Painkiller: Odin's Warriors - Book 2

  ODIN’S WARRIORS: PAINKILLER

  Book 2

  AERYN LEIGH

  Hellsbaene Publishing

  Copyright © 2017 by Aeryn Leigh

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  No crocodiles were hurt in the telling of this story.

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  for those who didn’t make it

  CONTENTS

  1. Promises

  2. Ham And Green Eggs

  3. Going Fishing

  4. The Emperor's What?

  5. The Rusty Axe

  6. Where To Begin

  7. Problems

  8. Jade Falcon

  9. The Jetty

  10. Conventions

  11. Don’t Think. Act

  12. Firing Range

  13. Astronomy And Asimov

  14. And So It Begins

  15. A High-Speed Flyby

  16. Not Alone

  17. Unpleasant Surprises

  18. Theseus's Ship

  19. A Long Way, Baby

  20. The Only Logical Conclusion

  21. Where’s The RAF?

  22. Test Flight

  23. No Turning Back

  24. Lost In Translation

  25. A Change In Tactics

  26. Vikings And Nursery Rhymes

  27. Odin Save Us

  28. Troubled Sleep

  29. The Republic Air Force

  30. Odinsgate

  31. Dogfight

  32. Calloused Hands

  33. Liquid Wake-Up

  34. All Good Things

  35. The Hammer Drops

  36. The Exuberance Of Youth

  37. Bertha

  38. Survive

  39. Here I Am

  40. Freedom

  41. Let There Be Light

  42. Burial Mound

  43. Thirteen Warriors

  44. Row, Eat, Sleep, Repeat

  45. Verdammt Sollst Du Sein

  46. The Razor’s Edge

  47. Showtime

  48. The Curtain Goes Up

  49. A Shitload Of Arduous Work

  50. A Prayer To The Gods Of Flight

  51. Commit To It

  52. Catching Sleep

  53. Wing Dancer

  54. Good Hunting

  55. Of All The Luck

  56. A Great Day To Be A Viking King

  57. Carve A Path

  58. Anthill

  59. Indeed

  60. Tiled Roofs

  61. To The Gate

  62. That’s My Girl

  63. The Evil Within

  64. Killer Drop Bears

  65. Target Fixation

  66. Nothing Else Matters

  67. Garden Beds

  68. Thrice-Wrought Steel

  69. Shoe Polish

  70. Open Ground

  71. Gotcha

  72. Low Friction Coefficients

  73. Spitfires And Hurricanes

  74. One Last Meeting

  75. Drafted

  76. How Unfortunate

  77. A Vast, Deep Pit

  78. Vale The First And Proud

  79. It All Ends Now

  80. So Be It

  81. Metal Eyes

  82. Runes

  83. Mess Hall

  84. Painkiller

  85. Dismissed

  86. One Army Under God

  87. The Art Of War

  88. Their Harvest Of Hate

  89. A Phalanx Of Joints

  90. The Missing Battalion

  91. Valkjur

  92. Masters Of Their Fate

  93. Fuck Yes

  94. Ride Of The Valkyries

  95. Original Norse

  96. Odin’s Warriors

  97. The Long Way

  98. The Voice Of Command

  99. Keep Working

  100. Through The Looking Glass

  101. A Familiar Visitor

  Author’s Note & Info

  Chapter One

  PROMISES

  OUTSIDE, the birds chirped a little hesitantly in the darkness before dawn, and Ella Gruder awoke face-to-face with her greatest fear.

  Parenting.

  Her daughter tugged the covers once more, this time the warm, toasty blankets falling to a heap by the foot of the hardwood bed.

  "C'mon Mummy, time to get up," said Amelia, holding an oil lantern. By her side, Fang sat on his haunches, tongue lolling out. Amelia’s German Shepherd puppy wagged his tail, the runt of Skippy’s litter, the rope toy by his large furry feet.

  "There ought to be a law about excess energy," said Ella, yawning, goose bumps forming on her long legs. The other half of the bed lay empty, a divot where a body had recently lain. Again. Her eyes refused to focus. She tried rubbing the sleep from them.

