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"You must be so proud of yourself."

"Oh, I am, mate, trust me."

"But it's tainted money. Blood money. You'll never enjoy spending it."

"Who the fuck are you to judge me?" he spat. "What'd you come here for, if it wasn't to earn cash for killing? If that in't blood money, I dunno what is."

"I'm a soldier. It's what I do. You're a bottom-feeding scumbag. There's a difference."

"Yeah? Well, if so, I'm a scumbag who's standing here a free man, on the winning side, while you, soldier boy, are stuck there like a fly in a web, waiting to have your fucking lungs pulled out. So much for principles, eh? Where's that got you?"

"Really!" said Bergelmir with an exasperated grunt. "Isn't it time the bickering ended and we got down to business?"

"Bergelmir has a point," said Mrs Keener. "Much as I love the sight of two grown men waving their manhoods at each other, I think we need to carry on with the show. There's folk here standing in the cold who want this to be over with. Let's not keep 'em on tenterhooks any longer."

"At last!" Bergelmir took up position behind me.

I peered up at the castle.

Come on, Heimdall, get a bloody wriggle on. Now or never.

"You're the famous chatterbox, Gid," said Mrs Keener. "No parting words? No last pearls of wisdom before the knife goes in?"

"Yeah." I was looking at the Norns. As one, Urd, Verdande and Skuld turned their heads towards the castle and back again. They knew. Their shared secret smile told the tale.

"Go on, then. Enlighten us all."

"Don't miss, Heimdall."

I didn't say it loud. If his ears were back to their usual, ultra-sensitive selves, he would hear me, and if they weren't, it didn't matter.

Lines of puzzlement creased Mrs Keener's forehead, rapidly morphing into ridges of surprise as the truth dawned and her eyebrows went up.

Then a bullet smacked into her face, and she had no forehead at all.

Seventy-One

Everything happened quickly after that.

Even before Mrs Keener's body hit the scaffold planks, Heimdall loosed off a second shot. This one had a dual function, zinging through the rope that secured my right arm and hitting Bergelmir behind me. I heard him give a squawk of agony and drop the ice knife with a clatter.

With my arm suddenly free I swung sideways, twisting within the frame. I held my left arm rigid to stabilise myself, then started trying to undo the knot around my left wrist.

Heimdall saved me the bother by severing that rope as well.

Next thing I knew, I was on my knees on the platform. Doubling round, I began fumbling with the knots at my ankles. I knew I hadn't much time. I needed to release myself before someone collected their wits and made a move to stop me. All around, there was consternation. Frost giants yelling, babbling. Stunned expressions everywhere. Mrs Keener was dead. Loki! They couldn't believe it.

The human onlookers couldn't either. I sensed, more than saw, a surge of astonished delight within the crowd. And something else - a swell of activity, motion, a sharply rising floodtide. They had an opening, right now, while the enemy was still in shock and disarray. A window of opportunity. If there was ever a time for a violent insurrection, this was it.

Success! I got one of the knots undone.

Then a shadow loomed over me. Bergelmir. His right arm hung limp, blood from a bullet hole in his shoulder mingling with the pints of Backdoor's blood already matting his fur. He growled in pure bestial fury and swung at me with his left paw.

I ducked under the blow and scrambled away from him on hands and knees. The rope still tethering one ankle caught me up short. Bergelmir threw himself onto me flat out, like a wrestler doing a body slam, and I rolled out of his path. More by luck than anything I found myself within reach of the dropped ice knife, and snatched it up. The freezing cold of the handle seared my palm.

Bergelmir was on his feet too. He'd removed his armour for the execution, which made my life easier. I lashed out at his leg,