People were pulling back from him and his followers now. Doubt and fear and alarm. Just enough doubt to make them wonder how much truth was in his words . . . .
On the other side of the world, it was nearing sunset, which came late at this time of year—nearly half past eight, postmeridian. The skies were already dark, covered by heavy clouds, and snowflakes fluttered down periodically, in defiance of summer’s reign. Sigrun and Nith found themselves in Athar, a Carthaginian city a hundred miles north of Tyre. The native name of Athar had been replaced periodically over the centuries by the Hellene name of Tripolis. The city had been captured, vacated, and re-captured by the Romans . . . . and the legions were currently in the process of vacating it once more.
Sigrun was there to see that the withdrawal of Roman troops was done in an orderly fashion, and without any unfortunate incidents on either side. The fact that these same troops were about to be sent to the Persian border made renewed civility obviously important, in spite of the highly uncivil war here months ago. Sigrun perched on Nith’s shoulders as the dragon crouched atop the roof of an apartment building that was piebald from age, all peeling paint and chipped plaster, and more snow drifted down from above.
She could see hundreds of vehicles leaving the city in a convoy, interspersed with marching troops in Legion uniforms . . . and crowds of sullen residents lining the streets to watch them go. Gardia members, standing between the two, with riot batons in hand. A few desultory cheers that sounded more like jeers filtered up to her, but at least no one seemed ready to attack the troops. I hadn’t realized Rome had taken cities this far north. I was mostly concerned with Tyre.
You were in Caesaria Aquilonis, working with your own people.
But it feels . . . wrong. I’m . . . remembering things. Flashes and images.
Adam had been exasperated that she hadn’t known that Athar had been captured. How can you not know this? he’d asked.
And yet, the instant he’d said the words, she’d had a clear, strong image, of leading a unit of jotun and fenris in house-to-house fighting, and bringing lightning down on . . . not Roman legionnaires, but ghul. Ghul in the hundreds, or even thousands. It hadn’t happened. She knew it hadn’t. But it was a clear flash of what felt like memory, and it was nearly impossible to shake away. Sigrun shook her head again. I’m going as insane as Sophia.
Pre-memory, Nith said, slowly, scanning the ground below, and the protestors.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a pre-memory. And this is the past, not the future. And it’s wrong. I wasn’t here. Except . . . I . . . recognize that cluster of fountains in the plaza down there. Sigrun shook her head, unsettled. God-born were not prone to the hazards of memory found in the elderly. This felt like dementia, and she hated it. No matter. It didn’t happen. She changed the subject, looking back down at the humans lining the street, and the slow-moving convoy of departing troops. These Romans were ordered to invade one of their own provinces. They obeyed. The Carthaginians resisted. And today, the Romans are supposed to turn around and go defend this province, and the provincials are supposed to overlook that they’re still trying to put their buildings back together, and forget the dead.
And you, daily, put out of your mind that Artemis is one of those following us to guard your back, do you not? Nith pointed out, his tail sliding over the edge of the building, which made a few apprehensive faces tilt upwards. Artemis is the sister of Apollo.
I don’t think she likes him. I hesitate to ask her, but there are legends that Apollo was so ‘protective’ of her virginity, that when she fell in love with Orion, a son of Poseidon, he cast an illusion on Orion, making her think her beloved was a beast, causing her to kill him, herself.
Some tales have Orion as a god-born. Others, as a sort of god, himself, Nith noted, his head turning as he scanned their surroundings. One tale says that Orion was actually produced by Zeus, Hermes, and Poseidon all ejaculating into a bull’s hide on the ground, and bidding the man who would raise the resulting offspring to bury it in the ground, and unbury it in ten months. Gestation in the womb of the earth. A method of explaining to early humans that the gods do not need physicality to engender offspring— Nith paused, and his massive head tilted back at Sigrun’s muffled snort of laughter. Ah. You are feeling young today.
Lassair tells me that maidenhood is a state of mind, and that even if I had grandchildren, she would expect me to laugh and blush at certain phrases. Sigrun paused. But in this case, it’s twofold. First, there’s how formally you explain it. As if reading from a book.
