Athim’s defenses had faltered somewhere in the last hour, and the young magus had taken a bullet in the abdomen that had broken through his flak jacket. Gut wounds were prone to sepsis, and excruciatingly painful, but magi were typically not allowed pain medication. Someone with the power to warp reality could not be allowed to hallucinate. Solinus moved over to speak with his brother-in-law. Deiana isn’t going to be impressed by the scar, you realize. He couldn’t speak out loud in flame-form, and he was careful not to add the rest of his thoughts: And I don’t know what I’d tell my sister, Erida, or the rest of your family if we let you get killed out here.
“You’re not helping,” Athim told him, his face ashen under the normally olive tone of his skin. “Did we not bring a single person with the ability to knit cells back together?”
Sorry. I didn’t get that particular family talent.
A fenris padded closer, and sat down beside Solinus. The wolf got a single curious glance; the fur was so matted and dirty, it didn’t even look white, but the same light tan as the desert around them. You’re in luck, a voice said, and Solinus’ head jerked towards the fenris, as Maccis went on, wearily, I did. Not as well as Aunt Sig. But if someone gets me a canteen of water, I’ll see what I can do. I’d also kill for a ration bar.
Solinus shouted in delight, his voice carrying through the minds of everyone around him, and reverted to human form to avoid burning his brother as he dug his hands into the wolf’s ruff, and more or less pummeled Maccis in greeting. Of course, that also left him without clothing, so after a moment, he grabbed a towel off a nearby gurney, and pulled it around his waist. “Maccis! When in the gods’ names did you show up?”
Two hours ago. There were Persians fleeing the fight. A pause. They aren’t fleeing anymore.
Solinus grimaced, but Maccis was right. Enemy troops who had surrendered were one thing. Those who were fleeing in order to regroup were something else entirely. “Damned glad to see you,” he told Maccis. “Did you report in to Vidarr and Ima? And let me get you some food and water. I’ll be right back.”
Of course I reported in. We’re all going to need to be moving here in short order, though. Maccis sounded bone-weary. I can feel more mad ones coming up from the south. They’re hungry, Sol. There aren’t enough power sources left for them to feed on. It’s us, or cannibalism for them now, I’d be willing to bet.
Ten minutes later, Maccis had shifted back to his human form, accepted a uniform stripped from a dead nieten in the Lindworms, eaten half a ration bar as slowly as he could, and been forcing himself to sip from a canteen. “All right,” Maccis told Athim, as the flatbed truck on which he and the other wounded had been placed began to bounce north along the road once more. “Let’s see what I can do here.” He put one dirty, blood-coated hand on the magus’ shoulder.
“You should really scrub up before touching the patients,” one of the nurses fussed at him, trying to adjust Athim’s IV.
“I’m sorry, miss. I just ran half the length of the Arabian Peninsula on my bare paws,” Maccis said, sharply. “I’m not touching the wound directly, and I’ll try not to spit in it, either.”
She jolted as if jabbed with a prod. Maccis growled under his breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated. Put the greening power of generativity into Athim’s body, as best he could, and heard the shocked inhalation, followed by the groan of pain from his brother-in-law. “Sorry,” Maccis apologized, this time meaning it. “Usually people don’t even notice when they’re in pain.” This was the power he’d first used on trees and on Zaya, to make them bloom. Fecundity, fertility, virility. At the moment, he focused on slowing the bleeding and preventing infection. The bullet was still in place, and would remain so until they reached a hospital.
With that accomplished, Maccis leaned against the jolting wall of the truck’s cab, and let himself relax for the first time in almost three weeks. He took another sip from the canteen, and allowed himself to think about Zaya. About being able to touch her wavy hair, and smell her skin. He hadn’t dared let himself think about her at all, except when denned up during the day. He opened his eyes again to catch a glimpse of a harpy with black wings at the back of the truck, working on the body of one of the wounded. Pulling bullets with a pair of forceps, her face blank, red eyes expressionless. After a moment’s thought, he recognized Reginleif, from the mission to gain Fenris as an ally. Which meant that the body . . . Damnit. That’s Brandr. He heaved himself up again, took a swaying step along the truck’s bed, and almost fell as they hit another pothole.
On reaching her, he looked at Brandr’s body, and frowned. He couldn’t feel a heartbeat when he checked for one. But he also didn’t smell any decay, either, something to which wolf-senses were finely attuned. The wounds weren’t healing, but the body wasn’t stiff, either, as it should have been, so many hours after apparent death. “You want me to try to . . . seal up the holes?” Maccis finally offered.
“If you wish to give that gift, it would be welcome. Thank you.”
Ten minutes after that, once again trying to finish his food, Maccis glanced up as Heolstor coasted overhead . . . and saw Rig drop down from the lindworm’s neck, landing lightly on the metal bed of the truck beside him. Maccis straightened. “You made it!” he told both Loki’s son and the lindworm, trying not to shout, in consideration for the wounded around him.
It is a great relief to see you alive as well, Heolstor echoed, nudging Maccis’ arm with the tip of his tail.
