The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1)

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The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 41

by Deborah Davitt


  It seemed to be similar to the toxin of poison dart frogs in some ways, but more hallucinogenic than paralytic, Lassair offered, hesitantly, slipping back out of his body and diminishing in size to a handful of wispy flame once more, hovering in the air beside him. What will you do now?

  What Kanmi suggested. We’ve got to stop them from bleeding power from the god and using it. Trennus looked at the closest Tholberg coil and grimaced. It was undoubtedly secured by a long metal bolt, deep into the earth. He could, fairly easily, cause an earthquake here, but that would bring the pyramid down on their heads. No, his best bet, really, was to overload each Tholberg coil in turn. Of course, that was going to release a great deal of energy. Trennus set his teeth, reached down into the ground, and pulled on the resonating energy of the intersecting lines once more, feeding as much of it as he could at once, into the closest coil.

  The coil, not designed for this much energy, promptly began to melt; the housing, subject to too much heat and stress, cracked down the center and exploded outwards; and the insulation in the housing promptly went up in sullen red flames. One down, Trennus thought, and focused on the next, all too aware of the Eagle warriors behind him, fighting and dying. “Esh, help them! I’ve got the coils!”

  “One thing at a time . . . .” Kanmi growled in return.

  ___________________

  The fight had, thus far, only lasted two agonizingly long minutes, as best Sigrun was aware on the other side of the room, as she killed another monkey-dog and ran forward, trying to stop the one that had Ehecatl by the throat. She speared it through the body, and then Tototl, who’d been uninvolved in the fight thus far, was in front of her. The god-born of Tlaloc was somehow covered in glistening obsidian, as if the earth itself had flowed up and over his body to protect him from her. The face was an expressionless mask, no features visible at all besides the eyes, which were large openings that mimicked Tlaloc’s own cavernous and empty eye-pits.

  Without a word, Tototl backhanded Sigrun away, the heavy, rock-covered fist sending the god-born of Tyr flying backwards into the stalagmite mound behind her. The second impact, from behind, was enough to daze Sigrun for a moment, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw that Tototl had picked Ehecatl up bodily, and thrown him onto the altar. A string of words in incomprehensible Nahautl, raising one of his hands towards his god, keeping the other massively heavy hand down on Ehecatl’s throat, preventing the struggling captive from rising . . . . and then he plunged his free hand down, all glistening obsidian, into Ehecatl’s chest. From her angle, she could clearly see that he was somehow wrist-deep in her friend’s lung cavity, without so much as a drop of blood being spilled, and Ehecatl writhed in agony as that hand closed on his heart.

  Adam, splitting his attention and his ammunition between targets, saw that Gratian was down, and fired twice more at the various monkey-dogs bursting out of the earth near him, and then spun, seeing Sigrun go flying. He lashed out with a foot to keep another dog at bay, kicking hard enough to fracture its jaw and send it whimpering away. With a little space cleared, Adam had a chance to see that Tototl had Ehecatl down on the altar. Ya ben shel zona. He aimed for center of mass, directly at the rock-encased body, between the shoulder blades, and with his last round before needing to reload the .45, fired.

  Obsidian is, structurally and chemically, really only volcanic glass. The hollow-point bullet shattered the rear armor, and the impact drove Tototl forward over the altar, knocking him over, and forcing him to pull his hand out of Ehecatl’s body to break his fall.

  Sigrun shouted something wordless and launched herself, her feet not even touching the ground as she slammed into the high priest, sending them both tumbling. She didn’t have access to the sky, so she had no lightning to call. Her spear was useless. All she had was the strength of her body, the training of her mind, and the knowledge that it would heal. She and Tototl wrestled, a tangle of arms and legs, until Sigrun came up on top and began throwing punches directly at the god-born’s masked face. It didn’t matter that she was punching rock. It didn’t matter that her fingers were bleeding. It will heal. A mantra in her mind. Hit him again. It didn’t matter that the skin was peeling back, and the bones were exposed. It will heal. Break through the stone. Get down to the flesh itself. Her knuckles fractured. It will heal. Ehecatl might not. Electrocuted, poisoned, bitten, and then a hand trying to tear out his heart. Ehecatl, who’s as faithful to his gods as any man of Nahautl could be, dying at the behest of these people? No. Another punch. Get down to his face and end this.

