The Goddess Embraced

by Deborah Davitt

  A bump on the track woke Maccis from his doze, and he stared dazedly out the window, not knowing where he was for a moment. And then understanding returned. Caesaria Aquilonis, Novo Gaul, specifically. Not Judea. He was on the ground, with the pack. Not up in the air, with his brother and brother-in-law. Weird damned dream. Sol’s special forces, usually shock assault. He works with infantry. Rig’s special forces, infiltration. Why would either of them ever be involved in air assaults? That’s not their job. He rubbed at his face, and put the dream out of his mind. It was just his subconscious, trying to keep his mind amused and asleep.

  Still, it had felt real enough that he thought he should be there . . . and not here.

  Two days after that, he and the pack loped out of Divodurum, leaving the bayous of the east for the dustier, dryer lands of the west. Their goal was the Tó Baʼáadi River. In the language of the Diné, the name meant “Female River” or “Southern” river, depending on who translated it. It was the traditional border between Novo Gaul and the Nahautl Empire. The problem was, with as much fighting as was now going on in southern Nahautl; thousands of people were trying to migrate north. The Emperor of Nahautl had specifically requested that his people be turned around and sent home, or otherwise denied entry to Novo Gaul. Novo Gaul was more than happy to accommodate his request; they were sending supplies to refugees in Britannia and Europa, and trying to help the citizens of local petty kingdoms who’d fled mad god attacks, and the deaths of their gods, only to wind up in Gallic or Gothic shelters. They had no time for Nahautl migrants who were only fleeing a little civil unrest. If Novo Gaul and Nova Germania were hotels, Maccis thought they would have their no vacancies signs lit up.

  Fenris himself could not actually cross the river into Nahautl; it would have counted as a breach of the peace of Rome, and the gods of Nahautl did not brook other gods entering their territory. So the fenris pack largely rounded up people crossing the river and returned them across the border, working with local gardia.

  There was no ice or snow here, and at first, Maccis saw little death. It was a relief, really, after eight months of brutal combat against grendels and ettin and lindworms. The soft, drawling patois of the Gallic spoken locally was as different from his father’s Pictish dialect as possible—almost a wholly different language—but he could make out enough words here and there to follow conversations. He was even able to obtain some human clothing—not a kilt, but at least a loose tunic, trousers, and a pair of boots, and he settled in some evenings in a local taverna with the gardia members, and tried to remember how to eat with a knife and a fork, and how to speak in words, instead of mind-speech. He wound up doing a good deal more listening than talking, however, as he tried to remember how to function as a human again.

  The most common topic of conversations in the tavernas wasn’t the war in northern Europa and the exodus from Germania, or even the current shift in Persian tactics—they were swinging south to attempt a Gulf crossing, now that the Wood barred their way to the north. Not even that huge geographical shift really impinged on people’s consciousness around here. Neither did the slow collapse of Qin and India under mad god attacks, and the resulting deaths of gods. The most locals registered were the absences on the shelves at the local markets—some of the best ley-powered far-viewers, for example, had been produced in Qin and Korea since Nippon fell. As a result, a casual walk around any number of stores showed gaps on the shelves . . . and local companies were scrambling to retool factories to try to fill the demand.

  Those lacks, gaps, and absences preyed on people’s minds here. Fresh fruit had once been imported from Nahautl and Tawantinsuyu. Now, food markets were reduced to selling wizened apples out of cold storage, and a great deal of canned and dried fruits largely because supply lines were frequently cut by the fighting in southern Nahautl. In response, local residents had taken to planting kitchen gardens, most of which were currently dormant for the winter.

