Freyja twitched the reigns of her chariot and her lynxes landed smoothly in a field on the Galo Peninsula south of Stockholm. She glanced at her mortal friend Marja as they both hopped out of the chariot.

“You look nervous.”

“That’s because I am nervous. The last time I saw Odin he said he’d kill me. This from a God that could kill me by accidently coughing on me.” Marja scratched the two oversized lynxes behind the ears when they started to butt their heads against her.

“Relax.” Freyja reassured Marja as she looked up at her Valkyrie patrolling the sky. “You’re with Freaking Freyja and this is my country.”

Sweden was very much Freyja’s country and so were all the Scandinavian countries. The ‘Freaking Freyja’ nickname had started when her little man (as she liked to call Olsson) had begun to refer to her in that way.

There were a number of reasons why she had become so popular. She was a nature Goddess and environmental issues were important to most of the Scandinavian people. She was a Goddess of love and sex before she was a Goddess of war and the Norse countries of 2026 had no interest in conquest, only in self defense. Marja believed the biggest reason for Freyja’s popularity was she was a lot of fun in her own crazy way. It was hard not to like her.

“Is India still behaving itself?”

“Yup, they don’t want another visit from you.”

Freyja grinned. “Too bad that was a good time. Next time I’ll bring along some of my Valkyries so they can get a workout.” Freyja’s good time had been trashing India’s Parliament House when the government of India had been dragging their feet on lowering their emissions for their coal powered generating plants. It was Marja’s job to decide how to steadily improve the environment but if governments didn’t want to cooperate they would get a visit from Freaking Freyja.

“Here they come.” Marja squeaked when Thor and Odin materialized above them with a boom. Thor landed first in a chariot pulled by his goats Gnasher and Grinder. The usually half-rabid goats looked as nervous as Marja when they saw Freyja’s hissing lynxes and the much more dangerous Freyja. Things had not gone well for them last time they encountered the Goddess.

Thor was annoyed by their timidity and pushed them roughly aside as he approached Freyja. “Father’s in a mood.” He warned her as they both watched Odin’s horse land on its eight legs.

She nodded her thanks for the warning but it was no less than what she expected. Odin slid to the ground from Sleipnir’s back and approached the other two Gods. You would think Odin was the God of Thunder and not his son Thor based on Odin’s stormy expression.

Freyja gave both Odin and Thor appraising looks. The father and son were usually such a cohesive unit that it was obvious to her how much damage Odin had done to the relationship with his son because of his monotheistic ambitions. It was also obvious that Loki had been doing everything he could to widen the gap.

“Where’s Loki?”

Odin looked pleased to find something different to be angry about. “I don’t know. He told me he was busy trying to bribe some generals in the German army but he was probably lying. He has been disappearing a lot lately and it is getting on my nerves.”

“So what else is new?” Freyja responded with a shrug. “Do we have a deal?”

“Why should I make a deal with you? Sweden stabbed me in the back. My people! My own people!” He thumped himself angrily in the chest.

“They didn’t betray you.” Freyja paused as if she was enjoying the moment. “They rejected you.”

Odin’s face turned purple with anger but he didn’t disagree with her. He looked at where Marja was standing beside Freyja. “Mortal, tell me true. Tell me why my people have turned their back on me?”

Marja looked up at the mightiest Norse God of all and wanted nothing more than to be on the other side of the world but something in his expression compelled her to answer. Odin was a murderous powerhouse but she heard the plea in his voice. He was upset, he was genuinely hurt.

“We know you unleashed the trolls on the Scandinavian countries. They killed thousands of people. Why would we choose a God who did that?”

“I needed to harden my people for the battles to come. You have become fat and soft over the centuries.”

“Harden us up for what?”

“To rule. To be strong.” Odin hooked his thumbs in his belt and gave Marja the rare gift of his full attention. “I am Odin and this I know. You are either predator or you are prey. You may think me cruel but I do what a God must do. Only the strong survive and my people are strong because I am strong.”

“Let me tell you something that this weak little woman knows.” Freyja was amused when Marja stepped toward Odin but she also gave Odin a warning look. “I’m weak but I deserve to live.”

Odin’s eye started to smolder as he glared back the bold mortal. “No one deserves to live. You earn the right to live by being strong.”

“That’s easy to say when you’re the one doing all the killing. You think mercy is a weakness but look at you now! Crying like a baby because your people don’t want a God that kills them. You’re a hypocrite!”

Smoke started to drift out of Odin’s empty eye socket and Freyja stepped protectively in front of Marja but she was on a roll and still had more to say.

“I’ll tell you something else. Over there waiting in that battlefield is a biker called Sedrick who’s willing to fight you with all of his rough, tough biker friends. He’s one of the so-called ‘strongest’ guys I know but he rejects you because when you keep shouting ‘only the strong survive!’ all he hears is ‘the weak deserve to die.’ He’s got a son with Down’s Syndrome, does that mean his son has to die to fit into your new world?”

Odin was ready to give her an angry, self-assured reply but his eye fell on Thor and he seemed to wilt. “His son? No, that doesn’t mean … ” His voice trailed off and he became lost inside himself.

Thor gave his father a measuring look before speaking directly to Freyja. “The mortals beat the troops we left behind and have earned their right to determine their own fate on the field of battle.”

“So we have a deal?”

“Loki tells me that the Swedes have 10,000 warriors. Is that right Freyja?”

Freyja bobbed her head from side to side as she considered the figure. “Close enough.”

Odin roused himself and rejoined the negotiations. “Then since we agreed to a 20 to 1 ratio they will meet 500 of my troops in the field of battle tomorrow. This will be a waste of time Freyja.” He cautioned her. “These mortals may be brave but they don’t stand a chance.”

Freyja glanced at Marja and they both smiled enigmatically. “We’ll find out tomorrow. By the way Odin, Oliver says hello.”

“Oliver!” Odin’s beard bristled and it looked like he was chewing on rancid meat. “That little turd!”

“Oliver! Are you with us here?”

Oliver lowered his binoculars from watching the far away Gods bargain for the future of the Norse countries. He and the Swedish military leaders were in the office building for one of the camping sites on the Galo Nature reserve. “Sorry what did you ask me?”

“What if Odin or Thor decide to join in on the battle and attack us Oliver? What if they break the deal?”

“Freyja told us not to worry about it.” Oliver reassured general Wallander. “This is a deal between Gods. There will be severe consequences if any God from either side takes part. It could trigger another Ragnarok and nobody wants that.”

“I was talking to her just last night.” Colonel Olsson said as he turned away from the same window Oliver had been using to look outside. He had been watching his armoured forces deploying and didn’t look very happy.

Oliver and Wallander glanced at each other. They could tell by how Olsson was painfully limping that more than talking was going on last night but they wisely said nothing.

“There’s been a power shift among the Gods in the two months since they’ve shown up. Power has shifted away from Odin and toward Freyja. In the Scandinavian countries Freyja is actually stronger than Odin now. In Sweden Freyja could kick Odin’s ass and she would like to.”

“Thanks Olsson that gives me hope. I had a nightmare last night of Odin tearing our men to pieces.” Wallander had deep bags under his eyes from the stress of trying to coordinate all the disparate forces he would be commanding tomorrow. He had a proper staff and communications now but the heavy responsibility was aging him. He looked up from a page of notes he made before the meeting. “Sedrick where are you?”

“Back here.” The biker raised his hand from where he was leaning against a wall and drinking coffee.

“Oh good, thought I lost you. We’re facing a lot of Berserkers tomorrow and they’ll be Asgard’s best. They’ll be a lot tougher than Stannis and his gang of goofs so be ready for that.” He pointed at the odd looking crossbow the president of Thor’s Disciples MC was carrying. “Is that one of the new crossbows? I haven’t even seen one yet.”

“It is.” Sedrick stepped forward and laid it on the table so the soldiers could get a good look at it and satisfy their professional curiosity. “500 feet per second and 420 foot pounds of kinetic energy. They’re slow to reload but they’ll penetrate even the toughest Berserker hide with the right arrow. Production has outdone themselves. I’ve got two crossbows for every biker.”

“You’ve tested them out?”

“Better than that. Stannis and his immortal morons keep trying to kill us every day so we’ve been using the crossbows to kill ‘em off. Stannis caught us napping the first time but now we use him and his boyfriends for target practice.”

“Good to know that even a shitheel like Stannis has a purpose in the grand design. Are you all right working with Olsson and his armoured group?” Wallander looked back and forth between the biker and his irascible colonel.

“No, he hurts my feelings. He always swears at me.”

“Fuck you and the two wheeled piece of crap you ride on Sedrick.”

“Fuck you right back you male prostitute.”

“Good to know you’re on the same page then.” Wallander rubbed his hand briskly on the back of his close cropped head and addressed all of the senior officers around the table. “A lot of tomorrow’s battle will depend on timing so keep your ears open for your radios. These damned Einherjar are so fast we won’t get any second chances. Frankly they scare the hell out of me and we’ll be facing 500 of their best.”

“But not under the command of Odin.” Oliver held up a finger as he made his point, making him look like the professor of archeology he was. “I’m sure the Einherjar commander will be good but nobody is as good as Odin. A lot of the sneaky crap we’re going to pull tomorrow I would never dare to attempt with Odin commanding.”

Wallander folded his arms and looked out the window to watch the sun lowering on the field of battle where the fate of his country would be decided tomorrow. “Sneaky works for me.”

“Remember that little turd is sneaky.” Odin warned Konrad. “Expect traps, expect surprises. Be ready to change your plans.”

Konrad sucked on his teeth as he watched his enthusiastic troops deploy on the peninsula. The Vikings were eager to avenge the first loss that Valhalla’s warriors had suffered on Midgard, even if it had been a treacherous ambush. “This isn’t exactly my first battle All Father but don’t worry, it will be the mortal’s last one.”

Konrad had a well balanced force of 500 immortal warriors from Asgard. 50 of Odin’s lethal Valkyrie patrolled the skies for air cover. 100 fast and specially trained Berserkers were tasked for anti armour duty and 350 of his heavily armoured Einherjar were the sledge hammer he would use to crush the 10,000 mortal troops.

These humans had done well with the element of surprise against mostly raw recruits. Tomorrow the elite of Valhalla would drink from their skulls.

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Sigurd was a millennial warrior. He had been born on the year 1000 AD and his family considered the date to be a good omen. All the Christians had been squawking about the second coming arriving one thousand years after the birth of their feeble Christ and Sigurd’s family had joked he must be the new messiah.

Sigurd as a young Viking proved himself to be not much of a messiah but his skills as a warrior were almost divine. His father was the jarl of his village and when he died in a battle with West Saxon troops there was no debate when Sigurd became the new jarl at the age of nineteen. Not because he was the best warrior but because of his tactical skills.

Raids were often a chaotic mess and Sigurd had the ability to know when and where to attack, how to spot a trap, and when to run for the boats. Sigurd’s raids were not only financially successful, most of his warriors made it home. None of the Vikings were afraid to die but they would rather live to boast of their victories than be a dead hero. Valhalla could wait.

He became a victim of his own success when the King of Wessex made it a priority to kill the young jarl who was becoming a legend at the expense of his kingdom. Sigurd died in a heavily outnumbered rearguard battle so the rest of his men could make it to the boats. The Valkyries plucked him from the battlefield and he was resurrected in Valhalla the next day.

The life of an Einherjar was battle and feasting. If they weren’t battling Odin’s foes, they would fight and kill each other. The victors would feast at night. The losers would be resurrected the next day. Sigurd usually feasted in Valhalla.

Sigurd had been enjoying himself during his time in modern Stockholm and like the rest of the Vikings had been caught by surprise when the Swedish army had dared to ambush the resident Einherjar, Odin’s immortal warriors. All of the ten young Einherjar he had been training had already been killed but he considered that an improvement in his situation. The new Einherjar were pathetic in his opinion. These modern men weren’t just weak of body. They were weak of mind.

He and the nine other senior and ancient Vikings had mounted a deadly counterattack after all their trainees had died but they paid the price for it, leaving Sigurd the only survivor. He had managed to barely escape by leaping into a second story window. Hundreds of Swedish soldiers had chased after him but Sigurd could run as fast as a racehorse and left them far behind.

After shaking the pursuit, he now planned on conducting hit and run attacks. It was time to show these modern Swedish soldiers what a single Einherjar from the golden age could do. He stepped out from his hiding place inside an alley when 12 soldiers walked past his position.

The single Einherjar ran through the middle of the group of Swedes at 30 mph despite the 200 lbs of weapons and armour he carried. He knocked down four of them with his shield while the sword in his right hand moved in a continuous blur of motion, cutting into hamstrings, necks and arms.

Sigurd was faster, stronger and more durable than a normal human but the mortals didn’t understand that this was not his biggest advantage. He had spent 1,000 years in constant battles with the best warriors in history. His skill in battle was unapproachable.

He was pleased with these warriors he ambushed. They weren’t staring at him like rabbits waiting for the stew pot. While he turned around for another running attack, the survivors faced him with waiting spears.

Sigurd adapted to their movements and automatically ran through the left side of the group behind his thick oaken shield. He wasn’t able to cut down anyone with his right handed sword but at this speed getting hit with his 80 lb shield was similar to being hit by a galloping horse.

His momentum had come to a stop from the collisions and he moved in on the survivors. The soldiers with axes and swords were smart and tried to encircle him but many of them had already been wounded and he was too fast. He kept his enormous shield safely angled in front of him while his sword kept snaking out.

In battles around the world since Odin had arrived a month ago Sigurd had rarely needed to defend himself because there was little effective opposition. These Swedes were veterans and had good weapons. They tested his abilities but luckily his ambush had whittled down their numbers already so he was able to steadily wound and kill them off while dancing away from their superior numbers.

The street was empty of active combatants now but he could hear unseen men yelling out his location and more soldiers were obviously on the way. He considered killing off the wounded but decided it would be more prudent to run before he got swarmed. There were some minor scratches on his legs and arms but also a couple of more serious wounds that were bleeding steadily.

Sigurd gave the few wounded survivors a look of approval. “Good fight. You did well.” They watched the ancient Viking warrior shake the blood off his sword and replace it in his scabbard. He slung his shield on his back before jumping onto a low rooftop and pulling himself on top.

Those damned archers had killed or wounded many of Sigurd’s men and he decided to make them pay for it. They were often on rooftops and that’s where he was looking for them. He spotted a four story building and remembered seeing arrows coming from that location. He grinned with anticipation as he ran across rooftops as long as he could. Eventually he dropped down to the ground again and ran into the building.

He ignored the screaming civilians as he raced up the stairs. Some of them were too stupid to get out of his way and he simply ran them over.

The archers stared at him like herd of dim witted cattle as the battle-crazed Viking exploded onto the rooftop. They need a few seconds to comprehend they were no longer sniping at the enemy from a secure perch but were now in the thick of the battle. Sigurd was determined not to give them any time.

He ignored his own defense and used both arms for killing the almost defenseless archers. The rim of his shield crushed skulls while his sword chopped into a forest of bodies. Sigurd herded them toward the roof edge and started to use his shield to push some of the soldiers onto the street four stories below.

Arrows started to hit him from behind and he growled with anger. Most of them didn’t do much harm thanks to his armour and tough skin but one penetrated his lower back and another stuck deeply into his arm.

Sigurd dropped and rolled in a blur. In the middle of his roll, he spotted the archers firing at him. He came out of the roll with his shield facing forward and running straight for the doomed soldiers. They were far enough away that he could build up a head of speed and he crashed into them at his top speed before going to work with his sword.

Before he could finish them off, more arrows started to hit him from behind and he almost lost his sword when one deeply penetrated his shoulder. He whirled around and saw a large group of capable looking spearmen had entered the rooftop and the few surviving archers had assembled behind their spear wall. Numerous arrows thudded into his shield and rang off his helmet.

He was proud of his Norse countrymen. He had turned the rooftop into an abattoir and they still fought bravely and well. Most of the modern humans would have run for their lives by now.

An arrow sank into his calf and he realized today’s long battle was almost done for him. He assessed the group in front of him and found them to be dangerously competent. If he charged them, they would probably finish him off before he could inflict any more casualties. He was near the roof edge and could see more soldiers pouring into the building from the street below.

The soldiers on the street heard a strangely accented voice yell “Valhalla!” and looked up to see Sigurd drop four stories to fall on top of them with his shield underneath him.

Sigurd threw his ruined shield away and winced from the pain of his broken left arm. Even his tough Einherjar body had its limits. The impact had been mitigated by his shield and the crowd of packed bodies he had landed on. He was battered but still capable of fighting and more than willing.

He poured his fading but still impressive strength into a sweeping arc with his sword that killed a couple of soldiers and drove the rest back. He managed to kill and wound a few more before they piled onto him from behind and bore him down with the force of numbers. The Viking was slippery with blood from his dozens of wounds and was difficult to hang onto.

His sword was pulled out of his hand but he managed to free his arm long enough to rip a long knife out of his belt. Sigurd died hard and nasty as he roared with battle lust and stabbed at a wall of enemies in a mad frenzy.

A strong soldier was finally able to snare and hold onto his arm while another chopped at his wrist with a battle axe until the hand was severed. The exhausted soldiers let go of him and warily backed away as blood jetted from his stump.

Sigurd calmly found the major arteries and veins in his stump and pinched them off so he wouldn’t bleed out too quickly. He had many other fatal wounds and he wouldn’t last much longer. This was old hat to him. He had already died thousands of times only to resurrect the next day.

“Good battle.” He told the soldiers watching him die. Sigurd stared at the one who had cut off his hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Olsson looked at the corpse of the ancient Viking with dread. This one Einherjar had killed or wounded almost one hundred of their best soldiers.

“Jesus Christ! What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Oliver had left for home when the hunt for Sigurd had begun. His wife Janet had been missing for a day and he wanted to check for her at the small apartment that was their new home.

When he was unlocking the entrance noise from inside told him she had finally returned and he looked down the hallway. The door to their bedroom was open but he couldn’t see Janet properly because of the naked man on top of her vigorously pumping away between her legs.

“No!” Oliver shouted and rushed into the bedroom. He immediately jumped to the conclusion that Loki had taken his form again and returned to sexually assault his wife. Instead, the face of the man that turned to look at him belonged to someone he recognized as a civilian employee in the Swedish army.

The man looked embarrassed and frightened as he scrambled off Janet and fled with his clothes in his hands. A naked Janet stood up from the bed and looked defiantly at her husband.

“Did you like watching Oliver? This is what you left me to suffer through when you ran away like a coward and left me with Loki. Where were you? Did you even try to help me?” She started to pick up her clothing from where she had thrown it on the floor. “I hate your fucking guts. Every time you leave for a battle I hope you’ll die.”

