Closer to the shore, the mist had mostly vanished, and they had a clear view of the area around the root leading to the palace. There was a sizable encampment on the place, filled to the brim with Geste ready to fight.
"That's not auspicious," Volstagg said.
"Father," Hela called over, "how long until they see us?"
"Not much. I can't hide the wake."
She nodded and turned to Thor. "We'll need to clear this to get to the palace or they'll run to Livamjo. I'll go in first, keep them away from the root, and then you just charge forward." He just looked at her in disbelief, and then looked over her shoulder, throwing his hands in the air.
"Let me guess," a voice behind her said. "She's, once again, devising a plan where she takes the blunt of the damage while waiting for a miracle." Loki put his hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Are you?"
"Or you could have waited to guess and wait for me to ask you for your company. Or, even better yet, you could have guessed that I knew you'd come with me whether I asked or not."
"Fair enough. Shall we?" Loki offered his arm.
Hela placed her hand on the crook of his elbow. "Would you like to take the left?"
"It would be my pleasure." They vanished together.
The ship lurched forward and the cloaking spell disappeared. The Geste on the shore saw them, sounded the alarm and rushed to take their positions.
Most lined up and started raining arrows on the people still on the boat. Thor called a storm and used the wind to divert the arrows, while Sif and Volstagg hacked away at the railing, tearing a piece off to use as a shield.
Two Geste ran away from the fray and headed to the root, but they fell to the floor, their throats thrown open and barely hanging from their necks.
Five Geste nearby heard the thud of the bodies hitting the floor and turned around.
"The Asgardians..." one whispered, staring at the corpses.
"Show yourself, cowards!" another shouted, eyes moving about frantically and sword raised.
Slowly, as if gaining substance, Hela appeared right in front of the root. Her armor was smeared with blood and her daggers were stuck on the ground next to her feet.
"You know you can pledge your allegiance to me, fight for my cause, and I will spare you," she said.
"Never. King Livamjo is the one true ruler, the one who will bring glory to Helheim," one Gest spoke. He was the Master at Arms
"You do know that he's enslaving souls, right? Keeping them from crossing?"
"For the greatness of the Realm, sacrifices must be ma-" The Gest fell to the floor, a knife stabbed in his skull.
"Enslaving souls is not a sacrifice," she snarled, "it's a defilement." She made eye contact with the rest of the Geste.
The hatred in her eyes was enough to make them step back, but then they clutched their weapons and surged forward with a cry. Two more knives left Hela's hands and buried themselves on a Gest's throat, who stopped and clawed at them, trying to breath through the blood filling her lungs. Hela then kicked another in the face, breaking bones and sending him skidding away, parried two strikes with her sword, dropped to her knees and stabbed with her dagger into the face of a third. The remaining Gest slashed at her arm, but she put up her vambrace, dropped her sword and grabbed him by the jaw, twisting his neck until it snapped.
Hela stood up and calmly walked to the woman crawling her way toward the root, and flipped her over. She was gasping, holding the knives still sticking out of the throat apart to try to get oxygen on her lungs. Hela shook her head, took the knives and finished ripping through her throat. The light left the Gest's eyes.
"I didn't want to it be so tortuous," she said, "I'm sorry."
"Keep your head cool," Loki said behind her, "you became too bloodthirsty." When Hela nodded, he continued. "More are coming. Get ready."
o.o
Thunder resounded nearby, and Thor stood up, surveying the corpses around him. This little things were terribly vicious, and his shins were taking the blunt of it. He kicked another Gest and grabbed the strap of his hammer, swinging it low and wild. They were a nightmare to fight against. His companions were having better luck, using their longer weapons to strike more easily. One Gest to his left fell, and he raised a hand to Hogun in acknowledgment. The Vanir had stayed behind, on the ship, and was using his slingshot for support. Next to him, Jane and Darcy clutched their weapons, fending off the occasional Gest that slipped past Hogun.
Two foes flew over Thor's head, and he heard Volstagg's merry laugh as they crashed into a cluster of warriors.
"I want to see you do better than that, Fandral!" the Voluminous said.
