The Gods of War

by Christopher Stasheff

  Having come upon a village that looked like something out of World War II Sicily, they decided to make camp. The lovely ladies who came out at night provided them with wine, and cheese, and female companionship. Since they no longer required sleep, they would all regroup around the campfire just before dawn, and share a cup of java before the day's carnage.

  "Did you ever notice the way a guy's eyes roll up into his head as you're strangling him? I mean, there's nothing like it. The lights are out and nobody's home. Nothing like it," observed Rico, puffing on a cigar.

  "It's not my cup of tea," said Spellman. "The bad part about strangling someone is when his bowels let lose. Gawd, the stink."

  "No worse than Rico," added Butler.

  "Ah, your mother," quipped Rico.

  "No, your mother. After all, we're in Sicily aren't we? And isn't this the place old whores go when they die? I probably had her last night. Now I know why you're so ugly. It runs in the family."

  Rico had never known his mother, but wouldn't abide anyone bad-mouthing her. "Take it back," he warned.

  "Make me."

  The two drew their guns, and fired. Rico got Butler right between the eyes. Unfortunately, Butler's gun didn't go off till after he was hit, and Rico wound up with a belly wound.

  The sun rose and set before he finally died. His screams of pain threatened to give them away to the enemy.

  Freya brought them both back for breakfast the next morning. Neither held a grudge. It wasn't worth it.

  One night, after a day of particularly heavy casualties, I asked Freya what our objective was.

  She just smiled, and called me her hero.

  Several of the group that Frederick had originally found himself with splintered off to form another group a few months later. There were always new replacements coming in, and more than enough weapons to go around.

  Frederick noticed that his group had several new members who were barely teenagers. Three of them had not yet begun to shave, and one of them was too small to manage an M16. Despite their size and age, their faces reflected the hardness and cruelty of war.

  One morning Freya announced that the enemy had fallen into a deep sleep, and that they must seize the opportunity to slit their throats.

  Frederick, Rico, and Kim, the Korean kid who couldn't manage an M16, were dispatched to the enemy's camp, under the cover of fog. There, they quickly slit the throats of their sleeping prey, collecting ears as souvenirs of their mission.

  When they got back to camp, Frederick recognized the dangling man earring that hung from one of his coup. It had belonged to Spada.

  The next morning, Freya accompanied Spada to breakfast. He still wore the earring.

  I've begun to lose all track of time. The nights seem shorter, unless we're out on a mission, and the days just seem filled with endless carnage. Valhalla must be getting crowded. There never seems to be a lull in the fighting.

  What is it all for? The money never really mattered when I was alive, but at least there was a reason to fight. Maybe it wasn't my reason, but at least it was someone's.

  Kill an enemy, kill a friend, it doesn't seem to matter.

  Each day it gets harder to hold back the vomit.

  Frederick 's company was dispatched to attack an encampment on a rocky mountainside. The fighting was heavy, and lasted all day.

  That night, instead of partaking in the usual festivities, he decided to do a little reconnaissance, and quietly approached the enemy encampment.

  Hiding behind a rock, he observed a group of soldiers making idle conversation. He thought he recognized the voices.

  Then it dawned on him. This had been his camp, and the voices were Rico's, Spada's, Butler 's, and his own.

  He slipped away from the encampment, and ran to tell the others, but ran into Freya along the way.

  She cut him in half with a burst from her uzi.

  "See you soon, my hero," she said, moistening her lips the way she always did prior to making love.

  First I felt cold, and then I felt the pain again.

  I thought I heard doctors and nurses talking in the background, but there weren't any in Valhalla.

  The last time I felt pain like this I was alive.

  "Yes indeed, Mr. Frederick. You are a very lucky man. We thought we lost you a few times out there, but thanks to cryogenics, bionics, and robotics, you're in better shape than you've ever been before," said Dr. Parker in what sounded like a patented infomercial spiel.

  "What happened?" Frederick asked, trying to force away the cobwebs from his head.

