Birds

"What do you mean? Are they going to attack us?" Holly shivered. She'd always gotten along remarkably well with animals: dogs, sheep, and cats, but also raccoons, deer, snakes, and even an injured hawk she'd once found. These were different. Their was something about the straightforward, hungry gaze, the raw color of the eyes, and even of the posture of the ravens that felt wrong somehow. They didn't act like right.

"Of course not. It's what's coming after them I'm worried about." Wulfric disappeared into the depths of his shop, but they could still hear him banging around. The three kept their eyes on the ravens, which watched them steadily back.

"Freak, it's like something out of a Hitchcock movie or something." Mark muttered. 

"You mean 'The Birds'?" Ben remarked sarcastically. He found his hand on the hilt of a spear, and forced himself to set it down. Just crows, he told himself. 

"No, I'm sure it was called something different. Like, 'Revenge of the Crows' or something." Mark glanced back at the shopkeeper, Wulfric, who was busy pulling on a coat of mail with a faint chink, adjusting leather gauntlets, knee pads, strapping a shield to his arm and grabbing an axe. 

"You might as well resume your forms, young ones. I don't know what's coming, but it's best to be prepared." 

"What do you mean?" Mark asked.

"Look, giant, alfar, or svartalfar, I don't know and I don't care, but you should know better than to play games when natteravn start watching." He sounded irritated. 

"We really have no idea what you're talking about." Mark laid a hand on the shoulder of the huge shopkeeper, who shrugged him off angrily. 

"Do you here what I'm saying! Quit play-acting! We're already halfway onto Yggdrasil as it is, and-"

"Stop it! You're frightening my sister!" Ben yelled back angrily, putting an arm over Holly's shoulder. Holly felt like the creep factor had sky-rocketed, but it wasn't the shop keeper. She didn't correct Ben though. Sometimes it was just best to let him get it out of his system. 

Wulfric stared incredulously at the three, muttering, "Mortals? But nobody's been able to traverse- not since?" He seemed to gather himself up, handing his ax to Holly. "You're going to need this, then. All three of you," he said, turning to the boys, "Gear up. This is no time to be explaining things, but I'll try to be as quick as I can before it comes." 

"Before what comes?" Mark asked, holding Ben from making an angry retort. A second later something outside answered. 

The roar echoed distantly, screechy and broken and threatening. 

"Forget Hitchcock, this is totally Jurassic Park." Holly didn't know why she was whispering. 

"Probably a bear," Mark said, looking at Wulfric for confirmation. The man shook his head. Mark and Ben scrambled to pull on the mail shirts, shields, and helmets Wulfric passed to them. A moment later Holly was similarly decked out. Despite the apparent weight, the gear settled comfortably onto them, buckled expertly into place by the old shopkeeper. The whole time he kept a running commentary in a low-pitched voice, glancing nervously at the opening to his stall. At the sound, the raven-creatures and shivered and taken flight, but Holly had the feeling they were still close by. 

"Now listen up, young ones, because we won't have time to explain things twice. You're about to get your first taste of battle I suspect, but if you can stay out of the way, that's probably best. You know old stories about dragons and dwarves and suchlike? Well, some of them are true, and one of them is about to come through that door and try to kill us."

"You mean like Lord of the Rings?" For some reason Holly didn't question it. With the birds and the weird roar, and the way the shopkeeper had been acting, it made a strange kind of sense. She realized suddenly that they hadn't heard or seen anyone outside the shop since they came in, even though the shop had been on a major path through the fair. The air smelled crisper, cleaner, but also more earthy. 

"Tolkien knew his stuff," Wulfric nodded approvingly, "Wouldn't surprise me if he was Lif, although I haven't heard as anyone knew for sure." He gave spears and shields to Ben and Mark, but Holly couldn't handle the weight, so Wulfric handed her two axes. The weapons felt comfortable in her grip. "You ever hear about Ragnarok? Where the gods died on the fields of Asgard. Norse stuff?" 

"Like Thor and Loki and Odin?" Mark grinned. "After watching Thor, we all went out and got allot of stuff on Norse mythology." He frowned. "You're saying all that was real?" 

"Is real." Wulfric, gestured to himself. "Or what did you think I was? A myth?" 

"A cranky blacksmith." Ben muttered. 

"Exactly, kid. I'm a dwarf." Wulfric answered. "Now be quiet, I think it's getting closer."

They stood quietly for a moment, listening to the wooden beams of the tent creak and shudder in a light wind. 

"But, aren't dwarves supposed to be kind of small or something? You're kind of huge." Holly asked. Ben snorted, trying not to laugh out loud. 

"Shut up!" Wulfric hissed, pulling them all to the floor behind a table full of weapons.

For a moment, their was nothing. Then, almost like a train letting off steam, Holly heard the slow inhale, exhale of something enormous. Two nearly silent legs like tree trunks cast long shadows as something walked passed the entrance. The legs were three-toed with talons, like the legs of a t-rex, with a sort of armor-scaling and strangely, feathers. The huffing sound seemed to come from right above their heads, and then away, before the thing brushed up against the tent with its body, nearly knocking it over.

RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWEEEEEER! AWWWWWWWWWOOOUUUUR! AWWWWWWWWOOOUUUUR!

After a moment, the creature seemed to move away. "Where I'm from," Wulfric whispered. "Dwarves are small."