Radio chatter in his ear, and a quick glance, as he crouched behind the turret for the moment, to see what was going on. He spotted a flight of harpies, led by Reginleif. She was a highly capable wielder of seiðr, and she was rightly going after the technomancers and summoners, the ones who could control the Immortals, and maintain their defenses. A burst of quick pride; a male voice that said at the back of his head, That’s my wife. Look at her go! He could see the air itself solidifying around the magi in a dome of white, and knew that that was part of her contribution. A tomb of ice, and unusual for her. But this is Regin. Where’s the illusion? Where’s the lie?
Then bullets from the machine guns of the defenders shattered the ice tomb into white, deadly fragments that collapsed in on them. Got a clear line of sight on the harpies as they descended, but the women twisted and turned as they dove, bullets missing . . . missing . . . hitting. One female crumpled into the ground, like the victim of a bad skydive, head-first, and Regin swooped in, singing a note that rang out over even the rat-tat-tat-tat-tat of gunfire and the whump-whump of mortars going off.
“Lorelei, do you n-need assistance?” Brandr asked into his radio, and then cursed as he realized that the device had taken a bullet at some point. He could hear, but not respond worth a damn. Status quo resumes, he thought. Shadowweaver! Do you need assistance? Or is this an illusion?
Illusion, partially. Her voice was clipped in his mind. We’ve got five magi here, all casting in concert. We’re hanging back behind them, but if you and your contingent of jotun rush their position, it would help. The more confused and stressed the magi are, the better, when we strip their spells from them.
All right. Coming in. Brandr measured the distance. Sixty feet, more or less, and the ground in between was swarming with Persian troops. He picked up the hatch he’d torn off the top of the tank, and grimaced. My ancestors used to bite the edges of their wooden shields when they fell into battle-madness. Bad idea today. “Listen up!” he shouted to the jotun and fenris, in Gothic. “Our harpies are an illusion. Lorelei’s work. The faster we kill their magi, the faster we can all go home. So break through their defenders and get to the casters.”
Howls of agreement and approval followed his words, and then Brandr leaped down off the tank, holding the hatch up and to his left, hearing the rattle of bullets against it, and saw Regin’s body appear to crumple out of the sky. Saw her fall to the ground, her wings sticking up askew, covered in blood and dirt. He knew it was an illusion, but the sight gave the battle-madness an edge. It primed him. And going in against that many magi . . . he didn’t need to be canny. He needed to be faster than they were, more brutal. He needed them dead, or too afraid, too surprised, to be able to cast. So Brandr concentrated on the image of his wife’s broken body, the thought of the mother of his child was in danger, and brought the battle-madness up.
The next moments were a blur as his makeshift shield shattered the faces and skulls of whichever enemies didn’t face his hammer. Foes scattering around the inbound tank to his left. He could dimly see the eyes of his enemies showing white all the way around as he carved a path directly for the magi defensive position. Felt the impacts of machine gun bullets against the ceramic inserts of his flak jacket, some of them partially penetrating. He rocked back and brought his shield in line in front of him. Felt his body start to heal around the bullets.
Thirty feet. A mortar round went over his head, and Brandr ducked, lowering his center of gravity, tucking his body behind his makeshift shield. Another ice tomb surrounded the magi, and this time, they broke off their incantations to shatter it with a bloom of fire . . . which exploded out like the petals of some sort of demonic flower, over their own defenders, who didn’t flinch. Clearly, they were wearing anti-fire technomantic devices, though the gods only knew how their own bullets weren’t exploding inside the chambers of their guns and ammo cases. Again, probably technomancy. The flames seethed out, in every direction now, and a continuous hail of bullets continued from inside the fiery perimeter. A last line of defense, a shield of light of some sort, arced up and over them as well, and Brandr could see inbound bullets dropping to the ground in front of the shell, their kinetic energy stolen. No thoughts in his mind now, beyond a very distant voice that whispered, And that’s why I don’t bother with guns.
