Chapter Text
They lost three ships the first week, and the rocky outcrops which sheltered the bay were washed red with blood. Of those left on the ships at the time of their sinking, there were no survivors.
Thor was not allowed on the decks of these ships as the risk was just too great, but he could still watch in sick horror from the palace windows as some deep magic summoned waves to crash against each ship, sails tearing and masts cracking under unnatural maelstroms. It took time: hours, even days. The sailors on the ships fought back of course, hurling spears and firing arrows into the water, tumbling boulders and metal weights off the sides of the ship to try and crush an unwitting jotun beneath, but the Mere remained relentless. Eventually, inevitably, the onslaught was too much and the ships crack under the strain, sinking into the fathoms below.
It was a slow sort of battle, all the more horrible for its inevitability.
Yet there were a limited number of tactics available to Asgard, and they always seemed to find themselves at a disadvantage. Afterall, it was Asgard that needed the seas, on not the sea that needed Asgard. The Mere would be satisfied to ravage the land, make it unfit for habitation, and abandon it to death. Asgard needed to foray into these watery territories to feed her people and deliver her goods to the rest of the continents. All her wealth and glory were founded on these principles.
To abandon the sea would be to watch Asgard slowly wither and die. So when the Mere became possessive and begrudged Asgard her presence, Asgard needed to fight.
Arrows afforded some success when fired at point blank range from the deck of a ship. If four or five may strike a Jotun in vital centers, they would bleed out. If one was very skilled and could send an arrow right through a Jotun’s eye, it would take only one, but the enemy must be close to the surface.
The terrible nature of the enemy however is that they did not need to surface to do their damage. They could wreak havoc with their magics from below, with their claws and their stones against the hulls of the ships. They were a wasting sort of enemy, a patient and methodical one.
Ship by ship they would pick the navy apart. They had done it before and they would do it again. They would drive Asgard into retreat, and follow her ships to shore, inch by inch until they were all but grounded, trapped, condemned to flounder and perish.
Asgard’s allies could only support her for so long, and there would be famine without the sea. There would be poverty and starvation.
Asgard only saw victory in the past due to sheer numbers. Though their casualties far outweighed those of the Mere, the fact that Jotunheim was home to only four or five hundred mere meant that one hundred dead Jotuns was equivalent to ten or twelve thousand dead Asgardians. It was a near thing, Asgard short on ships and little able to build new ones quickly, but in the end the casualties had been to great for Laufey to weather, and he had unhappily agreed to a peace.
How he had managed to rebuild his numbers so quickly to justify another prolonged battle was uncertain, but Loki was implication enough.
A terrible place indeed, the Kingdom beneath the Sea. Dark and cruel.
As a third ship cracked in half, unable to free itself from Laufey’s onslaught, Thor shuddered. The sailors still on her decks climbed the masts to seek a few more moments of life before they too were swallowed by the waves and torn apart by black teeth and twisting red limbs below.
In his arms Gudrun fussed and Thor held her firmly against his chest.
He hoped for Loki that the sacrifice was worth it.
---
For all the death and destruction, there was a plan. Asgard was not yet without hope for a swift victory.
A week and three days into the battle and five ships were lost, with them nearly four hundred men. Few, compared to the thousands who died in the battles of yore, but no paltry number. The spouses and children of the dead still wept in anguish in Asgard’s streets, and Thor still felt responsibility for each of their passing.
So it is with a savage sort of hope that he inspected the cargo of the seven ships that would be deployed in the morning to circle the bay, while Laufey’s mages would gather their strength and turn their collective attention to a new warship.
“While they could switch their attention to a new threat, to do so would be uncharacteristic.” Odin muttered gruffly as Thor stood beside him, silently inspecting the tar-blackened barrels stacked on their sides in the storage hold. The hatches which would be raised were now closed tight, waiting for the morrow.
“Laufey’s style of combat is to focus is collective force on a single objective, destroying it absolutely before moving on to the next. His troops have this luxury, with our warriors being largely unable to reach them below the surface of the waves.”
The king’s one eyed stare picked up and bored into his son with a mixture of excitement and anger and dread which perhaps only Thor, his brother, and his mother were able to read. This would be an untested manouver, but it had great potential.
It could work.
This ship and its fellows creaked as they rocks in the shallows, just barely enough water in this part of the bay to keep them afloat in low tide. they were tucked safely back away from Laufey’s attentions, but not so far back as to seem over-protected. It was a careful ploy. A gamble.
