Ragnarok: I Bring the Fire Part VI (Loki Vowed Asgard Would Burn)

by C. Gockel

  Steve’s voice cracks over the radio. “Another fork ahead! We need to go right again.”

  Larson’s voice buzzes in Bohdi’s ear. “With all due respect, Sir, if you don’t dismount, how can you —”

  “Lewis is right. You can tell from the tunnel walls,” Steve snaps. And then he says, “Bogies straight ahead.” From the front of the line of vehicles comes the thunder of the snowmobiles’ forward guns followed by bearlike roars. Bohdi raises his rifle. He sees nothing but smooth walls and then a path to the left. He thinks he sees moving shapes and he shoots. “I got the right!” Rush shouts, and Bohdi hears the other man’s rifle firing.

  “They’re running,” Steve says, “... and we have another fork. Go left.” A few heartbeats later Amy swings the snowmobile left and Bohdi swings his rifle to the right and lets loose a few rounds. He hears gunfire in front and behind him, then roars, and another sound, like a dog whining. “Is Fenrir hurt?” he shouts, and he feels like he will self-combust.

  “Dog’s fine,” Rush hoots. “That’s the snowmen.”

  “Middle path!” Steve commands.

  Bohdi keeps firing down the tunnels they pass, not really aiming. The snowmobiles are moving so fast they pass the ancillary tunnels in the blink of the eye.

  “More bogies ahead,” says Steve. And Bohdi hears one of the snowmobile’s forward guns going off.

  “You got them!” someone shouts.

  Steve’s voice cracks in Bohdi’s ear. “Lots of secondary tunnels here! Keep straight.”

  They enter a section of cave with tunnels on the left and the right every few feet. “More bogies straight ahead!” says Steve. Bohdi doesn’t look—he’s too busy covering the side tunnels, where he sees shadows darting. Sometimes his bullets make it down the tunnels, sometimes they plow into the snowy walls.

  Steve’s voice cracks over the radio. “Slow down, the tunnel is obstructed.”

  The snowmobile decelerates, and Bohdi’s heart rate quickens. Amy is threading the snowmobile along a meandering path, pushing to the side sometimes with her feet. Bohdi doesn’t look down. Going slowly, they’re like ducks in a carnival game. He keeps his rifle up and fires down every tunnel they pass. The bearlike roars turn to howls and then more whines.

  And then Amy’s voice cracks on the radio. “These are children! We’re in the Yetis’ home, and we’re killing their children.”

  Bohdi’s finger is already on the trigger, and he’s firing down a tunnel at another shadow.

  Rush’s voice snaps in his ear. “We didn’t make it past an army to die with an arrow in the eye!” And someone else says, “They fired first.”

  “They’re not firing anymore!” says Amy.

  “Good!” shouts Rush. Bohdi swallows, and the terrible thing is, Bohdi agrees. They hit Amy, and if she hadn’t been wearing a helmet she would be dead. If they stop firing, the snow people might advance, and then they’ll still be dead.

  “Look down, Bohdi!” Amy says again. He obeys instinctively and is instantly sorry he did. The cave is littered with bodies mowed down by the snowmobile’s forward guns—that is why Amy is going so slowly. Some are large, but many are small, some are still moving. They are covered in fur, but definitely hominid, their faces with snouts somewhere between men and bears.

  He hears rising howls behind them. He looks over his shoulder and down at the ground. His eyes fall on one particularly small snow creature. He doesn’t want Amy to die, or Claire or Steve or the SEALs … He feels sick and angrier than ever.

  Steve’s voice cracks in his ear, cool and level. “Switch to tracers only,” Steve says. “That should keep them scared enough.”

  At Steve’s words, Bohdi feels like a burning man who has been doused with water.

  “And if it doesn’t scare them?” Rush asks, as Bohdi switches his live rounds for tracers.

  “Then you fire live rounds,” says Steve.

  Lifting his rifle, Bohdi begins firing tracer rounds down the side tunnels. This time he sees what he hits. He sees some creatures with spears and bows and arrows, but he also sees beings with children in their arms, huddling in corners. Without exception, parents and warriors cower from the tracers’ flares.

  “It’s working,” says Bohdi, feeling relief and guilt in equal measure.

