At the same time, the mention of Loki had irresistibly evoked some of Thor's more interesting ancient memories. Hal was presented with fascinating scenes involving certain antique avatars of Wodan. There had been one such who, outraged that Loki should be fighting in some ancient battle on the side of the Underworld, had caught firebomb after firebomb on the point of his magic Spear and hurled them back. Of course such missiles had failed to do Loki any harm, but they had certainly scorched his quondam allies, before the Firegod was able to take any effective countermeasures . . .
. . . but here and now, on the plain of Asgard, Wodan was waiting for an answer.
Hal cleared his throat. "My respected colleague, we can expect no help from Loki in this fight. But neither will he appear against us. Listen to me, All-Highest, it is very important that we work out some plan to follow in the battle—"
But Wodan was not looking at him or listening, and Hal had no chance to try to force him to pay attention, because here Alvit came galloping up on her airborne Horse, to report to the gods that enemy action was disrupting the ranks of Valhalla. Many wraiths had already been lost in battle, disappearing like dew in the morning sun, and the flow of replacements had suddenly been cut off. Some force was evidently damaging or interfering with the device that generated and maintained their images.
The news reached the All-Highest at one of his more lucid moments. Announcing that it would be unthinkable for he himself to leave the front line, he said he would much appreciate it if Thor could find out what was killing off his wraiths and stop the slaughter.
Before Thor/Hal could even voice agreement, Wodan had seized his great Spear and brandished it, turned his back unceremoniously on his fellow deity, cracked a kind of whip over Sleipnir's back, and went careening straight ahead, bellowing war cries, toward the center of the enemy line.
Alvit, riding her Horse beside his Chariot, directed the newest avatar to a steep-sided canyon, just below the battlements on the north side of the stronghold, opposite the plain. There, she said, the wraith-generating device was located. Only a few, even in Valhalla, knew the place.
Rounding the flank of a mountain, Hal/Thor's Chariot bore him in sight of the narrow entry to a deep cave.
Alvit might have ridden right into the cavity, but Hal/Thor sharply called her back. His divine perception warned him that some demonic or monstrous presence was in the cavern. Myelnir was already in the god's hand, and in the blinking of an eye it sped toward its target. The narrow cave-mouth erupted in a flash of manycolored light, telling Thor's experienced eye that his weapon had wrought annihilation.
He wanted to ride his Chariot straight into the cave, feeling that way he would be better equipped to deal with whatever awaited him inside. But for the Chariot to pass the entrance, it was necessary to enlarge the opening. Myelnir proved a handy tool. Thor tossed his weapon gently, underhand, without dismounting from his Chariot. There was a cloud of dust, a hail of stones. Alvit gave a little cry and dodged as small bits of rock went shooting past her head, and when the dust cleared there was a new look to the cave's mouth. Already Myelnir's handle was snugly back in Thor's right hand. A moment later, the Chariot was inside the cave, where he who rode it could smell the faint, unpleasant residue of the creature he had just destroyed.
Entering an enclosed space many times larger than his Chariot, Hal looked carefully around, with a god's vision keen even in semidarkness. When Alvit pointed out to him the machine that generated the wraiths, he could think of nothing to compare it to, except possibly a tangle of dead or dying tree stumps, projecting from the cave floor, shorn of all branches and leaves. Even Thor had never seen anything just like this before; but his long memory retained garbled stories of a spot deep in the Underworld, where some kind of engine described as similar to this one was said to produce strange images of the dead, in pursuit of some vast project whose purpose all living minds had long since forgotten.
Alvit rode bravely right beside the strange device, whose jagged outline testified, even to one ignorant of proper shape and purpose, that it was broken.
"Hal, is there anything you can do to fix it?"
Hal made a helpless gesture with his powerful arms, limbs grown even thicker with his apotheosis. "Nothing that either Thor or I can think of." The Thunderer's divine talent for constructive building or repair was almost nonexistent, beyond some odds and ends of plain metalworking. Certainly neither god nor man were up to dealing with devices on this level of sophistication.