Twenty feet. The machine gunners weren’t moving; they couldn’t leave their magical fortifications. They’d sacrificed mobility for the illusion of security. Ten feet, four streams of nonstop fire rattling against the hatch he carried, the magi inside the defensive dome incanting rapidly, and then the air around Brandr solidified. Froze against his skin, burning every exposed inch, and trying to immobilize him. All Brandr knew was whiteness. But even in battle-madness, training carried through, and he forced his sluggish limbs to move, shattering his prison and leaping forwards, throwing his shield at the first of the machine gunners. The hatch weighed well over a hundred pounds; in its native environment, hydraulics let the crews move it with ease. Now, it hurtled towards a stunned machine gunner, catching the man in the upper chest, shattering sternum and ribs, and knocking him to the ground. Brandr leaped, landing atop the hatch, feeling a liquid crunch underneath. The hatch and the body beneath it gave him a relatively safe place to stand, in the midst of the inferno that blazed up all around him . . . and then he lowered his shoulder and charged through the ring of bodies to land on the first magi he found at the center, swinging his hammer on the way down.
Brandr rolled up from the bloody, stricken mass of the sorcerer’s body, the surge of battle-madness fading. Flames licked at his feet and legs, and all the Persians in the immediate vicinity had taken a step or two back, and there was a moment’s pause as they regrouped, mentally, after his mad charge . . . and then the jotun and the fenris charged in behind him, hitting like a tidal wave of flesh. Shadowweaver, take down the flames!
The personnel carrier that the Persians had put themselves up against had just been hit by his tank, and was now being crushed as the tank rolled over the top of it. The soldiers inside had already scattered, and the passing of the tank, and the crushing of the carrier now left Brandr and his allies open to fire from the lines behind them. Dimly, he realized that to the south, there was a tank moving its turret to aim for them, but it couldn’t fire yet; there were too many magi still alive.
The flames died around him, and a storm of blades made of solidified oxygen flew at his face. Brandr ducked, and most of them rattled off his helmet, though a few scored his torso. And then he realized that he suddenly had a twin to either side of him, and that Regin had made his own body invisible. He blinked, but took the gift for what it was, shoving his way through the mass of jotun and fenris bodies, his feet stepping on the softness of twisting, writhing bodies as the trampled soldiers died. Got to the next magi in line, who’d just lit a fenris on fire; the creature was screaming in agony . . . and Brandr brought his hammer down on the magi’s head with brutal efficiency, just as a third magi collapsed, all the fluids in his body being forced out of his skin. She’s been learning. I’ve never seen her use a direct attack like that before . . . .
And at that moment, Brandr heard Regin’s voice cut through the battle like a clarion. “Move! Move, you nithing fools, run!”
His head swung up. Behind him and the jotun and fenris, the Persians were folding in on the line they’d cut to get here. Turning to fire on them. To the south, the tank was preparing to fire. East? The entire side of the convoy where the jotun and fenris hadn’t circled around yet, though his ‘captured’ tank was still trundling vaguely southeasterly now. The only open route was west, into the scrubby underbrush along the side of the road, but there was no cover there, and no allies. He thought the best option was one that left them with enemies only on one side, and predictably, it was an aggressive option. “Into their lines!” he ordered the others. “Press the attack, or we’re going to take a tank shell up the ass. Move! Someone with a gun, take the rear!”
They cut the
ir way southeast, following the tread marks of his pet tank, so that the Persian tank due south of them couldn’t take the shot it had lined up, not the gunner hitting his own allies. Two jotun with miniguns took the rear, and Brandr took point again, taking with it another hail of bullets, making him wish he’d thought to grab his makeshift shield. Then he faded once more into invisibility. He blessed Regin in his heart, as she gave him time to heal, at least. But every bullet not aimed for him, was aimed for a jotun or a fenris, instead.
Bear-warriors did not surrender. They did not retreat. They might, occasionally, be persuaded to flank, or move to more advantageous ground. Reginleif had known that for over two hundred years. And she had to dodge and weave in the air herself, pulling a shroud of invisibility over her own body to keep the soldiers below from firing on her. Maintaining multiple illusions at once took intense concentration, and she was wholly defensive now, unable to use her magic offensively while protecting both Brandr and herself.