Oliver said nothing as he backed away from her and leaned unsteadily against a wall. He tried to stay upright as the floor tilted underneath him. There was too much truth in what she said and he couldn’t think of anything to say in his defense.

He watched her get dressed and leave. Before she slammed the door shut behind her, Janet gave him a final look that left him in no doubt that she wanted him to die after she had finished making him suffer.

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“Wrong gear.”

“I know! I know it’s the wrong gear.”

“You said you could drive this truck.”

“I can but the shift pattern is different from my truck. My brain is hardwired for my truck and I keep hitting the wrong gear.”

“Well, pay attention then.”

“Well, shut the fuck up then.” Sedrick grumbled to his sergeant at arms as he pulled the truck over to the side of the road. Another biker trotted up to him as he lowered the window.

“They’re still passed out Sedrick. They usually don’t wake up until noon and they’re all in the central hall.”

“Okay, thanks. Let’s see if we can pull this off without waking up our sleeping beauties.”

Sedrick had better luck driving the large asphalt paver off the truck and toward the Thor’s Disciples former clubhouse. He was sad about the damage he was about to inflict on his former home away from home but looking forward to what was going to happen to Stannis and his fellow Berserkers. Stannis’ group didn’t have a formal name yet but Sedrick and his fellow bikers called the ‘The Immortal Morons.’

He nodded at the two bikers waiting at the front door as he extended a ramp from the machine toward them. The bikers opened the door and secured a two foot high metal plate at the bottom of the doorway before they guided the ramp into the opening.

Hot asphalt started to pour down the ramp while the rest of the heavily armed bikers formed a cordon around the front door. All of the other exits had already been quietly and thoroughly sealed shut.

As it turned out the waiting bikers had nothing to do but watch as the Berserkers passed out on the floor started to scream as they were covered in 200 F asphalt. Stannis had passed out on a couch and unwisely rolled off his safe perch and into the asphalt when the noise woke him up.

He saw a grinning Sedrick and his bikers at the doorway and started screaming at them as he unsuccessfully tried to escape the liquid asphalt that was already starting to harden.

“Kill us! Kill us! We’re being boiled alive but we can’t die! Kill us you motherfuckers!”

“Do you hear anything Sedrick?” The motorcycle club’s sergeant of arms asked him.

“Yeah, Sedrick is saying something but I can’t understand a word. I never did learn how to speak stupid.”

The initial stages of the Swedish army’s ambush of the resident Einherjar in Stockholm went better than Wallander had hoped for. Odin and Thor had brought the cream of the Einherjar with them on their attack on Berlin, leaving behind the recent recruits with some senior officers to supervise them.

There were roughly 100 Einherjar left for them to deal with and they drew them out of the hotels where they were staying when a large group of Swedish soldiers opened fire with their new arrows on Einherjar lounging around outside the hotel. They called them needle arrows and while they didn’t inflict much damage, they were sharp and narrow enough to penetrate even thick, hard immortal skin.

These were newly minted Einherjar created from modern men since the Norse Gods had started to attack a little over a month ago. They were dangerous but green and still adjusting to their new lives and abilities. Arrogance is usually joined at the hip to inexperience and they blindly charged across the street to attack the archers that had dared to fire on them.

General Wallender and Oliver watched in stunned disbelief as their plan worked to perfection. Fighting the trolls had disabled half of the Swedish army’s armoured vehicles but there was still more than enough operational for their brutishly simple plan. The Swedish armoured resources had been transported and carefully hidden in a parking garage down the street and the sound of their idling engines had been concealed by loud construction noise from a nearby and unnecessary roadwork crew.

The speedy Infantry Fighting Vehicles led the way and hit the street with their engines screaming as soon as the first Einherjar started to run toward the archers. Their ramming effectiveness had been increased by dozer blades that had been hastily welded to their front hulls. The first wave of IFVs kept up their speed and kept going to disappear down the road and leave behind the crushed bodies of the initial Einherjar attack.

After the IFVs had left Einherjar started to attack across the street again and obviously hadn’t considered there might be additional armoured vehicles waiting for them. More IFVs and tanks came pouring out of the parking garage and chased them down the street, up on the sidewalks and even crashed into the front lobby of the hotel to hunt them down. Archers from the rooftops poured down arrows from above. Anybody the arrows wounded or distracted was soon crushed by a speeding mass of steel on treads.

“It worked Ollie! It worked like a video game on easy level. I thought these Einherjar were supposed to be tough.” Wallander and Oliver watched Swedish army spearmen and melee fighter rush out to finish off wounded Einherjar after the last armoured vehicle had finally raced past. They had counted 100 Einherjar before the attack and it looked like 90 of them were already dead or soon to be dead.

“Holy shit!” Oliver shouted as he watched the street below. “Tell them to fall back and regroup. Forget about finishing off the wounded.”

Ten ancient, experienced Einherjar had stayed behind to supervise the training of the 90 green recruits. They were as different from their inexperienced charges as a domestic cat was different from a Bengal Tiger. When their troops had started to charge across the street they decided to go ahead and let them. They found pain and death were excellent training tools for new Einherjar, maybe next time the fools would learn to think before acting. None of the ancient Vikings had much use for these modern men with their weak minds and bodies but at least they could be useful for baiting a trap.

After 500 Swedish soldiers moved into the street to finish off the wounded, ten Einherjar that had been alive for over 1,000 years slammed into them. They were outnumbered 50 to1 but it didn’t even occur to them they might lose. They didn’t care anyway because they loved to fight and they fought very well.

They had time to discuss tactics while they watched their idiotic subordinates getting crushed under treads and they initially split up and attacked individually straight across the street. Each Viking ran across the street with the speed of a racehorse and close to the same mass because of their dense bodies and the 200 lbs of armour and weapons they carried.

It was the turn of the Swedish soldiers to be run over as each Einherjar cut a swath through the packed soldiers, splitting apart their formations and breaking them into uncoordinated clusters. Dozens of the Swedes were already dead or dying after being cut down by flashing weapons they could barely see or rammed by the massive shields the Vikings carried.

The Einherjar made it across the street and regrouped into a semicircle of ten with their backs secured against the wall of a building. They hunched behind their shields as they were pelted with arrows from the rooftops on the other side of the street.

Their leader Sigurd assessed their opponents on the ground and looked up at the rooftop archers firing at him and his men. These new arrows were a pain in the ass. They were coming down like rain and all of his men were already bleeding from multiple small wounds.

“We’ll crush the ones on the street and then we’ll get on the rooftops and wipe out those damn archers. Again!”

The Einherjar had killed mortal soldiers in many different countries across the world and they were pleasantly surprised to find these modern Swedish soldiers had recovered enough from the surprise attack to put up a good fight as they charged across the street again. Maybe there were some modern Vikings after all. Only eight Einherjar made it across the street and half of the survivors were badly wounded.

“We are in a fight!” Sigurd roared. “Let’s send them all to Valhalla!” His men excitedly shouted their approval. Finally, they fought warriors with some steel in their spines.

There was no question of a third charge as hundred of Swedish soldiers pressed in on the semicircle of eight immortal warriors. The two charges across the street had killed over 100 of the Swedes but Wallander had wisely insisted on using every experienced fighter in the Swedish army to participate in this attack. They still heavily outnumbered their dangerous opponents.

There was little General Wallander could do but watch the battle nervously from his rooftop with Oliver. It was up to his officers on the street to decide when to rotate men to keep fresh troops pressing against the half ring of Einherjar. Periodically they would fall back to withdraw their dead or wounded and allow the archers to hose arrows at the Vikings.

He felt sick as he estimated the casualties his troops had suffered. These ten Einherjar had already killed more than twice the number of soldiers that had died when a herd of 30,000 trolls had attacked Stockholm a week ago.

Major Olsson was busy on the street clearing a lane through the troops surrounding the Einherjar for a tank to approach and hopefully crush them against a wall. Three of the Vikings were down and now there were only five shields being held upright against the Swedish army but those five were still reaping a heavy toll of the attacking Swedes.

As the tank steadily approached, the Swedish soldiers were caught by surprise again when their opponents attacked through the cordon and straight toward the tank. Three of them made it to leap on top of the tank and the crew inside was startled by loud, ringing sounds of hinges being cut in half by an axe before the top hatch was torn off.

Sigurd entered the tank and killed the crew while his two comrades held off the ring of Swedish soldiers trying to kill them. He came back out of the hatch to find himself alone and regretted succumbing to the temptation of killing the tank crew. He would have preferred to die with his friends.

A blizzard of arrows from both sides of the street were already on their way as he leaped off the top of the tank turret 40 feet across the street and through a second story window. He laughed as he landed with a bone shaking thump and stood up absently brushing shards of glass from his beard. He had bloody wounds from over a dozen arrows and spears but they were already closing off and starting to heal.

This fight wasn’t over yet.

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War for Midgard Chapter 13

Loki was happy and that’s never a good thing. Today he’d decided to change his appearance to look like a 7’ 6” Marilyn Manson as he walked along the paths of Hagaparken in Stockholm. Since the gods had been released from Asgard a month ago, Loki had been catching up on a thousand years of art, music and technology. His Escher-like labyrinth mind was buzzing with plots, intrigues and possibilities.

The God of Chaos thrived in a chaotic world and Loki was humming with so much power that he was literally walking on air.

“Hey Marilyn Manson!” A startled young woman said as he walked toward her.

Fortunately was in Hagaparken at the time and painted this picture of Loki as Marilyn Manson. Thank you Ira for your astute powers of observation.

His eyes swiveled toward the woman. His head didn’t move. “Do you like Marilyn Manson?”

“I love Marilyn Manson.”

“Well, I don’t.” He swiped the edge of his hand through her neck and watched her head sail into the bushes surrounding the trail in the park. He actually did like Marilyn Manson but he felt like killing someone. Idiotic mortal, speaking to him as if she was his equal.

“Thank you so much for showing up, Loki.” Odin snapped as Loki entered the Haga Palace Ruins. Thor was beside Odin and trying to trim the overgrown hooves on his savage goats who were fighting him every inch of the way.

“I am so sorry All-Father. I am tardy only because I was so busy performing the slavish tasks you have assigned me.”

“Slavish? When I think of slaves, I think of shackles, whips and blind obedience. You’re giving me some good ideas Loki.”

Loki knew from painful experience how dangerous it was to goad Odin but he was also a God of Mischief and couldn’t help himself. “You have a good idea? It’s encouraging to see that even someone as old as you can have a new experience.”

Thor gave up on trying to trim Grinder’s hooves and laughed loudly. “Good one Loki. It’s time to try something new. Ha, ha, ha.”

Odin made a sound that resembled tectonic plates grinding together but his thick white moustache and beard concealed the suggestion of a smile.

“Let’s get down to business before you slay me with your sarcasm, you little snake. How many soldiers have you recruited in Germany?”

I wouldn’t call them soldiers but there are 100,000 that want to fight for Asgard. You can’t count on them in battle but they should suffice as occupation troops. Destroy the bulk of the German army and Germany will be ours.”

Odin shook his head in amazement. “So many will betray their own country because of the nonsense you put on their internet.”

Loki smirked. “Breaking a mind is easy. I’ll leave breaking the bodies to you and Thor.”

“A dozen bikers coming up the road Sedrick. I don’t like the looks of them.”

Sedrick immediately followed his sergeant of arms outside to take a look. If his shrewd friend didn’t like the look of them that probably meant trouble.

The fences and gates for his ‘Thor’s Disciples’ clubhouse had been strengthened to resist troll attacks and they had brought in some trailers so more of the growing number of bikers could sleep there on and off. They had been resting up and healing after the big fight in Stockholm and the cleaning up of stray groups of trolls afterward.

He looked at the approaching bikers through a pair of binoculars and expressed his feelings with a long string of run on profanity. He was worried something like this might happen but he wasn’t prepared for it yet.

“It’s Stannis and his fuckwit Berserkers!” He shouted to his sergeant at arms. “Get twenty guys up to the gate with the new weapons and tell everyone else to get on their bikes and be ready to run out the back entrance.”

Stannis stopped his bike outside the front gate and carelessly let it fall to the ground. His fellow Berserkers also dismounted and started to pull out weapons.

“This is our new home boys!” He yelled to his followers. “Looks like we’ll have to evict some squatters first.”

Sedrick looked down at him from his perch on the fence. “I’m glad you’re an immortal Berserker now Stannis.”

“Because I fight for the glory of Odin?”

“No, because I get to kill you over and over again. It’s like a dream come true.”

Stannis growled like a rabid dog and picked up his 1,000 lb. Harley Davidson to sling it at the gate. He had been strong when he was a mortal but now that he was a Berserker in Odin’s Einherjar he was five times stronger. His speed and durability were also dramatically enhanced but he was still as stupid as ever.

Sedrick almost fell off the fence when the bike hit the gate. The gate held but it buckled inward and was heavily damaged.

He dropped back down to the ground as his sergeant of arms and another twenty bikers ran up with the pneumatic guns they had been working on. They had cranked up the pressure to dangerous levels on some PCP air guns and modified the ammunition to make it more lethal. They were useful for killing trolls at close range but were ineffective against the hard skins of the Berserkers.

“The bikes!” Sedrick shouted. “Disable their bikes so they can’t follow us.” The bikers immediately started to shoot at the fuel lines and tires on the Berserker’s bikes.

The sergeant at arms handed Sedrick a weapon as well and they both tried to keep the Berserkers away from the gate by shooting at their eyes and mouths from close range.

Another bike was thrown at the gate and it folded in half before slowly crashing to the ground. “Run!” Sedrick screamed and threw the pneumatic gun to the ground before following his own advice. These were not trolls, even though the Berserkers were outnumbered 10 to 1 they could easily massacre the bikers without taking many casualties.

The Berserkers swarmed over the fallen gate and pounced on their victims with inescapable speed. A dozen bikers were immediately killed and fortunately for the bikers still running away they wasted time by savagely dismembering their victims.

Sedrick and the survivors made it to their bikes with Berserkers close on their heels. Bikers already mounted on their Harley Davidsons paused to fire a single volley of archer fire into the Berserkers that was much more effective than the pneumatic guns. Some Berserkers still managed to leap impossible distances and tear bikers off their mounts before they could escape.

Sedrick kicked his own bike to life and gunned his throttle to escape an enemy that could run as fast as horse. He shot through the back gate and resisted the urge to look back at his fellow bikers who weren’t as fortunate as him. They were lucky so many had been able to escape but a few minutes of combat with Stannis and his Berserkers had killed more of the bikers than a month of combat with herds of trolls.

Oliver was fascinated with the Einherjar. Norse mythology and archaeology were his field of study and it was a dream come true to interview people who had lived through the age of the Viking.

He found most of the Einherjar quite friendly and happy to talk to him, especially if he showed up with a flask of mead. Sometimes it was hard to remember these quick-to-laugh and chatty immortals had been busy killing over a hundred thousand mortal soldiers for the past month.

“Ho, ho. Look who’s here. The mortal who pulled a knife on that weasel Loki and it cost his hand. A drink for our good friend Olsson.”

Olsson smiled as he entered the bar and the Einherjar good naturedly cheered him and raised their tankards. “Someday I’ll return the favour to him.” He promised.

All of the Einherjar in the bar laughed at that. “That’s the spirit Olsson. We’ll have to start calling you God Killer! Cut Loki’s dick off as well. He’s always dipping it where it doesn’t belong.”

Olsson grinned and nodded in agreement before lowering his head toward Oliver. “Let’s step outside Ollie.” He whispered into his friend’s ear.

Oliver blinked his eyes as he and Olsson stepped into the bright sunshine. “Don’t get too friendly with them Ollie. Those might be the same men we’ll be trying to kill after Odin attacks Germany.”

“You’re right but honestly, I don’t think they’d take it personally. The like a good fight and they only stay dead until the next sunrise. I’ve gained a lot of valuable intel by hanging out with them.”

Olsson nodded as they walked away from the bar. They had found out that not all Einherjar had been created equally. Recent recruits were tough but they were very killable by seasoned troops working as a unit. On the other hand, some of the senior officers of the ancient Einherjar were extremely dangerous and almost impossible to kill.

“So, Ollie.” Olsson’s voice trailed off as he pretended to be distracted by a large truck driving past. The truth was he dreaded starting this conversation with his friend. “How have things been with Janet since she returned?”

Oliver was surprised at the abrupt change in subject but smiled happily as he thought of being reunited with his young wife. “Great, good, well … awkward. She went through hell on earth being used and deceived by Loki like she was. She’s not her usual self but what can you expect after what she’s been through? It will take time.”

“Yes, yes. I’m sure you’re right.” Olsson felt obligated to tell his friend the truth but he chickened out. He would rather be in another knife fight with Loki than tell Oliver his wife was becoming a huge problem and why. He was afraid the reality would crush the spirit of his sensitive friend who was obviously head over heels in love with his wife.

It had started with Janet’s long unexplained absences and inappropriate behaviour with the Swedish soldiers. These men weren’t exactly choir boys but even they were taken back at how Janet thought nothing of grabbing them by the crotch and demanding they have sex with her. Most refused out of respect for Oliver but some didn’t. Everybody in the Swedish army knew about it except for Oliver.

Olsson had talked about it many times with his superior General Wallander but they were both at a loss. They blamed the trauma of what Janet had endured at the hands of Loki. He had used her like a sex toy after Loki had taken the form of her husband Oliver and then discarded her like garbage.

They had tried to convince her to talk to a psychologist or counselor but she had become increasingly hostile to their suggestions and would often disappear for days without explanation. Olsson was worried she might not come back again someday.

He listened with half an ear to how happy Oliver was now that Janet had returned. It felt like a betrayal not to tell his friend what was happening behind his back but the tough, physically-courageous soldier was an emotional coward. He couldn’t face being the bearer of news that would destroy his friend.

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“I’m sorry. I’ve already told you a dozen times now. I’m sorry.”

“Good for you.”

“Odin grumbled low in his lungs as he glared at his sullen son. If Thor were younger, he’d be tempted to put him over his knee and give him an immortal spanking. He could still do it even now but it would be one hell of a fight.

Thor was still furious with his father for plotting to absorb the Norse pantheon and become a monotheistic God similar to the Christian God. Odin claimed that he never would have ended the existence of his own son but his defense rang hollow.

“Look, I’ve made a gift for you.”

“Great! Is it a big, hollow, wooden horse?”

“Shut up Thor. I poured a lot of my power into this enchantment. Stop acting like a spoiled child.”

Thor snorted then absently wiped away some phlegm from his moustache. “Spoiled? Me?” He scowled even more deeply and then looked suspiciously at his father. “What is it?”

“I’ve added an enchantment to Mjolnir so it will return to your hand after you throw it. Just like in the movies.”

“What?” Thor looked at where Mjolnir hung at his belt in alarm. “Why would I do that? It’s stupid how they show me throwing Mjolnir around in the movies. Only an idiot would throw away his hammer.”

