he 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