The Wild Hunt

by Thomas Galvin

  Holda, smiling and breathless, stopped right in front of me. I’d like to say that I stood strong and defiant, that I didn’t even flinch, but I’d be lying. “Caden!” Holda cried out. “Everyone! Caden has joined us!” She grinned at me like a shark. “Technically this little soiree is ladies only, but I am ever so glad you decided to crash.”

  “Holda,” I said. “Nice riot you’re throwing. How is it you’re not dead?”

  A manic smile flashed across her face. “I have you to thank for that, actually.” She glanced down at her barely-clad body. “Young Ashlyn was a gracious host, but something about us just wasn’t compatible. When you were kind enough to break our neck, well, it was a minor inconvenience to me, but rather fatal to her.”

  My stomach dropped. Ashlyn had been plenty dark and more than her share of twisty, but that didn’t mean I liked the idea of killing her. I had thought she was collateral damage, a price that had to be paid to prevent Holda from destroying Mirrormont. Instead, her death had been the thing that gave Holda access to her true power.

  I am such an idiot sometimes.

  “But enough of that,” Holda said. She clapped her hands and shouted, “Mead! Mead for our guest!”

  One of the dark elves leapt and spun over to us, bearing two wineskins. He handed them to Holda with a bow, then twirled and pirouetted away, moving with preternatural grace. Holda took a long draught from one of the skins. “Ah, excellent. Come, Caden, celebrate with me!”

  Flashing lights, red and white and blue, became visible down the road. A sheriff’s car was leading what looked like five fire engines.

  “I’m not actually here to join the party,” I said.

  “Oh come now! This was crafted from the blood of kings! It’s said that those who drink it gain a poet’s tongue.”

  “I already have a smartass mouth, and I didn’t even have to resort to hematophagy to get it.”

  “Suit yourself.” Holda took another deep drink, then tossed the wineskin away. One of the dwarves caught it out of the air without looking, upended it, and drained it in a single swig. “So, let’s discuss the terms of your service.”

  “I … what?”

  Holda giggled. “Caden, there is no need to be so coy! When my minstrels play my anthem, it attracts those destined to serve in my court. Look around you! All of these girls, all of these Sisters, will join me this evening. They will be imbued with the spirit of the Valkyries, and they will ride with me as I hunt.”

  “Oh God,” I said.

  “Yes?” Holda asked.

  “Miranda.” She danced past me, her hair whipping in the wind. Her eyes glowed with jade fire.

  “You fancy her, don’t you? She is such a lovely girl. And so industrious! Leaving her dreams behind to aid her grandmother, toiling in the kitchen, making a home for weary travelers … she’s a girl after my own heart. She will do well in my court. And when you serve as my vassal, why, I see no reason she shouldn’t be given to you.”

  I watched Miranda spin through the night, a look of pure, artificial ecstasy on her face. That joy belonged to the spirits Holda controlled, not Miranda. And the things Holda threatened–promised–to do with her …

  A growl tore out of my throat and a column of blinding light tore from the palm of each hand. The crystalline energy slammed into Holda, knocking her through both rings of revelers. She landed in the bonfire, screaming.

  The assembly stopped dancing and turned to stare at me, gaping. Energy crackled around my fists. “Party’s over, kids. Your parents are home, the cops are coming, and I’m pretty sure they’re out of booze. So why don’t you make like a tree and get the hell out of here before I get angry?”

  The fire shifted and Holda clawed her way out of the burning wood. She looked like an old hag, with gray, straggly, hair, an enormous, hooked nose, yellow, broken teeth, boar’s tusks emerging from her lower jaw, blackened fingernails, and wrinkled, sagging skin. She kicked one of the trees and sent it flying. A crowd of elves and possessed girls dove out of the way, but one of the dwarves was too slow. The tree landed on top of him, making a sickening crunch.

  Holda picked her way through the fire. Her visage changed with each step, the old hag fading and Ashlyn’s countenance manifesting. Neither she nor her garments burned. She finally reached the ground and brushed soot off her clothing. “That was quite rude. Ymir? Teach our guest some manners.”

