I swung the stock up at Thor, ramming it butt plate first into his temple. He didn't see it coming, and was startled by the impact if nothing else. The weight of his arm pressing onto my larynx eased a fraction. It was all I needed. I thrust upwards with all my might, screaming at the pain this caused - definitely screaming, so loud it made my own ears ring. I threw Thor off, and then I was scrambling away on hands and knees, dazed, wheezing for air, desperately trying to get from horizontal to vertical even as the ground underfoot kept being treacherously diagonal. Meanwhile a part of me was thinking, Hey, you know what, this is the first fair fistfight you've had in ages, remembering all the scuffles I'd had previously with loudmouthed knobheads in pubs, slouch-shouldered gangsta wannabes in the street, flabby nightclub doormen, and even, ye gods, that skeletal crack addict in prison who'd fancied himself the big swinging dick of B Wing and needed taking down a peg. For once I was up against someone I wasn't stronger and fitter than, someone who knew how to handle himself and didn't mind fighting dirty. I was on the losing end, which was a novelty to say the least, and almost, in some strange way, gratifying. I'd met my match. I was outclassed. And about time too. Better late than never.
I felt a presence behind me. Thor, come to finish the job. I heaved myself round to face him, teetering to my feet. I had a fist clenched, even though I doubted I had it in me to punch with any great force or accuracy.
It wasn't Thor, though. It was the tall blonde, the drill instructor. Thor was behind her, but she was warding him off with a hand.
"Enough," she said. "That's enough."
"Freya!" Thor bellowed. "Out of the way! This is none of your business. Let me settle it."
"No, young cousin. This ends now. The mortal has acquitted himself well. Hurting him further is a waste of time and beneath your dignity."
"Isn't it up to me what I do with my own dignity?"
"Maybe, but I'd hate to see you squander what precious little of it you have."
It took Thor a moment to understand that he'd just been royally dissed. His face boiled. Then, rage subsiding, he spat onto the snow. "Pfah! Well, if he's happy to let a woman determine the outcome of the contest..."
Frankly, looking at Freya, I'd have been happy to let her determine the outcome of anything she liked. She was a steely beauty. Slim hips, broad shoulders, sharp cheekbones. An Amazonian Grace Kelly. Haughty too, the way she held herself and spoke, but I couldn't have cared less. I was in love. Well, maybe love was too strong a word for it, but besotted for certain. Being semi-concussed was probably a factor, but even in my full senses I'd have found her unutterably, irresistibly gorgeous. She was straight out of a dream, or a not-safe-for-work website.
I tried to speak, say something about carrying on the fight if Thor wanted to, I wasn't afraid of him. All that came out, however, was a jumbled burble, nothing that made much sense. Thor looked all set to push Freya to one side and polish me off regardless, but then Odin intervened.
"Freya Njorthasdottir is right, my son," he said. "You've demonstrated your superiority yet again, and Gid for his part, if I may say so, hasn't fared too shabbily. Why not call it quits and resume your proper business, which is the training and preparation of these fine warriors of ours."
Thor grumbled but relented. You didn't, it seemed, fuck with the All-Father. There was a smattering of applause from the soldiers as he extended a hand to me, a peace offering, and the applause doubled when I, having given it some thought, grasped the hand and shook it.
Thor crushed my fingers in his grip, grinding the knuckles together. I just gave him my biggest, cheesiest grin in return.
Then I turned to Freya to express gratitude, and hopefully more, but already she'd swanned off to resume abusing the men she was drilling. I watched the tossing of her blonde ponytail as she strode away, and also appreciated the pert, toned buttocks moving beneath her tight white sweatpants. Arse man. Always was. I'd never been able to tear my eyes from a decent bum, and hers was way better than decent.
I'd no doubt have stood there all day, tongue lolling, mesmerised by the motion of Freya's behind - like a pair of balloons alternately inflating and deflating - if Odin hadn't taken me by the elbow and suggested we go back to the castle. He wanted Frigga to take a look at me and check I was all right.
All right?
In a world where magnificent-bottomed honeys like this Freya roamed wild and free, how could a bloke not be all right?