It was in a text I read some thirteen hundred years ago, in Latin, yes. I am uncertain how else I could possibly tell the tale. Nith’s tail lashed, catching one of the satellite dishes atop the roof, lightly. He sounded nettled.
She swallowed her smile. And that made me think of how one could possibly ask Mercury to confirm the tale. And the question came to mind in Kanmi’s voice: ‘So, did you have an incestuous circle-jerk with your uncle-father and your uncle-uncle, for the purposes of producing offspring?’ She’d imitated Kanmi’s inflections perfectly. She couldn’t imagine saying this in her own voice.
Nith’s body went completely still. For a moment, she thought she’d actually shocked the dragon. That does indeed sound like Emberstone, he agreed. However, you seem more embarrassed, having imparted the thought to me, than before.
Sigrun chuckled guiltily. It does border on telling you a dirty joke. And that seems improper, to me. For a married woman to tell that sort of joke to someone other than her husband seemed a little beyond the pale to her, in spite of having heard such jokes for decades in the Praetorians and the Legion.
I did ask how one might otherwise tell the tale. His tone was unruffled, and unembarrassed. You provided additional perspective.
I didn’t embarrass you?
You embarrassed yourself. For me . . . the tail swept along the roof tiles again, producing offspring by any means has been unthinkable. Given my progenitor’s restrictions, could any have seen me as other than a beast? And until recently, no other creature in the mortal realm has worn a similar shape to mine, or possessed a similar spirit. His head lifted suddenly, as if scenting something on the air. Sigrun?
The unease in his tone was enough warning. Sigrun pulled a seiðr shield up around them seconds before a black lash of power tried to envelope them both, sheeting across her shield like ink-dyed water. Then something large and heavy slammed down atop the building beside them. The roof, already under strain from Nith’s weight, shuddered. And as the darkness retreated down her shield like oil, she could see a humanoid form standing just beside Nith’s right foreleg. One foot propped up on a chimneypot, dark cloak billowing out from his shoulders, Orcus stood, with a scythe in his hand. The bone handle was worn, and the metal looked like the surface of an iron-cored meteorite, pitted and ancient. The death’s head couldn’t smile any further; his teeth were permanently bared in a rictus grin. Sigrun Stormborn. I gave up waiting for you to be without your eternal chaperone. As it is, you’ll both add to my power.
Thoughts churned through her mind. There’s no hope. I can’t fight him. He’s too powerful. This is the end. But as Nith snarled under her, she shook it off, realizing that the despair actually radiated out from Orcus’ body, in waves. The people in the street below were looking up again, and pointing. They’d already been uneasy at the sight of an enormous dragon overseeing the departing troops. Now, they began to panic, though possibly none of them could have said why. The legionnaires stopped marching. Lifted their heads . . . and then their weapons. But their movements were listless, and their aim wavered. The common citizens lining the sidewalks and in the streets, broke and ran. Pushing and shoving the gardia members who were there to keep them separated from the soldiers. Screams echoed up from the street, bouncing off the patched walls of the apartment buildings, and Sigrun could already sense people being trampled. Bright flashes of pain in othersight. The tanks and troop transports ground to a halt, as the crowds
swarmed in front of them. They were, effectively, trapping themselves. Trapping each other.
All of that, an impression, taking less than a tenth of a second to record itself in Sigrun’s mind. And in the time it took for her to call her spear to her hand, Nith had already opened his mouth and exhaled at Orcus. “Careful!” Sigrun shouted, too late. “You’ll hit the people below!”
Liquid oxygen, deathfrost, belched out of Nith’s mouth, engulfing Orcus, and shot past the edge of the roof by another forty feet, before cascading ten stories to the ground. The only good news was, that most of it warmed and sublimed back into gaseous form before it hit the ground. Leave! Niðhoggr roared at those below. Get to shelter!
