“Be right back. See if you can start a fire.”
“I have absolutely no idea how to do that,” Hannah said.
Emily stared at the ground before them and gestured at all the fallen branches. “I think I can manage. My father taught me when I was a kid. You know how much those hicks love camping.” It was so rare Emily actually brought up her parents that Hannah didn’t press her on it.
The deer nodded and sped off, far faster than Hannah was sure deer could move. Magic deer were weird.
✥ ✥ ✥
After their first warm meal in what felt like far longer than it actually had been, Hannah and Emily climbed onto the increasingly long deer as it grew another set of legs, and set off toward the snake carcass that blocked the horizon.
“Promise not to get mad about your girlfriend riding me?” Deer chuckles were a very strange sound, and Hannah hoped to never hear one again.
“Hey, I’m riding you too,” Emily said. “Knew it would happen eventually.”
“Please…you’re too butch for me.”
The group rode on, Hannah and Emily taking in the sights as their deer-friend focused on running. Alys was quite obviously still growing accustomed to having six legs, as they stumbled often, but they never fully lost their balance, and Hannah and Emily were never tossed off onto the ground.
The dead snake finally seemed to be growing closer. It actually felt as if they were making some real progress. Finally.
“Wow,” Emily muttered. They were past the serene forest. Now there were rockier planes and plateaus, all overgrown with weeds and vines. Corpses in various states of decay, some several times the size of a normal human, littered the ground. Some still held their weapons, while others must have had them stripped away by a desperate combatant. It was strange seeing what was a battlefield now that it was still and quiet. With all the corpses, Hannah had expected it to reek, but it was mostly an old earthy scent, like going into an attic that no one had been inside in years.
Please don’t wake up. Hannah watched each body for any sign of stirring. If watching Megan play those games that she couldn’t recall the title of—the ones that had those shitty movies made of them—had taught her anything, it was that dead bodies in mystical locales always rose up and attacked. She knew that this was real life, but as a dead person who had been brought back, she felt that wasn’t much evidence against her fear.
For quite a while, the bodies did as she wished, remaining still and restful in their eternal slumber. Unfortunately, about halfway toward their destination, a couple corpses that were slumped against some rocks in what would have been an incredibly uncomfortable position began to stir. One gripped a weapon and took a sluggish step toward them, but Alys was too fast, and sped off into the trees before it could have done anything to them.
“Did you see that?” Hannah asked, tightening her hold on Emily.
With a strangled whimper, Emily managed, “Mm-hmm.”
“Sorry.” Hannah loosened her grip, hoping she hadn’t broken any ribs.
“It’s fine.” She still sounded pained. “Were those zombies?”
“Draugr,” Alys replied, exertion clear in their tone as they hopped along a path taken over by roots and vines, making the footing treacherous for spindly legs.
“What’s the difference?”
“Well, they won’t try to eat you.” They panted, almost losing their footing as their right-middle leg sank into an old root. “Okay, they might try to eat you, but they shouldn’t have a preference for brains.”
“Will they attack us?”
“Yeah.”
“Then they’re zombies. Hell, most zombies don’t even have a thing for brains.”
“Whatever,” they muttered back, leaping onto a raised bit of land that seemed clearer of obstacles. Rather than continue, they planted their butt firmly on the ground, causing Hannah to copy them far more forcefully.
“Ow!”
“I’m exhausted. You try doing all this.”
“Sorry.”
Emily slid into Hannah’s lap. “Hey, there.” She grinned at her and planted a kiss on Hannah’s cheek before rising to her feet and helping her up. “You need a break?”
The deer nodded.
She looked around. “I don’t see any more of those things. Rest while you can. Want some more food?”
“I do,” Hannah said.
“Me too. Emily, you still have the bag?”
“Yeah, but I think we’re gonna have to eat it cold this time.”
“That’s fine.”
They took a brief break, the three of them keeping on constant guard for any signs of their new undead friends.
