Ragnarok: I Bring the Fire Part VI (Loki Vowed Asgard Would Burn)

by C. Gockel

  A few steps behind her, Park groans. “Why do people think hell is fire and brimstone? Hell is cold, and snow, and ice.”

  No one says anything for a few steps, and then Bohdi, in an oddly scholarly voice says, “You know, the universe will probably end in ice. For the past four billion years, the universe’s expansion has been accelerating. As things get farther and farther apart, they get colder. Eventually, it will reach the point where everything will freeze over. It’s interesting; about the time the acceleration started was about the time that life began to form on Earth. I wonder if the two are related in some way—the end of the order of the universe, the beginning of life—but also of inevitable extinction.”

  Park snorts. “What the hell are you talking about, Patel?”

  Amy blinks. “I never knew that. It is interesting.”

  “Doctors,” someone mutters.

  A sound rises up through the snow-muffled world that makes every hair on the back of Amy’s neck stand on end. The roar, like that of a lion, echoes against the distant peaks. She turns her head to see Fenrir drawn to a halt, ears pricked in the direction of the sound.

  “The cat again,” says Thomas. Amy’s eyes fall on the tall broad-shouldered SEAL. Above his muffler she can see where he cut himself shaving. He’d been shaking so badly this morning—he said it was cold, she thinks it might have been hunger. Thomas isn’t looking in the direction of the sound. His shoulders are unusually slumped, his head bowed.

  Amy sucks in a frigid breath and looks toward the sound of the roar. It came from a Jotunheim lion. Loki had been on hunts when Thor pursued them. They’re the size of Shetland ponies, and one of them has been tracking them for the past four days. She looks at her feet. Loki’s memories are mostly of them after they were slaughtered. She wonders what they look like in motion—what their family structure is like. Are they related to the big cats that roamed Earth during the last ice age?

  “It’s still far away,” says Berry, head bent.

  “What the hell does a big cat eat in this place? All I’ve seen is snow!” Park mutters.

  “Idiots like us,” says Bohdi.

  Amy tilts her head. “Actually, for a lot of apex predators, winter is a virtual buffet … at least in Siberia. It’s hard for their prey to find food or run in the snow, so they’re often weak and easy to pick off.”

  “See?” says Bohdi. “Idiots like us.”

  “Doctors,” someone mutters again.

  Amy hears a thunk and turns her head. “Claire!” shouts Steve. Amy gulps. Claire has fallen off Fenrir’s back and is lying in the snow. Fenrir whines and noses her. Steve kneels down beside her. It takes a few moments before she stands up.

  “Let’s go,” Steve says. “She can walk.” He sounds like he is desperate to believe it. The team begins to move again. For a few minutes they trudge quietly along. And then the ever-stern, never-complaining Lieutenant Larson trips over something and falls face first into the snow, a step later Berry does the same. As they push themselves up, Steve says, “Let’s make camp.”

  Amy looks among the gaps between the tree branches and sees spotty afternoon light. She sighs. Extricating herself from the sled harness, she gets down to work.

  A few minutes later, the tent is set up and Amy is preparing to go inside and claim her meager rations when the big cat roars again.

  Harding, escorted by a rifle-toting Beatrice, comes from out of the trees with a machete in her hand. To the camp at large she says, “It should go without saying, but buddy up tonight when you hit the head. I don’t know how long before the kitty overtakes us, but it’s more likely to go after stragglers.” She swings her pack off. “Also, avoid standing beneath any rocky outcroppings.”

  The men grumble, and Harding turns away frowning. To Beatrice she says, “I don’t recognize any of the plants. The evergreen we saw wasn’t a Scots pine—Gerðr didn’t recognize it—and I don’t want to poison us trying to feed us.”

  Amy’s barely listening. She’s thinking of the big cat, remembering Thor and Loki chasing one. They move quite quickly, she’s pretty sure that the one stalking them will be close in a few hours. It will probably stalk them, wait for one of the team to fall behind, and slink up from downwind so Fenrir’s nose doesn’t detect it. The cats are powerful and stealthy enough to grab a man, break his neck, and carry off the body before anyone has a chance to shoot it.

  Beatrice and Harding begin eating their rations beside Amy. They are in a little better shape than the men. Amy wasn’t lying when she said that female metabolism was a boon in this situation—also, they’re just smaller. But sooner or later they’ll all start falling in the snow.

