The Valhalla Prophecy

by Andy McDermott

  He wasn’t fast enough. Another burst from the AK-12 hit home. He screamed, losing his footing and plunging into the eitr. Sizzling steam gushed up around him as he sank into the turgid depths.

  “Get Thor’s Hammer down to the lake!” Kagan called to Berkeley, who was unsteadily picking his way down the wall. “I’ll get Lock!” He made a running jump to another spar to intercept the American and his follower.

  Nina turned her attention back to Eddie, whose battle with Hoyt had taken them out of sight behind more crystal columns. “God damn it!” she spat. She slung the rifle, then searched for a line of sight.

  Below, Eddie was still on the defensive as Hoyt forced him ever closer to the edge of the eitr. The mercenary’s height advantage over the former SAS soldier also gave him greater reach, and he was making full use of it, able to strike repeatedly while preventing Eddie from retaliating. “Looks like you screwed it all up again, Chase!” said the American, feigning an attack with his right hand only to dart in with a painful punch from his left. “I guess failing’s what you’re best at, huh?” Another blow, the Englishman barely deflecting it.

  “You don’t fucking know me,” Eddie growled.

  “Neither does your wife up there! You didn’t tell her you murdered the girl you were supposed to rescue? I’d call that a major-league fuckup!”

  Another punch rushed at Eddie’s head—

  This time he wasn’t quite fast enough to block it, taking a sense-jangling blow that left him staggering. One foot came down heavily on a crystal shard—which sank, forcing up a boil of dark slime. Only the Yorkshireman’s reflexes kept his boot from slipping into the eitr, but he still stumbled backward against one of the large vertical pillars.

  Hoyt saw his chance and aimed a vicious kick at his adversary’s groin. Eddie snapped down his right arm to shield himself from a blow that would have ended the fight on the spot—but still screamed at a searing bolt of pain as the American’s steel-toed boot fractured one of the bones in his hand.

  The mercenary struck again, this time slamming a knee up into his stomach. Choking and sickened, Eddie slumped against the base of the column.

  Hoyt drew back to deliver a kick to the winded man’s face—then spotted something at his feet and picked it up instead. It was a shard of black crystal, over a foot long, with a razor-edged tip as sharp as a spear point. He grinned as he raised it, ready to plunge it into Eddie’s throat. “Been waiting eight years for this—”

  Blood and shredded flesh burst from his shoulder.

  Hoyt reeled, staring in shocked agony at the bullet’s exit wound—as Eddie fought through the pain of his own injuries and grabbed the black dagger, twisting it to point vertically. “Me too.”

  He sprang from the floor, all his strength driving the shard upward into Hoyt’s jaw.

  The tip stabbed through the tissue under the mercenary’s chin, tearing through his tongue and the soft palate above before striking and snapping bone. A wet crackle came from inside the American’s skull.

  Hoyt stared in bug-eyed horror at Eddie, too shocked to move—and unable to scream with his airways choked by gushing blood. The Englishman twisted the spike, corkscrewing it deeper into his enemy’s brain. “I didn’t fail,” he said in a growling whisper. “I won. I beat you eight years ago, you just didn’t know it …” He yanked out the shard, more blood sluicing from the gaping hole under the mercenary’s jaw. “And I won again now.”

  Hoyt clawed desperately at his torn throat, then slumped to his knees, a strangled rattling sound escaping his gaping mouth. The Yorkshireman stared coldly at him for a moment—before launching into sudden movement. “Now fuck off!” he roared, kicking Hoyt hard in the side of his head and bowling him into the lake.

  The mercenary was still alive as the steaming black ooze swallowed him. His skin sizzled on contact with the lethal poison, a gurgling howl finally escaping from Hoyt’s mouth as the eitr bubbled up over his neck, his face … and then he was gone, nothing but sludgy ripples left to mark his passing.

  Eddie dropped the gore-soaked dagger and wearily turned to find his savior. It took him a moment to spot Nina in the shaft high above; she’d found a clear firing angle between the crystalline pillars. “Are you okay?” she asked anxiously.

