Königstiger: Odin's Warriors - Book 3

by Aeryn Leigh

  The chains released. The half-track rode its final swing of forward momentum, as the thing holding it up became no more and with the half-track treads spinning and the motor screaming they hit the surf with sand flying up in all directions and the Hanomag fought for traction on the wet sand as they power-slid right up the beach.

  Behind them, the panzergrenadier companies cast ropes over the side, and disgorged their squads. The Seventh Division of the Wehrmacht landed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  WHY CAN’T WE?

  BEOWULF GAVE the command to scatter, as pieces of plane wreckage tumbled over the edge far above. With three strokes of the oars, Hellsbaene barely missed a lump of iron and steel, that used to be an aircraft mode reaching terminal velocity as it fell.

  Magnus stood up, swivelling his head around this way and that. The barest discernible whine, the high-pitched hum of something familiar.

  Again.

  He cast his head backwards, left and right, and yelled to his King. "Beowulf, a Valkyrie comes!"

  Every Viking stopped what there were doing, and scanned the horizon, ignoring the smaller bits of debris that splashed into the empty circle of sea water. The humming rose in pitch, and Beowulf ran to the dragon head, joy in his heart.

  From behind, Mick and Andrew began yelling, pointing upwards. "The Old Man's gone over!"

  "Do not fear, brothers," said Beowulf. "A Valkyrie comes to take him to Valhalla."

  Magnus still looked wildly around, failing to see anything on the near horizon, at the same height Ella had swept in on. But the sound increased. Thorfinn saw it first. "There," he yelled, "there! What on earth is that?"

  Mick, his eyesight better than most on board the flagship, could see a metal slab of hawk, wings tucked diving from the heavens. Man was it ugly. And it was heading right for them. "Beowulf," said Mick, "we might want to get out of the way!"

  "It's a small matter, said the Viking King. "There's not enough time." The plummeting hawk arrowhead, all angles and ridges in hard lines, had increased in size a hundredfold in the time he spoke one sentence. In moments, Laurie would hit the water. Beowulf beamed. Odin be praised.

  The enormous metal aircraft decelerated with a sudden snap, compressing the air underneath, causing the Viking ships to wobble calamitously, the roar of its twin engines enough to make Magnus weep in joy. A mere two-hundred yards above them, it hung in the air like magic.

  Mick turned to Andrew, whose mouth was so wide open he failed to recognise the fly he swallowed when he stammered out the next words. "It's, it's, it's –"

  "Ship," said Mick.

  Magnus could only stare at the hovering Valkyrie ship and hugged the starboard Merlin engine. Tears ran down both sides of his face. He hugged the engine manifold tighter. "You always be my first love."

  Beowulf gave a long blast on his wall one, and his kin began cheering. Thorfinn watched as over on the Spanish galleon, Sergeant Major No Name Rodriguez stood on the forecastle, as they too celebrated this God-given ship to kill daemons.

  IN THE GUNSHIP, Amelia just positively beamed. "Now that is amazing," she said. Skippy could only agree with her, tail wagging furiously.

  ROB AND ELLA jumped out of their skins as the raised platform they were sitting on sprung into life. All around them, the throne chair, and the very granite metal the suits stood, hummed, and the etched patterns in the marble radiated with the most beautiful coral shades of blue.

  Music began, the final straw for Ella's attempt to eat the fresh fish, as a large chunk of salmon steak caught in her throat. She bent over, coughing hard, and Rob thumped her back. The dragonfly appeared from Painkiller, emerging from the suit, and proceeded to do barrel rolls through the air. After Ella stopped choking on the fish, her face red, Rob stood, and passed her crutches.

  For the first time in a very long time, the cathedral tomb showed signs of life. "What is it?" she said in a Norse. Rob and Ella could feel vibrations beneath their feet, could feel the sheer energy radiating upwards, the air electric. Music dead for millennia now played. The dragonfly stopped directly in front of Ella's head. It could barely contain its excitement, as it beamed a blue projection down in front of Ella and Rob. Another Nordic ship rotated in front of them. The projection showed the outside of the cliff face, the entrance to the tunnel and the landing pad, the new ship was directly below the landing pad, the Viking fleet and eighteenth-century ship of the line arrayed below. The gunship held the symbol of a man in its front utility claw.

