"Gary, you got that lousy bandage?"

He blinked a couple of times; then walked over and bent to look. "Good cut, Randy. Not too deep. Yeah, it's right here." He pulled out the gauze and wrapped my arm securely, stemming the flow. I wiped my bloodstained fingers on an extra cloth I'd brought along and rolled my sleeve down and buttoned the cuff; then put my coat back on, feeling a little foolish.

Now that the ceremony was over and I'd fulfilled my half of the bargain, I found I couldn't get away from that tree fast enough, and led the way until we were out of sight of it. I slowed down, then, hands thrust deep in my pockets, and worked at ignoring the slight burning in my left arm. Gary walked beside me, uncharacteristically silent.

I spoke without looking directly at him. "You think I'm crazy?"

He shook his head; but the corners of his mouth twitched.

"Nope. Sacrificing to Odin is pretty sane behavior for you, Randy."

Sometimes I really hated the fact that Gary could outrun me.

I finally gave up the chase, and with my remaining breath, yelled, "If you'll stop running, I'll let you live. . . !"

He stopped-grinning-and waited for me.

"You know," I mused, once I got my breath back, "those old Vikings, they weren't far wrong, I guess. Good friends, good sex, good fights, plenty of gold-hell, at least they had something to believe in."

Unexpectedly irritated, I kicked at a dead branch and sent it scooting off through the dead leaves.

"Some nights on those towers I'd give a lot to have something I could really believe in."Gary nodded. "Yeah. I guess what I hate worst is the idea of dying for nothing. I don't know, Randy. I guess if I were to die, I'd want to go the way they did. Take off for Valhalla in a blaze of glory; then more good friends, more good sex, more fighting and gold, right up to the end of everything." He laughed. "Who knows? You game to find out with me?"

I blinked. Sometimes Gary overdid things. "Be serious, man. We got plans for tonight."

He laughed. "And you're buying, right?"

"You bet. So let's get back to town. I'm freezing my ass off out here." The undefinable feeling I'd had since the moment that hedgehog had strolled out into the open had finally evaporated.

Well, almost.

As we'd headed toward town, I hadn't quite been able to suppress the urge to glance over my shoulder. . . .

Months later, I was still glancing over my shoulder, in a cave that Somebody was rearranging like a con man's shell game. I dropped my hands against my thighs and deliberately uncurled my fingers.

Brooding on the past wasn't going to get me out of this fix. I had to figure out what to do next, and I had to make the right decision on the first try. Odin probably wouldn't give me the luxury of a second chance.

It was pretty obvious that I couldn't go back, even if I'd wanted to-which I didn't. What wasn't at all obvious waswhy I couldn't go back. If Odin had simply wanted to get rid of me, it would have been far easier just to drop me quietly down that hole. Bjornssen certainly wouldn't have wasted any time making tracks out of here to live off my money if I'd died. Not only would I have been out of his hair, there would have been no one left alive with any reason to discover the truth behind the legends about Garm's Cave.

Odin was just toying with me. Or maybe he had something even nastier planned. Ugh. Something worse than pulling the earth out from under my feet? I glanced down at my pack and grimaced. If I didn't move very, very carefully, I was a dead man.

Or worse . . .

I snorted and listened to the sound disappear, swallowed up by the blackness. Since "back" was out of the question, my two main options appeared to be "forward" and "down"-down the hole after Bjornssen, that is.

Right. Odin would love that.

Some options.

Maybe, in the final analysis, that was why Odin had killed Bjornssen. This way he knew exactly where I was, stumbling around blind in his territory, not mine. The idea that a god might consider me too dangerous to leave running around loose didn't exactly comfort me; but it did kind of stroke the ego. . . .

Frankly, I could do without that kind of ego-boo.

I considered my supplies. I had food (some), water (less), carbide (not nearly enough), and cyalume chemical lightsticks (mostly half-hour shorties). Bjornssen had been packing most of the carbide and a good portion of our food-which did me no good at all-so I gritted my teeth and stopped wasting time wishing I had his gear. I also didn't have time to waste backtracking for water, since I wasn't at all certain it would be there anymore.

