“Finish it!” yelled Luka, this time in his own voice, and the command lashed the air, making both combatants jump. “Something is coming. I smell evil on the wind!”
Gunthistayn shook his head and raised his axe, and as he did so, Skatlakrimr stopped dancing around like a drunken fool and stood before the big man, arms held out to his sides at shoulder height. “Boy, you are a fool,” said the big Viking, raising his axe high. His shoulders bunched and the muscles across his back flexed as he brought the axe whistling toward Skatlakrimr’s head.
A small smile danced on Skatlakrimr’s lips, and he winked up at the big man. “Oolfur!” he shouted, and the prayteenk—the change from man to oolfur—rippled through him to the sound of breaking bones and ripping skin. His left hand shot toward the axe whistling down at his head, knocking it out of its deadly trajectory as if it were a child’s toy. Gunthistayn grunted in surprise as he struggled to recover from the massive swing. In a move too fast for the human eye to follow, Skatlakrimr was up close, inside the reach of the axe, and his hand was on Gunthistayn’s neck.
“Frist!” I shouted.
Skatlakrimr stood frozen, as still as a stone, but the prayteenk continued—coarse brown fur that was so dark it bordered on black sprouted from the skin around his neck and shoulders. His jaw dislocated and stretched, fangs pushing his human teeth out of his head, his ears shifted and grew pointed as they traveled to the top of his skull. His eyes doubled in size, then tripled, even as he grew to loom over Gunthistayn, whose own eyes were wide as he struggled to free himself from the grip of the oolfur, muscles bunched, fingers fruitlessly prying at Skatlakrimr’s hand.
Luka’s voice boomed across the square. “Who hides in the shadows? Who is it that speaks the Gamla Toonkumowl? Who dares to use saytr on one of the Briethralak Oolfur?”
Outside of the hideous sounds that accompanied Skatlakrimr’s prayteenk, silence reigned in the village. I kept my animus close to the peak of the roof, hidden deep in the shadows, while Luka’s eyes swept first the crowd and then every doorway open to the square.
“Kverfa!” he snapped, pointing a long, graceful finger at his apprentice.
Skatlakrimr rolled his head and snarled—too far gone in his change for human speech—and clamped his hand around Gunthistayn’s throat with bone-crunching strength. The big Viking didn’t even have time to gasp before Skatlakrimr cut off his wind. Without apparent effort, Skatlakrimr lifted the burly chested Viking with one hand and straightened to his full height.
He wasn’t as tall as Luka, nor as impressive, but his new form impressed the villagers, nonetheless. Many of the younger men stood staring with avarice in their eyes. The older men turned aside as if not looking at the oolfur could somehow rob him of his reality.
“On your knees!” snapped Luka, all pretenses of being anything but the Trickster dismissed. Even in his human form, Luka cut a tall and imposing figure. He wasn’t muscular—quite the reverse, he appeared wasted, sickly—but large bones filled his broad frame and the arrogance of living for centuries virtually unchallenged filled his every move. Almost as one, the villagers dropped to their knees in the cold, muddy square. Luka strode to Skatlakrimr’s side and beckoned the oolfur to bend his head down to the level of Luka’s head. He whispered in Skatlakrimr’s ear.
If human anatomy had limited me, I wouldn’t have had a clue what he said, but as an animus, I had no anatomy at all. What he whispered in the wolf-like ear was this: “The time for showmanship has passed. There is an interloper in the village. Dispose of this twit quickly and be ready for a real fight when I flush the man out. If it is who I think it is, no matter how impossible it is that he is here, he will pose quite a danger to you.”
“Not good!” I shouted to the men running toward the village with me. “Skatlakrimr has changed. I tried to stop him, but Luka dispelled my kaltrar. He knows someone is there, someone with the ability to vefa strenki. I get the feeling he knows it’s me.”
Just then, Jane swooped down from the sky and hurled her spear at Skatlakrimr. The golden spear leapt from her hand and transformed into a golden lightning bolt before crashing into the oolfur’s furred chest.
Skatlakrimr convulsed as the lightning struck, coming up on the balls of his feet, clonic seizures racing up and down his muscles, jaw snapping open and closed. With a bright flash, the lightning was gone, and the head of Jane’s golden spear protruded from his back, the shaft from his chest. The convulsions persisted for a moment and then became tonic. Guthistayn hung limply from the oolfur’s hand, claws piercing his throat, eyes bulging, thick purple tongue between his lips, sclera awash with bright blood.
