A Yank at Valhalla Read online

  I saw Loki's startled white face, and the alarmed features of Utgar, Hel and the Jotun captains as my plane swooped down. Diving within a few yards of the storm-cones, I dropped four small bombs. There was a crimson flare in the lightning-seared blackness behind me. I looked back to see the storm-cones, all but one, lying shattered and dismounted. I glimpsed Loki and Utgar. Unharmed, the Aesir arch-traitor was shouting orders as the Jotuns ran to their horses.

  "Score one for my science," I muttered between my teeth, as I hurled the plane back toward the Aesir positions.

  The single remaining storm-cone was still operating, and lightning was flaring and thunder rolled. But the terrific hail of bolts that had threatened to destroy the Aesir had stopped.

  "Well done, Jarl Keith!" roared Thor, when I had landed my plane and run back to the hillock where Odin and his captains stood.

  "It was well done," Odin declared. "For my generator is faltering now. Had you not destroyed the storm-cones, we would have been helpless."

  "Loki's preparing to advance with all the Jotun forces," I said breathlessly. "See, there they come now!"

  The Jotuns were deploying on the farther side of Vigrid field. At least ten thousand unmounted warriors formed up behind their wide screen of cavalry.

  "There rides the arch-traitor!" cried Heimdall wrathfully.

  I saw Loki. He rode behind the cavalry, at the head of the massed Jotun footmen. His bright golden helmet gleamed in the lightning flashes, his white steed curveting. Besides Loki's horse ran a great, gray shape — the huge wolf, Fenris, coming like a war-dog with its master into battle.

  "If only Iormungandr were with him, too!" rasped Thor. "The Midgard snake must die this day, to fulfill my oath."

  The archers of the Jotuns, advancing behind their screen of horsemen, were discharging their missiles. Arrows rattled down like rain among us. Men dropped from their mounts and horses squealed with pain.

  "Take your places, but do not charge till I give the word," Odin ordered.

  "Are we to be riddled without striking back a blow?" cried Thor furiously.

  "Wait till I give the signal," Odin bade sternly. "Both our wings of horsemen shall ride at the center and split through their main body. Vidar will follow with our footmen. Then, if Wyrd wills it, we shall cut their split forces to bits."

  Odin rode forward, and I followed with Vali, Bragi, Forseti, and the other of the Aesir captains. Taking up our position between Thor's horsemen on the left and Heimdall's on the right, we waited. I felt the awful suspense of the moment. The arrows rattled down among us during the slow advance of the great Jotun host. The thunder and lightning of the storm still grumbled across the dark sky. In the face of them all, the horsemen and footmen of the Aesir waited silently and motionlessly behind Odin.

  The Jotuns were well within bowshot, and their arrows were taking even greater toll. So close were they that back among them I could make out the white face of Loki, urging them forward. I could see big Utgar, the Jotun king, riding beside the arch-traitor. An ancient feud was rushing toward its climax in these last moments. I felt the tension of men who were somehow more than men. When this battle joined, it would be the clash of cosmic forces…

  "Now!" cried Odin, raising his mailed fist and flashed his sword high.

  The trumpets of the Aesir blared wildly in answer. With a yell of pent-up tenseness, we spurred our horses and galloped forward. Our two mounted wings converged, charging right at the center of the great Jotun army. Riding forward with the others, I was scarcely conscious of individual action. Instinctively I spurred and drew my sword and leaned forward over my saddle-bow.

  Before me, Odin's mighty figure galloped with great sword still raised high. Beside me, Thor was already whirling his gigantic hammer, bellowing his terrifying battle-cry. Beyond him were Heimdall, Forseti and Bragi. And behind us thundered the three thousand Aesir horsemen, followed by the footmen under Vidar, Vali and Tyr.

  Arrows showered among us. Men and horses tumbled, crashing in our midst as we galloped in that wild charge. Thunder roared deafeningly from the blackened sky ahead to drown our yelling trumpets. Lightning flashed blindingly across the sky.

  We struck the screen of the Jotun horsemen like a thunderbolt, tore through them as a sword tears through paper. Then our charge carried us smashing deep into the main body of the Jotun army. All Earth must have felt the splintering shock of that collision! My horse stumbled over Jotun bodies. I leaned from the saddle and struck furiously with my sword at black-bearded warriors who sought to reach me with ax and blade. I hewed down two enemies before their spears could touch my side.

