A swipe from one paw clipped my calf and upended me. I crashed and rolled. The beast was on top of me. I looked up, and couldn't comprehend what I saw.
Not a bear.
Something else. I didn't know what.
But whatever it was, it was worse than any bear. Way worse.
Fifteen
Abominable snowmen.
They grunted and cavorted around me. Some prodded me with clawed fingertips. Others shoved their faces into mine and snarled. Worst. Halitosis. Ever.
I couldn't move. Spreadeagled on the floor of a huge ice cavern, with my hands and feet bound. Bound by manacles of ice. I'd been held down and water had been poured repeatedly over the ends of my limbs until it froze them to the spot, each under a small rough glistening igloo. The cold burned. If not for my gloves and boots, I'd have been suffering extreme frostbite by now, the kind that ends up costing you fingers and toes.
And still the abominable snowmen, the yetis, these oversized white-furred gorilla men, leered and stamped and yammered. I was some sort of trophy, something for them to crow over and beat their breasts about. A prize. An object of triumph and derision. One of them, to show his contempt, even squatted over me, spread his buttocks and farted full-on in my face — and if I'd thought their breath was bad, it was nothing compared to what came out the other end. I gagged for several minutes and believed air would never smell sweet again.
The whole situation was bizarre, deranged, beyond all normal parameters, yet oddly I was taking it in my stride. Maybe if I'd been thinking clearly I would have been able to see the sheer wrongness of it all, and then I would no doubt have begun screaming like a loon. But I was dazed and it all seemed like a bit of a dream, from the moment I trashed the snowmobile onward. Being carried for miles slung over the yeti's shoulders, bumping along across an arctic wasteland similar to the Canadian tundra in winter, descending through the terminus of a glacier into a network of ice tunnels and caves, entering this cavern with its strangely delicate-looking ribbed and scooped surfaces, being manacled with freezing water, the lot of it, nothing more than a fevered delusion.
All at once, the abominable snowmen stopped their gibbering and monkeying about. Someone had entered the cavern, an imposing presence whose arrival commanded respect and hush. I craned my neck. Another yeti. They were all of them tall, none less than ten feet and many taller, but this one the largest by far, fully twice my own height. The others parted ranks to let him through. He was obviously the CO here, the big cheese, the abominable snowman-in-charge. He hulked over to me, long arms swinging. He circuited my sprawled body a couple of times, appraising. Then he bent down and took a long, hard sniff, running his pug nose across me from top to toe, spending longest at my neck and groin.
"Good thing I remembered to shower this morning," I quipped.
The boss snowman acted as though I hadn't spoken. Raising his huge head, he poked me with a knuckle. He probed, soon finding where I had been injured. First my shoulder, still tender from the dislocation. Then his finger moved to my ribs, the broken pair, gentle at first, then digging firmly in. He might as well have been using an electric drill. I gritted my teeth. It took everything I had not to gasp and cry out.
Finally, he stood.
"Not in perfect condition," he said, "but fit enough. He'll do."
They could speak. The yetis could talk.
It was a hideous sound, like gravel and sand going round in a cement mixed, but it was still unmistakably speech.
"The stink of the Aesir is on him," the head yeti went on. "Odin has touched him. Frigga too, and the Valkyries. And the hated Thor."
Thor's name got the rest very worked up. They yowled and hooted in a cats' chorus of disapproval. The echoes batted around among the icy stalactites that hung from the cavern ceiling.
"He is one of their footsoldiers for sure," their leader declared, as the ruckus died down. "Hence we are more than justified in our treatment of him. So then, who will his punisher be? Who volunteers?"
Every hand in the room went up. "Me!" they all cried. "Me, great and fearsome Bergelmir! Pick me!" It reminded me of feeding time at the zoo.
Bergelmir, the boss, bared fangs in a broad yellow grin. "I can choose only one. Hmm. Which should it be?" He stroked the matted fur on his chest. "Hval the Bald," he decided. "You have fought bravely in recent times. You deserve this."
The chosen yeti jumped for joy. "Thank you, oh thank you, Bergelmir. I won't disappoint you. The human shall suffer, and suffer mightily."
