Hecate’s big head swiveled around to face him. “I trust you to know what to do. I am going to create a distraction, speak with Odilia.”
“And Balor?” Siegfried asked.
“With the two distractions we present, Balor can do whatever killing needs to be done. You’ll see. But whatever you do, you’re going to need something to get the attention of the people.” She started her descent well away from Folkvang.
Siegfried did not think getting the people’s attention would be too much of a problem, not with his antlers and hooves. The moment Hecate landed, he went straight for the market, for it seemed today was market day. Yet, the place was quiet. The people there were not speaking. They kept their gazes lowered and moved quickly. He moved slowly, softly so his hooves didn’t clack on the stone. Invisibility cloaked him, but it would not muffle sound. There were not many merchants either. The meats being sold smelled unpleasant, and white maggots in the flesh told him why.
He notched an arrow to his bow and leapt to the edge of the fountain in the center of the market, a fountain carved in the unmistakable likeness of Enbarr in horse form.
Then Siegfried materialized. Surprisingly, it took the people several long moments to realize he was there. Indeed, it took a woman, carrying a parcel of unpalatable meat in her arms, bumping into him. She started to murmur and apology then dropped the meat, screaming.
This drew attention. People throughout the market stopped to gape in fear and wonder at the fey before them. But not all of them. Several looked at him with glazed expressions, their jaws slack.
“Cease,” Siegfried said, his voice magnified on the wind passing through the trees, planted in orderly rows.
“Mama, what’s that?” a little boy asked, tugging on his mother’s sleeve.
“The gods are angry with us,” a man said, falling to his knees.
“I am no god. Do not seek to appease me with sacrifices. Appease me, and yourselves, by standing against your Roman masters.” He managed to speak over the shouts as the huge silver dragon flew overhead, straight for the palace. But where were the Romans?
The people slowly backed away from Siegfried, as if they thought too great a movement would incite his wrath and he’d attack them. Their eyes appeared wider in the gaunt faces. But others did not move, only continued to stare. These people, he realized, were in a similar predicament to Freya, victims of the same magic. The blank-faced ones reached for weapons, Roman spears and swords. Why were they the only ones permitted to be armed?
“R-Rome is our friend,” a man said in a shaky voice. “We prosper because of them.”
“You…don’t tire of being told what to do?” Siegfried asked, hoping to relax the unarmed people through conversation.
“We remain free,” another man said. “We have our most important freedom, the freedom to know we’re safe from those who’d harm us.”
Siegfried grimaced, wanting to shake his head and bury his face in his hands. This,
this
was as foolish as Freya’s comment in the barracks about not having anything to worry about if one had nothing to hide. Now he saw it had been an act of deception. What if this man were trying to deceive? But others were nodding their agreement.
The first spear landed at his feet. His fey speed carried him easily away. He would not be inciting a revolution amongst the Remi. But a few came forward, brandishing makeshift weapons against those armed with Roman ones. Their faces white with fear, they summoned their courage to take up pots or stools, whatever was handy. Siegfried couldn’t cloak himself in invisibility and leave them once they’d decided to join him.
“Let us leave,” Siegfried said. “Let the people who wish it come away with me.”
“That won’t be possible,” said a Roman voice, a very familiar one. Pompey. “These are Odilia’s people.”
A cold, colder than just coolness of a place hidden from the sun, grew to a bone-deep chill, the air smelling of rot. The humans did not notice, but Siegfried scented the vile aroma. He hoped what he scented was Hecate using some dark power.
Pompey continued his advance, five Romans at his side. Behind him a shorn-haired woman, holding a chicken against her breast, followed. A sly smile curved her lips.
Siegfried had no idea how ugly things were about to get. There was a moaning from behind him. That cold feeling intensified.
“What in all—?” a woman said from behind. She dropped the broken jug she’d been wielding.
Some of the Romans to his right screamed, a few dropping their weapons. A path was quickly cleared as a large crowd of naked people, prisoners, lumbered toward him. But they did not have vacant expressions. What made them strange was that some had entrails spilling from their stomachs. Others were missing limbs or the sides of their faces. Maggots writhed in their open wounds. This explained the smell, and he felt strangely comforted. This was Hecate’s fabled magic. The dead walked. The woman had created the army they had needed.