Then a surge of nausea hit me, and I bent over and threw up.
After which I passed out. A-bloody-gain.
Eleven
Two more days in Frigga's tender care. Two more days of poultices and vile-tasting but remarkably effective medicine. Two more days of Frigga clucking and fussing, only this time with added apologies for Thor's behaviour.
"My stepson," she said, "is a brute. Uncouth, shallow. Mud for brains. But then what would you expect with an earth goddess for a mother? What Odin ever saw in that Fjorgyn I will never know. A pair of plump fertile breasts will turn any man's head, I suppose. It certainly couldn't have been her conversation. 'Oh look, a flower! Oh look, a pebble! Oh look, another flower!' And those are among her more intelligent utterances."
I laughed. With Frigga and at her. It was clear to me that mass delusion was the order of the day at Asgard Hall. Odin was at the centre of it, a sort of nucleus that the rest of them orbited around - his wife, the Valkyries, Thor, even the delectable Freya. He'd drawn them all, family members and outsiders alike, into his Norse-god fantasy. Like one of those lunatic-fringe evangelical types, a Jim Jones, a David Koresh, only instead of extreme Christianity he was peddling another faith, this one long defunct. He had the charisma. He had the willing acolytes.
He also had soldiers. And guns.
So what was he planning? What was the point of it all? What the fuck was the Valhalla Mission?
I couldn't guess, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know anyway. My main imperative was leaving. Quick as I could. Get back out into the real world, where the sane people lived. My set-to with Thor was a setback, but Frigga had me on my feet again in a jiffy. By the third day I was feeling hale and hearty. Had some beautiful bruising - chest like a sunset, ankle purple from heel to calf. But over all I was perky. Everything in basic working order, even my wrist. So I headed out into the grounds to recce an exit strategy. It didn't take me long to discover a main drive that led down from the castle, curving smoothly through the contours of the landscape. Snowmobile and tyre tracks pointed the way. I walked along the drive for a couple of miles past silent white forests and a tinkling ice-encrusted stream, until I came to a guardhouse next to a bridge.
A man stepped out from the guardhouse as I approached. He wore a parka and a fur-lined hunting cap, the kind with the earflaps, and he had a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt and a gun strapped to his back - an AK-47, weapon of choice for guerrillas, pirates and bongo-bongo-land paramilitaries everywhere, the Big Mac of assault rifles. He also had a thermos in his hand, and was in the midst of pouring himself a cup of steaming hot chocolate.
"Want some?" he said, proffering the cup.
Taken aback, I said yes. I'd anticipated being challenged. Who goes there? and the business end of the Kalashnikov being shoved up my nose. But a glug of hot choc went down a treat.
"Heimdall, right?" I said.
He gave a comical salute. "That's me. Watchman of the Aesir and Vanir. Guardian of the Rainbow Bridge. And you, if I'm not mistaken, are the fellow the Valkyries brought past me the other night. I must say, you're looking a lot better than you did then."
"I'm a new man."
"Good old Frigga. I wouldn't be astonished if my dear stepmother could raise the dead."
"In my case she virtually did." I liked Heimdall already. He was the most down-to-earth of anyone I'd met so far here. He made good hot chocolate, too. I held out the empty cup for seconds, and he obliged.
"So what brings you all the way out here to my humble sentry post? Mere curiosity?"
"Just getting the lay of the land," I said.
Heimdall peered at me. I'd not noticed before how piercing his eyes were, or how blue. They were the icy blue of glaciers, of arctic skies. They were eyes that missed very little.
"If you're looking to leave," he said, "I must advise you, you have a considerable walk ahead."
"If I'm leaving here," I assured him, "I won't be walking."
"Sensible man."
"And you, I guess, won't be stopping me." Partly a question, mostly a statement.
"Not my job to. It's what's coming in that I have to keep an eye on, not what's going out. Would you like to see Bifrost?"
I dredged the name up from my memories of those old Mighty Thor comics. "The bridge?"
"None other. Come on."
He led me past the guardhouse, through whose open door I saw a glowing gas heater, a chair and, hanging from a hook on the wall, a long, curly trumpet-type thing made of brass.
