The Age Of Odin

Two

Coming to was a case of admitting unpleasant truths, one by one.

First, I was freezing cold. Skin numb in places.

Second, I hurt. Pain spiking outward from several sources, mainly my chest.

Third, I was suspended from the seatbelt with my head angled against the underside of the car roof, neck cricked horribly, boxed in, unable to move.

Fourth, it was pitch dark.

Fifth, help wasn't coming. Because I must have been unconscious for several minutes, maybe as much as half an hour, and if help had been coming it would have got here by now.

We'd crashed. Come off the road. Rolled down a hillside. Fetched up in a snowdrift at the bottom. That much I could figure out. And if anyone had witnessed the accident they would be down here trying to see what they could do for us. And there was no one out there, no voices, no footfalls. Outside the car there was only silence. Dead silence.

So, all in all, not good.

But I was awake, I was coherent, I'd assessed the situation. Now to do something about it.

"Abortion?"

"Uhh."

Better to use his proper name. "Carl. Carl Hill. It's Gideon. Speak to me."

"Gid?"

"Can you understand what I'm saying?"

"Uh-huh. Yeah. Jesus, what happened?"

"You tell me. What's the last thing you remember?"

"Umm, driving. Then… skidding."

"Anything immediately before the skid?"

"No." In tone that said Yes, maybe, but I'm not telling.

It didn't matter. Wasn't relevant right this moment. "Okay, Carl," I said, "first things first. We're upside down in a crashed vehicle. I don't think there's a danger of explosion. I can't smell fuel or smoke. Still, we need to get out. I'm kind of stuck. My seatbelt's locked and I'm squashed in on all sides and can't reach the buckle. Can you?"

"Dunno."

"Well, will you try?" Striving to keep my voice under control and not bark at him. Because this was his fault. I'd no idea what he'd done, but he'd done something. Something stupid. Something that validated his nickname.

"All right. Here goes."

I heard him fumbling. Grunting with effort. Then there was a click, and a thump, and an "owww!"

"You okay?"

"Yeah," came the sore reply. "Just undid my belt, not yours."

Some kind of genius. "Have a go at mine, then."

More fumbling, another click, and I felt myself coming loose, legs sliding around and down, and suddenly the places where I was hurting all expanded at once, merging, joining forces so that my body became a single solid mass of pain.

"Gid? Gid?"

Abortion's voice came distantly to me, as though through fog, getting louder as the pain slowly lessened.

"Gid, you're injured."

"No kidding," I gasped. "What gave it away?"

"Uh, the way you were yelling?"

I had, admittedly, been screaming like a girl.

"I think I've got a couple of broken ribs," I said. "Maybe a broken ankle too. Done something to my shoulder. And I've banged and gashed my head — don't think it's any worse than a cut, don't think there's skull fracture, but even so, it throbs like a bitch." Quite an inventory. "Apart from that, just super-duper."

"Look, I'm going to get out of here. My side window's gone. There's snow filling the gap but it can't be too thick. I reckon I can dig through and crawl out. Then I'll phone for help."

"Good plan."

"Stay put."

"Not going anywhere."

It took him several minutes to claw a hole through the snow. As he burrowed his way out, a dim gleam of light crept in, revealing just how badly trashed the Astra was. My side had taken the worst of it. That was why I was all banged up and Abortion was unscathed, and why I had so little room to manoeuvre. The roof was dented down at an angle, to the extent that the passenger-side windows were crushed flat, almost nonexistent. The glove compartment door stuck out like a tongue from a shut mouth. The dashboard was cracked wide open, instruments popping out like eyeballs. The steering column was twisted almost to vertical, the airbag which had saved Abortion from serious harm dangling off it like a used condom.

I didn't think we'd be getting our insurance deposit back.

It was agony to laugh, so I stopped.

Abortion's ugly face appeared at the end of the snow tunnel.

"Can't pick up a signal," he said. "'No network coverage,' display says. Fucking Orange. Future's bright? Future's shite, more like. I'll head off and find help. There must be someone living nearby, and they'll have a landline."

"No," I said.

"No?"

"No, you can't leave me. In these temperatures, I won't last long. Pull me out and I'll come with you."

"Think you can walk?"

"No, but I'll have to. As long as I'm moving, I stand a chance. If I just lie here, by the time the emergency services reach me I'll be a freezer pop."

"Won't pulling you out be painful?"

"Almost certainly."

It wasn't painful.

It was ten times worse than the worst pain I'd ever known.

And I'd known pain.

At the end of it I was mewling like a distressed kitten. I felt like a human-shaped bag of toxic waste. I just wanted to curl up in the snow and die.

