That doesn’t mean it’s all over, though. There are still plenty of hellspawn out there, and the sudden scent of spilled blood in the air has drawn them in our direction rather than toward the unspilled blood of the witches. Malina and some of the others snag a few of them, but that still leaves at least three pelting toward the body of the sorcerer, and me favorite killer sloth is sitting right on top of him.
Slomo! Back to the trees, fast! Climb high, hurry! I quite nearly shite meself again out of fear that I may have placed her in harm’s way. I haven’t even had time to properly appreciate that she just saved me ancient bones, and here she is in peril as a result. One of the things coming at her is mostly teeth and stomach, propelled by four legs underneath that look like an insect’s, bending up and out and clawed at the feet. Another is a slimy red glob of a thing oozing far too quickly our way, with a tongue questing for fresh meat to wrap up and pull into its dark, moist mouth. The last demon looks like an angry avocado that’s sworn to get revenge for all the world’s guacamole, and it’s moving the fastest. I scramble to me feet to intercept it as Slomo leaps to the nearest tree trunk. She’s digging in with those claws and doing the best she can, but the damn avocado has zeroed in on her. It realizes at the last second that I’m not racing to beat it to the meal on the tree but am racing to pound its lumpy face instead. It tries a hiss and snarl to intimidate me, but I’m not the type that responds well to that bollocks.
When I plow me fist between its eyes, I discover that it’s nothing like an avocado at all. It’s more like a bag of something caustic that latches on to me skin and burns, and even though it falls over and melts into goo, I’m left with something burning away at me arm. I holler about it as the tongue from the other horror wraps around me midsection and yanks me through the air to its mouth. I make sure it gets a taste of me burning, slime-covered arm first, and when everything goes hot and wet and dark, I shape-shift to a bear and start lashing about with me claws. It can’t barf me out fast enough, and I wind up clawing me way out of something dead and melting around me. These demons don’t last long on this plane once you’ve destroyed what little shred of force is keeping them bound together. That’s probably why those hellwhips of the witches are so effective. Malina demonstrates by lashing through the stomach of the toothy thing that’s snacking on the remains of the sorcerer; it screams and dissolves into a mess on top of him, and I check to see that Slomo is safe before assessing what other threats might be around.
I says, and in truth I already have that in progress, as much to test for damage as anything else. Whatever’s burning me hasn’t damaged the integrity of my tattoos, thank the gods below. I ask Slomo.
I turn to see if there’s anything else to worry about, but there’s not so much as an angry gnat around. The portal’s closed and harmony’s restored. The witches have taken care of the rest of the hellspawn, but they’re sure giving me the doubtful glare, muscles tense and weapons at the ready in case I turn on them. Probably because of the bear thing. I get that a lot.
Shifting back to human, I wave me uninjured hand at them to show them I’m friendly. I sure can’t be hiding any weapons in me clothes, because I don’t have any. They don’t seem concerned with that at all; I think they’re more interested in the ease of the shift itself than in what I’ve shifted to. I do notice that they’re keeping their wards up.
“Owen Kennedy,” I call to them, because no doubt several of them missed it when I first arrived. “Druid of Gaia. I was called here to close the portal, so that’s done. Thanks for your help.”
“Malina Sokołowska,” the blond woman says with a charming accent, “leader of the Sisters of the Three Auroras. May I ask what killed the sorcerer? I was occupied and didn’t see clearly.”
“Oh, that was a sloth.”
“A sloth? You have to be joking. There are no sloths around here, and they don’t move that fast.”
“She came with me, and they can move that fast when you give them enough energy.”
One of the other witches titters. She has long blond hair as well, but it’s pulled back and bundled up on top of her head. She also wears a pair of enormous eyeglasses. Malina turns to see what’s so funny and the witch says, “We did see something in the divination that hinted at unexpected aid. I think a pumped-up murder sloth qualifies as unexpected.” The whole coven either smiles or chuckles at this.
“Divination, eh? Is that what has ye out here in the woods?” I ask.
“It is. We’re aware something truly frightening is going on in Sweden, but we wanted to address local threats. We’ve been keeping an eye on that guy for a while,” she says, flicking a finger at the body, “and we saw that he planned to take advantage of the chaos elsewhere to further his own agenda.”
“And what agenda would that be? Who was he?”
Malina shrugs. “Another man who wanted to climb to power on a ladder of violence.”
“Well, I’m not one of those, if ye want to relax. I mean ye no harm.”
She nods at me once and drops her wards. The others follow her lead, and one on the fringes holds up my shirt. “Your clothes are over here, if you want to get dressed.”
