped into a crouch to inspect the damage beneath his armor. She retrieved a small vial from a container on her belt and dribbled the contents over the soldier's wound to slow the bleeding and offer some relief from the pain. After tucking the remainder of the vial back in her case, she deposited a few tiny hydration capsules in his mouth which would expand and ease a throat no doubt terribly parched.
"Your Majesty," Asolf whispered. He made an attempt at showing obeisance but was too stiff and sore to press his fist against his shoulder.
"Captain, where is my husband?" The tiniest seed of terror was allowed to creep into her voice so Asolf would understand the desperation fueling her insistence. "Where is the king?"
"Taken," responded Asolf.
"Taken where?" inquired Sigurn, a note of fear in his tone.
"A small group of dark elves survived the battle and took the All-Father into custody. There was little he could do considering their foul device nullified his tremendous strength. I lost sight of them, but you can be certain they're taking him to the Scourge of Worlds. Their king makes his home in the east."
The queen of Asgard was immediately on her feet. Her sons were lost somewhere in Svartalfheim, either wandering alone and terrified or having been taken captive by surviving dark elves. Odin had been captured and was being transported to stand before the strongest dark elf to have been born in the history of Svartalfheim. And she had ten men to both rescue her husband and her sons. They were all being permanently affixed to immovable objects just as soon as they were home safe and sound.
"Your Majesty," Sigurn was saying while gaining his feet, "you must return through the portal with Captain Asolf. He's in no condition to be here, and you are all the hope Asgard has left at the moment. Myself and my soldiers will go on alone."
"I'm not leaving, General. Have one of your soldiers escort Asolf through the portal and then return here. We will track the All-Father and hopefully reach him before they arrive at the lair of the Scourge of Worlds. Either my sons are already in captivity, which means they're with him, or they are tracking their father. Find Odin, and we will find my boys."
General Sigurn clearly wanted to overrule her command. His jaw was clenched with such force a muscle ticked wildly. Perhaps he was right in his desire to protect her welfare, but no power in any of the nine realms could make her return to Asgard to wring her hands while waiting for someone else to save her family. The decision had been made, and she regained her feet to offer a hand to Asolf.
"You have served the All-Father well, Captain. Now, you should take your rest and see your injuries properly treated."
"I would like to say, Your Majesty."
"Asolf, that's a lovely sentiment, but it's foolish to continue punishing your body. Return to Asgard where physicians will diligently attend you."
"I would like to stay, Your Majesty," he repeated, dark eyes lifting in search of hers.
"Can you keep up without slowing us down? We will be moving at speed in a desperate bid to reach the All-Father before they can ensconce themselves in the enemy's fortress."
"Your Majesty, I was the ranking officer when the All-Father was taken. May all the millennia of my life be made worthless and brought to ruin if I slow you down. I will keep up."
Frigga's hand settled on his shoulder when she read the urgency and sincerity in his expression. He would keep up. He would fight twice as hard as every other soldier she'd brought with her to regain his sense of honor and duty and prove himself to the All-Father once again. She nodded and said, "Then you will stay, and my husband will know your great worth."
"Your Majesty," Sigurn began with disapproval in his tone.
"Sigurn," she returned with an equal amount of disapproval.
"General," intoned the captain.
"Tracks, Your Majesty!" shouted one of the other soldiers.
Immediately forgetting the building tension, she dashed over to the informant, crouching beside him when he indicated prints impressed into partially-dried blood. There were two sets of prints left behind by small feet, their spacing an indication of short legs and a smaller stature than the bodies surrounding them. No dark elf or adult Asgardian had left them behind, and they weren't followed or surrounded by the scuffle of adult-sized prints.
A breath whooshed from her lungs, something closer to relief melting the tension in her shoulders. "They belong to the princes. My sons haven't been captured by dark elves." Or at least freedom had still been theirs when said prints had been made.
"Drink, Brother," Thor said quietly.
Loki's glance followed the path of his brother's arm to find a tiny pool of water in a depression of rock. Svartalfheim was parched. After several hours of trekking through the mountains, this was the first hint of water he'd noticed, so he dropped to his knees and very carefully arranged himself to be able to suck water up with his lips rather than wasting the precious liquid by attempting to scoop it into his mouth.
"You can have the rest," he said weakly after righting himself, bottom lip wobbling again from the constant, terrible ache in his forearm.
"No, I already had some earlier, so I'm not thirsty anymore."
