We got down to business preparing a - ho ho! - warm reception for the frost giants. No sooner were we done than they came at us once more, a fresh wave of them scrambling up the rubble, yowling and bellowing all the way.
"Fire!" I yelled into the walkie-talkie, but I wasn't referring to guns. All along the castle's western flank, men threw flash bombs onto the stacks of frostie corpses, which we'd laced with every kind of combustible liquid we could lay our hands on - fuel oil, lamp oil, diesel, petrol, even cooking fat. The bodies quickly became a great flaming barrier, a fiery screen with a dual function: it drove the attacking frost giants back, and the heat affected their weaponry and armour. Some of the ice-smiths' handiwork melted outright. Some of it held together, but was severely compromised - blades blunted, helmets and breastplates thinned.
Steaming, sodden, more vulnerable than before, the frost giants fled for the safety of the trees. Snipers on the battlements took them down as they ran. Freya was up there, leading the shooting, and her Lee-Enfield cracked rhythmically and repeatedly. I'd known she was a top-notch markswoman, but this was something else. No frostie she aimed at made it back to the forest. She would ratchet the rifle's bolt, sight, pull the trigger, and that was another of the big buggers flat on the deck. Reloading the five-round magazine took her next to no time, too.
The stench from the burning corpses was atrocious. All that fur and fatty flesh. And as the flames subsided and the acrid smoke cleared, out of the woods the frost giants came yet again. Now, though, they were closing in on the castle from all sides evenly, and I could tell they weren't going to converge on the breaches, not this time. Tried that twice and got nowhere. They went straight for the walls instead, and started to climb.
Boy, could they climb. The long talons on their hands and feet dug deep into the mortar and the cracks and crevices in the stonework, as effective as a mountaineer's ice picks and crampons. The frost giants swarmed up the walls like the biggest, ugliest, whitest spiders imaginable. We shot them down as they clambered, but there were masses of them and we weren't able to pick them off quickly enough. They began cresting the battlements, unslung their issgeisls and other weapons, and engaged with us in earnest.
All along the castle's rim, men and gods grappled with towering, shaggy monsters. Odin's sons were at the forefront. Vali, Vidar and Tyr despatched frost giants in all directions, sending bodies tumbling to the ground. The Valkyries were in the thick of it too, whooping high-pitched battlecries as they gunned frosties down. Skadi was there.
Sif too. Thor's missus hadn't struck me as the Xena Warrior Princess type. I'd written her off as pleasant but mousy, and assumed she would stick with Frigga, helping to care for the injured, but not a bit of it. She was Aesir, and that meant getting down and mixing it with the enemy at a time of crisis. The death of her beloved gave her added impetus. She was a little hellcat, eyes bloodshot, taking out her very considerable anguish on her late husband's favourite punchbags. Any frost giant who strayed into her path didn't live long to regret it.
Freya, of course, performed sterling work, and I did my bit. Gave a pretty good account of myself, in fact. Just let my inner berserker have free rein and went along for the ride. Up on the battlements, I forgot everything. I didn't feel anger or hatred or fear or regret. I didn't have any petty problems any more. Nothing bothered me or distracted me. I was pure purpose. I existed to do one thing and that was kill frost giants. They appeared, I did away with them. Some I shot, some I stabbed, whatever suited. I had my Minimi in one hand and an appropriated issgeisl in the other, and ploughed through their ranks, cold, unfeeling, inexhaustible. I could have gone on for ever. Time had no meaning; I measured my progress through the world in terms of enemies exterminated. The only clock that counted was the one that registered the racking up of dead frost giants.
This was what I did best, what I was made for. I wasn't a good husband. I wasn't a good father. Nature hadn't designed me to hold down a McJob and be Mr Domestic and live the cosy life. It had designed me to fight and slay. I had no other function. This - wading headlong into the enemy and mowing them down - was me.