  ___________________

  Another concussive blast, another Tholberg coil exploded. “Stop!” Adam shouted across the pool to Kanmi and Trennus. “I think the coils are what are keeping Tlaloc tied here! You break those, and he’ll be free!”

  One of the two remaining Eagle warriors, from his cage of rock, called, sounding dazed and utterly confused, partially from the poison of the monkey-dogs, and partially from circumstances, “Isn’t . . . isn’t the goal . . . freeing him?”

  “They’ve been siphoning off his power, and Xicohtencatl was using it to fight us!” Kanmi shouted back, and enveloped another monkey-dog that had been trying to worm its way into the rock cage with an Eagle warrior with his mind. He incanted, concentrating all of the ambient heat around him, condensing it, and setting the beast on fire.

  Adam switched to his backup .38, kept firing at various dogs, and shouted back, “Yes. And I don’t really see him around here right now. I do see a pretty angry god, though! Get the Eagle warriors out of here, and help Sig! Ignore the coils!”

  ___________________

  Trennus stopped in the middle of popping the sixth Tholberg coil, and looked across the pool at Adam. Sigrun first. Trennus started forward, eying the rock-like armor of the high priest and determining how best to shuck it from him, when Tototl managed to heave and roll with Sigrun again, this time propelling them towards the pool. Tangle of arms and legs, and the high priest forced Sigrun’s head back into the water. She snarled and resisted, keeping her mouth and nose clear, but the pool’s water began to roil and rise, like the fingers of a hand, or like the limbs of an octopus wrapping forward over her face in long, clear strands Oh, the Morrigan take you. Trennus directed a ley current right at the rocky surface of Tototl’s armor, riddled with cracks as it was. The blow shattered the chest, arms, and mask of the armor. The high priest flinched back, looking down at his exposed belly, chest, and arms, and Sigrun managed to work a leg free to kick him away from her, sitting up, a shroud of water still around her head. “Esh!” Trennus shouted. “Get that off her, before she drowns!”

  Kanmi, on the other side of the room, where the two remaining living Eagle warriors were still caged in rock, and where he’d been fighting to keep the monkey-dogs from getting to them, looked up, and muttered, “Oh, shit.”

  ____________________

  Sigrun, for her part, was starting to panic. She couldn’t breathe, her fingers went right through the water like . . . water . . . and no amount of telling herself that death by drowning wasn’t a battle wound convinced her heart, lungs, or nervous system that they weren’t about to die. Through the wavering mask , she watched as Ehecatl, holding one hand to his chest in obvious pain, slid off the altar, an obsidian knife in his free hand. He stepped behind the retreating high priest . . . and slammed the knife through the man’s back, where Adam’s bullet had already shattered the armor. She could see the point of the knife emerge through the man’s chest, directly through the sternum. As the priest’s body went limp, the water around her head released itself to gravity’s grip, sheeting down to the ground once more. Sigrun gasped for air, and sat there, shuddering, still feeling the power of the god vibrating through the air. “Eh . . . Ehe . . . “ she croaked, trying to get to her feet, and reaching for her old friend’s hand. Whether to help him to stay standing, as he rocked on his feet, or to ask him to help her up, she really couldn’t have said, at the moment.

  Behind the altar
, Tlaloc’s empty eye-pits stared down at the body of his fallen high priest. And just for a moment, the fanged mouth smiled. Blood spilled, and flesh given. A beating heart stilled, at my altar, and by my sanctified blade. The rich and powerful blood of the gods, spilled for me.

  Oh, Hel’s cold heart, Sigrun thought, and managed to find her feet at last. “Fall back,” she called. Her voice was a raven’s hoarse cry. “Fall back, get out of here!” She called her spear to her hand, but knew it was useless. She couldn’t fight a god. No one could.

