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Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on the side one was on for this battle, the attack on Amora missed. The Enchantress dodged to one side, evading a blow from a jotun even as the attack struck where she'd been only an instant previously. And then, warned by the assault on Wander-Odin, Ororo lashed out with her own powers, creating a powerful shield around Amora. An instant later, the Enchantress gasped as the barrier was immediately splashed with a heavy fire of green bolts of energy coming out of nowhere.
To one who knew it, the attack almost appeared like a long-distance killing curse, and Harry shivered at the sight of it. To use spells of that nature, you had to hate, to want to utterly snuff out the life of another person. It wasn't just about killing, the caster had to fervently desire to erase the target from existence, a level of raw hatred and loathing for other's that Harry had never been able to convince himself to feel, even in his darkest of moments. But it was evident by the number of sickly green bolts striking Ororo's shield around Amora that the Shadows could do so easily. And as the rest of their magical assault began to lose power, they put even more strength into the spell targeting Amora.
Ororo's quick thinking protected Amora for just long enough, and in the next second, Kitty phased through the ground behind her, wrapping an arm around the blonde's shoulders. "Take a deep breath!" Quickly the two of them became immaterial, dropping down into and hiding within the massive tree limb below them.
Amora would have panicked at this point if the people that Kitty used her power on like this could do so. This was not the case, and Kitty stuck her head out of the branch watching the action around while keeping Amora hidden within Yggdrasil's magical essence, blinding the Shadow's ability to find her.
It soon became clear that those twin assaults were the last gasp of the Shadows for this battle. Their presence soon withdrew from the area around the Earthers leaving only the remaining jotun. The last jotun was soon dealt with by a strike from Thunderbird, which removed its head.
"Company commanders, team leaders, sound off," Harry snapped out, staring over at where he could see Blink slumping down on her knees, staring at where Wander-Odin had been, Thundra standing over the young girl like a protective mountain.
He watched as Cyclops gently took Blink's arm, guiding her away as he explained to the distraught girl what had happened. "The enemy was waiting for us or reacted almost as soon as we arrived. They were able to attack him somehow, him and Amora both. The attack, whatever it was it… it disintegrated Wander-Odin."
From where he was standing, Harry could only barely make out Blink's response, watching as Cyclops pulled the sobbing Blink into his arms, gently stroking her hair as she began to sob into his should as she cried about how "the old curmudgeon grew on me like a weed, add I didn't even like him most of the time. S-so why am I so sad he's gone?!"
Watching the two of them, Harry decided that he had never been prouder of the man that Cyclops had become than at that moment. The stiff, straightlaced, by the books Scott Summers that Harry had initially met would have been awkwardness personified in a moment like this or he would've left it up to someone else. But, ever since Blink had announced she would like to join the X-Men in America, Cyclops had taken it upon himself to watch over her when he could.
Nearby, Kitty pulled Amora out from the wood of Yggdrasil, the Enchantress shivering slightly at how close she had come to dying just like Wander-Odin. No, it was worse than death, it was as if his entire being had been snuffed out like a candle. But, but if they were using the same spell on both of us, then, then am I an aspect of someone else? Or…
While Kitty and Wanda tried to make certain Amora didn't collapse into an existential crisis, Harry turned his attention to the rest of the expeditionary force. "Get me numbers, people. How many did we lose? How many are hurt?"
"Twelve dead among the ODM," Falcon reported, alighting nearby shaking his head. "You weren't kidding. Those giants were some nasty mothers. Some of our men were literally torn apart."
"Agreed," Sean announced as he and the other ODM company commanders landed behind Sam, although without as much aplomb as their trainer. The most senior of the company commanders had worked throughout the battle with Logan and his daughter, having gotten used working with Wolverine during the assault on the Weapon X facility. "But those deaths were in the first few minutes. Once we got the range open… well, that and our guns—"
"Bolters!" Marcus Greentree, Sean's senior NCO shouted, holding his gun to him like it was a baby. "These guns are bolters, and this one is mine. I will name him George and pet him and oil him and keep him safe and working forever."
"Ookkay… ignoring that…" Harry said, shaking his head while many of the other troopers looked like they were close to doing the same thing. He also noticed that the act seemed to be bringing the men out of whatever limited shock they had all been experiencing. Veterans all, even the jotun held no real fear for these men. Hell, I wonder if their shock is more due to the illusions and such than the jotun in all honesty.
Leaving the ODMs to their commanders and the other units to Steve and his officers, Harry looked around for the bodies, but only two of the bodies had been recovered so far. They now lay among the supply boxes on one of the large magic carpets.
"Accio bodies…" he murmured, hoping to recover the bodies of his other troopers, only to sigh as the spell failed. Those bodies were gone, lost in the void beyond the pocket dimensions of Yggdrasil.
And looking over at the telepaths, Harry saw that while the magical and physical battle had ended, the telepathic side of things had yet to abate. They could not stay here and try to recover their dead, even if it was possible. There would be no recovery for them and he shook his head once more, before gesturing down towards the dimensional bubble of Asgard resolutely. "Let's get moving folks. We want to keep up the momentum here."
"I agree, although we should take this as a warning. We were able to overcome nearly every assault Those Who Watch Above In Shadow sent our way this time, when at full strength, and even then, they still snuck attacks through," Steven warned. "They're a tough foe to pin down, and the more exhausted we get, the harder it'll be for everyone."
"Agreed, but hopefully we'll be able to find allies here of the magical persuasion and teach them how to spot the Shadow's illusions. On the Astral Plane, though…" Harry trailed off with a wince.
"Standing around and talking is not making that strain any easier," Emma drawled, her eyes flashing with annoyance at the continued mental assaults. They are easy to dissipate so diffuse are they, but even so there is a certain power behind them. "You have now spoken of moving, put action to word!"