And the blackness at the core of my being exulted. It screamed with a joy that was beyond happiness, beyond ecstasy, inexpressibly sweet and mindless. You couldn't get a high like it from any other source. Drink, drugs, unbridled sex, they paled by comparison. Poor substitutes. This was the real deal. Uncut. Raw. Mainline. Heavenly. The utter, unutterable bliss of not having to think, not having to feel, having only to recognise, react, and move on. See enemy. Kill enemy. Find next enemy. Repeat ad infinitum, or until the supply of opponents runs out.
The sun set. The sky greyed. There was that greenish glow on the western horizon that signified the last of the light. And when it was gone, that was when Bergelmir decided his troops had had enough for the day. Once again, the retreat was sounded, and the frost giants pulled back. Any that were still scaling the castle walls leapt back down to the ground and scurried off; any that were still on top of the walls did their best to make a getaway, and many succeeded. White silhouettes, they ghosted across the snow to the dark sanctuary of the woods.
We watched them go, knowing we hadn't won, knowing they'd be back tomorrow, but knowing too that we'd done as well as we could have hoped and better than anyone might have expected. After all, we were still holding the castle, weren't we? And as long as we had that, we had something.
Sixty-Two
I was keeping lookout in the ruined hollow that had been one of the castle bedrooms. Nothing was happening outside. Campfires winked in the forest, but there'd been no sign of any overt hostile activity. Bitterly cold air whistled in through the caved-in outer wall. The stars were out in their millions, each a fleck of ice. The moon was as round and hard as a cannonball.
Freya brought me a mug of tea. She knocked on the frame of the shattered door first, before entering.
"Didn't want to startle you," she said. "I know how easy you are to catch unawares."
I murdered that drink. Hot, milky, delicious. "You're a godsend," I told her when the mug was drained.
"Soldiers love their tea. If I've learned anything these past months, it's that. They can't function without it."
"An army marches on its stomach, but only if its stomach's got a brew inside. So, what's the news? How's everyone holding up?"
"Reasonably well. Thwaite, however..."
"How is old Face Fungus?" I asked, although her tone of voice had already told me.
"He didn't make it. Frigga gave him all the attention she could, but she's been run ragged, her power is stretched thin... and he just didn't have the strength."
"Bugger. Anything else I should know about?"
"Nothing much. I did come across two of your teammates arguing."
"Backdoor and who?"
"Not him. Cy and the Irishman."
"Paddy? Arguing with Cy? What about?"
"That I don't know. I came in at the end of it. They were in the banqueting hall. Paddy called Cy a name and walked out fuming. That was all I saw."
"Huh. Well, they're both big boys. They can sort themselves out. It's a pressure situation. There's bound to be some friction. I'll maybe have a chat with them later, but it's probably just them getting on each other's nerves. Nothing to worry about."
Freya sat down beside me at my vantage point, near enough that our thighs were not quite touching. She stared out into the darkness. "Quiet out there."
"I'd say 'too quiet,' but that'd be a movie cliché. Frosties seem bedded down for the night. Doubt they'll attack before daybreak."
"Agreed. They're re-equipping themselves. Their ice-smiths will be busy repairing weapons and casting new ones. Normally it's a week's work to shape a decent blade, but they can put together something makeshift in under an hour."
"Let 'em. Makes no difference. Whatever they throw at us, we can handle it."
"From anybody else I would call that bravado. From you - you really believe it, don't you?"
"Why not? It's the only way to think. Otherwise, might as well just give up and go home."
"Why haven't you?"
"Why haven't I what?"
"Gone home."
"Don't understand the question."
She nestled in close to me. We were definitely touching now, her body firm and tight against mine. Knowing Freya, this was purely pragmatic. Compensating for the freezing temperatures, shared physical warmth, all that. And yet, it wasn't. It was more.
"This isn't your fight," she said. "You're a soldier of fortune. You're here only because money is involved. But still, you're going to see this through to the end. You're happy to."
"Loki has to be stopped."
"Is that all?"
"Isn't it enough? Nobody on Midgard seems able to stand up to him, but we can."
"Can we? We've taken such dreadful losses."
"Still here, though, aren't we? Still standing."
"I'm just saying I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to quit."
"I wouldn't forgive myself if I did."
"Asgard isn't your world."
"It isn't yours either, lady from Vanaheim."
"True, but I have a blood connection to it. The Aesir are family."
