The Age Of Odin

it appeared he had his own tactic for handling the enemy fire, and that was to run straight into it.

Crazy? Oh yes. But somehow it worked for him. Not one bullet found its mark as Odin rushed the soldiers. He moved surprisingly fast, and doubtless none of them had anticipated a full-speed-ahead frontal assault like this. They'd expected he would dive for cover — like any normal person, such as me, would — and gauged their aim accordingly.

He seized his nearest opponent, a corn-fed, freckle-faced farmhand type, and smashed him backwards against the hold wall, knocking the wind out of him. While Farmhand wheezed for breath, Odin rammed a fist into his sternum. I heard the sound of his ribcage caving in — a splintery crack like a piece of fibreboard getting stamped on.

Odin swung Farmhand's huge frame round just as another American, a Mike Tyson lookalike, opened fire on him from the side. The body took the bullets, jerking with the impacts. Odin then flung Farmhand at Tyson-alike, who wasted precious seconds wrestling the corpse off. By the time Tyson-alike had disentangled himself from his dead comrade's limbs, Odin had his throat in an chokehold. He wrenched, and the American's atlas bone snapped, spine and skull parting company. A professional hangman couldn't have done it better.

I was impressed as hell. Who knew Odin had it in him? His name meant 'war fury,' that was what Bergelmir had said, and he was living up to it. White-haired and age-withered he might be, but when necessary he had the speed and vigour of someone far younger and better built, not to mention the killer instinct of a true warrior. The Americans, for their part, were open-mouthed with shock. An old guy, dressed like a civilian, not a gun to be seen on him, and he was taking them apart? No way. How?

Odin kidney-punched another of them, then used the man's pistol — while he was still holding it — to eliminate two of his own colleagues. Both head-shots, one through the eye, the other ripping off its victim's entire jawbone. For the coup de grace Odin twisted the soldier's arm up, lodged the pistol barrel under the chinstrap of his helmet, and pulled the trigger a third time. The man had a chance to choke out half a scream, but that was all. The helmet kept the top of his head from flying off but everything else got very messy.

Me and my Minimi were starting to feel redundant. Odin was a tornado, swift, remorseless, brutal. I foresaw a time when he and Loki would finally have it out between them, just the two of them, man to man, blood brother against blood brother. It would surely have to happen, and when it did, I didn't rate Loki's chances. He could shape-shift into the Incredible Hulk, and Odin would still pound him into the dirt.

At the very moment I had this thought, Odin glanced my way. His eye widened.

'Gid! Behind you!'

I rolled round to find a soldier looming over me. It was hard to know how his face looked, whether he was black, white, Asian, whatever. He had few features left, just a tarry, sticky mess of burnt skin and cartilage where lips, nose and cheeks had been. Shrapnel hedgehogged him from forehead to neck. Only his teeth, exposed by the melted O of his mouth, were intact. Straightened, bleach-white gnashers, clenched in a rictus of rage. And his eyes — bulging, aglow with the thirst for vengeance.

If this man with the mushed mush was still in pain, he wasn't aware of it. He was somewhere way beyond that sort of concern. All he wanted to do, all he could do, was kill me.

The semiautomatic pistol levelled at my face was poised to make his desires a reality.

Fifty-Five

The gun, a chunky Desert Eagle, was so close, I could see right up the barrel, along the curved grooves of the rifling, all the way to the bullet snug in the breech. Or so it seemed. Maybe I would see that bullet as it came out, watch it corkscrewing towards me during a final, precious microsecond before it hit with a white thunderclap and there was nothing more.

It was an instant of clarity that lasted far longer than it should, stretched out like a holidaymaker on a sun lounger. Somehow I couldn't lift the Minimi, draw a bead on Pizza Face here. There was all the time in the world, and none. Surreally serene, I was able to think, Oh well, this is how it happens, this is how you die. I felt no animosity towards my would-be killer. Just a grunt doing his job, same as I'd done my job dozens of times before, killing to earn a wage. He was so badly injured, so far gone, he probably didn't even register me as anything human. I meant as much to him as a paper target at the shooting range.

His finger squeezed. I saw the gun's hammer nod forwards.

Then something slammed into him sidelong. The Desert Eagle went off and I felt the peppery sting of powder burns on my left cheeks, and my left ear when absolutely silent from the percussion of the gunshot — but I wasn't hit, I wasn't dead…

The gun went off again, and yet again. Odin and Pizza Face were grappling on the floor, the weapon between them. The soldier was pulling the trigger over and over, a reflex, while Odin dug both thumbs into his throat, strangling with all his might. I heard a click — the Desert Eagle's magazine running empty — and another click — the hyoid bone at the base of Pizza Face's tongue breaking. He gave a rattly gurgle and went rigid.

Grimacing, Odin eased himself off the body.

'Done,' he gasped.

We helped each other up to our feet. I scanned the hold. Soldiers lay everywhere, a few of them moving but none with any active purpose. The writhing, spastic throes of the terminally wounded.

Also terminally wounded, it turned out, was Odin. He sagged to his knees, and I realised the front of his overcoat was riddled with bullet holes and sodden with blood. His opponent's shots hadn't gone wild, as I'd hoped — prayed — they had. Odin had a good half-dozen rounds in him.

The All-Father was a goner.

I knelt by him. 'We'll get you to Frigga, that's what we're going to do,' I said. 'We'll get you to her and she'll fix you. All you have to do is hang on. We'll be out of here in a jiffy.'

'No, Gid,' he rasped. 'Noble of you, but no. I've sustained harm beyond even my wife's power to mend. I can feel…' He coughed, and blood dribbled out over his beard. 'I can feel how much is… broken inside me. I've not got long.'

'Bullshit. You're a god. The All-Father. Come on, you hung on a tree for nine days. You can pull through this.'

His hat had lost its rakish grip on his head, and for the first time I could see his left eye. The lids were puckered over the empty socket, sealed and sunken like lips with a secret they would never tell. His right eye still glittered, but its lustre was fading.

'I knew going in,' he said, 'that this was to be my end. Swallowed by Fenrir the devourer… never to return. My fate. I am not sad. I regret leaving life… but it has been a long life… and a good one too. My wife, my lovers, my sons, my family… even my blood brother…'

He coughed again, and this time gouts of blood bubbled up.

'And you, Gid… It has been a privilege to know you… even if only for such a brief span of time…'

He fell against me, crimson-bearded.

'I saved you,' he said. 'Gimle. Not Niflheim. Gimle!'

And that was his final word, a cry that left his body forcefully and took all his remaining strength with it. Slack, limp, he died in my arms.

Fifty-Six

I had about a fifth of a second to digest the fact that the All-Father was no more. Then two things happened.

First, Fenrir reverberated to an immense explosion, rocking back on its caterpillar tracks.

Second, Cy and Paddy came haring in from the engine room.