So much for not panicking them further, Sigrun thought numbly, as Orcus, who’d demanifested at the dragon’s attack, leaped for her in spirit form, rematerializing as he completed his arc through the air, his scythe leading the way. She blocked the strike with her spear, feeling the impact reverberate through her arms. She was at a disadvantage at the moment. It was daylight. She had no idea how to demanifest to avoid physical damage in daylight; she’d only managed her insubstantial shadow-self at night. She couldn’t fleet to the Veil without Nith’s help. Orcus’ full weight—and a portion of his power—hit her then, knocking her off Nith’s back. She fell, but instantly corrected her position in the air, and rose, spear in hand. Fenris! Now would be good!
There was no response as the clouds overhead darkened further. It was snowing lightly, but that didn’t matter. Electricity could manifest in any storm. Sigrun reached up into the sky, and pulled the lightning down, sheeting it into Orcus, while Nith pivoted his head, found the god again, and lined up the shot . . . and brought his tail around.
A whip had technically been the first human invention to exceed the speed of sound. The way in which they were swung carried the kinetic force of a large item down to where there was far less mass, which allowed the tip to move faster than sound, and created small-scale sonic booms. Nith's tail was a very large-scale bullwhip, and he swung it now with lethal force and wicked accuracy. Orcus, concentration caught and held by Sigrun's lightning, was hit by Nith's physical attack in turn, and the three-foot long barbed tip of the tail slashed across his upper body, flinging him off the building. Black blood hissed against the tar-covered roofing tiles, whiffs of smoke rising from wherever it touched.
As Orcus fell, the crowds below him scattered, but all the people were jammed in together, pushing, screaming, shoving. And on landing, Orcus swept his scythe, and a man fell over, sheared in half at the waist. Sigrun felt the death, and nausea swept over her as othersight showed her the life-energy pouring from the dying man into Orcus’ body, like a gray trail of smoke. His wounds healed, and then he laughed and raised his hand. The humans around him had already pulled back in horror, trying to flee. Now, they dropped to their knees, and othersight once more showed Sigrun that their bodies were aging. Withering. Their life-energy was being torn out of them, the potential of all their lives being consumed.
Despair and doubt held her frozen for a single second. She couldn't touch him. Her lightning was powerful—and she could tell that it affected him, in more than just his manifested form—but it wasn’t enough. Nith could pounce and attack, but humans could die on the ground, trampled underfoot by the dragon’s huge form. But while Orcus was drawing power from the human deaths, Sigrun could feel traces of that same power coming to her. She’d told Adam, once, that standing in the middle of a battleground gave her power. It was true. Ground hallowed with the blood and death of soldiers, or by the deaths of those who were killed unjustly, made her tingle, and knowing what was happening only made her nauseous.
Fenris! Sigrun called again, and added, Artemis! Freya! We need assistance!
I come, Fenris assured her, but his voice was strained. Hold fast. Odin had summoned me to Nimes.
Nith! I’ll protect the humans and watch your back. You attack Orcus until the others arrive.
Niðhoggr needed no further encouragement, and leaped over the edge of the ten-story apartment building, wings tucked, and landed, claws extended. The crowd screamed and continued its retreat as the poured-stone buckled and cracked under his weight, and there was a terrible grating noise as his paws clenched, and tore into the pavement. Sigrun reached out with seiðr, grabbing some of the kinetic energy of his descent into the earth, and pushing it further out, extending it, shoving the entire crowd further away in a circle. People flew, arms and legs waving, but at least they were now out of range of the wings, the tail, and the claws. Dimly, she made a mental note to thank Minori and Kanmi for teaching her the amplification technique. Move! Sigrun shouted, and saw Orcus re-manifest to Nith’s left, directly between two stalled tanks. Move, people, run!
Orcus spun and, laughing, swung his scythe again, this time shearing through the front of the tank to his left. The blade extended out, as Amaterasu’s Kusanagi blade did, seeming impossibly long . . . and the tank groaned and sagged as the entire front section slid away, like fresh-cut butter on a warm plate. Sigrun could see two of the four lives inside flickering out, and their energies being drawn to him, while the remaining two crewmen recoiled in mortal terror.