I had plenty of ammunition in my pack-but on further reflection I remembered you can't fuel a carbide lamp with smokeless powder. Besides, what would I do afterward with all those iron-jacketed pistol bullets? Eat them? The idea of starving did nothing to lighten my mood-and if I didn't find Niflheim soon, I quite likelywould starve to death.

What was it the sergeants were always telling us-prior planning prevents piss-poor performance?

I laughed aloud and began stowing my ammo again. The way things were looking, I should've packed in a whole lot more food, and a whole lot less "insurance." I was going to be an awfully embarrassed ghost if I showed up as an emaciated corpse in Hel's death hall while lugging around enough hardware to storm Grenada . . . again.I shook my head and finished stowing my arsenal. Poor Klaus . . . He really hadn't been able to figure out why I'd brought all this stuff along. Hisfirst question to me, back in the world of sunlight and wind and rain, had been why I wanted to pick the most dangerous, least explored cave in northern Europe and explore it as far as I could get, when the only time I'd spent in any cave was the night I'd bivouacked in a genuine prehistoric site in the Neanderthal Valley while on military maneuvers.

Being me, naturally I'd said, "That's a very good question," and then had proceeded to lie for all I was worth-while plopping hundred-dollar bills down in front of him. Fortunately he had run out of questions before I ran out of money. Hissecond question had been why in God's name (his God's name, anyway) I wanted to carry a bunch of guns on a spelunking trip. My answer-more hundred-dollar bills -hadn't satisfied him until his stack was a whole lot taller than mine.

I just hadn't seen any sense in trying to explain that facing down Niflheim's permanent residents was probably going to call for all the firepower I could lug with me. So call me paranoid. Apparitions like Sleipnir aren't that easy to explain. Or believe, for that matter. Quite probably I was the only person left alive in the world whodid believe.

I hadn't packed that AR-180 assault rifle for target practice.

But I didn't tell Klaus that. I just said I had no intention of dying slowly at the bottom of some cliff, if I happened to fall and shatter half my bones, then laid down more money until he shut up and agreed.

It'd cost me nearly my whole severance pay, but he'd bought it. I glanced at the bottomless chimney.

He'd bought it, all right.

I unholstered my P-7 pistol, and balanced it across my palm. Its lines were sleek, deadly. So was Gary's sheath knife, strapped to my calf. What if I were fooling myself? Even if Niflheim were as real as the gun in my hand-and I'd seen the proof of that-what if a living man couldn't get there? All the myths and sagas were pretty consistent on one point. The gods did the choosing, not men. It was more than possible I'd just wander around down here until I died, without ever seeing anything more interesting than grey rock walls.

I reholstered the P-7.

It didn't matter.

Odin was breaking the rules ten ways from Sunday-I'd seen the goddamned proof of that, too.

And if he could cheat the Norns, then I could get to Niflheim. Without dying. I hadn't doubted it before, when there was still a chance to back out, and I wasn't about to doubt it now.

I looked down the long stretch of bland grey tunnel, and listened as the silence echoed in my ears.

The cave twisted into the bowel of the mountain like a wormhole burrowed into the core of a rotten apple. Feeling some sympathy with a cockroach about to be squashed, I shouldered my gear, stuck an emergency cyalume stick in my shirt pocket, and started down the jagged slope.

Chapter Four.

Ever notice how assholes just have to show off, even when they know better? I haven't yet met an exception to that rule-and I figure I know myself as well as I'm going to by now.

Most of the time, nothing serious happens when some idiot shows his true colors. People nearby mutter, "What an asshole" and that's an end to it. (Of course, kids kill themselves all the time pulling stupid stunts like falling off hotel balconies while they're drunk, and driving off bridges at a hundred miles per hour, and doing enough crack cocaine to give the entire Rams front line a buzz. Dumb schmucks.) But for those of us who survive puberty, being an asshole is generally limited to minor idiocies like proving that your dick won't fit through a toilet-paper tube, or ordering the meal in French just to prove to her that you can pronounce it (whether you can or not). If we all stayed as stupid as we are when we're young, the species wouldn't continue breeding very long. Despite the reputation most infantrymen get, I know perfectly well that women are one hell of a lot smarter than men. (I can prove it-act like you did when you were seventeen, and see how many second dates you get.) Unfortunately, showing off-adult asshole style-generally means that the damned fool involved isgetting careless.

