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Loki felt the icy wind blow his hair around his face as he backed up another few steps, sword keeping at bay for the moment the two Asgardians who stalked him. He only hoped he could make it to the very edge of the tower's roof before they changed strategy and attacked in earnest. He suspected they would not; the Thunderer wanted Loki alive, he was sure of that. So it came down to him being driven like a pack animal (so they thought) to the roof of the southeast tower which balanced on a cliff. If he could just reach the edge before they suspected his strategy...there was no reason they would, neither of them felt to him like users of seidr.
One of his opponents wielded her double-bladed staff as if it was an extension of her body, the woman appeared to be wholly and entirely a weapon herself. Loki had experienced enough of the other one's swordskill this very day to acknowledge his better, if only to himself. Still, Loki had acquitted himself well enough with his sword, once he had mostly exhausted his well of seidr. He was now approaching total exhaustion, and knew his chances of seeing the dawn a free man were small. But he intended to see this battle out tonight either free or dead. Fleeing, or fighting or falling to his death. Would his luck hold steady enough to allow him to flee?
He just needed another few moments, another few painfully-won backward steps to the edge. And a clean fall off that edge. And the strength to cast just once more. No pressure, it would seem. He would have sighed if he hadn't been already panting.
Death was the next best option, either at the hands of the two invaders who had now hemmed him in with a pincer movement or by a long enough fall that he broke his head or his neck or...stop that. A flash of lightning, just too far enough away to be really felt but too near for comfort, distracted him from this train of thought for a moment, and the sky rumbled. Well. Either the cliff was suitable for a long fall or he was dead. He might be dead anyway if he failed to cast, the landing would just be further and harder.
If so he hoped it meant a quick death. He could not afford the cost of being taken alive, no matter his father's wishes or plans. These two could disarm him easily if he found himself without the courage to jump. If it happened...he would do his duty, pay the cost, But he would prefer the long fall and hard landing.
"Don't be a fool, man, lay down your weapon and surrender. There is an honoured place in our camp for a noble foe such as yourself, even if it is as prisoner!" The woman rolled her eyes at her comrade-in-arms' flowery words, mirroring Loki's own thoughts. The Asgardians gave no honour to the Jotunn fallen, in surrender or in death. No quarter was given or asked in battle, no prisoners taken. The invaders won every inch of land in blood spilt, much of it their own but too much of it Jotunn.
Another reason that Loki could not allow his capture, would not risk his talents to be turned against his own people. They already fell in droves before the superior numbers and resources of the Asgardian army. Even if Loki chose no longer to wear the form of a Jotunn, he still believed that he carried a shard of the ur-ice in his heart, as all Jotunn did. His travels and training outside of Jotunheim, the years outside now outnumbering the years he had actually lived in his homeland, could not take that from him, nor could this Aesir form he now wore as a matter of habit. He hoped his pale skin and green eyes confused these two Asgardians somewhat. He would take any advantage he could right now.
Were those runic cuffs he saw tied to the woman's belt? He edged back another pace on crumbling ground. They followed.
Risking a glance over his shoulder, he could see that the cliff lip below was a small outcrop of rock and ice, but just big enough to possibly pose a problem to his leap. As if that wasn't enough of an inconvenience, he saw the clouds that swirled over the far side of the battlefield begin to shift and move towards his position. The lightning arced closer, and thunder followed. He met the eyes of his two enemies and smiled a smile that was all teeth and very little warmth. Dropping his sword, he spread his arms wide in apparent acknowledgement of their victory and took one more step back, as if to bow. This gained him an extra moment while they paused. Finally stepping backwards off the tower roof, he twisted.
With the wind in his eyes, he could barely see but he supposed it hardly mattered as seeing it wouldn't help him avoid the cliff edge necessarily. He felt his twisting, shrinking form plummet downwards as his cloak and red and blue leathers came loose, going their own way on the air currents. If his two would-be detainers were foolhardy enough (oh please let them be foolhardy enough, and unlucky too) to approach the crumbling tower edge to properly watch his descent, what did they think they were seeing? Were they clear-eyed enough to see his falling form ripple and change into a smaller, sharper, feathered and winged form, for its plummet to become a dive as his wings extended and rode the icy winds driven forward by the weather seidr of their own leader? If so, another of his secrets had been revealed, he supposed.
He felt the shadow of the cliff edge pass under him as he gained more control over his dive and swooped gently, riding the air currents upwards and away. Loki knew he wasn't quite in the clear yet but he couldn't help exulting over his victory here. A small one, granted, especially in the face of what his king's army had lost tonight, especially so close to capital. But this victory meant he could continue as a free man, subject only to himself and to his father, Laufey-King of Jotunheim. He could still die if the Thunderer was quick enough and enraged enough to strike a long-range blow to him in this fragile form, but he would die free.