Chuckling at that, Harry began to organize the trip from Yggdrasil down to the dimension of Asgard. That turned out to be quite a sight for most of the earthers, while actually getting across the dimensional gap into Asgard turned out to be far simpler than Harry had feared. It was much like jumping from a tree down to the ground, only both the tree and ground were inside different soap bubbles, and you had to pass through the intervening distance and there was a bit of sheer nothingness between them. Of course, the ground was also, in this case, a massive pocket dimension, that hung within the boughs of an even larger tree-shaped pocket dimension.
Analogies did often fall short when it came to reality.
The experience was very disconcerting for several of the men, particularly among the Orbital Drop Marines. But all of them made it across safely, covered by spell work and riding on equally large carpets.
"Point me, Odin," Harry said, holding out a vaguely pointed rock he'd picked up from the ground. The spell, however, failed utterly. The stone didn't even twitch, and casting for a few more names of other Asgardians Harry knew amounted to the same thing. "The Shadows must be blocking magical means of finding people. I'd hoped a Point Me was too unknown to this universe to be blocked like that, but I'm not exactly surprised it didn't work. Obfuscating spells are a lot easier than blocking teleportation."
Likewise, Steven and Clea's attempt at scrying proved fruitless, leading Harry to turn to Emma, Jean, and the other telepaths. "What about you all?"
"We can sense several large population centers, but when we try to get a read of what is going on out there via the minds of the individuals involved, the Shadows block us from discovering more," Charles announced calmly, sitting in his wheelchair on the telepaths' flying carpet as if he were simply sitting at home in his mansion. He was as poised and controlled in that moment as he had been during the earlier battle earlier.
Emma agreed, although she new she was far less poised, much to her annoyance. "We can give you a direction, but that's about it. The Shadows are pressing in hard."
"What's the matter, Frosty, can't hack it?" Emma Steed taunted, smirking. But despite her barb towards her fellow telepath the strain on her own face was very visible.
"Chains, my dear girl, if you wish to take over this particular bastion, pretty please be so kind as to do so. But it's just like the attack on Hela, Harry," Emma reported, turning away from her self-proclaimed rival without another thought. "I can feel the attacks coming through the Astral Plane, and we can all get between them and their targets, but we can't sense where the attacks are coming from to launch my own offense. It's quite bloody annoying, to use a British idiom."
"Then a direction will have to do," Harry interjected before the two Emmas could continue to snipe at each other, looking over to Jean.
She obliged by thrusting out a hand. "Luckily for us, two of the larger population centers are both in the same general direction from here."
"Let's get a move on troops," Harry ordered, looking over at the Falcon, the ODMs and the other flyers. "You all, Load up on the magic carpets. They'll get us there faster and without burning through your stamina and fuel."
"That is one line I never expected to hear outside of some alcohol-induced bender," Tony murmured, watching as everyone who didn't have the ability to fly or, like Tony, have an inexhaustible source of power to do so, re-boarded the magic carpets.
With Ororo, Harry, Tony and Johnny leading the way, the magic carpets set out across the landscape. Almost as soon as they moved beyond the mountains that marked the 'border' of Asgard in relation to Yggdrasil, Dani, Amora, and Hela all gaped or cursed in shock. "Wh-what has happened to the land?!" Amora exclaimed.
Their collective shock was understandable. Asgard was a land perennially locked in winter, a land of mountains, dales, plains, and above all, lush evergreen forests. But now the land appeared diseased. The verdant forests had wilted to brown. The grass of the plains and the crops of the scattered farms the Earthers flew over were gray and poisoned. Even the air carried an off-green tinge.
"I… I don't know," Hela said, staring around her in no less shock than her fellow Asgardian. "Whatever malady this is, it wasn't affecting my realm when I was there but an hour before joining you all at the teleportation point."
"Do you think you can get there now to double-check?" Jean asked.
"Nay," Hela shook her head. "I dare not chance to teleport out and back in such a manner. Not with the Shadows knowing we are here."
"Whatever this is, it could be toxic. I recommend that those of us who don't have masks or helmets built into our outfits get some, now," Steven advised, his mouth covered by a bit of his living cape.
Agreeing with a nod, Harry and Ororo went around, conjuring masks for those who needed them. Bruce Banner, Ben Grimm, Piotr, and Paige need them. Similarly, Harry was feeling fine. But Wanda, Kurt, Scott, and the telepaths were already showing signs of illness before they took the provided masks. Luckily it didn't seem to remain in their systems afterwards.
Making certain the masks kept out whatever the posion in the air was and yet still allowed the wearer to breath easily took about thirty minutes. t the same time, Harry made certain Tony, Dani, Carol, Wyatt, and most worryingly, the ODMs' suits kept out whatever the hell was around them.
As the rest of the expeditionary force being prepared for anti-gas warfare, Ororo, her own half-mask in place, spoke up, already deciding she didn't like the thing but willing to put up with the annoyance in the name of safety. "Do you think we should go on ahead, check out the lay of the land?"
Scratching his faded forehead scar thoughtfully at his lover's suggestion, Harry nodded. "Polaris, Storm, Hela, Torch, Cannonball, Banshee, with me. The rest of you, stay here. If you could keep overwatch on us, Jean?"
Jean grumbled about being called out specifically like that but made no move to join them, lying back in her bed of cushions beside Emma (Frost) and Charles on their magic carpet. The redheaded prospective mother intellectually knew that she had no place in fighting the upcoming battle, not with as far along as her pregnancy was. Indeed, she'd already fought an uphill battle even convincing Harry and the others to bring her along at all, only succeeding when Emma joined in on her side, rationalizing that they needed all the powerful telepaths they could get to face the Shadows.
And although she might've prevailed, once more Jean found herself behind so many magical protections that Harry estimated she could walk through a field of nukes and come out the other side smelling like daisies. "Right. Fine. I'll keep watch."
Nodding with relief at the easy agreement, Harry left Steve and Emma in charge before joining Storm to speed ahead of the rest of the earth force.
scene break
With Balder at the center, Sif and the others at hard points here and there, the battle line on top of the ridge held. The Fire Jotun had come up against a defense that they could not break through with sheer strength or numbers. The enemy army didn't recoil, didn't retreat, but the jotuns' roars of battle and rage were soon joined by frustration and dismay.
