We left Nidavellir as we had arrived: in a shower of rainbow light. It was obvious to any hidden enemies, and its divine nature made my eyes water, but...at least we travelled light, eh?

As we were whisked away to the realm of fire, I couldn't help but wonder about the nature of our transportation.

'Isn't the Bifrost meant to be a rainbow  bridge?' I called to Tyr over a sound like diamond blades scraping against each other.

'Aye, and it usually is' the one-handed god called back. 'But Heimdall can shape it to fit his whims, see?'

'Ah! And this is faster than the bridge form?'

'Nay! He just watches too much sci-fi with beamers.'

…Maybe Heimdall and I could sit down to talk about series we liked, after this was over, but Tyr was shattering my mental image of the Aesir.

Muspellheim looked like the angriest raw wound you could imagine: viewed from afar, it was like a bowl of fire rising out of Ginnungagap, burning without fuel and without even singing Yggdrasil.

The latter, I realised as the Bifrost deposited us onto a sea of glowing lava (safest place we could land) was more due to the World Tree's sturdiness than lack of heat on the flames' part.

Greuceanu and Iovan's clothes turned to superheated steam in less than a microsecond after we arrived, leaving the two heroes naked, red-faced(though more from outrage than the temperature) and standing barefooted on lava, as the molten rock was too dense for them to sink into.

Heracles and Tyr sank to their waists in the lava, the latter's gunmetal gray suit of plate armour somehow retaining the blood spatters that looked suspiciously like handprints. Heracles laughed, taking in the inferno with an appreciative grin.

'Reminds me of the time I went down to Hades! Much more lively, though-look! They've come to welcome us!'

The god of strength's eyes clearly saw farther than mine, but, before I could ask who "they" were, my line of sight was filled with dancing, crackling fire.

I clapped my hands with a sound like clashing mountains, dispersing the blaze and staggering the giantess that had risen from the flaming sea. She was broad, with thick limbs, clad in obsidian armour covered in white-hot cracks, and tall enough to wrestle the mountain golem Sofia had made in Siberia, before it had been reshaped into a mirror of the Unscarred.

The giantess looked down at me like she had swatted a fly and it had unexpectedly punched back. I grinned back and up at her. 'Girl like you, I bet you're used to size being everything, eh? Both ways-'

Before I could finish my taunt, Marcus blurred into existence at my side, face set in a mask of determination, eyes unblinking, glowing with cold light like graveyard lanterns. His glare turned the giantess' armour grey and brittle, covered in crack-riven frost. She spat a booming curse, alongside a glob of lava that could have drowned city blocks, and reached behind her back, raising a two-headed obsidian axe overhead.

The heads were shaped like gaping dragons, and actually roared as she brought it down, billions of tons of sharp, enchanted rock moving faster than lightning. Marc calmly drew his gladius, swinging it up to meet the axe. It would have looked absurd, if the Roman's blade had not lengthened until it would have reached the horizon if Marc had set it down on the lava sea.

The insubstantial blade went through the axe like a knife through mist, splitting it as neatly as if it had been cut with a laser. It didn't stop there.

The giantess was bisected neatly from armoured crotch to dreadlocked head, her savage features locked into a silent roar. Her rictus was only visible to me for an instant, though, as Marc decided he wasn't done.

Gladius back to normal size, the Legionary grinned wolfishly and disappeared from my sight. Then, I saw a pale blur pass through the giantess' halves at the waist, sending them flying. The quarters were split into eights in a flash, the ghost hacking and slashing faster and faster. By the time he cut her into dust, I couldn't see Marc at all anymore.

He coalesced back at my side to watch the dust fall, though. 'Been a while since I've put my back into it...' Marc muttered thoughtfully, before looking at me. 'Just in case you had been wondering what I want to do to you and your quirky colleagues all day, every day, David.'

'You couldn't even scratch me.'

'That's exactly why I'm so damned pent up-'

Before Marc could finish confessing to his murderous urges, we learned that the giantess had not been a guard dog. She had been bait, to make us show off our abilities. The real guardians came at us from below, and I only noticed them when one was throwing my spine away like yesterday's garbage, its fangless jaws snapping close over my unbeating heart.

The drake was a crimson flame shaped like a wingless dragon, its "eyes" diamond-shaped black-slits. It was only the size of a large wolf, maybe a horse, but it was still doing much better against me than monsters thousands of time its size had managed.

It was ripping me apart, in fact, its claws tearing at my torso every time it healed. But, since it's easier than the average zmeu to be brave when you regenerate and can't feel pain (look at me, playing hero), I decided to taunt it.

'Oohh~' I grabbed its jaws, straining my arms until my bones turned to gravel from the pressure, healing constantly to let me hold its maw open. 'Be gentle,' I breathed, batting my eyes. 'You're the first bad dragon I've had inside me-'

The dragon was so flattered by my request that it gave me a kiss. I could tell it was putting its heart into it, and mine somewhere between my shoulder blades, but enthusiasm couldn't hide its inexperience. It was all tongue and jaws, and some flames too.

