Man with the Iron Heart

by Mat Nastos

  Dismissed and dismayed, the hulking form of Hans Hagan retreated quickly from the room.

  Muttering to himself, Himmler went to his friend and absent-mindedly stroked the sweat-damp hair of Heydrich’s head. The patient’s breathing had steadied, deepening in its rhythm. Heydrich would live and, with him, the power of the Edda Society would grow and flourish as never before.

  Heydrich’s parched lips split at the touch of his friend’s hands, releasing a sigh containing the word ‘beautiful’.

  Delicate hands clapped together in delight at the sight of Heydrich’s crusted eye yanking itself open and allowing a sickly green energy to seep out.

  Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the Third Reich and one of the most feared men in the world, allowed his thin lips to peel back over perfect teeth in a childlike grin. “We have done it, my friends,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to the two Austrian scientists. “Soon, the Jotnar will walk the lands of Midgard once more and mankind will bow to the power of the Third Reich!”

  CHAPTER 10

  GRIMM’S TALE

  The blackness of the void gave way after a time to the cold gray of something else. Of somewhere else. Ian MacAndrew struggled to sit up and found his movements slow and sluggish, as if his entire body was moving through a thick soup. Everything felt ponderous and heavy, and the gray curtain would not fall from the Scotsman’s eyes no matter how much he blinked or tried to shake it from his head.

  After what felt like an hour, MacAndrew was able to crawl to his hands and knees. Allowing his gaze to roam, he noticed he was resting on the rough, colorless cobblestones of an ancient, abandoned road that stretched into the mist in front of him. Behind him, the road ended in a wall of impenetrable blackness. Blackness and a sense of unfathomable dread.

  On the uneven rock beneath him was the only color that seemed to exist in the gray world in which he’d found himself. Crimson trickled down his arm and dripped with a thunderous boom onto the ground. It coated his sleeves, collar, and chest with a red so bright it hurt to look at in the chilling gray. It was the only warmth he could feel and it was fading from his body one painfully slow heartbeat at a time.

  He was bleeding. Badly.

  The color brought with it the kernel of an idea.

  A remembrance.

  Slowly the kernel blossomed into a thought: he’d been hurt in the attack on the church. A tank shell had exploded nearby before he lost consciousness. But… then how did he get here? On a road in the middle of nowhere?

  “How indeed, Ian MacAndrew?” asked a voice that echoed from everywhere at once, startling the soldier. The voice sounded old and tired, wise and eternal. It was the voice of a mountain or a tree that had stood silent for millennia before finally speaking. It was a voice more ancient than time itself. “Why are you here?”

  Drip, drip, drip. The blood continued to flow, puddling and flowing into the cracks, and draining away his life.

  “I’m dying,” he said.

  “Yes,” came the voice once more, this time from just beyond the edge of the slate-colored fog before MacAndrew.

  Coalescing out of the mist, an old, gray man wearing tattered gray robes appeared, leaning on a gnarled, twisted staff of stark white. The man’s timeworn face was half-hidden behind colorless hair, out of which gleamed a single brilliant blue eye that captured MacAndrew in its grip.

  “Do you want to live? Or, is your time on earth done, Ian MacAndrew?” The voice was quiet – a whisper – but the potency of it nearly knocked the Scotsman over. It was a question whose answer would mean life or death for the old soldier, and he knew it.

  Locking his gaze on the old man, MacAndrew forced every ounce of his will, every iota of his soul, into his throat and said, “Yes.”

  Behind the tangled veil of hair, the ancient stranger smiled with crooked teeth showing beneath his flowing mustache.

  “And will you give yourself over to my cause?” The eye flashed brighter with every word, burning a white-hot after-image into MacAndrew’s brain. “Will you take up my banner against the withering light?”

  The man gestured toward the wall of absolute darkness at the Scot’s back and MacAndrew felt compelled to follow the gesture, to stare into the face of the abyss. At first, there was nothing, only the fading boom of the cogent voice. Then slowly, the soldier began to see things that moved in the darkness.

  Great things.

  Terrible things.

