I could not turn her from her relentless purpose. She ran lightly beside me as we hastened after Thor down the first steps of the narrow cliffside stair. Lightning washed the cliffs, and the deafening crack of thunder drowned the shrieking winds and boom of the sea. By the flashing flares, we saw the Jotun ships already sweeping quickly into the narrow fiord below us. Behind them in the raging sea swam something long, black and sinuous, a great, incredible shape.
"Iormungandr comes with his master Loki!" boomed Thor. "It is well!"
Before we were down the stair, the Jotuns were landing below. Overwhelming the small force of Aesir guards there, they rushed up to meet us.
I swung Freya behind me.
"Keep at my back," I ordered.
"I am not afraid!" argued her clear voice in my ear. Her bow twanged, and an arrow sped down into the throat of the foremost of the swarming Jotuns. I saw Loki leaping ashore from one of the ships. Then the nearest Jotuns reached us.
Chapter XX
Ragnarok
Thor's hammer smashed down, and the first two Jotuns fell back with crushed skulls. They pitched off the stair to the depths below. Arrows from enemy archers farther down the stair whizzed up through the lightning-seared dusk and rattled off our mail, or struck down men among us. Freya's bow kept twanging. Each time she loosed an arrow, her clear cry sang loud in my ears.
I tried to keep her near me as I fought beside Thor and tall Vali, desperately trying to hold back the Jotuns. But the stair was wide enough only for three of us to fight abreast. Thor, crimson with blood from many wounds, swung his hammer like a demon of destruction. Yet we were forced up the stairs. Vali dropped with an arrow in his eye, and an Aesir from behind rushed to take his place.