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By the time we were done sucking face, my head turned to steam, but healed instantly, in time for me to headbutt the drake as it drew its head back. Normal matter would have just passed through it, but my strigoi nature allowed me to wrestle the fire monster as if it was flesh and blood.

I didn't have to do it for much longer, though, as Greuceanu decided to cut the fight short. The drake, too. The hero was covered in minuscule scratches, and his black mane was slightly singed, but he was otherwise fine. His scimitar cut the drake in half lengthwise, and the flames dispersed lifelessly, blending into the environment.

'I don't trust you, strigoi.' The crackle of fire punctuated each word of his warning-threat? 'Fighting against your nature is admirable, as hard as the fact is to believe. But don't think I can't see the other shadow inside you.'

'Yes, well,' I sneered, slapping his hand aside and raising to my feet myself. 'Everyone is tripping over themselves to tell me it exists, but nobody seems able to even guess what the fuck it is.'

'And you think I know, and am hiding the secret from you? To what purpose?' His deep brown eyes stared unwaveringly into my ink-black orbs. 'I once brought back the sun and moon when the zmei stole them, to spare our people from eternal night. You think I wouldn't chase away the darkness in your soul, if I could?'

...And there I went again, being a jackass.

Before I could apologise, though, Greuceanu shook his head, pointing at the rest of our group, who were finishing off their drakes. Marc and Iovan stood side by side, bringing their weapons down onto a flickering drake, turning it into a shower of sparks. Tyr yanked a wicked-looking broadsword out of a fallen drake, and the blade glowed red, drawing the monster inside itself. It briefly glowed with inner light, and I caught a glimpse of countless other creatures, twisting past their death throes inside the weapon.

I...didn't remember that from the Sagas.

And Heracles simply drew an arrow from its quiver, holding it over the drake thrashing in his other hand. Thick, steaming green blood gathered at the tip. A drop, just a drop, fell on the drake.

It didn't turn to steam, as I had expected. Instead, the flames became pale green and sickly, sputtering into nothing, while something like a shrill scream, strangled by pain, ripped through my arcane sense.

Then, the hydra's last gift went back to its holding place.

***

The guardians, Surtr claimed, had been meant to test our prowess and resolve: for, if we could not best them, or hesitated, or turned away, why were we even on his quest?

The fire giant was so tall Olympus Mons would have barely come up to his ankles. Even seated on a throne that looked like it had been carved from a country, he would have dwarfed any structure on Earth, save for the reptilians' hypertech spires.

'Your presence is amusing, but superfluous,' Surtr explained, mouth barely moving under a beard that, if dyed green, could pass for a jungle. 'I know every nook and cranny of my realm, and what you seek is not here-unless you seek your doom.'

He was on his feet, sword going from resting on his knees to his right hand, so fast I didn't see anything, despite his enormity. Muspellheim shook, and a tiny corner of my mind whispered that all of Yggdrasil had. The blade hungered for the death of worlds, and was no longer coal-black, like it had been at the start of our meeting. Now, it glowed brighter than the stars it would one day burn away, and burned hotter than all of them together. It was only Surtr's will that kept most of us from being turned to nothing by his sword's heat, but even so, my flesh steamed.

'Fate is gone.' The giant's smile was disturbingly human and joyful, like he had woken up to see his best dreams had come true overnight. 'The bitches three can spin their stories, but they decree no more. Why should I wait until Ragnarök to burn that damnable twig and the worms squirming inside it? Why should they keep me confined to my realm, waiting and sharpening my weapon until the end coming because it must?'

I only realised he had swung at us-laughable, really, the sword was far too large for beings our size-after Heracles blocked it in a clash that spun the planet-sized flame that was Musspellheim into a frenzy. The Olympian grinned fiercely, Marmyadose raised overhead to hold the end of days at bay. Surtr scoffed, and Heracles barked a harsh laugh, pushing him back.

'Go!' the hero roared at Tyr, who was already dragging me and Marc away, drawing his club from his waist with his free hand. 'We will hold them!'

'Them-' For the second time time that day, my dumb surprise turned to dismay. Flames leapt from Surtr's black-on-black eyes, forming into drakes that leapt at the god of strength, or skittered down their creator's body to surround Iovan and Greuceanu, who were trying to topple Surtr by striking at his feet. Their efforts were yet to result in anything more than bruises on the giant's grey skin.

'But-they- fucking damn you, Tyr!' I snarled, trying to push away, but Tyr already had us under his arms, and was leaping into the air for the rainbow beam to catch us. The Aesir glared balefully at me, but I only growled at the slap that left my ears ringing and my head spinning.

'Leave them,' the war god whispered harshly. 'Dying against a monster to save your comrades, and buy all life a chance? That is all a man could ask for.'

Marcus nodded solemnly, staring through the past at something I had never been able to understand. The rest of the journey was silent until we arrived on the grim, frozen plains of Hel.

'Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise,' Tyr said quietly, letting go of us. 'Two dead men, and their Aesir guide. Mayhap the others...wouldn't have been welcomed here.'