Sleipnir

But it had never been like this, waiting quietly in the dark for death to sneak up and say "Hey, what took you so long?" Exhaustion leached out of my bones and my brain fogged over, until my heartbeat had blended into the memory of angry waves crashing against the Oregon coast... .

I think I swore again into the stony darkness. I know I tasted salt on my lips.

Gary's knife grumbled now from my boot sheath, sending little tremors along my calf muscle. That made me angry. It had let Gary down, and now it had let me down, too. Maybe the cursed blade had played this same trick on other soldiers down through the ages, gathering more victims for its bloody master. Nice trick, neatly executed...

No, I hadn't been tricked into anything. I'd been the one to decide on this journey, every step of the way. I'd known the odds from the outset, and hadn't trusted the knife any more than I'd have trusted a rabid pit bull. None of that had stopped me from coming anyway. I didn't have much to be proud of, but I wasn't stupid, and I'd gone down fighting this battle on my own terms.

Admitting defeat left me feeling restive. I didn't like being beaten. Even as a kid, I'd been a lousy loser. The longer I lay there, the angrier I got, stuck like a fat roach in a ski

And down in the worst stink of it was Gary, branding me coward... .

I hurled myself at that jutting stone point, and cursed the darkness, cursed death itself. If Odin wanted me dead, then by God, let him come and get me. Pain hit, and intensified until I floated in a reddened mist. I exhaled, forced every molecule of air out of my lungs. I gritted my teeth, gripped the rock beneath my hands, strained forward; and cursed the cold, wet darkness that rose and swallowed me whole.

Chapter Ten

My hands twitched. Cool air poured into my lungs. It seemed an odd sensation and took several minutes to register. I stirred in surprise, wondering if I'd died, and discovered that my cheek rested solidly on the rifle butt I had thought still lay a good foot ahead of me. I managed to flex my fingers and when they closed, one of the canteens was under them. For a moment all I did was lie there, touching first one piece and then another of my gear, foolishly, while salt water dripped off the end of my nose. Then I sniffed half sheepishly and forced my hands into action.

It took me fifteen minutes, by the fitful, faint glow of my watch's tritium dial, to stuff my gear back into the pack, and fumble with the closures. For several moments, I lay still again, gathering my strength. The initial euphoria had worn off. I didn't feel much sense of accomplishment, and thought I should have. All I felt was tired. Grateful; but so deadly tired. At least I was still alive and crawling. All I could do was keep moving.

Which I did, endlessly.

And then, maybe an hour, maybe a day, later, the pack teetered and began to slide beyond my fingertips. For a split second I was caught by surprise; then I lunged forward and grabbed at a strap—only to have the whole floor skitter away beneath me.

For an awful moment I dug in with my toes and clutched at the pack while hundreds of tiny somethings bounced and slid and dragged at me in the dark. None of them seemed to be crawling, which was too bad, because I was hungry enough to eat anything that didn't eat me first. I had hoped to run across some of the blind fish or crabs I'd read inhabited deep caves; but so far had found nothing of the sort. Maybe live animals couldn't survive for very long in Niflheim's outer reaches?

The thought did not comfort me.

The movement around me finally skittered to a stop and I reached out a tentative hand. A shallow slope fell away directly in front of me, ending in another stone floor. This, in turn, fell at a sharp angle off to my left, and climbed just as sharply up past my right. Both surfaces—the little slope and the angled floor—were littered with chips of stone.

Squirming carefully onto my side, I felt for the roof that had lain fractions of an inch above my head for days. It wasn't there. I eased forward until I could roll over and brace myself; then sat up slowly, clenching my teeth as weight settled onto a tailbone that had seen entirely too much abuse. It felt like I needed stitches. I just hoped infection didn't set in.

Once my gear was secured, I crawled to my knees and braced myself with widely planted feet. Strapping on my butt pack hurt. I washed my cut knees and bandaged them with strips cut from underwear rescued from my pack.

A refill of the canteens slaked my raging thirst, although I was careful to drink gradually, to avoid bloating myself and getting sick. I finally refilled both canteens again and put them back in their carriers. Then I aimed as far out as possible to keep from contaminating my water supply and emptied my aching bladder.

My immediate needs taken care of, I sat still and listened. All I could hear was water trickling away downslope.

First question: Where was I now?

Second question: How big was the cavern I'd stumbled upon?

Third question...

No, better take things slowly and in order.

I scrounged for a bit of stone and tossed it straight up. It arced up through the darkness, then—much later—hit ground slightly downslope. Several more tosses—thrown much harder—also failed to disclose the ceiling. Just how big was this cave? Another barrage placed an unbroken wall opposite me, sixty feet or more away. Chips of stone tossed downslope to my left arced in silence for a long way; then fell slithering into more stone chips without hitting another wall.

I turned to my right. And very nearly slid off my perch.

Light! Just a flicker, blue, and incredibly faint, but unmistakably—

Gone.

I closed my eyes and reopened them. Nothing. I swore shakily. Great, my vision was going. I closed my eyes again, letting the muscles relax, and looked again.

Three pinpricks of white light...

Jesus, what was going on up there? I started to crawl to my knees, still watching, and two of the lights winked out. A moment later a reddish flicker appeared. I sank down again, staring until my eyes dried out so painfully they began to tear over. During the seconds it took to blink and rehydrate, the lights vanished altogether.

Either my eyes were completely out of kilter, or there was something weird as perdition going on at the far end of this cave. I allowed my eyes to rest for over two minutes, then while the lids were still closed, unholstered my HK P-7, brought it up into firing position, and looked. The tritium sights glowed eerily right where they were supposed to be, not flickering, not winking out, just sitting there doing exactly what they were supposed to. Nothing glowed anywhere else near them except my watch face.

I reholstered the pistol and gazed up at the far end of the cave, where everything remained dark. Had I stumbled into a mine shaft, maybe? Bjornssen hadn't said anything about mines in this area, and I'd never heard of blue or red carbide lamps. Besides, I didn't hear a thing, and mining sounds surely would carry over a great distance.

I thought about trying to hike up the slope, and even started out in that direction, but discovered almost immediately that climbing uphill through those stone chips was essentially impossible. For every step I took, I slid backward three. Then I noticed that my knife was rocking in severe agitation. I turned back, sliding carefully with one hand on the wall until I was back at the exit of my little tu