  "Who's in the ship?" burst out Ella. The projection vanished. The dragonfly did another set of barrel rolls, and as it did as a set of aerobatic manoeuvres enough to make the Red Baron cry, from Painkiller the dragonfly spoke.

  "Your blood kin Valkjur."

  Ella nearly impaled Rob as she flung the crutches away and hopped straight for the suit. "Hey," said Rob. "Watch out! What did the damn thing say?"

  "Amelia," yelled Ella, as Painkiller unfolded at her command. "Amelia and the others? We're rescued!"

  "But what about me?" said Rob, just as the suit closed around her. Ella ran the start-up procedure, her heart pounding, and the runic indicator shone blue.

  She now had two legs again. Ella took two steps to the left, scooped up Rob with her only arm that had opposable digits, spun 270°, and leapt off the dais with a single bound, and Rob almost went deaf from Ella calling her daughter's name.

  THE SHIP ROSE VERTICALLY, and it was all Laurie could do was force himself to breathe, and rational part of his mind slowly came back. The metal claw wrapped around his torso felt oddly warm, even alive. No, it's my own heart I'm feeling, pounding through the metal itself. It didn't look like metal. At least like any metal he was aware of. If you could somehow melt metal and ceramic pottery together, this is what it might feel like.

  The claw extended about eighteen feet away from the underside of the cockpit. A spherical, conical snout jutted out just a few feet away on the multi-jointed arm. It is a refuelling arm? No. Laurie shook his head. Couldn't be. Who would be daft enough to try and refuel midair. But why did he just think that? Who the fuck knows, said his other thought. You were just rescued from certain death by a small child and a German Shepherd. He breathed out. The bloody dog. Up to no good again. But where there is smoke there's fire. Pigs arse Amelia would have been allowed to fly this thing herself.

  The rocks of the cliff face slid past, stuck in the claw as he was, he could only look left and right and up. Over the roar of its engines he could hear the faint yelling and cheering of Vikings below.

  THE GEL around Marietta and Volfango retreated. The warchargers too were released, neighing in appreciation. Marietta stepped forward, and met Volfango in the middle of the loading space. A hiss of air, the excited barks of puppy dogs.

  Amelia came running down the hatch. She still held the spiky alien.

  Volfango took a half step backward. The veins on Marietta's temples were jutting right out, pumping. He glanced around, automatically trying to seek cover. The Versetti's didn't generally lose their temper, but by gods when they did, hell and brimstone vomited.

  Amelia ran straight up to Marietta, completely oblivious, bouncing up and down. "We got him! We got him, the gunship is about to land!"

  At that very moment, if there had of been a Greek Goddess of Fate, the goddess rolled the die, and just barely contained the thermonuclear explosion building in General Marietta Versetti.

  With a sense of restraint she never thought possible, Marietta spoke in short, clipped syllables. " A-me-lia Gru-der. Who?"

  Amelia knelt down and gave Skippy an enormous hug. "Laurie of course."

  THE GUNSHIP ROSE over the lip of the landing pad, lights spiralling outward from its epicentre, then Laurie's view changed as the ship spun, so that he now pointed in the exact opposite direction of the tunnel entrance, and on either side, Laurie could see nothing but air, suspended right over the ocean far, far below. The wind ruffled his face, cotton balls of white clouds drifted in their medium dis
tance. Any time, he thought, dangling right over the sheer drop.

  ELLA CHARGED along the tunnel system, Rob nestled in the crook of her hand arm, until they came to the final straight and there in her suits vision was a Valhalla-class gunship, information scrawling past her optic display. The workhorse of the Valkjur assault teams.

  The gunships rear hatch started to open, as warning runes flashed in the bottom left corner of her feed. The rear hatch lowered all the way down, settling on to the landing edge with barely a micron’s difference either side, so precise was the engineering. Ella slowed her pace, as at the top of the gunships ramp stood Marietta, Volfango, three warchargers, and an entire pack of German shepherds. And Amelia.