“But now it will return to your hand.”

“Pfffft. I don’t like those stupid movies. The mortal playing me is too small and skinny. He looks like a little boy wearing a cape.”

“He has a beard Thor.”

“This is a beard.” Thor smoothed down the thick, fiery red beard that extended to his belt. “In the movies they make me look like a bearded woman.”

“Then why do you and Loki watch them all the time?”

Thor’s response was petulant shrug.

Odin was distracted by a Chinese soldier running up to him waving a skinny sword over his head. He reached down with his hand and snapped the sword in half.

Thor and Odin were standing on top of a small hill watching Berserkers and Einherjar slaughter a Chinese division. They were also joined by a senior commander in the Einherjar named Konrad who had entered Asgard over a millennia ago in the 800s.

“Do you know who we are?” Odin asked the now weaponless soldier as Thor and Konrad watched with amusement.

“The Devil Gods who seek to invade my homeland. But we will stop you. China has beaten threats like you before.”

Odin grunted in approval and Konrad was also impressed. “You are brave. Tell me warrior what will happen after we destroy all your weapons and kill all your soldiers. How will you stop us then?”

“What China cannot defeat, we will endure. There will still be a China after you are long gone. You cannot rule us. There was a Chinese empire before there were Norse Gods.”

Odin was both annoyed by the man’s defiance but also impressed by his courage and arguments. “You speak well for your people. I am marking you with the eye of Odin so I can always find you. I may need to speak with you again.”

He pointed away from the battlefield. “You’ve earned your life, now go.”

The soldier hesitated as he looked up at the two Norse Gods who had already massacred tens of thousands of his countrymen.

“Go! Before I change my mind.”

Odin nodded to himself as the Chinese man ran away. “I was going to kill him if he didn’t run. I need someone with a little common sense as well as courage.”

Konrad was watching the battlefield with a frown and glanced toward Odin. “Why?”

“Because he’s right. We can’t rule the Chinese. We aren’t their gods but they’re still too powerful a nation. We need to crush their military and make them understand they will always be a vassal nation. Hopefully India will get the message as well.”

“Ymir’s dangling scrotum!” Konrad swore in anger as he watched the battlefield.

Odin turned to look at what Konrad was yelling about and saw the new Berserkers Stannis and his crew getting crushed under the tracks of Chinese tanks.

Konrad sighed and rubbed at his eyes as if it was too painful to watch anymore. “It’s like watching a moth fly into a flame. Those idiots can’t stay alive longer than three minutes. At least they took some Chinese with them this time but I’m pulling them back for more training. They’re making us look bad.”

Odin watched a tank turn the new Berserkers into paste for a moment. “Thor toss Mjolnir over to me and I’ll show you how it works with the new enchantment.”

“No!”

“Damn it! Give me that hammer.” He grabbed Mjolnir off Thor’s belt before he could stop him.

The God of Frenzy whipped the hammer at the tank and smirked with satisfaction as it exploded into pieces. He held up his hand and there was a meaty slap as the handle of Mjolnir flew back into his hand.

“See? It returns like my spear now.”

Thor looked impressed despite himself. “If I just stand around and throw my hammer, I won’t get any exercise. I’ll get fat like you.”

“I’m not fat you little piece of shit! Fine! If you don’t want Mjolnir anymore then all the more fun for me.”

Odin took out another tank but Thor stuck his hand out and snatched it out of the air before it returned to Odin.

“It’s my bloody hammer!” He shouted at his father and threw it at a tank. Before Mjolnir returned to him, he stampeded onto the battlefield straight into the middle of a large group of Chinese soldiers. He laughed as the returning hammer killed a large number of soldiers as it returned to his hand.

“There. That finally put him in a good mood.” Odin said as he watched Thor play with his new toy.

“It’s going to take a lot more than that and you know it.” Konrad replied.

Odin looked annoyed at being contradicted but grunted in agreement. Konrad had known Thor and Odin for 1200 years and he listened to his counsel. The ancient Viking was the most senior Einherjar commander in Asgard and he was as powerful as a demigod because of his many accomplishments. You earned your power when you belonged to Odin.

“How are the troops handling the tanks Konrad?”

“Better, they will always be fairly easy to track but now we see more and more tanks with flamethrowers, big flamethrowers with a long range. Fire weapons are becoming a problem as well as the airplanes.” He looked up at two Chinese J-16s coming in for a bombing run. “They’re using bombs that are designed to break into small pieces on impact and they’re very effective. We don’t have enough Valkyrie to maintain air supremacy.”

Odin pulled his spear Gungnir out of the ground and threw it toward the airplanes to knock them out of the sky. “I’m working on a solution Konrad. The mortals are impressive how quickly they’ve adapted but let’s see how they adjust when I lower the temperature.”

“The sooner the better. A lot of the men are sick and tired of being roasted with fire. It can even kill some of the younger ones.”

Odin grunted nonchalantly. “So, they rise again the next day and learn how to take out the flamethrowers first. We’re not running a nursery here.”

It hadn’t taken long before Stockholm achieved troll free status. The trolls had tried to scatter far and wide after the Swedish army had smashed their ill-advised attack on the city but a mixture of civilian militias and army units had thoroughly wiped out the survivors. There was no serious effort made to capture trolls that would cheerfully eat you if the tables were turned.

Unfortunately, the trolls had been replaced by a much more dangerous, if currently benign, occupation. Members of Odin’s Einherjar simply appeared in the middle of Stockholm and other Scandinavian cities and took up residence wherever they liked. They acted as if they expected a hero’s welcome and their presence in the Scandinavian countries was a reward for overcoming the troll menace.

“They like elevators, don’t they?”

“That and escalators.” Oliver agreed. “Some of them have already tried driving cars and they’re a bloody menace but who’s going to tell them no?”

“We will.” Major (previously lieutenant) Olsson muttered. “We have the plan, don’t we?”

“A very dangerous plan.” General (previously captain) Wallander reminded him. “This is not like killing simple minded trolls. Just one of those old Einherjar could wipe out an entire platoon of our troops.”

“That’s why we wait. We observe and use the time to make better weapons.” Oliver drank some coffee while they watched the Einherjar from a café across the street from one of the hotels where the ancient Einherjar had taken up residence.

“Is this plan 100% solid Olsson? I know you have a lot of influence with Freyja but are you absolutely sure?”

“What do you mean by influence?” Olsson retorted and gave his commander a flat stare that was a warning.

“Just that, just that. I know she listens to you.” Wallander said quickly. He knew Olsson would smash anyone in the mouth who called him Gigolo. It didn’t matter if he was a general as he found out when he pushed his luck with Olsson during a drunken victory party after they defeated the trolls.

“I think Freyja’s support is 100%.” Oliver broke in. “For the simple reason most Scandinavian people love her. Odin might have made sense as a Nordic all-father one thousand years ago when the warrior was king but today most Nordic people would choose Freyja over Odin as their god. Odin doesn’t understand that yet but Freyja does.”

“Exactly.” Olsson agreed. “What we need to worry about are the new weapons. We need to gear up so all our men are properly equipped.”

“Okay, let’s take a look at that.” General Wallander handed out some reports to his friends about the new weapons they hoped would give their troops a fighting chance against the lethal ranks of the Einherjar. The weapons were still mostly spears, arrows and swords but made with the best manufacturing techniques and alloys to give their soldiers a better chance of penetrating the tough skins of the immortal Vikings.

“Yeah what?” Olsson mumbled as one of his men approached the table.

“We found someone we were told to look for.”

“Who’s that?” Olsson asked as he looked at a young woman beside the soldier.

Oliver stood up abruptly as he immediately recognized the young woman that the Swedish army had been searching for the past month. Someone he was ashamed to admit he thought was already dead after Loki had disappeared with her. His wife.

“Janet?” He whispered and she looked back at him as if she didn’t recognize him.

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Captain Wallander yelled ‘Go!’ so loudly into his microphone it created an echo against some of the nearby buildings. Before the echo faded a number of things happened to the 30,000 trolls that were attempting to storm into the city of Stockholm.

The armoured vehicles shepherding them from behind started to push harder and ram into the stragglers of the dangerous herd. Their goal was to increase the pressure on the herd and push them into what was waiting for them in Stockholm.

A thousand archers of the Swedish army loosed a coordinated volley of arrow from the rooftops into the middle of the teeming mass of trolls. Another 1,500 archers from a civilian’s militia added their haphazard and less accurate fire. All the flamethrowers the Swedes had been able to scrape together opened up from the closest rooftops and squeezed the trolls into an even more compact mass.

The helicopters that had been tracking the herd dropped in altitude and airmen started to drop incendiary devices on top of the troll’s heads. A mixture of Molotov cocktails and incendiaries with new chemical triggers set some trolls on fire and panicked others into stampeding and trampling each other.

Grippen jets joined the fight when they dove low to the ground and dropped bombs that didn’t explode but tumbled along the ground to crush large numbers of the ugly beasts.

Oliver and Wallander watched with satisfaction as the trolls were mindlessly funneled toward what they liked to call their killing machine. Most of the trolls were caught in a storm of fire and arrows and their only way out was a large opening in the blockaded streets in front of them. That’s where the killing machine was waiting for them. One thousand of their best spear troops waited patiently in a series of pike walls for their victims. They had a week to train before their victims arrived and they were well rehearsed but a lot of them were still inexperienced in combat.

The capable one-handed lieutenant Olsson was in command of the killing machine and he was walking up and down the street in front of the first pike wall checking the blockades on the alleys and side streets. This was a narrow street that had been blockaded for a kilometer. The plan was to gradually fall back to the troll’s superior numbers while steadily killing them off. There were more archers on the rooftops surrounding the lane.

“Watch it! Watch it Gigolo!”

Olsson flipped up the point of his spear and rammed it into the open mouth of the small, fast troll that was running ahead of the herd. “Yeah, yeah. I heard him coming. Who the fuck called me Gigolo anyway!”

He glared at soldiers in the pike line but no one was brave enough to confess. They knew he hated his nickname Gigolo of the Gods.

“That’s lieutenant Gigolo to you disrespectful fuckers!” Another front runner from the herd of trolls ran up to him waving a club with nails sticking out of it and Olsson casually stuck his spear low into the troll’s guts.

“See how easy they are to kill when you keep your head?” He turned his back on the advancing trolls as if he didn’t care they were running up to him. “Hey you lazy bastards!” He yelled up at the archers on the rooftops. “Pull your arrows out of your ass and start shooting.”

He killed another troll that came close to him before rejoining the spear line. He’d deliberately pulled this dangerous stunt to give his green troops more confidence. He joined one of his sergeants and they both watched the trolls advancing down the street.

“There have been some complaints about your swearing.” His sergeant told him in a low voice.

Olsson looked surprised. “What fucking swearing?”

The killing machine functioned exactly like its name at first. Pikemen would steadily fall back while killing trolls and would eventually retreat through lanes in the next pike line that was fresh and ready. Trouble began when so many panicked trolls were shoving from behind, they started to push piles of bodies in front of them like a snow plow.

Spearman started to get knocked down and buried under the corpses before they could withdraw in good order and they couldn’t reach any live trolls to kill.

“Pull back. Steady, steady, keep your cool.” Olsson shouted at his men. “Let them keep pushing their dead while we walk backwards. They’re tiring themselves out while we’re as fresh as fucking daisies.” He glanced backwards, careful not to let his green troops see how nervous he was. If they retreated all the way down this blockaded street, the large number of trolls would have the room swarm around them.

This was the kind of thing captain Wallander had been worried about and he was already talking into his radio while watching the killing machine through his scope. The mass of trolls needed to be flanked to take the pressure off the killing machine.

“Sedrick, hit them hard!”

Sedrick turned off his radio and tucked into a pocket on his leather vest. He would turn it back on when he wasn’t in the middle of a battle. He truly hated to hear some whiney voice from the radio asking him for an update while a troll was trying to rip his head off.

“Mount up boys. Let’s go kill some trolls.”

He was leading 150 outlaw bikers from the different motorcycle clubs in Stockholm that had proven their worth as fast mobile infantry that specialized in flanking attacks. They owed their success and low casualty rate mostly to Sedrick’s shrewd judgement. In the past three weeks he had quickly learned where to attack but more importantly when to run.

The roar of 150 Harley Davidsons starting up was deafening and they followed Sedrick toward a temporary barrier the army had erected across a side street. Soldiers had rolled the barrier away by the time they arrived and the bikers drove toward the edges of where the herd of trolls was entering Stockholm.

Sedrick held his arm straight up to let his men know to stop and dismount. There were too many small groups of trolls nearby to get any closer. He didn’t want his group to get cut off from their bikes and a quick escape.

Stannis and ten of his battle crazed friends ignored his command and drove their bikes straight into the trolls. They had outfitted their bikes with so many spikes and blades they resembled porcupines on wheels.

Sedrick wasted no time worrying about Stannis’ antics. He led his men on foot to where they needed to be. A rearguard of ten bikers would stay behind to guard the bikes. He could only hope they would be enough.

All of Stannis’ group had already lost their bikes and were fighting on foot. Most of them had been injured when their bikes had crashed into the trolls and half of them were already dead.

The trolls were distracted by swarming Stannis’ gaggle of idiots and Sedrick took advantage of the opportunity. His men chewed into the preoccupied trolls like a meat grinder.

Sedrick’s fighting skills had improved by leaps and bounds in the last three weeks and the same could be said of the rest of the bikers. He was on the point of the wedge and focused on knocking down or wounding trolls with quick strokes of his axe or shield and letting the men behind him finish them off. The focus was to maintain forward momentum and keep the trolls off balance. By the time he had chopped and bludgeoned six or seven trolls he sensed their progress was beginning to stall and immediately shouted out “Stand!”

The men around him repeated the command and it continued to be repeated until everyone got the message to stand their ground and finish off all the trolls within reach. Sedrick nervously watched the mass of trolls entering Stockholm start to turn toward him and his relatively small group. All the fighting skill in the world wouldn’t help the bikers if they were hit by the main herd. They would be torn apart faster than Stannis’ crew.

His men were still trying to clear the area but he had to yell out the order to withdraw. This was a difficult maneuver to pull off in the middle of battle but they had practice and were all good, experienced fighters. Half of the bikers immediately started to run toward the bikes and stopped after covering a quarter of the distance. When they shouted “Go!” it was time for the remaining half to run like hell toward the rear guard. The two groups continued to hopscotch each other as they escaped.

For a moment it looked the trolls would catch up to them but increasing fire from the archers, directed by Wallander, started to slow the trolls down and they successfully regained their bikes and left the herd of trolls in their dust.

While the triumphant bikers drove back through their sally port, Sedrick pulled off to the side and glanced back where Stannis’ body was probably being trampled by trolls. He couldn’t care less.

“Yes, yes, yes.” Wallander chanted as the bikers successfully retreated. The pursuing trolls were stopped short by the sturdy barricade his soldiers rolled across the exit route.

The herd was now milling around directionless in a killing zone. A steady rain of arrows and fire continued to kill and wound them. Another Grippen showed up and dropped its load on top of a concentrated knot of trolls. There was still a lot of trolls but it was turning into a mopping up operation now.

Wallander’s scrutiny of the battlefield was interrupted by Oliver shaking his shoulder. He turned his head and swore when he saw six trolls entering their rooftop from the stairway. “Get your spear Ollie!” He snapped and ran toward the trolls that had somehow managed to scale the carefully constructed roadblocks.

His tomahawk was in his hand by the time he arrived and he performed a quick running attack before circling around back to Oliver. He left behind a troll with a deep cut to its thigh. “Get in this corner.” Wallander ordered. “Spear them if they get close enough. I’ll protect your sides.”

One of the trolls ran past Wallander toward Oliver and he chopped him on the side of the knee. He needed to immobilize or at least slow down a few of these trolls or they would be overwhelmed. Before he could get back to Oliver two trolls almost double teamed him but he distracted one of them by throwing his binoculars in its face while he chopped the second one in the shoulder.

Wallander returned to Oliver with trolls in hot pursuit and the old archaeologist was thankful for all of those afternoons he spent training on spear with the troops. He stepped forward and gutted the troll closest to Wallander and then withdrew. After that it was a blur of hairy, ugly targets until they were all gone.

Wallander gave Oliver a nod of approval as he finished off the wounded trolls. “Professor, you can be on my spear line anytime you like.”

Oliver had a disgusted expression as he cleaned off his spearhead. “Thanks, but I hate fighting.” He felt a cold wind on his back and heard a deep, familiar chuckle.

“I hate fighting! Spoken like a true Viking of the North.”

The archaeologist turned around slowly and had to crane his head upward to see Odin sitting on top of Sleipnir.

“I never claimed to be a Viking, Odin.”

“Good, because you’re not.” Odin ran a hand through his recently shortened beard, courtesy of an enraged Freyja, and considered the battlefield down below. “But you are cunning and effective. Very impressive for a little turd.”

“Thank you.” Oliver desperately waved at Wallander to put his tomahawk away. “You’ve trimmed your beard since I saw you last. It makes you look younger.”

“Does it? How kind of you to say. I have other matters to attend to but I have my eye on you two.”

Odin swiveled his one-eyed gaze to Wallander and the Swedish soldier felt like his mind was being ransacked. Sleipnir reared up and galloped across the sky.

“Sedrick stoically watched the army medic disinfect a deep slash to his forearm before he started on the stitches. His coalition of bikers had come a long way from their first encounter with the trolls and they had done very well today.

If it hadn’t been for Stannis’ charge of the light brigade there would have been only eight deaths among the 150 bikers. With Stannis’ group being massacred that made it 19 but he estimated they had killed about 500 trolls and at least his Stannis problem was solved.

“Thought you’d got rid of me, didn’t you?”

Sedrick raised his head to see the unwelcome sight of a heavily wounded Stannis limping into the hospital tent. Half of his scalp was hanging off his forehead but on Stannis it was a good look.

“I should have known.” Sedrick replied. “Like the song says, only the good die young.”

Stannis weaved unsteadily in front of him. “You left me to die.”

“You and your bum buddies ran off to commit mutual suicide. There’s a difference.”

An enormous figure blocked the sunlight at the entrance of the tent. At first it looked like it was going to bend its head so it could squeeze through the entrance but then the entire tent was simply torn away.

Odin saw the badly wounded Stannis and looked pleased. “You and your men fought like berserkers. They have died in battle and been chosen to join me in Valhalla. Do you wish to join them and be their leader?”

Stannis looked like Santa Claus had come down his chimney with the gift he had lusted after for his entire violent existence. “Please.”

The Hanging God placed his hand over Stannis’ head. “Accept the blessing of Odin.”

Sedrick turned away instinctively when Odin crushed Stannis’ head like a grape.

