"Yeah, and look how far it got them."
"Which only makes it worse, dunnit? Now everyone's feeling even more trapped. Rats in a cage and that. No way out."
"How come this is news to me?" I said. "You've have thought I'd have picked up on it, wouldn't you?"
"Mate, no offence, but you're not exactly 'man of the people' these days. You're not in touch with the vibe. You hobnob with the Aesir, you give orders - whether you realise it or not, you've become officer class. So naturally no one's going to tell you the truth to your face now."
"Apart from you."
"Apart from me. And then there's laying into Backdoor like you did, tearing a strip off him at Odin's funeral..."
"Officer class again?"
"Well, that and you came across as a bit, sort of, I dunno..."
"Be gentle."
"Nuts."
"How nuts?"
"Nutty as squirrel shit."
I sat back and peered around the banqueting hall. People were hunched over their food, eating mechanically, subdued. Nobody looked like they'd slept much. Hollow eyes, taut faces. A few of them caught my gaze and glanced away immediately. Resentment I could have coped with, but they were just blanking me, as if there was a barrier between us and nothing to say that would penetrate it, nothing they could express in words.
It was time to take matters in hand.
I stood up.
"What're you doing, man?" Cy asked.
"Grabbing the initiative," I said, and strode to the top table, where the handful of remaining gods sat.
I rapped the table with a spoon until the already near-silent hall was completely quiet.
"Listen up, everyone," I said. "Going to keep this short. Short and as sweet as possible. Last night some men did a very foolish thing. One of them was somebody I considered a pal. If I'd had any inkling what he was about to do, I'd have talked him out of it. Failing that, I'd have beaten some sense into him. I realise what many of you are thinking. 'We're screwed. There's no point carrying on. We're all going to wind up dead. If the frost giants don't get us, Loki will. Might as well give up.' I'll tell you what. Not only is that bollocks, but if you allow yourselves to think that way, then we are screwed. Yes, we've had setbacks, and yes, I'll admit that the enemy do seem to have the upper hand. But I know something they don't and probably even you yourselves don't, and it's this. When the blue team has something worth defending and the red team doesn't, the blue team wins, hands down. Every time. Doesn't matter how many of them there are, how well supplied or not, how well armed or not, they always win. And we have something worth defending."
"Yeah?" shouted someone. "Such as what? A fucked old castle?"
There was a ripple of bleak laughter.
"Nine worlds," I said. "Not one. Not two. Not even three. Nine of them. And Loki will stomp all over the lot of them in his stiletto heels unless we stop him. You know what earth's been like since Mrs Keener got elected. Tearing itself apart, conflict on top of conflict, and her lording over it all, looking all kitten-cute and butter-wouldn't-melt. Imagine that times by nine. That is why we've plonked ourselves down here in this 'fucked old castle.' That is why we're going to keep holding it come hell or high water. Just to wipe the grin off her - Loki's - smug fucking face. So let's do this. Let's get out there and fight like we mean it. Let's Ragnarök and roll!"
No great rapturous surge of applause greeted the end of my little speech, but then I was hardly Winston Churchill and it was hardly "We shall fight them on the beaches..."
As I looked around the banqueting hall, however, nobody was avoiding my gaze any more. People were sitting up a little straighter. I'd knocked some of the despair out of them.
I prayed it would be enough.
Really, it had to be.
Before going outside to face the music once again, I paid a call on Frigga in the field hospital to find out if any of the injured was in a fit state to hold a gun.
Odin's widow shook her head sadly.
"Anyone who's here is too severely wounded even to walk," she said, nodding at the rows of mattresses on the floor and the men sprawled on them. She looked wrung out, empty, like a used juice carton. "I have helped them all I can, and now rest is the best cure they can hope for."
In one corner there were several bodies lined up head to toe, under blankets.
"And that lot aren't going anywhere," I remarked.
"Alas, no. Them I can do nothing further for."
"Heimdall? What about him? Any change?"
"See for yourself."
Asgard's gatekeeper lay with a bandage round his head covering wadding on both ears. He was so still, he could almost have been one of the nearby corpses. His chest moved up and down lightly, infrequently.
