Thor was more brute than God once he realized Mothi's condition. How he had managed to gain a reputation for goodness was beyond me. After he realized that his son was lost in [Sleep] and could not be woken, he became a mindless killing machine. His baser impulses fueled his rage as he harvested the lives of any Jotunn unlucky enough to cross his path.
Loki was just as angry, but his wrath was more insidious and permanent. The Jotunn Thor was killing would respawn, or at least they would have if Loki hadn't intervened. His magic captured the souls of those that Thor slew, ferrying them to an opening between realms that he had created, allowing him to toss the souls of the dead to Hel.
Thrym and Krampus had watched in stunned disbelief before finally having enough. Jotunn gathered at their command enough that they were able to force both Asgardians out of their citadel, but it was a protracted battle that took days to complete. The fight demonstrated Krampus's cunning and power and left me wondering why he wasn't King.
It might have gone differently if Thor and Loki had fought without care, but they were both protective of their children.
"What is Loki doing?" Balfour asked, finally realizing the rift that Loki had created.
I had decided to retreat once I'd ensured Thor and Loki would discover their children. The cave system I was hiding in was secluded enough to make finding us unlikely.
Once I'd relocated, I cast a scrying spell, using the torches that hung from each room and hallway as a focus. My recent use of fire and shadow to spy on Loki's meeting with Sif had reminded me that while they were no longer my strongest affinity, I was still irrevocably linked with Beleros.
Using fire and ice as foci to see, to pierce the veil between here and there was always possible. I'd had just never thought to use such methods.
"He is feeding the Jotunn to Hela, allowing her to trap them in Helheim," I replied, watching as more and more tendrils of magic trapped the dying Jotunn and ushered their souls into the vortex that he had opened.
The vortex was hidden well behind an illusion, an illusion that failed to fool me or what I was shown to me by scry.
Thor and Loki were powerful Gods, but there were only two of them. Before the might of an entire citadel of Jotunn, they were slowly forced to withdraw. Still, not before unleashing a tide of devastation and death.
Krampus and Thrym became the focus of Thor's ire. Their ability to withstand his attacks and their prowess when counter-attacking required more and more of his attention. Thrym used his giant's strength and affinity with ice to create and launch stalagmites.
Krampus matched Thrym's strength but was more an Earth Giant than Ice. He used the surrounding earth of the citadel to litter the ground with pit traps, earthen spikes, and cave-ins. His methods were more delaying actions, meant to protect the Jotunn and divert Thor's attention.
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Together they made a formidable pair, and not even the trickster God could do much to suppress them once they began working together. It explained why Thrym relied so much on Krampus to rule.
It was a slog-fest to get Thor to retreat. Ice and stone shattered before the might of Mjölnir, and the relentless roar of thunder and lightning reverberated with every strike. Both broken ice and rock were reclaimed and reworked into new weapons. The rubble became a self-sustaining resource that Thrym and Krampus repeatedly used to battle against the tempest of Thor's fury.
Even within the confusion of battle, the bodies of Mothi and Utgard-Loki were well guarded, shielded in a bubble of protective magic that Loki had conjured. The construct had been created to also serve as a vehicle, allowing the bodies of the two sleeping Gods to follow.
The spheres of protective light that encased them were linked to Thor and Loki, following like trailing comets. Loki and Thor served to anchor them in orbit. As they retreated, the spheres remained at an equal distance in orbit. The magic that protected the sleeping Gods allowed Thor and Loki to act without the need to monitor each individual's safety or location.
Thor and Loki were inevitably forced from the citadel. There were too many Jotunn to contend with, not while trying to withstand Thrym and Krampus's magic. Loki finally convinced Thor it was time to leave, to see about helping their sons.
Thor was convinced, but not before unleashing one final response for the insult of capturing Mothi. He began spinning Mjölnir faster and faster, the sky darkening, the wind gathering as the hammer collected the might of wind and storm to funnel it into an explosive attack that sheered through the mountain guarding the citadel.
An explosion of stone, the cracking of lightning so loud that it shattered eardrums, was the only warning the Jotunn received before the entire mountain shifted when Mjölnir was released. The most powerful weapon in Asgard was unleashed against the weight of the stone that had formed a mountain. A mountain that had lasted almost from the moment of creation.
Hammer met the mountain, and the mountain was destroyed. The side vanished in a meteoric cloud of dust and pebbles, detritus that the storm Thor had summoned accepted and redistributed as rain and hail.
The citadel that had been built deep within the mountain was exposed, the protection of stone and ward obliterated. Instead, a vast chasm was revealed. Rooms and corridors were briefly exposed to the elements for the first time in their history. Then the entire mountain collapsed, hundreds of thousands of tons of the mountain falling to fill the pit that Thor had created.
It was awe-inspiring. And from my vantage point appeared as if the mountain was erupting, a volcano in reverse.
The scene of devastation gave some respite to Thor's anger. The destruction was both a warning and a punishment. To add a final insult to the Jotunn people, he directed the lightning he controlled to etch a brand, a rune in the valley that used to be protected by the mountain.
A rune of power that would siphon any magic from the area, keeping the mountain from ever being restored. That kind of action seemed unconventional for Thor. He wasn't the type of God that considered the future or was educated enough to recognize the usefulness of runes of power.
Loki might do that, and it reminded me that the two were brothers. There were similarities, and Thor might often play the part of a stupid malingerer. But he was Odin's son. He would have inherited some of his father's prodigious intellect.