  Amy bites her lip. And then she will probably get a glimpse of the cat, one way or another. She swallows.

  “Harding,” she says, “Have you ever killed a big cat?”

  The small woman pats her shoulder. “Don’t worry about Mr. Kitty. It’s still far away, and it won’t attack while we stick together.”

  The tent flap opens in a gust of wind. Amy sees Claire lying on Steve’s chest. Bohdi is sprawled out on his sleeping bag—none of the other guys look much better. Holding out her bear jerky to Harding and her grandmother, Amy says, “Eat this.” Before either of the magical women can protest, she adds, “You’ll need your strength, because I have an idea.”

  x x x x

  Loki is hungry, but he’s warm … and he’s also blue, his skin is glowing faintly. Amy’s curled in front of him, sound asleep, her body molded to his. Humans have a word for this position, they call it “spooning.” Loki runs a hand down her side, eyes on his blue skin. It takes so much effort to hide the blue now. It is nearly out of his control—Amy says it’s beautiful—but he knows it’s an illness. Or maybe it’s an omen. He feels so weary. He shivers and pulls Amy closer to him, kisses her neck, and runs his hands along her sides. She’s warm and alive and as long as he is with her he is alive, too …

  Bohdi’s eyes blink open. He sucks in a breath, and his stomach growls. Dream and life blur together and he is momentarily confused because Amy isn’t next to him. He bolts upright and is purely himself again—just Bohdi—and Amy is … He looks around the tent. “Where is Amy?”

  The interior of the tent is lit by a single dim LED light. Steve is reclining against a pack, Claire curled up, head on his chest. He’s stroking her hair and looking worried, but he lifts his head and meets Bohdi’s eyes. “She said she thought she saw a Scots pine about a mile away. Something about bark.” He closes his eyes and leans back on the pack. “I hope that Gullveig’s Keep has paper. I have to write letters to Mills’s, Beckman’s and Licht’s families.”

  Bohdi’s heart stops. He’s talking about the letters commanders are supposed to write to families of the fallen. They’re surely on Steve’s mind, but also randomly considering the situation they’re in. Steve doesn’t do random, and that fills him with dread.

  Bohdi runs a hand through his hair. Most everyone is asleep, but Fenrir is sitting attentively, watching as Sigyn cleans out a rifle. “Why didn’t she take Fenrir?” asks Bohdi. The dog can hear, smell, and sense magic as well or better than any of them.

  Steve shrugs.

  Bohdi taps his radio, and says, “Amy?”

  “She’s probably out of range,” someone says, sleepily.

  Scampering out of his sleeping bag, he grabs his gear. He doesn’t get dizzy; dinner and a nap evidently have helped. “How long has she been gone?” His voice is louder than he intends. He doesn’t know if he’s afraid—or pissed. She shouldn’t be out wandering in a forest! Doesn’t she know about Little Red Riding Hood?

  “She’s been gone an hour … maybe more?” says Thomas, stretched out in a sleeping bag nearby. “But don’t worry, she’s got Beatrice and Harding with her.” Thomas puts a hand to his forehead. “You can eat Scots pine,” he says, voice a little dreamy.

  Bohdi grabs his rifle and some ammunition. He picks up an extra clip, pops out a round, holds it up, and whistles to Fenrir
. “Come on, Girl! Let’s go for a walk.”

  At sight of the round, Fenrir licks her lips and lopes over the sleeping forms on the floor. Slipping on his night vision goggles, Bohdi goes to the tent flap and steps out into the cold night air. An instant later Fenrir is there, tongue panting at the level of his shoulder, her sled harness still attached from earlier in the day.

  He waves to the guys on guard. “Just hitting the head.” They nod and don’t question him. Holding the round out for Fenrir to see, he walks until he’s just out of sight. And then he tosses the round to Fenrir and winces at the accompanying gunshot belch.

  “Take me to Amy,” he whispers, “and I’ll give you more.”

  Fenrir cocks her head at him, and he holds his breath. Maybe she didn’t understand? But Amy says magical creatures often have comprehension above what you would expect from their cranial capacity—and Fenrir’s cranial capacity has grown a lot of late.

  Fenrir drops her nose and begins to sniff with gusto, loping faster through the deep snow than Bohdi could run, even if he wasn’t starving. He coughs. “Um … Fenrir … could you give me a lift?”

