Painkiller: Odin's Warriors - Book 2

by Aeryn Leigh

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  GOOD HUNTING

  JUST OVER 17,000 feet they passed between twin mountain peaks below shrouded in clouds on either side. Beowulf and his Vikings thought they'd experienced cold before, on random travels here and there.

  Not that there were many cold areas on this planet, but still.

  This was colder. The two gaping holes in the fuselage gave lie to any semblance of being somewhat cocooned from the high-altitude air rushing through the fuselage at over one hundred eighty miles per hour.

  Beowulf buried himself deeper into the furs swaddling his body, covering his armour and any bare sections of skin.

  Up front, Merrion sat in the co-pilot’s sling chair, and directed Ella. "We are looking for a third central mountain spire," he said, "almost as high as the pair we just travelled through."

  "This mountain range is full of them," said Ella. She looked at her wristwatch wrapped around and over her leather gauntlets. "If your estimation of distances is correct, at our current airspeed we should be seeing it in minutes." She turned back around and looked at the unconscious body lying on top of the supply pallets. Mick looked back at her and frowned. He shook his head. Shit. Not a good sign.

  Rob's valiant effort had kept the mission alive. Both engines purred, the rhythmic vibrations not missing a beat.

  Through the Plexiglas windows, the sky was dazzlingly blue and the twin suns radiant. The slipstreams had settled themselves out, and both gliders behind her encountered less turbulence.

  All that would change once they saw their target mountain and she cut power. Hopefully, with any luck, no sound of their approach would forewarn the Inquisition stronghold. They had all put some thought into the feasibility of launching a nighttime assault, but the multitude of unknown variables put an end to that idea. Flying over unknown territory, through unknown mountain ranges, on the off chance it was a cloudless night with the moon’s favouring light — the chances of crashing being discovered waiting for ideal conditions for either a new or full moon — the odds of success grew ever smaller. Suicide, to any rational mind.

  So, a daytime raid it was, in anything but a fully blown gale.

  The assault team behind her helped each other put on their parachutes, and gently move Rob onto the port bench, preparing the supply crates.

  And rising from the clouds in front of them, Ella saw the tip of the mountain they had travelled so long for. Beneath those clouds, on the far side of that mountain range and where it met the sea, was the Emperor's Lair.

  Ella reduced the throttles to one-half, and pointed the nose of the aircraft down, waggling her wingtips three times.

  The signal to prepare for detachment.

  THEY FLEW into the grey clouds, and immediately rain started, hammering upon the three aircraft.

  For those travelling in the Catalina, already cold, the moisture combined with the freezing temperature began to make things difficult.

  And for the two gliders being towed, the storm combined with the turbulence started to toss them around like leaves on a wind, dragged by a string.

  "How much further, Merrion?" said Ella. The altimeter steadily unwound, as they descended past 9,000 feet. The Catalina grew more difficult to control, as the flight characteristics changed in the new conditions.

  The two assault gliders following, jerked and shuddered behind them, the towing rope alternating between taut and slack.

  "We should be seeing it any moment," said Merrion. "There." In a break in the clouds, Ella and Merrion saw the fortress. A third of the way up the side of the mountain, the size and scope of their objective slammed home. The mountain fortress was just that.

  A. Mountain. Fortress.

  In the breaks of low clouds here and there, they could see that the fortress extended from the bay far in the distance up the mountain valley separated by a dozen or more concentric walls, like a dozen little dams spread up its cleft.

  That was their objective. Well on the bright side, she told herself, parking shouldn't be a problem.

  Ella gave the signal to detach.

  In the rear glider, Hilda reached down and pulled out the connecting pin. The rope fell away. She gripped the control stick tight.

  On Hades' Express, Laurie released, and banked to the left to give themselves a little space. So, this is what it's like flying without a motor. So, this is what it's like flying a fully laden aircraft without a motor, he corrected himself. The rain smeared across the windscreen, before being blown off, and he got a couple of seconds of visibility before the clouds covered everything below.