  All around me, swords were banging on helmets, men yelling in fierce blood-lust or shrill death agony, hamstrung horses squealing horribly, shields crashing together with deafening clangor. The trumpets of the Aesir were blaring unceasingly. The hoarse horns of the Jotuns roared a savage answer.

  Thor, close beside me in the battle, was forcing his stallion forward. His huge hammer kept falling like a thing endowed with its own life upon the helmets of the Jotuns. Miolnir's steel was red with blood and gray with brains as the bearded, red-faced giant whirled it. Thrice in as many moments, he beat down Jotuns who would have slain me. And on my other side, Heimdall was wielding an ax like a woodsman, and Vidar was riding forward through the corpses he had made.

  Right in front of us, Odin's eagle helmet gleamed through the chaos of battle. The great sword rose and fell as the Aesir king forced deeper into the Jotun host.

  "For Asgard!" rang his deep voice.

  And from the Aesir horsemen and footmen behind us shouted an answering chorus.

  "Follow the king! Strike for Asgard!"

  The Jotun host began to split and give way before our concentrated assault. Though they greatly outnumbered us, we were driving a wedge between them.

  "They waver!" shouted Vidar, wildly exultant. "Push hard and the battle is ours. They are breaking!"

  As we forced forward, the Jotun footmen were giving ever more rapidly. If we could split them in two, cut them up and destroy them–

  "Loki comes!" screamed Heimdall.

  I saw his golden helmet shining through the murk of lightning-seared storm. Loki was pushing fearlessly through the Jotun host toward us. His face was white and beautiful with the exhilaration of battle as he came through the fight toward us. Beside him rode Utgar, and between them ran the great, gray shape of Fenris.

  "Stand firm, Jotuns!" Utgar was yelling to his wavering host. "The lord Loki is with us!"

  With a fierce war-cry, Odin spurred forward to meet Loki. Thor, Vidar, Heimdall, Bragi and I were all close behind the Aesir king. Heimdall and Bragi, forcing farther ahead, met the charge of Loki and Utgar first. I saw Loki's sword flash and Heimdall tumbled from his horse, stabbed through.

  Utgar's ax had crashed down upon Bragi's helm at the same moment. From Thor came an awful yell of wrath as he saw our two comrades fall.

  "Come to meet me, traitor!" he bellowed to Loki.

  But Odin reached the arch-demon instead. Beneath the flare of lightning, they struck at each other with swords that flashed like streaks of light. Fearless, blazing and beautiful shone Loki's face as he fought. His silver voice pealed in exultation.

  "At last, Odin, I repay you for my long imprisonment!"

  But Odin, at that moment, struck forth fiercely with all his strength in a great blow at Loki's helm. Loki swerved, but the sword grazed his helmet. The stunning force of the blow sent him heeling back in his saddle.

  "Death for Loki!" yelled the Aesir behind us in wild triumph.

  A snarling, terrible roar, a scream of warning from my lips, both broke at the same moment. The giant wolf Fenris, as Loki was stricken aback by that terrible blow, leaped up like a gray thunderbolt at Odin. His huge jaws closed upon Odin's throat. Holding fast, he dragged the Aesir king from the saddle.

  "Odin falls!" raged the shout of joy from the Jotun host.

  I had already leaped from my saddle. I stru
ck a terrific blow at Fenris as the huge wolf tore at Odin's prostrate body. My sword slashed deep into the wolf's shoulder. He turned, his green eyes blazing hell-fires, and catapulted at me.

  But with a hoarse shout, Vidar struck at the charging wolf with his ax. The blow severed Fenris' head from his shoulders in one tremendous stroke. Odin's throat was torn into red ribbons. His eyes were closed and he seemed barely living as Thor lifted him.

  "Odin is slain!" pealed Loki's silver voice. "Now falls Asgard. On, Jotuns!"

  Loki had recovered from the stunning slash that had been Odin's last. He was urging the Jotuns forward, his eyes flaring with unhuman rage at the slaying of his wolf. The Aesir charge had halted, our warriors dismayed by the fall of Odin. And now, as the Jotuns rushed forward on us, we were pushed back by their superior numbers.

