A tornado-force wind slammed me backward. I sprawled flat, badly winded. A shadow fell toward me... .
I jerked sideways, dragging the spear with me. Odin slammed into the dirt. His sword blade sank into the mud all the way up to the guard. I rolled to my feet and so did he, wrenching mightily on the buried weapon. Before he could evade, I charged.
Two steps from achieving Odin shish kebab, I staggered. A cloying stench hit me wetly in the face. A decaying corpse—its rotting flesh falling away in gobbets and chunks—rose out of the ground and grappled me. The damned thing tripped me up and clawed its way higher as it pulled itself up out of the muddy earth. Its hands were slimy and cold, its flesh disconcertingly solid. Its grip was as tenacious as an alligator snapping turtle's.
I stabbed and clubbed at it with Odin's spear, knocking off hunks of dead meat; but the decaying hands clung like leeches. A bony skull leered blindly through empty eye sockets. Nearly liquid brains the color of dead algae oozed out through them. The apparition shifted its grip. Bile rose in my throat as some of the stuff dripped across my hands. I set my jaws, and shattered the skull case with the butt of the spear, but still I couldn't pull free.
Feet consisting mostly of bone tangled with my own and we crashed backward. The obscenity fell with me, smothering me in slime and rotted flesh.
I'd lost my grip on the spear. I was left with nothing but my bare hands. Tearing with fingers, kicking with booted feet, I wrenched my way clear of the mess, sufficiently to see Odin—spear once again in hand—bearing down on me. I rolled violently aside. Abruptly I was as free of slime and gore as though it had never existed.
The spear point buried itself in the earth where I'd been.
I scrambled to my feet. A gibbering, five-foot-high skull with fire shooting from eye and nose sockets sailed through the air at me. I dodged under the lower jaw, snatched up my discarded sword, and threw myself at Odin again.
Now I knew why they called him Helblindi, he-who-blinds-with-death.
Too bad for him the "helblindi" ploy wasn't working. I began to feel hopeful—which was a damnfool thing to do.
Odin fell back, feinting left; and I whirled to face him.
And suddenly a hot flush spread through me. Whatever it was, it hit my brain like a fifth of whiskey gulped neat. I was abruptly—reelingly—drunk out of my mind. The horizon tilted wildly. I staggered, trying to stay on my feet. A large blur lurched forward, toward me. I had to remind myself that I was the one doing the lurching, not the blur. Then I realized my eyes were blurred, not the shape barreling down on me like a bull elephant.
I tried to move out of the way, which was a mistake. I tangled my feet together and landed flat on my face, breathing mud. Wet earth splattered into one ear as a foot thudded into the ground right beside me. Gradually it occurred to me that my drunken mistake had saved my life.
I crawled to my hands and knees and shook my head in an attempt to clear it. I willed the ground to quit heaving and billowing like ocean waves. Then I reminded myself that Odin was somewhere behind me, charging at my exposed back. There was no way I could get out of his way. So I fell flat again—and a spear point whistled across my back. The draft of its passage left goose bumps along naked flesh where it had split open my leather shirt. The Einherjar's cheering shook the very ground.
Someone—it had to be Odin—was swearing nonstop. I shook my head again, still trying to clear it. These sensations were Odin's doing. They weren't real.
I remembered First Officer Spock muttering, "The bullets are not real..." while the Earps blazed away, and I giggled drunkenly. Yeah, that was the ticket. This drunk is not real....
It occurred to me, in my befuddled state, that somewhere in this valley, Gary was watching me crawl around on all fours while Odin finished me off at his leisure.
That made me mad. Hatred colder than the ice in Niflhel spread through me. As the hatred grew stronger, the drunken stupor faded. My eyes focused sharply. With a prickling of the hairs on my neck, I lunged to my feet. Blind instinct prompted a twisting, sideways motion. An animal shriek struck my ears. I felt more than heard the passage of something massive just behind my left shoulder. I snapped into a diving forward roll. I came up scanning wildly for my lost sword and Odin's current position.
Movement overhead caught my eye. I snapped my attention skyward. Silhouetted against the bloody skies was a gigantic eagle, big enough for a starring role in a Harryhausen Sinbad movie. It clutched Gungnir in great, curved talons. The bloodred light from Valhalla's skies glinted off those curved daggers as the huge bird of prey dove fast and hard. I scurried backward and sideways—
My ankles sank into something cold and wet. My foot twisted under me as I stumbled over a buried rock. I windmilled wildly and fell flat again, back into a deep snowdrift. The eagle was diving at my belly, screaming out of a pulsing vermilion sky... .
I was helpless to move. Irresistible surges of sexual bliss left me shaking and weak. I groaned aloud. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I felt a warm stain spreading across the inside of my heavy leather pants... .
Then my right thigh cramped. My foot cramped even worse. I rolled over in agony. I tried to rub the spasmed leg muscles with one hand while I forced the foot out straight with the other. That brought on an even worse spasm, and left me doubled over and rolling around like some demented pillbug.
A mass of feathers and bone slammed into the snow with meteoric force. Abruptly I was engulfed in a smothering cloud. One huge wing buffeted me, with enough force to stun. Then, as the eagle struggled to right itself, it backwinged to regain its balance. The leading edge of its wing caught me in the side. The force of the blow rolled me along the snowbank like one of those cartoon characters bouncing along at the center of a rapidly growing snowball.
By the time I slithered to a squishy halt, all thought of cramped muscles had left me. In fact, the cramps had vanished as quickly as the corpse. I struggled to my feet. Odin was back in man form, literally spitting mud where his beak had plowed deep into the muck. His furs were askew. He was cursing so hotly, sparks crackled spontaneously in the air about him.
Odin yanked the great spear free of the mud with one Herculean pull. He kicked at the snow. It vanished. My lost sword reappeared, buried halfway to the hilt in the muck like Arthur's sword in the stone. Odin spat one final mouthful of muddy saliva, bent my sword downward, and stepped on the blade with one foot. Then he yanked up hard on the hilt.
Rangrid's sword broke with a snapping sound that brought a hush to the onlookers. I thought I heard a single sob, cut short.
My eyes narrowed. I flexed my fingers, watching coldly as Odin flung away the useless hilt of my sole weapon. He stepped forward, and raised the spear.
"Now," he snarled, "we end this little game!"
I watched him begin his lunge. Time slowed. I tensed, ready to meet him with nothing but my naked fingers. Sweat poured from me. My fingers twitched, wanting the feel of the black-bladed weapon Odin had stolen from me—
Its warm haft slid snugly into my palm.
The Biter's tail lashed firmly around my wrist. The Biter met Gungnir's iron point and shoved it upward. The blade slid along Gungnir's iron socket with a shrieking whine that sent sparks flying in every direction. The Sly Biter's long blade pulsed with an aura that looked black in the bloody light of Valhalla's skies.
The spear point whistled harmlessly past my shoulder. I grabbed the haft in my free hand and wrenched it aside—
And Odin lunged straight onto the Biter's waiting blade.