The Only Gods We Know, Ch 5: Root and Rune

In the long, alien night on Iðunn's Orchard Prime, sleep was a traitor and silence was a myth; there was only the constant, grinding pressure of the Root-Mind in Brynja's skull and the waiting dread of the next attack.

Her squadron, the Stormbringers, had been grounded, plain and simple. High Command's logic was brutal but sound: the thick jungle, unpredictable high-altitude winds, and the enemy's new nighttime, stealthy creatures made full combat air patrols a high-risk, low-reward mission. Valkyries, it had been decided, were more valuable on the ground as an elite QRF - a quick reaction force to plug the certain gaps in FOB Vanaheim's quickly built perimeter.

So here Brynja stood, her sleek flight suit and light void armor swapped for heavier, scuffed ground-assault armor. Her flight pack was replaced by a stronger energy shield generator and extra power cells for Storm-Singer. The psychic static was a constant, grinding headache, a low buzz of hate that made her want to claw her own helmet off. It was like trying to keep aware of your surroundings while someone screamed white noise directly into your soul.

"Contact, two o'clock, fifty meters!" an Einherjar guard yelled from a nearby fighting spot, his voice tight with tension.

"I see 'em," Sigrun grunted beside Brynja, her massive tower shield already planted firmly in the mud. "More of the moss-wolves."

They boiled out of the darkness, low, multi-legged predators that seemed to blend perfectly with the jungle floor until they were almost on top of the defensive line. The fighting erupted in a chaotic series of close-range fights, lit by the sharp flashes of Einherjar storm-bolters, the bright flare of energy lances, and the eerie, pulsing glow of the alien plants.

"Hrist, suppressive fire, left flank! Mist, watch for unseen movers on the thermal!" Brynja commanded, her voice a sharp bark over their squad comm. She moved with practiced, deadly skill, her spear a blur. She parried the lunge of a moss-wolf, its claws screeching against her shield, then thrust. The energy-wrapped tip of Storm-Singer punched through its armored hide with a sickening sizzle. The air filled with the stench of cooked xeno-flesh and the coppery tang of spilled blood. This was war reduced to mud, sweat, and the brutal, personal business of killing things that wanted to eat you.

Astrid fought with a wild grace, her energy whip cracking like a thunderclap, lashing out to trip and cripple the creatures before she killed them with a quick, clean stab of her sidearm. Even on the ground, she was a show-off, but a lethally effective one.

Brynja watched Astrid fight, a flash of something familiar in her wild grace. A memory surfaced - a dogfight over Cygnus X-1, her own Valkyrie a silver blur, pushing the limits until the alarms screamed. A ghost of that same wild grin on her own face. The memory vanished, leaving only the weight of the mud on her boots.

She killed a second moss-wolf and moved on, trusting Hrist and the others to cover her. They fought as a unit, a deadly machine. Astrid, the lethal lash of her whip and sidearm, and Brynja, the heavy, crushing weight of her spear and shield.

They were good. They had to be, to survive this long.

The real terror came from a different direction. Stationed near their part of the perimeter was a Combat Mage, a thin, intense man named Loras. He had been trying a deep-scan ritual to find the nearest Root-Mind sub-node. Brynja had watched him for the past hour, his hands weaving complex patterns of glowing runes in the air, sweat on his brow as he fought against the psychic noise.

Then, it happened. Loras let out a sudden, pained scream, a sound that cut through the noise of battle and chilled Brynja to the bone. The scream was a high, tearing sound, devoid of physical pain. It resonated behind Brynja's own eyes, a psychic echo that made her teeth ache. He shook violently, his eyes rolling back in his head, blood trickling from his nose and ears. The runes he had so carefully woven shattered into fading specks of light. He collapsed, a twitching, broken thing on the muddy ground, his link to magic brutally cut by the raw, overwhelming psychic power of the Root-Mind.

Brynja and her team saw it firsthand, the direct, terrifying power of the enemy's invisible warfare. This was a planet with teeth. And it was hostile.

"Mediiiiic!" Sigrun roared, while Brynja directed her squadron's fire to cover the fallen mage. "Keep that flank clear! Don't let them push the line!" She forced down the cold dread creeping into her gut. She felt the weight of her squadron's focus, their eyes flicking to her between shots. She was their anchor here in the mud, the hard point against a horror that fought on every possible front.

The attack finally broke with the first, sickly green light of the main sun filtering through the canopy. The long night left behind a battlefield covered with the bodies of alien creatures and, sadly, more than a few Asgardian dead being carried to the back. Brynja, her armor caked in mud and alien blood, felt a tiredness that went deeper than muscle or bone.