  “Ymir?” I asked.

  The night shook with a sound something like a bear giving birth to a full-grown rhino. The ground trembled as something immense and angry stormed through the darkness. A pair of giant evergreens bent, then tore out of the ground completely.

  The thing that emerged from the shadows had two arms and two legs, and a head with two ears, two eyes, and a mouth, but that was where its similarities to a human being ended. The creature was at least fifteen feet tall. It was naked except for a loin cloth, made from the pelt of some horribly abused carcass, that hid very little of anything. The thing had thick, leathery, pale blue skin, covered in boils and lesions. Tufts of black fur appeared here and there all over its body. Its eyes were two different sizes, and one of them sat a bit higher than the other. Tusks emerged from its lower jaw.

  “Ymir is a frost ogre,” Holda said. “Ymir? Kill him.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The ogre roared and grabbed a tree with a stubby–but still massive–hand. Ice covered the bark when the creature touched it. The ogre ripped the tree out of the ground and wielded it like a club.

  The police car stopped a dozen feet away. The fire engines had the good sense to stay back at least a hundred feet. Sheriff Skerrit rolled down his window. “What in the fires of hell are you up to?” he demanded, his white mustache dancing.

  With a shout, the ogre roared and brought its club smashing down. “Look out!” I screamed and sent twin blasts of light into the air. They struck the creature’s weapon and knocked it to the side, which meant a few hundred pounds of wood smashed the car’s engine rather than the cop inside. Skerrit cursed and scrambled out of his vehicle, freeing his revolver on the way.

  I threw another blast of light at the ogre, catching it in the chest. The creature howled as its flesh sizzled and burned. It dropped the tree and threw its arms into the air, pinwheeling them to try and keep its balance. I growled and threw a ward at it, knocking it onto its back.

  The sheriff shielded himself behind the wreckage of his vehicle and trained his revolver on the beast, holding it in both hands.

  “Unless you happen to be packing silver bullets,” I said, “that isn’t going to do a whole lot.”

  “It ain’t a goddamn werewolf,” the sheriff said and fired off five quick rounds. He dropped the spent shells on the ground and pulled a speed loader from his jacket pocket. “Though to be honest I ain’t sure what the hell it is, either.”

  “Frost ogre,” I said, like I hadn’t just learned that fact thirty seconds ago. The creature had rolled to its knees and was in the process of standing up. I fired a blast of light at its arm, knocking it aside and sending the monster crashing onto its face. One of the thing’s tusks broke off on the pavement, and the creature howled.

  “Frost ogre,” the sheriff repeated, like he was trying the word out for size. “You got a license for that thing?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ask her,” I said, pointing toward Holda, who was watching the proceedings with amused detachment.

  “Ashlyn?” the sheriff asked. “What in the hell are you doing caught up in all of this? Does your daddy know you’re out here?”

  Holda laughed. “Oh, I like him. Can we keep him around? I think he would make a wonderful court jester.”

  “That’s not Ashlyn,” I said. “It’s just using her body.” I sent another blazing lance at the ogre, catching it in the shoulder. It screamed, but grabbed one of the burning trees from the bonfire. Ice ran halfway up the trunk and steam billowed off where it met the light. I expected the ogre to use it like a club again, and I was caught by
surprise when it simply hurled the log at my face.

  “Shi–” I started, then the burning wood slammed into me. My armor shimmered, protecting me from the worst of it, but I was thrown through the air and smashed up against the sheriff’s car. The wheel exploded and the vehicle spun around.

  “God damn!” the sheriff cried out, diving away from the suddenly-mobile car. “Lyndsey? Are you all right?”

  I hit the ground and the tree fell on top of me. I grimaced and pushed against it, rolling it aside. “Yeah,” I said, staggering to my feet. “I’m just perfect.”

  The ogre stared at me, confused. “Aw, who’s a sad little frost giant?” I said. “Who can’t squish the tiny little man? Poor little ogre.” The creature pounded its chest like a gorilla and let out a shriek that sounded like a bagpiper being boiled in tar.