  Things that waited just beyond the edge of the shadows for the failing of the light.

  Monsters waited for him – for all of mankind – in the darkness beyond the gray.

  MacAndrew jumped, started by the old one’s voice ringing next to his ear.

  “I ask you again, Ian MacAndrew.” The voice slid along the back of his neck, beating into his brain. “Will you live and face the Jotnar?”

  Seconds passed, with the silence only broken by MacAndrew’s ragged breathing that grew more shallow as the blood fell from his body, devoured by the hungry earth beneath. The words failed to cross his lips. Behind him, the darkness frothed, ravenous for the last of his life.

  “ANSWER!” commanded the robed man with a bellow that smelled of freshly-fallen rain on a long-forgotten grave.

  Tendrils of ebony, blacker than the void of space itself, slithered out of the abyss looming behind MacAndrew and the being that danced in the mist-gloom before him. The horrors behind demanded an answer as well. Give up. Surrender. Abandon all hope.

  The blistering cold of nothingness spiked into the Scotsman’s heel at a touch from the tentacle that bubbled and oozed as it tried to gain a grip on his nearly-lifeless leg. MacAndrew’s teeth ground together with a clash of determination.

  Digging the cooling fingers of his dying hand into the ground at the Gray Wanderer’s feet, Ian MacAndrew stared up into the shining azure eye and gave it his answer.

  “Yes.”

  Pain rippled through MacAndrew’s arm as the old man’s hand flashed out and wrapped fingers cold and hard as iron itself around the Scot’s wrist. Before MacAndrew could protest, the stranger reached out and tore the nail from MacAndrew’s right thumb.

  The searing-hot pain in his hand, combined with the glacial cold on his wrist, caused MacAndrew’s sight to fill with a white light. In the instant his lungs were filling with the air to scream in shock, he found himself sitting upright in a dark room cluttered with monstrous rocks and pieces of the floor from overheard. The only light in the room shone down in thin lances from above. The harsh transition from sleep to waking and the pain that accompanied it had a sobering effect on the Scot.

  Eyes caked in thick dust blinked once and then again, straining to clear themselves enough to see. The back of MacAndrew’s hand slid across his face, wiping away as much of the thick grime that had settled there during his bout with unconsciousness. The gunk sluiced down his face; mud formed from tears and debris.

  A slow turn of his head revealed little of his whereabouts beyond the presence of fallen timber, broken stone, and stacks of wooden crates. The only familiar sight was a disorganized mound of the radio equipment the British Intelligence Ministry had air-dropped for use by the Czech resistance a few months earlier. It didn’t take a trained eye to see that most of the electronics were battered and busted, but there might be something he could salvage. For now, there was little hope of calling for aid. Not that any would come.

  For the first time since he had landed on the European mainland, Ian MacAndrew was alone.

  Thunder rocked the large room with enough force to cause the mildewed oaken timbers lining the ceiling to threaten collapse. A second shock-wave sent MacAndrew scrambling for whatever cover he could find, fearing the Nazis had resumed their artillery bombardment. A nearby stone with the mass of a tank shuddered and rocked. A white hand, its fingers large and splayed wide, gripped the uneven rock. A small grunt in conjunction w
ith another rumble of thunder, followed. Stone scraped against stone as the boulder rolled away, revealing a massive form silhouetted in the warm, dusk light.

  Grimm stood for a moment, arm braced on the boulder as he considered something behind him before he ducked his head and eased himself inside. With another groan, the blockade was back in place and the giant was no worse for wear. MacAndrew was stunned. The rock had to weigh a ton if it weighed an ounce. There was no way a normal man could have shoved it aside with the nonchalance the great German had… not that the Scot had any misconceptions about the normalcy of Donner Grimm. The man was a titan given form.

  “Ah, you are awake, little Celt.”

  The smell of roasted meat slammed into MacAndrew with more force than a mortar shell, causing his mouth to water and his head to swim. As if sensing the smaller man’s hunger, Grimm held up a bag that dripped with grease and the heavens.

