Sleipnir

Chapter Twenty-One

When we emerged in Valhalla, the Einherjar were milling around, clustered into little knots of intense conversation; but no one had left the scene of battle, except—notably—Tyr and Thor. Fenrir snarled at Sleipnir, who trumpeted a challenge right back.

"Hey." I punched Sleipnir's arched neck. "Chill out."

He shook his neck, but subsided. Fenrir was still growling; but not as loudly.

"You, too," I muttered.

The wolf whined; then yawned, and settled back on his haunches again.

"How did you do that?" Rangrid demanded.

I glanced around. "I dunno."

She grinned. "That's what I like about you."

I'll steal a kiss anywhere, anytime. Especially Rangrid's.

Unfortunately, the Einherjar caught sight of us right about then. A howling tumult assaulted our ears. Gradually the noise resolved itself into discernible syllables: "Ran... dy! Ran... dy! Ran... dy!"

I didn't much feel like repeating Odin's pompous salute. I just grinned tiredly, and slid to the ground. It was a long way down. Rangrid was right behind me. Fenrir damn near knocked me off my feet. He licked my face half off, and whined joyously in the back of his throat. Wolves don't bark; but Fenrir uttered a shrill little yip, and took my whole shoulder very gently in his teeth.

A love bite from the Fenris Wolf...

I stretched on tiptoes to rub his ears, which evidently placated him, because he settled to his haunches and didn't appear to have the slightest intention of moving again until I did. Which brought up a very good question. Now what?

"Well," I began in a practical fashion, "I'm hungry. I could eat a horse—"

Sleipnir snorted indignantly.

"—Make that a cow. Sorry, Trigger. And if I'm going to do anything constructive with this army, I'd better get some sleep first. I'm just about out on my feet." I was, too. My whole body weaved drunkenly at each step.

"Let's get you inside," Gary suggested firmly. He caught his grandmother's eye. "Got him?"

Rangrid responded by picking me up bodily.

"Hey—"

Gary got my legs, and I found myself sprawled between them like a limp carpet. I was ignominiously carried into the looming Valhall. Shouts and cheers followed our progress. My face burned. Fenrir and Sleipnir trailed suspiciously, while Hugin and Munin sailed into the Valhall ahead of us.

I had no idea what the Einherjar thought of all this. For once, I found that I was too bloody tired to care. By the time they'd carried me the seeming miles to Rangrid's bedroom, I was already so relaxed the Valhall had blurred into one confused image of endless, overturned tables. I remembered vaguely mumbling to Gary that I'd see him in the morning, to muster the troops. Then they lowered me into the bed, and I relaxed with a self-satisfied sigh. My new pets winged into the chamber and alighted on the headboard. Gary disappeared at some point, I wasn't sure when.

I lay where they'd dropped me and let Rangrid pull off my clothes. They were filthy—mud-caked, blood-stained. But then, so was I, from scalp to toenails. I closed my eyes while she sponged off the worst of the muck. She seemed to understand that I was too tired to face a full bath. When she crawled in beside me, I curled against her softness under a warm fur, and listened to her breaths.

I didn't fall asleep right away, though. I couldn't. My body was inert—I was too tired to move—but my brain was still revved up and going full speed. All I could think about was that horde of dead humanity waiting for me to do something useful with it. What, exactly, did I have to work with? I considered with growing dismay the list of possibilities. Surely there were a few generals in that motley mess I could rely on?

Would Patton be here? He was another traffic accident, like Gary. But when had Odin begun to pilfer the "wrong" men? And—for another instance—how about Caesar? He'd been murdered by a bunch of civilians. The problem with the Einherjar was, only so many of them were going to be real "heroes," the kind who died doing a good job, or were just unlucky enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. How many more were there who simply hadn't dodged fast enough, or ignored orders, or were too damn stupid to avoid trouble?

The kind of soldiers I wanted were the ones smart enough to live through it and go home to die of old age.

And what about my two self-appointed guardians, Fenrir and Sleipnir? Tomorrow morning they might tear each other's throats out—or mine. I had no idea whether I could trust either one of the murderous beasts.

At least I had Hugin and Munin. I would need the kind of information they could provide. I had to know what was happening, where it was happening, and who was making it happen.

I fell asleep thinking this must be what it felt like to be an officer—I was worried about everything.

When I woke up, I was almost too stiff and sore to move—even after Rangrid rubbed an evil-smelling ointment into my muscles. I sat up, but only with a great expenditure of pain, and getting my feet onto the floor took an act of supreme will. My throat was so hoarse I could barely whisper. Ugly bruises and raw marks from Odin's noose circled my neck. If I was going to take Odin's place, it would've been nice to have inherited his healing powers.

At least I was alive.

