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.