Sylvie''s POV


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    After locking the front door and placing a closed sign, Sylvie led Ragnar to the back of the bookstore. She had no idea why she was trusting the handsome Nordic stranger so much but there she was. She gave it some thought and decided it was because of the baby. The little girl Cless had a captivating aura. He did call her a princess, didn''t he? He probably meant it.


    Who was this mysterious stranger? Feeding a baby milk from a goatskin, tossing around XIV century coins like they were pocket change, not knowing what a gun was. She found herself enraptured by the mystery if not by the strange man. Her heart pounded, her stomach stirred with butterflies. Was he a time traveler? An elaborate hoax? A hidden camera prank?


    One glance at the iridescent irises of the ''princess'' and all worries melted away from Sylvie''s mind. The devotion Ragnar dedicated to the girl, the way he handled her as if she was his most precious treasure, the pressure of loss she felt from him, he couldn''t be a bad guy.


    "Here we are. Nobody will bother us in this room," Sylvie said. ''And that''s how you end up dead, stupid,'' she mentally chided herself.


    "Hold her Highness for a moment, will ya?" He asked with his natural accent, something between Scottish and the laminal vocalization typical of the Norwegian.


    She took the baby and cooed a giggle out of the little piece of heaven. Sylvie understood by now that Cless wasn''t her true name but she didn''t mind. Those hazel eyes were to die for. She stopped making silly noises and playing with the baby only because Ragnar cleared his throat to get her attention back.


    "Yes?"


    "I''m going to show you something. Do not be afraid, I won''t hurt you or do anything bad. Hum... Maybe I should introduce myself properly."


    He made a strange greeting where he waved a fist and hit his chest as if he was stabbing at his own heart, ending with a bow.


    "Well met, Sylvie the bookstore librarian. My name is Ragnar Haedmisdja, a metalsmith by craft and librarian by passion. For five hundred years, I was the head librarian at the court of King Hreidmar, rightful ruler of the golden city of Nidavellir in the realm of Myrheim. My lord tasked me with the princess'' safety and sent me here to Midgard. As you probably already guessed, I am not human. I''m one of the dvergar, the people of the deep. Dwarves, I think you call us in your tongue."


    It took Sylvie two minutes to notice his jaw was slacking, her mouth open. "No shit."


    "No excrement involved at all," he parroted with a straight face.


    Sylvie shook her head, her hair brushing against Cless. The girl grabbed it and tugged a bunch to put it in her mouth.


    "I mean, is this for real? You are too tall for a dwarf!" She exclaimed.


    "I give you my word, milady. I''m no liar."


    "That''s what a liar would say!"


    "That''s also correct," he said with a slight chuckle. "I can shapeshift into my normal form if you want. Just don''t be scared. But what did you mean I''m too tall for a dwarf? I''m one head and a half shorter than my normal height!"


    Sylvie tittered a giggle. "Aren''t dwarves four feet tall?"


    "I think those are gnomes. Crafty and mischievous little fellas."


    "Okay, show me. Do your transformation."


    Ragnar nodded. he closed his eyes and his skin started to darken until it was charcoal black. His shoulders broadened and as he said, he grew a head and a half taller while his legs shortened by a bit. His clothes were replaced by a chainmail hauberk underneath a gilded tabard and an equally gilded cloak.


    "This is my true form," he said, his voice deeper by two octaves. It shook the building as he spoke.


    "Daaaamn." Sylvie cursed and then looked at the baby. "Is she..."


    "Also a dwarf. Although her Highness doesn''t know how to transform yet and is under a spell from his father."


    She found herself shivering. The ''dwarf'' was massive. He could very well weigh six hundred pounds. She took a few deep breaths, praising the Lord she was still alive.


    "What brings the master dwarf here, to Hereford of all places?"


    "My liege tasked me with the princess'' protection. We..."


    Something gave Sylvie goosebumps. All her hair stood up.


    "What''s that?"


    Ragnar looked up and to the side. "So it begins. Yggdrasil is dead. Ragnarok is upon us."


    Two tears streaked down Sylvie''s cheeks. She had no idea why she was crying but she was. "Ragnarok? As in ''the end of the world'', doomsday, the apocalypse?"


    "Allow me. You are not used to this level of magic. Now that Yggdrasil is dead, the flow of magical energy is all messed up."


    The earth shook. Ragnar knelt as he chanted and drew glowing runes on the floor. Sylvie''s brain was short-circuiting.


    A golden glow encompassed the room and went through the walls. "I''ve warded the whole bookstore. You should calm down now."


    Yes, the pressure she was feeling at the back of her neck vanished. Her goosebumps too.