But of course, with my reputation for pigheadedness, that wasn't about to happen.

While sat up gathering my strength, getting ready to rise, I dug out my phone to see if I could obtain a signal even if Abortion couldn't. But my poor little Nokia wasn't going to be calling anyone ever again. It had snapped along the hinge, and the screen was split in two by a zigzagging fissure. Nothing more pathetic than a piece of dead technology. I sent the phone, both bits of it, cartwheeling off into the snow.

Abortion then helped me to my feet. Or rather, foot. My left ankle was like splintered celery. It could barely take any weight on it. If he supported me, though, I was able to limp along.

And we set off. We laboured upslope, following the trail of huge gouges and scrapes the Astra had left in the snow during its bouncing somersault descent. There was debris: a wing mirror here, a taillight there, sprinkles of glass. The contents of our overnight bags had been tossed out of the boot of the car and burst open, all our clothes and toiletries strewn down the hillside, soaked by the snow and beyond salvaging. Finally we reached the top, and the road. Tyre tracks showed where we and the public highway had parted company, the Astra punching through the flimsy wire fence that ran along the verge.

I blinked snowflakes off my eyelashes.

"Not having a go at you or anything, Abortion," I said, "but those don't look like skidmarks to me. They don't swerve suddenly. They're almost straight. They look more to me like someone either didn't read the road properly, or someone's mind was on something other than driving."

Abortion's expression resembled a guilty dog's. "I'm sorry, Gid."

"What was it? You were skinning up, weren't you?"

"Only a small one. I've done it a million times before. Mostly I use just the one hand, but for crumbling the grass into the paper you need both, and I waited for a straight stretch to do it, and what you do is you hold the wheel steady with your knees… and… and then you…"

My look told him not to continue.

"I'm sorry," he said again, feebly.

"Abortion," I said, "when this is over I am going to smack you so hard, your balls will still be jangling like bell clappers a week later. But until that glorious moment comes you're the person I need most in all the world. Without you, I'm dead. Do you understand?"

"I get it. I keep you alive so that you can kill me later."

"That's pretty much it."

"You're not a balanced individual, you know that, Gid? Your soul is all out of alignment."

"Like your face if you don't stop talking and start walking."

We walked. To be precise, Abortion walked, I stumbled alongside him. No cars passed. That would have been asking too much, to have someone drive by for us to flag down and cadge a lift from. It wasn't likely anyway, not on an evening like this, so far off the beaten track. Even a farmer on a tractor would be too much to expect.

Two things we had going for us. One: we had warm clothing on. We were dressed for the weather, just about. That was a lucky break.

And two: we had Abortion's directions. They'd been in his pocket. And they informed us that two or three miles up the road, perhaps a little more, was the place we were aiming for.

Asgard Hall.

All we had to do was keep our eyes peeled for certain landmarks. Specifically, a set of black rocks which were supposed to resemble a sleeping giant.

What I didn't want to consider right then was that, with nearly a foot and a half of snow freshly fallen and more coming down by the second, a set of rocks was going to be hard if not impossible to make out, however big they were. That was a thought I had no wish to address, or share with Abortion. Us not being able to find Asgard Hall simply wasn't an issue. We had to find it. Otherwise we were screwed.

Instead of contemplating future unknowns, I directed my mind onto past knowns. To keep me from dwelling on the pain as much as anything. Every lurching step I took jarred my ribcage and made it feel as though talons were digging into my side. Rather than wallow in the misery of that, I decided to wallow in the misery of rehashing the conversation Abortion and I had had that led us, ultimately, to the SNAFU we were now in.

We'd been down the pub. That was where we always met, at The Seven Bells just off Battersea High Street. It was neutral territory for both of us. Nearer Abortion's flat than mine, but then I'd been barred from almost every drinking establishment in my area owing to, ahem, past infractions, so it wasn't as if I had much choice but to board the bus from Wandsworth and head Battersea way. Abortion himself was a regular sight at most of his local boozers but The Seven Bells was the only one he didn't do any work in. He'd reserved it as recreation only, so he always kept his mobile off when he was there, and he wasn't pestered by a constant stream of scabby teenagers coming up to him to score. It was an old man's pub, traditional, a relic: no jukebox or fruitie, snug, dark, with flock wallpaper and horse brasses, the air still retaining a faint whiff of tobacco even though nobody was allowed to smoke there any more. Above all it was quiet, the background conversation seldom rising above a murmur. A lot of the clientele just sat on their own, nursing beers and bitter memories.