"The trauma is as much to his mind as his ears," said Frigga. "Sensory overload on an unimaginable scale. He ought to recover, but when, how soon - who can say?"
"And you?" I asked. "How are you bearing up?"
"I have never been so tired."
"I mean about Odin. Losing your husband."
"You are kind to worry, but I cannot think about that right now. Cannot afford to. I must be strong, for all our sakes. My own concerns must wait. Besides, I am accustomed to bereavement. It's become almost a way of life for me."
"I'm finishing this," I told her firmly. "I'm seeing it through right to the bitter end. For Odin. I owe it to him. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be alive. He died saving me."
"That's my husband," she said. "That's him through and through."
"I just wanted you to know that."
"I'm grateful. And I wish you luck, Gid." Doubt clouded her wan, genial features. "I fear, though..."
I stopped her. "Uh-uh. None of that."
She stiffened, understanding, steeling herself. "Of course. There is always hope."
"That's the spirit," I said. "Always hope."
Because, I thought, when you're completely fucked, when your back's to the abyss and the hordes of Hell are closing in, when everything's stacked against you and you're down to the last dregs of your strength - hope is the only real weapon you've got.
Sixty-Four
The frost giants started their next round of assault not long after. They opted to go for the breaches again, charging at them in dense packs, flying-wedge formations, putting everything into it, hoping that sheer weight of numbers would carry the day. They threw themselves through the jagged gaps, often tripping over one another in their urgency and haste. We used grenades to hold them back, but they just kept on coming, some with half an arm blown off, others with their armour shattered and blood pouring from dozens of wounds, all undeterred. There was fire in their bellies. They were unstoppable. They waded among us, lashing out with their handweapons, taking bullets until they could no longer stand upright. Even when brought to their knees they refused to give up. Issgeisls and tomahawks swung and swung until the hands holding them were too weak to maintain their grip.
A Valkyrie copped it right in front of me. She was reloading her pistol when a frost giant reared up behind her. I didn't have a clear shot or I would have taken him out. The frostie clamped his hands either side of the Valkyrie's head. Whole chunks of him were missing. It wasn't clear how he could still be alive. Yet he was, and he still had enough strength in him to crush the Valkyrie's skull. She kicked out, raked his arms with her fingernails, but it was no use. The frost giant pressed his palms together, and her head was distended, impacting to a red-and-yellow pulp.
I emptied a whole magazine from my Minimi into the fucker's heart. It wouldn't bring the Valkyrie back, but it did make me feel a whole lot better.
Snow began to fall. The overcast sky had grown so dark grey it was almost black, and a first vague flurry of flakes became, in no time, a thick deluge. Snow fell on mangled frost giant corpses, and settled. Snow fell on Aesir and Vanir as they fought, and settled. Snow fell on soldiers firing guns and throwing grenades, and settled. Soon we were all whitened, hoary with snow, and the
only real way of telling Asgardian defender from jotun was that they were so much larger than us. The castle walls grew deep crusts of snow. Courtyard flagstones were buried under it. The air itself seemed a solid mass of the stuff, saturated with it, hard to breathe. Eyes stung. Clothes grew cold and heavy. The roar of battle was dulled.
The frost giants didn't let up. The blizzard conditions seemed to favour them. They were used to this kind of weather. Thrived in it. Eventually we had to concede ground. They drove us back from the very largest of the breaches, and having gained a toehold there, they came flooding into the castle in ever greater numbers. Soon we found ourselves defending an archway the frosties had to enter one at a time. We clogged it with their bodies, but they just hauled the dead aside and pushed on into the cloistered courtyard beyond.
Sif was the next significant casualty. A frost giantess - Leikn, no less - managed to clip her with the axe end of her issgeisl. Sif reeled, bleeding from a deep gash in the meat of her shoulder. Before she could gather herself, Leikn had flipped the issgeisl and run it through her torso from behind. The weapon's spear end jutted out through Sif's sternum. She looked down at its blood-smeared tip incredulously. Leikn yanked it out and shoved it in again. Sif coughed, vomited a stream of pure glistening crimson down her front, and sagged forward. A third thrust from Leikn sent a galvanic shudder through her entire body as she lay prone on the floor.
