Page 148 of The Last Valkyrie

I glared at him. “Can’t you just slice into yourself to draw more power?”

“Doesn’t work like that. I need rest, much as I hate to say it. These jotnar are fucking impenetrable.”

I nodded, folding my lips into my mouth to think. The field was a wasteland of bodies, fire, and clanging steel. The losses on our side were innumerable, and the dark elves weren’t faring too well either.

We had put up a valiant fight, but couldn’t keep pushing the enemy back and sustain these losses. It wasn’t tenable.

“Then we’d better listen to Canute.”

Magnus nodded and we turned to run toward the hole in the wall, back on our side of the conflict before our advance had brought us beyond the southern gate.

“Arne!” a voice called overhead.

Furrowing my brow, my head veered to the sight of the friendly Huscarl Grant, who was standing atop the rampart near the edge of the crumbled section of stone. His finger frantically pointed down past us, below the path that led up to the gate from the base of the mountain.

I chanced a look over my shoulder.

From my slightly elevated position on this hillock, I could see deeper into the steep decline where the passageway continued down the mountain and held all the dark elf reserves.

There, three more jotnar stood, seemingly in communication with one another. Surveying the fight from their vantage, they looked . . . bored. It was odd seeing them unaffected by the combat surrounding them.

Two of the jotnar were the trollish, brown-green giants of the first one we’d fought, while the third looked unique. She was slightly shorter than the others, yet still over eight feet tall—broader and larger than any human in existence. Her skin was an ashen gray, and a great skull helmet covered her head, fixed with fetishes and ornaments of bones and metal. From her helmet, which looked like a skull of the giant bull creature we had fought, rose two curving horns. She wore leathery black straps fixed to her thick thighs, bare up top with giant hanging breasts, and an aura of decay and death surrounded her.

More importantly, small man-sized holes surrounded her as she waved her hands around vaguely. Two draug sprouted up from the ground next to her, crawling out like unholy whelps being birthed from the earth itself.

I gasped.She’s the necromancer controlling the draug! Our first sight of her!

The female jotun was at least two-hundred yards away, and there were dozens if not hundreds of elves between us, so we weren’t going to get to her anytime soon.But at least we have a target now, to stop the draug from rising.

Looking back to the wall, I started to say, “Good eye, Grant! Now get down—”

The friendly Huscarl was slumped forward over the angled section of the parapet, face-down, an arrow lodged through his throat.

“No! Grant . . .”

He’d been shot dead in the time it had taken for him to point out the enemy.

Magnus grabbed my arm and yanked me beyond our wall of allies, who were starting to regroup for another wave of attacks.

In the center of the hole created by the explosion, Thane Canute stood like a gallant watchman, the Defender of Vikingrune posted up and taking on both jotnar at the same time, defending our retreat behind our lines.

Gods help us. How are we ever going to win this?

My luck changed when I spotted the pale faces of humans among the enemy—scared, shaking humans who fought against us because their martyr told them it was the right thing to do.

But that martyr was gone. And in Frida’s place was my long-time ally, Dieter, near the front of the dark elf contingent making their way toward Thane Canute and the jotnar.

I caught his eye through the tumult of dust, swords, and battle.

With a nod and a fierce set to my jaw, I said, “Now, old friend. If you’re going to do it, make your move. Turn this tide.”

He couldn’t hear me from this distance, separated by hundreds of feet and hundreds of bodies. But he could read my lips well enough, and jolted with a start when his eyes landed on mine.

With a nod, Dieter turned away from the dark elves.

And within minutes, the rank of Dokkalfar closest to us started to call out to their kin in Elvish—desperate, angry words I couldn’t understand.

Dark elves began to fall from spears in their backs, swords at their necks. Chaos ensued, with our enemy twisted in two different directions.

---