  Maybe today would be the day he died. From that brief glimpse, and what he saw of the Inquisition fortress, they had to be, utterly stonking barmy to take that on.

  ELLA KEPT the Catalina level now, as those behind her readied to jump. "Good hunting," she said over her shoulder, as Merrion left the co-pilot's chair, giving her a small salute.

  For this to work, there had to be a pathfinder. Merrion made his way to the exit door, readjusted his parachute one last time, and stepped out into the void. Merrion flipped over and over, and around and around for several seconds until he figured out how to control himself, plummeting to the ground more or less like an arrow. Clouds enveloped him, and the rain stung any bare patches of skin. He fell, almost parallel to the mountainside a few thousand feet below, always it seemed, a few thousand feet below. He passed through one final cloud bank, and into clear sky.

  Smoke raised from countless chimneys, and from this height he observed with a wry smile that at least they got most of the planning details right.

  He concentrated on what Griffin had told him about parachutes. Specifically, how to control the descent and change one's direction. He pulled the cord.

  The parachute deployed, choking him up. By the look of it, they hadn't been detected. Yet. At the top of the fortifications, he could see the road which started all the way down at the bottom of the bay and snaked its way up the mountain through the twelve section ring walls before disappearing into the heart of the mountain, right at the top of the fortress, the entry still barely one-third up the massive mountain range itself.

  Where he wanted to be was between that mountain entrance and the second-highest ring wall, in that huge courtyard. The ground was coming up fast, as his eyes took in as many details as possible, storing them for future use. The target area was about hundred fifty by fifty feet wide, and he couldn't help but break into a smile, a huge flashing grin, as he lit the two red USAF flares and dropped them moments before hitting the ground.

  Really, he thought. Who holds parade ground inspections in the pouring rain?

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  OF ALL THE LUCK

  "GOOD AFTERNOON," said Merrion, in fluent Latin, as his parachute pooled around him. "I seem to be lost. Can someone point me in the direction of Fairholm?" He raised his hands, surrounded by a sea of astonished faces. "But by all means, keep looking at me."

  LAURIE POINTED THE NOSE OF HADES' Express so that the glider fell in a vertical dive, the control stick as far forward as it would go. The only thing preventing him or for that matter, the others falling forward were the straps holding them in place. He watched Merrion's parachute collapse around him, between twin red flares billowing their red smoke up into the sky.

  Every piloting instinct told him to deploy the main parachute and stop this insane fall, but Ella's advice bounced around inside his cranium. Wait until the last possible moment — which might be only two hundred feet above the ground.

  Then deploy the parachute, and pull up hard — and pray to whatever deities you believe in.

  THE INQUISITION MARINE battalion on parade, noticed Merrion, were bereft of weaponry save for their ten-inch ceremonial daggers on their hips. Well, thought Merrion as the impeccably uniformed group of nearby soldiers formed a circle about him. Landing right in the middle of a Inquistion battalion consisting of highly trained fanatics who used their daggers as a language in itself, or armed with s
ubmachine guns? He couldn't decide which was worse. Probably both.

  LAURIE YANKED on the large O-ring release and the parachute shot out the back. It spread out and arrested their fall, snapping open with such sudden violence it gave Laurie an instant headache. At the same time, he pulled the control stick back hard and Hades' Express came up from its screaming hell death dive more or less perpendicular to the ground as they flashed over the side mountain wall, landing in the midst of the courtyard, the glider scything through dumbfounded Inquisition soldiers left, right, and centre as something caught the left wing tip and spun them around in a whirling dervish circle of Inquisition doom.

  HILDA FOLLOWED her captain in and her right hand trembled as she hung onto the parachute handle, suspended vertically in her harness. Her brain screamed to pull it now, but her training held for a few crucial seconds longer until the sheer terror of ground rushing toward her became too much. She pulled the O-ring.

