Black Coven (Daniel Black Book 2) Page 9

  Chapter 6

  The sky was clear again the next day, to my considerable surprise. I hadn’t seen two consecutive clear days since I was summoned to this world, so I was forced to conclude that the Red Conclave’s weather magic was actually working. Standing atop the transport I found that I could make out bands of dark clouds being held at bay in the distance to the west, but they showed no sign of getting closer.

  Well, that would certainly make my work easier.

  Gudrin hopped up next to me, clearing the eight foot height of the transport in a single easy bound, and looked around with a grin. Well, she was probably the strongest of the wolf girls, so a feat like that shouldn’t surprise me. She’d shot up a good six inches during the trip to Kozalin, while her malnourished body sprouted curves and her ragged mop of black hair grew out into a wild mane that reached the small of her back.

  “Good morning, boss. Is it just me, or is it getting warmer?” She asked.

  “I think it is,” I replied. “Looks like the weather wizards are actually getting somewhere.”

  “That would be nice.” She took a step closer, and rubbed up against me. “Feel like a quickie before breakfast?”

  I chuckled, and gave her a one-armed hug. “Well, that came out of the blue. Just like that?”

  “Does it have to be complicated? I’m horny, you’re sexy, and you didn’t bring any of your women with you.”

  Her hand touched my chest, and started to trail down towards my belt buckle. I took it in one of mine.

  “Would you have thought that way a month ago?”

  She looked up at me with a frown. “Why does that matter?”

  “I’m just curious what it feels like, going from a normal girl to what you are now. You do know it’s changed how you think about things, right?”

  “I’m not stupid, boss. Of course I know. A month ago I would have died of shame if a man who wasn’t my husband saw me naked. Now I’ve had half the men in the pack and a couple of Oskar’s boys, and I’m loving it. I love having the courage to enjoy life, whether it’s fighting or fucking or just running through the woods with the wind in my face. There’s nothing wrong with that. Is there?”

  I shook my head. “No, not as long as you’re happy with it. The rules you grew up with were meant for human farmers, and they don’t work for everyone. Now that you’re, well, not completely human-”

  “Wolfen,” she interrupted. “We had a talk about it, last night. That’s what we decided to call ourselves.”

  How imaginative. But then again, I should probably cut them some slack. Most of them were illiterate ex-peasants, and I was an information age internet junkie. Obviously our sense of taste was going to be different.

  “Alright. Well, wolfen obviously have different instincts than humans, so you’re going to have to make up new rules for yourselves. Traditions that work for you, to replace the ones you’ve left behind. I’m not going to call you a slut for having some fun, but I will warn you that just doing whatever feels good won’t work out well in the long run. You, Embla and Daria should get together soon, and talk about how to handle things like mates and children. Otherwise things are going to blow up horribly when one of you gets pregnant.”

  She huffed in frustration. “I guess. This is your way of turning me down, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. I don’t usually say no to sexy girls, but I’m not big on doing it with an audience.”

  Not to mention that I was pretty sure she’d had sex half a dozen times yesterday, and bathing wasn’t really an option in our encampment. Day-old sloppy seconds? Ugh. No thanks.

  “Then you should take your transport next time,” she pointed out. “Honestly, it feels really weird having sex when I know the boss is sleeping alone.”

  “That’s for sure,” another voice put in, and I turned to find that Daria had joined us on the roof of the transport.

  “It’s a big confused ball of bad stuff. Like we’re not good enough for you, and we’re being total bitches by ignoring you, and we’re being stupid for missing a shot at you, and about a thousand other things all swirling around in a big mess. I think our wolfen instincts really make a big deal out of the fact that you’re the pack leader’s boss. Maybe next time we do something like this you’ll be able to bring Cerise with you?”

  “Probably,” I allowed. “Or I can figure something else out. Thanks for pointing out the problem, though. You know, the usual rule of thumb is that a leader should keep his hands off his subordinates’ women.”

