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And then he fainted.

Fifty-Eight

Confusion reigned. Frigga took charge of Heimdall, instructing two of the men to carry his unconscious body to the castle. Meanwhile the rest of us milled about, all of a tizz because we knew an attack was imminent but had no way of telling where it was coming from or what form it would take.

"Fuck," I said to Paddy and Cy. "First we lose Odin, our eyes in the sky. Now Heimdall, our long-range radar. We're being crippled bit by bit."

"What was that, some kind of sonic weapon?" said Paddy.

"That knocked Heimdall for six? Yeah, sonic weapon'd be my guess."

"But where's it positioned?" said Cy. "How far off?"

"Wouldn't have to be close by at all, given how extraordinarily acute his hearing is. Look, we've got to get on top of this. Pads, go scare up Jensen and Thwaite. Tell them to get Sleipnir in the air, pronto. We need some idea of what's approaching and where from."

Twenty minutes later the Wokka was up and on patrol, ranging outward from the castle in an expanding spiral sweep. At intervals Thwaite radioed in. "Nothing to report," and "Still nothing to report." No fresh penetration of Asgard's borders. No visual confirmation of anything out of the ordinary.

"You don't think maybe Heimdall got it wrong?" Cy wondered. "Whatever it was they blasted him with, it messed with his head? Made him imagine something that in't there?"

"Possible. As long as he's out cold, he can't say. But my money's on him being right. Face it, Loki's hit us once already in the past twenty-four hours, hard. He knows we've got to have sustained losses. Maybe he even knows about Odin. Naturally he's going to want to press home the advantage. Catch us while we're still reeling."

"Second bite of the cherry, type of thing."

"Only, we're a cherry that bites back. So let's make damn sure we're ready to."

I soon had Thor, Vali, Vidar and Tyr taking command of their units and organising them into a defensive position. Once again, three concentric lines were set up around the castle. I was reluctant to dish out orders to Odin's sons - it felt like an inversion of the proper chain of command - but there was drift there. Understandably. They'd just lost their dad, for fuck's sake. They were bereaved, distraught, not thinking straight. Somebody had to gee them up. Nobody else was volunteering, so the role fell to me.

The sun climbed. The morning wore on. It started to seem that perhaps Cy was right and Heimdall had been confused, misled somehow. He'd said, "It's coming!" so urgently. So why wasn't it here by now?

There was grumbling in the ranks. Apprehension spawned annoyance. The lads were impatient for something to happen, and as their tension mounted, so did their tempers. Thor and his brothers kept a rough discipline, barking at anyone who got out of line. It was not a good day to piss them off.

Noon arrived, the sun at its zenith and shedding as much weak winter warmth as it had to give. By now even I was coming to the conclusion that this was all a false alarm. Poor old Heimdall had had his senses overloaded by some long-distance weapon of Loki's. His thoughts had been scrambled and he'd not known what he was saying.

I was on the point of telling Odin's sons - or rather, gently but firmly suggesting to them - that they order the troops to stand down. Everywhere, tired and drawn faces. Frayed, ragged looks. The boys needed a break.

Suddenly, the trolls started howling in their pens.

It was a terrible sound, rough-edged with fear and panic. They babbled and hooted, repeating hoarse almost-words in their coarse almost-language. There were only ten of them left after the assault on Fenrir but they made enough racket for three times that many. The air around the castle echoed with it and with the thumping that accompanied it as the trolls pounded agitatedly at the pens' wooden stockades.

"Something's got them spooked, all right," Cy said.

"Quite," I said, and executed a quick weapons