by Renée Jaggér
The king growled and hoisted his warhammer, and Bailey feared that battle was about to break out, but the mood among the trolls was strange and hesitant. They must have known that Fenris spoke the truth about decimating their forces and were afraid of suffering the same fate.
Still, face had to be saved, so the king went through the motions of threatening them and acting haughty, while Fenris issued a mixture of reasonable promises and threats.
As stupid as these trolls supposedly are, Bailey thought, they know a thing or two about negotiations. Maybe we underestimated them. Are they plotting something?
Finally, they reached an agreement.
“So be it,” the king grunted. “I will not risk more of my people, brave and strong as we are, on the condition that the forces of Asgard leave us to our own realm and do not seek to expand their own borders into our territory.”
“Yes,” Fenris replied. “That is acceptable, and we will honor our half of the bargain.”
Bailey squinted. She hadn’t heard or seen anything to suggest that the Asgardians were trying to expand onto frost troll turf, so it must have been a meaningless, symbolic concession, designed to sound like a fair truce rather than an unconditional surrender.
The wounded prisoner stayed behind as Fenris turned to leave, taking Bailey by the arm and guiding her away from the clearing.
“Wait,” she asked. “How do we know that—”
“Not now,” the wolf-god snapped. “All is well, for the time being.”
Angry, the werewitch nevertheless bit her tongue until they were a fair distance from the trolls and presumably out of earshot.
“Okay, then,” she inquired again. “If it’s safe, how do we know that they’ll keep their side of the deal and follow the new policy or whatever?”
Fenris grimaced. “We don’t know. Not for certain. But I have no reason to believe they’ll try anything soon. My best guess is that they will lie low for a time, licking their wounds and recouping their losses, then look for some minor technicality that can be used against us to ‘justify’ a resumption of hostilities.”
She frowned. “Ugh. That sucks.”
As they emerged from the woods, Fenris elaborated. “Of late, many creatures have grown strangely impatient to start Ragnarök—to attack Asgard and the gods, attempting to overthrow them, triggering the End of Days, which they feel will lead to a new age when they will rule. It is difficult to say what lies ahead, but we must be cautious and ready for anything.”
Bailey went cold.
He knows about it, then. He’s aware that something is wrong, and he didn’t seem scared or angry when he said that. What are his real goals and intentions? How the hell can I be sure of anything anymore?
Their elk was still waiting for them by the campfire. The second battle had, absurdly enough, spared it. The pair sat down by the blaze, which had burned down to mostly coals at this point, and Fenris added another log from the debris of fractured trees that lay strewn across the plain.
Fenris tore into the carcass again as Bailey roasted some strips threaded on sticks, sitting and watching the forest. Waiting, guarded, and prepared for betrayal.
Roland raised his hands to get everyone to shut up. “All right, pipe down. We’re all assembled, and you all understand what’s at stake. Right?”
Dante, at his side, added, “We don’t have a lot of time to answer tons of questions, but we do want to make sure that anyone who comes along understands what they’re getting into. This isn’t going to be a cakewalk.”
Watching his friend, Roland saw Dante exchange meaningful glances with Charlene, his girlfriend, who stood among the group of two dozen witches they’d recruited.
At present, they were gathered in an empty field a mile outside the Portland suburbs, near the foothills of the Cascades. The two wizards had decided to do most of their recruitment drive in the City of Roses, since it was far closer to Greenhearth than Seattle was, not to mention it was Portland witches who’d fed the worst of Callie’s undead hunger. Charlene had come down from Seattle to be by her lover’s side in the battle to come. Deanna, another woman who’d helped them against Aradia, losing her friend Shari in the fight, had come, too.
Two witches, a young man, and a slightly older woman, raised their hands, and the woman spoke. “How many of these things are there again?” she inquired. “And if they can replicate themselves, then how will attacking small pockets of them do much good? I’m not saying I don’t want to help, only that I’d rather do something that does help instead of just pissing them off.”
Murmurs went through the shuffling crowd.
Dante sighed. “That’s a valid point. The idea is, they can only replicate themselves so fast, and they need to feed on mortal witches in order to do that, so if the bulk of them are holed up in this canyon in the Other, then obviously they can’t do it. We’ll be hitting them when and where they’re weak.”
Half the casters nodded, but the others still looked unsure.
Roland raised a finger. “Oh, and also, the Agency has these new weapons that not only disperse the crones’ energy but also sucks up their essence into these little tanks, which prevents them from reconstituting themselves. So with them fighting with us, we’ll be able to tear through them pretty well. The big danger is that we can’t afford to provoke the entire horde at once and get surrounded, and we’ve all been planning extensively on how to avoid that.”
This seemed to mostly satisfy the witches. Roland glossed over a couple more questions, answering in vague terms and pledging that the agents would be able to fill in the rest when the time came. Which he hoped was true.
“Okay,” he concluded, “let’s go. The sooner we hit them, the better.”
The group piled into their convoy of vehicles and made for the highway. They headed southeast into the mountains, arriving in Greenhearth about forty-five or fifty minutes later. Roland had come in his Audi, with Dante riding shotgun, and he led the group down side streets and then rough, bumpy dirt road that led to the abandoned farm owned by the Nordin family, where everyone would be gathering.
