James Lovegrove - The Age Of Odin

by Lovegrove, James

  "Did you see that?" he said.

  "No."

  "Exactly. It were nowt. Just a kind of... wobble in the air. Like heat. A beam of heat."

  "A heat ray?" I said. "You're telling me those things fire a fucking heat ray?"

  "The black ones, yeah. Must be a million degrees or something."

  "Fuck me."

  "Not while there are dogs in the street."

  "What about the blue ones? What do they fire?"

  "How the ruddy 'eck should I know?" Baz shot back. "I'm the expert on high-tech robot suits all of a sudden?"

  I looked along the line of the bluff, and got my answer. I saw a soldier rise to a crouch in order to peer over the bluff at the enemy. He unclipped a grenade from his bandolier. A bolt of shimmering air streaked towards him from below, but this one brought intense cold rather than intense heat. He cracked in two. The beam engulfed his head and shoulders, flash-froze them, and then that section sheared off, sliding to the ground in a single solid mass, its departure lubricated by an abrupt gush of blood welling up from beneath. The rest of him crumpled in the opposite direction, torso spouting torrents of crimson.

  Another soldier tried the same tactic, and this time succeeded in getting the grenade in the air before he too was freeze-zapped. The little steel egg spiralled through space, and full credit to the thrower, his aim was good. He'd surely have been pleased with himself, if he hadn't happened to be lying in two halves in the snow. The grenade landed within a yard of the JOTUN that had killed him, and exploded almost instantly, before the man in the armour had a chance to react.

  Take that, twat, I thought.

  But when the smoke cleared, the JOTUN was still standing. Its armoured shell was scorched, scratched, but essentially intact. Through the faceplate all I could see was an enormous fucking grin. The man inside was laughing his arse off, and who could blame him? Just been hit point blank by a grenade and emerged unscathed. If that were me, I'd be as happy as a dog with Bonio-flavoured bollocks.

  A couple of the other guys tried to take out one of the SURTs with a Russian-made RPG-7. Same result. The impact staggered the thing but the rocket nevertheless failed to penetrate, and the reward for their pains was to get roasted on the spot - two men reduced to human barbecue in a split second.

  I spotted Thor hunkered down nearby. He was scoping out the terrain from behind a boulder, trying to fathom a way of getting down into the fray without getting blasted. I scrambled over to him, Baz behind me.

  "We're sitting ducks up here," I said. "Pinned down, and if we try to climb down to attack close-up, they'll just pick us off the slope like flies on a wall."

  "What do you suggest?" said Thor. "Mjolnir itches to demolish."

  "We go in from the sides." I motioned to either end of the bluff, where it descended in a shallow curve, flattening to meet the plain. "Take the long way round and hit them in a pincer movement."

  "All well and fine, Gid, and I believe it workable. Two problems, though. I can damage those machines with Mjolnir, I am sure, but there is but one of me. Grenades do not appear to work, and bullets certainly do not. What do you propose the rest of you do?"

  "I have a vague sort of idea, I think."

  "Oh, that's encouraging, that," Baz muttered. "'A vague sort of idea.'"

  "The other problem," said Thor, "is that our foes are doubtless expecting us to attempt just what you're suggesting, and will move to forestall it."

  "So we need a distraction. A diversion."

  "Of what sort?"

  "Skadi."

  Baz radioed Odin with the plan, Odin relayed it to Skadi, Skadi gave it the thumbs up, and we were in business.

  Skadi had her little troop of skiers with her, maybe twenty of them in all, blokes she'd spent weeks coaching rigorously in the fine art of sliding along with two planks strapped to your feet. I watched them getting ready to move out, even as my squad started crawling along the bluff towards the north end. Two groups of men led by Odin's sons Vidar and Vali were heading off the other way, southward. The JOTUNs and SURTs, meanwhile, kept battering our positions with their beams of extreme temperature. You might say, ha ha, they were running hot and cold on us.

  Skadi let out a long yodelling whoop, a kind of "ul-ul-ululul-luuu!" that reminded me of the sound crowds of Europeans make at ski races. And then she shot off down the face of the bluff, her boys following. It was a nearly sheer slope, just inclined enough that snow could lie on it, with the odd ledge projecting out here and there. They scooted down, twisting and mogulling from side to side, more bouncing than skiing.

