Lugh lost count of how many maces he ignited, but he was beginning to think Horus’s plan of dumping the bastard into some desert on Earth wasn’t such a terrible idea when it finally shrieked one last time and slithered backwards, trying to get away from the gods that it couldn’t kill… but apparently, they couldn’t kill it either.
All around them, puddles of fire with the charred bodies of whatever fell out of Aži Dahaka’s body lit a path toward the walls of Basri’s fortress. The farther the snake retreated, the more fires dripped from its body, showing the gods exactly where they needed to go to enter those walls.
“Are we really going to let it get away?” Badb panted.
“Don’t think we have a choice,” Lugh replied. “Besides, this way we can see exactly how to get past the wall.”
“Yeah, and alert Ahriman and all of his daevas that we’re coming,” Macha argued.
“They most likely already know,” Lugh argued back. “Who couldn’t hear all the screaming or see the fires?”
Macha squinted at him but said, “Conceded.”
“There,” Badb said, pointing to a curve in the wall where Aži Dahaka just seemed to disappear. “I guess we follow it?”
Lugh grinned at Athena and asked, “Any chance you have a big wooden horse we can all hide in?”
“Even if I did, I’m pretty sure Ahriman isn’t as stupid as the Trojans. And that was Odysseus’s idea anyway, not mine.”
“It worked, didn’t it? You gods had to have helped, because that is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard,” Horus added.
Athena snickered and said, “Ask my half-wit brother over there. He’s the one who sided with the Trojans. Maybe he fed them all stupid for breakfast.”
Badb snorted and shook her head. “God, I love our family.”
“God, I hope we’re right his army is just a bunch of demigods,” Lugh murmured.
Horus and Osiris crept to the bend in the wall and peeked around the corner. Horus looked back at Lugh and lifted a shoulder at him. “It’s solid.”
“Must be an illusion. Can you enter it?”
Horus inched toward the curvature and reached a hesitant hand toward it. His fingers had almost nervously touched the surface of the wall—if there was a real surface there—when his father grabbed his arm and whispered, “Be careful.”
Horus jumped and spun around to scowl at Osiris. “I was trying before you scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” Osiris mumbled. “Just a bit freaked out that we’re about to walk into the Devil’s lair.”
“Still not the Devil,” Lugh corrected.
“Still kinda is,” Osiris argued. “Different religion, different name, but same thing.”
“Oh, I’ll do it,” Nemain said, marching to the curvature through which Aži Dahaka had disappeared. She stuck a hand out before Badb could stop her, and it disappeared into the blue-gray wall. Nemain gasped and pulled her arm back, rubbing her hand as if she were trying to ensure it were still attached to her arm.
“At least no one grabbed you,” Lugh offered helpfully.
“Aži Dahaka is far bigger than us and it got through easily. I’m guessing we can all go in together,” Badb said. “And it would be a lot safer for us to go together.”
Lugh took a deep breath and tossed his Spear from his left hand to his right, but he nodded. “Any chance I’m not the only one who can summon some of his powers here?”
“The Dagda and Horus are sky and weather gods,” Osiris answered. “Since there’s no real sky, there’s nothing for them to control. I’m a god of the afterlife, of death. I helped mortals transition. Not much use to anyone anymore. You’re better off having so many brilliant gods of war with you.”
“You forgot me,” Poseidon pointed out.
“Gods and their egos,” Badb said.
“If there are demigods living here,” he whispered, “there must be water somewhere. And if we can find it, I can control it. Not as well as in Olympus or on Earth, but enough that it can harm them.”
“And your battle cry?” Lugh asked Badb.
“If it’ll work on them here. But yeah, let’s get inside and try it.”
Lugh took another deep breath then smiled at his family and friends. “If we don’t make it out, Badb and I are claiming that small palace near the hill and brook in Findias. And I’ll totally kick your ass if you try to get it before us.”
“Yeah, we love you too, Sun God,” Nemain teased.
“All right, my Little Crow,” Lugh said. “Get ready to fly.”
