The Path of Ravens (Asgard vs. Aliens Book 1) (30 page)

It hovers there, yellow, bulbous, bristling with
writhing, worm-like spines from the center of which stares a single,
huge, bloodshot eye.

Gaeira lifts her blade, leans over the reins and
kicks her horse to a gallop—toward the thing.

"No!" I cry out. At best, she will
slay one creature, which is of no consequence to the swarm. At worst,
more likely, the thing will not be alone, and I will lose her, a
thought I cannot bear.

Unmounted, I have no means of intercepting her.
Neither have I brought a weapon of my own, having foreseen no need
for one. All can do is chase Gaeira on foot, shouting, "Stop! We
must warn Odinn!"

She pays no heed. Blade poised high for a
stroke, she charges on, and I abandon following her to run for my
horse instead. I leap into the saddle in time to see the hovering
creature rise effortlessly out of Gaeira's sword's reach, its vile
red iris directly upon her.

"Gaeira, leave it!" I scream. "We
must run!"

She swings her blade at it anyway, rearing her
horse for extra height. But the spiny yellow beast stays high above,
looking down, as if taunting her. I want to call Gaeira by some
obscenity that captures how stupid she is being, risking for nothing
the life that she has given me a strong interest in preserving. But I
resist, instead just calling her name, repeatedly and insistently.

Finally, to my relief, she wheels her horse and
gallops toward me. I watch in the direction of the great cleft from
where I sense the creature has come, every moment expecting the great
swarm that I saw in my vision to rise up from it like the great wall
of water which ended my last life. But that does not happen. Gaeira
reaches me, gallops on past, and I join her. Together we ride away at
a pace far greater than the ambling one by which we left the farm
this day.

One of my four visions from Mimir's Well has
come to pass: I have lain with Gaeira in the grass. A second has just
become all but inevitable. Can it be much longer before Jormungand
flies free and Odinn falls?

The time for idleness is over. From this moment,
we battle annihilation. The Aesir may not believe it is  so, but
I know that the end time has come, the last battle.

Ragnarok is upon us.

At Gaeira's farm, we leap from our mounts before
they even have stopped moving. Coming out of his cottage, Afi sees
instantly that something is amiss, and he races to meet us.

“The Myriad are here!” I tell him
urgently, while Gaeira dashes into her home, presumably to gather
what is needed for our imminent departure to Asgard. “Probably
inside the chasm. They could invade at any time, and when they do,
they will destroy everything. Gaeira and I shall ride to warn the
All-Father. You and Dalla must leave now, for your own safety.”

Afi's look as he takes my horse's bridle is one
of concern, but not urgency. “The Myriad, you say?”

His calmness frustrates me. I have told him of
the Myriad. He knows the danger they pose.

“We saw only one, but a swarm cannot be
far behind,” I say. “This part of Vanaheim must be
evacuated.” A question springs to mind. “What land is
that across the cleft?”

“Alfheim.”

The Alvar are allies of Odinn, I recall. “They
must be warned.” I offer no thought on how that might be
accomplished. I must leave it to others; I have my own task, my own
destination.

Dalla saunters outside. “What is it?”
she asks rather casually.

“He says the Myriad are coming,” Afi
answers her, in a similarly relaxed tone. I note his phrasing: 
He
says. 
Does he not believe me?

“Hummph!” Dalla scoffs. “Don't
expect me to run. They can't be worse than jotnar, and we survived
them—twice.”

“No, dear, we'll not run,” Afi
assures her.

“What?” I exclaim. “You must!
You'll be—”

“Do not presume to tell us what we must
do, young man. You might have been a prince in 
Atlantheim
, 
but you're not one here.”

I grunt. I lack the time for this. “As you
like,” I yield. “But all the Vanir must be alerted. Will
you at least spread the word?”

“Aye, of course,” Afi agrees.

Satisfied, somewhat, I start toward the house to
gather my own few belongings for the journey. I am stopped short by
Gaeira bursting out, dressed in armor and laden with pack and ax. She
also has my pack and sword, which she deposits at my feet while
breezing past me. For her, this amounts to an invitation. Were
circumstances not so dire, I might smile. Clearly we have not
discussed our plans aloud. I had halfway thought she might be
indifferent as to whether I accompanied her or not. Then I remember:
she needs me—or my tongue, at least, for what good is a
messenger who lacks voice?