  “Just about,” he called back. “But it would’ve been a lot easier if you’d aimed at his head.”

  She raised the AK-12 with a helpless shrug. “I did!”

  He managed a pained smile, then heard another shout from above. “Nina!” cried Berkeley. He had reached Thor’s Hammer. “I’ve got it, I’ve got the—”

  Another burst of gunfire echoed through the chamber. Not from Nina’s AK-12, but a SIG.

  “Logan!” she cried, seeing her former colleague flinch, then collapse. Lines of dark red trickled down Berkeley’s coat from the three scorched bullet holes across his chest.

  35

  Orbach lowered his rifle. “Good shot,” Lock told him. “Now keep moving.” He pointed to a nearby crystal span that angled upward. “That way.”

  Nina was still above the pair. She brought her Kalashnikov around, but from her current position couldn’t see them through the serpentine columns. “Oh my God, Logan!” She looked back at the other archaeologist. “Logan, can you hear me?”

  He was still for a moment, then slowly raised his head. “Nina, I …” he gasped, blood oozing from the side of his mouth. “I’m sorry, I … I messed up. But at least … I can do this.”

  With his dying breath, he stretched out a trembling arm—and pushed the steel canister over the edge.

  The heavy container plunged down the shaft—

  It hit a damaged crystal lancing across the cavern about ten feet above Eddie. Glassy splinters showered over him, but the metal vessel didn’t fall any farther, wedged into the broken surface.

  “Eddie!” Nina shouted from high above. “It’s Thor’s Hammer—get it to the eitr!”

  He searched for a way to reach it. A pillar rose at an angle close to the canister. Weaving around the pools of eitr bubbling up through the rubble, he headed toward it.

  Lock had also seen Thor’s Hammer fall. “Dammit!” he snarled, pausing midway through his climb to another ascending spar. “Orbach, don’t let him reach that cylinder! Take him out!”

  Orbach stopped and looked down the shaft, finding that Eddie was partially obscured behind a damaged spire. The American put down the eitr, propping the sealed container against a stubby spike jutting from the span beneath his feet and backing up to find a clear line of fire.

  Orbach only had to move a couple of yards to get an unobstructed view. The SIG locked on to its target …

  The crunch and scrabble of running footsteps came from one side, above him.

  Orbach looked up—as Kagan leapt from a higher crossing to slam down beside the eitr canister, AK-12 in one hand.

  The mercenary whirled—

  Kagan was quicker.

  The Kalashnikov’s thudding bark echoed through the shaft, a burst of bullets stitching bloody rents across Orbach’s torso. The spasming American fell over the edge back into the cavern below. The point of a stalagmite was waiting for him, the man’s agonized scream cut short as he was impaled on the ragged spike.

  The Russian turned, drawing back one foot to kick the eitr sample into the pit below—

  A single gunshot came from behind him.

  Kagan let out a startled gasp, shock blotting out the pain of the bullet that had just ripped into his back. The AK fell from his hands and dropped down the shaft. He tried to complete his movement, to send the eitr over the edge … but his body would not cooperate. His knees buckled, and he slumped across the top of the spar, legs hanging over one side. The canister was just out of reach, and the mere act of reaching for it shifted his balance, the weight of his lower body slowly dragging him over the edge.

  Lock jumped back down and advanced on him, faint wisps of smoke still streaming from the barrel of his handgun. “You made the same mista
ke Chase did in ’Nam, my friend,” he said smugly. “The guy giving the orders—you thought he never gets his hands dirty, huh? Afraid not.” He reached the fallen Russian. “And you want to know something else, Kagan? Back in Vietnam, you went to all that trouble to find out what you could about the eitr from that girl—but there was nothing to learn!”

  Kagan forced out words, tasting blood. “What … do you mean?”

  “The BSA had already secretly taken samples from her before she even left Germany, but the results were worthless. We didn’t find out anything about the nature of the eitr from her … but we used Slavin to make you think that you could. She was just a decoy, a way for us to learn about your lines of research.” Lock leaned closer, gloating. “You exposed Unit 201 for nothing! I just wanted you to know before you died—payback for all the trouble you caused me in Washington, you bastard.”