  But no pear tree.

  She eased Rob down onto the ground, and commanded the suit open. It would not. Warnings lit everywhere. Stopped nine metres in front of the ramp, Ella screamed at the suit to open. It refused to obey her commands.

  The dragonfly flitted past, and then it too stopped directly in front of her child, absolutely still. Ella activated the voice control. "Amelia. Something is wrong. I can't get out of the suit."

  "Mummy, mummy! It's okay, you can get out when you want to."

  Ella saw Amelia's right arm under a jumper. Threat alerts screamed inside the suit. Amelia with her other hand lifted off the grey jumper. "I found a new friend!"

  Painkiller went into automatic self-defence mode. The suit reared back, the chainsaw blade activated, the warhammer sprung from its sheath, telescoping out and snapping into place in her hand, and the Gatling minigun on her right forearm spun up. Amelia walked towards Ella, holding the spiky alien up. "It is not a threat," she said in an exasperated voice. "How many times do I have to tell you people, sheesh."

  Ella only heard peripherally her daughter speak, as she fought with every fibre of her being the suit's desire to open fire, smash, cleave, obliterate the hated enemy in front of it.

  The murderous, psychopathic rage of Painkiller when faced with it greatest enemy pulled at the very foundations of Ella's mind and soul. The target indicator of the alien was directly in front of Amelia's chest. Her heart.

  Time stood still. With every footstep of the advancing child the homicidal urge increased tenfold.

  "Sweety," said Ella through gritted teeth, sweat pouring down her temples, "honey, sweetheart, gorgeous love of my life, I need you to put the alien down and step away." Painkiller sent up additional alerts, notifying Ella of her increased heartbeat and biological state, additional proof to activate the kill command. Her words though boomed around the landing area, echoing off the mountain face.

  "No," said Amelia, "I gave it my word. It's my friend and you can't kill it."

  Volfango and Marietta very carefully stepped to each side of the child, torn between the desire to protect and the desire not end up being small bloody clumps of red goop, the suit eliminating a low, wailing sound of death as it tried so desperately to kill.

  The message the suit was emanating was crystal clear. The last thing you wanted to do, was being on its wrong side.

  "Will you just calm down, mummy," Amelia said. "You're scaring it." The others watched incredulously as Amelia took yet another step forward, seemingly oblivious to the myriad ways of death levelled right at her. The creature's front forelimb was waving back and forth, trying to collapse in upon itself, trembling in Amelia's palm.

  The suit again boomed, and the little alien started in shock. A rear leg tip went straight through Amelia's palm, and blood fell upon the smooth, spiral surface.

  The air darkened. Became hot, heavy to breathe.

  Marietta and Volfango shared a look. That very moment, they didn't know which was scarier. The ten-foot-tall armoured figure, or the small child standing in front of it.

  Amelia screamed. Correct that. She screamed. She smashed her right foot down onto the hard surface. With the pain of her right hand, the neural link of the gunship, mere atoms in her blood, activated.

  "Stop," she commanded. In old Norse. Even murderous, battle lusting Nordic intelligences such as Painkiller could not refuse such an instruction from their Valkjur. Painkiller sent a query to the gunship, received the paradoxical answer, stood down, and opened. "Really," said Amelia, as she walked up to her mother, and held out her spare hand, helping her glistening, trembling mum out, "why can't we all just get along?"

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ONE’S OATH

  AMELIA REGARDED HER MOTHER, drenched in sweat. Pulsating warning colours of sapphire blue bathed everyone in the soft light.

  "Could someone give me a hand down," said Ella. She was perched at the edge of the open suit, holding onto both cockpit hatches. Rob darted around, before anyone else could react, and with Rob's assistance Ella jumped the final short distance to the ground.

  Amelia pointed at Ella's stump, her hand still dripping blood. "Your leg? Mummy what happened to your leg!"

  Ella managed a half step towards her daughter. "I lost it, from one of those things."

