The Goddess Embraced (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 3) Page 22

  Riding on Nith’s back into battle was really more intoxicating than it should be. He’d set up for an attack run, arcing out of the sky at a steep angle, and it became Sigrun’s job to take out any missiles aimed at them, usually with lightning. There were antiaircraft batteries here that the Legion hadn’t managed to strip before they’d retreated, and those were another problem for her to handle. Fortunately, they required an operator . . . and most of the grendels were too large to operate the turrets from within their protective enclosures.

  Thus, Nith skimmed just above the rooftops, exhaling his deathfrost, and Sigrun brought down lightning on any giants stupid enough to let themselves be seen, and onto the buildings themselves, setting them on fire. That was easy, and almost reflexive; what was much more difficult for her was pulling up a shield of raw seiðr around them. Nith was huge, and thus, had an enormous surface area to protect, and she was not as skilled at defense as she was at offense.

  But now, she had no desire to see Nith leaking black blood all over his scales. Taking his wounds would incapacitate her, and trying to heal them without actually taking them was proving to be a challenge for her. I really need to sit down with Minori and try to unlock more of what Freya put in my mind, Sigrun thought, glumly. Some things opened on their own, when she saw a need for them—suppressing the pain in Adam’s body from the arthritis, for example. That was just a subtle manipulation of how the brain perceived sensory input. Other things proved to be much more difficult—like actually treating the underlying cause of his body’s dysfunctions . . . or wrapping a shield of force around herself and Nith. Min works with air. I already understand how to move wind. Maybe she can—shit. Sigrun caught sight of a grendel picking up and throwing a car at them, and reacted reflexively, taking a curtain of air and slamming down at the flying vehicle with hurricane force, redirecting it back towards the giant, who caught it . . . and then she brought down lightning on the creature, directed through the metal of the vehicle it held.

  Much better! Niðhoggr approved. You fight at your best, you limit yourself less, when you do not have time to think about what you can and cannot do, should and should not do. Relax and be one with me. He banked to the side, at a sickening angle that let one wingtip almost graze the ground, and streaked between two buildings that had once been barracks. The giants inside ran to the shattered windows and tried to fire stolen weapons out at them, and Sigrun wrapped them both in energy, feeling the bullets punch into her shielding before falling away.

  Dim recollections of Reginleif’s teachings at the Odinhall and a thousand cheerful, excited conversations between Kanmi and Min told her that it should be possible to take the energy stolen from the bullets’ inertia and redirect it into the shield to re-strengthen it, but she couldn’t figure out how, in the heat of battle. Instead, she opted to redirect the wind once more, sending it howling into the barracks buildings, and, concentrating hard, pulling it up, which resulted in the roofs being lifted cleanly off the buildings. Excellent work! Niðhoggr crowed, looping up into the air and back down again, flipping nose for tail so fast that Sigrun had to hold on for dear life . . . but there was also the pure joy of flight, exquisite in its pleasure. And then Nith raced the length of the exposed building, breathing out liquid air once more, and Sigrun brought lightning down in his wake. Liquid oxygen oxidized whatever it came in contact with. Promoted flammability. And lightning could touch down with more heat than the outermost layer of the sun’s surface. What Nith buried in deathfrost, and Sigrun electrocuted, usually went up in flames behind them, and carbonized, swiftly.

  They rose again, and a grendel that had managed to move to a covered position fired a rocket at them. White streak of incoming light, no time to stop it with lightning, too close—Sigrun closed her eyes and threw herself into her shield. Brilliant flare of light, blinding even through her closed lids, and she opened her eyes, expecting to see black blood and shattered scales, but . . . . Nothing. Just debris whipping away from them, off the edges of her seiðr shield. As I said, you limit yourself less when you have no time to think. Only to react. Nith’s flight took them in over the grendel, and Sigrun could feel him reach down and seize the giant in one massive claw before they arced back up again, soaring skywards.

  “Nith, every time the jotun have managed to take a grendel captive for interrogation, all they have gotten out of them are sentence fragments, words that sound like words, but have no meaning. I do not suppose you think we can get more out of this one—”

  Interrogation? That was not my intention. I plan to drop him once I achieve suitable altitude. The rocket offended me.

  “. . . I sympathize, but in terms of practicality, even if he breaks every bone in his body, if he’s not dead on impact, he might actually heal and return to combat.” Sigrun couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. “And it might be useful to try to interrogate one. I haven’t had access to a grendel’s mind since 1970. Some of the young jotun think they’re rehabilitatable.”

  I doubt that very much. This may be a sentimental tendency, like Silentheart, Mirrorshaper, and the lindworm hatchlings.

  “Yet you can understand something of what’s in the lindworm’s minds. And there’s science to back Ima’s sentiment up. There are case studies of human children who were raised in the wild, without any social interaction with other humans. Many couldn’t master language. They were introduced to it too late. Some of them couldn’t master social norms, either—they’d rub their genitals against objects in a room, because they’d never been taught that it was wrong.”

  I am glad then, that my progenitor at least permitted me to speak to her, periodically. Nith’s tone was sardonic. Else I should be even more feral thing than I already am.