Rig lifted his right hand, which gleamed silver in the dull dawn light. “Thanks to you, I lived, yes.” The older man offered him the cold metal appendage for a wrist-clasp. “You gave Solinus and the rest of us the time we needed to get home. So I could get medical attention.” Rig hesitated, shook his head. “The words thank you seem inadequate.”
Maccis shrugged a little. “It’s what we do,” he told Rig, and then took another drink from the canteen. Water tasted like ambrosia. “Inghean and Vigdis are all right?”
“They’re in the Veil. So are Sol’s children.”
Maccis nodded, and closed his eyes. “Do me a favor,” he said, his voice drowsy as the exhaustion of the past weeks suddenly all poured in at once, in spite of the jouncing, kidney-destroying ride of the truck. “Get Zaya to go with them. She . . . needs to be somewhere safer.”
Athim snorted. “Maccis, have you met my sister? Do you really think she’ll go to the Veil?”
Maccis’ lips curved faintly. “Depends on who does the asking. If you or I asked . . . no. But Rig can look like anyone. Do your best Zhi impression and swoop her off to the Veil, Rig.”
Rig chuckled. “For the man who risked his ass to save mine? Sure. I’ll lie to your wife for you.”
“She can kill me later,” Maccis said, his eyes still closed.
“She’ll definitely give it her best shot,” Athim told him from his stretcher.
“If she does, at least I won’t die in fire,” Maccis replied. “I’ll take any way in which Sophia Caetia was wrong, as a blessing.” He chuckled a little, and then he dozed, in spite of the prickle along his spine that told him mad ones are coming.
In the end, there was only so long that even the god-born could live on adrenaline alone.
To the east of them, on this the morning of Caesarius thirty-second, mad godlings were indeed moving towards Judea. Erida hovered almost two miles over the desert floor, enveloped in Illa’zhi’s cyclonic embrace. Through his eyes, she could see the energy disturbances. Just a few, at the moment. Mainly smaller entities. Mercury had been the sole god of Rome dispatched from the Veil to assist here; Pluto, Juno, and Venus were stretched thin, helping their people adapt to the Veil . . . and trying to bring more of their people there. We may have to resort to much the same, Erida thought. She knew of Kanmi and Trennus’ preparations for that eventuality. She didn’t relish the notion of moving the Archives again, but at least if they did, it would be all at once, and into the Veil. On the other
hand, if we have to do so, it’s because Kanmi fears that we’ll be living in caves when we come back out of the Veil again. Gods.
So, Mercury had this flank with them, along with Kanmi and Minori. A more unlikely group of defenders, we may never see, Illa’zhi told Erida. Too thin, however. We need Quetzalcoatl to come up from the south.
He’ll come when he’s needed. Taranis, the Morrigan, Trennus, and Saraid have the north, over the Caledonian Woods. Erida exhaled as the mad gods drew nearer. Not the number, or power, of those that had been summoned by the gods of Rome. At least, not yet.
Kanmi had never yet really grown fond of the notion of flying. He allowed himself to demanifest—something else he hated, as he’d spent far too much time as a disembodied spirit—and floated beside Minori in the sky, watching the mad ones advance. The usual guilt curdled at the pit of his stomach at the sight. Are you ready? he asked Min, silently. While it was possible for two spirits to soul-bind the same human, as Lassair and Saraid had once bound Trennus, Kanmi hadn’t figured out how to bind Minori yet . . . and hadn’t broached the subject. She might welcome the idea, but he was wary of it still, especially after how Baal-Hamon had bound him.
Minori reached out to him with a hand that shimmered with pearlescent light, barely visible in the dawn’s dour glimmer. Yes. We’ll try gravity vortices again. We’ll tear from either side, while Mercury and Erida unspin them, and Zhi devours. At least we know there won’t be earthquakes. Or mutations.
Kanmi grimaced. He hated not knowing why the ground here, and the entire ley-system, seemed resistant to the deaths of mad godlings and gods. His current theory was that the god of Abraham had spread himself out into the soil of the province, silent and intangible . . . and turned himself into the world’s biggest heatsink, dispersing and absorbing the power of the gods who died here. Small mercies, he thought, grimly. I just wonder how long we’ll be able to keep this up. Sooner or later, the carrying capacity of whatever is really diverting the power away from the people will be reached . . . and I hate not having any numbers on that.
Minori sighed. Numbers are a great comfort to me, too, Kanmi-kun. At least, at the moment, the largest of the mad gods are probably moving towards Burgundoi.
That is no comfort at all.
And then the mad ones were on them, and they met them in the sky.
To the north, other mad ones drifted past Tyre and Damascus, heading for the Caledonian Woods, where Taranis and the Morrigan met them in battle, and Trennus Worldwalker tapped directly into the ley-lines, and reached up to twist the mad godlings in the sky. The Picts and the dryads and the satyrs huddled in their forts at the edge of the forest, on guard . . . and their mouths dropped open as they saw masses of ghul pouring over Trennus’ escarpment. “We who are about to receive, give thanks,” one of the Pictish commanders muttered. “Open fire!”
