The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan

DINNER WASfish and chips at a place called Mr. Chippy. T.J. found the name hilarious. While we ate, he kept saying “MR. CHIPPY!” in a loud, bubbly voice, which did not amuse the guy at the register.

Afterward, we returned to the pottery studio to lay low for the night. T.J. suggested going back to the ship to be with the rest of the crew, but Alex insisted she needed to keep an eye on her ceramic warrior.

She texted Sam an update.

Sam’s response: NP. OK here. Fighting water horses.

Fighting water horseswas written in emojis: fist, wave, horse. I guessed Sam had fought so many of them today she’d decided to make a text shortcut.

“You got her international coverage, too,” I noted.

“Well, yeah,” Alex said. “Gotta keep in touch with my sister.”

I wanted to ask why she hadn’t done the same for me. Then I remembered I didn’t have a phone. Most einherjar didn’t bother with them. For one thing, getting a number and paying the bill is hard when you’re officially dead. Also, no data plan covers the rest of the Nine Worlds. And the reception in Valhalla is horrible. I blame the roof of golden shields. Despite all that, Alex insisted on keeping a phone. How she managed, I didn’t know. Maybe Samirah had registered her in some kind of friends & family & also dead family program.

As soon as we reached the studio, Alex checked on her ceramic project. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that it hadn’t assembled itself and come to life yet.

“I’ll check it again in a few hours,” she said. “Gonna…”

She staggered to the only comfy chair in the room—the proprietor’s clay-spattered Barcalounger—then passed out and began to snore. Yikes, she could snore. T.J. and I decided to bunk in the storage room, where we’d be better insulated from Alex’s impression of a dying lawn mower.

We made some impromptu mattresses out of canvas tarps.

T.J. cleaned his rifle and sharpened his bayonet—a nighttime ritual for him.

I lay down and watched the rain patter against the skylights. The glass leaked, dripping on the metal shelves and filling the room with the smell of damp rust, but I didn’t mind. I was grateful for the steady drumming.

“So, what happens tomorrow?” I asked T.J. “I mean exactly?”

T.J. laughed. “Exactly? I fight a twenty-foot-tall giant until one of us dies or can’t fight anymore. Meanwhile, the giant’s clay warrior fights Alex’s clay warrior until one of them is rubble. Alex, I dunno, cheers on her creation, I guess. You heal me if you can.”

“That’s allowed?”

T.J. shrugged. “Far as I know, anything’s allowed for you and Alex as long as you don’t actually fight.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that your opponent is fifteen feet taller than you?”

T.J. straightened his back. “Do you think I look that short? I’m almost six feet!”

“How can you be so calm?”

He inspected the edge of his bayonet, holding it up to his face so it seemed to cut him in half like a duality mask. “I’ve already beat the odds so many times, Magnus. On James Island, South Carolina? I was standing right next to a friend of mine, Joe Wilson, when a Reb sniper—” He made a finger gun and pulled the trigger. “Could have been me. Could have been any of us. I hit the dirt, rolled over and stared up at the sky, and this sense of calm washed over me. I wasn’t afraid anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s called shock.”

He shook his head. “Nah, I saw Valkyries, Magnus—ladies on horses, swirling in the skies above our regiment. I finally believed what my ma had always told me about my dad being Tyr. Those crazy stories about Norse gods in Boston. Right then I decided…okay. What happens happens. If my dad is the god of bravery, I’d better make him proud.”

I wasn’t sure that would’ve been my reaction. I was glad I had a father who was proud of me for healing people, enjoying the outdoors, and tolerating his talking sword.

“You’ve met your dad?” I asked. “He gave you that bayonet, right?”

T.J. folded the blade in its chamois cloth like he was tucking it into bed. “The bayonet was waiting for me when I checked into Valhalla. I never met Tyr face-to-face.” He shrugged. “Still, every time I accept a challenge, I feel closer to him. The more dangerous, the better.”

“You must feel super close to him right now,” I guessed.

T.J. grinned. “Yep. Good times.”

I wondered how a god could go a hundred and fifty years without acknowledging a son as brave as T.J., but my friend wasn’t alone. I knew a lot of einherjar who had never met their parents. Face time with the kids wasn’t a priority for Norse deities—maybe because they had hundreds or thousands of children. Or maybe because the gods were jerks.

