Page 35 of Last Thrall of Asgard

“I am on something of a quest, yes.” I sat in the chair beside him—empty because its previous owner was passed out beneath it.

Loki had sent me away after all. I had no choice but to do what he’d summoned me for. So what did Thor need?

“May I ask why you are feasting with the dwarves, and not in your own hall in Asgard? I hear Bilskirnir is the largest of the gods’ homes. Perfect for… a celebration, is it?”

“Always!” Thor raised his mug before downing its contents. His fur-lined bracers bore the shape of Mjolnir too. “And Bilskirnir is a formidable hall. I would rattle the walls of any smaller home with my merrymaking. Why, I quake the very earth with my festivities!” He stomped what I realized were bare feet, and the hall seemed to tremble, or maybe that was distant thunder.

“I have no doubt. Yet you are here, not home.”

“Dwarven craftsmanship can withstand me just as well.” Thor shrugged and tore into a piece of bread, speaking while he chewed. “Especially in these deep, fortified caverns!”

That was right, we weren’t simply in some golden hall but deep within the cave systems that made up Nidavellir, almost as deep within the bowels of Yggdrasil as Hel itself.

“After all, my dwarven brothers built my best toys. Sindri still thinks of Mjolnir as half his.” Thor tapped the tabletop, and since there were no dwarves sprawled upon it, I peered beneath.

Thor’s hammer, which could fell mountains and slay monsters, was being cuddled by a dwarven man like it was some childhood doll stuffed with sheep’s wool.

“Now eat, mortal! Drink! Feast and revel if you are to sit with me! Which of my stories do you know?” Despite his voraciouseating and knocking back of more ale, it was truly godly that nothing caught in his hair or beard.

“Many,” I said, filling the plate before me and securing my own mug of ale, “but I would be honored to hear them told by Thor himself.” Perhaps that was what was needed first, what Thor truly wanted.

For someone to listen.

I heard a groan and caught sight of a few dwarves sneaking from the hall, as if I had just given them the diversion they’d been waiting for.

Thor clunked his mug against mine, not noticing the retreat. “Well then! The most harrowing of my adventures began…” he said, and little did I know, but time was about to stand still.

“I cleaved a whetstone in two with a mighty heave of her!” Thor’s pounding on the table roused me from my daze.

My head was swimming from too much ale and a full belly, and I was in dire need of my own nap like so many of the dwarves around us. Maybe notmanyfor much longer, for more and more had escaped while Thor waxed on—and on, andon—about his greatest exploits.

“Straight through to slay the Jotun Hrungnir who had thrown the whetstone at me. Oh, what a fine hammer she is, my Mjolnir.”

She? I would have guessed a hammer to be a he, but who was I to judge?

I had prompted Thor initially, urging him to tell story after story, though he hardly needed encouragement. Eventually, itno longer seemed like he needed someone to listen, so much as enjoyed hearing himself talk.

“Eat up!” Thor smacked my back with his mighty paw, and I felt my stomach lurch from the jolt. “We have more to feast upon and tales to tell!”

Please no.

Oh Loki, yousnake.

“Not all can keep up with you, great Thor,” I said, fit to bursting, and not in the way I’d imagined of this encounter. “While it pleases me to partake, I was sent to aid you.”

“Aidme?” His voice sounded suddenly less friendly, and I blinked through my haze of drunkenness at his narrowed eyes, as he slammed his mug on the table.

Brave and noble, yes, but Thor was also the god who reveled most in bloodshed. “I-I mean… in as much as any celebrating needs a second to be enjoyed! And beyond just feasting! I was sent courtesy of the god who knows you best, after all.”

Thor leveled me with a steady stare, and I imagined Mjolnir being plucked from beneath the table to cave in my head.

Then he cracked a fresh smile instead of my skull.

“Loki sent you? To help me finish my meal, he sent me another one?”

“Another… meal?”

“What else? Whether drinking, feasting, fighting, or fucking, I devour all before me.” Thor stood. Even seated, he had towered over me. Now I felt like a gnat beneath a bear. “Or have you not heard enough of my tales?”

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