Hammered

and everyone knows it. Neener-neener, Bacchus « —and set it on top. The sword I placed off to one side. I asked the earth to part for me and it obliged, opening a hole about two feet deep and about as wide. I placed the pile of clothes and my pouch inside with the note on top and then had the earth bury it for me. I paused to say a few soft words for Ratatosk, because his bones were in my pouch. Then I redistributed leaves over the spot and rose, satisfied. If anyone, such as Heimdall, sniffed me out to this point and then dug up the clothes, they’d get nothing but frustrated.
    I sure hoped Odin was missing all of this. I took the apple down from the tree and laid it gently on the ground a few paces away. Then I slung Moralltach across my body and adjusted the strap to a custom length so that it sagged ridiculously on my right side. The sword slid down my back and I hitched it up, then got down on all fours so that the strap hung beneath my torso and even brushed the ground. After a few more tugs and shrugs to position the sword properly across my back, I was ready: I triggered the charm on my necklace that let me shape-shift into a stag, and when the transformation was complete, the sword and its strap was fitted snugly around my body.
    This procedure had taken much practice and many hours of making custom straps, but it was worth it since it was a part of Plans A through Q. Now I could run much faster and still have the sword available in case I had to fight in close quarters. I gingerly picked up the golden apple between my deer lips and cast camouflage on myself, the apple, and Moralltach. I was exuding a markedly different scent now that I was a deer—my werewolf friends in Arizona confirmed for me that they could not tell, strictly by scent, that I was the same being when I shape-shifted—and unless Odin somehow figured out what was going on, I didn’t foresee any trouble getting back to Yggdrasil in maybe five or six hours, compared to the eight it had taken me to get out here. Who was going to see a camouflaged stag running at night across the Plain of Idavoll?
    I wasn’t naïve enough to seriously believe I’d have no trouble, though. I just didn’t foresee it.

Chapter 4
    Occasionally I am smitten with an acute case of Smug. It can happen to anyone, but it happens most often to people who think they’ve been especially clever. I felt a case of it coming on as I got closer and closer to Yggdrasil with no signs of pursuit or even alarm. Through a combination of surprise, speed, and guile, I had thrown an entire pantheon into such confusion that they didn’t know their legs from lutefisk. My supreme cock-up with the Norns should have balanced that out, but I was firmly blocking that and choosing to feel the Smug instead.
    With about ten miles to go, near the trunk of Yggdrasil but still miles away from the root leading to Jötunheim, my acute case of Smug turned to a gibbering case of Oh, Shit! I believe that’s a bona fide psychological term; if it isn’t, it should be.
    I present my facts to a candid world: When a person steals anything from anyone and runs away, the first thing they say when they realize they’re being chased is » Oh, shit! « in whatever language they spoke as a child. It’s really not possible to say anything else at that point. Some Britons cling to long-standing tradition and say » Oh, bugger! « first, but once they confirm that they are, in fact, being chased, they invariably correct course and join the rest of humanity in saying » Shit! «
    Except for the part where I was a stag and I had an apple between lips that couldn’t say it out loud anyway, I went the conventional route. When I saw what was after me, I screamed » Oh, shit! « in my mind and did my best to achieve maximum warp, Scotty and his engines be damned.
    A routine paranoid check of my surroundings had revealed two ravens keeping pace above me. They hadn’t been there ten minutes earlier, during my last routine paranoid check. It meant Odin knew where I was, and it might also mean he was on his way to intercept me. I’m not sure how well the ravens could see me while I was camouflaged and running in the dark, but clearly it was well enough to locate my relative position. If nothing else, they could follow the sound of my hooves pounding across the plain.
    An hour earlier I had seen the golden trail of Gullinbursti and dark clouds of Thor returning to Freyr’s hall. They appeared in the sky to