Luka whirled to face her, eyes blazing. “You!” he spat.
“Hey there, dog-face,” said Jane without a hint of fear in her voice. “Did you miss me?” She held out her hand. “Aftur!” With the sickening sound of a butcher’s cleaver leaving flesh, the spear returned to her hand.
“I suppose he is here, as well? I thought I smelled him. How did you get past Haymtatlr?” Luka demanded.
Jane shrugged and grinned crookedly. “Haymtatlr likes me better than you.”
Luka hawked and spat half the distance separating them. “And I suppose my fool of a brother is somewhere in the shadows, too? Come out, brother. Let’s finish our talk from yesterday.” His eyes snapped back to Jane. “Where is he?”
“Where is who?”
“My brother. Your asshole husband. Veethar. Mothi. Whoever. I know you aren’t here alone.”
Jane shrugged and flapped her wings. “Float like a butterfly,” she said.
“What?” His head jerked back, then recognition washed over his features. “Oh, Cassius Clay, yes, I remember him.”
“That’s kind of rude, no?”
“Rude?” Luka glanced around, confusion twitching in his eyes. “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes, dog-face. Muhammad Ali was his name. He changed it. You could at least use the name he called himself.”
Luka cocked his head at Jane as though he couldn’t quite follow the conversation. “I knew of him when he called himself Clay.”
I took the opportunity to sink into the ground and cross to the other side of the square, being careful to avoid Luka and Skatlakrimr’s feet. When I emerged and floated up to the shadows near the peak of another longhouse, a teenage boy’s eyes tracked my progress; his mouth fell open. He tugged on the boy next to him—who was slightly older and bore a remarkable resemblance. “A magic raven!” he whispered.
Luka’s head snapped around, eyes boring into the boy’s face. “What did you say?”
The boy hung his head.
“Boy, you’d better answer me, or so help me I will eat your tongue while you watch.”
“A…raven,” he murmured. “A magic raven.”
“A raven? Where?”
The boy pointed up at the roof of the longhouse. “It flew over the house.”
Luka’s eyes traversed the roof, squinting with suspicion. “Why do you say it was magical? Was it a flesh-and-blood raven or was it an antafukl? A bird made of black smoke? A spirit bird?”
“I don’t know.”
Jane brought her spear up and drew back her arm to hurl it at Luka. Skatlakrimr snarled and leapt toward her. Flapping her black wings hard, she sprang into the air and hovered, switched her target to Skatlakrimr and let the spear fly.
As we reached the edge of the village, I heard the crackle of lightning and Skatlakrimr’s involuntary howl followed by the thud of his elongated body hitting the ground. I stopped and pointed at Krowkr. “Here,” I said, and stripped off my cloak and armor, wincing at the sudden onslaught of my painful curse. Keri and Fretyi danced at my sides, then sprinted toward the village and turned back to look at me as if to ask if I were coming with them.
Luka tore his eyes away from the shadows where my animus hung like a spider in its web. “I wish you would stop doing that,” he sighed. “Skatlakrimr is new to this. Quit picking on him, you bully.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” laughed Jane. She recalled her spear and hovered thirty feet in the air, shield held ready in case Luka hurled fire at her.
Krowkr took my armor and my gun belt as I handed them to him. He tried for an impassive expression, but it was evident that the suspense was killing him. I grinned at him. “Now, you’ll want to stand back.” I chanted the Kuthbyuhrn triblinkr as I walked naked toward the village square. It took less effort than the last time I had made the change—maybe some function of fatigue had made it so hard in the battle with Hel. As I dropped forward to the now-familiar quadrupedal gait, I heard Krowkr gasp. If he didn’t think I was a god before, he will from now on, I thought and made the distinctive sound bears used to express amusement.
I saw the shadow of my physical body in bear form edging closer to the village square and imagined my animus was bigger—as big as I’d been when I fought Vowli. The boy kneeling on the ground below me gasped, then clamped his hand over his mouth.
“Another raven?” asked Luka laconically. He glanced at the boy, and when he did, he saw me, now the size of a bird too large to fly but flying, nonetheless.