  And with that, he raised his boot to Kagan’s head, about to shove him over the edge—

  “No!” Nina cried. She had moved across the shaft to get line of sight on Lock below, emerging from cover by one of the light globes. The surprised American raised his gun, but Nina had already lined up her AK-12 …

  She fired—just as Lock jinked sideways. The single bullet shredded his left sleeve, a small puff of blood among the torn material. Lock barked in pain, but the wound was only superficial.

  And the charging handle of Nina’s gun had locked back with a sharp clack. She had used most of the AK’s ammunition fighting the wolves, and now the rifle was empty.

  Lock recovered from the shock of his injury. He took aim at her, a tight smile of triumph twisting his face—

  Nina kicked the light globe like an oversized football, sending it sailing across the gap at Lock.

  He fired. The bullet punctured the inflated latex sphere, but cracked against the cluster of LEDs and batteries at its heart rather than continuing through. Before he could react, the deflating globe hit him and knocked him back.

  He gasped in sudden fear as he lost his footing—and fell.

  The drop was only eight feet, onto a narrower span below. He clawed desperately for grip to save himself from another, deadly plunge, but was forced to let go of his gun. The weapon spun down the shaft and vanished into the glutinous void.

  Kagan’s slide continued inexorably, the Russian’s grip faltering. “Grigory!” Nina called, scurrying to a position where she could jump to reach him. “Hang on, I’m coming!”

  “No …,” Kagan growled. His waist was now over the side, only his hold on the edge of the crystal keeping him from falling. “I am … gone. But so is … the eitr!”

  “Don’t!” shouted Nina, but too late.

  Kagan dug the nails of his left hand into the scabrous surface and lashed with his right at the container of eitr. His fingers just caught it, jarring it loose from where it had been wedged—but the movement cost him his life. He slipped and plummeted without a sound, hitting the eitr lake with a flat splash and vanishing forever beneath the oily liquid.

  The canister wobbled … then tipped over the edge—

  Its strap caught on the crystal spike.

  Nina and Lock were both frozen for a moment, staring at the steel cylinder as it swung above the cavern—then they burst into motion, Lock dragging himself up to reach it from below as Nina dropped the empty AK-12 and leapt across to the span from which Kagan had fallen.

  Eddie reached the canister containing Thor’s Hammer. He had heard the gunshots from above and was filled with fear for his wife, but he could do nothing to help her. Instead, he picked up the heavy steel container and jumped back down to the unstable island of rubble, debris crunching and shifting beneath his feet.

  There was a handgrip set into a recess in the lid. Holding the cylinder as steady as he could, he clenched his fist around it and twisted. A moment of worry as it refused to move; then he felt the seal give as he applied more force. Still unscrewing the lid, he made his way to the broken shoreline.

  At first he thought that the level of the eitr had risen, but then he realized that the smashed crystal remnants on which he was standing were sinking into the ooze. Black boils swelled all around him, threatening to burst. “Let’s fucking get this over with,” he muttered, coughing as the acrid vapor rising from the lake stung his nose and throat.

  Another turn—and the lid came free.

  He tossed it aside, seeing what was inside the canister for the first time. Article 3472—Thor’s Hammer—was, like the substance it was intended to counter, a thick black slime, a new and even more foul odor coming from it. Eddie recoiled; while the fumes from the eitr might not be lethal, he had no idea if the same was true of its counter-agent.

  The rubble shifted beneath him, the liquid lapping closer to his boots. He took a step back, supporting the container with both hands. No time for speeches, or even smart-arse comments: He knew what he had to do.

  With a grunt, he lobbed Thor’s Hammer into the eitr.

  The container flipped over as it arced down toward the heart of the lake. The black fluid sluiced out. The effect was immediate as it splashed into the eitr, a sizzling reaction sending up bursts of steaming vapor. A moment later the canister hit the surface with a wet smack and sank out of sight …

  The eitr immediately began to change.

  A swirling, churning whirlpool of froth erupted where the cylinder had landed, and around it the glistening black oil turned a dull, sickly gray, the metamorphosis sweeping outward.