Some of the others applauded, some just muttered sulkily at not having been the lucky candidate.
Me, I was not liking the sound of any of this, not at all. My dream wasn't going the way it ought to. Where was my lightsaber? Why did I have the horrible feeling that the part of me which kept insisting this wasn't a dream was right?
"Hang on," I said to Bergelmir. "'Punisher'? 'Suffer'? What have I done, exactly? There I was, minding my own business, riding along through the forest. Next thing I know, I'm the prisoner of a bunch of albino apes, and I'm — "
"Frost giants!" Bergelmir bellowed in my face, voice deafening. "We are frost giants, you insolent cretin, not 'apes'!"
"Oh. Okay. Beg pardon. My mistake."
"And as for what you have done — you have consorted with our avowed enemies. You are an ally of the loathed Odin, he who with his brothers slew my father Ymir. He who drowned all of my brethren in our father's blood, a gory inundation only I and my wife escaped. You are his lackey, and as such our vengeance against him and his relatives may rightly be visited upon you."
"Now hang on there a tick, sunshine," I protested. "I'm no ally of Odin's. Honest I'm not. As a matter of fact, I was leaving Asgard Hall when one of you ambushed me. I'm nothing to do with Odin or any of the Aesir. I just happened to end up at their place after a car crash, and I — "
"Silence!" Bergelmir boomed. "I have no wish to hear your lies. I couldn't care less what pathetic grovelling excuses you try to make. The Aesir's scent is upon you. You are marked with it. That is proof enough for me. For centuries the Aesir have hounded and plagued us. Thor, in particular, has been our most implacable foe. His hammer has stove in the skulls of more frost giants than can be counted. Now you must face the wrath of our race, we who were there long before the gods were born, we the descendants of Ymir, my father who was raised and suckled by the primeval cow Audhumla and from whose flesh and bones Midgard itself was formed."
Briefly an image flitted through my head: the valley Abortion and I crossed, the rocks that resembled the remains of a giant…
"But don't worry," Bergelmir continued, his voice softening ever so slightly. "We're not savages. We shan't simply kill you. That would be too crude. Unlike the Aesir, we still have some principles."
"Oh, that's good to hear," I said, dry-mouthed. Any last vague hopes that I was dreaming had vanished like Royal Navy ratings on two-day shore leave. I was here, in this cavern. The frost giants existed. And I was balls-deep in trouble.
"No," said Bergelmir, "you will face Hval the Bald in single combat. If he wins, you will be slaughtered and eaten."
"Terrific," I said. "And if I win?"
"You will be slaughtered and eaten."
I took this on board. "Doesn't strike me as very reasonable," I said.
Another crooked yellow grin from Bergelmir. "Reasonable? No. But, for us, immensely entertaining."
Sixteen
The frost giants shattered my restraints and hauled me to my feet, then retreated to the edges of the cavern, all except Bergelmir and Hval the Bald. Hval lived up to his name, in that the top of his head was completely hairless, although everywhere else he was as fur-covered as the rest of them. Bergelmir clapped his hands, and a female frost giant appeared carrying handweapons, an identical pair of them.
"Thank you, Leikn my dear," Bergelmir said to this floppy-breasted hideosity. His wife.
The weapons looked like an amalgamation of quarterstaff, spear and axe. Nearly eight
foot long, they had a thin pointy blade at one end and a flat cleaver-like blade at the other. And they were made out of glass or perspex. Or so I thought until one was placed in my hands.
Ice. They were carved, or moulded, or sculpted, or whatever, out of ice.
Well, that's not going to last long, is it? I thought, tapping the axe end of mine experimentally against the cavern floor. Shatter at the first impact.
But I banged it a few further times, more and more firmly, until by the end I was whanging it down hard as I could, and the damn thing stayed intact. It even chipped chunks out of the floor.
"Surprising, eh?" said Bergelmir. "Our ice-smiths are master craftsmen. Each component of an issgeisl is formed by building up layer upon layer of ice no thicker than a sheet of paper. Long, patient hours of working, smoothing, scraping, binding, fusing together, results in frozen water becoming as hard as diamond. The blades even cut like diamond. The gnomes fancy themselves the great makers of tools and arms, but I'd like to see them forge anything the equal."
