"The Norns sever my thread," he whispered "Doom falls upon me, as Wyrd ordains — upon Asgard, too, I fear. If Loki prevails, you must do that which I ordered you."
"I will, Father," rumbled Thor, his big hand clenching tight the helve of his mighty hammer. "But stay with us!"
Odin's life was already gone, though, spent by his last effort to speak.
"Bear him to Valhalla!" ordered Thor's great voice as he arose.
"Loki and some of the Jotuns move away," called a warrior from the guard-castle tower.
We hurried back and looked through the loopholes in the gates. Loki and half the Jotun forces were striding back across the bridge and Vigrid field, marching southward. The rest of the Jotuns still battered at the gates, heedless of the arrows that fell upon them from above.
"Loki plans some trick," Thor muttered.
"Where are our ships?" Vidar cried. "Look!"
He pointed down at the sea east of Asgard. There the waves were running high and foam-white beneath the howling winds of the storm. I saw the Jotun fleet below, hacked and reduced to less than forty almost useless ships. But they were beating southward along the coast, parallel to Loki's marching force. Scarred and torn by battle though the Jotun ships were, of the Aesir vessels I saw nothing but floating wreckage.
"Skoal to Aegir and Niord!" shouted Thor. "Skoal to the sea-kings who have gone to Viking death beneath the waves!"