Garydid grin. "Right. We can work out the, uh, details later."

I nodded.

He clapped my shoulder. "Welcome to Hell, RB!"

I gave him a sour grin and jerked my head toward Skuld.

"I've got a little unfinished business over there."

He chuckled. "What's one goddess, more or less, for the guy who killed Odin?"

I snorted disgustedly and started toward Skuld. Obviously, Gary had not spent any amount of time in Skuld's company. She still scared me spitless.

I plunged feet-first into it before I lost my nerve.

"Okay, Skuld, you gave me these birds, and they'll be useful. But what about Fenrir and Sleipnir?

Can I trust them?"

She laughed, a tinkling, crackling sound in the superheated air around us. "My dear hero, it's a free universe. I have absolutely no idea. You'll just have to take your chances, I'm afraid."

To my surprise, I grinned, heartened by her honesty. "Yeah. I guess I will. And so," I added grimly, "willSurt ."

I thought I detected a glint of satisfaction in her burning eyes. "Yes." She smiled through the heat haze. Her teeth glowed like embers. "Do not doubt your strength of will, Randy, nor doubt that you possess that which makes a man a hero. You have made yourself what you are." Her smile widened.

"Your children with Rangrid will be something truly to behold. I look forward to them with pleasure.

Provided, of course, the plans of our southern friends don't interfere."

I nodded.

Rangrid looked from Skuld to me and back again. "I . . . don't understand . . . You're not going to -".

I came to Rangrid's rescue. "Skuld wanted to return Hugin and Munin to Valhalla. She figured I'd find them useful. What's the matter; don't you think feathers become me? Come to think of it, birdshit doesn't. How the hell did Odin clean it off his clothes?"

"Birdshit. . . ?" Rangrid was looking a little round-eyed again.

"You'd best explain things after you get her back to Valhalla," Skuld suggested dryly.

"I think you're right. Thanks. For, um, everything."

The Norn nodded gravely.

Rangrid gave me a hand up. I settled myself on Sleipnir's forward set of withers. Skuld lifted a hand in farewell; then we were transferring between worlds with a blur and thunderclap.

Chapter Twenty-One.

When we emerged in Valhalla, the Einherjar were milling around, clustered into little knots of intense conversation; but no one had left the scene of battle, except-notably-Tyr and Thor. Fenrir snarled at Sleipnir, who trumpeted a challenge right back.

"Hey." I punched Sleipnir's arched neck. "Chill out."

He shook his neck, but subsided. Fenrir was still growling; but not as loudly.

"You, too," I muttered.

The wolf whined; then yawned, and settled back on his haunches again.

"How did you do that?" Rangrid demanded.I glanced around. "I dunno."

She grinned. "That's what I like about you."

I'll steal a kiss anywhere, anytime. Especially Rangrid's.

Unfortunately, the Einherjar caught sight of us right about then. A howling tumult assaulted our ears.

Gradually the noise resolved itself into discernible syllables: "Ran . . . dy! Ran . . . dy! Ran . . . dy!"

I didn't much feel like repeating Odin's pompous salute. I just grinned tiredly, and slid to the ground. It was a long way down. Rangrid was right behind me. Fenrir damn near knocked me off my feet. He licked my face half off, and whined joyously in the back of his throat. Wolves don't bark; but Fenrir uttered a shrill little yip, and took my whole shoulder very gently in his teeth.

A love bite from the Fenris Wolf . . .

I stretched on tiptoes to rub his ears, which evidently placated him, because he settled to his haunches and didn't appear to have the slightest intention of moving again until I did. Which brought up a very good question. Now what?

"Well," I began in a practical fashion, "I'm hungry. I could eat a horse-"

Sleipnir snorted indignantly.

"-Make that a cow. Sorry, Trigger. And if I'm going to do anything constructive with this army, I'd better get some sleep first. I'm just about out on my feet." I was, too. My whole body weaved drunkenly at each step.

"Let's get you inside," Gary suggested firmly. He caught his grandmother's eye. "Got him?"

Rangrid responded by picking me up bodily.

"Hey-"

Gary got my legs, and I found myself sprawled between them like a limp carpet. I was ignominiously carried into the looming Valhall. Shouts and cheers followed our progress. My face burned. Fenrir and Sleipnir trailed suspiciously, while Hugin and Munin sailed into the Valhall ahead of us.

