Man with the Iron Heart

by Mat Nastos

  Sliding into position next to the giant and ejecting a spent clip from his submachine gun, MacAndrew flashed the German a serious grin, letting him know they were in things together. The newcomer nodded in return and continued taking shots where the blistering fire from the Nazis allowed. A gurgling scream, and then a second, reconfirmed the giant’s accuracy as another pair of Berlin’s finest fell with mortal wounds.

  “We have to break through their defenses before reinforcements arrive… I’m sure the local garrison is already on their way,” said MacAndrew, easing up to get a better look at the Germans’ position and try to figure out what they were going to do next.

  “Down, you fool,” growled the large man, jerking MacAndrew’s head down and away from the Nazis’ line of fire a split second before hell began raining down on the auto they hid behind. Somehow one of the German soldiers had unloaded a MG42 machine gun, capable of letting loose with over twelve-hundred rounds per minute, and set it up at the rear of the demolished Horch without being seen. The Scot was saved from having his head turned into a fine red mist as the Nazi opened up with the high-powered, fully-automatic weapon and began to turn the delivery vehicle into Swiss cheese.

  So loud was the weapon’s fire that it wasn’t until the soldier paused to reload that MacAndrew realized he was screaming. The weapon then turned to hammer the side of the building where the Scot’s three men were hiding, pressing them further away from the battlefront and allowing the remaining members of Heydrich’s forces to press forward, inching toward the pinned-down pair of unlikely comrades.

  In a low voice, MacAndrew said, “Whatever you’ve got planned, laddie, you’d best do it before our shield is gone. Those Krauts seem to want you dead as much as they do us!”

  Nodding, the giant passed over his Mauser to the Scotsman, its barrel still red hot and smoking from the continuous fire it had been spitting out at the Germans. “What am I going to do with this?” asked MacAndrew, baffled by the man’s gift.

  “Cover me.”

  Looking down at the over-sized Mauser that had been forced into his hand, MacAndrew stared at the stranger for a moment, completely stunned, before he was able to make his vocal cords work again. “What are you going to do without your gun?”

  “Kill them all.”

  The man is insane. But an enormous grin split his face from ear to ear. Well, at least he has style.

  Looking over his shoulder, the Scotsman barked orders to his men who had double-backed, and taken up new positions using the nearby buildings as cover.

  “Right,” he bellowed, taking aim with the giant’s unusual gun. “You heard the man, boyos – give 'em hell!”

  Leaping from the shadows, blood-stained and with guns locked to full-automatic, Opalka, Kubis, and Gabcik sent a hail of bullets raining down on the Nazis huddled around their steam-spewing transport, catching them in a crossfire with their guard down. Even wounded, his men would fight through the pain to send the Nazi scum to hell.

  Seeing the counter-attack by MacAndrew’s men seemed to spur the giant into action. Muscles and tendons flexed under the nearly translucent skin, moving the almost three-hundred pound mass of man into position near the front of his barricade, where he did the unexpected.

  He rose to his feet.

  “What’re you doing?!” yelped MacAndrew, who did his best to hold the mountain of a man down.

  Standing in complete disregard of the firefight, the giant freed the sword he had sheathed at his waist and began to speak in a slow, deep baritone that could be heard over the roar of the battle.

  “All-Father, gray wanderer, grant me wisdom, courage, and victory.” He paused and switched his grip on the sword in his left hand, the handle forward and its two-foot-long blade laid flat against his forearm. The mirror-like surface of the weapon began to glow a pale blue that matched the runes on the giant’s arm and girdle. “Friend Thor, grant me your strength. And both be with me.”

  Before the words had completely fallen from the man’s thin lips, he was in motion. Spinning to face his enemies, he planted one foot on the front of the damaged truck and launched himself into the air, crushing the vehicle’s hood down to the engine as he did. The vault – thirty feet if it was a foot, MacAndrew estimated – sent the warrior sailing across the road to land in the midst of the soldiers surrounding the Nazi transport.