  The wars to the south—Quechan rebels against Nahautl, the actual Quechan Empire’s own troops, crossing Tawantinsuyu’s and Nahautl’s borders in pursuit of their own rebels, and Roman legionnaires caught in between—were a frequent topic of conversation. As were the mad god attacks that had devastated the petty kingdoms like the Iroquois Confederacy, the Comanche Alliance, and the Lakota Nation. These nations made Caesaria Aquilonis a kind of patchwork, and the mad gods had periodically traveled right through the lands of the Gauls and the Goths to attack these smaller regions. The Diné, one of the largest nations, had extensive lands along the Tó Baʼáadi River, and had taken in vast numbers of refuges from each of these small kingdoms. But they, too, were under threat of attack, and not accepting Nahautl refugees. Too many mouths to feed.

  One conversation later stood out in Maccis’ mind as emblematic of the whole situation. “A mad god tried to attack Novo Trier just last year. It was beaten back by the Valhallan gods, but how long before one of them finds a major city unprotected?” The gardia captain had patted at his brow with a bandana, mopping away light perspiration. “Or a mad one catches a group of us, out in the open, between cities, as we’re trying to find the refugees and send them home? The gods can’t protect us all. And I can’t see any way that we can protect ourselves.”

  “Makes you wonder if those Blood Pact maniacs might not have a point.” That, from a somber man at the same table. Maccis’ head had risen, slightly. His father didn’t talk much about the old days, but Trennus Matrugena had been invited into the Praetorians largely on the strength of having hunted down most of Blood Pact in Europa. They were a very old and usually secretive group of summoners. The fact that they now had a spokesman who’d get on the far-viewer and denounce the gods as spirits who hadn’t been adequately controlled . . . well, it might not even be the original group. It could just be someone using their name. And names had power, of course.

  “Shut your fucking mouth.” The captain had been furious.

  The gardia member had held up his hands placatingly at his superior. “I’m not saying I approve of burning down temples. It’s just . . . I don’t know. Sometimes I just look at the mess that the world’s in . . . and I understand where they’re coming from.”

  Dispirited words, and one of the others had immediately spoken up. “We’ll take care of the problems of man. Let the gods take care of the mad godlings.”

  Maccis had seen the man who’d made the Blood Pact comment sit back, and shake his head. He clearly didn’t believe that the gods would succeed. The young shapeshifter hadn’t had anything to add to the conversation, but he’d smelled fear on some of the gardia members. But not despair—not entirely, anyway. They hadn’t been facing war, the way most of Europa had been.

  Two months passed like this. Relative ease, relative comfort. Maccis was all too aware that Fenris was restive most days. Keyed up for battle, and yet, denied it. And then, on Martius fourteenth, the local gardia came to where the pack was denned up in an old Legion barracks. “We have a city that seems to have gone off the map,” the gardia captain said, mopping at his face. “Féir Crompán. It’s about forty-five miles east of the Tó Baʼáadi. It’s a small town, no more than five, six thousand people, mostly Gauls. They’ve intermarried with Nahautl and others, though. Railroad town, nothing special about it. Not strategic. They pay their taxes. It’s a quiet place.” He wiped at his face again.

  Maccis looked at the others, and then forced words to his tongue. “What do you mean, they’ve gone off the map?”

  “Train conductors on the Alpha-Xi line reported two days ago that there was no one at the station to unload cars or change them in the yard. They went through the station, found no one. Called corporate headquarters, who got on the phone to their manager’s home, ready to tear him a new one. No answer. No answers by anyone in the company directory, either. The guys on the train had a schedule to keep, so they left, not really checking the rest of the town. Train company called us, wondering if there was some kind of an unannounced labor strike, or if their pe
ople were maybe being held hostage.” He mopped at his face with his kerchief. “We called the local gardia office there. No answer. Not in two days. Then we went through the phone directory for the entire town, starting with the letter alpha. Still no answers. By that point, I wasn’t going to send anyone there in an automobile, in case it was the plague or ghul or some damn thing. So we sent a small plane overhead early this morning. The pilot didn’t see any moving vehicles. No one in the streets. It’s a ghost town. At this point, I’m thinking it could be a mad god attack.” He swallowed, visibly.