  Sigrun thumped his shoulder with a fist. “That was not my point, my friend. My point is this. The first generation of lindworms was . . . clearly mad. Either they started off that way, or the transformation drove them insane. But if they really did derive from humans, the same as the fenris, then the hatchlings should have as much potential as a fenris puppy. The fenris seem to be split about ninety-ten, between speech-capable and potential lycanthropes . . . .” Sigrun faltered as Nith landed high on a crag of Greater Feldberg. “What I mean to say is that if even one in a hundred lindworms has the potential to be . . .” she threw her hands up, “you, I suppose, then we need to investigate that possibility, rather than just . . . extinguishing them all.” She slipped down off his neck and floated to the ground, her spear in her hand, and stared at the grendel, hairy, massive, and squirming under Nith’s forepaw, pinned to the ground.

  And the same pertains to the grendels?

  “If I’m being logical about it? Yes. It has to be investigated periodically. Just because the youngsters who took over the defense of Gotaland from Vidarr are . . . idealistic and a little ill-informed . . . doesn’t mean that the possibility can be ignored.” Sigrun reached up and put a hand to Nith’s foreleg. “And who is in a better position to find out more?”

  A fair point. However, I will not permit this one to stand. And I have a claw positioned to skewer his throat. Any sane creature would be tractable at this point, yes?

  Sigrun had to agree, though the fact that the grendel was still struggling didn’t bode well. “Waes hael,” she told it, and the struggling stopped. Guttural sounds emanated from its throat as she walked around so that she could see its eyes beneath the prominent brow ridges. The first grendels at the research facility were almost all criminals, convicts shipped in from Siberia. Loki said that the process would not work on people who weren’t motivated. And he clearly seemed to think that the grendels came from the criminals, and the unmotivated. But just because the first generation might have derived from law-breakers, the weak-willed, and the insane, does not mean that they must all be evil and accursed, to the last generation. Sigrun looked down into the grendel’s eyes, and repeated, patiently, “Waes hael.”

  “Hup-aa ka-lo kur-va-val.”

  The grunt
ed syllables flickered through Sigrun’s mind, and meaning teased at the edges of her thoughts. Jump off a cliff, whore. Wait. How did I know . . . ?

  Have I mentioned to you lately, that you limit yourself?

  Oh. Sigrun sighed. “That was not polite,” she told the grendel, calmly, in slow, even Cimbric. “What is your name? What do your people want?”

  The grendel’s eyes bulged, and it snarled at her “E nim-a. Ru-ok-kee-a. Li-ha hai-ko.”

  Again, it was . . . gibberish. It sounded like it might have been Fennish, once, but it was distorted almost beyond recognition, and Sigrun had never spoken that language to begin with. But again, meaning stole into her mind. No name. We feed. Flesh of the weak.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to eat cow instead.”

  The torrent of syllables hurled at her turned into images behind her eyelids. Images of torturing captured humans and nieten, not for information, but for the fun of it. Making them run, and hunting them anew. Raping the female captives to death before eating them. Slaughterhouses where the dead were gutted, skinned, and left to hang. Sigrun swayed. Vidarr had reported such atrocities before the Day of Transition, and the jotun had spoken of such events in the far north for years, but here was visceral proof that the customs were migrating south with the grendel.

  There were, at least, blessedly, far fewer ettin to deal with these days. They couldn’t replenish their own population. “Where is your closest slaughterhouse?” Sigrun asked. “Is it on the base below us?”

  More spitting, more cursing, at least one suggestion of how he would rape her to death and then eat her, and then Niðhoggr evidently had had enough, as his thumbclaw punched down, severing the head. Are you finding them redeemable, Stormborn?

  Not that one in particular. Sigrun’s mind had gone blank, and the fog around the periphery of her vision was . . . very close to the state of mind she had been in, the night she’d found Sophia with the centaurs. She recognized it as a dangerous state, and tried to push it away. I will pass the information on to Thor. And once we verify that there are no survivors in the facility, you and I can now go do something slightly more pleasurable, and raid the closest rookery.

  Kill the mad adults and steal the eggs?

  No one has yet made contact with an adult lindworm mind. We have reached their younglings. The ethics may be dubious, but . . . as I said . . . if even one in a hundred could be like you? That’s worth making an effort, do you not think?

  The enormous head swung back on the long neck, and Nith gave her a long, steady look as the land swept by beneath them. Thank you.

  It had taken a couple of hours, all told, and all of Sigrun’s focus had been on the here and now. As they cruised overhead, ensuring that there were no survivors, Sigrun felt a welter of conflicting sensations. The usual faint post-battle sickness, as she took in the corpses, though any hint of guilt was ameliorated by the confirmation she’d gotten out of the grendel they’d questioned. Ghosts of adrenaline still chasing each other in her bloodstream. Lingering exaltation, at how well she and Nith worked together in the sky. She . . . really shouldn’t enjoy it so much. And yet, she did. Sigrun sighed and pushed that away, too.

