Scourged

by Kevin Hearne

  Still, he drops that handful of molten rock and falls backward to the opposite side of the lava flow. Me job’s not done: Bavaria wants these things dead, and I know there have to be more because the quake continues, so I have to figure out how to punch through something with natural defenses like rock. It’s neither practical nor efficient. I hop over the lava flow and stand next to the kobold’s head, kneeling down to take a closer look. His eyes are not impregnable, I see. Deep set and wee, but they’re still eyes made of blood and jelly nestled in a socket with a hole at the back. I take off me clothes, shape-shift into a red kite, and place a taloned, brass-coated foot on his face and squeeze, punching into his brain through his right eye. He twitches a couple of times and goes still again. I shift quickly back to human because the heat’s getting to me feathers. I’m going to need a better way.

  I tell Bavaria that’s one down but I need something to help it go faster. I picture what I need and it wells up from the earth at me feet in a matter of seconds: a foot-long spike of smooth, polished stone.

  //Lead me to the next// I tell Bavaria as I pick it up. I leave me clothes behind since I may need to shape-shift again soon. The tunnel, I notice, has stabilized quite a bit since I took out the first kobold. But as I continue on and draw closer to the next target, it begins to shift and buck again, and I fall twice because the light is still none too good. I also start drawing power to heal me burnt shoulder because it’s screaming like ten seagulls fighting over one fish.

  The tunnel Bavaria’s creating breaks through into a new cavern, and a fresh gust of sulfur fumes slithers down me gob like all the ghosts of me bad ideas. I cough and wheeze and tumble down into a roll as I enter, just in case there’s an ambush waiting for me head. It’s a good thing too, for a few hunks of rock that qualify as boulders sail over me and crash behind. I find the kobold responsible standing in front of a wall of lava. Me face is already baked dry like those fecking nuts they give ye on airplanes with a sad thimbleful of water, but I’m going to have to charge him and that wall to end this. And unlike the first lad, he’s not chucking those boulders with his hand: This is a big boy in the world of kobolds and he’s moving that weight with his own magic. Earth-based blighters, they are. And he knows something has to be here, even if he can’t see me, because otherwise what opened that nice symmetrical hole in the wall down the way? And if he has any sense of the presence or energy of other kobolds, he probably knows one of them abruptly got snuffed a few minutes ago. So he’s not taking any chances. He didn’t hear a death scream or see any blood splatter, so he’s going to throw more at me. I can see him clenching his fingers and the wall of lava bubbling and swelling behind him. This is going to be bad. I put the spike between me teeth and shift to a ram, the brass of me knuckles flowing up to the horns and coating them, making them unbreakable. Then I lower me head and charge straight at the kobold with all I’ve got, just as he sends a wide spray of molten rocks and lava in my direction. There’s no avoiding it or dodging; it’s like a net of fire backed with stone.

  Me horns slam into the leading edge, breaking it apart, and that provides a sort of cone of protection, keeping it out of me eyes at least, but that doesn’t mean I pass through unscathed. I get pretty fecking scathed, in fact, especially down me back above the tail; I’m pretty sure it’s just on fire and I’m melting, but I have a target to hit first.

  He sees the flare of my passage through his salvo, the fire burning on the outline of something indistinct, but he’s still not sure what I am except coming for him. He tries to move, but I’m both watching and much faster and I adjust me course. I take him in the ribs, launching him off his feet and propelling him right into that wall of lava. Neither my hit nor the lava will kill him, but his advantage is all gone now: He can’t stand there and throw fiery rocks at me.

  I skitter to the side, clear of the lava’s edge, and shift back to human, rolling around and away from the fire on me arse. I draw heavily on Bavaria’s energy to heal me burning skin and let the spike drop into me hand, then I wait.

  It’s less than a minute before the lava erupts into the cavern, and had I still been standing in front of it I would have been completely coated, beyond the help of healing. The kobold steps forth from the fire, roaring his defiance, and when nothing comes to slap him, he chuckles, assuming me dead. Well, not yet, ye smug shite. I’m hurt and I could be consumed by fire at any moment, but I’m not out of the fight yet.

