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.
Where? I looked up and saw that most of my view was obscured by scraggly trees.
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 earnest and to train her draugar in their use. She now has a massive army of soldiers with automatic weapons, who cannot be killed unless their heads are destroyed or struck off from their bodies.
Odin has been preparing the Einherjar to meet them, but even with modern body armor, they are at a disadvantage. The dwarfs have chosen to cast their lots with ours and have likewise been making preparation for the final battle. They have new transports and weapons unlike any I have seen.
According to our estimates, Hel could have begun Ragnarok during the past year with a fair chance of success, especially once Surtr and the sons of Muspell got involved. With no Thor to meet Jörmungandr, and no one to stop Fenris, her victory seemed assured—at least on paper.
What has prevented her seems to be a psychological inability to proceed without her father, Loki. She could have the world for her own right now, she could lay waste to Midgard and shape it howsoever she wills, but instead she craves his favor.
Some days ago, she made her move. She brought two thousand armed draugar to the cave against our fifty Einherjar. She stepped over their honorable corpses and entered the cave, wearing the form of a bent old woman.
Sigyn, Loki’s wife, recognized her and demanded that she leave.
“You have no cause to be here!” she cried. “Is not Niflheim enough for you?”
Hel ignored her and spoke in her sepulchral voice to Loki, as the snake dripped its venom into the bowl Sigyn held above his face.
“Father,” she rasped, “we can leave this place today and win Ragnarok. The old prophecies are null. The Norns are dead. Heimdall, who was fated to slay you, is dead. Freyr is dead. Týr and Vidar are dead. Even mighty Thor is dead, and my army is ready.”
The god of mischief did not stir until he heard the name of the thunder god. “What?” Loki said. “You say Thor is dead? How?”
She told him of your party’s invasion of Asgard and how you surprised us with defeat. She named your party: the werewolf, the vampire, the alchemist, the Druid, the wizard, and the thunder god.
“What thunder god?” Loki wanted to know.
“Perun. The Slavic god. He has disappeared.”
“But he is not dead?”
“I do not know, Father,” she said. “He may be dead.”
“I know how to find out,” Loki said, grinning in such a way as he had not for centuries. “Set me free, daughter.”
“Father, I cannot unbind you. Only you can do this. But I can make you do it sooner rather than later.”
“How?”
“Answer me first: Do you still love this cow?” Hel jutted her chin toward Sigyn, who had protected Loki as best she could from the snake’s dire venom all these years. But she was
not Hel’s mother. Loki’s monstrous children were all borne by a giantess.
“Her?” Loki sneered. “No, I hate her. She has neither killed the snake nor erected a roof over my head, despite my pleading that she do so. She is thoughtless, worthless.”
“And so I set you free,” Hel said. She sloughed off her human visage and appeared in her true form, sprouting like an unwholesome weed to the roof of the cave. She pulled the wicked knife, Famine, from its scabbard in her exposed rib cage and plunged it into the neck of the faithful Sigyn.
Loki’s wife gurgled her last breath, and the bowl of caustic venom toppled full into Loki’s face. He screamed and writhed violently, and still the snake dripped on, under the goddess Skadi’s command to continue. Loki jerked and pulled at his restraints, and the earth shook underneath Hel’s feet. He cursed her. He swore vengeance upon her. And then, as the venom continued to eat at his eyes and chew at the substance of his flesh, he begged her for mercy.
But Hel had none. Mercy was an empty room in her heart, where nothing at all was sacred and no living creature, not even her father, could cry so piteously as to make her take heed.
Loki bucked and howled as the venom bore deeper. He thrashed and shouted his defiance. The earth trembled more violently, and this grew and grew until his bonds were finally snapped and he was set free. Blood and tears streamed down his purpling cheeks, and he seized the snake that had tormented him so and burned it alive in his hands, his fire returned to him now that he was unbound. No freedom had ever been bought with so much agony, and he vowed it would be avenged sevenfold, beginning with the Slavic thunder god.
We do not know why he focused on Perun rather than on the vampire who killed Thor; perhaps it was because he was a target of convenience. Loki knew that the entrance to the Slavic plane lay hidden somewhere in the Ural Mountains, and it was to these he flew upon first leaving his cave.
He left Hel behind, without thanks, bereft of approval, and with no signal that she should begin Ragnarok. Unable to follow him, she returned to her realm, sullen and uncertain, to await further word from her father.
“And that is why we must strike now and slay Fenris,” Frigg finished, clearly angling for the non sequitur of the year.
“I beg your pardon?” I said.
“We must demoralize Hel and prevent her from launching an attack on Asgard. Odin has decided that the best way to do that is to slay Fenris.”
“Well, that’s nice, but we can do it a bit later.”
“Now is the perfect time.”
“I disagree. Vehemently.”
Frigg’s eyes clouded, and the ravens above squawked. “You swore you would help us. You swore to render what aid you could in place of a blood price.”
