The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [53]
That was when the shooting started.
Nineteen
Nothing quite like gunfire to bring instant chaos to any given situation. Within moments of the first salvo, everyone was charging around like headless chickens. I'd been immediately forgotten about. Frost giants were yelling, screaming, and Bergelmir was giving orders, shouting to be heard above the hullabaloo: "To the armoury! Take arms! We're under attack!"
Like, duh. As Cody might have said.
Bullets thunked into ice, gouging holes, shattering stalactites, ruining the smooth rounded contours of the cavern. Frost giants blundered into one another. Some let out cries of pain. Some fell.
One landed right on top of me, squashing me flat. I wriggled out from under the corpse, mostly to avoid being suffocated by the sheer bulk of it, although the blood gushing out over me from several bullet wounds wasn't much fun. Crouching, using the body for cover, I took stock of what was going on.
It was more or less what I'd guessed. Odin's forces, attacking. I counted a dozen men spearheading the operation, a first wave of assault sowing death and discord through the cavern. Kalashnikovs and SA80s barked in their hands. Heckler and Koch MP5 machine pistols stuttered.
Once this first lot had done their job, taking the frost giants by surprise, killing as many as they could and scattering the rest, a back-up squad of similar size stormed into the cavern. They fanned out into position, securing the site and checking that all the fallen enemy combatants were as dead as they appeared to be. Head shots accounted for the ones that weren't.
Among the second lot of soldiers I recognised Cy and Paddy. They spotted me at about the same time I spotted them.
"There he is!" Cy said, and he and Paddy rushed over.
"Jaysus, you're alive," Paddy said as they helped me to my feet.
"Don't sound so surprised," I said.
"We were taking bets," said Cy. "Looks like you owe me a fiver, Pads."
"The lad had faith," Paddy said to me. "I was of the view the frost giants would have done for you by now, but Coco Pops here thought different."
"Oi, less of the 'Coco Pops,'" Cy warned. "I just knew you're as tough as bollocks, Gid. No poxy fucking frosties could finish you off."
"Listen," I said, "I don't know why we're talking about breakfast cereals all of a sudden but shall we stow it and concentrate on getting out of here? Guns or not, you lot are going to have your hands full with a hundred pissed-off yetis coming at you waving issgeisls."
"They've got a lot worse than issgeisls," Paddy said. "But you have a point. What use is a rescue mission if the person being rescued gets killed while we're rescuing him?"
"All this, for me?" I said as Cy and Paddy each put an arm around my shoulders and got me moving. After my prolonged duffing-up by the frost giants, walking was doable but not exactly a breeze.
"What on earth gave you that idea?" Paddy replied. "Could it have been my using the word rescue three times in a row just now?"
"It in't just about you," Cy added. "We're having a bash at the frost giants as well. You're an added bonus, that's all."
"A pretext, you might say," said Paddy. "Alive or not, you were a handy excuse for coming and giving the big fellas what-for."
"But how did you find me?"
"Ah well now, you'd have her ladyship Freya to thank for that. She's the one led us all this way. Tracked you from where you crashed in the woods, out of Asgard and across half of Jotunheim to this here lair. Followed your trail like a beautiful blonde bloodhound, so she did. Quite the thing, to see her sniffing her way across the landscape, spotting the tiniest signs here or there that told her where you'd gone - a scratch in the ice, a dislodged pebble, a hair, pieces of evidence so small I couldn't see them myself even when they were pointed out to me."
"We thought you might've been taken to Utgard," said Cy. "The frosties' main stronghold. You're lucky you weren't. We'd never've