The Burning Man

15

When Church came round, he rushed from the room. A vision of ice and a blast of north wind brought him up sharp. The corridor had been transformed into a frozen cavern. Icicles hung from the ceiling and hoarfrost covered everything, glimmering in the light from his room.

His breath clouding, he returned to fetch Caledfwlch from the holdall in the wardrobe. Blue flames fizzed and spattered in the cold, and with them came the first wash of bitterness. He wanted to be pursuing Ruth, bringing her back into his arms, not standing there, sword in hand, fighting again for something so immense he could barely comprehend its importance.

The frost crunched under his boots. At the top of the stairs, he paused and listened to a distant scraping of metal on stone. The noise made him feel unaccountably queasy.

Down one flight of stairs, then another, the scraping growing louder as he descended. In his hand, the sword hummed in protest.

As he neared the last few stairs, Church saw the shadow first. Enormous, it fell across the hallway revealing someone out of view sharpening an axe. Sparks flew. He came down another step and saw that the axe was double-headed, the edges nicked from long use, the handle black and rune-covered near the blade, and wrapped with black leather further down.

‘Come, little fox.’ The voice was a deep bass rumble.

‘Who are you and what do you want?’

As Church continued down the stairs, the figure slowly came into view. At first, Church took it to be a wild animal, at least eight feet tall with a mane of black hair and a full beard, eyes the red of a summer sunset. The teeth visible through the thick beard were rows of needles, all bloodstained. The muscular body was nearly naked apart from an animal-hide tied roughly around the waist, but the exposed skin was nearly invisible beneath blue tattooed runes, hideous battle scars and body hair, thick and shiny.

He held up his right hand to reveal a cruel silver hook. ‘That bastard wolf!’ he growled. ‘But I survived and I will slaughter it yet!’

‘Who are you?’ Church repeated.

‘Your little fox-brothers called me Tyr. I am the thunder of the battlefield. Now I am returned, my power awakened by the sacrifice of the hanged man.’

Tyr saw Church sizing him up and smiled cruelly. ‘You walk our Great Dominion. There are rules, blood and earth. You have taken a step too far. A prayer and a sacrifice may have bought your passage, but now there is no hope for you.’

Tyr swung his axe so fast Church barely saw it move. Only instinct saved him. It cleaved horizontally, shattering stair rails and reducing to dust a large part of a pillar.

Reactions and muscles honed by combat across two thousand years threw Church backwards onto the stairs, his sword coming up just in time to deflect another blow so powerful he was afraid his blade would shatter. The jarring impact almost plunged him into unconsciousness.

There was not even a second to recover. Tyr drove his silver hook towards Church’s head. Church rolled and the hook smashed through the stairs a fraction of an inch from his skull.

The axe was already swinging again as Church jumped off the stairs over the arc. As he came down, Caledfwlch tore open Tyr’s side.

Tyr’s roar was deafening, but Church was surprised to hear it evolve into booming laughter. ‘Not just a little fox after all!’ he yelled insanely. ‘I will enjoy carving you into food for the ravens!’

The axe whirling in a blur, Tyr launched himself with the strength and speed of a beast. He had no qualms about his own safety. Church sliced a chunk of the flesh from his bicep, but Tyr continued oblivious.

Church had already worked out a strategy to back Tyr into a space where he couldn’t wield the axe when three shots rang out. Hunter stood on the stairs with Laura beside him. He waved the handgun towards Church. ‘One of the perks of working for the Government.’

Tyr stopped, puzzled. He dug one meaty finger into the bullet hole in his chest and delved around for a few seconds before retrieving the bullet. He examined it curiously and then turned his attention to Hunter and Laura.

‘You should not be in the shimmering. Why has my sister’s seior failed?’ He shrugged. ‘No matter. More bones for the pot.’

Hunter examined the gun contemptuously. ‘I tell you, what’s the point? I should just throw this away and get a fish knife or a spoon or something.’

‘All right, damsel in distress here,’ Laura said insistently as Tyr began to advance. ‘Aren’t you tossers actually supposed to be doing something?’

‘We’re going to throw you to him as a diversion,’ Hunter said.

Church tried to blindside Tyr as the god attacked Hunter and Laura, but a whirlwind of axe movements protected him. Chunks of masonry in clouds of dust flew wherever the axe hit.

Hunter propelled Laura through a gap in the shattered stairway, and they raced to Church before Tyr could turn.

‘We need to find somewhere defensible until we can work out our options,’ Hunter said.

‘Agreed.’ Church led the way into the dining area and then through to the kitchens. Hunter locked the steel door behind them.

‘That’s not going to keep the hairy bastard out.’ Laura snatched up a meat-cleaver.

The thunder of the axe against the door made her leap back with a shriek. The door bowed, almost shattered.

‘Here.’ Hunter indicated a gas canister ready to be installed in one of the ranges. Church understood instantly.

When the door burst in, Church brought Caledfwlch down sharply, slicing neatly through the canister’s nozzle. Hunter ignited the jet of gas, which roared directly into Tyr as he crashed into the kitchen. The conflagration engulfed him instantly. Flesh crackled and popped, fat sizzled, eyeballs burst.

They had to press their hands against their ears to cut out his ear-shattering bellows, but even then there was a hint of ecstasy in his cries. With flames leaping from him, he lashed out blindly until he could control himself no more and lurched back the way he had come.

‘I wonder how long it’ll take him to recover,’ Church said.