Odin picked up Sedrick’s leather vest from where it hung on a chair and used it to wipe the gore from his hand. He noticed the Thor’s Disciples patch and was amused.

“The Disciples of Thor. My son told me about encountering you weeks ago and he wasn’t impressed. It looks like you’ve improved.” He tossed the bloody vest back to Sedrick and the biker was showered with chunks of Stannis’ subpar brain.

“Keep it up and maybe the rest of you will make it to Valhalla as my Einherjar. Berserkers have their uses but I need warriors that can think as well.”

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Sweden had a troll problem and the Swedish army was poorly equipped or prepared to deal with it. Armed Forces HQ decided they found their troll solution when they found lieutenant Wallander and his platoon assisted by the archaeologist Oliver Trask. Wallander’s platoon was the first Swedish army unit to make contact with the trolls and the first to start effectively fighting with them.

“So, what’s your rank now anyway? Did they promote you again?”

Wallander shook his head but didn’t stop looking through the large scope set up on the edge of the roof. “No, I’m still a captain but I’m effectively at least a colonel because I’m commanding around 5000 troops or a brigade. HQ told me that we’d sort it out later but everyone would follow my orders or they’d be fed to the trolls. This is crazy. I’m not trained for this.”

“Tell that to the trolls.”

“Yes Ollie, tell it to the trolls.”

The trolls were on the outer limits of Stockholm and there were a lot of them. It was hard to estimate their total number because they were good at hiding. Trolls living under bridges wasn’t just a fairy tale anymore. The most recent estimate was that the herd of trolls descending on Stockholm was between 25 and 30 thousand and represented about half of all the trolls in Sweden.

Three weeks ago, and without warning trolls had started to flood Northern Sweden killing and eating entire towns of humans. Some Home Guard units had tried to fight them with make shift bayonets on their rifles and what weapons they could scavenge but they had been slaughtered as well.

Wallender’s original platoon and the bikers had learned a lot about fighting trolls in the past few weeks. Brawling with trolls was a bad idea. What worked best was well trained, disciplined troops guided by officers who understood tactics that worked for medieval warfare.

On Oliver and Wallander’s advice the army had guided the largest herd of trolls toward Stockholm. They used tanks and other vehicles to round them up and shepherd them Southward. Their weapons didn’t work but armoured vehicles were effective at ramming and running over the trolls.

The trolls could be surprisingly cunning and learned to scatter and run away from the tanks and IFVs. They had also increasingly been able to immobilize armoured vehicles and find their way inside. The vehicles on herding duty had to be very careful.

“Call me old fashioned but it would be nice if Stockholm had a 20 foot wall around it.” Sedrick looked glum as the number of trolls grew by every minute. His leather jacket with the colours of his MC creaked as he swiveled to take in the size of the herd.

Thanks to Sedrick and Wallander the Swedish army and the outlaw bikers had a solid alliance when it came to fighting trolls. Self preservation was the obvious motivation but it took a lot of skill to coordinate the two disparate groups.

“Yeah, but like Ollie said ‘tell it to the trolls.’ We have no time.” Wallander pointed out the earthworks and fences a large army of civilian volunteers had built in the last week. “If we can guide the herd into our trap that should cause all sorts of problems for them.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Oliver folded his arms and looked skeptical. “How many times have we underestimated them? I’ll bet they’ll flow around those fortifications. They’re not lemmings. The only real wall we’ve got is people with weapons.”

“You’re right Ollie. It’s time to fight. We’re not going to think our way out of this.” Sedrick hiked his jeans up. Fighting trolls for the last few weeks had really trimmed his waistline. The bikers had proven their value as fast moving mounted infantry. They occasionally fought from their bikes but knew from experience that often caused them to crash. They specialized in hit and run attacks on the flanks after they dismounted.

“I better get back to my boys. Call me and tell me where you’ll need me.”

“Thanks Sedrick. Stay alive and don’t turn your back on that prick Stannis.”

Lieutenant, recently sergeant, Olsson squinted against the sun’s rays as he watched two enormous ravens circling overhead. “Looks like Odin is watching today boys.” He declared to the roughly one thousand troops he was commanding in the blockaded street. The same as Wallander, his command far exceeded his rank. His job was to command the huge spear line the trolls would hopefully be fed into.

Some of his green troops looked at the birds nervously. “What will we do if Odin shows up?” One of them asked.

“We run.” Olsson told them. “We can’t fight gods, no one can, but we can kill trolls like a cop eating doughnuts.” He looked around carefully to make sure Odin wasn’t anywhere nearby before continuing. “Odin can go fuck himself.”

He heard the nervous laughter he was hoping for. A lot of these young soldiers looked to him for their courage because he had a rather unusual reputation in the Swedish army. He was the one handed stud that Freyja liked to have sex with. Olsson hated his new nickname ‘the Gigolo’ but he supposed there were worse names.

He winced and walked bow legged in front of his large group of spearmen to make sure they were lined up properly. There were two levels to his spear line and he was worried because there had been precious little time for training or to build the ten foot spears for the spearmen on the second line. Only half of his soldiers had ever seen a live troll and maybe a quarter of them had fought with trolls. They were obviously scared and he wanted them to be defiant.

His troops needed a rousing speech to put some steel in their spines but Olsson wasn’t a rousing speech kind of man. He was a practical man with zero patience for bullshit.

“Spearmen! Stand at attention and open your fucking ears. This is what we signed up for. We’re soldiers protecting our country. If you didn’t sign up for that then fuck off right now because you’re worse than useless to me. Remember your training and stay cool. This will be a long battle because we have a lot of trolls to kill. Save your energy, protect the soldier on either side of you, listen for orders from your sergeants.”

“I’ve killed dozens of trolls and I’ve only got one fucking hand. If an old amputee like me can do that so can all you strong young men and women. Today we kill trolls!”

Olsson was surprised by the loud cheer from his troops and shook his head. ‘Fucking kids will believe any kind of nonsense when they’re scared’ he thought to himself.

Sedrick faced problems with his troops just like Olsson did but it was 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Stannis and his looney tune buddies were raging like rabid dogs they were so eager to attack the trolls.

Stannis drove up in his ludicrous Mad Max motorcycle, complete with dangerous spikes sticking out in every direction. It was stupid to use a motorcycle as a spiked battering ram against trolls because the rider would wipe out 95% of the time and quickly end up in the intestines of said trolls. Stannis and his group of ten friends didn’t care. They weren’t about to let an inconvenient fact get in the way of their violent fun.

“What are we waiting for!” Stannis yelled as he parked his Harley Davidson. “This is real simple moron. There are the trolls. Let’s go and kill them!”

Sedrick laughed quietly to himself. Stannis calling him a moron was like a politician accusing him of corruption.

He slowly removed his helmet and pretended that he hadn’t heard Stannis. All of the outlaw bikers in his two wheeled cavalry unit were watching to see how he would deal with Stannis. So far Stannis and his fellow nutjobs had been admittedly useful. They were good fighters and had the courage that comes with an undeveloped brain. But they needed to follow orders or they could leave.

Sedrick turned around and acted surprised to see Stannis’ tall form looming over him. Stannis didn’t even notice the helmet until it smashed into his face. Stannis went down after Sedrick hit him a second time. He then sat on Stannis’ chest and gave him another couple of smacks just because he liked to hit Stannis.

Sedrick stood up and walked away like nothing remarkable had happened. “Get back to your gang of goofs and shut the fuck up Stannis. Do as you’re told or I’ll shove your spikey bike up your ass.”

There was a murmur of approving grunts and laughter from the close to 150 bikers that had been watching. The boss was the boss.

“Are you ready to go up there?” Wallander looked with annoyance at the unresponsive radio. “Ollie, what’s the frequency for the Grippens? I really need someone on communications. I’m juggling too many balls at the same time here.”

“Hold on.” Oliver checked his notebook and punched in a different frequency on the radio. “Try it now.”

“Are you ready to go up there?”

“Yes, we’re ready to go. I transmitted that we were in position just a minute ago.”

“Well, I didn’t hear it.” Wallander snapped back at the pilot commanding the Swedish Grippens circling overhead. Their regular bombs and missiles wouldn’t explode but they found a dud bomb dropped onto a herd of closely packed trolls still did a lot of damage.

“Have I forgotten anything Ollie? Are we ready to go now?”

“I think we’re good and those trolls are jammed together nicely. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start trampling each other if we squeeze them.”

Wallander nodded and slowly ticked off in his head all the different assets they had been able to pull together for this operation. The peace time Swedish army only had about 6000 enlisted solders and most of them were here in Stockholm to wipe out this bag of trolls. For every soldier there were two officers and two civilian employees but while they would be a big help as Sweden expanded its army, they would not be useful in a fight like this. The 22 thousand soldiers in the Home Guard were spread across Sweden trying to protect the rest of the population from the trolls with mixed success.

Wallander snarled as he watched the trolls through his scope start to advance into Stockholm. He truly hated these damn trolls that had killed and eaten thousands of people in a Sweden he was sworn to protect. It was long past time for payback.

The herd was close enough that he could hear the front ranks of trolls loudly chanting. “Tasty snacks for handsome lads!”

“I’ll give you fuckers a tasty snack.” He muttered as switched the radio to a universal frequency and barked out a single syllable.

“Go!”

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Smegma was small for a troll. This was the primary reason why Smegma was also a very lonely troll. Male trolls were brutish, macho louts and size mattered. Tiny trolls were often subject to both verbal and physical abuse.

A human skull rolled to a stop in front of where Smegma was seated on a rock and he looked up as a crowd of trolls playing soccer shouted at him to kick the skull back to them. Calling their game soccer was a bit of a stretch since there weren’t any goals or point to the game except to kick a skull around.

With a surge of hope he popped up from his rock and kicked the skull back to the large group of his troll brethren. He could tell by the weight of the skull that the tasty brains had already been scooped out and consumed.

“Smegma play?” He asked tentatively after he successfully punted their bony ball back to them.

The trolls looked toward the biggest and tallest troll for his decision. The outsized troll blew out a double snot rocket to express his contempt.

“Peewee Smegma no play.”

Smegma hung his head in shame and embarrassment as the trolls laughed at their leader’s biting wit. He slunk away from the field of play with cries of ‘Pee Wee Smegma!’ ringing in his ears.

The herd of trolls was living in what was left of a small human village in the North of Sweden. They had swarmed into the village a few days ago and massacred the unprepared residents. In the morning the humans had woken up to a world of taxes, debates about Sweden joining NATO and discussing last night’s horrible episode of Eurovision. In the afternoon they were brutally killed at the hands of trolls out of Norse mythology that hadn’t been seen on Earth for a thousand years.

Trolls didn’t care much about what had changed in a thousand years. Their primary concern was that humans were still very tasty.

They never let poor Smegma play any fun troll games. N.B. This picture was taken before Smegma lost his nose.

Smegma patted his round little belly as he moped about the thirty or so houses of the village. He had consumed his fair share of tasty treats after they killed everybody but trolls were pigs about food and never thought much about tomorrow. All the humans had been eaten and it would be time to move on soon.

Smegma furtively looked up and down the street before entering a house that had become one of his favourite places. He didn’t want to share the treasures inside so he was determined to keep it a secret.

He climbed the stairs inside and entered a small bedroom where he opened a chest full of treasure that any troll would lust after. He selected a number of Barbie dolls and arranged them in a circle before removing from the toy chest a colourful pink jeep and motorhome.

“Barbie go camping.” He mumbled to himself as he put two dolls in the front seat of the motor home and imitated the sound of an engine.

“Barbie go skiing.” He declared after the motor home arrived at its destination and he clumsily tried to put the tiny plastic feet into a set of skis. He gasped with dismay when Barbie’s leg broke off in his hand but fortunately Smegma was a skilled problem solver for a troll.

“Doctor Barbie fix broken leg.” He said firmly and pulled doctor Barbie out of the toy chest so she could perform first aid and salvage camping Barbie’s skiing vacation.

Smegma felt a tranquil satisfaction as he guided his dolls through a series of exciting adventures. He picked up his favourite doll and dressed it in some different cloths for an outdoor excursion.

His favourite doll was a Ken doll with a closely trimmed beard and he called it ‘Little Smegma.’ Shortly after the trolls had entered Asgard, Smegma’s nose had been cut off courtesy of a knife wielded by a biker and now Smegma had a gruesome red hole where his prominent proboscis used to be. He had cut off Little Smegma’s nose as well so they were now a matching pair, more or less.

“Little Smegma my bestest friend.” Smegma proclaimed happily as he carried the doll to a window where they could watch all the other trolls playing their fun game of kick the skull. “Smegma don’t need those nasty trolls when he gots Little Smegma.”

There was the sound of a roaring engine and Smegma ducked down when a Swedish CV90 came roaring into the village and started to ram and run over trolls. None of the weapons on the Infantry Fighting Vehicle were working but the Swedish army was starting to realize that a speeding armoured vehicle was still very dangerous all on its own.

“Monster! Big monster!” Smegma whimpered as he watched trolls scatter and hide inside the houses.

“Break legs.” Little Smegma counseled him. “Break monster legs.”

Smegma glanced at Little Smegma and thoughtfully repeated the doll’s advice. “Break monster legs.” He watched the corpse of a large troll get caught in the tracks of the vehicle. The vehicle started to slow down and drive erratically until the troll’s body was ripped into pieces and then the CV90 was able to drive normally again.

Smegma’s tiny brain kicked into overdrive as he pondered how to turn little Smegma’s advice into action. He tucked little Smegma inside his tattered clothing and rose to his feet with a resolute expression. Down the stairs he went and into the backyard where he grabbed a wheelbarrow full of firewood. He struggled with the heavy load as he pushed it toward a corner of the street.

The CV90 slowed down at the corner and Smegma rammed the wheelbarrow straight into the tracks before running away with a wail of fear. It looked like it hadn’t done the trick until the metal frame of the wheelbarrow wrapped tightly around one of the rollers on the vehicle and the track broke with a loud clang. The driver off the armoured vehicle turned the engine off when it started to spin around in a circle on only one track.

The trolls cautiously approached the scary metal monster and the large troll that was their leader looked incredulously at Smegma.

“Smegma kill monster?”

Smegma shook his head. “Smegma break monster leg.” He pointed at the broken track. “Monster still alive.”

The troll leader looked confused and examined the pieces of broken track as he tried to comprehend the wisdom Smegma had imparted to him.

From where he was hidden inside his filthy clothing Little Smegma whispered to Smegma and he listened intently. “Not monster. Metal house on legs.”

Smegma climbed on top of the infantry fighting vehicle and considered this new paradigm. “Metal house,” he murmured softly as he stomped on a hatch at the top of the turret to make a ringing sound. “Door for metal house!” He shouted in the excitement of his discovery.

The troll leader climbed up to join Smegma and watched him jump up and down on top of the hatch.

“Door for metal house.” He told him and then he shouted for all the trolls to hear. “Tasty treats inside!”

There was shocked pause and then all the trolls roared in unison. “Tasty snacks for handsome lads!!!” They swarmed onto the vehicle and attacked the hatches with a mixture of sledgehammers, axes and crowbars.

It wasn’t easy to force a hatch open but never underestimate the determination of a gang of hungry trolls. When the first hatch was pried apart Smegma once again proved his usefulness when his tiny form was the only one that could fit inside the narrow opening. He dove in and returned dragging a delicious, screaming human being.

Trolls were not very bright but when they found a winning strategy they adopted it immediately. Word among the trolls spread quickly and the next time the Swedish army tried to use a vehicle as a battering ram the trolls were prepared and it was not as successful.

The mood amongst the trolls had changed from one of abject terror to triumph and there was a festive atmosphere as they cheerfully tore apart the human crew from inside the CV90.

They were soon playing their favourite game that had some resemblance to the human game of basketball. It involved throwing severed heads at each other. Instead of trying to catch it the trolls would head butt the makeshift ball as hard as they could. The troll who could butt the head hard enough to crack it open got to eat the delicious brains inside. The game required a unique blend of skill, strength and sheer bone-headedness to win and there was a tasty prize as a reward.

Smegma shyly approached a circle of trolls that had appropriated a head for themselves. “Smegma play?”

“Peewee Smegma no play!” One of the trolls shouted rudely in his face.

Smegma hung his head and turned to leave. He stopped when the large bony fist of the troll leader smashed into the face of his tormentor.

“Smegma no pee wee.” The troll leader growled menacingly and the ring of trolls shrank back in fear. “Smegma big brain. Smegma play!”

Smegma stood up tall and breathed in deeply through the red hole that used to be his nose. He could hear little Smegma cheering where he was concealed inside his clothing next to his heart. Smegma lived a troll’s life and today life was good.

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“Ho, ho, ho. Look at that Loki. The plank hit him right in the nuts. I love these videos. Show me the one where the human falls off the roof.”

Odin drummed his fingers impatiently on the oaken table. “No, that’s enough Loki. Stop showing Thor those stupid videos and close your laptop. We have business to discuss.”

Thor sulked and Loki was annoyed at being ordered around. “Whatever you say … ‘all-father.’”

Odin grunted with irritation. Loki was a master at saying ‘all-father’ so it sounded like ‘you big pile of shit.’ Inevitably Loki would store up enough resentment so that he would snap and trigger another Ragnarok in a thousand years.

Perhaps not this time around though. Odin had a long term plan in place that had nothing to do with conquering Midgard. It wouldn’t be easy to bend the ferociously independent Loki to his will but it was the kind of challenge that made life interesting. If Odin could slowly and relentlessly become a monotheistic God like the Christian God there would never be another Ragnarok.

“Loki you have done a magnificent job and of course so have you Thor.” Thor preened like a rooster and Loki accepted the praise as his just due. “The videos have convinced half the world that it would be impossible to resist us. We have crushed the human’s morale before we have even started to conquer Midgard.”

The god of mischief displayed the self-satisfied smirk that had annoyed other gods for millennia. “The humans have used their technology to brain wash each other for decades. It was easy for me to take over the reigns.” Loki didn’t want Odin to know how much he loved this new information technology of the humans. So much of it was based on lies and deceit that it wasn’t just Loki’s bread and butter, it was the blood in his veins. Loki estimated that within a year after Midgard was conquered, he could convince the humans that Loki was the real all-father and Odin would be a one-eyed beggar looking for handouts.

Thor huffed with discontent as he watched the Einherjar train in a clearing beside the gods. “These new Einherjar are pathetic. When Vikings ruled the North, these new recruits would never have been chosen. My house cat could kill them.”

Loki noticed one of the recently chosen Einherjar running away from a blood covered Berserker and barked a short laugh. “Beggars can’t be choosers Thor. We need more numbers.” Loki whipped his head around when he heard a familiar sound then disappeared after he saw what was approaching.