She found Gunnr by the main aid station, helping medics sort the wounded. The infantry liaison's face was a grim look of exhaustion and sadness. "Lost twelve from Third Platoon," Gunnr said, her voice hoarse. "Four to that psychic attack that took out Loras. The rest… torn apart. Poisons we can't identify. Infections that eat through armor seals. This place… it's a goddamn meat-grinder."

Brynja nodded, the words heavy in the humid air. The butcher's bill was high, and they had only taken a few hundred meters of hostile ground.

The order for a command briefing came shortly after. Brynja, along with Astrid and other available officers, stood in the main C2 tent as Tyr's holographic form appeared, his expression harder and more unforgiving than ever. Beside him was the lead Combat Mage, a serious-looking woman with haunted eyes.

"The first intelligence report was wrong," Tyr stated, dropping any pretense of heroic speeches. "Taking this planet by normal means is now considered impossible."

The lead mage stepped forward. "Our deep-scan rituals, though they cost us," she glanced grimly at a report of their casualties, "have confirmed the nature of the threat. The Myco-Symbiont consciousness is a hive mind, a 'Root-Mind,' its intelligence spread through an underground network of main nodes. The being controlling this continent has been designated 'Node Primus.' Standard war of attrition is useless. We cannot kill the jungle leaf by leaf."

"Therefore," Tyr cut in, his voice like stone grinding on stone, "we are shifting from a defensive stance to a decapitation strike. The mages have found the probable location of Node Primus, about seventy-five klicks deep into hostile territory. The new OPORD is simple: we punch through the jungle, and we kill their god."

A murmur went through the assembled officers. A deep-jungle attack. A suicide mission.

Geirskögul's voice crackled over a private Valkyrie channel patched into their helmets. "Attention, Valkyrie elements. New tasking. The jungle canopy and local atmospheric problems make consistent close air support a liability. Valkyrie elements will be put directly into the spearhead force. You are now elite shock infantry. Your flight packs will be used for short-range tactical moves and vertical assaults only. You will be the tip of the goddamn spear."

A thrill, sharp and real, shot through Brynja despite the grim situation. She glanced at Astrid, who wore a wild grin, her eyes blazing with a fierce, joyful light. Sigrun, standing nearby, simply tightened the straps on her massive shield, her expression a mask of grim, determined acceptance.

The offensive began three hours later, a column of pure Asgardian power pushing out from the relative safety of FOB Vanaheim. At the very front, the tip of the spear, were the Valkyries. Brynja and the Stormbringers, along with two other Valkyrie squadrons, moved as a fast, hard-hitting vanguard, flanking a core of Einherjar commandos and the lead Asgardian grav-tanks.

Their job was to be the eyes and ears of the column, to scout ahead, find threats, and kill them before they could hit the main body. It was brutal, exhausting work. The jungle fought them for every meter.

"Contact, right flank!" Hrist yelled, her voice tight with adrenaline. She moved with a blinding speed that was her signature, her spear a blur as she stabbed a camouflaged, panther-like creature that had been about to pounce from the thick jungle.

Brynja herself used Storm-Singer beyond its intended purpose, its energy-wrapped blade cutting through the thick, grabbing vines that seemed to deliberately try to tangle them. "Mist, watch for spore-pods! High-threat biologicals!"

"Acknowledged, Lead. I'm marking multiple fungal traps, grid reference…" Mist's calm voice was an anchor in the chaos. Her sharp mind spotted the small signs of danger - a discolored patch of moss, a certain type of fungus that always came before a toxic burst - that the rest of them, focused on the more obvious threats, might miss.

They came to a deep, wide chasm, impossible for the heavy grav-tanks to cross. A perfect ambush point. "Valkyries, vertical assault!" Brynja commanded over the comm net. "On my mark!"

With a roar of their compact flight packs, Brynja and the other Valkyries launched into the air in short, controlled bursts, flying across the chasm under heavy fire from unseen hostile plants on the far side. They landed among the enemy, a storm of steel and anger, clearing the ridge with brutal skill. Within minutes, the immediate threat was gone, and they set up a perimeter, allowing the Einherjar to use climbing gear and secure the way for the rest of the column.

The fighting was relentless, a constant, grinding push against an enemy that was everywhere and nowhere. The column was taking casualties, the advance slowing. They were nearly overrun by a sudden, massive wave of Symbiont warriors that burst from the earth itself when a new, terrifying sound joined the noise of battle: the crackle of immense, divine lightning and the roar of a thunder god.