“By the time the ships are in position his soldiers will perhaps be just beginning to turn their attention towards them, and even if they begin to attack one of these ships afresh, there will be time enough to still get off a volley.” There was a grim smile which played on Odin’s face as he visualized the morning battle. “By then it should be too late.”
--
The dawn came cold and misted. Odin’s latest warship had weathered the night, the occasional holler from her sailors echoing back to shore in small reassurance that Asgard was not the only one taking casualties.
When the sun did crest the horizon it was not enough to burn off the clouds, only color them, leaving their fibers dyed red and bloody with the morn.
Under this uncanny light seven ships set sail.
At first Laufey let them pass with little harassment, believing them to be an ill-conceived attempt at a supply run, or more likely a distraction hoping to spare the warship currently under siege. Fool man. The warriors of Jotunheim would pick apart those ships plank by plank, and Odin’s men would turn the sea red-
These ships though-
‘Quick.’ Laufey thought to himself as he watched the small ships sail. An advance of Asgardian technology, and an unappreciated one.
They darted out to sea quicker than Laufey would like, bypassing the battle in the bay entirely and offering no form of aid.
They appeared to be heading out to deeper waters. A trade run?
“Rothos.” Laufey barked to one of his generals, his eyes not leaving the rippling shadows cast by the new ships cutting through the waters. “Call up the battalion monitoring the southern shores.”
As he spoke a faint creaking groan echoed through the ocean, the seven ships banking sharply from their seaward trajectory. They fanned themselves out wide, and as they turned, they become these great sentry points hovering in even spacing over the mouth of the bay.
They slowed, but only just, sailing then back towards shore.
“Sink them.” Laufey growled. The sound of wood scraping wood resonated, the dull thunk of heavy objects being shifted against a hull -
“Forget their damned warship.” Laufey snarled, addressing all his generals. “Sink them now!”
There's a series of great splashes and the following rushing noise of bubbles fleeing back to the surface. Massive black barrels began sinking from the ships, settling slowly, slowly, deeper, deeper-
“What-” One general began to ask, then the world exploded.
It was like a wave, but under the water, crippling in its force. Fire somehow caught and burst beneath the ocean’s surface, bringing with it such force, such power-
The least stoic of Laufey’s senior officers gave a shout when the blast wave hit them, physically driving their bodies back in the water. Laufey could hardly make out their cries, his hearing stolen by the ringing in his head, his skull vibrating with the force of the wave.
If he'd been able to hear he would have noticed the cessation of attacks behind him, his warriors around the battleship not hit as hard as Laufey and the generals, but still shocked, shaken, turning their attention to the new ships.
“Sink them!” Laufey roared, his order carrying even though he could barely discern his own voice. The boldest of his warriors did not hesitate, recognizing a greater threat was approaching. Their mages pivoted their bodies, blinking and disoriented, their focus torn from their previous target and now being pulled to a new one.
The words come to them too slow. They began to summon up the needed waves, turning the pull of the water, gathering the undertow to them, building power-
More splashes, more of those dark barrels. The ships still approaching. Laufey and his generals watched in horror as their proudest soldiers, unrivaled in their speed and accuracy, were almost upon the barrels as they explode.
The force of the blasts tore them apart in a great bloom of blood and viscera: limbs severed, their skulls bursting and casting fragments of bone and gray matter freely into the water.
“Mercy.” Rothos whispers and no one could hear him.
The ships sailed forward, another barrage dropped.
They king and his generals did not even think, self preservation pushing them to turn and dart towards shore. When they faced their troops they saw the men frozen in horror, watching the slowly spreading remains of their comrades pigment the water, watching the descent of a new wave of death settle towards the ocean floor.
“Swim, you fools!” Laufey snarled as he approached them, waiting for the strike of a fresh wave against his back. “Flee! Dive!” But there is no place to dive. Already these ships sail over the deepest portion of the bay, the sand only crawls up from here until it meets the accursed Asgardian shore.
---
The mist had not yet burned off and the soldiers of Asgard stood determined on her shores, the cavalry mounted, their bows notched, eyes trained on the waters as they waves lapping the sand gurgled and burst with a mysterious force.
Thor steadied his horse as the beast shook its head back and forth, bothered by the way the air seemed to vibrate, the distant thunder coming from below.
“Do not fire until you see the red of their eyes.” Odin called out, himself mounted some distance down the line.
There were nearly a thousand of them on the shoreline, all well trained in close combat. They would descend in waves, new lines to take the place of those that fell.