  The power armour operators naturally turned their attention on them, and one poor sod got hit by a JOTUN and a SURT simultaneously, before he could even reach the bottom. Half of him became ice cubes, the rest ashes. Another of the skiers took a tumble halfway down and plummeted the rest of the way, landing with the kind of impact you didn't get up from again.

  The rest made it to the plain safely and started racing towards the enemy as fast as they could, weaving and winding across the snow, making moving targets of themselves.

  I caught all this in over-the-shoulder glimpses as my squad scurried to the bluff's tip. Those skiers were as brave as hell. It was a kamikaze run, but they kept on going, with scrawny little Skadi leading the way. Christ, but that goddess could shift. She was skimming across the snow faster than was humanly possible, as though there were jet engines attached to her skis. Her arms were a blur, stabbing the sticks into the ground repeatedly. Jinking left and right, she drew the lion's share of the enemy fire. Beams shot past her, coming within a whisker but never quite finding their mark. The men following her were less speedy, and therefore less lucky. The JOTUNs and SURTs wiped out half of them in the time it took us pincer movement guys to reach level with the plain.

  Then Skadi pulled off one of the craziest and classiest stunts I'd ever seen. She thrust herself straight into the gap between a JOTUN and a SURT, slowing down a fraction so as to make herself a more attractive target. The enemy took the bait, both of them rotating on the spot, arms extended, eager for what looked like an easy kill.

  Big mistake.

  Both of them fired at her at the same time. And both were directly facing each other as they did so. Skadi ducked beneath the beams, squatting so low her nose almost touched her skis, and the JOTUN shot the SURT and the SURT shot the JOTUN, and it was glorious. Mechanical frost giant burned. Mechanical fire demon got iced. A large hole was melted in the JOTUN's chest, the beam boring through to fricassee the man inside. The whole suit of armour just went stock still, inert, hot metal dribbling down its front. As for the SURT, a section of its front turned glossy white and cracked apart, suddenly as brittle as an eggshell. The operator himself wasn't hurt, but it was clear that some vital component in the suit had been damaged. The SURT started shuddering. Its arms flailed about like a body-popper doing one of those jittery breakdance moves. Then something went ker-plof, something else went bang, and the SURT toppled. Just keeled over into its back, and I had to fight the urge to yell, "Timberrrr!"

  Two down, seven to go.

  Odin's voice came over the walkie-talkie. "We have drawn blood. They are not unbeatable. You have been briefed on what Gid has in mind. Put his plan into action. Go!"

  With Skadi and her remaining skiers still running interference for us, we set off at a sprint, us lot on one side, Vadir's and Vali's groups on the other, all zeroing in on the enemy.

  I was pretty confident my idea for crippling those power armour suits would work.

  I sincerely hoped I was right, though.

  Otherwise this was going to be a short and exceedingly asymmetrical battle.

  Thirty-Two

  Everything has a weak spot.

  It was one of the great undeniable truths in life that I'd seen proved again and again during my army days.

  Everything, no matter how well guarded, well plated, well protected, had a point of vulnerability. A tank, for instance. The chink in its armour was its
treads - exposed, necessarily thin and flexible. Take out one of them, ideally both, and that stonking great steel armadillo was going nowhere. It could still turn its turret and fire, but only in self-defence. As a mobile offensive weapon, it had been neutralised.

  Same with a fortified building, a dug-in position, a sniper's nest. However many sentries had been posted, however inaccessible and impregnable the place seemed, there was always a way in. It could always be got at. Always.

  If you didn't think that, you were fucked.

  With the JOTUNs and SURTs, I figured the limb joints were the thing to go for. Specifically the knees.

  The lower portion of each leg was conical, shaped much like bellbottom jeans, terminating in a large flat foot. Designed for stability.

  Linking this portion to the upper portion of the leg was a ball-and-socket joint, and there was space between the joint and the top of the lower portion surrounding it. There had to be, so that the joint could move freely and the two halves of leg didn't grind against each other.

