Königstiger: Odin's Warriors - Book 3
Page 26
On the second blast, in the face of impossible odds, one hundred Vikings sacrificed their lives, so that the rest may live. They carried their kin on shoulders, out into the deep ocean waters to the awaiting longship barges that could come no closer without being overwhelmed from below, as limb spikes punctured their flesh, and yet they lifted their kin first by the torsos then by their calves and then by their feet, pushing them up into helping hands about the barges.
And the Valkyries came to the submerged warriors, and took them to Valhalla, where the brave may live, forever.
Chapter Sixty
GODS OF VIOLENCE
THE QUEEN VALKJUR squatted in the surf, twisted her feet left and right, trying to get better purchase, and lifted, nanomuscle fibres straining. Ella engaged the gunship's thrusters and the attached towropes went taut, Aries moving out to sea, and inch by inch, the SS Akira was pulled free with a shrieking, tearing crunch of metal on sand.
Autocannons chittered above. The two other transports suffered only minor hull damage, the bilge pumps keeping them afloat for now. Sensor images showed a thirty-foot gash on the Akira. Once it was afloat, only Nordic technology would keep it that way until repairs were made. The SS Akira was dragged away, and her job well done, Amelia curled the Valkyrie up and soon docked with the gunship. They roared straight upwards, and Aries ceased fire.
In the warm ocean waters, a single figure remained. Laurie faced the beachhead, and observed the two warring daemon swarms. Through the whirring death of multi-limbed fighting up on the beachhead, a towering monster of a daemon formed from within the swirling grey fog of ash, on stood clear, at the beginning of the serpentine road.
The carapace practically black, it broke through the merciless carnage and stopped. Three times as large as the biggest daemon Laurie had seen, he knew this was the architect of their destruction. Without thinking, Laurie triggered his left glove and in a smooth single throw hurled the tactical grenade straightforward, his very last grenade. He'd been saving it for something special, and here it was.
The thermobaric tactical nuke tumbled in a perfect parabolic arc towards the alien. Only seconds before detonation, the enormous creature reared back, pulled out an evil-looking weapon, and hit the frictionless-surface grenade for six. Right out of the ballpark. It detonated in the ranks of wild korel over the far ridge line and a new mushroom cloud swelled above high.
The two Gods of Violence regarded each other.
For the longest rotations of hydrogen atoms, both ran combat simulations, perfectly still, as the world burned.
The Prime Korel lifted her front forearm, and the weapon pointed at Laurie, before hefting it up, facing vertically upward. She tilted her head one single micron of a millimetre, the movement only registering to Laurie’s sensors, unseen to the naked human eye.
Laurie raised his own arm, the blue sword of Hyfflson pointing right at her, and nodded his Valkjur’s head a bare fraction.
Till next time.
The Korellian spun around, and melted back into the fog of ash and fighting.
The rope ladder descended to Laurie's right, and he jumped on it, and was lifted up to the gunship, as the Alliance set sail for the dark, ash-filled horizon to rendezvous with the Republic armada.
And so, the last piece of Hrothgar-held land on Elysium, was surrendered to the daemons.
Vale Elysium.
BUT IS it not always darkest, right before the dawn?
Chapter Sixty-One
EPILOGUE
MAGNUS STARED at the reams of Nordic runes flowing through his power armour’s display, one day after they’d united with the Republic armada heading for deeper, safer waters. The rain was grey, the skies were grey, everything was covered in ash. He just knew, felt it in his bones, that maybe an answer to their problems laid buried in the library data cores taken from the ceremonial tomb, a library big enough to support an entire city of librarians for multiple lifetimes.
He rested in his armour, on the deck of the Republic 16th Century frigate, the Aries taking the entire foredeck of the Akira to his right, pushing the German vessel deep into the waterline.
The trouble being, every single verse, every story, was treasure.
He started over again, but this time thinking of Hellsbaene. He sighed. And then it hit him. He closed his eyes and thought the Old Nordic words. Runes flashed by, inside his head, spinning, coalescing into one thought, one line of three words: Chariot of Valkjurs.
His heart hammered as he linked with Aries, and requested the ship to start scanning Elysium. He muttered the words.
Somewhere on this Odin-blessed planet, the chariot of fire descending from the heavens that brought Odin’s Warriors here, and the Queen Valkjur, and the Aries too, for that matter, was here. Battle damaged, systems failing, it performed its last command, sacrificing itself, and legend had it, died in the manner it had lived.
And yet… maybe it hadn’t. That which is not dead can eternally lie. And with such a chariot, they could return to the stars, harnessing such Godlike power never before imagined.
Unfortunately for Magnus, two other beings at that same moment, heard those three words in their minds. For unknowingly, by speaking those words, in a suit of Valkjur, Magnus woke it, deep in healing slumber, and it called out subconsciously, a Valkyries’s irresistible siren song of glory, of victory.
Of battle.
And so it was that time, when the Universe turns but on a single dime.
Hunter.
Prey.
<<<>>>
AUTHOR’S NOTE & INFO
Hi! Thanks for reading ! My next book, Hunter Prey, will be out mid-2018:
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x Aeryn Leigh
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
EARTH, SOL SYSTEM
MILKY WAY, BACKWATER OF THE UNIVERSE.
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aeryn@aerynleigh.com
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Table of Contents
The Last, Full Day
1. In The Beginning
2. A Small Bonfire
3. Let Them Burn
4. The Beasts Of Fairholm
5. Backup
6. Shades Of Grey
7. Trial Of Fire
8. The End Of Civilisation
9. An Axe To Grind
10. The Pendant Is The Key
11. Revolution Of A Hydrogen Atom
12. Writhing Octopuses
13. Harry Bosch
14. Friends, Tanks, And Beer
15. Cavern
16. The Drums Of Valhalla
17. Armada
18. Laurie’s Plan
19. Wetworks
20. Shadows
21. Landfall
22. Why Can’t We?
23. One’s Oath
24. Careful What You Wish For
25. Spanish Fort
26. Welcome To The Insanity
27. More Mysteries
28. Good Old Days
29. Moving Out
30. Crop Dusting
31. The Refinery
32. And That Was That
33. Mein Gott
34. If It Bleeds
35. All Hell Broke Loose
36. Who The Hell Are You?
37. Vale The First And Last
38. What We Have, General
39. Odin’s Warriors
40. Machines Of War
41. Open
42. Gate Of God
43. Quid Pro Qu
o
44. An Ocean Of Gas
45. Wheat And Blood
46. The Die Is Cast
47. Known Unknowns
48. Nordic Riddles
49. Meanwhile
50. Spot Fires
51. For The Hell Of It
52. 9/8 Wagnerian
53. Fear Control
54. On The Eighth Day
55. Swarm
56. Temper
57. Fresh Meat
58. The Space Between
59. Vale Fairholm
60. Gods Of Violence
61. Epilogue
Author’s Note & Info