"So I've heard this rumour," Abortion said. We'd been silent ourselves for a while, eyes not meeting, two blokes who had less in common than they'd care to admit but very few others to call friend.

"Oh yeah? This the one about Beyonce and Prince William again?"

"No, although I swear that's true. Heard it off a man who knows someone who works at the palace. Apparently the guy, he's a valet or something, and he's got the condom to prove it, and he's going to flog it on eBay."

"Ooh, a used condom with dried royal spunk in it. What's the reserve on that going to be? Twenty pence I'd guess."

"You could clone your own royal baby out of it."

"Like Jurassic Park, you mean?"

"Something like, only without the dinosaurs. No, I'm talking about another rumour. A whole new one. One that's got to do with people like you and me."

"Losers?"

"Ex-service. Discharged. Looking for work."

"I'm not looking for work. I have work. I have a job selling reconditioned printer toner cartridges and it pays handsomely, thank you very much."

"No, it doesn't."

"All right, it doesn't, but with that and my half pension I get by."

"And what about the child maintenance?"

"Okay, so I don't get by. I can barely makes ends meet. So what? Anyway, you have work too, so why would you be looking around for something else?"

"I sell dope. That's not work. That's a hobby with benefits. And the money's shit, actually. There's hardly any product coming in right now, what with the crops getting hammered by the bad weather, but people still aren't prepared to pay more than they're used to. Never mind that I tell them about supply and demand, they just won't wear it. So who's getting squeezed? Who's barely able to turn a profit? The middle man, that's who."

I refrained from pointing out that he would up his income if only he stopped smoking so much of his own stash and kept more of it available for purchase. No great shakes as a businessman, Abortion, bless him.

"But this," he said, downing a gulp of his Scrumpy Jack, "this is an opportunity. A solid gold opportunity to make some serious coinage. That's what I've heard. They're after blokes like us, you and me. Former servicemen. Government-trained. Still got all the skills, all the moves, but surplus to requirements. Old soldiers but still young enough to fight."

"Who is after us?"

"Dunno. Some people."

"And to fight in what?"

"Again, dunno. But like I said, and this is the main point: for a lot of money."

"How much?" I hated myself for asking it. Hated myself for feeling a scintilla of interest in what Abortion was saying. Not just interest. Stronger than that. Eagerness.

"Couple of grand a week."

"No fucking way."

"That's what I was told."

"Who by?"

"Bloke. Customer. Not a regular. Don't see him often. But he's ex-army too. The Regiment."

"Which regiment?"

"The Regiment."

"SAS."

"So he says. Well, not so much says as hints. You don't say 'The Regiment' unless you're referring to The Regiment, do you?"

"Or unless you're a prize bullshit artist. The SAS I've met don't speak about it at all. That's how you know they're SAS."

"Look, this fella's kosher, I'm sure of it. He acts like an SAS guy acts, all hard and gruff and a bit psycho. And the other day he came round to my place to buy an ounce of black, and we were just having a little test of it, you see, a little sample taste, and he let slip about these people, the Valhalla Mission. He read about them in a comment posted on some ex-servicemen's forum, which linked to a blog entry. It's a word of mouth thing, apparently. The blogger didn't put down much more than I've told you, a few lines about the job offer plus a location, how to get to wherever it is they're recruiting. Somewhere way up north, some castle or what-have-you. SAS guy said he was thinking about going there himself. Bit short of the readies, he said."

"What, he left the Regiment and didn't manage to wangle himself a fat juicy publishing contract? How's that possible?"

"Funnily enough, he said he'd written a book about his Spec Ops experiences and he showed it to a literary agent but the agent told him the SAS memoir market's all but dried up."

"Who Dares Loses. My heart bleeds. Another one?"

I bought him a fresh Scrumpy Jack and a Theakston's Old Peculier for myself. My second pint of the night, and my last. I never took it further than the two, not any more. That was my limit. Exceeding it led to trouble. Anger. Flare-ups. Punches. Bruises. Police. Holding cells. Cautions. I'd been down that road too many times. I'd even done a short stint at Her Majesty's pleasure. Never again. The pleasure had been all hers.

"What d'you reckon, then?" Abortion asked. He was Devon born and after a drink or two his West Country burr always got thicker. The "r" of his "reckon" dragged while the "ck" in the middle all but vanished.

"I rrre'un," I said, "that blogger's pulling everyone's leg. Two grand a week? For washed-up non-coms like us?"

"The impression I got is they're not too fussy."

