The Goddess Denied (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 2)

by Deborah Davitt

  “How are you both different?” Adam asked.

  “Latin,” Kanmi said, tightly. “Please, everyone, Latin. Make me just a little less jumpy, eh?”

  I can translate, Lassair offered.

  “There is . . . no need,” Vidarr, the giant, said in slow, methodical, heavily-accented Latin. “I was . . . landsknecht. Mercenary. I speak Latin.” He took another step forward. “Would hear you speak, brother!” he added, back in Gothic, staring at the giant trapped in the stone still.

  Adam had taken a wary step backwards, and allowed himself to aim at Vidarr once more, as the giant closed on Sigrun and Lassair, though other than moving, the creature showed . . . no signs of threat.

  Their captive had stopped struggling, and Trennus’ expression was free of strain for the first time in an hour. “I . . . gods,” the creature muttered. “What has happened to me? What have I become?” The last was a ringing shout of anguish. “Gods, what am I?”

  “Steady, brother,” Vidarr said, taking another step closer. “The first days after regaining your mind are the most difficult. I was fortunate. I awoke among friends.” He put a hand on the stone, more or less where a shoulder might have been, and turned back to stare at the rest of them. “This is a bad place to talk. But I would make you welcome in my camp. And there, we might speak of how you have awakened one of my brethren.” He looked down at Sigrun, and inclined his head in a respectful bow. “Valkyrie. Are you god-touched of Eir? Was it her healing hands, which through you, did this?”

  “No,” Sigrun answered, swiftly, and Adam could see the muscles in her throat work as she swallowed. He knew how bitter the memory for her was, of how little the god-touched of Eir could do, sometimes. “I am of Tyr. You owe your thanks to Asha here—”

  I did not do this alone, Stormborn!

  Sigrun rode right over the top of Lassair’s words, as if the spirit hadn’t spoken at all. “However, I would be pleased to accept the hospitality of your camp. I would hear your tale.”

  Uproar among the others. Brandr and Erikir all but slapping their foreheads, and Brandr rapping out at Sigrun. “Have you lost your mind? For all we know, he could be Loki in disguise!”

  Vidarr laughed at that statement in Gothic, but his chuckles faded as no one else joined in, which made the giant frown at them all, quizzically. Kanmi and Minori had puzzled frowns on their faces, and Brandr and Erikir both glowered a little.

  “I will go alone, if needful,” Sigrun replied in Latin, her voice slipping up a couple of notes, a sure sign that she wasn’t quite as certain as she wanted to appear, of her course of action.

  Adam went still. “You’re not going anywhere alone,” he told her in Hebrew. Better than a secret code, he thought. “What troubles you? What would you know?”

  “Latin,” Kanmi repeated, without much hope in his voice.

  “I’ll tell you when they get to the good parts,” Trennus offered.

  “In which language? They’re surfing between three.”

  Sigrun waved a hand at Kanmi, but split her attention between Adam and Brandr now. “I want all the details,” she said, her voice tight. “I want to know how this one is sane, when the others are not.” A gesture at Vidarr. “I want to know what he remembers, if anything more than the one we questioned. I want to see if our captive can be trusted.” She gestured at the other giant, bound in stone, whose head had fallen forward on his neck, and whose entire body was convulsing, periodically, with what might have been sobs. “Or if what Asha and I did, did any good . . . or if it harmed him, instead.”

  Adam shook his head. “That’s all good intel, and we need to know it all. But you’re not going alone, and we are reporting in, as soon as we get within range of a damned radio tower.”

  “Can I let him go?” Trennus jerked a thumb at the giant in the stone, and wiped the sweat off his face. Holding the creature pinned so, was taking a toll.

  “Not yet!” Erikir said, sharply. “At least let everyone back up a bit. Get out of range of his arms.”

  That seemed wise enough. Adam, once again, found himself unwillingly liking Erikir. The younger man didn’t speak as often as Brandr, and other than having said a few things that Adam . . . didn’t want to hear . . . he seemed to have a good fund of common sense, and an open mind. Adam put it all out of his head, and fell back with the others, keeping his automatic weapon leveled at the trapped giant. “All right, Trennus,” he told the Pictish man. “Go ahead.”