Rather than thinking to question his brother's comment, he rolled back onto his stomach to slurp up the remaining water. Not even several mouthfuls could truly quench his thirst. Upon righting himself, he dragged his knees up to this chest, dropping his cheek onto his upturned knees, at which point, he couldn't stop shivering. Whatever happened, he wasn't going to offer complaint. It wasn't Thor's fault he'd stupidly allowed the enemy to break his arm. If he were as accomplished as his older brother, he would have been able to prevent it from happening.
"Do you think we're going to find Father?" he asked.
"Of course we are. These dark elves are no match for the mighty Thor."
Pain and exhaustion were too overwhelming for him to summon even the most remote amount of irritation at his brother's self-titled nickname. Instead, a miserable expression was turned toward Thor out of some base need for his big brother to tell him everything would be fine. Surely that would be true coming from Thor's mouth, Thor who was so strong and so much bigger than himself. The elder Odinson finally took pity on him and seated himself close enough to wind an arm around the younger Odinson's shoulders. That was all the encouragement needed for him to snuggle close and press his face against Thor's chest.
"Everything will be fine. We'll find Father, and he'll get us back to the portal. I'm more worried about how much Mama's going to tan our backsides for getting into trouble again."
"You can tell her it's my fault," he muttered.
"That's stupid. Who decided to rescue Father and came up with the strategy to accomplish that? Me, so I'm the one who should be punished."
Being so miserable, there wasn't even a moment of pride in realizing he'd manipulated Thor so subtly his brother really did believe he was responsible for the whole fiasco. Letting his brother take all the punishment when the time came, though, wouldn't be very brotherly of him, so he would step up and shoulder some of the responsibility.
"Stop being silly," Loki commented. "Mama won't punish me too badly when she finds out my arm's broken, so if I take all the blame, you'll get out of sitting in the corner again."
"What makes you think I want to get out of sitting in the corner? You're hurt, and we're stuck in Svartalfheim. I deserve every ounce of punishment coming my way for getting you involved in this in the first place."
"Thor, this was my idea."
"Pain is making you talk nonsense."
"No, it was my idea all along. I just presented it subtly enough you latched onto the idea and put the pieces together."
Thor huffed as though terribly offended by the notion, saying, "You give yourself too much credit, Brother. I am not so easily manipulated as you seem to think."
"That doesn't change the fact, that…"
Perched on the boulder and comment halting in mid-sentence, he froze upon hearing the scuffling of loose rocks crunching underfoot from just around the bend. Walls of rock flanked two sides of the narrow pathway the elder Odinson had been leading them down in an attempt to stay off the main path heading into the east. Dread pooled in the pit of his stomach, and both brothers scrambled to their feet in preparation for meeting whatever enemy came around the bend. There were a number of enemies by the sound of things, low voices speaking in that guttural language they'd heard on the nexus portal's cliff.
Breath whooshed into his lungs, causing him to flinch when his brother's hand curled around his arm. Voices pausing as though their presence had been revealed drove them into a sprint in an all-out bid to stay ahead of the enemy, but disaster struck. A rock turned out from under his foot, sending Loki to the ground where he landed heavily on his broken arm. There was no swallowing back the full-throated yelp. Action froze. Waves of pain rolled through his body and dimmed his consciousness, blurring his vision to such an extent he really thought he was going to be sick right there on the valley floor. Blood pounded in his ears.
So thoroughly overwhelmed was he that he was unable to immediately rise and resume the sprint, and by the time he was capable of making his body obey the command, dark elves were catching sight of them. He curled himself around to catch sight of the enemy, blanching as six of the beasts rounded the bend and rushed their position. There were far too many for Thor to hold back. There were far too many for any adult Asgardian to single-handedly defeat, and they were just untrained and untried children.
Thor planted himself in front of his younger brother, Musilnir held at the ready as though his brother were attempting to make himself appear as big and as threatening as possible, a laughable cause considering there were six dark elves slavering over the possibility of eating their livers. Apparently livers ripped from a body with a still-beating heart was some sort of delicacy for their kind, so it was entirely possible that would be their fate.
They certainly appeared to be beings bred solely to eat and make violence. The smell of unwashed bodies was so strong as to be nearly overpowering. Dark elves couldn't be considered giants, but each beast stood upwards of six feet tall and were covered in varying shades of leathery skin ranging from the deepest black to the blue of an unclouded sky. Their eyes were unnaturally large for the size of their heads to allow for the most light absorption possible, which told Loki they were capable of seeing fine detail despite the gloom of their atmosphere. Their arms were disproportionately longer than their torsos, but they were packed with enough muscle to keep their appearance from being considered gangly. Attempting to fend off a horde of dark elves with a sword that couldn't even cleave them in two would be a mistake.
Larger and with a honed predatory grace, the lead dark elf pushed through the group, lowering himself onto his haunches in order to bring himself eye-level. "Certain, you are these are the children of Odin?"