  ____________________

  “Matrugena, drop the cages, let’s get these men out of here!” Kanmi shouted, and Trennus spun. Saw the two Eagle warriors he’d imprisoned to keep them away from each other’s throats, and let the stone that imprisoned them drop back into the ground. “Go, go, go,” Kanmi urged, shoving the disoriented, mildly poisoned men towards the tunnel exit. He turned, however, in dread, feeling a shift in the energies in the room. “Come on,” the Carthaginian told the others, his voice thick. “Run, damn you!”

  “No point,” Ehecatl said, quietly. “He’s a god.”

  “He’s bound,” Trennus said, tightly. “Somehow. For the moment, anyway. We’ll leave. Quietly. Peacefully. We’re not the ones who bound you.” The Britannian raised his voice, but his tone was still . . . deeply respectful.

  No. But you have also slain my servant. The death’s head smile somehow seemed to widen.

  “Didn’t he just seem pretty happy about his servant being killed for his sake?” Kanmi muttered, backing towards the door. “You’re grateful, you want revenge, make up your mind . . . .”

  ___________________

  Trennus let the words pass him by, as Lassair and Saraid both demanifested now, and passed into his body, huddling inside of him. Sheltering there, and trying to shelter him. It felt . . . odd. Gods respect bargains. Just like spirits. History’s full of examples of that. Adam tried negotiating when we first came in, but he’s not . . . an intercessor. A trained bargainer with spirits. Worst that can happen is that I get my fool ass killed. “He wasn’t a faithful servant, though, now was he?” Trennus tried, hobbling slowly towards the door. Lassair had stopped the bleeding, and he could stand on the leg, just by locking the knee, but he couldn’t flex it at all; the tendons were just too damaged. He was sweating as he tried to find the right words that would reach a god. Logic and reason didn’t always work on spirits; their motivations were sometimes just too different from a human’s . . . and he had no idea if the usual things that worked on spirits would work on a god . . . but he had to try. The others might be able to get free, if this succeeded. And you wrestled with spirits in the flesh, in the mind, and with words. I even already know this one’s Name. Not that I’d dare use it. “He bound you, bound you in blood. He offered sacrifices to feed you, but he and the other, they took as much as they gave. You said it yourself. A faithful servant gives more, out of love, doesn’t he? Out of devotion?” He paused. “And these two, they didn’t give out of devotion. They gave out of a desire for power. That’s not the way it’s meant to be, is it?”

  For just an instant, he thought he’d gotten through. That he’d dared to bargain in words, and had prevailed with reason and with sense.

  And then the god spoke again, in a voice that howled with madness, They were mine. I will have recompense. And they have left me . . . a way out.

  The lictors had clustered now, in a tight little defensive perimeter around the tunnel, the two Eagle warriors having already cleared the area. Ehecatl was still breathing in short, harsh pants, clutching at his chest with his left hand. “Better to go out in battle,” the Nahautl man said, in between breaths, “than to die of a damned heart attack. Cleaner. More honor.”

  Adam reloaded his .45, his fingers deft and sure, and nodded to Ehecatl. “Least you got the bastard.” Adam turned and looked up at Matrugena. “You tried,” he told Trennus, calmly, distantly. He’d never expected to count a summoner a friend, let alone be likely to die beside one. “It was nice working with you.”

  “Nice knowing you, too.” Trennus put a hand against the tunnel wall for balance.

  “Will you two save the noble farewells?” Kanmi snapped. “I’m trying to feel what he’s doing . . . oh, Baal’s teeth.”

  To the sorcerer’s senses, it was all too clear. The god’s energies pulsed through the remaining Tholberg coils, and, following the path of least resistance, tracked along the copper wires strung from the machines to the pool of still-steaming, but now much cooler water. The energies poured into the water . . . and into the empty, hollow shell of Gratian Xicohtencatl’s body.

  Kanmi’s eyes flicked across the room and stared at the hulking avatar of Tlaloc bound behind its altar by machines and magic. “How does a god get an avatar?” he asked, sharply. “Do they make them, or can they use human bodies?”

  Sigrun stirred. “Both have been known to happen,” she replied, her tone uneasy. “Eshmunazar, this is probably not the time for theoretical quandaries.”