All it took was one lucky round . . . and a bullet found her shoulder, piercing through. And they both flickered into visibility, just as Brandr and the jotun hit the enemy lines. Reginleif could see the troops below all fall in on Brandr and his companions. Hacking. Cutting. She found her spear in her hands, and dove, screaming, bursting eardrums. Shattering the tiny bones in the ears, and rattling every other bone. The fenris howled in protest, but they’d heal; the jotun and the humans all wore earplugs. She cut. She slashed. She screamed again.
Several enterprising enemy combatants climbed back up into the tank that Brandr had repurposed, and while her harpies yanked several of them into the sky to drop them to their deaths, all it took was one of the soldiers getting inside, and regaining control of the vehicle . . . and he backed the machine right into the melee. People scrambled frantically away, but dozens were crushed and killed. Reginleif launched herself to the top of the machine, went invisible, and slipped into the crew area, killing the driver and turning the engine off before leaping back out again . . . in time to see the enemy pulling back now, as the JDF advanced on this area. In time to see, to her horror, that one of the jotun held Brandr’s bleeding body up. Too many wounds. His flak jacket had been hit too many times by machine gun fire and enchanted bullets and everything else. The arms race of god-born abilities against modern materials science had been tipping in favor of automatic weapons for years, until many factories were shut down for lack of supplies.
But even a god-born could be unlucky.
They moved him to the triage lines, in the shelter of one of the wrecked personnel carriers. And Regin knelt beside him, trying to put pressure on the wounds, and not for the first time, cursed her useless lineage. Valkyrie of Eir, Odin, Tyr, Freyr and Freya, could all heal. She, as a daughter of Loki, could not. “Don’t move,” she told Brandr, feeling tears fill her eyes. He’d survived Hel’s death-strike. He should be able to survive this. She just needed to . . . put his entrails back into his abdomen. That wouldn’t kill him. It would take a little longer to heal, as his intestines remembered how they were supposed to coil, that’s all. Shock had clearly already set in, but shock didn’t kill bear-warriors. It just slowed them down a little. He wasn’t writhing in agony, and he should have been. Did the bastards sever his spinal column?
Her hands were scarlet-dyed with his blood, and shaking, as she tried to push the pieces back together. Tried to hold him together, by force of will, and finally found the entry-point in his back, where a bullet had severed the spinal column, and pushed forwards, nicking the heart. No one but a bear-warrior would have been alive at this point.
One of his big hands caught hers as he lay on his side, where the jotun had rolled him. “You’ve forgotten how to be a valkyrie, Reginleif,” he told her, his voice barely audible. “You know the truth. Just . . . let go.” It was the first time he’d used her given name—the first time that she’d allowed him to do so—in years.
Her red eyes filled with tears, and her mouth opened and closed as she choked on her own deathsense. She could remember the day he’d come to the Odinhall. Young and bluff and full of himself, the way most sixteen-year-old bear-warriors tended to be. A little clumsy. But the blue eyes had been innocent then, the dark hair a little finer . . . no beard to conceal his face. Fewer scars. He’d been a good fighter, but she’d recommended him for a training position, because he’d had more patience than most of his peers. And then she’d betrayed him, lied to him to his face during the whole Loki business. Almost gotten him killed. He’d forgiven her for it, amazingly. Lifted her up out of the darkness of her own despair. Dared her to share his life.
And now, she’d failed him again. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered, peripherally aware that Vidarr and Ima were nearby, talking with medics about the condition of their people. “Please don’t leave. You’re the only thing that matters to me in this world. You survived Hel.” She leaned down, trying to pour herself into him. Pressed her lips against his cold forehead. “Just . . . concentrate on my voice. Stay with me. Let your body do what it does best. Heal.”