I was no expert, but the weapon, this issgeisl, felt well weighted too, and so light I could balance it on one finger.
"And remind me again of the rules here," I said. "I lose, I die. I win, I die."
Bergelmir gave an amused grunt.
"Hardly much of an incentive to try, is it?" I said.
"But you will nonetheless. You humans invariably do."
"Has anyone ever beaten a frost giant in single combat?"
"Never."
"Didn't think so. Well, as I'm fucked either way, no harm in doing… this."
I whirled the issgeisl round, aiming the axe blade for Bergelmir's belly. He wasn't expecting it, no one was, and I'd have gutted him for sure if Hval the Bald hadn't reacted with astonishing speed. He managed to get his issgeisl in the way and deflect the blow. The two weapons clashed with a ringing bell-like chime.
The audience of frost giants greeted my little bit of foul play with a near-riot. They bayed for my blood. Some of them rushed forward and grabbed me. They wanted to tear me limb from limb, and began trying to.
Bergelmir calmed them down. "Why such indignation? I am unharmed, thanks to Hval's quick reflexes. We should expect nothing less than dastardly underhand tactics from a human. Did mankind not, after all, start out as trees? Rough-hewn, gnarled, rooted in the earth, 'til Odin endowed them with souls, Hoenir with strong wills, and Lodur with feelings. They are naught but wood granted a semblance of life, so let us not be surprised if they behave like the crude, insensate stuff from which their race sprang." He gestured to the frost giants manhandling me. "Let him go. Leave him to Hval to deal with. I imagine, now, that Hval will make his demise even more lingering and cruel than originally planned."
"You may count on that, Bergelmir," Hval said.
I was released. The frost giants stepped back, again leaving a clear space for me and Hval, an arena. Bergelmir himself took the precaution of joining the crowd, staying well out of my issgeisl's range. For all his big talk, I'd given him a fright, I knew, and I was pleased about that. A small consolation prize for the fact that I was about to meet a very sticky end.
Hval and I started to circle each other warily, doing a spot of mutual sizing-up and checking-out. He twirled his issgeisl one-handed and did a few other fancy, flippy tricks with it, showing off how familiar he was with it, how deftly he could wield it. I copied him in the spazziest way I could, waggling the weapon in the air like a commuter with an umbrella, angry that he'd missed his bus. He chortled, and that was good. If he thought I was clumsy and not taking this fight seriously, that was to my advantage. And frankly, I needed every advantage I could get. Hval the Bald was far taller than me, and had a far greater reach. He must be stronger, judging by the size of him. And I'd seen how swiftly he could move. To be honest, the only thing I had going for me that he hadn't was a full head of hair.
"Righty-ho, Hval my old mate," I said. "How do you want to play this? You could just surrender now, or you could wait 'til I've brought you to your knees. Which do you prefer? It's all the same to me."
Hval laughed, and lunged.
Fuck, he was fast. He came like a rocket. I ducked out of his way, slithering on the icy floor. His issgeisl whooshed through the air, a shimmering translucent blur. It was a close thing. If I'd been half a second slower in evading him, I'd have been half a head shorter.
I swung my issgeisl in retaliation, but I was on the hop, it was a wild blow, and Hval skipped clear of it as smug-casually as though I'd done nothing more than flick a wet piece of spaghetti at him. Next instant he came thundering back at me, issgeisl held high. The axe blade end flashed down. All I could do was throw myself to one side and roll. The blade bit the floor with a shivering clang. Shards of dislodged ice rattled into me like hail. Hval inverted the issgeisl and stabbed at my leg with the spear end. I somehow got the haft of my issgeisl into the path of the blow and parried it. At the same time I kicked out at his heel, hoping to swipe him off his feet.
Fat chance. His leg was so solidly planted, it was like kicking a telegraph pole. His clawed toes, I realised, gave him a further edge over me. He could anchor himself to the floor with those talons. My rugged boot soles afforded me some grip but nowhere near as much.