  Trennus released the giant, letting the stone turn back to mud, and slide down from his sides. Just for a moment, as Adam looked at the mass of earth, all he could picture was the flood of lahar down Coropuna’s side, and he froze for a moment, blinking rapidly, before aiming once more, center of mass.

  Vidarr caught his ‘brother’ by the shoulders and kept the other giant from collapsing to the ground as the stone dropped away. The other giant howled, and there were answering howls from the forest, bringing prickles to Adam’s spine. “Asha?” he said, tightly.

  They remain distant, as they have been since their retreat. They are . . . watching us. Three hundred feet of distance, constant. I believe they fear our new companion. They have a name for him. Though they have few words that echo at all in their minds, they call him Wolfriend. Lassair’s tone was intrigued. I do not think it is his Name, but it . . . resonates.

  They watched as Vidarr calmed the other giant, with slaps on the shoulders, and low words. Finally, Vidarr turned back to them all. “Come,” he offered again. “I offer my hospitality. Such as it is. Reindeer meat, sausage, and cloudberries. Alas, all my bread is gone.”

  Adam finally acceded to the request. It just didn’t feel like a trap. If it had been, the giants in the forest could have attacked them again, at any time. But before they moved out, he had them all move the wrecked car to the side of the lonely stretch of road, and moved the bodies of the wolves and fallen giant to the verge, as well. “They will come for the bodies,” Vidarr warned, quietly. “They have held back so long, because they do not see you eating them. But they are hungry. They will return, and take the wolf bodies first . . . at least, the grendels will. The ettin? They may try to eat their own.” He sounded grim.

  Once they had accomplished that, Adam insisted on taking the remaining vehicle with them, though Vidarr led them along a dirt track that barely qualified as a game trail, and Adam could hear stones scraping along the undercarriage periodically. Every so often the snow reached above the axles, making the motorcar wallow for a moment, until they got out, and Kanmi and Minori melted the snow away, and the rest of them pushed it back into an area with shallower drifts. For most of the trip, Sigrun hopped up on the roof, and Minori went with her, since both women could fly. They were just barely in contact with the vehicle, in fact, to prevent it from being overloaded—as it was, already. Two bear-warriors and Trennus, not to mention Adam and Kanmi, made for a heavy load. “Esh? Make yourself useful back there. Clean up any wounds our liaisons still have, would you?” Adam asked, steering around another large boulder in the track.

  “I’m fine. Everything’s scabbed over,” Erikir reported, folding his arms over his chest, visible in the rear-view mirror. “Should be good by morning. No organ damage, no broken bones.”

  “I’m already done healing,” Brandr said, his tone indifferent.

  Adam flicked a glance at the mirror. Sigrun had pointed out over the years that bear-warriors tended to heal even more rapidly than valkyrie. They had to, because they didn’t have the innate resistances that the valkyrie had. Cold and lightning still affected them—though a god-born of Thor or Tyr like Brandr might be functionally immune to electricity, just like Sigrun. Erikir’s healing seemed a little slower than he’d expected, and Brandr’s seemed on par with Sigrun’s. Sigrun had healed from the pazuzu’s stinger—poisoned with magic, and embedded in her bone—in hours. The shattered ribs from being thrown into the fire hydrant by the same beast? Had healed by midnight, as best he recalled. Sigrun had attributed this, with
a roll of her eyes, to the damage she’d taken from Tlaloc. Whatever does not kill you, makes you stronger. And of course, she was only four generations from her god-touched ancestor. That seemed to make a difference in these matters. Still, Adam had many questions, and they weren’t ones he could ask his wife. Not without seeing her tense up. Turn inwards. Find all the reasons why what he was asking was irrelevant or wrong. She’s afraid, Adam thought. And she was afraid, an hour ago, when she was working with Lassair to heal the giant’s mind.