Behind the front lines, many jotun continued eating any stone they could find, growing larger. Some of them started towering above most of the trees in the forest. Yet the defense continued to hold, and those that did stick out like this were quickly targeted by arrow fire, often blinded as several arrows pierced their eyes. Or they were struck by Thor's lightning from a distance, crashing down among the forest below, sending their magma-like blood exploding everywhere to hiss and steam in the ever-growing cold being caused by the catapults' special munitions and the Thunder God's magic.
As the fighting dragged on, the ground started to rumble and shudder underneath the hill, but the magic in the defensive line meant the wooden palisade stayed inviolate. The ridge in front of the hilltop shifted and moved almost like mud, the touch of Surtur's magic allowing his forces to get up to the battlements easier, but that magic faded as soon as it came to the top of the ridge. And many of those that reached the hilltop were pulled into the melee swirling around Balder, losing much of their scant numbers before they even managed to attack the palisade.
So stout was the defense that for the first time, Surtur had to actually think his way through what to do. As he stared into the distance at the Bright One, Surtur fought down his fury, the magma-hot rage and hate within him, so that he could try and think about the best way to break the enemy which had suddenly become a wall his army could not pass. "Hmm… No… perhaps not through. But around…"
With that, even as more of his forces pressed up the hill, the King of Muspellheim ordered other troops to shift to the sides. Instead of pushing directly against the ridgeline, they were directed to congregate to the right of it. There, they pushed through the forest, staying away from the deceptive incline and instead moving to flank the Asgardians' position.
To do so, the jotun shrank back down to their original sizes so that they could move through the trees without smashing them down and being discovered. It truly was an inspiring idea for the jotun to concoct so that they could sneak forward… as best as twelve feet tall mountains of muscle made of magma and volcanic rock could.
At the same time, Surtur pulled back several hundred of his biggest, toughest fighters . "Go back. Eat. Grow. We will break them one way or the other." Orders given, Surtur turned and placed his hands back on the ground, closing his eyes as he pressed his will forward, trying to shatter the enchantments on the land under the ridge. The lava deep in the ground beneath the battlefield roiled at his command and began to rise, but slowly, too slowly. The touch of the two earth goddesses was holding. But it could not hold forever.
Despite the jotun's attempts to sneak by, Balder and the Jarls had planned for such a tactic. While they had used scouts throughout the forest in front of the ridgeline to warn of the enemy's advance, the sides of the ridge were where they had arrayed the most number of traps. Not many, and few of them were of the painful variety. After all, despite the size of the defensive army, they had been ridiculously busy preparing the main battlefield.
But they didn't need to be. Instead, all the traps were connected to bells, bits of iron, and other things that could make noise, all to draw the defenders' attention to their flanks.
Soon word that not just one or two of the noise traps had been sprung, but that all of them had been activated reached Thor, and he guffawed loudly. Thrusting his hammer into the air and smashing aside another hurled log, he looked over at where Sif was fighting nearby, her own blade flashing out in a series of cuts to slice another log into pieces before it could crash down on top of the battlements. Chunks no larger than a human skull still crashed down here and there, but they were taken on the shields of the defenders or simply dodged completely. "Sif, I go to our right flank to smash these fools who believe that they can get around us. Can you hold here?"
"I will try not to take that as an insult, Boisterous One," Sif shot back, defending a man to one side as he stumbled from blocking a spear longer than he was tall. "And if you are quick, I may be inclined to withhold slaughtering all of our enemies and leaving you without chance for glory!"
"HAHAHAHA!" Thor laughed loudly, fighting the urge to reach over and pull Sif into a kiss for some reason, the completely alien urge both utterly unthinkable and yet strangely captivating. He shook that thought off, leaping down from the battlements to where his chariot waited on the reverse slope and once more the goats bore him into the air. The men of the battle line cheered seeing Thor pass by overhead. While he was no war leader, no tactician or strategist, every fighting man revered him as their true defender, and took heart at seeing him above them.
Within seconds, Thor was above the area where the noise traps had been set up. "For Odin and Valhalla!" Lightning crashed down into the forest, turning trees into so much shrapnel and burning, charred cinders. Visible now, the jotun snarled in fury and fear as they stared up against their most implacable foe. Spears flew, but the goats twisted this way and that, reminding Thor almost of one of the human's fighter jets he'd seen during his time on Earth as they dodged all the incoming projectiles.
When a few came too close, Thor whirled his hammer, creating a buttress of air around his chariot. So protected, Thor continued his attack, lashing down at the jotun with more lightning. This scattered the jotun attempting to turn the flank of the battle line, killing many and sending the others into momentary retreat.
A moment later, having created a bit of a runway through the forest, Thor ordered his chariot down into their midst. With a final flick of the reins, Thor sent the chariot back up into the air, still protected by the bubble of furious gale of wind. As he stood there taking in the sight before him, Thor cheerfully grinned at the surviving giants. "Well?"
"GRAAA!" ThUsing their body's inherent magic, the jotun each grew several feet in seconds and then bellowed before charging.
Thor's laughter boomed out once more as he charged forward, his hammer flicking this way and that, ending or crippling a jotun's life with every strike. "Yes! Come to me, jotun, come to your doom!"
The overall battle became a tense, bloody stalemate. The boulders from the catapults continued to land, weakening the jotun, costing them dearly in numbers and energy by the time they reached the barricade at the top of the ridge. Said barricade had been hammered here and there, but it hadn't broken, and with the added benefit of height and their better weapons and organization, the warriors, human and Asgardians together, held the line even as the humans slowly began to weaken due to the poison in the air slowly eating away at their strength.
More jotun continued to pile onto Balder right where he fought in front of the battlements, but he danced among them easily, sword flicking, shield taking shifting expertly to redirect blow after blow. A beacon of hope, the Bright One drew the jotun to him despite Surtur's attempts to order his pawns not to attack him.