"Then what are we to do?" Alvit sounded desperate.
Hal didn't know, and Thor's memory was of no help. Being deprived of wraiths would cost the gods' forces one of their chief advantages over the demonic army, for wraiths could duel more effectively against demons than they could against human flesh and blood.
Again Hal was struck by how strongly the mysterious machine resembled an underground complex of tree stumps. Neither Hal nor Thor could make any sense of it—though Thor did have some memory, tantalizingly faint and remote, of having seen something like it somewhere before.
When more creatures of the Underworld suddenly appeared at the cave's entrance, Thor with a swift cast of his Hammer killed two of the latest attackers. The strange, quasi-material shapes exploded at Myelnir's touch, and others turned and fled before entering the cave.
But Thor's defense of the cave had come too late. The engine had been effectively destroyed.
"We can do no more here," he told Alvit, "let's get back to the battle."
She could only agree, and followed on her Horse as Hal drove Thor's Chariot high into the air above Valhalla to get another view of Wodan's deployment and see how the fight was going.
No more wraiths could be generated, and those already in the field continued to vanish under enemy attack, sometimes whole squadrons of them together. Thor looked about him, reveling in senses enormously keener and farther-ranging than Hal the northman had ever dreamt of having. He felt a warrior's joy on seeing that the enemy had come out of hiding and was once more on the attack.
Hal/Thor picked out a target—
And hurled Myelnir!
There had been a lull in the fighting. Again the enemy had pulled back out of contact, but no one on the gods' side could be certain if this meant a general retreat, or that the enemy was reorganizing and nerving itself for a final supreme effort.
With his strength augmented by the power of a god, Hal no longer felt the exhaustion that had drained him when he was only mortal man. But even gods could tire, as he was discovering. He had landed his Chariot again, near the spot where he had talked with Wodan, and he was waiting for the All-Highest to come back from his latest foray against the enemy.
Surprisingly, his right knee twinged as he turned round. It was a different kind of twinge than he had been trying to get used to in the last months before his chance came to be Thor. As one who had the experience of many wounds, he recognized this as a therapeutic sort of twang, part of a healing process, almost like a small dislocation popping back in place. He had no doubt at all that the knee, Thor's knee, was going to be just fine from now on.
Hal was about to look around for Wodan, when a voice right at his own Chariot-wheel distracted him.
"Hal, remember us?" There stood the youthful figure of Holah—or was this one Noden?—one of Baldur's cousins or nephews, clinging to the vehicle in a familiar way. It was obvious that in the boy's ignorance he did not immediately grasp the fact that the man he recognized had become the great god Thor.
Meanwhile the speaker's slightly older brother was approaching. Being a little more perceptive, he must have realized the truth, for he was trying to drag his younger sibling back.
Hal gave them both a weary look. "So, you couldn't wait to get into a real fight, hey? Well, no more could I when I was your age."
Questioning the boys, Hal learned that they had experienced only a taste of fighting so far. One of them seemed eager for more, the other not nearly so enthusiastic, yet reluctant to ad
mit the fact.
Now the elder asked: "What should we do now, sir—Hal? The men we came to this fight with seem to have disappeared."
"My advice to you both is—keep your weapons handy and don't volunteer for anything." Part of Hal wanted to tell them to go home, and had been on the verge of doing so, but another part admired their youthful daring and enterprise. Meanwhile, his Thor component hardly took notice of the lads at all.
Hal was saved from further discussion by the sudden appearance of Wodan's Chariot, the Father of Battles for once with his back to the enemy, and driving Sleipnir hard. The unaccustomed sight caught Hal's attention—Wodan was beckoning Thor to a conference.
Scouting Valkyries had brought the news that the largest and most destructive monsters of the Underworld were once more on the march just below and upon the surface of the earth.
One of the flying sisters reported the presence of the treacherous Giant Skrymir, who could surround himself with illusions as protection against the gods he feared to face directly. Thor himself had no clear memory of what Skrymir actually looked like—and when a fight was over, whether or not he had actually been present was hard to know.
