“How about here?” asked Coyote, dashing off down a tunnel, his paws skittering as he banked up the walls.
Old Man Wyrm’s huge bulk slithered after him.
Coyote skittered to a halt and changed direction. Old Man Wyrm was faster than he thought. His mucus-slicked bulk thundered after him, a wake of hot fetid air rushing ahead of it. Coyote switched down another passage barely ahead of the great bulk. He found himself back in the main chamber. Wyrm’s length was so long, Coyote saw his great anus disappearing along the passage down which he had just fled.
Then he saw the sigils marked on the walls of the chamber, meant to confuse prey—make it easier for Old Man Wyrm to feed. If he was ever a hunter, he had lost the edge.
Old Man Wyrm’s voice echoed round the chamber. “See, little morsel? You can’t find your way out and you can’t escape your fate.”
“You don’t mind if I try, do you?” asked Coyote, quick as a flash picking another exit as Old Man Wyrm’s head thrust back into the chamber.
“Run all you want. All ways lead back to me!”
The passage led down. Coyote was running so fast he almost missed a turning. He tumbled to a halt and Old Man Wyrm’s head was so close behind him he could feel his breath on his tail. He darted down a side passage.
It rose up in a steep incline and he struggled up the slope, the dirt dribbling away beneath his feet as he sought purchase with his claws.
He scrambled his way to the lip of the tunnel and found himself back in the chamber again as Wyrm’s middle section rumbled through in continued pursuit of him, just as Wyrm’s head barrelled up from below, gaining on him. He pelted across the chamber and over the back of the Wyrm’s body and down another tunnel. Wyrm followed him blindly, plunging on like a freight train, into the tunnel after him.
The dark echoed with Old Man Wyrm’s voice, its deep vibrato sending down showers of dirt from the tunnel roof.
“Run all you want, older brother. Your sweat will be a fine seasoning!”
Coyote found himself, as he expected, back in the central chamber, along with the bulk of Wyrm’s body; twisted under and over and round itself in pursuit of him, tied up and stuck in the chamber.
“You couldn’t eat me now if you tried, Old Man Wyrm!” crowed Coyote. “You’ve a knot in your stomach.”
And Coyote laughed all the way along the tunnel to the fresh air.
However, the last laugh was on Coyote. As Old Man Wyrm thrashed about in blind fury, unable to extricate himself, the tunnel collapsed about the trickster. Dirt clogged his nose, stung his eyes and filled his ears.
“Oh what a stupid fellow I have been. I may now be a meal for worms after all,” Coyote said.
Then, through the dirt, he saw the faint sickly glow of the town lights beyond. Coyote burst from the hill.
“Ho, but not this day!” he said. The earth was settling now, the sounds of struggle ceased, and the standing stones still stood proud, if a little crooked, atop the hill. Above, the ravens circled, cawing contemptuously.
It was only then that Coyote remembered Richard. Sometimes mortals were such a drag. Did he have to do everything himself?
He bounded down the hill, growling as he leapt over the car park wall toward the scratched and scored car, and the flock of murderous midnight birds that swarmed around it.
He didn’t see the heavy chain swing through the air towards him.
CHAPTER SIX
Coyote Finds the Thread
T
HE IMPACT OF
the heavy industrial chain flung Coyote through the car park wall, its dry stone exploding under the impact.
No animal could have wielded that weapon. Nor was it forged by any mortal. The debris clinked and shifted as Coyote rose up from beneath the rubble, fur bristling, teeth bared, a growl of anger building in the back of his throat, ready to face his new opponent.
He was a mountain of a man, by any stretch of the imagination, a broad chest and massive arms barely contained by the oil-smeared mechanic’s overall he wore, his long dark hair scraped back in a pony tail, scruffy beard bordering on hobo. He was stood by the car, keeping the ravens at bay. Coyote could smell the fear and piss that was Richard inside the vehicle.
Coyote could also smell the man. No, not a man, this was a god. Under the acrid tang of oil, grease and hot metal was the unmistakable odour of sanctity, the scent of the gods. Coyote wasn’t impressed with his physique; after all, gods could change appearances to suit their whim.
