Man with the Iron Heart

by Mat Nastos

  MacAndrew turned from the fleeing crowd and headed back into the town. When last he had seen Grimm, the man seemed to barely hold his own. The Heydrich-Garm creature had become infinitely stronger since last the two men had fought. Back in Prague Grimm had the upper-hand, but now things were different. He prayed he’d reach Grimm in time to help the beleaguered giant finish the Jotnar-enhanced Heydrich. If at all possible, he wanted to be the one to drive a bullet into the Butcher’s brain.

  Moving back onto the deserted main street of Lezaky, an eruption slammed into MacAndrew like a solid wall of warm, moist air. It drove him spiraling back, head over heels, knocking him senseless. When the second wave – one of blistering heat – battered him, MacAndrew lost all awareness, giving himself over to unconsciousness.

  “Ian MacAndrew,” said a voice in MacAndrew’s mind. A voice completely alien and yet familiar. An ancient voice. “Wake.”

  Eyelashes crusted with grime and dirt pulled apart when MacAndrew’s senses returned to him a few moments later. Tears poured down his face, irritating the ragged, burned flesh left behind from the explosion that had devastated Lezaky. Clearing the debris from his face, MacAndrew crawled slowly to his feet, stretching his old, tired back muscles as he did.

  The devastation around him was astounding. No single building of the town remained standing or whole. No walls remained untouched by the aftermath of the explosion. Every blade of grass as far as the eye could see burned, and every inch of ground blackened in enormous concentric circles spreading out from where the cold iron machine had stood in its epicenter. Not even the trees had been able to withstand ruination – leaves, branches, entire trees were scorched. A blaze was already rampaging uncontrollably farther away. There was no telling how far it would go before its fury would finally be satiated.

  Hobbling along a street where sand had been fused into glass, it took a moment for the Scotsman to remember where he was. A moment for a single word, a single name to push its way into his mind.

  “Grimm!”

  He had to find his companion. Had to know whether or not Garm had won, to know if the men had succeeded in saving humanity from the evil machinations of the Great Old Ones. Making his way around the three-meter-high pile of rubble that was all that remained of Wittgenstein’s final creation, MacAndrew found the answer to his questions.

  There, standing in the midst of the smoldering desolation, stood Grimm, clothed only in the girdle of Thor, his once-white skin flushed pink from where it had been scalded by the blast. The Scotsman, still unnoticed by his friend, watched as the giant began speaking to someone unseen at first. Slowly, a figure began to materialize, seemingly manufactured from the gray ash filling the air.

  “Father Odin, your will has been done,” said Grimm to the entity, dropping exhaustedly to one knee as he did. “The hellhound, Garm, is dead, slain by my hand. The note of Gjallarhorn remains unsounded.”

  MacAndrew’s mouth dropped as he watched the ancient figure from his fevered dreams stand less than twenty feet away addressing the pale giant whom he’d come to trust with his life.

  “Yes,” answered the Gallows God. “For now.”

  “Dear lord… he is real.”

  The thing that struck the Scot as the most incredible was that Odin stood a good head taller even than Grimm and, enshrouded in the billowing gray coat of mists that made up his robes, threatened to engulf to German completely.

  “You must seek out the last of the Norns, Donner Grimm,” came the words of the Hanged God, filling the air like thunder in the distance, forcing everything to go quiet: birds, the crackling of flames, and even the sound of the wind itself died out. “Already millions die because of what was done to the crones. Save the Great Weave or all is lost.”

  “Yes, All-Father. It will be done,” answered Grimm, bowing his head low out of respect for the god of antiquity.

  As MacAndrew watched, the gray of Odin’s shroud began to fade, leaving an emptiness behind. The last thing to vanish was the burning blue orb of his remaining eye, filled with fire and sadness, which caught the Scotsman in its wolf-gaze and spoke as it too disappeared into nothingness.

