(eng) L. E. Modesitt - SA by Hammer of Darkness

Author:Hammer of Darkness [Darkness, Hammer of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Guess we have to make it formal, old thunder-god.” He raises his left hand again and cracks his voice like lightning across the morning. “Begone! Forever!”

With the words flows a tidal wave of blackness. When the darkness subsides, moments later, the sky is empty.

The steps of the black temple, the only fully intact structure in the city of the Viceroy, are vacant, and the sirens begin to wail as the power returns.

LV

Martel appears in the cart, his feet planted shoulder-width apart.

The battle goats do not seem to mind, but continue their hissing breath as they paw meaninglessly at the blackness beneath their hooves.

Martel glances around the square wooden cart. In the corner floor bracket beneath his right shoulder is a built-in quiver, originally bronze, but dulled with a green patina. The horn bow is stringless and would doubtless break if strung, since Thor had never liked archery before he became god of thunder, let alone after.

If he could smell in the undertime, Martel knows, the goat cart would reek of age, and dust. Not of goat urine, for the battle goats are not goats at all, but focal elementals, harnessed through the field of Aurore.

He sighs, more of a mental reaction than a physical one, because purely physical actions really do not take place in the subwarp/subtime/subspace corridor that the gods have drilled for Thor's transit and return. With his own methods, Martel could already have been on Aurore. But then, he could not have returned as Thor. His hair goes from black to red and lengthens. A full red beard appears. His stockiness becomes burliness, and were he to speak, his voice “would rumble. Martel is Thor.

Presently the chariot emerges above the sacred mountain, begins a circling descent.

Martel remembers one last detail, conjures up a graystone hammer, and brandishes it, much as Thor would have done.

On the peak, or rather hovering above it, in an unnecessary expenditure of energy, reflects Martel/Thor, are Apollo, the Smoke Bull, and Emily. Assorted demigods wait beyond them.

All for the conquering hero. He blocks the thought. Thor would have thought it only his just due.

“The traitor is no more!” rumbles the returning thunder-god. “He fell under the Hammer of the Gods!”

Thor vaults across the railing of the goat cart, dispatches it to an outer circle to wait, and takes three giant steps across the cloud tops toward the triad.

“Welcome back, Thor,” murmurs the Smoke Bull, the darkness falling from his mouth with the words.

“Welcome,” adds Apollo. And his voice chimes down the mountainside to ring through the towns below. Emily nods. Curtly.

“No welcome from you?” growls the returned warrior. “Ah,” he chortles, “but you were once fond of him.” He turns toward Apollo.

“Martel was a danger. But he didn't gloat about destruction.” The words of the goddess ring in the stillness. Thor turns back.

“Bitch goddess. Talk not to me of gloating. Talk not to me when more blood has flowed from your hands and your names than mine. Thor am 1. Thor am I! Hammer and lightning, like the thunderstorms.

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