Meanwhile Odin, in spare moments, was following events in Midgard via raven-cam. Mrs Keener's state visit was turning out to be a surprising success. It was a charm offensive of epic proportions, the President glad-handing and back-slapping and generally winning round her UK detractors. The London protest march coincided with her first chat-show appearance, and that may have accounted for the low turnout on the streets of the capital. The organisers surmised that people had stayed home to watch her on TV so that they could fuel themselves with indignation and come out afterwards all fired up and ready to demonstrate.
They must have been disappointed, then, when a second London protest march, hastily scheduled for the next day, was even more poorly attended than the first. The public, it seemed, didn't dislike Mrs Keener as much as it had been assumed they did. After having seen her on telly, where she'd defended her policies, dismissed the climate doomsayers and their fears about the neverending winter, and gone on at length about her family and her love of the Good Lord Jesus, they were coming to the conclusion that she really wasn't as bad as everyone made out. And with each subsequent interview broadcast, British opinion of her rose. This had the result that, when she began a tour of the regions, the marches intended to dovetail with her itinerary never materialised. They had to be called off due to lack of interest.
The papers even started talking about a "Keener effect." One editorial described her as "an all too rare ray of sunshine" and another "an antidote to the dismalness of the times." Even The Guardian admitted she had a certain something.
It drove me into a frenzy to hear Odin report all this.
"She's Loki!" I yelled. "Fucking Loki! Why doesn't anyone see through her? I thought only Yanks were gullible, but us lot are just as bad. Worse, even. We shouldn't be falling for any of this guff. Are we not British? Naturally cynical? Don't we laugh when we see sincerity and Christian faith?"
Not any more, it seemed. Not in these dark, difficult days. Mrs Keener was offering hope and simple answers, something Clasen had been failing to do. Loki had honed his craft over centuries of misleading and hoodwinking the Aesir and Vanir. Frightened mortals were easy marks for him.
"And thus his might increases," Odin said. "In the guise of President Keener he makes them love him, or fear him, and are not love and fear both forms of reverence? Are they not both the prostration of the lesser before the greater? He said it himself — he has billions under his thumb now, either through intimidation or enthralment. They celebrate him. They speak of his deeds, and whether approvingly or not doesn't matter, as long as they're speaking of him at all. Their words augment him. He becomes more puissant with every mention, more energised, capable of ever greater, ever bolder feats of wickedness and mayhem. He feeds off their expressions of adulation and detestation. Millions of your countrymen, Gid, are adding further to his stores of power."
"Simply by feeling strongly about him and talking about it?"
"It's a kind of worship. As his reputation grows, so does his divinity."
"Gods are stories, Bragi told me."
"And my blood brother's tale is now being retold millions of times a day," Odin said with a sad, sage shake of the head. "He is on countless mortal tongues. Not realising it, they imbue him with significance whenever they praise Mrs Keener, or criticise her. They lend him their belief and that enhances the myth of him and armours him. Oh, it's a grand deceit he's practised this time, a hoax of unparalleled proportions. I almost admire him for it."
"Personally, it makes me wish I could have another crack at killing him."
"That is not your role, Gid. You are a hero."
"Isn't it the hero's job to take down the archvillain?"
"Sometimes," said Odin. "But sometimes the hero is simply the man who makes the right decisions. He enables what should be to be."
The phony war lasted another four days or so. The guerrilla-style sorties became more frequent and nudged further and further into Asgardian turf. We were stretched thin trying to cover and defend so many of the intersections at once. Our troops were getting tired and discouraged, and the major assault hadn't even started yet. Loki had us chasing around all the time, shoring up our forces at each intersection, repelling attacks. Barely did we have a chance to catch our breath before we had to tackle the next incursion somewhere else along the borderlands.
