Unbroken

Chapter 78

"Loki get down!" Loki barely had time to register Thor's warning before a bolt of fire shot past him and killed a jotun soldier.
The Asgardian army hadn't taken any time to rest or recover after the first failed battle. They regrouped and moved out immediately, hoping to stop the jotuns from establishing any sort of strong fortress. It worked, the jotuns weren't ready for an attack when the Asgardian s struck, and it gave the Asgardians a great advantage, the downside was that the Asgardian soldiers were weakening.
It had been two weeks since the first battle, and the fighting had been non stop. Loki and Thor did their best to lead their army and encourage their soldiers, but they were all far from civilization, they were running on limited recourses, and the strain of war was wearing down on them. Two weeks of battle after battle and it seemed to accomplish nothing, the jotuns were no closer to retreating back to Jotunhiem , and the Asgardians were no closer to letting them take the palace (which would win them the war).
Loki was angry that Laufey hadn't come out to fight, he knew why of course, no one in their right mind would send the king out on the front lines, but Loki still wanted to face Laufey in battle and take him out once and for all.
So now we come to the present. The jotun army was attempting to gain control of valley that would give them easier access to the city. The valley was several days journey from civilization, but if the jotuns were able to set up a fortress there, it would be near impossible for the Asgardians to keep them at bay.
Loki ducked and rolled out of the way before he was hit with the fire blast, but he didn't stay on the ground for long. He knew if he stayed down that he wouldn't be able to get back up, he was suffering from fatigue just like everyone else, and maybe a little bit more. The army was running low on supplies after two weeks with no contact to civilization, and Loki had often secretly given up his portions of food for people who were in worse shape than him. He knew he could handle it though, not eating used to be the center of his life.
Loki pulled himself up off the ground and wiped blood out of his eye, then kept fighting. The ground was littered with bodies, mostly of the Jotuns. The Jotuns didn't seem to care how many men died in battle, and they didn't give up on gaining control over the valley, even though it was a clear victory for Asgard. After their initial defeat, the Asgardians went into every battle with stronger forces, and this time the Jotuns were the ones who were unprepared.
Thor was realizing that no matter how many soldiers they killed, the frost giant weren't backing down. He saw Loki so he took the chance. Thor grabbed Lokis arm and pulled him down into a crevice with him so they could talk.
"Why aren't they surrendering? They're not going to win" Thor asked. Loki was glad for a chance to catch his breath.
"These men are disposable. Both to Laufey, and to themselves" Loki told him.
"What does that mean? They're disposable?" Thor asked. Loki nodded and tried to catch his breath.
"Yeah, they're drones. They do what Laufey says and if they fail, he executes them." Loki said "so to them, it doesn't matter if they die here in battle, none of them will go back to Laufey and tell him they failed. They know they'll die either way, so they may as well go out fighting" Loki told him, wiping more blood out of his eye that kept dripping from a gash on his forehead.
"How do you know that?" Thor asked. Loki shrugged as if this was all normal.
"I've seen it before. People come back a failure and laufey has them killed. I've cleaned up the aftermath several times, trust me, they'd all rather die on the battlefield" loki told him.
"Okay, well you know how these people work, can we use their strengths against them?" Thor asked, trying to get the image of loki cleaning up the remains of Laufey's solders out of his mind.
"Well their only strength is physical power. Laufey sends these men because they're big and aggressive, but they're severely lacking in the mental strength department. We probably won't be able to out muscle them, but if we can figure out a way to disorganize their forces, then maybe we can use the confusion to our advantage" Loki told him. Thor thought about it for a minute.
"Alright, you're closer to them and they pretty much all hate you. Can you try to play some Mind games with the soldiers while I try to take down the leader?" Thor asked him. Loki nodded, trying to think of something he could do to get the frost giants to weaken their forces.