Feeling a bit restored, they continued on foot. Alys had shifted to a similar form to the one they’d used earlier but with black hair and slightly broader shoulders. “I don’t think we’re going to find the belt without a fight,” they said, their eyes probing the nearby shrubbery for any sign of danger.
“I can’t fight,” Hannah said.
They stared at her. “You’re Thor.”
She shrugged. “So? You said my thing was thunder and strength, not fighting.”
“But you have superstrength.”
“Doesn’t mean I know what to do with it.”
Emily held out a hand, silencing them. “Well, it looks like you might have the chance to find out.”
Following her gaze, Hannah saw two of the corpses walking toward them, still partially concealed by the branches of a nearby tree. They were both brandishing axes. For some reason, this was always how Hannah thought she’d die. “But…” She backed away, holding her hands up as she stared at the zombie-like creatures walking toward her. They weren’t even shambling. That wasn’t fair.
“Fine,” Alys growled. “Get behind me and let me know if anything’s sneaking up.”
Okay. She could do that. She didn’t have to hit anyone, so that would be fine. It didn’t matter that they were zombies. She felt sick just thinking about it. She could end up hurting Emily and Alys. Worse, if she accepted that fighting was okay, what would stop her from doing it again? No matter what, she couldn’t repeat it. She’d almost killed that guy.
But she could keep an eye out. Swallowing, she glanced around what barely qualified as a clearing, looking for interlopers, glancing over her shoulders every few seconds. It didn’t look like any of the other zombies were headed their way. At least, for now.
“What the hell do you expect me to do?” Emily asked. “Aren’t I like the goddess of wine?”
“Earth, marriage, and grain, mostly.” Alys leapt back as one of the corpses took a swing with the heavy-looking axe. “I don’t think we have time for talking.” They charged, ramming their shoulder into the creature. The instant they made contact, their arm became a mess of tentacles, wrapping around the body and holding it in place. They tried to pry the axe from its grip, but even in its current predicament, it seemed unwilling to let go.
“Can’t you ask your friend about this? She’s the goddess of death, right? Shouldn’t she be able to stop walking corpses?”
“Try hitting it,” they snapped back, growing horns.
Hannah continued her watch. They were still alone, but the other monster was advancing on Emily. She wanted to call out, but Emily could already see it, and distracting her could mean her life. Hannah wished Megan was here. The only other time she’d ever been in a fight before the man in the alley, Megan had pulled her off that poor girl. Alys did it once and Megan another time. What if she fought without anyone here? She’d kill someone. If only Megan hadn’t freaked out, she could’ve joined them, and they wouldn’t be unarmed against two living corpses with weapons.
Emily barely dodged a blow from its blade, her long golden tresses whipping by the weapon. It didn’t seem to take any hair, but Hannah supposed a haircut was a lot better than losing an arm…or her head. She felt so helpless. She couldn’t fight, she couldn’t, no matter what, but she couldn’t let the woman she loved die eit
her. She looked around again, this time for anything that Emily could use as a weapon.
A loud crack echoed through the clearing as the newly horned Alys’s head collided with that of the creature in their grasp. One of the horns caught, and the spray of gore when they ripped it away made Hannah cover her mouth to keep from vomiting. She tried to focus on her task to keep the assortment of pulled pork and beer where it belonged. Her gaze hopped from rock, to branch, to tree, but nothing seemed suitable. She did wonder if she could rip a tree out of the ground, but she didn’t have time to play around. She needed an immediate solution.
Finally, she found something. An honest-to-goodness sword was lying by a nearby tree. She ran for it, hoping her departure wouldn’t cause Emily and Alys any particular concern. As she rounded the bend, she snatched it from the ground, grinning broadly. She was actually helping, and she didn’t even need to fight. She could do this.
A hand grabbed her wrist. Apparently, this sword already had an owner, and the corpse that had been leaning against the tree, out of her sight from where she’d been, wanted it back. The smell wasn’t earthy anymore. Now it was like being inside a dumpster full of rotting meat, that someone had defecated in. “Sorry. Can I just borrow this for a minute?” she asked, trying to sound chipper even as the corpse opened its mouth as if it was ready to eat her. She was probably too tough to taste good. Should she tell it that? “I’ll give it right back,” she squeaked.
