snowball was lobbed at me, chips of ice scraped up off the ground and compacted together by some frostie showing off to his mates how much he despised anyone from Asgard. It stung, but I shrugged it off.
Finally we reached a citadel, a palatial igloo-shaped building whose sides were studded with millions of ice crystals, creating a dazzling diamante effect. Liberace and Dolly Parton would have felt right at home here. Inside there was more of the frou-frou architecture and design: spindly columns carved in rising spirals, skeletal staircases that curved and arched and seemed to have no purpose other than just to be there, and ceilings with shapes suspended from them that resembled either snail shells or, if you had a mind to it, dog turds. There were also large numbers of…
'Chops, what do you call those carvings on the walls?'
'Ice friezes?' suggested Chopsticks.
'I know it does, but — '
'No,
'Ohhh.'
'Quiet, humans!' barked Suttung. 'No talking.'
Some of the friezes depicted great jotuns throughout history, heroes and leaders in suitably noble and dramatic stances. Others showed frost giants and Aesir in battle. Still others were unflattering portraits of Jotunheim's Public Enemy Number One, Thor. Thor, very overweight, with boss eyes, man-boobs, and a tiddly little Mjolnir held at crotch level. Thor going toe-to-toe with some frost giant or other and looking like he was getting the worst of the fight, even though I was pretty sure he'd never actually lost any of his legendary clashes with the jotuns. Thor lying face down, comatose, surrounded by empty drinking vessels, with a puddle of what could only be urine seeping out from under him. It was a crude, tub-thumping display of propaganda; part of me wished Thor could be here to see it, and part of me was relieved he wasn't.
A throne chamber at the heart of the building was where Bergelmir was waiting for us. He was perched on a dais with wife Leikn by his side, and I could tell he'd thought long and hard about how he should be posed when we were brought in. He'd settled on Broodingly Contemplative — legs akimbo, chin on fist, free hand toying with an ice dagger.
The room itself was packed with frost giants, and our escort had to shove through the crowd to get to the dais. More frost giants entered behind us, and even more stood on the gallery that ran round the chamber at first- floor height. The mood was distinctly hostile, which was no big surprise, but I tried not to let it faze me. In prison I'd been good at defusing tension. I could surely put that same skill into practice here.
'Ah yes, you,' Bergelmir said, glaring at me. 'Give me one good reason why I shouldn't gut you with this knife, right here, right now, and strangle you with your own innards.'
To judge by the mutterings all around, the frosties could give him several good reasons why he should.
'Yeah, nice to see you again too, Bergelmir,' I said. 'Glad you survived that glacier getting blown up.'
'Don't try your blandishments on me, human scum. There's no love lost between us.'
'Okay, so I admit we didn't part as the best of friends last time. But that wasn't my fault, really, was it? I didn't ask to fight a duel with one of you lot, and I certainly didn't expect to win.'
'That you did win is all that's keeping me from ordering your immediate execution. Yours and your associates'.'
'I appreciate it. To be honest, I've been counting on it. I sensed — and if I'm wrong about this, please say so — but I sensed that in some strange way, in spite of everything, you quite admire me.'
Bergelmir laughed, once, sharply.
'Maybe not admire, then,' I said, 'but perhaps respect? By frost giant standards I did well. You people put a premium on courage in battle and ruthlessness, and that's what I showed.'
'True,' said Bergelmir. 'I would go further and say you have a callous disregard for your opposition, and not only that but an insanity inside you that comes to the fore in combat. A blind berserker rage. Would you agree with such a description?'
'I might, at a pinch.'
'Which makes you exceedingly dangerous, not least since you've aligned yourself with our longstanding adversaries the Aesir. And now here you are, in our very midst, surrounded, at our mercy. Hmmm. Would I be wrong in thinking this is a perfect chance to dispose of a very irksome enemy combatant? Whatever your aim in coming here and surrendering yourself to us, it seems too good an opportunity to pass up, eh?'
'He must die,' Leikn hissed at her husband's ear. 'They all must.'
'It's a reasonable point, Leikn,' I said, 'and a fella should always listen to his missus.' I looked back to Bergelmir. 'My main objection is that you have no idea what I've come offering. Aren't you just a little bit curious to know what it is I'm after? I would be, if I was in your shoes. If you wore shoes. I'd be asking myself, 'What's this bloke want from me? He's put himself and a bunch of his pals at risk, knowing that even with guns they wouldn't last long against this many jotuns — so why? What's he up to?''
'Why should it matter to me what you're up to? You're only human. Insignificant. I don't even know your name.'
'Gid Coxall. There, now you do. Pleased to meet you.'
'It makes no difference,' Bergelmir said with a casual wave of the dagger. 'You could be called Arsecrack Walrusbreath for all I care.'
That raised a titter from the home crowd.
'The fact is,' he went on, 'while your audacity is to be commended, and your personal courage not in doubt, I have no interest whatsoever in anything you might have to tell me. All that concerns me is the manner of your death, which will be of my choosing.'
He stood and made a gesture.
'Seize him! Seize them all!'
And before any of us could react, we'd been grabbed by the frost giants, and our guns had been taken from us, and our arms had been pinned behind our backs, and all of a sudden the situation wasn't looking too clever any more.
Forty-One
With a couple of frost giants holding each of us in place and Bergelmir putting his dagger blade to my neck, the casual observer could have been forgiven for thinking we were well and truly fucked.
And we were.
And it would be a lie to say I'd anticipated this turn of events.
But all was not lost. So long as I could keep talking.
'Here's the thing, Bergelmir,' I said. He'd bent down. We were virtually eye to eye. 'You know as well as I do that there's big trouble brewing. Loki's on the warpath and he's got Asgard in his sights. There's going to be a major incursion any day now. It could even have begun already, in the time since I left to pop over to Jotunheim and have this lovely chat with you. Ragnarok's just around the corner. If the Aesir can't defeat Loki, he'll wipe them off the map. You know he will. He hates them that much.'
'And in what way is such an outcome undesirable for us?' Bergelmir said. 'If Loki destroys Asgard and all who dwell there, so what? He will have done everyone a favour. Are you not aware, Gid Coxall, that Loki was one of us, jotun-born?'
'Yeah, operative word 'was.' Isn't any more. He renounced his race, didn't he? Turned his back on you. Denied his roots. Became an Aesir in all but name. And he'd still be living as one of them now, all chums together, if he hadn't gone and overstepped the mark and got Balder killed. So you can claim he's your countryman if you like, a proud patriotic jotun, but you know and I know he isn't. The only side Loki's on is Loki's.'
'You've heard the saying, though, 'My enemy's enemy is my friend'?'
'But is he? Is he really? Do you genuinely think that? After all, it's not as if he's come to you asking for your help in taking on Asgard. Where did he go when he escaped incarceration? Which of the Nine Worlds did he run to? Where's he been for the past few years putting together his special fancy-schmancy strikeforce? Not Jotunheim, that's for sure.'