  Except the lava now covering the cavern floor does present a problem. I ask Bavaria for help once more in fashioning something useful far more quickly than I could bind it together meself: makeshift stone sandal platforms that I bind directly to the skin of me soles, which will hopefully allow me to walk across the lava and sneak up on the rogue. That done, I check on the kobold; I’m off to his left, perhaps a tad behind his shoulder. He takes a couple of steps forward, obviously scanning the cavern for some sign of me corpse. The rumble and quake of the earth covers my whispered binding as I target a boulder across the cavern and take me first step onto the lava: hot all around, but the stone holds. All I have to do is not trip and fall over into the slag.

  I step with more confidence and complete the binding, yanking that boulder on the far side right toward the lava. It begins to drag itself in that direction and the kobold turns to face it, which means his back is to me. It’s nothing but a distraction. I’m wondering if I should tap him on the shoulder to get him to face me when I realize that the eye sockets are not the only path to the brain. The kobold’s ears are wee, but the left one serves: I stab the spike inside, pierce the eardrum, and scramble his brain but good. He topples over and I back up gingerly, trying not to fall over meself and fail at winning. The shuddering of the cavern subsides, and once I’m on safe ground again I remove the stone shields from my feet and let Bavaria know it’s done.

  //No / Three more//

  “Fecking hells,” I mutter, and some of that sentiment must have leaked through, because Bavaria adds, //Smaller ones / You will win//

  I’m not so sure. The burns are pretty bad, and me lungs feel permanently polluted. I can’t get a proper breath, to be honest.

  //Need clean air// I say, and the response comes quickly.

  //Follow//

  The earth behind me moves, a new tunnel boring through the crust. Once I stagger down it a few steps, Bavaria closes off the cavern, shutting out all that sulfur. The tunnel slopes upward after that until we get near enough to the surface for some sunlight and fresh air to rain down from a hole.

  //Rest and heal// Bavaria says, and I give my thanks as I take big lungfuls of fresh air and feel the pain of me burns recede somewhat. The elemental’s pouring huge resources into this, which must mean it stands to lose much more if the kobolds are allowed to continue. And they are continuing; the ground beneath me own feet might be steady, but there’s still shaking going on nearby. And the longer I rest, the worse off this area will be—especially if any of that lava makes it to the surface.

  I take one more deep breath and tell Bavaria I’m ready.

  //Harmony// comes the reply, and the ground beneath me swells, pushing me up through the hole until I’m on the surface again. There’s a buck standing there, and for a moment I think it might be Siodhachan, but Bavaria puts that notion to rest quickly. //Follow animal to next tunnel site//

  The buck turns and bounds through the forest to the south. I can’t keep up as a human, and me wounded shoulder would hamper me if I tried to fly as a kite, so I shape-shift back to a ram and put the stake between my lips, try me best to keep pace, and wince as the burns throb anew.

  Makes sense to have me do this if it’s going to be a goodly distance, and it is—it’s miles, in fact, and there’s no use spending energy to create a tunnel for me in that situation. The ground doesn’t stop rumbling the whole time, and I hope Bavaria will be able to recover quickly from all this strain. I also hope no one has been hu
rt wherever people might be living around here. I don’t think there are any huge cities in the area, but there are probably wee villages and some isolated cabins and farms, things like that, buildings that weren’t designed to withstand earthquakes.

  We run long enough for the burns to calm down to smoldering coals, relatively speaking, and for me lungs to feel like they’re free and clear again. But the earthquake is getting worse—honestly, they’re never supposed to last this long. The ram form is a bit steadier than I would be on two legs, but even so, keeping upright is a challenge.