  Back toward the end of the field, the cliff-edge from which Bifrost Bridge sprang, we were forced. Though the Aesir fought like madmen, they were falling in ever-increasing numbers before the yelling hosts of Jotuns. Thor had taken Odin's body and was bearing it back with us as we retreated. From all sides except the rear, the Jotuns surged upon us. The slaughter here was terrific. I seemed to be fighting in an unreal dream.

  There was no standing against the heavier Jotun mass. Our shattered forces streamed over the high arch of Bifrost Bridge, through the gates of Asgard. Vidar, Tyr, Forseti and I came last.

  Now all our surviving forces were safe within the gates. Utgar and Loki were leading the Jotuns hastily up onto the bridge after us. But as the winches inside the guard-castle creaked hastily, the gates were slowly swinging shut. Loki yelled an order. As though obeying a prepared plan, a score of Jotuns flung heavy spears into the hinges of the closing gates. The spears jammed the hinges, and the gates stopped closing.

  "Push shut the gates!" Vidar yelled to the men at the winches.

  "We cannot, for they are jammed!" was the frantic answer.

  Across the rainbow bridge, Loki was leading his men forward and crying to them triumphantly.

  "Forward, Jotuns! Over the bridge! The gates of Asgard are open to us!"

  Chapter XIX

  Swords Athirst

  Vidar yelled to the warriors behind us.

  "Clear the hinges, some of you! The rest of us will hold back the Jotuns!"

  He sprang out onto Bifrost Bridge. Tyr, Forseti and I, with a score of Aesir warriors, leaped after him. The men behind us worked frantically to pull out the heavy spears that had jammed the hinges of Asgard's gates. We four stood abreast on the arched bridge, our warriors behind us, facing the Jotun masses as they rushed up behind Loki and Utgar.

  The storm darkened the whole sky, and wild winds threatened to sweep us from the unrailed, narrow span on which we stood. Lightning flared continually across the sinister sky, and the thunder was rolling louder.

  Tyr had torn off his brynja and thrown away his helmet. His great breast bare, streaked with blood, he held two swords in his hands. His cavernous eyes glared with a terrible light as he stepped in front of us. He yelled in a howl like that of a wild beast to the advancing Jotuns.

  "Berserk am I! Who comes against me?"

  The Jotuns pushing up onto the narrow bridge hesitated at sight of him, for he was truly terrible in his berserk madness.

  "I await you, Utgar!" Tyr howled, his body quivering. "Come, for these swords are athirst!"

  Utgar answered with a roar of rage. He and Loki, dismounted now, came up the arch of the bridge against us at the head of the Jotun mass. Tyr did not wait their coming. With a ferocious scream, our berserk companion sprang to meet them.

  His two swords leaped like living things. Utgar's ax shore into his side — and Tyr laughed! Shouting with glee, he smote Utgar's head from his shoulders with a single awful stroke. Five Jotuns fell before him as he raged in berserk fury. Abruptly Loki's blade stabbed through his heart. Tyr swayed, staggered at the edge of the bridge. Then he crumpled and fell clear from the stone, plummeting down toward the raging, stormy sea far below.

  Vidar, Forseti and I had been rushing forward with our men to support Tyr. Now we met the Jotuns, who were maddened by the killing of Utgar, urged on by Loki's silver voice.

  For whole minutes we held the bridge against them! How, I do not know. Before my eyes was only a blur of flashing steel and wolfish faces, into which I struck by instinct rather than by design. I felt the red-hot stabs of sword-blades in my left shoulder and right thigh; I saw Forseti reel back, dying from one of Loki's incredibly swift, deadly thrusts. I glimpsed the arch-fiend's wrathful, beautiful face as he fought with Vidar.

  We were pushed back over the arch of the bridge, toward the gates. A yell crashed up from the men behind us.

  "The gates are freed!"

  We staggered back through the small opening of the nearly closed gates. Instantly the gates were slammed shut in the faces of Loki and his hordes. For several moments we stood motionless, panting, wild-eyed, covered with blood. The Jotun hordes were banging vainly at the gates with sword and ax.

  No more than a few hundred Aesir warriors remained as exhausted, wounded survivors of that dreadful battle. Out on Vigrid field, the dead lay in thousands. Ravens were swooping down on the pathetic corpses from the storm-black sky.

  "Get to the towers and use your bows upon Loki's horde!" Vidar called hoarsely to part of our warriors.

