Page 147 of The Last Valkyrie

“Now!” I yelled, and Hersir Osfen saw the opening I had presented them with my diversion.

Shields surrounded me, swallowing me up on my left and right, before the cadets marched into the snow to bring Hel to our enemies.

I dashed away before I could see the outcome of my misty spell, eager to help Magnus off to the side. He was paired with Thane Canute. The Huscarl battlelord was taking the brunt of the damage from the jotun he fought.

A tall man, nearly seven feet, he was dwarfed by the troll that held a dark, bloody club almost as large as him. But his shield was the great equalizer, and no matter how hard the jotun swung or with how much power he put behind his blows, the club kept bonking off Canute’s shield.

I grinned and rushed in—

Faltering when a gout of fire streamed past my face, singeing my golden hair.

With a gasp, I pulled up short and looked left.

My jaw dropped before I clenched my teeth together.

Another jotun was arriving from the lower levels of the mountain pass, rising above the slightly curved ground. This one was ten feet tall and built like a granite golem. Its skin was the black of charcoal and the igneous hue of cooled lava. Between the pores of its tough exterior in a network of veins and arteries were fire-orange and crimson-red lines, reaching from as low as its thighs all the way up to its neck. The monster’s face was an onyx wall, vaguely humanoid with topazes for eyes.

A jotun from Muspelheim itself, the realm of fire.

My eyes widened as his rocky hands pushed out in front of him and he stopped walking toward us. A vortex of smoke and fire sucked all the oxygen out of the air around him, and dark elves scattered away as the thing started marching toward me, Canute, Magnus, and the other jotun.

“Mag!” I cried out, pointing.

He spun away from the rotund jotun, speeding under its swinging arm, and went to a knee. His auburn hair swung off his forehead as he followed my finger toward the fire jotun.

“Fight fire with ice, lad!” my friend called out hoarsely.

I manned up and nodded firmly, then Shaped and put my hands to the ground. My energy was running low on reserves, every casting starting to affect me. But I had to keep going.

A sheet of slippery, glistening ice like a frozen river surface crackled out from the ground in front of me toward the fire jotun.

As the monster plodded toward us, the ice sizzled under his bare feet. He wasn’t slipping or losing footing like others had, walkingthroughthe spell instead, breaking up chunks of my glacial spell.

“Fuck,” I groaned, and with a quick Shape I changed the directive of my spell. Different elements from a separate part of Niflheim charged my rune and I lifted from my kneeling position to my feet, bringing up my arms in a flurry like a conductor during an orchestral crescendo.

The ice abruptly changed to water, rising in a swirling typhoon around the fire jotun.

He roared and spread his fiery hands, the hissing and sizzling of his flames put out by my spell.

I gave a crooked grin at my momentary victory—

Gasping as the giantchargedthrough the maelstrom of frothy water in a trot. Hands extended, embers burned in those huge palms.

“Look out!” I cried, quickly dashing and rolling to the side just as a wave of fire heated the air where I’d just been.

The inferno dissipated at the wall far behind us, and I glanced back at the bloodcurdling cries. Three cadets and one dark elf had been torched, their bodies like flaming trees as they ran around aimlessly before dropping as smoldering husks.

Ash rose from the battlefield. The wall behind them was stained black from soot, and I suddenly realized where the big explosion had come from earlier that broke down our wall.

This fucker right here.

Canute stepped away from the club jotun in a masterful pivot and bashed his shield into the side of the fire giant. It rocked the giant with an explosive force field of energy, but even with allhis strength behind the blow the jotun only stumbled a few feet away.

Then it turned its ire on Canute.

“Fall back!” the Thane called out in a booming voice that brooked no argument. “Behind the wall!”

Magnus was beside me now, sweat spilling down his forehead. “I lost my bloodrend, Arne. Can’t use it again until I get more power.”

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