We all shook off the dragon's first attack and spread out our formation to prepare to retaliate. I sized up the tactical situation and shouted advice and directions to my comrades in arms, who preceded to charge forth into action and land a few good blows. Harlan ignited Laurel's axe once she activated it and charged into battle. He then backed up and was even with me, as Ciara and I had been bringing up the rear.
"Can I get a light?", I asked, proffering the fully extended Gae Bolga.
"Watch where you point that thing.", said Harlan curtly. "Besides, are you sure you can handle burning objects safely?"
"You saw me shrug off the dragon's flame. I think I can take it, or at least I'm willing to suffer a little pain to deal that dragon much MORE pain..."
"Suit yourself.", said Harlan with a shrug, and with a wave of his hand, Gae Bolga was suddenly engulfed in flame.
Drawing on all of my powers of concentration, I drew in a deep breath, took careful aim, then emptied my lungs as I hurled the flaming spear forward and upward at the dragon's hulking form, where it embedded with a sickening thunk and sizzle into the fleshy part of the dragon's shoulder, which let out an angry roar of pain.
"Good shot, Brendan!", Laurel yelled back over her shoulder. "Can I yank this out for ya?!"
"Go for it!" I yelled back, unsheathing Caleb's sword from my belt and preparing to engage in close quarter melee myself.
Laurel tried, but was unsuccessful in pulling out my flaming spear. Nate tried as well, but it wouldn't budge. Gunnar likewise tried and failed. Springing into action with her own attack first, it was Ciara who managed to pull forth Gae Bolga from the dragon's shoulder, causing additional deadly damage on the way out from its branched spines that had deployed upon impact. The dragon roared again in pain.
A few seconds later, I was in position beneath the dragon and swung the obsidian Katana upward and cleaved out a nice slice of the dragon's meaty torso. Gunnar, seeking to deliver a coup de grace, I suppose, suddenly rammed a large bundle of explosives into where Gae Bolga had been lodged and to my horror, clicked the detonator. Next thing I knew, I was flying backwards, just a split second before the explosion, Nate's hands gripped firmly upon my shoulders.
The Dragon, sensing things were really not going well, began to ascend into the sky...somehow Ciara managed to stay on the dragon's back despite its twisting and turning efforts to get airborne. Gunnar tried to leap onto its back as well, but then to my astonishment bounced off the dragon's scales with his feet, as if he were using the dragon's torso like a springboard, and he practically tackled his wife Laurel, who very much had a surprised "WTF?" expression on her face, while Gunnar frantically acted as if she were on fire, swatting at non-existent flames with his cloak and yelling out "Laurel!! LAUREL!!!", rolling her in the snow, which clearly irritated her. The confusion of the moment seemed to spread as I saw Ciara shinny up the dragon's neck to its ears and begin to talk softly to it...I'm not the best at reading lips, but I could wear I saw Ciara utter the opening lines of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. The dragon's face contorted comically into one of utter confusion, and remembering my first encounters with Joyce in school, I couldn't help but laugh and say to myself "you and me both, o scaly one."; The dragon stopped its fearsome twisting and turning as its mind seemed locked on Ciara's words...it quickly lost altitude and came crashing down to earth with a mighty thud. Nate jumped back into the fray and so did I. Ciara returned Gae Bolga to my hand.
The dragon was clearly at the end of its rope. A war fury gripped me and I stood towering over its crumpled form, my flaming spear held aloft slightly over my head with both of my hands, ready to drive it down into the beast for a final blow when Harlan yelled at me to "STOP!!", which I did. My fury dissipated as suddenly as it had come. Harlan reminded me of this dragon's relatives and how, just like with Hati and Sköld, we might not want to get entangled with any more divine vendettas than were strictly necessary. Ciara invoked one last incantation that ensured this dragon would not remember any of this fight or who we were or how he became so gravely injured. We left the dragon in the middle of the road. Laurel stabilized the dragon but left it unconscious. It would wake many hours later feeling a lot of pain and utter confusion about how it got that way.
I looked behind me and saw Gunnar burying the last of the explosives he'd acquired, then smash the blasting caps underfoot. Well, that was one solution...maybe further than I would've asked...he could just as well have turned over the stuff to someone a bit more---responsible. If he hadn't, I think I would have summoned the powers of Enech itself to ask that it lay a token Geas upon my companion to keep his hands off explosives for a month or so. But since it seemed Gunnar had already learned the error of his ways and was seeking atonement, I thought a Geas at this point would be closing the barn door after the horses had already gotten out.
We proceeded onward seeking an audience with Hel. We first had to get past a bridge guardian that guarded the moat to Hel's castle. Ciara stepped up and once again Irish muscle duly impressed in this frigid Norse realm.
The audience with Hel was long in coming but finally achieved. Laurel pled her case to the great fearsome Goddess, who looked more bored and annoyed than anything else. Hel would release the corpse Laurel wanted, but first Hel demanded that Laurel find out the reason why Loki stole the feather cloak from her after Hel had gone to all the trouble to retrieve it from wayward Kane in the outskirts of Las Vegas, which I still remembered but honestly it felt like a lifetime ago.
Harlan managed to finagle from Hel a helpful little bauble to keep him from freezing to death on the return trip out of Helheim. Ciara transformed her keychain into a boat and Harlan invoked a special force that kept its interior warm while Ciara carried us back across the frozen wasteland the requisite number of days.
We managed to escape back the way we came; there were a few nail biting moments but suffice it to say we made it back to the sacred tree in Germany where we had begun our trek...many many months later, to our horror. I quickly phoned Ireland and let Aisling and mom know I was ok. Aisling was less concerned, as she remembered how things had gone down in Southern California in the Terra Incognita near Death Valley.
"Please just get back here as soon as you can manage, my love", said Aisling. "We're relatively fine here in Dublin, but if you check the news, you'll see the rest of the world isn't so lucky..."
She switched to Gaelic and told me that basically, it looked as if the world was shaking itself apart.
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