Trennus floated above it all, listening. He had a general staff for the coordination of regular troops, and they were all doing their jobs. Saraid was coordinating with the trees and the monstrous irregulars. His job, for the moment, was holding off the mad ones. And later, his job might be coordinating an evacuation. Another one. My life has become a series of retreats. He sighed, and kept at it. Hold the line. Fall back, and hold the next one. And the next. And then the next. It was all they could do.
Frittigil Chatti was up to her elbows in refugees, as usual. There were people streaming in from the countryside, the farms to the south that Lassair and Inghean had spent years making flourish, but which were now overrun by enemy troops. The supreme irony for her was that all of her assistants were former refugees—jotun, nieten, dryads, a few leonnes from Carthage, and few Nahautl and Nipponese volunteers, as well. And the current wave of refugees were Judeans, seeking sanctuary in their own capital. She had her people pass out soup and blankets, got her assistants working on finding more tents, and sent apprehensive glances upwards as the blue-green defense shield wavered overhead. “Can you not do something to help, domina?” one of her harpy assistants asked her, glancing upwards.
Fritti grimaced. “I thought I was,” she told the harpy male, and, turning to leave, bumped into someone far taller than she was, herself. And pulled back in shock, realizing that it was the Evening Star. “I’m very sorry,” Fritti said, automatically. “How may I help you?” Those words have always been my first mistake . . . .
Actually, I was here to ask how I might be off assistance to you, the goddess said, smiling faintly. While you and I might be able to pick off these incoming . . . ‘missiles’ with shooting-star arrows . . . I think I would be better suited to aid those assembled here.
Fritti blinked, rapidly. “They aren’t your people,” she felt compelled to point out, carefully. “Technically, won’t that be . . . impolite?”
They are not your people either. I do not ask for their worship or their love. They are just people who are in need of food and shelter. I can help with both. The star-shine eyes were calm as they looked down into Fritti’s, and the Evening Star reached out, and put a hand to the Marcomanni woman’s face. Her touch burned with cold. Will you accept my aid?
“Yes,” Fritti said, simply. “Quite a few of the people here will not, however.”
Then it is best that they believe that the food provided comes from the boundless generosity of their fellow humans. The goddess smiled, faintly, and pointed towards the kitchen area. I will be in there.
And so life goes on. Today, at least, Fritti thought, looking up at the sun, which was at its zenith. Loki . . . I don’t ask that you answer. I know that you are fighting. But know that I think of you.
Outside of Jerusalem, the gods and the god-born were being forced back, on all sides. It wasn’t that the mad godlings here were the oldest, the original ones. There were, however, hundreds of the smaller and medium-sized godlings, each large enough to give a powerful efreet a run for their money. To the north, Trennus had begged for all the spirits who usually resided in his Vale to make one last stand, and as such, the Woods were holding against the ghul and the mad ones . . . for the moment. To the south, the Persians were racing ahead of the mad ones, trying to gain access to the city, and Quetzalcoatl, Amaterasu, and Sekhmet were in the position of having to allow the humans to pass them by, so that they could deal with the mad ones. To the east, Mercury, Kanmi, Minori, Illa’zhi, and Erida continued to fall back, inch by inch.
The Persians who had previously surrendered, had been placed in internment camps at the edge of town, where they looked up over the tops of barbed-wire fences, staring at the sky. They could see the distortions there, the way light rippled in on itself. Man by man, they knelt, and began to pray, to gods and spirits who might not exist anymore, in all the languages of their empire.
The afternoon wore on. In Jerusalem itself, Judeans gathered at the Temple to pray. Mikayel ben Maor led a group on one set of stairs, asking their god to forgive them for permitting unbelievers to enter their city and dwell there. For permitting the use of magic and idolatry. For permitting Judeans to intermarry with idolaters, too.
On another set of steps, a different group met, praying quietly. Finally, one of the men there asked the others, “Why do you think that he does nothing?” Frustrated rage filled the young man’s voice, and his gesture took in the whole of the sky.
“Because we’re the ones who’re meant to act,” came the answer, from a much older man. His voice was rusty and filled with regret. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why we exist.”
“All right,” the younger man said, swallowing. “But what are we supposed to do?”
I don’t know, thought Adam ben Maor, and limped towards the transit station outside the temple. I thought I knew, but I’ve been caught in the crux of indecision for so long, I don’t know what’s right, and I don’t know what’s wrong. All I know is, it’s time to shit or get off the pot.
On the other side of the world, it was still ten hours earlier by the clock, and the gray light of dawn broke through the clouds over Bur
gundoi, streaming through rising pillars of smoke from burning buildings along the outskirts of the city. The defenders had been locked in a pattern of hold, retreat, hold, retreat, for close to three days now. Forty bear-warriors had been cut off at the southern edge of town. They’d told the humans to run when over a thousand ghul came at them, and the humans had, only turning back to provide covering fire once they were half a mile away.
Even a bear-warrior could be surrounded. Overwhelmed. Overrun. Thor and a contingent of frost-giants had descended on the tangle of streets where the bear-warriors had made their stand. Nine of the forty god-born subsequently crawled out from under the piles of dead ghul. Human defense posts had been similarly overrun, but the humans had pulled back to tertiary defense areas, formed new barricades, and just kept firing. Trying to make every shot count.
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