“Listen. When Joris . . . died . . . you were angry. Don’t . . . set the world on fire. Not for me. Don’t need . . . that big a pyre . . .” His blood-stained hand rose, and he touched her hair, lightly. His eyes were vague, and unfocused
Instead, she leaned down, and whispered against his ear, “Don’t go, Brandr. Cloudwalker. I will just follow you, you know that. What have I to offer our child besides the shame of my name? You’re the best and brightest part of my life, the only thing in it beyond duty and atonement. Don’t leave me.”
“When the little one hatches . . . love her for me. Stay with her, for me. So someone will remember. Tell her my name.” He stared at her, blindly. “My hammer. In my hand.”
Regin settled his weapon into his hand, and helped him fold it to his chest. A whole world, a whole lifetime of missed chances suddenly leaped into focus for her, and she shook with them. If only she’d seen him for who he was when he was young. If she’d just married him then, instead of waiting eighty damned years. If her choices had been different . . . I wouldn’t have been open to Hel’s offers. I wouldn’t have been her pawn. I wouldn’t have turned against the gods. But she couldn’t unravel the string of choices that comprised her life. No mere mortal could.
But when his heart stopped beating, she didn’t feel him die. Denial, and she knew it. But she refused to leave his side. Refused to allow the medics to pull a sheet over his face.
Again, peripheral awareness of people talking over her head. Young Rig’s voice, and Vidarr’s low rumble, and finally Rig knelt down beside her. “You have to let go,” Loki’s son told her.
“No. We’re bringing his body back to Jerusalem. There’s still time for him.” Reginleif mopped at her face with a hand covered in flaking, dried blood. “Call to your mother, please. Tell her I would like to arrange a trade. My life for his.” She stared down at the body, and managed a faint smile. “A valkyrie’s choice, in truth.” I don’t need to live to ensure that the child does. A benefit to laying eggs.
“My mother never does that,” Rig hissed in her ear. “Not a husband for a wife. She says if she did that, the survivor’s guilt would impel them to offer the trade again, and then again, until the afterlife has a revolving door.”
“She’ll make an exception for me. Why else have I been left alive, if not to give my life for someone who’s more deserving of the gift?”
Rig’s silver hand clamped down on her shoulder as he fought to find the words to get Reginleif back on her feet. “Look. My mother told me once, that Loki said that Brandr might not be killable. There’s . . . a connection between you. A soul-bond. I could always see it, in othersight. I can still see . . . vestiges. Has it snapped?”
Her face turned puzzled, and her eyes defocused. Turned inwards. And then she replied, sounding confused, “No. I don’t . . . I don’t think so.”
“Which means he might not even need my mother’s talents. He might not be dead,” R
ig told her. “There’s a reason our people used to wait ten days before putting someone on the pyre. We’ll take him home. We’ll pull all the bullets out. We’ll . . . do whatever we can, to give him a fighting chance against death. I’ll make sure he’s put with the wounded, all right? But you have to help the harpies right now. They’re down by over a quarter of their number, and they really need you out there with them.”
Her head came up, and Rig watched as some two hundred years of duty and experience came back to life in her head. She kissed Brandr’s hand, and settled it on his chest. Then stood, and silently walked past Vidarr and Ima as if they weren’t there, to return to the harpies.
Vidarr watched her go, and then said, blankly, “She used to be a valkyrie? Huh. Explains a few things.” His expression remained puzzled, and then he shrugged. “Time for that later. Medics, get Ilfetu’s body to the wounded transports. If he’s got even a chance . . . I won’t be the one who puts him on a pyre.”
The battle went on for over ten hours. At dawn, the Persian column was a ruined stretch of smoking vehicles spread out over a half a mile of torn pavement and desert clay. With the Immortals’ bodies destroyed, and most of the magi killed, the ordinary Persian soldiers began surrendering, rapidly. Solinus had a fairly good idea of why. They fought to the death for fear that they might be the next ones recruited as replacement Immortals, he thought, as he, still in flame form, stood guard as the others around him stripped kneeling soldiers of weapons, and lashed the men’s hands behind them with lengths of wire.
The Goddess Embraced (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 3) Page 165