  An hour later, she was loading lindworm eggs into a sack that Minori had given her—something Amaterasu had made, apparently. No matter how much material was loaded into it, it still looked only half-full, and the thing needed, always rose to hand. And a good thing, too; lindworm eggs were comparable in size to the Madagascar elephant bird’s, each being around thirteen inches in length, and quite heavy. Nith lowered his muzzle to a nest, inhaling in rapid snorts. How odd, to consider these kin.

  It should be less odd to you, than to most humans, I would think.

  Saraid’s voice broke into her mind as she hovered over the nest. Stormborn!

  Sigrun’s hands almost slipped on the last egg. Saraid? Is something wrong?

  I need you here. Worldwalker has . . . overextended himself. He may be hurt. Please come.

  Sigrun’s heart seized. Are you in the Woods in the Veil, or in Judea? Can you take him to Hel’s . . . my . . . realm? Sigrun hated the word. It was pretentious. But ‘castle’ sounded equally bad. Need to reshape it again. But what other piece of architecture can I fit Nith into? Other than, perhaps, a hangar? Rambling thoughts, there and gone again.

  I am concerned about taking him physically back into the Veil right now. His mind is not awake there, or here. Aside from which, the Veil is . . . probably a good deal of the problem. Saraid sent Sigrun a wave of mental images and Sigrun stood and stared into space for a full thirty seconds.

  He’s . . . gods. He’s a little god. He probably has been for a while. He’s just been shielded from it; his personal power was run through Lassair and Saraid. Their power is so visible, that his power has been masked. As spirits can mask a human’s presence and identity with their own, the way Lassair masked Minori’s, back when we were trying to get information in and out for Kanmi. Sigrun swallowed, scooped the final egg into the satchel, and flung herself through the air to Nith, who had been lazily keeping watch for any adults that might return to their nesting site. I’ll be right there, Sari. Hold on. You and Tren were there for me. I’ll be there for you.

  “Did you hear?” she asked Nith, quickly, slipping into her accustomed position on his shoulders.

  I did.

  Not over the skies of Judea, and please, shrink down to lindworm size before we land in their backyard. Adam’s already curious enough about the fact that I’m making it home every night. It was true, too. At first, Sigrun had fought all of it. The instinct of decades in both the Praetorians and the Legion told her that having too many privileges usually garnered the resentment of the rank and file. And resentment in the ranks was usually a very bad thing.

  Nith had snorted over that. You have always known that you are not human. You have seen your life as one of service. And that is well and good, but how, precisely, are you serving humans now, by trying to be one of them, when you are not, and never truly were? I think it may be time to acknowledge the simple truth of what you are . . . .

  “What, above them?” Sigrun’s tone had been scathing. “That is precisely the kind of thinking that the Odinhall does not permit, Nith, and for good reason. Look at Tototl, the god-born of Tlaloc, back in Nahautl. He thought himself above even his emperor in power and wisdom. And look at the suffering he brought to his people.”

  You are above them, but I do not mean it in any arrogant fashion. Think of it this way, if you would: You have been promoted. A general might be more loved by the common soldier if he or she shares the privations of those below him or her, but there is a certain distance expected between officers and enlisted, is there not?

  Sigrun had hesitated. “Well, yes . . . Distance is needed so that orders can be given and accepted. One can question if an order is legal, but decision-making is not democratic.”

  So there is precedent, then, for you to accept that you will require distance from the rank and file. And that there is nothing here about which to feel shame.

  For someone who was never permitted to talk before, you do argue . . . amazingly well.

  I have listened to my betters for two thousand years, my dear friend. I have learned a thing or two in that time. So . . . go home and care for Steelsoul, for he is important to you. Discharge your duties to others, and do not let what the rank and file may or may not think dictate, even for an instant, how you live your life. Niðhoggr had paused, delicately. And rest here. In the Veil. I will keep watch over you as you sleep. In that way, you may also ensure that you care for yourself. To ensure that you are clear of mind and strong of body for all these other duties.

  Sigrun had been too tired to object to the notion. Compressing eight hours of sleep in the Veil to four and a half minutes of real world time bordered on decadent. It let her fight her tendency towards daylight exhaustion and allowed her to be refreshed and ready for combat. It also permitted her to try to change from a combat-
ready, hair-trigger stance to her at-home demeanor. It wasn’t entirely working, and she knew it. The continuous grind of combat made humans snappy, irritable, and bad-tempered when they came home from war to their families. The same applied to her, though she did her best to mask it, and Adam, no stranger to combat himself, rarely took offense. But the pure fact that she was coming home every night was a significant change in the routine. It increased intimacy, which had been strained for the past decade at least, which was good, but it also raised questions that Adam was too intelligent to ignore.

  She’d always known a simple truth: Intimacy was the heart of marriage. Not just sex. Intimacy meant doing things together, and being together. In marriage, you were no longer just one person, but two-in-one. Part of a greater whole. Both halves needed to make sacrifices for the union to work, but in the best marriages, those sacrifices were small, because the two halves were so even, and so compatible. Marriage, and thus intimacy, was also the core of family. That meant simple things: eating meals together whenever possible, not staggering them through the hours of the day and feeding oneself in a separate room. She and Adam had missed many meals together, thanks to their jobs, but whenever they had a choice in the matter? They ate together. They shared the simple, human rituals of cooking, eating, and cleaning together.