I had no idea what the Einherjar thought of all this. For once, I found that I was too bloody tired to care. By the time they'd carried me the seeming miles to Rangrid's bedroom, I was already so relaxed the Valhall had blurred into one confused image of endless, overturned tables. I remembered vaguely mumbling to Gary that I'd see him in the morning, to muster the troops. Then they lowered me into the bed, and I relaxed with a self-satisfied sigh. My new pets winged into the chamber and alighted on the headboard. Gary disappeared at some point, I wasn't sure when.

I lay where they'd dropped me and let Rangrid pull off my clothes. They were filthy-mud-caked, blood-stained. But then, so was I, from scalp to toenails. I closed my eyes while she sponged off the worst of the muck. She seemed to understand that I was too tired to face a full bath. When she crawled in beside me, I curled against her softness under a warm fur, and listened to her breaths.

I didn't fall asleep right away, though. I couldn't. My body was inert-I was too tired to move-but my brain was still revved up and going full speed. All I could think about was that horde of dead humanity waiting for me to do something useful with it. What, exactly, did I have to work with? I considered with growing dismay the list of possibilities. Surely there were a few generals in that motley mess I could rely on?

Would Patton be here? He was another traffic accident, like Gary. But when had Odin begun to pilfer the "wrong" men? And-for another instance-how about Caesar? He'd been murdered by a bunch of civilians. The problem with the Einherjar was, only so many of them were going to be real "heroes," the kind who died doing a good job, or were just unlucky enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. How many more were there who simply hadn't dodged fast enough, or ignored orders, or were too damn stupid to avoid trouble?

The kind of soldiers I wanted were the ones smart enough to live through it and go home to die of old age.

And what about my two self-appointed guardians, Fenrir and Sleipnir? Tomorrow morning they might tear each other's throats out-or mine. I had no idea whether I could trust either one of themurderous beasts.

At least I had Hugin and Munin. I would need the kind of information they could provide. I had to know what was happening, where it was happening, and who was making it happen.

I fell asleep thinking this must be what it felt like to be an officer-I was worried about everything.

When I woke up, I was almost too stiff and sore to move-even after Rangrid rubbed an evil-smelling ointment into my muscles. I sat up, but only with a great expenditure of pain, and getting my feet onto the floor took an act of supreme will. My throat was so hoarse I could barely whisper. Ugly bruises and raw marks from Odin's noose circled my neck. If I was going to take Odin's place, it would've been nice to have inherited his healing powers.

At least I was alive.

Rangrid fussed over me like a worried mother. She helped me dress when I couldn't lift my arms high enough to get them into the tunic she'd found for me to wear. Then she sat me down on the edge of the bed and laced my boots for me. When I was finally clothed, Rangrid rested her arms on my shoulders, and stood between my knees. Her long, unbound hair tickled my face.

"Ready to turn Valhalla upside down, hero?" she murmured.

Her tone was unconvincingly demure.

I laughed rustily, and drew a strand of her hair across my fingertip.

"I thought I did that yesterday, Rangrid . I think today I'll just start with breakfast and see how it goes from there."

She bent to kiss my lips softly and smiled. "In that case . . . last one to the table's a rotten egg." She bolted. Rangrid was out the door before I could even struggle to my feet.

"No fair!" I yelled after her. A tinkling laugh floated back my way.

Showoff.

When I arrived in the main hall, the scene was one of complete chaos-worse even than the previous morning. There was a lot more broken furniture. Unconscious bodies littered the filthy floor as far as the eye could see.

At the nearest table, Gary had cleared away a spot in the general grime, and had nudged aside several slumbering-no, passed-out drunken-companions to provide a seat for the three of us. He and Rangrid had already helped themselves to breakfast, and were eating when I sat down. Rangrid scooted over to sit beside me. She glanced contentedly from her grandson to her new lover-me, I thought with an amazed flush of realization-then back at her grandson again. She grinned and bit into something that looked and smelled wonderful.

Gary looked so chipper, I wanted to hit him. I felt like a recently mashed potato.

"Have some eggs," he said, dumping about seven fried eggs onto my plate from a nearby serving platter. "And bacon."

"Good God, Vernon,I've still got to worry about cholesterol."

He grinned unrepentantly. "Here, try these, too." He dumped several small, round lumps of greasy fried dough beside my stack of eggs.

His expression was entirely too innocent for my liking. I glanced apprehensively at Rangrid. Her eyes twinkled, but she wouldn't talk.