Odin watched the tiny mouse that had been Loki run away. “Loki, what are you playing at?” He looked at what had alarmed Loki and for one of the few times in his very long life he was caught by surprise.

Freyja landed the chariot pulled by her lynxes in front of Thor’s chariot and goats while she glared daggers at the all-father. Odin kept his features neutral as his byzantine mind pondered why Freyja was on the warpath with him again. He had so many different schemes in play it was hard to keep track.

Her lynxes picked up on their mistress’ furious mood and hissed at Thor’s goats. The savage goats became immediately aggressive and Gnasher reared up to lash out with his front hooves. One of the lynxes rose to meet him and clawed half his nose off before he could attack.

Freyja leaped out of her chariot and landed on top of Grinder’s back before he could attack as well. She grabbed him by the horns and broke his neck with a sharp crack.

She picked up Grinder’s corpse with one hand and flung it at the bloodied Gnasher. Gnasher cowered in fear before one of the few beings in the nine worlds that was much more dangerous than he was.

“Grinder! My little baby!” Thor cried out in shock. The immortal Grinder would live again with the next sunrise but the sudden loss tore at his sensitive heart strings.

“Shut up Thor!” Freyja stomped up to the large table Odin and Thor were seated at and disintegrated it with a kick. “How many times have I told you to control your damned goats.”

Thor snatched Mjolnir off his belt and stood up with murder in his eyes. Freyja yanked Mjolnir out of his hands and backhanded him with his own hammer.

The impact stretched Thor flat on his back and Freyja dropped his hammer on his chest as if she couldn’t hold onto it any longer. Thor struggled to remain conscious and looked up at Freyja with shock. “That’s not possible. You can’t do that.”

“There’s a big difference between what I haven’t done before and what I can do, Thor.”

Odin calmly picked wooden splinters out of his long white beard and looked up at the sky. Freyja’s airborne Valkyries were swarming around him and his army of Einherjar and Berserkers. Freyja’s army of Einherjar, equal in size to his own, were also marching toward him.

“Something on your mind Freyja?”

“What’s the matter Odin? Surprised that one of your ‘appendages’ isn’t cooperating?”

“Ymir’s balls!” He blurted impulsively.

“That’s right Odin. I couldn’t have said it better. Thor, what do you think about your father deciding he can absorb you like you’re nothing. How about you Loki? I can see you hiding there you little bastard. Your so-called all father wants to be the one and only Norse God and you’ll be nothing but a memory. I’m sure you know what monotheism means.”

The tiny mouse hiding behind a large piece of broken table looked sharply at Freyja and wiggled his nose. He had immediately figured out what Freyja was screaming about and was jealous he hadn’t thought of it before Odin. Odin had always been as shrewd as he was dangerous.

Loki jumped on the opportunity that was presenting itself to him. This was his chance to drive a wedge between Odin and Thor to weaken their combined might. “Thor did you hear that? Your own father means to kill you as if you never existed. This is a crime that sickens even me. Justice! Where is the justice for this attempted infanticide? The heavens themselves cry tears of blood.”

“What is he talking about father?” Thor said while he stood up and retrieved his hammer.

Odin was in the unusual position of being caught unprepared and also genuinely upset at the hurt he heard in his son’s voice. “Ignore what he’s saying Thor. You know Loki lies as he breathes.”

“Yes, I do.” Thor pointed his hammer at Freyja. “But she doesn’t. Tell me what is happening Freyja.”

“Odin wants to be the one God just like the Christian God. The rest of us are in his way. We either have to die or be absorbed into him.”

Thor slung Mjolnir on his belt and stared at the ground for a moment before looking at his father again.

“Thor.” Odin hesitated. He could lie as fluently as Loki but he found that he couldn’t lie to his closest and most loved son. “It’s not as simple as she says Thor. I was trying to stop yet another Ragnarok. It was a very long term plan and it wouldn’t have happened that way. I would never have done that to you. You have always been at my side. I would never…”

Loki and Freyja stared at the humbled Odin as if the sun had fallen out of the sky. He was power itself guided by the deepest store of knowledge in the nine worlds but right now he was reduced to a disgraced father pleading for forgiveness from his son.

The God of Thunder turned his back and walked away from his father’s outstretched hand. The skies of Asgard turned a menacing indigo blue as if the entire world was on the verge of a cataclysmic storm.

Odin looked like a confused old man as he watched Thor leave. His eye wandered away and he noticed Freyja’s companion Marja peeking at him from over the top of Freyja’s chariot. He assumed this mortal was the reason why Freyja was so well informed.

“What is that damned human doing in Asgard Freyja?”

“Whatever the Hel she wants Odin.” Freyja had been distracted by Thor’s departure but she quickly regained the reins of the fury that had brought her to confront Odin.

“Tell me, are you upset that I didn’t destroy those nuclear plants like you asked and spread radiation across the earth?”

He was upset about that. He was hoping that would kill tens of millions of humans and Freyja could take the blame. Odin couldn’t care less about the environmental damage. The earth would recover, eventually.

Odin realized Freyja was so angry that she was on the verge of igniting a self-inflicted Ragnarok. If Odin and Freyja went to war with each other that would break the ancient truce between the Aesir and the Vanir. It was time to start the long road to mending fences.

“I’m sorry Freyja. I’ve made mistakes but only because there have been so many changes in Midgard. These new technologies are alien to me.”

Freyja looked at him in surprise and then back at Marja who was obviously skeptical. “You are saying you were wrong?”

Odin gritted his immortal teeth. “Yes, I was wrong and I swear by the roots of Yggdrasil I will never lie to you again.” He could tell this impressed Freyja because it was an oath even Odin could never break.

“Wait Freyja!”

Odin’s single eye snapped onto Freyja’s mortal companion with homicidal intent.

“Make him swear that he won’t deceive you. He doesn’t need to lie to deceive you.”

“Shut up human or I will kill you!”

Marja ducked behind the wall of the chariot and Freyja turned on Odin with fury. She grabbed his beard with both hands and tore out a double handful of his long, white facial hair.

“Kill her and we are at war Odin! Now swear you will never deceive me again.”

Odin appraised Freyja with unwelcome respect. She was finally realizing how powerful she was. “I swear by the roots of Yggdrasil I will never deceive you again.”

“Good. You can fight this war by yourself because I’m out of it.”

He took a deep breath and watched her leave along with her army. This is what he got for having too many irons in the fire, but that was his nature. The loss of Freyja and her troops was a disaster because he desperately needed them to conquer the teeming numbers of Midgard. On the other hand, this would make the conquest more challenging and he loved a good challenge. It was already starting to look like it might be too easy to dominate what the humans called Earth.

Odin resembled one of the many stone statues that had been carved in his likeness as he considered his options. His customary decisiveness was lacking but he knew why. He looked at the empty space to his right where Thor usually stood beside him. He needed to make things right with his son more than anything but first he needed to deal with his inner turmoil.

He lifted up his long white beard and examined the gaping holes Freyja had left behind. He had locked down his rage before but now he let it free. After he was finished conquering Midgard, he was going to rip all the hair off Freyja’s head for this insult. Loki was going to get a boot up the ass for interfering as well but he had already disappeared, his specialty.

The Berserkers howled with bloodlust as they felt the ripples of their master’s savage mood. His ravens landed on his shoulders and looked at him inquisitively while his wolves trotted up to his sides with liquid growls.

Odin gestured with his hand to summon his spear Gungnir while he addressed his ravens. “Hugin and Munin, find an army for me to destroy.”

Marja looked down from the chariot at a humbled Odin and where Freyja had knocked Thor off his feet with his own hammer. The same two gods that had been tearing apart the armed forces of the world for the past few weeks.

“Wow! You really kicked ass Freyja.”

Freyja smiled and steered her lynxes into a large cumulous cloud. “I’m more than just another pretty face.”

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The mixed group of bikers and soldiers watched the large screen as Oliver tried to find the image on the video he wanted to show them. “There he is.” Oliver pointed at a warrior in Odin’s immortal Einherjar that normally lived in Valhalla. This footage was of the god Tyr and a group of Einherjar attacking a German division in Frankfurt.

“What about him Ollie?” Sedrick and his sergeant at arms looked curiously at the archaeologist. “He looks small for an Einherjar but what’s special about him?” The outlaw bikers in Stockholm were frequent guests at the barracks because lieutenant Wallander had sought them out as allies. The lieutenant’s superiors were furious with him over the arrangement but he didn’t care. He cared about results.

“Let me show you.” He split the screen so another video could be seen of the first attack on a military parade in the United States. The group of men in the room could see a U.S. infantryman repeatedly trying to stab Thor’s impenetrable skin with a combat knife until Thor noticed him and crushed his skull with an elbow to the face.

Oliver froze the image on a close up of the soldier’s face and looked at his audience. “Well?”

“He’s got a bit of a beard now but that’s the same guy isn’t it.” Lieutenant Wallander said with certainty. “They’re recruiting more Einherjar from the people they kill.”

“Exactly, this guy isn’t really your typical Einherjar material but he was brave and he fought the best he could. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. When Odin was lecturing me, he seemed obsessed about too many humans in the world ruining the planet and he wants to kill of 90% of us. I don’t think he’s really worried about the environment at all. He’s scared of our numbers.”

“The last time he was on Earth was a thousand years ago when there were 200 million people in the world and not that many people in the Scandinavian countries. I estimate that he’s lucky if he’s collected maybe ten thousand Einherjar from a millennia ago.”

“But he doesn’t need that many. They’re immortal and invulnerable.” Wallander pointed out.

“Immortal yes but not invulnerable. We can still kill them even if they rise again the next day.” He switched the screen to an image of a dead Einherjar that had been stabbed and chopped to death by a large group of Chinese soldiers armed with axes and knives. “They’re stronger and faster than a regular human and they have hardened skin but we can beat them.”

“If we had guns, we could slaughter them. Why do you think Odin went to all the trouble of making guns useless? That is a powerful, global and very specific magic even for him. I think it stretched his abilities or he would have nullified more of our technology.”

“It’s all about numbers. Eight billion humans can’t be ruled by a handful of gods unless we let them. It doesn’t matter that the gods are invulnerable and they can slaughter us. Frankly we can just run away and hide whenever they appear. Think of let’s say ten human beings trying to rule eight billion rebellious ants. We can stomp on ants for the rest of our lives but we won’t make much of a dent in the number of ants.”

“Odin desperately needs his ten thousand Einherjar and he probably wants that number to be a thousand times larger. We need to retool so we can fight and destroy his Einherjar.”

“You make it sound so easy Ollie.” One of the bikers protested. “Do you remember what the Berserkers did to those American troops the first time they showed up? I saw a video of a Berserker that got run over by a truck. He got off the ground and jumped through the windshield to kill the driver.”

“Didn’t say it would be easy but I think it can be done. We don’t have guns or conventional explosives anymore but we have other weapons we can use.”

Oliver stopped talking when the door to the meeting room opened and a corporal stuck his head in. “Um, sorry to interrupt but I got a phone call and I thought you’d want to know about this right away lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Wallander stared at his corporal for a couple of seconds. “Spit it out Ackerman.”

“Okay, so I have a friend who knew professor Trask is staying with us and he told someone else and well …”

“Jesus Christ Ackerman. Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“We’ve got visitors on the way. One is called Marja and the other one’s called Freyja.”

Wallander looked both annoyed and confused. “So, we’ll have a couple of visitors. So what? Do you want me to break out the silverware and change the bedding for them?”

“Holy shit! Do you mean the goddess Freyja?” Oliver asked loudly.

“Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned that.”

Oliver turned toward the lieutenant. “We need all the beer we can find for her but mead would be better. The cook should know that she’s going to be hungry.”

“Calm down Trask. We’re not a bloody restaurant.”

“No, but she’s a bloody goddess visiting bloody humans. If she feels insulted people are going to die. Get with it man. This isn’t your mother in law dropping by for a visit.”

There was a low roaring sound outside and Oliver pushed the corporal aside and ran out the door.

“Don’t stand there looking stupid.” Lieutenant Wallander informed his corporal. “Go and tell the cook what he said.”

Oliver jogged onto the yard in the center of the barracks and looked at an airborne chariot that was circling in for a landing. The archaeologist was both excited and nervous. This would be the fourth Norse god that he had met in the last three weeks.

Thor had only manhandled him a little. Odin’s ravens had taken out his right eye and stabbed him in the liver. Loki had stolen his identity and jumped in bed with his wife. He hoped Freyja wouldn’t be another disaster.

The chariot landed in front of him and two cats that resembled lynxes but were as tall as he was sniffed at his face with curiosity. There had always been some debate about what Freyja’s cats were like and now Oliver was an expert on the subject. He closed his eyes as their whiskers tickled his face and resisted the impulse to laugh.

“They seem to like the smell of you. That’s always a good sign.”

He turned toward the voice and opened his eyes to see a large pair of well rounded breasts looking back at him. He raised his eyes and looked sheepishly at the stunningly beautiful face of the Norse goddess of sex and love. She was also a goddess of war and magic but sex and love were the first things to spring into his mind.

Freyja looked down at him with a slight frown and put her hands on her hips which made Oliver notice movement underneath her low cut dress again.

“Are you looking at my breasts you horny little man?”

“No, no. Of course not.”

“Why the hells not then?” Freyja winked at him and then swatted him playfully on the ass.

Marja helped Oliver off the ground and apologized to him. “Sorry about that sir. She gets a little raunchy around men but she doesn’t mean any harm.”

Oliver rubbed his bony rear end and winced with pain. He was glad Freyja didn’t mean any harm but his ass stung like it had been whipped.

Freyja surveyed the members of the platoon as they emptied into the yard and they stared awestruck at the goddess that had appeared in their midst. She seemed to enjoy their attention and tossed her reddish gold hair while she turned to look at them.

“You are missing an eye little man.” She said to Oliver. “I wager you are the one that talked to Odin. If he took your eye, it must have been in exchange for knowledge.”

Oliver was tempted to deny it and slink away. He always seemed to suffer in one way or another whenever he encountered a god.

“Yes, I’m Oliver Trask. You must be thirsty and hungry after your journey. We have food and drink for you in the mess hall.”

“What? Drink?” She looked at her admiring audience of soldiers in mock alarm. “Are you trying to get me drunk so you can between my legs you oversexed little dwarf?”

“No, I would never.”

“Why the hells not?” Freyja sent him flying again with another swat to his battered ass and laughed loudly with the rest of the platoon. “Bring the food and drink out here. Tables and chairs. We will have a feast under the sun.”

The Swedish soldiers scurried to follow her orders as if she was their commanding officer.

Marja helped Oliver off the ground once more. “Apologies again. She’s showing off for the soldiers.”

Freyja planted a chair in front of the standing Oliver and sat down so her head was on the same level as his. “Oliver have a seat and tell me about your time with Odin.”

“I think I’m better off standing for a while.”

“Sorry about your battered bottom Oliver.” Freyja grinned and didn’t look sorry at all. “Just having a little fun.”

“That’s all right.” To Oliver’s surprise it really was all right. Maybe it was because he was a man but it was impossible to stay angry with the goddess of sex and love.

She gave him her full attention as he told her of Odin’s plans for the Earth, including the massacre of 90 % of the population. Nothing seemed to surprise her until he mentioned how Odin had described himself as the God of War and all the other gods were extensions of himself.

Freyja’s face turned bright red with anger. “By Ymir’s dripping cock!” She snarled.

Oliver watched a subtle change occur in Freyja. She didn’t change physically but her manner and body language told him she was a goddess of war now and her playful manner was gone. He considered her strong reaction and immediately jumped to a conclusion. “Monotheism.” He said as soon as it occurred to him.

“What? What does that mean?” Freyja snapped.

“Odin wants to be one God, or should I say the God. He’s planning on absorbing the pantheon of Norse gods and being the one and only God of War.”

Freyja stared at Oliver as if she was assessing him. Oliver knew he was as close to death now as when he was with Odin. “You’re smart Oliver. Probably too smart for your own good but I think you’re a tool of the Sisters of Norn. There was a reason why you were pulled through the porthole.”

Oliver didn’t like the idea of being a tool of fate but decided not to worry about something he had no control over. “I don’t think he can do it Freyja. He might be successful with someone like Thor but gods like you and Loki have strong wills. There’s no way he can pull it off if you know what he’s up to.”

She considered what he said and her mood quickly changed. “You’re right and he’s going to find out how just how strong my will is. You’re right about Loki too. I might hate Loki’s stinking guts but nobody has ever controlled him. Wait a minute.” She snapped her fingers as if mentioning Loki had made her remember something and pointed at sergeant Olsson.

“You with the missing hand. You’re the human who pulled a knife on Loki.”

“Yeeeessss.” The sergeant answered cautiously.

“You’re a brave man to pull a knife on Loki and a lucky one to survive. You have a room here?”

“Yeeeessss.”

“Show me your room. I’m having sex with you.”

“Come on Freyja we’ve talked about this.” Marja complained. “You can’t just grab men and have sex with them.”

Freyja raised an eyebrow and looked at sergeant Olsson with an amused expression. “Do you want to say no?”

“God no! I mean Goddess no!”

Marja sighed as she watched Freyja stride away with a happy sergeant Olsson. She turned to look at Oliver. “Your friend will probably need a stretcher when they’re done but I doubt he’ll regret it.”

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“Holy shit! Look at all of them.”

“It looks like a soccer crowd leaving a stadium with only one entrance.”

Sedrick watched the herd of trolls through his binoculars as they split into different groups and started to wander around the countryside. “They’re ugly, violent and dumb Axel. So yeah, they do look a lot like a soccer crowd.”

“Fuck you! I’m a soccer fan.” Stannis yelled at him.

“Thanks for proving my point dumbass.” Sedrick muttered. He noticed one of the break-off groups of trolls was moving toward his own group of bikers. He estimated it was around thirty trolls, twice the number of bikers.

“They’re noisy, aren’t they?” Sedrick lowered the binoculars and looked at Axel, the president of the depleted No Name motorcycle club. “Can you make out what they’re shouting?”

“No idea. Maybe it’s some kind of troll song.”

“Tasty treats. Tasty treats for handsome lads. That’s the same thing they chanted when they hung me upside down and were going to eat me.”

The lieutenant looked at Oliver with skepticism. “You’re kidding. What are they? Ten years old?”

“Oliver is right. That’s what they’re like.” Sergeant Olsson confirmed. “They’re like dumb children but they’re dumb children that average 300 lbs and six and half feet tall. A bull isn’t very bright either but it’s plenty dangerous.”

“They’re excited because they think humans are delicious.” Oliver paused as he tried to estimate the size of a break off group of trolls. “They’ve been locked up inside Asgard for a thousand years along with the gods and their food of choice has been inaccessible. They’re hungry and want to make up for lost time.”

Oliver pointed to his right. “I think there are some bikers hiding in the trees on that hill.”