  In the mind of Ian MacAndrew, the colorless words of the Gray God echoed, “When the Twilight is upon you and the hero falls, speak my name thrice and I will appear one final time. Remember this.”

  “I will,” said MacAndrew. A thousand questions popped into his mind, but it was too late. Odin was gone, returned to the gray lands he walked in the realm beyond sleep.

  “Little Celt!”

  The bellow from Grimm and the warmth it projected took the Scotsman by surprise. A moment later, twin arms the size of cannons wrapped themselves around his body in a bear hug MacAndrew wasn’t completely convinced wouldn’t snap him in half.

  “Put me down, you great, white oaf!” Laughing, MacAndrew wiped black soot from what was left of his mustache and said, “I can’t believe we came through that alive, Grimm.”

  “Aye,” said the German, smiling truly for the first time since he’d stumbled onto the Scot on the little road in Liben what seemed like an eternity ago. “You did well, my friend.”

  “Thank you. Now can you do me a favor, laddie?”

  “Speak it,” replied Grimm oblivious of the cold wind rising from the east.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, please put on some pants.”

  CHAPTER 20

  A NEW DAY… A NEW ROAD

  The report back to the mission commanders at the Special Operations Executive, the SOE, in England went about as well as Ian MacAndrew had expected. From their position of safety there in the heart of London, Brigadier Gubbins and the rest of the Baker Street Irregulars were over-joyed at confirmation of Reinhard Heydrich’s death. News had been filtering in from sources across Europe: the Butcher of Prague had been assassinated by members of the Czech resistance. Hitler was furious.

  For them, it was a strategic blow against Nazi tyranny, struck in deep behind enemy lines. For them it was another check-mark in the ‘win’ column they kept as their war against Hitler continued. It would be all champagne and parades back home for Winston Churchill and the lords in Westminster. Another triumph of the English spirit against the German foe.

  For the Scotsman, the victory wasn’t quite so black-and-white. While the Butcher’s soul had finally been cast down to Hell, not much had changed on the grounds of Prague itself. The Nazis still ruled over the enslaved population. Hundreds disappeared from their homes every day, filed into black trains bound for unknown fates at the hands of Himmler’s stormtroopers. To the people of Czechoslovakia, there was little indication of what had occurred beyond a tightening of the German noose around their necks. One monster had been slain, but the Reich would just send another to replace him before the month was out.

  Nothing really would change.

  Worse yet, a lot of men MacAndrew called friends had died. A lot of good men and one woman. Innocents killed in a war not of their own making. The Scotsman suspected many more would yet die before the Third Reich would finally be defeated.

  As to the matter of the Edda Society, the Jotnar, and Donner Grimm… of those things he mentioned not a single word. Telling tales of battling demons from beyond at the side of a giant Viking warrior was the sort of thing that would result in a trip to the sanitarium. The stoic, pragmatic English were not ones to believe in such fanciful things. They were difficult enough for MacAndrew to fully accept, and he had lived them.

  No, Donner Grimm and Odin’s holy war to prevent Ragnarok went unnamed in the radio debriefings, referenced only as ‘help from local anti-German forces in the area’. That was all the SOE needed to know. It was enough.

  MacAndrew shocked his superiors when he declined their invitation to set up an extraction plan for him on the distant bay of Dunkirk in France. They said a small commando force would be waiting to spirit him back to the shores of merry old En
gland where a nice pipe, a stiff drink, and a shiny medal would await him. He’d be the darling of the media and a beacon of Allied hope in the face of the darkness embracing the continent.

  “No, sirs,” he said, forgoing the summons. “I’ve decided to stay in Europe and help out the locals where I can. Perhaps get the underground running a bit smoother.”

  “Preposterous,” was the response of Gubbins in his pretentious pronunciation. With the members of Operation Anthropoid dead, there was nothing left to tie him to Prague. “Best to get out of Fortress Europe while an opening is at hand, old boy.”