  MERRION SPRINTED hard to the right of where Laurie's assault glider crashed to the ground with a massive thud and tore through the mass of humanity with a god-awful din of human bodies breaking, smashing, tearing apart. He pulled out two wickedly sharp long daggers and slashed as many throats as he could as he ran for the closest guard tower stuck out on top of the closest ring wall. The guard tower which controlled the access gate, its portcullis remained open. He had to change that and change that fast.

  It took a lot to shake an Inquisition Marine, and even if by some miracle you did so, it didn't last long.

  The enemy battalion started reorganizing itself.

  HADES' Express hadn't even stopped moving before the assault team raced out the exit door, Laurie shaking his head as the glider at last came to rest. He couldn't really see much out the forward windows for much of the landing and their carnage wreaked across the pebble courtyard, as a dead Inka marine stuck through the cockpit window, grey brain matter splattered everywhere like so much cold porridge.

  Laurie unclipped his harness and performed a quick body awareness check. Nothing broken or cut. So far so good.

  He stood up, crouching over in the small space, retrieved his sword from behind his chair, fastened it around his waist, and with speed armed himself.

  Of all the things to run into, a whole fucking battalion. He hoisted the submachine gun and made his way through the detritus of the broken glider to the exit where the battle for the courtyard raged.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  A GREAT DAY TO BE A VIKING KING

  ELLA SHAVED the side of the mountain as close as she dared.

  Up ahead she saw Hilda's glider deploy its parachute and instantly knew she'd released crucial seconds too soon. The glider pulled up too high, now there wouldn't be enough horizontal space in which to land it. She grimly watched Hilda try to correct the mistake by pointing the glider nose down, but the damage was done.

  Hilda had lost too much airspeed.

  Ella heard the crash even from this distance, the glider impacting the courtyard at a 45° angle. The glider travelled fifty feet further before stopping, leaving a scattered trail of wood, commandos and Inquisition soldiers scattered about like toys on a living room floor.

  Ella continued shaving the side of the mountain, now it was her turn. She lifted the nose of the Cat and just before it flashed over the last section of mountainside, the assault team leapt from both sides of the aircraft, all but Griffin.

  He pushed the wooden supply crates along the final lengths of their wooden rails and out as the last man jumped, the crates’ parachutes deploying mechanically by attached pieces of rope above the door.

  Then in the wake of the three crates Griffin jumped.

  With an empty aircraft, save for Rob, Ella proceeded with the final part of the assault plan and opened the throttles wide, gaining height, and heading for the mouth of the bay, to come around for a strafing run straight up the fortress valley.

  Ella reached down with her left hand and pulled the canvas covering off the rear end of the 20mm Hispano autocannon taken from Laurie's Lancaster, broken in the crash but now fixed due to some minor miracles from Rob and Griffin. The autocannon mounted in the nose.

  Time for some murder and mayhem.

  BEOWULF PULLED the parachute cord moments after he jumped out of the aircraft. Only a few hundred feet above the courtyard he could see pitched battles beginning to form as what remained of the Inquisition battalion regrouped.

  Beowulf had never felt anything like this. Flying free. Was this how Valkyries felt when they descended from Valhalla?

  The ground was coming up fast. With a grin so wide his cheeks stretched tight, Beowulf unslung the pair of MP 40's, one in each arm, and the unfortunate Inquisition soldiers right below looked up at the sight of a Viking covered in armour and furs and weapons of all kinds, with the Devil's own grin singing 'Row, Row, Row, Your Boat' spitting twin red fire streams of metal-jacketed death upon everything beneath.

  Odin be praised, it was a great day to be a Viking King.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  CARVE A PATH

  GRIFFIN LANDED HARD, right on top of an Inquisition marine about to slash the throat of Moss, a razor-thin Viking with blonde matted hair.

  Before the marine could get up, Griffin lifted his heavy boot and ground it down upon the man's neck, crushing it, twisting his boot this way and that, stubbing out a life cigarette. Moss nodded, then stabbed a marine rushing up behind Griffin through the throat.