  A flick of the giant’s wrist sent both arms of the heavy machine gunner sailing off into space and split his MG42 in half. Blood geysered from the man’s stumps, covering everyone nearby in crimson. Reversing the gore-encrusted blade in his hand, the next attack drove the weapon through a second Nazi’s head, from just beneath his jaw and out the top of his skull.

  When a third member of Heydrich’s elite guards tried to drive his bayonet into the giant’s belly, the Nazi was stopped by a blow from an iron-hard fist that turned the soldier’s face into unrecognizable mush. With three more Nazis dead at his feet, only four more blocked the giant’s path to Heydrich.

  MacAndrew was joined behind the bullet-ridden truck by the rest of his crew and, for the first time since the entire operation went sideways, the Scot held hope. He marveled at the ability of the giant to deal out death to his enemies, watching as a fourth Wehrmacht trooper fell to the glowing blade. Another moment or two and Heydrich’s life would be ended, and MacAndrew could finally head home.

  The sound of bleating horns and the angry cries of men ended the celebration, causing the conspirators to turn as one to see a caravan of Nazi troop transports – six vehicles in all – carrying more than eighty soldiers armed for war and eager to fight.

  “Shite.” Stealing a glance back to the drama just across the small road, he was rewarded by the sight of another of Heydrich’s men dropping to the ground clutching his intestines as the giant pushed past him, gaze locked on the front of the trapped vehicle.

  The reedy voice of Lieutenant Opalka snapped MacAndrew’s attention back.

  “Sir! We have to get out of here… there are too many to hold off,” the man cried, gesturing wildly at the approaching Nazi company. Gunshots from the backs of the vehicles accentuated his urgency. “We should fall back and regroup at the safe-house! If we don’t, the mission is lost!”

  Biting the tip of his thick red mustache, MacAndrew cursed. The Czech was right. They wouldn’t stand a chance once Heydrich’s reinforcements arrived.

  “We have to go now, Sir!” shouted Gabcik. The thin man’s nerves were stretched to breaking point and he looked ready to bolt. He was pawing at MacAndrew’s coat, pleading for the man to take flight with them. “Come!”

  Smiling and clasping Gabcik’s shoulder reassuringly, MacAndrew said, “It’s okay. Lieutenant Opalka, take the lads out of here and get to location alpha. Be safe, patch your wounds, and I’ll join you when I can.”

  He saw the confusion in his men; why wasn’t he going with them while he had the chance? Once the Nazis arrived, anyone left would be torn to shreds by the animals.

  “Don’t worry about me. I have to go help the big man over there.” To the young Czech lieutenant he added, “If I don’t link up with you by dusk, move to the safe-house in Prague and call command. They’ll have further orders for you. Now get out of here!”

  MacAndrew turned back to the action on the opposite side of the tiny Liben thoroughfare in time to see the final soldier fall to a mighty stroke that cleaved the man in half from shoulder to groin. MacAndrew shoved the massive Mauser into his belt, took hold of his Owen gun in increasingly sweaty hands and scrambled across the street. After all they’d been through he didn’t want to miss his chance to see the Butcher of Prague finally meet death at the hands of justice, even if it was being delivered by a hand other than his own. Seeing a German administer the killing blow somehow made it all worthwhile.

  As long as it wasn’t a Frenchman. The thought elicited a wide grin.

  A thump-thump from n
earby grabbed the attention of both MacAndrew and the giant, reorienting them from the gore of the fallen Nazis’ bodies to the reason they had come to the burned-out country village: Reinhard Heydrich.

  Rather creative cursing accompanied the wild pounding from deep within the crew compartment of the stranded vehicle. A split-second later, the driver’s side door of the wrecked Horch troop carrier shuddered and shook for a moment before it was violently thrown open by Heydrich. The effort by the Nazi, accompanied by the groans and squeals of bent and torn metal on metal, did little to aid the man’s freedom. Instead, he was deposited roughly onto the ground with a squeal of his own, and delivered from frying pan into the fire of the giant’s bloodied sight, and entangled with the blood-drenched body of his driver.

  “Heydrich,” boomed the giant, startling the Nazi with the power and venom packed heavily into each syllable. “The last of the Aesir calls for vengeance and for your death!”