Loki immediately recognized another elf that pushed its way through to the forefront as one of the two who had fallen over the cliff. Its nostrils flared, head cocking and drawing closer to Thor to breathe in his scent. "Certain, I am. A great prize will the children of our enemy make. Pleased, Father will be to eat their livers before the All-Father."
"Musilnir will cave your skulls before you come close enough to touch us," Thor intoned, his voice even and calm despite the growing danger of the situation.
A rasping chuckle escaped the leader's throat. "Feisty, they are. Malekith, into custody you will take them. Bind their hands, you will. Present them before Scourge of Worlds, your honor will be." His tone became slightly more amiable when he glanced back at the children. "Take you to your father, we will. Our prisoner, is Odin All-Father."
Nausea rolled through his belly when his brain caught up with the conversation. Father had fallen into enemy hands, and they would be brought before the Scourge of Worlds where their livers would be eaten while their hearts still beat. Father would have to bear witness to their deaths. Trouble was, there wasn't anything he could do to prevent it with his body wracked by pain as it was, and Thor was simply too young and too ill-equipped to make up the difference.
Apparently even Thor had calculated the odds of their victory and come up with the inevitable: No matter how hard they fought, they would still be overpowered, taken into custody, and wind up smack dab before their father's enemy. In the end, it was better to go peacefully and save their strength in odd happenstance Father would be able to gain their freedom once he knew just how desperate the situation was.
"Silly, this weapon is," Malekith hissed while yanking Musilnir from Thor's grasp. "Think a wooden sword could stand against the might of the dark elves, did you?"
"One day, I will come back to Svartalfheim, and you will squeal for mercy," his brother returned in a much braver tone than Loki would have been able to muster.
The younger Odinson could only look on in horror as Malekith, a dark chuckle rumbling in his chest, snapped Musilnir in half with the same ease as biting into cake. Thor flinched, lips parting slightly in a sharp gasp, eyes widening in what Loki could only describe as fear. Just like that, Thor's power had been broken. Seeing his brother's wooden sword so easily circumvented was like watching Thor himself being broken in half, and tears immediately sprang to his eyes.
Sudden movement registered before a stinky dark elf hoisted him over an armor-covered shoulder. A gasp couldn't be restrained no matter how brave he tried to be. What hurt worse was the haunted expression on Thor's face that prevented him from even putting up a small struggle when his hands were bound. He was quickly flung into a similar position before the group as a whole loped from the area with all haste. They were back to speaking that guttural language again, so Loki couldn't translate what was being said nor determine if there really was some sort of warning being bandied about as the tone of their voices led him to believe.
Riding slung over the shoulder of an enemy couldn't be misconstrued at all as being comfortable over the course of the next hour. His stomach was continually jammed by the crude plate armor covering the elf's shoulder until a knot of cramps settled so deeply in his belly he swore each step would make him heave. The beast's ragged nails pinched the backs of his thighs, dug firmly into his flesh, and raked at him to such an extent welts would be inevitable. No doubt, the thing would delight in inducing so much misery, so whining about it would have been pointless, the only result of which would be the added misery placed on Thor's shoulders for not having protected them from capture.
Unfortunately, he was so uncomfortable and had so much blood rushing to his head he couldn't study their surroundings to determine in which direction they were taken. The ground beneath them was barren and rocky, parched so dry of moisture each footstep produced a plume of dust rising around them. Even the rocks seemed wail for pity to be taken upon them in the form of rain. Cobwebs stretched across every crevice. Thin filaments of webbing dangled from the higher cliffs around them. Surely this was the most desolate place to be found in all the nine realms, an inhospitable country fit only for the basest mongrels to have ever been bred.
His head was swimming so that he wasn't entirely certain when they stopped. They were just suddenly not moving anymore, and it was a fight to concentrate on their surroundings in order to perceive a number of voices chattering around them. There was excitement in their tones. Some were shouting. Some were outright laughing. And then there were hands upon his body, shaking him and pinching him, and he even felt teeth grinding against his calf as though one of them attempted to gnaw on his flesh as guttural speech rose in cadence and volume until some seemed caught in a strange frenzy.
"Take your hands off my brother!" Thor shouted.
"Thor? Loki?"
The sound of their father's voice was unmistakable. Despite being a captive, the authority and power found there immediately forestalled the dark elves' revelry.
"Father," Loki warbled, caught somewhere between a sob and a shout of relief. Why he should be relieved was a mystery considering they were still captives of the enemy.
"Papa, we're here to rescue you."