  "As per your contract with Sonyon, your remains were reclaimed after the battle, and frozen until the time came when you could be revived. Good fighting men like yourself are hard to find in today's worlds and the corporation always needs soldiers," the doctor said, still smiling that strangely non-reassuring smile.

  "How long?" Frederick slurred.

  "Have you been out? Oh, only about forty years."

  Frederick raised his hand to rub his eyes, and felt the cool sheen of tempered steel.

  His entire arm was made of metal.

  Dr. Parker intervened. "I was just about to tell you about that. Now don't be alarmed. I'm afraid that we couldn't save your body, but this cybernetic shell is even better, and it never wears out. I have other patients to attend to, but a representative from the corporation will be in to see you shortly."

  The doctor left, closing the door behind him.

  I looked in the mirror across the room. My entire body was made of metal, a metallic mannequin in search of a store window. Inside this shell I could still feel the pain.

  The door opened again. I thought it was the representative from the corporation, but it turned out to be Freya.

  "My hero," she cooed. "Isn't it nice to be alive again? You didn't tell me you were under contract. And they've done such a good job of taking care of you. You know it's a funny thing, man has never been able to invent a more efficient killing machine than himself That's why they put your brain in this robotic shell. The corporation needs soldiers just like you, and with all of the money they've invested, they're not about to let you out of your contract. Just think, now you can't be killed, and the pain you think you feel is just phantom pain. No you have quite a few more years left to kill, and when your battery runs out, I'll be there. There will always be a cot waiting for you in my bivouac in Valhalla."

  She kissed the dome that was my face and left.

  I tried to cry, but could not form the tears.

  I knew what was in store for me in years to come. Years of carnage without cessation.

  And then my final reward, Valhalla.

  And Valhalla is hell.

  SUSPICION

  "Freya always was a bitch," Mentor observed absent-mindedly as he dissolved the screen.

  "You seem to know a lot about the Norse gods," Tek commented with more than a question to his voice. His sense of urgency was making him testy.

  "They are, ah, a special interest of mine," Mentor answered.

  There was a long silence. Finally Tek made a suggestion.

  "Can we use your screen to see what each of those who were present were doing when I was attacked?" the war god asked.

  "It will take time," Mentor warned, brightening visibly. "No reason not to, though."

  Tek was fairly sure he had to determine who his enemy was before answering whatever called him. Sun Tsu had warned that intelligence was the heart of any military operation. Tek would not act until his intelligence was complete.

  They spent the next hours watching the party from the point of view of each of those who attended. Tek found it a dreary business, but Mentor encouraged him to persevere. As they watched, Tek made a data file containing an alpha list of those whom they observed. When it appeared they had examined everyone, he stood and stretched. With a gesture, the war god caused the teacher's enchanted television to vanish.

  "We need to check Vili yet," Mentor protested.

  "He was
the thirty-first guest we checked," Tek corrected brusquely. No one was unaccounted for. In fact, no one else was even in a position to see the attack, much less guide the monster.

  "Perhaps we should check each one again?" Mentor suggested.

  The young god was in no mood for another long session of reliving the small talk and petty games that constituted the party. No one there could be guilty. That left only one suspect.

  "You have been most helpful." Tek began his next sentence carefully. "But I am wondering about why in all my data banks there is no mention of a 'Mentor' for the gods. Just which of the muses are you?"

  "Not one of the better known ones," Mentor explained. "The Greeks were only concerned with words and drama, not learning. Those like me were mostly ignored."

  "So you are yourself part of the Greek Pantheon?"

  "Only in a way," the teacher answered vaguely. "I prefer to be allied to none of the godly factions.'

  " 'When the mystery has no probable solution, then we have to look at the improbable,' " Tek quoted from a file on mystery novels he had accessed earlier.

  "Which is?" Mentor suddenly began pacing and seemed nervous.

  "Whomever we haven't already eliminated," the young god reasoned.

  "There was one war god present later," Mentor quickly added. "He at least would have motive."

  "Thor," Tek agreed, "but he was drunk when he arrived."

  "That's never slowed him down before," Mentor said conjuring back the screen. "Let's see what he was up to."

