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

by Deborah Davitt

  Adam finally found Sigrun’s pulse. It was thready and weak, but there. But as he watched, the rune-fire markings shone, dimly, through the blackened skin. It won’t kill me, she’d said at dinner the other night, at the prospect of foul water or rotten food. It’ll just make me wish it would. “Come on,” he told her, and put a hand, very lightly, on what was left of her hair—a fragile, brittle mass that had congealed together in places, and shattered at his touch. “Fight it. You’re really good at fighting, Sig. What’s one more battle?”

  Wearily, he stood, and walked over to the car, where the two Eagle warriors who’d survived the battle had taken refuge. Both of them were bloody and covered in vicious claw-marks from the monkey-dogs . . . and both had knife wounds, from where they’d turned on each other, as well. They’d managed to bandage each other up, however, and looked as weary and heart-sore as the rest of them did. They had, after all, lost three of their comrades today . . . and seen one of their gods made captive to humans. If he actually was a captive. Adam’s head spun, and he put the thoughts aside. Focus on the task at hand. “Gentlemen. Whatever’s left in the first aid kits, grab it, and some blankets. The others are . . . not doing so well.”

  The first eyed him, cautiously. “What happened down there? We didn’t see anything after we were ordered to retreat.” He grimaced. “Eagle warriors are never supposed to retreat. In the old days, we’d be going home now to be executed by our own men.”

  “These aren’t the old days,” Adam said, crisply. “And I thank god for that.” He meant it, too. Sincerely. “I’m not entirely sure what happened down there, to be honest.” Truth, that. He didn’t even know if the god could . . . re-manifest, or if he’d killed it, somehow, against all expectations. “The first thing I need you to do is to carry Ehecatl Itztli to the truck you used to get down here. He’s going to need to be transported flat, with his feet elevated.”

  He brought the medical kit back over to the others, and laid a thermal blanket over Sigrun, before he started to, loosely, wrap Kanmi’s hands in gauze. “I’m surprised you’re not burned worse,” he told Trennus, still feeling a little dazed.

  “Lassair,” Trennus said in incomprehensible explanation, clearly still dazed.

  Adam stared at him blankly. “One of my spirits,” Trennus said. “That’s . . . shit. That’s, well, her name.” He rubbed at his face. “Don’t noise it about. She was still overlapping me, partially, from having stopped the bleeding in my leg.” Trennus pointed down. “She’s fire, in a way. Not a fire elemental, but . . . gods. I can’t really define her. Part of what makes dealing with her a challenge. She, ah . . . I think she took most of the flame for me. Frankly, I think she ate it.”

  “You said her Name,” Kanmi said, and staring down at his white-swathed hands. “That’s against the rules, summoner.”

  “She trusts all of you enough to tell you all your true-names. Seems . . . only fair . . . you should know hers, too.” Trennus started to heave himself to his feet.

  “She stopped the bleeding?” Adam said, finally focusing in on what had been said. “Can she help Sigrun?” He gestured towards the god-born woman, feeling, for about the fiftieth time that night, helpless.

  Trennus shook his head. “I don’t know. She’s not answering me at the moment. I think . . . that what happened down there . . . scared her almost to death.”

  Adam’s teeth hurt for a moment. “Sig’s life could depend on this flighty, frightened spirit, and she’s just . . . scuttled off to hide?”

  Trennus grimaced. “Adam, she’s a spirit, and she just watched a god die.” Trennus glanced around to make sure none of the Nahautl men were in earshot. “Personally, I’d like to find a hole and hide in it myself.”

  And that was when the enormity of it actually hit Adam for the first time. Gods weren’t supposed to die. Although, clearly, they did. But usually they were killed by other gods. The Titans gelding Uranus and leaving the creator to die, only to be replaced by their own children in the continuous power-struggle that was the Hellene pantheon. Baal dying and being torn apart every year, to allow the world to bloom, dying and being resurrected to allow the human race to endure. Osiris being murdered in the Egyptian legends, Loki murdering Baldur, in the Gothic ones. Although the Gothic legends were such a muddle of past and present and future that Adam didn’t claim to understand them. Baldur had been murdered and would be resurrected at the end of the world, except he was also a currently worshipped and manifest deity.