    "What happens now?"


    "My people should be fighting against Thrym and Utgard-Loki''s hordes as we speak," he said with a pained voice. "The halls of Valhalla will finally fulfill their purpose. The Einherjar will fight the hosts of Hel. Fenrir will escape and kill the All-Father. Thor shall come to Midgard and slay Jormungadr. It will all transpire as the Eddas prophesized."


    "The dwarves all die today," He added with a sadness only a drunk could evoke. "Such is our fate."


    "What about you? What about Cless?"Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Ragnar shook his head as he gazed tenderly at the baby girl, "No. Not her. Her fate was cut off from our own kind. She will survive and one day, inherit Myrkheim and rebuild Nidavellir."


    Sylvie set her foot down. "Don''t evade the question! What about you?"


    "I don''t know. That''s why I trusted you so, Sylvie. I''ll protect princess Hesliheidr with my whole being unto my dying breath. But I don''t know if my fate was also severed from my kind or not."


    The ground shook. Outside, she could hear cars crashing into each other.


    "Ragnarok," Sylvie mused with dread.


    "Ragnarok," Ragnar repeated with obstinate fatalism.


    Thunder rang in the sky. Sylvie could hear a heavy deluge washing over everything. ''At least we are not going to burn'', she thought.


    "Are you dumping a baby on me?" She asked.


    "No. I''m not dead yet. I sense some beasts nearby. What do you want to do, librarian Sylvie? Don''t you have people you ought to protect? I can lend you my strength."


    It hit her like a cartoon anvil. Her family!


    Ragnar transformed back into his human form. "Give me the princess back and lead the way."


    They rushed to the front of the shop. The toy shop across the street was demolished by what seemed like a meteor. Steam rose from the crater. A veritable river formed in Union street. The heavy rains made it almost impossible to go out. The sky was covered with purple clouds illuminated by frequent bolts of lightning that jumped from cloud to cloud. It was as dark as night but the public illumination failed.


    She looked up and noticed that the emergency lights were on. The public utilities had failed.


    Ragnar chanted again and drew runes on her back. She felt a blue glow around her. "This will keep us from getting wet. Lead the way, Sylvie. Let''s find your family."


    She opened the door and to her surprise, the rain didn''t enter the bookstore. The drops of water hit some invisible wall and seeped down to join the flash flood that was running down the street. A dozen car horns honked at the same time as the bugles heralding the end of the world. Maybe they were.


    "This way!" She took a deep breath and braved the flooded street. She didn''t feel wet and the ankle-high water wasn''t dragging her.


    Without looking behind her, she ran home. Her house was three blocks away, on the corner of Vaughan and Symonds. She ran a hundred yards to the avenue and found that the A438 Bath Street was blocked by a massive car pile-up. People trapped in the wreckage cried for help as the water level rose.


    "Can you help them?" She asked Ragnar. "Do some magic, dunno?"


    ** SCREECH **


    She looked around. The screech seemed to come from two-legged frogs with four arms that stood ten feet tall on the other side of the road.


    "{Shape and reforge, o creation of mortal hands. Heed my command and strike true at my enemies'' hearts!}" He chanted instead of answering. She didn''t understand a word of what he said in his guttural tongue.


    Once more Sylvie felt the goosebumps. This time coming from Ragnar. His hands glowed the color of rust and so did the runes he drew on the air, this time. The cars melted and the metal oozed and took the shape of dozens of spears. With a heave of his hand, the spears flew and impaled the frog monsters. Ragnar panted.


    Sylvie ignored the people formerly trapped in the crash. "Are you okay?" She asked.


    "The mana here is too low. The metal you use too impure, too mundane. Let''s go. These ''froskakrisly'', or frog demons won''t be killed by mere steel but we bought us an hour or two. Move!"


    They crossed the road and Sylvie saw that Ragnar not only pinned the frogs but also released the trapped people. The two and baby walked past the courthouse and she looked at the police station on the other side. Another group of the ''froskakrisly'' was trying to invade the station while the cops lay down gunfire on them. But as Ragnar said, they might be just kids pelting an adult with water balloons. Even when shot in the middle of the eyes, the frog monsters were taken out of combat by a few minutes before regenerating and resuming their assault. Their powerful legs could easily jump over the makeshift barricade of police cruisers.


    Until one of them got angry at being shot and upturned a car, tossing it a dozen yards away on a group of cops.


    "Oh, I see. Combustion weapons, that''s what you showed me in that book," Ragnar commented. "But without imbuing the projectiles with magic, it is futile. These warriors are doomed."


    "Can you help?" Sylvie asked. She knew a few of those officers.