  “The Gods were kind today. I was able to find food…” From somewhere behind his back, Grimm produced a pair of dark bottles. “…and wine.”

  “How… how long was I out,” asked MacAndrew, dusting himself off. The light filtering through the cracks in the ceiling and the spaces between broken masonry was from the red sun of twilight. He guessed he’d been unconscious for a few hours.

  “Three days,” replied Grimm, sitting at the makeshift table he’d built during MacAndrew’s recovery. As if noticing the next round of questions bubbling up behind the injured man’s eyes, Grimm continued, “The rest of your men were killed when the Panzers launched their attack and brought the church down on top of them. I saved you in the chaos and brought you down here to the catacombs beneath the priests’ quarters.”

  “Oh, no. Gabcik… I promised Rela he’d come for her when we were done here.” MacAndrew rubbed the bridge of his nose between two fingers and then stumbled over to join his new German friend at the crude feast. “Wait, did you say I was out for three days? How is that possible? I’ve got barely a scratch on me, lad.”

  “Your wounds were mortal, little Celt,” chuckled Grimm, causing chunks of cold squab to tumble down his chin. “Only the blessings of the All-Father allowed you to return from the depths of Hel’s domain.”

  MacAndrew’s eyebrow shot up at the big man’s statement, and he patted down his body to see where he’d been hurt. Finding no wounds beyond a bloody, nail-less thumb on his right hand, and an oddly warm sensation on the wrist below it, the burly Scot laughed. “Bah, you’re daft. Must have been a right hard knock to my skull that put me out.” A loud rumble from the depths of his stomach stifled MacAndrew’s mirth and he dove into the meal.

  “He came to you in your dreams,” said the great warrior matter-of-factly. “You bear his mark there on your wrist, do you not?”

  A soothing warmth running up and down the length of his forearm pushed its way into MacAndrew’s head. The center of the heat was focused on the inside of his wrist, just below the palm. Wiping a tiny smudge of blood left by the laceration on the top of his thumb, the old soldier yanked up his right sleeve. Staring back from where none should exist was an odd mark ‒ a runic symbol similar in nature to those cascading up along Grimm’s arm. It seemed, in the dimness of the church’s underground crypts, to give off a faint light, the color of which MacAndrew was hard-pressed to name.

  “What is it?” The radiance of the arrow-shaped symbol reflected back from the soldier’s watery eyes.

  “The All-Father has blessed you with the symbol of victory. It is the mark of Tyr, and was called Tiwaz in the old tongue. You have been honored by Odin… be proud.”

  MacAndrew marveled at the symbol, noting that it appeared more as a birthmark than a tattoo. The mark looked as if it had always existed on his arm and, with each passing moment, it seemed to the Scot that it was meant to rest where it did.

  “I can see the questions burning in your head, Ian MacAndrew. I’ll answer those I can, but first… eat.” Grimm removed a cooked pheasant from a pouch at his waist. A nod invited MacAndrew to join him for a meal.

  “Why do you want to kill Heydrich? And what the hell were those monsters outside? How can you move a stone that weighs more than an auto?” MacAndrew decided he’d had enough of the big man’s riddles and side-speak. He wanted everything laid in front of him where he could decide what to do next. “Who are you, Grimm? Who are you really?”

  Grimm dropped the bones of the bird he’d been gnawing on and used the back of his arm to wipe the crumbs away from the corners of his mouth. Nodding at the smaller man’s questions, Grimm stood and paced to the middle of the room, bathing in the center of a sun ray, basking in its warmth for a moment.

  Looking down at the Scot, Grimm began to speak in his deep, resonant voice. “I will tell you a story, little Celt. It is the story of nine evil men hungry for power. Of nine men who awoke giants that had been sleeping, sealed away since before the birth of man. Of how they found and tortured a simple man, his wife, and their daughter. Tortured them for nine days to break the seal between worlds. It is the story of how the man was saved by the last of the old gods and bound by blood and by iron to stop them.”

  MacAndrew was stunned by what he heard. He knew the Nazis were barbaric, but this seemed beyond even them. “Your wife,” MacAndrew finally coaxed the words from between trembling lips. “Your daughter. What happened to them? Where are they?”