“Yes,” I said and dove at him, talons extended, wings tucked for maximum acceleration. With my physical body, I stood on my hind legs, easily taller than the longhouses bordering the square, and roared a challenge. Ahead of me, Althyof entered the square with a dancer’s flourish, singing a battle trowba, cadmium red cartoon daggers doing their stretch-shrink-stretch-shrink thing.
Skatlakrimr picked himself up, staggering as though drunk and shaking his head to clear it. He glanced at Luka, bleary eyed and drooling a little, and staggered to his side.
I dipped a wingtip and swerved in midair, switching targets from Luka to the oolfur swaying next to him. Skatlakrimr ducked his head, but it was too late, and my talons plowed furrows across the back of his neck and head. He yelped like a dog and threw up his arms, trying to ward me off, but I was already gone.
With a thought, I transported my animus to hover next to Jane. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Show off,” she whispered.
I roared and shambled into the village square on all fours. Luka tore his gaze from my animus and sneered at my bear costume.
“Such a waste,” he muttered. He shoved Skatlakrimr into my path, and the oolfur whined like a puppy.
I ducked my shoulder to barge the oolfur and dove for his eyes with my antafukl, my bird of smoke. Keri and Fretyi drove in low—at Skatlakrimr’s ankles, as silent as a midnight snowfall.
“Hank, look out!” shouted Jane.
Two things happened at once: Luka said, “Huent elti,” and lifted his hand above his head, and Skatlakrimr roared and leapt on my back. Luka’s hand blossomed with flames the color of a canary’s plumage, and he laughed. He whipped his hand in a half-circle, front to back, and the longhouses to his right burst into flames.
Villagers shrieked and screamed as though in counterpoint to Althyof’s melody. Skatlakrimr straddled my neck like a cowboy on a bronco, talons ripping at my flesh. I dipped my shoulder and rolled across the square and slammed into the fool with my animus, which had grown to the size of a small car. Skatlakrimr flew off me and slammed into the flaming wall of a longhouse with a yelp that sounded more like a scream of agony, then rebounded—right into a sweeping strike from my massive front paw. He flew back into the flaming wall, head lolling. Yowtgayrr appeared next to me, sword and dagger held ready. He lifted his foot and planted it in the oolfur’s midsection, pressing him into the flames and the wall they consumed. The Alf shoved hard, and the wall creaked and collapsed. Skatlakrimr fell inside the burning building with the screech of a scared child. Yowtgayrr stood in front of the opening in the fiery wall, staring into the flames with the intensity of a hunting predator.
Luka ran away from us, flinging fire helter-skelter, hammering at the screaming villagers who dared to get in his way. He glanced back over his shoulders, and his gaze, glowing with hatred, first washed over my physical form, and then strayed up to my animus. His lips twitched in a fulminating grimace.
“Riknink!” I boomed from the non-mouth of my animus, and dark storm clouds swirled into existence above us. Fat, bitterly-cold raindrops fell, sizzling into steam when they hit fire.
Luka ducked out of sight around the corner of a building.
“Hank! He’s getting away! Again!” yelled Jane, frustration singing an aria in her voice.
Inside the building burning next to me, Skatlakrimr first whined in pain, then roared with anger. He burst out of the hole through which he’d fallen, bowling Yowtgayrr over, embers glowing and open flame dancing in the oolfur’s fur. He screeched, head snapping this way and that, and beat at the flames consuming his flesh.
Althyof leapt with a natural-born dancer’s grace, spinning in midair as his twin daggers flickered across the beast’s throat and upper chest, the red auras of his blades lurching and stabbing as though they had minds of their own. Where the metal blades plowed through flesh, long lacerations appeared. Where the dancing, ethereal red auras touched, star-shaped marks of charred flesh appeared.
Skatlakrimr wailed and slashed blindly at the Tverkr, but Althyof was already gone. The oolfur forced his eyes open, head swinging this way and that, flickering from face to face—looking for Luka. When he didn’t find his master, he howled, then craned his neck to listen for a reply.
Yowtgayrr rolled to his feet, eyes dancing to the fire spreading around us, despite the rain. With a flourish, he sheathed his blades and wrote silvery runes in the air, muttering as he did so. The fires flickered and died back a little. He glanced up at my animus. “I will control the fires, Hank. We must not allow Luka to disappear in the confusion.”