Thor had joined the fray.

He was a whirlwind of raw, untamed power, Mjolnir a blur in his hand. He plowed into the Symbiont ranks just meters from Brynja's position. Lightning arced from his body to burn the fungal monsters, and the concussive force of his hammer blows sent shockwaves through the very ground they stood on.

It was terrifying, awe-inspiring, and for the first time since landing on this godforsaken world, Brynja felt a surge of something that ran deeper than grim focus. Their god was with them in the mud and the blood, and he was magnificent.

After another six hours of brutal, jungle-grinding hell, they reached the objective. The psychic static, that grinding pressure in Brynja's skull, got worse. It became a low, throbbing hum that made her vision swim. The spot the mages had pinpointed was a massive, gaping sinkhole, a wound in the planet's surface that went down into darkness. The air around it was thick with the same sweet, rotten smell they'd first smelled on entry, but a hundred times stronger. This was it. Node Primus.

"All elements, halt! Establish forward perimeter!" Tyr's voice, now physically present and booming from somewhere near the front of the column, cut through the comms. "Mages, prepare your runic charges. Valkyries, Einherjar, form a hard-point defense. Expect heavy resistance."

He was right on target.

The ground before the sinkhole began to churn. Soil and rock heaved as if something huge was pushing its way up from below. With a sound like a thousand trees snapping at once, it burst from the earth. Brynja had thought the standard Symbionts were bad. This thing stood beyond comparison.

It was an "Alpha-class" Symbiont, a walking goddamn nightmare made of woven fungus, with hard fungal plates as thick as a tank's front armor, and dripping tendrils loaded with spores. It was easily the size of a small building, a multi-limbed, spider-like monster that blocked out the alien sky. It let out a low, deep roar that was both a sound and a wave of pure psychic hate, staggering the front-line troops.

"Fuck me sideways," an Einherjar near Brynja breathed, his voice tight with awe and terror. "What in Hel's nine shitholes is that?"

"That," Brynja said, her own voice tight as she activated her shield and brought Storm-Singer to a ready stance, "is the god we came to kill."

"All units, engage! Engage! Heavy weapons, focus fire on the main body!" Tyr's command was immediate, cutting through the initial shock.

The battle was a desperate, chaotic, total combined-arms clusterfuck. The grav-tanks, what was left of them, opened up. Their main cannons sent bright bolts of energy slamming into the Alpha Symbiont's armor, making it stumble but failing to do any real, lasting damage. Einherjar squads laid down disciplined sprays of storm-bolter fire, trying to draw its attention, their explosive rounds hitting its hide like angry fireflies. The creature swatted at them with huge, scythe-like arms. One swing turned a heavy weapons team into a red spray and a shower of shattered plasteel.

"Valkyries, you're the giant-killers! Find me a fucking weak point!" Geirskögul's voice screamed over their wing comms.

They were elite monster hunters, the only ones with the speed and firepower to fight this thing head-on and survive contact.

"Stormbringers, on me! 'Hunt and Harass' pattern!" Brynja commanded. "We draw its fire, make an opening for Thor! Astrid, you're on point for weak spots! Mist, keep feeding us real-time analysis!"

They activated their flight packs in short, powerful bursts, becoming blurs of silver and gold against the green chaos. They darted in and out of the creature's reach, a swarm of annoying, stinging insects. Brynja led a charge, her spear glowing with power, cutting a deep, steaming gash along one of the creature's massive legs. It roared, its attention shifting to her, a massive arm swiping at a speed that belied its size. Brynja's flight pack flared, shooting her upwards just as the arm smashed the ground where she had stood.

"Its joints, Brynja! The fungus is thinner there!" Mist's voice was a calm anchor in the storm. "And there are glowing nodes along its back - probably energy or nerve clusters!"

"Astrid, you heard her! You're on node-popping duty!" Brynja yelled.

"With pleasure, Lead!" Astrid replied, a wild grin in her voice. Her body became a golden streak as she used her flight pack to launch herself onto the creature's back, a risky move that made Brynja's blood run cold. She landed with impossible grace, her energy whip cracking, lashing out to slice through the glowing nodes Mist had pointed out. Each successful hit made the creature shudder and roar in pain, its movements becoming more wild.

It was working, but the creature still stood, angry and very much alive. They were just pissing it off.