“You will pay for this.” A woman addressed a Roman as she gestured to the blackened flesh on her stomach where she’d been burned. A few clods of flesh dropped from the aperture to splatter black blood and white worms on the stones.
That smell was not only the rot from the corpses. It was Oblivion.
The woman clutching the chicken pointed at the living dead. “They are a pile of stinking corpses. You’ve slain them already. Slay them again.”
“You heard her,” Pompey said, finding his voice again. “To arms!”
The Romans and blank-eyed Remi raised their weapons. The woman leading the dead let loose a howl and the shuffling ended. She launched herself at the nearest Roman with an inhuman speed. She landed in a squat on his shoulders. She screeched as she forced her hands into the man’s throat, ripping, tearing. The rest of the dead followed her lead. Now that the Romans’ attention was away from him, Siegfried looked to his small knot of dissenters.
“Faun, this way.” He recognized Balor’s cold, direct tone. He stood on the opposite edge of the fountain. The dark man’s cloak fluttered about him as he stood tall and proud, despite the blood covering his garments. Siegfried didn’t see Balor move, but in an instant, the man was behind the party, serving as a rear guard. “We get them to safety, then to the catacombs.”
****
It sounded to Odilia as if a battle were taking place somewhere underground. Had the servants gotten in Hecate’s way? Hecate had only recently contacted her through the mirror, informing her that she would be coming. Hecate…finally!
There was a pounding on the door and she opened it. Pompey entered, blood spattered across his face.
“Trouble,” Pompey said, panting. At least he was well enough now to be moving around instead of lying in bed. He grabbed Odilia’s arm. “There are walking corpses
eating
our people!” When Odilia shrugged, Pompey let her go. “Does this not concern you? I saw that Julia whore torn apart in front of me. What are you playing at, woman?”
“There are powers greater than Rome,” Odilia said. “One of them is here. Walking corpses…I should like to see those.” Why were the corpses attacking Romans? Did she have a right to question Hecate? Hecate must have her reasons. Especially if Odilia’s servants were disrupting her.
“I want answers,” Pompey said.
“And you will have them.” The door swung open, a chill wind swirling into the solar. There she was, long, obsidian tresses covering her face, revealing only that red eye. Robes and a cloak of shimmering gray sifted about her body with a rustle like that of a snake slithering over dried leaves. The bottom of her robes were drenched in blood, and when she entered the room, the scent of death and decay intensified.
“Hecate,” Odilia said, falling to her knees. Pompey fell beside her. Odilia hardly paid any mind to Angelus standing beside the regal being.
“Siegfried the Fox,” Pompey said when another fey entered with a grim look on his face. Odilia had never heard Siegfried had antlers. And what was he doing with Hecate? Certainly Hecate would have her reasons. Had Hecate brought the infamous rebel to heel?
Odilia rose to greet Hecate, but the Dark Goddess admonished her. “I did not say you could rise.” She traced a silver claw across the marble top of a small table, goring the surface. “I want to speak to you about a certain potion you’ve been using. It…intrigues me.”
“The purple potion,” Odilia said. “It destroys one’s will if the person refuses to be broken by other methods. It—”
“Tell her nothing.” The serving woman with the chicken entered. The woman began to laugh, her body growing taller and broader. “I knew you’d come, Hecate. Even with your undead, you are still in a small place filled with human metal. There won’t be any shapeshifting for you.” The voice became more masculine as the woman spoke. Finally, the figure was a man, a man with red hair that swept the floor, a short tunic of white diamonds, revealing a narrow, white waist. Black leather pants encased his legs above knee-high red boots, dotted with more diamonds.
“Loki,” Siegfried said. “I thought you said you had nothing to do with this.”
Odilia gasped. She’d had no idea someone as important as Loki the Trickster would be sent to assist Folkvang.
Loki shrugged at Siegfried. “What’s been done to Freya is done. You can’t undo it. She’s now more of an unfit heir than Balder. It isn’t as if you’re going to leave here to tell Woden either.”
“Loki, have you forgotten what I can do?” Hecate asked, still calm. Odilia had no idea what was going on, but what did Hecate and Woden have to do with Freya?
From Hecate’s back sprouted the shining wings of a dragon, unfurling to their alarming span. A forked tongue slipped between her sharp teeth. Dragon’s teeth. Was this amazing woman not on Odilia’s side? She hoped it was, perhaps, only some disagreement between the gods.