  MacAndrew saw his prey yank a sidearm from its holster, just out of the giant’s view. With the muscles in his legs burning from the effort, the Scotsman knew he’d never cover the distance to the Horch in time to save the man who had single-handedly routed an entire unit of the Reichprotektor’s elite guard with little more than a pig-sticker and a scowl.

  The big man was one of the toughest things MacAndrew had seen in his life, but at point-blank range there was no way the Nazi could miss killing or terminally wounding him.

  “Balmung will sing at the taste of your blood,” continued the giant, saluting Heydrich with the tip of his weapon.

  Wishing he had been built for speed instead of love, MacAndrew bellowed out a warning to the sword-wielding German warrior who offered no response that he had heard as he pressed forward unheeding.

  “He’s got a gun!”

  From his half-crouching position on the ground at the giant’s feet, Heydrich clutched his Luger – which seemed woefully insignificant in the face of the monster intent on his death – and fired off a neat burst of three shots that should have plunged into that mighty chest. Grimm’s flashing blue sword swatted away the slugs with all the effort it takes a man to shoo flies on a humid afternoon.

  “What are you?!” shouted Heydrich, backing away.

  “Only what you forced me to become,” replied the warrior as he drove his sword into the Nazi commander’s belly and out through his back, taking the man through his intestines, stomach and kidney in the process.

  A hand the size of a pitcher’s mitt cut off Heydrich’s gurgling scream of pain, nearly crushing his windpipe. The giant leaned forward and spat furious words into Heydrich’s ear, “You are but the first. Soon the entire Edda Society will fall to the will of the All-Father.”

  Spitting foam and blood from between teeth clenched in pain, the Nazi governor of Bohemia spit at his attacker. “You cannot stop us, the Jotnar will burn the world!”

  Twisting the gleaming sword slowly in the man’s gut and eliciting a scream of pain, the giant laughed contemptuously at Heydrich and said, “You will not be around to see it.”

  Heydrich dropped to the ground as the pale warrior wrested the blade from the Butcher’s abdomen. The Nazi, pressing an arm into his stomach to try and hold his innards at bay, looked up into eyes of his would-be killer defiantly. The giant drew back the sword, preparing a devastating downward stroke to behead the dying man and snuff out his vile existence.

  A burst of submachine gun fire tore into the giant’s side, dropping the large man to one knee. Bleeding profusely, another shower of bullets would have cut him in half had MacAndrew not rushed forward to tackle the wounded man, saving his life in spectacular fashion. Bullets ripped divots into the concrete and stone ground where the man had been a split-second before.

  The giant screamed at the Scotsman, demanding to know why the ‘little Celt’ was trying to stop his mission.

  Struggling to pull the injured warrior away from the dying Heydrich before the approaching soldiers could box them in, MacAndrew pleaded with the big man, “We’ve got to get out of here before we’re cut off. I have a safe-house with the Czechs nearby.” Seeing the giant had no interest in leaving the scene until he was sure the killing work was done, he added, “The Nazi bastard is as good as dead!”

  Moving his rage-filled eyes from the fallen body of Reinhard Heydrich to the mass of Wehrmacht soldiers closing fast and cutting the pair off from their target, the man swore to Odin once more and then nodded to the Scotsman, allowing himself to be pulled away.

  Behind them, a tidal wave of gray-clad soldiers crashed into the street they had vacated, and surged around their fallen commander.

  MacAndrew prayed his words to the giant would prove true… for his own sake.

  CHAPTER 3

  AN UNEASY ALLIANCE

  Steel-toed boots, black and polished, jack-hammered into the pavement along Zenklova Street in Liben, bearing nearly one hundred members of the local Wehrmacht division thundering onto the scene: a milieu showcasing massive carnage, death, and the barely-breathing body of Reinhard Heydrich split nearly in half and quickly bleeding out.

