The Valhalla Prophecy (58 page)

Nina’s dismay at killing the creatures was tempered by the sure knowledge that they had been about to tear
out her throat. “Are there any more of them?” she asked, scanning the emptiness surrounding her.

“Don’t know.” Eddie did the same, keeping the Wildey raised. “There might—
Shit!
”

Movement in the corner of his vision—which resolved into a wolf racing toward him at terrifying speed. He whirled as it made a flying leap over the snowmobile—

The Wildey boomed again, but the animal’s momentum carried it onward. It hit Eddie, bowling him over and sending the gun flying.

“Eddie!” Nina cried, pointing the AK at the wolf—but it did not move, lying on its side with its mouth agape. The snow beneath it slowly turned red.

Eddie stood, wincing at a pain in his shoulder from the collision. “Aaa-fuckin’-wooo, you bastard,” he told the dead beast before looking around. If there were any more wolves out in the fog, they had taken the hint and fled. “Where’d my gun go? If I lose another Wildey, you’ll never let me hear the bloody end of it …”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you that it’s over there, then,” said Nina, managing a faint smile as she caught her breath.

Eddie tramped to where she had indicated, finding his gun half buried in the snow. He retrieved it, then came back to her, taking a closer look at the wolf’s body. It was just as deformed as the first they had seen, oversized and overmuscled but also misshapen, ugly lumps beneath its skin—and in some cases bursting out through it, lesions visible through the fur. “Christ, look at this. It’s like something out of
The Thing
.”

Nina had seen similar deformities before. “It’s the eitr,” she said, with a shiver that was caused by more than just the cold. “Just like in those photos Kagan’s boss showed us.”

“Yeah. We must be in the right place, then. The stuff’s mutated them.”

They both stared unhappily at the corpse, then turned at a noise. Not the howl of wolves this time, but the burr of engines. The other snowmobiles came into view.

The two remaining soldiers halted thirty feet away
and jumped off their snowmobile, AK-12s at the ready as they checked for threats. “My God!” Berkeley exclaimed as Kagan stopped beside Eddie and Nina. “We heard the shots. What the hell happened here?”

Kagan was more concerned by his comrade’s body. “Kontarsky!” he cried, running to the fallen figure, but after a brief examination he returned more slowly, expression stricken. “Have you seen Lishin?” he asked Eddie.

The Yorkshireman shook his head. “One of them dragged him off. Don’t know where, but we haven’t seen him. He’s probably dead. I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” Kagan said quietly. He regarded one of the animals. “The eitr—it did this to them. It is the only explanation.”

“We know,” said Nina.

“And this would have been from only the smallest exposure. Anything more, and they would not have lived this long. I have never seen the effects with my own eyes before, but …” A pause, then he set his shoulders. “
Now
you know why we must destroy the eitr, yes? What happened to the wolves must never get off this island.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” said Eddie.

Berkeley shook his head. “I don’t understand. How could these wolves have survived so long? The Vikings called this place the vale of Fenrir, but they can’t possibly have lived all this time.”

“These are probably the children of animals that came to the island a few months ago when the sea was frozen,” Kagan told him. “The parents would have died after being exposed to the eitr—but their pups lived for a time, even like this.”

“It’s horrible,” said Nina.

“Yes. But we can stop it—we
must
stop it.” Another regretful look at the soldier’s body, then the Russian returned to his vehicle. “Come. We must move.”

“Keep it,” Eddie said to Nina as she was about to put down the AK-12. “We might need it.” He holstered the Wildey, and they returned to their snowmobile as
the others restarted their engines. “Oi! This time, don’t go so bloody fast!” he shouted. “We need to stick together!”

“Agreed,” said Kagan. He wheeled around back along his own trail, then powered away, though with more restraint than before. The soldiers followed, Eddie bringing the third snowmobile into line behind them.

The landscape began to climb again, before long lifting them clear of the fog trapped in the valley. Swathes of low cloud still clung to the mountainside, but the peak itself came back into clear view, an ominous, irregular pyramid jabbing at the overcast sky.