And behind him, the defenders took full advantage of this. Sif, Fandral, Hogun, Tyr and the other commanders made certain the karls and Asgardian archers kept a steady rate of fire while holding the top of the wall against the jotun. By this point, most of the jotun were large enough to reach up to the defenders without climbing, but with the numbers advantage the Asgardians managed to hold at the top of the wall despite that.
As the direct assault was stymied, so too was the attempt to flank the human and Asgardian defenders held in place around Thor. The Thunder God's taunting shouts and bellows of laughter as he dealt with the failed sneak attack galvanized the warriors from one end of the battle line to the other, heard despite the sounds of battle drowning out every other sound.
Slicing a towering jotun's leg out from under it, Balder stabbed the creature in the side as it fell to its knees, punching through armor and flesh alike. Pulling his blade out, Balder dodged around a strike from another jotun's club. Slaying that enemy, Balder was beginning to feel an inkling of hope that they could actually win this battle, all his earlier concerns pushed away.
However, those concerns came roaring back everal minutes later as he noticed that the catapults had stopped firing. More and more of the jotun were no making it through the forest to try and scale the ridge. There weren't enough to endanger the defensive line yet, but there were many more of them now and their numbers, as always, seemed to continue to grow.
Across the battlefield, Surtur felt the change as well; the lack of new cold spells striking his army making him smile a wicked grin. Instantly he began to push his will out into the ground even more firmly, and at that touch, steam and heat began to rise from the earth. The Jotun King's magic also collided with Thor's, breaking its impact on the battlefield creating fog throughout the forest.
Balder and Surtur weren't the only two who noticed the sudden lack of catapult fire. Unfortunately, Balder couldn't pull back, tied down as he was before the wall. Likewise, Tyr, Hogun, even Sif soon found themselves in the thick of things thanks to the heightened pressure on the line thanks to the increase in jotun reaching the wall.
But one of the human jarls also understood and was in a position to try and discover what was going on. The man raced over to the center-most portion of the line, where Balder had been stationed. There, he found all of the runners that had been assigned to Balder and bellowed them into motion. "Run back to the catapults and report back! We need to know why they have stopped firing!"
At that, the runners raced off, each of them taking a slightly different route through the heavy forest as they'd been trained to. But despite this precaution, none of those young men could have been prepared for what they discovered as they raced down the hill and past the tree line.
From out of the forest around the rear of the battlefield, dark elves moved. Silent and deadly, the dark elves were clad in dark green and dark blue armor that somehow blended into the forest like magic. They moved through trees and underbrush alike as if they were wraiths, readying themselves to attack the Asgardians from behind.
Other dark elves had already struck the catapults and their guards where they had rested in a small dell more than a mile behind the ridge. The catapults were now destroyed, their operators dead. Now, when the runners entered the forest, the dark elves acted quickly, moving behind them, their weapons ready to stab.
Two of the runners died instantly, their throats slit. Two more were speared from behind. Another was garroted, having paused at the sounds of the former gasping for air through the blood drowning their lungs pulled behind a tree and choked to death.
One turned on a whim, miraculously dodging a spear strike meant for his back, and raced back the way he'd come shrieking in horror. "Dark elves, Dark elves!"
An arrow took him in the back of the neck, sending him sprawling forward, his eyes dulling as his head hit the ground.
With the element of surprise lost, hundreds of dark elves came up out of the forest all at once. Their arrows flashed through the air before they retreated back into the woods. The men and women of the strategic reserve, a force of over three thousand, howled in rage as they came under this surprise attack. Thankfully, warned by the runner, their losses were minimal and instead of being frozen in shock they turned and charged after their harassers.
There, the dark elves waited. Each dark elf was armed with a small buckler shield and long, slightly thin swords adorned with basket hilts to protect their hands. As the humans charged forward, the elves moved as one, dancing around their strikes, their swords flicking out like serpents' tongues.
Few human warriors could respond quickly enough to survive the speed of an elf, and time and again dark elven blades sank into unarmored portions of human bodies, be it thigh, lower leg, shoulder, neck, or face. Wherever an opening could be found, the elves swords sought them out. Thankfully, the enchantments cast upon the armor of the defenders was proof against any other blows that struck, or else the battle may well have ended then; the restriction of only being able to target weak points keeping the battle from turning into a rout. Yet still, men began to fall while more dark elves moved out of the woods, the denizens of Svartálfheim slowly surrounding the reserve, cutting it off from the main battle line.
The Jarls were quickly informed of what was happening and on their orders, Sif and Hogun were pulled out of the battle line and sent to combat the dark elves with a heavy force of archers, despite the weakening effect this had on the defenders on the ridge. None complained. All of them knew that if this force of dark elves wasn't beaten off quickly enough, the battle would be lost as they'd be crushed between the unrelenting jotun and these new enemies.
But Sif and Hogun quickly found that the dark elves had indeed come out in force. Their men smashed into the swirling melee under the trees and found for every five people they ran across, three were dark elves. Even the fire from the Asgardian archers was quickly suppressed, forcing them to lay their bows aside and close.
"Damn it, where is Skadi!?" Sif shouted as her sword sliced a dark elf's head from his shoulders. She twisted, and a severed leg flew through the air before her shield crashed into the face of another dark elf. It appeared some things hadn't changed during the end of the world; if you could hit the bastards, they were still quite fragile. But dark elves were so fast and accurate that human warriors were not able to fight them on an even footing. "It was her job, and that of the Valkyries assigned to her, to keep this sort of ambush from happening.
"So sorry…" a voice hissed from nearby, On instinct, Sif whipped around just in time to block a slash that would have taken her in the side of her neck. Instead, her sword shrieked as it skittered along that of the Dark Elf King, Malekith. "But I prefer to choose my own dance partners."
Hogun bellowed and lashed out with a lightning-fast strike from his mace, but Malekith flowed around it, a single spell lashing out as he did so. Green energy blinded the mace-wielder as Sif's sword was deflected. A instant later she felt the king's blade slicing through her hair as she ducked under a return stroke. Magic or blade, Malekith was a well-known a master of both, and Sif knew she was overmatched.
