Hammered [3] (30 page)

“I can imagine their anger at you,” the Morrgian said. “And I know better than most that you cannot promise me anything about a battle. I have merely come to advise you that this is a situation where fulfilling the letter of your oath would be wiser than fulfilling the spirit or intent.”

I smiled wryly at her. “Don’t you find that to be wise in every situation?”

“I often do, yes.”

“That is a difference between us.” Something the Morrigan said earlier came back to gnaw at me. “Did you say you saw my death in a vision?”

“It was a lucid dream, yes. Not an augury or casting of the wands. It happens sometimes.”

“Any of those ever wind up not coming true?”

“No.” Her lips pressed tightly together and she would not look at me.

“And you’re sure it was me, not some other handsome rake with a faerie sword?”

“There aren’t many faerie swords around. Or red-haired Druids wielding them. I’m positive.”

“Ah, well then. I’ve had a pretty good run, whenever it comes—don’t you think? It would be ungracious of me to complain.” I wasn’t going to ask her precisely when, where, or how I was going to die. I didn’t want to know, and she might not have the answers. I sighed and watched my breath crystallize in the dark. “Say, do you ever go up to people and tell them, ‘Congratulations! This is going to be an awesome year for you in many ways, but especially because you
won’t
die this year’?”

“No,” the Morrigan said, “that never occurred to me. It seems frivolous.”

“You might enjoy it. People might take a liking to you. Especially if you shag them afterward and they know that they’re going to survive the encounter.”

The Morrigan chuckled. “Are you trying to hint that you would like to enjoy my favors, Atticus?”

“Oh, no,” I said with a snort, trying to keep my tone light when I was actually terrified by the prospect. The Morrigan is stunningly beautiful, but she makes love the way linebackers love quarterbacks: The last time I’d “enjoyed her favors,” Oberon thought I’d been on the losing side of a street fight. “I cannot spend myself now if I’m going to battle shortly. And, besides, I have an alliance to make with the frost giants. How’s the amulet coming?” I asked, to get her off the subject completely.

“Slowly, but I believe some progress is being made. I’ve found an iron elemental who will speak to me. I gave it three faeries to eat, and I think it might answer me more quickly the next time I call it.”

“That’s excellent, keep it up,” I said.

The Morrigan purred with the praise and stepped close to kiss me farewell. She yelped when she pressed against my chest. “You’re bloody cold!” she said.

“And you’re not? You’re standing bare-assed in the
snow and you’re telling me you’re all warm and toasty?”

“Raise your core temperature, you fool!”

“Oh.” I nodded as if I knew what she was talking about, but she kept staring at me expectantly, waiting for me to obey her command. So I was forced to say, “Um, how do you do that?”

She slapped me across the face. For the Morrigan, that wasn’t even a mild rebuke. She was just making sure I was paying attention. “How have you survived all this time without knowing that particular binding?”

“With many layers of warm clothing, like everybody else.”

“Where are these layers now?”

“Elsewhere, regrettably.”

“You can bind your sight to the magical spectrum, I hope?” the Morrigan asked. The question was fairly insulting, since it was one of the first bindings all Druids learned. But it was a lengthy one, unsuited for stressful situations, and I had simplified the casting of it long ago.

“Yes, that’s what this charm is for,” I said, pointing to one on the left side of my amulet. Using a charm was like clicking on an icon to launch an application. They were shortcuts that freed me of the time and concentration necessary to craft the bindings from scratch each time. On the left side, I had charms for camouflage, night vision, healing, and my faerie specs, along with one other. On the right were the charms I used to bind myself to animal shapes, plus the bear charm I used for magic storage. I turned on my faerie specs and said, “Show me how to raise my temperature.”

The Morrigan showed me and taught me the words for the binding. It turned out to be adjustments to the thyroid and hypothalamus so that my metabolism increased, burning more fuel in my cells and thus releasing more heat, while simultaneously preventing my blood
vessels from restricting due to cold air on the surface of my skin.

“You will need to eat a bit more to maintain this,” the Morrigan explained, “and do not forget to readjust these when you return to warmer weather or you will never stop sweating.”

“Thank you, Morrigan. This is very helpful,” I said, already feeling myself warming up. “And delivered to me entirely without pain.”

