The Age Of Odin

been touch-and-go for a while when they'd got out to me and were patching me up in the field. Said they'd thought it was fifty-fifty I'd last the chopper ride back to Bastion. There'd been no tunnel of light then, no choirs of angels, no loved ones queuing up to usher me through the Pearly Gates. There'd been nothing except absolute nothingness.

So I wasn't anticipating any afterlife once that issgeisl fell. Just an end, that was all. A full stop rounding off the sentence of my life. I braced for the blade to descend.

That was when the shooting started.

Nineteen

Nothing quite like gunfire to bring instant chaos to any given situation. Within moments of the first salvo, everyone was charging around like headless chickens. I'd been immediately forgotten about. Frost giants were yelling, screaming, and Bergelmir was giving orders, shouting to be heard above the hullabaloo: 'To the armoury! Take arms! We're under attack!'

Like, duh. As Cody might have said.

Bullets thunked into ice, gouging holes, shattering stalactites, ruining the smooth rounded contours of the cavern. Frost giants blundered into one another. Some let out cries of pain. Some fell.

One landed right on top of me, squashing me flat. I wriggled out from under the corpse, mostly to avoid being suffocated by the sheer bulk of it, although the blood gushing out over me from several bullet wounds wasn't much fun. Crouching, using the body for cover, I took stock of what was going on.

It was more or less what I'd guessed. Odin's forces, attacking. I counted a dozen men spearheading the operation, a first wave of assault sowing death and discord through the cavern. Kalashnikovs and SA80s barked in their hands. Heckler and Koch MP5 machine pistols stuttered.

Once this first lot had done their job, taking the frost giants by surprise, killing as many as they could and scattering the rest, a back-up squad of similar size stormed into the cavern. They fanned out into position, securing the site and checking that all the fallen enemy combatants were as dead as they appeared to be. Head shots accounted for the ones that weren't.

Among the second lot of soldiers I recognised Cy and Paddy. They spotted me at about the same time I spotted them.

'There he is!' Cy said, and he and Paddy rushed over.

'Jaysus, you're alive,' Paddy said as they helped me to my feet.

'Don't sound so surprised,' I said.

'We were taking bets,' said Cy. 'Looks like you owe me a fiver, Pads.'

'The lad had faith,' Paddy said to me. 'I was of the view the frost giants would have done for you by now, but Coco Pops here thought different.'

'Oi, less of the 'Coco Pops,'' Cy warned. 'I just knew you're as tough as bollocks, Gid. No poxy fucking frosties could finish you off.'

'Listen,' I said, 'I don't know why we're talking about breakfast cereals all of a sudden but shall we stow it and concentrate on getting out of here? Guns or not, you lot are going to have your hands full with a hundred pissed-off yetis coming at you waving issgeisls.'

'They've got a lot worse than issgeisls,' Paddy said. 'But you have a point. What use is a rescue mission if the person being rescued gets killed while we're rescuing him?'

'All this, for me?' I said as Cy and Paddy each put an arm around my shoulders and got me moving. After my prolonged duffing-up by the frost giants, walking was doable but not exactly a breeze.

'What on earth gave you that idea?' Paddy replied. 'Could it have been my using the word rescue three times in a row just now?'

'It in't just about you,' Cy added. 'We're having a bash at the frost giants as well. You're an added bonus, that's all.'

'A pretext, you might say,' said Paddy. 'Alive or not, you were a handy excuse for coming and giving the big fellas what-for.'

'But how did you find me?'

'Ah well now, you'd have her ladyship Freya to thank for that. She's the one led us all this way. Tracked you from where you crashed in the woods, out of Asgard and across half of Jotunheim to this here lair. Followed your trail like a beautiful blonde bloodhound, so she did. Quite the thing, to see her sniffing her way across the landscape, spotting the tiniest signs here or there that told her where you'd gone — a scratch in the ice, a dislodged pebble, a hair, pieces of evidence so small I couldn't see them myself even when they were pointed out to me.'

'We thought you might've been taken to Utgard,' said Cy. 'The frosties' main stronghold. You're lucky you weren't. We'd never've dared try a retrieval there. Fucking sheer walls of ice you can't get up even with climbing gear. This place, though, it's just one of their gathering places, not nearly as far from the border with Asgard. They weren't expecting us to come after you.'

'Well, I can't say I'm not glad you did,' I said. 'And I'm looking forward to telling Freya how much I appreciate the trouble she's gone to on my behalf.'

'I wouldn't bother if I were you, bruv. She didn't want to. Only agreed to 'cause Odin made her.'

'Oh.'

On that somewhat crushing note, the frost giants re-entered the cavern, all tooled up with issgeisls and more. They emerged from several of the surrounding tunnels like floodwater pouring in, a great shaggy white tide, all of them giving vent to a huge, massed battle-cry. Many, I saw, had put on pieces of armour — breastplates, greaves, helmets. Some carried shields, others had daggers, maces, and what I took to be throwing hatchets, a bit like tomahawks. Everything, of course, fashioned out of ice.

Bergelmir led the repulse. Leikn — Mrs Bergelmir — was right behind hubby. Odin's troops beat a hasty retreat, laying down suppressing fire as they went. They withdrew to the mouth of the tunnel they'd come in by, the one that led back to the outside world. Me, I was already well into that tunnel, Cy and Paddy hustling me along. Rearguards had been posted at all the junctions along the entry/exit route, and they waved us urgently on in the right direction. Guns jibber-jabbered behind us. I longed to seize a spare firearm and turn and have a crack at the frost giants myself, but I knew that the mission wasn't simply about that. Primary objective — me — had been acquired. Now the focus would be on a tidy exfiltration, with minimal casualties. No time for grandstanding or indulging personal beefs. Business, not pleasure.

We emerged from the terminus of the glacier into evening light. The sun hung red and heavy on the horizon. Waiting outside were Freya and Thor, and both looked pleased to see me, but only in the sense that, with me extricated from the frost giants' clutches, it meant the job had been successful.

'Everyone's coming out behind us,' Paddy reported. 'Including a pack of rather irate frosties.'

'Excellent,' said Thor. He drew his hammer from his belt and smacked the head of it into his palm. 'Mjolnir is hungry to cave in jotun skulls.'

'Get him to a safe remove,' Freya told Cy and Paddy, with a flick of her fingers at me. 'We'll hold off the giants in the meantime.'

'Now wait a sec,' I said. 'I can fight too. I'm up for it.'

She looked at the state of me, and her face said she disagreed. 'The All-Father wishes you brought back safe and sound. He has entrusted me with responsibility for your welfare. If it were up to me, I'd have you on the front line risking your fool neck in the hope that you might get yourself killed and spare the rest of us a great deal of trouble and aggravation. In fact, if it were up to me, none of us would be here at all. But Odin has decreed, and his word is law. So go!'

'Come on, Gid,' said Cy. 'Let's do as she says.'

As he and Paddy hauled me away from the glacier, I said, 'She so fancies me.'

They just laughed. 'Dream on, bruv,' said Cy.

From the shelter of a boulder of ice, a titanic chunk that had sheared off when the glacier last retreated and