The warehouse was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  The scent of smoke and blood still lingered from the earlier scuffle. A corpse—blue-skinned, broken, and already stiffening—lay sprawled across cracked stone, exactly where Tannis and Maevis had left it. A smear of gore trailed from where they'd dragged him away from the tunnel entrance.

  Thor stepped forward, boots echoing loud in the silence. He stomped once—hard—on the dead Frost Giant’s chest. The ribs gave with a wet crunch.

  “Still dead,” he muttered.

  “How thorough of you,” Loki said, eyeing the ruin. “Remind me never to play dead in your presence.”

  Tannis crouched near a stack of crates, scanning the shadows. “Something’s off,” he murmured.

  Maevis nodded, hand drifting to the hilt of her blade. “Place was crawling when we left. Now… nothing. No sign of alarm. No fresh guards. Not even rats.”

  Thor frowned, eyes narrowing. “It’s too quiet.”

  Loki smiled faintly. “That’s because, my dear thunder-headed companions… it’s a trap.”

  As if on cue, steel rasped.

  Shadows stirred.

  Then they were surrounded—mercenaries, frost-marked thugs, and cloaked figures emerging from alcoves and behind crates. Some crawled down from the rafters above. Others rose from beneath tattered tarps or hidden recesses in the floor. Dozens of them, circling like wolves.

  The leader stepped forward—a broad-shouldered brute in ragged leathers, face half-hidden behind a bronze mask, pitted and scratched. He carried a cruel axe slung over his back and had a strut to his walk that spoke of too many victories over too many lesser foes.

  He grinned, baring yellow teeth.

  “Well, well. Loki of Asgard,” he said, voice thick with a backwater rasp. “My boss says to send his regards.”

  Maevis didn’t blink. “You always this polite before a slaughter?”

  Tannis spun one of his daggers on a fingertip. “Or just nervous around actual professionals?”

  The thug growled, but Loki stepped forward, arms wide as if greeting old friends.

  “How charming,” Loki said dryly. “An ambush, a speech, and not a single original line among the lot of you.”

  He inhaled, rolled his neck—and then his bones cracked, his skin shimmered, and in his place stood a towering black stag, massive and muscled, eyes like burning green lanterns. With a snort of steam and a thunderous bellow, he lunged.

  The nearest mercenary barely had time to scream before hooves and antlers crushed him into a pulp against the wall.

  Thor roared and raised Mj?lnir.

  Lightning lanced down from the heavens—through the warehouse roof—and struck the hammer mid-air.

  The room exploded into chaos.

  Mercenaries scrambled as thunder cracked and light burst from the god of thunder’s form. He launched forward, Mj?lnir spinning into the nearest knot of enemies. It didn’t just strike—it erased them. A blur of metal and divine wrath.

  The thug leader turned, panicked, trying to bark orders—but then Thor was there.

  The god loomed, eyes glowing with fury, cape aflame with residual static.

  “Wodin’s balls,” the thug gasped, paling. “It’s—”

  CRACK.

  His head exploded like a dropped melon, skull fragments clattering across the floor. His body folded with a pathetic flop.

  Maevis and Tannis had already vanished into the melee—Maevis darting between foes like a hunting cat, blade flashing in and out of ribcages, while Tannis danced from crate to crate, flinging knives and clever curses with equal precision.

  Loki, still in stag form, bucked two more enemies into the air before shifting back mid-motion into his humanoid self—landing in a crouch and stabbing a mercenary in the kidney without even looking.

  “Honestly,” he said, standing, “did you really think this would end well?”

  More enemies fell.

  And Winterhaven’s underworld began to realize: they hadn’t ambushed prey.

  They had woken gods.

  The warehouse descended into bedlam.

  Thor was a whirlwind of divine fury. He tore through the ambushers like a battering ram wearing a red cape. Each swing of Mj?lnir left ruin in its wake—shattering weapons, bodies, and occasionally walls. He didn’t dodge. He didn’t weave. He walked through them. One unlucky brute tried to block with a tower shield. Thor hit him so hard the shield embedded itself in the man's chest.

  “Come!” Thor bellowed, grabbing another foe by the collar and hurling him into a support beam. “Is this the best Mavikundi can muster? I’ve swatted flies with more spine!”

  Elsewhere, Maevis and Tannis were dancing.