Hecate’s nostrils flared, and she turned to glare at Odilia, taking her eyes off of Loki, as if he were unimportant. “You called me and called me. I always heard you. Only you deserved no answer. But how could I ignore you when my own daughter was your target.” She folded her wings, gliding towards Odilia. She straightened and let loose a great roar, that pink, forked tongue caressing those sharp teeth.
Hecate’s nails had become claws, great silver lengths protruding from her slender fingers. Odilia cried out as those claws grabbed her arm.
“I barely touched you. Just a tap.” For a moment, Hecate’s red eyes flickered, becoming yellow, reptilian and mad, more unnerving than ever, then reverted back to red.
****
Siegfried rested a hand on Hecate’s shoulder when her eyes return to red.
“Odilia,” Hecate said. “What have you done to my daughter? What magic have you used?”
“I’ll not tell you,” Odilia said, glancing at Loki.
A snarl came from Hecate’s throat. There were those yellow eyes again. Hecate, it appeared, was losing control. “Stop me.” This was not the silver dragon he rode, the one she seemed comfortable with. She hissed when Siegfried spun her around, away from Odilia. The growls receded. Her eyes no longer glowed. “Thank you, Siegfried. That was…close.”
“You won’t be able to fix her, Siegfried,” Odilia said with a weak laugh. “The Freya you knew is gone. You can’t even use her as your whore now.”
“You handle the faun,” Loki said to Odilia. “I’ll deal with Hecate. Pompey, you see to the Roman. Hecate, it will be interesting facing you in a tight place like this. Perhaps I’ll have my way with you before I kill you, though I would have liked you in dragon form.”
The sound of scuffling outside the door preceded blood-covered Romans. Six. Six plus Pompey, Loki, and Odilia. Nine enemies against he and Hecate. If Siegfried used his plant magic, the entire building might cave in with the roots pushing through the stone.
One of the Romans cried out, black claws slashing through his middle, tearing him in twain, straight through the armor. Balor stood there, calm as ever between both halves of the body. “You’ve served your purpose, leading me to Loki.” He looked to Hecate as he slashed apart another soldier, who made a feeble attempt to deflect the curved claws. “Folkvang is rid of Romans.” While Balor spoke, Siegfried and Angelus started on the rest of the Romans. The Romans couldn’t hope to match Siegfried’s speed; it was over quickly.
Odilia rose, and black tendrils came from the mirrors on the walls to surround her. Hecate stepped forward, but Siegfried raised a hand.
“No,” Siegfried growled. “I’m doing this for Freya.”
Since Oblivion had coiled from the mirrors, that sickening feeling in Siegfried’s belly grew. Odilia looked like some strange octopus with the black tentacles gathering around her. She waved her arms and they lashed toward him. Soul-sucking magic. This had been used on his Freya.
“I didn’t give you enough soup. I threw your shoes away. I promised I’d protect you, and I failed there, too.” He loosed two arrows, but one of the Oblivion tentacles neatly deflected them. No, not deflected.
Disintegrated
. He dropped his bow and reached for his swords.
His blades were red in the firelight as he sliced at the tentacles. They were quicker than he. While some were severed, three managed to wrap around his legs and one arm.
Three
. Searing pain poured through him, blanking his vision. But it was worse than pain. There was a strong sense of impending doom with not a thing he could do to stop it.
The tentacles he had severed were beginning to grow back. He fought the pain, sought calm thought, but there was no calm there. Under the pain, there was nothing but loneliness, bleakness, a sense that it was all ending. Never before had he felt so compelled to give up.
Swan’s words—Freya’s words—came to him. “
Again, as always, thank you for what you do. Your actions give me the strength and courage to do what I do. I really wish I could do more. Sometimes, I’m so afraid that I don’t think I can keep doing this, but then I think of you and what you’ve done.”
He needed a tactic to divert Odilia’s attention. He was going to have to use his fey speed here. He hurled his blades at Odilia’s head. With his free hand, he placed his bow in his bound hand, then fitted two arrows, estimating where her heart would be when she ducked. Oblivion didn’t seem to be able to disintegrate the iron of his swords. They sliced right through the tendrils of dark magic.