by Kevin Hearne
The great head with colonies of army ants for eyes turns from me and looks back across the river. Her posture slumps, and she returns her gaze to me and pivots in my direction, placing her hands on her wide hips, everything still a boil of plants and chattering, squawking animals.
I don’t think she’d ever dreamed of turning violent. She’d simply been pushed to believe she had no other choice, and when I pointed out that she still had one, she was only too glad to return to peace. She is beautiful and I tell her so. The sloth responds instead.
Even as she speaks, the skeleton of saplings falls in a controlled pattern to the forest floor.
I move over next to her and she rises on her hind feet at roughly the pace of an advancing glacier. I fear I might need some more Immortali-Tea before we get anywhere.
I arrange the bindings for both strength and speed because I’m curious to see what speed equates to for such a creature. I have to admit: She’s fecking adorable up close. A white-furred face with a stripe of black fur across the eyes and some coarse, bushy brown fur at the top of her head and all over the rest of her. Black nose and muzzle, but the pattern of fur at the edges curls up a wee bit, giving her the appearance of wearing a perpetual soft smile. Her mental voice is kind of like that too, quietly amused. But gods below, she’s got some long claws!
When the bindings hit her, Slomo’s eyes pop wide and that smile becomes a genuine openmouthed grin.
I have to admit that when she spreads out those long arms with those claws of hers and leaps at me, it’s damn hard to stand still, but I do, figuring I can heal if she does me any damage, and it’s not bad at all. I grunt under the impact and the weight, but she’s gentle and hugs me more with her arms and legs rather than digging in with those claws.
I head over to the right, where she’s pointing, and stop next to the trunk. I don’t even know what kind of tree it is, but I wonder already what she’ll name it.
Slomo scratches me a wee bit as she launches herself at the tree and scrambles up it with those claws, but it’s totally worth it. She’s fast like she’s always dreamed, and her glee at being alive in the world is wonderful to hear right now when there’s a gobshite trying to burn the whole thing down.
I shape-shift to human and warn her that the energy’s about to run out, so she should get herself settled. She scampers higher up and dangles from a branch, surrounded by many leaves, all within easy reach.
Is that okay?
It’s real. Do you get bad leaf trips often?
This is what I look like as a human.
That’s not a tiny snake.
It’s not a snake at all! Look, never mind that. I’m glad you’re safe now. I’ll deal with the fire and return.
Dealing with the fire isn’t even a little bit of fun. It’s hot and smoky and a fecking shame, because a lot of plants and animals died here. But for some reason I’m smiling the whole time I’m crafting bindings, smothering the flames with dirt.
The reason is Slomo. She makes me laugh. And she’s seeing the world in a way that’s fresh to me old eyes. I suppose because she’s seen even less of it than I have.
But she sees it with a sense of wonder, like me apprentices do. I think it’s good for me to see that; it renews me own sense of wonder. When ye get old, ye can get tricked into thinking there’s nothing new to enjoy in the world, because ye slow down, ye don’t see much except the same few things, and ye think, feckin’ hells, why don’t I just lie down tits up and give up the ghost? I’m bored with eating soft foods and watching game shows and getting dressed, because clothes are all shite and scratchy.
There’s no doubt that having me youth restored has gone a long way to renewing me love for the world. And seeing so much of it recently has renewed me willingness to fight for it—not that I’ve ever been unwilling to fight. It’s just that I’m starting to feel more zealous about fighting to defend Gaia. Perhaps Granuaile’s attitude is rubbing off on me. Or perhaps, when ye know what the world once was like and ye see what humans have done to it, ye just get fightin’ mad as a matter o’ course.
When the fire’s finally out, I can feel the forest relax. I’ve kept me word and Pachamama can return to nurturing all.
I’m relieved that she listened to me and stopped what she was doing without a fight. Perhaps she stopped because she saw that I’m on her side, but I’m sure she knew that the true fight is going to rage for quite a while, and I’m going to be the one fighting it for her.