  There.

  Clearer.

  She blinked, staring through the high, open window. "What? It's not even daybreak." Ella collapsed back on the bed, and past injuries made their roll call.

  "Fang." Amelia clicked her fingers, pointing at the bed. The not-so-small puppy sprang up, and took the end of Ella's pyjamas in his mouth, and began pulling her off the bed in thorough enjoyment, growling in play.

  "Hey, wait just a moment —"

  "You promised we could go to the beach this morning, remember?" said Amelia. "And take all the puppy dogs?"

  Oh, thought Ella, that. The guilty memory marched across her mind and plonked itself down.

  Like her butt, now sitting on the sheepskin rug, her back against the low, squat bed.

  Fang sat once more, looking at her.

  Amelia placed the oil lantern on the bedside table, then jumped on her.

  'Ooof," said Ella, returning the warm hug. "Wow you're getting heavy." An errant elbow speared into her kidney as Amelia turned around. "And pointy. Alright then, let's go." The nine-year old jumped up. "Fang? Rope."

  The puppy picked up the foot-long section of nautical rope and padded to her, and Ella grabbed one end. "Pull." The dog moved back, muscles straining, his back arched, and helped her rise off the floor.

  The walk to the beach took at least an hour, and by that time, the birds were truly in song, calling to the new day. The city of Fairholm stirred, its citizens either beginning their day, or ending it, as Ella, Amelia, all eight puppies and their mother Skippy, and as always, their three Republic personal guards, led by Volfango Piave, made their way through the cobblestone city streets. The workers coming home from their night shifts waved and said hello to the group as they went by, and Ella and child returned each greeting.

  The distant sounds of clanging and machinery could be heard on the wind, and all around them, smoke rose from the factory chimneys clustered in and outside the city, the sunrise giving the smoke weird yet beautiful colours. They walked by the rendering factory, where animals, Republic citizens, and all the Inquisition soldiers in their death turned into glycerine and essential fats for armaments.

  It stank.

  They all held their breath, and hurried forward until they emerged upwind.

  "It's quite a procession," said Ella, glancing over her shoulder. Merrion Hawkwind's security detail nodded, and she resumed paying attention to Amelia and the dogs in front of her, as they ran ahead, stopped, sniffed, urinated on everything that resembled a signpost or shrub, except for the child. "Thank God for small mercies," she said, and laughed, the sound catching her off guard.

  In the cool air of the mo
rning, her body ached and twinged from a half dozen places, both physical injuries that had healed and some mental ones, she thought, may never.

  They arrived at the top of the long, sloping plain that stretched for a mile downhill toward the beaches, and three miles wide. The river bisected it, and on both sides, defensive earthworks and trenches criss-crossed the plain.

  "We'll take the right side today," said Ella, and together they entered the top support trench, passing by the command bunker on their left, buried under a small, man-made hill. They made their way through the trenches, only populated by passing men and women delivering supplies or hot food to the on-duty soldiers, until they came to the bottom of the defensive lines.

  "Good Morning, Miles," said Ella, to a man standing outside the rear entrance of a bunker.

  Sergeant Miles Goodsworth saluted. "Morning, Ella," he said. "Didn't expect to see you down here today."

  Ella smiled at Amelia, who beamed back at her. "Neither did I," she said. "Any activity?"

  "Nothing for months now," he said. "I guess the Inkas are trying to starve us out. If it wasn't for Beowulf's efforts, we would be."

  Almost six months now since the Inquisition sent an invasion fleet to the island of Fairholm, and as it turned out, a baby fleet. Its bigger sibling waited outside the entrance to the Bay of Harmony, waiting for what exactly, fuelling many an argument in the island's watering holes, when alcohol met fear, then fists.

  The threat of annihilation hung in the air, dark, unspoken, stifling.

  "Speaking of starving out," said Ella, "any progress on the Purity?" She gestured over the trench toward the beach.

