Hammered [3] (6 page)

Odin’s spear, Gungnir, was a neat piece of magic like Moralltach or Fragarach. Thanks to the runes carved on its head, it was always supposed to hit its target, and its target always died. That sort of magic tended to work; I had firsthand experience, using both Fragarach and Moralltach. I wondered, though, what kind of range he had. Did the magic work in such a way that he could simply target me, then give the spear a halfhearted throw in my general direction and let the runes do the rest? Or did he have to be within the range of his natural (albeit godlike) strength to chuck it after me? It was times like this when I wished I had a parietal eye.

The blowing of a war horn forced me to look around. Valkyries don’t blow war horns for the fun of it; they do so only with a purpose, as a signal in battle. I was in time to see Odin, still more than a quarter mile away, rise from his saddle and hurl Gungnir up into a high arc, the terminus of which was undoubtedly intended to be
my heart or brain. At the same time, the Valkyries surged behind it, raising their swords and then pointing them all at me. My cold iron amulet sprouted frost crystals and trembled on my chest, and I knew that they had just chosen me to die. I suppose I could have depended on my amulet to protect me from their death sentence, but I’m too paranoid to leave everything up to a hunk of metal when I have options. What if the amulet didn’t affect the targeting until the spear hit my aura? I couldn’t let the spear get within a couple of inches of my skin and
then
try to dodge. I wanted to try out something else.

My idea was to shake off both Gungnir’s targeting and the Valkyries’ doom by changing the nature of the target. I bounded for a couple of leaps to the right to avoid the path of the spear and then did three things in less than a second: I dissolved my camouflage, changed back into human form, and stopped running. The apple popped out of my human lips and I caught it in my left hand. It was covered in deer slobber but otherwise unmarred.

The stag that Gungnir had been sent to kill wasn’t there anymore, and I heard the spear whistle over my head before my eyes caught up to see it thud menacingly into the moor some forty yards along my previous path. I checked on my pursuit and saw Odin and the Valkyries pull up to make sure they weren’t hallucinating.

They couldn’t believe their eyes. The spear that never missed had just missed. The chosen slain wasn’t slain but prancing around naked in the Plain of Idavoll with an apple in his hand and a defiant grin on his face. As they watched, the red-haired demon held up a hand in a clear signal for them to wait, then strode confidently toward Gungnir as if it were no more than a common spear he had thrown himself. Then the creature had the unmitigated gall to lay his hands on it—Odin’s spear!—and yank it disrespectfully out of the ground. And then he—he—

Odin bellowed at the Valkyries as he saw what I intended. He was not clad in full armor, but neither was he abroad as an avuncular traveler with a wide droopy hat and a gray cloak. He wore a spectacled helmet and a mail shirt under a tunic made of reindeer hide. He goaded his horse forward, and the Valkyries followed suit.

It had been a long time since I’d thrown a spear or javelin, but it seemed like a good night to pick up the habit again. If Gungnir hit something, then they’d falter and I’d get a chance to put some distance between us; if it missed, then they’d slow down to retrieve the weapon and I’d still get a chance to put some distance between us.

Directing my strength through my back and shoulder and trying to remember my technique, I hurled the spear powerfully at my enemy’s strategic weakness—not at Odin, but at Sleipnir. Without pausing to watch its flight, I dropped immediately to all fours and shifted back into a stag, grasping the apple between my lips once more and shrugging against the fit of the scabbard strap. As I raised my head to resume my run, I saw the spear sink home at the base of the mighty stallion’s throat, and he reared, neighing in pain and throwing Odin to the ground before he himself toppled.

That almost made me drop the apple. I hadn’t expected my aim to be that good; the runecraft must work for whoever threw the spear. The Valkyries immediately whirled around to help Odin, and I shagged it out of there while I had the chance.

Two limp black forms rained out of the sky as I bounded toward the root, and I realized they were the ravens, Hugin and Munin—Thought and Memory. For them to fall meant Odin must be either unconscious or dead. I had to get out of there before I caused any more
damage. I recast camouflage on myself, on the theory that the Valkyries wouldn’t be able to see me without Odin’s help, and worried about what to do next.