Loki and Thor jumped back into the fight. Thor went to try and keep his men safe, and take out the leaders of the Jotun army. Loki heard the leaders shouting commands at the other soldiers and he had an idea. maybe if he could get the soldiers to doubt the authority of the leaders, he could cause enough chaos to weaken the army.
Look started fighting with one of the soldiers and did his best to get inside his head.
"What are you hoping to gain from this?" Loki asked as he fought the jotun soldier. The frost giant fought back angrily, but he said nothing back, so Loki kept talking. "Why are you following orders? What makes your leader any more qualified than you?" Loki asked as he was hit in the stomach and stumbled back.
"Stop talking!" The Jotun soldier shouted.
"Why should I?" Loki panted, he was glad he'd annoyed the Jotun soldier enough to pause the fight for a moment. "I don't take orders form you or anyone else anymore... you don't scare me, laufey doesn't scare me, I'm not bound by your orders. Clearly you don't have the same freedom" loki said, his taunt hit a little harder than he thought it would. The frost giant attacked him and got him pinned on the ground.
"Stop talking!" He shouted as he beat on Lokis face repeatedly. Loki tried to fight to get him off of him, but Loki was already pretty weak and he'd made the frost giant pretty angry, he knew he was probably not going to come out of this one alive. His head was ringing but he could hear the Jotun leader give an order for everyone to converge to the center of the battlefield. Loki figured Thor had done enough damage to cause some panic among the leaders, and now they wanted to appear stronger by crowding together.
Loki's face was a mess of blood, he could barely see through one eye because it was so swollen, he was positive that his nose was broken, and his mouth was filling with blood from his cut up lips. He got a break when the Jotun leader gave the order though, it seemed the frost giant who was on top of Loki wasn't to thrilled with being given an order, and Loki hoped he'd planted enough doubt to cause a bit of chaos.
"Why aren't you going?" He asked, though his words ran together a bit because of the condition of his mouth. The frost giant looked angry, so loki kept talking. "Tired of being a sheep? Yeah... I was too, following orders only to be beaten or tortured, or in your case, executed.... it isn't really fair, is it? You're replaceable to Laufey and you're replaceable to your leaders here... and look" the frost giant turned toward the center of the battlefield where the other soldiers were gathering. "He's a terrible leader" loki continued "he's getting you all killed, then using you all as a shield for himself. And he didn't get to be the leader by any kind of skill, he was picked at random by Laufey, the guy who doesn't care if you all live or die.... maybe if someone else had gotten chosen as your leader, you would be doing a lot better here. But you'll never know will you? you just follow the orders of a moron who'll get you killed..." Loki said, the frost giants face contorted with anger, he brought up his fist and punched Loki one more time, harder than before. He then leaned over and got in Lokis face.
"I'll kill you later" he growled, then got up and walked away from Loki. Loki hoped he was leaving to revolt against the leader, not to just join the group.
Loki laid on the ground in terrible pain for a few minutes, he couldn't make himself get up and move. But he was pleased to hear a lot of chaos begin. He knew what it sounded like when the frost giants fought each other, and this was the sound. He'd never been happier to hear it before.
"Loki, come on, move" he heard fandral say, as fandral grabbed him and dragged out off to the sidelines.
"What's going on?" Loki asked, unable to sit up and see for himself.
"Not sure, but the Jotuns suddenly became really disorganized, and Thor is about to cause some serious damage" fandral said. Loki noticed that a lot of the Asgardians were moving away from the battle. Destructing the Jotuns made it possible for the Asgardians to move out of the way so Thor could light up the battlefield with lightening.
"What's Thor going to-" Loki was cut off when he heard the cracking of lightening in the sky. Loki barely had time to think about what was happening before the lightening struck down to where Thor was standing, then blasted out and destroyed anyone standing within the range of his lightening, which was the majority of the Jotun army. The Asgardian soldiers went back to the battlefield to finish of the last of the army. Loki couldn't fight right now, but he knew that they'd won the battle and kept the Jotuns from getting into the city