  She nodded. “I know. Sergeant Thomas mentioned that once, when he was explaining how to work with the soldiers. It’s probably still a good idea, since the pack has so few women. Maybe you could fix that at some point? The men have been really good about sharing so far, but I’m sure it’s going to cause trouble once the novelty of everything starts to wear off.”

  “Well, I’m afraid the only kind of animal hybrid I can make is catgirls, and I don’t think that would help.”

  “Catgirls?” Gudrin exclaimed incredulously. “Really?”

  Daria giggled. “That’s a funny image.”

  At the time I’d been hoping to extend my flesh magic into some kind of shapeshifting. But I hadn’t dared spend enough of my limited power-up time on that to be sure, and what I’d actually gotten was just a semi-random handful of transformations I could do to people. Catgirls, anime elves, gender reversals, an assortment of cosmetic changes, and some physical enhancements that might actually be useful if they weren’t so complex it would take days to do one. Like I’d ever be able to spare that much time.

  “What can I say? It’s just a weird quirk of my magic. Anyway, I’ll put it on my list of problems to think about. I take it human women aren’t an option for some reason?”

  “They can’t keep up with the pack,” Gudrin pointed out.

  “They couldn’t really be part of the group,” Daria agreed. “Also, humans are fragile. No one wants to risk that kind of relationship now.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Breakfast had me missing Avilla’s cooking. But we were most of the way to the coast already, and with the clear weather I had high hopes of finishing the job and being back home by nightfall. The channel left by my heating stones had slowly expanded during the night, and was now easily wide enough for two of the sailing ships I’d seen in the harbor to pass each other. So once we hit the coast we could turn around and travel at full speed instead of creeping along planting more stones.

  Starting up the work again was a little tricky, since I didn’t want to risk taking the vehicles anywhere near the channel. There was no way to tell how much the ice had thinned near it, and I didn’t want to risk breaking through. I ended up laying a force field across the ice near the end of the channel to spread my weight while I walked over to drop in the first heating stone, and placed a few more at the same interval I’d been using the day before. That got us far enough out that I was pretty sure the ice would be stable, at which point I went back to just dropping the stones off the back of the enchantment factory’s sled.

  The ice hissed and smoked furiously where they landed, but even with a big heat source it takes time to melt large masses of the stuff. A trail of holes grew in our wake, gradually widening as we moved slowly along our way. The whole process was just as tedious as it had been the day before, but hopefully this was a one-time thing.

  Could I do something like this for Kozalin? Warm the whole town with open-air heaters of some kind? Moderating the temperature even a little could keep a lot of those refugees alive.

  But thinking about it more, I realized that it was a much harder problem. I’d have to cover three or four square miles instead of just a long, narrow path, so it would take a lot more heaters. They were also dangerous to anyone who got too close to one, so I’d have to mount each heating element in some kind of enclosure. That alone would make the project take weeks instead of days. Maybe months, depending on how elaborate the setup ended up needing to be.

  Come
to think if it, I’d have to use much less powerful heaters. The ones I was dumping in the river put out heat like a blast furnace, and there weren’t many places in the city where that would be safe. They’d create zones of dangerously high temperature, blocking streets and probably setting buildings on fire. I’d have to make thousands of little ones instead, with an output more comparable to a stove or campfire. But if I started dotting the city with permanent heat sources on that scale people would steal them.

  Yeah, that wasn’t going to work. I’d have to come up with a different solution.

  It was well past noon when we finally neared the coast. The grey waters of the North Sea stretched away endlessly into the distance, under an angry mass of dark clouds that swirled furiously against that invisible barrier some miles offshore. There was no sign of any shipping, but that was no surprise. Anyone caught at sea when the freeze hit would presumably have either docked at the nearest port or headed south.

  I was just a few hundred yards from the edge of the ice when Gudrin and Umar returned from patrol with a report of more goblins lurking in the vicinity.

  “There was a lot of them, a couple miles north of us. I saw three trolls, and maybe a hundred wolf riders,” Umar reported.

