The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [155]
"And for our second date...?" I shouted back.
Then we were behind an inner gate, which was hastily slammed shut and barred. The frost giants began hammering on it from the other side. The gate's timbers creaked and shuddered, the hinges groaned, but it held fast.
For now.
I snatched up my walkie-talkie and thumbed the Push-To-Talk button.
"All units, this is Gid. Sitrep?"
Vali's voice: "We're keeping them out, but not for much longer, I fear."
Vidar: "Same here. There are just too many."
Tyr: "They've broken through. Nothing we can do."
Freya: "Ammunition's starting to run out." She was up on the battlements, taking potshots. "I think I can last another quarter of an hour or so."
Skadi: "The Valkyries and I are doing what we can, but..."
The "but..." said it all.
Our situation was bleak and turning bleaker by the minute.
And then, just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse, they did.
Sixty-Five
The snow and the din of battle prevented us from hearing it until it was almost on top of us. It descended through the cloud cover, pushing out a great grey blister in the overcast's underside before bursting through. The size of a naval frigate, it was suspended in the air by ten gimbal-mounted fans, each at least twenty metres across. Its prow was peaked and its aft bulbous, and its hull boasted dozens of multidirectional automated machine guns which swivelled and traversed impressively. The name Nagelfar was painted along its keel in ten-foot-tall capitals, and as it swept overhead, passing across the castle, its fans chopped spirals in the falling snow, leaving white vortices in its wake.
Everyone stopped in their tracks and stared up at it. You couldn't not. For a time the battle halted as the immense vessel sailed over. Its shadow brought temporary respite from the blizzard, although the downdraught from its fans kicked up so much of the fallen snow that a whiteout followed immediately afterwards. When that had cleared, the thing could no longer be seen, although the dizzying drone of its engines could still be heard.
I dashed for the battlements and sprinted around to get a view of where the aircraft had gone. Freya met me as I stood gazing out.
Nagelfar was coming to rest beside Yggdrasil, not far from the slumped hulk of Jormungand and the scattered wreckage of Sleipnir, and within sight of the gutted Fenrir. It dwarfed them all, even the World Tree. It settled on its undercarriage like some leviathan queen taking her throne. The fans slowed and the fog of loose snow they'd thrown up from the nearby trees drifted down to earth.
Doors slid open all along its hull and ramps unfurled, telescoping out to touch the ground. Familiar shapes appeared in the doorways: the bulky outlines of tanksuits. They started down the ramps, and as they emerged into the daylight I saw they weren't quite the JOTUNs and SURTs I remembered. They trundled rather than walked. In place of legs they now had wheels, three on each side in triangle formation, yoked by caterpillar tracks. The heads were better armoured, sunk into the humps of the shoulders so that they protruded less, and instead of faceplates there were now visor slits. I recalled Mrs Keener on Bifrost saying that the tanksuit designs had been given an overhaul and an upgrade. Here, then, were the Mark II versions. Looking even deadlier and more fit for purpose than the originals. Oh happy day.
They rolled towards the castle, a good fifty of them all told, swishing through the slush and mud left behind by the frost giants' tramping feet.
I looked at Freya.
"You know I said Loki won't win?"
She nodded.
"I may have changed my mind."
Luckily, she thought I wasn't being serious.
I totally was.
Quickly as they could, Vali, Vidar and Tyr clambered inside our