The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #3)

At least that’s what I thought, until the pile of limestone shifted.

A few times, I had watched Samirah emerge from beneath her camouflage hijab—it would look like she had stepped out of a tree trunk or a plain white wall or the display case at a Dunkin’ Donuts. This sight gave me a similar kind of vertigo.

My mind had to reprocess what I was looking at: not a section of ruined wall, but a giant, twenty feet tall, whose appearance perfectly mimicked limestone. His rough brown-and-beige skin was beaded like a Gila monster’s. A flocking of rubble crusted his long shaggy hair and beard. He wore a tunic and leggings of quilted heavy canvas, giving him that fortress-wall look. Why he’d been leaning against the grocery store, I had no idea. Dozing? Panhandling? Did giants panhandle?

He fixed us with his amber eyes—the only part of him that seemed truly alive.

“Well, well,” rumbled the giant. “I’ve been waiting ages for Vikings to appear at the Viking Centre. Can’t wait to kill you!”

“Good idea, Alex,” I squeaked. “Let’s follow the signs to the Viking Centre. Yay.”

For once, she had no scathing comeback. She stared at the giant, her mouth hanging open, her raincoat hood slipping back from her head.

T.J.’s rifle quivered in his hands like a dowsing rod.

I didn’t feel much braver. Sure, I’d seen taller giants. I’d seen eagle giants, fire giants, drunk giants, and giants in gaudy bowling shirts. But I’d never had a stone giant appear right in front of me and cheerfully offer to kill me.

Standing upright, his shoulders were level with the two-story rooftops around us. The few pedestrians on the streets simply walked around him as if he were an inconvenient construction project.

He grabbed the nearest telephone pole and yanked it out of the ground along with a large circular chunk of pavement. Only when he rested the pole across his shoulder did I realize it was his weapon—a maul with a head the size of a hot tub.

“Vikings used to be more social,” he rumbled. “I thought surely they’d come to their community center for trials by combat. Or at least for bingo! But you’re the first ones I’ve seen in…” He tilted his shaggy head, a gesture that looked like an avalanche of sheepdogs. “How long was I sitting there? I must have dozed off! Ah, well. Tell me your names, warriors. I would like to know who I am killing.”

At that point, I would have screamed I claim guest rights! But, sadly, we were not inside the giant’s home. I doubted guest rights would apply on a public street in a human city.

“Are you the giant Hrungnir?” I asked, hoping I sounded more confident than panic-stricken. “I’m Magnus Chase. This is Thomas Jefferson Jr. and Alex Fierro. We’re here to bargain with you!”

The shaggy stone colossus looked from side to side. “Of course I am Hrungnir! Do you see any other giants around? I’m afraid killing you is nonnegotiable, little einherji, but we can haggle about the details, if you like.”

I gulped. “How did you know we’re einherjar?”

Hrungnir grinned, his teeth like the crenellations of a castle turret. “You smell like einherjar! Now, come. What were you hoping to bargain for—a quick death? A death by squeezing? Perhaps a lovely death by stomping followed by being scraped off the bottom of my shoe!”

I glanced at T.J., who shook his head vigorously like Not the shoe!

Alex still hadn’t moved. I only knew she was still alive because she blinked the rain out of her eyes.

“O Large and Beige Hrungnir,” I said, “we seek the location of Kvasir’s Mead!”

Hrungnir scowled, his rocky eyebrows furrowing, his brick-like lips forming a segmental arch. “Well, well. Playing Odin’s thievery game, are you? The old Bolverk trick?”

“Uh…maybe.”

Hrungnir chuckled. “I could give you that information. I was with Baugi and Suttung when they sequestered the mead in its new hiding place.”

“Right.” I silently added Baugi and Suttung to my mental list of Things I Am Clueless About. “That’s what we have come to bargain for. The location of the mead!”

I realized I had already said that. “What is your price, O Beige One?”

Hrungnir stroked his beard, causing rubble and dust to sift down the front of his tunic. “For me to consider such a trade, your deaths would have to be very entertaining.” He studied T.J., then me. His eyes came to rest on Alex Fierro. “Ah. This one smells of clay! You have the necessary skills, do you not?”

I glanced at Alex. “Necessary skills?”

“Eep,” Alex said.

“Excellent!” Hrungnir boomed. “It’s been centuries since the stone giants found a worthy opponent for a traditional two-on-two duel! A fight to the death! Shall we say tomorrow at dawn?”

“Whoa,” I said. “Couldn’t we do a healing contest?”

“Or bingo,” T.J. offered. “Bingo is good.”

“No!” Hrungnir cried. “My very name means brawler, little einherji. You won’t cheat me out of a good fight! We will follow the ancient rules of combat. Me versus…Hmm.”

I didn’t want to volunteer, but I’d seen Jack take down bigger giants than this guy before. I raised my hand. “Very well, I—”

“No, you’re too scrawny.” Hrungnir pointed to T.J. “I challenge him!”

“I ACCEPT!” T.J. yelled.

Then he blinked, as if thinking Thanks a lot, Dad.

“Good, good,” the giant said. “And my second will fight your second, who will be made by her!”

Alex staggered back as if she’d been pushed. “I—I can’t. I’ve never—”

“Or I can just kill all three of you now,” Hrungnir said. “Then you’ll have no chance of finding Kvasir’s Mead.”

My mouth felt as dusty as the giant’s beard. “Alex, what’s he talking about? What are you supposed to make?”

By the trapped look in her eyes, I could tell she understood Hrungnir’s demand. I’d only seen her this panicked once before—on her first day in Valhalla, when she thought she might be stuck in one gender for the rest of eternity.

“I—” She licked her lips. “All right. I’ll do it.”

“That’s the spirit!” Hrungnir said. “As for the little blond guy here, I guess he can be your water boy or something. Well, I’m off to make my second. You should do the same. I will meet you tomorrow, at dawn, at Konungsgurtha!”

The giant turned and strode through the streets of York, pedestrians moving out of his way as if he were a veering bus.

I turned to Alex. “Explain. What did you just agree to?”

The contrast between her heterochromatic eyes seemed even greater than usual, as if the gold and the brown were separating, pooling to the left and right.

“We need to find a pottery studio,” she said. “Fast.”





YOU DON’T hear heroes say that a lot.