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No more words are shared They meet in a sudden flurry of violence that rattles e , and lashing forward She is a spirit of the ice, nearly Valdir’sof the dozens of Golds she’s sent to the Void
But Volsung ignores the blades and recklessly thrusts at her heart with his , forcing her to turn her attack into a defense He is old, and has , and Sefi knows it The recklessness was a trap to lure her into baiting him, and Sefi barely twists her heart out of the way as his blade scrapes along her rib cage
She spins back, but s at the top of his lungs, he goes berserker, ha at the razor and axe as if he intends to chop the end of hisSefi deflects with her razor, lifts her left leg, and sidesteps to her right
He pivots his spear, and brings the saw half crashing down She catches it with her axe Veins bulge in his trunk of a neck Muscles twist in his core and he pushes down, down, down Sefi brings the razor around underneath from her left to cut hional, blocks the razor outward The metal of both instruments warps as they rebound, hers outward, his inward He uses the s as he uppercuts with the piercing end toward her opposite leg, ripping a canyon froh the inside tendons of her knee, all the way up her inner thigh to her pelvis
Sefi stumbles back, and in six compact thrusts, he punctures both her ankles, her kneecaps, and both her rotator cuffs She falls like a slack puppet Her axe and razor clattering to the ground
It took less than a minute
Dead silence I grow nauseous in it I should have shot Xenophon and died in that roo Soo berserk But they are outnuhtered As pulseRifles whine and axes rise and fall in the periphery, Volsung watches his daughter craay fro smears of blood on the stone He stalks after her and stooes still He places the axe in her hand, and crouches with a knee on her spine to say: “Valhalla bears only the brave Will you remain quiet in the end, my child?”
Volsung straddles his daughter, putting his weight on her tailbone, and sets to grim work With the knife from his waist, he cuts open her vest to reveal Sefi’s tattooed back In a tender sawingflaps of flesh froe She flails like a punctured fish Then with a s hacks at the ribs on either side of her spine She jerks in agony, but no sound escapes her He discards the hatchet and pries open her rib cage froasps for air
As peaceful as atakes a handful of salt from a pouch and throws it on the wounds Sefi spas up in cramps Not one of her warjarls cohtered without drawing their axes I grow sick with hate for the realizes she will not scream, he nods with pride and kneels to dry the tears from her face
“Valhalla elcoo to your brother in the Skyhall, you are freed on Allfather’s wings”
“Tyr Morga will eat your heart,” she rasps
“Perhaps,” Volsung whispers “My god is fickle with his favor”
He reaches into her opened back with both hands, and knowing the end is here, Sefi shouts with her last breath: “Hyrg la Rag—” Her words turn to a gurgle as Volsung tears out her lungs and hurls theround She blinks at them Her eyes drift closed, and only the tattooed spirit eyes look on
I shut my eyes and hear the crunch and hack of steel on flesh as Volsung continues his work When I open theain, he has taken her heart He holds it above him to show the warjarls Blood sluices down his biceps into the white hair of his armpits
“Allfather!” he cries out “Allfather! I offer you these stains!” It takes him two minutes to eat her heart When he is finished, he shudders in satiation “Worthy” Then he grabs Sefi by the ankle, fors her up the stairs to the Griffin Throne and takes his seat