The small group of gods walked through the illusion of the wall… and straight into a very real wall of pissed off demigods.
Chapter Eleven
“So…” Lugh said. “Daevas?”
The demigods glared at him but didn’t answer.
“Try fire,” the Dagda suggested.
Flames ignited beneath the feet of the demigods, but just as they couldn’t touch Aži Dahaka, the demigods remained unscathed.
“I don’t think we can kill them with fire,” Poseidon observed smartly.
“Water?” Ares asked.
“None around,” Poseidon answered.
The demigods suddenly advanced as if a secret signal had been given, their swords reflecting the flickering light from the flames around them. Badb put her sword in its sheath and transformed into a crow so she could fly above the heads of their enemy. Considering fire didn’t touch them, she didn’t hold much hope that her battle cry could disrupt them like it was supposed to.
She cawed loudly just as the demigods reached her family and friends, their swords poised in the air to strike the invading gods. The Persians looked up at her as she circled above them, and she cawed again. A few dropped their swords and stumbled into each other. Most stood still as if they’d been turned to stone.
This wasn’t the first time she’d distracted and disoriented opponents on a battlefield, so her friends and family below immediately knew this was their chance to attack. The daevas began to fall under the onslaught, and as their bodies collapsed into the flames, they finally began to burn. She was about to cry again when the demigods seemed to regain their senses, but rather than fighting back, they vanished.
Badb flew back to the ground and landed next to Lugh, surveying the battlefield, trying to comprehend just what was going on in this strange realm. “Ahriman must be protecting them somehow.”
Lugh nodded and let his fire die completely now that they were alone. “It’s almost like he’s inside them somehow. Once they die, that protection is gone, so their bodies burn.”
“Like selling their souls?” Athena asked.
“Something like that,” Lugh said.
“I’m officially completely freaked out,” Osiris decided. “Let’s go home.”
“We made it this far,” the Dagda offered. “Might as well look for the bastard.”
“He can get inside people’s souls!” Osiris whispered. “That’s not a god I want to look for.”
“Then I suppose you’re in luck,” an unfamiliar voice responded. “I’ve come looking for you.”
“Damn it,” Osiris sighed.
A man’s figure emerged from the total darkness into the dim light from one of the lamps hanging near a path in his fortress. Surprisingly, he looked completely normal and nothing like the devil Badb had expected. Ahriman stopped directly beneath the lamp, which cast gray shadows across his face.
“I’m guessing we’ve lost the element of surprise,” Lugh said smartly.
Ahriman laughed and shook his head. “And what makes you think you ever had it?”
“For the record,” Lugh replied, “stuffing snakes inside a giant snake is cosmic cheating. Fate’s going to smite you for that.”
“Fate,” he scoffed, “can’t touch me.”
“Where’s your counterpart?” Badb asked. “Doesn’t Ahura Mazda care that you’re destroying realms and stealing demigods?”
“I’m not stealing anyone. They choose
to become daevas. And each of you has spent your entire existence interfering in the lives of men. Now that someone is interfering in yours, you object.”
“Sounds about right,” Lugh pretended to agree.
Badb rolled her eyes at her boyfriend then glanced toward Ahriman and snapped, “Did you really come out here to monologue? Because I hate monologuing. It’s incredibly annoying.”
Ahriman snorted and asked her, “Would you rather I just kill you quickly?”
“Yeah, actually, I would. Especially if you’re not going to shut up anytime soon.”
“Um… I don’t think Badb should speak for all of us,” Poseidon interjected.
“I don’t know,” Horus argued. “She does have a point. No one should be allowed to monologue. It is annoying.”
“What is wrong with all of you?” Ahriman asked.
“Currently?” Lugh asked back. “You.”
Ahriman grunted at him and waved a hand at the group. “Three of the most powerful pantheons in the world send their best to try to kill me, and this is what I face?”
“Kind of disappointing, isn’t it?” Lugh said.
“Terribly,” Ahriman agreed.
The Persian god’s eyes flickered to Badb and he smiled at her, obviously sensing she’d been prying in his mind. “Find what you were looking for, Morrigan?”
