Текст книги "Loki's Wolves"

Автор книги: Kelley L. Armstrong

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

The horse snorted and shifted, and when it did, he heard that clicking noise and looked over. The horse’s bridle. It was… it was made of bones. Finger bones strung together. More bones hung from the saddle, which almost looked as if it was made of… nope. He wasn’t thinking of that. It was leather. Just regular leather.

“Are you Matthew, son of Thor?” the woman asked.

He looked up at her. He had to. Even if his heart was pounding so hard he could barely breathe.

He noticed then how young she was. Not much older than the elder Norn. Pretty, too. His stomach twisted as he thought it. He didn’t want to think it. She shouldn’t be pretty with that wild hair and blue-stained face. She should be terrible—and she was. But as she sat there, perfectly straight, blue eyes flashing, shield over one shoulder, sword gripped in her free hand, he didn’t see a monster, he saw…

He swallowed as he realized what he saw. What she was. They had mosaics of her, too—her kind—in the rec center. Only they didn’t look like this. The women in those pictures were tall and beautiful with long blond braids and horned hats and breastplates that didn’t totally cover… well, he remembered how much his friends liked that picture. And maybe he’d kind of liked it, too.

The only thing this woman had in common with them was her sword and shield, but Matt remembered an older painting in a dusty book his granddad kept in his private library. In that painting, the women were wild-haired and painted, riding great winged steeds through the battlefields, stripping trophies from the enemy dead.

“Valkyries,” Matt whispered.

“Huh?” said a voice behind him.

Matt spun to see two women on foot leading Fen and Laurie around the forest patch, as if they’d tried to escape out the other side. Laurie was struggling and snarling. Fen just walked, as if he’d realized he couldn’t fight.

“They’re Valkyries,” Matt whispered as he stepped back beside Fen.

ELEVEN

FEN

“READING MOUNT RUSHMORE”

Valkyries?” Fen echoed. That explained how the women had managed to sneak up on them. He looked back at the woman who held him. She was blond, but otherwise looked like the red-haired rider, right down to the blue war paint.

“The son of Thor is correct,” the red-haired Valkyrie said in her rough voice. “The son of Loki knows too little of his heritage.” She turned to Laurie. “And the daughter?”

Laurie pulled herself straight. “I’ll learn.”

“The descendants of Thor are taught their heritage.” Fen pulled away from the Valkyrie holding his shoulder. “Not all of Loki’s descendants are taught—because of the sons of Thor.”

He sent a glare Matt’s way.

“You must learn,” the Valkyrie said. “I am Hildar of the Valkyrie. We are pleased to see you have accepted the challenge. We have come to offer assistance.”

Fen looked around as a half-dozen horses and riders drifted in from the shadows. His gaze went not from face to face but sword to sword. He smiled. This was the kind of help they needed. The wulfenkindwould be in for a surprise next time they came sniffing around. “So, how does this work?”

The Valkyrie gave Fen an amused look.

Laurie cleared her throat; Fen pretended not to hear. “Do we lead—”

Matt interrupted. “I know we need to find Odin. That’s what the Norns said.”

“One cannot rely on the Norns to set the order of battle plans—they jump forward and back and do not see the proper path,” Hildar said. “Odin is not your concern yet; your priority is finding the other descendants of the North. We will help you.”

Matt exhaled. “Thank you. I was wondering how we’d—” He stopped and glanced at Fen and Laurie. “I mean, I had a few ideas of how to do that, but I appreciate any help you, um, ladies can offer.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Fen felt a guilty rush of relief. So far the entire plan had been to run and hide and stumble around in the dark without a clue. They’d avoided the Raiders for now, and they would have to keep doing so because he was pretty sure that Skull was going to deliver them all to his boss if they were caught. Fen had told Skull he’d deliver Thorsen, but instead he’d fought Raiders to helphim. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d done that—other than the obvious fact that he didn’t want to work for the Raiders—but it had been a sort of last-minute decision. Still, last-minute or not, it would have consequences if Skull caught up with them.

So we need to be far enough ahead that they can’t catch us.

Fen stepped forward. “Do you have extra horses, or do we share with you?”

“It is not our place to take you to the descendants. You must find them yourselves,” Hildar said.

“So you’ll tell us where they are?” Matt prompted.

The Valkyrie frowned. “No. We will tell you where you can go to learn where they are.”

“Uh-huh.” Fen’s hopes of real help were quickly vanishing, but maybe it was a case of the Valkyries just not understanding. “Could you make it a little less complicated? We’re talking about the end of the world here.”

The look she shot him made him step backward, but all she did was say, “First, you must be tested.”

“I haven’t studied,” Matt said.

Fen stifled a laugh, but either Hildar didn’t get the joke or didn’t think it was funny.