The other soldiers on the hilltop immediately looked toward where Oliver was pointing.

“Look at that. Those are mostly Thor’s Disciples from Stockholm. They came a long way to look at these bloody trolls, didn’t they?”

Lieutenant Wallander noticed the flash from a pair of binoculars and focused on one of the bikers looking right back at him. His own powerful binoculars allowed him to see the president patch on the front of the leather vest.

“I think they’re here for the same reason we are. They want to know what the hell is going on. But they better watch out. There’s a group of trolls coming right for them.”

Sedrick lowered his binoculars after scrutinizing the soldiers on the other hill. He looked at the trolls again and noticed the closest group was excitedly running straight at the bikers.

“Shit! I think they can smell us. Pull back to the bikes. C’mon move it.”

“I thought we came here to fight!”

“You’re right Stannis. You can stay behind and fight ten thousand trolls. Anybody else with a working forebrain come with me.”

Sedrick realized the flaw in his plan when he quickly left the members of his motorcycle club far behind. He was in his forties and kept himself in good shape but that wasn’t the case for the rest of Thor’s Disciples. They were all big and tough but they had spent too many nights in the clubhouse drinking an ocean of beer.

He was already halfway to the bikes when he stopped in frustration and looked back at his panting friends. Those big dumb trolls could actually run faster than the members of his own motorcycle club. If they got out of this alive, he would be cracking the goddamn whip with these out of shape bikers hauling around their beer bellies. They would either shape up or ship out.

“Stop running! Form a line. We have to stand and kill this group before we can get the hell out of here. You’re getting your wish Stannis.”

“About time you coward.” For all his tough talk Stannis had been no faster than the rest of the club and his voice was high pitched with fear.

Sedrick stepped in front of his men and unslung a long-handled axe from his back. The blacksmith he had bought it from had assured him it was identical to the axes his Viking ancestors had used. It was meant for one-handed use with a shield but Sedrick chose to use it two handed. He didn’t have the iron wrists and forearms of a Viking warrior, not yet anyway.

His men were still heaving to catch their breath and unpacking their weapons. It was up to him to take out the frontrunners of this pack of trolls. A smallish troll ran up to him and Sedrick cocked his axe like a baseball bat and waited for the troll to come and get it.

He blinked with surprise when an arrow hit the troll on the side of its chest and it tripped and fell. There was no time to wonder where the arrow came from because here came another fleet-footed troll.

“Nice shot Lundqvist. The rest of you keep firing into the center of that group trying to chase them down.” Sergeant Lundqvist and one other soldier were the only experienced archers in the platoon. They had scraped together another six bows and six inexperienced volunteers were trying to learn how to shoot in the crucible of combat.

Lieutenant Wallender didn’t want to risk the lives of his own men but he had instinctively wanted to help the bikers escape for the simple reason they were humans being attacked by trolls. Unfortunately, the soldier’s archery fire had already attracted the interest of some nearby, isolated trolls.

“Heads up.” Sedrick barked and removed a tactical tomahawk from his belt. “We’ve got some trolls coming up our hill. Archers fire one more shot each and then pack up and get back to the truck. Everyone else cover our archers.”

He jogged up to a troll and dodged around the clumsy beast’s grasping hands while he swung his weapon at its thigh. The razor-sharp tomahawk bit deeply and the troll went down with a shriek. Beside him sergeant Olsson used his modified spear to pierce a troll through its gut and out the back. They both walked backwards to join the rest of the platoon and kept a wary eye out for more trolls.

Wallander glanced at the gang of bikers as his soldiers approached the truck and could see Thor’s Disciples were fighting well but couldn’t disengage and run for their bikes while more trolls kept arriving.

He banged on the driver’s door and motioned for the driver to move over. “I’m driving. We can do one more thing to help those bikers before we scram.”

Stannis was using an eight pound sledge hammer for a weapon and it was effective for crushing troll skulls but even for a muscleman like him it was slow and exhausting to use. He looked up stupidly at the large troll grabbing his head while he struggled to free the hammer from a shattered skull.

Sedrick saved Stannis’ young life with a measure of regret when he severed an arm off the troll about the break the biker’s neck. If he had expected gratitude he would have been disappointed by the resentful look Stannis gave him.

“Next time use your head instead of your fucking ego when you choose a weapon.” Sedrick yelled at the sullen club member. He wished he hadn’t bothered saving him or wasting his breath with advice. Stannis remained a gigantic idiot.

The bikers were screwed. Every time he thought they had cleared enough space to run for the bikes more trolls would arrive. It was obvious to Sedrick they were going to die fighting here. Characteristically, he was more worried about what was going to happen to his wife and two children without him to protect them.

He spared a second to wipe some sweat out of his eyes and noticed he wiped away a smear of blood as well. Sedrick had no idea how or when he was wounded.

Sedrick heard a loud roaring sound as he backed up a cautious troll with a swing of his axe. The troll he had just backed off was hit by a dark green army truck and flew off the heavy bumper to slam into Stannis and knock him down.

The driver of the large truck leaned out his window to yell at Stannis as he careened past. “Go now! Run for your bikes!”

He completely agreed with the soldier’s advice and screamed at the surviving bikers as he helped to pull Stannis off the ground. “Run! Run for your lives. This is our only chance!”

Sedrick and Stannis made it to the bikes but they were alone. Sedrick swore loudly as he realized the rest of the bikers were too exhausted or wounded to follow them.

The army truck’s wild ride had given them a chance but they couldn’t take advantage of it. It wasn’t as if the biker’s had magically acquired cardiovascular conditioning in the last ten minutes and now he had men so badly wounded they could barely stand up.

He was strongly tempted to leave them and focus on protecting his family from this savage new world but he couldn’t. These men were his friends, his brothers and it had been Sedrick’s stupid plan that got them killed.

Sedrick walked back toward his comrades. “C’mon Stannis, let’s see how many more we can kill.” For once Stannis didn’t give him any grief and actually looked at him with respect as they walked together toward the wave of oncoming trolls.

They had rejoined the other members of Thor’s Disciples when all of them were knocked flat by a concussive wave of force. Sedrick raised his head from the ground to see Thor had landed his chariot right on top of the attacking trolls and squashed an impressive number of them.

“Deus ex machina.” The biker president said to himself as he watched Thor jump out of his chariot and struggle with his goats. Thor gave him a look and smirked.

“By Odin’s rectum, settle down so I can free your reigns. Stop fighting with me or I’ll smack you. There! Go on! Eat all you want.” Grinder and Gnasher stampeded away and chased after the terrified trolls.

Thor approached the bikers with a bemused expression. He casually slapped a troll that was scrambling to get out of his way.

“What do we have here? Actual Vikings who can fight. I was starting to think all you modern men were a bunch of castrated mice.” He wiped some gore off his hand onto the thick furs he wore and peered at the leather vests the bikers were wearing.

“Thor’s Disciples? Nice try but I don’t think so. At least you fight but you don’t fight very well. You could barely handle a few trolls and they’re just vermin. Keep improving boys and we’ll see if you deserve the name.”

Thor noticed the enormous Stannis standing beside Sedrick and he grunted with approval. “Now you look like a real Viking. Learn how to fight and maybe I’ll see you in Valhalla someday” He patted Stannis on the shoulder then left to collect his goats before they got too fat.

Sedrick observed the hero worship in Stannis’ eyes, despite the broken collar bone that Thor’s gentle pat had inflicted. This was not good.

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Lieutenant Wallander did not like to admit in front of his three sergeants that he didn’t know something but this wasn’t the time to let his pride get in the way. He angled his hand so he could get a better look at the elaborate bow he was holding.

“I know almost nothing about archery. What do these pulleys do?”

The sergeant tapped his finger on one of the pulleys on the bow. “When you pull the drawstring back the pulleys flip over and release up to 80% of the tension. It’s a big advantage. Pulling back a 100lb. draw weight isn’t easy but after you pull back the drawstring halfway, the pulleys will flip and the tension will drop to just 20 lbs. Go ahead and try it.”

Wallander nodded his comprehension when he felt the difference after the pulleys flipped over. “What about all the sticks in front of the bow here?”

“They’re stabilizers and they help with your accuracy but that’s for competition shooting. Accuracy is obviously important but the stabilizers are too awkward for moving around in the field.”

The sergeant removed the stabilizers and held up the bow. “This might be our new standard infantry weapon. A high-powered compound bow.”

“What about crossbows?”

“Modern crossbows are excellent but for now I think a standard bow is better because it’s simpler and easier to manufacture. We’re playing catch up here. We can probably make 2 bows for every crossbow.”

Wallander and the other sergeants made noises of agreement. They were all practical career soldiers. The simpler and more reliable weapon was usually the better weapon anyway.

“Professor, do you think a bowshot would kill one of those trolls that are pouring out of the monument?”

Oliver looked up from examining the broadhead end of an arrow and held it up. “Without a doubt. Archery ended the age of the knight centuries ago. Modern archery should easily handle trolls. They’re big and strong but also childish and stupid.” The archaeologist remembered how easily a troll held him upside down by his foot.

Lieutenant Wallander had asked Oliver to stay with the platoon after he returned with the injured sergeant Olsson. The lieutenant was desperate for information and not only was Oliver Trask an expert on Norse mythology, he had visited Asgard and actually talked with Odin.

“Time for my demonstration.” Sergeant Olsson announced. He held up a spear and inserted the stump on his right forearm into the special bracket he had designed. “Ollie and I designed this baby. Of course, nobody else will need this bracket like I do.”

“It’s all hands on deck now Arne.” One of other sergeants commented.

“Fuck off with the hand jokes.” Olsson said off-handedly as he adjusted his spear. The other two sergeants laughed. They knew the last thing Olsson wanted was sympathy. The rude jokes were their way of letting their friend know that he was still a soldier like them and wasn’t getting any special treatment.

“We made the spears six feet long, which is the average height, more or less, of a soldier wearing boots. The spearhead is designed so it both easily penetrates but also withdraws easily from your target.”

“If I was using a spear, I’d want a spearhead with a bigger blade so it would do more damage and I could slash with it.” One of the other sergeants complained.

“I understand your point sergeant but let me explain what I know about ancient weaponry. I don’t want to blow my own horn but this is my area of expertise.”

The sergeant looked at Oliver doubtfully but nodded. The members of the platoon were impressed by the archeologist’s depth of knowledge but also with his unassuming toughness. The older man had returned from Asgard missing an eye and with a hole in his liver but the first thing he did was rush off to check on his wife.

“Piercing, or penetration if you like, is what does the most damage and you’re less exposed to counterattack. A slashing attack looks impressive but it’s less efficient. You want to put a hole in your opponent and be able to quickly free your spear. Most spearman were killed when their spear got stuck in someone’s ribs.”

“You sound like a bloodthirsty bastard for a professor.”

Oliver reddened with embarrassment. “I just talk tough. I’m happy to leave the fighting to the younger guys.”

“Bows and spears and then melee weapons like swords and axes. Those will be our three different weapon types, right professor?”

Oliver turned toward lieutenant Wallander. “I have some other ideas but that would be a good start.”

“For now, we will organize three different squads with a different weapon type for each squad. We’ll start like that and adjust as we learn. Olsson you have the spear squad. Lundqvist is archery and Karlson will be melee weapons. Anyone with archery experience is in the archery squad. Find out who grew up chopping wood and get them a battle axe.”

“We’re on our own here and we have to think for ourselves. Frankly, our commanding officers don’t have a clue what to do. The best thing they’ve come up with is to attach bayonets to our rifles and we don’t have any bloody bayonets. Let’s do whatever it takes so we can at least put up a fight if any trolls show up in Stockholm.”

“As soon as we have at least 10 soldiers properly armed I want to take them on a careful reconnaissance of what’s happening at the monument. Let’s get to work. We’ve all got a lot to do.”

Oliver and Olsson walked together toward a corner of the yard where they had piled some hay bales for spear practice.

“Have you heard anything about your wife Ollie?”

Oliver shook his head resignedly. He had hired a private investigator to keep track of his wife in the hope of rescuing her if she wasn’t with Loki but she and Loki had disappeared from the hotel. The PI was now searching for his wife in Stockholm.

“I’m sorry Ollie.” The sergeant waved away a large horsefly that was buzzing around the two men. “At least no news is good news.”

“That’s true Arne. If Loki had killed her, he’d probably leave the body where it could be easily found so it would hurt me. I think she’s still alive.”

“I’ve been reading that book on Norse mythology you gave me. My favourite chapter is when the other gods tied up Loki with entrails and left him on a rock with a serpent dripping venom on his face. That sounds like fun. Ow! Fuck!”

Olsson slapped the back of his neck with his remaining hand and glowered at the horsefly that darted away. “Damn, that horsefly is the size of a pigeon. I feel like a snake just bit me.”

Loki flew away from the two men and perched on a rooftop. He was tempted to turn himself into a dire wolf and rip the guts out of the impertinent human but that would be too crude and not sufficiently entertaining.

He had suffered for over a hundred years in that subterranean cavern with serpent venom dripping on his face. Of course, his wife Sigyn caught most of it in a bowl but he burned when she was away emptying the bowl. The stupid woman couldn’t have used two bowls to save him from torment. He had killed her after he finally freed himself.

The sergeant would suffer a slow, tortured death so could have a taste of what Loki had endured. As for that ridiculous archaeologist who thought he was smarter than the god of mischief and chaos. Well, his torment had only begun.

Loki flew away from the barracks and changed shape to his true form with a few modifications. He was normally seven and a half feet tall but he didn’t want to attract undue attention so he adjusted his height to something closer to average.

He cheerfully walked down the street. All the other gods were unsettled with how much Midgard had changed in the last 1,000 years but he loved it. It was chaotic, violent and full of misinformation and conspiracy theories. He felt like a fish in water.

“Do you have any spare change?”

Loki stopped and considered the panhandler that had interrupted his thoughts. “Yes.”

“Could you give me any spare change?”

“Yes, I could do that.”

The man looked unsure of himself as Loki stared silently at him. “Would you please give me some spare change?”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Loki gestured with his hand and held up a thick wad of 100 Euro notes. Before handing over the money he pointed a finger into the air as is he had a point to make.

“But first let me give you some advice.”

The panhandler looked hopefully at the large amount of money but was leery of Loki’s odd behaviour. “Umm, okay then.”

Loki pointed his finger at the panhandler and buried it in the man’s forehead up to the knuckle. “Don’t talk to strangers.”

The unfortunate man slumped lifeless to the sidewalk as if his strings were cut.

Loki showered the corpse with 100 Euro bills then walked away. “Not even a thank you? I can see humans are as rude as they’ve ever been, nice to know some things haven’t changed.”

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Marja watched the video on her phone again and tried to figure out how it could have been recorded. She couldn’t imagine Odin holding out an iPhone at arms length to record it and besides both his hands were clearly visible in the video.

The recording initially showed Odin flying through the clouds on his eight-legged horse Sleipner and holding aloft his spear Grugnir. The spear didn’t look remarkable except it was overly large to match the size of its wielder.

Grugnir proved how remarkable it was when Odin cast it downward straight through the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the pride of the United States Navy. Initially it seemed like there was little effect aside from the small hole through the center of the deck but Grugnir kept on going through all 25 decks of the ship until it exited through the keel.

A six-inch hole through the entire thickness of the gargantuan 100,000 ton carrier was an impressive amount of damage but it would not have been enough to sink the tough, well-designed ship. That was accomplished by the wave of kinetic force that radiated outward from the impact point of Odin’s spear.

Odin didn’t even glance backward as the Gerald R. Ford cracked in half and sank into the water with it crew of 4,500 sailors and aircrew. Four Super Hornets were chasing him and had fired missiles to no effect. They were trying to ram him when he suddenly vanished.

Marja shut her phone off and pocketed it when the video ended. These videos were genuine but they had been filmed like movies. How was it possible that ancient Norse gods could be so tech savvy? It made no sense but sense was in short supply lately.

A series of videos like this were circulating online. Odin and his wolves killing hundreds of senior officers at an emergency meeting of NATO in Brussels. Thor tossing a tank through the walls of the Kremlin. A swarm of Berserkers massacring Chinese troops in Tiananmen Square.

The symbolism was powerful and the message was clear to Marja. ‘Resistance is futile.’ Marja had always been a Trekkie and no one would ever mistake Odin for a Borg but the core message was still the same.

She set up a tripod for her camera and started to make a video of the mountain of garbage that was about half a kilometer away. She was here to document what the government was going to do with the mess the garbage queen had left behind.

Marja looked upward at the sky when a shadow briefly fell over her. There was a large falcon circling the garbage site. This was probably a great location for hunting rats, or maybe it was hunting some of the smaller birds of prey that were after vermin.

She lowered her head to the camera but was distracted by a loud bird cry. Marja gazed at the falcon circling overhead again and felt uneasy. It was lower in the sky now and it was obviously far too large to be any type of falcon she knew about. This falcon much larger than an eagle and it was gliding straight for her.

She ran underneath the branches of a tree for cover and watched the enormous bird land in a clearing. There was a shimmer of magic and the falcon transformed into a tall, very tall, woman with shining red-gold hair. The woman was wearing a long cloak of feathers that she shook into place with a strangely avian movement.

Her amber eyes focused on Marja. The eyes were fierce, bird-like and burned with intelligence and power. “I could feel your presence when I flew over this pile of garbage. Your people call themselves Sami now.”

Marja nodded silently.

“You are my people. I’m surprised that you are so far south, away from the reindeer herds.”

Marja felt it like a revelation. This was a goddess of her people. This was her goddess. It was both thrilling and terrifying. “Are you Matturahkka?”

The seven foot tall woman cocked her head and the red-gold hair caught the sun like a mirror. “Languages have changed so much that the name you use is not familiar but your heart is open to me. That is who I am. They call me Freyja now. I am a goddess of the Norse as well but before that I was a goddess of the Northern People.”

The unnaturally beautiful goddess turned toward the hills of garbage Marja had been recording and frowned. “You are spying on this ugly mountain of trash. Is there a story here?”

“It’s been a huge environmental scandal in Sweden. There was a company owned by someone we now call the queen of garbage. Her company was supposed to process all of this waste but she just dumped it on the countryside instead. I guess things like this never happened in your time.”

Freyja grunted in amusement. “Corruption and deception are not modern inventions child. I haven’t been on Midgard for a thousand years but people are still basically the same.” She looked wistful as she watched bulldozers push scoopfuls of waste around.

“But yet so much has changed that is hard to understand.”

She raised an eyebrow as she regarded Marja from head to toe. “You call yourself an environment warrior don’t you. What does that mean?”

I belong to a group called Friends of the Earth Sweden and we fight for the environment. We try to stop things like this garbage pile from happening and so much else. Global warming. Heavy metals. Plastics. Nuclear waste.”

