Valhalla Virus, Nick Harrow [simple ebook reader txt] 📗

as their ritual unraveled. With no focus to contain the hamingja they’d harnessed, the energy rebounded into them with a terrible fury. Their bodies burst like dropped melons, steaming blood spurting from their ruined corpses. The warriors who protected them were caught in the backlash. Bolts of power pierced them, snuffing out their lives in the blink of an eye. They fell to the ground, their eyes reduced to smoking craters, their tongues burned to ash.

“Holy fuck,” Mimi said. “Way to bring down the house.”

Gunnar chuckled and pulled the völva into a bloody embrace. “Go big or go home,” he said with a grin. “Ray, get your ass down here. We’ve got some celebrating to do.”

“This isn’t over,” Arthur shouted. The stump of his arm sizzled and popped, flames crawling along the tattered edges as if stitching him back together. “I won’t let you take this from me, Gunnar.”

The völva tensed on either side of him, and Gunnar felt Ray’s bitter anger burning through their connection. He knew she had her bow drawn, an arrow nocked and ready to fly true into Arthur’s heart.

But he wasn’t sure that would kill the jötunn. Arthur was the only one of the creatures that had survived the relic’s activation. There was more to him than met the eye.

“I’ve got this,” Gunnar murmured to his allies. “Just hang tight.”

He pulled Gungnir from the ground and strode toward his enemy with the weapon’s tip aimed at his heart. “You’ve lost, Arthur,” he said. “Surrender and I’ll give you a clean death.”

The jötunn let loose with a harsh, barking laugh. “I’ve beaten you every step of the way, Gunnar. I took your job. Cost you your woman. And now, finally, I’ll take your life.”

“Come and get it, you arrogant fuck,” Gunnar snarled. “There’s no one left to protect you now. You can’t hide behind Kyrolina’s skirts anymore. It’s just you and me. Let’s see if your balls are as big as you think they are.

Arthur circled the bodyguard. The jötunn wielded no weapon, but the sharp tips of his horns glinted beneath the noonday sun and his remaining fingers ended in jagged nails that looked sharp enough to take out a man’s throat. His eyes burned with a hateful intensity, tracking Gunnar’s every move. He bided his time, waiting for the jarl to make the first move.

“If it wasn’t me who fucked you over, it would’ve been somebody else,” the jötunn taunted. “For such a big guy, you’re a weak man. I wasn’t even trying to get rid of you. Did you know that? I wanted to test you. See how hard you’d fight for that job. But I pull one little prank and you dried up and blew away without raising a hand to defend yourself.”

While ginning up evidence of corporate espionage went way past the level of a prank, Arthur wasn’t entirely wrong, and that made his words sting all the more. Gunnar would have fought the accusations his former peer had raised to Kyrolina, but he’d worried about how it would affect Ray’s career. He’d sacrificed himself for her.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Gunnar said with a shrug. He feinted with his spear and grinned wolfishly when Arthur backpedaled out of range. “Now it’s my turn to see how hard you’ll fight when it’s your ass on the line.”

He unleashed a flurry of quick jabs that drove Arthur back, half stumbling over the bodies that littered the ground. The bodyguard had to admit his foe was quick on his feet. This would be no easy battle.

“Was it worth it?” Arthur followed the question with a spinning kick that knocked Gunnar’s spear to the side. The jötunn didn’t follow up with an attack through the opening he’d created. He smiled and crooked his fingers at Gunnar. “You gave up your entire life for what? A piece of ass that’s not even that hot?”

Those words were eerily close to something the old man had said toward the end of his days. He’d been so pissed at Gunnar for trying to save everyone instead of just looking out for himself. The bodyguard hadn’t known how to explain to his father why he’d left YmirRe. He’d thought about that conversation for years, though, and now he had an answer to that question.

“Yeah,” Gunnar said. “It was worth it. I made my way just fine, and Ray climbed the ladder at YmirRe a lot faster than you did. Who do you think Kyrolina valued more, Art? A piece-of-shit security guard who backstabbed everyone he worked with or the data scientist she entrusted with her company’s secrets?”

Arthur responded just as Gunnar had hoped. Rage made him barrel forward, horns lowered like a rampaging bull. A guttural roar ripped free of the jötunn’s throat, and his feet churned up bloody mud with every step. He was far, far faster than the jarl expected.

Gunnar planted his spear and braced for Arthur’s charge. He clenched his jaw and took in a deep breath. One of them was not walking away from this moment.

Arthur didn’t even try to dodge Gunnar’s spear. His headlong rush carried him straight onto the tip, which plunged through his gut and burst out of his back. He roared at the instant of impact, his steaming spittle spraying the jarl’s face. Momentum carried the charging jötunn down the length of the spear, and he bellowed again, whipping his head left and right, trying to tear Gunnar’s throat out with the tips of his horns.

The slashing attacks flayed Gunnar’s left check and right temple to the bone, unleashing gouts of blood that poured down his neck and over his armor. A cold wind blew against the gashes, chilling the jarl. Less than a second later, though, he felt the itch of wounds knitting closed. The ring was patching him up.

“Fucking die!” Gunnar shouted and wrenched the spear left and right, using the haft still inside Arthur to open the jötunn’s wounds. Black blood gushed over Gunnar’s hands, but still the fucking monster