Another Valkyrie claimed to have seen in the ranks of the Underworld the Giant Surt, one who continually brandished a flaming sword. There ought to be no mistaking him, at least.
Hal tried again, but with no more success than before, to work out some coherent plan of battle. But Wodan would have none of it.
The All-Highest was saying to him: ". . . and so, it is too bad, but I cannot offer most of your worshipers Valhalla. Unless of course some of them turn out better than expected, and perform as true heroes should."
Now was hardly the time to haggle over points of honor. Hal simply nodded. "My followers and I will just have to accept that as best we can."
After warning Thor to beware of treachery in their own ranks, Wodan turned, and with an elated war cry, he once more charged against the foe. Soon the Father of Battles in his Chariot was cutting a swath of destruction across the field, right through the thickest of his enemies' ranks. Humans and others fell before him, by the scores, by the hundreds, as he smote right and left with his terrible Spear, much more powerful than the similar weapons used by Valkyries.
Withdrawing slightly from the front line, Thor stayed with the tactics that had earlier been successful, getting the most out of Myelnir's long-range power. He avoided direct engagement, for the most part, killing major monsters at a distance. When one of them died, in contrast to the gods, it was dead, with no chance of a resurrection.
There was a stir in the front line now, the beginning of a retreat on the gods' side, and anxious human yells . . .
A huge shape, or shape-changer more like it, hard to see, was half-materialized behind the enemy's front rank. Skrymir, maybe?
No, no such luck. In the mosaic of legends as so often quoted by Wodan, Thor's prime enemy on the day of the last battle was beyond all doubt Jormungand, the world-serpent. And indeed Thor's memory now assured Hal that god and monster were no strangers to each other.
Hal took aim at the dim shape looming large behind the enemy front, and launched another throw. The Hammer struck home squarely, but for once the victim did not vanish in a blast, or even fall. It was Jormungand, all right.
The dull, gigantic shape, only partially visible through clouds of smoke and dust, recoiled briefly, then resumed its advance. Hal had seen this enemy only in pictures and carvings, but Thor had ancient memories of this horror in plenty. Now man and god were facing Jormungand, the greatest of serpents, who came writhing and winding his way to the attack. Red eyes the size of bushel baskets glowed in an incongruously hairy head, rising easily fifty feet above the battlefield when the long body stretched into the air. Sometimes Jormungand came rolling like some Titan's hoop, biting his own tail. Thor could recall one notable scuffle in which this creature had taken on the form of a cat; but whatever form the huge shape-changer put on, his chief weapon was spitting poison.
For a moment, Wodan seemed confused, and his Chariot was in retreat. Alvit came galloping seemingly from nowhere, to join Thor/Hal in his struggle against the poison-spewing serpent.
Hal shouted and waved a warning to her to keep clear, but on her snorting Horse she came darting in, trying to Spear the demon's eyes. Jormungand was immense, dwarfing the two human-sized bodies that dared to close with him. Hal's own purely human impulse was to turn and run, but Thor's iron confidence and long experience assured his new avatar that the odds were nowhere near as unfavorable as they appeared. He had thrown his Hammer again, but not yet got it back, when a great fanged mouth came looming overhead, then closing like some castle's portcullis upon the man-sized god. Thor had to grab its upper and lower jaws at the same time, one in each of his two hands, and strain with all his strength to rend them violently apart. Bellowing in pain, the serpent wrenched itself free, almost dragging him from his Chariot in the process. The poisonous exhalation from the mouth would have felled a mortal human in his tracks.
Through dust and smoke and flame the battle swirled. It seemed that Jormungand had terrified the Goats, and Thor had to struggle to regain full control of his own Chariot.
