James Lovegrove - The Age Of Odin (54 page)

"A condo in Miami too, don't forget that," said Mrs Keener.

"Yeah, my very own place in the sun. For when the Fimbulwinter's over and the climate goes back to normal. US citizenship thrown in as well. Everything, Gid. The total package. The boy from Bermondsey, all set to start a new life as a high-roller in America, a player. Sweet."

"You must be so proud of yourself."

"Oh, I am, mate, trust me."

"But it's tainted money. Blood money. You'll never enjoy spending it."

"Who the fuck are you to judge me?" he spat. "What'd you come here for, if it wasn't to earn cash for killing? If that in't blood money, I dunno what is."

"I'm a soldier. It's what I do. You're a bottom-feeding scumbag. There's a difference."

"Yeah? Well, if so, I'm a scumbag who's standing here a free man, on the winning side, while you, soldier boy, are stuck there like a fly in a web, waiting to have your fucking lungs pulled out. So much for principles, eh? Where's that got you?"

"Really!" said Bergelmir with an exasperated grunt. "Isn't it time the bickering ended and we got down to business?"

"Bergelmir has a point," said Mrs Keener. "Much as I love the sight of two grown men waving their manhoods at each other, I think we need to carry on with the show. There's folk here standing in the cold who want this to be over with. Let's not keep 'em on tenterhooks any longer."

"At last!" Bergelmir took up position behind me.

I peered up at the castle.

Come on, Heimdall, get a bloody wriggle on. Now or never
.

"You're the famous chatterbox, Gid," said Mrs Keener. "No parting words? No last pearls of wisdom before the knife goes in?"

"Yeah." I was looking at the Norns. As one, Urd, Verdande and Skuld turned their heads towards the castle and back again. They knew. Their shared secret smile told the tale.

"Go on, then. Enlighten us all."

"Don't miss, Heimdall."

I didn't say it loud. If his ears were back to their usual, ultra-sensitive selves, he would hear me, and if they weren't, it didn't matter.

Lines of puzzlement creased Mrs Keener's forehead, rapidly morphing into ridges of surprise as the truth dawned and her eyebrows went up.

Then a bullet smacked into her face, and she had no forehead at all.

Seventy-One

Everything happened quickly after that.

Even before Mrs Keener's body hit the scaffold planks, Heimdall loosed off a second shot. This one had a dual function, zinging through the rope that secured my right arm and hitting Bergelmir behind me. I heard him give a squawk of agony and drop the ice knife with a clatter.

With my arm suddenly free I swung sideways, twisting within the frame. I held my left arm rigid to stabilise myself, then started trying to undo the knot around my left wrist.

Heimdall saved me the bother by severing that rope as well.

Next thing I knew, I was on my knees on the platform. Doubling round, I began fumbling with the knots at my ankles. I knew I hadn't much time. I needed to release myself before someone collected their wits and made a move to stop me. All around, there was consternation. Frost giants yelling, babbling. Stunned expressions everywhere. Mrs Keener was dead. Loki! They couldn't believe it.

The human onlookers couldn't either. I sensed, more than saw, a surge of astonished delight within the crowd. And something else - a swell of activity, motion, a sharply rising floodtide. They had an opening, right now, while the enemy was still in shock and disarray. A window of opportunity. If there was ever a time for a violent insurrection, this was it.

Success! I got one of the knots undone.

Then a shadow loomed over me. Bergelmir. His right arm hung limp, blood from a bullet hole in his shoulder mingling with the pints of Backdoor's blood already matting his fur. He growled in pure bestial fury and swung at me with his left paw.

I ducked under the blow and scrambled away from him on hands and knees. The rope still tethering one ankle caught me up short. Bergelmir threw himself onto me flat out, like a wrestler doing a body slam, and I rolled out of his path. More by luck than anything I found myself within reach of the dropped ice knife, and snatched it up. The freezing cold of the handle seared my palm.

Bergelmir was on his feet too. He'd removed his armour for the execution, which made my life easier. I lashed out at his leg, slicing the shin open to the bone, and he reeled back, hissing, but was on the attack again in an instant. I struck again with the knife but missed, and his foot made contact, kicking me full in the jaw. My head snapped back and two molars were knocked clean out of their gum sockets. I had never been kicked so hard by anyone. I fetched up lying on my side, the world seesawing sickeningly around me, blood bubbling out over my lips.

Bergelmir charged, intent of following up the first kick with a second one, this time to the kidneys, and a bullet whanged into the planks in front of him, sending up a spray of splinters. Heimdall had no doubt been aiming at Bergelmir himself, but now that his targets were moving he wasn't so accurate.

The shot made Bergelmir hesitate, at least. Briefly, but long enough. I roused myself.
Shift your arse, Gid!
I sprang to my feet, knife hand extended, using the momentum of the action to carry the blade forwards. It sank into Bergelmir's thigh up to the hilt, and I yanked it out. Blood geysered; I'd got the femoral artery, just as I'd hoped. Bergelmir attempted to stem the blood flow, but it just welled out around his frantic hand. He gave up, and turned on me. He took two steps, and I retreated. He grabbed for me, futilely, his eyes clouding. Another step. His blood was hosing all over the platform, forming a small lake. His giant body sagged visibly as the life was decanted out of him.

One further step brought him within reach of me, but he tottered, and then slumped to his knees.

I contemplated slashing his throat, making it quick for him. I decided against.

He saw it in my eyes. He settled back on his haunches, both arms dangling now, knuckles to wood. Words rattled out of his throat.

"You... damn you..." he said. "A mere human... I do not yield..."

And then his head nodded forwards and he was gone.