  “My boys are dead, but my work here isn’t done,” he said, wearying quickly of the entire conversation. “I believe I’ve got a lead on something that will help deal a major blow to the Reich, and it’s something I’ve got to do on my own.”

  They weren’t happy with his decision – it would cost Bracken’s Ministry of Information a major piece to use in its propaganda against the Fatherland. The thought caused MacAndrew’s stomach to churn. That they considered his contributions in war to be less valuable than his face in the newsreels sickened the old soldier.

  Refusing to give in, and not giving Brigadier Gubbins much choice in the matter, MacAndrew signed off, promising to continue his reports as he was able. He was tired and mention of a drink stuck in his mind as he left the last remaining safe house of the decimated Czech rebel underground. Flipping open his old silver lighter, the exhausted soldier stooped to set fire to the small hut containing the radio equipment he’d transported from the church ruins earlier in the day with Grimm’s aid. Better to destroy it all than take a chance at the Nazis finding it.

  MacAndrew fetched a beat-up flask from his pocket, and from it, splashed a line of five drops onto the ground at his feet.

  “Gabcik. Kubis. Opalka. Valcik. Rela. Be at peace, my boys,” said MacAndrew, sighing. A second later, he pressed the cool rim of the container to his dry mouth and let a stream of warm liquid trail down his throat and into his gullet. “Like my mum used to say, a bit of brandy always makes things better.”

  MacAndrew bundled up in his long coat in spite of the day’s growing heat, watched it all collapse into orange-glowing cinders.

  A loud rumbling, like that of velvet thunder, snatched the Scotsman’s melancholic attention away from the dying blaze.

  “Well, I’ll be buggered,” chuckled MacAndrew. “Where on earth did you get that, Grimm?”

  Looking back at MacAndrew with his head jutting out of the open top of a sleek, black Horch 853A Sport Roadster, the German grinned smugly.

  “The Nazis left it behind when they abandoned Buklova,” said Grimm as he swung open the hotrod’s tiny suicide door and hopped out. “I assumed Herr Heydrich would no longer need it.”

  An appreciative whistle snuck its way out of MacAndrew as he ran his gaze along the highly-polished car’s long, graceful curves. With flared wheel housings swooping back along the lines of the enormous 8-cylinder engine, the car had more in common with a shark than anything else. It was a beauty, although it wouldn’t be the most inconspicuous mode of transportation for a duo wishing to remain hidden.

  Still, if you’re going to go, it’s better to go out in style.

  “And what does Odin say about you stealing cars, mate? Seems like a chariot pulled by goats or an eight-legged horse would be more your style.”

  “The All-Father can keep Sleipnir for himself, the car is mine.” Grimm leaned low, nearly folding his body in half to reach down and wipe away a speck of dust that had fallen onto the purring vehicle’s windshield. “There are a few things stored in the boot that I liberated for you as well.”

  MacAndrew followed the marble-skinned German around to the back of the car and waited as Grimm lifted the rear lid. Inside was a treasure trove – a veritable traveling armory of weapons, ammunition, explosives, and military gear. The barrel of an Owen machine gun poked up out of the mass of arms. Brushing its edge with his thick finger revealed Grimm had taken the time to oil the old rifle.

  “It was the least I could do for your service to our cause,” said Grimm.

  “Such a haul warms my heart, lad. It’s like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one.”

  A half-smile tugged at the corner of MacAndrew’s lips as he reached down to remove a pair of black barreled 9mm Browning HP-35 pistols and a handful of magazines, slipping them into the front pockets of his waistcoat.

  “You seem ill at ease, my friend,” said Grimm. “You should be proud of the work we’ve accomplished together. The Butcher is dead and the Nazis’ hold on Prague is weakened enough for your rebels to gain headway. Garm has been sent screaming back across the Yawning Void. With his host dead, there is no way for the beast to return to Midgard. And,” Grimm gestured widely back at the Horch, “we have a fine automobile to aid us in our travels. What more can be asked for by men such as us?”