"What the hell are those?" They didn't smell like hush puppies.

"You always were a grouch before breakfast-when's the last time you had any coffee? Don't ask what they are; just eat 'em. They're great, if you don't know what's in 'em."

"Vernon . . ."

He grinned, and waved an empty fork to forestall me long enough to chew one up and swallow it.

"Deep-fried goat testicles."

I turned green, and carefully nudged them to one side of my plate. Gary laughed. Rangrid chuckled,then lifted a pitcher and snagged a cup.

"That smells like coffee!"

She threw me a reproachful look. "Itis coffee. We're not entirely in the dark ages here, you know.

Some of our best guests grew coffee before they joined the guerrillas and got . . . uh . . . collected."

Her look was uncertain, so I just nodded. "Speaking of the, er, collectees, I'm going to need help.

You two are my officially appointed general staff. The first thing we need to do is get the men sorted into some sort of order, and I'll need a list of potential officers, men with command experience, sound judgment. How soon do you think we can get that done?"

Gary looked thoughtful.

Rangrid answered. "I'll get my sisters busy on it right away. They were a little stunned yesterday; but I did a lot of talking last night after you fell asleep, and they've come around." Her eyes twinkled.

"It's funny, isn't it, how you can change attitudes overnight by giving folks hope? They're ready and willing to do whatever you think needs to be done. Some of my sisters can form the Einherjar into groups. While the men are being assigned by time period, or weapons expertise, or whatever, others can poll them about command experience. Best suggestion for sorting them out?"

"By weapons expertise," Gary suggested, "but only for the last one hundred years, or so. Then divvy them up by when they were born, about one hundred years per group, on back to however far back you've been collecting them. That sound about right, Randy?"

"Yeah, that should put men with roughly similar technology and tactics into approximately common groups. We can refine assignments later, after we have a better idea what we've got under arms out there."

"Anything else for today?" Gary asked.

I considered; then shook my head. "Not for you two. Rangrid, get your sisters together, and get that list of commanders back to me as soon as possible. Gary, I'd like to see a list of available weapons systems. Then we've got to get the mess in this building cleaned up, and figure out how to get some discipline established. Without discipline, we'll lose the first skirmish. Where the hell are Hugin and Munin? I need information, stat." A young boy of about eleven slipped in beside us, and retrieved our breakfast dishes. He grinned at me, then vanished into the crowd. I scowled. "And what the hell am I going to do with all these civilians?"

Nobody had an answer to that one. Not that I'd really expected one. Command responsibility is a bitch. My ravens flapped in from outdoors somewhere, and listened very gravely as I gave them instructions. First: what were the Aesir doing? Second: what was Loki doing? Third: what was Hel doing, and did she consider my contract with her fulfilled? Fourth: what was Surt up to in Muspellheim?

And fifth: what was everybody else in the rest of the Nine Worlds doing?

The ravens looked a little awed by my demands; but obediently flew off on their mission. Rangrid left Gary and me huddled in conference-while the civilians I didn't know what to do with quietly cleaned up the hall, roused the slumbering warriors, and got them organized for breakfast. When the noise level rose to that of a minor tornado, Gary and I moved outside. We found a quiet spot under the eaves, and got busy with paper, pencil, and the calculator he'd been carrying the night of the accident.

The two of us made a good team. Compared to getting here in the first place and getting Odin out of the way, this was going to be a snap. All I had to do was organize my troops, figure out how to retrieve the generals I needed from wherever they'd ended up, learn what kind of enemy I was really up against, set up training programs, procure modern weapons systems, figure out what in the world to do with those wretched, inconvenient civilians . . .

By the end of the week I was beginning to think we might actually have a chance. Gary and I had decided to organize our forces along the lines of the most sensibly run military model we had ever run across-Robert Heinlein'sStarship Troopers . We split up the Einherjar, putting modern military personnel in temporary command of each section. Our theory was simple: modern personnel had a better grasp of a wide range of weapons systems, and a wide range of strategies and tactics. Under theirwatchful eyes, the troops were being run through weapons drill.

Gary and I sat down for twenty-four solid hours, poring over the list of commanders Rangrid compiled. We muttered, gnashed our teeth, and pulled our hair.

"Have we got Patton anywhere?"

"No, dammit; is Lawrence of Arabia on any of your lists?"

"Hell, no. Christ, where's Rommel?"