  It gave him a headache to try to figure it out, so he didn’t even try. Adam focused on the here and now. “Are we sure he’s actually . . . dead?”

  “I don’t think both of my attendant spirits would have fled like this if he were just . . . I don’t know . . .” Trennus waved vaguely.

  “Down with a deific migraine,” Kanmi proposed, expressionlessly. “Hung over on too much nectar.”

  Both of them turned and stared at the technomancer. “What?” Kanmi said, slumping where he sat. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as the sniffles of the gods.”

  Adam really wished he could smile. Instead, he sighed and pulled back the thermal blanket to check on Sigrun. Her burns looked, perceptibly, a little better. “All right. She’s healing. Let’s get her to the car, and from there, to a hospital.” He couldn’t deal with the concept of having killed something that was supposed to be immortal. Ineffable. His mind insisted on making it smaller. So he scooped Sigrun back up onto his shoulder, and the three men headed for their vehicle. Trennus stiffly got into the backseat, and Adam settled Sigrun down along the rear bench, with her feet elevated in Trennus’ lap.

  “This is probably not the time to be giving her a foot massage,” Kanmi warned Trennus, hauling himself into the passenger’s side at the front of the car. The sorcerer’s humor was fairly clearly a defense mechanism. One he employed relentlessly.

  Trennus muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “Póg mo thóin,” which happened to be about the only Gallic Adam knew. Kiss my ass.

  He snorted and got the car started, then told Kanmi, “Get on the radio while I drive. Fill Livorus in, and . . . gods. Get us directions to the hospital. Though . . . Sigrun could be conscious by the time we get there. Get . . . the gardia out here.” He rubbed at his face, and got the wheels back up onto the main access road, trying not to bump and jostle all his injured passengers, and watching the truck with Ehecatl and the Eagle warriors starting to follow them.

  Kanmi nodded, and reached for the radio’s microphone with cautious, bandaged fingers. Then he paused, and said, “Ben Maor?”

  “Yes?” Adam concentrated on getting them back to the poured-stone highway.

  “What in the gods’ names do I even tell Livorus? Do I tell him, over an open radio channel, that we just killed a god?”

  “Gods, no, don’t put it that way,” Trennus said, immediately, his tone horrified. “And when it comes down to it . . . we’re not the only ones responsible. I don’t think we could be.”

  “All right, what’s your explanation, then, summoner?” Kanmi challenged.

  “I think he was weakened already, from the lack of sacrifices and the lack of . . . fear, I suppose, in him, from the Nahautl. So Tototl and Xicohtencatl were feeding him with sacrifices, yes, but just enough to perpetuate him . . . and they were weakening him at the same time by sending his energies all over the countryside. I suspect their goal would have been an . . . equilibrium state. Exactly as much energy out as in, and, well, never feeding him so much that he could release himself.” Trennus found a chip of stone in one of his braids and picked it out. “We . . . and by we, I mean ben Maor . . . just finished the job.”

  “So, how does it feel to be a godslayer?” Kanmi looked at Adam, his eyes narrow.

  Adam glanced up, into the rearview mirror, and then back down again, feeling lost. “Not my god.”

  “No, but someone’s. You’re going to be up there with fucking Akhenaten on everyone’s most-hated list, if this gets out.�
� Kanmi leaned back in his chair as they headed back towards Tenochtitlan.

  “Yeah. It . . . doesn’t seem like something I want to list on a resume.” Adam stared blankly at the road, still . . . unable to assimilate it. None of it seemed quite real. “Would that go under employment history or under useful skills?”

  “Hey.” Kanmi shook his head. “It might come as a shock from me of all people, but this is not the time for jokes.” He stared at Adam. “What do I say to Livorus?”

  Adam looked up, after a moment. “Tell him . . . there shouldn’t be any more sacrifices in Nahautl. And when we can actually talk to him in person . . . then he gets to decide, what, if anything, anyone gets told.” Adam swallowed. The high probability of being turned into a scapegoat in this situation had just occurred to him, and he didn’t like the thought . . . but Livorus was Roman, and practical to his core. It would just be easier to tell the truth, or part of it, and hang me out for the mobs to tear apart, than to engage in any kind of a cover-up, wouldn’t it?