"Its nickname may be the Rainbow Bridge," Heimdall was saying, sounding much like a museum tour guide, "but in truth it has only three colours, one for each span."
And so it did. It was a suspension bridge which traversed a deep, sheer-sided gorge in three sections divided by a pair of support towers. Its boards, scrupulously swept of snow, were painted red for the nearest section, then green, then blue. As I set foot on the first of them I heard a low, forbidding creak and felt a wobble and a bit of give, which made me step back sharpish. The drop beneath was something like a hundred metres but might have been more. Snow could make distances, especially vertical ones, hard to gauge.
"Don't worry, appearances to the contrary it's quite secure," Heimdall said. "We've had all sorts of traffic over here, even up to five-ton trucks, and Bifrost, anyway, is destined to remain standing for all eternity. After all, it's built out of fire, water and air - the three elements of creation."
Looked to me like the only materials involved were metal, timber and emulsion, but I kept shtum.
"This is the only way in or out of Asgard other than cross-country," Heimdall said, "and I couldn't recommend that. You know yourself what it can be like out there for the unwary traveller. And it isn't just wolves you have to watch out for."
"Yeah, I know. Trolls, right?"
"Or simply getting lost," he said, probably not spotting the cynicism. "Plenty of space out there to get lost in. The forests are vast and trackless. Unless you know your way around them, as the Valkyries do, you could wander there in circles 'til you die."
I gestured to the far side of the bridge. "But that-a-way, over the bridge, that'll definitely get you back to, er, Midgard. Right?"
He nodded. "Long way, though. Very long way. Bifrost is the only link between Asgard and Midgard, but many Midgardian roads lead to Bifrost and you may take the wrong one and end up far from where you'd wish to be."
"Like I said, I won't be walking. I'll -"
All at once, Heimdall's head snapped round. He squinted, eyes narrowing to glittering pinpricks.
"Did you hear that?" he whispered.
"Nope. But then I've got shit hearing."
"I haven't. Quite the opposite. I can hear wool growing on a sheep in a far-off field. I can hear a blade of grass pushing up through the soil in the next county."
"That's quite a talent. Maybe you should -"
"Shh!" he hissed. "There it is again."
He whipped the Kalashnikov off his back, switched the selector to semiauto, and racked the charging handle. His gaze was focused on the woods lying beyond the gorge. I saw him slow his breathing to the bare minimum, scarcely a trickle of vapour coming from his nostrils. He stood rigid. Only those eyes moved, scanning the gloomy darkness beneath the distant trees.
A minute passed.
Two.
I didn't say a thing. Heimdall was scamming me. There was nothing out there. He hadn't heard a sound. He just wanted to spook me, for reasons best known to him.
Only, the intensity with which he was staring...
And, I couldn't be sure, but he seemed scared. Alarmed, at any rate. Genuinely. Not faking it. There was a strain about his face, a tightness to his jaw. Whatever he'd heard, or thought he'd heard, wasn't something he'd been keen to hear.
And then it stole over me - a sense of being watched. Someone out there hiding among the trees, surveying us. A definite presence.
The hairs on the back of my neck crackled. I could see no eyes, but I could feel them. The dead weight of their gaze, looming from the shadows.
Five whole minutes passed, and then, with a "hmph," Heimdall lowered the rifle. "Yes. Well. Gone. A scouting party, sneaking around, reconnoitring. They're starting to get bold."
"Who is?" I couldn't help but ask.
"The enemy. They were well concealed, so I couldn't tell if it was frost giants, trolls, or the other enemy - the one we really have to worry about."
"Oh. So the frost giants and the trolls aren't so bad, then."
"Not to be underestimated, but a nuisance more than anything. Certainly not worth blowing the Gjallarhorn for."
I worked it out for myself. "Your trumpet? The one I just saw in the guardhouse?"
A sombre nod. "That's reserved for one very particular occasion. The day we're all dreading. The day we're preparing for but hoping will never come. When I blow the Gjallarhorn... Well, let's just say you'll wish I hadn't had to."