The Agency’s task force was already there, waiting for them in front of the old barn.
This, Roland recalled, was where Bailey was going to hide me from Shannon and Aida and Callie, except that prick Dan Oberlin and his boys found us instead. That was our first fight together.
As the witches emerged from their cars, Roland saw with gut-roiling disappointment that Velasquez and Park had procured all of ten other agents to join them. On the plus side, the dozen were bristling with weapons and armor and looked like they were mostly elite black-ops guys, which he regarded as a good sign.
And yet, that’s three dozen of us versus, what, five hundred or so of them? He shook his head.
Velasquez approached. “Glad you could make it. Is this everyone?”
“Yup,” said Dante. “Is this everyone?” He looked at the agents’ squad. “We’re a tad short of an army, aren’t we?”
Park grimaced. “Yeah, well, quality over quantity. These guys are the best, I hear.”
The senior agent concurred. “Yes, they were all with us when we took on Aradia. They have experience fighting in the Other and using this kind of high-level equipment. I would have liked to garner more men, but the Agency has its fingers in a lot of different pies right now, and our fearless leaders never seem to grasp the magnitude of a threat until the shitstorm begins in full force. We have to make do with what we have.”
Behind Roland, the witches muttered; they’d been expecting a larger group of allies, too.
“Yeah, whatever,” the wizard responded, trying to sound confident. “The talent and technology we’ve got here should be enough. Now, let’s get ‘em. Are we going to the same place?”
Velasquez had ambled off to fire up the gateway device, so Park answered.
“Not quite. We’ll be dropping on a shelf of rock on the other side of the canyon that has easier access to the crones’ gathering plac
e via multiple routes. After we do some quick reconnaissance, that will allow us more opportunities to divide and conquer the fuckers while still having routes of escape if we provoke too many of them at once.”
Deanna quipped, “Well, good thing you guys have a well-thought-out strategy. Let’s do this.”
Velasquez had set the gateway device up within the barn, and after he punched in the coordinates, it glowed purple before growing a portal within its central section. “We’re good,” he announced. “Come on.”
He and five other agents went through first, followed by the two dozen witches, with the remaining Agency guys bringing up the rear.
They emerged into a small red valley filled with boulders and gravel. Three paths that all looked traversable on foot wound out of the hollow and into the low, jagged mountains. The canyon, Roland guessed, must lay beyond.
Velasquez assumed command of the overall operation. He dispatched three men to scout the paths, then turned to face the rest of the group.
“They say you should never divide your forces,” he opened, “but ‘never’ is a strong word. In this case, we’re going to break up into three squads, each consisting of a dozen men or women, eight witches and four agents. Witches with talent at shielding will be out in front, followed by the agents, then the other witches in the rear. The idea is to locate and engage with small pockets of the crones, lure them away from the others, and destroy them systematically for as long as we can get away with.”
The scouts returned, reporting that two of the three paths led into the canyon. The other didn’t seem to, but they had glimpsed a cluster of ten or twelve crones, maybe more, within a side hollow down there.
Velasquez nodded. “Split up. Our agents will be in communication with one another. Let the remaining groups know as soon as you engage the enemy or if anything goes wrong. Move.”
Roland found himself in a group alongside Deanna and four agents he didn’t know. They would be handling the leftmost path, the one that was supposedly a dead end. Dante and Charlene were in Velasquez’s squad, which would tackle the central path. Park led the one taking the right-hand path.
They set off at a fast march and clambered over the rough, stony ground, working their way first up out of the valley and then down the bluff toward the huge gorge, bits of which Roland could see between the spires of rock before them.
They’d gone half a mile when the agent in command raised a hand for them to stop. “This was where I saw them,” he whispered and gestured at an open space up ahead, just past a slight bend in the trail.
Roland went out in front, along with a female witch whose name he’d forgotten—Linda or Laura or Lena, something like that. He’d never met her, but she claimed to be an accomplished shielder.
Creeping forward, they spotted the wafting rags of the crones before the creatures saw them. Roland conjured a pair of invisible shields to protect most of the space between the two groups but left an opening in the center for the lead agents to fire through.
Everyone held their breath.
Green beams blazed out of the agents’ disruptor rifles, transforming the four eldritch crones in front into masses of sparkling particles. The rest of the undead clones streamed toward them, raking their claws in the air and howling like banshees.
Roland cursed the noise as he and the woman beside him deflected a series of nasty magical attacks. Behind him, one of the agents quickly reported into his headpiece that they’d engaged the crones. The witches in the rear hurled further attacks at their foes’ heads.
It was over in a minute or so. As with the group Roland, Dante, and the two agents had fought before, the engagement was brief but intense. It occurred to the wizard that Callie’s clones did not possess full human intelligence. Not surprising; Callie hadn’t been terribly smart.
“Hell, yes,” the agent with the headpiece gloated. “Okay, blue team reporting. We neutralized the threat here. There doesn’t appear to be a further path toward the canyon that we can reach, so we’re heading back to the hub valley. Over.”
