The Age Of Odin

'It is done, Gid,' said Thor. 'The creature is insensible.'

And lo and behold, he was right. The darkness cleared from my vision, and I saw that my troll was out cold, and looking in a pretty sorry shape too. What with the bullet hits and my blows, his head was all swollen and lumpy, raw as a tenderised cut of beef. Thor's troll was in no better condition, while Freya's had been throttled into unconsciousness. The breath wheezed threadily in and out of his lungs.

'Now I see why my father was so insistent that we retrieve you,' Thor said to me. 'I can understand Freya and myself being willing to take on a troll single-handed, but a mortal? One not gifted with the strength and endurance of gods? Truly that is the mark of warrior greatness.'

'Or just plain foolhardiness,' Freya commented. 'Even when half subdued, that troll could still have killed you, Gid. All it would have taken was a heedless swipe of his arm, and every bone in your body would have been shattered.'

'I'm touched by the concern,' I said.

'I'm not concerned,' Freya shot back. 'Other than that I would have to face Odin's wrath were I to fail to bring you back to Asgard alive.'

'All right then, but you must admit you're ever so slightly impressed by what I just did.'

'So many people mistake madness for bravery.'

'Never known the difference myself.'

'And that,' said Freya, 'is why, whatever Thor may say, you are no warrior. You do not know fear. The true warrior understands that his greatest foe is his own terror of battle. It never pales and must be conquered again and again, and it keeps things in perspective. Whereas you, Gid, have either forgotten what fear is or never knew it in the first instance. That makes you reckless — a danger to yourself and, worse, to others — and that is why I am not happy to fight alongside you. And now' — she spun on her heel — 'where are those ravens? Huginn! Muninn! Can you hear me? We have the trolls. Odin must send Sleipnir now, before they awaken.'

Thor clapped me on the back, virtually knocking me off my feet. 'Pay no attention to my elder cousin, friend Gid. Her asperity cloaks her true feelings.'

'Which are?'

'Who can say? I'm sure she has some. Mine is the opinion that counts in these matters, and you can fight alongside me any time.'

Flattered? I sort of was. I was definitely supposed to be.

Mainly, though, I was thinking, and not for the first time in my life, how fucking maddening women could be. Even goddesses.

No, especially goddesses.

Twenty-Three

'Sleipnir?'

'If I told you 'eight-legged horse that can fly,'' said Paddy, 'what would you say?'

'A day ago I'd have said you might want to think about laying off the Guinness for a bit. Now, though…'

Paddy chuckled. Cy too. Tea had been made, and we were all sitting around waiting for the promised transport to arrive.

'Really?' I said. 'An eight-legged horse? With wings? This I've got to see. Although' — having thought about it further — 'it's going to have to be an enormous fucking horse to fit three trolls on its back. Or even one. You're pulling my plonker, aren't you?'

'Odin did have a horse called Sleipnir, back in the day,' Paddy said. 'Loki, his blood brother, was its mother.'

'Hang on, did you say mother?'

'Bragi entertained us with a lovely long poem about it once. I think I can remember the basic gist of it. What happened was, this man, a stonemason, turned up offering to build a wall around Asgard, and the price he demanded was only the sun and the moon! And not just those, either, but also your lady over there, Freya. The Aesir wouldn't agree to his terms 'til Loki suggested they set some impossible conditions. The stonemason had to build the wall single-handed and must do it within the space of one winter. If he defaulted, they'd have the wall for free. Bear in mind, this was going to be a vast fortification all the way around Asgard, so the Aesir never thought he'd have it done in time. The stonemason said, 'Fine,' and rolled up his sleeves and set to work. He was a right big strapping fella, with a huge black carthorse to help him, and he toiled hard as can be all through the winter, and it began to look as if he might just meet the deadline after all.'

'Oh, this is terrific,' I said, settling back against a rock, cradling my steaming brew. 'Paddy does Jackanory. Carry on.'

'So the Aesir were naturally a mite aggrieved,' Paddy continued. He loved to spin a good yarn. 'Thanks to Loki they were on course to lose the sun, the moon, and a very beautiful Vanir goddess to boot. So they bashed him around a bit, as you do, and told him to fix things. Now, in case you don't know about Loki, here's the salient point. He's a shifty little devil. And that's no mere figure of speech. He can change his shape to become anything he likes. And what he did was he transformed himself into a mare, a very pretty one with a nice mane and fine fetlocks and a long swishy tail and whatever else it is a lady horse has that makes her attractive to the men horses, and he went off prancing up and down in front of the stonemason's carthorse, which was a stallion in the full prime of life, no gelding, if you catch my drift.'

'I very much do.'

'And the carthorse went tearing off after Loki in his mare form, and the stonemason was obliged to down tools and give chase, because the horse had been doing a great deal of the work for him, hauling boulders and the like, which he couldn't do himself. He ran after them for a day and a night, and finally caught up with them the following afternoon. He dragged the carthorse back to Asgard but he was too knackered to do anything more on the wall that day, and would you believe it, spring arrived the very next morning, and basically he'd blown his deadline and forfeited his fee.'

'Makes a change,' I said, 'a builder who overcharges not getting paid.'

'Ah, but he wasn't just any builder. He was actually a frost giant in disguise, and when he saw that the Aesir had pulled a fast one on him he flew into a rage. He demolished the wall, then turned his attention on Asgard itself. Luckily Thor was on hand to clobber him with Mjolnir, and that was that.'

'Or was it?'

'You've spotted that there's an epilogue coming.'

'The carthorse managed to catch up with the mare before the stonemason reached them, and got busy. They did the deed, and Sleipnir was the result.'

'Kee-rect,' said Cy. 'Give the man a medal.'

'No thanks. Already got some, and I'm not quite sure what the point of them is.'

'So, indeed,' said Paddy, 'Loki comes wandering back to Asgard a few weeks later, looking somewhat red- faced, and he's leading a colt on a rein. A colt with eight legs that seems to float in the air rather than walk — seems to glide like a bird, in actual fact. And he presents it as a gift to his blood brother Odin, and that's what Odin decides to call it: Sleipnir, which means Glider.'

'Priceless,' I said. 'Loki's not only a transsexual but a transsexual in a different species, and he manages to get himself knocked up. There's the plot of the weirdest porn film ever made, right there.' My next question seemed the obvious one to ask. 'So where is he anyway? I'd like to meet him. 'How was it getting rogered by a carthorse? Still sore?''

'Loki isn't at Asgard any more,' Paddy said. 'Something happened.'

'Got himself kicked out,' said Cy.

'How?'

'He was banished for the most heinous of crimes,' a voice rumbled in my ear. I hadn't realised that Thor had sidled up to us during Paddy's tale and been eavesdropping. His expression was cold, his face as dark as, well, a thundercloud. 'Loki destroyed the one, true, bright shining thing in all of Asgard. His trickery, his treachery, brought