"They'd have to not be. I mean, there's me with eighty per cent hearing loss in one ear and a titanium plate in my skull, and there's you with your, well, habit. We're hardly what you'd call prime soldiering material. They'd have to be pretty desperate to take us on, and if their standards are that low then what sane person would want to sign up with them anyway?"

"Do you miss it?" said Abortion. It sounded like a non sequitur but wasn't.

"The army? What's to miss? Low pay. Appalling housing. Getting shouted at all the time. Getting shot at. Going round the world to visit the dingiest shitholes there are, putting your life on the line fighting a war some nob-end in Whitehall thinks is a good idea but no one else does, saddled with shoddy uniforms and shonky kit that doesn't work properly half the time…"

"That's a yes, then."

He had me bang to rights. "You know I miss it. Every fucking day. I'd give anything to pull on a uniform again, pick up an assault rifle and get out there again, mixing it up with the bad guys."

"You can't explain it to civilians, can you?" Abortion said. "They just don't get it. Having your mates around you the whole time. Ripping the piss out of each other at every opportunity but knowing you trust these people with your life. Being part of a unit, feeling part of something that's big and strong and organised. Like being a member of the best gang ever and no one's going to mess with you. You don't have that in civvy street, that sense of belonging. Here, everyone fucks everyone else over. It's all about yourself. Me, me, me. What can I get? What can I grab? Never happens in the army."

"I always used to think it's like being at school again but being a grown-up at the same time," I said. "All the benefits of school — order, schedule, hierarchy, someone cooking your meals for you — with none of the bollocks. Rules and regulations that keep things in line but don't interfere with you having a good time. And even the combat… Shit, you don't get a rush like that anywhere else. Fucking hairy-arse scary while it's happening, but afterwards — woo-hoo! And I speak as someone who got blown up by a fucking IED."

"Yeah, if that couldn't put you off enjoying active service, what could?"

"Well, it's like they say. If you can't take a joke…"

Abortion chimed in: "…you shouldn't have volunteered."

"So you think this is on the level, this Valhalla Mission whatnot?" I said.

Aborted teetered his hand in the air. "You can't know 'til you've tried. Suck it and see. But two grand a week's nothing to sneeze at. And the minimum contract term is three months."

I did some mental arithmetic. Twenty-five-thousand-odd quid. What could I do with that?

Actually, the question was what couldn't I do?

Clear the backlog I owed Gen, for starters. The Child Support Agency was chasing me up for arrears of near on ten K, the total sum I'd "neglected" to hand over during my more difficult periods after the divorce, plus interest. I'd have my rent on the flat sorted for a few months in advance. I'd even have enough left over to take a decent holiday, go somewhere nice, find one of the few warm spots on the planet down near the equator and catch some rays.

But it wasn't even about the money, I knew that.

It was about a second chance. To do what I did best. To do the only thing I really knew how to do.

When I got home I did a web search for "Valhalla Mission" to see if anything came up. Not one worthwhile hit other than the blog entry Abortion had talked about. Same with "Asgard Hall," the name of the castle the blogger mentioned. Nothing of any use. I assumed, if it even existed, it was some old crumbling pile that used to be called something else and new owners had taken it over and rechristened it.

Of course I had huge doubts and misgivings about the whole enterprise. It all seemed unspeakably dodgy. A hoax, even. We'd rock up at this place and either there'd be no one there or a camera crew would be waiting and it'd turn out to be some reality TV stunt or a game show or what-have-you. I had no desire to be an ordinary person bumped up overnight to celebrity class and be made a public laughing-stock and whipping boy, however much dosh was being dangled in front of me. I didn't want to be famous for fifteen minutes or even fifteen fifteen seconds. Those stories never ended well.

But if it was legit…

Well, obviously it wasn't legit. This was someone recruiting for a private army. This sounded like mercenary or private security work, and very much at the iffy end of that particular scale. Proper "risk management" agencies operated out of swanky offices in Mayfair and were run by ex-Sandhurst Ruperts with tight haircuts and tailored suits. They advertised properly; they didn't wait for word of mouth to bring in employees. They also didn't hire blokes like me who were technically disabled, who'd been invalided out. They liked their meat to be in tiptop condition, ace fighting machines with a thirst for blood and a barrel-scraping of scruples.

Whereas for the Valhalla Mission, the blogger wrote, "clean history and health are not a priority." In other words, we don't care, we'll take anyone. Like Abortion had said, not too fussy.

