Odin slammed into me. We rolled in the mud, unable to get a killing grip on one another. I squirted out of his grasp like a watermelon seed at a spitting contest. I scrabbled my way up a muddy slope. Odin followed, grabbing at an ankle. I kicked backward and slammed my foot into his teeth. I felt several break off; then he let go and I sprawled forward into shadow. I squirmed forward on my belly.
Again he closed, wrestling me into the mud. We rolled in several directions at once, flailing about ineffectually, with arms and legs sticking out every conceivable direction. We fought for fatal grips, lost them, and squirmed for new ones.
He finally got his hands on my windpipe. I couldn't break his hold. He was twisting my head around, toward the snapping point. I jabbed my thumb into his good eye.
He screamed and let go. I wriggled free. Odin groped blindly for a weapon—
I froze. His questing hand had found the hilt of a sword—a sword jammed into gaping jaws. He wrenched it free. I had time to roll aside, then the bloody point stabbed into the earth millimeters from my ear.
I slid backward, willing the Biter into my hand. A flare of frantic motion blazed in my peripheral vision, then the Biter slid firmly into my palm. The tail got a death grip of its own around my wrist. The Biter was literally buzzing with rage. I slashed blindly. The Biter met Odin's swordpoint and turned it. The weapons grated against one another. Then sword and Biter strained sideways, smashing against a taut length of chain.
Both weapons rang and scraped noisily along it, drawing sparks without nicking the fetter. Fenrir was howling like all the demons of hell combined. His chain was caught on our weapons—and I stood between him and his prey.
As our locked blades slid down the length of chain, toward Fenrir's jaws, I yelled in a last-ditch effort.
"Fenrir! This chain is made out of nothing! Nothing at all! It's a goddamned illusion! Break it!"
The Biter pulsed with baleful black light.
Then sliced through Gleipnir's magical links like a blowtorch through butter. Either that, or the whole chain just disintegrated into dust.
And Fenrir was suddenly free. The sword that had held his jaws open for centuries was now clutched in Odin's sweating grip. Odin was frozen in place. He was staring—horror-struck—at the Fenris Wolf.
I came around with a deadly slash. It laid Odin's throat wide. He reeled. Brought up his sword with a fumbling motion...
I slammed the Biter through his black heart.
"Die, damn you!"
I don't know what the Biter did, inside him. But he stumbled backward. Shock and pain turned his face grey. I fell off balance, pulled forward as he jerked himself free. He started to crumple... .
I was buffeted to my knees by a massive, grazing blow from behind. I heard a blood-gurgling scream through the spurting mess from Odin's jugular. A huge shadow fell across us. Odin's scream ended abruptly in a strangled whimper. Then something slammed into me again from above and rolled me aside. When I managed to lift my head, Odin's body lay strangely twisted on the muddy, bloody ground.
He had been bitten in half. His legs and hips were missing entirely. He was still alive.
I caught a glimpse of murderous light dying from his single red eye. It had fixed on me with a look I knew I would see in nightmares for the rest of my life.
Then Fenrir opened his great bloody jaws one more time... .
And the rest of Odin vanished forever.
The silence was so still, I could hear the individual breathing of tens of thousands of men above my own labored gasps.
Fenrir raised his muzzle to the bloody sky and howled once, a drawn-out victory cry that chilled the blood. Sleipnir thundered toward him. The stallion screamed, and reared; then unaccountably settled again, and pawed restlessly with two right front hooves.
Twenty paces away, Thor—his face ashen against his flaming hair—lifted Mjollnir. Mouth working, eyes blazing with homicidal rage, he hurled his massive war hammer. It flew at my head with all the speed of his immortal strength.
I moved blindly. The Biter whipped up. The shock against my arms lifted me off the ground and hurled me fifteen feet backward. Then I lay panting on my back, both arms completely numb. The shattered pieces of Mjollnir lay scattered in the mud all around me.
The Biter purred in my grasp. If it'd been a kitten, I'd have rubbed its ears.
No one else moved, and I remained where I'd landed.
I still was unable to take it in.
Mjollnir was broken.
Fenrir was free.
And Odin was dead.
Chapter Twenty
I looked at the Biter, and wondered—somewhat stupidly—what I should do. I couldn't think of anything. Neither, evidently, could anyone else. The entire company stood frozen like a crowd of statues.
Then Fenrir moved. Toward me, the man who'd freed him. I raised the Biter halfheartedly, pleased that it still moved at my summons, even more pleased that my arm would move. I still couldn't feel it.
Then, dumbfounded, I lowered the Biter again. The great wolf whined. He dropped his head to where I lay sprawled in the mud, and butted against my leg in the timeless gesture of canine submission.
Uh...
"Good, boy?" I croaked uncertainly.
An eager whine broke from the creature. He lifted his head. A blast of blood-foul breath choked me; then his tongue slathered across my face like a wet towel. Fenrir panted happily, and moved to my side. I managed to wipe off my face without gagging. The Fenris Wolf sat on his haunches and turned a snarling visage to the assembled company.
"He's mine, so don't try it," was the clear message.
Nobody seemed inclined to try anything; much less Fenrir's temper... .
Except Sleipnir, who tossed his head, and snorted. That murderous black fiend sidled and danced his way to my other side, flanking me, then bared his teeth at the nearest Einherjar.
Uh...
Unsteadily I rose to my feet. I almost fell. Instinctively I put my arms out, and found rough fur on one side, sleek muscle on the other... . I hung supported between them, with the Biter still in one hand. The wolf stood every bit as tall and broad as the horse. Allies... brothers... who moments before had been bitterest enemies...
I took a deep breath and searched for Rangrid. Her eyes were dull with shock.
"You okay?"
She put the back of one hand to a bleeding lip, looked absently at the blood; then nodded, staring up at me.
"A little bruised. But, yes. I'm okay." That fact seemed to overwhelm her. "You... ?"
"Yeah."
We looked at one another across the churned battlefield; then I shook my head, and muttered, "Jesus Christ."
A familiar voice said, "Wrong church and wrong pew."
I snapped around. Gary Vernon strolled out of the crowd, stopping well clear of my threatening companions. He'd thrust his hands into his pockets, and just stood there, a grin on his face fit to crack his jaw.
"Well, Barnes, you certainly know how to shake things up."
My guardians never had a chance to react. I was hugging Gary and pounding him on the back before Sleipnir could do more than snort. Both of us were laughing, and he was hugging and pounding me until I nearly fell. I had to wipe tears with the back of one arm.
"Goddamn, Vernon, goddammit, it's good to see you. You wouldn't believe what I've been through... . "
I babbled for a couple of minutes, and he let me; then I finally grasped his arm. "Let's get out of here."