T.J. lay back on his tarp mattress. “Now I just gotta figure out how to kill that giant. I’m worried a direct frontal charge might not work.”

For a Civil War soldier, this was creative thinking.

“So what’s your plan?” I asked.

“No idea!” He tipped his Union cap over his eyes. “Maybe something will come to me in my dreams. ’Night, Magnus.”

He began to snore almost as loudly as Alex.

I couldn’t win.

I lay awake, wondering how Sam, Halfborn, and Mallory were doing on board the ship. I wondered why Blitzen and Hearthstone weren’t back yet, and why it would take them five days just to scout out the location of a whetstone. Njord had promised I’d see them again before the really dangerous stuff went down. I should’ve gotten him to swear an oath on his immaculately groomed feet.

Mainly though, I worried about my own impending duel with Loki: a contest of insults with the most eloquent Norse deity. What had I been thinking? No matter how magical Kvasir’s Mead was, how could it possibly help me beat Loki at his own game?

No pressure, of course. If I lost I’d just be reduced to a shadow of myself and imprisoned in Helheim while all my friends died and Ragnarok destroyed the Nine Worlds. Maybe I could buy a book of Viking insults at the Viking Centre gift shop.

T.J. snored on. I admired his courage and positivity. I wondered if I’d have a tenth of his presence of mind when I had to face Loki.

My conscience answered NO! then broke down in hysterical sobbing.

Thanks to the rain, I finally managed to sleep, but my dreams were not relaxing, nor were they reassuring.

I found myself back on Naglfar, the Ship of the Dead. Masses of draugr swarmed the deck, rags and mildewed armor hanging from their bodies, their spears and swords corroded like burnt matchsticks. The warriors’ spirits fluttered inside their rib cages like blue flames clinging to the last remnants of kindling.

Thousands upon thousands shambled toward the foredeck, where hand-painted banners hung along the rails and waved from the yardarms in the frigid wind: MAKE SOME NOISE!, GO, DRAUGR, GO!, RAGNAROK AND ROLL!, and other slogans so terrible they could only have been written by the dishonored dead.

I did not see Loki. But standing at the helm, on a dais cobbled together from dead men’s nails, was a giant so old I almost thought he might be one of the undead. I’d never seen him before, but I’d heard stories about him: Hrym, the captain of the ship. His very name meant decrepit. His bare arms were painfully emaciated. Wisps of white hair clung to his leathery head like icicles, making me think of pictures I’d seen of prehistoric men found in melting glaciers. Moldy white furs covered his wasted frame.

His pale blue eyes, though, were very much alive. He couldn’t have been as frail as he looked. In one hand, he brandished a battle-ax bigger than I was. In the other hand was a shield made from the sternum of some huge animal, the space between the ribs fitted with sheets of studded iron.

“Soldiers of Helheim!” the giant bellowed. “Behold!”

He gestured across the gray water. At the other end of the bay, the glacial cliffs crumbled more rapidly, ice cracking and sloughing into the sea with a sound like distant artillery.

“The way will soon be clear!” the giant shouted. “Then we sail to battle! Death to the gods!”

The cry went up all around me—hollow, hateful voices of the long dead taking up the chant.

Mercifully, my dream shifted. I stood in a recently plowed wheat field on a warm sunny day. In the distance, wildflowers blanketed rolling hills. Beyond that, milk-white waterfalls tumbled down the sides of picturesque mountains.

Some part of my brain thought: At last, a pleasant dream! I’m in a commercial for organic whole wheat bread!

Then an old man in blue robes hobbled toward me. His clothes were tattered and mud-stained from long travel. His wide-brimmed hat shaded his face, though I could make out his graying beard and secretive smile.

When he reached me, he looked up, revealing one eye that gleamed with malicious humor. The other eye socket was dark and empty.

“I am Bolverk,” he said, though of course I knew it was Odin. Aside from his less-than-creative disguise, once you’ve heard Odin give a keynote address on best berserker practices, you never forget his voice. “I’m here to make you the deal of a lifetime.”