Rangrid fussed over me like a worried mother. She helped me dress when I couldn't lift my arms high enough to get them into the tunic she'd found for me to wear. Then she sat me down on the edge of the bed and laced my boots for me. When I was finally clothed, Rangrid rested her arms on my shoulders, and stood between my knees. Her long, unbound hair tickled my face.

"Ready to turn Valhalla upside down, hero?" she murmured.

Her tone was unconvincingly demure.

I laughed rustily, and drew a strand of her hair across my fingertip.

"I thought I did that yesterday, Rangrid . I think today I'll just start with breakfast and see how it goes from there."

She bent to kiss my lips softly and smiled. "In that case... last one to the table's a rotten egg." She bolted. Rangrid was out the door before I could even struggle to my feet.

"No fair!" I yelled after her. A tinkling laugh floated back my way.

Showoff.

When I arrived in the main hall, the scene was one of complete chaos—worse even than the previous morning. There was a lot more broken furniture. Unconscious bodies littered the filthy floor as far as the eye could see.

At the nearest table, Gary had cleared away a spot in the general grime, and had nudged aside several slumbering—no, passed-out drunken—companions to provide a seat for the three of us. He and Rangrid had already helped themselves to breakfast, and were eating when I sat down. Rangrid scooted over to sit beside me. She glanced contentedly from her grandson to her new lover—me, I thought with an amazed flush of realization—then back at her grandson again. She grinned and bit into something that looked and smelled wonderful.

Gary looked so chipper, I wanted to hit him. I felt like a recently mashed potato.

"Have some eggs," he said, dumping about seven fried eggs onto my plate from a nearby serving platter. "And bacon."

"Good God, Vernon, I've still got to worry about cholesterol."

He grinned unrepentantly. "Here, try these, too." He dumped several small, round lumps of greasy fried dough beside my stack of eggs.

His expression was entirely too innocent for my liking. I glanced apprehensively at Rangrid. Her eyes twinkled, but she wouldn't talk.

"What the hell are those?" They didn't smell like hush puppies.

"You always were a grouch before breakfast—when's the last time you had any coffee? Don't ask what they are; just eat 'em. They're great, if you don't know what's in 'em."

"Vernon..."

He grinned, and waved an empty fork to forestall me long enough to chew one up and swallow it. "Deep-fried goat testicles."

I turned green, and carefully nudged them to one side of my plate. Gary laughed. Rangrid chuckled, then lifted a pitcher and snagged a cup.

"That smells like coffee!"

She threw me a reproachful look. "It is coffee. We're not entirely in the dark ages here, you know. Some of our best guests grew coffee before they joined the guerrillas and got... uh... collected."

Her look was uncertain, so I just nodded. "Speaking of the, er, collectees, I'm going to need help. You two are my officially appointed general staff. The first thing we need to do is get the men sorted into some sort of order, and I'll need a list of potential officers, men with command experience, sound judgment. How soon do you think we can get that done?"

Gary looked thoughtful.

Rangrid answered. "I'll get my sisters busy on it right away. They were a little stunned yesterday; but I did a lot of talking last night after you fell asleep, and they've come around." Her eyes twinkled. "It's funny, isn't it, how you can change attitudes overnight by giving folks hope? They're ready and willing to do whatever you think needs to be done. Some of my sisters can form the Einherjar into groups. While the men are being assigned by time period, or weapons expertise, or whatever, others can poll them about command experience. Best suggestion for sorting them out?"

"By weapons expertise," Gary suggested, "but only for the last one hundred years, or so. Then divvy them up by when they were born, about one hundred years per group, on back to however far back you've been collecting them. That sound about right, Randy?"

"Yeah, that should put men with roughly similar technology and tactics into approximately common groups. We can refine assignments later, after we have a better idea what we've got under arms out there."

"Anything else for today?" Gary asked.

I considered; then shook my head. "Not for you two. Rangrid, get your sisters together, and get that list of commanders back to me as soon as possible. Gary, I'd like to see a list of available weapons systems. Then we've got to get the mess in this building cleaned up, and figure out how to get some discipline established. Without discipline, we'll lose the first skirmish. Where the hell are Hugin and Munin? I need information, stat." A young boy of about eleven slipped in beside us, and retrieved our breakfast dishes. He grinned at me, then vanished into the crowd. I scowled. "And what the hell am I going to do with all these civilians?"

Nobody had an answer to that one. Not that I'd really expected one. Command responsibility is a bitch. My ravens flapped in from outdoors somewhere, and listened very gravely as I gave them instructions. First: what were the Aesir doing? Second: what was Loki doing? Third: what was Hel doing, and did she consider my contract with her fulfilled? Fourth: what was Surt up to in Muspellheim? And fifth: what was everybody else in the rest of the Nine Worlds doing?

