Super Spy Dawn and the Extra-Galactic Shoggoth by Blaine McCants

Author:Blaine McCants [McCants, Blaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Antimacassar Books
Published: 2024-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Interlude: Kiev, 968

Her Highness told her personal guard detail to stay below and then she climbed up the ladder to come talk to me privately on the parapet. I watched her climb. It was getting tougher and tougher for her. She didn’t have many years or even months left. She finally reached the parapet and took a couple of deep breaths.

“Do you think the Pechenegs will launch a night attach, Jersey?”

I spat over the wall. “Nah, check their camp fires. Not a sign of movement. They all seem to be huddling in fear. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that their shaman’s tent collapsed on him while he was trying to call up a demon. Gosh, I wonder how that could have happened. Bad luck, I guess.” I snickered.

“Besides, those guys are pony soldiers. They hate trying to climb walls, especially in the dark. They’ve already exhausted most of the easy nearby forage. They’ll be leaving in a week or two. Nomadic tribes lose their horses, they’re doomed. Peasants in Kievan Rus are lucky if they have a horse in the first place. If they lose that, they just take turns pulling the plow. Your folks will be on short rations for a couple of years, but will survive.”

“But I won’t be here to guide them, Jersey. I no longer fear reaching the end of my mortal coil, but I still fear for my people.”

I spat over the side of the wall again. Nasty habit. I should break it sometime. I would work on that.

“Heck, Princess Olga. You were guaranteed a place in Valhalla the first time you stepped on a battlefield.”

She smiled at me. “I don’t think I would like to spend all eternity drinking and fornicating myself senseless. I think my decision to convert was better.”

I shook my head no. “That’s a common misconception. That part only lasts a couple of months. Then the warriors and the occasional war maidens get put on ice, so to speak, until Ragnarök. There’s just not enough room in either Valhalla or Sessrúmnir.”

“You’re trying to distract me, Jersey. I’ve watched you now, for what, twenty-five years? You haven’t aged a day.”

I looked at her, hard-eyed.

“After the patriarch blessed me, and I returned to Kiev, I could see through your glamour. I know who you really are, Jersey, and I am glad that you have honored us with your presence all this time.”

Princess Olga sighed, “Dearest Jersey, you, especially, should know that the age of the heathen gods is passing. In another couple of generations your family will have no worshippers at all, at least in this part of the world. The Kievan Rus will still be descended from your people, though. Just as I am.”

She took my hands. “Jersey, after the siege is over, maybe even before it is over, please come see me. We need to discuss this further. I would feel better going to my reward if I knew I had left someone behind who was willing to break out the whips and toss some tables if she saw the need to do so.

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