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A few minutes later a figure appeared in the doorway. He was a small man, thinner and younger than Brisingr. His eyes were dark like obsidian stones, his skin a grey-blue color that was so different from his uncle’s, and, though he had a beard and braided hair like Brisingr, his ears were pointed.
“Visitors?!” the young dwarf exclaimed excitedly. His voice was higher than I expected. Brisingr’s rich basso hit the ears like a battering ram. In comparison, Ogun’s voice was the whistle of an arrow. “We never get visitors down here!”
Before any of us could reply, Ogun ran over to me and circled me, the motion so fast, it was difficult to track. He touched my hair and poked me in the bottom. I yelped and flushed with embarrassment; the touch reminding me that I was naked and covered in giant blood. I hurried to cover myself, wishing I had the mitt-like hands of Brisingr. At least they’d cover more.
Ogun, to his credit, blushed vibrantly and clapped his hands over his eyes. “Sorry! I read that people from Midgard were a bit funny about their bodies. You’re pretty, though. Not that you’re my type of pretty or anything. I’m just saying.”
He kept babbling, quoting this, that, and the other about beauty standards. I suddenly understood why Brisingr was a bit eager to get rid of his nephew. Ogun rambled. A lot. And, from the looks of things, he was rather clumsy as well. The young dwarf tripped over his own feet twice, just trying to make his way over to a table where a tankard of mead sat. Torsten didn’t seem thrilled at the idea of bringing Ogun along, but we were out of time and out of options. I could feel the last of Fyrcat’s magic dribbling away, like sand in an hourglass. We had to leave and soon.
“All right.”
“Jovi, think about this,” Torsten implored as he whispered at me so no one else would hear him. “We don’t know who we can trust. I don’t think this dwarf or his nephew are who they say they are. It could be a trap, or worse, they could be spies.”
I ignored him. In the end, it didn’t matter whose side they were on. We had to leave, unless we wanted to be trapped in Muspelheim forever.
“We’ll bring him along,” I said.
“Jovi,”
I looked at Torsten with a stern expression. “Please, we have to hurry or else we might not be able to make it back.”
“Don’t ye fret,” Brisingr chuckled as he walked up behind me. “Ye still have an hour before nightfall in Midgard. Plenty o’ time ta have a bite ta eat an let the lad get his things packed up.”
I could practically feel Torsten’s eyes burning holes into the back of my head. Ogun let out a happy squeak, grabbed my hand, and led us into Brisingr’s home as his uncle prepared the forge for our journey. When we got away from the forge, the inside of the refuge was much colder than the rest of Muspelheim, something I suspected had to do with the amount of energy that radiated through the place.
“So, dwarves have magic?” I asked, looking around the place. The architecture looked even grander away from the main hall. “I can feel something running through this place, but I’m not sure what it is.”
Ogun shrugged. “No, not usually. We can enchant things using runes and magical elements, but we can’t make magic ourselves. I, on the other hand, am the exception to the rule. Like you.”
I blinked. “Uh… how do you know about me?”
Ogun stopped mid-stride and craned his neck so he could look up at me. There was a hint of something in his dark eyes, but it was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.
“Nothing, really. Just a feeling.” He shrugged again and pushed open a swinging door that led to a kitchen with stone counters. The stove, much like everything else crafted by Brisingr, was made of gold. “Would you like some lamb? You’re probably hungry.”
“Starved,” I said. “But first… could you find me something to wear?”
***
Torsten
I declined the portion of meat the dwarf offered and kept an eye on Jovi as she ate. If she collapsed or started foaming at the mouth, I was going to end the half-breed and damn the consequences. Jovi was far too willing to trust the creatures of our world, creatures that were more likely to slit her throat than to lend a helping hand. Furthermore, Dwarves were not known for their kindness nor were they particularly interested in involving themselves in matters of other races. They’d proved as much when they’d refused to ride under Odin’s banner and stomp out Freya’s host of witches.
As a rule, dwarves stuck to themselves and made it well-known that outsiders were not welcome. Brisingr and his nephew were far too generous for their kind. And as far as I was concerned, a generous dwarf was a dishonest dwarf. Why would Brisingr go to the trouble of saving us, just to pawn off his nephew? And honestly, the alternative was worse. If he was willing to impose the boy’s company on us, that meant Ogun had to be insufferable, and I’d be bound by Jovi’s pact not to kill him.
As if to prove me right, Ogun told a joke about a wolf shifter he’d met that caught fleas from a stray dog.
“And I said, haven’t you heard the saying? Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas! And he just looked back at me and said, ‘Well, them bitches be crazy, right?’” Ogun threw back his head and let out a braying laugh. The sound clawed at my ears. The surface was beginning to look more tolerable by the second.
I bared my teeth in a snarl, not finding Ogun’s off-beat personality amusing in the least. Though the Dwarves made me angry as a whole, I had to admit there was a reason I hated this one in particular. He made Jovi smile and laugh. Somehow, and I wasn’t sure how it was possible, they’d managed to bond over one meal. She was now wearing one of his shirts, as it was the only one in all of the Dwarven kingdom that came close to fitting her. She’d sinched the middle with a length of leather, accentuating the perfect curve of her waist. The hem of the shirt fluttered around her upper thighs, showing off an obscene amount of leg. I wanted to pluck Ogun’s eyes out just for catching a glimpse of them.
And yes, I was jealous of how quickly the Dwarves had earned Jovi’s affection. I couldn’t deny that she’d been right to accept Brisingr’s terms. There weren’t many options left on the table. I owed her this. She’d come after me, saved me from the giants and my own hot temper. I might have refused Brisingr out of spite, and where would that have left me? Her courage and loyalty were beyond anything I’d ever seen.
But prickles of envy caused the hair on my arms to stand as she whispered something to Ogun. His appearance wasn’t common among Dwarves like his uncle. I didn’t know why I hadn’t realized it before, but I recognized the youngling as a Svartálfr. Often thought of as the dark elves of our world, Svartálfr were actually a Dwarven race that possessed elven magic. Some believed it was a result of crossbreeding with the elves of Alfheim.
“Got something you want to ask me, grumpy?” Ogun asked, catching me staring at him, no doubt with a scowl on my face. “Keep looking at me like that and you’ll have to buy me dinner when we get to Midgard.”
If not for the beard, short stature, and dark eyes, I wouldn’t have known he was a Dwarf at all. I bared my teeth in an expression that was more sneer than smile. It did succeed in wiping the smirk off his face.
