Adam winced. There was no worse blow than this. No reason left for living, at all. “I grieve for you,” Sigrun offered, her voice gentle. Very few outside their circle of friends ever heard that tone from her.
“It was a long time ago. I . . . left my life. Packed up. Left the house empty. Enlisted with a landsknechten company, got hired on in Raccia. Mongol border. Fought with them for . . . ten years. Gods.” Vidarr rubbed at his face again. “Much of this is . . . blurry. Distant. I can remember what I had for breakfast the morning after my marriage to Miijá . . . but the ten years in Raccia . . . shadows on a wall.” He cleared his throat. “In 1968, a woman came to me. Kseniya Antonovna Lagunov. Her, I remember clearly. She’d been sent to Siberia for agitating against the konung, years ago, but she was back in favor now. And had a . . . project.” He looked down at his hands, which were clenching and unclenching in his lap, and, with a visible grimace, stilled them. “I’d been fighting Mongols for ten years. Summoned spirits. Magic-touched arrows. Small, mobile cannons, firing shrapnel loads, covered in spells. Hit and run, guerrilla attacks. They come at you, fast, furious, and then they’re gone again. And wherever they hit, hundreds or thousands of acres of farms, just burned, because they know that Raccia waits for Mother Winter to come and send invaders back home, but if they burn the fields, the people in the cities will be starving by spring. Weaker. More willing to surrender.” He looked away again. “Lagunov asked me if I were interested in her project. In protecting my people, and hers. She said we needed . . . better weapons. Better soldiers. And that she wanted to take the best soldiers of Raccia, Gotaland, Fennmark, Cimbri . . . all the nations of the north . . . and make them better. Let us hold the line against the Mongols. Make sure that the Qin—allies of Raccia today, who knows what tomorrow—would stay on their side of the border.”
There was a pause, and all that was audible, for a moment, was the snapping of embers in the fire, and the murmur of the other giants, at the other side of the camp. “Put that way,” Adam admitted, quietly, “I’d have said yes. Though I might have asked for a few details.”
“I asked. Believe me, I asked. I was told vitamins, serums, and a little magic to make my skin like armor. Like the tattoos of the Eagle warriors of Nahautl. Or the Picts.” He gestured at Trennus.
“Purely decorative, in my case,” Trennus said, smiling faintly. “Go on, please.”
There was another long pause. “I went with her. Handful of other landsknechten that I knew, went, too. Some regular-army soldiers. All good men. A few women. Not many. We were taken to a facility. Given medications. Put on a special diet. Noble grains, I was told.” He barked out a laugh. “Meant to cleanse the body, they said. Can’t have any impurities. It . . . starts to get foggy there. The memories aren’t clear. I . . . remember a room. A tall man, dark-haired, with silver, gleaming eyes that looked right through me. He looked at me, and asked me . . . in my head . . . Do you want to save your people? Do you want to protect them? And I said yes. He asked me, But what have they ever done for you?” Vidarr looked up at the first stars starting to emerge from the darkening heavens. “And I said, Nothing, really, but that’s all I have left. He asked me . . . No children? No wife? No family? And I said . . . yes.” He shook his head, slowly. “He took my hand, and told me he . . . was sorry. But that it was for the best. That there were some jobs . . . where it was best . . . if you didn’t have attachments.”
The giant paused, and the fire crackled. “Then there’s . . . nothing but fog. Until the day the doctors in their white robes came to my room. Said it was time to begin the procedure.” He’d almost spat the word doctors. “They had me strip down. Put me on a metal gurney. There was some debate about whether or not they should sedate me, and they asked me. Said the process seemed to work better on the conscious volunteers.” His hands had clenched into fists again. “I said, no drugs. So they strapped me down, and wheeled me outside. That was my first clue that something wasn’t quite right. I started to fight, but they had me trussed up at ankles and wrists.” A hesitation. “I . . . don’t remember how they got me off the gurney, but the next thing I remember . . . is them holding me down. Took three of them. Maybe four. They were shoving me face-first into the mud at the edge of a . . . lake? Fens, maybe. Bogland. Water shining everywhere, but . . . grass. I could hear the birds crying overhead, and one of them was standing on my back, and I remember screaming, over and over, and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, some of the marsh birds flying away. I guess I . . . disturbed them.” His expression had gone blank, as if he were reliving the moment. “Cold. Cold mud, coming into my mouth, and I gagged. Choked. Tried not to inhale, but . . . you can only hold your breath so long.”