  Fenrir stops her sniffing, lifts her head, and one of her ears—lately wolf-like and pointy—droops. Her mouth, lolling in a happy pant despite the cold, snaps shut. He swears he sees her sigh. He takes it as a yes. Jogging over as fast as he can in snowshoes, he swings himself on. Before he can grab hold of her sled harness, Fenrir darts through the trees at stomach-testing speeds. Bohdi holds on for dear life, legs wrapped around her side, face pressed into the fur of her shoulders, fingers twisting in the harness.

  His arms are just about to give out when Fenrir slows to a gentle lope, a low growl sounding in her throat. Bohdi raises his head. Ahead is a small clearing, and through the green of his night vision goggles he sees Amy, hair loose and hat off. She’s limping and stooped over, dark stains on her legs and arms. She is all alone.

  His breath catches. He almost calls out—but Fenrir’s ears prick away from her mistress to a spot in the trees just behind her. Before Bohdi can make a sound, Fenrir charges.

  An enormous, glowing-eyed-blur tears from the trees toward Amy, and Bohdi feels like everything he knows about the universe has just shattered. A scream escapes his lips as he falls from Fenrir’s back, fumbling for his rifle, knowing it will be too late. And then a shot rings out in the darkness.

  x x x x

  Steve leans against a pack, half inside his sleeping bag, Claire leaning on his chest. Around him men talk and cry in their sleep. Steve strokes Claire’s hair. She’d given him a hug after she ate her rations and then just hadn’t moved. He wants to sleep, but the pain in his stomach, a yawning, unfulfillable emptiness, has woken him and he can’t sleep even though he’s exhausted. He doesn’t know how prisoners on hunger strikes handle it, but probably by not going on long hikes in Arctic conditions. He scowls, not worried for himself as much as Claire. She’s skin and bones, without muscle or fat to spare, and is taking the trip worse than anyone. “You can’t be this weak, Baby,” he whispers.

  Sigyn’s voice rises beside him. “She isn’t weak. She’s strong.” He hears her sigh. “Her magic burns brighter than yours; that is why going without food is affecting her so.”

  Steve cannot speak. If he does, he may get choked up, and he won’t do that. But he wants to protest, how can Claire’s magic make her strong if it makes her more susceptible to starvation?

  As if hearing his unspoken words, Sigyn says, “She might be taught to use magic for energy so that she isn’t as weak next time this happens.”

  Steve huffs. There’s only a next time if they survive this time. They have Chaos on their side, but they’ve lost so many of their team already. Will Chaos extend its magic protection to Claire, or …

  A shot rings out in the night.

  He hears the guards outside the tent shuffle and shout. One of them calls his name. Steve doesn’t move. He doesn’t know if it’s fear for Claire making him hesitate, or exhaustion and hunger clouding his thought processes. “Captain, she’ll be fine,” Sigyn says, laying a hand on his wrist. “Go to your men.”

  Steve releases a breath, gently puts Claire’s head down, and rearranges her pencil-thin limbs so he can escape. Her body offers no resistance, which is not reassuring at all. Finding the headpiece for his radio, he pulls it over his ear, flicks it on and immediately hears Bohdi’s voice cracking, distant, and filled with static. “That was the stupidest idea ever!”

  Steve taps his ear. “I agree with Bohdi this time,” Beatrice grumbles, her voice distant too.

  Lewis’s voice crackles next. “It worked!”

  “It almost didn’t work!” says Bohdi.

  Blinking in the darkness, Steve stumbles out of the tent.

  “Because you and Fenrir almost scared it away!” Lewis retorts.

  “Because you almost got killed!” say Bohdi and Beatrice in unison, and now Steve can hear them not just over the radio, but echoing through the trees.

  “I’m fine!” shouts Lewis.

  Bohdi’s voice, closer now, rises in the night. “And if I hadn’t brought Fenrir, we wouldn’t have been able to pull this thing back to camp!”

  Steve meets the eyes of the guards outside the tent. They shrug. He pushes the mouthpiece close to his lips. “Can you hear me?”

  Harding’s voice sounds crisp and clear in his ear. “Loud and clear, Sir.” She sounds a lot perkier than he feels.

  “What’s going on?” Steve asks.

