Sleipnir

Chapter Nine

My last cyalume stick was close to going out. So close, I very nearly didn't find the only way out of the blind end I had stumbled into. I had begun to hyperventilate, spraying sweat in every direction, before I finally noticed the opening. It was barely three feet high, down on the floor, so low I passed it at least twice.

I got down on my knees, shook the cyalume vigorously to coax the last of the light from it, and thrust the lightstick as far as I could reach. Although I couldn't see much, the hole didn't seem to narrow down any.

It was the only opening available.

For a moment I sat down outside the crawlway and stared into the darkness. No more light. Damn little food. Damn little water, either. If I went on, I risked getting stuck somewhere down that rabbit's hole. My fingers played with the flap of my holster, rubbing the smooth butt of the P-7.

—Well, if I got stuck, I could always end it quick.

I had an eerie feeling I wouldn't get stuck. I dragged Gary's knife out of the sheath on my calf and felt the warm tail wrap itself firmly around my arm. That was strangely reassuring; although I wasn't certain it should have been.

"Well?" I asked.

The blade tugged my hand toward the narrow opening.

"Huh." I cut a narrow headband from the hem of my shirt and tied it around my forehead. Then I resheathed the knife, stuck the nearly useless cyalume into my headband, rolled onto my hands and knees—and began crawling.

Within the hour, the damned crawlspace had gotten so narrow, I had to back up and unship the pack. From that point on, progress was slow. Shoving the pack as far forward as I could reach, I would dig in with fingertips and toes and painfully drag myself forward six inches at a time, flat on my belly, until I was close enough to the pack to shove it forward again. I had only scant inches of clearance above and beside me, leaving a space through which I could barely wriggle forward. I felt an aching sympathy for ants stuck in an antfarm.

The tunnel ran steadily downhill, at an angle of maybe ten degrees, so that my head was lower than my feet. The slope was painfully uncomfortable, with the increased pressure of blood in my head. My gloves were in ribbons and my hands were bleeding, and the rest of me was in little better shape. Since there wasn't a damned thing I could do about wrapping or even washing my injuries, I just suffered and kept inching forward.

Acute hunger pangs had finally subsided to a dull ache. God, but that last bite of rubbery apricot had tasted wonderful. I groaned and pulled myself forward another inch. I would not think about food. I had no idea how many days I been hiking, stumbling, and crawling through this accursed cave. I had lost track sometime after Bjornssen's death. Unfortunately my tritium watch dial—great for telling time, lousy for seeing anything but the glowing numbers on the watch face—didn't give anything fancier than a sweep second hand.

At least I didn't have to worry any longer about finding water. The fissure I dragged myself through literally oozed water. Provided I could find a wide enough space to get at them, I could fill my canteens again anytime I wanted.

I hoped to blazes the fissure widened out soon. I had dropped a lot of weight these past few days, or I wouldn't have gotten even this far. If I got stuck now, it was all over but the waiting. My hands were trapped above my head, and like a dolt I hadn't thought about shifting knife or pistol until it was too late even to think about scraping out backward and correcting the mistake. The rifle, strapped to the pack, was pointed barrel first, away from me. Of course.

The pack weighed a ton—several tons, in fact—and I was having trouble gripping anything with my hands. I didn't remember my last real sleep. I felt as if an invisible sadist had dumped a whole shaker can of Comet into my eyes. Even if there had been enough light, I probably wouldn't have been able to see where I was crawling. The final blow was having to pee worse than a Russian racehorse, in a spot so damn tight I'd soak myself in stinging ammonia and foul my drinking water at the same time.

Surely the fissure would open up soon. That old Greek guy, Atlas, had nothing on me—at least he'd been made of stone, so he couldn't feel the weight. I was flesh, and altogether too much blood, and was very much aware that the entire European continent rested on my back.

It was heavy.

I must have been shoving at the pack for a full five minutes before I realized it wouldn't budge. Frowning, my mind still dull, I pulled it back, rearranged it a little, and tried again.

Then said something profoundly foul.

I squirmed up as far as I could, hissing when I bumped my sore right knee, and shoved my hand over and under and around the sides until I found a low, sharp point in the roof (with a matching knobby bump on the floor). These had snagged the pack. I squirmed backward again, fumbling with the closures. In a couple of minutes I had managed to shove through the unstrapped rifle, ammunition, web gear and butt pack (which I'd been bright enough to take off when the tunnel narrowed), canteen, pump, and finally the empty pack itself.

