The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [48]
"Righty-ho, Hval my old mate," I said. "How do you want to play this? You could just surrender now, or you could wait 'til I've brought you to your knees. Which do you prefer? It's all the same to me."
Hval laughed, and lunged.
Fuck, he was fast. He came like a rocket. I ducked out of his way, slithering on the icy floor. His issgeisl whooshed through the air, a shimmering translucent blur. It was a close thing. If I'd been half a second slower in evading him, I'd have been half a head shorter.
I swung my issgeisl in retaliation, but I was on the hop, it was a wild blow, and Hval skipped clear of it as smug-casually as though I'd done nothing more than flick a wet piece of spaghetti at him. Next instant he came thundering back at me, issgeisl held high. The axe blade end flashed down. All I could do was throw myself to one side and roll. The blade bit the floor with a shivering clang. Shards of dislodged ice rattled into me like hail. Hval inverted the issgeisl and stabbed at my leg with the spear end. I somehow got the haft of my issgeisl into the path of the blow and parried it. At the same time I kicked out at his heel, hoping to swipe him off his feet.
Fat chance. His leg was so solidly planted, it was like kicking a telegraph pole. His clawed toes, I realised, gave him a further edge over me. He could anchor himself to the floor with those talons. My rugged boot soles afforded me some grip but nowhere near as much.
He jabbed at me again, and I scooted backwards on my bum. The spear tip spiked the floor precisely where my crotch had been a split second earlier. I had time to think, Nearly lost an inch there, and, Not that that wouldn't still leave plenty, and then he inverted his issgeisl yet again and brought it whistling horizontally towards my arm.
No idea how, but I was able to parry a second time. Not as successfully as before, however. Hval's issgeisl rebounded off mine and caught me glancingly on the biceps. He'd been intending to take my arm off - at the very least gouge out a chunk - but in the event only slashed open sleeve and skin. Still, it stung like buggery, and the sight of my blood spurting out over the floor raised howls of joy from the spectators.
Hval stepped back with an air of smug satisfaction.
"First blood to me," he said.
"'The first cut won't hurt at all,'" I replied, springing to my feet. Propaganda. Now there was a band. Their album was the first I ever bought, aged eight. On vinyl, no less. Germans who could really do power pop. Whatever happened to them?
Music-lyric references were, of course, wasted on frost giants. I hefted my issgeisl. "Now where were we?"
"We were engaged in combat," Hval said, "and I was busy making you look a fool."
"Oh yeah, that's right. Well, I'd better do something to fix that, bettern't I?"
I went on the offensive. About time too. Up to then all I'd been doing was getting hammered on and just barely surviving. If I was going to make anything of this fight, I needed to take it to Hval, not let him bring it to me.
I lashed at him this way and that with the issgeisl, using either end of it, just as he'd shown me by example. Swings of the axe, thrusts of the spear. Quantity, if not quality. Not once, though, was I able to hit home. Hval blocked and fended off my every attack. He did this with a big fat smirk on his face all the while, like it was no great bother for him. His issgeisl spun on its axis, always there, always intercepting no matter how obliquely or swiftly or powerfully I struck. It was, in all, a pretty dispiriting experience.
Yet I kept it up. I kept it up even though it was hopeless, even though the whole notion of trying to beat Hval was futile, because supposing by some miracle I did beat him, I'd still have a roomful of his frost giant pals to contend with, and they'd