All this happened while Grim Hagen was rushing toward Odin and Maya. A thin
trickle of blood was flowing down the corner of Hagen's mouth. Odin heard
the voices. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some men go down. The room
felt cold now, and a thin breeze was going through it, as though blown
gently across the star-spaces.
He saw a light dart down toward Grim Hagen.
But at that instant Grim Hagen reached him and swung his sword. Jack
Odin stepped aside. His foot slipped upon the unsteady planking of the
improvised balcony. He thrust for Grim Hagen's throat, but his blade
went high and wide. It gashed Grim Hagen from the lower corner of his
chin clear back to the jawbone. Blood streamed and as Odin slipped to
his knee Grim Hagen swung again.
Then Maya was between them, both hands grasping Hagen's sword-arm. Hagen's
free hand closed about her wrists. He swung her aside and the point of his
sword came down to rest upon her throat.
"Now," Grim Hagen screamed, and his voice was the shriek of a man who
has nothing left to lose. "Let no light come near me and Maya or we die
together. Wolden, I caught scattered words about your work as I fled
through space. I held the stars and planets in my hands and I flung them
away, for they were no more than the sparks that fly out from flint. They
were worthless and I flung them away. And there was nothing to match
my desire. Not even Maya. Now, listen, if you care for her life."
The descending lights hesitated and drew back. Jack Odin righted himself
and chanced a thrust at Hagen. The thrust failed as Grim Hagen moved Maya
between them.
"No more of that, Odin. Drop your sword or she dies. Drop it now!"
And Odin lowered his hand and let his sword fall to the table beneath him.
Grim Hagen continued: "The ship is yours. This world is yours. Let me
have your secret, Wolden. I would not care to be with such as you. I
would laugh at space with the comets. I would make the stars cringe. I
would watch the generations go by like falling snow. I would--"
"No, you would be like Lucifer, wreaking his vengeance upon the planets,"
the voice of what had been Wolden interrupted in a whisper. "No, Grim
Hagen, even if I gave you what you asked, all space would seem as hell
to you."
Grim Hagen smiled an evil smile. "So. But it is I who make the bargain.
Even yet. Maya goes with me. Remember!"
But at that instant Maya got one hand free and thrust the sword aside.
It was all the time that Jack Odin needed. Reaching forward he grasped
Grim Hagen's sword with his bare hand. It cut to the bone. And then he had
Hagen's wrist with his free hand. He twisted. A bone cracked and he shook
the blade from Hagen's grasp. Maya leaped to one side. Then Hagen's fingers
were pushing Odin's face back and Odin was clutching at Hagen's throat.
They stood there swaying. Then they tumbled down the rude stairway of
tables that Ato had fashioned for his last stand.
They rolled to the blood-stained floor beneath. And Odin never knew how
either of them survived the fall.
The lights hovered above them, waiting for an opening. Maya took up a
fallen sword and came following after.
Grim Hagen's fingers were feeling for Odin's eyes. Odin got a bloody fist
against Hagen's face and shoved him back. Then he rolled on top of him and
got the man's throat between his hands. Hagen's fists worked like pistons
as he beat at Odin's face. Odin felt the blood dripping down upon his hands
and upon Hagen's throat but he held on. At the last, Grim Hagen screamed
and clawed like an animal. And then it was over. The hands stopped
clawing. There was one last sob of pain and hate that was cut off in the
middle. Then Grim Hagen was still. And Odin, with his face dripping blood,
held on while Maya and the others struggled to tear his hands free from
the man he had killed.
* * * * *
With the death of Grim Hagen the fight was over. None of Hagen's Brons or
Aldebaranians were left. The Lorens threw down their arms and swore loyalty
to Val.
A cot was improvised for Ato. The lights hovered around him, whispering
cheerfully and ignoring all others.
Val, Odin and Maya tried to count the survivors. Of the fifty who had lived
through the fighting, only eighteen were Brons. The rest were Val's men.
"There are a hundred more on the two ships," Maya told Odin. "Oh, Jack, we
have Nea to thank for most of this. Nea and Wolden. After you and your men
left, Nea took her Kalis, as she called them, and some of her people. They
came through the barrier and made their way to the Old Ship. They surprised
the few guards that Grim Hagen had left. They freed me and the other
prisoners. Then we got our little army together and came to help. Without
Nea, it could never have been done." She buried her face on Odin's
shoulder. "Oh, Jack, when we were kids together we used to laugh at her."
He patted her shoulder comfortingly, for he could think of nothing to say.
He had seen soldiers like Nea--cast-offs from their home-towns gallantly
going to their deaths. It was something that he could not understand. And
being honest, he had nothing to say.
Clean-up was begun. Jack Odin left Val of the Lorens to take over. Then he
rushed to the stairway where last he had seen Gunnar. The fires had burned
out. The steps were blackened. A few smoking corpses were still upon the
stairs.
Odin's face was covered with blood. His strength was nearly gone. But he
went up the stairs two steps at a time, his spent breath whistling through
his bloody nostrils.
* * * * *
There at the top of the stairs he found Gunnar. And Gunnar's dead lay thick
about him.
Gunnar had moved himself to a sitting position against one of the railings.
His chin was upon his great chest and his eyes were closed as though he
slept. But when Odin knelt beside him, he opened one eye and looked up with
a twisted smile upon his broad face. One side of his face was barely
recognizable. Gunnar was badly burned. He had been thrust through at least
a dozen times. But Gunnar lived.
"Eh, Nors-King," he whispered, sitting up straight as Odin steadied him in
his arms. "It was a long time to wait. And I thought sometimes that I would
not make it. But I held on, for I knew you would come. Oh, it has been a
long wait--and it took all my strength."
"As fast as I could," Odin answered in a choking voice. "As fast as I
could, O Chief of the Neeblings. For Ragnarok is past, and the tree of life
still reaches into the stars. The twilight is past and new suns and new
earths are quickened. And Gunnar still lives."
"Part of him." Gunnar blinked his good eye. "What happened down there? Oh,"
he gasped in pain, "to have missed the fighting!"
"Maya lives and I live. Ato is wounded. Wolden came at the last to help us,
Gunnar. We won. And I have killed Grim Hagen with my bare hands, even as I
promised."
"Good, Nors-King. I knew always that one of us would kill him. Oh, it was
a grand fight. But Gunnar will sharpen his sword no more. There was a ford
near my father's house where the clear water ran fresh over the stones.
That might help me. But it is far away. And my father too. You tell Freida
that we did not make the long trip in vain."
"If I can," Odin promised.
"Oh, you can. For we have won the stars and nothing is beyond us--except
youth, maybe."
Gunnar closed his eyes and slept for a few minutes while Odin held him in
his arms. Then Gunnar awoke.
He smiled at Jack Odin and murmured:
"To awake on the sea of the stars--"
Jack Odin had heard Gunnar sing those words before. They belonged to an old
Norse lullaby that Gunnar's mother had crooned to him when he was a little
boy.
Then Gunnar died.
And Odin knelt over him, tears streaming down his broken face.