  A gray shadow emerges behind the trunk of the nearest tree, but before Steve can even worry, Fenrir gives a happy dog bark. Steve hears guys spilling out of the tent behind him. Someone turns on a light. Beside Fenrir, Lewis waves and smiles. Her light brown hair is down, and it is shockingly dark against her snow camouflage gear.

  Harding smiles, too. Waving her rifle, the Marine says, “Beatrice shot the cat, and now we have dinner!”

  Steve’s eyes travel up and down Lewis—blood stains her legs and arms. His mouth gapes. “Doctor, are you hurt?”

  Stooping over, Lewis limps to the tent, one leg dragging. Wide-eyed, Steve strides over, a few other guys beside him. And then Steve blinks. Why aren’t Beatrice and Bohdi helping her? Just before he reaches Lewis, she looks up and grins. “Nope, not hurt. Just playing injured and lame! Pretty convincing, right?”

  “The blood?” Steve whispers.

  “Slit my wrist,” says Lewis, and Steve rocks back on his heels.

  Straightening, Lewis smiles brightly. “But don’t worry! I bandaged it all up … it’s really not that much and …”

  “It was a stupid idea,” snaps Beatrice. “If I had slipped or missed …”

  “Exactly!” says Bohdi. He turns to Beatrice. “Why did you let her do this?”

  Beatrice jabs him in the ribs with her umbrella. “Because I was afraid if I didn’t help her she’d sneak off and try and do it herself!”

  Bohdi flicks his lighter. Beatrice jabs him again and scowls. The doctor grins ear-to-ear, obviously very proud of herself. Steve puts a hand to his mouth to hide his smile. Beatrice or Bohdi or both would kill him if they saw him laugh.

  Fenrir gives a woof and comes closer, straining against her harness. Steve’s eyes go from the dog to an enormous lion-cat-pony thing, belly up, being pulled along by a rope lashed to its back legs.

  Steve closes his eyes. And then he can’t help it. He laughs. Walking over to Beatrice, he gives her a one-armed hug. “But you didn’t miss, Grandma! You killed it. And now we can eat.”

  “Raw tiger liver is a delicacy,” says Berry. The short, weathered warrant officer slips out a knife and walks toward the animal, other guys follow. There’s something in the way they lean forward that puts an image of vultures in Steve’s mind. His mouth is watering, and he finds himself licking his lips.

  A few minutes later, Berry holds up what Steve guesses is a liver. His mouth continues to water at the sight of the raw, bloody piece of meat, and he’s too hungry to care abou
t the implications. “Who wants some?” Berry says. Everyone falls in line; Steve blinks, and he sees Claire is there with Sigyn. He drops his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. She doesn’t say anything. No one says anything, it’s so quiet it’s like being in church.

  They devour the raw liver in minutes, and then they start a roaring fire and begin butchering the animal. He catches the guys picking up raw scraps and popping them in their mouths. The team begins to talk and to laugh.

  “This is disgusting, Lewis!” he hears Rush say.

  “Then stop eating!” snaps Bohdi.

  Rush pops a long stringy piece of meat in his mouth and grins. “No, I didn’t say it was a bad idea.”

  “Should we cook the head?” someone says.

  “Oh, yes,” says Beatrice. “We need the fat from the brain. Give that to me; I’ll fix it up for you.” Steve blinks. He remembers from a nutrition program somewhere that fat is essential for survival, even more important than carbs. His eyes skim the animal. It’s mostly lean meat. Any squeamishness he has about eating brains, or at the sheer grizzliness of the lion’s head, evaporates. He goes to help Beatrice, but before he gets there, she picks up the head. It’s about three times the size of a bowling ball. It sags in her arms, and her shoulders slump. “My, this is heavy!” says Beatrice.

  Claire darts in front of Amy’s grandmother. “I got it!” his daughter says, and pulls it out of Beatrice’s hands. Lifting the lion’s head above hers with such ease it could be made of papier-mâché, Claire turns to Steve. His tiny, delicate-limbed, beautiful little girl grins with all her teeth. “Rarrrrr!” she says. “I am the lion queen!” He hears a rustling in the branches and groans from the trees.

  Steve’s mouth gapes at the sight. Before he can catch his breath or gather his thoughts, Claire turns to Beatrice and says in a more civilized tone, “Ma’am, where do you want it?”