The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [148]
All along the castle's rim, men and gods grappled with towering, shaggy monsters. Odin's sons were at the forefront. Vali, Vidar and Tyr despatched frost giants in all directions, sending bodies tumbling to the ground. The Valkyries were in the thick of it too, whooping high-pitched battlecries as they gunned frosties down. Skadi was there.
Sif too. Thor's missus hadn't struck me as the Xena Warrior Princess type. I'd written her off as pleasant but mousy, and assumed she would stick with Frigga, helping to care for the injured, but not a bit of it. She was Aesir, and that meant getting down and mixing it with the enemy at a time of crisis. The death of her beloved gave her added impetus. She was a little hellcat, eyes bloodshot, taking out her very considerable anguish on her late husband's favourite punchbags. Any frost giant who strayed into her path didn't live long to regret it.
Freya, of course, performed sterling work, and I did my bit. Gave a pretty good account of myself, in fact. Just let my inner berserker have free rein and went along for the ride. Up on the battlements, I forgot everything. I didn't feel anger or hatred or fear or regret. I didn't have any petty problems any more. Nothing bothered me or distracted me. I was pure purpose. I existed to do one thing and that was kill frost giants. They appeared, I did away with them. Some I shot, some I stabbed, whatever suited. I had my Minimi in one hand and an appropriated issgeisl in the other, and ploughed through their ranks, cold, unfeeling, inexhaustible. I could have gone on for ever. Time had no meaning; I measured my progress through the world in terms of enemies exterminated. The only clock that counted was the one that registered the racking up of dead frost giants.
This was what I did best, what I was made for. I wasn't a good husband. I wasn't a good father. Nature hadn't designed me to hold down a McJob and be Mr Domestic and live the cosy life. It had designed me to fight and slay. I had no other function. This - wading headlong into the enemy and mowing them down - was me.
And the blackness at the core of my being exulted. It screamed with a joy that was beyond happiness, beyond ecstasy, inexpressibly sweet and mindless. You couldn't get a high like it from any other source. Drink, drugs, unbridled sex, they paled by comparison. Poor substitutes. This was the real deal. Uncut. Raw. Mainline. Heavenly. The utter, unutterable bliss of not having to think, not having to feel, having only to recognise, react, and move on. See enemy. Kill enemy. Find next enemy. Repeat ad infinitum, or until the supply of opponents runs out.
The sun set. The sky greyed. There was that greenish glow on the western horizon that signified the last of the light. And when it was gone, that was when Bergelmir decided his troops had had enough for the day. Once again, the retreat was sounded, and the frost giants pulled back. Any that were still scaling the castle walls leapt back down to the ground and scurried off; any that were still on top of the walls did their best to make a getaway, and many succeeded. White silhouettes, they ghosted across the snow to the dark sanctuary of the woods.
We watched them go, knowing we hadn't won, knowing they'd be back tomorrow, but knowing too that we'd done as well as we could have hoped and better than anyone might have expected. After all, we were still holding the castle, weren't we? And as long as we had that, we had something.
Sixty-Two
I was keeping lookout in the ruined hollow that had been one of the castle bedrooms. Nothing was happening outside. Campfires winked in the forest, but there'd been no sign of any overt hostile activity. Bitterly cold air whistled in through the caved-in outer wall. The stars were out in their millions, each a fleck of ice. The moon was as round and hard as a cannonball.
Freya brought me a mug of tea. She knocked on the frame of the shattered door first, before entering.
"Didn't want to startle you," she