  THE GRAY GOD'S CHALLENGE

  by M.Z. Reichert

  Saturday, March 20, 1958

  Norristown, Pennsylvania

  The crumbling mortar of Norristown 's museum bounced echoes through the Viking collection. Booted feet clomped across the tiled floor. "Look at this . . . look at this . . . look it . . . lookit . . . lookit!" Childish voices demanded attention, their appeals broken, on occasion, by a parent's admonishment or foiled attempt to read a placard aloud.

  Eleven-year-old Jon Skell stared at the pitted, corroded swords in the central case, oblivious to the noise and movement around him. A dozen families entered through the arches from the Celtic display, breezed through the roomful of swords, helmets, and skeggox axes, then rushed beneath the mounted, tenth-scale model of the Gokstad ship to the dinosaur skeletons beyond.

  Yet Jon noticed none of them. The walls around him seemed to melt into a vast battle plain ringed by evergreen forest. The Norristown strangers became a raging horde of faceless enemies in armor of leather and iron slats. Jon felt the reassuring weight of his own belted mail shirt pressing against his underpadding. The grip of his longsword had gone slick with blood, and fatigue pressed him nearly to unconsciousness. He had lost his helmet earlier in the battle. Now, blood and sweat matted his blond hair into clumps that dangled across his forehead and cheeks to tangle with his beard. His shield seemed to weigh a ton, and a huge dent pocked its metal bossing where he had blocked an axe's hammering stroke.

  Jon's dream-self staggered, grasping desperately for "the wolf," the guardian that lent him its wild ferocity in battle. For the moment, no enemies pressed him, and he savored the reprieve, searching desperately for his brother. "Erik! Erik Raven!" A quick twist of his head revealed a semicircle of friends turned corpses. Outnumbered hundreds to dozens, the small band of Viking Norsemen had finally met an army that outmatched them. "Erik!" Despite huge casualties, Jon never doubted that he would find his brother alive. A natural warrior, Erik had won his first duel at eight. No other had ever managed to match his skill with any weapon. In spar, he bested them two and three at a time, and, in war, he slaughtered them in droves.

  "Wolf." A feeble voice cut over the distant chime and bell of swordplay and the moans of the dying. Recognizing his brother's voice, Jon spun. The sudden movement broke the last strands of his shield's grip. The shield slid from Jon's grasp as he took the first step toward Erik. He tripped over the metal edge, sprawling onto an enemy's corpse. Horrified, Jon recoiled. Not bothering to waste the energy to stand, he abandoned his shield, crawling between the bodies of enemies and friends.

  "Erik."

  "Wolf." The whisper came from closer.

  Jon hurried across the plain, grasses scratching his hands and face, knees pounding against the nard ground. "Erik!" Fear clutched at him, and sweat trick led bloody droplets into his eyes. "Raven!" He shoved aside a handful of green-brown weeds to reveal his brother lying on a bed of wild flowers. His splintered shield lay by his left hand, the metal edge torn through and twisted. Scarlet striped his fingers. His right hand clutched at a ragged gash in his thigh. Blood stained the grasses and flowers, more than Jon believed could have come from one man. Yet, no other lay nearby.

  "Raven!" Not bothering to search for bandages in his pouch, Jon tore his tunic from over his mail.

  "Wolf." A stupid smile spread across Erik's face. His right hand slid from the wound, like a huge red flower. "I'm sorry."

  "No!" Jon screamed. "You're not going to die. Do you hear me, damn it!" He entwined the mutilated tunic around the wound. "Don't die on me, you worthless coward!" Tears sprang to Jon's eyes, and he tried to keep them from his voice. "I love you, brother."

  Erik s bloody right hand closed over Jon's fingers.

  The tears came in a painful torrent, streaking zigzags through the grime of Jon's face. "Fight it, damn you!" He quoted their father, "Bare is the back brotherless. I need you."

  Suddenly, a wind sprang up, whipping Jon's hair into a wild dance. Erik's moist, blue eyes rolled to the left, and his grin became more peaceful. "They've come for me."

