The Age Of Odin

Ah well, what the fuck. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Who wants to live for ever? Et cetera.

I sprang.

Geronimo!

Forty-Four

I wasn't going to make it. Even as my boot soles parted company with the battlements I knew I was going to fall short of the ramp and start a long plunge into the crevasse. It was just the way it had to be. I couldn't have stayed put. Jumping and hoping was all I had.

So I was surprised as hell to thump chest-first against the lip of one of the ramp's three extensions, and just as surprised to find myself clinging on there, using hands, elbow and even chin to keep me in place. I bicycled my legs, trying to get a knee up onto the extension. Then hands fastened onto my uniform tunic, digging into its layers of padding, and I was hauled unceremoniously up and over like some item of baggage until all of me was on the ramp proper. I lay there, prone, gasping like a landed fish. I could hardly believe I'd done it. Still in one piece.

Someone else couldn't believe it either. Suttung.

As Sleipnir began to draw away from Utgard, he launched himself off the battlements, determined that his pursuit wasn't going to end here. He hurtled through space and hit the ramp with an almighty clang, flat on his stomach. Immediately he began sliding off and scrabbled for purchase. His talons found little they could dig into on the ramp's cross-hatched surface until, by chance, one hand encountered my ankle. He latched on, but his slide continued, and now he was dragging me with him.

The boys cottoned on fast that I was in trouble. It might have had something to do with me shouting out, 'Fuck's sake, he's pulling me down!' They grabbed my arms and braced themselves. Suttung had slipped completely free of the ramp and was dangling off the end of it, between two of the extensions. The only thing preventing him falling was his hold on me. As my leg was halfway over the lip of the ramp, this was bending my knee the wrong way and causing me some considerable fucking amount of pain.

'Get him off! Get the bastard off me!'

Suttung clamped his free hand onto the ramp. That relieved the strain on my knee a little, but then he lost his grip and dropped back down again. The sudden shift caught everyone unawares, and I was tugged further out of the helicopter. Now I was hooked over the lip of the ramp, which dug excruciatingly into my midriff. The boys planted their heels in and attempted to bring me back up. Suttung hung on grimly. I'd become the rope in a life-or-death tug of war, and to be honest, I wasn't hugely enjoying it. I communicated this fact to the others in what I felt was, under the circumstances, quite a calm and reasonable manner. I might have used the word 'cuntbags' once or twice but otherwise I was pretty restrained. Oh, and 'shit-fuckers.' And possibly 'twatting bollockheads.' Apart from that, though — a model of dignity and coolness under pressure.

Suttung just wasn't letting go, and to make matters worse his claws were spiking into my shin and Achilles tendon. It seemed likely he'd tear my foot off before he gave up his hold on me. Sleipnir was accelerating and he was getting swung in all directions, buffeted by the wind, a mad pendulum. I tried kicking at him with my other foot but he didn't stay in one place long enough for me to connect.

With all four of the lads pulling on me, they started to make some headway, and soon most of my body was back on the ramp. Cy thumped at Suttung's fingers hard as he knew how, but couldn't dislodge his grip. In fact it only made those talons sink in deeper. The blood was now streaking out over my boot, flecking the frost giant's arm and face.

One final heave, and I was safely in the cargo bay once more.

Unfortunately, so was my hanger-on. Suttung got one thigh over the lip of the ramp, then rolled himself the rest of the way in. He was up on his feet and raging in no time. He grabbed Backdoor by the head and threw him the length of the cabin. Backdoor collided with a bank of seats and went down hard. Then Suttung drew a weapon from the waistband of his armour, another of those fucking ice tomahawks. He lashed out at Cy with it, and the kid got a forearm up in the nick of time, which saved him from having a trapezoid-shaped blade embedded deep in his noggin. The downside was that his arm was slashed open clean to the bone. He fell, hissing through his teeth, clutching the wound.

Suttung made a big mistake in hurting Cy, for two reasons. First, I was fond of Cy and it pissed me off. Second, it meant he'd stepped close to where I happened to be lying. So close that I was able to scissor my legs around his ankle, twist, and bring him crashing to his knees.

I hadn't thought this one through too brilliantly, though, since he turned his attention on me. The tomahawk was up, poised, and Suttung's grin said he was looking forward to burying the hatchet with Gid Coxall — and not in a good way.

Then an Irish-accented voice said, 'Hello there, frostie. You like cold? How about some dry ice?'

Paddy had the Chinook's fire extinguisher in his hands, and he sprayed the contents full-on into Suttung's ugly mug. Carbon dioxide jetted out from the nozzle in clouds, and Suttung shrieked. The stuff went in his mouth, up his nose, into his eyes, and he reeled backwards, frantically rubbing at his face with both forearms. Paddy gave him no quarter. Kept blasting away with the fire extinguisher. Driving him back towards the ramp.

I scrambled on all fours to help. Suttung teetered on the end of the ramp. His eyes were bloodshot and streaming. He was choking, flailing.

I gave his legs a good shunt, and all at once there was no more frost giant filling the cargo doorway. There was just a vista of Jotunheim, glinting ice fields, Utgard receding on the horizon, and the sounds of hammering wind and a falling, fading scream.

Forty-Five

Sleipnir doubled back and we picked up the Valkyries and their snowmobiles some two kilometres outside Utgard — a safe distance, and not far, in fact, from the splash of mangled red fur and flesh that had been Suttung. Then we began the journey home.

Five soldiers slouched together in sullen silence. Cy's arm was bandaged up, a nifty piece of field dressing courtesy of Paddy, and he had been fed some ace painkillers from the Wokka's first aid kit. He looked grey but okay. Backdoor was suffering from mild concussion but joked that it was only his head so no vital organs had been damaged. I'd staunched the bleeding from the gashes in my leg. We sat there and avoided one another's gazes. Each of the others wore a face like a slapped cock, and I'd no doubt I did too.

Someone had to skewer the sour mood. Guess who elected himself to do it.

'Well,' I said, 'that all went swimmingly, didn't it?' Which won a couple of weak smiles and not much else.

'Might as well get this over with,' I went on. 'What happened? Any idea? Somebody? Anybody?'

Shrugs.

'Come on, one of you must have seen something. Who fired first? Why? What at?'

'It was Chops, I think,' Cy volunteered. 'Not sure, but he was behind me and that's where the shooting started.'

'Weren't you taking the rear?' I asked Backdoor.

He nodded. It was noteworthy that neither he nor anyone else sniggered at the phrase 'taking the rear.' Nothing, right now, was very funny.

'So you'd have been following Chops. Was it him? Did he open fire?'

'I don't know, Gid. I really don't. I wasn't looking his way when it all kicked off. First I knew about it was a couple of frosties were on the deck and so was Chops. It happened that fast. At a push, my guess would be a frostie made a move on Chops and he retaliated.'

'Why would one of them do that, though?' I said. 'They had specific instructions to leave us alone and not hurt us.'