The men who stood at the front gripped their swords with grim determination. They were ready.
“Steady.” Thor commanded from his mount, not letting his own fear conquer him. He's heard stories of what a Jotun can do in close quarters. He has seen paintings which depict in vivid detail the thirst they have for destruction. ‘Steady.’ He commanded himself.
Gudrun was safe in the palace walls. His mother and her personal guard would be with her. The possibility of the Mer storming the castle and attacking them was an unrealistic prospect. Even if all should perish here on the shore, the castle would hold.
They fought here because they could not survive the famine these Jotun were capable of creating. They fought here to end this quickly and stop the body count before it rose beyond numbers they couldn't afford.
Steady. Steady.
Another boom of dull thunder and suddenly the waters were agitated in a way that looked like no wave.
“They approach.” Someone muttered behind Thor and they were correct. Gray-blue waters streaked with foam became red with writhing limbs, tentacles churning beneath the waves as the enemy approached.
‘Let them come.’ Thor thought, a surge of bloodlust taking over him. He pulled his hammer from its place at his hip and raised it up in signal to prepare.
Blue heads emerged from the water, eyes narrowed, dark hair streaming, sharp teeth bared in fury still beneath the waters surface.
Thor thought of the violence that Loki had endured, of the cruelty which these beasts would visit upon him and his daughter again and again if given the chance.
‘For Loki.’ He thought with a mental snarl, and aloud, with a great guttural roar, he commanded the archers to fire.
--
Time takes on new meaning in battle. It stretches out to make a single moment last a lifetime: the second of absolute understanding before a killing blow is struck, the moment a blade pierces flesh and for an endless breath blood waits to pour from the wound. Yet too hours can pass in an instant, the steady press of bodies, the rhythm of blow after blow after blow giving new meaning to one’s life. All that exists is the blade, the shield, the arrow. There is no time. Only the ebb and flow of the battle.
Laufey’s people are strong, tough, both physically and mentally. Their skin is thick, the muscles beneath dense and difficult to pierce. They have three hearts in different parts of their body, and they can store oxygen for such a long time that a pierced lung may take an hour or more to fell them.
They fight on even after the loss of a limb, their other tentacles enough to make up for the loss. Bathed in their own blood they still bare their teeth and thrust their spears with dexterity and strength enough to skewer a man through the heart and then fling him off into the fray. Ready to take on another.
“This is suicide!” calls a man to Thor, his face one of hundreds in the crowd. “They are too strong for one on one combat. We are better taking them at sea-”
“They have an advantage at sea we can’t hope to overcome. We do not have the ships rebuilt, we do not have the sailors.” Another snarls. “You condemn us to death.”
Asgard’s warriors cried out in agony as they took blows from the sharp, obsidian blades the Mere used in place of steal swords. They were sharper than anything, they cut like a hot knife through butter, taking apart skin and muscle and bone.
“It will be a hard fight.” Thor acknowledges after a moment. Sif stands beside him scowling at what she perceives as cowardice, her own troops making no outbursts of their own “A brutal one. You are right in this.” The crowd is silent, edgy, faces drawn in frowns and furrowed brows.
“But it is a battle that must be fought. Thirty years past we challenged Laufey when he made it impossible for our trade ships to sail, and Asgard bled heavily for the peace we eventually negotiated.
“It was a false peace though, a stop gap which both sides needed as we had suffered such deep wounds.”
Thor roared from atop his mount, moving as quick as he could in the tight press of bodies, his horse rearing violently every time a tentacle sought to grip his leg and bring beast and rider down into the tangle of red flesh and fresh gore.
He swung his hammer with all his might, and witnessed a Jotun soldier’s head cave in like an egg, crushing inwards with a satisfying crunch. The large warrior crumpled atop the sand into a pile of dead limbs which Thor’s horse ststumbled over as they dance away and towards the next enemy.
“The war was neither won nor lost by either side.
“Tomorrow we have our chance for a true victory against the enemy.” Thor’s eyes narrow, his hand forming a fist which he raises in front of him, a symbol of Asgard’s might.
“I was like you, reluctant to enter into fresh combat with the Mere, content to let their kingdom rule in its dark, dank depths.
“But Laufey has made himself impossible to ignore.”
Odin and Thor both fought for Asgard, Thor’s red cloak and Odin’s golden armor made them bright spots in the chaos on the beach, a spark of reassurance to the rest caught in the fray.
They were not the only regents who fight.