  They actually got in range of a radio tower as they passed west, back towards Vidarr’s camp, which let Adam pass the radio over to Brandr . . . and Brandr, grim-faced, contacted the local authorities, who promised to have a car and escorts on that lonely stretch of highway by dawn tomorrow. “We apologize for the inconvenience. The area is very rural. Also, please be careful. There are rumors of dark things living in the forests.”

  Brandr grunted and shook his head, staring out the window at the two giants and two horse-sized wolves loping ahead of them. “You don’t say.”

  Before they reached Vidarr’s camp, the giant stopped and called out in the direction of the site, and sent his wolf off ahead of him. The male wolf Sigrun had helped calm had spent quite a bit of the trip sniffing at the female’s tail, and every time he had, Vidarr had swatted the male on the rump, and bellowed at him to leave off. Adam was just as glad of this. The wolves’ eyes were all-too-human, and deeply disturbing.

  Vidarr’s campsite was located along a small lake, surrounded by pine trees, and was a simple affair. Three oversized lean-tos and a campfire. But it was populated, much to Adam’s frank astonishment, with other clothed giants. Two other males, and one female, all dressed in the self-same bright colors that Vidarr himself wore. “Not much good for camouflage, is it?” Adam asked, as they all sat in the automobile, watching tensely as the giants in the clearing reacted to Vidarr’s return, and the humans in the motorcar, with expressions of mingled confusion, fear, and hostility. Tentatively welcomed the new giant into their midst, clapping him on the arms and shoulders, and digging in huge sacks of gear for clothing for him.

  “They’re dressed like Sami. The Fenns call them the Lapp, sometimes. Reindeer herders, hunters, gatherers. They range all through the kingdoms up here. Fennmark, Raccia. Anywhere the herds go, they go, even beyond the Arctic Circle.” Erikir shrugged. “They like to stand out from the snow, I think.”

  Vidarr turned, and beckoned to them all now, and, warily, Adam unfolded himself from the front seat, as did all the others, most with groans of relief. “You know,” Minori said, from the roof, “sometimes at the Circus Maximus, between the chariot and automobile races, they bring out one car into the infield. And they pack midgets into it.” She paused, looking down at Kanmi, as he slid out of the vehicle, last, having been pinned between Brandr and Erikir for the past hour. “This scene just made me think of it.”

  “You can sit in my lap on the way back,” Kanmi offered. “That way, we’ll be closer to a record.”

  “No, that’s all right. You could sit on the roof, in Sig-chan’s arms. I trust her not to let you fall.”

  For all the light words, Adam could see that Minori’s fingers were on the small device Kanmi had made for her last year. The technomancer had taken the solar cell and tiny silicon chip from one of the newfangled calculators that were so damned expensive right now, but that had completely replaced Adam’s old paper-spool calculator entirely. And he’d put it into a different housing, and set it up to calculate parameters for defensive spells for Minori. It only had three configurations, but she could trigger them with a button-push and supply the energy, and the device worked to create a pre-defined framework for her to use. It was a prototype, and Adam was aware that several very emeritus professors had told Kanmi that it couldn’t be done.

  He couldn’t tell which setting Minori was readying, but he guessed that they were all wide-area defensive spells. Sig dropped down from the roof and landed beside him, saying loudly enough that everyone could hear her, “Sig from Adam, Erikir, and Trennus. Sig-chan from Minori. Sister from Asha and Sari. I am much-loved today.”

  Adam kept his eyes on the giants. The bear-warriors were behind him, and Lassair had just coalesced into her human form beside Trennus, on the other side of the car. “I think everyone’s trying to remind our liaisons that while they might have known you longer, we’re all connected.”

  “Ah. Territoriality. I am the only tree, then, in range of a dog kennel.”

  Adam couldn’t help it. It was the completely expressionless face, the exquisitely dry humor and resignation in the tone, the self-deprecation . . . and the fact that he had been feeling a little threatened by the newcomers in the past few days. His amusement started as a snort, and built up to an actual belly-laugh. Ripples of humor from Lassair, followed by Kanmi’s wicked chuckling, and Trennus simply shouting with merriment. Brandr and Erikir howled with laughter, and reached forwards to pummel Sigrun gently. It was . . . not quite how Adam had pictured entering a potentially hostile situation. But then again, it might have been precisely the kind of break in tension that they needed.