  “Mr. Lyndsey?” the sheriff said. “Maybe it would be best to not antagonize the giant, rampaging hell beast?”

  “Everyone’s a critic,” I muttered, and threw another gout of light into the thing’s eyes. The frost ogre howled and batted at its face, like it was trying to swat away flies. Steam billowed up where the heat of my spell struck the monster’s icy cold aura. The beast held up its hand like a driver blocking the sun, then staggered to the side. Its eyes were bloodshot and the skin surrounding them was blistered, but I hadn’t managed to actually hurt the thing at all.

  The ogre bent over, crouched on all fours, and pounded its fist into the pavement, creating a fifteen-foot long fissure on the asphalt.

  “Mr. Lyndsey?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “You ever see a bull charge?”

  I turned to look at him. “You have bulls up here?”

  “I’m from Texas, originally. Regardless, that thing”–the ogre huffed and puffed and shook its head–“looks like it’s about to trample us.”

  “Oh. Maybe we should run?”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

  We turned and took off. The frost ogre gave chase, the ground shaking beneath its enormous bulk. The sheriff and I ducked between cars and dodged between trucks, buried beneath the blizzard and abandoned, but the monster was less concerned with subtlety. It threw its massive fists and sent the vehicles sliding across the road. The ogre closed the distance between us in less than ten seconds.

  “Hard left!” The sheriff shouted.

  “What?” I hollered back.

  “Thing’s huge! Can’t corner for a damn!” He turned aside and ran for the town courthouse. I glanced over my shoulder, saw nothing but an eye the size of a basketball, and followed him. The ogre reached out to grab me but I ducked and it missed me by inches.

  True to the sheriff’s speculation, the frost giant’s momentum was stronger than its anger. The creature skid past us, tried to turn, and tumbled end over end down the road, crushing a Prius in the process. So maybe the ogre wasn’t all bad.

  The sheriff fumbled for his keys, trying to unlock the courthouse door. “Let me use mine,” I said.

  “How did you get a key to the–” I extended my hand and sent a blast of light through the door, reducing glass panes to dust and the frame to kindling. “Never mind,” the sheriff said.

  We hurried inside. The sheriff reloaded his weapon again. It still wouldn’t do him any good, but I understood the impulse. When something big, mean, and scary is chasing after you, any kind of a weapon, be it a spell, a gun, or just a board with a nail in it, is a tremendous source of comfort. He spun the revolver’s cylinder and snapped it closed. “All right, so what do we do?”

  “Well, we should at least have a minute to catch our breath. That thing is huge, there’s no way it’s going to fit inside–”

  A terrible shriek assailed our ears. The light coming through the doorway was blocked out by a hulking figure. The building shook, and the roof over the doorway tore free. The ogre stormed into the courthouse, hunched over and snarling. It punched the ceiling, making more room for itself, and stalked forward another few feet.

  I sighed. The monster tore another furrow in the ceiling and came that much closer.

  “You were saying?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yeah yeah yeah, I’m a big dummy who doesn’t know an ice ogre from Frosty the Snowman. But I do have one redeeming quality.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I make things blow up really good.” I sent a brilliant lance racing through the air, just in front of the ogre, carving a channel across the ceiling, down the wall, across the floor, and back up to the roof.

  “Um, Mr. Lyndsey? That’s destruction of public property. Also, isn’t that kind of helping the giant ice demon that wants to eat us?”

  “Watch and learn, good sir. Watch and learn.”

  The frost ogre took a shuffling step forward, then sent its massive fist crashing through the ceiling. The ceiling that had already been weakened by my spell. The ceiling that was no longer held up by the support beams in the wall. The roof grumbled and sagged. The ogre looked up at it, puzzled.

  “Take like three steps back,” I said. The sheriff complied. The roof collapsed. The ogre fell to its knees, crushed by the debris. I fired another blast just in front of it, cutting through the floor. The building groaned again and the floor collapsed. The ogre crashed down to the basement below.

  The sheriff stepped to the edge of the newly formed pit and looked over the edge. “Do you freelance? Because I got some crab grass that I just can’t get rid of.”

