by Kevin Hearne
I didn’t know what I was supposed to wait for. I began to shout “Flee!” at the serpents, to try to clear them out, but all that accomplished was another short-term reprieve from becoming an hors d’oeuvre. The Olympians were urging the serpents to eat us as quickly as I could urge them to forget about it, and so for every time I convinced one to swim in a different direction, it would swing back around a few moments later as I switched my attention to another set of jaws. It wasn’t sustainable; my magic was draining rapidly out of my bear charm. Soon I would have no way to communicate to the creatures, and that would be the end.
I missed one diving from above, but Granuaile must have spotted it, for a serpent plunged right past me, its scales scraping my fur and its tidal gravity pulling me deeper with it, tumbling me in swirls of current and confusing my sense of direction once more. My lungs burned, reminding me that breathing air was not optional, but the surface was a mystery to me now.
I managed to fight free of the serpent’s wake and searched for anything in the darkness that would tell me which way was up.
Two glowing white figures drew my attention—the lambent glow of godhood. Poseidon and Neptune, calmly floating in their element and directing the chaos. Their heads told me which way was up, and I began to swim desperately for the surface.
I didn’t know anything was closing on me from behind until it plowed into my rear. It splayed my legs wide across its smooth bulk as it rose rapidly toward the surface. Energy abruptly flooded my tissues and I finally understood. It was Manannan Mac Lir in his aquatic form as a killer whale—a killer whale capable of magnifying his natural strength and speed and drawing Gaia’s strength directly from the water. And as I had done many times in the past with Granuaile and Oberon, he was now sharing some of that strength with me through skin-to-skin contact that slipped past my aura, while giving me an express ride to the surface.
It was he who had delivered a head butt to the seventh serpent and perhaps had helped distract the others. Odin had totally earned his Samoas and whiskey.
The stars never shone so bright as when we splashed through the surface and the blackness sheeted away from my eyes. I gasped a lungful of sweet, salty air and then had to hold it in as Manannan dove again—so quickly that I slipped off his back as he darted away.
Indeed they were. A quick survey of my surroundings revealed that the spawn of Jörmungandr were thrashing about in the sea, tossing the waves as if apoplexed. The Olympians urged them to violence while we Druids urged them to peace, and it was in their nature to side with us. The Morrigan’s words came back to me: Gaia loves us more than she loves the Olympians. They might have the power to coerce her creatures and usurp her magic to some extent, but in the end they were bound to their worshippers whereas we were bound to the earth itself.
Now that I was finally able to see them clearly, the children of Jörmungandr proved to be as beautiful as they were terrifying. Blue-green scales, just as Väinämöinen described, shedding sheets of water and glinting in the moonlight, covering everything except for membranous tissue stretched between five bony ridges that fanned out from the top of the head. I didn’t see gigantic fangs; I thought all the teeth were pretty large, and perhaps the ones on the edges were a bit plus-sized. And it hadn’t been my imagination in the sea that their mouths were giant black holes—they really were. Inside, the cheeks and tongue were not pink or red but a scaly asphalt, as though something else flowed through their veins besides blood. Overlarge eyes like oil puddles helped them see in the gloom of the deep, and their gills flared beneath their jaws, horizontal shadows slashing across the scales.
Manannan’s back and dorsal fin floated on top of the waves about a minute’s fast swim from where he lost me. A sodden wolfhound huddled around the front edge of the fin, his paws hugging either side of it and his head resting against its left side, facing the tail. I scrambled up the side and bounded toward him until I could leap on his back and hold on with my otter paws.
Oberon’s mental voice spoke in an abominable caricature of pirate speech.
I didn’t reply for fear I would encourage him.
Manannan pulled away from the boiling cauldron o’ serpents, which were thrashing impotently under the conflicting commands of Olympians and Druids. For about fifteen seconds I harbored hope of a clean escape. And then two arrows fell out of the sky and sank into Manannan’s back, right behind the dorsal fin. He shuddered and almost dove by instinct before he remembered he had to keep Oberon topside.
I squinted through the night and, past the writhing trunks of serpents, saw two white-veiled forms skipping across the waves on giant clamshells pulled by dolphins. Those were the chariots of Poseidon and Neptune, but they now carried Artemis and Diana, who had obviously regenerated and caught up to us. But they were out of their element now. It was an awfully choppy ride through the sea-serpent mosh pit and they couldn’t be as accurate with their arrows as they wished, but they were still bloody dangerous, and I didn’t want to give them any more free shots. Luckily, in their haste to catch up to us in the strait, they had forgotten to take proper precautions with their mode of transport.
