Zaya flushed, and just avoided his name, for the moment. “I saw your notes in the library, on the godslayers.” She glanced from side to side as they walked through the halls, but no one really looked up at them, or seemed to be listening. “The angels who descended, the nephilim . . . they were observers in Judean lore, correct?”
He nodded, looking interested. “It’s been a hobby of mine for a few decades,” he admitted. “Actually, we’re all interested in it, for obvious reasons. Sig dug in the Odinhall records, but her people’s climate wasn’t very conducive to records being preserved, besides those chiseled into stone. We all did some digging.”
Zaya nodded rapidly. She’d found their notes, all included and neatly labeled in the archive. “And Judeans banned magic about when? The reign of Saul, if I remember correctly?”
“Correct. Between the eleventh and tenth centuries before Caesar.”
“Well after the fall of Troy.” Zaya frowned. “Two hundred years or more after, in fact.” She sorted through everything she’d heard and read in the past months, including what Sigrun had just told Sophia in the hospital room.
“You’re getting at something here, Zaya, but I don’t know what.” Adam’s tone was patient.
“I’ve only been looking into it for a couple of weeks,” Zaya said, hastily, as they headed out through the sliding glass doors. She looked up, blinking; the sunny day had rapidly turned cold, gray, and windy, and she wrapped her capelet more closely around her. “But I think that because magic was suppressed here, a lot of the records of the godslayers might be . . . misplaced. They could have just been . . . misunderstood, and misfiled.”
“I did a fairly comprehensive records search, working with people in the Temple during the sixties and seventies,” Adam told her.
“But you had to rely on translations, didn’t you? I can read Aramaic—”
“I learned Aramaic so I could read the old documents.”
Zaya slapped one hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to sound that way. Pushy and overzealous. “I’m so sorry,” she blurted out. “I . . . .”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re probably much better at it than I am.” Adam’s expression was amused. “I learned it when I was in my thirties. Your brain’s more elastic. And what you say is true. I was only looking through documents that other librarians managed to collate for me. You, on the other hand, if you had permission . . . could trawl through all the documents in the archives, and see if you can find interesting phrases.” He looked up at the sky. “Assassin. Man or clay, depending on the translation. Stone or mountain. Water. Darkness. Light. Fire.”
“And maybe directions on how to summon them.” That last was a bare whisper.
Adam’s expression held disquieted horror. Zaya looked up at him. “It’s not so hard to believe, is it?” she asked, after a moment. “They were summoned before. They could be summoned again, with the correct ritual. And if ever this world needed a godslayer or two . . . .”
He shuddered, and leaned down to speak, quietly, in her ear. “Read up on that pazuzu. It still wore bronze. It was powerful, but four of us beat and bound it, when it took an army and a godslayer to defeat it, three thousand years ago.” He looked down into her eyes, and his expression was sad. “I don’t know how much good they’d do us. Look at how long it’s taken for Prometheus to regain his strength and understanding of the world around him.” His expression was still troubled, however. “I hate to think we’d ever be desperate enough to try it out.”
Zaya swallowed, and brought her chin up. “You’re saying I shouldn’t try?”
He shook his head. “I’d never say that. I’m just not sure that there’s an easy answer.”
Iunius 19, 1991 AC
The solstice was tomorrow, but Maccis wasn’t sure if he was going to make it back to Jerusalem in time for the bonfires. Rig and Solinus had been strongly encouraging him to join the reserve levies—he could do so at sixteen, with parental permission, and he probably wouldn’t be called up until he was done with secondary school. And yet, Maccis wasn’t sure he was Legion material. The wolf was his favorite form, so he understood pack hierarchy, almost instinctively. But he also knew that god-born like Rig, Solinus, and Aunt Sigrun were constantly in the field. And yet, sometimes, it seemed as if the Legion didn’t know what to do with people like them.
Hence, at the end of the school year, Maccis had enrolled in a ‘boot camp’ with the landsknechten. Which was to say, with jotun, fenris, hveðungr, and a few nieten, all around his age, with a couple of random harpies who felt misplaced within the confines of city life.
They’d been in the desert south of Jerusalem for six weeks, living in tents, and being run ragged by drill instructors. Maccis was in the annoying position of being the runt of the litter. Every jotun could lift and carry at least their own body-weight; lifting seven or eight hundred pounds and carrying it, easily, didn’t seem to be in the cards for him. Their legs were longer, and thus, their walking stride made him and the nieten scamper and run to keep up. At least the harpies could fly. Maccis debated, periodically, taking his pteranodon form and soaring overhead, but invariably decided that showing off wasn’t the point. The point was to see if he could see any better place for himself here, than in the regular legions.
In honesty, he did enjoy the landsknechten. He spoke a smattering of Gothic, and was picking up more, rapidly. And in the fourth week, they rendezvoused with another mercenary group, all Britannian and human, including a strong contingent of Picts, who blinked a little at seeing his clan-markings, but greeted him with bluff good will. There was discipline here, to be sure; everyone followed a chain of command, just as in the legions, but uniform restrictions were looser. They had to be. The lycanthropes needed loose-fitting clothing, or none. Fenris needed a collar for identification and to carry their money cards with them. Jotun and humans could wear similar styles, but obviously, in much different sizes. Maccis had grinned on realizing he could get away with a collar and loose-fitting clothes, like the hveðungr.
