"We're taking on the United States army." I was stalling for time, trying to work out which way I was going to jump on this one. "They have the latest weaponry, and by the sound of it some advanced, cutting-edge stuff as well. We're just a small bunch of has-been soldiers with conventional arms."
"I have done my best, given my limited means. And you have gods beside you, don't forget. The cream of Asgard and Vanaheim, famed for their prowess on the battlefield."
"But we're still going to be outgunned, outnumbered, out-everythinged."
"So?"
"Hopeless odds."
"So?"
"Its suicide."
Skadi was hopping from foot to foot, waving one of her ski sticks agitatedly.
"That's as may be," said Odin. "But the stakes are much higher than mere lives. Our enemy's wrath is such that, unchecked, it may shatter the Nine Worlds. Do you understand what I am saying? Thanks to him, all is imperilled. Not just Asgard and the Aesir. All. Including Midgard. Including your loved ones."
"My —?"
"There's no time to go into the full story now. But you have to believe me, Gid. If my erstwhile blood brother is not stopped, it could spell universal doom."
"Oh," I said.
Cody.
"Well," I said.
My little boy.
"If it's universal doom that we've got to watch out for…" I said, and said no more.
Endless possibility, the Norns had told me. Infinite opportunity.
I'd made my choice.
And the black rage inside me wasn't at all displeased.
Thirty
We were positioned on high ground, overlooking a plain. About a hundred of us mortal troops, half the total of Odin's forces, plus a handful of Aesir and Vanir. Brought out in two batches aboard Sleipnir and now parcelled out along the curving ridge of a bluff, some of us still catching our breath from tabbing hard from the drop point. I was with Cy, Paddy, Chopsticks, Baz and Backdoor. I'd fallen in with the five of them en route, bumping shoulders with them in the Wokka's cargo bay. There was us together on the bluff and a handful of others, all under the command of Thor. This, I could tell, was now my squad. The team I belonged to. These things had a way of just clicking, of their own accord.
Facing us was one of the intersections between the Nine Worlds, the corridors where one world met and overlapped with another. Down below our positions there was nothing except a snowfield stretching westward, its far edge lost in a curtain of fog. The fog hung in an almost perfect straight line, as though held back by something you couldn't see, contained by a wall of glass. It hazed the setting sun, paling the scarlet disc to pink. It was utterly still. Not a breath of wind, not a hint of turbulence in its white depths.
Up to the fog bank was Asgardian turf. Beyond lay Niflheim.
"Where are they?" I murmured, mostly to myself. "Where the fuck are they?"
"They wait," said Thor. "They are well hidden. They wish us to grow uneasy and restless, so they wait. When they have waited long enough, they will emerge. Control of the battlefield is any army's priority, and that starts with control of the timing of battle. They know we would not dare venture into the mist, so the upper hand is theirs — the leisure to decide when to commence the attack."
"And in the meantime we lie here with our ball sacks turning to icepacks."
"Would you rather go down there into that impenetrable mist, where you can't even see the hand in front of your face, and try to root them out? I think not."
He had a point. Not that I wasn't tempted. I didn't much enjoy hanging around twiddling my thumbs before a contact. I wanted to get in there, mix things up. The black rage inside me wanted that too. This was what it lived for: moments of bloodshed and personal danger. What it craved, like a vampire craved blood or a zombie craved flesh. I was an addict, that was what it came down to. Violence was my drug, and for too long I'd gone without. It had been cold turkey for me ever since I left prison. I'd been straight for two years — straight and miserable. But I was well off the wagon now, and all the happier and healthier for it.
I glanced across at Cy, his eyes met mine, and I saw it in him too. Paddy likewise, and Baz. All of them. The same eagerness, the same unquenchable thirst. We feared it so much, yet at the same time needed it. We could die today. This could be our final few minutes, our last hurrah. We were shit-scared, skating along the edge of the screaming abdabs, and loving it.
Baz had the walkie-talkie for our unit, and now it squawked in his hand.
"This is Odin, to all."
"Here we go," I said. "Big pre-match pep talk from the coach."
"Hush!" snapped Thor. "My father speaks."
"Our foe's desire is to unsettle us," Odin said over the airwaves. "Stand firm. It will not be long. Night is falling fast, and they will not want to fight in the dark. We have but minutes to go before battle is joined. Today is the culmination of all your work hitherto, your training, your dedication. The enemy intends to essay our strengths and vulnerabilities. Let us demonstrate our abundance of the former and absence of the latter. They have made this move earlier than anticipated, in hopes of catching us unawares, unprepared. Do not worry. We are ready."
The sun kept sinking, getting fainter and fainter, dusk deepening around it. Evening, and I'd had no lunch, and breakfast had been measly. I should have felt famished, but fear quelled the pangs. What a day it had been. What a twenty-four hours. From frost giants to trolls to the Norns to Mrs Keener — talk about having your world turned upside down.
"Any clue what's lurking out there?" I asked Baz.
He shrugged. "Intel hasn't been superb on this one. But then, what else is new?"
"Good point. Back in the army, I don't think I was in a single engagement where we didn't go in half-cocked, knowing next to nothing of what we should have known. Different situation, same old shit."
"American black ops guys, that's what I heard," said Backdoor. "With some kind of high-tech equipment. Who'd have thought we'd be going up against the septics, eh? So much for the Special Relationship."
"I think, seeing as who Mrs Keener really is, the Special Relationship's more like a Special Needs Relationship," said Chopsticks. "And we're the one in the wheelchair, being pushed around."
"Sure and that was a shocker, wasn't it?" said Paddy. "Ultra-conservative president turns out to be Norse god in disguise. Hands up who saw that one coming."
"And a male god and all," said Backdoor. "Makes me a bit sick to think I might have knocked one out over her a couple of times."
"Holy Mother of God, you didn't!"
"I only said might have, Pads. Never said I did."
"Oh, you did," I said. "You big divine-gender-bender fancier you." I turned to Cy. "While we're here male-bonding with insults, and just in case I don't get another chance to ask — 'Coco Pops'?"
A grimace. "If I told you it was my favourite brand of cereal and that's all, would you leave it at that?"
"Nope."
"Thought not."
"Lad has certain tastes," said Baz, with glee.
"For…?" I said.
"Likes the white women, so he does," said Paddy. "By his own admission, prefers them to ladies of his own colour."
"And…?" I said. We were all grinning, even Thor. It was fun watching the youngster squirm. Helped take our minds off what was coming.
"Well, you remember the adverts, don't you?"
"This is so offensive," Cy muttered.
"'Turns the milk chocolatey.'"