“Merciful gods,” Brandr said, in a horrified tone. “How are you alive?”
“I don’t know if I am,” Vidarr admitted, in a muffled tone. “My heart beats. I bleed. I breathe. But I think I died.”
No, Lassair said, firmly. You live. You have a human spirit in your body. I can see it.
Vidarr lifted his head, and looked at her, as she leaned against Trennus, her head pillowed on the Pict’s shoulder. “I . . . give you thanks, for that. Though it is . . . scant comfort, when I look at my brethren.” He exhaled. “It . . . it took a long time. The water and the mud burned in my lungs. I . . . remember that.” His voice was dull. “I remember the blackness. No light. Heaviness. More and more earth, pressing down on me. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Just. . . no, no, no, no, gods, no. Couldn’t even pray. Nothing coherent. Just . . . begging. I . . . have no idea how long I was in the earth. The memories aren’t very clear. There was . . . pain. Unbelievable pain. But I do remember . . . beginning to being able to move. Just a little more easily. I started to fight. Found the . . . edges . . . of my space, where the earth was hard and smooth, like a stone. Or an egg.” His voice remained dull. “Fought harder, cracked it. Stood up.” He closed his eyes. “I didn’t know what the fire in my eyes was. It hurt. It blinded. I didn’t know why my chest hurt. My first breath of air, and I thought I was going to die, because it was so thin. I coughed up all the water and mud. Threw up. Looked down at myself, and all I saw was black. Black mud, everywhere. And then there were hands. Little hands. Trying to guide me. I shoved them away, and they . . . made me hurt.” He shuddered. “Electrical cattleprod, I think. I didn’t know what it was at the time. Just . . . pain. Had to move away from the pain. Had to obey.”
Adam swallowed, hard. “And then?” Sigrun asked, quietly.
“Cages. I wasn’t . . . myself. I didn’t have a name. I was a number. Number five, actually. There were others like me. We were the first batch, I think, that didn’t come out . . . entirely wrong. There were . . . tests. They cut me open, to see how fast I healed. Took pictures . . . X-rays, I think . . . I remember seeing bones in the wrong places.” He thumped a hand against his chest. “Overlapping ones, interweaving with the ribs. Round, overlapping ones, down into the belly. I didn’t understand the image at the time. But now . . . .”
“Internal armor,” Adam said, his voice sick.
“Like a scutosaurus, or a giant sloth,” Trennus added, off-the-cuff.
Everyone looked at him. “I have six children,” he reminded them. “Half of them are in the middle of a dinosaur phase you wouldn’t believe. Internal scale mail, though? Doesn’t it make it hard to move?”
“It’s under the skin. Atop the muscle. I move as I always did.” Vidarr shrugged. “There was training. Learning to fight all over again. Being thrown into a pit to fight the ones that . . . weren’t considered optimal results, I suppose. Eating . . . whatever they gave us. Gods. I don’t even want to think what I ate . . . but I . . . .” He took a ragged breath. “They wanted us, I think, to be a perfect army. Taking fuel from anything we could. And . . . not all of those who were put into the earth-wombs survived the process.” He couldn’t look at them now. “I don’t remember it. I don’t want to remember it. But I know it’s . . . entirely likely that they fed us the flesh
of those who didn’t survive.”
“How did you . . . remember who you were?” Adam asked, leaning forwards. This was important to him. “How did you stop being the beast, and become the man once more?”
“I didn’t. Not at first. I remember noticing that my cage was . . . weak. I hurt. Too many cattle prods and electrical shocks. I was tired of the pain. I broke the door clean off, and must have just run. I don’t remember much, beyond darkness. Mud. Sound of dogs behind me. Just ran and ran, deeper into the forest. Swam across . . . a lake, I think? Away from the lights.” He lifted his head, and looked around. “Ima. Ima, come here.”