  And then one more, deeply disquieting thought that twisted his stomach ran through his mind: What did Tlaloc mean when he said all the other gods would die, anyway?

  Chapter IX: Reverberations

  Emmer grain has been used in Rome since the early days of the Republic. It was the original lifeblood of Rome, making up the daily porridge or puls that everyone, from the plebes to the patricians ate, though patricians added wholesome eggs and meats to their porridge. Round, flat loaves of emmer bread were distributed from public bakeries in the early days of the Empire, and these are still granted to paupers to this day. Wheat bread has, however, become more common, as it is more easily cultivated in a wide variety of areas all over the world, including in the central plains of Caesaria Aquilonis.

  Cuisine in Rome has gone through periods of simplicity and hedonism, by turns. It is fair to say that in ancient times, there is little that a wealthy Roman citizen could not acquire for his table. Dormice and snails were bred locally and eaten as snacks; live fish were transported from the sea to ensure that their flesh would not spoil before reaching a Roman table. Spices, and in particular a condiment called garum (fermented—not to say spoiled—fish sauce), were commonly in use.

  Over the centuries of contact and trade with Qin and Nippon, Roman cuisine, already cosmopolitan and innovative, became more international. Noodles were introduced in about 1100 AC, from Qin, and Roman ambassadors sent to Nippon were introduced to what was known in the area as ‘sour fish’ or ‘fermented fish,’ and what is now called, more commonly, ‘sushi.’ Several Roman ambassadors considered eating the fish raw to be almost as uncivilized as the old custom, in Rome, of watching a fish die at the table, to demonstrate its freshness to the guests . . . and certainly as barbaric as the Gallic and Gothic custom of drinking milk, which was considered by most Romans as to be only suitable to the manufacture of cheese.

  In ancient times, Romans generally drank wine or vinegar, watered, or with a neutral-flavored spirit added to increase the alcohol content; beer was considered almost as barbarous as milk, and was certainly an indication that someone must be from a distant province, such as Gaul, Germania, Britannia, Judea, or Egypt.

  Today in Rome, you cannot walk twenty feet in the Field of Mars area, without encountering a Nipponese sushi restaurant, a traditional Nubian cookery, a Gothic taverna selling wheat beer or honeybeer . . . or a fusion restaurant, such as Somnium. Somnium is the invention of chef-owner Leonides Stavros, who follows the philosophies of the ancient Epicureans. He believes that experience is everything, and his dishes are designed to provide a new experience to whomever happens to walk through his doors. If you’ve ever had a desire to try stir-fried dormouse tossed with chicory, fenugreek, and a light dash of wasabi, served over emmer noodles, this is the place for you! For more traditional Roman banquets, such as boiled flamingo with honey, garum, and coriander, consider Adamas, in the Palatine Hill district.

  —A Tourist’s Guide to Rome. Mannius Raptis, Ludivicus Press, Rome, 1954 AC.

  ______________________

  Iunius 14, 1954 AC

  If there was a constant in the universe, besides the speed of light and the effect of gravity on space-time, Adam ben Maor rather thought it might be the quality of hospital food. He was perfectly healthy, and there was no way in which he could possibly eat what was on the covered tray in Sigrun’s room. He’d uncovered it to take a peek, and grimaced. Cold quinoa puls, with a cold poached egg on top of that. A ceramic mug of water, and a glass container of gelatin. “I’m going to sneak out in an hour and go get you something real to eat,” he told her sleeping form. “I have no idea what that will consist of in Tenochtitlan, however. Maybe one of those corn flatbread things filled with meat and peppers, and to gehenna with whatever your doctors say.”

  Sigrun’s eyes didn’t open. She’d proven to be an intractably stubborn patient. On recovering consciousness in the car, and being told they were going to a hospital, she’d actually panicked—marking the first time Adam had ever seen her do so—and categorically refused. “No. No hospitals. Will recover. Hospitals are where people go to die.” Trennus had had to hold her feet still—gently, because her body was still fighting to recover from the burns—and Adam had assured her, over and over, that they really needed her to go, that they all needed to go . . . they were just going together as a team, staying together, and they couldn’t let her go off alone, could they?

