Kevin Hearne - Trapped

“Made you nervous, didn’t I?”

My shoulders slumped in relief. “A bit, yes.”

“Nice kill shot.”

“Thanks. What’s all that?” I chucked my chin at her arm.

“He got a tooth or two into me at one point. It’s all good. No rabies.”

An especially loud explosion from the vicinity of the dwarf ships reminded us that we needed to get out of there.

“Did you see where Freyja landed?” I asked.

“No. Too busy running for my life.”

“I think she flew off that way,” I said, pointing vaguely behind me.

We jogged together in the direction I thought she’d flown, keeping about ten yards between us. I was giving some panicked thought to how we’d get out of Hel without Freyja’s help if she turned up dead. I was reasonably sure I could use the root of Yggdrasil to shift back to that nice wee pond in Sweden, but getting past the walls and gates of Hel was another matter entirely. I doubted the dwarfs would give us a ride over the wall if we told them one of their favorite goddesses was a chew toy, and I was positive the cats would listen to no one but Freyja.

Granuaile found her first.

“Atticus, she’s here! Bad shape, though.”

Freyja’s spear was lying some distance from her awkward form. Her legs were twisted at odd angles and sheathed in red.

“Okay, you stimulate skin repair, and only that, hear me? No adrenaline. I’ll stop the bleeding.”

We laid on hands and got to work. The wounds Fenris had made would have killed her from blood loss had we arrived much later. She’d already lost consciousness, and soon her brain would be starved entirely for oxygen. She needed a transfusion, but she wouldn’t get it here.

“Gods, what a mess,” Granuaile said. “Wish we could put some of it back in.”

“You and every field surgeon who ever lived.”

Freyja’s right leg and right arm both had breaks, probably from the way she landed. She most likely had a concussion as well, though I thankfully saw no blood pooling underneath her head. I couldn’t set her bones here.

“We’ll have to carry her to the chariot,” I said. “Think we can do it invisibly?”

Granuaile nodded. “Once the spell is cast, skin contact with the staff is all you need. We could support her under either shoulder, hold the staff across the back of our necks with our outside hands, and sort of drag her that way.”

“Make it so.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

I took a few more seconds to stabilize Freyja’s circulation, then we hefted her up between us as planned. Before we had taken three steps, we heard an anguished cry erupt near the body of Fenris. We recognized the gravelly source of it and hurried: That was Hel’s voice. If she’d burst through the Black Axes, there was no telling what kind of reception awaited us.

Hel’s unseen wailing continued as we dragged Freyja closer to the sounds of fighting, and it was difficult not to cringe at the noises Hel made. Half her throat was dead and rotting, after all, so normal cries were impossible for her. The addition of tears, mucus, and genuine emotion on her part made it unbearably animal.

Thinking of the stages of grief, I wondered if Odin had counted on what would happen when Hel reached rage. Could this be the trigger for Ragnarok, right here? Or would she stay her hand until Loki wakened from his sleep?

Knowing I was caught between Hel herself and Hel’s army, every step seemed unnecessarily long. I wanted to be in the chariot and flying already—but who knew if Freyja’s flying kitties were still alive at this point?

The mist brought us nothing but the sounds of battle, dwarfs dying and draugar falling for the final time. When the combatants finally hove into view, I knew I never wanted to face off against one of the Black Axes.

Hel must have pushed through the lines on an unstoppable wave of draugar , but most of these now littered the rocks ahead, and the remaining few were falling in hand-to-hand combat with the dwarfs. The axemen were closing the breach one swing at a time, toppling heads and sometimes even torsos with their blades, such was the force generated by their muscles. My earlier supposition that their blades were armor-piercing was borne out before my eyes; I saw a dwarf’s axe cut through the steel-plate helmet of one undead soldier with no more resistance than that of wet cardboard.

A cluster of them facing outward drew my attention: They were guarding Freyja’s chariot.

“There’s our ride home,” I said to Granuaile. “You see it?”

“Yep.” The ground between the chariot and us was clear of draugar , except for the remaining pieces of them.

“If we suddenly appear amongst them, they’ll cut us down without thinking. Drop the enchantment now and I’ll hail them.”

“Done.”

I shouted in Old Norse and hoped that Hel wouldn’t hear it over the sounds of war and her own sorrow. “Black Axes! To me! To Freyja! Defend the goddess!” A dozen wee warriors swarmed around us and escorted us to the chariot.

“Is she alive?” a gruff voice asked.

“Aye, but barely. The wolf is dead.”

“We figured Hel wouldn’t make that noise if he lived.”

“Right you are. It’s time to run.”

“I’ll tell the axemaster,” the dwarf said, seeing us safely into the chariot. “Don’t wait for us. Go!”

He made it sound so simple. But when I looked over the front of the chariot, the cats’ eyes staring back at me did not seem anxious to leave.

“Hey, cats,” I said. “Let’s go. Let’s boogie. Come on.” I pointed up at the ceiling of mist. “Back over the wall. Let’s do this.” They stared at me. One began to lick his nether region. “Giddy-up!” I cried. “Heaahh! Move ’em out! Shoo!” This earned me more stares and more licking but no movement. “Go, damn it!”

“Atticus, that’s not going to work,” Granuaile said.

“Yeah? Well, you try it.”

Granuaile faced Freyja forward so the cats could see her face. “Listen,” she said. “Freyja is hurt.” The cats took sudden interest. Their eyes, indifferent before, were now clearly focused on Granuaile and Freyja. “Your mistress needs help. We need to leave now. Over the wall, back the way we came. Take us to Frigg. Take us to Frigg, and I’ll buy you some tuna.”

At least, I think she said tuna . Her words were drowned out by a roar from Hel, who appeared in her half-hot, half-rot form to demand an explanation, her hair touching the ceiling of snotlike mist. Though she was twenty yards away, we could already smell her. “Who killed him?” she wanted to know, the great knife Famine clutched in her skeletal left hand. “Was it Freyja?”

The chariot jerked and we lifted off the ground; Freyja’s cats were suddenly anxious to escape.

“Nope. That was me!” I shouted.

Hel’s eyes focused and then narrowed in recognition. “You! You’re supposed to be dead!”

“You should have learned from the mistakes of the Æsir,” I said. “Never fuck with a Druid!”

I shouldn’t have said that.

As we rose into the clouds of mist, all sounds of battle and rage below muffled by its close stickiness, Hel’s giant right hand followed us in and closed on the open back of the chariot, halting our progress in midair. Granuaile and I yelped, and the cats protested with a noise primarily composed of vowels.

Freyja’s kitties were powerful, and thanks to them Hel couldn’t drag us back down, but neither could we escape. Hel’s right hand was on the “hot” side, and thus it looked lovely and cultured and gave no hint that it belonged to something hideous. Granuaile slapped at her thighs, searching for a knife, but she had thrown them all at Fenris and slammed her bowie knife into his leg. I handed her mine.