Hunted (Iron Druid Chronicles)

by Hearne, Kevin

  I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to dog breeds. The hounds given to Artemis and Diana in ancient days would probably not conform to any modern breed anyway. I wondered if these were the original hounds, kept eternally youthful like Oberon, or if they were descendants of the originals. When they appeared, I saw that they weren’t bloodhounds with big floppy ears. They were more like big spaniels or retrievers and of varying coat colors. They were all smaller than Oberon, anyway, but there were fourteen of them and two of us.

  Their inability to see us gave us a significant advantage, I must admit. All they could do was smell us. The first one ran into Oberon, and it went about as well for him as charging into a brick wall. All forward momentum ceased abruptly as Oberon batted him down with a paw and then followed up with his jaws. I threw two knives and they found their marks, then the pack flowed around us and it was all teeth and a whirling staff until they were still and we remained.

  You okay, Oberon? I asked.

 

  The same. We need to move to one side now, away from the bodies, and keep low until it’s time to pounce. They’re going to be mad and pour some arrows in here, I bet.

 

  I guess so. Pick one and jump on her back. I’ll try to make sure she stays down, as much as any of the Olympians can stay down. You have to watch out. They’ll have knives and they’re going to be super-fast.

 

  Gods, Oberon. This time, when the tears came, I had proper eyes to let them loose, and I wiped them furiously from my cheeks. You need to think strategically instead of suicidally. If Atticus were here, he’d kill me for even allowing you to risk yourself this much.

  Oberon gave a soft whine.

  I reached for something positive to say but couldn’t lay hold of a single word. I knew exactly what he meant. For all its manifold beauties, the world is never so fine once someone you love leaves it; instead, there is only the bleak prospect of loneliness and might-have-beens.

  Look, the killer virgins are going to live through this and we won’t, I said, but I want them to feel ambushed. When it’s over, I want them to shudder and realize that we would have owned them if they were mortal.

 

  We didn’t have long to wait. Two golden chariots pulled by teams of stags glided over the heather as the sun crested the horizon in the east. Once they saw the bodies of their hounds, the goddesses reined the stags in and leapt out, each with a bow in hand and an arrow nocked and ready to go.

  It was my first real good look at them. They’d been quite a distance away back in Romania, and the Morrigan had blocked my view before I had time to study them.

  Based on my experience with Hermes and Mercury, I was pretty sure that Artemis was the paler of the two. Neither was dressed in bedsheets or the flowing skimpy dresses one sees so often in fantasy art—and they weren’t rocking the hooded-elf look either. Lean and wiry, dark hair queued and gathered in golden circlets, Artemis wore a sleeveless, pale green tunic gathered at the waist with a broad belt. She had black pants tucked into some of those calf-high boots that looked like moccasins—but none of it was leather. All polyester and other synthetic materials. And the circlets in her hair weren’t gold—they were plastic. I knew because I tried to create a binding between them and the earth, which would effectively pull her to the ground by her hair, but it didn’t work. Same thing with her belt buckle, and her bow and arrows were man-made composites too. I had no doubt that the knife strapped to her thigh was a composite as well.

  Artemis was a sharp and stringy sort, jaw like a hatchet blade and muscles in her forearms rippling like piano wires. She didn’t head straight for the pile of hound corpses but circled to her right, where Oberon and I were hiding. She approached in a crouching step, eyes flicking around for signs of us. Diana circled the other way in a similar gait.

  The Roman goddess was a bit softer around the edges than her Greek counterpart, and she had made a bit more effort to find clothing that echoed her ancient origins. She was wearing one of those armor skirts centurions used to wear, except hers was made of black pleather or some other unholy creation of fabric science. She had some black greaves on over her sandals too. Like Mercury, her skin was bronzed and seemed to glow as if she’d been waxed and polished in a detail shop. She was hot, to a degree that was rather unfair.

  They took very different approaches to their famous virginity: Artemis’s complete lack of attention to her personal appearance meant she couldn’t care less what men thought of her, while Diana appreciated the tease of looking desirable yet untouchable. I used to admire them both when they were simply myths, for they represented two of the world’s earliest memos to men that women could get along quite well without them and enjoy a full measure of happiness besides, thank you very much. It was more difficult to admire them now that they were hunting me, however.

  Artemis looked as if she might wind up stepping on us at one point, and that would have been dangerous when she had a bow ready to fire, but she changed her path to draw nearer to the hounds. I saw that in a few moments she’d be presenting her back to us.

  Get to your feet silently once she passes us and jump on her back, I said to Oberon.

 

  I should have stopped him right there because he jinxed it. But he rose to his feet silently, as did I, gathered himself, and sprang at her back when she was no more than two yards away. And though I had granted Oberon extraordinary speed, Artemis was still faster. Sensing the attack somehow, she dropped her bow and arrow, raised her left arm, leaned to her right, and caught Oberon in a choke hold.