He left that hanging ominously in the air for a moment or so, like a bad smell. Then his mood lifted and he said, "Still, that's in the future. Now's now, eh? Cherish the moment. Speaking of which, I understand there's going to be a feast this evening. Big celebration."
"No one told me. What in aid of?"
"No special reason. Odin just likes to hold feasts every once in a while. Helps everyone get along. Cements solidarity. You should be there. They're terrific fun. All sorts of roistering goes on."
"Blimey, really? Roistering? I haven't had a good roister in, ooh, ages. You going?"
"Oh no. Never abandon my post. That's my duty and my curse as Heimdall, born of nine mothers, gatekeeper of Asgard. I'm on watch here at all hours and in all weathers. Can't relax my vigilance for a second. I did let my guard down once, you see. A long time back. Allowed a witch called Gullveig to pass. Granted, she was disguised as a beautiful maiden, but even so. Caused all sorts of bother among the Aesir, did Gullveig. They quarrelled over who could give her the most gold. Odin had to sort it out by burning her at the stake. Three times."
"Nice."
"After a slip-up like that, I've had to be extra careful, as you can imagine. So no time off, no fun and frolics for me." A tiny sigh as he said this. "But you must attend the feast. You won't regret it."
Won't regret it? I was regretting everything about the Valhalla Mission. Regretting I'd ever heard about it, regretting coming here most of all. As I followed my own deep footprints back to the castle, I mused on the fact that even the people at Asgard Hall who seemed normal at first glance, like Heimdall, weren't. Every one of them was infected with Odin's obsession, to the extent of spouting gobbets of mythology as though they were pure gospel truth.
It was way past time for me to go. Earlier, I'd spied out a lean-to where the Valkyries' snowmobiles were kept. It nestled against the castle's western wall. Now I ambled past it again, closer this time, noting that all three vehicles had keys in the ignition and there were jerry cans of fuel stacked nearby. A snowmobile was all but begging to be borrowed.
Once back in civilisation I would contact the authorities and tell them about Abortion and let them know roughly where his body might be found. I doubted there'd be much left of him by now. The wolves would surely have returned to finish what they'd started, once the Valkyries had gone. What remained, though, should be retrieved and given a decent send-off, a proper funeral. For the sake of Abortion's relatives, such as they were, and my own sake as well. A cremation ideally. Going up in smoke - it was what Abortion would
have wanted.
A feast? Sounded all right to me. Then tomorrow, first thing, I'd be snowmobiling my way across Bifrost to freedom.
Twelve
Whole roast suckling pigs sat on platters on the banqueting hall tables, apples in their mouths, beds of parsley all around, the works. Their skins glistened like gold in the light of the torches burning in sconces on the walls. There were pies, heaps of root vegetables, tureens of broth, a stew which I was reliably informed was made of wild boar, and more forms of cooked herring than the mind could bear. Serving staff ferried it all in from the kitchen, and two hundred or so bods tucked in avidly, helping themselves to whatever came to hand, reaching, gnawing, munching, slurping.
Odin at the top table looked down on the scene with approval. On his shoulders a pair of large black birds were sitting - ravens was my guess. They perched there like a pair of bulky epaulettes, preening themselves and occasionally riffling their beaks through Odin's hair and beard. In return he fed them titbits from his plate with an indulgent smile.
Flanking him were Frigga and Thor, and lined up on either side of those two were other members of the Aesir and Vanir families. I couldn't see any sign of Freya, however. I looked, but she wasn't anywhere in the room.
Me, I was placed somewhere far down one of the long tables, and by coincidence - or perhaps not - the bloke next to me was Cy, the black guy I'd watched Thor beating up shortly before the thunder god turned his attention to me. Close to, Cy's facial scar was impressive. A jagged line that started just below the eye and ran down his cheek to his jaw. One of those scars that didn't disfigure, didn't ruin your looks, just made you look mean and cool.
Never one to mince around, I asked him how he'd come by it.
"Fight. When I was fifteen. You should have seen the other guy, though."
"Ugly?"
"He is now."
"And don't tell me, you got put on probation and they gave you the choice - prison or the army."
James Lovegrove - The Age Of Odin Page 8