Velasquez approved the course of action once the agents finished vacuuming up the crones’ lingering essence. The squad returned to their point of entry. During their brief trek, Park’s group reported that it had easily defeated fourteen or fifteen crones as well, meaning that the mortals had vanquished maybe thirty of the creatures thus far.
No sooner had they arrived than Velasquez was back on the headset, demanding they reinforce his group. They’d stumbled onto a broad slope leading into the main canyon and were under attack by hundreds of crones.
“Shit,” Roland muttered. “Either we’re going to have to abort prematurely, or we get to reenact the goddamn Battle of Thermopylae.”
“What?” someone asked.
“You know,” Roland replied, “like in the movie 300. A small group defends a narrow pass from a horde that’s a couple hundred times bigger than they are.”
A few people chuckled at the implied badassery, but then everyone remembered that all the Spartans had died in the end.
Roland’s group rushed down the central path, finding it flatter and easier to navigate than the left trail had been. It wasn’t long until they heard the sounds of combat and saw flashing lights, then Velasquez’s squad came into sight.
The wizard saw with tremendous relief that they hadn’t lost anyone yet. Dante and Charlene were visible at the rear, and the agents’ green disruptor beams were wreaking massive havoc. At least a hundred crones had massed at the far end of the visible trail and were pouring into the crevasse, wailing hideously in unison.
Deanna gasped. “This might be worse than fighting Aradia. We only had fifty enemies to deal with, and we had another goddess on our side.”
Roland couldn’t agree more. As they joined the other group and began hurling spells toward the colossal mass of undead abominations, he only hoped that wherever the hell Bailey was, she was safe.
And preferably almost done with whatever she’s doing, his mind added. We could kinda use her help.
Bailey could no longer stand it. She had to ask him.
“Fenris,” she piped up as he sat glowering at the trolls’ forest, “do you think Ragnarök is coming? The old legends say it’s inevitable that it’ll happen sooner or later, don’t they?”
By now, the light had faded. The realm of the frost trolls did not seem to have a proper “night,” but the omnipresent illumination grew soft and dim and bluish, as opposed to the bright whiteness that had surrounded them earlier. A gentle snow fell from the sky.
The wolf-father turned to her. “Possibly,” he rumbled, with a vague swipe of his hand. His face was hidden under his hood. “The legends are interpretations of interpretations, mostly by mortals. They are not always correct, but they usually contain a seed of truth. Many creatures throughout the cosmos believe that Ragnarök is foretold and must happen, and because they believe it, their own actions are more likely to make it happen.”
She opted to try a different tack and see how her mentor would react to a firm statement instead of a question.
“Well,” she said, “if that’s the way it is, we need to stop it one way or another.”
Fenris’s solemn scowl changed into what looked like a faint, sad smile. “You’re so determined and confident. I have always liked that about you, Bailey. But if such a thing awaits us, stopping it will be...difficult, to put it mildly.”
“Difficult,” she queried, “or impossible? There’s a big difference between the two. You taught me that as much as anyone else.”
He shook his head. “I do not know, but if it is possible, you and I are up to the task. We have cleared every other hurdle, and heretofore defeated all our adversaries. We’ve always been able to do what must be done.”
She smiled, and despite her suspicions, it was genuine. “Yes. We make a hell of a team.”
They’d eaten most of the dead elk, and only bones, cartilage, and skin remained. The girl was amazed that they’d been able to put
away so much meat, but they were gods, and this wasn’t Earth.
Fenris stood up. “We should spar. I want to test your abilities once more.”
After their long rest and filling meal, Bailey had found that she was refreshed and relaxed, not to mention bored. She jumped to her feet. “Sure. What abilities? I’ve got a lot of them.”
He chuckled at that. “I know. In our recent battle with the trolls, I noticed that you did not shift. I’d like to see your wolf form and ensure you can still fight as well on four legs as two.”
She made a sour face. “It’s easier to do magic in human form. I can do it as a wolf, but it takes more mental effort, and even then, I can’t seem to hit the same heights of power.”
“I see.” He stretched his limbs and flung off his coat. “Yet you fought more with your body than your arcane capabilities. The lupine form is better for melee combat. Now, shift!”
As he spoke, he grew and changed, his clothes shredding as, for the third time, he took on the shape of a wolf-creature the size of a farmhouse. Examining him up close like this in the eerie blue light of the realm’s strange extended twilight, he looked both impressive and monstrously sinister.
Bailey inhaled, then shifted. To her surprise, her own clothes fell away too; a couple months ago, she’d altered her wolf form to be smaller so her wardrobe would stay mostly intact from one form to another.
But now she was bigger. There was the familiar lengthening of body, the sprouting of hair, the reddish sheen from her eyes that encompassed her vision. She grew even larger than the first time she’d ever changed, swelling to the size of a pickup truck.
When Fenris spoke, it was a psychic rumble she heard with her mind instead of her ears. That did not shock her since she’d communicated with her pack via a similar telepathy.
Good, he said, but you are not as far along as you should be.
She was puzzled. What do you mean?
The wolf-god circled her, regarding her with his dark indigo eyes the way a natural wolf might evaluate a deer. Later. For the moment, fight!