His blue-gray face contorted into a horrifying caricature of a smile. “You’ve the first voice I’ve heard in many years, Thor.”
With a great deal of effort, Hannah managed to swallow the lump in her throat. “Oh?” Her voice was shaky and frail. She could scarcely recognize it as her own.
“The blade is iron. If you’d like it, you may have it.”
“Okay?” Shuddering, she tried to pull away, but the Draugr didn’t let go.
“It seems you’ll be meeting Hel soon. No reason for me to hurry that trip. Though you’ve been once before, haven’t you, Thunderer?”
She nodded.
“Take the blade. It seems my kin have a desire for your friends’ flesh. I can see why. It has been so long since I had a meal.”
Not desiring to see what the creature was going to do, Hannah ripped free, his hands still clinging to her as she ran back to the clearing.
The two zombies Emily and Alys had been fighting were twice as large as Emily now, making Hannah feel all the smaller. She could scarcely even see where Alys ended and their opponent began, both of their forms were so twisted and misshapen. She heard footsteps behind her and knew that her newest friend must have decided that sending her to Hel did sound worth it. “Emily!” she shouted.
Turning, Emily narrowly managed to avoid having her head cleaved off, but her lips curled into a vicious smile as she saw the weapon in Hannah’s hands. Knowing that if she threw it, it would be more likely to kill Emily than the zombie, Hannah ran over and handed it to her.
“Thanks, honey.” Her smile grew larger, her teeth showing with a malicious glee as she swung the blade at the creature. “Fucking finally! All this god shit and I finally get to the good part.”
It couldn’t move its axe back in time. The sword cleaved it in two as if it was little more than a stick of butter. Why would it still be so sharp? “Iron, of course,” came a distorted sound near her. The living mass of razor-lined tentacles wriggled in delight, ripping off the skewered head of what had once been a human body as the mass shifted back into the moderately familiar form of Alys—now with gray eyes and red and black hair. “Good thinking. These things don’t like iron too much. Cut it a few more times.”
“There’s another one,” Hannah said, pointing toward the armless monster behind her, whose limbs still clung to her wrists, waving uselessly as she gestured. There were so many terrifying things happening around her that the severed hand barely even registered.
Emily charged, winding the blade back as if it was a baseball bat, and took off the thing’s head with a mighty blow that sent it flying and caused the body to tumble over.
“Let me see if I can figure this out,” Alys muttered, closing their eyes. Hannah didn’t know a lot about fighting, but she was pretty sure that wasn’t a great way to go about it.
Their hand moved in a strange pattern, and the world around them began to heat up. The corpses, struggling all the while, caught fire, the blaze building from their chests and expanding outward, igniting the grass as it went.
“I’d suggest we run,” Alys said, wasting no time in following their own advice.
They sped off, leaving the corpses and the forest around them to the inferno.
As they fled, the body of the serpent grew closer. Hannah hoped it wasn’t going to rise up and attack. She’d had more than enough being attacked by undead monsters for the day, and she doubted they’d fare anywhere near as well against that monstrosity.
Suddenly, it was right in front of them. Panting, Hannah leaned against the mound of scales and flesh, finding that it gave more than she’d have expected, and she sank in. She took a deep breath, trying not to think about how gross that was. At least it was comfortable. “What now?” she asked, still trying to catch her breath.
“Now we head to the head,” Alys said. “It’s not like you died fighting its ass.”
She nodded.
“Which way?” Emily asked.
Hannah glanced at Emily and Alys. They both seemed whole. Now that the adrenaline was starting to fade, she’d been worried they could have been injured and not noticed. “Is everyone okay?”
“I’m great,” Emily said, sounding a little too excited. “Did you see me back there?”
“My tentacles are gone.”
“You got rid of them,” Emily replied.
“Oh. Right. Then I guess I’m fine. At least as fine as anyone can be without tentacles.”
“You can grow them again.”