Clamshells are all natural. If I could have grinned widely as an otter, I would have. Using energy provided by Manannan Mac Lir, I bound the shells to the bottom of the channel. That dumped the huntresses into the strait and prevented them from firing on us. I released the binding almost immediately, because I didn’t want to hurt the dolphins towing them. But those poor sea serpents were probably working up an appetite with all that thrashing around. I shot an idea to Granuaile and Manannan via Oberon: Monsters tend to like virgins in the old stories.
Two things happened at the same time: Poseidon and Neptune realized that their goddesses were in trouble and stopped pushing the serpents to eat us, and we encouraged the serpents to eat the goddesses.
Oh, it was a thing of beauty. All seven of them whipped around and dove after the huntresses in a swirling eddy of scales and flesh and then disappeared beneath the waves. Mm-mmm! Goddess Tartar! Double down!
We had no idea if one snake had eaten both or if they’d gone into different digestive systems. It didn’t really matter. We told all the serpents to flee, and that’s what they did, streaking for the open Atlantic and deeper water. Poseidon and Neptune would rescue Artemis and Diana, of course, and the goddesses would eventually resume their hunt, but there was no way they’d keep us from reaching England now. I stupidly thought we had won.
Chapter 19
Manannan required a bit of triage once we reached the narrow strip of beach between the white cliffs and the western docks of the port. The arrows sticking out of his back weren’t made of natural materials, and there was nothing we could do but tear them out. He would heal fine, but I suspected he would have precious little patience for the Olympians from now on. Through Oberon, he communicated that he would leave us there and remain in the strait to monitor developments. Though I wanted to ask him about the Morrigan—did he bear her to Tír na nÓg, was she at peace now, and so much more—it was neither practical nor appropriate to speak of such things through my hound, so
we thanked him and bade him farewell. He swam off, the holes in his back already closed up. I shifted to human first and unbuckled the belts on Granuaile’s back after unbinding our weapons. Granuaile shifted to human and waded out of the surf with Oberon, who shook himself and sprayed us with hound-scented salt water.
“All right, let’s get the hell off this plane and thumb our noses at the Olympians,” I said. “There should be a small coppice of trees tethered to Tír na nÓg nearby.”
Skirting the city in camouflage, we crossed Military Road and then Folkestone Road, which led us to Elms Wood, a sliver of untouched forest that had served as a border between farms for centuries. We placed our hands (and paws) against the trunk of an elm and searched for the connection to the Fae plane. It wasn’t there.
“No, not here too!” Granuaile said, slapping the tree trunk in frustration. “How’d they get here ahead of us?”
“They’ve known where we were headed for a while now,” I said, then added, “Damn it.”
“So they’ve managed to corrupt the forests here too?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll go to Kent. There’s an Old Way there that might not be guarded. And if it is, we’ll go just a bit beyond and get what sleep we can during the day before pressing on to Windsor. There’s not enough time to make it there before dawn, and I think we should hit it during the night if we can.”
Following the procedures we used in our run across Europe, I shifted to a stag and remained visible while Granuaile and Oberon followed in concealment. Running through England was a bit nostalgic for me, having spent quite a bit of time there at various points of my life, but the countryside was far more developed. There used to be more Old Ways, but many had been destroyed in the name of progress, eaten up by the modern world, and there was no real incentive to make any more in protected areas when the system of using trees to shift had been so dependable until recently.
Still, even at night, we ran through some stretches of English countryside that were utterly sublime. Oberon spotted a herd of sheep sleeping in a pasture and begged me to let him go mess with them.
Kent had more preserved woodland than some other bits of England, with small named stands of timber breaking up the farmland and sheep pastures. A stretch of trees west of Sevenoaks called Mill Bank Wood was home to the only Old Way that lay across our path to Windsor. A boulder hidden under moldering leaves concealed a chute that led to a memorial for Lugh Lhámhfhada in Tír na nÓg. We approached it cautiously, expecting it to be guarded by Fae or monsters or human mercs. None of that turned out to be true; instead, when we arrived, we discovered the boulder had been reduced to rubble and the earth churned around the place, effectively destroying the passage to Tír na nÓg. I couldn’t muster the outrage to curse our luck; it wasn’t luck, anyway, but further evidence of a carefully coordinated campaign against us.
We moved on, but I didn’t tell Granuaile or Oberon where we were going or why, in hopes of foiling attempts to divine our destination from here. Directly west, perhaps two or three miles, behind the French Street Burial Ground, the Long Wood offered concealment and a place to sleep, and it said something about my exhaustion that I was too tired to make an adolescent joke about its name. It was damp and smelled a bit of rot after a recent rain, but it was safe for the moment.