Thor twirled and caught a glimpse of Fandral kicking left and right next to Sif, who was chopping down with her glaive.
"Uncle!" he heard Hela shout across the battle field, "Over here, now! It's a diversion! Skeletons are coming!"
"Hurry, everyone!" he yelled at his companions. "We have to go!" He ran to the ship and helped Jane and Darcy to climb down. Hogun jumped down and they clustered together as they made their way forward. Volstagg soon joined them, and they could see Sif and Fandral moving toward Hela's position not twenty meters away.
Loki and Hela were in front of the root, almost dancing around the enemies, leaving a trail of death in their wake.
"Go now! I'll take the rear!" Loki shouted.
"Everybody hold hands!" Hela yelled and pulled them onto the root.
Loki put up a wall of flames and followed them.
o.o
They turned and backtracked and slid on the root, and surfaced in a swamp. Hela kept moving, and dived onto another root, appearing inside a small room. She pressed her ear to the door.
"Seems to be safe. I have to call a friend to give out the order and we're ready to go," she said, and clicked her tongue in some kind of code. A little later a mouse appeared, and they had a conversation in squeaks and chitters. The mouse finally left for the other side of the door. After a while, there was a commotion at the other side; sounds of metal, wood, stone and flesh, and then the door finally opened.
"My liege," a woman said.
"Hello, Ganglot." Hela clasped the woman's arm, casting a look around and seeing the bodies of Livamjo's people on the floor. "Are we secure?"
"For now."
"Perfect. Where's Ganglati?"
"I'm here, milady." A man with dark hair approached them.
"How many combatants do we have?"
"In this moment, two hundred. We could call about three hundred more, but I fear we don't have enough time."
"We spread the word of Livamjo's awful deeds as you instructed. Most are indignant, but there aren't many combatants among them," Ganglot added.
"How long do we have?"
"Ten minutes until he notices you're here, maybe fifteen."
"Thank you. Now it's time to evacuate." She turned to the rest of the room and crouched. The Geste in the room gathered around her. "My folk, Helheim needs us today, and we cannot fail it. Livamjo is destroying everything this Realm stands for, everything it represents, and we are the only ones able to stop this. We have a duty, and we'll fulfill it or die trying. Our tasks are already assigned; let us go and carry them out, and may Lady Death pass by us all." She crossed her wrists on her chest, as did the Geste, and they scuttled away.
She stood up and turned around. "Jane, Darcy, you'll have to accompany them. Up until now it's been only skirmishes, but now..." She stopped in her tracks. "Are you two fine?"
Both women looked slightly green, and were quite pointedly not looking at the bodies of Livamjo's followers.
"Oh, sorry about that. I honestly forgot you'd be uncomfortable." Hela vanished the bodies from sight.
"It's ok," Jane said.
"We're just not used to... cold-blooded murder."
"One would have thought they had got used to it in the last hour."
"There's this beautiful thing called empathy, Father. You should try it, I heard it does wonders for one's health." Loki narrowed his eyes at her.
"My liege, I'm sorry to interrupt," Ganglot hobbled over, "but I'll be leaving soon. Will you need anything more from me?"
"Yes, Ganglot. Give me a second." She turned to the Midgardians. "I need to turn you into Geste."
"What? No! I like myself the way I am."
"You two stand out in a crowd. That will make you easier targets. Also, I wasn't asking for permission." Hela grabbed their shoulders and they morphed.
"I don't like this. I'll file a complaint," Darcy said.
"Good. You'll have to present it to the Queen, though, and she'll probably dismiss it. Or you could do like Jane and don't complain."
"She's lost in the science of it. Besides, she's used to being short."
"If I wasn't so busy with 'the science of it', I'd punch you. But we're pressed on time here."
"We would need to go now, yes," Ganglot said.
"Let's go then." Jane turned to Thor. "See you later?"
"Of course." Thor smiled and dropped to his knees, sweeping Jane into his arms. He kissed her gently, softly, and above all, awkwardly. "You're even tinier now."
