Thor's Serpents by K.L. Armstrong, M.A. Marr Read Free Book Online Page A

girl who looked around his brothers’ age, sixteen or seventeen. She wore a rough skirt, like a Viking woman, and her blond hair was done in tiny braids, piled on her head. She turned around and, seeing him, she smiled.
    “Perfect,” Ray said. He turned quickly to Present. “Now, don’t go anywhere. At this moment, do not move and continue not moving while we speak to both of you. Can you do that?”
    “I can, Raymond,” Present said.



Ray turned to Future. “Matt needs to know what to do next. Obviously, we’re heading to Ragnarök, but we don’t know where that is or what we need to find before we get there.”
    Present answered with, “You have all that you need.”
    “Then what
will
we need? In the future. For the battle.”
    “Nothing more,” Future said. “Except to know where to go.”
    “The battleground,” Matt said. “So… it’s that close? I haven’t heard Gullinkambi crow.”
    “When will the rooster crow?” Ray asked, rephrasing it as a question for Future.
    “Soon,” she said. “When you are ready, you will hear the cock crow and you must get to the battlefield.”
    “Perfect,” Matt said. “Now where is the battlefield?”
    The two Norns looked at each other. “We do not know,” they said in unison.
    “Because that’s in the past?” Matt said. “No, it can’t be.” He glanced at Ray.
    “You should know,” Ray said, turning to the older girl. “The battle comes in the future, so you must know where it will be held.”
    “I do not.”
    Panic nestled in Matt’s gut. “Does that mean there is no battle? We don’t make it that far?”
    “You will,” Future said.
    “Wait, does that mean there’s no battle because we avert it?”
    “It cannot be averted. To find the battlefield, you must find the one who knows the rules of engagement.”
    “And that’s not you. Okay, so who’s in charge of the battle? The, uh, referee or whatever.”
    “That would be us,” the Norns said in unison.
    Matt groaned. He glanced at Reyna.
    “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I’m more lost than you are. Ray?”
    Her brother shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t get it, either. Let me try, though.” He turned to Future. “You and your sisters are in charge of the battle to come. Is that correct?”
    “Yes and no. The rules have been set since the dawn of time. Past knows what they are, but she cannot tell you, because that could give you an advantage, and that is not our place. Our place is simply to enforce the rules as they are set for both sides.”
    “So who knows these rules?” Matt asked.
    Ray said to Present, “Who currently knows the rules?” Then to Future, “And will she explain them? Can you tell us that?”
    Future nodded. “We can tell you this much—look to your family for answers, Matthew.”
    “And by family…” Matt said slowly. “You don’t mean my grandfather, right? Because he’s not going to help me.”
    “He may, and he may not. The future has yet to be set, so we cannot tell you what is to come.”
    “But the person who knows, it’s a family member, but not my grandfather. Right?”
    “Your grandfather knows,” Present said. “Yet he does not know. He understands the rules, but does not know the location of the battle.”
    “Anyone got an aspirin?” Reyna muttered.
    Matt tried again, as patiently as he could. “At present, though, a Thorsen family member other than my grandfather knows and I may ask him—or her.”
    “Yes.”
    “Is it my—?”
    “That is all we may say,” the Norns said in unison. And they disappeared.

FIVE

LAURIE
“FACING FEARS”
    L osing track of the rest of their group didn’t frighten Laurie quite the way it would have before their trip to Hel. She didn’t like being split up, but this wasn’t the first time she’d faced the mara, so she knew that everything should be okay. They’d fought these monsters before, at Baldwin’s house the night before he’d died. Unfortunately, it was scarier without Fen