So the alarm bells were well and truly ding-a-linging in the back of my head, but it was surprisingly easy to ignore them. There was more involved here than me just clearing my debts with Gen and removing that rather large bone of contention from our relationship (if it could even be called a relationship any more). No doubt about it, if I paid that money off there was every chance I'd get my visitation rights to Cody restored. I'd be able to see my son again, take him out, go to the park and the pictures with him, re-establish myself in his life as his dad, actually get to know him and allow him to get to know me so's he could learn that I was more than just a voice on the phone he was obliged to talk to every now and then.

That was one hell of an incentive.

But to be a soldier once more — that was the really big, shiny, orange carrot.

So I phoned up Abortion and I said, "Let's do it."

And he said, "I knew I could count on you, Gid."

And I said, "This could be the biggest mistake I've ever made."

And he said, "Mistakes are just opportunities in disguise."

And I said, "What fortune cookie did you get that from?"

And he said, "It's not wisdom to mock the wise."

And I said, "But clocking smartarses round the earhole is."

And he said, "Wednesday. We'll go next Wednesday."

And I said, "I think I can sort my affairs out by Wednesday," knowing that my affairs wouldn't take much sorting out beyond asking for time off at Tony's Totally Toner and getting a neighbour to go in and water my spider plant while I was away. And I didn't even care if Tony said no or my spider plant died. I'd still go.

And Wednesday came around, and it was Wednesday now, and recalling Abortion's remark — "Mistakes are just opportunities in disguise" — as we trudged through the snow storm, I couldn't help but think, You couldn't be much wronger, mate.

Two miles? Three miles?

Distances were hard to judge. So was speed. So was time. In the midst of that whirling whiteness you couldn't be sure of anything. How long had we been walking? How fast? How far? No idea, no idea, no idea. The snow baffled your senses and your instincts. It seemed to leech all certainty out of you and replace it with cold emptiness. It made you as blank as it made the landscape. There was so much of it coming down that the night sky scarcely seemed black any more; it was just one huge tumbling curtain of snow. Snow everywhere. White everywhere. Inside and out.

"Can't be much further," Abortion kept saying, over and over, like some Buddhist chant. "Can't be much further. Surely can't be."

But maybe we had passed it, I thought. The landmark. The giant-alike rocks. Maybe we'd blundered straight by, missing it in the storm, and Asgard Hall was behind us now, and we were staggering onward into nothingness, with the pure resolve of idiots. They'd find us tomorrow frozen stiff beside the road, buried to the waist in snow, conjoined statues of men, a work of sculpture with the title The Triumph Of Desperation Over Logic.

And then, lo and behold, there it was.

At first neither of us could quite believe our snow-stung eyes. It loomed before us, and it was almost too perfect, too obvious. Hulking great rocks protruding up, so sheer-sided and sharp that the snow could not easily settle on them. Huge, too, some of them, black spires and hillocks dotted across a shallow valley. A natural formation, had to be, but together they described a distinct shape. There the brow, there the nose, there the hands, there the knees. A supine, slumbering giant. The valley was his bed, and he filled it from end to end, and the snow, which according to cliche was always a blanket, was a blanket. It draped him smoothly, covering all but the bits that poked out.

It was a remarkable sight, and Abortion let out a whoop of joy, of vindication, while I grimaced a smile and felt, if nothing else, we were going to survive this ordeal after all, even though we didn't really deserve to.

Shortly after we spotted the giant we came across a turnoff, a track that ran perpendicular from the road, down into the valley. We took it, and crossed the sleeping giant's midriff, and climbed the slope on the other side, and found ourselves entering dense pine forest.

The track bored straight through the trees, and was broad and clear to see, for a while.

Then it narrowed and became winding. Either that or in the darkness we mislaid it. The tree trunks seemed to close in on us. We threaded between them, convinced we were still going the right way, or convinced enough at any rate, but in our heart of hearts far from sure. The grinding pain inside me was beginning to wear me down. My brain said I could carry on but my body was arguing otherwise. Each step was becoming a supreme effort, an act of teeth-gritting willpower.

Finally Abortion halted. "I hate to say this," he said, "but I think we're going to have to retrace our steps. Find the track again."

"I hate to say this," I said, "but I don't know if I can."

"We can't just keep going forward if it's only going to get us more lost."

"Mentally, I can't go back. It would be too much to take."

"Corporal Coxall…"

"Don't try that."

"Corp, we are turning back. That's an order."

"You can't pull it off, Abortion. Natural authority — it's just not you."

"No?"

"No."

"Okay," he said, "so where does that leave us? What should we do?"

As if in response, there came the eeriest sound I'd ever heard.

It rose, rose a bit more, then fell.

I stared at Abortion. He stared at me.

Seconds later, the sound came again.

And, from somewhere else, was answered.

A howl.

The howl of a wolf.