Then Tyr was there, his own sword dancing with Malekith's as he pressed the dark elf back. The blinding spell didn't hold on Hogun for long thankfully, his sight returning as he smashed several dark elves to pulp before barreling in to strike at Malekith once more. The three Asgardians fought on together, although Sif still wondered where her Skadi had gone.
"Your huntress was easily caught oh Fairest of the Fair," Malekith taunted as the battle went on, "Ah, and the things I have planned for her… and you as well, my dear. Oh yes, I have often wanted to break you to the saddle…"
That tore it. With a wordless shriek, Sif attacked furiously, disdaining her defense for complete offense. Tyr attempted to rein his raging friend in, but Malekith simply laughed, adding fuel to the fire. The elven king retreated from Sif's wrath, pulling the trio further away from the men they had been commanding.
Once more it fell to the human Jarls to try and make sense of the chaos of battle. It was quickly apparent that the skirmish in the woods was turning against them.
Worse, the ground of the hill itself was rumbling and shaking now, and more jotun were coming against the palisade now. Worse, they weren't really targeting the men on the wall. Rather, they targeted the wood of the wall itself, smashing at it or melting it. The protective spells woven into the fabric of the wall were slowly fading. Before their eyes, the wall was starting to take damage where it hadn't been before.
The Asgardian army was now caught in a vice, assaulted on three sides, with the only bright spot being that Thor held the right flank almost entirely alone. The left flank also held solid for now, but who knew how long that would last? All it would take for it to fall would be if the jotun remembered there were two flanks they could attack or for the dark elves to prove they had more reserves.
"Damn it!" One of the Jarls growled angrily. His name was Fangir Snowglare, and he and several of his fellows had pulled away from the battle on the ridge to try and decide what to do. "Let's face it, with the dark elves crawling up our asses, it might just be time to die standing, boys."
"Nay." One of the other jarls demurred, pointing to the right flank, where Thor's bellowing could still be heard. "We retreat that way. Pull back in segments, and head down the hill in that direction. Send word to Lord Thor, have him smash a road through the forest for us so that we can retreat all the quicker."
"We will come under heavy assault from either side. More and more jotun are coming at us even as the elves close in," one of the other Jarls warned.
As if to prove his words, there came a furious bellow, so loud that it silenced all the war cries across the entire sprawling battlefield. Across the mass of the enemy army, two jotun appeared through the haze, so large they could've been hills given life. The rest of their brethren made way for them, and the monsters, so huge they could eat a normal man without even chewing, lumbered forward.
But before either gigantic jotun could reach the ridge, which they could've simply reached directly across, there was a flash from the right flank. A second later a "BOOOOM!" tore through the air as Thor's hammer smashed into the chest of one of the giants, punching straight through the first into the other and hurling it off its feet as well.
"HAHAhaha! The bigger you are, the better a target, fools!" Thor's bellow resounded, equal in volume to the earlier roar from the giants.
Every man on the line raised their weapons and roared, "THOOOORRR!" Such was the response the defender of the common men engendered.
Even as his people applauded, Thor caught Mjollnir out of the air on its return, frowning. The hammer looked almost as if it were starting to melt. But that was impossible… wasn't it? Shaking his head at that and the odd thought that his hammer should've been stone instead of metal, Thor charged into the next group of jotun.
Back with the jarls, they all nodded as one with Fangir agreeing with his fellow's earlier words verbally. "Lord Thor will hold, as will Lord Balder. If Lady Sif and the other gods pulled off the wall continue to hold the dark elves, we can pull our warriors out before we're fully enveloped. Any losses we take in the doing will be much less than if we were forced to fight where we stand."
With a plan made the Jarls retreated to their positions. Soon, horns cut through the tumult of battle, and the Jarl commanding the leftmost position pulled away, reinforcing his next most peer with half his men while sending most of the Asgardians under his command to fight with Tyr and the others against the dark elves.
Not that the elves were having it all their own way in the woods, because Malekith's words to Sif were indeed very false. Skadi was there, and the Valkyries with her. While the dark elves had bypassed them before this, Freya had sensed the catapults' destruction and sent Skadi a message. The Huntress had previously been skirting the battlefield, planning to find and attack Surtur in a surprise assault. At Freya's command, she abandoned her scheme and rushed to her people's aid.
Now they came in from every angle, the Valkyries shooting from above and Skadi and a few human hunters attacking from wherever they could. The tide of battle slowly shifted as the skirmish behind the ridge became as bloody and drawn out as the combat on the ridge.
Yet still, it continued to be the jotun who were the main threat. The rumbling of the ground throughout the battlefield was now almost constant. Geysers of steam shot from the earth or streams of lava appeared from cracks in the ridge and elsewhere as more jotun, all of them now four stories tall or more, reached the line.
More men began pulling back, retreating towards Thor's present position. Those already wounded or too weakened fell where they stood and were left behind.
Word reached the Thunderer quickly of what was needed of him and between strikes against jotun still foolishly attempting to surround him, he laid down a furious barrage of lightning and wind strikes, smashing trees to pieces and clearing a road several miles long for the retreating warriors and Asgardians to race along. This miracle came at a cost, however. In his mighty grip, Mjollnir began to emit strange sounds, cracks appearing in its metal.
Thanks to the presence of the jarls, the retreat was a controlled process even as more and more men died as they fled, wounds and poison building up in the men faster than ever. The overall fighting against the dark elves was proving more deadly to the human warriors than the battle at the ridge had been up to this point, as they lacked the speed necessary to keep up with the denizens of Svartalfheim. he dark elves were also far more experienced than even the oldest warrior spirit.
Thankfully, while Hogun, Sif, and Tyr were being taunted and led on a merry chase by Malekith, other Asgardians stepped up and took a heavy toll on the dark elves alongside the Valkyries, their blades and arrows flashing through the foliage. Skadi in particular became a horror, hunting through the woods, turning the dark elves tactics against them.
