فصل 56

Never Ask a Dwarf to “Go Long”

“RUN!” I TOLD BLITZEN. “Run, run, run!”

Blitzen, who was still trailing the parachute, only managed a dazed stumble. “Heavy, very heavy,” he wheezed again.

We made it about twenty feet before Geirrod yelled, “CATCH!”

The four of us ducked behind the nearest column as a coal cannonball slammed against it, burning a hole straight through the stone and spraying ash and sparks over our heads. The column groaned. Cracks spread all the way up to the ceiling.

“Run more!” Sam yelped.

We shambled across the hall as Geirrod scooped coals and threw them with appalling accuracy. If he hadn’t been drunk, we would’ve been in serious trouble.

The next salvo set Blitzen’s parachute on fire. Sam was able to cut it off with her ax, but we lost valuable time. Another chunk of flaming apocalypse blasted a crater in the floor next to us, singeing Gunilla’s wings and Hearthstone’s scarf. Sparks flew into Blitzen’s eyes.

“I’m blind!” he yelped.

“I’ll direct you!” I shouted. “Left! Left! Your other left!”

Meanwhile, across the hall, Geirrod was having a grand old time singing in Jotunese, staggering from brazier to brazier, occasionally dousing himself in mead. “Come on now, little guests! This is not how you play. You’re supposed to catch the coals and throw them back!”

I looked around desperately for exits. There was one other door, on the wall directly across from the dining room, but it was too small to crawl under and too big to force open, not to mention barred with a tree-trunk beam across iron brackets.

For the first time since becoming an einherji, I was annoyed that my super-quick healing wasn’t super quick enough. If we were going to die, I at least wanted to be standing on my own two feet.

I glanced at the ceiling. Above the last column Geirrod had hit, cracks spread across the roof. The column bowed, ready to snap. I remembered the first time my mom had made me set up our camping tent by myself. The poles had been a nightmare. Getting them to hold the roof required just the right balance of tension. But making them collapse…that was easy.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Blitzen, you’re going to have to carry me a while longer, unless Sam—”

“Um, no,” said Sam.

“I’m fine,” Blitzen whimpered. “I’m just great. I can almost see again.”

“Okay, everybody,” I said. “We’re going to run toward the giant.”

I didn’t need sign language to read Hearth’s expression: Are you crazy? The swan gave me the same look.

“Just follow my lead,” I said. “It’ll be fun.”

“Please,” Sam begged, “don’t let those words be carved on my tombstone.”

I yelled at the giant, “Hey, Geirrod, you throw like a Folkvanger person!”

“What? BAH!” Geirrod turned to scoop up another coal.

“Straight at him,” I told my friends. “Go!”

As the giant prepared to throw, I told Blitzen, “Right, go right!”

We all ducked behind the nearest pillar. Geirrod’s coal bored straight through it, spewing cinders and sending more cracks up the ceiling.

“Now left,” I told my friends. “Toward him and up another row.”

“What are you—” Sam’s eyes widened with understanding. “Oh, gods, you really are crazy.”

“Got a better idea?”

“Sadly, no.”

We ran across Geirrod’s line of sight.

“Your daughters aren’t drunk!” I shouted. “They’re dead!”

“WHAT? NO!”

Another coal cannonball hurtled toward us, hitting the nearest column with such force, it collapsed into a pile of colossal stone Lifesavers.

The ceiling groaned. The cracks spread. We ran into the central aisle and I yelled, “MISSED AGAIN!”

Geirrod howled in fury. He tossed aside his drinking horn so he could scoop coals with both hands. Fortunately for us, his anger and his double-handed throwing made his aim terrible. We jogged around him, weaving from column to column as he splattered coal everywhere, tipping over braziers, breaking pillars.

I insulted Geirrod’s suit, his haircut, his patent leather shoes. Finally the giant tossed an entire brazier at us, taking out the last support pillar on his side of the room.

“Retreat!” I told Blitzen. “Go! NOW!”

Poor Blitzen huffed and wheezed. We ran for the far wall as Geirrod shouted, “Cowards! I will kill you!”

He easily could have run after us and caught us, but the giant’s drunken mind was still thinking in terms of projectile weapons. He searched around him for more coals as the ceiling above him crumbled.

Too late, he realized what was happening. He looked up and screamed as half the room collapsed on top of him, burying Geirrod under a thousand tons of rock.

The next thing I knew, I was on the floor in a whiteout of dust and debris, trying my best to cough up my lungs.

Slowly the air cleared. A few feet away, Sam sat cross-legged, also hacking and gasping, looking like she’d been rolled in flour.

“Blitzen?” I called. “Hearth?”

I was so worried about them I forgot about my broken leg. I tried to stand and was surprised to find that I could. The leg still throbbed with agony, but it held my weight.

Blitzen came stumbling out of a dust cloud. “Present.” he squeaked. His suit was ruined. His hair and beard had gone prematurely gray with plaster.

I tackled him in a hug. “You,” I said, “are the strongest, most amazing dwarf ever.”

“Okay, kid, okay.” He patted my arm. “Where’s Hearthstone? Hearth!”

In moments like that, we forgot that yelling Hearthstone’s name wasn’t really helpful.

“Here he is,” Sam called, brushing some rubble off the fallen elf. “I think he’s okay.”

“Thank Odin!” Blitz started forward but almost fell.

“Whoa, there.” I propped him against one of the remaining columns. “Just rest for a sec. I’ll be right back.”

I jogged over to Sam and helped her extract Hearthstone from the wreckage.

His hair was smoldering, but otherwise he looked all right. We pulled him to his feet. Immediately he started scolding me in sign language: Stupid? Trying to kill us?

It took me a second to realize he wasn’t holding the swan.

“Wait,” I said. “Where’s Gunilla?”

Behind me, Blitzen yelped. I turned and discovered a hostage situation in progress.

“I’m right here,” Gunilla snarled. She was back in human form, standing behind Blitzen, the point of her blazing spear pressed to his throat. “And the four of you are coming back to Valhalla as my prisoners.”