Page 4 of Loki

All Loki had to do was sneak into the longhouse and he could end Erik in one stroke. Maybe even his sons, if he was swift enough. Not as an owl, though. Perhaps a lynx...

No. Someone would notice a lynx.

Something smaller, then, which brought death swiftly.

His mother had spoken of such a creature, from the lands far to the south. A snake which could bring death with but one bite. Smaller and less showy than the vipers that rarely killed, but size was no signifier of power when it came to serpents.

A cobra, she'd called it, a snake from the shores of the Caspian Sea, with a hood around its head.

Loki transformed from bird to snake, sensing the fearful fleeing of prey in the thatch as he slithered down to the packed earth floor.

It took him a moment to orient himself in this form, which felt sluggish in the cold night air. All he had to do was bite Erik and he could take wing again, watching Erik's death throes from the safety of the roof.

Loki slithered across the floor, twining up the back of Erik's chair without a soul seeing him.

The best place to bite would be the back of Erik's neck, for the rest of him was covered in heavy furs. Loki inched his way along the chair back, before venturing up the folds of Erik's cloak. He could almost taste the man's blood, even before he bit him, savouring the saltiness of the evil man's lifeblood.

The man who'd killed his mother, his father, his whole village. Then Thor's parents, kind people who'd taken him in when he had no one. And Sif, young Sif, who might one day have become...

"Father, watch out!"

Someone seized Loki, throwing him to the floor.

He reared up, hissing, at the girl who faced him, as fearless as any warrior. She had the look of Erik, too. His daughter, perhaps? She had called him Father...

"Such a snake is not often seen here, so far from its home," said another female voice.

Loki was lifted into the air, writhing and trying to bite, though no hand touched him this time. No, this was sorcery – magic far more powerful than anything he possessed. The kind of magic that could raise a nykr army...

He found himself face to face with an Eastern woman with dark hair, old enough to be his mother. She squinted at him suspiciously.

"Who would bring such a deadly creature in here?" she mused.

Erik's gaze went to a man seated at the end of the table, holding a squirming girl on his lap as he groped her. "Orm?"

He shoved the girl off his lap and she fled before he could change his mind. "What?"

The Eastern woman flapped her hand. "This is no ordinary snake. In fact, it smells like one of the warriors from across the mountains."

Loki panicked, trying desperately to get away, but all he managed to do was narrowly miss biting his own tail. The witch's magic held him fast. He couldn't even shift into a different shape!

Struggling madly, he was helpless to resist as the witch dropped him into a basket that still smelled strongly of fish, closing the lid over him before he could wriggle out. Her hold on him vanished, but the basket held him as securely as her magic, for no matter how much he bit at the basket, the weave would not release him.

"He is one of Odin's scouts. If he is here, that means Odin is coming. We must prepare for battle," the woman said.

Loki swore, which only came out as an angry hiss, wishing he'd tried to bite the witch before he'd gone for Erik. Or maybe the sharp-eyed daughter, for she was the one who'd caught him. If he ever got out of this basket, he was going to bite them all, every last one, leaving Erik for last, so he could watch all his favourites die before he drew his last breath.

Yes, that would be justice, for all Erik had stolen from him and Odin and Thor and everyone he knew. Erik would die by Loki's hand, or fangs, or whatever he deemed best, but only after he'd lost his family. Loki swore he would not rest until he'd made good on his vow.

FOUR

Jorunn walked her transect with steady, plodding steps, her eyes never leaving the rocks beneath her boots. While she wasn't a stranger to transects and surveys, she was the only person here who'd never worked an archaeological dig before. Her undergraduate degree was in comparative vertebrate biology, and she'd done some research at a deer farm in the south west, before heavy rains had opened up a sinkhole on the property and given her the opportunity to do her honours project on the animal remains in that cave. Instead of going on to a PhD straight away, she'd taken a year to do a graduate diploma in archaeology before applying for this project.

She'd never dared hope to actually win the Harald Medal. In fact, she'd been ready to submit a research proposal for a project at another cave site when the email had come through. But reindeer beat thylacines hands down, at least in her book. One of the other girls on the research team had been as obsessed by extinct megafauna as Jorunn had been by reindeer, and she'd actually accused Jorunn of madness for heading to Norway instead of underground.

But all that time combing caves had sharpened Jorunn's eyesight for artefacts, which gave her an edge in this team. She had the highest find rate among any of them this expedition, with the gap growing every day, Lara told her with considerable satisfaction, when Sibyl was out of earshot.

Poor Sibyl had caught Karl's obsession – she wanted to find an ice man, mummified beneath the ice. Unlike Karl, though, she'd written her research proposal on the likelihood of a Viking village somewhere near the pass – possibly even mythical Utgard from the legends. But while she was looking for dead Vikings, she'd have been better off paying attention to the real, live ones Norway seemed to be full of. Even up here, miles from civilisation, she had three to choose from – Lars, Andreas and Fredrik. Karl was too old and Saint Nik was so far up his own arse Jorunn would be forced to drag Sibyl away and tie her up in the tent if she so much as suggested she might be attracted to him.

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