While I secure my belongings to my mount, Gaeira
bids her foster family farewell. For moments she just stands there in
front of Dalla and Afi, staring at the ground while they stare at
her. Finally Dalla steps closer, sets a hand behind Gaeira's neck and
draws her sharply down—for Dalla is a full two heads
shorter—into an embrace. Armored Gaeira remains stiff, but does
not resist. I hear a sniffle, and  a tear slips from Dalla's
shut eye.

It is that sight and sound, perhaps, which cause
Gaeira to turn her cheek and lay it on the crown of Dalla's
gray-haired head. It is a sign of affection that I would have, until
yesterday, thought beyond the self-imposed limits of her vow.

Dalla sniffs again and frees Gaeira, who
straightens. The old woman gently takes in her open palm a portion of
the golden hair falling unbound over Gaeira's shoulder.

“You can't ride like this,” Dalla
says. “Let me braid it for you. Get down. It won't take but a
minute.”

In spite of the relative warmth she has just
shown, I expect Gaeira to dismiss the offer; our mission is too
urgent. But she kneels, and Dalla moves round her and sets to work,
bony hands moving like lightning, expertly separating the long hair
into pleats and twisting them together. While she braids, Afi comes
to stand in front of the kneeling Gaeira. She gazes up at him, and he
down at her, and he nods. He is not of a kind to embrace, but I see
in his eyes his fondness for Gaeira and his sorrow at seeing her
leave so soon upon her return.

Gaeira's face does not exactly display the
respect and gratitude and affection she has for the old man, 
but I can sense them. I know that she feels them. Gaeira does not
speak to me, yet... she speaks to me.

Dalla's old hands are as swift as promised.
Hardly a minute passes before Gaeira's windblown blond hair has been
tightly knit into a yellow rope bisecting her back, the sight I know
so well.

Without any further cracks in her vow, Gaeira
mounts, and so do I.

“Goodbye, Afi,” I say. “Dalla,
thank you. For everything.”

Before I am finished, Gaeira has kicked her
horse to a gallop and ridden off. I will have some catching up to do,
but I am used to that.

“Give your neighbor our apologies for
taking his horses,” I go on. “And warn every Vanir you
can—”

“Yes, yes!” Dalla interrupts. “Get
moving, Highness. She won't wait, even for you.”

Sparing her a smile, I dig my heels into my
mount's flanks, tightly grip the reins, and race off after
Gaeira—though not before overhearing Afi ask of his wife, “What
do you mean, 
even 
for him?”

***

At dizzying speeds, slowing for nothing, we fly
through Vanaheim. Our speed ensures that I can think of little else
but riding, and I am glad for that. I do not want to think of the
Myriad, or Ayessa, or Loki masquerading as her in Neolympus. Even
when I think of that most pleasant aspect of my present existence,
the companion with whom I ride, it is to think of losing her to the
unstoppable swarm.

I think of nothing but speed, and we achieve it,
reaching Heimdall's fortress of Himinbjorg in far fewer hours than
lasted our outbound journey, four days prior. Though it is twilight
when we arrive, we give no thought to accepting the rooms for the
night which Heimdall offers. He would have his own riders finish the
trek to Asgard, bearing a written message, but no—this is our
task, Gaeira's and mine, and so instead we take the quickest of meals
on our feet, exchange our tired horses for fresh ones from
Himinbjorg's stables, and ride on across the bridge of rainbows onto
the plains of Asgard, never stopping, never speaking.

We are not far from the city when a great, deep
rumble rises up from the depths, causing the ground under our horses'
feet first to tremble and then to shudder violently. Both mounts
break stride, twisting and loosing cries of confusion, and it is all
Gaeira and I can do to keep from being thrown. Whilst we struggle
thus, the sky above us changes in an instant from white to gray, as
churning storm clouds spring into existence where before there were
none. From them issues a sky-splitting peal of thunder that frightens
our horses afresh and sets my every hair on end.

The thunderclap's echo is deep and resonant and
seemingly without end.

Eventually it does fade, and as we sit on our
horses' backs in the middle of the Asgardian plain doing what we can
to calm the beasts and coax them back into movement, a new sound
fills the freshly silent air. It is a man's scream, one of torment
and utter anguish, and it persists for what seems longer  than
any man could scream without pausing for breath. Our three eyes find
the apparent source of the sound: our destination, the city of
Asgard.