Physically it was gruelling. Psychologically, too. Relationships within the ranks began to fragment. In my own squad, Paddy and Backdoor were getting on each other's nerves, and Cy and Backdoor as well. Backdoor, in fact, was pissing just about everybody off, even mild-mannered, affable Baz. A bit of needling and ribbing was par for the course in army life, but in Backdoor's case the name-calling had started to take on an edge. He flung "bog-trotter" at Paddy twice and got away with it the first time but not the second. It was the way he said it, more than anything, that put the Irishman's back up. The "fucking" he stuck in front of it the second time didn't help.
They'd have come to blows if I hadn't stepped in and managed to pacify them. I even persuaded them to shake hands manfully. This was for their benefit but also for the benefit of everyone else in our cabin. There was a score of spectators to this bedtime fracas, keen to see a punch-up. None of that shit, I was telling them. Not on my watch.
It happened again the very next morning during the wee small hours. Me and the team — minus Thor, who'd drunk too much the previous evening and couldn't be got out of his bed for love nor money — were yomping towards a Niflheim intersection. That was where, according to Heimdall's ultra-sharp ears, yet another raid was about to take place. It was our turn to take care of it.
Backdoor was whingeing about lack of sleep and the futility of seeing off one attack only to have to deal with another one a few hours later somewhere different. I was about to tell him to stow it but Cy got in before me.
"Will you just put a fucking sock in it, all right?" he hissed.
Backdoor retorted using the most unpardonable word for a black person there is. Cy, understandably, went ballistic and laid into him. I let him give Backdoor a pasting for a little while, because the fucker deserved it. But when I weighed in and hauled Cy off, what did the kid do but turn round and lamp me.
That could not stand. I lamped him back, then while he was reeling I grabbed him and put him into a compliance hold. Wristlock, twisting the hand round, followed by rotation of the entire arm. This forced him down onto his knees, head bent. I put a knee in the small of his back for good measure. He writhed but couldn't get free. All he could do in his helplessness was swear at me. I bellowed at him to shut the fuck up, then launched into a big long rant about everybody not arguing, not sniping at one another, not using racial slurs of any kind, just keeping all their shit in one bucket and pulling together and playing as a team, because if this was what we were like now, imagine how bad it could get when the proper fighting started.
"So stop bitching, start behaving like you were born with some balls, all of you," I finished off, "or else!"
We continued on our way in silence. I'd asserted my authority and felt I'd made my point, but I was still fuming inside. We shouldn't be in-fighting and falling to pieces. That was exactly what Loki wanted.
And once more, suspicion was flitting through my mind. We had an infiltrator, an agent-fucking-provocateur in our midst. And I was growing more and more certain that I knew who it was.
One good thing came of the incident. When the enemy emerged from the mists of Niflheim, we were all so keyed up that we didn't hesitate. We gave them what-for, venting our frustrations in a hail of bullets. Bastards didn't know what hit them. We roared like lions as we fired, and I was roaring loudest of all.
Fifty-One
A lull.
The raids ceased.
A hush settled along Asgard's borders.
We caught up on lost sleep, scoffed plenty of scran to replenish our strength, and enjoyed the downtime while it lasted. Because we knew it wouldn't last long.
The calm before
the shitstorm.
Freya and I were out on one of our, ahem, "hunting expeditions." These we fitted in as and when we could, always at her instigation. With her tracking skills she'd find me wherever I was, hand me a rifle, and off we'd trot. Sometimes, once the fun and games were over, we'd even go and bag a token deer or rabbit to bring back, just so's no one would suspect we were up to anything other than what we said we were up to.
She was the fiercest sexual partner I'd ever had. Silent and intense while we did the deed. Hardly ever crying out in pleasure, but bucking and shuddering so violently when the moment came that I was never in any doubt I'd hit the spot. She'd claw me, often bite. It was fighting as much as fornication, each of us wrestling for dominance, demanding a submission from the other.
