Thor reached our side. Bellowing, he whirled his hammer and crashed it down on Jotun helmets, smashing them and the skulls inside.
Our ship was still being drawn southward by the wind that filled its sail, dragging the Jotun craft that had grappled us. The other Jotun ships were straining oars and sails to grapple with us. The roar of waves under the shuddering ship was drowned by the clash of sword, ax and the terrific clang of Miolnir as the huge hammer crashed down on helmets. Over all rose Thor's terrible battle-cry.
The flat of a Jotun ax struck my shoulder and sent me to my knees. A sword in the hand of a yelling enemy gleamed high above my head. I gaped up, helpless. But Frey stabbed in like a striking serpent. He helped me to my feet as the screaming Jotun toppled overboard.
But a second Jotun craft had maneuvered alongside us. Enemy soldiers were hurling grapples over our port side. Frey sprang to cut them loose, before the hostile reinforcements could board us.
"The Hammerer! Kill the Hammerer!"
Shouting Jotuns leaped upon Thor's towering form like dogs trying to pull down a bear. Miolnir flashed in his hand, almost a thing alive. But two axes crashed on his helmet and he fell, stunned. I was seeking to cut the grapples of our first attacker. My sword slashed the hide ropes. As the Jotun ship was drawn away from us by the waves, I heard a choking cry of despair.
I swung around. Frey had cut the grapples of the other Jotun enemy. But the wild lurch of our ship as it was freed had thrown him into the black waters. He was helplessly sinking, weighted down by his heavy mail coat. Instantly I tore off my own mail coat, flung it away, and dived from the back rail into the sea. The icy shock of waters smashed the breath from my body. As my head broke the surface, I saw the battle that had been carried onward hundreds of yards. The Jotun ships were trying to get their grapples on the Aesir craft again. But the Aesir warriors were dismayed by the stunning of Thor and the loss of Frey. They had swung their ship around and were fleeing back toward Asgard.
I trod water amid the surging waves, looking for Frey. When I glimpsed him going down again, a dozen yards from me, I battled the raving wind and crashing sea until I reached his side. Diving deep, I caught him and pulled him to the surface. It was almost more than I could do to keep him afloat, weighed down as he was by his mail and sword. Now I began to regret taking along my own sword, for it was hampering me. The waves were running mountainously, bearing us in toward the looming cliffs that bulked ominously close.
"Leave me!" Frey choked above the roar of the sea. "Save yourself, Jarl Keith — or we'll both perish."
"Cling to my shoulder — kick hard with your feet," I panted.
His weight threatened to drag me under at any moment. I fought to swim away from the cliffs, but I was like a child in the relentless grip of those great waves.
Then I glimpsed a little beach that indented the cliffs. I recognized it at once. It was the beach where I had landed my plane!
"This way!" I cried to Frey. "We'll be shattered on the cliffs unless we can get to that beach."
The breakers threatened to drag us north of the little sandy indentation. I put my last ounce of strength into swimming obliquely across the thunderous waves. But those boiling breakers carried us resistlessly toward the looming cliff. We were going to be flung against it–
I yelled to Frey and made a convulsive effort. We barely cleared the cliffs, and were washed up to safety on the beach!
Chapter VIII
World of Gnomes
For some minutes we lay on the sand. Though the roaring waves broke over us, neither of us was able to move. Gradually our strength returned, and we dragged ourselves farther up the beach. Frey sat up and panted a question.
"Was Thor slain? I saw him fall as I was hurled into the sea."
"He was only stunned, I think. The men of your ship got it free and fled back toward Asgard."
"I owe you my life, Jarl Keith." Frey's voice throbbed in the darkness. "I was sinking in the waves when you leaped after me. I'll not forget that debt."
I staggered to my feet.
"It's more important that we go after those Jotuns, and rescue Freya and the key."
"By now," muttered the Aesir noble hopelessly, "they must be near Jotunheim. We couldn't overtake them even if we had a ship."
"I can overtake them in a few minutes," I said grimly. "You Aesir may know a lot about atomic fires and subtle forces, but you don't know airplanes. Mine is moored right on this beach."
"Your flying ship?" he gasped. "I had forgotten about it. Is it swift enough to overtake the Jotun ships?"
"Swift enough?" I repeated. "Wait till you get in it. Maybe it'll make you think a little more highly of my science!"
I hastened toward the two great boulders between which I had moored my plane. It was gone! The tracks in the sand showed that it had been dragged down to the water.
"Someone's stolen my ship!" I groaned.
"The Jotuns must have done it. Whoever sent them to kill or capture you, Jarl Keith, sent other warriors later to seize your flying ship."
"They must have dragged it down and pulled it aboard one of their biggest ships," I muttered. "Now we don't have a chance of overtaking Freya's captors before they reach Jotunheim."
"Aye, I fear that all is lost," Frey sighed, "Now that the Jotuns have Freya and the rune key, the Jotun king Utgar will hasten to release Loki from his prison-cave. And once Loki is free and conspiring again with the Jotuns, it will be doom for all Asgard and the Aesir."
My natural inclination was to hasten by the fastest method to Jotunheim, in an attempt to rescue Freya. But I realized that I owed my first duty to the cause of all the Aesir. It was I who had unwittingly brought the rune key that might loose Loki on them.
"Frey, tell me. Where and how far from here is the cave in which Loki is held prisoner?"
"It is miles to the south, deep in the labyrinth of caves that lie under Midgard," he said bewilderedly. "Why do you ask?"
"If you and I hurried to the door of Loki's prison and waited there," I explained eagerly, "we could be there when the Jotun king came to release Loki. We could strike Utgar down and take back the key before he could release that devil. And then, with the key safe, we could find a way to get Freya out of Jotunheim."
Frey was startled by the boldness of my plan.
"It is a daring scheme," he breathed, "and I do not crave to go near Loki. Yet it might succeed. It might prevent his escape."
"How can we get to that prison-cave before the Jotuns get there with the rune key?"
"There's but one quick way — through the tunnels of the Alfings," Frey declared.
"The Alfings? The dwarfs who live in the caves under the mainland?"
"Yes, Jarl Keith, and they like no strangers to come unasked into Alfheim. Yet they are friends of Freya and might let us pass through for her sake. It's dangerous to try, but I am willing."
"Lead on, then," I said. "Find the nearest way into the Alfings' caverns!"
Frey led me to a black opening in the rock wall, the mouth of a pitch-dark passage that ran straight back into the cliff. Its sides showed that it had been excavated by human ingenuity. We entered it.
The tunnel was only five feet high, forcing us to stoop as we proceeded. In a few moments, we were blinded by complete darkness, but we groped on. Then Frey stopped suddenly in the cramped passage. I glimpsed the glimmer of green eyes shining at us from ahead.
"Wild beasts?" I asked, my hand going to the hilt of my sword.
"Alfings," Frey answered tautly. "They can see us even in this darkness. Take your hand from your sword and do not move, lest you die quickly."
I stood unmoving as a statue beside Frey, peering tensely into the darkness ahead, listening to the muffled sound of rapid shuffling. The green eyes shining eerily through the blackness were increased in number. The extreme tension in Frey's figure beside me told me that we were in peril. I remembered what Odin had said of the Alfings. They were an older race than either Jotun or Aesir, and had taken no part in the wars between the two great enemy peoples. "We are friends, Alfings!" Frey called clearly.