“Right,” I said. I thought about the last place I’d seen Luka and appeared above it, hovering in midair. Behind me, villagers cried out with fear and awe.
“Don’t be afraid!” yelled Krowkr. “He is Hanki, and these are his servants.”
Skatlakrimr roared in anger and slashed his talons through the air, expressing his anger at being abandoned rather than attacking anyone. His eyes narrowed and locked on mine.
I shook my shaggy head, trying to ward him off, but it was useless.
With a snarl, he pounced toward me. I sank low, my belly scraping the mud in the center of the square as I lunged upward, jaws spreading wide to catch his throat as I had caught Vowli a few days before. I plowed upward, springing toward the sky with my front paws, and pushing with my back legs. The oolfur fell into my waiting jaws and arms, and I crushed him close. This time, I didn’t waste time holding him aloft, I spun on one hind paw and slammed him to the ground, piling my weight on top of him. His breath exploded out of him on impact.
Behind me, Jane sank to the ground, her eyes tracking from one burn victim to the next. “This will take time,” she said.
I grunted.
“Okay. Here goes.” She planted her golden spear next to her, and hung her shield from it, black-enameled raven looking down over her shoulder. She tucked her wings but didn’t make them disappear to wherever they went when she wasn’t flying around like a little bumble-bee.
Althyof danced around Skatlakrimr and me, his trowba shifting from one of battle to one of recovery and healing. As with the battle in the Herperty af Rostrum, I knew which rune he’d cast next, and I added my own runes, throwing them out in time with his.
“People,” Jane called. “Bring your wounded to me. Bring the worst injuries first.”
I scanned the empty lanes Luka had used to flee, casting more fire as he went. I called for rain as I zipped toward the edge of the village, thinking Luka would try to get away—that he was sacrificing Skatlakrimr to make his escape. He’d never viewed the people of Mithgarthr as any more than objects to be used and discarded at his convenience. I gained altitude as I flew, doing the equivalent of squinting my eyes against the smoke and rain. The more I squinted, the farther I could see.
Beneath me, Skatlakrimr kicked and scrat
ched and punched, throwing his weight first to one side, then exploding in the other direction when he felt my weight shift. None of it mattered, though—I outweighed him by at least three times his mass. As a reward for his efforts, I put my front paws on his chest so even more of my weight would bear down on him. I locked the knees of my hind legs, pushing forward and down, grinding the oolfur into the mud, my jaws closed around his throat, but not to kill him—only to control him.
I didn’t want to take his life. I didn’t want that on my conscience.
A mother ran to Jane, cradling a small child—a boy—in her arms. Char scribbled over half the boy’s face, and his little arm was desiccated, shrunken like a mummified arm. His chest hitched and froze, hitched and froze, and he coughed wretchedly, but other than that was silent—too far gone into what was likely terminal shock. Jane held out her arms like a faith healer from television and squeezed her eyes shut. Her hands glowed with the same cadmium red aura of Althyof’s daggers, and a moment later, the aura expanded to encompass the small boy.
Luka ran from the village in long strides, his form convulsing into that of a heinous combination of a man and a diseased stag. He sprinted with incredible speed—he’d already covered most of the ground to the stony hills. I imagined myself over his head, and just like that, my animus soared above him, roaring with laughter. He flinched, lurching a few steps to the left and looking up. His eyes settled on my antafukl, and he scowled up at me for a moment before pouring on yet more speed.
The little boy gasped as the red aura washed the charred flesh away and slid into his mouth and nose. His mother cried out in awe as his breathing eased again. The boy smiled, his eyes filled with wonder, and he held out his arms to Jane. She bent and let him hug her neck while she kissed his cheek.
Skatlakrimr snarled and bit at Althyof every time the Tverkr passed by. I growled deep in my chest, and the sound pulsed against his throat. I tightened my jaw muscles, cutting off more of his air, and he went rigid beneath me.
Luka hissed over his shoulder at me. I flew behind him, not interfering with him in any way—I only wanted to know where he was going. He bore down and accelerated, but my animus weighed precisely nothing, so I had no problem keeping up. I didn’t even know if I had to flap my wings to fly, or if I could float behind him like a Hollywood special effect, but the flapping felt right.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 100