"Just for now." She kissed him again. "We gotta go." She pulled away and let Ganglot lead her.
There was a snicker behind Thor. "What?" he asked, turning around.
Fandral snorted and snickered some more, and burst into laughter. Volstagg and Sif were trying to repress their laugh and failing miserably, and even Hogun was smiling broadly.
"I'm so sorry, Thor... it's just..." Fandral said between bouts of laughter, "I thought you were... going to pick her up in a hand... looked so bizarre... I can't... stop laughing... so sorry," he went on, wiping tears from his eyes.
"You're not one to talk, Fandral," Sif said, gasping for breath and still chuckling. "Remember that time in Nornheim...?"
Thor and Volstagg exploded with laughter, clutching their sides. They all were able to forget the battle that laid ahead for a moment, until...
"When you are finished with this childishness," Loki's voice was so hard it could have cut diamonds, "we still have a little war to fight."
"Don't be a spoilsport, brother."
"I am not your brother." Loki stormed off, some Geste stepping out of his way and watching him go with baffled expressions.
Hela just threw her hands in the air.
o.o
The door to the kitchen opened minutes later, and a small army of Geste were already waiting outside, their helmets decorated with red and green stripes of cloth. Hela stopped and surveyed her people.
"Today," she said, "we free Helheim, we free the souls trapped in this plane by Livamjo. Today, we reopen the Afterlife Gates for everyone. Today, we fight for our duties to keep on living with honor! Today, whether we bow to our Lady or embrace her, we'll look at her in the eyes and tell her that our lives and our deaths are for her glory! May never we be forgotten!"
"May never we be!" the Geste chorused and erupted in cheers.
The column began to move, opening up a path for their Queen and the Asgardians to take point.
They stopped at a corner, peeking at the entrance of the Main Hall. Skeletons were stationed at the doors, unmoving, their weapons ready.
Hela raised her hand and the army stopped.
"That's the entrance to the Throne Hall," she said. "He's probably there."
"How do we know it's not an ambush?" Thor asked.
"The throne room is one of the most defensible places in the palace. Only two doors, surrounded by rock on three sides and an emergency exit to the outside in the nearly inaccessible Council Room. And he also wants a dramatic final battle; it makes sense his being there."
"Can you assert he's there?" Loki asked.
"Yes." She poked her head round the corner. "Livamjo! Come out and lay down your weapons! There is no need for more bloodshed!"
She ducked behind the corner again and waited. There was a long silence, and finally the rattling of bones moving.
"You have betrayed Helheim." Livamjo's voice resounded from the Main Hall. "You and your conspirators in treachery will pay with blood, as is the law."
Hela let out a fake laugh. "Me, a traitor? You are the one enslaving souls, Livamjo. You betrayed everything Helheim stands for."
"I am bringing forth glory to this Realm, but what would you know about glory, you little viper? After all, you come from two bad seeds."
"How bad is this weighting on your conscience, that instead of defending your actions 'for the glory of Helheim', you can only attack my parentage?"
"What would be the meaning of that?"
"That means you're a bigot, you idiot."
There was a thick silence while everybody stared at Hela.
"What?" she whispered. "We'll fight better with the skeletons out here."
"Such a simple trick is not going to work," Loki whispered back. "He's been king for a a long time, he can distinguish a silly taunt!"
"He'll fall for it, trust me."
Bones rattled, and the sound approached them.
"My, he's truly an idiot."
Hela smiled at her father. "After you."
They left their cover, striding onto the hallway, firing bolts of green magic at the oncoming skeletons.
Then it became a mess. Over scattered bones, Asgardians and Geste jumped into the fray, charging with their shields, smashing with their weapons, kicking and punching with their bare limbs. The air filled with clangs of weapon against weapon, the snapping of bones, the wet sounds of wounded flesh, the wailings of the injured.
The Asgardians were slowly making their way toward the doors, their weapons savagely tearing apart their foes, quite in vain actually, because the skeletons reformed even faster than before.