I let Amazon know the work is done and I’ll be up a tree for a while, then I shift to a red kite and fly back to where Slomonomobrodolie is hanging out, chewing on a rubbery leaf.
the Thor I’d met in the past—and watched die under the blade of Moralltach—had worn blond hair, which was different from the Eddas, where he had bright red or even orange hair, but it wasn’t a detail I had worried about at the time. People can have whatever color hair they want, so I imagined gods could figure out some way to do the same. Everything else had matched the old stories: He drove a chariot pulled by flying goats, he wielded Mjöllnir, and he had the ability to sling lightning around like a painter applying gouache to a canvas. So was this Thor re-manifested due to the significant number of pagans who still worshipped him around the world, or had this been the real Thor all along, and Leif had slain some other, convincing manifestation? Either way, I’d been played, and when my eyes slid to Odin I saw him staring back at me with a huge grin on his face. He laughed openly at my expression. Freyja caught it and she looked my way as well, and her smile was anything but friendly.
I don’t often get a cold, squirmy feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach, but when I do, it’s because I realize I’m surrounded by enemies on all sides and I’m most likely not going to survive the day. Or maybe I’m going to suffer something worse than death. The assembled deities were rather famous for doling out such punishments, and Jesus had warned me on more than one occasion I would suffer more pain than I had ever known as a result of my invasion of Asgard. It was a debt he’d made clear I would one day have to pay, and every instinct I had told me I should flee the field now, because that day had come. The Æsir had the Fae, the dark elves, and some significant Greco–Roman assistance ready to meet Loki and Hel. Chances were I wasn’t going to sway the battle all by myself. I’d already taken care of Jörmungandr—or, rather, Laksha had—but eliminating him had been the specific request Odin had made of me in lieu of a blood price for Thor’s (supposed) death. My oath was fulfilled—though it was apparently extracted from me based on a lie. My obligations were quite thoroughly discharged.
Except for the greater obligation I had to Gaia. Should Loki’s forces break through, the destruction they would wreak on the world—the lives lost—would be incalculable. And just as I believed Jesus when he said I had a whole lot of pain coming my way, I also believed him when he said I was one of the few who could minimize the destructive consequences of this mess. By taking out Jörmungandr, Laksha had certainly saved many people and plenty of livestock. The yeti had saved more by stopping Surt before he could erupt for more than a few minutes. If I could save anyone by staying, I had to do it.
Surprising everyone, Fand sounded the charge first and led the Fae into battle with Manannan Mac Lir by her side, winged pixies and sprites floating above a motley horde of boggarts, barghests, spriggans, and other creatures. Brighid followed close behind with her host, almost indistinguishable from Fand’s exc
ept in proportions of this type of faerie or that. I followed close behind them, figuring they were a safer bet for me than joining any portion of the Æsir forces. A wedge of draugar advanced to meet them from the volcano’s slopes, and I realized after a few seconds that it was proportional. But whereas the combined Fae host was a significant chunk of our forces, it was only a sliver of theirs. The scale of what we faced sank in, and that cold tremor in my stomach shivered and solidified into a block of ice.
Speaking of which, the two surviving yeti marched with Manannan, whirling blades at the ready since their frost magic would be minimally effective against the draugar. I didn’t like them being at the front; they had already sacrificed enough, and I didn’t want the yeti to be erased from the earth. There was also a small forest of yewmen—good call bringing them along. They were hard to kill.
I had to break into a slow jog to keep up. The charge was not a full-speed plunge into clashing weapons just yet, but it would build.
Casting a glance over my shoulder, I saw Odin nod to the Olympians. Zeus ordered them to fall in behind us and he led the way, gliding obscenely above the field with his battle boner, a savage grin peeking through his beard. Thunderheads roiled above us now: With Zeus, Jupiter, and Thor on the field, there would be plenty of thunder and lightning. I wondered where Perun was, thinking that his friendly, hairy personage would be a welcome addition to this battle, but he was no doubt occupied elsewhere with troubles in his Slavic lands. It would be a certainty that the Sisters of the Three Auroras were protecting people in Poland.
We kept closing the distance, and I periodically checked behind to see how the armies would deploy; they were obviously deferring to Odin, and I wondered why I never got that memo or a nice outline of the battle plan, highlighted in neon colors and annotated in red pen.
Had Fand’s charge been the plan all along, or was Odin improvising according to developments on the field? At least he wasn’t smiling at me in mockery anymore. With any luck I had not deployed as he expected, though I’m sure that whatever Odin had planned for me, he had already thought through multiple scenarios.