And as Nith lashed out with his forepaws, Orcus lifted the front section of the tank off the ground with raw magic, and hurled it at the dragon’s face like a stone propelled by a mangonel. Sigrun flung out a web of seiðr desperately, trying to catch it. Her ability to use othersight had improved, but her ability to react to what she perceived with it still lagged. She therefore only managed to dissipate a little of the inertia. The front end of the tank, including most of the massive main gun, probably weighed between ten thousand and twenty thousand pounds, and it hit Nith squarely in his muzzle, knocking the dragon to the side, and actually sending him tumbling to the ground. Sigrun was fairly certain she’d heard one of the bones in his jaws snap at the impact.
Nith! Sigrun lunged for her friend, trying to get to his side, only to find her arms caught from behind in a tight grip as Orcus de-manifested, and re-manifested again behind her. She felt the scales of her armor bend in, compressing the flesh, and hissed through her teeth, bringing lightning down, centered directly on herself. It felt like a lover’s caress down her spine, but it was evidently enough to sting Orcus. His bony hands let go, and Sigrun swung around, lashing out with her spear, and growled, “Fikkest thu. Acwelan!” The spear connected with ribs, shearing deep under the black mantel he wore, and she focused all her power with the word acwelan, or die. Frost sparkled all along Orcus’ skull-like visage, and his red-glowing eyes went milky as the hoarfrost coated the sockets . . . and then he returned the favor, a wave of dark energies flooding through her. Working on her, cold and deadly. Her bones ached. Her joints complained. Her heart skipped a beat. This is what aging feels like, Sigrun realized, as tiredness swept through her . . . and then her internal fires fought it off, healing her. But slowly. Agonizingly slowly.
The second tank crew, in the seconds between Orcus’ attack on Nith, and his renewed assault on Sigrun, had been busy. Two of the humans in the armored machine flickered with wild yellow panic. The other two hardened into steely resolve. The main gun could fire antipersonnel flechettes made of tungsten, but at the moment, it was equipped with high-explosive rounds designed to destroy buildings, emplacements, and other armored vehicles. While the main gun was designed to aim at objects up to a mile away, it could also fire on things at somewhat closer range. Sigrun could see, just past Orcus’ head, as the main gun lowered, slowly . . . and she tucked, preemptively, into a protective ball, as the chambered round fired.
Orcus was focusing, intently, on Sigrun. He was fixed on the targets that he knew could hurt him. Humans were batteries for him. There was no way in which a Roman legionnaire could harm him. Creatures of energy, magic, and power, could. Mortals could not.
The look of shock in the red eyes as the high explosive round went off in his spine would stay with Sigrun till the world’s end. The w
hite fire turned his entire frame to a black silhouette, and the shockwave flung both of them into Nith’s armored side, with enough impact to daze Sigrun for an instant. Nith? she thought again, scrabbling with her hands for purchase on glossy scales, trying to get Orcus’ weight off of her.
The roar that now answered her started somewhere in the earth below. The buildings shook, as much from the earthquake, as from the sound. Sigrun’s regular vision was blinded, but othersight showed her that the humans still fled, and that every window around her had just shattered as a shadow with a burning white fire at its heart lurched up off the ground and its diamond claws caught Orcus and flung him three hundred feet away, hurling the Roman god through the wall of a nearby apartment building. Without a word, Nith leaped after his prey, shouldering directly through the building to the northwest. “Nith! There are still people inside! You’re going to get them killed!” Sigrun shouted, and stared around wildly as her vision finally returned. It was almost sunset. It came late, this time of year—almost eight-thirty postmeridian. But there were clouds hanging heavy in the sky. It was almost dark. It was almost night. Nith!
She rose into the air, shouting to the other gods for aid once more. Orcus is here! We need assistance! and received a quick, worried flash from Freya. Odin was fighting one of the oldest mad gods at the moment, and others were being called in to Nimes to try to save the city. Freya herself was pinned down near the ruins of Novo Trier, fighting a similar mad godling with Tyr, Thor, and Juno. Others will come! Hold while you can!
The Goddess Embraced (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 3) Page 138