  The gap wasn't much more than a few centimetres. But a few centimetres would do. Just the right size for lodging a grenade in. Just the right size for keeping that grenade in place 'til it went off. And the ball-and-socket joint was, surely, impossible to reinforce.

  That was what I was banking on. That was my plan.

  The only drawback - and it was rather a large one - was that in order to pop the grenades in we had to get right up beside the enemy. Close enough to count their nostril hairs.

  And getting blasted full in the face by either a heat beam or a freeze beam was the sort of thing that could really ruin your afternoon.

  The JOTUNs and SURTs were so preoccupied with polishing off the skiers that they didn't see us coming until we were almost on top of them. They quickly made up for the oversight, however, strafing us hard with their beams. At the same time they retreated into a defensive circle, covering one another's backs.

  All we could do was keep running. We were committed now. No backing out at this late stage. All or nothing. Do or die.

  The head of the soldier next to me disappeared in a burst of flame. He was that ginger bloke, Allinson, Ellison, whoever, the one who'd described to me his first encounter with a troll. One moment he was charging along. Next moment he was headless, the stump of his neck cauterised so efficiently that not a drop of blood came out. He staggered onward for several steps, sheer momentum carrying him along, until his legs buckled and he fell. Poor bastard. On the bright side, there was one less coppertop in the world going around frightening the kiddiewinks.

  The SURT who'd killed him swivelled a few degrees, training its nozzles on me. I was staring straight down both barrels, and knew I was pretty much dead meat. There was less than five metres between us, and whether I switched direction, dived to the ground, or backtracked, no way could I avoid being hit. Gid Coxall was about to be flash-fried. Extra crispy. Done to a turn. Toast.

  Then, just as the SURT fired, someone whizzed in front of me. Skadi.

  She took the force of both beams, dead-on. I heard her scream. Saw her go down.

  I didn't hesitate for a second. I'd been given a reprieve. A second chance. Mustn't waste it. I sprang over the smoking ruin of Skadi's body and ducked under the SURT's outstretched arms, pulling the pin on a grenade in the meantime. I slotted the grenade into the top of the lower part of the SURT's leg, which cupped it neatly and securely. Then I hurled myself flat into the snow and hugged my head.

  Blammm!

  Rolling over, I watched as the SURT teetered on one leg. The other leg had been shattered in two. The broken end hung uselessly down, showering out sparks and leaking hydraulic fluid. The thing then just overbalanced, collapsing to one side and slumping flat.

  Yes!

  No time to pat myself on the back, though. There were still six more of the fuckers to deal with.

  I got to my feet, in time to see Cy knacker one of the JOTUNs using exactly the same method. Meanwhile Thor was doing the job his own way. He launched himself at one of the two remaining SURTs and brought Mjolnir crunching down on its head. This put a crack in the faceplate but did no other significant harm.

  The thunder god was undeterred. Leaping up onto the machine's shoulders, he raised his hammer double-handed and began bludgeoning away at the tank on the SURT's back. The SURT lacked hands to pull him off with, and couldn't even bring its heat beam nozzles to bear on him because its arms were too long and didn't bend back adequately. Three blows and Thor had dented the tank. Another three and something began spurting out - liquid under high pressure, the fuel that powered the heat beam. On its next impact, Mjolnir struck a spark off the SURT's armour. Result: instant, massive fireball.

  Thor was thrown clear by the force of the explosion, hurtling some twenty metres through the air, clothes alight, and I could have sworn he was chuckling as he flew. As for the SURT, its back was blown clean open, and inside, through a jagged hole fringed with flames, I saw the figure of a man writhing, burning, being baked in an oven of his own suit.

  Served the bastard right.

  Now it was open season on the suits of power armour. We had the measure of them. We had them licked.

  Which wasn't to say that more of us didn't die. Each opponent we felled cost us at least two of our own, sometimes three. Somebody would come in from head-on, get obliterated, but his frontal assault meant somebody else could slip in from behind and plonk a grenade into place while the JOTUN or SURT was otherwise engaged. I saw Backdoor Kellaway do exactly that, with all the stealth and dexterity that his nickname implied. Then, when each bad guy was down, we were able to polish him off with a couple more well-placed grenades, dropped just by the faceplate. If the explosion itself didn't turn the operator's brains to soup, the percussion wave did. We swarmed around the enemy like hornets, and they swatted us, but we still managed to sting them. Fatally.