 

  He tried to wrestle loose, but Artemis held fast and drew her knife. She held it up to his neck and said in English, “Be still. I can’t see you properly, so be sure you don’t cut your own throat.” That prevented me from sweeping her legs, as I’d planned. The situation had changed. I began to sidestep to the left, still behind her but away from her knife hand. If she wanted to take it away from his throat and throw it in my direction, she’d have to do it across her body. But she was counting on her partner to keep me at bay, and I was all too aware that Diana was the more dangerous in this scenario. She still had a bow and could skewer me quickly if she sussed out my position.

  Do it, Oberon. Don’t struggle.

 

  I don’t know, I said, and wished that I did. I wasn’t as good at strategy and tactics as Atticus was. This entire scheme had been ill advised from the start, and I’d been stupid to think I could outwit two immortal huntresses.

  Thirty yards away, Diana’s eyes searched for me. They didn’t fall precisely on my position, but they were close. I tried to move as quietly as I could but felt I had to keep moving. If she got a fix on my position, there would be no time to dodge.

  “Your master is dead, young Druid, but you need not follow him,” Diana called. It occurred to me to wonder how precisely they knew Atticus was dead. Did they find where I’d buried him and dig him up? Had someone told them? Or were they able to communicate with their hounds, like Druids could, and learned from them that they’d lost one of their prey? I answered my own question with my next thought: If it hadn’t been one of the Olympians, then dryads had probably told them, or some other spirits of nature. We’d no doubt passed our share during our run. “Release Bacchus and we will spare you.”

  “And the hound?” I said, moving as I did so.

  “Since you have killed all of mine, I think your hound should die too,” Artemis answered, “but I will be generous if you bargain in good faith now. This is not simply a hound to you, is it? This is a friend.”

  “Yes, he is. If you kill him—or harm him in any way—you’ll get no
thing from me. Bacchus will be lost forever.” Diana was doing her best to zero in on my voice, her head slightly cocked but her eyes tracking me accurately now.

  “I understand,” she said. “Bacchus is a friend of ours. Release our friend and we will release yours. Everyone lives. Everyone goes home unbruised. Our quarrel was never with you.”

 

  “And yet you’ve hunted me for many miles,” I said.

  “Only to recover Bacchus,” Diana replied. She was inching closer, bow at the ready. “We never sought your death.”

  “If you wish to talk, then talk,” I said. “Stop moving and drop your bow, Diana, or I might begin to suspect you do seek my death after all.”

  Diana gave a tiny smile and stopped advancing but didn’t drop her bow. “Very well, mortal. If you’re willing to be reasonable, we can talk.”

  “Diana, wait,” Artemis said. “I don’t think we’re alone—”

  Chapter 14

  Artemis heard me coming, but it wasn’t in time. Distracted sufficiently by the negotiation with Diana and Granuaile, she realized too late that there was, indeed, someone else out there.

  It was me, the dead guy, with Fragarach in my left hand and approaching behind her right shoulder, swinging with all I had at the base of her neck. Slice through the spinal cord fast enough and the brain can’t tell the right hand to slit the throat of a hostage, I don’t care how godlike you are. I sent her head sailing toward the pile of corpses, and her body slumped to the ground. Oberon was free and confused.

 

  I didn’t answer him. There was still another huntress to dispatch. Not caring about the noise I made, I chased after Artemis’s head, snatched it up by the hair, and then chucked it directly at Diana. Her bow was fully raised and drawn now and swerving to shoot. She had to duck Artemis’s head, but she straightened right back up to fire, correctly assuming that I was charging her. She was about to release and I was about to drop and roll when something whacked her hard in the back of the knees, and her shot went high and wide. It was Granuaile, of course, and she’d done me proud, taking advantage of the distraction I’d provided.

  All kinds of things can happen in a battle to make you freak out, I’d told her once. Freaking out over friends getting slagged, for example, is perfectly normal. Going Hulk because somebody ruined a picture or souvenir of your significant other, that’s to be expected. And if someone returns from the dead to fight again, nobody will look down on you for losing a tolerable amount of your shit. But you always, always have to deal with the threat first and save the freaking out for later, preferably when some decent alcohol is at hand to numb your noggin.

  Diana immediately rolled away when she hit the ground, and thus Granuaile’s follow-up struck the earth with a dull thud. I wouldn’t be able to get to the huntress before she regained her feet; she’d rolled with her bow and would be able to nock and fire another arrow at stupid speed if she made it. A blur in my vision announced that Oberon wanted her to stay down as much as I did; Granuaile must have refocused his attention. The huntress did manage to spring to her feet, only to be yanked back down as she reached for an arrow.

  I heard Oberon say,

  Diana’s attempt to free herself by clocking Oberon upside the head met severe resistance from Scáthmhaide; Granuaile didn’t miss this time, and her blow audibly snapped both bones in the goddess’s forearm. The arm pressed into the turf, where Granuaile stomped on it. Diana shrieked and struggled to free herself, but I imagined that Granuaile and Oberon were both juiced on the earth’s energy for extra strength and she had no leverage.

