The Age Of Odin

Forty-Five

Sleipnir doubled back and we picked up the Valkyries and their snowmobiles some two kilometres outside Utgard — a safe distance, and not far, in fact, from the splash of mangled red fur and flesh that had been Suttung. Then we began the journey home.

Five soldiers slouched together in sullen silence. Cy's arm was bandaged up, a nifty piece of field dressing courtesy of Paddy, and he had been fed some ace painkillers from the Wokka's first aid kit. He looked grey but okay. Backdoor was suffering from mild concussion but joked that it was only his head so no vital organs had been damaged. I'd staunched the bleeding from the gashes in my leg. We sat there and avoided one another's gazes. Each of the others wore a face like a slapped cock, and I'd no doubt I did too.

Someone had to skewer the sour mood. Guess who elected himself to do it.

"Well," I said, "that all went swimmingly, didn't it?" Which won a couple of weak smiles and not much else.

"Might as well get this over with," I went on. "What happened? Any idea? Somebody? Anybody?"

Shrugs.

"Come on, one of you must have seen something. Who fired first? Why? What at?"

"It was Chops, I think," Cy volunteered. "Not sure, but he was behind me and that's where the shooting started."

"Weren't you taking the rear?" I asked Backdoor.

He nodded. It was noteworthy that neither he nor anyone else sniggered at the phrase "taking the rear." Nothing, right now, was very funny.

"So you'd have been following Chops. Was it him? Did he open fire?"

"I don't know, Gid. I really don't. I wasn't looking his way when it all kicked off. First I knew about it was a couple of frosties were on the deck and so was Chops. It happened that fast. At a push, my guess would be a frostie made a move on Chops and he retaliated."

"Why would one of them do that, though?" I said. "They had specific instructions to leave us alone and not hurt us."

"Yeah, but you know how they was on the way in," said Cy. "All nudging us and giving it attitude and everything. Maybe one of them forgot what Bergelmir said and went back to how they was behaving beforehand, only he took the aggro too far and Chopsticks hit back. We was all on edge, bruv. I mean, Bergelmir, he'd been talking about executing the lot of us not ten minutes earlier."

The others echoed this with a round of disgruntled grunts. I'd not earned myself any Brownie points with the way things had gone in the citadel. Although I'd been able to pull our fat from the fire, the lads weren't happy that our fat had been anywhere near a fire in the first place. I couldn't blame them for that.

"No question, I take full responsibility for this mess," I told them. "My plan, my fuck-up. I just want to find out why things went south, so we can avoid a repeat in future."

"Maybe Chopsticks got careless," Baz offered. "Maybe his safety was off and he stumbled and pulled the trigger by mistake."

I shook my head. "I didn't know him as well as any of you did, but that doesn't strike me as like him. Chops was always measured and cautious. What's more, he'd know better than to march with his finger inside the trigger guard."

"Would he? He were only Territorial, after all. Saturday night soldier."

"Still."

"And accidents happen."

"And if guns are involved they're usually tragic accidents. Somehow, though, I just can't buy this as one of those."

"Maybe," said Paddy in a conciliatory tone, "we should chalk it up to experience and move on. What's done is done. Rehashing it isn't going to change anything and certainly won't bring Chopsticks back. I'll miss the lad because he was just about the only one around here with a bit of culture, unlike the rest of you philistine, pig-ignorant shites. But he's gone, and we should start coming to terms with that."

"And our chances of bringing the frosties onside have been scuppered too," I said bitterly. "We lost a man and screwed the mission, so you'll forgive me if I can't put it behind me quite yet, Pads."

"That's your prerogative. All I'm saying is, we're alive at least, even though it was touch-and-go back there for a while. That's worth remembering. It wasn't a total disaster."

"Irish eyes keep smiling, eh? Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and all that."

"Those are meaningless insults, Gid, and with respect, fuck you."

"Fuck you too, Paddy."

That was the end of that conversation, and Sleipnir carried on to Asgard with some very surly and irritable passengers in its hold.

The thing was, an idea had started flitting around in my mind. It was a moth in the dark, flapping against me with its wings, and I kept batting it away but it kept blundering back, and I didn't like it. I didn't like the fact that it was even there, that some crack or chink that shouldn't have existed had allowed it to enter my headspace.

A single word, faintly whispering, bristling with unease.

Sabotage.