Her gaze drifted around the small room, lingering on all the things that offended her—the rotted ruins of ages-old furniture, the colored dust that had once been carpeting and the boxes littered helter-skelter around the room that her time in Mithgarthr had taught her were computers of some kind. She gritted her teeth and blew out her breath in angry frustration. “Thou art mad now, Luka, and reft of mind,” she snapped, and he recoiled as if she’d slapped him. Hel’s smile was vicious, and she pointed at him with her chin. She sighed, knowing she didn’t want to do what she must, and it was a grim, sad sound. The destructive powers she’d refined over the years were known to him, and she could see that knowledge twisting fear into him.
Her lips writhed as she fought to keep from saying the words that would end his life in a blaze of emerald green flame. “You promised to take care of him, Luka.” Her voice was far from bland, and the glare she gave him from under her long lashes was hateful and a touch insane. Her love for him was absent in her expression but evident in how hard she fought to keep herself from burning him where he stood.
Luka pushed himself into a proper kneeling bow and set his jaw. “My Queen, if I have offended you, my life is yours. It always has been. You know that.” He looked her in the eye, the very picture of calm acceptance.
“Just tell me why, Luka. Why did you flee from him again?” Her face convulsed with a fresh wave of rage. “And why did you close the preer?”
“I’m sorry, Queen Hel. That little pretender brought—”
Like some wild beast, her rage leapt out of her with its claws extended. “You left me trapped in Pitra! I had to ride here on a damn horse!”
The muscles in his torso spasmed and his upper body jerked away from her. His eyes were large and shiny with the hint of tears before he turned his gaze away from the madness and acrimony in her expression. “He had… My brother, Meuhlnir, was helping him. They had a dwarf… I think it was Althyof… a-and he had a dragon. F-Fafnir or maybe Friner. I think it was—”
“Do you think I care, Luka?” Her tone was suddenly silky soft and smooth.
“I… The dragon flamed the oolfa I had with me. The forces from Pitra had been distracted by an attack on the gates, so it—”
“I know the circumstances!” she screamed. In a flash, she took three quick steps across the room and shoved her face toward his. “Your little games with your many-times-great-grandson have cost me quite a lot, Luka.”
Luka’s jaw dropped open, and his eyes opened very wide. “Grandson? What do you—”
“Don’t pretend at innocence, Luka.”
“My Queen, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
She looked at him with hard eyes for a protracted moment. Finally, with twitching eyelids, her expression softened a small amount. “How can you not know?” she asked. “It’s plain to see.”
Luka shook his head as if by doing so he could stop the knowledge from coming.
“He’s your blood, Luka. That annoying cop. He’s your descendant. So is the other one.”
“But… How…”
She laughed, and a bit more of the anger left her face. “Oh, dear one, if, after all this time, you don’t know how to make children…”
He flashed a small smile at her. “No, I mean how can he be—”
“The blessed act must have occurred on one of our trips to visit the Vikings, playing at being gods. I’ve never been jealous of your flings with the girls in Mithgarthr. After all, they are gone in such a short time.”
He nodded in a way that suggested he hadn’t been listening to what she said. “But if Jensen is my kin, then that means—”
“Now, he’s starting to see it,” said Hel with a sour grin. “Yes, slow one, he’s like the other one.”
Luka dropped his eyes. “This changes everything, my Queen,” he whispered.
“No, Luka, this changes nothing.” The sentence sounded flat and terrible in the small, ugly space, even to her.
He looked up at her with a pleading expression. “No, my Queen. This changes everything.”
She looked at him through slitted eyes, and she wondered if he was about to stand up to her at long last. She almost hoped he would but, in the end, didn’t think he would. After all, Luka knew his place. “Why, Luka, lea’vst thou not off?” she demanded.
His gaze hardened, and he stood, mouth set in a grim, defiant line. “No, my Queen.”
“Take me home, Luka, then we will deal with your grandson. Turn on the preer.”
He looked at her, and a crafty expression stole over his face like a thief in the night. “No, my Queen. Let me explain.”
A large, furious frown spread across Hel’s face. “Are you standing up to me, my Champion?”
“I am standing up for you, my Queen, as I always have. Killing him now would be a mistake.”
She scoffed and shook her head, a dark, deadly expression on her face. “You can’t convert him, Trickster. He won’t be converted.”
“With all due respect, my Queen, I can and I will. I have an idea.”
She looked at him for a long, hard moment, reassessing him for the first time in centuries. Her frown faded, and her tense muscles relaxed. “You always knew how to convince me, sweet Luka.”
“I think we should set a trap of sorts. Here.” Luka grinned like the mischievous trickster he was. “One which severs his ties with my brother’s family and leaves him adrift in this land—which he knows nothing about. Maybe we can finally be rid of Meuhlnir, Sif, and all the others at the same time.”
Hel laughed. “Oh, excellent, Luka. Your wickedness inspires me, yet again. For that, I’m willing to put up with this wretched place for a while longer.”
She offered him her hand with a smile and pulled him into her embrace. “Inspire me a bit more, my Champion,” she purred.