And when men get careless, the gods take advantage.

After nearly three years on Pershing duty, Iknew better than to show off in front of an L-T. But some things are like trying not to scratch an itch. And besides, it was something I was really good at; and inordinately proud of; and who would have figured that something so innocent would prove to be the catalyst that led to my hiking solo through the middle of a Norwegian mountain, looking for a god, just so I could strangle him with my bare hands?

What hurt worst was the fact that damned near everything which had happened had been avoidable; but I'd never been one to avoid anything I could go out of my way to step into. (Witness my presence in this cave. . . .) It had begun, innocently enough, when Sergeant Pritchard stomped into the barracks mess room.

He stamped his feet, shook snow off his clothes, and began to unpeel.

"Gentlemen," he nodded, carefully avoiding looking at us.

It occurred to me that he looked uncomfortable, and not because of the weather. I'd been in the Army long enough to know that a sergeant with a problem is like the common cold-he doesn't get over it; he gives it to somebody else. And there was nobody here but us. . . .

Pritchard snagged a coffee mug and poured himself a cup. He sighed and drank again, letting the brew warm him up slowly.

"What's up?" Wally asked suspiciously. Bright boy, Wallenstein . . .

Pritchard cleared his throat self-consciously. "You gentlemen are scheduled for qualifying next week."

"Boom, rat-tat-tat!"

"Hot damn, we get to shoot next week!"

"Brrrup, brrupp-upp!"

Maybe I was just more paranoid than the rest of the guys, but instead of contributing to the general nonsense, I found myself waiting for the other shoe. Pritchard waited for the silly-season furor to die down before continuing.

"I don't have to tell you the political situation we've got here. Brass doesn't want any incidents with unqualified troopies, so we'll have one hundred percent qualification from this outfit-and I meanno exceptions. I don't care how long it takes some of you to do it."

Without exception, we glanced at Butler's half-closed eyes. He was struggling to stay awake, at least while the sergeant was in the room.

"We pull out at oh-nine-hundred Monday, after your shift, so be ready. Well, snowbunnies, carry on. I'll be expecting a good qualification round from all of you."

He pulled on his snow gear again and disappeared back into the blizzard. Probably had a warm truck waiting for him down at the gate.

He was no sooner gone than the discussion broke out.

"What'll we do about Butler?" Crater wanted to know.

"Get him off the damn Quaaludes for starters," Chuck replied.

"We'll have to nursemaid him, all right," Gary said. "I hate to admit it, but brass does have a point.

We've got to be sure all of us qualify. With the number of incidents up, we'vegot to have guard personnel on the towers who can use their weapons."

"Damn straight," I nodded. "And anyone who can't qualify should have his ass kicked right out of security clearance and back into rock-painting duty, or wherever it is they find some of these losers."

I noticed that Gary was carefully avoiding my eye, and I knew what was coming.

"You know we're too short-shifted to do that," he said quietly.

"Dammit, Vernon! It's our lives on the line out there. If a guy can't cut it after a fair chance to qualify, he doesn't need to be out there bumbling around in the dark. And you know blessed well thosequalifications are so simple a chimpanzee could do them."

"That's not fair, and you know it." Gary's tone was calm, assured. Sometimes that knack of his, never losing his temper in an argument, really drove me crazy. "If a guy comes from the city, never has a chance to practice, maybe never even sees a rifle, how is he going to compete with those of us who grew up with them? We need all the qualified personnel we can get, and if a man can't qualify right away, he ought to have another chance-because we might need him to give us a chance out there."