It so happened that I'd just emptied the magazine currently in my Minimi, but that didn't matter. I sprang at Leikn, swinging the gun two-handed like a club. A bullet would be too clean, too quick. I wanted to punish the hairy great bitch, and I wanted her to feel her punishment.
She roared as I pounded on her. Her issgeisl whirled. But I wouldn't stay still. I darted around like a monkey, sneaking in hits as and when I could. Finally I got what I was after, an opening, a clear shot to one of her vulnerable points - her knee. The Minimi's stock struck with a pleasing crunch, shattering the joint. Leikn shrieked and staggered. I immediately brought the rifle butt up between her legs, hard. Sexual discrimination? Not me. When it came to low blows, I was strictly equal opportunity.
The frost giantess fell, whimpering, clutching her privates, leg twisted at an ugly angle. I discarded the Minimi, now bent to all buggery, and snatched up her issgeisl, which she'd dropped. I didn't pause. A sliver of furry midriff was exposed between segments of her armour. I rammed the axe blade home there, burying it deep in her guts, all but chopping her in half. Entrails scuttled out in slick, purple-grey coils.
Nearby a voice screamed, "Leikn!"
Next thing I knew, Bergelmir was hurtling towards me. He did not seem any too happy. In fact, it would be fair to say he looked murderously insane. Which, given what I'd just done to his missus, he had every right to be.
We fought, issgeisl against issgeisl. Our weapons clashed and clashed, each impact sending vicious shockwaves up my arms. Bergelmir was in a frenzy. Spittle frothed his lips. He growled in a completely subhuman way, through bared teeth. There wasn't a trace of civilisation to him any more. He was maddened beyond reason, an animal. I blocked and parried his frantic attacks, all the while waiting for my moment. Any second now there'd be some let-up. Bergelmir would overstretch himself, swing wildly, miss, and as he was recovering his balance I'd be in like Flynn. A maiming stab, and he'd be done.
A burst of bullets raked his helmet, ricocheting off, stunning him. Then somebody grabbed my arm, pulling hard. Cy.
"Gid! We're out of here. Fall back, fall back! The frosties have overrun the area. We need to go."
A swift look around confirmed the truth. The frost giants were pouring through the gateway, and the courtyard was theirs. Most of the soldiers around me were dead and the few of us that were left would be in that category too if we didn't retreat, pronto.
"Human!" Bergelmir bellowed at me as Cy and I became part of a ragtag exodus from the courtyard. He was rubbery-legged, hand clamped to head. "I will tear out your liver and eat it before your eyes! I will cut a dozen wounds in you and shit in them all! I will drive this issgeisl up your arsehole 'til it comes out through the roof of your skull!"
"And for our second date...?" I shouted back.
Then we were behind an inner gate, which was hastily slammed shut and barred. The frost giants began hammering on it from the other side. The gate's timbers creaked and shuddered, the hinges groaned, but it held fast.
For now.
I snatched up my walkie-talkie and thumbed the Push-To-Talk button.
"All units, this is Gid. Sitrep?"
Vali's voice: "We're keeping them out, but not for much longer, I fear."
Vidar: "Same here. There are just too many."
Tyr: "They've broken through. Nothing we can do."
Freya: "Ammunition's starting to run out." She was up on the battlements, taking potshots. "I think I can last another quarter of an hour or so."
Skadi: "The Valkyries and I are doing what we can, but..."
The "but..." said it all.
Our situation was bleak and turning bleaker by the minute.
And then, just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse, they did.
Sixty-Five
The snow and the din of battle prevented us from hearing it until it was almost on top of us. It descended through the cloud cover, pushing out a great grey blister in the overcast's underside before bursting through. The size of a naval frigate, it was suspended in the air by ten gimbal-mounted fans, each at least twenty metres across. Its prow was peaked and its aft bulbous, and its hull boasted dozens of multidirectional automated machine guns which swivelled and traversed impressively. The name Nagelfar was painted along its keel in ten-foot-tall capitals, and as it swept overhead, passing across the castle, its fans chopped spirals in the falling snow, leaving white vortices in its wake.