  Before Diana could think of using her legs and possibly kicking Granuaile off her arm, I decided to redirect her attention. I dropped my camouflage and said, “Well, hello there, Diana,” as I strode into her view. Her eyes rounded, and her mouth stopped making noise and just hung open.

 

  Stay on her, buddy. Don’t let go, okay?

 

  Thanks. We’ll talk in a minute.

  I smiled at the shocked expression on Diana’s face. Normally I wouldn’t behave this way, but something about the Romans brought it out in me. It probably had something to do with how they had helped to wipe out the Druids. “You gave us quite the chase,” I said. I twirled Fragarach once in my hand and halted it abruptly, feigning surprise at an unexpected thought. “Oh! Hold on. Did you think you were hunting us?”

  Her eyes narrowed and she took breath to speak, but she never got to say a word. I hacked off her head with one stroke and kicked it away from the body so she couldn’t heal it back up.

  “Whooo!” I shouted, allowing myself a fist pump. “That one’s going on my highlight reel.”

  Granuaile dispelled her invisibility and Oberon’s camouflage. Her knuckles were painfully white against the wood of Scáthmhaide, and I couldn’t tell by her face if she wanted to kiss me or kill me.

  “Right,” I said. “You probably have questions.”

  Chapter 15

  “Who are you, and why do you have Fragarach?” Granuaile said through clenched teeth.

  That wasn’t the question I’d been expecting. “I’m Atticus, and the sword is mine.”

  Oberon’s tail was wagging and he clearly wanted to jump on me, but he held back, seeing the tension in Granuaile.

  Heck yes. Snack for you!

  “Atticus is dead.”

  “I was only dead for a little while.”

 

  Ignoring Oberon’s comment, Granuaile drew a knife from her thigh holster—her last one—and raised it over her shoulder, ready to throw. “Tell me who you really are. Are you Loki? Coyote?” I was beginning to understand why the elementals called her Fierce Druid.

  “It’s easy to tell, Granuaile. Look in the magical spectrum. Loki’s a mess of anger and white light. Coyote is a mix of all colors. And all you’ll see from me right now is the iron in my aura because I’m not drawing on the earth at all.”

 

  I said a snack.

 

  Oberon’s test was insufficient, and Granuaile knew it. Coyote was capable of talking mentally to Oberon—or at least hearing him, as far as we knew—and he could also copy my form all the way down to my scent. The latter ability was how we’d fooled Garm and Hel into thinking I was dead back in Arizona.

  Granuaile exhaled sharply and then spoke the words for magical sight. I waited patiently while she checked me out.

  “What’s your real name?” she asked, still testing me, and now that I’d recovered from my surprise, I approved of her caution.

  “Siodhachan Ó Suileabháin.”

  “I was once a vessel for another person. Name the person.”

  “Laksha Kulasekaran.”

  “And what was that one thing we did together that one time?”

  “We don’t discuss that in front of the hound.”

 

  Granuaile dropped the knife. “It really is you.”

  I tapped the soulcatcher charm on my neck. “Remember this? It actually worked.”

  She dropped Scáthmhaide too and tackled me to the ground. Oberon took it as an invitation to dog pile and landed heavily on the both of us.

 

  Granuaile kissed me, and I got to enjoy it for maybe two seconds before Oberon decided to drool on our faces.

  “Ew! Oberon!” Granuaile said, as we both wiped away the slime from our cheeks.

 

  “Don’t you dare hump my leg!” Granuaile warned. “And please give us some time to ourselves.” />
  Oberon’s tail was still waving madly back and forth, but he graciously removed his weight from us.

  “Granuaile, it’s okay, we need to go anyway.”

  “We do?”

  “Oh, yes. This isn’t over. They’re not dead any more than I am. We have to keep running. We should be able to make it to France at least.”

  Granuaile rolled off me and stood, then offered her hand to help me up. “How are they going to heal up a decapitation?”

  “They’ll get help from the other Olympians. I bet Hermes and Mercury will put them back together again.”

  “Why not simply start over with another body?”

  “Because their current bodies are in great condition. They’re just missing heads. While I was running to catch up, I was thinking about their rules for regeneration—it can’t be arbitrary. They can’t simply wish themselves a new body. They have to suffer a certain amount of catastrophic damage.”

  “Decapitation isn’t catastrophic?”

  “Not for them. Remember the tale of Orpheus, whose head was washed out to sea and floated around until he was plucked out by women doing their washing at the shore? Their ability to remain functional is mojo on a scale we can only dream of. Probably has a lot to do with having ichor instead of blood. I bet you they’re still conscious and can hear us right now.”

  “That is so disturbing.”

  “I have a plan,” I said, picking up Fragarach. Granuaile retrieved her throwing knife and Scáthmhaide.

  “Of course you do.”

 

  “Sure. What is it?”

 

  Granuaile and I traded weapons to humor him and I stood as he instructed.

 

  It was too silly and I couldn’t do it, though I tried. I didn’t have the gravitas; I dissolved into laughter before I could finish.