“It wouldn’t be the same.” Alys sighed forlornly, dramatically holding their hand to their forehead.
Hannah sank to the ground, using the squishy snake body as a somewhat disgusting pillow.
“So no one’s gonna answer my question about the head?” Emily whined.
Alys rolled their eyes—blue now—and smirked. “We go the opposite direction of its scales. It’s a snake, it’s made to be able to move across the ground.”
“Didn’t it live in the water?”
“You researched.” They grinned. “But no, not originally. After I fathered it, it lived on land until Odin made it eat its tail and threw it in the ocean. My poor baby.” They patted the side of the serpent.
“How did you give birth to…” Hannah paused for emphasis, gesturing wildly to the horrifying monstrosity. “That?”
“Technically, Angrboda did. I just impregnated her. Well, the old Loki, not me, obviously. I’ve no intention of fathering or mothering any children. Or parenting at all, for that matter. I’m sorry this all happened. Ragnarok, I mean. My kids don’t turn out too well, do they?” They took a few steps back, staring at the body, taking in the size and shape of the scales. “It should be this way. We just need to go find the head. Hopefully your body, or at least your belt, will be around there. Then we can get out of here.” Their gaze fell on the burning forest behind them. “Hopefully.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Hannah asked. “I’ve known my kids for a few weeks now, and while I still have trouble believing it, I know it’d hurt to see them die.”
It took a little while, but Alys nodded. “I knew he was dead. And that he killed you. But I also know he’s my kid. As is Hel. It doesn’t change that they keep choosing to hurt the people I care about.”
Hannah wasn’t sure what to say to that. Normally she’d hug them, but they were covered in gore, and she wasn’t sure what that hug might mean. She should at least think things through first.
They walked on for a few miles with no one disturbing them. Apparently, even the Draugr steered clear of
the creature. Maybe they too were scared it would rise up and want to eat them. “Do you think we could ride you again?” Emily asked, turning to Alys. She never had been one for working out.
“Geez, buy a god a drink first.”
Hannah grabbed a beer from the bag on her back. “Here, now will you?”
“For you, beautiful? Any time.” They drained the can, and their body began shifting back into the form of the six-legged deer. The antlers seemed bigger than they had been the previous time.
They climbed aboard and made good time, though it was still several hours before they finally reached the serpent’s head.
Once there, they dismounted, and Alys took the same human form as before. It had been a long day, and Hannah couldn’t blame them for not feeling particularly creative. “You’re supposed to have died nine paces from him. Walk around in a circle around the head, and if someone finds something, call out. Hopefully we don’t have to deal with Draugr Thor because that does not sound like a fun fight.”
“I’m sure he’d never attack us since Emily’s here.”
“I’m not making out with a zombie.”
They spread out, searching the ground for the glint of metal or the sight of a skeleton in fancy armor. The sun was almost directly overhead, so it wasn’t difficult. “They had the gauntlets,” Hannah called loud enough for the others to hear. “So probably they took the body.”
“Or the gauntlets fell off and no one found him,” Emily said.
“It’s only nine steps. He couldn’t have been that far,” Alys said.
“How do you know it’s nine steps?” Hannah asked. “Did Hel tell you?”
“Well, no, but it’s what the myths say. It’s even what the prophecy said.”
Emily replied, “Maybe it was wrong. None of the myths depicted us coming back to life. Did they?”
“Just Baldur.”
“Wait.” Emily sounded like she was barely holding back her anger, as if this was proof that Alys had lied again. “Baldur is supposed to be alive? You don’t think that might be why he’s in Idavollr?”
Alys shook their head. “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t imagine you can raise the same person twice. I don’t think you can copy a soul or whatever it is that makes us the same people we were, and Baldur was part of her plans on Earth. She’d revive him there, not just release him in Idavollr fine as can be with all his memories. All she wants is to be alive again, to be able to escape from Hel. If she was going to release Baldur, why wouldn’t she get the apple in exchange for that? There’s no reason she wouldn’t be able to do so. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Thor: Daughter of Asgard Page 22