On achieving this, and seeing that the monster still reeled back, Hal looked around for Alvit. He felt a surge of relief as he saw her riding through the air unharmed, Spear still ready to do battle. He told himself that if he had the welfare of the Valkyrie in mind, the best thing he could do for her would be to win this battle. And he told himself that the next time he saw her, he would tell her she was now assigned permanently as Thor's aide. He thought the chances were that if Wodan never saw her again, the old god would never know the difference.
The fact that Thor and Jormungand had come face-to-face in mortal combat made Hal wonder uneasily if crazy Wodan might be right, and the world was really going to end when this battle did.
Alvit had seen him, and came riding near. "Hal, I think that we are winning! If only Loki could be here, and fighting for us, we could destroy these dregs of hell!"
Evidently she had not arrived at the crag in time to see just what had happened to the Firegod. Briefly Hal/Thor considered telling her—because it would be impossible for her or anyone else (except maybe Wodan) to retrieve Loki's Face. But as he had with Wodan, Hal said nothing. He wanted to be sure that Alvit never got the Trickster's Face, because if she had it she would put it on to help Wodan, and it would change her much more than Hal wanted to see her changed. The world could probably get along just fine for a time, with no one wearing Loki's Face—or Wodan's, come to think of it.
The fight went on.
As a god, Hal had to admit that Myelnir's handle felt much more comfortable in his grip than any plow handle ever would.
The new avatar of Thor, slamming down row after row of his enemies with his irresistible Hammer—the enemy knew that they would have to kill Thor again or abandon the field.
Finally, the surviving great monsters and the creatures who supported them were slowly retreating, back into the Underworld. By now all of Jormungand's human auxiliaries, those who could still run or walk, had fled the field.
The powers of the Underworld had been defeated for the time being.
But the great serpent and his supporters did not withdraw entirely until there was one more flurry of combat, in which something, perhaps a last parting shot of Jormungand's poison, struck at Wodan and did him serious damage. Hal first realized the fact when Alvit came silently beckoning him, her face showing a look of gloom and doom he had never seen there before.
Thor was one of the first to know that the All-Highest had fallen, and he was first after Alvit to reach Wodan's side. The great god's body lay spilled out of his tipped and broken Chariot and clouds of steam or smoke were coming up. Some force more blunt than poison seemed to have been at work, though it had left no obvious wounds.
Hastily Hal sent his own servant powers to work. They in turn called upon surviving wraiths to for
m a screen around the tumbled Chariot and those who were near it.
To Alvit he said sharply: "We must keep this a secret, if we can."
As Hal/Thor turned over the old man's body, he could see that Wodan was still alive. The old man's single eye was open, showing the vacant blue of summer skies. The first words that issued from his bearded lips were threats against those the Father of Battles believed had betrayed him.
At first the murmuring was so low that even divine hearing could barely make it out. ". . . must root out . . . treachery."
Thor tried to shift the massive body into an easier position. "Can you sit up?"
Suddenly the voice was louder. "Who're you? All, all have turned against me."
"My respected colleague, that is wrong."
"One of the damned Valkyries was here. They've all failed me. Should never have trusted women. Who're you? Another shape-changer?"
"I am Thor, as much a god as you are, Wodan. We are fighting on the same side." In the circumstances it seemed only prudent to make that clear.
As usual, the All-Highest did not seem to be listening. "All mortals betray me when I trust them, especially the women. But I'll have the last laugh on the traitors."
When Hal/Thor told him that the battle was effectively won, the enemy in full retreat, Wodan reacted with alarm and refused to believe him.
"This is the day of the final battle, and they all must die. I'll see to it!"
There was a long pause. Then: "The end of the world has come!" If the fighting was really ending, then the world must too. The All-Highest could tolerate no other outcome.
Hal left the enclosure momentarily to tell Alvit that Wodan was not yet dead. When he returned, the great god was struggling to get back on his feet. With a surge of effort Wodan had grasped his Chariot and set it once more upright upon its wheels. Sleipnir looked back with the dull fear of a real horse.
Thor tried to be placating. "We have won, great Wodan. You will need your Chariot no more today."
Gods of Fire and Thunder Page 28