I squirmed again, exhaled until I was as flat as I was going to get, and pushed. My arms went through, and my head, sideways, and my shoulders; but then the point of the stalactite stabbed painfully into my butt and the stalagmite bruised my belly just above the groin. I pushed forward and the pain ate deeper. I backed off enough to get the jagged point out of my flesh and lay still.

Once my pulse stopped racing, I squirmed far enough back to feel all the way around the fissure; then tried breaking off the offending projection. My efforts earned me two new slashes across the palms of my hands, right through what was left of the gloves. Grasping first the pump, then one of the ammo magazines, I tried hammering it loose.

I failed to dislodge so much as a single tiny chip.

Obviously it wasn't going to be that easy. I concentrated, and tried to summon the knife to my fingers. Sweat trickled—with a sting of salt—into the cut on my backside. I ignored it and gritted my teeth. The knife pouted in its sheath and refused to cooperate.

"Goddammit..."

My throat was so dry I couldn't even swear out loud. I coughed, spat, and tried again to summon it. No go. The blade would not come; and the hard stone point was still in the way. All right. If the knife wouldn't cooperate, I'd do it another way.

I dragged the rifle backward toward me, made sure by feel that it was loaded, and placed the end of the barrel against the stone projection. Easing back a few inches while keeping the invisible sights lined up on it as best I could by guesstimation, I eased off the safety and squeezed the trigger.

For the next several minutes I was deaf and blind. The flash brought involuntary tears to my eyes, and my ears rang painfully. Squirming forward again, I felt for the projection. There was a tiny scratch where the bullet had hit and ricocheted off. Emptying the magazine got no better results than the first round; it just left me blind and deaf longer.

All right—scorch his one-eyed hide—Odin hadn't won yet. If the blasted rock wouldn't be broken, I'd do this the really hard way. I shoved my stuff as far through the narrow spot as I could reach, and hyperventilated until I was dizzy. Then I exhaled and tried again. The point gouged agonizingly into the open wound it had already left in my flesh. I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled, while scrabbling and clawing at the rock like a crab pursued by a predatory fish. Shortly I was jammed in so tightly my balls were trying to retreat up against my spine. I shoved again and the stone point hit bone... my tailbone. Something like a sob stuck in my larynx. Just a little farther...

My muscles spasmed and gave out. All I could do was moan until multiple cramps along both legs and arms eased away. My fingertips were touching the pack; but the contents might as well have been on the surface of the moon.

I managed to squeeze backward just enough to ease my backbone free of the intruding stone point; then lay still. The air—damp and still and stale as it was—tasted sweet in my lungs. But breathing hurt, and blood was soaking into my pants, running down my hips from my back to mingle with the blood from cuts on my belly.

Maybe...

I shut my eyes, and let my muscles go watery. No. By the time I lost enough weight, I'd be too weak to move. I was dead. I just hadn't stopped breathing yet.

A crack above my head dripped steadily. Water splashed onto my nose and trickled down my cheek to mingle with a rivulet snaking past my fingers. That was what had caused it, of course. The blasted, innocent water, dripping and building a miniature stalactite and stalagmite that would eventually close off the tunnel altogether. The only tunnel left open to Niflheim—and it was closing steadily even as I lay here.

The knife could have cut through the stone; I was sure it could. But it wouldn't. Odin had thrown every obstacle he could think of in my way, and he'd finally found one I couldn't get past. He'd won. I swore softly. I was just too tired to fight any longer. Maybe I'd just go quietly to sleep, and the dripping water would gradually include my skull in the stone formation it was building so patiently.

Sleep nibbled at my consciousness. I couldn't remember what sleep felt like. I had no idea how long I'd been pushing myself without it, driven by the terror of not waking up. I sank into a delicious lethargy, my mind curiously alert. The faint sound of dripping water echoed down the impassable fissure.

I'd been injured before, lots of times—cut in fights, laid up in car wrecks, shot by terrorists—and I'd damn near drowned once, back in the glory days before I grew up and joined the Army. I'd been close to dying more than my share of times, even before swearing an oath no mortal in his right mind had had any business swearing.

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 skinny crack, all because I was too spineless to put up with a few seconds' pain. Meanwhile, somewhere beyond my fingertips, Sleipnir stood guard over the pawns of Valhalla—poor bastards like me—caught in eternal combat. Undoubtedly he was laughing through his great, wicked teeth, while men fought and died, only to stagger up and fight and die all over again.

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.