The Age Of Odin

* a dozen Aesir and Vanir

* the Valkyries

* ten trolls

* just over one hundred and fifty mortal troops

We'd lost our head man, our strongest warrior, our one and only transport helicopter, and most of our castle. Heimdall was out of action for the foreseeable future, lying comatose in bed, blood still leaking from his traumatised eardrums. Frigga was tending to him and to the injured men, most of whom were suffering from wounds inflicted by falling debris, bone breaks, severe contusions, concussion, that sort of thing. One of the intact wings of the castle was now a field hospital. Thwaite was there. He'd been pulled from the wreckage of Sleipnir in very bad shape, and Frigga had promised to do what she could for him, but she wasn't optimistic about his chances. Jensen, unfortunately, was past saving.

The respite lasted, in all, a little under three hours.

Then the frost giants arrived.

A delegation of them appeared at the castle gate. Three in all, led by Bergelmir himself. They requested an audience with Odin, but didn't seem surprised to learn that he wasn't around any more. Nor Thor either.

In the event, they got lumped with me. I went out to meet them, taking Cy, Paddy and Vali along for backup and moral support.

'Gid Coxall,' Bergelmir said, almost affectionately. 'Well, well, well. What a state Asgard finds itself in, eh? That it should come to this. And your poor castle. An impressive edifice once, although hardly the rival of Utgard.'

'We're redecorating,' I said. 'Once we're finished, you'll love what we're doing with the place. It's going to add hugely to the value when the time comes to sell. Kirstie and Phil would be proud.'

'You speak in riddles, as always,' Bergelmir said. 'Familiar words put together in incomprehensibly strange ways. It's one of the things that makes you so intriguing and so maddening.'

'All right, so what's the deal here? Let's cut right to it. I'm not in the mood for fannying around. Have you come to a decision on my offer? Us and you, in partnership. Because I'll be frank, we could do with reinforcements. Loki's got us on the ropes and there's surely more to come from him. Frost giants and Asgardians together, the dream team, what do you say?'

Bergelmir's contemptuous laugh was an answer in itself.

'Oh no! Dear me, no. That bird has definitely flown. In the light of your treacherous behaviour in Utgard, an alliance? I think not.'

'It was an accident,' I argued, not convincingly because I wasn't convinced myself that it had been. 'A slip-up. I wish it had never happened.'

'And well may you, but it doesn't change anything. Jotuns died, among them Suttung, a much feared and respected figure among our race. And after I'd granted you immunity from harm, too. I took that as a personal affront. A blatant slap in the face. No, any charitable feelings I may have harboured towards you, Gid, are long since vanished. Now I desire only your painful demise.'

'Well, that's good to know. I mean, at least I'm clear where I stand. So you're here to tell us any deal's off, yes? Is that all?'

'In a manner of speaking. This is us doing you the courtesy of informing you that there now exists a state of all-out war between Jotunheim and Asgard. Ragnarok is upon us, and it is beholden to us as jotuns to assist as energetically as we can in the complete and utter destruction of the Aesir and all their collaborators.'

'So you're siding with Loki. That's it. Non-negotiable.'

'Yes.'

'And if at a later date he turns on you?'

'We will act accordingly,' said Bergelmir. 'But I doubt it will ever come to pass. Especially not if we prove ourselves to be diligent aides to him in this instance.'

'Right now I'm looking at three frost giants,' I said. 'Forgive me if I'm not exactly quaking in my boots.'

'Ah, but observe.'

Bergelmir turned, put a hand to his mouth, and let out a long, loud, hooting call that echoed across the landscape.

And frost giants appeared. They came out from the woods, stomping into view, kitted out in a glittering array of ice armour and weaponry. There were hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands. Everywhere I looked, frost giants.

'We have the castle fully surrounded,' their leader said. 'Every able-bodied jotun of fighting age, male and female, has taken up arms and come. We will grant you one hour in which to rally your forces and prepare. One hour and not a minute more. Think of it as a vestigial mark of the esteem in which I once held you. Then we attack. No mercy. No quarter. We will fight you until the very last of us is dead — or the very last of you. Good day, Gid. When we two next meet — and I'm sure we will, and soon — you will find me altogether less congenial.'Bergelmir smiled, bowed, and left with his companions.

Sixty-One

He was as good as his word. One hour later, almost to the second, the frost giants moved on the castle.

I'd used the grace period to assess where the building's weak points were — and there were plenty of them — and make sure they were as well defended as they could possibly be. Jormungand had inflicted the most damage on the west-facing aspect. One major hole and several minor ones. Rubble formed convenient ramps, and I'd predicted the frosties would concentrate their efforts on using these to storm the breaches. That way they could establish a beachhead within the castle walls.

Which was exactly their plan, and we hit them with a withering crossfire as they came. We had to shoot from reasonably close range since we couldn't afford to waste too much ammo. Ice armour was effective at deflecting bullets at a distance, so we kept it down to fifty metres or less, which didn't leave much room for error. A few of the frosties got through and the combat turned dirty and hand-to-hand. The majority didn't make it past the slopes of rubble, however. The bodies began to pile up in the breaches, two, three, even four high.

The first wave of the attack lasted nearly forty minutes before a horn sounded the retreat. Bergelmir's troops withdrew to the trees, to retrench and steel themselves to start again.

By that point I'd had an idea. 'A brilliant one, even if I do say so myself.'

'Go on then,' said Paddy, and when I'd outlined it he twisted his mouth up and said, 'That could work. Maybe. Can't hurt to try, at any rate.'

'Oh give over, it's genius!'

'No, Finnegans Wake is genius. You've come up with something that might make a difference and equally might not. Which is hardly the same.'

'Sour grapes. You just wish it was your idea.'

'If it makes you feel better, then to be sure, I do.'

We got down to business preparing a — ho ho! — warm reception for the frost giants. No sooner were we done than they came at us once more, a fresh wave of them scrambling up the rubble, yowling and bellowing all the way.

'Fire!' I yelled into the walkie-talkie, but I wasn't referring to guns. All along the castle's western flank, men threw flash bombs onto the stacks of frostie corpses, which we'd laced with every kind of combustible liquid we could lay our hands on — fuel oil, lamp oil, diesel, petrol, even cooking fat. The bodies quickly became a great flaming barrier, a fiery screen with a dual function: it drove the attacking frost giants back, and the heat affected their weaponry and armour. Some of the ice-smiths' handiwork melted outright. Some of it held together, but was severely compromised — blades blunted, helmets and breastplates thinned.

Steaming, sodden, more vulnerable than before, the frost giants fled for the safety of the trees. Snipers on