Freyja sighed unhappily and put her hands on her hips. The motion caused the feathered cloak to open as if she was spreading her wings. “I am trying to learn about these things you speak of but I can’t sort the lies from the truth. I don’t know who to trust. Tell me what I am Marja.”

“Well, you’re…” Marja considered her response. “You’re a goddess of nature, fertility, war and magic.”

Freyja nodded with satisfaction. “Yes, you are my people. You can see that. I feel the Earth. In some ways I am the Earth and do you know how I feel right now?”

“I’m guessing not so good.”

“Your guess is correct mortal. I feel like. I don’t know the word in your language yet.” She paced with her long muscular legs in front of Marja. “I feel like when you want to shit but it comes out like water.”

“Umm, diarrhea?”

“That’s it. I feel like diarrhea and I don’t like to feel like diarrhea. I need an environment warrior I can trust so I can find out the truth and fix the Earth. I need one of the Northern People. You are going to help me.”

“I’m not sure how I could do anything a goddess couldn’t do.”

“I will tell you. Odin wants my help in conquering Midgard and putting the humans under his thumb again but I don’t trust him. He asked me to destroy nuclear power plants because they are poisoning the earth. Does that make any sense to you?”

“No way. If you destroyed a working nuclear power plant you would spread radiation all around the world. There’s some truth to what he’s saying. Nuclear waste is a huge problem but you would make it even worse. Maybe Odin didn’t understand what he was asking.”

“I doubt that.” Freyja’s beautiful face was turning bright red in anger. “Odin always knows what he’s doing. The only god that’s a bigger liar than Odin is Loki. He doesn’t care about the Earth. He only cares about himself. I’m going to kick his fat arse for this.”

“Can you do that? Isn’t he the all-father of the gods and all that?”

“I’m a goddess of war Marja. He may be the all-father but I’m the all-mother bitch of the gods. Half of the warriors that die in battle go to me and I get first choice over him.”

Marja backed away from the furious goddess. “Okay, okay. Mythology has never been my strong point.”

“Relax, I’m angry with Odin not you. I know Odin talked to a human before he broke free into Midgard and I need to find that human. Odin was probably honest with him if he thought the human would soon be dead. He likes to brag.”

“Do you mean the archeologist Oliver Trask?”

“Yes, do you know him?”

“No, but his story was all over the net, especially since Odin and Thor started attacking everyone. I read he’s with the Swedish army now.”

Freyja looked pleased and she pointed imperiously at Marja. “You find out where he is and we’ll talk to him together.”

Marja rubbed her forehead as she felt the start of a tension headache. She didn’t recall agreeing to help Freyja. The increasingly overwhelmed Marja realized that the assumption of obedience was probably common when dealing with gods. “I have some cousins who spent some time in the army. Maybe some of their old army friends can help me.”

Freyja impatiently waved her hand as if she didn’t want to hear the details. “I was on my way to Northern Sweden when I sensed you down her and I have to leave now. I will fix the Earth with your help. Think about how we can do that without causing more harm than good.”

The goddess raised her arms and her feathered cloak turned her into a falcon again. Marja found it weirdly disconcerting when a giant falcon said one last thing before flying away. “Stick with me Marja. Life will always be interesting.”

She watched Freyja fly away while debating the pros and cons of living an interesting life.

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Sedrick hated going to school when he was a boy, but he especially hated history class. He was the product of a perfectly normal middle class Swedish family and his parents were bewildered by their son’s anti-authoritarian, anti-social and sometimes violent behaviour. He was a wild child.

He was now in his early forties with two young children of his own and he loved history. He was currently reading a new book about the Swedish biker wars from 1994 to 1997 between the Bandidos and the Hells Angels. This was a subject of specific interest to him because he was the elected president of the Thor’s Disciples motorcycle club with chapters in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo.

His sergeant at arms opened the door to his office and Sedrick could see his usually stoic friend Kurt was agitated.

“There you are Sedrick! You need to see what’s happening on the news.”

Sedrick calmly put his book down while he picked up the remote with his other hand. His peaceful demeanor evaporated as he watched the blood-strewn footage of the attack on a military parade in the States.

He froze the image of a red bearded giant jumping on top of an Abrams tank and smashing it into pieces with one blow of a short handled war hammer. Sedrick looked at Kurt with a stunned expression. “This has to be a hoax. This is AI or some other bullshit like that.”

Kurt shook his head. “It’s not. It’s all over the news around the world. Last report estimated over 20,000 dead. Keep watching.”

Sedrick pointed at the image of a red bearded maniac destroying the most powerful tank in the world. “But that’s Thor! Who else could it be? This has to be a hoax.”

“Just keep watching Sedrick.”

Sedrick used the remote again. He and Kurt watched the rest of the footage. Sedrick was a violent man living in a violent world but even he was repulsed by the savagery of the berserkers unleashed by someone who could be none other than Odin himself.

Kurt and Sedrick watched Odin kill the American president and listened to Odin’s message to the world. Sedrick turned the television off when some breathless newscasters tried to interpret what the attack in America meant. He believed he had a better idea of what this meant than the talking heads.

“Only the strong will survive.” Kurt repeated. “It’s good that we are strong Sedrick.”

“Are you sure about that Kurt? Do you think we are strong compared to a god who can crush two feet of Chobham armour with a hammer? We are nothing compared to them. That was the whole point of this demonstration.”

Sedrick paused in thought for a moment and then opened a desk drawer to pull out the Sig Sauer 320 he kept there.

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing Sedrick?”

“Conducting an experiment. Grab your Ak24 and join me in the shooting range.”

Sedrick and Kurt walked through the large central room in the clubhouse on their way to the shooting range. There were three other members of the club in the main hall and they were in high spirits after watching the same newscast as Kurt and Sedrick.

“Sedrick! You have to drink with us. We are celebrating the Americans getting slaughtered by our Norse gods.” Stannis tried to thrust a bottle of Norrlands Guld beer into Sedrick’s hands. Stannis towered over Sedrick’s own six feet by an extra five inches. Sedrick privately called Stannis ‘the problem’ in his thoughts. Stannis was stupidly violent and ambitious. The type who would only be satisfied until he was the president of the club and then he would probably start pointless wars with other clubs.

“Kurt and I are busy right now Stannis, maybe later.”

“Too good to drink with us, are you?” Stannis slapped Sedrick on the back with a seemingly friendly gesture.

Sedrick almost stumbled from the impact. Stannis thought he was clever playing little games like slapping him on the back with all his considerable strength. He was tempted to solve the Stannis problem right now with the Sig in the back of his belt but resisted the impulse.

He nodded at the other two members of the club and walked toward the back door with Kurt. Behind them Stannis shouted, “Death to the Americans!” and drained his own bottle of Norrlands Guld.

Sedrick opened the back door and they were at the firing range behind the large clubhouse situated in the countryside north of Stockholm.

“Since when does Stannis hate Americans?” Kurt asked Sedrick.

“Ahhh if the Chinese had been attacked, he’d be yelling ‘Death to the Chinese.’ Stannis hates everyone. The only thing he likes is violence.”

Sedrick pulled out his pistol and racked the slide. He aimed carefully down the range and was rewarded with an impotent click when he pulled the trigger. He had expected it but the rational part of his mind was still surprised.

“Try the rifle, Kurt.”

Kurt and Sedrick each tried three rounds from their weapons and both met with sterile results.

“I think we can assume all our guns are useless. Now we know why none of the troops or police at the parade were shooting.” Sedrick stuffed the pistol back in his waistband.

“That makes no sense.”

Sedrick shrugged. “Since when does anything have to make sense? Something has changed. We need to adapt with a new reality. We need to be smart and try our best to stay ahead of what’s happening.”

There was a distant sound of Harley Davidsons that quickly became louder as a group large motorcycles drove up to the fortified front gate of the clubhouse. To Sedrick’s experienced ear it sounded like three machines.

Kurt and Sedrick walked around the corner of the clubhouse. They saw Stannis and his two companions run up ahead of them and start yelling at the three members of the rival club No Name MC that had pulled up to the gate.

Sedrick recognized Axel, the president of No Name, and two other members of No Name on their motorcycles. It was unwise of them to show up unannounced like this. They were lucky they hadn’t been shot. Sedrick knew Axel well and regarded him as shrewd and level headed. This was uncharacteristic behaviour for him but then again this was a very uncharacteristic day.

He walked up to where Stannis was shouting threats at an angry looking Axel and stepped in between them. “Shut up Stannis!” He shouted in the young giant’s face and turned to look at Axel.

“Why are you here Axel?”

Axel was obviously relieved to see Stannis. “You know we’ve been watching that monument on the high coast?”

“Yes.”

“The soldiers guarding the monument jumped into their trucks and drove away so seven of us decided this was our chance to finally see what’s going on. We think that monument is where Thor and Odin came back into our world.”

“Seven, where are the other four?”

“We were attacked, but not by soldiers.” Axel carefully removed his leather jacket to reveal a crude, bloody dressing on his forearm. “Some kind of monsters attacked us. They literally tore apart four of my best friends. The three of us ran back to our bikes and took off. None of our guns would work.”

“Bullshit! Your guns didn’t work because you cowards were too busy running away to shoot.” Stannis shouted across the gate.

Sedrick pivoted on his foot and shouted in Stannis’ face again. “I told you to shut the fuck up!”

He turned back toward Axel. “You know your mythology as well as I do Axel. The creatures that attacked you. Would you call them trolls?”

“Trolls!” Stannis scoffed loudly but this time Sedrick ignored him.

Axel blinked with surprise and then nodded. “That’s exactly what I would call them.”

Sedrick stepped forward and unlocked the gate. He pointed to an area near the clubhouse. Keep your colours but you can stay with us for now. Does that sound right to you Axel?”

Axel didn’t look happy but most of his club had just been massacred and he respected Sedrick’s judgement. He nodded and the three Harleys drove slowly inside.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Stannis shouted and abruptly shut up when Sedrick pulled out his pistol and pressed the barrel hard between his eyes. Sedrick pulled the trigger and Stannis froze. Sedrick pulled the trigger two more times to emphasize his point.

“Guns don’t work anymore.” He said to his club members in case anyone was slow on the uptake. He tucked the pistol back into his belt. It was useless as a firearm but if Stannis kept pushing his luck it could serve as a metal club to pistol whip the oversized fool.

“Kurt, call your blacksmith friend who makes the knives. Tell him we’ll buy all his swords and axes that are actual weapons and not show pieces. See if you can trade any of our useless guns. I’m going to call the rest of the club and tell them to all come to the clubhouse.”

Sedrick needed information, not second-hand stories to navigate his way through this new reality. He and his club were going to check out this monument for themselves. The survivors of No Name could join them.

He looked at the now sullen Stannis. “Stannis! You like to fight. How does killing trolls sound to you?”

Stannis answered with a crazed grin

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Oliver reached through the portal and fell through it to land on his face back in Sweden. His elbow hit the red granite first and it hurt so badly he was sure he must have broken a bone. He lay on his stomach for a few minutes as he moaned with pain.

Oliver was a portly, out of shape academic. His idea of a painful injury used to be stubbing his toe on a rock. In the last half hour he had been impaled by an oaken splinter, stabbed in the liver and lost an eye. Breaking his arm as well seemed excessive. He hadn’t obtained a PhD in archeology to become a poor facsimile of Indiana Jones. Oliver had been perfectly happy as a sheltered bookworm.

Eventually he became accustomed to the pain and found out self pity with no audience got to be boring fairly quickly. He sat up and cradled his injured arm against his body before carefully standing upright. The ancient monument was directly in front of him but the red granite of the side facing him had been replaced by a swirling blue-green portal that was luminescent around the edges.

He remembered the trolls that had planned on eating him on the other side of the portal and nervously backed away. Oliver turned around and walked toward the gate for the high fence surrounding the portal. He shook the locked gate and yelled for help while he kept an anxious eye on the portal.

Oliver heard a distant voice from below the cliff that the monument had been built upon. “Who are you? How did you get up there?”

“I’m Oliver Trask, the archeologist. I’m locked behind the gate up here and there are monsters on the other side of the portal. Get me out of here before they kill me!”

“What the hell nonsense are you talking about?”

“Just get me out of here!”

“Hold on, I’m coming.”

The soldier saved his breath for the climb up the steep path to the top of the granite cliff.

Oliver almost peed himself with relief as he saw a sergeant in the Swedish army appear on the path from below. The soldier walked briskly to the gate and pulled out a ring of keys. “Professor, how did you get yourself locked up in there?”

“I’ll tell you later, just get me out of here.”

“Hold your bloody horses.” The sergeant muttered as he selected the right key for the gate. He was about to insert the key in the lock when he looked behind Oliver and momentarily froze. “Holy shit!”

He recovered his composure quickly and opened the gate and grabbed Oliver by the front of his shirt in one motion. He yanked Oliver through the gate and slammed it shut in the face of a troll trying to grab Oliver from behind. The sergeant turned the heavy lock closed and jumped backward as the troll tried to claw at him through the steel grid of the fence.

“What the fuck is that thing?”

“I think it’s a troll. They’re all over the place on the other side of the portal.”

The sergeant looked at Oliver with a skeptical expression and then took a closer look at the troll. He determined for himself this wasn’t some clown in Halloween suit when a gob of phlegm flew out of the slavering jaws of the troll and landed on his face.

He unslung his rifle with an angry expression. “Fortunately for me I have the proper tool for dealing with trolls.” He loaded a round with a smooth motion and flipped up his gun to aim it at the center of the troll’s torso. “If you’re some fool in the best monster costume ever, now’s the time to stop playing around. I’m firing on three.”

He loudly counted to three and gave yet another warning before shifting his aim to the troll’s leg and firing. There was an unsatisfactory click and he looked at his gun with a dumbfounded expression. The troll became excited and tried even harder to break the strong gate down.

The sergeant cleared the dud round and pulled the trigger once more with the same result. He looked up at the troll and stepped forward to ram the butt of his gun in the troll’s face.

The troll flew backward to land on his butt with a howl. It held a dirty hand to the blood gushing out of his nose.

The sergeant changed magazines and still found nothing but dead rounds. “This is impossible. I’ve fired thousands of rounds on the range and only once did I encounter a dud round.”

“It must be Odin’s work.” Oliver pointed toward the portal on the monument. “He told me he would rip the technology out of our hands. If anyone could perform magic like this it would be him.”

“Odin? Magic? Give me a break professor. My bullshit meter is flashing red.” The sergeant looked at his useless gun and then at the troll who was at the gate again and trying to break it down. He slung his rifle and pulled a knife from his belt.

“Leave the fucking gate alone!”

The troll tried to grab at him. “You brode my nose, you bastid!”

The sergeant grabbed the toll by its wrist and pulled its arm through the opening in the fence so its face smashed into the fence rails. “I said the leave the gate alone!” He stabbed the troll in the shoulder.

The troll yanked its arm free and ran back a few steps to safety. “You dibn’t hab to stad me!”

“You didn’t have to spit in my face you ugly bastard. Now get back through that portal and stay on your side or I’ll stab you in the nuts. Go on! Move it!”

The troll looked at the portal and hesitated.

“That does it. I’m coming over there and stabbing you in the nuts.” The sergeant pulled out his ring of keys and started to unlock the gate despite Oliver’s loud protests.

The troll whimpered in fear and jumped back through the portal.

“Why didn’t that thing scare you even a little?” Oliver asked the sergeant.

The soldier shrugged as he cleaned his knife and replaced it in its scabbard. “It wasn’t really much different from the bikers and neo-Nazis we’ve had to deal with lately. Come on professor you need to talk to the lieutenant.”

The first thing lieutenant Wallander did was order his men to test fire all their weapons. The entire platoon quickly found out that none of their weapons were functioning.

Loud noises could be heard from the fence on top of the cliff and the lieutenant stared at the trail from the cliff’s summit with concern.

“That will be more of those trolls, lieutenant.” His sergeant guessed. “It sounds like there’s a lot more of them now. It won’t take long for them to get through that gate.”

“The trolls are probably the least dangerous thing that could come though the portal.” Oliver pointed out.

“Everybody load up in the trucks.” The lieutenant made a snap decision. There was no time to report this to his captain and try to convince him of the reality of the situation here. His men were defenseless and being attacked by an unknown enemy. It was time to retreat and keep his platoon safe.

“Sergeant Olsson, take the utility vehicle and drive professor Trask to his wife and then rejoin us at the barracks.”

Oliver was grateful that sergeant Olsson had been chosen to be his driver. He felt safe with the tough, profane soldier who had chased off a troll without hesitation. The sergeant was a good companion for driving off into the unknown and Oliver was worried about his wife.

The lieutenant had told him that Oliver, or someone who was identical to Oliver, had left the site two days ago with Janet. Oliver had somehow lost two days and he was totally disoriented. All he knew for sure was that he wanted to find Janet and make sure she was all right.

He fingered the bandage a soldier had applied to cover his empty eye socket. There was no wound, the eyeball was simply gone. Odin’s raven had used surgical precision when the God had decided Oliver had a price to pay for knowledge.

They pulled up in front of the hotel and sergeant Olsson noticed how frightened his passenger looked. “Come on professor, I’ll go with you to check on your wife.”

Oliver opened his hotel room to see himself raise his head from the bed and look sleepily toward the open door. His other self smiled and swung himself off the bed.

“Close the door humans.” He glanced at Oliver’s wife who was sprawled naked beside him on the bed. He made a small gesture with his hand. “There, she won’t wake up while we have a little chat.”

Oliver’s naked doppelganger shimmered and was replaced by a smirking Loki complete with godlike proportions. “Nice to meet you, Oliver. I’ve been busy giving your wife the sexual satisfaction she’s been starving for since she married you.”

“What the hell is going on professor?” The sergeant stammered. He was more shocked by Loki’s sudden transformation than he was by the troll.

“I’m pretty sure that’s Loki. This fits his M.O.”

Loki nodded in agreement and this unsettled the sergeant even more. He pulled out his knife and pointed it directly at the Norse god.

“Jesus Christ! No!” Oliver tried ineffectively to hold the sergeant back.

Loki’s satisfied smirk was replaced by an annoyed expression. A long knife appeared in his hand and he lopped off the sergeant’s right hand so quickly that Oliver didn’t realize what happened until blood started to pump out of the stump.

“Jesus Christ? Really professor don’t blaspheme in front of a god. It’s poor manners. You two go away now. You’ve made a terrible mess and you’re starting to bore me.”

Loki turned his back on them and lay back down on his bed. “Your wife is a frisky minx Oliver. I need to get my beauty sleep before she wakes up again.”

Oliver used both his hands to squeeze down on the stump and slow down the bleeding. He helped the ashen sergeant out of the hotel room and into the hall. They needed to get away before the capricious Loki decided it would be more fun to kill them as well as Janet.