As quickly as they filled the sky, the great
stormclouds dissolve, and the grassy plain floods once more 
with sunlight. We share a look, Gaeira and I. Hers tells me that she
knows no more than I what is the meaning of this portent. We both
know it cannot be good.

The horses resume heeding our commands. We now
have even less time to waste. Asgard awaits.

A fevered ride brings us to the city gate, where
we abandon our borrowed mounts and take to foot for a no less fevered
run to Odinn's palace. As we race up its stairs, a pair of Aesir set
their spears, barring us.

“We must see the All-Father!” I tell
them—loudly, intending the plea for ears other than theirs. “We
bear news of grave—”

“The All-Father has heard it already!”
one of the guards interrupts. “He will see no one now!”

“But...” I start in confusion, “he
cannot have heard! What do—”

“Let them pass,” a voice calls from
behind the grillwork of oak and iron which bars the palace entrance.
Through the lattice I can see the speaker, Baldr.

Scowling inside their helms, the guards stand
down. Gaeira and I run past them to the door, which Baldr has opened
for us.

“The Myriad are in Vanaheim,” I
waste no time in telling him. “Odinn already knows this?”

Baldr frowns. “No.”

It is then I recall that Baldr has never in my
memory failed to greet me with a smile, yet today I have seen not the
faintest trace of one. “If not that, then what grave news is it
that Odinn has received?” I ask, fearing the reply.

Baldr gives a haunted look. I see now that his
eyes are not merely devoid of humor; they are almost blank.

“Did you not hear yourselves?” he
asks. “The sky itself proclaimed it.”

Baldr clamps his mouth tight, as if unwilling to
speak what must come next. I almost wish he would not, knowing it
must be dire to have caused the cry which we heard.

Odinn's cry, I suddenly feel certain.

“My brother is dead,” Baldr
declares. “
Thor lies dead in Niflheim
.”

For moments afterward, we all stand as silent as
Gaeira. Then Baldr hangs his head, turns from us and  makes his
way into his father's hall, a hall of mourning.

We follow. The hall's edges are lined with
Aesir. Baldr cleaves a path down the center, heading for the dais
where I was first received by the All-Father. Odinn is there upon it
now, on his knees with head low, eyes downcast, white beard dragging
the floor. At his shoulder stands Baldr's brother and opposite, the
dour, dark-eyed, one-handed Tyr.

“What business have they here, Baldr?”
Tyr demands well before we reach the dais. “It is they who
brought this bane upon us!”

“They bear yet more bad news,” Baldr
returns dully. He completes his walk and mounts the dais alongside
father and brother. Gaeira and I draw up in the space before it.
“Deliver it,” he bids us. Or bids me, rather, for it is
my voice that will have to serve.

“Gaeira and I are fresh from Vanaheim,
where we encountered a creature of the Myriad. It rose up from—”

“One creature?” Tyr interjects. “Did
you kill it, at least?”

“The death of one is meaningless,” I
counter. “Time wasted which could be better spent bringing word
of warning. We spied it near the cleft over which lies Alfheim. I
recognized the place. It is the very  one which Mimir's Well
showed me. Even now, a swarm might—”

“Even now, my brother lies slain!”
Tyr speaks over me. “And I must wonder whether this enemy
would  not leave our realms entirely if we but gave it what it
came for—you and your kind!”

“The Myriad exist to devour and
annihilate! They care not who or what!” I say with conviction,
and then imbue my voice with even greater force for my next words,
which ring out over the hall full of Aesir: “This is no mere
attack! This is Ragnarok!”

Tyr's white face goes red. He explodes with
fury, “Interloper! You would dare to—”

“Oh, quiet, brother!” This from
Baldr. “He is right. With Thor dead, Father's visions stand
shattered. Ragnarok is here, brought by these creatures. If we hope
to survive, we must—”

Before Baldr can finish, before Tyr even can cut
him off, a low rumble fills the great hall. All eyes go to its
source, the kneeling All-Father. Suddenly he rises, loosing an
ear-splitting roar. Where his last cry was one of pain and anguish,
this is a sound of purest rage, a battle-cry, a promise of vengeance.
In its  wake, all present fall to silence.