  //Hurry// Bavaria tells me. //Almost there//

  That’s a truth. A tunnel opens up less than a hundred yards from me, and once I get there I shift to human and cast camouflage, alert for ambushes. But the kobold I’m ushered to is not as paranoid as the others—he’s too deeply involved in manipulating the earth—and he’s easy to dispatch as a result. The earthquake subsides almost immediately afterward, and the last two I’m forced to chase are simply running away when I find them, because they must have figured out that their brothers all met bad ends. I would have said they learned their lesson and let them go, but Bavaria insists that I hunt them down, and I can’t say no. It wants the kobolds to know that there will be no mercy for messing with the earth like that. But I have to pursue them underneath the mountains to their hidey-holes.

  Hours later, when it’s done and I emerge from my subterranean shenanigans on the side of some peak, I have no desire to go spelunking anymore or even try a subway. I’d rather see the sky, meself. I collapse and stretch out, bathing in the sun and enjoying the fields of treetops and meadows rolling beneath me, all bonny and blithe.

  //You are beautiful// I tell Bavaria.

  //Gratitude / Please visit at length / Enjoy my lands//

  //Harmony// I says, and I think to meself I’d work to exhaustion every day for a view like this. There is peace to be found in unspoiled land.

  I don’t know how unspoiled it will remain. I imagine that we’re getting quite close to the world’s biggest demonstration of the First Law of Owen, and I worry about Greta and me apprentices, even though they should be safe in Flagstaff soon. For the first time, I wish I had one of those fecking cell phones, just to check on them.

  And the next time I see Sam and Ty fighting kobolds on a screen, I’m going to tell them their video game monsters are shite.

  mhathini turned out to be a completely sweet person who’d rather do anything in the world than see her father or brother again. She did have a passport and Laksha had left her all her financial information, essentially transferring many lifetimes of wealth to Mhathini’s care, so she was also abruptly wealthy, unbeknownst to her family. But she had no idea how to remain in Ireland legally for more than a few months or indeed if she even wanted to remain there.

  We hopped into Laksha’s rental and I drove her to Cork.

  “I think you will find that money is the ultimate freedom,” I said, “while the lack of it is often a prison.”

  “Yes, I can see the truth of that. I was dependent on my family and they were…unpleasant to live with. I felt trapped.” Her face tightened in frustration before she muttered, “But I guess I’m free now.”

  “Indeed you are. You can fly anywhere, rent a place for a few months, and move on. I lived that way for centuries. Your family will never find you unless you wish it; minimize your online footprint and always use an alias for everything. Whenever you feel the least bit nervous, fly away to the next place. And when you find someplace you wish to stay, then you can take the time to arrange for a visa or permanent resident status.”

  I took her to a bank to make sure she could successfully wire funds and remain flush for a while, then I gave her my contact information, bid her farewell, and returned the rental car. There was a television screen blaring in the rental car office with news of strange eruptions in Taiwan, Japan, the Bavarian Alps, and elsewhere. No solid numbers on injuries or fatalities; just unprecedented seismic activity with no warning. Seismologists and geologists were baffled. Rumors were trickling in of other wild phenomena occurring around the globe, but nothing verified yet.

  I wondered if these news organizations would send reporters to the scene to get live footage from the sites—and as soon as I asked myself the question, I knew the answer was yes. People sitting at home or in pubs or airports or even car rental agencies would soon be able to watch some hapless journalist planted in front of howling madness saying, “As you can see from the utter batshit unfolding behind me, the situation is pretty dire, and I can’t believe my boss sent me into the middle of this insanity. That’s it. I bloody quit.”

  Well, if they thought that was unusual, wait until they saw what was going to happen next in Scandinavia. It would be far more dark and dire than any Swedish crime drama.

  When I’d made my first ill-fated shift to the Norse planes, I learned that the primary tether to the World Tree, Yggdrasil, was located in Sweden, “to the east” of Norway as it was set down in the Eddas, but not all that far east, relatively speaking. That tether point—or I suppose I should say that root of the World Tree—led straight down to the spring of Hvergelmir, and it was from that spot in Sweden where, if Mekera’s tyromancy was correct, the host of Hel would emerge and Ragnarok would begin in earnest.

