Tricked

Granuaile.
    › Atticus! Help! ‹
    I stole a glance back and saw three corpses with dark blue skin between me and my friends, advancing toward them with a fair bit of menace—the corpses’outstretched arms weren’t pleading for hugs. Apparently Hel could summon draugar at will. Already large and overmuscled for corpses, they were growing, their arms swelling like Peeps in the microwave. I didn’t want to turn my back on Hel, but I didn’t see what choice I had. My dog and my apprentice—not to mention Frank and maybe Coyote—were in danger.
    But Hel didn’t want to jump on my back. She just wanted me off hers. She turned and ran again to the north, leaving me to fend off three insanely strong zombies—not the George Romero kind that hungered for braaaains, but juiced-up Norse ones capable of magic in some tales. Oberon was barking, his hackles raised as the draugar approached them.
    Don’t bother barking. They can’t feel fear. Harry them from behind or the flanks. See if you can knock them down, but don’t let them grab you , I told Oberon as I sprinted to help.
    › Gotcha, ‹ he said, and then he scrambled around to the side of the nearest one—which completely ignored him and focused instead on Granuaile—and took a couple of quick strides to gather speed before launching himself at the draugr ’s torso.
    Why don’t high school math teachers ever come up with cool problems like this? If a 150-pound Irish wolfhound launches himself at seventeen miles per hour at a 250-pound draugr , will that dead motherfucker go down? The answer is Hel yes. Oberon actually scored a twofer, because the draugr he rode down to the ground clipped the knee of a second blue boogeyman. My hound nimbly leapt away from the clumsy attempt to grab him and circled back around to place himself between the draugar and Granuaile.
    » Run! « I shouted at her, now that I was in range. » Just go! « Without any weapons or training, Granuaile wouldn’t stand a chance against these lads, and thankfully she obeyed. The advice should have held true for Frank Chischilly. He wasn’t a young man, and he was breathing hard already from trying to keep up with us this far. Coyote was urging him to bail. But he had pulled out a wee jish from his back pocket, and he was untying the rawhide knots as he backpedaled away from the third draugr . Coyote looked like he was trying to convince Frank to stop, but I couldn’t tell what was being said, because they spoke in Navajo. The last thing I saw was that Frank had worked the knots loose and dumped the contents of the jish on his head. Said contents appeared to be nothing more than various colors of herbs and pollen and sand.
    Then I had to concentrate my attention on the first two draugar that Oberon had knocked down. After a few moments of disorientation, they did not lumber to their feet so much as dissolve into mist and re-form again—except that when they re-formed, they were standing up instead of lying prone. I was still behind them and gaining fast.
    › That’s how they showed up, ‹ Oberon explained. › They kind of rose up out of the rock, like steam, and then, blam , they’re blueberry death on the march. ‹
    Let’s see if they can go all misty on a sword blade , I said. Iron hurt them but wasn’t always fatal, from what I’d heard. This was the first time I’d ever run into draugar . Though I’m sure Hel had other forces at her command, draugar would be the bulk of her army. They wore heavy helmets with chain ventails to protect their necks; it was low-cost stuff but enough to prevent easy decapitation. Otherwise they wore nothing but the ragged remnants of tunics and breeches that they had died in long ago. White bone shone through here and there where the blue necrotized flesh had torn or rotted away.
    I came in from behind and hacked at the arm of the draugr on the right, expecting the blade to shear through fairly easily, but it sank into flesh and bone and got stuck as if it was lodged in soft wood. Caught by surprise, the draugr jerked away, and suddenly I was disarmed, Moralltach dangling impotently from the arm of this corpse. The Fae magic began to work, the blue flesh turning black, but it only made the creature shudder. Its flesh was already necrotic, the creature already dead, so the enchantment was unable to kill it again.
    » I miss Fragarach, « I said, as both draugar turned to face me. Empty eye sockets and gaping skeletal smiles grimaced at me as