“It is not that kind of test,” she said. “You must win a war.”

“I get that,” Matt said. “But I’m pretty good at fighting already. Can you just skip the scavenger hunt and do this the old-fashioned way? Mano a mano. I take on a challenger.”

The other Valkyries murmured among themselves in a language Fen didn’t know, and Hildar shook her head. “You are indeed a son of Thor: you think you can overcome any obstacle with a hammer in one hand and a stein of mead in the other.”

“I don’t think they’ll let me have mead, but I wouldn’t mind the realHammer.” Matt fingered his amulet.

All the Valkyries just stared, stone-faced. Fen felt just as frustrated as they looked. Sure, Thorsen didn’t know what Fen had risked or what trouble awaited if the Raiders caught up with them, but here they were with an offer of help that was being dashed as quickly as it had arrived. He didn’t feel like arguing the matter, either, but Matt was persistent. Fen had to give him credit for that. He was ready to walk away, but Thorsen was obviously still clinging to the hope that the Valkyries could be convinced to offer genuine aid.

Matt sighed. “Come on. It’s a war. The Midgard Serpent isn’t going to let us settle this over a game of Tafl.” He paused. “Unless that’s a possibility, ’cause I’m pretty good at that, too. Would save a lot of trouble. Lot less messy, too. So, what do you think?”

“I think you are not taking this seriously enough,” Hildar said.

She seemed to think that Thorsen was being flip with her, but she’d already said it wasn’t a fight. It only made sense to come up with other possible types of challenges. Fen didn’t figure pointing that out would earn them any favors, though, so he kept his mouth shut and waited.

“The fate of the world is in your hands,” one of the other Valkyries said.

Laurie stepped forward, drawing everyone’s gaze to her. “Then helpus.”

Fen felt a flash of worry and eased closer to her. She was where his loyalty should be—and would be. Hildar saw his movement and smiled.

“You’re the descendants of gods,” Hildar said, almost kindly. “They died, and it’s up to you now to fulfill the roles in the great fight. Ragnarök comes. This is your duty. We can’t assume your duty for you.”

“I didn’t sign up for this. None of us did,” Fen objected. It was like the world had spun backward a thousand years and they were now old enough to leave home and get married, old enough to fight, old enough to die. They were being asked to risk death because somewhere forever ago they had relatives who were gods. Worse still, those gods had died and left them a mess to handle.

“Did you not?” Hildar asked.

And Fen wondered briefly how much she knew. He hadmade a choice. When the Raiders came at Thorsen, Fen had chosen. When they were on the longship and Fen had heard Thorsen talk about Ragnarök just like Skull had talked about it, Fen had chosen. He’d decided to throw in on the side of the gods, the side that the prophecy said would lose. There was a part of him that wanted to be better than the god who was his long-gone ancestor, be a hero instead of a troublemaker, and maybe in doing so keep the monsters from winning. Being wulfenkinddidn’t make Skull or anyone else a monster, but wanting to destroy the world certainly did.

“What are we supposed to do?” Matt asked.

“We would prefer you to win,” Hildar replied, not quite answering the more practical question Fen suspected Matt was asking. The Valkyrie continued, “If you are to win, you must be ready. You must not be children, waiting for things to be handed to you. You must find the others. In time, you must find Odin. You must collect Mjölnir, a feather from each of Odin’s ravens, and the shield. These things will help you fight the serpent.”

“Mjölnir? You mean… theMjölnir? Thor’s Hammer?” Matt looked like someone had offered him a great big prize, which, Fen supposed, she kind of had. A god’s hammer would be pretty handy in a fight with monsters. It was a shame that no one was offering him a superweapon, too.

After another of those glances that made Fen think Hildar knew more than he’d like, she looked back at Matt and her lips twitched with the faintest sign of a smile. “That is what you wanted, is it not, son of Thor?”

“I was kidding,” Matt said in a half-shocked voice. He took a deep breath. “So Mjölnir, feathers, and some shield. And the other kids. And Odin.”

“You’ll give us a clue, though, right?” Fen interjected. “That’s what you said: you’d help.”

Hildar nodded. “Indeed.” She looked at them each in turn and then said, “Seek the twins first. To find them, go see the presidents. Their faces hold the answer.”

Then she lifted her hand, and all the Valkyries turned away.

The riders swung onto their horses’ backs. In an instant, hooves pounded; the horses and their riders were a blur, and then they were gone.

“Seriously?” Fen said, spinning around to face Laurie and Matt. “Seriously? Answers on the faces of the presidents? What kind of riddle is that?”

“It’s not a riddle,” Laurie said evenly. “It’s Mount Rushmore.”

“Yes!” Matt already looked calm again, and Fen wished briefly that he were that sure of himself—not always or anything, but sometimes.