He jabbed at me again, and I scooted backwards on my bum. The spear tip spiked the floor precisely where my crotch had been a split second earlier. I had time to think, Nearly lost an inch there, and, Not that that wouldn't still leave plenty, and then he inverted his issgeisl yet again and brought it whistling horizontally towards my arm.
No idea how, but I was able to parry a second time. Not as successfully as before, however. Hval's issgeisl rebounded off mine and caught me glancingly on the biceps. He'd been intending to take my arm off — at the very least gouge out a chunk — but in the event only slashed open sleeve and skin. Still, it stung like buggery, and the sight of my blood spurting out over the floor raised howls of joy from the spectators.
Hval stepped back with an air of smug satisfaction.
"First blood to me," he said.
"'The first cut won't hurt at all,'" I replied, springing to my feet. Propaganda. Now there was a band. Their album was the first I ever bought, aged eight. On vinyl, no less. Germans who could really do power pop. Whatever happened to them?
Music-lyric references were, of course, wasted on frost giants. I hefted my issgeisl. "Now where were we?"
"We were engaged in combat," Hval said, "and I was busy making you look a fool."
"Oh yeah, that's right. Well, I'd better do something to fix that, bettern't I?"
I went on the offensive. About time too. Up to then all I'd been doing was getting hammered on and just barely surviving. If I was going to make anything of this fight, I needed to take it to Hval, not let him bring it to me.
I lashed at him this way and that with the issgeisl, using either end of it, just as he'd shown me by example. Swings of the axe, thrusts of the spear. Quantity, if not quality. Not once, though, was I able to hit home. Hval blocked and fended off my every attack. He did this with a big fat smirk on his face all the while, like it was no great bother for him. His issgeisl spun on its axis, always there, always intercepting no matter how obliquely or swiftly or powerfully I struck. It was, in all, a pretty dispiriting experience.
Yet I kept it up. I kept it up even though it was hopeless, even though the whole notion of trying to beat Hval was futile, because supposing by some miracle I did beat him, I'd still have a roomful of his frost giant pals to contend with, and they'd easily overwhelm me, through sheer numbers alone, and then — unless Bergelmir was fibbing, and I didn't think he was — I'd be dinner, and I couldn't imagine a worse fate than ending up in the stomachs of these huge, hairy, smelly, ugly monsters. At least, from the sound of it, they'd have the courtesy to kill me first before serving me up with the gravy and the horseradish, but despite that it still wasn't much of a prospect to look forward to.
Obstinate. That was me. That was why I conti
nued fighting instead of simply giving up. Obstinate, and also not willing to go down without securing some kind of victory for myself, recouping some measure of self-esteem, however pathetically small. Even if I just saved face by giving Hval a run for his money, proving I was no pushover, that would be something.
And then he got overconfident. Or rather, his overconfidence got the better of him. Somehow I got past his guard. A lucky shot. A freak statistic. Out of the hundred strikes I made with my issgeisl, one finally got through.
The issgeisl's spear blade sank into Hval's thigh. Not deep, but far enough in to inflict some damage and cause pain. Suddenly white fur was stained with a gush of crimson, and Hval let out an agonised roar that stopped the audience noise dead. Where there had been yells of support and chants of glee from the slightly biased spectators, now there was stunned silence. A moment later, boos and catcalls rushed in to fill the vacuum. It wasn't supposed to be like this. The human combatant wasn't supposed to hurt his opponent. That wasn't right!
"Second blood to me," I said to Hval, panting. It was witch's tit in that cavern but still the sweat was pouring down my face. I had to scrape some out of my eyes with my thumb. "How's that feel, slaphead? Not so cocky now, are you?"
Hval looked at me with murder in his jet-black eyes. "You — you dare!?" he exclaimed. "You dare stick your issgeisl into me?"
I held up the blood-smeared spear tip. "Rather looks like I do dare, doesn't it, chrome dome? By the way, doesn't your scalp get cold? Ever thought about headgear? I can just see you in a beanie, or maybe a woolly bobble hat. Or maybe you like the way it looks. How do you keep it so shiny? Mr Sheen?"
That pissed him off. Even though he probably didn't understand half of what I was rabbiting on about.
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