  Mekera’s divination had yet to fail me. I hoped she had called Fiyori by now.

  The tethered tree was on the shore of a small pond near Skoghall, Sweden, on the northern shore of Lake Vänern. As soon as I shifted in, I scanned the area in the magical spectrum and saw a big glowing glob of juju off to the south. That’s the direction I headed, and I soon discovered it was the mustering grounds of the Fae host—and it was also a swanky eighteen-hole golf course. It must have been here before, when Granuaile and I had plunged through the surface of the pond with Freyja and it turned out to be a portal down to Niflheim, but we’d sailed over it in the night and I never realized. The pond wasn’t one of the water traps of the course; it was off the course itself, just to the north of it, and probably had some kind of stream connecting it to Lake Vänern.

  The Fae hadn’t used the same bound tree as I had; there was another one on the golf course, newly tethered, near where they were massed, and as I drew closer, I saw more and more of the Fae shifting in and sorting themselves into ranks. I had no idea if they were sent by Brighid or by Fand; Fand’s presence would mean that Owen’s mission had at least partially succeeded, but until she fought on Brighid’s behalf and at her request, nothing was certain.

  I veered off to one side as I neared the host. I was still the Iron Druid, after all, and not welcome among them. My aura would destroy them on touch. I did wave to the nearest one, however, and beckon her to come forward, signaling via drawn knots in the air that I promised safety.

  The flying faery inched forward cautiously, and once I felt she was in shouting distance, I held up a hand to allow her to stop in safety and listen.

  “Please inform the host I am here to fight alongside the Fae, for Ireland, Tír na nÓg, and all the Fae planes!”

  She nodded and flitted away, and that would suffice. Word would spread quickly, and hopefully I wouldn’t have to stare down a volley of arrows at any point.

  I settled down to wait. The unfortunate reality was that we could only react to whatever Loki manifested at this point; we couldn’t plan for anything, except to be ready for his arrival, since both he and Hel were protected from divination. Which meant Loki and Hel might not show up here at all; it was only the vast host of Hel and her uncountable draugar that would appear for certain. Nothing else about the prophesied sequence of Ragnarok could be assured. I had made sure of that when I killed the Norns. And Fenris the wolf, and Jörmungandr.

  It was certainly a much larger show already than the original Norse conception. As I sat on the putting green of one of the holes, my meditative consultation with the elemental conf
irmed as much. In the African countries that comprised Yorubaland, the Orishas, led by Shango, were fighting the Ajogun. Ganesha and the Hindu pantheon manifested in India to beat back the surge of rakshasas and other demons there. Flidais was in Japan, fighting alongside the Shinto deities against a floodtide of oni. Granuaile was fighting alongside Sun Wukong against the Yama Kings in Taiwan. And there were many more such conflicts, some of them arranged by Loki but others arising because someone with a chaotic streak in their personality saw an opportunity.

  My meditations were interrupted by a small but extraordinary delegation from the Fae host. Fand, Manannan Mac Lir, and five large white-furred creatures hailed me and approached from the fairway leading to my green. I was pretty sure I knew who the furry folk were, but I was entirely surprised that Fand was willing to appear with them.

  “Siodhachan. Well met,” Manannan said.

  I rose to my feet and smiled. “Manannan. How pleasant to see you again. And you, Fand.”

  The Queen of the Faeries gave me the barest nod of acknowledgment but said nothing. Her eyes did not meet mine but rather fixated below my chin at the cold iron amulet around my neck. Even that much civility from her was probably a remarkable concession.

  The god of the sea said, “I’ve come to introduce you to my children, the yeti.” These were clearly not Fand’s children, but her expression was blank. “They wanted to meet you.”

  “They did? The honor’s mine.”

  Manannan and Fand stepped to one side and he introduced the tallest of the yeti, with extraordinary braids and silver threads worked into his facial hair. “This is the eldest, Erlendr.”