Matt continued, “They mean we’ll find the answer at Mount Rushmore. That’s got to be it. Something there will lead us to the twins.”

“What twins?” Laurie had a nervous look on her face. “Sorry. My mom was anti–Blackwell history because my dad gets so into it. I had no idea it would ever matter.”

Fen felt another flash of guilt. He hadn’t had a choice about keeping secrets, but he also hadn’t tried to convince her to pay attention to the myths, even though he knew she might turn into a wolf like him. Now she was caught up in a dangerous situation with a lot less information than she needed to have.

Uncle Stig is going to kill me… unless the Raiders do it first.

While Fen was stressing out, Matt seemed perfectly calm now that Laurie had asked a question he could answer. He launched into explaining the myths: “The twins are Frey and Freya. In the old stories, Freya is the goddess of love and beauty. Frey is the god of weather and fertility. We need to find their descendants, who are apparently also twins.” Matt paused. “Two for one. That’ll make it easier.”

Fen scowled at him. “I don’t think any of this is going to be easy.”

“And that’s the point,” Laurie murmured.

“Okay, then,” Matt said. “I guess we visit the presidents.”

Blackwell wasn’t too far away from Mount Rushmore, but it was a long enough walk that Fen wished he could change into a wolf and run. He wasn’t about to leave his cousin behind, though. He’d promised Uncle Stig that he’d keep an eye on her, especially around boys. The idea of telling any of the family that he had left her alone with a Thorsen made his stomach twist inside him. He glanced at Matt and Laurie talking animatedly while they walked toward Mount Rushmore. It seemed like just friendship, but even that would anger the family.

And they’d blame me.

Fen was all on board with the stop-the-end-of-the-world part, and he hoped his family would be, too. They were mostly lone wolves or tithed. That had to mean his dad and Uncle Stig wouldn’t side with the crazy let-the-world-end plan, right? Fen wasn’t entirely sure about some of his family. What he did know, however, was that the Raiders definitely wouldn’t be forgiving of any wulfenkind’s decision to side with a Thorsen.

And Thorsen won’t be forgiving if he finds out I was supposed to capture him and deliver him to them.

His whole family would be angry if they found out he was running across the state with a Thorsen. They might not all like the Raiders, but wulfenkinddidn’t help Thorsens. That part was just the way it was, the way it always had been. Matt didn’t seem like most Thorsens, though. They’d fought side by side against the Raiders, and they’d stood side by side in the face of warrior women. Both times, Matt seemed to want to win more than be a show-off. It reminded Fen of what packs were supposed to be like, what families were supposed to be like. It wasn’t what Fen would expect from a descendant of Thor. Surprisingly, Matt seemed like he was kind of an okay guy. Fen wasn’t about to tell him that, but he really didn’t want Matt or Laurie to know that he’d considered helping the Raiders capture Matt. Matt would hate him—and Laurie would probably be mad, too.

He hadn’t wanted to deliver Matt to them, and he’d been trying to think of a solution. Throwing in against his own kind wasn’t the one he’d meant to pick, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Still, if Laurie and Matt learned that Fen had given them the shield and that he was supposed to deliver Thorsen to the Raiders, they wouldn’t understand. He knew it.

So they can’t find out.

He knew how to keep a secret. He’d been dealing with knowing he was Loki’s descendant for years, turning into a wolf the past year, paying tithe to the Raiders, keeping secrets from Laurie, and alternately hoping and not hoping that she’d be a wolf like him.

“Are you still with us?” Laurie looked over her shoulder at him.

“Sure.” He thought about telling her the truth, or at least some of it, but Thorsen was watching, and Fen wasn’t about to tell him. Fen would just continue to keep an eye out for Raiders, and they’d deal with any trouble if it came. What he could tell them was, “I know where the shield is.”

“The shield the Valkyries said we need?”

A car passed, with music blaring, and Fen almost growled at how close it came to Laurie. He moved to walk beside her, and she stepped onto the gravel along the road. He nodded. “The Raiders have it. It’s the one I was trying to get.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that’s why you were trying to steal it?” Matt asked.

Laurie hugged him. “You could’ve at least told meyou were trying to keep it out of their hands.”

Gratefulness shot through him: their misunderstanding of his role in the shield’s theft was the perfect cover.

“I never wanted you to know anything about the Raiders,” he told her. That part was true. The part where he was trying to protectit from the Raiders, not that he stole it and delivered it to them, wasn’t exactly true, of course.

He looked from Matt to Laurie and then added, “I don’t know how we’re going to get it from them, but at least we know where it is.”

“And we know that Odin says we’ll talk again, and even I know that Odin is supposed to be all-seeing in the stories. I’m guessing he’ll be able to get us the feathers from his ravens.” Laurie laughed. “Is it weird how easy it is to believe that all of this is real?”

