"Hell of a way to live."
"But what's the alternative? Not to live?"
"When you put it like that…"
"It's difficult to grasp, I appreciate," Bragi said, "but we Aesir have these existences that have been bestowed upon us, full of extraordinary events and lasting longer, far longer, than any mortal's — so why not make the most of them? Enjoy them, rather than moan about the few modest limitations that have been imposed on them? For most of us, it's not something we allow ourselves to be troubled by. Only Odin seems to take it hard. He alone feels woe over our lot and frets about it. Thinks too much, that's his problem. Wisdom takes its toll. But the rest of us, we're content to cherish and relish what we have."
"And now it's all coming to an end."
"Without wishing to sound too fatalistic, what must be, must be. All tales reach a climax. At some point the bard must tire and say 'enough.' What good is a story without a finish?"
"Soaps never bloody finish," I said. "They just grind on and on. But that's the nature of them."
"Indeed. They give the illusion of progress without offering any form of resolution. Somewhat like a mortal life."
"Except mortal lives do have a resolution, if you can call it that. They all end eventually."
"And maybe that's the crucial difference between a mortal and a god — between you, Gid, and me. I am a living story, an element of a larger overarching narrative. My tale has been told over and over in the past. Doubtless it will continue to be told over and over in the future. Maybe that is immortality: to recur and recur. Even now, perhaps someone is writing or speaking about me, putting words into my mouth, generating afresh the essence that is Bragi, bard of Asgard and enshriner of the doings of the Einherjar. I am embedded deep in the Midgardian psyche, below the surface but ever present. All the Aesir and Vanir are. We survive within you from age to age, as ideas, stories, archetypes. And every time we are remembered, every time our saga is retold, we are re-created whole and live out a brand new lifespan."
"You reckon?"
"Why not? If gods are fictions, then we are brought to life wherever there is a bard by a hearthside or, if you prefer, a writer at a desk. They think of us, therefore we are."
"Shit…" My head was starting to throb. It was a lot to take in. Who'd have thought school dropout Gid Coxall would be standing discussing this kind of metaphysical bobbins with Asgard's very own poet in residence, while waiting for the end of the world to start?
We'd arrived at the castle.
"Well, here's where our paths divide," Bragi said. "Goodnight, Gid."
He walked off one way. I walked off the other, only to stop after a few paces and turn and call out: "This does work out okay, doesn't it? Ragnarok? There's a happy ending?"
"For some, yes. For others, no."
"But ultimately the good guys win, the bad guys lose. Yeah?"
"It's a work in progress," Bragi said after a moment, then added slyly: "Aren't we all?"
And that was as much as I could get out of him on that subject.
Bloody creative types.
Fifty
The first incursion came the next morning. A hit-and-run. No contact, no casualties. They took out one of our ammo dumps, situated near an intersection with Svartalfheim.
We inspected the damage — Thor's team, with Huginn and Muninn monitoring for Odin. Nothing much to see, just a smoking crater and a few strewn, charred trees that had once been a copse.
"C-Four plastic explosive," Backdoor opined. "About twenty pounds of it."
"No shit, Sherlock," I said. "And here was I thinking those trees fell over all by themselves."
"They must have been conducting surveillance from across the way," said Paddy, gazing towards Svartalfheim. "Saw the Valkyries stash the ammo. Marked the spot for future reference."
"Is this state-the-fucking-obvious week or what?" I snapped. I turned and eyed the undulating barren badlands of Svartalfheim, wondering if Loki's commandos were still out there somewhere. Bedded down in black camo gear and watching us through binoculars. And chortling.
"The gnomes," I said to Thor. "I thought they were on our side. Friends of Asgard."
"The gnomes are nobody's friend," he replied. "They do business with whomever wishes to do business with them but they owe allegiance to none but themselves."
"So how come they've given safe passage to Loki's troops?"
"They haven't," said Huginn and Muninn in tandem, speaking in Odin's voice from their perch on Thor's shoulders. "What you must understand is that the gnomes dwell perpetually underground. Sunlight turns them to stone, so they daren't venture up onto the surface. Even starlight makes them unwell. Their home is their caverns."
"Meaning anyone can wander across their world if they want to."
The ravens gave a synchronised nod. "The terrain above is no man's land, yes. The gnomes have no use for it, and care little who crosses it. Enter their caverns unannounced and unbidden — that is a different story. Then you'll find yourself facing red-hot pokers and tongs, wielded by some very irate little beings."
"Who have no respect for one's dignity," Thor said, rubbing his buttock in memory of some wound inflicted once upon a time.
"Then we need to patrol this crossing-point," I said. "We site a round-the-clock watch here."
"You think they'll come over again?" said Cy.
"Maybe not. It was a precision strike, a one-off. If I were them I wouldn't hit the same place a second time. But they're not me. They're probably a lot swankier and cockier than me, and they might think if they've got away with it once they can get away with it again, and come in deeper this time. Let's play on that. Let's give them an incentive. Commit a dozen men, and one of Odin's sons — Vali, say — with one of the special pieces of kit the gnomes made for us. Let's see how that pans out."
It panned out pretty well — for us. Two days later the commando unit sneaked in over the border again, at dawn. We'd set up the appearance of basic guard duty near the intersection, a pair of two-man tents whose occupants kept watch on four-hour rotating shifts, not varying their routine one iota. Loki's men tiptoed through the grey light, combat knives drawn. Throat-slashing was on their minds. Easy kills.
Then they were strafed with gunfire from a secondary encampment hidden on high ground further into our territory, and while they were scrambling to their fall-back positions Vali came stomping onto the scene.
The gnomes had provided us a half-dozen suits of armour made of iron, according to the specifications I'd provided. These were no match for the enemy's tanksuits in terms of firepower, mainly because they had none, but they were at least their equal in bulk and density. Each of the contraptions weighed an ounce or so shy of a ton and stood nine feet from boot to head, with a barrel body some fifteen feet in circumference. Only a warrior god could wear one. Only a warrior god had the strength to move the legs with his legs and manipulate the arms with his arms.
Vali, strapped inside the armour, bore down on the startled commandos. They rattled away at him with submachine guns but couldn't put a dent in his inch-thick ironclad hide. Then he was on top of them and started side-swiping them with the armour's fists, which were solid, cannonball-like clubs. Bodies flew. Skulls were crushed.
The remaining commandos saw sense and beat a hasty retreat towards Svartalfheim, but treetop snipers picked them off as they ran. Not one of them made it safely out of range.
"And that, ladies and gentlemen," I said, from an obs post overlooking the kill zone, "is how you do that."