Alex joined Samirah in the bury-your-face-in-your-hands club.
Aegir narrowed his eyes. “You mean the Mead of Kvasir?”
“Yes!” I said. “That!”
“Impossible!” Kolga protested, her mouth dyed six different colors from her snow cones. “Father, don’t believe them!”
“And, great Aegir,” I persisted, “if you let us go, we’ll even…uh, bring you a sample of Kvasir’s Mead, since it is the only mead you can’t brew yourself.”
My friends and the nine giantesses all turned to Aegir, waiting for his verdict.
A thin smile played across the sea god’s mouth. He looked like he’d managed to jump into a newly opened express lane at Whole Foods and finally scored his matcha smoothie.
“Well, this changes everything,” he said.
“It does?” I asked.
He rose from his throne. “I would love to see Loki brought to justice, and in a flyting, no less. I would also love to get a sample of Kvasir’s Mead. And I would prefer not to kill you all, since I did grant you guest rights.”
“Great!” I said. “So, you’ll let us go?”
“Unfortunately,” Aegir said, “you’re still Magnus Chase, and my wife wants you dead. If I let you go, she’ll be mad at me. But if you were to escape, say, while I wasn’t looking, and my daughters didn’t manage to kill you in the attempt…well, I think we’d just have to consider that the will of the Norns!”
He straightened his vest. “I am going to the kitchen to get some more mead now! I sure hope nothing unpleasant happens while I’m gone. Come along, Eldir!”
The cook gave me one last smoldering leer. “Flyte Loki once for Fimafeng, will you?” Then he followed his master into the kitchen.
As soon as the door closed, all nine daughters of Aegir rose from their seats and attacked.
BACK WHEN I was a regular mortal kid, I didn’t know much about combat.
I had some murky ideas that armies would line up, blow trumpets, and then march forward to kill one another in an orderly fashion. If I thought about Viking combat at all, I would envision some dude yelling SHIELD WALL! and a bunch of hairy blond guys calmly forming ranks and merging their shields into some cool geometric pattern like a polyhedron or a Power Ranger Megazord.
Actual battle was nothing like that. At least, not any version I’d ever been in. It was more like a cross between interpretive dance, lucha libre wrestling, and a daytime talk show fight.
The nine sea giantesses fell upon us with a collective howl of glee. My friends were ready. Mallory Keen flipped onto Grasping Wave’s back and plunged her knives into the giantess’s shoulders. Halfborn Gunderson dual-wielded mead goblets, slamming Hefring in the face and Unn in the gut.
T.J. lost valuable time trying to load his rifle. Before he could fire, the lovely Himminglaeva turned into a tidal wave and washed him across the hall.
Hearthstone threw a runestone I hadn’t seen before:
It hit Bigly—I mean Bylgya—with a bright flash, liquefying her into a large angry puddle.
Sam’s spear of light shimmered in her hand. She flew upward, just beyond reach, and began blasting giantesses with arcs of pure Valkyrie radiance. Meanwhile Blitzen hopped around the chaos, distracting the nine sisters with blistering fashion critiques like “Your hem is too high! You’ve got a run in your stocking! That scarf does not go with your dress!”
Kolga and Blod lunged at me from either side. I valiantly slipped under the table and tried to crawl away, but Blod grabbed me by the leg and pulled me out.
“Oh, no,” she snarled, her teeth dripping red. “I’m going to rip your soul from your body, Magnus Chase!”
Then a silverback mountain gorilla crashed into her, knocked her to the floor, and ripped her face off. (That sounds gross. Actually, when the gorilla swiped Blod’s face, the giantess’s whole head simply dissolved into salt water, soaking the kelp carpet.)
The gorilla turned toward me, his eyes mismatched brown and gold. He grunted at me impatiently, like Get up, you idiot. Fight!
The gorilla turned to face Kolga.
I staggered backward. Magic explosions, beams of light, axes, swords, and bad-fashion insults flew everywhere, answered by blasts of salt water, shards of ice, and globs of blood-tinted gelatin.
My gut told me that the giantesses would be much more powerful if they combined forces, like they had when they sank our ship. We were only alive so far because each of the sisters was intent on killing her own target. We had succeeded at being just that individually annoying. If the nine giantesses started singing their weird music again, working together as a team, we would be done for.
Even fighting them separately, we were in trouble. Every time a giantess got vaporized or reduced to a puddle, she quickly re-formed. We were outnumbered nine to eight. No matter how well my friends fought, the giantesses had the home-court advantage—and also immortality, which was a pretty big fruity edge.
We had to find a way to get on our boat and get out of here, back to the surface and far away. For that, we would need a distraction, so I called on the most distracting being I knew.
I pulled the runestone from my neck chain.
Jack sprang into sword form. “Hey, señor! You know, I was thinking about that Riptide girl. Who needs her, right? There are plenty of other swords in the armory and—WHOA! Aegir’s palace? Awesome! What mead is he serving today?”
“Help!” I yelled as Blod rose in front of me, her face reattached, her talons dripping blood.
“Sure!” Jack said amiably. “But, man, Aegir’s Oktoberfest Pumpkin Spice Mead is to die for!”
He zipped over to Blood-Red Hair, placing himself between my assailant and me.
“Hey, lady!” Jack said. “Wanna dance?”
“No!” Blod snarled.
She tried to get around him, but Jack was nimble. (Yes, and quick, though I’d never seen him jump over candlesticks.) He swerved from side to side, presenting his edge to the giantess and singing “Funkytown.”
Blod seemed unwilling or unable to get past Jack’s magical blade, which bought me a few seconds of safety as Jack disco-danced.
“Magnus!” Samirah zoomed by, ten feet above me. “Prepare the ship!”
My heart sank. I realized my friends were playing interference for me, hoping that I could somehow make our ship ready to sail again. Sad, deluded friends.
I ran back to the Big Banana.
The ship lay on its side, its mast piercing the wall of water. The current outside must have been strong, because it pushed the ship along the carpet ever so slightly, the keel leaving gouge marks in the kelp.
I touched the hull. Thankfully, the boat responded, collapsing into a handkerchief, which I clutched in my hand. If I could get all my friends together, maybe we could jump through the wall of water simultaneously and summon the ship as the current carried us away from here. Maybe the ship, being magic, would bring us back to the surface. Maybe we wouldn’t drown or get crushed by the water pressure.
That was a lot of maybes. Even if we managed it, the nine daughters of Aegir had sucked us under the ocean once before. I didn’t see why they couldn’t do it again. Somehow, I needed to stop them from following us.
I scanned the battle. Hearthstone raced past me, throwing runes at the giantesses trying to chase him. The rune seemed to do the best job. Every time it blasted a giantess, she turned into a puddle for several seconds. Not much, but it was something.
I glanced at the walls of the feast hall, and had an idea.
“Hearth!” I yelled.
I cursed my own stupidity. One of these days, I would get over my habit of yelling for my deaf friend’s attention. I ran after him, ducking past Grasping Wave, who Mallory Keen was driving around the room with her dagger handles like a combat robot.
I grabbed Hearth’s sleeve for his attention. That rune, I signed. What?
L-A-G-A-Z, he finger-spelled. Water. Or…He made a gesture I’d never seen: one hand horizontal, the fingers of the other hand trickling from it. I got the idea: drip, leak. Or maybe liquefy.
Can you do that to the wall? I asked. Or the ceiling?
Hearth’s mouth quirked, which for him was a diabolical grin. He nodded.