  We will investigate for you. Fenris’ head came up, and Maccis knew that tone very well. It said that battle was at hand, and the great wolf was looking forward to the hunt. Safer for all if we go alone. I will call to the gods of the Gauls and of Valhalla, if there is need.

  Maccis managed to send a quick telegram to Zaya. He wished he had a sat-phone; hearing her voice would be very helpful, but he wasn’t exactly getting paid for the work he was doing, other than being fed and housed. Even a long-distance call from the barracks was prohibitively expensive. Mail was still getting across the Sea of Atlas, though many people currently feared to fly. Dozens of smaller mad gods had been racing through the world since Jormangand’s destruction of a larger one in Britannia. You were still more likely to be hit by lightning than to suffer an airplane crash, but that didn’t stop fear. As such, the cost of postage had gone up, so he preferred to try to send her telegrams, instead. Necessarily, then, his message was terse: Finally an end to guard duty STOP Things might get interesting around here STOP Miss you STOP First year almost over STOP Hope to see you soon.

  He sent it before he could stop and think about it, and then they were loping through the arid land towards where the town was located. And when they found it . . . his hackles rose. The trail was several days old at this point. But he could smell fear and blood, almost everywhere. Motorcars were stopped in the middle of streets, their doors still open, their engines run down from their original ley-charge, keys still in the starter. Maccis could smell blood near many of them.

  The houses were more disturbing. Front doors had been broken down. The bedclothes were rumpled. He and the others found children’s dolls and stuffed toys lying on the ground. The pantries had all been raided, and every bit of food taken away. Blood here and there. Bullet casings on the ground. In every case, the dominant smells of each house were of a family, easy to detect, as their scents were impregnated in their bedding and the walls themselves . . . and strangers, who’d come to their doors, broken in, and taken the families out. At a dozen different houses, there were fresh graves. Smell of decay from under each disturbed patch of soil. Fenris ordered the pack to dig up the graves, and Maccis was grateful that in wolf form, he didn’t vomit at these odors. Of course, they were disturbing in another fashion. The wolf was a carnivore. This smelled like food. But it also smelled like kin, and it set up an appalling discord in the head of every fenris. Especially those who had run wild and mad in Europa before Sigrun and Saraid had altered their minds.

  Every body that they exhumed had had the heart removed. Most had been hit over the head with a heavy blunt instrument before their death, as well, probably to keep them from struggling. Every one of them was an adult male, and each had been buried with a musket or a rifle. Mark of respect? Tofa offered. The female had returned to the pack after a month of recuperation from her injuries. They resisted. They were accorded the status of warriors in death?

  Follow the scents, Fenris growled, his voice low with menace. Even if those who came here and took the population away traveled in vehicles, their scent will be left behind.

  There’s more than one way to track them, Maccis offered. The attack appears to have happened at night. Many tavernas have surveillance cameras in their parking lots, to ensure their patrons’ safety. Stores have them to prevent shoplifting and deter burglaries.

  Can you make these cameras speak to you?

  Perhaps. I have never worked with such a system before. Maccis spent the half-hour that the other wolves were using to track by scent, going through the back rooms of three or four stores, and finally found an operational security system in a taverna that had simple enough directions on its hardware. Rewind, play, stop recording, and so on. “The film loops every seventy-two hours, apparently,” he told Auda, who slipped into the security room with him. “We might not actually see the attack—oh, damnú air!” The curse slipped into lupine vocal characteristics. “Look at that.”

  On the screen, men in the uniform of Eagle warriors—the elite units of Nahautl, shock troops, who had social status equal to that of Jaguar warriors—burst into the taverna, holding weapons on the patrons. Lined them up against the wall, at gunpoint, and began frisking and binding them all. The first man who resisted was clubbed with the butt of a rifle, and the second was shot on the spot. Eventually, the people were led out through the open door, to where school buses had been lined up in the street. All local ones. And then they were loaded aboard.