  At the head of the Nazi invasion of the tiny public street strode Hauptsturmführer Hans Hagan. The mammoth man stood six-foot-five from the bottom of his highly-trained feet to the top of his close-cropped blond head. Nearly every inch covered in the neatly-pressed, over-starched black uniform of an elite member of the SS – a stormtrooper in his heart and soul. Recently promoted to the head of the top secret Schwarzbär unit, Hagan and the fifteen men of his platoon commanded respect and fear from all those around them. A status given form in the wide berth the members of the Wehrmacht gave them in all matters.

  Hagan shouted for soldiers to secure a perimeter for ten blocks, oblivious of a higher-ranking member of the Wehrmacht being on the scene. Wisely, Major Otto March of the 10th Panzer Divison let the Schwarzbär commander take operational lead.

  “Secure the Obergruppenführer! He needs medical attention… Mach Schnell!” called Hagan, directing the medical unit to the now-burning Horch transport and Heydrich’s crimson-coated body.

  The six-man team began to ease the ashen form of the Reichsprotektor onto a gurney. But the stress was too much for Heydrich, who let loose with a bone-chilling scream before passing out.

  “Dolts! You’ll finish the job the filthy meuchelmörder started!”

  Rushing to the side of his beloved leader, the man who had promoted him the year before and gave him entry into the lower echelon of the Edda Society, Hagan backhanded one of the Spanish members of the medical team, sending the man bouncing across the rough cobblestone road, snapping the doctor’s neck and killing him instantly. Hagan despised the non-German officers in the Wehrmacht, and hated the Spanish worst of all. They were no better than mongrels, as bad as the Czech gypsies they were forced to watch over. The bear of a man longed for the days when he could lead the charge to crush them and the rest of the inferior races beneath his boots.

  He gripped another Spaniard, a particularly thin and loathsome sergeant called Cortes, and shook him hard enough to render him senseless while the SS officer berated and threatened him.

  “Get Obergruppenführer Heydrich to Bulovka Hospital on the double. His life is your life. If he dies – you die!”

  Hagan watched the doctors like a hawk through every step of loading the Reichsprotektor onto their transport before they drove away. For Hans Hagan, there was nothing more rewarding than making sure the lesser men knew their place in the hierarchy, especially those who sat pathetically at its bottom. Staring long at the dust trail they left behind, Hagan made a mental note to visit the Spaniard and his men before the night was over. They weren’t worthy of the trust the Nazi command had put in them. He would torture them until they understood their failings and then they would die. There could be no other reward for incompetence.

  Realizing time was of the essence in capturing the rebels, ord
ers began flying from Hagan’s mouth at a rapid pace. He commanded the Wehrmacht soldiers to round up all civilians in the area. Someone had to have seen what happened – or have been a part of the conspiracy to murder the Reichsprotektor. Anyone who failed to cooperate, or was found to be in league with the assassins, was to be shot on the spot. Herr Heydrich’s own law stated the punishment for treason or giving aid to traitors, was death. It was one law Hagan was enthusiastic about enforcing.

  Very little got the blood in his veins pumping than dolling out a righteous death to his enemies.

  The thought of killing and the smell of blood and death in the air began to have a not-so-subtle effect on the soldier. He knew what came next. His eyes discolored, the irises fading from dark brown to bronze, and the sclera darkening until they were almost ebony in color. Hagan’s breathing deepened, becoming slower and heavier as his body expanded with the Change. Heinrich Himmler and the masters of the Edda Society had warned him of what would happen if he let it take him, what would happen if he lost control at the wrong moment.

  Hagan forced an increasingly-wide hand that was sprouting a coat of course black hair along its back, into the top of his shirt, nearly ripping the pressed black collar with the white lightning bolt symbols of the SS on it in the process. The Change was almost past the point of no return, flooding Hagan’s mind with images of carnage, when his hand closed around the ancient metal chain with a piece of rune-etched iron fastened to its bottom.

  Holding the cold, irregularly-shaped meteorite in his palm with such force that it broke skin, Hagan chanted the words he had been taught. The words that would push back the Change and allow him to keep his mind and his human form. Without the rock, he would have been lost in the mind of the beast until he had tasted blood and sated his hunger.