  "You can ask them," said Miles. "Not for a few weeks, no. But I suggest you don't get too close, especially with your young 'uns with you."

  "We're going nowhere near it," said Ella, and Amelia sighed. "Come on everyone, let's get this circus to the beach." She saluted back, and Miles barked an order. The massive gate opened, creaking on metal hinges and they all walked onto the sand.

  The sand crunched under Ella's shoes, squeaking with each step. Up and down the length of both beaches, anti-tank metal and concrete porcupines stuck out of the beach, already starting to rust. The sand no longer coloured red, returning to its normal grey, and almost nothing of the Battle of Harmony Bay, H-Day, remained.

  The thousands upon many thousands of dead bodies, the primitive war machines, the landing craft, the whole bay of both wooden and metal warships sunk, shredded, or abandoned — everything accessible had been recovered, and recycled back into the Republic's war effort. The dead rendered into soap and its by-products of glycerine for starters.

  Except for one thing, one obvious thing.

  The thirty-year old metal dreadnought the Purity, forged in the shipyards of Liverpool, England, on the other side of the galaxy, lay where it had been driven onto the beach all those months ago, on the far beach, almost a mile away. The dry dock being built around it swarmed with workers. She raised her binoculars, as Amelia shouted and squealed running into the morning surf, the dogs all around her barking and carrying on.

  Through the optic magnifiers she saw, on the forward deck, a small group of Vikings roasting a large cow, fanning the smoke and smells into the openings of the ship. One Viking raised his head, lifted his telescope, and waved to her. She waved back.

  Probably Snorri. Still doing penance for ramming the ship onto the shoreline when Marietta wanted the ship taken intact. Not his fault though. Most of the ship's crew surrendered, the last batch only weeks ago, and only the forward compartment remained. They'd have to be eating shoe leather by now. And the smell of roasting beef, wafting through the ventilation ducts, making their mouths water . . .

  Great, thought Ella. Now my stomach is grumbling.

  Amelia came running back up the beach.

  "Mummy, you promised you'd play and get your feet wet," she said, handing her a wet slimy piece of wooden flotsam, detritus that still washed ashore all these months later from the massive naval battle.

  "OK," holding the timber far out in front and pulling a face, "OK," and with that, left her three bodyguards, and enjoyed the moment while it lasted, under the shining suns.

  Chapter Two

  HAM AND GREEN EGGS

  THE CHILD RAISED ITS GUN. Laurie lifted his hands, begging the child clothed in white to stop. Hands made of lead, heavy, and slow. The kid smiled, looked down the engraved polished flintlock, and shot him smiling.

  Captain Lawrence John woke screaming. He reached out, and fumbled for his wristwatch. Just after dawn, slivers of light creeping through the barricaded window slits. The nightmares came nightly, so often he dreaded going to sleep. What is it you want me to do? Why are we here? Why did you take us here? The same two bloody dreams repeatedly. The Inquisition kid shooting him was one. But the second . . .

  Writhing, black metal — insects? spiders? — well whatever they were, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand upright in fear and primordial terror — swarming over whole fields, lands, killing everything, with bigger robot versions on overwatch delivering even more destruction, piling on top of themselves, growing smarter as they multiplied towards critical mass, and Laurie watching from above, as whole planets went dark, glowing tendrils of red fault lines, of fire, incomprehensible weapons killing suns.

  The other dream.

  That's what you get for saving the day. Bastards.

  He once more reset the watch and put it down, next to the empty liquor bottle, and laid back onto the cold, wet, sweaty sheets. Skippy wasn't by his bed, in her canvas hammock. Out on a walk with the pups, he guessed. With Amelia. Cheeky little bugger. With effort, he rose, and half-naked, made his way out of his room, and down to the shower block.

  Laurie threw his linen towel over the stall's door, and welcomed the warm water. Hallelujah for Roman plumbing.

  "Morning, Laurie," said Andrew Bloomsbury from behind the door, and began showering the next stall down.

  "Morning mate," said Laurie, working up a good lather, as he tried to scrub the nightmare sweat off to oblivion.