Forty-four
The second proo had been closed, of course. It took eleven weeks and a handful of days to get back to Veethar’s estates—even using his secret tunnel through the mountains. We must have made a grim picture, riding through the streets of Trankastrantir, judging from the stir we caused in the karls and thralls who lived there.
Siggy had enjoyed every square inch of the journey and had developed a close relationship with “Cousin Mouthy” and “Auntie Yarns.” From what I could tell, everyone enjoyed seeing Sig marveling at the horses, Mothi’s weapons, the Alfar, the Tverkr, the Takmar’s Horse Plains, the tunnel between Takirnia and Suelhaym, campfires, sleeping under the stars—everything a thirteen-year-old should love. I was a bit amazed that he didn’t seem to miss his electronics, and I was proud that he took everything in stride and did what was asked of him with very little grumbling.
I don’t think I’d ever felt so much relief as when we rode through the gates to Veethar’s estate. I was surprised at how much it felt like coming home. Supergirl squeezed me tight around the waist with a sharply indrawn breath as she saw what little that the Tverkar had left of the white dragon. “You fought that?” she whispered.
“He harried that beast until it wanted to commit suicide,” laughed Althyof.
I grinned and shook my head. “It was your singing and dancing that did that.”
We had decided to rest a while before we made the journey to Pilrust. We needed time to decompress—to come to terms with the costs of getting Jane and Sig back. I think the other Isir needed time to figure out what they were going to do about Luka.
Veethar showed us maps. The ruins of Pilrust were roughly in the center of Kleymtlant, which literally meant “the forgotten land.” The name didn’t inspire much confidence that the journey would be easy. Just getting to Kleymtlant was going to be difficult. The map showed the obstacles we’d have to get past if we took the land route: a very long mountain range that stretched from south of Trankastrantir to well north of Pilrust, the Great Wood of Suel—a forest that seemed to run over half the length of the continent of Suelhaym Eekier, something that was called the Jungles of Fyalir, and we’d have t
o travel through the Pitra Empire. The sea route wasn’t spoken of much. Veethar just grimaced and shook his head when I asked about it. Adding to that, none of the maps had much detail about Kleymtlant itself, other than the mountain range, the coast line, and the location of the ruins of Pilrust. It was a logistical nightmare, especially given that the Isir were so used to traveling by proo that they could hardly comprehend a journey of such magnitude.
I knew Yowtgayrr and Skowvithr were glued to me, and it seemed sure that Meuhlnir, Veethar, and Mothi were going. I didn’t like the idea of asking Jane to stay behind with Sig, but I liked the idea of risking them again even less. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would have anything to say about whether Jane came along or not, and I doubted whether Sif, Yowrnsaxa, and Frikka could be convinced to stay behind. Althyof would follow the gold, of course. Even so, the party seemed comically small given what we’d seen Luka and the Dragon Queen muster.
One day shortly after we’d arrived, Jane and I were sitting on a fence, looking at the impressive herd of horses Veethar owned. It was hot, and the leather of the eye patch chaffed and itched, so I’d pulled it off and hung it around my wrist.
“Too hot?” asked Althyof from behind me.
The last thing I wanted was to sound ungrateful. “I’m just not quite used to it yet. And it’s such a hot day.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve brought you this hat to shield your face from the sun.”
He put the hat on my head, and I gasped in surprise. It was like I had opened my left eye and could see from it again. The runeskowld laughed, but not unkindly.
“What in the world?”
“Well,” he said, “I am the best enchanter in the known universe as I believe I have already told you once.” He looked about as pleased with himself and smug as any one person could. “Close your eye.”
I did and gasped again. With my right eye closed, I could see in a 360-degree arc around my body. I opened my eye, and the effect faded back to normal vision. I spent a few moments opening and closing my eye, marveling at the enchantment.
“I wanted to give you the ability to see remotely the way the syown sometimes works with the Isir, but alas, I haven’t quite worked out the runes to inscribe and the runes to sing to make that happen. I’ll keep working on it, though.”
“You do that,” I said with a grin. “After all, I’m paying you good money.”
The Tverkr looked at me with a sparkle in his eyes and then turned and walked away.
“I don’t think I will ever get used to that,” whispered Jane.
“What?” I peered at her from under my new floppy hat.
She smiled and made a vague gesture with her hand. “Elves. Dwarves. Dragons.”
“But being accepted as one of the Isir makes perfect sense to you?”
She swatted me on the arm. “Shaddap, you.” She smiled at me in a way that made me want to melt into a puddle.
“You really are the best, you know,” I murmured.
“Yes, I know. You are lucky to have me.”
I was. I am. I hope I always will be.
Errant Gods
Table of Contents
Cover Page
TITLE PAGE
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Forty-four
Wendigo
A Blood of the Isir TALE
Erik Henry Vick
One
J
ohn Calvin Black rode on horseback through the woods with Donehogawa, a tall, straight-backed Onondowaga warrior that he’d known all his life. The two men were of similar age and had become fast friends during the adventures of their youth. Between them, they knew every nook and cranny of the forest west of Lake Seneca in New York—useful knowledge, considering the sun had just broken over the horizon.