  “We’re through the carnage,” says Amy, and she hits the accelerator. The cave becomes a blur again, and the side tunnels disappear. Cold wind whips in Bohdi’s face. He doesn’t feel hot anymore, he feels cold, and it doesn’t feel any better.

  About an hour later, the snow cave gives way to a canyon of snow with walls nearly fifteen feet high. Bohdi lifts his eyes, and huge white snowflakes catch in his lashes.

  “Snow good,” Gerðr says. “No Harpies will follow in this.”

  The pass winds downhill, but not too steeply. They switch off their electronic and combustion engines, and use the forward momentum of gravity to recharge their snowmobile batteries—and they still make great time. The canyon walls become ten feet high and then five. Trees begin to appear beside them, first pine, but as they descend, the trees become deciduous, and definitely alien. They have trunks sometimes as wide as several meters, with mushroom-like tops of thin, densely packed, vine-like branches.

  “Iron Wood trees,” Amy declares, her voice drowned by the wind, and only audible over the radio. “There should be a settlement very close by. They might give us shelter and food.”

  Nari’s voice hums over the radio. “Odin’s forces will not follow us here.”

  “We’ve made it!” says Amy, her relief loud and clear despite the static. “We’ll be safe.”

  For a moment, Bohdi’s heart lifts. And then from behind them rises a mournful howling that is so heartbreaking he shivers. “The Yeti,” Amy whispers.

  The howling doesn’t stop. It rises in volume and echoes from the peaks; they don’t escape it, even as they slip deeper into the trees.

  “Serves them right,” says Rush.

  Before he can say anything, Tucker’s voice snaps over the open channel. “Right for what? Trying to protect their home and family?”

  Someone, maybe Thomas, says, “Shit happens, Tucker.”

  Rush doesn’t respond. Bohdi sits back farther in his seat, careful not to touch Amy.

  Chapter 9

  Deeper in the heart of the forest, the trunks of the Iron Wood trees are as wide as small houses. The thick branches thrust out of the trunks high above Amy’s head at oddly regular angles, like spokes on a bicycle wheel. The smaller branches, instead of being rigid, dangle like Spanish moss. Here and there, a vine-like branch dangles low from the mushroom-like caps of the trees, and as Fenrir sniffs about they tentatively stretch toward the giant dog, as though caught in a gentle breeze. The trees nearly blot out the sky and seem to have choked out any other tree species from growing. Amy squeezes her eyes shut and hears Mimir’s words, “The trees of the Iron Wood survive on magic as well as sunlight. That is how they manage the long Jotunheim winter.”

  “Are you sure this is the place?” Berry says behind her, and Amy’s eyes snap open.

  Bohdi’s voice is curt. “Of course she’s sure.” She looks over her shoulder. Her defender doesn’t meet her eyes—his gaze is focused carefully away from her. She can guess what it’s all about—the Yeti howls still ring in her ears. She wants to tell him that it was all in the heat of the moment, and they were in danger, even if the Yeti were in more danger. The Yeti are known for viciously attacking travelers in their lands. Her eyes shift to Steve standing a few feet away, back to them, hand on Claire’s head. Amy bites her lip. The tracers were a brilliant idea—it allowed the team to scare away the Yeti and kept their humanity intact.

  Turning back to the tree, she touches the trunk. Carved into its side are three foot high letters. “This is the name of the settlement, Mountain Edge.” Her brow furrows. In her memory the letters were cut clear through the bark, exposing the ochre-hued wood beneath. Now her fingers skim thick gray scars where new bark
has grown over the old wounds.

  She drops her eyes and scans their surroundings. “This was a thriving lumber and mining center.” In her memory she sees scores of Frost Giant lumberjacks, hunters, and trappers, dwarven miners, and children of both races running beneath the trees. Instead of snow, there was springtime mud and flowers. She hears echoes of laughter and shouts, and she smells smoke rising up from dwellings at the tree bases. Now there are only trees, the whistle of the wind, her team members silent and alert behind her. Tracing her finger along the bark, she walks around the tree. Scanning the nearby forest, she sees no signs of houses. “What happened?” she whispers. “There were thousands of people living here.”

  In Jotunn, Gerðr says, “The people of the Iron Wood are fierce and savage. They are constantly at war with one another. The settlement you speak of no doubt was overrun.” She looks around. “Besides the trees, there are no natural defenses. They were safe from Odin but not from each other.”