  Amelia's wide-open eyes stared for a second, and then she fainted. The child's body crumpled towards the granite metal, Volfango dashing forward and sliding on his legs catching Amelia's head before it cracked upon the hard surface.

  The rear defence turrets of the gunship spun around, rotating with dizzying buzz, aiming right at the spiky alien, cowering on Amelia's chest. The creature retreated further up into the crook of Amelia's left arm, withdrawing down into the small crevice.

  No one said a word. Ella realised she was holding a breath.

  Ella intuitively knew from her study of the Nordic technology that the only thing keeping the defence systems at bay was her daughter's command. What happened if she was unconscious?

  A burst of swearing broke the moment.

  "Hello? Anyone? Take your time, no worries. But if someone doesn't get me out of this damn fucking claw soon they're going to get a foot up their arse."

  Amelia awoke. She blinked a few times, her vision full of worried adults crouching over her. Front and foremost, her mother. The turrets stood down, denied again, unable to claim weapon malfunction. Or so they futilely wished.

  "Amelia? Are you okay?" said Ella.

  "You lost your leg," said Amelia.

  "Amelia, sweetheart, I need you to listen. This is serious. That – thing – you found are very, very, dangerous. A great number of them attacked Laurie, Griffin, and the others, you know. And just one of them, almost killed me, right behind me in that tunnel. I lost my leg from one? So, when I say you need to listen to me, I want you to understand what I am saying. Are you following?"

  Amelia nodded quite solemnly.

  "Good. You don't want to see any more people getting hurt do you?" A shake of the head. "That's what I thought. We need to kill it now before it grows any bigger. I need you, we need you Amelia, to put it down and step away with us over to the gunship ramp."

  Amelia took a deep breath. "No," she said, her head heavy, saying that mere word. "I gave my word to it, and Griffin keeps telling me how important one’s oath is, and how trust takes a long time to build and only seconds to destroy." She reached out with her good hand, and put her palm on Ella's. "Besides, I can talk with it in my mind, actually, and it's a girl creature. And it's given me her word that no harm will come to us."

  Amelia got to her feet. She inspected her palm, and the puncture wound the width of a pencil right through it. Her eyes glazed over just a fraction, as if accessing something, and she nodded. "The gunship is not happy, but it is very old and quite grumpy, sort of like Laurie." She burst into a grin, flashing gappy teeth. "There's a medical bay inside the gunship I can use. And speaking of Laurie, don't you think would be a good idea to get him down? Skippy will get quite annoyed with me if I don't do it soon."

  Amelia bounded up the gunship ramp, the alien wrapped snugly in her jumper, dripping blood, surrounded by a multitude of wagging, ecstatic dogs. Marietta walked up to Ella's side and was joined by Volfango and Rob. "Rob," said Marietta,
"how about you go help Volfango square away those horses and help get Laurie down." Marietta took the proffered arm out from Rob, and gently lowered Ella to the ground, and did her best to console her sobbing girlfriend.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

  LAURIE KNELT DOWN and gave Skippy the biggest, warmest hug in what felt like years. "My girl," he said. Skippy's wagging tail slammed into the landing pad frenetically, as she did her best to knock Laurie over. "Have you been good? Has Amelia been feeding you well?" He patted the German Shepherd on her flank. "Probably a bit too much I reckon."

  He let go of the furry animal and looked her dead in the eyes. His brows furrowed. "You're a mad bloody bitch, you know that? First the Lancaster, now –" and twisted his head to look at the gunship, as how Rob had described it, "that? You will be the bloody death of me, mate. Heart attack by Christ." He ruffled her head, and scratched behind her left ear. Her right left leg thumped on the ground. "How your puppies doing? They're looking big girl." They're looking much bigger than what they have any right to be. Maybe it's always damn fresh air. Everything here seems to grow a little bit bigger than what they would on earth.

  The moment ended. He stood up, knees creaking and popping, and turned to all the others keeping their respectful distance. "Right," he said. "Can someone explain to me what the hell is happening? But first, no one's saying anything more until we get the lads up from the ship below. How we gonna do that?"