Soon, half of the defenders from on top of the ridge had pulled away, and Balder's position was no longer tenable. One of the jarls even shouted down at him to retreat along the ridge with him and his men.
Agreeing, Boulder protected the men on the ridge further still, allowing them to better disengage without having to split their focus entirely between retreat and staying alive. However, with their absence, more and more jotun gained access to the ridge behind the retreating warriors and toward their former left flank. Soon, the retreat was so threatened from that side that it was in danger of turning into a rout.
Realizing this, more of the Asgardians fighting against the dark elves were forced to redirect their efforts than were able to stay and continue to slaughter the malevolent opportunists. Almost able to feel the pressure lightening on them, the dark elves started to strike at the human warriors who made up the majority of the Einherjar with renewed cruelty.
"Blast it Thor, use your lightning, not just your hammer! Lay down a storm upon the Jotun!" Balder ordered, bellowing to be heard over the tumult of battle. Men were falling as more jotun gained the ridge and pushed into the army on an even footing, Asgardian and human both. If this continued, the entire army would be rolled up from that flank even as they tried to disengage from the other two attacks.
"Right!" Thor shouted, backing away from the battle line, letting several dozen humans charge forward to take his place. He raised his hammer to the clouds above. The cold front he'd brought down earlier to battle Surtur's influence had been broken by this point, but Thor's power over the weather was such that even without any prep time, he could summon up a storm of lightning bolts at need.
Lightning rained down in sheets from of the sky at Thor's command, crashing down into the jotun on the hill. The jotun who were struck died instantly or were flung about, while the remnants of the battlements were shattered or set ablaze. This new bit of chaos allowed the humans and the few remaining Asgardians facing the jotun there to break contact for the most part. Men still died, most slowly succumbing to wounds that would not normally have bothered them, the miasma of Jörmungandr working on their battered bodies.
But the rest were able to escape down the hill before the main force of jotun could attempt to follow through with their previous flanking assault where Thor had previously been fighting. With barely any room to breathe, they began to march down the road Thor had created, retreating from the battlefield.
As the men formed up into ragtag teams, one of the jarls suddenly bellowed, waving a single-bladed axe with a berserker-like fury, forcing the men approaching him into a shield wall—or rather a shield wedge—holding there as Balder continued his dance behind them to one side. "May Hugin and Mugin take yer eyes, yeh pox-cursed cowards, get in line! Shields up! On my word, we will spread, and then close!"
Balder made to speak, but the human Jarl, Egnar Fainaxe, glared back at the Bright One, thrusting his axe out towards where the rest of the army was still under attack from the dark elves. With Thor's lightning cutting off access from the ridge and somewhat to both sides, the jotun were now too slow and out of position to catch up with most of the army. Surtur's power still caused the ground to quake though, steam and magma boiling out of it in places. It truly looked like a scene from the end times.
This all still left the forerunners who had come too close to the retreating mass of troops before Thor's lightning struck and some of the quicker jotun who'd been trying to get around the ridge earlier. "Go! We can at least hold them off a few moments, my Lord, get the rest of our people out!"
Balder hesitated momentarily before nodding solemnly. He raised his sword in a salute even as he raced past the makeshift shield line. "Your sacrifice will be remembered, Egnar."
The human smiled wryly, shaking his head slightly. "If any of us survive, my Lord," he whispered, "if any of us survive."
Then the jotun were on him, and his bellowed order broke up the shield wall. Against jotun, such a formation would've been next to useless. Instead, the humans dodged all around, only two of them proving too slow as the jotun seemingly tried to charge through the original position. Confused at the lack of impact, the jotun halted their attack, allowing the men to press in from all sides. Not one of these brave warriors survived, but they stayed true to Egnar's word and held the first of the jotun pursuing the retreating forces in place for a few moments.
Unfortunately, their sacrifice didn't matter. The dark elves increased their pressure on the army's rear, now making a concerted effort to get around the Asgardians holding them in palce. With them preoccupied, the eight jotun Surtur had pulled from his army earlier now came upon the humans.
And they were huge. Each stood larger than the hill that the pitched battle had been happening on, arising out of the distance like living towers of molten rock and stone. They stomped towards the fleeing army, which could not retreat fast enough from their advance.
Even under normal conditions, a human army would never have been able to get away from jotun that huge, such was the length of their strides. Now, with the very ground cracking and shifting under them, spikes of earth jutting into the air at random, and miniature volcanoes erupting everywhere around the army including occasionally within their retreating ranks? There was no chance of escape.
Another toll of the bell sounded as Surtur had finally broke through the earth goddesses' powers that had been defending the area from his influence.
Well behind his army, Surtur smirked slightly to himself, clenching and unclenching his massive hands as he imagined the slaughter to come. I will gorge on Asgardian flesh and long shall be the feast!
However, a moment later, he frowned as he saw one of his overly large jotun collapsing. Glaring, Surtur saw that had been cleaved in two by a strike from Balder, a wave of power with all the radiance of the sun flashing out from the Asgardian prince's position. Clearly, even though the battle was lost to them, the fight had yet to leave some of the defenders.
Surtur watched on as yet another massive jotun fell, only to scowl as he felt an abrupt disturbance in the earth. It was as if some new entity was trying to calm it down. Turning his attention away from the physical battle, Surtur knelt down, pressing his hands back into the dirt beneath his feet. As he did, he was utterly shocked to find his first impression had been correct; another mind thrummed within the earth below, fighting him, pushing away his influence.
The remaining massive giant jotun continued their march, reaching down with hands three times the size of a man to grab up scores of warriors each. Asgardian and human alike were scooped up and tossed into the gaping maws of the monsters. Another died to Balder during this, and a fourth to Thor while a fifth lost its leg below the knee to a strike from Tyr, who, though unable to project his power very well, was able to cut through the stone-like skin of the massive giant, such was his strength.