I don’t, especially; I’d rather dive into a lake somewhere and clean up, but methinks they want me to, so I jog over there and shove me shanks into the jeans and pull on the shirt.
“I appreciate what ye did here, taking care of all those beasties. That would have been a rough job to do by meself. So you’re the coven Granuaile has been studying Polish with?”
“That’s right,” Malina says. “Would you be interested in learning the language also?”
“Perhaps someday, sure,” I says. “But I’m still working on English at the moment.”
She introduces the entire coven to me, and I’m subtly checking out auras as she does. They are no doubt assessing me as well. I’ve not had particularly good experiences with witches in the past; I’ve met more of the kind that behaved like the dead lad over there than the nurturing sort, but these don’t have a trace of avarice or sullen resentment about them. Guile, sure. But they’re confident and happy and clearly more interested in protecting their people than exploiting them. It wasn’t always that way with this coven, according to Siodhachan, but even he admits that they’ve changed significantly since Malina took over. It reminds me how much awesome responsibility there is in being a leader and a teacher. And seeing them and how powerful they are together, it gives me hope for what me grove of young Druids could be one day. Of a sudden I feel a pang in me chest for them and wish for nothing so much but to catch up with them, wherever they are now, and teach them something new.
It’s been one of me greatest pleasures, since I’ve come forward in time, to see the wonder light up their faces. And it’s probably why I enjoy hanging out with Slomo too; she’s seeing something new every moment she isn’t dangling from a tree, and she loves it. Methinks I know why I find watching others learn to be so fulfilling now: Siodhachan let me know pretty clearly that I could have been a better teacher to him back in the old days. It wounded me pride, sure. There’s nothing I can do to fix that now, but what I can do is be a better teacher for the grove—a far sight better—and so far I think I’m pulling it off.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you all. Where am I, do ye mind me asking?”
“In the southeastern corner of Poland, near the border with Ukraine,” Roksana tells me. She’s the one with the glass
es.
“Is there a lake nearby?”
“Lake Solina is only a few kilometers to the west. If you run that way, you can’t miss it.”
“Pretty big, eh?”
“Big enough for bath time, if that’s what you have in mind.”
“Aye, there’s that, plus I want to show the sloth. She’s never seen a lake, only rivers. Do ye need me to bury the body or anything before I go?”
“No, we’ll take care of all this,” Malina says, and I thank them again and say I look forward to meeting them in less dangerous circumstances before collecting Slomo from where she dangles and heading west a wee bit. As soon as we’re out of sight, I strip again and shift to a bear, consigning those soiled clothes to history. Dawn is coming, the dark sky edging to gray, as Slomo climbs on me back. I give her a ride to the lake, which turns out to be a long, spidery thing that fills up some valleys by damming up a river on one side. Looks like lots of people enjoy boating on it, judging by all the moored craft I see along the shores. We pause while we’re still a ways up a hillside so that Slomo can appreciate the sunrise hitting the surface and lighting up the hillsides opposite us.
she says,
I start rambling downhill and Slomo is silent, taking it all in, I suppose, but I can tell she’s thinking too. Finally she says,
Slomo’s attempts to rationalize the sorcerer’s death fascinate me because she’s focusing not on my safety or hers but rather on his happiness. I figure it’s best to leave out the idea that his spirit is probably in the Christian hell now and he’s unlikely to be happy there.
I says to her,
And that’s no soft lie I’m telling her. Had Gaia not been placed in so much peril, I wouldn’t have seen as much of her as I have recently and learned to love her even more, even as I’m beginning to grasp the scope of the work we have to do to bring her back to something close to balance. Siodhachan should take on a grove of apprentices like mine, and Granuaile too, when she feels ready. We need many more Druids.
Slomonomobrodolie climbs down off me back when we get to the shore. It’s early enough that no one’s around to marvel at the black bear and sloth on the shore. I wade on in and feel the insistent burn on me right forearm instantly cool down. Once I’m deep enough to feel me paws struggle to reach the bottom, I shift to human, take a startled gasp at the cold, and get meself all scrubbed.
Slomo is less than expert at washing herself. Those claws are great for climbing trees but do make softer tasks a bit troublesome. She’s splashing around, rubbing her wrists awkwardly with the flat of her hands, but mostly she’s getting frustrated.
Would ye like some help getting your claws and arms clean? My fingers might be able to handle the job.