Rough hands clasped hold of his hips, causing revulsion to boil through his veins when a dark elf lifted him down. Weight caused his knees to buckle, and he landed on his backside with a hard grunt followed by the pinching of his expression when the jarring caused pain to flare through his arm. Several seconds were required for his wits to return, at which point, he shuffled around until able to clasp eyes on his father. The All-Father wasn't restrained. Neither was he wearing his helmet or metal eye-covering, but Loki had seen his father without the patch before. Gazing into the empty eye socket wasn't as disturbing as it might otherwise have been.
Leery, and seemingly uncertain about whether they controlled the All-Father or he controlled them, the dark elves moved back a respectful distance, an action that caused Thor to race in their father's direction. The elder Odinson flung his arms around Father's torso to press his face into the metal of Odin's breastplate where Loki knew there to be safety and the kind of reassurance only a potent man like Odin could cause in his sons. Seeing Thor, who rarely gave vent to fits of uncertainty, shuddering forcefully against their father's solid body caused Loki's bottom lip to go wobbly.
"Come, Loki, and show me what you've managed to do to yourself," said Father. Dropping down into a crouch, their father offered his other arm.
That was all it took. Making a distressed trill in the back of his throat, he scrambled up with a plume of dust and flung himself into their sire's embrace. Father's strong arm catching him and pulling him in tight was the only reason further abuse to his injured arm was prevented. Nothing could ever feel as right as burying his face in Father's hair; nothing more comforting possibly existed. Tears wet his cheeks again.
"Hush, my boys," Odin whispered quietly.
Dislodging the Odinson boys seemed impossible, as they were clinging to their father with a strength born of the certainty something dreadful would happen if they allowed themselves to be separated from the inherent power of his body. Crawling into his pores, becoming a central part of him, seemed the only plausible solution when it came to restoring their sense of wonder and curiosity in the world. So long minutes passed while father cradled shivering sons in an attempt to make them feel safe again.
The desire to huddle against him for the rest of eternity ended in disappointment when Odin eased back from his children, palms settling on a shoulder of each son before saying, "What are you doing here? How did you get here? Does your mother know you've run off again?"
Snuffling back the snot of his running nose, Loki lifted tear-swollen eyes in his father's direction and responded, "It's my fault. Mother was crying because Balder accidentally woke up Durindel and almost died, so I thought bringing you home would make her happy again."
"It's not, Papa. The blame is mine. Waking the winged beast to fly us to the top of the floating tower so we could break inside and take the portal to Svartalfheim was my idea. I'm the one responsible, and I'm the one who should be punished," said Thor.
Father blinked, expression remaining impassive before repeating, "Balder woke Durindel and was taken on a wild flight, your mother was weeping due to the stress of seeing her youngest in such a precarious position, and the two of you snuck off to Svartalfheim by way of also waking the Pegasus?"
When stated like that, Loki had no choice but to hang his head in absolute shame for his behavior. Being grounded for a century would be light punishment compared to the precarious position they'd placed themselves in, so he nodded. "Father, awakening Durindel in order to fly to the top of the tower wasn't really Thor's idea at all. The fault is mine. I merely presented it in such a manner, he would think it was his."
"That's not how it happened at all," complained Thor, the elder Odinson's eyes equally as swollen after their reunion with their father. "All Loki did was logically assume that if we had wings, we wouldn't need the transport point from the Rainbow Bridge into the tower."
"Boys," Odin interrupted with a stern tone. "We will talk about this when all three of us are safely returned to Asgard. What happened to my middle child?"
His bottom lip was worried between his teeth when Father barely touched the arm still tucked in Thor's makeshift sling. "Three of those things were waiting for us when we arrived. One grabbed me and twisted so hard my arm broke. Thor's temple was cut open."
"We should get him home, Father, so the physicians can make his arm straight before the bone heals," Thor said with all the authority and sincerity of an adult.
"You leave that to me, my sons, and when we've secured our freedom, the three of us will have a great deal of explaining to do to your mother before she allows us back into the comfort of her good graces."
Loki wormed closer to Father's comfort, tired eyes-the hour had to be closer to midnight back on Asgard, far later than a sleepy seven-year-old's bedtime-searching the makeshift camp. Dark elves were lounging around without the benefit of firelight engaging in whatever amusements stinky dark elves were partial to. He counted fifteen. Father was the strongest person in the nine realms, but how could even the All-Father defeat fifteen dark elves? Whilst searching for anything that might be of interest, he clapped eyes on a copper box that was covered in old runic writing. Their father's spear was resting nearby. Somehow, it looked limp and lifeless, as though it had lost some of its aura of power since entering Svartalfheim. A tiny jolt of electricity arched between the two.