  “I haven’t had a good smoke since this blasted adventure began and the closest quality tobacco shop is a thousand miles away,” said MacAndrew. He sauntered around to the passenger’s side of the vehicle and eased his way onto one of the posh, leather-covered seats of the Horch. It was like sitting on a cloud.

  Joining the Scot with a short hop over the convertible’s drive-side door that rocked the entire machine, Grimm said, “Speak truly, little Celt. What rests so heavily on your mind?”

  Nodding, MacAndrew responded with a great sigh, “Wittgenstein, the poor bastard. He lost his lover and gave his life to fix his mistakes. Do you think he found peace at the end?”

  “I know not the answer to your question. The Austrian was not one of the Einherjar and will not dine in Odin’s hall in death as we will.”

  “‘As we will?’ I’m not sure how this whole Viking afterlife thing will sit with my Presbyterian mum,” said MacAndrew, not entirely in jest.

  “If you’re lucky, we will find a glorious death before you have to explain it to her,” chortled Grimm.

  The car’s engine roared as it slid forward onto the long, winding road leading out of Prague. By the amounts of groaning from the vehicle’s gear-box and the way Grimm’s massive feet leapt back and forth between accelerator and brake, MacAndrew dreaded the trek that lay before them.

  “What’s on our agenda now, mate? More Nazis to kill?”

  “The All-Father has commanded we seek out the base of the world tree, Yggdrasil, and discover the fate of the Norns.”

  In response to his companion’s statement, MacAndrew scrunched his face up into a bearded ball as his mouth fumbled over the word Grimm had spoken so matter-of-factly. “What’s a Yggdrasil?”

  Smiling at his friend’s question, Grimm answered, “Odin’s Gallows. The World Tree.” When he obviously saw no recognition in MacAndrew’s green eyes, the giant German elaborated, “The tree from which Odin hung for nine days to gain his wisdom and power. One of the World Tree’s roots may be in Hoddmimis Holt.”

  “That’s not a place I’ve ever heard of. Where is it?”

  “Within the Kelheim Forest. It is where the Edda Society tortured me, bled me, and where they forced me to watch as they murdered my family,” answered Grimm, never taking his eyes from the road playing out before them.

  With a sad smile Ian MacAndrew slapped his thick hand across the immensely muscled back of his new comrade. “Germany? Brilliant! Should be a walk in the park…”

  Behind the car, the ebony wings of a raven beat slowly as it circled high above the retreating pair, its single blue eye unblinking in the harsh light of the midday sun.

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  Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum

  Beechworth, Australia

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  Sydney, Australia

  Into the Mist by Lee Murray

  Featuring Taine McKenna

  “Cinematic and evocative, Into the Mist is a tension-packed expedition into primordial terror.

  Murray’s writing had me feeling the damp of the forest, seeing the mist curling through the fern fronds, and sensing the danger lurking there.

  Ancient myths, military men and scientists placed in remote, primordial locations – it had all the right ingredients for me, and it didn’t disappoint for a moment.

  Lee Murray is an author to watch.”

  – Greig Beck, best-selling author of the Arcadian series

  When NZDF Sergeant Taine McKenna and his squad are tasked with escorting a bunch of civilian contractors into Te Urewera National Park, it seems a strange job for the army.

  Militant Tūhoe separatists are active in the area, and with its cloying mist and steep ravines, the forest is a treacherous place in winter.

  Yet nothing has prepared Taine for the true danger that awaits them. Death incarnate.

  They backtrack toward civilisation, stalked by a prehistoric creature intent on picking them off one by one. With their weapons ineffective, the babysitting job has become a race for survival.

  Desperate to bring his charges out alive, Taine draws on ancient tribal wisdom. Will it be enough to stop the nightmare? And when the mist clears, will anyone be left?

  “Creepy and addictive, Into the Mist is an irresistible tapestry of military action, dark myths, and an ancient and terrifying horror. A must read for speculative fiction fans.”