The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [157]
This allowed the dozen remaining tanksuits to close in and blast away at them point blank, unimpeded. Ice and flame together battered the gnome armour's surfaces. Superheated and supercooled in several places at once, iron cracked and ruptured. Tyr was the first to die. The tanksuits peeled his armour off him in fragments, exposing him bit by bit to their weapons. It was dismal to watch, and just as dismal to see the same being done to Vali in turn.
Vidar managed to stumble away while his brothers were getting the freeze/burn treatment. He made it back to the castle with the armour falling off his body at every footstep, crumbling away in chunks and flakes until it was just a trail of scrap metal behind him in the snow. His strength was nearly gone as he threw himself across the threshold of one of the breaches. Almost immediately he was in the clutches of frost giants, who hauled him off somewhere, recognising him as a prize, a captive worth taking while he was in no fit state to resist.
Freya and I were still up on the battlements, and by this time I was becoming resigned to the inevitable. So, it seemed, was she. I didn't even bother checking via the walkie-talkie to see how the fighting was going in the castle itself. I didn't want to know. Besides, I could tell by the sounds of battle, or rather the increasing lack of them; gunfire was becoming sporadic and petering out. And now frost giants could be heard singing. An unholy racket, more football terrace chant than actual melody, drifting across the roofless turrets and tumbledown walls. I couldn't make out the words but their sense couldn't have been clearer: face it, losers, we've won.
"Freya..."
"Gid." She gripped my arm, tight. "You did your best. Never doubt that. No one could have done more." Her eyes sparkled like frost under lamplight.
"But we -"
"We tried. But it is Ragnarök. It isn't called the Doom of the Gods for nothing. Victory was never going to be easy."
She was planning on saying more, but frost giants had found us. They approached from both sides along the battlements, much as had happened at Utgard. Freya and I checked how much ammunition we had left - enough for a last little burst of mischief - and then turned back to back.
"Meet you in Gimlé," she said over her shoulder.
"Sure thing," I replied. "I'll be the one with the red carnation in my buttonhole and carrying a copy of the Times." Then to the frost giants I said, "All right, boys. Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."
They sneered, snarled, and charged.
They were just metres away when clusters of brilliant little laser dots painted the battlements between them and us, swirling on the snow-capped stonework. Wisely, they halted. The laser dots then swept upwards to mark Freya and me.
I braced myself, but no flechette rounds came. The message was clear. Don't move a muscle, or they'll be cleaning you up with a mop and bucket.
As we stood there pinned in place, a fur-clad figure exited Nagelfar and strode towards the castle, passing briskly between the last few JOTUNs and SURTs, which backed away respectfully.
"Well, howdy there," the figure called up, reaching the base of the castle wall. "And how're you two doing this fine day?"
"Smashing," I said. "And you?"
"Oh now, let me see. Almost all of the folks I hate the most are now dead. Me and my jotun buddies appear to have conquered Asgard. And Midgard's official biggest pain in the bee-hind is currently stuck with more laser sights trained on him than a sow's got teats."
Mrs Keener beamed at me, happy as a bride on her wedding day.
"All in all, I'd say I'm just peachy, wouldn't you?"
Sixty-Six
We stood huddled in the shadow of Nagelfar - everyone from our side who was still alive and not bedridden in the field hospital. Shockingly few of us. We looked bedraggled and downcast.