  Where Thor was a hammer, they were a scalpel. A pair of shadows gliding through the chaos. Tannis would flick a dagger into a man's throat just as Maevis swept his legs, sending him tumbling silently to the ground. They moved in sync—no words, just instinct. One feinted, the other struck. Tannis would pull an enemy forward just as Maevis thrust a blade under his ribs.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  A merc tried to flank them—only to get a faceful of Tannis’s boot, then a dagger in the kidney from Maevis.

  “Didn’t we kill this guy already?” Maevis muttered.

  “Nope,” Tannis said, ducking a sword swipe and lashing out with a short blade. “That one had more hair.”

  “Ah. They all scream the same.”

  Meanwhile, Loki—the stag once more—plowed through the rear lines. He didn’t bother with the armored fighters. No, he had his sights set on the archers and mages who hung back, barking orders and lobbing spells.

  Bad move.

  The first archer barely got his bow up before Loki crushed him underhoof. Another tried to flee—Loki gored him mid-run and tossed him across the room like a rag doll. Green fire flickered in the stag’s eyes as he trampled a pair of casters trying to conjure a frost shield.

  A crossbow bolt sank into his flank—Loki turned, eyes narrowing—and charged. The sniper didn't even have time to reload.

  By the end, there were no survivors.

  The last merc tried to crawl away, leaving a red trail behind. Thor reached down and ended him with a sickening crack of bone.

  Silence returned.

  Broken crates, shattered weapons, and corpses littered the floor.

  Loki shifted back into his usual self with a shimmer of green light, brushing dust from his sleeves like he’d just come back from a stroll.

  “Well, that was invigorating,” he said brightly, stepping over a twitching corpse and promptly kneeling to rifle through its pockets. “Ooh. Look—silver teeth. Classy.”

  Thor watched with arms crossed, expression thunderous.

  “You disgrace the dead,” he said quietly.

  Loki looked up, unbothered. “They disgraced themselves by being so very bad at ambushing us.”

  Tannis, bleeding from a small cut on his brow, slumped against a crate. “Whew. Nothing like morning murder to get the blood flowing.”

  Maevis plopped beside him, flicking blood from her blade. “Think we’ve earned hazard pay?”

  “Think we’ve earned a nap.”

  Loki twirled a coin between two fingers and stashed it in his cloak. “Honestly, you two fought beautifully. Very fluid. Very professional. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you rehearsed it.”

  Tannis smirked. “We did. It’s called ‘being good at our jobs.’”

  Maevis raised an eyebrow. “And yours is...?”

  “Looting, mostly,” Loki said cheerily. He gestured at the corpse-strewn floor. “And I suggest you join me. Dead men have no use for coin. Or weapons. Or—oh my, is that a sapphire ring?”

  He pocketed it without a hint of shame.

  Thor sighed deeply, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

  But he said nothing.

  The battle haze had lifted, but the warehouse stank of blood and scorched leather. The floor was carpeted with the bodies of Mavikundi’s hired blades, each one a grim note in the symphony of violence they had tried—and failed—to conduct.

  Loki crouched beside a thick-set brute in chainmail patched with bits of chitinous carapace, prying a dagger from the corpse’s boot sheath. “Ingenious. Hide the backup blade where no one will find it… except looters.”

  Tannis stepped over a broken crossbow, crouching beside one of the archers Loki had trampled. The man’s limbs were twisted at unnatural angles, his face frozen in an expression of abject panic. “These aren’t street thugs,” Tannis muttered, pulling open a satchel. “Half these bastards have military tattoos—see this ink? That’s Cragspire’s mercenary crest. Thought that company disbanded five years ago.”

  Maevis glanced over from where she was stripping gauntlets off another corpse. “Disbanded doesn’t mean unemployed.”

  “Exactly,” Tannis said, now kneeling beside a tall, gaunt swordsman whose armor was etched in storm motifs. “And this one’s got the wind-sigil of the Tempest Guild. Vicious lot. Used to operate in the Northern Wastes.”

  Thor’s gaze swept the dead. “These men came from many places. They do not share a banner.”

  “Mercenary freelancers, hired in bulk,” Tannis said, rising to his feet, eyes scanning the room. “You don’t build a team like this quickly. You collect it, piece by piece. Which means…”

  He knelt again beside a smashed crate near the wall and pressed a gloved hand to the dust and blood on the floor. “...they’ve been stationed here a while. Look—boot patterns, dried spittle, crushed ration crumbs. I count at least twenty-four pairs of feet that moved in and out of this spot frequently. They were living here.”