Berkeley’s translations of the ancient runes required very little interpretation to follow. The “broken finger” was a long slab of rock that the cold had sheared in two along a fault line, the narrow end pointing uphill. The barren island spread out below as they ascended.

The group was concerned only with what awaited above, however. There had been no sight or sound of the helicopter; the only conclusion was that it had landed.

And if it had … then its occupants had found the object of their search.

Berkeley tapped Kagan’s shoulder. The Russian pulled up, the other two snowmobiles drawing alongside. “What is it?” Nina asked.

“End of the line,” said Berkeley. “We need to look for open ground. Once we find it … that’s it. We’re at Vigrid, where the Vikings were going to face Ragnarök.”

Eddie gazed up the slope. “It’s got to be that,” he said, pointing. Off to one side of the looming peak, a few hundred feet higher than the group’s position, part of the terrain leveled out. The wind blew spiraling wisps of snow off its edge.

“Looks like we can ride all the way to it,” said Nina.

“Don’t think we should, though. We don’t want ’em to know we’re coming. If they saw the ship, they might be watching out for company.”

“That rock,” said Kagan, pointing at a boulder not
far below the flatter ground. “We will leave the snowmobiles there and go on foot.” He glanced behind Berkeley as if to reassure himself that the case containing Thor’s Hammer was still secured, then set off once more. Eddie kept pace alongside him, the soldiers bringing up the rear.

It took five minutes to reach their destination. Eddie stopped his snowmobile by the boulder and dismounted, Nina slinging her borrowed Kalashnikov from one shoulder. A disgruntled Berkeley watched her. “Shouldn’t I have a gun too?” he asked.

Kagan’s only response was a brief barking laugh, while Eddie was more verbose. “Don’t fucking think so, mate.”

“Why not? I know how to handle myself—I’ve used guns before. Well, okay, I’ve done some target shooting, but I know one end from the other. And I must have proved I’m on your side by now. Even to you, Nina.”

“Maybe so,” she replied, “but even if I did want you to have one, the other gun’s back down there with those wolves.” She gestured into the gray haze below. “And I don’t know if we got all of them or not.”

Berkeley looked for a moment as if he was seriously considering trekking back down the mountain to retrieve the weapon, then shook his head in resignation. “All right, okay. But if we find ourselves outgunned when we get up there, don’t blame me.”

“That’s fine. There are plenty of other things I can blame you for.”

“For God’s sake,” he muttered, before changing the subject by taking out his notes. “Okay. This has to be Vigrid. Once we’re up there”—he gestured toward the plateau—“then we’re at the pit. The lair of Jörmungandr. The Midgard Serpent.”

“Well, we already fought his brother the wolf,” said Eddie, gathering his gear from the back of the snowmobile. “How does that work, by the way? Their dad must have been into some fucked-up stuff.”

“Loki was a trickster,” said Berkeley as the rest of the team collected their own belongings and followed the Englishman up the hill. “He could take on any form.
Actually,” he continued, suddenly brightening as a thought struck him, “the mutation of those wolves? If that was caused by the eitr, it could explain some other Norse legends. Giants, monopodes, skraelings—they might all have been people or creatures who’d suffered the same sort of mutations.”

“Maybe you can rehabilitate yourself in the archaeological world by writing a paper about it,” Nina said in a cutting tone. Berkeley got the message and fell into a sullen silence.

They climbed the slope. It grew steeper as they approached the lip of the plateau, bare rock exposed where snow could no longer find purchase. The last few dozen yards became a climb.

Eddie was first to the top. He waved for the others to hold position, cautiously raising his head to peer over the edge. “I can see the chopper,” he reported.

Kagan joined him, the case containing Thor’s Hammer on his back. “What about Lock and his people?”

“There’s a guy hanging about, but I don’t see anyone else. Although …” He brought up a hand to shield his eyes from the blowing snow. “There’s a big crater as well. It must be the eitr pit.”