Everyone stopped in their tracks and stared up at it. You couldn't not. For a time the battle halted as the immense vessel sailed over. Its shadow brought temporary respite from the blizzard, although the downdraught from its fans kicked up so much of the fallen snow that a whiteout followed immediately afterwards. When that had cleared, the thing could no longer be seen, although the dizzying drone of its engines could still be heard.
I dashed for the battlements and sprinted around to get a view of where the aircraft had gone. Freya met me as I stood gazing out.
Nagelfar was coming to rest beside Yggdrasil, not far from the slumped hulk of Jormungand and the scattered wreckage of Sleipnir, and within sight of the gutted Fenrir. It dwarfed them all, even the World Tree. It settled on its undercarriage like some leviathan queen taking her throne. The fans slowed and the fog of loose snow they'd thrown up from the nearby trees drifted down to earth.
Doors slid open all along its hull and ramps unfurled, telescoping out to touch the ground. Familiar shapes appeared in the doorways: the bulky outlines of tanksuits. They started down the ramps, and as they emerged into the daylight I saw they weren't quite the JOTUNs and SURTs I remembered. They trundled rather than walked. In place of legs they now had wheels, three on each side in triangle formation, yoked by caterpillar tracks. The heads were better armoured, sunk into the humps of the shoulders so that they protruded less, and instead of faceplates there were now visor slits. I recalled Mrs Keener on Bifrost saying that the tanksuit designs had been given an overhaul and an upgrade. Here, then, were the Mark II versions. Looking even deadlier and more fit for purpose than the originals. Oh happy day.
They rolled towards the castle, a good fifty of them all told, swishing through the slush and mud left behind by the frost giants' tramping feet.
I looked at Freya.
"You know I said Loki won't win?"
She nodded.
"I may have changed my mind."
Luckily, she thought I wasn't being serious.
I totally was.
Quickly as they could, Vali, Vidar and Tyr clambered inside our low-tech tanksuits, while Skadi was tasked with the mission of going to the t
roll pens and letting the unsanitary beasts loose.
Odin's sons battered their way through the frost giants to engage with the oncoming JOTUNs and SURTs outside. At the same time Skadi abseiled off the battlements on a rope, snapped on her skis, and scooted off. The frost giants, meanwhile, redoubled their efforts. The appearance of Nagelfar on the scene gave them an added boost, not that they really needed it. They'd already been shitting on us. Now, with Loki's third big monster-machine freshly arrived, they were shitting on us from an even greater height than before. Our forces were divided. We were taking flak on two fronts. The frosties scented just how badly we were in trouble and fought harder than ever to take the castle.
Vali, Vidar and Tyr did their very best out among the tanksuits. The JOTUNs and SURTs took a pasting. Improved or not, they met their match in the form of three righteously pissed-off gods in gnome-made iron outerwear. The tanksuits bundled in with their freeze rays and flamethrowers firing full throttle, and the Aesir knocked them back. It was a thing to see - a tanksuit spinning helplessly through the air, whacked clean off its wheelbase by a swipe from a clunky, metal-sheathed arm. One JOTUN got pounded into the ground, almost literally. Bashed on the bonce repeatedly until its wheels were submerged in the muddy soil. A SURT ended up so dented and misshapen, it was barely recognisable. The man inside was presumably no better off.
Then the trolls entered the fray. At least, most of them did. A couple showed more sense than I'd have credited a troll with and hurried off into the forest, avoiding the battle altogether. The rest, however, true to form, headed right into the midst of the fighting. Because the JOTUNs and SURTs looked to be the nastiest players on the pitch, naturally the trolls went for them rather than Odin's sons. Bursts of flame scorched the trolls' bodies, and subzero beams zapped them, and some fell, but the others piled on into the tanksuits, batting them aside, clobbering them, picking them up and tossing them around.
James Lovegrove - The Age Of Odin Page 35