  A melancholy smile crossed Grimm’s face even as a great sadness filled his eyes. Dropping his chin to rest on his chest, the giant said quietly, “Magda… my little Lily… they are both with me still.”

  Grimm’s mammoth hand gestured toward the girdle wrapped about his waist. The runes, dark until then, began to pulse with a light from within. It was then MacAndrew heard the singing once more; two delicate voices, those of a young mother and her child, singing a wordless tune that spoke of hope and warmth. A tune that promised reunion once all earthly work was done.

  All color drained from MacAndrew as he listened to the unearthly singing.

  Nodding, Grimm finished, “Their spirits give me the strength to continue. To fight.”

  “My God,” said the Scot, moved by the realization of what had happened to the man as he crossed himself.

  “Do not pity me, little Celt,” said Grimm. “When I am done, we will be together once more. When this is over and the gods have finished their game, I will hold them and we will rest.”

  In his youth, twenty-five years past, Ian MacAndrew had experienced first-hand the terrors of the Great War. He’d fought and bled alongside men; strode through corpse-filled trenches in France; killed. Through all of that, the burly Scotsman had never wept, never shed a single tear. Grimm’s story – the German’s loss and acceptance – nearly shattered MacAndrew’s resolve, forcing him to turn away as moisture began to brim along the edges of his eyes. It was horror and beauty combined perfectly that touched the cagey old soldier in a way little else in his life had. It took the man nearly a minute before he could regain his composure enough to ask a single question of his new companion.

  “Am I like… you now?”

  Clapping his hand across the wide shoulders of the brawny Scotsman, Grimm responded, “Have heart, little Celt. You have become one of the chosen of Odin. Your fingernail now helps to make up the ship the All-Father will steer into the final battle against the giants. You will join the host eternal at the front lines of Ragnarok. You are Einherjar!”

  The revelation failed to have the cheering affect upon MacAndrew that Grimm had probably intended.

  Licking his suddenly-dry lips with a tongue of uncertainty, MacAndrew asked, “Is that what you are, Grimm? An Einherjar?”

  Shaking his head sadly, the giant replied, “No. I have had to sacrifice far more to the old raven’s banner than you, my friend. More than I hope you have to before the end of things.”

  The ability to form words left Ian MacAndrew. It was quickly becoming all too m
uch. Ancient gods. Demons. Human sacrifice. None of those things fit into the reality the soldier had lived for his forty-plus years of life. The thoughts and ideas being forced down his throat were enough to choke off every ounce of common sense he possessed. And he didn’t like any of it.

  Grimm shook his head at the obvious confusion and building hopelessness that played freely across MacAndrew’s face. The giant’s next words seemed the only way to aid the Scotsman in his acceptance of what had been cast in MacAndrew’s path, to give him something familiar to focus on. Something solid and something mundane that MacAndrew could wrap his mind around to keep himself from being driven mad. Something the Scotsman assumed Grimm had not been so fortunate to receive during his own indoctrination by the All-Father.

  “We’ve talked of the past and things that cannot be changed long enough,” said Grimm. He pointed at the bulky radio transmitter and receiver Grimm had recovered from the ruins after the Nazis had left the area. “Himmler and his lackey will be making an announcement and I have no idea how to make your electronic toys work, my friend. Will you make them talk so we can hear their lies?”

  “Aye, I can,” said MacAndrew, moving over to the tangled mess of wires and machines, thankful for the task.

  A quick examination of the equipment told MacAndrew the radio’s transmitter had been crushed beyond repair, but the receiver seemed to be in good working order. With a bit of luck the pair would be able to sit back, have some tea, and listen to two of the most powerful men in occupied Europe speak… and perhaps get a better idea of what their next steps should be.

  Once more, luck was nowhere to be found.

  “What is wrong with your machines? Why are they silent?” Grimm asked, clearly more familiar with the workings of weapons and killing than of the hi-tech radio apparatus the Czechoslovakian freedom fighters had smuggled into the country in pieces.