There was a flurry of movement as Nina, Berkeley, and the soldiers all scrambled up to look. “You are right,” said Kagan grimly. “It is like the one that was found on Novaya Zemlya.”

The plateau was not quite flat; they had arrived near its upper end, the snowy plain dropping gently by about a hundred feet over its length before falling sharply away down the mountainside. The helicopter, a large Sikorsky S-76 painted in high-visibility red to stand out in Arctic conditions, sat motionless two hundred yards away, below their position. A man stood near it, apparently on guard, but he was looking away from them toward the only other feature nearby.

A gaping hole.

It was a ragged oval dropping into the heart of the mountain, more than a hundred feet across at its widest. Steam rose from the opening, condensing as it hit
the colder air above before being whisked away by the endless wind. “There’s something warm down there,” said Nina, seeing no snow around its edge.

Kagan nodded. “The eitr comes from somewhere deep inside the earth. The other pit was hot also.”

“Looks like Lock and Hoyt are already inside,” said Eddie. At one side of the pit, a metal trestle had been set up to hold several ropes descending into the abyss. “How many of them are there?” Nina asked. “Chopper that size could carry a dozen people, easy. Great, another fucking private army.”

“So what are we going to do?” said Berkeley.

“No matter what, we cannot let them leave with the eitr,” insisted Kagan. “We must take out that helicopter. Then we will go into the pit and use Thor’s Hammer.”

“If it works,” said Eddie. He observed the scene below thoughtfully. The man was still watching the pit, apparently waiting for those inside to return to the surface. “They don’t know we’re here.”

“You sure?” said Nina.

“If they did, Hoyt wouldn’t have only left one bloke up here. He’s nasty, but he’s not stupid. That guy’s just keeping an eye on the ropes.”

“What are you thinking?” Kagan asked.

“That we can sneak right up to the chopper without being seen. We’ll use those rocks for cover.” He gestured at several stones poking up from the snow between the group’s position and the helicopter. “If he stays focused on the hole, we can get within fifty feet of him before he even realizes we’re there.”

“And if he looks around before then?” said Berkeley.

Eddie took out the Wildey. “Then I find out how accurate this is at long range! But I reckon we can do it.”

“So do I,” said Kagan, nodding. He spoke to his men in Russian, then turned back to Eddie. “They will keep us covered on the way to the helicopter.”

“Make sure they don’t shoot that thing on your back, eh?” The Englishman cautiously rose. “Nina, wait here
until it’s safe. Keep an eye on him.” He jerked a thumb at Berkeley.

“I don’t need to be baby-sat,” Berkeley complained. His sour expression became more concerned as Nina unslung her AK-12. “Nina, are you sure you know how to use that thing?”

“Ask the wolves,” she replied. Then she reached out and squeezed Eddie’s hand. “Good luck.”

“See you soon,” he said, smiling. “Okay, Kagan, let’s go. There’s trouble down’t pit!” He grinned, adding: “I always wanted an excuse to say that.” Everyone looked at him. “It’s a Yorkshire thing … oh, never bloody mind. Come on.”

He climbed onto the plateau, keeping low as he headed for the first rock. Kagan followed. The Russian soldiers spread out along the rocky edge to cover them.

“So,” said Kagan, eyeing the Wildey, “the big gun. Does it impress the women?” He smirked.

Eddie made an irritated noise. “Everyone’s a fucking comedian. I use a big gun because when I shoot someone with it, they fall down and don’t get back up, okay? Well, usually they don’t.” They reached the rock and hunched behind it. The lone guard was still watching the pit; now that Eddie was closer, he could tell from the man’s body language that he was both cold and bored. Presumably Lock and company were not rushing their descent into the depths of the earth. “Okay, his gun’s over his shoulder, so he’s definitely not expecting trouble. What’s that in his left hand?”

Kagan narrowed his eyes. “A radio, perhaps? I cannot see it properly.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for Lock to tell him they’ve got the eitr, so he can help pull ’em out.”