The days had gone by in a blur of learning how to use firearms properly. Automatic and semi-automatic rifles and pistols, and a grenade launcher that made enough noise that he wished he could lay his ears back in human form. He learned to stay behind the jotun when they were ordered to charge an enemy emplacement, and began to form fast bonds with many of the fenris and hveðungr, who at first took him for a puppy. That had lasted until they’d needed to get into an enemy bunker, sized for human hands and bodies, and he’d shifted forms and slipped in through a window and ‘killed’ the people inside while the others were all still trying to break down the reinforced main door. He’d then opened it from the inside, and accepted the dummy demolition charges the others had thrown to him, setting them around the room before loping away in wolf form with the rest of them.
He liked it. He liked listening to the fenris howl at night, and throwing his own head back to sing with them. He liked looking up into the night sky, and finding the tiny reddish chip that was Mars, and watching it as the earth turned slowly under the heavens, rolling on towards dawn. Maccis was, however, a little apprehensive. Rig had really wanted him to come join the legions. You’re a natural for special forces. You’d go in behind enemy lines, like I do. And like the fenris, you won’t be seen at night. Your shapechange doesn’t even show up as magic to most people, the way illusions can. And you’ve got the right temperament. You’re calm, for the most part, and you’ve got reasons to fight beyond ‘it’s a salary.’ You don’t belong in the landsknechten.
Maccis himself was of two minds on that. But when all was said and done, the landsknechten were usually sent in on jobs that the ordinary legions didn’t want to handle. They worked with regional levy troops and legion special forces. He’d be doing the same work. Just under a different label. And with people who understood what he was. Family, or brotherhood. What a choice.
So, at the moment, he and a group of fenris were belly-slinking around a patch of thorn bu
shes just two hours after sundown, edging in on an ‘enemy’ position that the Britannian troops had set up for this training exercise. Recon first. Send word back to the main force without being seen by any of the sentries. And then, when the jotun and nieten closed in as a distraction, enter the main bunker and ‘kill’ everyone in there. If they were seen?
They got to do it all over again until they got it right. Which was why Maccis wasn’t sure he was going to make it back tomorrow. Or even until sometime next week. He felt a surge of impatience as one of the fenris was, again, caught and illuminated by a search light. He tamped down on it, however. Their frames were large enough that the desert had few pieces of cover large enough for them. Here’s a thought, he told the others as they regrouped. There’s a canyon over to the west. It should be deep enough that we can go through it, up and around.
There are sentries there. We’ll be seen.
They can see us all they want. They just can’t report us and raise an alarm, right? Maccis considered it. Or we can go in, in two groups. One west. One east.
The exercise is over if any of us are seen and reported.
That’s not necessarily how combat really goes, is it? How about if we let them see some of us, while the rest of us keep circling around? That, from a hveðungr, in a thoughtful tone.
So long as we tell the overseeing officers that that’s what we plan to do, I don’t see why they’d object. Maccis’ tail twitched slightly. This part was like a game. Except . . . he could smell on the various officers watching the exercise that for them . . . it was anything but.
The officers agreed to it, and informed the opposition that the exercise would not end immediately on the enemy being spotted. That seemed fair enough. The largest, most obvious fenris went through the ravine, and ‘killed’ the sentries there, preventing an alarm, while Maccis and the others went east, circling slowly around. An alarm was raised to the west, and while the others were retreating back towards their start position, hastily, Maccis and the others slunk in and got detailed information on the camp’s layout . . . and he shifted to human form to make the report by radio. Within an hour, they had ‘killed’ and captured the entire enemy force, and Maccis was quick to point out that Bjorn, one of the lycanthropes, had been the one to recommend splitting their forces. “Classic misdirection,” one of the officers noted, an enormous jotun with an eye patch—a temporary measure, surely, given jotun healing rates. “And well executed. All right. Everyone get your gear together. We’ll be in touch with those of you we think would be good recruits. Everyone else? There’s always the legion, or any of a dozen other landsknechten companies. We’re looking for people who will fit with our existing cadres here in the Lindworms. Just because we don’t need you at this point in time, does not mean that you don’t have a place in one of the other companies, or even with us, some other day.” His voice rolled out like thunder over the rough clay basin in which they’d been training. “Thank you all for participating. I look forward to working with some of you soon.”
They broke ranks, and Maccis was surprised when one of the hveðungr officers fell in step beside him. Can I help you? he said, silently.
You are Saraid’s son?
It was the first time it had been asked. Maccis had definitely avoided mentioning it. Yes, I am. He kept walking, placing his boots in a careful line.
It means much to us, that you might come to work and fight with us. Would you like to practice tracking with us? We know that you are not yet prepared to take a position with us full-time. But we would welcome the opportunity to train you, so that when it is time, you may join with us, immediately. The giant wolf panted a little, clouds of frost to try to cool himself.