"And I feel like I have a connection to it too. I liked Odin a lot. I even liked Thor, the great big buffoon. And..."
I almost said something about her. About liking her. More than liking. Her being the strongest of my connections to Asgard. But that might have spooked her. Worse, she might have just laughed scornfully, and I simply didn't want to take that chance. I wasn't scared of much but I was scared of Freya rejecting me. Better that she and I have this exclusively sexual thing going, keep it at that level. I could gamble on making it more than that, but I might well wind up broke if I did.
"And," I said, "I'm a bloke who finishes what he sets out to do. I don't leave a job half done. Especially this sort of job. It's just who I am, Freya. I've come to realise that. I'm not cut out for much except combat. It's my thing, what I'm built for. Which is pretty sad, when you come to think of it - that I'm not really a well-rounded person, that I'll never be content as a civilian, that fighting is all I have. But as Detective Harry Callahan famously once said, 'A man's gotta know his limitations,' and I now know mine.
"For a while, after I got dropped from the army, something was missing. Not the piece of my head that I left in Afghanistan. Something deeper, essential. A purpose. I lost that and had nothing to replace it with. Coming here was about getting a second chance, but turns out it was also about reconnecting with who I am - who I'm supposed to be."
She didn't comment, didn't tell me to stop droning on and shut up, so I carried on.
"I fight. I kill. I'm a man of war. I'm not particularly proud of it, but I'm not ashamed of it either. Plenty of soldiers hate war. Most, I'd say. It scars them, fucks them up for life. But they fight anyway, because they're brave and because it's expected of them. And I'm no less fucked up than anyone. You should see some of the nightmares I have. Wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy. But my one advantage is that I know that, come what may, I have an aptitude for soldiering. I know I do it well, better than anything else. That - what's the word? - mitigates things for me. Makes it easier to put up with the rest of the shit that comes with the profession. Life hasn't given me a better alternative, so grin and bear it, eh?"
Her head snugged into the contours of my neck. Her shoulder pressed against my pectoral. Her hair smelled faintly, deliciously, of pine forests and ozone.
"And I'm not scared," I said. "Even if we lose to Loki - which we won't - I can accept it. I won't mind dying if it means I've done my bit trying to foil his plans. Bullying bastards like him can't be allowed to go unchecked. They have to be challenged, faced down, given a damn good slap if that's what's required. And above all else I know that this is the upside of me being such a full-on battlefield hardcase. I can use it in the name of what's right. Cloud, silver lining. I've been gifted with the ability to kick arses and the good sense to know which are the arses needing to be kicked. And that's... Freya?"
My only answer was a soft snore.
I smiled to myself. A Vanir goddess needed her beauty sleep as much as the next person.
I did something then that I never thought I'd do with Freya. Tenderly, I kissed the top of her head. She stirred, mumbled what might have been a complaint, then settled down again.
The wind hissed.
The castle slumbered.
It was a good night.
The best.
Sixty-Three
Screams broke the dawn hush.
I snapped awake and was on my feet in a moment. Freya was up too, and already at the room's empty socket of a window. She was staring out towards Yggdrasil, where the commotion was coming from. Low grey cloud carpeted the sky, hazing the World Tree's uppermost branches. There'd be snow soon, lots of it.
"What's going on?"
"Deserters."
"What! No fucking way."
"Look."
Over by Yggdrasil, frost giants were milling about in a cluster, very busy. There were men among them. Uniformed. Ours. They were the ones screaming. Protesting. Pleading.
"Shit," I breathed. "How can you be sure they're deserters? Couldn't the frosties have just captured them?"
"Without a firefight? Without any of us hearing gunshots? I don't think so. And why else would anyone have left the castle, if not to desert?"
She was right, damn her. I gauged the range from us to the World Tree. Too far. The frost giants were armoured. Our rifles were no good. We couldn't help. All we could do was watch as a couple of the frost giants picked up the first of the men by his arms and raised him high. Then in a series of quick, brutally decisive movements they pinned him to Yggdrasil's trunk, skewering ice daggers through his wrists and calves. He howled and roared in hopeless torment. The other men were dealt with in the same way, until all of them, eleven in total, were impaled on the tree.