“Badb, not Morrigan,” she corrected. “And yeah, I did.”
Ahriman arched an eyebrow at her. “Doubtful.”
Badb shrugged then summoned Ahura Mazda, who blinked at her then at the other gods standing next to her. She pointed to Ahriman and said, “He’s being mean.”
Ahura Mazda squinted at the evil god, whose eyes had widened. “How did you do that?” he hissed.
“Not so hard once I found out where his realm is,” Badb explained.
“What have you been up to, Angra Mainyu?” Ahura Mazda asked.
“Who?” Macha whispered.
“Same guy,” Lugh whispered back. “Different name.”
Ahriman ignored them, and tried to back into the shadows, but Ahura Mazda apparently wouldn’t let him. The Wise Lord of the Persians never moved, but Badb could feel the power he commanded and the tight reins he kept around Ahriman. “It isn’t time,” Ahriman protested. “Not yet.”
“I won’t kill you,” Ahura Mazda assured him. “Not yet. But you won’t be leaving Basri again.”
Ahriman disappeared, and the lamps along the path burned brighter as Ahura Mazda finally turned to look at the goddess who had summoned him to the Land of Darkness. “I can’t let you kill him either. That is my destiny, not yours.”
“He destroyed the Slavic heaven, which has created a cascade of events we’re powerless to stop. Do you know how many worlds are going to be lost because of him?” Lugh responded.
“I’m sorry,” Ahura Mazda said. “Truly. But all I can offer you is the promise he won’t escape his own realm again.”
Nemain crossed her arms angrily and snapped, “If you have the power to imprison him here, why didn’t you do it a long time ago? Then we wouldn’t be here and our cousins would still have their realm.”
“Olympus is gone?” he asked, sounding genuinely astonished that a world as renowned as the Greek’s could just vanish.
Badb was still trying to wrap her mind around it as well.
“The Sumerians sent their scorpion men,” Poseidon explained. “Their world is gone now too.”
“This won’t end anytime soon,” Lugh added.
“No,” Ahura Mazda agreed sadly. “I’m afraid not. We still have believers though. Zarathustra prophesied our fates a long time ago. I’m tethered to that prophecy just as you were once committed to the roles men assigned you. Changing that would disrupt their entire belief system, and I have no right to do that.”
“So we just invaded Basri for no reason,” Athena complained.
“We didn’t know how to find Ahura Mazda,” Badb pointed out. “At least he’ll keep Ahriman from coming near the Otherworld. It’s better than nothing.”
“I won’t be able to stop his daevas,” Ahura Mazda said. “But they can’t threaten the Otherworld. It’s his role to try to tempt mortals toward sin, and his daevas will continue to work on Earth. But they’re no match for gods.”
“That’s between you and humans,” Lugh said. “But after fighting Aži Dahaka, this is really kind of anti-climactic.”
Ahura Mazda snorted and nodded in what Badb assumed was smartass agreement. “That thing is a freakish abomination. Everything is kind of anti-climactic after facing off with it.”
“If you ever need us,” Lugh responded with a smile, “you know where to find us.”
The darkness of Basri exploded into the brilliant warm light of the Otherworld as Lugh brought them all home to prepare for the only battle that mattered now.
It was time to invade Asgard.
Chapter Twelve
Vanaheim reminded Badb of Murias with its impossibly soft, green grass and aquamarine sea that gently kissed the sloping cliff where Njörd’s castle awaited his return. Athena scowled at it and said, “Let’s go break a few windows.”
“Why?” Lugh asked. “He didn’t help plan the invasion of Olympus.”
Athena shrugged. “He’s still Norse, which means he’s still an asshole.”
Badb snickered but redirected her friend toward the horizon where Vanaheim would eventually meet Asgard. “You can destroy all the castles you want soon. No reason to alert the Norse we’re coming sooner than we have to.”
“Oh, you’d better believe I’m burning Valhalla to the ground,” she muttered.
“Hey,” Lugh protested, “that’s my job.”