The man had his attention focused on the flock about him. He whirled the long chain around his head. Where it whipped into the ravens, it flayed their corporeality from them and they burst into vaporous shadows, dispersing on the wind, the defiant caws dissipating.
Sizing up the battle, Coyote joined the fray, taking out his fury at being duped on the belligerent birds. He leapt up, tearing at necks, legs and wings. He ripped them from the air with teeth and claws until their glowing eyes were snuffed out, and their forms shaken violently into a black mist between his jaws.
He let out a low growl and hunched down on his forepaws ready to pounce again, but there were no ravens left. By the car, the large man, panting heavily with his exertions, turned in a circle, the long chain trailing on the ground, chinking across the surface.
Coyote circled him warily, ears flat, tail down. Meeting new gods could turn into such a pissing contest.
My pantheon’s bigger than yours.
Well, bring it on. He’d had a bladder full.
“I meant you no harm,” said the man. With a flick of his wrist, he allowed the links coiled round his forearm to drop to the floor. “An accident in the heat of battle.”
“Well, why didn’t you say,” said Coyote, human once more, a smile on his face as he walked toward him, hand extended.
Hands gripped hard as their eyes met, each taking the measure of the other.
Coyote could tell that the man’s physique was no illusory glamour, no narcissistic reflection. He had earned those muscles, worked hard for them. That, at least, was deserving of some respect. He also didn’t seem to care too much about his appearance. The unkempt beard spoke to that. No huge ego to flatter.
“Coyote. Call me Kai. That’s quite a grip you’ve got there.”
“My forge keeps me strong,” said the man. White teeth gleamed through his beard.
Coyote raised an eyebrow. A god of the forge, then. But which one? Not Hephaestus.
“Weyland Smith,” said the man.
Ah. The Anglo-Saxon.
There was a rattling and a muffled voice from inside the car.
Weyland glanced towards it.
“Yours?” he asked.
Coyote sighed and gave a what-can-you-do shrug. “Yes.”
Weyland nodded. “I had one once.”
“A car?”
“A mortal.”
They walked towards the silver Nissan. It was rocking on its suspension. Inside, Richard sat in the driver’s seat shouting and shoving the door.
“What happened?” asked Coyote.
“Flibbertigibbet? He got turned to stone.”
Coyote glanced towards the hilltop.
“Oh, not that one.”
The car’s bodywork was scratched and scored by claws and ectoplasmic bird crap smeared its windows. “You can come out now, Richard.”
The car continued to rock. Richard tugged fruitlessly on the door handle.
Weyland took hold of the door handle and wrenched the door open. Richard tumbled out on the ground, his hand crudely bandaged with a handkerchief, his face covered with small cuts, his hair matted with blood.
“They tried to kill me!” He scrambled to his feet. “They tried to kill me. Where the hell were you?”
“You’re alive,” said Coyote, unconcerned.
“That’s not the point.”
“Isn’t it?”
Weyland coughed.
“That you are, is thanks to Weyland,” said Coyote, his voice calm, but insistent. Coyote could tell Richard didn’t see the import of it. He leant into Richard’s ear and whispered. “Seriously, Richard. Thank Weyland. He saved your life. He has enough power to unmake you at a whim.”
“Thank you for saving my life,” said Richard.
Weyland grinned with wry amusement. “I hope you’re worth the saving, Richard Green.” He slapped him heartily between his shoulder blades, making Richard stagger forward unsteadily before he braced his hands on his knees and vomited onto the muddy ground.
Weyland peered over Richard’s shoulder.
“Interesting,” he said, addressing Coyote. “Is he your emetomancer?”
Coyote shook his head. “Sometimes puke is just puke.”
“Too bad. We might have learned something.”
“We did. Don’t trust Nataero.”
Weyland looked puzzled. “That thieving Roman bastard, that jumped up ambitious little house god?”
Richard spat the last lumpy dregs from his mouth, wiped the back of his hand across his lips, and looked from one god to the other.
“Thief?” he said. “I thought he was the Roman god of lost things.”
“Only because he’s the one who steals them half the time,” said Weyland.
Coyote burst out laughing and slapped his thigh until tears rolled down his cheeks. Oh, that was a good one, simple and elegant. He should have thought of it himself. And he could have done, had he wanted. Actually what he wanted now was to find Nataero again. No one got the better of Coyote.
