Trapped

When Agrios lowered his head and charged me, Oberon was behind him. Instead of biting the creature in the back of the thigh, Oberon caught an ankle and yanked, stretching Agrios out until he did a face-plant in front of me. The fall drove Granuaile’s knife deeper into his throat and left me an ideal opportunity to take a free strike. I hacked down with Moralltach, expecting to end it there, but he rolled out of the way in a very human move and tore free of Oberon’s jaws. He ignored the hound and me and launched himself after Granuaile, who had nothing but wee irritating needles and a staff that he’d treat like a toothpick. I didn’t have an angle to cut him off in time.

Oberon was faster than I was, and he snagged the guy by the ankle again. It didn’t halt his charge, but it slowed him down a bit, giving Granuaile a chance to toss another knife. It hit right between his eyes but didn’t penetrate into the skull and mess with his brain. Roaring, Agrios lunged at her again, dragging Oberon with him, but Granuaile twisted away and chose to tumble down the hillside, out of his claws’ range. That helped me, because now I could swing Moralltach without worrying about clipping her; the enchantment on its blade would spread necrosis through friend as easily as foe. Diving toward the creature before he could follow my apprentice downhill, I thrust Moralltach desperately at his side and managed to open a shallow groove in his flank. He bellowed and yanked his leg free of Oberon’s jaws again, trailing tendons and flesh. He wanted Granuaile more than anything. Using the three limbs that Oberon hadn’t savaged, Agrios grunted and leapt in a frantic attempt to break free of us. Victory erupted from his muzzle as he fell over the lip of the cave, but it cut off with a surprised yip once he landed on the steep hillside. Moralltach’s necrotic enchantment had reached his heart, and he could no longer control his fall—or, indeed, anything at all. He rolled in a growing billow of dust down to the bottom, a blackened ruin. Granuaile, who’d found the trunk of a young tree to cling to, watched him in horror.

“Well, go, team!” I said, trying to distract from the fact that he’d been much faster in action than I’d anticipated. “Is everyone all right?”

<I’m fine,> Oberon said.

Granuaile was staring at the corpse splayed at the bottom of the hill. “I didn’t know they were all real. I mean, the gods I knew about, but the mythological creatures too?” She tore her eyes free and looked up at me for an answer.

“Well, the Greeks’ more than anyone else. Their tales keep getting told and reinforced.”

“So the manticore? Bellerophon? The chimera? Pegasus? They were all real?”

“Oh, heck, yeah. They had much more press than this guy did.”

Granuaile shook her head. “Please tell me I won’t be bound to the earth here.”

“No. We’ll find someplace else.”

“Then let’s go. Now.” She turned and began to pick her way gingerly down the hillside. I resheathed Moralltach, vowing to clean the blade as soon as I could.

<I didn’t think her mood could get any worse, but obviously I was wrong,> Oberon said.

I know. We need to find a safe place for her to yell at me.

<This place is safe now.>

Yeah, but it stinks, see.

<So we need to find a safe and fragrant place for her to yell at you.>

Yeah.

<On it, boss! Follow me between the hills.>

I caught up with Granuaile at the bottom of the hill and flashed a grin at her. She gestured for me to lead the way and said nothing, a bleak expression on her face. I resumed picking a thorny path through overgrown bushes. There was no peace in the valley because there was no peace between us.

And so of course the bloody Norse chose that moment to swoop in and make everything worse.

<Atticus, I think we’re being stalked by the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock. First it was a vulture, and now two giant ravens are coming our way.>

Where? I looked up and saw that most of my view was obscured by scraggly trees.

<That way. Um … the direction Santa Claus comes from.>

North? I turned to my right and saw the ravens after a moment. They were huge and familiar. They were Hugin and Munin, Odin’s ravens. Hugin was new; I’d killed the first one in Asgard years ago, but Odin had eventually hatched a replacement—or rather, Munin had. As they circled nearer, a rainbow arced down from the sky and terminated a few feet from us. I wasn’t surprised there was no pot of gold, but I was faintly disappointed anyway.

A serene woman floated—or, rather, seemed to float—down the rainbow to meet us. Her long blond hair, gently curling, blew softly in the wind, and a dress of muted oranges and reds completely concealed her feet. The dress was tied underneath the bust and billowed somewhat, giving her a disturbing resemblance to a Dalek as she moved. Still, her bearing spoke of peace and quiet strength, and the tiny smile on her face made it up to her blue eyes once she reached the end of the rainbow and stepped onto the earth.

“Well met, Druids,” she said.

“Indeed. A good day to you, Frigg,” I said. Granuaile’s eyes were only slightly widened as I introduced her to Odin’s wife.

“I’m honored,” Granuaile said. She tried to curtsy but remembered too late that she wasn’t wearing a dress to do it properly, so her gesture turned into a sort of awkward bow with a flourish.

“As am I,” Frigg said. She turned her gaze back to me. “Odin sent me to visit you.”

I squinted up at the sky. Hugin and Munin circled overhead but didn’t look as if they had any intention of landing.

My adversarial relationship with the Norse had been blessed with a truce about six years ago when I returned Odin’s spear and admitted that I owed them something for the slaughter I’d brought to their door.

A blood price was mentioned, but it wasn’t my blood they wanted. As ever, Odin was concerned most with preventing or delaying the onset of Ragnarok, and he recognized that I could be instrumental in addressing those concerns. I had agreed to help if I could, since I had been the idiot who’d kicked off the apocalypse by slaying the Norns, crippling Odin, and aiding Leif Helgarson in his quest to slay Thor.

That didn’t mean everything between us was now Kool and the Gang. Frigg was simply better than any other surviving member of the Norse pantheon at concealing her urge to kill me.

“I expect you’ve heard something about Loki?” I said.

“We have heard and seen much,” she said. “May we speak for a time?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Events are moving toward the cusp of disaster, and we need to make our move soon if we want to avoid the worst.”

I steeled myself for unpleasant news. Regardless of what Loki had been up to, I was at least partially responsible for setting events in motion. Frigg reminded me of this immediately.

* * *

Shortly after your raid on Asgard twelve years ago, Hel realized she could freely travel the nine planes of Yggdrasil, for that had been forbidden her until then. When Odin had cast her into Niflheim long ago and given her control of the nine realms, her authority extended to only the old and infirm and those unfortunate enough not to be called to Valhalla or Fólkvangr. She could never leave her frozen land on her own, not without the Norns telling Odin and him casting her down again.

Once freed, she spent much more time on Midgard than we’d originally thought. Odin missed much while he was recuperating, and Hel took advantage of this. She returned to Niflheim with several conclusions, no doubt, one of them being that she needed to learn English, the new dominant language, just as many of the Æsir did some centuries before. We can infer she thought it best that Loki learn it as well, for she sent a shade, one gifted with speech, to teach him the language. We had guards posted at the entrance to Loki’s cave, of course, but they could do nothing to stop the shade. Seeing that it could not possibly set Loki free, and seeing also that it was providing him a welcome distraction from his captivity, we let the shade remain. However, we increased the guard at the cave—fifty Einherjar, outfitted and trained in the use of modern weapons—and also installed some … observers inside. These were sort of like Odin’s ravens.

We began to receive reports that Hel was building forges in her realm and trading for raw materials from the Svartálfar. The dwarfs, bless them, refused to do so. Hel had learned from her time in Midgard that swords and shields would not be enough to carry the day. About nine years ago she started to manufacture weapons in