  Maccis’ hands shook as he removed the tape reel, and wrote a note on foolscap, labeling it for the gardia. “I’ll call the authorities,” he said, out loud. “Someone should know. Someone will need to—”

  Do what? Fenris asked from outside, his voice loud in Maccis’ mind. File a formal protest with the Nahautl Empire? Request the return of their people?

  Chances are good that they will have crossed over the border by now, Auda pointed out, quietly.

  We cannot delay if there is any hope of rescuing the survivors at all. It may not be our place—we are foreigners here—but we are the only people in the area right now. Tofa shook her head, her ears catching the air with a hollow sound.

  Auda growled a little. Will not the gods of the Nahautl take your crossing of the border amiss, however? That was directed at Fenris, who was still outside the taverna. Not to mention the Emperor? Crossing the border may be provocative.

  If their gods have disregarded the peace of Rome and ordered this? Then they can meet my teeth, if they dare. And if this is just the work of misguided men, and their gods do nothing to stop them? Then they all may match strength with me. We have respected a line drawn on parchment because that is the way of the world. But while I respect territory, as wolves always do, and I heed the words of Valhalla . . . I am not bound by the maps of men.

  Maccis lifted his head. I didn’t think to be starting a war today. The words came out in mind-speech, in spite of his human form.

  If the gods of Nahautl authorize this sort of . . . treachery . . . then we are already at war. Fenris’ growl deepened. They are at war to the south, and fear the mad gods, and yet court reprisal from the north? No. This must be the work of humans. The Emperor of these people may not even be aware of it having been done. May his gods help him if he was, however.

  They bypassed the border guards by the simple expedient of loping over the surface of the river after nightfall, avoiding bridges and roads, and slunk through the underbrush, cutting back to the main local highway, canvassing until they found the scent again. As he ran with the pack, Maccis could picture the events of three days ago clearly in his mind’s eye. Bring nothing to the town that would attract attention. Use the school buses and local public transit vehicles to transport people away. Kill the people who resisted, and bury them hastily.

  Leave no witnesses.

  But why?

  It bothered him, having seen the proud uniforms of the Eagle warriors. He’d met a Jaguar warrior, several times—one of Aunt Sigrun’s partners in the Praetorians, and the son of one of her previous partners. It seemed unlikely that men of such honor could do such things. Perhaps the uniforms were disguises, he thought, dispiritedly, and kept slinking along the side of the road with the others, until they reached Fuscus Lapillus, a Roman-built town just over the border. Maccis could immediately smell something horrific. Burning flesh and blood, carried on the wind. Every one of the fenris tensed, and Maccis could feel the determination of the pack solidify
around him, as they crept from building to building through the darkness, avoiding street lights. Brushing past garbage cans beside houses, leaping over fences. A few dogs charged out to challenge them and then fled, yelping, their tails between their legs and urine leaking from their bladders, as a fenris turned and growled, once. No humans came out to check on their animals, however.

  The streets adhered to a Roman-style grid, but Fuscus Lapillus had a central market area, or a playa, as many Nahautl towns did, around which a dozen temples had been built, and the largest of these were small stepped pyramids for the veneration of local gods. The reason for the quiet of the neighborhood streets was evident; most of the residents had turned out—or had been ordered to turn out—and had assembled in the playa. The Roman temples were on fire, and the statues of the gods—Juno, Jupiter, Mars, and Apollo—had been dragged into the street and were being broken apart by men with sledgehammers. Maccis quivered in the darkness. He could see that the priests of the Roman gods—some of them locals, by their features, though they wore Roman ceremonial robes—were being flayed alive, bound at hands and feet to a long pole. They were screaming, and their voices barely carried above the crowd noise. Many in the crowd were cheering. Some looked deeply disquieted, however, and Maccis’ head swung, trying to understand why the various people in the crowd weren’t stopping this madness . . . and that was when he saw the soldiers with guns, lining the edges of the playa. The reason for the cheering became suddenly very clear indeed. Cheer, or you will be next.