The Path of Ravens (Asgard vs. Aliens Book 1) (39 page)

We have not walked long before we encounter the
first scar on the landscape. It is a wide circle of desolation in
which trees are reduced to ashen stumps and grass burned away to
bare, blackened dirt. The cause is clear: this is the landing place
of a drop of venom that fell from the maw of Jormungand during his
passage over Vanaheim.

We skirt the burned land and carry on. When
later we pass another such spot, although Gaeira's face gives up
nothing, her pace quickens just slightly, and I understand the cause.
Two more such patches lie along our path, and after each of them,
Gaeira moves that much faster. By the time we surmount the last rise
beyond which lies her farm, she is running. She reaches the crest
before me and passes over it. I reach it behind her and find Gaeira
stopped just a few paces down the slope, and I see what she sees.

Her farm is a circle of gray and black and
brown, of devastation, of things once living, now dead. The family
home lies half collapsed, its beams burned and stones charred. The
smaller, separate dwelling on the grounds, Afi and Dalla's cottage,
is a pile of cinder barely higher than the gray field on which it
sat.

Nothing anywhere stirs.

Words of hope spring to mind, but I do not speak
them. I have all but dispensed with words when it comes to Gaeira. I
say by clasping her hand, 
They may yet live
.

She shrugs off her pack and her ax, letting them
fall where they may, and she starts forward slowly, stiffly. I stay
by her side, clutching a hand which does not curl around mine in
return. It seems forever before we cross the threshold from green to
gray, from life to death. It is longer still before we finally reach
the razed square where sat the dwelling of Afi and Dalla. At the very
edge of that square are two blackened lumps. Only barely, if at all,
are they recognizable as having once been living, breathing beings
who walked on two legs and laughed and wept and loved.

I shift my eye from the bodies to Gaeira and am
in time to see agony fill her eyes. Her lips press tightly together,
then part to bare grit teeth. She snatches her hand from mine and
hunches suddenly as though struck in the stomach. Her hands ball into
fists. I hear the hiss of a sharp breath through her teeth, a sound I
have never heard from her. Her arms twitch, her head shivers, her
knees buckle, and she doubles over. I catch her as she starts to fall
and I ease her to the ground and kneel next to her. Her look is one
of intolerable pain, near to madness.

Yet she does not cry out. All I have heard is
that one sharp breath. Looking at her face, at the limbs so tense it
seems a wonder their skin does not burst, I comprehend the titanic
struggle underway inside of her, within her very blood and flesh and
bone. I lean close and speak into her ear. However strong the silent
rapport between us, there are times when only words will do.

"You must scream," I urge her gently.
"Scream. Cease fighting it. Let it out. It will not break your
vow. It is in you, and it will stay there until you release it. You
must, Gaeira. Do it. Scream, I beg you."

She does not yield. The battle waged by her mind
and tongue and every fiber of her flesh to contain the immense wail
of grief welling up inside of her rages on. On her knees, curled in a
ball, she hammers the gray, devastated earth with bloodless knuckles.
Her eyes are wide and wild, but tearless, lips drawn back on teeth
that refuse to part.

"Scream, Gaeira," I try again. "Just
scream. You must!"

But with all she has, all she is, she fights to
keep the sound inside. Her forehead touches the scorched ground, and
she drives her face into it such that I think she may bite off a
chunk to serve as a gag. She does not do that, but she fights and
fights and does not yield, and I give up on urging her otherwise, for
I know the outcome.

Her will prevails. The battle wracks her body,
but she remains faithful to her vow.

At last she falls still and slowly lifts her
head. Ashen smears cover her face. Her hands unclench, showing
nail-marked palms. She shifts to put her feet under her and drags
herself upright. I also rise, but do not help her, only stand ready
should she fall. Pain and shock are writ on her face. It would be
beyond anyone's power to maintain a mask at such a time as this. The
last war claimed her blood family. Now, another has taken from her
all that remained.

I take her limp, trembling hand in mine and
squeeze it. She does not reciprocate. For a very long time,  we
stand there staring. Finally Gaeira walks away from the remains of
her home and collapses on a patch of withered grass. I settle beside
her and take her in my arms, stroking her long hair and her back. She
permits it. Since meeting her in the wastes of Jotunheim, I have
judged her stronger than I in both body and mind. And she is. It is
my privilege to be of some comfort to her.

I did not have the chance to know Afi and Dalla
well, but I mourn them. They were good to me. All among the Aesir and
Vanir who were good to me are gone now: Baldr, Odinn, even Freya, who
is stuck  at the gates of Niflheim using all of her power to
keep another swarm at bay. All of the good are gone but one, the
first and best of those who befriended me on the path I chose to
follow, the path of the ravens. Now it shall be her path that I
follow, although I know not whether she has even chosen it yet: to
stay here and rebuild, to leave and dwell in Asgard, or to set off
for some other place. I know I hope that one day she will cross the
sea with me to Midgard. And although she must fulfill her vow of
vengeance alone, I would have her by my side helping me to fulfill
the one that I must soon take against Loki.

No, I do not know, as we chop down what is left
of the barn and build a pyre on which I lay the unrecognizable
remains of Afi and Dalla, whether Gaeira has yet made the choices she
must make. I do not know, as in silence we watch the funeral fire
blaze into the night, what path she will walk.

But I will share it.

END