Above All Shadows [Loki Timetravel fic - Completed]

8. Jotunheim

Heimdall set them down in a narrow clearing surrounded by haggard pines and larches, all heavily laden with fresh snow. A storm must have just passed. Stray snowflakes still danced in the air and dark clouds hung in the distance.

'Is this place as miserable as you remember it, father?' Loki asked.

Odin's mouth twitched and he brushed away the snowflake that had got caught in his eyebrow. 'Best we move.'

The Bifrost had burned through the foot of snow that carpeted the ground, revealing the dead grasses and ochre mud beneath. Loki and Odin nudged their horses out onto the unmelted snow on the clearing's edge. Within seconds, Loki was certain the horses would be more a hindrance than a help. The deep powder masked the unevenness of the ground beneath. It was too easy for the horses to stumble over a stray boulder and break a limb.

'Allfather! Loki!' a familiar voice disturbed the wood's frosty silence, then Volstagg emerged from the tree line. 'Norns be praised. But come, come, we shouldn't be out in the open.'

Leaning on his axe as he walked and with clumps of snow hanging from his beard like garlands, Volstagg led them to rest of the Asgardians.

Snow coated their clothes and armour. Every inch of exposed flesh was flushed and beginning to blister. Two of the Einherjar walked with their comrade slung between them. The injured soldier barely had their strength to keep his feet moving, let alone to greet the newcomers. Fandral looked little better. The front of his armour was sticky with blood and a large gash ran from his right eyebrow to his chin. Hogun, even more resolute than usual, kept him steady. Sif and the last Einherjar soldier brought up the rear of the party.

'Where is Thor?' Loki asked. When Sif and the Warriors Three exchanged uneasy glances but didn't produce a word, Loki grabbed Volstagg's beard and pulled the man towards him. 'Where the hell is my brother?'

Volstagg's eyes widened and he stammered out his response. 'Captured.'

'Explain,' Odin demanded. 'Start at the beginning and explain all of this.'

Loki let go of Volstagg's beard, sending the man stumbling back. He produced an incomprehensible series of stammers until Sif cut him off.

'Respectfully, your highness,' she said. 'We need to keep moving until we can find shelter. From what I remember of my father's words, there were caves where one could take shelter a few miles to the north-east.'

'Surely even you can talk while you walk? Out with it,' Loki replied.

On any other day Sif would have glared at him; today she kept her eyes on the snow at her feet. 'Thor found us at the training grounds last night. He was incensed about how my father kept wasting his time talking about supply trains and such. Thor said he could achieve just as much without a thousand Einherjari soldiers slowing him down. He wanted the four of us and you, Loki, to go with him. But you were nowhere to be found and Fandral persuaded him to at least take twenty soldiers with us.'

'We found a sorcerer who could reopen the portal the frost giants had used to get into Asgard. It led to a cave in the hills above a village,' Hogun said.

Loki nodded. He remembered that village. Two dozen houses, most with unevenly slanted roofs, and a few farm animals in rotting pens. He had found his co-conspirators there for his plan to disrupt Thor's coronation. He hadn't thought much of them at the time, but someone in that village must have had the intelligence to make Helblindi aware of the prize Loki had offered. In hindsight, it would have been smarter to eliminate everyone who had known about the portal when Loki decided not to follow through with the plan.