    "The three spells I used so far drained me already. Unexpectedly, I must add. I''m afraid you have to choose, Sylvie."


    Saving the cops or saving her family. And if these monsters were everywhere... Another minor earthquake shook her from her stupor.


    "We gotta hurry! This way," she pointed at the corner of Bath and Kyrle.


    They walked down the side road for a hundred yards and finally reached Vaughan street. The drainage was working so the street wasn''t flooded. Desperate, Sylvie started to run. She could hear Ragnar right behind her and trusted the mysterious stranger to stay with her.


    ** SCREECH **


    She started and frantically looked around, searching for more frog-demons. When she looked south-east, what she found was a huge, massive, snake body looming in the sky, partially covered by the fog. It towered over the horizon and above as if it was miles thick. Hundreds of thunderbolts rained on the massive serpent, illuminating the whole length of the titanic serpentine coil.


    "What''s that?" She pointed and kept moving.


    "That, my fellow librarian, is Jormungandr''s body. Just one of its many coils. It does go around the world, after all. Thor is already fighting it!" He exclaimed with a bit of cheer.


    Gak! A creature twenty-five thousand miles long? "How did it hide this long?" she muttered in disbelief.


    "Look out!" Ragnar shouted.


    Flaming meteors rained down everywhere. Everywhere. As dozens of them crashed all over the city, it filled the sky with the sweet scent of... burning firewood?!?!?


    As if reading her mind, the dwarf exile answered, "Yggdrasil''s dead limbs and leaves are raining all over the nine realms. I pity the place where the trunk fell but it should''ve been in the lower realms.


    The implications that the meteor rain was caused by a dead tree''s falling branches put things on a scale Sylvie''s modern mind couldn''t grasp. The earth shook again.


    ** SCREECH ** Jormungandr screeched again. Where was the head of the beast? Over Singapore?


    The earthquake this time was bigger. She looked east and saw the massive serpent body crashing down, probably smothering Ireland or something like that. She slapped herself for the dark thought.


    "Here! Here is my home! Mom! Kelly! Jenny! Cristal!" She said as she jumped over the picket fence and made her way to the front door.


    "Sylvie!" Jenny''s squeal came from the front door.


    As Sylvie reached the door, she heard the unmistakeable croak of the frog-demons. She turned around with her heart in her throat and saw a group of five on the street, glowering at them menacingly.


    "Lady Sylvie," Ragnar said solemnly. "Promise me to take care of the princess as if she was your own daughter."


    He didn''t wait for an answer and placed the baby in her arms. He took his backpack out and drew a massive ax that had no right to be inside the cloth sack.


    "Ragnar!" Sylvie shouted. "You HAVE to come back!"


    "If such is my fate, milady. Keep the princess safe. I leave the hope of our people in your hands. I don''t intend to die here but if I do, it shall be a warrior''s death."


    Clutching the baby princess, Sylvie cried. "If you don''t come back, I''m going to kill you!"


    "So shall it be," he said and chanted in his guttural language. "{Blood and Ruin, bane for the enemies of the deep. By my pledge to Myrkheim''s sacred grounds, let the bugles of war blow. Let my steel be the last my foes ever see.}"


    The ax head glowed red. The frog-demons hissed as they stared at the dwarven weapon. Ragnar grew and assumed his normal form again. With a mighty bellow, he charged at the monsters. Sylvie kept her eyes peeled on the fight. Ragnar whirled and spun his ax, cleaving the humanoid frogs'' flimsy limbs. Their clawed rakes didn''t cut through dwarven steel and they only rattled the chain links as the sharp claws raked the dwarven armor.


    "Who''s he, sis?" Jenny asked. "Whose baby is that?"


    "He''s our benefactor. A traveler I met at the bookshop."


    "He''s black," Jenny commented.


    "That''s racist!" Sylvie chided.


    "Sorry, sis!" The young girl quickly corrected herself.


    "Say it to the dwarf that''s fighting to keep us safe. Where is everyone?"


    "In here!" Her mother''s voice came from the kitchen. "We''re barricading the back door."


    She doubted any kind of barricade they created could stop those things. But Ragnar quickly dispatched the frogs. He shoved his hand into their chests and... ripped off their hearts?


    "Bleh!" Jenny threw up. Sylvie almost went down the same path.


    The dwarf washed the things he took from the frog demons in the rainwater running down the gutter.


    "Magic Cores! What a stroke of good luck! With a few of these, I can restore my magic," Ragnar said as he came back.


    Cless squealed as Ragnar came closer.


    "Come inside! Let me introduce you to our family!"