Moralltach was a problem. There was no way I could afford to take it with me down Ratatosk’s bolt-hole in the root of Yggdrasil. Now that I was being pursued, I wouldn’t have the necessary time to climb down that shaft using the excruciatingly slow process of binding my skin to the bark with each step. I had to fly down, but there was no way I could carry the sword as an owl.

I had no choice but to leave it behind. Checking my six as I approached the root, I saw that a few Valkyries had taken to the air again and they were circling aimlessly, looking for me. Hugin and Munin hadn’t returned to the sky, so Odin was still out of it. Cursing the necessity, I returned to my human form and unslung the sword from my shoulders after I caught the apple popping from my mouth. I knelt on the ground and asked it to part for me. It did, accepting the sword that I drove straight down to the depth of my elbow, so that it would remain there like a spike in the earth. As satisfied as possible under the circumstances, I carefully closed the earth over it, making sure that the turf on top looked undisturbed, even going so far as to back away ten paces and spending the effort to remove all traces of footprints.

They might find it; if Heimdall knew to look for it, he probably would. But if I simply left while Odin was still zonked, there was no reason they wouldn’t assume I’d taken it with me. I already had a reason to come back to Asgard, in any case: I’d promised my attorney and friend, the vampire Leif Helgarson, that I would bring him there to settle an old grudge against Thor the violent way.

I shape-shifted to a great horned owl and picked up
the apple in my talons as gingerly as possible. I couldn’t avoid puncturing its thin skin a little bit, but I figured Laksha would just have to deal with it. I flew up to the hole in the root and then, once over the lip, folded my wings against the sides of my body and dove for the bottom.

After swooping out of the hole underneath Asgard, I dove again for the bottom of the root. The Well of Mimir was unattended, as it had been when I arrived. Mimir had long since been beheaded by the Vanir, but I expected that such an important site would be watched. Since it was now Black Friday, perhaps its keeper was off somewhere taking advantage of a DoorBuster sale. I pulled out of my dive, dropped the apple in the snow, and shifted to plain old Atticus. I promptly began to shiver.

Hugging the tree root and clutching the blasted apple, I found the tether to earth and pulled my center along it until I returned to what everyone thinks of as the “real” world. It was just as cold in Siberia as it was in Jötunheim, and I had no clothes. I groaned out loud and took a moment to enjoy the feeling of not being chased. I also needed to give my body a bit of a break. Despite the fact that all the energy I’d used had come from the earth, the rapid shape-shifting was taking its toll; I felt shaky and weak, and my liver wanted to know if it would get to spend some time in its wonted shape.

Unfortunately, the answer was no. I wasn’t out of danger yet. The Norse were perfectly capable of following me to this plane, and I had no doubt that they would, sooner or later. Once they followed my clear trail to Idunn and Bragi’s hall, they’d start to piece things together. If they found my buried clothes in the orchard, they’d know I came from Midgard; if they found the Norns, they’d know a sword killed them; if they found Moralltach, they’d recognize it as a Fae weapon and
chase that lead until they found out the truth—namely, the being responsible for stealing a golden apple and knocking Odin on his ass wasn’t a demon or a god but rather a Druid.

I hoped they wouldn’t find that out until much later, if at all. My primary advantage right now was my anonymity. Once Odin woke up and couldn’t find me in Asgard, he might waste time looking around Jötunheim until someone figured out I’d come from Midgard.

Taking a couple of deep breaths to brace myself and with apologies to my liver, I shifted once more to a stag and picked up the golden apple. The run south to the forest took me only two hours instead of three. I’d never been so relieved to see a friendly bunch of trees; once I shifted planes to Tír na nÓg, I’d be able to recover a cache of clothes I’d left there and make myself presentable. I wanted to shift to North Carolina this afternoon and place the apple in Laksha’s hand with cavalier indifference, as if stealing it had been no more taxing than running to the local grocery store.

She had slain twelve Bacchants without breaking a sweat—something I’d never be able to do—so in terms of badass grandstanding, I needed to make this caper appear as if it had cost me nothing, even though it might end up costing me everything. It had already occurred to me that Laksha might be hoping I’d never return from the trip and that the whole arrangement was an elaborate way to marshal me to knavery. Part of her—perhaps a very large part—would be disappointed that I’d succeeded without a scratch to show for it.