‘Time enough for us to get the hell out of Dodge,’ Hunter replied. ‘If you’ll excuse me a cowboy moment.’

Laura hurled her cleaver across the kitchen. ‘Aren’t I the spare part,’ she said angrily.

Burning fittings and the screech of the fire alarm marked Tyr’s passing into the frozen outdoors where it had started snowing again.

But as they turned to the wrecked stairs, they were confronted by vegetation streaming down the remaining steps and railing.

‘You ready?’ Church gripped his sword with both hands.

‘Fuck, no,’ Hunter replied. ‘I didn’t pick up my spoon from the kitchen. I suppose I could use my teeth.’

Freyja rounded the turn in the stairs, her smile eliciting instant arousal in Church, Hunter and Laura. Behind her came the Leshy, twisted like an old hawthorn tree but his eyes blazing with a fierce light. He held two strands of ivy pulled taut over his shoulder. They stretched back to Tom and Shavi who were hovering a foot above the stairs, bound tightly with creeper. Both wore crowns of thorns that dug into their flesh with a life of their own, bringing streams of blood down their faces. They appeared unconscious, though their eyes were wide open, unblinking.

Hunter and Laura remained entranced, but the flickering power in Caledfwlch reached into Church and broke the spell. Instead of Freyja, he saw Ruth and that gave him all the strength he needed.

‘Set them free.’

Freyja was intrigued by his resistance. ‘That cannot be. They are to be crucified on the world-oak as small payment for your trespass. Be content that you do not join them.’

‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘You would oppose the gods?’ Her voice grew flinty.

‘Anything that gets in my way. Set them free.’

A rustling, hissing sound escaped from the Leshy. He dropped the ivy bonds and advanced on Church in a jerky, creeping manner.

Church’s resistance infected Laura and Hunter, who shook off their enchantment. ‘These are the Scandinavian gods, right?’ Laura shouted to Church.

‘Germanic. Slavonic. I don’t know how far their Great Dominion stretches. By the way, this really isn’t the time for a theological discussion.’

‘Odin’s the big boss, right?’ she pressed. ‘Or Woden, or whatever?’

Church adopted a fighting stance. The Leshy did not appear the least bit scared by the sword or the power it represented.

Laura backed off, but Church could hear her muttering, ‘Come on! I need you.’

The Leshy was only feet away when the main doors burst open and a blast of snowy wind rushed in. Behind it came a cloaked figure in a battered, shapeless hat, a gnarled staff in one hand. A raven sat on each shoulder.

‘All-Father?’ Freyja’s confidence drained away, and she bowed her head. The Leshy stopped in its tracks and did the same.

The new arrival strode forward. He was a bearded man with an eye patch, but he exuded great power, and it was familiar. ‘The Brothers and Sisters of Dragons have free passage through this Great Dominion,’ the All-Father said. ‘One of them wields Gungnir, my own spear. Did you not know?’

Freyja bowed sheepishly.

‘Where is my daughter?’ he asked Church gently. ‘I cannot sense her.’

Church realised he meant Ruth. ‘I don’t know.’ A chill ran through him. Why could the All-Father not sense her?

‘Free them,’ the All-Father commanded.

As the creepers fell away from Shavi and Tom, they dropped to the stairs. Hunter and Laura ran to reclaim them.

‘We are all waking now, All-Father,’ Freyja said. ‘The Aesir … the Vanir … all the others. Is this it, then? Is this Ragnarok?’

‘Yes,’ the All-Father replied gravely. ‘It is Ragnarok.’

Freyja blanched.

‘In their cavern, the Norns are stirring their pot and whispering. Urd looks at what has been, Verdandi considers what is and Skuld counts down the moments to the End-Times.’ The All-Father rested on his gnarled staff.

‘Then the end is already foretold.’

‘Only the Fates know.’

Freyja searched his face for a moment, then bowed her head and walked slowly out into the night, the Leshy trailing behind her. The All-Father turned to Laura.

‘You called, daughter. I came, as I always said I would.’

Laura smiled uncomfortably.

‘Brother of Dragons,’ the All-Father said to Church, ‘you face many dangers as you move through the Great Dominions, and I cannot help you with those. You must tread with caution, for the powers ranged against you are greater even than here.’

‘I know you,’ Church said.

‘You know me, Brother of Dragons. I remain an anomaly amongst my kind. And I serve a higher agenda.’

He bowed slightly, and then moved away and out, changing into his familiar shape as he did, part-vegetation, part-bestial.

‘I remembered,’ Laura said when he had gone. ‘All those names he spouted … the ones people knew him by. Cernunnos. The Green Man. And Odin. Somehow he filled that role, too.’

‘You’re not just a pretty face,’ Hunter said.

‘No. I have the ability to kill people in their sleep,’ she replied, halfheartedly rising to the bait.

Shavi and Tom slowly came round. Laura remained with them while Hunter followed Church outside. Snow fell heavily. It didn’t take them long to find Ruth’s tracks.

They followed them for a quarter of a mile, but beyond that point the snow had covered them. With mounting desperation, Church turned slowly and searched the desolate landscape.

‘There’s no way she can survive out in the open.’ Church couldn’t keep his voice from breaking.

‘She’s got a lot of fire in her. If anyone can survive, she can,’ Hunter said.

They searched for another fifteen minutes, but by then the cold was burrowing deeply into their own limbs and Hunter forced Church to turn back. At first, Church resisted, but in the end, devastated, he realised the hopelessness of the situation.

Ruth was gone.