As they approached John’s house on the outskirts of the village of Geneva, the distant voice of Captain Wiggin broke the stillness. “I say he’s not coming, Chambers. He couldn’t find a heathen, and so he’s not coming.” John cast an apologetic glance at Donehogawa.
Mad Jack Martin stepped his horse out of the woods and onto the path in front of them. He was dressed from head to toe in cured buckskin and wore moccasins like Donehogawa’s. He nodded a greeting and fell in beside John as they passed. “Yells too much, that one,” he muttered. He preferred being alone in the forest and rarely came to the village.
Donehogawa chuckled. “Like a bear yelling into his cave to see if he’s alone,” he laughed. “Sgeno, Jack Martin.”
“Hello to you, Donehogawa,” said Mad Jack with a tip of his hat and a smile for John.
They broke from the trees in time to see Captain Wiggin glaring down at his pocket watch and muttering. Edward Chambers, the bartender and proprietor of Geneva’s ordinary—Geneva’s tavern—sat on his horse behind Wiggin and grinned. “It is only ten minutes until seven, my good Captain,” John called out. “I believe we agreed on eight of the clock.”
“I see you’ve brought Mad Jack as well. One heathen scout and one crazy scout,” said Wiggin. He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Better than no scouts, I guess.” He climbed aboard his buckskin horse and jerked the poor animal in a tight circle. “Lead on, Mad Jack! You’ve seen the body already, no? Unlike you lot, I don’t have all day to waste on this errand.”
“Nyakwal,” said Donehogawa. It was the Onondowaga word for bear.
Mad Jack snickered behind his hand.
“What did he say?” demanded Wiggin.
Struggling to keep from smiling, John looked down at his saddle. “He says ‘Let’s go.’ This is Donehogawa, by the way. You might recognize him.” He knew Wiggin didn’t and never would, no matter how much time Donehogawa spent in town. The man just didn’t see anyone whose skin wasn’t white.
Wiggin grunted and nodded in the American Indian’s direction, somehow managing to make the small politeness feel like something much less well-meant.
Donehogawa grunted back and smiled. “Nyakwal.”
Smiling from ear to ear, Mad Jack walked his horse forward and pointed west. “Yonder,” he said, and then led them to the clearing where the farmer, Nathan Bryce, had drawn his last breath.
They dismounted at the edge of the clearing. The tall grass lay matted down in a rough circle to one side. Blood stained the grass, and the stench of decay tainted the air. Bryce’s broken body lay just under the branches of a hophornbeam tree, as if he were taking a nap out of the sun.
John meandered back and forth across the clearing, staring at the ground, trying to make sense of the scene. Something large had attacked Bryce, that much was plain. But what that something was, John couldn’t tell. By the expression on his face, Mad Jack had drawn the same conclusions. “Donehogawa?”
“Gatgon!” said Donehogawa, which meant witchcraft in the language of the Onondowaga.
John raised his eyebrows and looked at the brave. He was as pale as John had ever seen him. John knew his frien
d well, and Donehogawa’s fear showed in the tightness around his eyes and his grim slash of a smile.
“Witchcraft?” whispered John. Donehogawa wasn’t given to flights of superstitious fancy. John wondered if he’d misunderstood.
“Bah!” sputtered Wiggin. “This is just some bear or a large cougar. I don’t need the heathen to spout fairy tales at me. I need him to help us track this animal so we can kill it. It is a benefit to his people, too. Can he do that?” Wiggin turned his head and spat. “If not, then he should just scamper off home.”
“Captain,” John said, feigning patience he didn’t feel, “we asked him to read the signs here and tell us what he believes killed Nathan Bryce. Can we at least give him a moment to work through this?”
Wiggin harrumphed and stomped over to look down at Bryce.
“What is it, Donehogawa?”
“This was no animal. Not a bear, not a wolf, not a coyote, not a cougar.” He had enough English to more than handle the likes of Wiggin, but he spoke Onondowaga, which spoke to his fear as much as his dislike for the man. “This was the evil that devours. This is no lying tale, John.”
John turned at looked at the body again. Jagged bones jutted through the skin in multiple places. There were obvious signs of predation, although not much had been eaten, and no scavengers had settled in for a feast. It was as if the body had been arranged so it would be found—a message of some kind.
All at once, the woods around them went silent, as if some large predator were stalking the area.
“Gatgon,” whispered Donehogawa.
“What is all that gibberish about?” groused Wiggin.
“Donehogawa is upset by this. He says it wasn’t a bear, a wolf, a coyote, or a cougar.”
Wiggin sighed. “Is this heathen a coward?” he demanded.
“No!” said John and Mad Jack at the same time. Mad Jack, angry and indignant, motioned for John to explain.
“Donehogawa is a very brave warrior. He is known throughout the Onondowaga Nation—indeed throughout much of the Iroquois League. His name means ‘He Who Guards the Gate of Sunset;’ a name he was given after leading a small group of braves in defense of Ganundasaga during the last war with the Cherokee and the Choctaw.”
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 49