I shifted to human and said, “Let’s sack out here for the day,” since it was only an hour before dawn.
Granuaile shifted and said, “Can we afford the time?”
I shrugged. “I figure we have a little bit, yeah. The huntresses probably need brand-new bodies and chariots, and they have to pick up our trail somewhere on the Dover coast. We’re coming to the end, though, and we can’t let them be all refreshed when we’re not. You and Oberon sleep. I’ll watch for a while and then wake you up to take a turn.”
Granuaile drew close to me and planted a soft kiss on my lips. “No arguments here. I’m exhausted.” Granuaile curled up on the ground and Oberon sprawled next to her. Both of them drifted off in a couple of minutes, and I was left to think about how we would survive going forward.
If, somehow, we could defuse tensions with the Olympians, our priority had to be the mystery in Tír na nÓg. Whoever was divining Granuaile’s location was also responsible for sending the dark elves and vampires after us.
Strangely, the safest place for us would be Tír na nÓg. Neither vampires nor dark elves would be tolerated there. Shuttling them through using the Old Ways was one thing and easily hidden—especially for someone like Lord Grundlebeard, who controlled the rangers—but keeping them in Tír na nÓg for an extended period as they came after me would raise all sort of alarms and questions that this shady adversary would wish to avoid. And as for the remaining threat—the Fae—I had a distinct advantage where they were concerned.
If I could find a safe place to leave Granuaile and Oberon, I could go solo and perhaps surprise Midhir or Lord Grundlebeard. If they were behind this, they’d expect me to stay next to Granuaile and wouldn’t be able to use divination to see me coming.
I let Granuaile sleep until midmorning before waking her up to take a watch.
“I needed that,” she said, stretching languorously and perhaps a bit teasingly. “Thanks.”
She levered herself up, but Oberon barely stirred. Poor hound.
“You’re welcome. Wake me up midafternoon. We’ll go get some clothes.” I stretched out next to Oberon and stopped fighting my fatigue.
Chapter 20
An odd shudder traveled up my right leg and rattled my ribs, shaking me all along the length of my tattoos. It woke me with a start and made Granuaile jump.
“Gah! What the hell was that?” she asked, staring at the tattoos on her arm as if they would provide an answer. Frowning, she turned to me and saw I was awake. “Did you feel that?”
Oberon roused and yawned.
“Yeah, I felt it.”
“So what was it?” Granuaile said.
“The last time I felt this was when Perun’s plane died.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah. Some plane connected to earth has been destroyed.”
“Does that mean Loki is free?”
“Probably. Unless someone else is destroying planes.”
The shuddering continued, and I extended my thoughts to the English elemental, Albion.
//Disturbance detected / Query: Source?//
The reply confirmed my fears. //Old plane of the Finns / Burning//
“Albion says it’s a plane of the Finns.”
“How many do they have? Not as many as the Irish, I hope?”
“No, I can’t think of many. Unless it’s Tuonela, their land of the dead.”
“Why would Loki even care about th
at?”
“No idea. But if he’s free again, what happened to Malina? Did she let him go, or is she a crispy critter now? Or maybe Hel found them and threatened her, or paid her off, or killed her—who knows.” Annoyed by the lack of answers, I looked up at the sky, assuming that Odin was looking in on us from Hlidskjálf. “And, hey, Odin! Are you listening? I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on Loki, since he’s such a potential problem.”
Granuaile considered. “The Finns had a thunder god, didn’t they, sort of like Perun?”
“Yeah. I saw him once. His name is Ukko, which basically translates to old man. God of the sky and thunder. He was part of the crew that came to kill me in Arizona and instead hacked up Coyote into tiny pieces. He seemed a bit more laid back than the other thunder gods, though. Probably because the Finns are just cool like that. Want to guess where they say thunderstorms came from?”
“Oh, ew. I’m not sure, judging by the grin on your face.”
“All that noise and precipitation gets made when Ukko and his wife, Akka, have thunderous sex. Isn’t that awesome?”
Granuaile shook her head. “No, it’s gross. You are such a guy sometimes.”
She’s not saying I’m occasionally female. She’s implying that I’m shallow.
Hey!
Granuaile couldn’t have heard what I said, but Oberon’s comment, plus the outrage that must have shown on my face, caused her to laugh.
“Good dog,” she said, petting him.
“Well, I hope Ukko’s all right,” I said, steering the conversation back to safer territory, “if indeed he was the target and if this was Loki’s doing.”
“Ukko wanted you dead and you’re worried about his welfare?”
“Well, yeah, I guess. He also cheered when the Morrigan cut Vidar in half. I think he was more bored than truly angry with me. He tagged along for the entertainment value.”