He pulled off his belt to use as a torniquet on the stump as they waited for the elevator. ‘He’s lost his right hand just like Tyr,’ he thought to himself as they entered the elevator.

“I’m going to kill that fucker!” The sergeant hissed through clenched teeth.

“He’s Loki. He literally cannot be killed.”

“That won’t stop me from trying.”

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“We have nothing on radar Falcon 17. Describe what you see.”

Captain Melbourne had a clear view of the UFO but hesitated before he related the information. He was concerned about the damage to his career if he accurately described what he thought he saw rapidly closing on his F-35. He didn’t want to be branded forever with a nickname like ‘Captain Wingnut.’

Both goats hit the multimillion dollar aircraft with their front hooves and it disintegrated before he could eject. As he started the long fall to an unforgiving Earth, he saw a brief glimpse of a red headed giant inside the chariot pulled by the goats.

“Damn your mangy hides Gnasher and Grinder! Stop hogging all the fun. Pull alongside the next one.” The savage goats fought the reigns but eventually allowed Thor to guide them alongside another F-35.

Thor leaned over the side of the chariot and raised his hammer over the wildly evading fighter jet. Gnasher and Grinder enjoyed the challenge of matching the erratic maneuvers and Thor laughed with berserker joy as he barely hung onto the side of the chariot with one hand. He brought down Mjolnir and the jet turned into a cloud of scrap.

“Hahhh! They pop like rotten peaches. Fight back you human cowards. Where are your warriors?”

Two F-35s were behind Thor and fighting back was exactly what they were trying to do. Both pilots correctly guessed their missiles would be ineffective, but their 25 mm cannons should do the job. Unfortunately for them, neither cannon would work. The mechanics of the cannons were functioning but the shells wouldn’t fire. Every shell was a dud.

Odin observed the aborted attack with satisfaction. This had been the most difficult and complicated feat of magic he had ever accomplished, but it worked. The human’s guns were useless.

He watched Thor destroy another jet while he struggled to control his goat’s crazed bloodlust. It was nice to see the boy having a good time again, but the old man wanted to get in on the action as well.

Odin’s eight-legged horse Sleipnir drove his four front hooves through the cockpit of one F- 35 while Odin threw his spear Gungnir through another fighter jet. Odin controlled the flight of Gungnir so it destroyed the last of the F-35s before he willed it back to his hand.

Thor flew through the wreckage of the last jet and gave his father a disappointed scowl. “That one was mine.”

“We agreed to three each. Stop being a child.” Odin twitched the reins of Sleipnir to guide her to the military parade beneath them. “Head to the ground Thor. Let’s see if the human’s tanks are tougher than their metal birds.”

Thor landed first with a crash that bounced him out of the chariot. He rolled to his feet with a happy grin and ignored the large group of soldiers loading their guns with full magazines and desperately trying to make them fire. He unhitched Gnasher and Grinder and told them to stay. The goats were so wild with restrained violence they started to breath fire through their nostrils.

Sleipnir elegantly descended beside Thor and Odin slid off her back. Once again, he was satisfied with the complete lack of gunfire.

One brave soldier ran toward Thor and tried to use his gun as a club.

“Look a hero.” Thor grabbed the soldier by his battle harness and threw him up high against the side of a nearby building where he left behind a large red smear of viscera before dropping to the ground. “He had a lot of guts, didn’t he?”

Odin slung Gungnir through a tank that was seconds away from running over his laughing son. “Stop playing around and pay attention Thor. Getting run over by a tank would hurt even you.”

Thor was embarrassed at nearly being run over and irritated at his father for scolding him in front of the humans. He took out his bad mood on the next tank in line. He leaped high off the ground and landed on the turret as he brought Mjolnir down at the same time. The explosion of heavy composite armour chunks mowed down large numbers of both troops in the street and civilians crowding the sidewalks.

Odin opened a large portal to Asgard and his wolves Geri and Freki bounded towards him and stood by his side. They bared their teeth at the soldiers surrounding their master and waited for his commands.

Next through the portal was a large crowd of Odin’s berserkers that were more animalistic than Odin’s wolves. He didn’t want to summon them until he was sure they couldn’t be mowed down by gunfire. They were all immortal, super-powered members of his Einherjar but they were still only human and could be killed. They would rise again the next day but they would be useless to him if they were constantly slaughtered by bullets.

The restless mass of naked berserkers crowded around their all father and bayed and howled like the human animals they were. Some them weren’t armed with weapons, preferring to kill with their teeth and hands. The oldest of them had started to turn into beasts and had the jaws of wolves or bears.

Odin smiled fondly at his favourite pets. They would definitely help make the impression he was trying to create today. He gave them two words of command.

“Kill everything.”

Odin walked forward with Geri and Freki by his side as the wave of homicidal maniacs spread around him. He walked toward a nearby viewing stand that contained the president of this country and his cabinet. Before the attack started, he had sealed off this area with a magical, shimmering barrier. Odin noticed bodyguards futilely trying to break through the barrier as he approached.

Soldiers tried to stop him from reaching the viewing stand and Geri and Freki were kept busy tearing them to shreds. The occasional soldier that broke through and rushed at him he would swat aside with his spear. He frowned at the gory mess this had been making of Gungnir’s business end and tore off one of the colourful banners festooned with stars and stripes. He used the piece of cloth to clean his weapon while he walked through the magical barrier.

“Guard my back.” He instructed his wolves while bodyguards wearing suits and mirrors on their eyes threw themselves on him and tried to force him to the ground. He noticed one of them hitting him with a little black stick. He plucked it out of the man’s hand and looked at it with amusement.

“You attack the God of War with a toothpick? There is a difference between bravery and stupidity little warrior.” He casually impaled the secret service agent with the baton. Odin then stopped and shook himself like a wet dog shedding water from its fur. Bodyguards flew off him and crashed to the ground.

Odin swept Gungnir in a wide arc and most of the group of secret service agents were cut into separate pieces. He stomped on the ones that were flat on the ground like the ants they were.

His ravens Hugin and Murin had been flying overhead since before the start of the parade. Thanks to their reports, he knew which of the humans was their president and everything else he needed to know. He plunged his spear point first into the ground to free his hands.

He backhanded two more bodyguards still bold enough to confront him and they flew backward with shattered bodies. He took a moment to assess the carnage taking place outside the magical barrier.

Thor had destroyed all the tanks and moved on to softer targets. He was covered in blood that was a close match for his long red beard and hair. Thor’s goats were stampeding through crowds of civilians and leaving a trail of gore behind them. A berserker tore an arm off one of his victims and started to eat. It was a wonderful day to be alive.

Odin grabbed the president by the back of his neck and pulled him upright until his feet were dangling off the ground. He faced the helpless politician towards the cameras.

“Your God of Love is dead. I am your new god. I am the God of War.”

He placed an enormous hand on top of the president’s head so the face was hidden behind thick, hairy fingers. “This was your president.” He squeezed his hand and crushed the president’s skull with a moist crunching sound.

Odin dropped the body and waved his hand in the air to dislodge clumps of brain and hairy shards of skull.

“Only the strong will survive.”

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War for Midgard Prologue

“You must be Lieutenant Wallander.”

“And you must be the archaeologist. I’m sorry, Oliver… Oliver Task is it?”

“Close. Oliver Trask and this is my wife, Janet. It’s nice to meet you lieutenant.”

The three people formed a circle and shook hands.

“This is my first time on the High Coast. I’ve never seen red granite cliffs like these before.”

“Follow me professor.” The Swedish Army lieutenant started on a winding path up the cliff face. “Legend has it that one thousand years ago there was a battle between the armies of two different gods on these cliffs. So much blood was shed it permanently stained the granite red. But of course, you already know all this.”

“Yup, there are many different versions of the story but the common thread is the same two gods engage in a Ragnarok type of battle every 1000 years.” Oliver stopped talking to save his breath. Climbing this steep path wasn’t easy for an out of shape man in his mid fifties.

His wife had no such trouble but she was thirty years younger than him and jogged every day. She had been a former student of his and their affair and eventual marriage had fed the gossip mill at the university. Janet carried most of the equipment they brought with them up the path.

Oliver was gasping for breath by the time they reached the top of the cliff. He was embarrassed and it reminded him of his dismal performance in the hotel bedroom with his young wife last night. He needed to lose the gut and start regular exercise.

Lieutenant Wallander pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked the gate to a high fence surrounding a stone monument on top of the cliff.

“Professor, listen to me carefully. My platoon has been stationed here for three months and when I tell you this monument is dangerous, I speak from experience.”

He gestured at the steel fence topped with coils of razor wire that gleamed in the morning sun. “I had this fence installed because my men would act erratically and become violent if they approached the monument too closely. You are the first person I have allowed inside the fence for weeks.”

“Three days ago, a large group of neo-Nazis tried to attack the site to ‘free their god’ as they put it. We had to kill four of them before the rest would surrender. This is not an interesting archeological puzzle. This is fucking dangerous.”

The lieutenant swung the gate open and held it for Oliver. “Good luck.”

He hesitated. This description was much worse than what he had been told, but he believed everything this grim officer had told him. “Janet, please wait here. I’m going to set up the camera first and I’ll be right back.”

Oliver carried the case with the video equipment through the gate and approached the monument. He passed a stone plaque with the Latin phrase ‘Finnis Belli’ or ‘the End of War.’ The prevailing theory was this plaque was a warning, but a warning of what?

He decided not to approach the monument any closer than ten feet. Before opening the case, he stopped to look at the monument from close up. The rising sun made the red stone of the structure appear to shimmer like a mirage.

Oliver opened the case and extracted a new battery for the camera. He was distracted by a sudden case of vertigo and the battery slipped out of his hand to bounce toward the monument. He stepped forward and bent down to grab for the battery. At the same time a long arm reached out of the monument to grab his hand and pull him inside.

Oliver landed hard on his back and had the wind driven out of him. He gasped ineffectually as he tried, but failed, to breathe. Three misshapen heads looked down at him with curiosity. A thick, dirt-encrusted finger poked him in the ribs.

“What is it?”

“Don’t know. Looks a little familiar but doesn’t look right either.”

A nose dripping with mucous and covered with warts snuffled at his face. “Smells like food to me!”

Oliver was picked up by his ankles to dangle in the air. At the same time, he was finally able to fill his lungs again with painful whooping breaths.

“Food, food, food!” The three trolls chanted as they danced in a circle. “Tasty snacks for handsome lads.”

One of the trolls looked up when a shadow fell over him. “Uh oh.”

His head disappeared in a blotchy scarlet mist when a hammer swung through the space previously occupied by his cranium.

Another troll looked at his dramatically shorter friend with confusion then noticed the hammer’s backswing closing in on his own handsome features. “Son of a …”

Following the second wet popping sound, the surviving troll dropped Oliver and ran away while whimpering with fear and self pity.

Oliver stood up and dusted himself off. He looked at the eight foot, red bearded giant who had been his saviour and then at the fleeing troll. “Couldn’t you hit him if you threw your hammer?”

“Throw my hammer? What kind of idiot throws away a perfectly good hammer?”

The red bearded man grabbed Oliver by the back of his shirt. He started to briskly walk down a road while propelling Oliver in front of him. “Move human. My father wants to talk to you.”

Oliver had to jog to keep up the pace. “Who’s your father?”

“He is the one who wants to talk to you.”

It was a short distance to their destination. A one-eyed, white bearded man sat behind a table in front of what Oliver thought was a gigantic wooden building. On second look he realized it was, by far, the thickest and tallest tree he had ever seen.

“What are you human? You look like a scholar.”

“I have a PhD in archaeology. My name is doctor Oliver Trask.”

“I didn’t ask your name. So, you know who I am or at least what you think I am.”

Oliver watched as an enormous raven landed on the enormous man’s shoulder. “You’re Odin.”

“Close enough. Are you a Christian?”

“Yes.” Oliver hadn’t been to church in decades but he suddenly felt more devout than he had ever been. “Yes, very much so.”

“Good for you. A man of faith. I like Christians. Nothing is funnier than a Christian monk screaming out the ‘Our Father’ when I cut his ribs open and pull out his lungs. Do you remember those good times Thor?”

Thor smiled and nodded eagerly. “It’s nice to see a Christian again.”

“I haven’t been to church in decades.”

Odin and Thor shouted their laughter. “Look at that Thor. He went from being devout to lapsed in five seconds. At least this one has a little common sense.”

Odin drummed his fingers on the oaken table and regarded Oliver. “An educated man who isn’t stupid. A surprisingly rare combination. I will explain the gods to you human because I’m bored talking to myself for the last 1000 years that I’ve been imprisoned.”

Oliver pointed at Thor. “But you’re not alone.”

“Thor? He’s an extension of myself. Everything here is an extension of me. Thor is the young version of me. Unstoppable in battle but not very bright. He is me before I acquired wisdom. Thor, run off and kill some frost giants.”

Thor hopped to his feet and called for his goats.

Odin watched his son fly off in his chariot while he talked to Oliver. “Lapsed Christian that you are, I assume that you see things in terms of good and evil. Heaven and hell and all that nonsense.”

“I suppose.”

“You’ve been played by your Christian God. There’s no such thing as good and evil. The devil was invented so humans could blame someone else for their nasty ways. God isn’t good either. Guess what he really is.”

“Perfection?”

“Oh, please.” Odin dug a hand under his furs and scratched at an armpit. “Before you stepped through the portal, were you living in a perfect world?”

“We try our best.”

“You try? Where’s your perfect God then? What’s he doing? Where is his perfect guidance?”

“Your Christian God is love human. Simple, flawed, useless love. I am the God of war. Your God is weak and spineless. I am strong and I rule your race with an iron hand. That is the duality that rules the human race. Love and war. Everything else is details.”

“If you’re so strong, why are you the one locked behind this portal?”

Odin slapped his hand on the thick table and split it in two. “You mock your true God! I would step on you like the ant you are but I still have use for you human.”

Oliver had been skewered by an oaken splinter that pierced his left arm. The pain and anger made him uncharacteristically defiant. “Stop calling me human. My name is Oliver.”

“Name? You don’t deserve a name. You barely deserve to be called human instead of turd. When the God of war ruled the earth there were humans who deserved their names. Warriors who killed other warriors. Warriors who ruled because they were strong, not because a majority of sheep elected them as a leader.”

“You humans are pathetic. What a bunch of whining, self-obsessed sheep you’ve become. One millennia of the God of love and you’ve almost destroyed Gaia with your technology. You’re all a bunch of brain addled weaklings.”

Odin kicked away the remains of the table and leaned toward Oliver.

“Tell me human, how many drugs do you take because you’re an unhappy little child. Speak up turd! Too embarrassed to admit it are you? Munnin find out for me.”

Munnin jumped from Odin’s shoulder and swooped around Oliver in a long figure eight pattern. Oliver turned his head to watch the raven but lost sight of her when she flew behind him.

Munnin dove toward his midsection and plunged her long beak into his abdomen. She tore a chunk out of liver and gulped it down without missing a beat.

“Prozac, Xanax and Propranolol.” Munnin told Odin in a sing song voice. “Traces of Viagra he took last night.”

“Viagra!” Odin roared with laughter. He bent down to look at Oliver where he sprawled on the ground with blood oozing out of his back. “What a warrior you are! You can’t even hold your sword upright.”

Odin flipped a chair upright and sat down again.

“You’ve grown up being told that God loves you. Well, that’s going to change. I don’t love you. I have nothing but contempt for the weak. I have to resist the urge to crush your head into paste so I don’t have to look at your crying face. You earn my love and I only love the strong.”

“Humans are like any child. They need a firm hand. They need clear boundaries. The God of love has coddled you, spoiled you and look at what a mess you’ve made of the world. Look at what a mess you’ve made of yourselves. I will rip your foul technology out of your hands.”

Oliver was able to twist his right arm back so he could push his hand against his bleeding wound. “How can you… How can you stop technology? That genie is out of the bottle.”

“Ha, ha, ha. I break the bottle fool. Listen to you. Lecturing your God about what I can and cannot do.” Odin grabbed Oliver by his head and picked him off the ground. He sat him down roughly on a chair. “Stop lying on the ground and crying like a baby. At least pretend to be a man.”

“I’ve watched from the sidelines your ‘amazing’ leaps in technology. The industrial age made me laugh. All of you humans looked so happy servicing your steam powered slave machines. Now you think you’ve evolved beyond your God because you can watch cat videos on your phones while you drive your planet destroying SUVs. I tremble with fear in the face of your technological superiority.”

“When I was your God, life was simple and humans were happy. Every advance in technology has made your life worse, not better.”

Odin stood over Oliver and seemed to pierce his mind with his single eye.

“The cycle is changing turd. Your God of love had his millennia and now it’s my turn again. Once again, I have to clean up the mess he’s left me. Nothing like a good cull to clean out the dead wood. The world is too crowded. I’ll start with pruning your numbers by 90%, like any good gardener would.”

“But that means…”

“Yes, won’t it be glorious? Don’t worry. I don’t need nuclear weapons or any of your garbage technology. It will be done with sword and axe. Good clean fun.”

“You’re a monster.”

Odin shrugged. “I graciously accept the compliment. You’ve learned a lot about the world today. I hope you realize there’s always a price for acquiring wisdom.”

Oliver was staring up at Odin’s massive frame when Huginn dove down and pierced Oliver’s eye with a surgical precision that left his brain untouched. He screamed as he felt the liquids that had been his eyeball trickle down his cheek.

Odin roared with his echoing laugh again. “Look at his expression Huginn! What an idiot. Did you really think I was offering you a free education you little turd?”

Oliver lurched to his feet and looked toward the portal with his remaining eye. If he could just get to the portal and destroy it from the other side, he could stop this Armageddon. He stepped forward and fell down because of his lack of depth perception. He struggled upright again and stumbled awkwardly toward the portal.

“Where are you going turd? It’s time to hang you on Yggdrasil for nine days. Tradition must be honoured.”

Oliver steadily progressed toward his goal. Odin didn’t seem concerned. He was more interested in mocking Oliver and laughing at his own cruel words. Muninn and Huginn swooped around him as he reached toward the portal.

“Oliver? Oliver! Can you hear me? Are you alright?” He opened his eyes to see Janet bending over him and lightly slapping his face.

“Yes, I’m okay.” He said groggily. The lieutenant and Janet helped him to his feet.

“It looked like you disappeared for a second and then you collapsed. We rushed in and dragged you out of there. I was so worried!” Janet hugged her husband tightly.

She was surprised when he cupped her buttocks and pressed the hardness in his groin against her. “Easy tiger.” Janet disentangled herself. “Wait until we get back to the hotel.” She whispered in his ear.

He returned her pleased smile with excited anticipation. It had been one thousand years since Loki had lain with a human woman.

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