Still half deaf from the explosions Laufey fought the same. A single mage was entirely dedicated to his defense, the shimmering shields projected over his body making him impervious to the arrows which rained down on him, and blunted the strike of any sword brave enough to swing towards him.
With his bare hands he picked up a young soldier who had fallen before him, and he ripped her apart.
“We took in one of his own as refugee and heard of the horrors of his court. Violence. Cruelty. Rape committed against his own son!” A murmur of disgust rolls through the crowd and Thor nods slightly at their distaste.
“This creature has the audacity to come to our land, to our palace, to our king and demand that a little child be given over to him as payment, a babe whom he would at best see raised in the same dark, vicious fashion as her mother, and at worst would dismember simply because he does not like the blood from which she was born.
“Laufey has brought all of this to our court, threatened our halls with his darkness. This will not stand.
“We must fight now, to destroy his reign, protect the innocents under Asgard’s protection, and most importantly, to ensure that this mad king cannot threaten our shores again!”
From the cliffs beneath the castle, hiding in familiar tide pools, a small Jotun watched with keen eyes. His head was just beneath the water he could see how red the shore was becoming, how Jotunheim's forces struggled against their foes. Blinking salt water from his eyes he emerged to the air, and focused his attention entirely on the massive, proud figure of Laufey unleashing his fury. It was not a fluke that Laufey is king. He fought with more violence than any other, greater strength, greater fury.
The Small Jotun rubbed his fingers together absentmindedly, veins singing with the ritual power he has been cultivating this last week, his blood nearly boiling with it.
As powerful as Laufey was and as terrifying as his soldiers could be, their numbers were thinning. It may have taken five of Asgard’s warriors to fell a single Mer, but they were falling all the same, their bodies floating in the shallow water, the tangle of their limbs like a knot of red kelp washed ashore.
It was time.
The small Mer slipped out of his pool and entered the water, darting forward in silence, disappearing into the blood which clouded the water.
“We do not fight only for one little girl, we fight for all of Asgard. If we do not fight now, and win, Laufey will see us suffer. He will see this great kingdom wither and perish under the weight of famine.
“We cannot let this stand. I will not let this stand! Tomorrow, we fight for Asgard, we will buy her peace and security with the blood of our enemies, and if we perish, we will ride with furious glory into a death worthy of a warrior!
“What say you? Shall you ride with me? Shall you march to the shore? What say you, to the defense of glorious Asgard?”
---
The battle stopped even more suddenly than it began.
The sun had labored hard and burned away great swaths of clouds, giving the golden orb space to shine down on the crimson sands of the bay.
Wounded Asgardians had been dragged by their comrades up the banks and onto the fields which butted against to the shore. Those who had training in medicine ran between their number, holding wads of cotton cloth to deep wounds, applying tourniquets to mauled limbs, removing broken spear heads embedded in flesh.
These wounded cries were still drowned out by the great clash of metal and glass, the bellow of enraged warriors, the screams of the horses as they thundered over the enemy.
Thor had dared to enter the waters edge, having been thrown from his horse, his boots soaked through as he struck a series of blows to the chest and head of an opponent, bellowing his bloodlust as he fought for his life.
For Gudrun's life. For Loki's life. For his family's life.
When his latest opponent buckled with a choking wheeze and collapsed backwards, Thor paused a moment to heave for breath.
He thought at first it was just the ringing in his ears which had deafened him, the roar of blood racing through his veins silencing the sounds of war.
Whirling on his feet he pivotted to take in his surroundings, ready for attack, but the field of combat was uncannily still, all heads turned towards the middle of the beach.
Where Laufey reigned, shimmering no more, frozen with his arms spread wide-
Behind him a much smaller, painfully familiar Jotun gripped a blade which had been buried into Laufey’s spine.
Thor's fresh breath caught in his throat as he spied the one who started all this. The impetus of this war.
'Loki.'
Blood poured over Loki’s fingers, so dark it is almost black, shiny and wet in the fresh sunlight.
The young man leaned up, his tentacles flexing and straining to bring him up high enough to put his lips next to Laufey’s ear, and he whispered something that Thor was much too far away to catch.
A snarl of disbelief twisted the Merking’s features, and he jerked once, as if he might turn around and make a bid for survival, but Loki yanked his blade to the side with a force Thor didn’t know he’d possessed. It was enough to drag the knife several inches along the king’s back, cutting into a heart and a lung, severing the lower vertebrae from the rest of the spine completely.
When he fell, Laufey fell face first into the bloody waters, his back becoming just one of many floating in the shallow waves.
And there was silence on the shore.