With his friends’ help, the dwarf made his way to the nearest stone ladder to Eric frowned

frowned in confusion
join his fellows in retaking their home from their human overseers. luminescence his pistol now
* * *
giant, his eyes had adjusted
Boiling with adrenaline, Eric made his way to the deep central excavation
scar. The pistol was a feather in his hand, and his earlier wounds pained him
saw only too late that he w
not at all. He looked into the house-sized hole and saw only one light glowing all. The surface on which he
feebly in the darkness at the bottom. That light was the soft glow radiating from and it bulged slightly in the
Jared himself, who rested on his hands and knees with his forehead pressed green scale of some imponder
against the floor in an attitude of prayer. Ready to put an end to this at last,
Eric leaped into the hole.
He landed in a three-point crouch, his pistol sticking straight out behind
him, on what he assumed was a stone floor. Jared knelt unmoving ten feet
away, his blue-white body glowing dimly in the darkness. As Eric rose, Jared
lifted his head and sat back on his knees. The smile Jared wore when he looked
up was serene, almost beatific. On that monstrous face, the expression was
a horrific parody.
“You again,” Jared said.
“Get up,” Eric said, pointing the pistol at the monster’s heart. He
should have pulled the trigger right then, but he couldn’t bring himself to
shoot somebody who was only kneeling and smiling at him.
“You’re too late,” Jared said, making no move. “We’ve broken
through.”
“Whatever,” Eric said. He cocked the pistol with his thumb, and a
luminous thread of electricity stretched from the oversize shell to the
splinter of Mjolnir in the hammer.
Jared’s smile widened, and he extended his arms to his sides. “Shoot
me, God-child. Martyr me in the glorious presence of the one who will
destroy your world!”
Eric frowned in confusion, but that confusion lasted only a moment.
With the new luminescence his pistol now provided adding to the “Fire, Scion of Thor!” Jared sho
faint glow emanating from the frost giant, his eyes had adjusted to the tremor tickled the soles of Eric’s f
darkness enough to see his surroundings clearly. He saw only too late rictus of ecstasy. “Or have I awa
that he wasn’t standing on the stony floor of a hole in the earth at all.
Horrified, Eric froze, and a jolt
The surface on which he stood, though hard as stone, had a greenish,
reflective sheen, and it bulged slightly in the middle. It wasn’t stone at looked down to see a long seam s
all, he realized, but the glossy, green scale of some imponderably huge feet, running from the wall behind
thing buried in the earth’s crust. Jared knelt leering at him. Somethin
“Fire, Scion of Thor!” Jared shouted. “Wake the destroyer if you cried out in terrified realization. H
dare!” The tiniest tremor tickled the soles of Eric’s feet through his buried horror Jared’s workers had
boots, and Jared’s smile became a manic rictus of ecstasy. “Or have I eyes.
awakened it already?”
Horrified, Eric froze, and a jolt from the ground nearly knocked
Eric stumbled as the gruesome eye
him off balance. He looked down to see a long seam split what he and that’s when Jared made his move
thought was a scale directly beneath his feet, running from the wall its feet and charged at him. Eric fir
behind him, between his boots and to within inches of where Jared shook the air like a thunderclap. A hu
knelt leering at him. Something foul and wet glistened beneath bullet hit it, but Jared was unharmed.
the crack, and Eric cried out in terrified realization. He wasn’t Jared punched Eric hard in the chest.