He pointed into the blizzard outside. I glared at him. It was an old argument, one of the rare points we didn't agree on. He was all for fixing the screw-ups, while I felt screw-ups shouldn't be allowed to happen in the first place. For me, it was perfection or nothing, because anything less could make you very dead when the brown stuff hit the fan blades. We weren't going to solve this today-and from the unease on everyone else's faces, our argument wasn't helping already bad morale.

"Good of the unit, huh?" I said finally. "You know what I think, and I know what you think, so we'll just let it go at that, okay, Vernon?"

He relaxed and nodded, and I felt relief sweep through the rest of the room. It made me very uneasy to realize that Gary Vernon and I were holding the morale of A-Shift together practically by ourselves. The situation could get worse real fast if our next patrol together wasn't quite as lucky as the other night's had been.

Monday's qualifications were held on one of the German Army's "million-mark" rifle ranges, which they rented out to the Americans on an as-needed basis. Snow covered the ground under a weak winter sun. At least the high protective dirt berms kept the worst of the wind off us. We had to shoot a combination course of bull's-eye targets at one hundred meters, and pop-up targets at two and three hundred meters. What made the morning's shoot interesting was that we had ridden two hours in deuce-and-a-halves to get here, directly after coming off of twenty-four hours of guard. Most of us hadn't had more than about four hours of sleep. I'd have been surprised if guys like Butler could even haveseen the targets, never mind hit them.

"Man, this snow is a real pain," Crater complained, lying prone in the freezing stuff.

"Just shoot, Private." Lieutenant Donaldson frowned.

I got a good sight picture on my first target and was just beginning to squeeze the trigger when I heard the L-T's voice above me: "Your head's too far back, Barnes. Get it down there where it belongs; see all you can through that rear sight aperture."

"But, sir, I always shoot like this."

"The Virginia Military Institute taught me how to fire a rifle, Private. I'm not interested in how you shoot; I'm interested in seeing you shoot correctly."

I cast a pained look up at Donaldson. "Sir, I've made Expert every time during the last two years."

Briefly I debated adding that I had just placed in the top five in the German National Match competition but decided against it. An enlisted man can only get away with being right when doing so doesn't prove an officer wrong.

Fortunately at this point Sergeant Brown approached. Closing in on retirement, he was our platoon sergeant. Like most good noncoms, he was more interested in results than gold braid, and he knew my score at the Nationals.

"Lieutenant . . ." It's always heartwarming to watch a professional in action; Brown sounded genuinely respectful ". . . Private Barnes is the best shot in the platoon. Hell, half the time he's the best shot in the company. Tell you what, L-T, if anybody in this bunch outshoots him, you can teach him to your heart's content. Otherwise, please let the man do his job."

Donaldson's lips thinned. "Okay, Sergeant, I'll do just that. But if he shoots less than an eighty-five on these bull's-eyes, for the next month you and he will have an opportunity to explore a theory of mine that suggests that the amount of time spent pulling grounds maintenance is directly proportional to a man's level of small-arms proficiency."

From somewhere down the line I thought I heard the beginnings of a snicker, muffled instantly."Yes, sir," replied the sergeant, sounding more confident than I felt. (I wasn't looking forward to a month of shoveling snow and rearranging rocks any more than he was-but the potential consequences of having caused it for him thrilled me even less.) Now, shooting accurately with somebody standing behind you slapping his own leg with a cleaning rod as if it were a riding crop isn't as easy as it sounds; but I managed to get off all ten shots well before the time limit.

It didn't take any longer than usual for the range phone to ring, I'm sure.

However.

I did have to suppress a start when it rang, and remind myself to look disinterested as the scores were read. Simpkins, down on Lane One, had his usual sixty-something, and Crater barely beat him out.

Then the sergeant turned to me. In bored tones, he said, "Barnes, you're letting your group drift a little into the nine ring, low at six o'clock. You only scored ninety-seven. I don't know what's wrong with you today."

I grinned nonchalantly. "Must be the cold, Sergeant."

-and belatedly resumed breathing.

After all the scores had been read off, the lieutenant said, "Very well, Sergeant, I'll talk to both of you later about this."