Kevin Hearne - Trapped

“I beg your pardon?” I said.

“We must demoralize Hel and prevent her from launching an attack on Asgard. Odin has decided that the best way to do that is to slay Fenris.”

“Well, that’s nice, but we can do it a bit later.”

“Now is the perfect time.”

“I disagree. Vehemently.”

Frigg’s eyes clouded, and the ravens above squawked. “You swore you would help us. You swore to render what aid you could in place of a blood price.”

“And render it I shall. But not right now. I have an apprentice to bind to the earth, and until she’s bound, I’m not doing anything else.”

Frigg shifted her eyes to Granuaile and pursed her lips in dislike, realizing that my apprentice was an obstacle to her goals. “Bring her along, then,” she said.

“No way.” I shook my head to emphasize the point. “She isn’t ready yet. After she’s bound she could actually be helpful and may choose, of her own free will, to give us her help. But right now she’s a liability and a potential hostage.”

I flattened my hand and used it as an impromptu shade against the sun as I searched out Odin’s ravens. I called out to them to make sure the mind they represented heard me.

“If my apprentice falls victim to an ‘accident,’ Odin, I won’t help you at all, you hear me? Just be patient a while longer.”

“And if Ragnarok begins while we are being patient?” Frigg asked.

“I’ll take on Jörmungandr myself if it does,” I said. “That’s how confident I am that it won’t happen, okay? I think we have a year left.” At least, I hoped we did.

“Based on what information?”

“I’ll keep that to myself. But nothing is changed here, Frigg. I will keep my word as soon as my apprentice is bound.”

Frigg had nothing nice to say, so she didn’t say anything. She nodded curtly and turned her back on us, floating up the rainbow into the northern sky. The ravens followed her.

I hoped that after this encounter Granuaile would be more willing to talk, but my optimistic expression was immediately crushed when she shook her head at me and scowled.

“A liability and a hostage, Atticus?” she said. “Really?”

“Well—”

“I put two knives in that bear thing and distracted it while you missed,” she said, “but I’m a liability?”

“Look, Granuaile, against human opponents, I’d say you could take just about anyone,” I said. “But Frigg was talking about messing around with the supernatural, and you’re not in that power class yet. You will be soon.”

“So a vulture that turns into a bear-human hybrid isn’t supernatural?”

“Yes, it is, Granuaile, and you handled it superbly, no doubt. But right now you can’t heal yourself if you get wounded. You can’t speed up or cast camouflage or take advantage of any of the spells I regularly use to stay alive. I would very much like to make sure you stay alive, so I hope you’ll forgive my poor choice of words. I wanted Frigg to go away, that’s all.”

She gazed at me, her disbelief every bit as plain as her disapproval, but she had no more desire to wrangle over it. She turned her back on me, leaving me unforgiven, and we trudged westward toward Olympus without speaking a word to each other.

A hot hour’s hike up the valley finally brought us good news from Oberon.

You did? Where?

I looked around me and saw nothing but more trees, stubborn undergrowth, and a few stretches of bare rock wall ahead, where the mountain fell precipitously into the wash. I could hear it running with winter snowmelt but couldn’t see it yet.

I don’t see you , I told Oberon.

It is indeed .

After I gave Granuaile some encouragement that we were near a possible campsite, we shoved our way through the brush to the water’s edge. It was a narrow, rocky stream, easily jumped in some places but running fast.

Can you still see us? I asked Oberon.

Where do we go from here?

I looked in that direction and saw the place he was talking about—I saw the tree on the ledge, anyway. Awesome. Any animal tracks or other sign in there?

Is the cave deep enough for us to lie down, tall enough to stand?

The difficulty we faced getting up to the ledge only made it more attractive to me once we finally arrived; there was very little chance we’d be disturbed by any humans in a place like this—few people are trailblazers anymore, when it’s so much safer and easier to follow the trails already blazed.

We hopped the stream about thirty yards past the tree, then struggled our way up to the ledge. Oberon waited at the mouth of the cave, wagging his tail. The entrance was completely choked with brush, but it was spacious inside.

How did you ever think to look for this? I asked Oberon.

Oberon, come on .

Well, this is perfect. We owe that squirrel for leading you here .

I was thinking he’d get all the credit and you’d get all the sausage .

“We’re going to camp here, then?” Granuaile asked, peering into the cave and breaking the silence.

“Maybe,” I said. “Let me scope this out first.” Using the magic stored in my bear charm, I triggered my faerie specs and looked for any indication that there was a magical booby trap here or an alarm that would go off if I drew power from the earth. This cave could be the favorite spot of a cyclops or a nymph or something spookier than an old monster like Agrios. It took a while to check thoroughly; any magic performed by the Greeks wouldn’t look like the Celtic bindings of my own work. I found nothing. The ceiling of the cave wasn’t blackened by the smoke of ancient fires, which corroborated my growing belief that we were the first humans to set eyes on this cave in centuries—perhaps the first humans ever.

“It looks good,” I said, shrugging off the straps of my pack. “This might work out perfectly.”

“Okay,” Granuaile said, extricating herself from her pack and setting it down with a relieved sigh.

“Oberon, I’ll need you to scout all possible approaches to the cave. We can see pretty well down below, but we need to know what’s behind us. Would you mind?”

“Don’t hunt yet. Scout all you want, but let’s just establish what’s normal for the area so we can spot any intruders later.”

“Agreed.”

Oberon turned and disappeared with a swish of his tail through the brush. Granuaile began to unpack in brooding silence.

Backpacking is different when you can cast night vision. Items like flashlights and lamps and oil are unnecessary. We had plenty of food—mostly soup mixes and jerky and dried fruit. It was a nutritionally deficient diet, but it was only for a few months, with resupply available at a tolerable distance in Litochoro. Water and wood for fuel were plentiful. The large pine tree would help diffuse the smoke from our cook fires.

Granuaile was yanking goodies out of her pack with increasing force and tossing, then throwing, them down on the ground. She was working herself up for something; the whistle on the old pressure cooker was about to go off.

“Fire away whenever you’re ready,” I said quietly.

She did not appear to hear. She still had a few more items to yank out and slam down, and I approved. Violent unpacking should never be interrupted or unfinished.

“Those weren’t gods!” she finally exploded.