The Complete Compleat Enchanter by Fletcher Pratt, L. Sprague deCamp Page A

that made by dropping a watermelon ten stories. The Wielder of Mjöllnir was thoroughly enjoying himself; his shouts were like the noise of a happy express train.
    Shea found himself outside and running across damp moss in the middle of hundreds of galloping giants and thralls. He dared not stop lest he be stepped on. An outcrop of rock made him swerve. As he did so he caught sight of Utgard. There was already a yawning gap at one end of the roof. The central beam split; a spear of blue-green lightning shot skyward, and the place began to burn brightly around the edges of the rent.
    A clump of trees cut off the view. Shea ran downhill with giants still all around him. One of the group just ahead missed his footing and went rolling. Before Shea could stop, he had tripped across the fellow’s legs, his face plowing up cold dirt and pine needles. A giant’s voice shouted: “Hey, gang! Look at this!”
    “Now they’ve got me,” he thought. He rolled over, his head swimming from the jar. But it was not he they were interested in. The giant over whose legs he had fallen was Heimdall, his wig knocked askew to reveal a patch of golden hair. The straw with which he had stuffed his jacket was dribbling out. He was struggling to get up; around him a group of fire giants were gripping his arms and legs, kicking and cuffing at him. There was a babble of rough voices:
    “He’s one of the Æsir, all right.” “Sock him!” “Let’s get out of here!” “Which one is he?” “Get the horses!”
    If he could get away, Shea thought, he could at least take news of Heimdall’s plight to Thor. He started to crawl behind the projecting root of a tree, but the movement was fatal. One of the fire giants hallooed: “There’s another one!”
    Shea was caught, jerked upright, and inspected by half a dozen of the filthy gorillalike beings. They took particular delight in pulling his hair and ears.
    “Aw,” said one of them, “he’s no As. Bump him off and let’s get t’ hell out of here.”
    One of them loosened a knife at his belt. Shea felt a deadly constriction of fear around the heart. But the largest of the lot—leadership seemed to go with size in giantland—roared: “Lay off! He was with that yellow-headed stumper. Maybe he’s one of the Vanes and we can get something for him. Anyway, it’s up to Lord Surt. Where the hell are those horses?”
    At that moment more fire giants appeared, leading a group of horses. They were glossy black and bigger than the largest Percherons Shea had ever seen. Three hoofs were on each foot, as with the ancestral Miocene horse; their eyes glowed red like live coals and their breath made Shea cough. He remembered the phrase he had heard Heimdall whispering to Odinn in Sverre’s house—“fire horses.”
    One of the giants produced leather cords from a pouch. Shea and Heimdall were bound with brutal efficiency and tossed on the back of one of the horses, one hanging down on either side. The giants clucked to their mounts, which started off at a trot through the gathering dusk among the trees.
    Far behind them the thunders of Thor still rolled. From time to time his distant lightnings cast sudden shadows along their path. The red beard was certainly having fun.

    Seven
    The agonizing hours that followed left little detailed impression on Harold Shea’s mind. They would not, he told himself even while experiencing them. The impression was certainly painful while being undergone. There was nothing to see but misty darkness; nothing to feel but breakneck speed and the torment of his bonds. He could twist his head a little, but of their path could obtain no impression but now and then the ghost of a boulder or a clump of trees momentarily lit by the fiery eyes of the horses. Every time he thought of the speed they were making along the rough and winding route his stomach crawled and the muscles of his right leg tensed as he tried to apply an imaginary automobile brake.
    When the sky finally