The Morrigan sucker-punched me hard in the face, sending me sprawling in the snow and breaking my nose.

“You spoke too soon and with entirely too much sarcasm,” she said. “We could have parted with a kiss. Remember that. And remember that I advised you not to fight the Norse. Consider it well.” She spread her arms and they blackened; her legs rose from the ground and also turned black as her body bound itself to the form of a crow; and she flew west toward the root of the World Tree, where she could shift away from this plane, leaving me to bleed and regret my choice of words.

When I returned to the center of the village, nose knitting and blood washed away with a handful of snow, a blessedly clothed Hrym had joined Suttung and my companions around the communal fire pit. Someone had produced some dry wood from somewhere, and now a cheerful blaze from a few logs of northern pine illuminated the scene. Some other frost giants were standing around, curiosity driving them outside, making my friends look like Halflings. I surveyed the tableau with my faerie specs and saw that Väinämöinen had taken it upon himself to cast a seeming over the area, shielding us from the sight of Odin’s spies.

The frost giants had interesting auras; the white noise of their magic was elemental and limited to ice, of course, but over that I saw colors of curiosity and mistrust and even anger over our presence. I could have been misinterpreting what I was seeing, however, since I had no baseline experience with frost giants.

Hrym was taller than Suttung and much broader in the chest. Reminiscent of a growling heavy metal singer, he had studded black leather bracers on his wrists. He also had a fine fur cloak draped around him, which marked him as the chief and a little more sensible about the cold. I’m not sure he ever got to finish his business
with his partner, though; the expression on his face combined with the tone of his skin suggested that he might be feeling a bit blue.

He was grimacing down at Leif, who was trying to explain something in Old Norse, when one of the other giants directed his attention to my approach. He sized me up with his cold eyes and did not seem to be impressed. He had a beardcicle thicker than my neck and longer than my torso.

“You are the Druid?” he said.

“Aye. Call me Atticus.”

“I am Hrym,” he said, and thus the pleasantries were concluded. He pointed at Leif. “This dead man tells me you can get to Asgard without crossing Bifrost.”

“It is true. I have already done it.”

“He tells me the Norns are dead, as is the great squirrel, Ratatosk.”

“Also true. It is why Hugin and Munin have been so active recently. They are looking for me.”

“Graah. Those cursed ravens always hound me. They know I will lead the frost Jötnar to the final battle.”

“Have you thought that the final battle may not occur as foretold anymore, now that the Norns are dead?”

The Jötnar all looked at one another to see if any of them had thought of this. It was clear they hadn’t.

“The prophecy can outlive the prophet and still come true,” Hrym finally said.

“Graah,” the Jötnar chorused in agreement, nodding their heads at Hrym’s nugget of wisdom. A few of their beardcicles snapped off at this unexpected activity.

“Sleipnir is dead as well,” I said. “Does that not change the outcome of Ragnarok?”

“No,” Hrym replied. “In some tales Odin rides Sleipnir to confront the wolf Fenris. In others he does not. Nothing is changed.”

“But without the Norns to spin their fate, the lives—and deaths—of the Æsir can be changed. We can change the outcome now.”

“You wish to begin Ragnarok now?”

“No. We wish to bring justice to Thor for his many crimes against humanity and the Jötnar. We ask for your aid in this.”

“Why should we help you?”

“You will remove your oldest enemy.”

“Jörmungandr will remove him for us,” Hrym said. “All we must do is wait.”

“For how long? The frost Jötnar need not cower any longer in Jötunheim. Help us slay Thor, and the spoils of Asgard will be yours to take. The goddess Freyja, for example, will be among the spoils.”

“Freyja!” Suttung exclaimed. All the male frost giants took up the name in a sort of horny echo. It was like walking into a nerd party and shouting, “Tricia Helfer!” or “Katee Sackhoff!” I checked their auras again and the males were turning red with arousal. The women were rolling their eyes and trying not to vomit. It let me know that their auras could be read reliably like human ones.

“There are other gods to contend with before that can happen,” Hrym pointed out, justifiably so. “Freyja will not fight without her twin, Freyr, in attendance. If Thor goes to fight, Týr will probably tag along. Heimdall, maybe Odin himself, will oppose us, to say nothing of the Valkyries and the Einherjar. We are a mighty people, but we have learned the hard way that we cannot face the combined might of Asgard alone.”

