Sleipnir

A shock wave blasted through the valley, a spontaneous, inchoate deluge of noise from the Einherjar. Odin hooked his leg over Sleipnir's withers and slid easily to the ground. He was fighting on foot, thank God. With sweating fingers I dragged my sword from its sheath. Odin might call me a silver-tongued son of Loki, but I was one helluva worried one. I knew all too well what my odds of success were. Somewhere behind me, I heard some poor fool betting money on me; and abruptly felt better.

Then there was no time left to worry about anything.

Odin strode down the ridgeline, not quite loping. I considered whether to let the bastard come to me, or carry the fight to him. He had the reach of me, armed with a spear against my sword. Odin held his weapon in the classic bayonet assault position as he closed the distance. His right hand gripped the haft just above the butt, with the butt end tucked between elbow and hip. He grasped the haft farther toward the deadly iron point with the other hand, ready to jab or charge.

I watched his narrowed bloody red eye for any betraying movement that would telegraph his intent. He squinted slightly... .

And charged.

I shifted into a classic right guard, with my right side toward him, sword ready in front of me. Odin drove forward, like a freight train on full steam. The iron spear point never wavered a millimeter from true. He was driving Gungnir straight toward my center of mass. At the last possible second, with the glittering sharp tip a hairbreadth from my skin, I shifted hard left. Gungnir's point passed harmlessly behind my shoulder.

Before I had time to be shocked that Gungnir had missed, I seized the haft. I shoved the spear point down hard, driving it into the ground with Odin's own momentum. Odin stumbled. I leaped clear. A booming wave of sound rolled over us.

Odin ripped the point free and charged again.

I dropped into left guard, left side toward him.

This time when he rushed past my shoulder, I deflected the spear haft upward with the flat of my sword. I dropped the blade instantly, and grabbed Gungnir with both hands. Again using his own momentum, I shoved the spear shaft straight up and back over Odin's shoulder. Gungnir's razor-edged point windmilled in a circle. Odin was forced to let go. He howled in pain as his arm was wrenched beyond its normal range of motion.

I couldn't hear my own panting breath above the thunderous noise. The point came down hard behind Odin. The spear which could not miss, had. Twice.

And now it was mine.

He twisted blindly around, his mouth agape as I grasped the haft and swung the point around at his exposed side—

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 sca

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... .