“Don’t know,” Fen hedged. “I’ve always known some of it. Thorsen probably has, too.”

Matt nodded.

“Well, I haven’t, and I still think we can do this,” Laurie said. She stared at the giant carved presidents in the distance and smiled.

After a friendly smile at her that made Fen want to snarl protectively, Matt said, “Let’s go find our clue.”

Fen shook his head. They’d barely survived a fight with the Raiders, and he didn’t expect a tornado to pop up and save them the next time. He knew the Raiders, knew how well patrolled their camps were, knew that the way Hattie and Skull were about the shield meant that it would be well guarded. He couldn’t tell Laurie and Matt any of that without admitting how well he knew the Raiders, and he wasn’t willing to do that. He’d figure out a way around the shield problem later, but for now, he kept his mouth shut and followed Laurie and Matt through the visitors’ entrance to Mount Rushmore.

They walked past the tall gray columns. On one side was a wall with names carved on it, and on the other was a statue of the guy who was behind creating the monument.

There were more stone columns, with state flags on top of them, and at the end was a big open space where people stood staring at the presidents’ faces. Fen wasn’t really much into school stuff, but they’d come here on a field trip, and he’d been impressed by the idea of making such an enormous sculpture. These were the sort of giant carvings that meant explosions and giant power tools were needed. Far cooler than sitting there with a tiny blob of clay, trying to make a sculpture, which is what they’d had to do in art class. He smiled at the idea of getting to use explosives in art class. Thatwould be cool.

The three of them stood there with the people, all staring up at Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln. He felt like one of them should have a camera so they’d blend in, but no one was staring at them like they were doing anything wrong. And they weren’t… yet.

They had to wait for a while until they were able to get closer to the faces—where the Valkyrie had said the clue was—so they killed time until the park closed, watching the movie in the visitors’ center two times, and then buying something to eat using money that they’d all brought. No one asked where he’d gotten his, and he didn’t tell them he’d taken it from Kris’ stash. Laurie had hers and some jewelry she said they could sell if they needed to. Matt had used a cash machine to add to the money he still had from his dad.

“We’ll hide and wait,” Matt said.

They crept into the woods and settled in for a few hours. This part of their quest was far from exciting. Fen was a lot more at ease fighting Raiders than sitting in silence. He wasn’t great at staying still in general, but from the looks of it, neither was Matt. He fidgeted almost as much as Laurie and Fen did. They exchanged an almost-friendly nod.

Eventually, the statues were lit up, and then people started leaving. But the guard didn’t leave. So they kept waiting.

Unfortunately, the waiting part was a lot harder than the hiding. They had a number of places to hide over in the wooded area, but that guard not only watched the visitors’ area but also the monument itself. Plus, there were cameras aimed at the monument and around the area.

Earlier that day he had overheard someone talking about some sort of environmental protest a few years ago that had resulted in new security. Fen was all for taking care of the environment, especially since he was a wolf part of the time, but he wished they’d staged their protest elsewhere because the extra security meant getting close to the presidents’ faces was seeming pretty impossible. There was no way they were going to be able to climb up there with a guard watching and who knows how many morescanning the security feed from wherever the cameras sent their signal.

A couple of hours passed, and they were no closer to progress than when they’d arrived. The guard stayed alert, and the cameras weren’t going to vanish. It was ridiculous.

“I could get up there,” Fen said in a low voice.

Matt shot Fen a warning glare.

“No one’s going to stop a wolf.” He turned to his cousin. “I wish you could change, too.”

Then he turned his back on them and became a wolf.

It would be so much better if she was a wolf, too. He’d hoped in a weird sort of girly way that if she changed, too, Uncle Stig would take them with him. Then they could all three live together like a normal family. Laurie wasn’t happy with her mom and brother, and Fen wasn’t happy moving from house to house, and Uncle Stig surely wasn’t happy alone. Laurie hadn’t turned into a wolf, though, and he didn’t know if she would. He felt sad, which made him want to howl.

She was already crouched down, so they were face-to-face. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Don’t do anything too stupid.”

He butted his head against her shoulder, and then he was off. He walked right up to the guard, who looked at him with the sort of respect that he saw more often from the American Indians in South Dakota. Ranchers weren’t usually keen on wolves, but the Sioux were more likely to respect nature—which included wolves.

The guard watched him warily, and then looked around as if he were seeking shelter. Fen didn’t like that he had frightened him, so he smiled, which he always forgot never looked very friendly when he was a wolf, and the guard took a step backward. Fen felt a little guilty about scaring the guard, but he had no intention of hurting the man. He kept the man’s attention, hoping that Matt and Laurie were moving farther into cover.