Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six)

rebounded away from his helmet and pauldrons as if they were rubber and made clunking noises instead of an expected clang; yellow light exploded at each contact. Fjalarswung again with his axe, slicing ineffectually through smoke. I suppose he’d managed to make a few of them drop their standard weapons, and his armor had clearly been enchanted to withstand their blows, but neither side was doing any damage.
    Undaunted, Fjalar dropped his first axe and drew another one. While he reached back, the point man solidified, nude, and stabbed at him with the black knife that all Svartálfar carried. This weapon rebounded as well. And when Fjalar hacked at him with his new axe, the villain evaded it again by turning incorporeal.
    Some of the dark elves moved beyond Fjalar, reformed a smaller wedge, and charged up the slope at me, their true target. They all still had gleaming steel in their hands. Seeing this, one of the Ljósálfar barked a command in Old Norse and the elves raised their weapons, but no one ordered me to get down. I readied Fragarach and cast a final worried glance at Fjalar. He was drawing his third axe, bellowing his skald and snarling at his opponents, who continued to rain down blows as useless as his own—until he swung at them with the third axe.
    As before, the dark elves dissolved to coal-black smoke in advance of his blow, but this time, when the axe passed through, it seemed to pull and rip them into solid form as it moved through the air, the way a zipper will part and reveal something hidden in its journey downward. And the dark elves who had been so torn back into the world were split by the axe, and inky innards slithered out of their torsos onto the earth.
    “Victory!” Fjalar shouted, and the Ljósálfar leader behind me commanded that I get down. The dark elves in front of me were awfully close, but I dropped to the earth in curiosity—and so did Fjalar.
    The elves began to shoot their flechettes in a prescribed pattern at the dark elves, in set intervals—onceevery half second, though it took me a couple of seconds to realize it and understand the strategy. The first volley caught some of the dark elves unawares, but most saw it coming and dissolved, dropping their steel in the process. The subsequent shots passed above my head and through them without harm—but that wouldn’t continue. The dark elves could maintain their incorporeal forms for only five seconds, so the Ljósálfar just needed to spray the field with flechettes for six, and they would catch all of them solid at some point.
    Four seconds in, one of the Svartálfar materialized at my side with his black knife held high. He was blown away before he could bring it down. Others saw that the Ljósálfar were a threat and took shape behind them, but when the dark elves lunged in for the kill, the runes on the glass armor activated and repulsed them with a blue shock wave that sent them staggering backward. And then, in the fifth second, the ones below in the field all had to beef up, and they were hit by a double volley of flechettes: The first rocked them and anchored them to flesh, and the second mowed them down.
    The stragglers behind the line of Glass Knights—only three—melted away and fled.
    
    Fjalar and I rose from the ground and stepped away from the mess of dark-elf corpses, before their inherent instability caused them to melt and turn to an oily goo.
    “Did you see that, Druid?” the Runeskald crowed. “The order of runes triumphs over evil!”
    “Well, yeah, I guess. What happened there?”
    “The third axe worked! Now that I know the proper runes and skald to use, I can create more such weapons and arm the Glass Knights for their mission, honor-bathed and glory-steeped.”
    “I’m sorry? What mission?”
    “Our kings, Aurvang and Gedelglinn, have decreed itshould be so. Deep into Svartálfheim the Glass Knights shall delve, wreaking ruin and smiting those who would oppose us during Ragnarok.”
    Something didn’t compute. “Hold on. How do you know who will oppose you during Ragnarok? Have the Svartálfar said they would fight with Hel?”
    “Is this not proof enough, Druid?” Fjalar said, gesturing at the field where the dark elves were dissolving into tar.
    “No, it’s not. These are clearly assassins or mercenaries in someone’s employ, but they do not represent the hearts of all the Svartálfar. There may be some who would oppose Hel, and, if so,