  As it reached the base of the great crystals, they too changed. Black scales turned gray, then flaked and crumbled, stress fractures stabbing upward through the dark spires. One spar, angling almost horizontally from the surface until it hit the cavern’s far wall, collapsed into the lake of ooze with a thunderous boom. Whatever else Thor’s Hammer was doing to the eitr, it was clearly also affecting the crystals that had grown from it, removing the slight flexibility in their structure that had allowed them to curl and zigzag up the shaft like serpents—and without it, the huge natural formations were unable to support their own weight.

  More crystals splintered with gunfire cracks as the discoloration seeped upward. Eddie saw that his position was more dangerous than ever, any doubts disappearing when one of the light globes floating on the eitr ruptured as the sizzling froth ate through it. “Oh, fuckeration!” he yelped, jumping back from the lake’s edge as it crumbled and sank into the slime.

  He ran for the crystal that Lock had used to make his ascent, hoping it would survive long enough for him to follow the American’s route upward—but swerved as he spotted his Wildey. The rubble beneath it was being eaten away by the chemical reaction spreading through the eitr, and the toxic substance was surging up from below, about to swallow the weapon—

  Eddie snatched up the gun just before the liquid claimed it. “No you fucking don’t!” he gasped, changing course back to his escape route and pounding up it as fast as he dared. The span shifted under his weight, pieces shearing away where it scraped against other crystals below it.

  Nina made an awkward landing, having to drop to all fours to keep her balance on the crystal bridge. She gripped it for a few seconds until she had stabilized, then looked down to locate Lock and the eitr canister.

  The latter was still swaying from the jutting black spike, the green LED glowing. Lock was below it, standing on another span and reaching up for his prize—

  Still on her knees, she lunged just as he clamped his hands around the sides of the cylinder and jerked it upward to flick it free. She grabbed the strap as it fell away—but was now caught in a tug-of-war against a much stronger and heavier opponent. And Lock had secure footing, while she was unbalanced, arms outstretched as she struggled to keep her knees on the crossing’s upper facet. She pulled as hard as she could, trying to snatch the canister from Lock’s grip …

  It wasn’t enough.

  A sharp yank from below tipped her forward—and for the second time in mere minutes an awful shock of fear slammed her heart
as she fell.

  She screamed—only for it to be cut off as she slammed to a joint-straining halt.

  The strap had caught again, this time over the top of a cluster of larger spikes stabbing out from the flank of the crystalline span. They creaked alarmingly, black turning almost to white as fracture lines formed, but held firm. She was dangling just a couple of feet from Lock, but while he was standing firm on the narrow crossing, there was nothing below her except the now seething surface of the eitr lake. Eddie must have used Thor’s Hammer, she told herself as she glanced down, but that gave her neither help nor comfort.

  She looked back at Lock. He was still gripping the inverted canister with both raised hands, but with Nina’s entire weight now pulling against it was straining to keep his hold on the slick metal. If he let go, Nina would drop to her death—but he would also lose the eitr sample.

  If he leaned across to kick Nina loose, however, the container would drop neatly back into his arms as she fell …

  Lock had realized this too. His knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the stainless-steel cylinder; then he hesitantly lifted one leg to check that he could maintain his balance—before lashing out.

  The toe of his boot hit Nina’s calf. She imprisoned a cry behind clenched teeth, squeezing her hands more tightly around the strap. Another blow, this one less painful, but Lock was already lining up for a third strike. She looked up. The strap was bunched in her grasp. She jerked one hand, clamping it back around the tough woven nylon and pulling herself upward by a few inches.

  Lock redirected his attack as Nina dragged herself up by another palm’s-width. His boot cracked viciously against her ankle, her own sturdy Arctic footwear saving her from an agonizing injury. Even so, she squealed in pain as she dragged herself higher once more.

  “Goddammit, woman, you don’t know when you’re beaten,” he growled. “Just give it up!” He struck again, this time landing a solid hit on her shin. Nina shrieked, the muscles in her hands burning as she clutched her lifeline. “The eitr’s mine!”