Staked

“That’s good, because I don’t have a single, uh … I was going to say penny, but you probably don’t use those in Poland.”

“No, we use the grosz for small coins,” one of the witches says—since her legs appear longer than some people are tall, I think she is Kazimiera.

“Don’t have a single grosz on me either.”

“Then you can earn your cloak,” Malina says, “by helping us find the white horse of Świętowit.”

“I beg your pardon?” She’s moving quite fast—she probably already knew what I was going to ask and what she would ask in return.

“Świętowit is an old Slavic god of war and divination. There are slightly different spellings and pronunciations of his name depending on which Slavic country you’re in, but he was—or is—important to Polish pagans like ourselves.”

“And he had a white horse. Did he lose it or did somebody steal it?”

“We’re not sure.”

“Why is the horse important? Why isn’t Świętowit looking for him?”

“We are not sure Świętowit is still alive, actually. But we believe that the horse is.”

It appears that there are no quick answers to my questions, since I’m missing context. “You’d better start at the beginning.”

Malina turns to one of her coven with overlarge glasses and a thicket of frizzy, dirty blond hair tamed into a thick ponytail. “Roksana, you’re better at this sort of thing. Will you give her the condensed version?”

“With pleasure.” She smiles primly and swings her giant peepers in my direction. “To the northwest, off the coast of Germany in the Baltic Sea, there is an island called Rügen.”

“Really? Named after Count Rugen, the six-fingered man?”

“What? No. Named after the Rujani people, a Slavic tribe that occupied it from the ninth to twelfth centuries. The current name is a German corruption.”

“Oh.”

“On the northeastern tip of the island, at Cape Arkona, there was a fortified cult site called Jaromarsburg. They had a temple there to the god Świętowit. It was the last outpost of Slavic paganism before the Danish king laid siege to it in 1168 and defeated the Rujani. The Danes burned down the temple and the carved idol of Świętowit and forced everyone into Christianity afterward. The Rujani were eventually assimilated into the Germanic tribes nearby, and their language died out in a couple of centuries. But what happened to Świętowit and his horse is what we wish to find out. They disappeared.”

“You mean they were physically present at Jaromarsburg?”

“Perhaps not Świętowit himself. But his horse was, until—we are guessing—immediately before the Danish invasion.”

“And how do you know this if it was almost a thousand years ago?”

“The priests of Świętowit were using the horse to divine victory or defeat in battle. Had the horse been present before the invasion, they would have known about their imminent defeat and abandoned the site.”

“Forgive me, but I’m not sure that follows. Men have been known to be stupid on occasion and not listen to sense when their pride is on the line. That’s pretty much the history of every war ever.”

The witches stare at me until Klaudia snorts in amusement. She’s the sleepy-eyed sensual one with short, wild hair and a coppery tan. Her lips, soft and poufy like pillows, quirk upward, and they are so beguiling and infinitely kissable that I cannot look away until Malina says, “Klaudia! Stop that.”

“Sorry,” she says, as I blink and shake my head, free of the charm. “But it’s fun to play with the Druids.”

I remember Atticus warning me about their charms and telling me that something very similar had happened to him. I see the pattern: Malina wants me to know that her coven could kick my ass if they wanted, but she doesn’t want to communicate that herself. She has Klaudia do it with those movie-star lips of hers and then disciplines her—very mildly—to give me the impression that she’s the fair one who looks out for my well-being. It’s the friendliest of threats, brandishing a pair of delicious lips instead of a weapon, but it’s still a threat.

“Apologies, Granuaile,” Malina says, and then hurries on before I can escalate her message into a confrontation. “The reason we believe the horse is still around has something to do with Loki, which we thought you might find interesting.”

“Yes, you’re right about that.”

“We haven’t confirmed any of this, but it’s a mysterious pattern of absences, and we think you might be able to confirm it one way or another. After Loki escaped us, thanks to the strange interference of that Finnish god, we began a series of rituals to try to divine his connections to other pantheons. Do you know of the Slavic god Weles?”

“No, sorry.”

“How about Perun?”

“Him I know.”

“Weles is Perun’s nemesis, a sneaky trickster type. The parallel with Thor and Loki is quite clear, in fact. We are fairly certain that Perun is alive but not on this earth.”

“That’s correct. He’s a guest on the Fae planes.”

“Interesting. Thank you. We are less certain about Świętowit. He may be alive but, if so, he’s on a distant plane. He might also be dead. Difficult for us to tell either way from what we’re sensing. But of Weles we get absolutely nothing. He has been hidden somehow so we cannot confirm whether he lives or not, much less his whereabouts.”

“Wait. The Slavic plane was burned by Loki,” I say. “Perun wondered how Loki could have gained access to it.”

Malina nods. “You see what we are thinking. Weles is working with Loki.”

“Loki has a kind of divination shield.”

“We thought as much. We cannot find him either. We are making guesses based on a series of holes where there should be something present.”

“So why would—oh! Maybe a quid pro quo kind of thing is going on. Weles wanted Loki to burn the Slavic plane and almost certainly wanted him to kill Perun. Partially successful there. And Loki hides Weles so that Perun and everyone else will assume he’s dead. But what would Loki want from Weles in return?”

Świętowit and the white horse, of course.”

“Hold on. Are you saying Loki wants the white horse because…?”

“You can ask the white horse if you will win or lose a battle you begin today and it will tell you.”

“Oh, shit!” I cry, as understanding dawns. “He’s using the horse to know when to start Ragnarok!”

“That was our conclusion also. It would be more accurate on matters of war than any other seer. So we want the white horse.”

“Yeah, I think we have the same interests here. We can’t have him endlessly bribing allies until he finds the right combination for victory. If Loki’s going to start something, let him be uncertain about it. Can you not find the horse in your divination?”

“Unfortunately not. It was a long shot to begin with since we didn’t know its name, but we assume Loki has shielded it also. Our best guess is that if you find Świętowit alive, he may be able to tell you where to find his horse. And if they are both dead, then Weles must owe Loki some other service.”