  “And we expect them to give us aid?” Park says. Amy blinks, surprised he caught all that in Jotunn.

  Gerðr raises an eyebrow. “Of course. As guests we will be above their petty politics and blood feuds.” She looks away and mutters, “Hopefully.”

  “Awesome,” says Bohdi.

  Beatrice raises her rifle. “They better treat us as guests.”

  Amy blinks again. They’d all caught that? Magic obviously, but the trees feed on magic, so how is it working? She feels a growing knot of dread in her middle.

  Berry says, “What did she just say?” The short man rubs the back of his neck and looks between Steve and the tall Frost Giantess.

  As Steve translates, Amy turns to Bohdi. “Touch the tree, I want to test something.” His eyes snap to her and widen, but he moves over to the trunk. Amy clears her throat. “With bare fingers.” Flipping off the top of his mittens, he touches the bark.

  Turning to Park and Beatrice, Amy says, “Don’t give away what I’m about to say.” And then to Bohdi, in Jotunn she says, “Frost Giant women will find your dark eyes and black hair very alluring and exotic. You will have many admirers among the women of the Iron Wood.”

  Bohdi blinks at her, Park coughs, and Beatrice snorts.

  “What did you understand?” Amy asks.

  Bohdi shrugs. “Frost Giant women, the rest was just blah, blah, blah …”

  “Hmmm …” says Amy. “The trees seem to be most effective when you’re actually touching them. I wonder if they’d also obstruct actual magical creations like illusions or Heimdall’s sight.”

  “Yes,” says Gerðr, “Of course.” Amy squints up at the dark tree limbs. Can they really obstruct magic enough to protect them if Odin decides to open a World Gate?

  “Can I put my mitten back on?” says Bohdi.

  Before Amy can nod, Park blurts out, “I am so ready to be fetishized by the Frost Giantesses.”

  Beatrice sighs. “And that is the main difference between men and women in a nutshell.”

  “I’m sure all men are different, Grandma—”

  “Sexually exploit me now!” Park says, throwing up his arms. Rubbing her forehead, Amy closes her eyes. Bohdi whines, and she opens them to see him clutching his stomach. “I can’t even think about sex, I’m so hungry.”

  “Me, too,” says Claire.

  Berry comes over from where he’s been talking with Steve and Larson. “We’re going to eat and start the hump to Gullveig’s Keep.”

  “Hump?” says Claire.

  “Walk,” says Bohdi.

  “Walk?” says Claire.

  Amy sighs. They’ve burned up the electric charge they’d created coming down the mountain. “We’re out of gas.” She looks at the packs of provisions. They have a long walk ahead of them … and soon they will be out of food.

  x x x x

  Bohdi is sitting in a very nice Indian restaurant. He has a plateful of excellent naan bread in one hand. It’s bathed in some delicious kabuli chana—garbanzo bean curry—but it’s not as spicy as he’s accustomed to, which is good. He lost his ability to tolerate spicy foods while he was in boot camp and living with Steve’s parents; but whenever he goes into an Indian restaurant they almost always see his ethnicity and amp up the heat.

  More delicious than the food is Amy. Sitting next to him, she’s wearing clothes that accentuate her curves, but aren’t too revealing. Her hair is tied back in a soft bun at the base of her neck. Her lips gleam with gloss, looking plump and kissable. He almost does kiss her … but he’s so hungry.

  He takes another bite of naan and she says, “What is time like to you?”

  Swallowing, Bohdi says, “Pardon?” and the voice isn’t his own. He groans inwardly. It’s Loki’s voice, he’s dreaming again, but the dream food is delicious and he is so hungry he doesn’t struggle to wake up. Beside him, dream Amy scans the restaurant. Bohdi—or Loki—follows her gaze. Some of the young patrons are tall, healthy, and beautiful and wouldn’t look out of place in Odin’s great hall, but many are older. Plus, there are so many children—three of them—a rare sight in Asgard of late.

  “As I get older, it seems like time moves faster and faster,” Amy says. “I know Beatrice says …” Pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she frowns and looks down, one hand falling into her lap. “Used to say, before her stroke, that years flew by in the blink of an eye for her.”

  Bohdi takes her hand and squeezes it. She meets his eyes. “Loki, you’re what—hundreds of years old? Do decades seem like minutes? Centuries like days?”

