Part 11 (1/2)

Hermod skidded to a halt and waved the others to run past him. Holding his ground, he looked up the path to face Garm. Puffs of dust flew up every time the dog's paws slammed the ground. Saliva cascaded down his jaws.

Hermod shook the cake as though it were a tennis ball and Garm an excited retriever. With the hound thundering toward him, he told himself to wait. He'd once gotten in the path of a charging woolly rhinoceros. The horn had gone through his chest, puncturing a lung and missing his heart by a quarter of an inch. It'd taken him years to heal. Garm was bigger than a woolly rhino.

When Hermod could smell the dog's breath and feel the saliva spray in his face, he hurled the cake off the path into empty air. Garm switched direction and lunged at the cake, his momentum propelling him to the edge of the path. His nails tore deep scars in the ground as he tried to scrabble to a stop, but with a piteous yowl he fell, twisting head over tail.

Hermod peered over the ledge, watching mists swirl in the wake of the hound's descent.

IT FELT as though they'd walked through a season. The road stretched ahead in a long, brutally straight line along a dusty plain, the monotonous scenery broken only by the occasional cl.u.s.ter of piled rocks, some of them as large as houses. Hermod imagined unpleasant things using them for cover.

He led the group east, heading for a distant ridge of sharp rocks on the horizon that never seemed to grow closer. He remembered that a river ran parallel to the other side of the rocks, and he reasoned that if they followed the river, they might eventually find a portal out of Helheim. Rivers in all the worlds flowed from the same place.

Several dozen yards ahead, in the middle of the road, stood a boy with eyes too big for his face. He leaned on a tree branch roughly the shape of a rake, beside a field of rows drawn in the powdery dirt with rulerlike precision. Nothing living could grow in the fields of Helheim, but the dead weren't spared hunger, and in their desperation some of them tended hopeless plots of land. Others made attempts at building towns and villages like the ones they'd come from. Helheim was unfathomably vast, but Hermod could imagine it one day crowded with dead-men and women never stopped dying. The habitations would grow into cities, and the cities would sprawl to the deadlands' borders. And what then? If the World Tree stood long enough, there would be so many dead that they'd start spilling over into the other worlds, in greater numbers than the occasional stray draugr.

It occurred to him that Ragnarok had a purpose: to end the world when it reached carrying capacity. Death and rebirth formed a natural cycle-isn't that what the sibyl had tried to tell him? Why couldn't he just accept that? Let the wolves eat the sun and moon. Let the worlds burn.

As they approached the boy, both Hermod and Grimnir reached for their swords. Mist moved in front of them. ”Let me handle this,” she said. Hermod had to admit she made a more agreeable presentation than either himself or Grimnir, especially when they were brandis.h.i.+ng weapons at a little boy.

He nodded at her. ”Be careful.”

She took a few more steps toward the boy. ”Hi, there. My name is Mist. What's yours?”

The left side of the boy's skull curved inward. ”Steven,” he said. ”I'm a farmer.”

Mist nodded appreciatively. ”Did you rake this field yourself? Those are really straight rows.”

”I rake 'em every day. The hounds always leave paw prints, and I gotta rake 'em over.”

Hermod and Grimnir exchanged unhappy glances.

”That's a big job for one farmer,” Mist said. ”Don't you have anyone who helps you?”

The boy smiled shyly, dust mottling his blond crew cut. Then he dropped his rake and took off running as fast as his spindly legs would carry him.

”Wait!” Mist shouted. ”I'm not going to hurt you!”

Grimnir grinned. ”Leave this to me.”

Mist shot a warning look to both him and Hermod. ”You will stay here and let me handle this,” she said, before taking off after the boy.

”Sure, kid, you're the boss,” Grimnir said.

He let Mist get a bit of a head start. Then he launched himself in a heavy-footed jog after her.

Hermod watched the boy lead the chase toward a stack of sharp-edged, Cadillac-size boulders in the distance.

”Stay,” he commanded Winston. The malamute barked once and joined Hermod as he set off across the field after the others.

The boy scrambled over the crest of the rocks. A moment later, Mist and Grimnir climbed up after him. When Hermod got there, he moved around the pile instead of going over it, and when he came to the other side, he found Mist and Grimnir surrounded by a dozen men and women with sharp sticks. The boy peered around the legs of a woman with a face smashed in so badly that, when viewed straight on, her nose was in profile.

”I got 'em, Ma, I got 'em!” the boy said, dancing on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet.

She ruffled his hair. ”You did real good, Steven. But hush up now and keep still.”

”That goes for you three as well,” said a plump man. In overalls, a plaid s.h.i.+rt, and a bloodstained straw hat, his robin's-egg-blue eyes were the most colorful things Hermod had ever seen in Helheim.

”I've got a sword,” said Grimnir. ”So does my pal Hermod. The woman's got one too. And as for you, you've got... sticks. The friggin' dog could take you lot all by himself.”

The man in the straw hat nodded thoughtfully. ”There's more of us than you see here, and we know this terrain better than you. Think about it: One boy led you into our trap. So maybe your swords aren't giving you the upper hand you think.”

The others in the group gave approving nods.

Grimnir turned around in a slow 360, arms spread to indicate the miles of fields and rocks around them. ”Not that it matters much, but you're bluffing.”

Putting two fingers to his mouth, Mr. Straw Hat whistled sharply. Hermod admired that whistle. He'd never managed to develop a good whistle himself. Out from a gap between two potato-shaped boulders, half a dozen others emerged. Hermod wanted to call these newcomers townsfolk, the men dressed in cotton s.h.i.+rts and denim, the women in plain, practical dresses the colors of pale spring flowers. They all bore injuries-broken limbs and cruel lacerations-but they held their crude spears with confidence.

”Let's not have any unnecessary fisticuffs,” Hermod said. ”So, what is this, highway robbery? Piracy on the plains?”

”We'll ask the questions,” said Mr. Straw Hat. ”For starters, where'd you come from?”

Hermod hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ”Down the road.”

”We know that. Steven saw you coming for miles. I meant before that.”

”We're from California,” Hermod said. ”Died of drug overdoses.”

”My condolences to your families,” Mr. Straw Hat said with possible sincerity, though others in the group frowned at Hermod and his companions with disapproval.

Hermod wondered if he should just cut off all their legs at the knees right now. The longer he conferred with these fine townsfolk, the more likely they would dispatch a messenger to Hel to let her know the whereabouts of her wayward Aesir prize.

”Tell them the truth, Hermod.”

Hermod's brother Hod squeezed between a gap in the rock pile. He brushed dirt from the knees of his charcoal wool pants. Directing the dark pits of his sightless eyes at Hermod, he leaned on his stick and said, ”Trust these people, brother. You'll be bringing more trouble to them than they to you.”

A woman followed through the gap, but other than to register that she seemed familiar, Hermod was too taken aback to pay her notice.

”Hod,” he said.

”Yes. How flattering you still recognize me.”

Definitely Hod, thought Hermod. ”Why aren't you at Hel's hall, with Baldr?”

”Because he is a pretty-mannered traitor. Why aren't you with him?”

”I'm neither a traitor nor pretty-mannered,” Hermod sputtered back, offended.

”No,” said Hod, blindly appraising him. ”I suppose not. Which is fortunate. Who are your friends?”

Hermod uttered some introductions.