Weyland’s face darkened.
“Why are you here, trickster? These aren’t your hunting grounds.”
“I’m looking for something that was stolen from me. Something of great sentimental value. I was quite attached to it.”
“And your search brought you here?”
Coyote looked around, as if this were a trick question.
“Well, yes. Or rather that sonofabitch Nataero brought us here.”
“Into a trap it seems. Odd though, Nataero is strictly small fry. He wouldn’t have the wit or the skill to arrange an ambush like this. I would warrant there are others involved. Someone isn’t keen on you finding your property again, it seems, especially as they’re willing to raise a wyrm and bring down a whole flock of ill-omened ravens on your heads.”
“I’m lucky like that. And you, what brings you here?”
“Happenstance. I am here on another matter, a matter as close to my heart as I suspect your own is to you. Come, I will show you.”
Collecting his chain and looping it over his shoulder and chest, Weyland led them back up the hill again, his chain
chinking
as he walked.
“I came here investigating the loss of one of my kin and found you two under attack,” he told them. “Thinking you might know something, I sought to protect your mortal here.”
“I am not his mortal. My name is Richard Green.”
“The god of this place has vanished from the Tapestry,” Weyland continued.
“I didn’t even know we had a god,” said Richard, jogging to keep up.
“Few did,” said Weyland. “He was an Anglo-Saxon spirit, the guardian of this locality. So old and little worshipped that even he had forgotten his name. But his power was tied to this place and this place alone. His presence protected it, holding back the tides of misfortune. Over the past centuries, his powers were much diminished, so adversity and hardship seeped in slowly, like water lapping under a door rather than a tidal wave. For that, at least you can be thankful. But with his death, the final barrier had gone and everything else with it.”
“So you’re saying all the bad stuff that’s been happening recently—the pile-up, the gas explosion, the businesses closing down, the wyrm—are all down to this local god?” said Richard.
“Amongst other things, although the wyrm was bound. It could not have escaped unless someone released it.”
“I lost my job,” said Richard, as realisation dawned. Shu had intimated as much.
Weyland nodded. “The result of my kin’s disappearance. He was not the first to disappear, either. There have been six others before him over this past year.”
“And no one has noticed?” asked Coyote, as they rounded the last stretch up to the hilltop.
There is a new pattern forming, Shu said.
“Why would they? They were minor local gods, long forgotten even by those who dwelt under their protection. Who’d notice the disappearance of those who hadn’t been missed? The bigger pantheons would not concern themselves.” Weyland scratched his beard. “And that troubles me.”
“If, as you say, they have been long forgotten, they could simply have faded from existence. It happens,” suggested Coyote.
“I do not believe so. I will show you why.”
They reached the top of the hill and Weyland made for the central stone. Two fingertips lightly brushed the menhir’s surface.
“See here?” he said, sorrow etched on his face. “It is like the others. All were taken at their place of power.”
There, in the rock, a thin horizontal slit.
“A blade.”
“A blade that can kill a god and penetrate stone.”
“You’re talking deicide.” What had old man Shu got him into this time?
Weyland circled the stone, inspecting it closely.
“Aye, but what bothers me is the lack of ichor. Here, and at the other places.”
“Ichor?” asked Richard.
“Godsblood,” said Coyote.
Weyland continued. “If the god was killed here, then the stone should be etched with it. But there is nothing. This is the centre of his power. It shouldn’t have been possible to kill him here, but I can sense no sign of a struggle. It’s as if he permitted it. Why?” Weyland’s brow creased. “Why would he do such a thing?”
He turned in a circle, his arms out, palms down. “And it’s twilight. There should be power here, but the hill is cold. Dead. The psychic energy that flows through it has been drained.”
“Like the godsblood.”
“It’s as if the ichor was collected, but for what purpose and by whom, I do not know.”
Coyote and Weyland looked at each other, their faces grim.
“A sacrifice?” Coyote said.
“It is more than coincidence that we are here together,” said Weyland. “You being lured here to be attacked by the wyrm, freed only because of this local god’s death. It would seem our quests have something in common.”
“Yes,” said Coyote. “How about that?”