The ground was cold and rocky, but I sat anyway. My clansmen surrounded me without so much as a whispered command. I closed my eyes and pushed my spirit out as easily as exhaling.
Once free of my body, I could see the swirling darkness that made up the giants. A glowing red brightness in the center of the one closest to me drew my attention, but it wasn’t his heart I was interested in. As if sensing a shift in the air around him, the giant turned toward me.
In that instant, I streamed into his mind. Relief hit me powerfully when I found it as malleable as any mortal’s. The giant knew I had infiltrated him, but it was as if I’d imprisoned him within his own mind. He tried to threaten me, tried to intimidate me with thoughts of promised violence, but I immediately suppressed them. He watched helplessly as I took control.
I forced the giant to draw the broadsword sheathed at his side. Before the other giant could even realize he was under attack, the giant I controlled ran him through with his sword.
Your speed and strength will be useful to me, I told my captive, but he could only rage at me from behind the walls of his cage.
I used him to push open the two massive doors that barred access to the village beyond, and I heard the pounding of hooves and booted feet behind me. Leif and the others were coming.
As the giant’s long legs strode through the gate, he came to an unsteady halt while I took in the horrifying sight of the village.
Blood and gore, thick as mud, were smeared across the walls of houses and drying on the hard-packed earth. The massacre that the j?tnar had wrought on this village was plain to see in the firelight. The smell of rotting flesh was so strong I would have gagged had I been in my own body. The salty smell of the nearby sea wasn’t even enough to mask the scent. Pieces of people littered the ground—an arm here, a head, a torso. The villagers hadn’t stood a chance against them when the j?tnar came and claimed it as their own.
As the whole of our army made their way through the gates, the occupants slowly became alerted to the attack. Fires were lit around the village. I could feel the vibrations in the earth as giants raced toward us, but more disturbing were the mortal men who joined them. They boiled out of thatched huts like ants from a destroyed mound.
I hesitated even as they clashed with Leif’s army, swords and axes clattering together in the terrible din of war. Leif had said that long ago there were Northmen who had joined Fenris’s cause, but the idea was so foreign to me I hadn’t truly believed it until this moment.
Why would they join forces with monsters? I thought, and I directed my thought to the giant I kept imprisoned. He refused to answer me, his silence sullen.
I forced him to respond, commanding his thoughts as I commanded his body.
They tire of the failed promises of the gods, he said. They tire of sacrificing their animals, their friends and neighbors, even their own lives only to have those sacrifices and prayers go unanswered.
Despite my qualms, Leif’s army and my undead clansmen—the ones who were not guarding my body—had no such hesitations. Their swords and axes flashed in the torchlight, taking down mortal and giant alike.
I threw the giant into the fight, swinging his sword with powerful blows. At some point, I grabbed a discarded shield and was able to use it both defensively and offensively. I kept Leif within my sight as I fought on, taking down as many of the j?tnar as I could while I still had one to control. Leif’s every move was smoothly executed, the flash of his blade a mere blur of light. He wielded his shield as an offensive weapon as well as a defensive one, bashing the heads or noses of any mortal who battled him. My undead clansmen lent him aid as he fought one of the j?tnar, and with a little jolt of recognition, I realized it was Fergus who partnered with Leif to bring them down.
Together they killed three, while still others of my clansmen took down more, and hope bloomed in my chest.
But then the giant I controlled was met with another giant whose powerful blows my giant couldn’t block. This one brandished an axe with a blade half as long as Sleipnir. The one I controlled would have one chance to block with his shield, and then it would be reduced to splinters. I had to make it count.
The other giant took a swing, but my giant rolled out of the way, coming gracefully to his feet again. The blade of the other’s axe flashed again, this time much faster, and I raised my giant’s shield at the last moment. The shield shattered under his enemy’s powerful blow, but that gave my giant an extra second to dodge. I brought my sword down across the other’s back, feeling his spine give way beneath the blade.
He collided with the ground, and as my giant spun away in search of another enemy, I felt a sword bite into his flesh.
The other j?tunn’s aim had been true, the blade slipping between his ribs to pierce his heart. But as my j?tunn bled to death, his mind became like a yawning chasm, a dark nothingness that threatened to swallow me. I struggled against its hold, panicking as I tried to free my spirit from the dying body. It held on tenaciously, talons of darkness lodged in me. I’d never felt this sensation before. Desperately, I sought the door of light.
I moved as though underwater, the darkness pulling me back with every step. I fell through it, and mercifully came back to my true body in the next breath.
I leaned over and was sick. Tears ran down my cheeks. I shook violently as though with fever, and as I struggled to my feet, I swayed as weakly as a newborn kitten.
Never before had I reacted in such a way to my mental link being broken. Was it because I had connected to an immortal creature rather than a human?
I shuddered again as I worked to gain back my strength. My undead clansmen didn’t react, but Sleipnir took a step toward me until I was able to lean against him. I rested my forehead on his neck in gratitude for one shaky breath before I forced myself onto his back. I’d never before considered what might happen if my spirit was caught when the giant I controlled was killed, but I couldn’t let it stop me from taking control of another. We had yet to see Fenris, and if I could find him and kill him, all of this would end. He had united this terrible army, and without his leadership and power, they would fall.
Urgency nipped at my heels. I hurried Sleipnir on, but as we drew closer to the gates, Leif’s army was pushed back—out of the city and onto the rocky field beyond. At least forty-five of the j?tnar still stood, and they loomed above Leif’s men and my undead clansmen. Most of the Northmen allied with the j?tnar had fallen, easily felled by my undead army, but the losses on our side were significant as well.
The j?tnar continued to thunder toward us, the ground shaking beneath them. Where they clashed with my undead clansmen, they were taken down, but even then it was taking many more men to stop them.
Rúna was still mounted, but she faced her own enemy—a giant continually hammered her with his axe. Her shield wouldn’t hold much longer. I had to do something or she’d be defeated. So, surrounded by my small band of undead clansmen, I threw myself from Sleipnir’s back, sat on the ground, and pushed my spirit free. As I watched, untethered, Rúna’s shield finally gave way, sending a shower of splinters to the ground.
I wrenched control of the giant she fought. I forced him away from the battle with Rúna and made him bring his axe down on a nearby giant instead. The giant’s suddenly strange behavior must have been enough of an indication to Rúna that it was I who controlled him now, for she quickly moved on to another battle.