Staked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #8)(43)
The other three Svartálfs solidified, and the guard who spoke to Brighid told one of them to fetch help. He immediately dissolved again and filtered through a gap in the doors without ever opening them for us. The remaining guards didn’t speak, knowing that it wasn’t really their place to question us. They’d challenged us and sent word to leaders inside, and now it was their task to watch us and wait in silence, like assassins are wont to do, until given further orders.
I sloshed out of the puddle of meltwater onto some firmer powder and checked the eastern horizon to see if the army was visible yet. A slightly darker smudge might be them or might not. Niflheim is by and large a bleak smudge of a landscape to begin with.
Brighid likewise moved out of the puddle so her feet wouldn’t freeze in the ice, and eventually a muffled voice called from behind the doors, asking if it was clear. One of the guards responded with something that must have been a code phrase and the doors opened, allowing the egress of five dark elves dressed in identical shimmering white robes that were tied with sashes of varying colors. They also had circlets on their foreheads, affixed with a stone in the center matching the color of their sashes. I guessed that they represented a guild or governmental structure, though I recalled no one mentioning it before. Probably because so few people visited Svartálfheim and lived to tell about it.
The woman leading them announced herself to be Turid Einarsdottir. She had a blue stone and sash and she made introductions without stating titles. One name in particular grabbed my attention: Krókr Hrafnson.
“Krókr?” I said. “Head of the assassins?”
He wore a black sash and a piece of polished obsidian in his circlet. He tensed as if he expected me to jump at him, but he answered, “Yes. Who might you be?”
“I’m the Druid that Fand of the Tuatha Dé Danann hired you to kill. None of your assassins came back, did they?”
His expression hardened and he shook his head by way of reply.
“Well, their deaths weren’t entirely my doing. Most of them were taken out by ?sir and a single dwarf Runeskald. This Runeskald has figured out how to protect against your black blades and also cut you while you’re in your smoke form, making you vulnerable to a killing blow after that.”
The dark elves scoffed in unison. “Impossible,” Krókr said.
“I witnessed it with my own eyes. He appeared with several axes inscribed with different runes and waded right into the middle of your men. They tried to pierce his armor but could not. Meanwhile, he tested each axe in turn. I believe his fourth one worked. Tore right through smoke, and then a Svartálf took shape with a shallow gash across his chest. He couldn’t go back after that, and the dwarf finished him.”
“And now there’s an army in similar armor,” Brighid said, “no doubt with similar weapons, designed to destroy you and marching here to do just that.”
“Why?” Turid asked. “We’ve done nothing to them.”
“It’s not what you have done. It’s what they fear you will do. They believe you will fight against them when Ragnarok arrives, and they would rather fight you today, when they have an advantage, than on the day they are beset on all sides.”
“We have no plans for Ragnarok other than survival,” the dark elf leader protested.
“You mean you are neutral? The ?sir do not see it that way. They are assuming that since you are not actively on their side, you must be on the other side, with Hel and Loki.”
“That’s narrow-minded thinking. This is done with Odin’s approval?”
“We do not know for certain since we have not spoken with him,” Brighid replied, “but it is difficult to imagine that he is unaware of this. The fact that such a force marches at all implies his approval.”
“Where is this force now?” Krókr asked.
I pointed behind me. “See that smudge on the horizon?”
Krókr squinted, then turned to a couple of the guards and asked them to scout the army, admonishing them to stay out of range and not engage.
“Assuming that truly is the army you speak of, why are you here to warn us?” Turid asked Brighid after the guards had departed. “The Tuatha Dé Danann have never shown us kindness before.”
“That is true. And I am not here to be kind now either,” Brighid said. “I am here because I am sworn to protect Gaia, and she would suffer greatly if the Svartálfs remain neutral or fight on the side of darkness during Ragnarok.”
The Svartálfs exchanged glances with one another and shrugged, leaving Turid with no advice on how to proceed. “You seem to know more of the future than we do. Why do we matter so much?”
“That I do not know. All I know is that one of our best seers, the Morrigan, said that you must join the side of the ?sir if Gaia is to have a chance of surviving.”
Turid’s brows drew together and her mouth drooped in a frown. “What do we care if Midgard falls?”
“I did not speak of Midgard. I spoke of Gaia, the anchor for Yggdrasil and the nine realms and the anchor for all other planes dreamed up by human minds. If Gaia falls, then so do the nine realms, you understand? It is in everyone’s interest to ensure Gaia’s survival.”
Krókr scoffed, “So we must join the ?sir, who are even now on their way to kill us all?”