“And render it I shall. But not right now. I have an apprentice to bind to the earth, and until she’s bound, I’m not doing anything else.”
Frigg shifted her eyes to Granuaile and pursed her lips in dislike, realizing that my apprentice was an obstacle to her goals. “Bring her along, then,” she said.
“No way.” I shook my head to emphasize the point. “She isn’t ready yet. After she’s bound she could actually be helpful and may choose, of her own free will, to give us her help. But right now she’s a liability and a potential hostage.”
I flattened my hand and used it as an impromptu shade against the sun as I searched out Odin’s ravens. I called out to them to make sure the mind they represented heard me.
“If my apprentice falls victim to an ‘accident,’ Odin, I won’t help you at all, you hear me? Just be patient a while longer.”
“And if Ragnarok begins while we are being patient?” Frigg asked.
“I’ll take on Jörmungandr myself if it does,” I said. “That’s how confident I am that it won’t happen, okay? I think we have a year left.” At least, I hoped we did.
“Based on what information?”
“I’ll keep that to myself. But nothing is changed here, Frigg. I will keep my word as soon as my apprentice is bound.”
Frigg had nothing nice to say, so she didn’t say anything. She nodded curtly and turned her back on us, floating up the rainbow into the northern sky. The ravens followed her.
I hoped that after this encounter Granuaile would be more willing to talk, but my optimistic expression was immediately crushed when she shook her head at me and scowled.
“A liability and a hostage, Atticus?” she said. “Really?”
“Well—”
“I put two knives in that bear thing and distracted it while you missed,” she said, “but I’m a liability?”
“Look, Granuaile, against human opponents, I’d say you could take just about anyone,” I said. “But Frigg was talking about messing around with the supernatural, and you’re not in that power class yet. You will be soon.”
“So a vulture that turns into a bear-human hybrid isn’t supernatural?”
“Yes, it is, Granuaile, and you handled it superbly, no doubt. But right now you can’t heal yourself if you get wounded. You can’t speed up or cast camouflage or take advantage of any of the spells I regularly use to stay alive. I would very much like to make sure you stay alive, so I hope you’ll forgive my poor choice of words. I wanted Frigg to go away, that’s all.”
She gazed at me, her disbelief every bit as plain as her disapproval, but she had no more desire to wrangle over it. She turned her back on me, leaving me unforgiven, and we trudged westward toward Olympus without speaking a word to each other.
A hot hour’s hike up the valley finally brought us good news from Oberon.
You did? Where?
I looked around me and saw nothing but more trees, stubborn undergrowth, and a few stretches of bare rock wall ahead, where the mountain fell precipitously into the wash. I could hear it running with winter snowmelt but couldn’t see it yet.
I don’t see you, I told Oberon.
It is indeed.
After I gave Granuaile some encouragement that we were near a possible campsite, we shoved our way through the brush to the water’s edge. It was a narrow, rocky stream, easily jumped in some places but running fast.
Can you still see us? I asked Oberon.
Where do we go from here?
I looked in that direction and saw the place he was talking about—I saw the tree on the ledge, anyway. Awesome. Any animal tracks or other sign in there?
Is the cave deep enough for us to lie down, tall enough to stand?
The difficulty we faced getting up to the ledge only made it more attractive to me once we finally arrived; there was very little chance we’d be disturbed by any humans in a place like this—few people are trailblazers anymore, when it’s so much safer and easier to follow the trails already blazed.
We hopped the stream about thirty yards past the tree, then struggled our way up to the ledge. Oberon waited at the mouth of the cave, wagging his tail. The entrance was completely choked with brush, but it was spacious inside.
How did you ever think to look for this? I asked Oberon.
&nbs
p;
Oberon, come on.
Well, this is perfect. We owe that squirrel for leading you here.
I was thinking he’d get all the credit and you’d get all the sausage.
“We’re going to camp here, then?” Granuaile asked, peering into the cave and breaking the silence.
“Maybe,” I said. “Let me scope this out first.” Using the magic stored in my bear charm, I triggered my faerie specs and looked for any indication that there was a magical booby trap here or an alarm that would go off if I drew power from the earth. This cave could be the favorite spot of a cyclops or a nymph or something spookier than an old monster like Agrios. It took a while to check thoroughly; any magic performed by the Greeks wouldn’t look like the Celtic bindings of my own work. I found nothing. The ceiling of the cave wasn’t blackened by the smoke of ancient fires, which corroborated my growing belief that we were the first humans to set eyes on this cave in centuries—perhaps the first humans ever.
“It looks good,” I said, shrugging off the straps of my pack. “This might work out perfectly.”
“Okay,” Granuaile said, extricating herself from her pack and setting it down with a relieved sigh.
“Oberon, I’ll need you to scout all possible approaches to the cave. We can see pretty well down below, but we need to know what’s behind us. Would you mind?”
“Don’t hunt yet. Scout all you want, but let’s just establish what’s normal for the area so we can spot any intruders later.”