"Hela!" Fandral yelled over the noise, twisting and kicking a skeleton in the chest, breaking it apart. He had also abandoned his rapier and was using a stolen sword. "Could you," he smacked a skull with the side of this sword and sent it flying, "do that thing again?"
"What thing?" Hela had picked up a shield and was using it more than her sword to smack bones apart from each other.
"That thing where you disconnect them from Livamjo's power!" He tore an arm apart and used it to slap his closest foes.
"I can try, but there are too many! Cover me!" She knelt on the floor and untied her scarf.
"Thank you, dear." Fandral smiled down warmly at her and offhandedly slapped another skeleton. He leaned back barely in time to see a knife passing right where his face had been. "Loki? What the...!"
"Sorry, my hand slipped," Loki bit out and cast another spell forward.
Sif and Volstagg had backed off, fighting their way to Fandral's side, Sif twisting and turning around the skeletons, always too quick to grab or hurt, leaving a trail of destruction on her wake, using everything as a weapon and every opportunity as a lethal attack. Volstagg, in turn, just swept his ax side to side and bodily slammed skeletons together.
"Branches!" he shouted. "They're so boring to fight against, I could take a nap while doing so!"
"Are you sure you would not rather eat them?" Fandral asked.
"Now, Fandral!" Sif replied. "Whatever gave you the idea that Volstagg's life revolves around food?"
"You two are mocking me now, but I'll laugh last when I eat your deserts!"
Some skeletons began to tremble, and finally fell apart. Hela rose to her feet and grabbed her scarf.
"That's all I can do!" she said. "Now, to the Hall! We'll use the door as a bottleneck!"
They rushed forward, Asgardians and Geste tearing their way to the Main Hall, while some skeletons were already retreating into it. They pushed through most of their foes, but the Hall was still teeming with enemies. Hela stood by the door, guarding the entrance for the delayed Geste. Once the last once crossed into the Hall, she ran inside and waved her hands. The doors locked.
"Up the stairs?!" Thor shouted, swinging Mjolnir around. Each motion felled an enemy, and each felled enemy felled another one, like a well-oiled machine.
Hela finished talking to her father and ran to her uncle.
"He probably went that way." She knocked down a skeleton with her shield and kicked it away. "Let's try to open a path, but be careful. There are more defenses up in the Throne Room."
"Wonderful." Thor scowled and threw a ribcage away, slowly making his way toward the stairs. "Where's Loki?"
"Closing a portal," she answered.
"Couldn't you have done that in his stead?" Volstagg asked.
"I'm more needed here. Now drop!" Hela shouted and sent a wave of magic, pushing the skeletons back and sprinting for the stairs. "With me!" she commanded the Geste, who joined her at the base. "Uncle, Volstagg, get the skeletons from the stairs, throw them here! We'll cover you! Folk, a checkered circle around here!"
The Geste formed a half circle around the opening of the stairs, one Gest in front, one slightly behind and the next one again in front, their shields raised above their heads. When they finished forming, there were three rows. Bones started flying from the stairway.
"Hogun and Sif, to my right! Fandral, to my left! Cover my folk's heads! Geste, on my order!" There was moment of silence, as both armies sized each other. "Do not let a single one of them pass!"
The battle began anew, Hela flinging spells and the Asgardians using their longer limbs to reach their enemies above the Geste's heads.
The Geste in the first row front hacked away at their enemies' legs, keeping their shields above their heads to deflect sword strikes and shove them away, while those in first row behind collaborated.
"First row front, one back!" Hela shouted, and they changed placed with those on first row behind. "Two back!" She threw a ball of fire, and they moved to the front of the second row. "Three back!" She grabbed a abandoned sword and flung it at the skeletons, and the first Geste moved to second row behind. "Four back!" One step back, and they moved to third row front. "Five back!" They reached the last position. "Fall back!" The whole formation took three steps back.
They repeated the movements over and over again, stepping back every time a new row reached the back, getting closer and closer to the stairs.
"Clear!" Volstagg announced, climbing down.
"First row, second row, hold this position! Ganglati, you're in charge now! Third row, come with me!"
"Yes, my Queen!" the Geste answered and followed her up the stairs.