  At last there was just a lone JOTUN left, and Thor went for it as though it was one of the real frost giants he despised so much. He clobbered it left, right and centre, so violently and enthusiastically that its operator was unable to draw a bead on him. Every time he pointed an arm at Thor, it was bashed aside by Mjolnir. Eventually Thor managed to knock loose both of the feeder tubes that supplied the freeze beam weapons. Detached, they dangled like limp dicks, gushing liquid nitrogen or some such all over the ground in a hissing glassy slick. The suit was now pretty much defenceless, and the operator knew he was fucked five ways to Sunday. His face was a mask of panic. He raised the suit's arms in surrender, but Thor wasn't having a bar of it.

  "Clemency? Compassion?" he roared. "Mortal, you are sadly deluded. I am Thor, god of thunder, and I bear Mjolnir, whose name means lightning. A storm knows no mercy. It flattens all with its fury, and so do I."

  He made short work of the JOTUN after that. Ultimately it was sprawled on the ground and he was hammering at it like a blacksmith working at his anvil. Every gong-like blow wrecked the power armour a little further. Parts came off. Fragments flew like shrapnel. The bloke inside was long dead before Thor finished trashing the thing. Organs liquefied by the impacts, I imagined. Bones reduced to powder.

  All that the rest of us could do was stand around and wait for Thor to be done. He was drenched with sweat by the end of it. Steam plumed from his head. He straightened up, surveyed the mess he had made of the JOTUN, holstered Mjolnir, planted his fists on his hips, and heaved a deep and satisfied sigh.

  "Remind me not to piss him off," I murmured to Cy.

  "You already did once, remember?"

  "Oh yeah. Well, remind me not to do it again."

  "I won't if you won't."

  "Roger that."

  Victory secured, Odin arrived on the scene, accompanied by Freya and Tyr. It was near dark, the sun just a red ghost on the horizon. The ruler of the Aesir took stock, casting his eye over the nine ruined suits of power armour and the thirty or so of his troops who'd lost their lives defeating them.

  I piped up, "Don't s
uppose that was it, eh? Loki's taken his best shot and lost?"

  Sombrely Odin shook his head. "Far from it, Gid. My blood brother does nothing by halves. If I know him, and I do, this was merely an exploratory sortie, to give us a foretaste of the full mayhem and misery that is his to unleash. There will be more of this kind of thing. More and worse."

  Freya came over. She'd just been to examine Skadi's remains.

  "My aunt still lives, All-Father," she announced, much to my surprise but not, it seemed, the gods'. "Gravely wounded, but I can detect the divine spark still fluttering within her. We should get her to Frigga as soon as possible. Summon Sleipnir."

  "It is already done," Odin said. "Huginn and Muninn have conveyed word to the pilots. Skadi will be in receipt of my wife's ministrations within the hour."

  Which was the best news I'd had all evening. Skadi had taken a shot meant for me, and she was going to survive. I could kiss my guilt about that goodbye.

  "You have done well today," Odin told us all. "You have fought with uncommon courage, cunning and valour. Some of our comrades have fallen. It was inevitable. But we will remember them. Bragi will celebrate them in verse. They will live on in our hearts. As for these others..." he said, indicating the enemy.

  "They, All-Father, belong to me," hissed a voice.

  The most horrible voice I had ever heard.

  And its owner was no oil painting either.

  Thirty-Three

  "Hel," intoned Odin, and a definite shudder ran through him as he said it.

  Not that I blamed him. Because the woman now stalking towards us across the battlefield was truly repellent. I'd seen some munters in my time, but this one was in a league of munterdom all her own. Although there was probably more to Odin's horror of her than just her looks.

  She was gaunt, with a prominent cliff of a forehead, eyebrows so sparse they might as well have not been there, and lips so dark red they were all but black. Her face looked like she'd never known anything but nightmares all her life and had learned to love it. Haggard and forlorn, she seemed to embody utter despair, and this was echoed in her clothing, from the tattered black scarf that wreathed her head to the rough strips of black gauze that covered some but nowhere near enough of her emaciated torso.