As his hammer returned to him once more, Thor twisted around, bringing it up to slam into another jotun's face right as it had been about to finish off the warrior standing next to him. But as he struck, Mjollnir, the second greatest weapon ever crafted by dvergar skill and magic, Mjollnir, the symbol of Thor's place as a defender of man and god, shattered.
The jotun was hurled off of its feet, but the steel of the hammer's head exploded in every direction, including back into Thor. The pieces moved so fast and with so much of the Thunderer's own magic bound up into them that the bits of shrapnel were able to mark Thor's face and upper arms, slicing through his clothing here and there, and even tore through the chain mail armor he wore. One even nearly took out his eye, though Thor might not have noticed such was his shocked dismay at the impossibility that had just happened. "What… what?"
But Thor had no time to question what had happened to his hammer, as a giant barreled into him, the much larger being knocking the Asgardian off of his feet momentarily so stunned was Thor at the destruction of his hammer. The impact knocked Thor from his stupor, and he reached up even as they fell, grappling the giant. He ignored the heat of the jotun's body to grasp around its face and with a roar, twisted its neck sharply to the right. There was a sickening crack, and the giant fell dead.
Grunting, Thor lifted the giant corpse above his head and hurled it away, smashing down several other jotun. "Mjollnir or no, I am still Thor!" He bellowed, charging forward once more.
Such were the vagaries of the battlefield that Thor soon found himself beside Balder, who looked at his brother's empty hands in shock. He couldn't spend the time to question why Thor was without his hammer, however, as they were still being pressed hard on all sides. The humans had reformed somewhat, but there were still two overly large giants attacking them, and now, the main enemy forces were close to reaching them once more, thanks to the attacks of their larger brethren and the dark elves slowing their escape. The only thing Balder could internally remark upon as being good luck up to this point was that Surtur and his dratted spear had yet to show themselves.
But alas for Balder, someone else did, coming out of the steam from some underground vent to appear beside him on his left just as he cut down another dark elf and turned his attention to one of the two remaining hill-sized jotun.
"Oh, good show, Bright One, truly. It is almost admirable how you Asgardians never know when to stop fighting. Why, it almost makes you like my people, doesn't it?" Malekith taunted, and Balder turned, barely blocking a thrust from the dark elven king's spear. His block brought the spear to one side, and Malekith whirled, bringing the butt of the shaft around into Balder's leg.
His shield blocked that, but Malekith leaped upward before Balder could right himself, and a kick caught the Asgardian prince in the face. It didn't hurt much, but it did momentarily block Balder's view as Malekith twirled, bringing his spear down onto the outside of his shield arm.
Balder was wearing armor on his forearm, and that armor, like the rest of him, had been enchanted by the Blessing of Freya. No stone, steel, alloy, or magic could harm him without fully overpowering that Blessing, something that Malekith could never have hoped to do. Armed with a seemingly magical spear of some kind, Surtur had succeeded in drawing the Bright One's blood, but that was a special case.
Alas, so too was this. For there was one plant whose spirit had not agreed to refrain from harming Balder when his mother had cast her Blessing: Mistletoe. And it just so happened, that the spear that Malekith currently wielded was tipped with that very plant, carved, polished, and worked to appear as dark as any steel.
As if passing through paper, the mistletoe-tipped spear sliced cleanly through Balder's vambrace, cutting a long, deep line down his arm.
Balder instantly lost all feeling in his hand, and his circular shield dropped from his grip. Rather than step back in appalled shock or horror at his being wounded so, Balder simply brought his sword around, forcing Malekith back. A series of thrusts and stabs were exchanged, and the dark elven king was now pushed on the back foot for a moment, Balder's greater strength and skill negating his own greater speed.
Yet even so, several times his mistletoe-tipped spear scored slight scratches, slicing into Balder's lamellar armor like it was made of paper. And on Balder's arm, the skin around the wound was starting to turn green and blue with the poison of the mistletoe.
Seeing his brother in such dire straits, Thor hurled his opponent, a regular-sized jotun, into several dark elves who had been encircling a nearby group of humans. He then turned and bellowed, charging towards Malekith. "Malekith, I will break you over my knee, you bastard!"
"Ahh, and here comes the dullard, no hammer this time, though. But tell me, Foolish Thor, what is all your strength worth if you can never hit what you aim at?" Malekith taunted. With a gesture, he created two simulacrums while disappearing from his opponents' senses for a moment as the two brothers fought his constructs.
While the two brothers were bamboozled, Malekith stood back for a moment, smirking silently as he enjoyed how the battle was going.
One last massive jotun remained, smashing into and through the Asgardian forces, scattering human and godling alike. Yet still, the warriors would not break. Still they fought on, even as more jotun caught up with them, even as his dark elves started to envelop them for the final time.
Sneering, Malekith tripped Thor, sending him tumbling into a nearby steam vent. His hand flashed out, a gleaming gold chain slipping around Thor's head down to his neck as as the blonde Asgardian turned, roaring. Thor didn't even seem to notice his new accessory as he hurled himself after Malekith.
"You never learn do you Fool?" Malekith taunted, laughing wildly as he dodged around Thor's charge once more. "Your power and strength are worthless against those you cannot hit!"
When Balder moved to attack in turn, Malekith pivoted, batting aside the weakening Bright One's strike, returning it with his mistletoe tipped spear which carved through the god's armor once more. This time he left behind a thin cut across Balder's stomach and a second later Malekith dodged another punch from Thor with almost laughable ease, tossing up another illusion spell in front of him, causing him to cry and thrash out, lashing out to every side.
As Thor tried to lunge at Malekith, hands outstretched, the dark elven king danced out of the way and Thor's hand smacked Balder in the shoulder. Unlike the mistletoe the blow did no harm, but the impact still sent him stumbling. "Ball the gods, Thor regain control of yourself!"
"He can't hear you," Malekith guffawed, gesturing to the chain he'd looped around Thor's throat. "While I can't kill Thor, unlike you he doesn't have any exploitable weaknesses, I was able to enchant that pretty bauble long ago. His ears are being filled with the roar of battle and his eyes fooled by my magics to see nothing but an enemy all around. And Thor is not nearly bright enough to see through such illusions."