  A massive, stubby hand shot out of the hole and grasped the edge, missing the sheriff’s foot by an inch. The sheriff yelped and jumped back. “What the hell do we have to do to put this thing down?”

  I blasted the hand. The building shook when the ogre hit the basement again. “Can you get those fire trucks to pull around behind the building?”

  The sheriff spoke into the walkie-talkie on his shoulder. “Cal? I need you to get those pumper trucks around behind the courthouse.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled. “Um, we’re kinda in the middle of not letting the town burn down.”

  “Trust me,” the sheriff said, “this is important.”

  “If you say so, Sheriff. How many trucks do you need?”

  “All of ’em,” I said. “Have them train their hoses on the back door.”

  The creature below us roared and jumped up out of the basement. It crashed into the ceiling and drove its enormous fists into the walls, bracing itself. Its giant, leathery feet scrambled on the edge of the pit, then found purchase. Its muscles bunched and the beast hauled itself forward. It crouched and growled, the muscles of its back pressing up against the ceiling.

  “We should leave now,” I said, and headed for the back door.

  We ran, the creature squeezing through the hallway after us, its massive form cracking the floor and displacing ceiling tiles. We burst out the back door. The fire trucks were just pulling around. The sheriff ran toward them, gesturing at the doorway. I ran, too, firing a blast of light behind me, caving in the entryway.

  The guy commanding the fire trucks was dressed in a helmet, a heavy, yellow jacket, and fleece pajama pants. Apparently Issaquah’s fire department was all volunteer. He saw my spell and stared at me, mouth hanging open. “What. The. Hell?”

  “If you liked that, you’re gonna love what comes next. Get your hoses out and pointed at the doorway.”

  “Is the building on fire?”

  “Not exactly,” the sheriff said.

  “Then why in the hell did you have me pull the boys away?” Cal demanded. “Half the damn block is on fire!”

  The courthouse rumbled and a giant, pale-blue hand burst through the rubble. Its twin followed, and the massive hands rent and tore until the ogre was able to muscle its way free. The beast stood erect, blinking, shielding its eyes from the fire trucks’ flashing lights.

  The fire captain looked like he stroked out. I waved my hand in front of his face. “Anybody home? Earth to Denis Leary, come in, come in. You’re about t
o get stepped on by a fifteen foot tall ice demon, so if you could tune back in real quick …”

  “Cal! Wake the hell up and get these trucks pointed at Frosty the Ice Goblin!”

  Cal blinked, then shook his head. “You heard the man! Boys, get those hoses trained on that … thing!”

  The other firefighters were just as shell shocked as Cal, but they responded to their leader’s voice. The trucks had their own massive water tanks, so they didn’t even have to crack open any fire hydrants to get the hoses ready.

  “Now what?” Cal asked.

  The ogre roared and shambled toward us, ripping a tree out of the ground as it came and lifting it up like a club. “Spray it!” I shouted.

  The firefighters opened up the hoses and five massive jets of water shot through the air, slamming into the frost ogre like liquid missiles. The ogre shielded its face with its paw and staggered backward.

  Ice crystals began to form on its skin.

  “Keep it up!” I hollered.

  “You heard the man!” the fire chief called out. “Open up those hoses, boys!”

  The men cranked open the valves and the water came flooding out in a torrent. The frost ogre howled. Its chill skin froze the water as soon as it made contact, and a thick layer of ice was forming on the beast’s skin. It slapped itself, trying to break free, but the water was coming too fast, the ice forming too quickly. The ogre turned to run, but a blast of light cut its legs out from beneath it. The creature slammed into the earth, shaking the ground. Water cascaded down on it, imprisoning it in ice. It tried to drag itself away, but soon its arm was encased in frozen water.

  “Hold it!” I shouted. The water died down. The frost ogre looked like a glacier with a face. I summoned the Æther and sapphire energy danced around my fist. I stalked toward the creature.

  “Looks like you’re not getting any billy goats tonight,” I said.

  “That was a troll,” the sheriff called out.

  “What?”