"You are truly provocative, hero," she smiled.
"Huh."
"Oh, but you are," she objected. "You have defied the Valfather time and again, and lived." The implied "so far" hung on the air between us. I didn't bother to comment. "Your touch tames Fenrir. And you, alone of mortals, have caught unawares and ridden the great Sleipnir." Genuine respect, and what sounded suspiciously like wistful regret, colored that last observation. This lady wanted to ride that murderous black fiend?
"Sleipnir," I said deliberately, "is dog food. His gaits are lousy, he bucks, and he bites. His sole saving grace is jumping between worlds, and that's not a joyride, either. Give me a Harley Davidson any day."
She gasped.
While she was off balance, I pushed for information. "How come I wasn't left to drown?"
Surprise deepened in her lovely eyes. "You don't remember?"
"Remember what?" I snapped.
"Coming ashore in Valhalla?"
I just looked at her.
The rust-red stallion moved restively; she brought him up short. She studied me minutely, then shrugged, a delightful motion, even in armor. I would have given a lot to have seen her without that chain mail. Enough was visible to make my blood pound.
She kept her voice low. "When Sleipnir tossed you into the River Von, you swam ashore and came staggering out onto the riverbank. Some of the Einherjar saw you collapse, and had the sense to realize you were still alive, not just one of their number. They called Odin at once."
She paused, and a smile hovered about her lips. "You should have heard him. Even I was impressed. He hasn't used that kind of language since Baldr died."
"Huh."
She shrugged again. "Valfather thought maybe Fenrir would enjoy your company."
"He thought Fenrir would tear me into pieces!" I corrected harshly.
She flashed me a genuine smile. "To be perfectly honest, yes. And can you blame him? No one wants to die—and you did nearly free Loki. I can't imagine what else you'd expect him to do."
"Huh." My vocabulary was deteriorating rapidly. I sighed, and looked her square in the eye. "You're right about one thing, lady. No one wants to die. Not even unimportant little mortals like me. So why don't you tell me what he's going to do with me, so I can plan accordingly?"
She smiled again, revealing toothpaste-ad teeth. "You know, you're the most excitement I've had in decades. Too bad I have to take you straight to Valhalla. I'd enjoy a tumble with you first."
I grinned. The mere suggestion of sleeping with this valkyrie—and I assumed by "tumble" that she didn't mean hand-to-hand combat—left me with a sudden raging desire to strip off that chain mail.
She noticed the bulge and smiled. I replied with a wolfish grin, "Then why don't you ask him to postpone things?"
She laughed. "Thank you for the compliment. You've courage, hero. I admire that. You'll make a fine addition to the Einherjar, Skuld willing. I might just ask him, at that. Come," she held out her hand again, "the Valfather intends to meet you in personal combat."
I glanced back at Fenrir. Beware Norse gods bearing gifts? Odin was giving me exactly what I wanted—a chance at him—so naturally, I started looking for the shiv up his sleeve. There was no way this would be a fair fight. I returned my gaze to the lovely Rangrid. "Do I have a choice?"
She laughed merrily. "I do like you. No, you do not have a choice. Not unless," she correctly interpreted which choice I'd meant, "you can walk on water? It's rather a long swim."
I chuckled. "So it is. After what I've been through, Rangrid, I'm starting to think I could do just about anything."
She didn't laugh. Her brow arched, and a troubled look came into her eyes. Good. I had at least one of Valhalla's permanent residents worried.
I grasped the proffered hand, expecting her touch to be cold as death, since that was what she brought. I was pleasantly surprised at her warmth. She lifted me easily to her stallion's back, behind her. Fenrir howled in the distance, a lonely sound that caught at my throat. I knew how the poor bastard felt.
Her horse leaped into a gallop that sent us speeding across the surface of the subterranean lake. Wind tore my breath away. I was proud of riding skills I'd accumulated the hard way; but I still took advantage of the opportunity to wrap my arms around her golden-armored waist. Rangrid didn't seem to mind. I gave a quick squeeze, and heard a chuckle float back to me on the wind.
The horse's golden hooves touched the far shore and he slowed to a walk. We had entered the outer fringes of an array of fighting men that dwarfed even the cast of The Longest Day. These fighting men, however, were all dead: the Einherjar, Chosen Heroes of Odin.
They constituted a solid mass, moving toward a vast, dark hall set on an open plain. The corners of the hall were lost beyond the horizon in either direction. Rangrid urged her horse through the crowd; soldiers gave over with surprisingly little grumbling. I wondered how many of them she'd personally collected. I saw men dressed in battle gear from every culture back to the dawn of time itself, all crowding against the bloodred stallion's flanks. Many of them were badly wounded; but they were mending before my eyes. The effect was dizzying, utterly alien.
All of us—dead warriors, horse, Rangrid, and I—were making for a massive doorway. I couldn't begin to grasp the size of the Valhall.
I could see only one side of it from our position, and not even the whole side at that, since the wall receded into apparent infinity. The door stood wide, dwarfing every other doorway I'd seen. Men streamed toward it, turning the bloodred plain black with their numbers. I knew from my studies there were six hundred thirty-nine doors in the Valhall. And this was just one of them? Sometimes, an occasion arises when a man fully appreciates how puny his imagination truly is. At a conservative guess, close to a thousand men would fit through that massive opening ahead without jostling. I glanced back. We'd just ridden through a solid mass of humanity that stretched from the doorway all the way down to the water's edge.
The stallion's golden hooves rang out on hard stone flooring as Rangrid urged him on through the dark opening. Tables that looked like they'd been hewn from an entire forest of giant redwoods stretched away into the distance, covered with preparations for a great feast. An enormous goat stretched on its hind legs, nibbling at the buds of a tree growing within the Hall. Ale flowed like amber milk from the animal's heavy teats, falling with a pleasant splashing sound into strategically placed buckets.
I snorted: convenient.
Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children—billions and billions, for all I could tell—scurried between the tables, bearing trays of goblets, and heavy pitchers of what smelled like beer but was probably mead.
More staggered under loads of roasted meat, trenchers of steamed vegetables, stacks of hot, freshly baked breads. I couldn't imagine where all these people had come from. None of the materials I'd read had mentioned slaves in Valhalla, even though many of the Vikings had kept captives to serve them. Slaves had sometimes been put to death and buried with their masters—especially young girls—but those few burials wouldn't account for the thousands of men and women of every conceivable age here.
"Rangrid, who are all these people?"
She twisted slightly in the saddle. "Those are the ones who die in war but are not warriors themselves."
"You mean they're the innocent victims? And you enslave them?" My hands had balled into fists. I missed the Biter's dark presence badly.
"Where else would you have them go? To freeze in Hel's dour worlds? No, they belong here, in Valhalla, where they are at least warm and treated well."