Then Thor entered the fight. "ENOUGH OF THIS!" his voice boomed, a god's anger made real. He was a blur of motion, Mjolnir a spinning, crackling blur of divine power. He leaped, pushed by some unseen force, directly onto the Alpha Symbiont's main body, his boots slamming into its fungus hide. "Brynja! Draw its main arms left! Give me a clear shot at its core!"

"You heard the man! All Valkyries, focus fire, left flank! Draw its attention, now!" Brynja commanded, leading her squadron in a daring, low-level strafing run, pouring fire into the creature's left side. It worked. The monster twisted, its main scythe-like arms swinging towards them, for a moment exposing the central, pulsing mass of its torso.

That was all the opening Thor needed. "FOR ASGARD!" he roared, raising Mjolnir high. The hammer came down with a reality-breaking blast of thunder and lightning that vaporized a ten-meter section of the Alpha Symbiont's core, leaving a smoldering, burned crater. The creature shuddered, let out one final, silent, psychic shriek, and then collapsed, its massive body crashing to the ground with a shudder that shook the whole clearing.

***

The silence after the Alpha Symbiont's fall was more unnerving than the battle itself. The way was clear. Tyr, his face a grim mask of determination, pointed towards the gaping mouth of the sinkhole. "Assault element, with me! We cut the head off this serpent!"

Brynja, her breath ragged, her armor scorched and dented, found herself part of the main assault group. It was her, Sigrun, Astrid, a few other elite Valkyries, and the surviving Einherjar commandos, following Thor and Tyr. They went down into the cave, their weapon lights cutting through the thick, spore-filled darkness.

The air inside was thick, humming with a heavy, oppressive energy. The walls of the huge cave were living, pulsing networks of giant, woven fungus strands, glowing with a soft, sickly green light. It was like standing inside the living, beating heart of a god. And the psychic pressure grew immense.

A constant, confusing attack on her senses. Brynja saw quick, nightmare images flash at the edge of her vision - twisted faces, dying stars, memories that belonged to other minds. She heard the faint, distorted screams of fallen comrades from old battles. She shook her head, gritting her teeth, forcing it down. "Maintain focus!" she barked at her team, as much for herself as for them. "It's a psyops attack! Ignore it!"

At the center of the cave was their target: the Root-Mind's central node, Node Primus. It was a massive, brain-like sphere of thick, glowing fungus, hanging in the air from a thousand thick, root-like cables that went into the cave floor and ceiling. It pulsed with a slow, evil rhythm, the source of the psychic torture that filled the air.

"Mages, prepare the runic charge!" Tyr commanded. "Everyone else, form a defensive perimeter! Keep it off them!"

The only enemy here was the overwhelming presence of the Root-Mind itself. Thor, wasting no time on magic, simply walked forward. "I will end this now." He raised Mjolnir high above his head. The hammer crackled with an impossible, raw power that made the very air bend around it.

He brought it down.

The moment the hammer hit the central node, Brynja experienced something beyond pain, beyond understanding. A silent, psychic scream of pure, raw, mind-shattering agony shot out from the node and slammed into her with the force of a capital ship's main cannon. It was the death of a god-like mind, a consciousness that covered a continent, and it was a deep and personal violation.

Her vision went white, her legs gave out, and she was thrown to her knees, screaming into her own helmet, her mind a storm of the dying god's pain and confusion.

When her vision cleared, the psychic pressure was gone. Completely. The silence was so deep and total it was confusing in its own way. She stumbled out of the cave into the jungle. Her comrades looked pale and shaken around her. The change was instant and deeply unsettling. The constant noise of alien life, the psychic static she had gotten used to, was gone, replaced by a dead, empty silence. The bright, glowing plants were already starting to fade, their inner light going out, turning a dull, lifeless brown. The very air felt thin, empty.

She saw the triumphant but exhausted faces of Thor and Tyr coming out of the cave. They had won. The objective was complete. The threat was gone. The Einherjar began to let out ragged, relieved cheers.

But Brynja, having felt the "death" of the planet's mind so closely, could feel their celebration as something distant. She looked out at the now-limp, dying jungle, a giant green corpse stretching for miles in every direction. They had killed a god on a planet-wide scale. They had lobotomized a world.

Brynja stood in the silent, dying jungle, the cheers of her comrades feeling distant, a noise from another world. She had been the tip of the spear that had pierced its heart. A tremor ran through her, a cold that had nothing to do with the air.