Thinking of how surprised she’d be made me smile. I was, in fact, dangerously close to contracting another acute case of Smug. But just before I cozied up to an old oak and shifted to Tír na nÓg, I looked up at the sky and saw two ravens circling above me. To the north,
dark thunderclouds were boiling rapidly in my direction.

Odin was awake, those damn ravens really
could
see through my camouflage, and Thor the Thunder Thug was on his way to settle accounts.

Sometimes people ask me how I got to be so old. It’s tough, I tell them. The short answer is to live as best you can while avoiding all the things that will kill you—but that never satisfies anyone. They want specific nuggets of wisdom, like “You probably shouldn’t go yachting off the coast of Somalia,” or “Never eat sushi in a restaurant where you’re the only customer.” But even these sound a bit disappointing. “Stay away from the guy who throws lightning bolts,” though—that’s a classic. Highly recommended.

My amulet wouldn’t protect me from a bolt of lightning, so I shifted to Tír na nÓg before Thor could get himself in range. He’d probably set the forest on fire once I left, just for spite.

I remained in Tír na nÓg just long enough to recover my cache of clothes, and then I shifted to another Fae plane, Mag Mell, and luxuriated in a hot mineral spring. It was partially to recuperate and partially to throw off Hugin and Munin; they couldn’t follow me to the Irish planes, and that was a blessed pint o’ peace.

Another blessed pint was the one served to me by a comely wood nymph in the spring: Goibhniu’s Mag Mell Ale. It’s a worty and voluptuous brew, quite mouthy, with a smooth yet grainy foundation and a bodacious,
provocative finish that couples a whiff of wanton peaches with the innocence of a virgin. If you can get to Mag Mell, it’s free.

That’s right, there’s free beer in Irish paradise. Everyone’s jealous.

After a few of those, I had my Smug on for sure, and I shifted to Pisgah National Forest outside Asheville, North Carolina, to visit Laksha. We arranged by cell phone to meet in Pritchard Park downtown, where we sat on the rocks next to a small waterfall. If she was surprised or disappointed by my appearance, she hid it well. After inquiring about the small blemishes on the apple’s surface, she took a bite, and I saw true pleasure illuminate the features of the face she inhabited. Her skin, already beautiful, tightened and smoothed and shone with health.

“Satisfied?” I asked.

She nodded. “Very much so. Well done, Mr. O’Sullivan.”

“Then I will take my leave,” I said, standing up and giving her a short bow. “I’d eat it all up soon, though, because Hugin and Munin are looking for it. Best of luck growing your own tree of immortality.”

“That’s it?” Laksha frowned. “I get no more civility than that?”

“I have kept my word to you, Laksha. Please judge me by that, and nothing more. As for civility, I leave you in far better circumstances than you left me after you slew the Bacchants. And there is much that demands my attention elsewhere. Please excuse me.” With that, I turned on my heel and started jogging back to the Pisgah Forest, for while I appreciated Laksha’s adherence to her word and her skills as a witch, I had no desire to cultivate a friendship with her.

I hadn’t been lying about the many demands on my attention. The long soak in the hot springs proved to be an
extremely comfortable place in which to confront some uncomfortable facts. There really wasn’t anything for me to feel smug about beyond the stark fact that I’d bearded the lion in his den and survived—for now. There was no way that Odin would let the deaths of Sleipnir and the Norns slide—nor should he. Though I could argue that I’d slain them all in self-defense, the unyielding, inconvenient truth of it was that I had chosen to go to Asgard. No one had forced me; I had made promises and traded one set of problems for another, much larger set. I did not see any way to trade down to something more manageable now—except by abandoning everything I cared about.

It used to be so easy for me to run, to care about nothing but myself and the earth underneath my feet. That had been my modus operandi ever since Tahirah died; I never stayed anywhere long enough to be bound by commitments, never entangled myself with the lives of others, and told myself it was all about avoiding Aenghus Óg. That was more true than I realized: What I’d truly been avoiding was love, the strongest binding there is, and the pain that scrapes at your insides when the bond is forcefully broken.

It has been more than five centuries. I still miss her. She smiles in my dreams sometimes and I wake up weeping for the loss.