The ravens looked a little awed by my demands; but obediently flew off on their mission. Rangrid left Gary and me huddled in conference—while the civilians I didn't know what to do with quietly cleaned up the hall, roused the slumbering warriors, and got them organized for breakfast. When the noise level rose to that of a minor tornado, Gary and I moved outside. We found a quiet spot under the eaves, and got busy with paper, pencil, and the calculator he'd been carrying the night of the accident.

The two of us made a good team. Compared to getting here in the first place and getting Odin out of the way, this was going to be a snap. All I had to do was organize my troops, figure out how to retrieve the generals I needed from wherever they'd ended up, learn what kind of enemy I was really up against, set up training programs, procure modern weapons systems, figure out what in the world to do with those wretched, inconvenient civilians...

By the end of the week I was beginning to think we might actually have a chance. Gary and I had decided to organize our forces along the lines of the most sensibly run military model we had ever run across—Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. We split up the Einherjar, putting modern military personnel in temporary command of each section. Our theory was simple: modern personnel had a better grasp of a wide range of weapons systems, and a wide range of strategies and tactics. Under their watchful eyes, the troops were being run through weapons drill.

Gary and I sat down for twenty-four solid hours, poring over the list of commanders Rangrid compiled. We muttered, gnashed our teeth, and pulled our hair.

"Have we got Patton anywhere?"

"No, dammit; is Lawrence of Arabia on any of your lists?"

"Hell, no. Christ, where's Rommel?"

"We've got Genghis Khan's third nephew."

"Great. Isn't he the one who jumped onto what's-his-face's sword when he was drunk?"

"Yup."

"Get rid of him."

After we'd figured out who to keep, who to dump, and who to bargain for, I made arrangements with a balky Hel to meet with her. I wanted to trade three of my discards for each of the worthwhile generals and other command-grade officers in her domain, which would cull most of the crazy-ass Berserkers from my ranks.

What I wanted to do was eliminate the "die-for-glory" crowd and leave a solid "kill-for-glory" core, which I felt possibly could be hammered into a legitimate fighting force. I didn't really want to do any more bargaining with Hel; but she had what I wanted, and I thought I could offer her something she wanted in return.

All in all, I was pretty well pleased with progress. Hell, I was even beginning to look forward to the coming challenge. We had good men, and good plans. We were even planning to pilfer a few nukes here and there, along with the other equipment I intended to steal. If the enemy had the World Serpent to blow poison, well, we'd just hit them with a few multimegaton devices before they could bring their complete arsenal into play.

A lot of my preliminary plans were going to depend on what Hugin and Munin brought back. I was vitally interested in the sons of Muspell and their allies the Frost Giants, and moderately concerned about Odin's kith and kin back in Asgard. Every couple of days I'd look up at the vermilion sky and wonder what was taking them so long; then shrug and tell myself that a really detailed report took time to assemble.

I asked Gary once, between reviewing pike-thrusting demonstrations from ten different cultures, what— exactly—a Frost Giant looked like.

"You remember the Jolly Green Giant?"

"Yeah."

"Not like that."

"You're a big help."

"I do my best."

Rangrid and I made love several times a night. I marveled at her recuperatory powers—not hers personally, her ability to restore me. Once I had finally satisfied her, she would snuggle beside me, and drift off to sleep. I would lie awake in her arms far into the night, going over in my head everything Gary and Rangrid had reported to me; reviewing plans to increase esprit de corps and discipline; and still wondering what I was going to do with all the civilians in Valhalla.

I didn't want to send them to Hel—and wouldn't, unless she insisted on taking them as "payment" for the generals I needed. I didn't like the idea of turning over any of those people to someone like Hel. But I didn't know what I could do with them. I certainly couldn't send them back to Midgard. None of them seemed inclined to leave. Maybe I could train them to fight. Morale was certainly picking up, and everyone was likely to have real motive to fight, if the rumors I'd heard about Surt and Muspellheim were true.

A faint scritching at the door brought me to full alertness. I rose carefully to my feet, and groped for the Biter; then tiptoed to open the door. Hugin and Munin sailed in and perched on my shoulders. I relaxed. The Biter disappeared back into its sheath.

"Well, you're finally back," I whispered to my feathery spies. "So tell all."

Taking turns, first one and then the other, they whispered into my ears. Before the first raven had gotten three sentences out, I was groping for a seat.

"Whoa—back up—how many did you say they had?"

"Wait—how many is a beejillion?"

"How many more than a googol?"

"And they look like what? Muspell has what for weapons?"

As the birds whispered facts and figures into my ears there in the dark, I listened in growing horror. The Frost Giants, the Dark Elves, Niflhel's denizens in revolt, civil war in Asgard, a real barnburner of a mess developing on Earth, and Muspell—holy cow, what was I supposed to do about Muspell?

We were in deep shit. But damn, if it wasn't going to be one roaring helluva fight. And victory... ?

Well, stranger things had happened!