  They obeyed, and arrows began to rain down on the besiegers on the bridge. The howling of the Jotuns was loud even through the deepening thunder of the storm, as they sought to batter down the gates, yet avoid their own slaughter.

  Vidar hastened with us through the guard-castle to the stone plaza beyond. There Odin lay upon the stones. Thor was kneeling beside his dying father. Odin's lips stirred, his wavering stare held a feeble, dying light as he looked up at his giant son.

  "The Norns sever my thread," he whispered "Doom falls upon me, as Wyrd ordains — upon Asgard, too, I fear. If Loki prevails, you must do that which I ordered you."

  "I will, Father," rumbled Thor, his big hand clenching tight the helve of his mighty hammer. "But stay with us!"

  Odin's life was already gone, though, spent by his last effort to speak.

  "Bear him to Valhalla!" ordered Thor's great voice as he arose.

  "Loki and some of the Jotuns move away," called a warrior from the guard-castle tower.

  We hurried back and looked through the loopholes in the gates. Loki and half the Jotun forces were striding back across the bridge and Vigrid field, marching southward. The rest of the Jotuns still battered at the gates, heedless of the arrows that fell upon them from above.

  "Loki plans some trick," Thor muttered.

  "Where are our ships?" Vidar cried. "Look!"

  He pointed down at the sea east of Asgard. There the waves were running high and foam-white beneath the howling winds of the storm. I saw the Jotun fleet below, hacked and reduced to less than forty almost useless ships. But they were beating southward along the coast, parallel to Loki's marching force. Scarred and torn by battle though the Jotun ships were, of the Aesir vessels I saw nothing but floating wreckage.

  "Skoal to Aegir and Niord!" shouted Thor. "Skoal to the sea-kings who have gone to Viking death beneath the waves!"

  A clanging like the din of doom beat from the gates before us as the Jotun horde upon the bridge sought to batter them down. We worked at Thor's orders, hastily piling blocks of stone to hold the sagging gates. Then into our midst a wild-faced Aesir warrior came running. He shouted over the clangor and the terrifying roll of loud thunder.

  "Loki's forces come upon us in their ships!" he yelled. "They seek to land in our harbor!"

  Thor uttered a fierce cry as he stared down at the stormy sea. The Jotun fleet was moving along the coast, the ships jammed with men, heading for the unprotected fiord in the eastern cliffs of Asgard.

  "They try to force entrance to Asgard from the harbor — and we have but few guards there!" Thor roared.

  "Vidar, hold these gates! Half o
f you come with me to hold the harbor!"

  The bearded giant ran with mighty strides toward the eastern edge of Asgard island. Half of us followed him. The storm was now buffeting Asgard with full force. Lightning burned in sheets and stabs across the night-black sky. Torchlight was flaring from the dark, mountainous mass of Valhalla, whence came through the tempest the dim wailing of women's voices as Odin's body was borne home.

  Out of the storm-seared dusk, a slim, mail-clad figure darted to my side as I hastened with Thor and our scant force of warriors toward the eastern cliff. It was Freya, wearing her mail and helmet, holding a shield and light bow in her hand.

  "Jarl Keith!" she cried. "I feared you slain in yon terrible battle! I leave you no more!"

  "You can't stay with me!" I protested. "We go to hold the harbor against Loki's new assault."

  "Then I fight with you!" she said fiercely. "If doom comes now upon Asgard, I meet it at your side."

  I could not turn her from her relentless purpose. She ran lightly beside me as we hastened after Thor down the first steps of the narrow cliffside stair. Lightning washed the cliffs, and the deafening crack of thunder drowned the shrieking winds and boom of the sea. By the flashing flares, we saw the Jotun ships already sweeping quickly into the narrow fiord below us. Behind them in the raging sea swam something long, black and sinuous, a great, incredible shape.

  "Iormungandr comes with his master Loki!" boomed Thor. "It is well!"

  Before we were down the stair, the Jotuns were landing below. Overwhelming the small force of Aesir guards there, they rushed up to meet us.

  I swung Freya behind me.

  "Keep at my back," I ordered.

  "I am not afraid!" argued her clear voice in my ear. Her bow twanged, and an arrow sped down into the throat of the foremost of the swarming Jotuns. I saw Loki leaping ashore from one of the ships. Then the nearest Jotuns reached us.