  Vidarr strode back over; the giant didn’t lumber, Adam noticed; he was as quick and deft on his feet as any human. Just greatly oversized. He looked down at them all, and, as their amusement ran its course, smiled, evidently trying not to expose more of his canines. And offered his wrist in a very Roman manner, for each of them to clasp, in turn.

  Two hours after that, Adam was dealing with the usual issues of indigenous cuisine. Reindeer jerky was acceptable. Tiny pots of cloudberry jam, acceptable. The heavy, redolent odor of something called mallemàrffe, frying in a clearly human-made pan over the fire turned his stomach, however. “Do I want to know?” he asked Sigrun, marveling a little, internally, at how . . . common-place this all seemed, as the giants worked around the fire. Fed their new brother, and their guests.

  “Blood sausage. Rendered blood, cooked down until it’s thick, and mixed with grains and whatever else in a sausage casing.” Sigrun grinned at him. “Definitely not kosher.”

  “But tasty,” Trennus called from across the fire. “Reminds me of black pudding from home.”

  “More proof,” Kanmi said, baring his teeth, “that the Picts will eat anything.”

  “Well, yes,” Trennus agreed. “Waste not, want not.” He dug his own utensils out of his cadena; even in this day and age, almost everyone carried their own personal fork, knife, and spoon with them when they traveled. Many hotels offered utensils, but not all, and it remained common for a guest to bring their own to another’s home. “Thank you,” he told the giantess, who happened to serve the food, and Adam watched as the female ducked her head and shied away.

  The other giants were definitely not as vocal as Vidarr, though he’d introduced them each, and pressed, politely, for the newly-freed giant’s name. “I don’t know. I remember . . . too much . . . but that, I do not remember.”

  “It may come back, in time. And if not, you can choose a new one. One that you can hold onto, to help you remember that you are not a beast.” Vidarr’s tone had been brisk, but comforting.

  Adam had noticed how reluctant Erikir and Brandr had been to eat, at first, and had nudged Sigrun in the ribs and murmured a question to her in Hebrew. “They can’t be poisoned any more than you can, right?”

  “We can eat poison and then wish we could die of it,” Sigrun agreed. “It’s very painful. The body recovers, but many of the effects still occur. That is not why they hesitate to eat, however.”

  “Why, then?”

  “Because even if none of them is Loki in disguise, which is still possible,” Sigrun shrugged, scanning the camp, “the giants are . . . monsters. Outcasts. They are not sure if they are nithing or not. If we should be giving them countenance. Accepting food, hospitality . . . it is not that different from the rules of hospitality among the Bedouins, the Hellenes, or even your own people, Adam. Accepting food and hospitality means accept
ing the person who offers it.” Sigrun grimaced. It had taken a while for him to understand that her reluctance to deal with Mikayel and Mikayel’s family went beyond mere discomfort with his brother’s vocal attitudes and beliefs. It dipped into the realm of Sigrun’s culture; Mikayel had offended her, and thus, she would not countenance him. She wouldn’t so much as eat food provided by him at a family pot-luck dinner.

  It made the holidays uncomfortable.

  Eventually, Vidarr came over and sat, cross-legged, on a rug that he spread on the snow in front of the humans, and Sigrun lifted her head. “Latin, then, so that all may understand, without translation,” Sigrun said, quietly. “Vidarr . . . what . . . no.” She frowned. “How have you become what you are? Who made you so?”

  Vidarr reached up and covered his face in his massive hands. “That is a . . . long story. And I only remember parts.” He raised his head again. “I will tell you what I know, valkyrie. Perhaps a little more of my life’s story, than you will want to hear. I was a guardsman, in Gotaland, when I was younger. I had a wife. Miijá.” His voice actually softened for a moment. “She was Sami, but she wanted to settle down. Away from the herds.” He turned to stare off into the gathering dusk. “She died in childbirth in 1958. The child . . . didn’t survive, either.”