Read James Lovegrove - The Age Of Odin for Free Online

pulses, shortening our breaths. The stormy night, toying with us. Nature itself our enemy, one we hadn't a prayer of defeating or evading.
    I was flagging. The adrenaline had done its best but there were more cracks in me than it was able to paper over. I was barely holding myself together. Abortion kept dragging me along, a superhuman effort on his part, and I regretted every nasty thing I'd said to him this evening, justified or not. He'd fucked up - so eager to get wrecked, he'd wrecked us - but when it really counted, he was coming through. I was just so much dead weight. He could have dropped me. Perhaps should have. If the roles had been reversed, there was no saying I wouldn't have dropped him and scarpered off on my own. Every man for himself and all that. But Abortion held on to me by the scruff of the neck and propelled me onwards, virtually carrying me, while I added whatever pathetic impetus I could with my one functioning leg and the feeble strength that remained in it.
    Those wolves, however... Neither of us was in any doubt now that it was us they were after. The howls encircled us on all sides, a shifting perimeter that tacked and jinked with us whichever way we went. I could hear yips and yelps in the mix, unmistakable expressions of glee. They were having a high old time, our unseen pursuers. They'd got us surrounded. They knew we were frightened and exhausted and one of us was in rough shape. They outnumbered us. They had every advantage, and they were loving it.
    "I swear," Abortion wheezed, fighting for breath as he forged on, "I swear to God... if I get out of this... I'll give up the weed and be an... honest citizen the rest of my life."
    "Don't," I heaved, "make promises... you know you won't... keep."
    We burst into a glade. There was an outcrop of tall rocks at one end. The rest was a flat amphitheatre, almost perfectly oval. As soon as we got there I realised this must be where the wolves wanted us to be. They had herded us to this spot like sheep. I could tell because the instant we reached the clearing, the howling stopped. Abortion and I likewise stopped. We had to. Abortion was utterly drained. He couldn't go on. And me, I was long past going on. We both slumped to our knees in the snow, him a trembling, winded mass, me groaning helplessly.
    The silence was expectant. Terrible.
    I noted that the snowfall was slowing, thinning. The air was clearing. And I waited. We both waited. It was all we could do.
    Then: eyes.
    In the dark column-like spaces between the trees, pairs of eyes blinked alight. Peering at us. Dozens of them. Yellow in the snowlight. All around.
    And now I could make out puffs of exhalation beneath each pair of eyes.
    And now the silhouettes of the wolves themselves. Ears pricked. Heads high. Stock-still.
    They were waiting, too.
    For what?
    A shimmer of movement atop the rocks, and into sight loped a wolf, larger than any of the others, padding proudly to the summit of the outcrop and taking up position there. A grizzled alpha male, leader of the pack. Imperious on his vantage point, like a Roman emperor at the Coliseum, presiding over the Games. His the decision who lived, who died, and how, and when.
    I hadn't the wherewithal to do anything but peer bleakly up at him and hope for mercy. As if that was even a remote possibility.
    The snow dwindled away to a few meagre flecks and wisps, and then all at once the clouds above parted and a ferociously bright full moon shone down. Its glow drenched the glade like brilliant water, and everything came into detailed, pristine relief. I could see the wolves, the dark and light shades of their pelts, their skinny legs and muscular flanks. I could see the rugged ribbed bark of the pine trunks. I could see the diamond-field sparkle on the surface of the fallen snow. I could see it all with a clarity I'd never known before. It was as though up until this moment I'd never really looked at anything, glancing at the world without taking any of