  Kanmi swore internally. Just as a spirit could be forced into the dead body of a human to make a ghul rise in the hands of a clumsy human summoner, now, the god’s very essence was transferring from the avatar bound at the far end of the cavern into a new vessel. If Tlaloc were free, he wouldn’t need to do this; he’d just use his existing form. If Tlaloc were free, he could also just hop instantly to the new body, Kanmi was fairly sure. But if they could catch him midway through the transfer . . . they might be able to damage him. Dissipate him. Send him back to whatever misty realm gods occupied when they were not on earth, watching sparrows fall.

  Kanmi looked around, wild-eyed. “Destroy the coils,” he told Trennus.

  “But Adam just said not to—”

  “They’re how he’s transferring!”

  “And if we unbind him, we’re going to have a really angry god in the same room with us!”

  “And if we don’t disrupt the transfer, we’re going to have him incarnate twenty feet from us anyway! And in a dead body, at that . . . if that drives a spirit crazy, it might well do the same to a god, for all we know!”

  Trennus stared at Kanmi. “On three. I’ve got the three on the right.”

  “I’ve got the three on the left. One . . . .”

  “. . . two . . . .”

  “Three,” they both said together, closed their eyes, and overloaded the six remaining coils. It didn’t take much; the machinery was on the verge of melting into slag, anyway, overloaded by the raw energy coming off of the god. The cases shattered into red-hot fragments, sizzling across the large cave, a few dropping into the pool with a hiss of steam. Kanmi could feel raw power in the room, some of it dispersing, like ambient cosmic radiation, into a mere crackle of force . . . and the rest coalescing. “Shit,” he whispered. “Didn’t work.”

  And at the center of the pool, a head rose from the water. Barely visible, it was black against leaden silver, for there was little light left in the cavern now, beyond the dull red, smoke-obscured glow of the burning insulation from the various machine’s casings. “Back up,” Adam told them all, breaking and tossing a flare into the cavern, just so they could see what was coming for them.

  In the flickering white light of the flare, they could all see the figure of a man once more begin to rise out of the depths, until he stood on the surface of the water. But Gratian Xicohtencatl was no more. His skin and flesh had been cooked in the boiling water, and had split away, showing the red muscle tissue beneath. His eye-sockets were blank and empty. And his face had a rictus grin, displaying teeth that were rapidly elongating into fangs. “Xipe Totec,” Ehecatl said, in a tone of horror. “He looks like Red Tezcatlipoca, the Flayed God. The priests used to flay men every year, and dress his statues with the discarded skin, or wear the skins, themselves, in place of robes, for spring fertility rites. They are not the same god, but he wears the face of the Flayed One!”

  I am free. You could not stop me. The old body, I discard like the husk that it i
s. Your pale Roman gods will not stop me now. I am free and I will feast on the blood and the tears and the flesh of my sacrifices again, and my people will be strong once more!

  ____________________

  Slowly, Sigrun stepped out in front of the rest of them, trepidation seething in the pit of her stomach. This was certain death. Then again, a valkyrie was born for precisely this purpose: to fight lost battles, to save those who could be healed, to carry home the slain, or to be slain themselves. “Now would be a good time for you all to retreat.”

  “No,” Adam said, shortly. “We all stand together.”

  “You don’t understand. I . . . have to challenge him. I do not even have the sky down here. I’m . . . little more than a normal human without the sky. I’m sorry. Just go.” The last was a whisper, and she didn’t even know to whom she was apologizing. Sigrun turned her gaze back towards the god, and set her spear in her hands, walking forward. Her voice shook as she lifted her chin and spoke. “I do not say well-met, Tlaloc. The gods of Rome made a covenant with you and yours, centuries ago, when they and theirs forbade the offering of human sacrifices. That covenant has bound you. The world has moved on since you last tasted of your people’s sacrifice. And they are stronger without those sacrifices, today, than they ever were before. Parasite god, feeding on the bowels of your people, on their tears and their sorrows. What know you of loyalty? Only the whip, the scourge, and the sorrow of a people enslaved to your will.”

 

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