***

Glossary

Personnel & Factions

• Valkyrie: An elite warrior-pilot of the AEF. Valkyries are typically masters of aerospace combat, piloting advanced strike craft. On the ground, as seen in this chapter, they function as elite, highly mobile shock infantry, using their Flight Packs for tactical repositioning and vertical assaults. Brynja's squadron, the Stormbringers, is a Valkyrie unit.

• Einherjar: The main heavy infantry of the Asgardian forces. Encased in heavy power armor and wielding Storm-bolters, they form the durable backbone and frontline of any AEF operation. They are analogous to legendary resurrected warriors, known for their resilience and grim determination.

• Combat Mage: A specialist soldier who wields runic magic as a tactical weapon. Their duties range from offensive spells to intelligence-gathering rituals ("deep-scans") and psychic defense. They are powerful but vulnerable to direct psychic assault from entities like the Root-Mind.

• High Command: The supreme strategic leadership of the Asgardian military forces.

• Infantry Liaison: An officer responsible for coordinating between different branches of the military, in this case, ensuring the grounded Valkyrie units work seamlessly with the standard Einherjar platoons.

Acronyms & Slang

• AEF: Asgardian Expeditionary Force. The formal name for the combined military forces sent on off-world campaigns.

• C2: Command and Control. Refers to the infrastructure (tents, vehicles, comms) used by commanders to direct a battle.

• FOB: Forward Operating Base. A secured, fortified outpost established in hostile territory from which operations are launched. FOB Vanaheim is the name of their base on Iðunn's Orchard Prime.

• OPORD: Operations Order. A formal plan issued by a commander to subordinate units, detailing the situation, mission, and execution plan for a specific military operation.

• QRF: Quick Reaction Force. A highly mobile, well-armed unit kept on standby to rapidly respond to emergencies, such as reinforcing a breached perimeter or rescuing a pinned-down unit.

• Psyops: Psychological Operations. Warfare that targets the mind of the enemy. In this story, it is also used to describe the psychic attacks used by the enemy to instill terror and confusion.

• Butcher's Bill: A common military slang term for the number of casualties (dead and wounded) incurred during a mission.

Equipment & Technology

• Flight Pack: A compact, high-thrust propulsion unit worn by Valkyries. It is not designed for sustained atmospheric flight but for powerful, short-range bursts of speed, allowing for tactical jumps, charges, and vertical assaults.

• Storm-Singer: The proper name of Brynja's personal weapon, a technologically advanced spear with an energy-wrapped tip capable of piercing heavily armored targets.

• Storm-bolter: The standard-issue firearm of the Einherjar. A large-caliber, rapid-fire weapon that fires explosive rounds, effective for suppressing enemy swarms and shattering light armor.

• Grav-Tank: An armored fighting vehicle that uses anti-gravity technology to hover over the battlefield, providing heavy fire support with its main cannon.

• Void Armor: A category of advanced combat armor. "Light" void armor is used by pilots for its flexibility, while heavier "ground-assault" variants sacrifice mobility for superior protection and life support.

• Runic Charge: A magical-technological explosive device created by Combat Mages. It is designed to disrupt or destroy massive psychic or supernatural entities by releasing a focused blast of chaotic energy.

Tactics & Operations

• Combat Air Patrol (CAP): A standard aviation mission where fighter craft patrol an area to provide air cover and intercept enemy aircraft. Deemed too high-risk in the story's context.

• Decapitation Strike: A military strategy focused on neutralizing an enemy's leadership or central command node to cause a systemic collapse of their forces. The mission to kill Node Primus is a decapitation strike.

• Spearhead: The leading element of an advancing military force, tasked with breaking through enemy defenses to create a path for the main body.

• 'Hunt and Harass' Pattern: A specific combat maneuver employed by fast-moving units like the Valkyries. It involves using speed and coordinated hit-and-run attacks to distract, wound, and disorient a much larger, slower enemy, creating openings for heavier units to strike a decisive blow.

Enemy Terminology

• Root-Mind: The collective hive-mind consciousness of the Myco-Symbiont life on Iðunn's Orchard Prime. It communicates and fights via overwhelming psychic pressure.

• Node Primus: The Asgardian designation for the central, god-like intelligence controlling the Root-Mind on the continent. The primary target of the decapitation strike.

• Alpha-class Symbiont: A designation for a massive, heavily armed and armored bio-form that acts as a guardian or field commander for the Root-Mind. It is analogous to a general or a living siege engine.

• Moss-wolves: A common bio-form of the Symbiont army; low-slung, multi-legged predators that excel at ambushes.