“Did you see where those arrows came from?” I asked Coyote.
“What arrows?” he rasped.
“The ones that killed the Olympians.”
“What? I missed that.”
“How could you miss that? He just removed six gods from the battlefield.”
“Hey, it’s real nice that you can just keep your hand on my shoulder and gawk at the show, Mr. Druid, but I’m tryin’ to find a path forward and keep an eye on Hel, because I thought that’s who we’re after. Are you changin’ the plan on me now?”
“No, no, you’re right, sorry.”
“Maybe you can give me a play-by-play,” Coyote said. “We’re going to be at this for a while.”
I reviewed the deity body count for him and then took another look at the field to see how that was going.
“The Álfar are still essentially keeping it a stalemate on the right flank, but every time one falls, Hel raises it up. That doesn’t appear to be the case with the dark elves on the left flank.”
“No?”
“I don’t see the dark elves shifting to smoke like they did at first. They’ve probably realized they don’t have to. They’re naturally faster than the draugar. But I have yet to see a dark elf raised from the dead. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it, if they had a natural defense against necromancy?”
“It sure would. Sounds like the sort of thing you could bottle and sell. You’d make a fortune, and it would be the ultimate in late-stage capitalism. ‘Protect yourself and your family from the apocalypse with Mr. Druid’s Anti-Necromantic Tonic and Salubrious Elixir!’ All o’ them doomsday preppers would buy a bottle and store it in their bunkers, just in case. Huge part of the human economy is based on just in case, you know that? Insurance, condoms, diapers—it’s all just in case.”
I chuckled, because it’s difficult not to like Coyote even when he might mess with you at any moment, and because I understood that he was nervous. Humor often shields the mind against fear. And we had plenty to fear ahead. The slope of the volcano was slowly coming into focus for me, and while I didn’t see Hel yet, I felt sure Coyote was right about her being there, because Garm, her hound, was standing sentinel. She would be somewhere nearby, probably not right next to him but a few quick leaps away.
“That dog’s gonna be a problem,” Coyote said, saying aloud what I was already thinking. “That’s the one that chased us all those years ago, am I right?”
“Yes. Through the planes of the Diné.”
“So he knows our scent. He’s gonna smell us before we get in range. Or smell you, anyway. I copied the scent of this undead asshole, and lemme tell you, Mr. Druid, I don’t smell like pears and happiness no more.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that.”
“More like prunes and despair,” Coyote said.
“Well, which way is the wind blowing? Maybe he won’t be able to pick me out of the crowd.”
“Maybe. But once we do anything to Hel, he’s gonna come runnin’ regardless. We can deal with him before or after we attack Hel, but one way or another he’s gotta be dealt with.”
We moved in silence for a while, thinking, before I answered.
“I don’t really like the idea of hurting a dog, even if it is a pretty mean one.”
“I don’t either.”
“Is Hel to the left or right of the hound?”
“She’s to the left, in the center of the slope.”
We were on the right side of the field. “How do you feel about circling around that way, coming at her from the left?”
Coyote didn’t reply for so long that I wondered if he’d heard me. But just as I was about to ask him again, he said, “Way I see it, that plan has its good points and its bad ones too. Might keep us from having to confront the dog right away. Might even allow us to get in and get out without confronting the dog at all. That’s good.”
“Agreed.”
“But that’s gonna take a long time. Already taking us a long time as it is going straight ahead. Lots more folk gonna die. Loki’s reloading.”
“What? Where?”
“I don’t know where he is yet, still haven’t spotted him. But off to the left, where you said those gods fell, there are draugar moving toward the mountain like we are now. Six of them. You said there were six gods that fell, right?”
“Yes.”
“So we can follow them to Loki if you want, or keep doing what we’re doing and deal with the dog somehow, or turn left and try to circle around.”
I still thought taking out Hel was more important than taking out Loki. She was the one replenishing their numbers with the fallen and therefore winning by attrition. I wasn’t sure how much control over the draugar Loki would have with her gone; if we were fantastically lucky, they would all return to her realm once she died.
I didn’t really think we’d be that lucky, but removing Hel from the battlefield would mathematically improve our chances the most. Loki might have the Arrows of Vayu, but they were of such limited supply that he required a reload after six shots. Hel, on the other hand, could reanimate the flesh of nearly anyone who fell on the battlefield, as long as they still had a head or, apparently, weren’t one of the Svartálfar.
“Let’s keep heading down the highway to Hel, so to speak.” I got no response to this, not even a groan, so I sighed and mourned the wasted reference to AC/DC.
“What? Was that a pun or something, Mr. Druid? If it was, I’m sure it was terrible.”
It undeniably was, but terrible puns were my specialty.
Surviving was also my specialty—the sort of fact that’s true until it abruptly isn’t. If I wanted to survive this trip behind enemy lines, I should probably start worrying about my exit strategy. Because killing Hel would doubtless evoke a response from Loki.
A telltale chop to the air above drew my eyes to a couple of helicopters coming from the north. Either the military or police forces of Sweden were a mite curious about all this brouhaha. Right now that pilot was trying to process what he was seeing and report it in a way that wouldn’t get him a psych evaluation.
The all-inclusive hostiles, I thought, would be the way to go. Tell ’em you see “multiple hostiles” of “unknown origin” fighting out there, and leave out the bit where there seem to be a whole lot of undead fighting against elves and dwarfs and possibly gods, that it might, in fact, be Ragnarok unfolding. Let them figure out those details for themselves when they send troops to join in. They couldn’t fault the pilot for saying there were multiple hostiles.
But it did add another note of urgency to our mission. If humans joined in and got raised from the dead with all their modern weaponry, well, it could quickly spiral out of control. Not that we had any sort of real control at the moment.
“There, Mr. Druid. You see her?”
“What? No. Where is she?”
Coyote pointed with his spear a tiny bit west of north. “Near the base of the mountain, just a touch that way.”
I scanned the horde and saw nothing in particular that stood out. It could mean that I was simply missing her. Or it could mean that Loki’s mark was somehow disguising her even in the magical spectrum. Or it could mean that Coyote was messing with me for some reason. Not that he needed a reason, once I thought about it: Messing with me was reason enough for him to get out of bed in the morning.
“I don’t see her.”
“Are you shittin’ me right now?”
“No. Are you shitting me?”
“Damn. Whatever, we’ll keep going.”
Movement off to the right drew my gaze. Garm, the hound of Hel, had just swung his head in our direction. He was staring right at us, it seemed, with those yellow eyes. His lip curled back from his teeth and he growled. His nostrils flared and he huffed a couple of times, then his growl built until a low, booming woof rippled across the field to me.
“You smell too good to him, Mr. Druid. Like coffee and bacon in the morning.”
He had to be right. There was no one else on the field that he’d recognize by scent. His muscles tensed and he began an exploratory stride in our direction, nose twitching, trying to zero in on me.