This was proven a moment later as Malekith once more created an illusion. To Thor, it was as if the foe appeared out of the battlefield to one side before darting away, taunting the Thunderer. In response, Thor's rage spiked and he lashed out with a mighty blow. The illusion, indifferent to the effort, darted away and Thor smashed into several jotun and human warriors as he raced away from Balder.
"You see?" The dark elf king sneered, raising his spear and pointing its tip towards Balder. "Now, where were we oh Bright One?"
Balder stumbled back, grim-faced, before he was forced to duck under the swipe of a nearby jotun. The blow still caught him on the side of his helmet, tearing it away from his head.
Twirling around the jotun, Balder's sword cut deep into the monster's thigh. Ducking under another blow from a new dark elf, he punched out, shattering bone and depositing the dark elf on the ground, unmoving. As that foe fell, Balder once more lunged blade to spear with Malekith, only to stumble as another jotun Thor had knocked aside a moment ago grabbed at his leg. Balder fell, and Malekith smashed his sword out of his hand with a back sweep of his spear.
"You are good," Malekith said with a laugh. "But not good enough to overcome your sole weakness. Die Bright One, and know that your death will be the final toll signaling Ragnarök."
And then, there was a series of sharp explosions.
Several unseen… somethings… crashed into the last giant jotun, exploding upon impact and sending bits of giant flesh and magma-like blood everywhere. Several men died from being struck by the lava-like blood, but everyone, elf, jotun, and beleaguered man and god alike, froze in utter shock, wondering what had happened as they stared at the collapsing giant.
A second later, more explosions erupted throughout the jotun horde, halting their attempts to catch the Asgardian army. A round shield of some kind came spinning through the air, crashing into Malekith's armored back, sending him flying off of the downed but not yet dead Balder.
From seemingly nowhere, music began to blast over the battlefield aid as unlooked-for arrived with a roar of, "Then the Winged Hussars arrived!"
scene break
As the battle on the ridge truly began to shift against the Asgardians, Jean was contacting Harry mind to mind. "Harry, you're coming to where you should see one of the population centers. It's by far the smaller of the two, but Emma, Charles and I think that the people there might be under some kind of mental domination."
"Roger," Harry intoned, holding up his hand to signal that the Flyers should all slow down. He then switched to his communication gear so the others could hear Jean's words without her having to strain herself to create a telepathic communication on top of everything else. "What kind of mental domination is it, can you tell?"
"The Shadows are still hammering into us here, but Charles sensed some kind of telepathic attack that way," Jean supplied, grateful that Harry had reminded her they had the regular radio-type communications.
As she spoke, Harry could definitely hear the strain in her voice far more and grimaced. In fact, the trio of more powerful telepaths were under an immense strain. Much more so than Emma and Charles had faced in Genosha during the campaign against Sinister after Jean's clone sprang her trap. Fighting her had been, well, fighting another person. From their description, however, Harry likened fighting the Shadows to fighting back someone else's Fiendfyre spell. Only it's spellcaster kept on feeding it power, and you were in the center of the Fiendfyre.
Charles joined the discussion, giving a bit more detail, his own voice steady and firm, showing less strain than Jean's. "I could barely follow its trail before my probe was disrupted, and I couldn't figure out what it was before it was gone. I would estimate however it was a brute-force type of magical assault, a wide angle kind of attack."
"if the Shadows do what they did to us when we arrived, we might also run into further magical assault," Ororo warned.
Harry nodded, reflecting that long-range telepathic combat like this was intrinsically weird. "Thanks for the heads up, you two. We'll be ready." With that, he ordered the flyers to spread out. Ororo moved to fly slightly higher than the others while Harry and Hela spread out and kept low, almost directly above the tree line. This way the two of them could hopefully see and intercept any magical-type attack before it got to Polaris, Cannonball, Banshee or the Human Torch, who spread out in a diamond format between them.
It was well they had because a few moments later, just as Harry spotted what looked like a large military camp, complete with a small inner palisade, the flyers came under assault. Arrows fired from a far greater distance than any human could've ever attempted were joined by a few spells cast from withing the inner palisade, and spikes of rock and dirt rose up from below flash towards the Earther suddenly.
"Spread out and defend yourselves, but don't retaliate just yet!" Harry stated calmly into the communicator device built into his helmet. "We don't know what kind of illusions or mental control the Shadows are exerting here, and we can't afford to make enemies of the Asgardians."
Ororo and the other flyers all responded in the affirmative, although Banshee grumbled that "A bit o' me personal song would do the locals a wee bit of good." One of the attacks had come close to nipping him despite his wild dodging, and that kind of thing was enough to put anyone in a bad mood.
As they spread out, Harry issued specific orders. "Polaris, be ready to pull weapons out of hands but remain in the air. Cannonball, be ready to dive into that palisade area on my signal, I might need you to snipe someone for me. Just grab them and carry them up to us. Beyond that, you and Torch should keep an eye on the forest around the camp for any more surprises. Ororo, Hela, with me."
"Calling that a forest at this point is just wrong, Guardian," Johnny muttered, looking a little sick as their erstwhile formation shifted. I've heard of the effects of pollution, but this is like that multiplied by a thousand… and then sped up!
The flyers continued forward with Harry at one point using a Protego when Polaris was too busy dodging a volley of arrows to notice she was going to clip the top of a tree. Hela and Ororo also used magic to deal with several of the incoming attacks, while Cannonball and Johnny flew around wildly above and head of the magic users, making themselves targets almost, which made it easier for them to deal with the incoming attacks.
After another five minutes of wild evasions, they came close enough to make out more details about the camp.
The encampment appeared to consist outer camp, which consisted of rows of tents and log houses, and the central area protected by the inner palisade. Here and there, dwarves, or rather dvergar, along with a few dozen short, long-limbed elves could be seen, although there were far more humans and Asgardians present. And among the humans and Asgardians there was a trend visible even as they closed: There weren't many menfolk.