Their grisly task completed, the frost giants disappeared back into the forest. One of them turned towards the castle before he left. Even at a distance I recognised the posture, the air of pompous authority. Bergelmir.
"They came to us in the night," he called out, in no doubt that there was an audience to be addressed. "They came without weapons, seeking peace and the freedom to return to Midgard unmolested. They said they'd had enough of fighting. They were sick and tired of it. With Odin gone, they said, their cause was lost. Battling on would be futile. The odds against them were hopeless." He gestured at the squirming, crucified men. "This is our response. We jotuns do not let our enemies go unpunished. Nor do we know the meaning of mercy."
Then he was gone, while the men fixed to the World Tree screamed on.
"He mocks us," Freya snarled. "He mocks the All-Father's time of trial."
"Let's get out there. Get them down."
"No. We can't risk it. Bergelmir will be waiting for us to do just that. Those men aren't only an object lesson, they're bait. Besides, it will take us several minutes to organise a rescue party and reach them. Shock and blood loss will have already done for them by then."
"So we just leave them hanging there, is that it?"
"There is another way." She raised her Lee-Enfield. "Jotuns may not understand mercy, but I do."
"No."
"Yes, Gid. You know this is the right course of action. The only course of action."
"Freya, don't."
"I'm not asking your permission. If you're squeamish, look away."
But I didn't.
Eleven rifle reports. Eleven shots straight through the heart. Eleven suspended bodies twitching, falling silent and still.
It wasn't until an hour later that I discovered that Paddy was one of the eleven. Their ringleader, in fact. Cy told me over breakfast, after I'd asked where our tame Irishman was.
Absolute gut punch. Left me gaping.
"Paddy?" I said. "But..."
"You didn't realise?"
Numbly I shook my head. "I couldn't make out any of their faces. Haven't checked since. Paddy? You're sure?"
Cy nodded.
"Fuck. Fuck the fucking fucker."
"I know. I can't believe it either."
"But he was, you know, one of us. One of the gang. He was probably the last person I'd have expected to wimp out on us. Wait. Didn't you and him have a bit of a barney last night?"
"Yeah. Who told you?"
"Little dicky bird. What was it about? You piss him off somehow?"
"No. Well, yeah, a little. But it wasn't like that. That wasn't why he went out. He came to me, and he was well fed up. Said some stuff about nobody being in charge any more, this was turning into a slaughter, the frosties would just keep coming at us 'til they'd polished us all off. Asked me if I'd join him in a walkout. I told him not to be so defeatist. It got heated. I may've even called him a coward. Paddy got the hump and flounced off. That was it. I honestly didn't think he was going to go through with it. I thought it was just talk, him letting off some steam."
"He thought he could negotiate with the frosties? Persuade them to let him through their lines?"
"Apparently."
"For such a smart man, he was a stupid arse, then, wasn't he?"
"Smart was Paddy's problem, if you ask me. Overthinking things. Trusting the frosties would listen to reason. Assuming they'd act honourably under the circumstances. Those are mistakes a smart person makes."
"Yeah, we're well past the honourable stage with them. It's just about winning or losing now. Living or dying." I sighed. "Paddy... you big Irish twat."
"Suppose we should be grateful he only managed to get ten men to go with him," Cy said. "Could've been worse. Could've been more."
"Is that the general mood? Could there have been more?"
"Honestly, bruv?"
"Go on," I said, knowing I wouldn't like what he had to say.
"Yeah. There's a lot of unhappy fellas here, Gid. Lot of people wondering if it's worth it any more, if we in't on a hiding to nothing. Odin's gone. So's Thor. We're down by our two biggest players, and no disrespect to Vidar, Vali and Tyr but they're none of 'em in the same league. Strong all right, but they don't fill the hole. Don't carry the same weight. And there's however many frosties out there, not to mention Loki. Fuck knows what he's still got in the pipeline, but it's bound to be something big and nasty if what we've seen so far is anything to go by. There's men here who reckon Pads and the others had the right idea."
Age of Odin Page 34