  Gudrin nodded. “Some of the goblins looked funny, too. There was a whole group with white cloaks and fancy armor, riding big white wolves.”

  “Did they see you?” Gronir asked.

  Umar hung his head. “Yeah, they had a lot of scouts out. I think we gave them the slip, but we killed a couple of wolf riders doing it.”

  “Sounds like your pack needs some stealth training, Gronir,” I pointed out. “But that’s for later. If they attack us during the day we’ll cut them to pieces. I go after their leaders while you guys run around the edges skirmishing, and the pilot hides in the transport. Your bows have three or four times the range of theirs, you can outrun their wolves and their arrows can barely hurt you anyway. Once we kill a couple dozen the rest will break and run.”

  “But if the ones in white cloaks are the same guys who led the attack on Lanrest they’ll be smarter than that. Probably shadow us hoping to attack after we camp for the night. So let’s see if we can’t finish our business here and be gone by then.”

  “You got it, boss,” Gronir agreed. “I’ll organize a sweep to make sure there aren’t any other bands lurking about, and then we’ll pull back to the transport and stand ready just in case.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Go ahead and park the transport here. The ice might be too thin to support it over by the edge, so I’m going to place the last few heat stones by hand.”

  The wolfen fanned out in pairs to check for other threats, and I mused that we really needed more of them to maintain good scouting. At least twenty, and thirty or so would be a lot better. But where would I find that many volunteers, let alone the felwolf hearts to empower them?

  “One problem at a time,” I sighed.

  I turned the factory enchantment back on, caught the heat stone it built in a web of force magic, and held it carefully suspended in the air before me while I paced off the distance from the last one I’d placed. Almost done. I dropped it into place, thankful that my shield blocked the cloud of steam it raised when it hit the ice, and went back for another.

  I’d just placed the second to last stone when I heard a shout from the direction of the transport, and a shadow fell over me. I dove to the side with a hard push of force magic, thankful that weeks of constant danger had at least sharpened my reflexes. I landed well outside the still-growing shadow, my hand already on Grinder’s hilt.

  There was a deep chuckle from behind me. “You’re quick on your feet, little man.”

  I turned, and found myself facing something almost as bad as the dragon I’d half expected. A huge head armored in bony plates, with a mouth big enough to swallow me whole, looking down at me from the end of a long serpentine neck that descended into the sea. For a moment I pictured something like a giant plesiosaur, but then I realized that the movement I could make out in the water offshore was more serpentine coils. It was a sea serpent.

  A sea serpent that made dinosaurs look puny. And it talked.

  “I am Narfing, son of Jarlof, son of Jormungandr. Are you the foreign wizard, Daniel the Black?”

  Its voice was a deep rumble so powerful I could feel it in my chest, like a landslide crashing down a mountainside. I took a deep breath and straightened, with my hand still on Grinder. “Yes,” I answered cautiously.

  “Good. You took longer than expected to arrive, but we still have a few minutes. I bring you word from the Unraveler, the first and last offer of peace you will hear. She comes now to tear asunder the Bifrost Veil, and you stand in her way. Step aside, and we shall grant you and your servants safe passage out of Europe.”

  I frowned. A week ago I probably would have agreed to that. I had no stake in the war between Loki and Asgard, and I wasn’t under any delusions about my ability to stop this genocide single-handedly. But after my conversation with Hecate last night… wait, had she known this was coming? The timing was too neat to be coincidence.

  “Who is this ‘Unraveler’?” I asked. “That isn’t a name I recall.”

  “Have you not heard?” The great serpent rumbled. “Hel’s sister is yet in her youth, but she was trained well by her brothers in Gaea’s halls. In a scant year she has freed her father and brother, broken the seals of Tartarus and gathered a horde of fell beasts to her banner. Her touch brings freedom to all who suffer in darkness, and no barrier can withstand her will. If you oppose her you will be but another stepping stone on her path to Ascension.”

  It took me a moment to puzzle that out. “Loki and Gaea have a daughter? Together? How the hell did they manage that?”

