Far below us raged the green sea between Asgard and Midgard. Far back to our right, from the eastern cliffs of Asgard, the Aesir ships were putting out to sea under Aegir's command. Forty big dragons of war, square sails raised to the wind, brazen beaks dipping into the heaving waves, they quickly moved out to await the coming of the Jotun fleet.
Wild exultation was throbbing in me like wine as we rode down the descending arch of Bifrost Bridge. I had forgotten that I was Keith Masters of the outside world. I had forgotten everything except that I was one of the Aesir, that I was to fight beside them for Freya and for Asgard against the savage hosts of evil Loki.
We halted on the open, rocky plain that lay at the northern extremity of Midgard. Behind us arched the rainbow bridge leading to Asgard. In front of us, beyond the flat field Vigrid, extended the dark, forested hills of Midgard. Odin had halted us beyond the hillock upon which his spherical copper generator stood, and near which my plane was parked.
"The footmen will mass in our center under Vidar," Odin ordered. "Half our horsemen on the left wing under Thor, and half on the right under Heimdall."
By now the infantry was streaming across Bifrost Bridge in dense, long files, archers, and spearmen, and swordsmen. Thor bellowed the orders that drew them and the horsemen up in front of the little hillock. Odin had dismounted and climbed the hillock to his generator, and I followed him. Finally Thor, having completed the disposition of our forces, rode up the hillock to where the Aesir king and I were examining the generator.
"They come!" boomed Thor, pointing southward with his gleaming hammer.
We peered intently through the bright daylight. From the south, the glitter of a forest of helmets and spear-points flashed in the Sun as a dense mass of Jotun soldiery advanced along the cliff-edge, screened by horsemen. Far out on the sea to the right, a great fleet of dragon-ships was sailing northward. There were at least a hundred of the black Jotun long-ships, and the Aesir vessels were advancing to meet them. In the south, a growing darkness was clouding the heavens. A strange dusk was creeping up rapidly across the brilliant sky.
"Loki's storm-cones!" I shouted. "See where he has set them up on that crest, lord Odin!"
I pointed. Southward, well behind the advancing Jotun army, rose a crest. Upon it was a small group of clustered objects that gleamed in the last rays of the half-obscured Sun.
"Aye, I see," Odin said in his deep voice. "Loki prepares to loose his lightnings upon us, as we feared."
The Aesir king began to manipulate the enigmatic controls of his big spherical generator, to throw up a defensive screen. The wind was moaning around us with increasing force as the darkness spread rapidly across the sky. The gloom seemed to boil up visibly from the distant crest where Loki had his storm-cones, and from which he was spraying a terrific electric field to unlock the tempest.
Down in the sea beyond the cliffs, the dark waves were churning ever higher. They and the shrieking winds were wildly tossing the Jotun and Aesir ships that maneuvered swiftly for battle.
Crash!
Out of the night-black sky, a blazing flash of white lightning had struck amid our massed footmen. It left a heap of scorched dead. On its heels came another blinding bolt that blasted three horsemen.
"Lord Odin, Loki's lightnings begin to slay my men!" roared Heimdall from the right wing. "Let us charge them!"
"Wait!" Odin called, undismayed.
At the same time, the spherical copper generator began to throb with power. The radioactive matter in it, which Thor and I had procured with such risk from deep Muspelheim, was breaking down into pure power. The energy was being transformed into a radiant shell of power that was broadcast from the smaller copper ball atop the generator.
Up into the storm-nighted sky, Odin's mechanism flung a great halo of glowing light. The halo that tented our forces stopped the blazing lightning-bolts that had begun to decimate us! Those blinding flashes hit the halo and splashed harmlessly upon it.
"It shields us from Loki's storm-cones!" I cried jubilantly. "We've neutralized his best weapon!"
"Wait, Jarl Keith, before you exult," warned Odin. "There is not enough radioactive fuel to operate this mechanism much longer. When it stops, Loki's lightnings will play yet greater havoc with us."
"Can't we charge with all our horsemen and destroy Loki and his devilish weapons?" Thor cried fiercely.
"As soon as we leave the defense of this generator's screen of energy, Loki's lightnings will cleave us," Odin replied.
I realized the desperate nature of the emergency. If the Aesir and the Jotuns were to fight this battle on anything like even terms, Loki's storm-cones must be destroyed! Even if they were, the Aesir would be facing overwhelming numbers. But there would be a chance for victory, at least, whereas there would be no chance at all if Loki's forces were not checked.
In this emergency, my eyes fell on my plane parked some distance to the rear of our forces. Suddenly I remembered the bombs I had made the night before, for possible use in the battle.
"Lord Odin, I think that I may be able to destroy Loki's weapons!" I cried eagerly. "In my flying craft I have a weapon of the kind my people use in war. Let me try it."
"Can any flying ship live in this tempest?" the Aesir king asked incredulously.
I wondered, too. The storm that raged over this strange battlefield had now become chaotic in its insensate fury. From all the black sky over us, bolts of lightning induced by Loki's storm-cones were sizzling and flashing down. Though they were splattering on Odin's defense screen, the mounts of our horsemen were rearing wildly. Our warriors were white-faced in the light of the flashes. In the south, the mighty Jotun army was forming up to advance against us.
"I can make it!" I persisted without conviction. "I'll circle back around the worst of this storm."
"Then go, Jarl Keith, and the Norns guide you," Odin said reverently.
Chapter XVIII
The Battle for Asgard
I raced back toward the plane. In a moment I had the rocket motor roaring, and then I managed a perilous take-off from the field. Raging winds, blowing now in this direction and now in that, threatened to hurl my rising plane back to the field. Sheets and flares of blinding lightning dazzled my eyes. But I rose and zoomed out over the sea, to circle back and approach Loki's position from the rear.
I hurtled through the unnatural darkness over the water. Lightning flares gave me a momentary glimpse of Aesir and Jotun ships locked in death-combat down on the wild waters. I rocketed over them. Then I swung back toward the cliffs of Midgard and came roaring down from behind upon the crest where Loki had his storm-cones.
I had the cabin-window open, and my crude bombs near at hand. As I dived steeply, I peered down at the crest. Loki stood by the vicious storm-cones. The big mechanisms were clustered close together, their quartz nozzles pointed toward the distant Aesir forces. A fine violet electrical brush played over them as they sprayed their controlled static field.
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.