  Loki perked up. “So this wasn’t just a trap. This was a forward post.”

  “Aye,” Tannis said grimly. “Mavikundi’s not sending raiding parties. He’s setting up shop.”

  Maevis wiped her hands and moved from body to body, not for loot this time, but pattern. She leaned over a small robed man whose belt held six empty potion vials. “Alchemist,” she muttered. “Probably support. But look at this.”

  She pulled back the man’s cloak to reveal a brass cipher disk attached to a chain around his neck. “Encryptions,” she said with a smile. “And…” She checked the pouches, rifled through scrolls, and found a parchment wrapped in oilcloth tucked under the armpit.

  With a practiced flick, she unrolled it.

  “Jackpot.”

  Tannis looked over her shoulder. “What is that? A map?”

  Maevis nodded. “Detailed. Shows this entire district—complete with markers, arrows, and... here. These red symbols? Stashes. Safehouses.”

  Loki leaned in, eyes bright. “Oh, Mavikundi, you arrogant bastard. You left breadcrumbs.”

  Maevis’s brow furrowed. “And look here—this emblem.” She pointed to a stylized three-headed serpent inked in the corner.

  Thor rumbled low. “That is the Hydra Mark. Symbol of the Black Ledger.”

  Tannis narrowed his eyes. “Mavikundi’s working with the Black Ledger? That’s more than smuggling. That’s high treason in half the known realms.”

  Maevis rolled the map and tucked it into her coat. “Then we’re not just cleaning up Mavikundi’s mess—we’re about to gut a syndicate.”

  Loki clapped his hands together with delight. “What fun. I do love a conspiracy.”

  Thor turned, finally moving toward the door. “Then let us waste no more time. We hunt the serpent... before it sheds its skin.”

  Thor’s boots crunched over the broken remains of the thug leader’s skull as he turned back to the others.

  “This Hydra Mark—this Black Ledger—speak of it. Are they enemies of Asgard?”

  His voice was calm, but there was that crackle beneath the surface. The part of Thor that only came out when storms were near.

  Tannis and Maevis exchanged a glance. Then Tannis stepped forward, rubbing a bloodied thumb along the hilt of his dagger.

  “The Black Ledger isn’t a group, exactly. It’s more like... a network. A hidden market of fixers, assassins, war-profiteers, and smugglers who operate off any known guild registry. Completely off the books. Hydra Mark’s their calling card—three serpent heads for their three major operations: smuggling, shadow deals, and silent kills.”

  Maevis added, “If gold moves where it shouldn’t, if a lord dies under strange circumstances, if a shipment of alchemical weapons disappears into a borderless void—it’s probably them. No loyalty, no banners, just coin.”

  Thor frowned. “Then they have no honor.”

  Loki chuckled and twirled the dagger he’d looted. “On the contrary, brother. The Black Ledger has perfect honor—it’s just not the kind you or Father would recognize. Their word is iron. Their punishments... terminal. Cross them, and your name is scratched from the world before your kin know you’re gone.”

  Tannis leaned against a crate. “They never move openly. So if Mavikundi is flashing their symbol, he’s either bought in deep... or he’s trying to provoke the kind of war they don’t want.”

  Maevis narrowed her eyes. “And the Ledger doesn’t take kindly to risk. If Mavikundi’s drawing attention like this, he either has protection… or leverage.”

  Thor turned toward the darkened street. “Then we must learn which. But first—we need clarity.”

  Tannis nodded, already moving. “I know a place. Safe, out of sight. It's run by someone who's dealt with the Ledger in the past.”

  Maevis pulled her hood back up. “Name’s Brenna Skywing. Broker, smuggler, information fence. She used to work the Ledger’s edges—never got pulled all the way in, but she knows their etiquette. She’s slippery, but useful.”

  Thor grunted. “So long as she does not lie.”

  Loki smiled slyly. “Then you’re asking the impossible.”

  They stepped out into the night, the stink of blood fading behind them. The map was tucked safe in Maevis’s coat, and with it, a dozen leads and dangers yet to be uncovered.

  But for now, they had a name, a symbol, and a shadow network that didn’t yet know it had just earned the attention of gods.