The wolf’s ears perked up, and she immediately lifted herself from her spot by the fire, and moved to him, placing her enormous head in his lap. “Ima found me. I think she . . . got loose at the same time I did. She hunted for me, at first. We shared her kills, and worked our way further and further north. Until, one day, we came upon a group of Sami. They saw a giant wolf attacking their reindeer, and I saw . . . humans attacking my friend. I was going to kill them . . . until I saw one of the women.” His tone was wistful. “It wasn’t Miijá. But she looked just close enough that I remembered my wife. I remembered who I was. I remembered how to talk. And I put myself between Ima and the Sami, and begged them not to hurt her. Said that we were just . . . hungry. We’d leave them alone.” He shook his head. “I was using their language. They . . . took us in. Gave me clothing. And helped me try to remember everything else I’d forgotten. How to be human again. Or at least . . . to try.”
“Why are you back down here, then?” Erikir asked, quietly.
“Because if I could come back from it . . . so could the others. I have to help them. And because, as Thor is my witness, I intend to kill every last one of the people who did this to me.” That last came from between clenched teeth. “They turned me into a monster. Turned us into monsters. They took away what made us human, but they didn’t . . . take away all the human urges.” He grimaced. “They took ten men for every woman, and the survival rate isn’t very good. But I don’t think they were thinking ahead for . . . breeding us, at least, not yet. But they didn’t, gods help us all, geld us. I’ve caught packs of my brethren trying to rape human women. Cattle. Anything, because they’re . . . mad, and they have urges.”
Minori cringed beside Kanmi, and the sorcerer wrapped an arm around her. “Changing the subject now,” the Carthaginian said, his tone clinical. “You said that . . . Ima here . . . is as different from the rest of her kind, as you are from yours?”
Vidarr sighed. “Ima? Show them.”
The wolf whined.
“Ima. This is important. There are god-born with them. They helped your pack-brother, and my new brother, too.” Vidarr sounded as if he were conversing with the wolf, not ordering. “The gods themselves may have done little for us of late, but these people have.”
The creature stood, her head and tail hanging low, and reached out with a single paw. Scratched in the snow. Stark, bold rune letters. Ima. I am Ima.
“I didn’t name her,” Vidarr said, quietly. “She remembers her name.”
Adam froze in place, and then twisted to look at Sigrun, whose face held horror, but no real surprise. The others all murmured among themselves. Brandr and Erikir were rubbing at their faces, expressions tight.
“Ima? Can you remember your words enough to tell them?”
Scratch, scratch, on the ground. No.
“If you don’t practice, you’ll forget entirely.”
Careful, laborious scratching at the earth. Was Ima. Am Ima. Was nurse. Put in earth with a wolf. Don’t have words.
Let me try, Saraid whispered, and the spirit coalesced near Ima . . . and manifested. Adam stirred, startled; she’d never done that before. She still had the lower body of a white doe, and above, the naked torso and lovely face of a human woman. The spirit lowered herself to her knees, and the wolf moved closer. Pillowed her head in Saraid’s deer-like lap. Tell me what you remember, Saraid said, tenderly, And I will let them hear your voice, if I can.
The wolf whimpered, and Adam’s skin prickled. Don’t like remembering. It hurt. Oh, this is so strange. I can hear my own thoughts? And they are . . . outside of my head?
It was a woman’s voice. Soft. A low, pleasant alto, hint of an accent. Adam shot a glance at Vidarr as he sat bolt upright, as if he’d been jabbed with a cattle-prod once more.
Yes. They can hear you. As you remember hearing your voice. Saraid’s tone was compassionate, and the spirit actually stroked the wolf’s fur with gentle hands.
Oh . . . it is so good to hear myself again. I thought I would go mad from the silence. A pause. I was in the earth, like my . . . friend. Vidarr. I had volunteered. My mate . . . no. My husband. He was . . . a soldier. She obviously had to search for words I was . . . a medic. They asked, if we would volunteer together. We didn’t have children. And it was . . . an honor to be selected. Ima paused, and whimpered at Saraid. They put me into the earth with a wolf. And when I awoke, I was . . . as I am now. I . . . found my mate’s grave. My husband’s grave. He . . . did not survive the earth-womb. But I could smell him, under the ground. In spite of the water. I knew the scent of his skin.