  Crazy as it had sounded, it had worked, and she’d subsided, losing consciousness again. As often as she’d told him she could only die of a battle-wound, her fear of hospitals didn’t seem quite rational. But what fear was ever really the product of the forebrain? His fear of going into tight underground spaces and his dislike of standing near windows weren’t really rational either, were they?

  On reaching the hospital, Ehecatl had been moved, immediately, to a cardiac unit. Kanmi and Trennus had been sent to the ER, Trennus for some surgery to the back of his knee, Kanmi to have his burns looked at . . . and the various hospital staff had gone into an absolute tizzy on seeing Sigrun’s condition, and moved her to the intensive care burn ward. They’d been set to give her morphine and to begin debriding her skin to remove portions of the third-degree damaged areas, but her eyes had snapped open and she’d caught the doctor’s wrist in an iron grip, holding the morphine needle away from her. “No. No drugs. No morphine.”

  Adam had moved in, and told the doctors, carefully, “She’s god-born. She heals very quickly, given a chance. You probably won’t need to debride her. Just . . . I don’t know. Give her fluids and antibiotics, and let her body fight on its own.”

  “And where precisely did you get your medical degree?” The doctor’s tone had been sharp, but Sigrun would not let go of his wrist, and Adam had been frankly afraid that if any of the other orderlies moved in, she’d snap them all like so much kindling.

  “I don’t have a medical degree, but I’ve seen how she heals. These wounds were inflicted less than two hours ago. Look at them. Look at her skin, and the rune-marks you can see there. And trust me. She’s going to be both the best and the worst patient you’ve ever had.” Adam had taken a step closer to the bed, and gently worked his fingers around and under Sigrun’s, respectful of the damaged skin “Sig? Let him give you a shot for the pain. It’s got to be driving you out of your mind right now.”

  The gray eyes, the only normal spot in a face covered in red and black weals, and crawling with rune-marks that were fading in and out of existence, focused on his. “No drugs,” Sigrun told him, in a vehement croak. “Do not . . . .work on me.” The words were taut, and broken down into short, rasped phrases. Between smoke and actual heat damage, not to mention the monkey-dog that had almost strangled her, her vocal cords were in bad shape. “Five. Ten minutes. At most. And then I need them again.” Desperation in her eyes. “Don’t want to need them. Don’t want to be addicted.”

  Adam winced and put a hand on what remained of her hair, and watched her flin
ch at the pain before he quickly lifted his hand again. “If you let them give you the shot, you might be able to sleep,” he told her. “And if you sleep, the pain will still be away, and your body will get to heal. Let them give you the shot.”

  “Just one. Promise me.”

  “Just one. And an IV. We’ll talk again when they’ve seen how fast you heal, all right?”

  She’d released the doctor’s hand at that point, and Adam had been able to see her fingerprints emblazoned on the doctor’s wrist in livid red.

  That had been about two hours ago. The morphine had taken effect, and he’d seen the tautness go out of her body as she stopped fighting the pain. She’d relaxed into a gentle sleep, instead, after the IV had been set up. The doctors had insisted that Adam wear a surgical gown, slippers, mask, hat, and gloves inside the room as he sat there, patiently, but after the first hour, he’d known it wasn’t going to be needed for long. Where her skin had been black, it was now red. Where the skin had been red and weeping with blisters, it was now the vivid pink of a bad sunburn. The old and damaged hair had broken away from her scalp in spiky, melted shards, which he’d brushed away from her pillow, and he was both startled, and yet not surprised at all to see that new growth was already starting to come in, a pale gold stubble that he thought had already grown to the length of the tip of his forefinger.

  Thirty minutes ago, the doctor had come in to stare at her for a moment, and then ordered her an invalid’s meal and left, shaking his head. “She can have it if her throat can manage it when she wakes up,” the doctor had instructed Adam.

  Adam turned the uncomfortable bedside chair towards the table, pushing the inedible meal out of the way. He unscrewed the cap from a fountain pen to start to write notes for his report for Livorus. How do I even begin this? he thought.

  “There you are,” a cultured patrician voice said from the door behind him, as if the mere act of writing the propraetor’s name had invoked the man.