“Excellent points. Allow me to remind you that you won’t be alone—you’ll have us—and the Einherjar should not be a problem. We’re going to show up on the opposite side of the plane from them. You cause lots of freezing and suffering as soon as we get there, and the Æsir will send out those who can respond the fastest—which means
those who can fly, right? So we can expect Thor, Freyr, Odin and the Valkyries, and anybody else who can hitch a ride with them. They can’t bring all the Einherjar with them. We strike fast, kill Thor, and take Freyja, then leave. The Æsir will be crippled and—”

“Graah!” Hrym broke in. “How can you prevail against Thor? His thunderbolts will destroy us all.”

“Oh. Perhaps you have not had time to be introduced to our companions. We have our own thunder god.” I turned to Perun and asked him quickly in Russian to produce more of his fulgurites. “This is Perun,” I said to Hrym. “With his help, Thor’s primary weapon will be neutralized. The Æsir are unlikely to have similar protection, because they’ve never had to deal with it before. Our attacks will be unlike anything they have seen or prepared for. None of your people can be struck down by cowardly attacks from the air. If the Æsir are to defeat you, they must do so by force of arms, and surely the people of Hrym can acquit themselves well in battle.”

“Beware of tricks, Hrym,” one of the females said. “This could be a snare to draw you into the Æsir’s clutches.”

“See for yourself, lady, that I speak truth. Here,” I said, tossing her my fulgurite. She caught it and regarded it quizzically; she had probably never seen sand before. I signaled to Perun to let her have it and held my breath. I wasn’t sure that Perun’s powers would work here on the Norse plane—but they did. A lightning bolt struck the giantess, and the frost Jötnar dove for cover. “Graah!” they shouted.

But then they looked back at the woman and saw that she was laughing at them, completely unharmed.

“You see, Hrym? You can finally give back some of what you’ve been getting from the Æsir. There is no need to wait for Ragnarok. This can happen tomorrow.” Perun was busy passing out fulgurites to the frost Jötnar and
grinning hugely at them. He was growing beardcicles of his own due to his proximity to the giants.

Hrym still had his doubts. “Is this real lightning you call down from the sky?”

I translated for Perun, and he promptly destroyed someone’s ice house to prove that he was using one hundred percent real fucking lightning. One of the Jötnar bellowed in outrage, but Hrym found this amusing and laughed like he was trying to clear wet cement from his throat.

“Very well, tiny man called Atticus. You may tell me more of your plan. How precisely do we bring the Æsir low?”

I told him.

The frost giants needed no convincing that Thor needed killing. He’d slain the family members or ancestors of everyone in the village, so once they were convinced they had a hamster’s chance in Hel of surviving, asking them to come along was like asking a starving man if he’d like a bucket of chicken. Still, we did not get the entire village to join us; we got twenty, all of whom could shape-shift to eagles, and some of them came from other villages a short distance away. They were called during the day while Leif slept, and we all did our best to prepare for the night ahead by catching what sleep we could. Perun gave me a new fulgurite to replace the one I’d given to the giantess.

When the sun set that evening and Leif pronounced himself ready to get his revenge on, Hrym offered to carry us to the root of the World Tree, since we were so bloody slow in the snow.

Druid’s Log, December 3: “Hitching a ride on a frost giant’s back is both entertaining and eco-friendly.” First, the greenhouse-gas emissions are almost nil; you get to hear all about the many splendid beauties of Freyja; the wind noise is minimal, aside from the occasional
graah;
and since you don’t have to steer, you can simply enjoy the scenery from ten feet above the ground. On the
downside, they smell like ice cubes made of sweat instead of water.

We were traveling in a valley between cragged sweeps of glacial mountain ranges, which I’d failed to notice while shivering in Suttung’s footsteps the night before. It was probably a lovely meadow in the summer—if summer ever truly came to this part of Jötunheim—but under recent snowfall it was a cobalt blanket gently undulating to the night horizon. Stands of evergreen timber, drooping with heavy snow, bracketed us on either side like mute and shivering spectators. A wolf howled off to the south, and Gunnar looked a bit wistful.