Something in me responded well to this. I'd lose myself while shagging Freya much as I'd lose myself during combat. It was primal and animal, us out in the woods, in the snow. None of your candlelit lovemaking with rose petals on the bed and Barry White grunting in the background. Just body thrusting and grinding savagely against body. Bare skin getting smeared with a mush of snow, soil, flakes of bark and fallen pine needles. Very few words exchanged beyond "turn over" or "try this" or "there."
It was how people fucked when there was a war on and a world was at stake and lives could end tomorrow. Urgently, no grace or ritual to it. Raw, raw, raw.
On this particular occasion we were on our second go-round, or maybe third. It was easy to lose track. One bout of rampant shaggery shaded into another, with little recovery time in between. Then all at once Freya said, "Stop."
I said, "Stop as in we're changing position, or…?"
"Just stop. And be quiet."
I froze. We listened. Me on my knees, her on all fours.
"I don't — "
"Hssst!"
Then I detected it. Sensed it through my legs rather than my ears.
Vibration.
Rumbling.
The earth moving, but not in that way.
"What is that?"
"I don't know. We need to go and see."
Abrupt withdrawal. Clothes flung back on. Charging through the woods towards the sound.
It was being made by an engine of some sort — a massively horsepowered motor that propelled something wheeled and huge. The closer we got, the more resonant and ground-shaking the sound became. The snow on the forest floor danced. The trees themselves shivered.
We began to hear crashing noises and splintering creaks. Pines falling, being shoved over.
Finally we caught our first glimpse of the machine. It was a wall of grey metal moving among the tree trunks ahead. There were caterpillar tracks as thick as my thigh, wheels several feet in diameter. Whatever this was, it barged the trees aside as though they were nothing. Old-growth pines shattered into toothpicks in front of it, toppled over like ninepins either side of it.
A tank.
But the biggest ruddy tank ever. Like twelve double-decker buses bolted together, three abreast, in two tiers of six. Just steamrollering through the forest, butting aside anything that got in its way.
As it passed us by and trundled off, leaving a cloud of black fumes, I looked at Freya. "How do we stop that?"
"No idea. We just do. Someone has to. It's heading for the castle. It mustn't get there."
"We need to raise the alarm."
"I'd be surprised if Heimdall hasn't already."
She had a point. The mega-tank might have caught the two of us with our pants down, but Heimdall napping? Not a chance. Especially not when it was setting up such an unholy row. Heimdall, who could hear an ant breaking wind in the Brazilian rainforest, knew full well this monster was on its way.
"Odin will already be mounting a defence," Freya went on. "We should get back there and join in. That's where we can be the most useful."
So we belted off in the direction of the castle. Freya led the way unerringly, and we soon overtook the mega-tank, which was going at little better than walking pace. It must have weighed several hundred tons, and no engine, however large, could move that much bulk at any decent speed. On foot we outstripped it easily, and we were back at the castle well before it got anywhere near.
As Freya had predicted, preparations were under way to meet it. Everyone was out, and armed. The Valkyries were gunning their snowmobiles. Skadi was on her skis, fully recovered now and looking as sprightly and agile as she'd ever done. Odin was marshalling the troops to form a defensive perimeter, with secondary and tertiary lines behind.
Freya and I went straight up to him and told him that men and guns alone weren't going to cut the mustard.
"Have you seen this thing?" I asked.
"Not yet. Huginn and Muninn are aloft, but…"
"Trust me, it's not going to be bothered by bullets. Not even an RPG'll pierce its armour, I don't think. It's just… mammoth. I don't know if it's got firepower. Didn't see. It probably has. But even without, it could roll right over us and we'd be nothing but roadkill."
"What, then? What do you suggest?"
"There's only one possibility. Is Sleipnir prepped?"
"It can be."
"Shit. Then we'll need a delaying tactic as well. Can you spare some trolls?"
"Of course. How many?"
"Let 'em loose. As many as possible. While they're, hopefully, holding that machine up, we get a small unit to tackle it from the only direction no one'll be expecting."
"Which is?" asked Odin.