As if thinking of him drew his attention, like a haunt in a children's tale, Loki sensed the weapon of the so-called King of Asgard a moment before it hurtled by him. He avoided it more by luck and the buffeting of the storm-laden winds than by design. It almost caught him again on its return, and he could feel its focus and power tearing back along the sky to its master. He thought he just might by now be out of the range of anyone's eyesight, and unless the Thunderer himself decided to leave the battlefield and chase Loki, he was safe enough. For now.
Thor grunted in frustration as Mjolnir returned to his hand with no trace of the seidrmaster's blood, and briefly considered abandoning the field of battle to track him down himself. He was enough out of countenance to do it, but on looking at his companions' faces he grounded himself in the needs of the men and women who had fought and fallen for their cause this day. This night, he realised, as he took proper note of his surroundings. Sif and Fandral appeared angry and despondent both, so he clapped them on the shoulders and grinned. "Our quarry has escaped again! I suppose a Frost Giant is a smarter foe than a brawny buck or a bilgesnipe. The hunt goes on my friends. Do not despair."
Fandral, looking pretty even while scowling, did not seem ready to take his good cheer to heart. Sif tapped the cuffs on her belt. "We were almost within reach of him. If only I had timed it better. He really did not seem in any condition to summon seidr for another trick, but that, I suppose was the real trick." She grimaced, fondling the cuffs. Fandral snorted. "A warrior who is reduced to tricks to survive the battlefield is no warrior at all. At the very least, a warrior like that has no honour, no true courage."
Thor wasn't so sure about that. As first and foremost a man who favoured physical prowess, he understood Fandral's objection to tricks winning over skill, but if a battle of wits was where the war was being fought, then trickery was surely a weapon like any other. He could admit to himself a grudging admiration of the seidr-master's successful dodge. As for courage...their quarry could have escaped easily at least an hour before he had found himself cornered by Sif and Fandral, but had chosen to fight on, easing the way of escape for many of his comrades and the townspeople trapped on the field of battle. A good soldier, risking himself for his comrades.
The end of the war might be brought about faster Thor he knew which threads to pull in this land, and where, and how hard. This sorcerer was a colourful thread shot through a tapestry of dank blues and greys, riotous and distracting and potentially allowing the unravelling of it all if pulled just the right way. The Asgardians were going to win the war, sooner or later, this was not in doubt, but Thor wondered if he could have used some... trick to speed it along. To prevent the loss of so many Aesir lives, to reduce the time they had all had to stay in this Norns-cursed land of ice and rock, to subjugate the Jotunn so they would not dare rise against Asgard again.
Thor looked down at the burning town, the desecrated temples, at the Jotunn dead and his own fallen, which were beginning to be covered in white to mark their sacrifice. Standing at the high point of the decaying southeast watch tower, Thor, king of Asgard, looked upon his mighty works that day. The lone and level ice outside the town stretched far away.
The following day, after the Asgardian burial ceremonies had been completed and the Jotunn carcasses dumped in a mass grave, the Asgardians broke camp and aimed like an arrow for the next settlement. News of the seidrmaster came from the forward riders. Hogun brought the scout's report of a sighting of an Aesir in muted blue and red leathers in the city. Thor spoke. "The scout knows to keep silent on this?" They both knew that their troops kept ears open for news of the presence of the sorcerer.
Thor wondered if that was possibly a reason that the sorcerer signalled his presence by appearing as an Aesir. He must know that doing so made him a target. A single pale, dark-haired leatherclad Aesir dwarfed by even the shortest of his cobalt-skinned and kilted brethen certainly drew the eye, even in the height of battle. And if he was a shapechanger, as was long suspected but only proven with last night's escape, his Aesir form was a deliberate choice. Brave, bold, flamboyant, a taker of risks. So different from the dogged courage and blunt tactics of the Jotunn as a whole.
A failed assassination attempt upon Thor in the earlier part of the war had tipped the sorcerer's hand, and he had been unable or unwilling to penetrate the ranks or camp of the Asgardian army since. As the war progressed and as the sorcerer's talents in battle had become clear, Thor had thought to capture him.
That had proven difficult..almost impossible, Thor had to grudgingly admit. But they had come closer and closer with each attempt, and last time Sif and Fandral had almost been within cuffing distance. So close.
Thor had put an enormous amount of effort and resources into learning how to force a seidrmaster to submit and serve. It was a weakness of this particular kind of magic, that the user could be collared and bent to the will of another. Thor fully intended to exploit it. It unsettled him more than a little but the benefits of successfully working it on the sorcerer would hugely outweigh Thor's reservations about, well, the wrongs of this thing.
Taking away the free will of another being was a terrible crime, far worse than taking away life if that was done honourably. There was no honour in what he planned to do to the sorcerer, but then, it was just a Jotunn. And it was necessary.