  The gunnery sergeant pulled the cigar stub from his top pocket then stuck it in the corner of his mouth and observed the situation as the dead marine fell, landing at his feet. He knelt and began unwrapping Betty from her protective oilskins, corpses arrayed all around.

  Both gliders were down. Hilda's was in far worse shape, but casualties seemed minimal. Laurie appeared to be still in control of his bloodlust on the far side of the courtyard, wreaking carnage with gay abandon from short bursts of MP 40 fire followed by ever-increasing familiarity with short sword thrusts and slashes, shouting orders to those nearby.

  Behind them, the gargantuan gaping mouth of the mountain entrance, still closed.

  Ahead, beyond the ring wall, their objective of the small town of research buildings. They needed to get to the next ring wall down and secure that gate fast.

  The supply crates had fallen in the middle, a handful of dead marines arresting their descent. Okay then.

  He stood up, lifting Betty with him, a short length of home-made ammo already locked and loaded, spilling onto the ground. He pulled the arming slide back. They needed to carve a path to the guard tower right next to the ring wall's only gate, where the mass of the enemy had regrouped, an officer pointing right at him and snarling commands.

  Griffin carved a path with Betty in the only way he knew how.

  "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST," said Mick, dangling from the edge of a stone building between the second and third ring walls, his parachute caught on the lead guttering above.

  Fucking parachutes. He dropped the empty magazine and took a fresh clip from his breast pocket webbing, and slammed it home. He used his legs to once more push off and swing around the building's corner spraying the advancing platoon of marines trying to rush the thin corridor of what Mick presumed was the research buildings. His MP 40 chattered and a stream of spent brass cartridges cascaded to the ground twenty feet below.

  So many bodies littered the narrow walkway the enemy could use it as cover. Bits of masonry flakes stung the exposed areas of his face as return fire grew ever closer to their mark.

  The pendulum of his swing reached its apex and he swung back to behind the stone wall.

  Another empty clip.

  Fuck.

  He did the mental arithmetic. Three remaining.

  Jesus, but those buggers needed to get down here soon.

  He breathed out and wiped the snot off his nose with the back of his sleeve, and was blessed with the sound of angel's ascending to heaven.

  The beautiful, unmistakable
sound of a Browning .50 opening up. Betty.

  You little ripper. He inserted a fresh mag and tensed the muscles in his legs.

  Eat shit and die you Inka bastards.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  ANTHILL

  THE TINY FIGURES below looked like scurrying ants, as to Ella's left the fortress came alive, or as she thought, a mass of white ants that just had their anthill knocked over, swarming up the side of the mountain through alternate left and right ring wall gates, following the wide winding road.

  The assault teams needed to secure that courtyard then the area immediately below it and close the gate before the tide flowing uphill overran them.

  The factories in the middle section of the stronghold belched white and black smoke from myriad chimneys, not even including the oil refinery in the third section up from the main wall, spewing spouts of flame from multiple stacks as petrochemical waste burnt off.

  Ella could make out the half dozen offshore oil platforms hundreds of yards out into the bay, and the black oil pipes through the shallow water running back all the way up to the jetties in front of the main wall then disappearing, presumably running underground all the way to the oil refinery.

  And in between the first two ring walls, comprising the largest amount of land area sat the main barracks, from which the flood of marines poured out.

  Three massive jetties extended out into the bay, a good couple of dozen warships moored and . . . what do we have here? Ella observed with interest a row of Supermarine seaplanes moored on the far side of the wall on a fourth, smaller jetty. Six of them, all white, all identical, with tiny figures running from a small building at the jetties base from what she presumed was the aircrew's barracks.

  Ella eased her Catalina into a wide banking turn once out over the bay, bringing the aircraft down to mast height and around until the row of seaplanes lined up directly in front of her. Small arms fire issued from the warships she passed, none of it hitting their mark as they all failed the learned art of deflection shooting, all firing at where the aircraft was, not where it would be.