From beneath his cloak, he produced an object the size of a cheese round, covered in cloth. I was afraid it might be one of Odin’s inspirational CD collections. Then he unwrapped it, revealing a circular whetstone of gray quartz. It reminded me of the bashing end of Hrungnir’s maul, only smaller and less maul-worthy.

Odin/Bolverk offered it to me. “Will you pay the price?”

Suddenly Odin was gone. Before me loomed a face so large I couldn’t take it all in: glowing green eyes with vertical slits for pupils, leathery nostrils dripping with mucus. The stench of acid and rotten meat burned my lungs. The creature’s maw opened to reveal rows of jagged triangular teeth ready to shred me—and I sat bolt upright, screaming in my bed of tarps.

Above me, dim gray light filtered through the skylights. The rain had stopped. T.J. sat across from me, munching a bagel, a strange pair of glasses on his face. Each lens had a clear center, bordered by a ring of amber glass, making T.J. look like he’d acquired a second set of irises.

“Finally up!” he noted. “Bad dreams, huh?”

My whole body felt jittery, like coins rattling inside a change-separator machine.

“Wh-what’s going on?” I asked. “What’s with the glasses?”

Alex Fierro appeared in the doorway. “A scream that high could only be Magnus. Ah, good. You’re awake.” She tossed me a brown paper bag that smelled of garlic. “Come on. Time’s wasting.”

She led us to the main room, where her ceramic duality dude still lay in pieces. She circled the table, checking her work and nodding with satisfaction, though I couldn’t see that anything had changed. “Okay! Yep. We’re good.”

I opened the paper bag and frowned. “You left me a garlic bagel?”

“Last awake, last choice,” Alex said.

“My breath is going to be terrible.”

“More terrible,” Alex corrected. “Well, that’s fine. I’m not kissing you. Are you kissing him, T.J.?”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” T.J. popped the last of his bagel in his mouth and grinned.

“I—I didn’t say anything about—” I stammered. “I didn’t mean…” My face felt like it was crawling with fire ants. “Whatever. T.J., why are you wearing those glasses, anyway?”

I’m good at subtly changing the conversation like that when I’m embarrassed. It’s a gift.

T.J. wiggled his new specs. “You helped jog my memory, Magnus, talking about that sniper last night! Then I dreamed about Hrungnir and those weird amber eyes of his, and I saw myself laughing and shooting him dead. Then, when I woke up, I remembered I had these in my haversack. Completely forgot about them!”

It sounded like T.J. had way better dreams than I did, which was no surprise.

“They’re sniper glasses,” he explained. “They’re what we used before scopes were invented. I bought this pair in Valhalla, oh, a hundred years ago, I guess, so I’m pretty sure they’re magic. Can’t wait to try them out!”

I doubted Hrungnir was going to stand still while T.J. sniped at him from a safe distance. I also doubted any of us would be doing much laughing today. But I didn’t want to spoil T.J.’s pre-combat buzz.

I turned to the ceramic warrior. “So, what’s going on with Pottery Barn guy? Why is he still in pieces?”

Alex beamed. “Pottery Barn? Good name! But let’s not assume Pottery Barn’s gender.”

“Uh. Okay.”

“Wish me luck.” She took a deep breath, then traced her fingers across the ceramic warrior’s two faces.

The ceramic pieces clattered and flew together as if they’d been magnetized. Pottery Barn sat up and focused on Alex. The faces were still hardened clay, but the frozen twin sneers suddenly seemed angrier, hungrier. The right side’s eye sockets glowed with golden light.

“Yes!” Alex exhaled with relief. “Okay. Pottery Barn is nonbinary, as I suspected. Preferred pronouns are they and them. And they are ready to fight.”

Pottery Barn jumped off the table. Their limbs grinded and scraped like stones against cement. They stood about eight feet tall, which was plenty scary to me, but I wondered if they stood a chance against whatever clay warrior Hrungnir had created.

Pottery Barn must have sensed my doubt. They turned their faces toward me and raised their right fist—a heavy clay vase glazed bloodred.

“Stop!” Alex ordered. “He’s not the enemy!”

Pottery Barn turned to Alex as if asking You sure about that?

“Maybe they don’t like garlic,” Alex speculated. “Magnus, finish that bagel quickly and let’s get on the road. We can’t keep our enemies waiting!”