Hrolfgar, it would be my honor. Maccis swallowed. But not today or tomorrow.
Solstice. Yes, I understand. I was young once, too. You have a mate at home?
I am courting a girl, yes.
That is very well. Fair travels to you. We will have another training camp in three weeks. The others will give you a paper with information.
Thank you, Hrolfgar.
Maccis dozed on the bus-ride back, or tried to. He was excited, and a little nervous. He didn’t relish the idea of Rig and Solinus being annoyed with him, but . . . he thought he’d found what his future held, and it didn’t seem so bad. He also knew that practice and reality were two very different things. His father had killed people in combat. And Trennus always looked down and away when the topic came up. Not ashamed; the Picts were as much a warrior culture as the Goths and the Romans. But he obviously didn’t enjoy killing. Maccis had asked him about that, once, when they’d been practicing with claymores. Maybe for other people, it’s different, his father had admitted, refining how Maccis brought the heavy sword in for a strike. Maybe it’s nice and clean when you’re half a mile away and using a high-powered sniper rifle. I’ve done all my killing close up, and after you’ve buried a few men alive and you’re perfectly aware of the moment at which they stop struggling in the earth? He’d paused. I’ll stand behind every man I’ve ever had to kill, son. They were attacking me, or attacking a friend or ally. But I’m not a soldier. I don’t take anything away from the people who are; they’re out there to protect the rest of us. But I’ve been a bodyguard. I’ve fought in battles, but . . . never when a hundred thousand people were on each side and they’re all trying to kill each other. And I’d really prefer not to do so. My way of killing is too personal and horrifying, and it’s not terribly efficient. Not unless I rip the earth open and start burying a platoon at a time. His father had given him a look as Maccis had swallowed. Which I could probably do these days. Thank the gods, Maccis, that you’re probably never going to fight someone like me.
Everyone at home was getting ready for the solstice bonfire. Minori was over at the Matrugena house, and at least one of Aunt Lassair’s . . . copies . . . would be there to help Minori baby-sit the youngest children. A set of two-year-old twins, Aesu and Sintorix, and a load of grandchildren—Latirian’s second daughter, Minura, who was only a year old, Shiori, Solinus and Masako’s first daughter, who was only two, and their new son, Astegal, barely four months old. Rig and Inghean’s first daughter, Vigdis, was about two months old now, as well, so there were a number of cribs occupied. Esico and Senecita, who were six, had begged to be allowed to go to the bonfires, had been told to stay home with the little ones, because they’d be tired and cranky by eight postmeridian. But all the rest of them, including the two sets of twins who were currently ten years old, would be going.
It was, therefore, a huge group of people who were preparing to leave for the fires as Rig and Solinus caught Maccis, and pulled him off to the side. “So?” Solinus asked him, directly. “How’d you like having sand and thorns work their way through your fur, anyway?”
Maccis snorted a little. Both men were twelve years his elder. Sol had been in the Legion for ten years now, and Rig, for six, though he’d apparently . . . been on a mission with their father, Aunt Sig, Uncle Adam, and Aunt Minori, when Baal-Hamon and Uncle Kanmi had died. Rig never spoke about it. “It was all right. Hard keeping up with the jotun, but there are enough nieten in that company that they didn’t look at me as if I were useless because I couldn’t flip a tank over.” He paused. “For the record? Six jotun required to do that. Doesn’t seem to make a difference that tanks are measured in tons, either.” He shook his head. “I mean, they were using levers . . . but still. Damn. Each of them was responsible for about fourteen times their body-weight, if I did the math right.”
“I’ve seen a group of eight tip one, yeah. Using levers, while one of their friends was up on the turret, holding the gun in place. Persians have started cutting holes in the sides of the tanks to try to let the crews inside fire guns back out at the jotun.” Rig shrugged.
“Stupid move on their part,” Solinus said, distantly. “I usually run up alongside where they can’t see me, burn one of the port holes open, and stick a grenade inside. Presto. One less tank on the batt
lefield.” His brother looked back at Maccis. “So, you going to give the Legion the same fair shake?”
Maccis hesitated. “Sol . . . I could. But I was comfortable there. I can’t imagine that the Legion is going to let me wear a non-standard uniform, and scrambling in and out of my clothes every time I need to change form is . . . annoying.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve incinerated more uniforms than I can count. Gets expensive.” Sol’s voice was amused.
Maccis hesitated. “Besides, it . . . seemed to mean something to them.”
Solinus blinked. “I don’t understand.”
Maccis fidgeted. “The fenris and the hveðungr. They knew I was Saraid’s son.” He looked away. “It was important to them that I was there.”
To his surprise, it was Rig who put a hand on his shoulder. “I understand that,” he told Maccis, quietly. “Some people hate me on sight for taking my father’s name. Some of the older fenris growl at the mere sight of me. But the ones who were born this way?” Rig shook his head. “Some of them worship Loki as if he were their creator. And they’re . . . glad to have been born what they are. Can’t picture themselves any other way.” Rig looked at Maccis. “And your mother, and Sigrun, have both been very important in helping them adapt. It makes sense.”
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