A swift assessment of the state of play beyond the scaffold told me that the Asgardian uprising was going well. Encouraged by Vidar, men and gods alike were grappling with the frost giants in a fervour.
Issgeisl
s and other handweapons had been wrenched from their owners' grasps and were being put to use against them. The frosties had the numbers but our side had the advantages of surprise and determination. It helped that the opposition were doubly leaderless now, what with Mrs Keener and Bergelmir both having been scratched off the score card in swift succession. All at once they had no one to rally them, no one to inspire them. Too many unexpected events were taking place at once. The reversal in their fortune was cumulative, like an avalanche, gaining impetus as it went.

A few of the frost giants went for the better-part-of-valour option and fled the scene. When others saw this, they panicked and copied them. Soon it was a mass exodus, a thundering stampede for the forest. The frost giants were thoroughly routed. Those that remained - and there weren't many - stood their ground bravely, but our lot swarmed over them, Vidar, Skadi and Freya to the fore. Heimdall contributed from up on the castle turret, sniping until his ammo ran out. Before long, there wasn't a single living frostie to be seen from the castle.

Our human enemies had observed which way the tide was turning and were beating a hasty retreat of their own. I saw them making for
Nagelfar
in an unruly herd. Among the bobbing heads was one with a set of peroxide cornrows.

The blackness in me snarled.

Cy.

I sprinted for the scaffold steps, hurdling the near-headless remains of Mrs Keener. My own bullet hadn't been capable of killing her, but Heimdall's certainly had. It was a case of right time, right place, right assassin. The look on the Norns' faces immediately before he fired had said that this was how it was supposed to be. Loki's life was meant to be ended by Asgard's gatekeeper. No one else but Heimdall could close the book on the great trickster. Loki's fate was written that way.

Freya hailed me as I ran past. I gestured towards
Nagelfar
, and it was then that I realised I was still holding Bergelmir's knife. My hand was clamped round it, and it dawned on me that I couldn't actually let go even if I wanted to. My skin was stuck fast to the handle.

Nagelfar'
s fans started whirring and the ramps began to retract. Airborne dreadnought had just become refugee vessel. I leapt onto the nearest ramp as it rose and scurried up it like a rat up a drainpipe. The door ahead of me was closing, and I heard Freya shouting from the ground below, telling me to jump off, I wasn't going to make it. But I was. I fucking well was.

I reached the door. It had very nearly slid to. Elongating my body, I daggered through the narrow gap. The door clanged shut.

Nagelfar
then gave a shudder and a lurch. Its entire frame shook mightily as it hoisted itself off from the permafrosted earth.

There was me aboard, its crew, and a handful of American mercenaries.

I wasn't bothered about any of
them
. They could live or die, I didn't give a shit.

There was only one person on that ship I cared about.

It was me and Cy now. I was going to find him and kill him, and God help any bastard who got in my way.

Seventy-Two

I headed forward to the bridge. It seemed the likeliest place to start looking.

By the time I got there I'd already run into a few of the bad guys. I couldn't recall precisely what had happened during these encounters. All I knew was that the ice knife was even bloodier than it had been before.

The bridge was a kind of gallery affair with a broad, curved windscreen overlooking
Nagelfar'
s prow. The five-strong crew were busy arguing as I arrived. One man, clearly the captain, was demanding that a course be set for Svartalfheim. Two pilots, seated at computer-controlled flying stations, disagreed. They were in favour of attacking the people on the ground with
Nagelfar'
s guns. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, they said. There'd never be a chance like this again.

Voices rose. The captain wasn't managing to assert his authority. The chain of command had broken down, a sure sign of a retreat turning into a shambles.

I slit the captain's throat in mid-sentence. He was so involved in the argument that he never heard me approach.

A navigator went next. By that point the two pilots had realised they were in the shit, and decided to go on the offensive with
Nagelfar
while they still could. Maybe they thought they could hold me to ransom by turning the ship's guns on my comrades. Maybe they thought this would deter me somehow.

When I was finished with them, I rounded on the fifth man. He was young, a subaltern or some such. Completely bricking it.

"Can you fly this thing?" I asked.

He shook his head. "N-no. I'm only a j-junior rating. You n-need two men anyway."

"So I've effectively crashed us then?"

He nodded. "Y-yes sir."

The blackness in me wasn't bothered. The blackness didn't have much interest in self-preservation. That wasn't the way it worked.

"Oops," I said.

Thwunk!

That was the sound of a punch coming out of nowhere, connecting with my skull. My head whiplashed sideways. Neck tendons cracked.

Thwunk!

A second punch, even harder than the first. The whole of my right cheek went numb, then suddenly seemed to expand like a piece of popcorn in the microwave, puffing out with pain. I said goodbye to another molar.

"Whoof!"

That was the breath being driven from my lungs by a fist ramming into my stomach with the force of a steam piston. The tooth was expelled along with it.

"Cunt."

That was Cy, looking down on me as I crawled on all fours at his feet. I was wheezing, and my head was a squall of sirens, my vision wavering as though I was underwater.

He booted me in the midriff, spinning me over onto my back. I tried to lift the knife. He stamped on my wrist, crushing it to the floor.

Alarms wailed on the bridge. Red lights whirled and flashed. The deck began tilting beneath us, and I could hear
Nagelfar'
s engines churning asynchronously. The ship was fighting to keep itself in the air, and failing.

If Cy was at all worried that
Nagelfar
was going down, he didn't show it.

"I've been itching to give you a good going over," he said. "Just to prove I'm the better man."

"Jury's still out on that," I managed to mumble through swelling lips.

Cy leant down and belted me full in the nose. I felt the
snap
of bone breaking, an electric jolt all the way up into my sinuses.