Not to worry. Ye just described the fundamental state of being for most of us.
before Brighid’s block of Fae can engage, the Olympians see room for sport between the flanks and swoop in to have their fun. And I do think they viewed it as fun—at least Zeus and Ares did, along with their Roman counterparts. The thunder gods flew down and hurled their gods of war at the mass of draugar, which had no immediate effect since the draugar allowed the armored bodies to pass through and roll on by. Ares and Mars came to a stop and began swinging huge maces around, sending some draugar flying through the air but not really ending any of them. They thought it all entertaining, depending on their armor to stop whatever attacks might get through their defenses. They were laughing. It was recreational for them, since they felt they had nothing to lose. They couldn’t die, really; once their injuries became catastrophic, they would vacate their flesh and regenerate upon Olympus.
Zeus and Jupiter didn’t deign to land and get involved. They just floated out of reach and smiled at Ares and Mars playing around. Athena and Minerva had not come to play, however, and neither had the Apollos. They went to work behind the others. The goddesses worked with bronze-tipped spears and the gods with shields and swords, thrusting blades through draugr faces and cutting down reanimated Fae. They’d been brought to the front by Hermes and Mercury, who dropped them off and then sailed over the draugar, wearing some strange goggles, scouting ahead for something—presumably to find where Hel and Loki had hidden themselves in the horde. Perhaps that’s what Zeus and Jupiter were waiting for—a true target worthy of battle. They wanted to skip the minions and proceed directly to the boss fight, because there were Girl Scout Cookies on the line. I’m not sure Hermes and Mercury were up to the task, though. Maybe those goggles would allow them to see through illusions and maybe not. The Romans had used something like that to deconstruct camouflage and find the Druids in the old days—some invention of Minerva’s. But seared into the flesh of both Loki and Hel was his mark, some sort of runic protection from divination that had obviously kept them hidden very well to this point, and Loki was a master of disguise. I doubted Minerva had come up with something to pierce his protections—unless those goggles showed them the magical spectrum. That would be the key to finding them both, but neither the Norse nor the Olympians were renowned for magical sight—Odin typically needed to be seated on Hlidskjálf, the silver throne, to see all. Of those remaining on the field, only Brighid and I had the ability to use it—unless there were other members of the Tuatha Dé Danann in her army somewhere. My guess was that she left some behind in case she didn’t return.
I hadn’t triggered my magical sight yet, because there was so much magic as well as actual gods flying around on the field that I figured it would be blinding. But it might also be the best way to end things: Taking out Hel would at least allow us to make significant progress against the horde. Some of the slain Álfar were beginning to rise from the dead, and since I was near them I needed to keep an eye out now for that as well as for draugar.
I backed away from the fight somewhat before I switched my vision over. Being on the fringe and camouflaged allowed me that space. I triggered the charm on my necklace to the magical spectrum and had to blink and squint to filter through what I was seeing. The draugar had their own magic signature, and the Olympians were blinding white silhouettes off to the left. The Álfar, meanwhile, had plenty of magic baked into their armor. Except one of them nearby—quite close by—had a whole lot of extra something going on. His was a shifting riot of colors, magically speaking, and I had only seen a signature like that once before.
“Coyote?” I said. “Is that you?”
The elf slid a spear neatly in and out of a draugr’s eye and then turned to me with a smirk that was familiar even on another face. He slipped
out of formation and came over to stand next to me, even though I was practically invisible.
“Sure is, Mr. Druid. Took you long enough to notice.”
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, just slayin’ the undead like one o’ them regular elves, lookin’ down this long white nose at everybody, feelin’ fancy. Kinda wonderin’ what these fellers use to wash their hair.” He looked down at the thick braid falling down his chest and sniffed. “Smells like pears or something.”
“Maybe you could ask later. I was just going to try to find Hel.”
“Oh, you were? Might be able to save you a bit of trouble.” A draugr broke through the Álfar line and came after him, but he dodged the blow. I raised my blade and he said, “No, no, don’t kill it! I need one alive for a few seconds. Can you hold on to it?”
“For maybe a second. They’re strong and they can become incorporeal.” Though in truth I had not tried to put one in a hammerlock yet. Perhaps my cold iron aura would interfere with its ability to go ghostly and would keep it solid.
“Try, will ya?”
I dropped and swept the draugr’s legs, a move it wasn’t expecting at all, and it landed heavily on the ground. I stomped on the flat of its sword, pinning it to the ground to make sure it didn’t go anywhere, and Coyote leaned over on the other side, grabbing the bony left hand as if he were going to help it get up. The draugr was clearly confused, since neither of us seemed ready to kill it, and its wonder grew as Coyote’s appearance shifted and rippled from the hand, from that of an elf to…a draugr that looked exactly like the one we have on the ground. A perfect copy, down to the smell and the exposed innards kept in by a shredded curtain of muscle. The trickster even had the rusty chain armor and helmet, the ratty leather boots, and a scrap of something belted around the waist.