The Sword of Summer

Magnus dreams another visit with Loki. They’re aboard the ship Naglfar, which is “made from the fingernails and toenails of dead men” (332). In the interest of delaying Ragnarok, Loki tells Magnus the sword might be safe with his Uncle Randolph, whose house is protected by powerful magic that would delay Surt obtaining it. Magnus doesn’t want to give up Jack and believes the idea is a trick.

Magnus asks Loki why he was imprisoned, and Loki reveals he killed Balder (god of light and Odin’s son). As punishment, the gods bound him to a rock with snake venom dripping in his face and transformed one of Loki’s sons into a wolf so he could disembowel another of Loki’s children. When Magnus protests the injustice, Loki says that’s how the gods operate and asks Magnus if “you really want to charge into battle on their behalf” (338). Magnus has no answer and wakes up.

Magnus wakes to a goat giving him mouth-to-mouth. He asks where his friends are, and the goat points to Sam and Hearth’s motionless bodies before going on about how miserable its life is. Magnus sends healing energy into his friends. Sam wakes, but Hearth remains cold and still. Magnus digs deeper and finds Hearth isn’t waking because “a dense knot of dark emotion sapped his will to live” (340). Magnus manages to wake him with a joyful memory combined with healing magic.

The goat introduces himself as Otis and says it’s okay if they want to kill him because “my master kills me all the time” (342). Otis’s Master is Thor, but Otis doesn’t know where he is. Jack detects Thor’s presence close by. The five set out to find Thor with a warning from Otis that they should avoid giants so they aren’t “butchered and put in a stew pot” (344).

The journey is slow going, and Hearth remains weak. After a bit, Hearth hands Magnus one of the runes, the perthro rune, and asks Sam to tell his story while he rests. Hearth had a brother who died young, and his parents blamed him for surviving as a disabled elf—" a punishment from the gods” (347). Hearth had a choice to either be granted hearing and speech to live a normal life among the elves or to remain deaf and mute to pursue magic. He chose the latter and held onto the pain of his family’s rejection, which allows him to learn rune magic.

The group reaches a rougher part of the river, and Otis suddenly remembers he was supposed to get help for Thor. Thor ordered him to come back quickly, but Otis spent a day watching Magnus and the others lying unconscious, which means there are only three days until Fenris Wolf’s island appears. Otis’s brother Marvin waits on the beach. Thor is close to drowning in the river, and Marvin warns the group “if you don’t figure out a way to help him, I’ll kill you” (352).