"Above."
Fifty-Two
Thor begged to come with us.
"Gid — friend Gid — you need me."
Sleipnir's pilots had been scrambled. We were expecting the Wokka to arrive at any moment to pick us up. In the background there was a low, ominous growl. The mega-tank was now no more than a mile from the castle, according to Odin's ravens, who'd just returned from their scouting mission.
"No, you belong here on the ground," I told Thor. "Best place for you."
"But I can help."
"Help by being the backup, the Plan B if Plan A fails, which it might well. You're one of our heaviest hitters, mate, if not the heaviest. Together with your brothers you can hold the line, if necessary pick up where we leave off."
"Surely — "
"You just can't be spared," I insisted. "A few mortal troops, on the other hand… Well, if we fuck up we won't be missed, will we?"
"Besides," said Odin, "someone has to wrangle the trolls."
"Is that not your job, father?"
"It's now yours, Thor. I shall be accompanying Gid and his men."
This was news to me, but I took it in my stride. He was the All-Father, after all. The guv'nor. What he said, went.
"I may be old," Odin continued, "but I remain a warrior. My heart still beats to the drum of battle."
"Father, no," said Thor. "If I can't be spared, then you certainly can't."
"My son." Odin laid a hand on his shoulder. He had to reach up to do it. "I must go. I have no choice. What Gid calls a 'mega-tank' is, I believe, an ancient enemy of ours brought to life in another form. In which case, it is incumbent upon me to fight it and defeat it, not you. This is what I am fated to do. It is written. So be it."
Thor puffed himself up, then deflated. The look in Odin's eye said argument was futile. His mind was made up.
"If this is really your wish, father, it cannot be gainsaid. I am your loyal, obedient son and have submitted to your will at all times."
Odin laughed, shaking his head. "No, you haven't. You have been the most wayward and headstrong of all my children, Thor."
Thor laughed too. "That is true."
"But you have also," Odin said, "been one of my proudest accomplishments. Every inch the fighter. Courageous to a fault, and a staunch protector of Asgard. Look after the place in my absence, Thor. Keep defending it to the last breath in your body. That is all I can ever ask from you."
"Father…"
"You have loved our home as I do. Continue showing i
t that love."
They looked at each other, and I saw a bond between them, a mutual respect, as strong as any I'd ever seen. They weren't just father and son. Not even just clan chief and heir. They were brothers in arms too. And this was their hour, their shining time, when they would prove themselves against the severest odds they had ever faced.
"I shall," said Thor. "And so, always, will you."
In reply, Odin smiled — somewhat sadly, it seemed to me — and then the Chinook came racketing in over the treetops.
We were aboard, a five-strong squad plus Odin, and ascending. We checked our weapons as Sleipnir humped us into the sky. We also checked the abseiling equipment I'd sourced from Skadi's stock of outdoor gear. Anything skiing- or mountaineering-related, you name it, Skadi had it. By the bucketload. I loved that little minx. Not only had she taken a shot meant for me, she was just so insanely fucking focused.
"This is going to be a walk in the park," I reassured everyone. "We lower ourselves down onto the top of the tank, find an access hatch, blow it, get in, plant some high-ex, bundle out, bish-bosh, the job's a good 'un."
Paddy rolled his eyes. "'Walk in the park,' the man says. Suppose it is, if by 'walk' you mean 'suicide mission' and 'park' you mean 'two-hundred-ton armour-plated enemy transport.'"
"You chicken, mick?" Backdoor sneered. "Me, I live for this shit."
"Can the backchat, both of you." I tilted my head towards Odin. Top brass on deck.
They clammed up.
Sleipnir circled, gaining altitude. I'd asked the pilots for a fly-past first so we could all get a squint at the mega-tank and assess the feasibility of my plan, if it had any. The Wokka came over it at five hundred feet, and Flight Lieutenant Jensen banked to starboard. We lined the portholes on that side, peering down.
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