  “In the usual way, I imagine,” it said with a grin, displaying a mouth full of teeth the length of my arm. “Sigyn is a devoted wife, and Gaea is one sneaky bitch when she bothers to try.”

  Okay, then. If I remembered my Norse mythology right the story was that Odin had bound Loki in chains in a cave somewhere, with a giant serpent on the ceiling dripping venom on him. His wife Sigyn was allowed to attend him and catch the poison in a bowl, although it wasn’t a complete protection because she had to go empty it from time to time. Gaea was an earth goddess, so I suppose it made sense that she’d be able to sneak into an underground location if she wanted to. But… um…

  Well, this was the god who fathered half the monsters in Norse mythology, and was supposedly Sleipnir’s mother. I suppose kinky bondage sex with Gaea right in front of his wife was par for the course, and Gaea’s reputation was in line with that. Despite the situation, I had to fight back a chuckle.

  “That does sound like Loki.”

  “Odin was a fool to leave his most potent limb unbound,” Narfing agreed. “But I must have your answer now.”

  That chased away my grin. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing,” he answered. “Go back to your tower, provision yourselves and seal your gates. When Kozalin is secure you can take your people and leave.”

  Yeah, I’m sure an army of monsters camped on the ruins of the city would have no problem letting us go. Did they think I was a complete idiot?

  Why were they making this offer? If the fall of Kozalin was really inevitable I doubt they would have bothered. So, they had some intel about me from previous encounters and they wanted me out of the way.

  What could I do against a goddess?

  No. In the Greek myths the children of gods were usually born as mortal heroes, and had to win enough divine approval before they were allowed to become gods. That sounded a lot like this ‘path to Ascension’ business. So a demigoddess, and one who was hiding her actual name. Sneaky and powerful, but not necessarily a strong fighter.

  “You know, Narfing, I don’t really have a quarrel with Loki’s people,” I said contemplatively. “I sure as hell don’t have any love for the Aesir, and if you just wanted to tear down Asgard an
d salt the earth I wouldn’t lift a finger to stop you. But when Loki decided to cause the Fimbulwinter, and Gaea sent her children to rampage across the land killing everyone they could find, they declared war on humanity.”

  “That was a mistake.”

  I drew Grinder, and nudged it to life with a thought. The blade of violet flame coalesced with a shriek like the mutant offspring of a jet engine and a wood chipper. The huge monster flinched away from the noise, and I nodded to myself. I’d figured a giant aquatic monster would have sonar, and sensitive hearing to go with it.

  “Kozalin is under my protection,” I shouted over the din. “Find another veil anchor for your schemes. If you attack this one, there won’t be enough left of you to bury.”

  “Insolent wizard!” Narfing roared. “You dare to spit on the Unraveler’s kindness? Then I shall kill you myself, and save her the trouble!”

  I readied myself, but the expected lunge didn’t come. Instead the great serpent reared up, and dove back into the waters it had emerged from. A long, long length of sinewy body followed the motion. Damn, how big was this thing?

  Then a shock ran through the ice, and I realized what he was doing. I spun, and bounded back towards the vehicles.

  “Gronir! Scatter! It’s coming back-”

  My words were drowned out by the thunderous crash of Narfing’s armored head smashed up through the ice. Huge chunks went flying everywhere, several of them shattering against my shield, and then Grinder’s blade touched the water. The resulting steam explosion blasted me into the air, and I blacked out momentarily.

  Fortunately my healing amulet was running. I was still bouncing across the surface of the ice when I snapped back to consciousness. I tumbled to a stop, and scrambled back to my feet.

  A hundred yards away the wolfen were circling the hole in the ice, peppering Narfing with arrows that didn’t seem to be doing anything. I saw a couple bounce off the sea serpent’s bony head despite their piercing enchantments, and although the ones that hit his body penetrated they didn’t reach deep enough to hit anything vital. Not that an arrow was likely to do much to a monster this size even if it did prick an organ.