  "What?" Jon jerked up his head. At first, he saw nothing but the weeds riffling in the breeze, alternately exposing and hiding the scattered corpses. In the distance, the evergreens bowed their heads, as if in prayer. Then, a woman took shape before him. Yellow-white hair tumbled about her shoulders, as thick and powerful as a waterfall. A helmet crushed bangs against her forehead, and the depthless, blue eyes that looked out from beneath them held fire, ice, violence, and joy at once. Seamless gold armor encased her, though it hid none of her warrior's muscles and stole nothing from her perfect female curves. An axe girded her waist. She glided toward Erik.

  "No!" Jon leapt to his feet, his exhaustion forgotten. He sprang between the woman and his brother.

  The apparition laughed. Then, a voice boomed forth, decidedly feminine yet as strong as any commander's. "Step aside, little man. Your time will come. I've come for Erik the Reaver, the one you call Raven."

  "No!" Jon said again. He drew his sword, crouched for defense, shielding Erik with his body.

  The woman glared. Her expression alone quailed him. "It is my right to take the dead."

  "He's not dead."

  "He is close enough. Step aside. Don't make me kill you. You'll freeze in Hel."

  A chill spiraled through Jon, and all of his fatigue returned. From habit, he delved deep within himself for "the wolf," the war rage and reserves his guardian would bring. "I'll take that chance."

  "Then you are foolish as well as brave." She hefted her axe. Even as she moved, a sister appeared on either side. The triplets glowered down at Jon, their stances perfect and coiled for violence.

  Jon felt his legs go shaky. He dug into his core.

  And the wolf came to him. Its howl shook him, spiraling through his marrow. Its muscled, black form gave him power, and its savage red eyes drove him to a berserk frenzy. "If you want my brother, you'll have to kill me first." Spurred by the guardian, Jon dove on the Valkyries, his sword a silver blur that crashed against their axes.

  A stranger's voice jarred Jon Skell from his daydream. Startled, he stiffened with an abrupt violence that spiked pain through his limbs. "What? Who?" His hand new naturally to his chest, and he could feel his heart slugging against his palm.

  A boy a few inches taller than Jon watched his antics curiously, a smile of amusement on his features. His dark blond hair ended in a three inch D.A. that curled
from the back of his neck. Freckles sprinkled across his cheeks. Eyes as blue as Jon's own riveted on the key chain clipped to a belt loop of Jon's jeans.

  "I said I like your sword. I didn't mean to scare you."

  Jon's gaze followed the other's naturally. In addition to the keys to his mother's new house and garage, he carried a pewter replica of a Viking longsword on his ring. "Thanks," he said. "And you didn't scare me. You just surprised me a little."

  "Oh yeah. Ya jumped about a million feet. When you get scared, you must go supersonic."

  Jon scowled.

  The boy smiled, softening his teasing. He continued, saving Jon from the need for a clever, face-saving comeback. "I get the same way around this Viking stuff. My dad won't come to this room with me any more. He says he has to fling me over his shoulder and carry me out kicking and screaming."

  Jon laughed, his annoyance evaporating as the focus of the joke shifted.

  "It's sort of like I belong here. Like one of these swords is mine, and I'm supposed to be out chopping up guys instead of sleeping through math." The boy curled his hands as if around a hilt, making a few brisk, coordinated motions simulating sword strokes that looked real to Jon.

  Impressed by the other's agility, Jon warmed to him instantly. "Yeah! It's just like that. Like I'm really a Viking deep down, and I'm just stuck in this world accidentally."

  "Yeah!" the stranger said. He made a few more thrusting motions.

  A pause followed during which neither boy spoke. Jon ran a hand through his tousled, red-blond hair, wishing his mother would let him wear a D.A., too. "My name's Jon Skell."

  "I'm Eric Skulason. What school do you go to?"

  "Huh?" Surprised at the name "Eric" so soon after hearing it echo through his imagination, Jon lost the thread of the conversation.

  "What school? What grade?" Eric smiled again, in the winning way that diffused his sarcasm. "I know it's a brain teaser, but I think you can get it if you think on it a while."