Staked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #8)(47)



It was not who we expected. Not that we expected anyone in particular, just that we did not expect that particular envoy. It was a man dressed entirely in gray with a beard like a cliff wall and a patch over one eye, with two ravens riding along on his shoulder: Odin himself. Everyone tried to be cool, but it’s difficult not to sit up a bit straighter when Odin joins your party. Sort of like if you’re relaxing with your friends and Neil deGrasse Tyson walks up, you suddenly want to talk about science: His arrival changes the subject. Two dark elves flanked him and one carried Gungnir, Odin’s spear.

“I come in peace,” Odin said right away, his head tilting toward the guard for a moment. “I gave up my weapon willingly.”

Introductions were made all around. When attention fell on me, Odin’s remaining eye narrowed but he said nothing. That was enough to communicate his displeasure with me, however.

“Excellent,” Brighid said. “Before we begin, can we all agree that saving the world would be better than allowing Loki to torch Midgard and all the nine realms to bring Gaia under his and Hel’s control?”

Everyone nodded or grunted assent, and Brighid beamed. “Good. That’s a strong foundation to build upon. The fact that the leaders are here and we don’t need to use go-betweens is also good. Let’s proceed.”

Hours of grievances and apologies followed, together with arguments and concessions and more than two trips into the trees to relieve bladders filled by hot spiced cocoa. I only mention those trips because they were perilous journeys for me, which I hopped at first and then gingerly limped through. At no point did we enter the doors of Svartálfheim.

Near the end I must have dozed off, lulled by the drone of carefully controlled voices, because Brighid had to shout me awake. “Siodhachan!”

“Eh? Wuzzah?”

“We are finished. I need your help unbinding the army.”

“Oh, yeah? Hey, yeah! I hope they’re not frozen to death. What did I miss?”

“Say your farewells and I will tell you on the way.”

Odin accompanied us back to the army, and Brighid filled me in. The new accord between Asgard and Svartálfheim included trade agreements, remunerations for past trespasses, new diplomatic channels—and also a promise that no dark elves would accept a contract that would harm Granuaile, Owen, or me.

“Wow,” I said, “that’s impressive.”

“And they will fight with us in Ragnarok,” Odin added, “which is all I wanted anyway. This exercise served its purpose.”

I nearly snarled but managed to merely grunt in response. Fjalar’s death, all those other dwarfs set on fire, was an exercise? Including the crafting of that armor and those axes? That was a long and risky game to play, believing that you could maneuver someone into becoming your ally by threatening to exterminate them first.

It wouldn’t have happened if Brighid and I had not become involved—which then made me wonder if she had been in collusion all along. Perhaps the Morrigan too. I would not put such scheming past any of them, even though it meant using Fjalar horribly and resulted in many other deaths besides. Would Fjalar still want to fight as one of the Einherjar, knowing that he’d been manipulated so? Would the Svartálfar wish to maintain their new alliance if they knew Odin had somehow tricked them into it?

It was all speculation, but I didn’t ask for confirmation from either of them. Brighid was my ride home.





CHAPTER 13





Traveling to Cape Arkona is not as quick as much of my travel, since there are no bound trees on the island. I have to shift to the German mainland and take a ferry out to Rügen. But because Orlaith has been so patient and such a good hound, we stop at a sausage haus and order a sampling of their trade—bratwurst, knackwurst, and weisswurst.

Orlaith is happy to be petted by a couple of older women on the ferry and obligingly growls at a young man who wishes to use her as an excuse to flirt with me. My weapon, Scáthmhaide, can be mistaken for a fancy walking stick so that to some eyes I look like a hiker instead of a martial artist.

“Ach! Control your dog!” he says to me in accented English.

“My hound is quite controlled. You will notice that she growled instead of bit you. That means you should go away now.”

He starts to berate me in German, an ugly sneer on his face. I don’t need to listen, so I ask Orlaith to bark and lunge at him but not bite. He jumps back and leaves us alone after that, though he curses us from what he thinks is a safe distance. I smile and wave him goodbye. The older women return and pet Orlaith some more.

Rügen turns out to be a lovely place, with expansive fields and rolling terrain. Orlaith and I stretch our legs and run across to the northeastern tip, passing hikers and campers and a shepherd with a small flock of sheep.

<Fluffy meat,> Orlaith comments.

The remains of Jaromarsburg rest precariously atop chalk cliffs that crumble into the sea a bit more every year. There are no handy signs telling me which way to go to find ?wi?towit, so I squat down, close my eyes, and reach out to the elemental of the region, which is associated with the lake plateau of the nearby mainland. It’s called Mecklenburg.

//Greetings Harmony Land is beautiful// I send to the elemental, and he—I don’t know why I’m assigning it a gender, but Mecklenburg just feels masculine—responds with joy.

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