Vidarr reached out, and put a gentle hand on the wolf’s haunches. Adam was stunned to see tears in the giant’s eyes. “Ima,” he said, quietly. “Is that really you? Is that what you sound like?”
The wolf whined, and turned back to him. Licked his fingers. Yes. This is me. I thought I had lost myself. Most of my kind has. But you saved me. You don’t remember?
“No.”
You knocked over my cage. Let me out. I followed. They shot after us. You protected me from the Sami, too. You defended me from the other wolves, the males, the ones who . . . do not remember themselves. Ima’s voice was distressed. I wish I still had hands. I wish . . . I still had a voice. We have been robbed . . . of so much, my friend.
Adam’s stomach churned. “Sari . . .” He shook his head, rapidly. “Can you do this for the other wolf? Can you and Sigrun do what you did for all the wolves, in fact?”
“I did very little,” Sigrun said, sharply, and very quickly. Adam heard the fear in her voice. “Asha and Sari did much more.”
Saraid shook her head, looking sorrowful. I do not know, Steelsoul. I do not know if I have the power to give their spirits’ voices, when I am not with them. But I can try to help, in whatever ways I can, while we are here.
Adam looked at Kanmi and Minori next. “How about putting them . . . back in their right shapes?” He didn’t hold out much hope, but the dispirited looks that both sorcerers gave him made his heart sink.
“Ben Maor . . . . I wouldn’t even know where to start,” Kanmi admitted, after a moment. “Yesterday, I’d have told you that this couldn’t be done. Whoever did this used the period of time that they were in the ground to add mass to their bodies. I can’t just take the mass away. I could attempt to shrink one of these people down to the size of a human again. But they’d retain the same mass. They’d be enormously dense, wouldn’t have the muscle to manage the weight. They’d fall over. Have trouble breathing, probably.”
“They’d suddenly feel as if they’d been dropped on a planet with higher gravity,” Adam interpreted.
“Pretty much, yes, except with . . . cardiac problems and Astarte only knows what other conditions. Vidarr here has had bones added to his skeletal system. How many other changes were introduced?” Kanmi looked at Vidarr. “You say they cut you to see how well you healed, right? You heal . . . pretty fast?”
“A couple of times, I’ve been bitten by the fenris packs. The bites heal in a day.”
“Gods,” Erikir muttered. “They tried to make you into one of us.”
“No,” Brandr rumbled. “They tried to make jotun. Creatures like the hrímþursar, the rime-giants of legend. And . . . succeeded. We’re going to have to tell Valhalla.”
“How can Valhalla not know?” Vidarr demanded, his head jerking up, and his e
xpression suddenly furious. “How can the gods not know?”
Sigrun raised a hand. “Because, no matter what the priests tell us . . . the gods do not know everything. They know what their bound followers know. They see what we see. They are aware of the whole tapestry of what so many eyes and ears tell them. But some things are hidden from them. The work of those bound to other gods, for example.” Her expression was deeply troubled.
Adam cleared his throat. “You’ve every right to be angry, Vidarr. I’m not an authority here . . .” a sidelong glance at the two bear-warriors, “and pretty far outside my jurisdiction. But I promise you, if there’s anything my people and I can do for you and yours? You’ll have that aid.” He looked back at Kanmi and Minori. “You were saying?”
Kanmi grimaced. “If he’s healing like a bear-warrior . . . the basis of his entire metabolism has been changed, and I don’t know how. I’m not a physician. I can’t get in there and meddle with endocrine levels and organ changes. There’s something called the law of unintended consequences. The example is usually introducing a foreign predator into an environment that’s never had this type of creature before. The entire ecosystem breaks down. Existing prey animals have never had to adapt to this predator, so they’re hit hard. The existing predators are out-competed, and die off. I change one thing in their bodies, and I don’t know precisely what I’m doing? I make it worse.” Kanmi shook his head, emphatically. “Min?”
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