  “I suppose it does,” Loki says, looking away. His eyes fall on a little boy, face alight in a phone’s glow, and he becomes distracted by that bit of human magic. The last time he was here, during WWII, that technology hadn’t existed. How many years ago had that been—twenty? A century? It feels like yesterday.

  Amy squeezes his hand and smiles softly. “So time is really relative, Einstein?”

  Loki finds himself smiling at the joke. He has missed conversations like this, but it’s bittersweet. He sees her, and sees what she will be in a few decades, and that will be in less than the blink of the eye. He slips his hand from hers, sneaks it back into her lap, and dips his fingers between her thighs. Gather thee rose buds while thee may, a human said that, he’s certain.

  Pupils dilating, she catches her bottom lip between her teeth and then she catches his hand. “No, really is it?” she says, her voice breathy, but insistent. She reminds him of Anganboða—not in beauty—but in wit and gentle insistence. Loki’s smile melts away. Time will destroy her if the world does not. Better not to get attached. He feels an aching in his gut so intense that …

  Bohdi wakes up with a pain in his belly so intense he thinks it might be devouring itself. He rubs his eyes in the dim light, annoyed with the vestiges of the dream. Loki wasn’t just an idiot, he was a coward. Rolling onto his side, he finds himself facing Fenrir’s furry back instead of Amy. He scowls. Beatrice had insisted Fenrir sleep there. Closing his eyes despite his screaming belly, he tries to fall back to sleep … and then Reveille begins to play.

  He hears Fenrir scampering to her feet. Groans sound all around the tent. Bohdi sits up and his vision briefly goes black. He shakes his head. It’s just hunger, making him lightheaded. They’ve still got at least a four-day trek ahead and food for less than one; they’d been counting on settlements in the Iron Wood to restock. But they’ve seen no signs of habitation anywhere. He frowns. Physically, Amy is the weakest member of the team. The world may kill her as Loki predicted … it might kill all of them.

  x x x x

  Amy has had it. They’re all hungry, they’re all tired, and she can’t take another minute of this. She’s been pushed to her limit before, but this is the end. “Just let me pull the goddamned sled, Tucker!” she says.

  Slowly climbing up from where he lies face first in the snow, Tucker says, “No, no … my turn, I can do it.”

  Amy steps on his back. She has a momentary sensation of being extremely powerful,
and then remembers he probably can kill her with his pinky.

  “What are you …”

  Before he can complete the sentence she hops off, yanks the harness he’s been yoked to off of him, and pulls it around her own waist. Bending at the waist, she whispers above the slowly rising Tucker. “I’m really, really sorry, I’m trying to help. Sorry, really sorry.” Clearing her throat, she turns to the rest of the line. “I’m female—designed by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to be better at conserving calories.” She holds up a finger at Beatrice, Sigyn, Harding, and Gerðr. “And I’m not magical so I don’t need as much juice as you either! From now on, Fenrir and I pull sleds!”

  Where she stands, tied to her own sled, Fenrir, now the size of a large pony, gives a happy woof. Rush throws her a live round, she swallows it down and then burps as loud as a gunshot. Amy’s dog-wolf-horse creature pants and wags her tail. Claire is laying on Fenrir’s back, head buried in her shoulders.

  No one says anything. They just stare at her. A couple of the guys sway on their feet. With a huff she turns around. Bohdi is glaring at Tucker, who is glaring back at him, and Beatrice is glaring at them both. Amy rolls her eyes and says, “Let’s move out,” because everyone else seems too dead on their feet to say it.

  She trudges forward, and Beatrice falls into the line a little ahead of her, Bohdi a little behind. Amy looks up at the sky. Late afternoon light is filtering between the branches of the trees. She watches as Valli, a few steps ahead of Beatrice, almost goes down to one knee, but Nari catches him.

  Human beings can go up to forty days without food—and they have some food. But it’s cold, even for someone from Chicago. They’ve been marching for days, too, and everyone but Amy is magical. Amy sighs and watches her breath curl in front of her face. The sled isn’t particularly heavy, the trail they’re on is gradually descending to the ocean, but her blisters have blisters. She finds herself trying to walk on the non-blistered parts of her feet. It doesn’t work. Dipping her chin, she reminds herself that Gulveig’s keep has central heating and running water … all they have to do is walk to the seashore, and then around the triple peaks, and then south again for a day or so. She stifles a groan.