  "Big day today." The former flight engineer from England, whistled a big band tune.

  "Yeah. Reckon so." How can he be so bloody cheery? Probably that Shakespearean drama company he’d formed. What was it? Ah. The New Pop-Up Globe Theatre. As if there wasn’t enough murder, mayhem, and human jealousies on Elysium as it was. Bugger that for a lark. He wondered about forming his own cricket team. Hmm. Laurie’s long-dead mother's voice came into his head. Don't forget to wash behind your ears. He washed behind his ears.

  "What do you think the mission is?" said Andrew, drumming fingers against the stall door. "Whatever it is, its been taking up the general's time for months. Her and Merrion have been thick as thieves. I bet it's something about breaking this blockade." The whistling resumed.

  Laurie stuck his right index finger into his nostrils, and picked out the goobers. He inspected them with a critical eye. Just a fleck of blood. Satisfied, he washed them away in the running water, and watched them swirl around and around on the wooden-slatted floor until they disappeared down the central drain.

  And that's life. Around and around you go, then sucked into the black.

  "Oh," said Laurie, "I have no idea. It's going to involve boats, I just know it." His guts twisted at the mere thought.

  The sound of muffled voices grew louder, and the rest of the building's occupants entered the shower block.

  "Morning, fellas," said Andrew. "Big day today, huh? How splendid was Othello last night?"

  Laurie sighed to himself, and concentrated on ducking his head under the falling water, as two bomber crews from a previous world showered and nattered to each other, trying to forget their own nightmares.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Laurie joined them at the long breakfast table, and broke bread. He ate in silence.

  "It's kinda funny if you think about it," said Sergeant Mick Ward, at the far end of the table. The short-in-stature Australian h
eld up a chunk of bread. Green-hazel eyes soaked in the textured grains. "Everything we eat here coming through that fucking storm," biting off a large mouthful, "one way or the other." The rear gunner of the Lancaster decided to concentrate on eating, as the bread in that moment tried to choke him.

  Gunnery Sergeant Griffin 'Timberman' Huey raised his huge right hand from where he was sitting, and slapped Mick hard on the back. "Didn't your Mama tell ya not to do two things at once?" The six and a half foot former lumberjack, and waist gunner from the B-17E Damage Inc., proud owner of Betty, his customised .50cal Browning machine gun, went back to thinking about his kids, and his wife, back on Earth. He sighed.

  "Thanks, mate," said Mick, breathing hard. "Now my bloody back feels like a truck hit it." He looked up at Griffin, and grinned. "Must be that Canadian hospitality huh?"

  "Seattle, ya nutter," said Flight Engineer Thorfinn Hay, opposite. "Well, by all accounts people have been pulled here for a couple of thousand years, usually by ships they sailed in. Whatever was in their holds, they've planted or used." The mechanical engineer went back to reading his work notes, munching on a bacon rind. "I'm just glad they had pigs."

  "What I want to know is why your damn nickname is Timberman when nobody uses it!" Mick took the lid off his current project, his mission to replicate Vegemite. The burnt by-products of yeast, salt, and the dregs of stout beer remained stubbornly elusive. It couldn’t be that hard. With his eyes watering, he carefully put the lid back on, and slumped. Griffin’s face remained impassive. Then he mouthed the words. Tim-ber-man. A moment later, both men laughed.

  "There's a rational explanation to all this," said Andrew, steering the topic firmly back, thank you very much. He stroked his goatee. "I'm close to finishing that observatory with Daniel's help."

  "It's getting indeed getting close," said Daniel, the Damage Inc.'s navigator, carpenter, and only child of Mr and Mrs Broadwater. "Need to polish a few more mirrors and lenses though, and order some bigger ones ‘gain. This telescope is going to be huge."

  "Pass the butter, Dan," said Lucius James Jr., to the man's left. "Ta." The Captain, Professor of Physics, and now Commander of the fledgling Republic Air Force smeared the pad onto his bread. "There's gotta be a way back home," he said.