“Leave it to Odin to be so arrogant that he needs a palace made of gold,” Osiris complained.
“To be fair, we do all live in palaces,” the Dagda countered. “Even if they’re made of stone.”
“True,” Osiris agreed, “but we need them because most of us share our homes with family.”
“And Odin shares his with dead warriors,” Ares said. “Because that’s normal.”
Osiris nodded and added, “I don’t even want to know what he does with all those spirits.”
“Great,” Macha complained. “I’m officially scarred for life.”
“Anybody figured out what we’re going to do with all those dead guys?” Horus asked. “None of us know how many we’ll have to fight, and presumably, they’re as corporeal in Asgard as spirits are in Findias.”
“I think we’re doing them a favor,” Athena said. “They should welcome us as liberators.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll see it that way,” Badb retorted. “We can’t kill a spirit in its own realm, which is why Osiris is going to take them to Earth and scatter them.”
Osiris stopped walking and gaped at her. “I’m going to what?”
Badb sighed impatiently. “You’re a god of the dead, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, of the Egyptian dead. And you didn’t think to share this part of your plan with me before we left Murias?”
Badb threw her hands up and exclaimed, “I was kind of busy planning an invasion!”
“Sh!” the Dagda and Poseidon scolded.
Badb waved them off and insisted, “There’s no one around to hear us. And they’d sense us long before they could hear us anyway.”
“Can we get back to this idea that I’m supposed to haul a bunch of Norse spirits to Earth?” Osiris asked.
“Sure,” Badb said. “When we reach Asgard, go straight to Valhalla, round up all the dead warriors, bring them to Earth, and make sure you scatter them around so the Valkyries can’t just bring them right back.”
Osiris blinked at her then blinked at Lugh. “She’s joking, right?”
“Afraid not,” Lugh said.
Osiris turned to the Dagda and said, “I’m going home.”
The Dagda snorted and shook his head. “Then who will clear out Valhalla?”
“Are we really going to stand
around Vanaheim arguing?” Artemis interjected.
“How are you not used to this by now?” Athena asked.
“I stupidly thought we could make an exception for the most dangerous invasion we’ve ever launched,” she mumbled.
“When we get back, I’m building a palace in Gorias,” Poseidon decided.
“Don’t blame you,” Lugh said.
“Um…” Athena murmured. “Does anyone know if Vanaheim is next to Jötunheim?”
“Please tell me you don’t see a giant,” Badb groaned.
“I see a giant,” Athena said.
“Hasn’t Thor killed all those bastards yet?”
“Apparently not.”
Badb groaned again but followed Athena’s gaze. A hulking form in the distance that could have easily been a hill against the pale blue skyline if it weren’t moving, bobbed and jerked closer to the group of gods who stood silently watching, frozen in their surprise that a giant had shown up in Vanaheim.
Poseidon glanced nervously at the Dagda and whispered, “Should we go kill it?”
“Maybe,” the Dagda whispered back. “Anyone know how to kill a giant?”
“If we need a stupid hammer, I really am going home,” Osiris said.
The ground began to tremble as the giant got closer, but he stopped before he was in range of the gods’ weapons. He crossed his arms and tilted his head as if studying them then called out, “You’ve come to kill the Aesir?”
“It’s unlikely we’ll kill them all,” the Dagda responded. “But we have no intention of allowing Asgard to stand.”
“And… Thor?” he said contemptuously.
“Believe me,” Badb promised, “he’s at the top of my list.”
The giant nodded in obvious approval and let his arms fall by his side. “If you continue on this route, you’ll eventually reach Asgard but they’ll know you’re coming. Cut through Jötunheim, and they’ll never sense your approach.”
“You want us to enter your realm?” Lugh asked cautiously. “Filled with giants?”
“Not as filled as it used to be,” the giant spit out. “That bastard son of Odin’s has decimated my people. You have my word you’ll have safe passage through my world.”
Blades of Ash: An Unbreakable Sword Series Prequel (The Unbreakable Sword Book 5) Page 8
