Tóki’s eyes tracked her. She broke into a run.
Screams escaped from her mouth. Not war-whoops
But cries of terror. Not a word of the Angle-speech
Heid spoke. No matter. The men it was meant for
Heard it, and heeded. Heid was now bound
For the bang-sticks. Kept in that corner
Were the weapons of Walmart. Three guards
Gathered there, wondering what had happened.
Cart’s crash, shoppers’ screams, fleeing Fatlanders
Alarm had raised. And now a lass, not a stitch on,
Screaming for succour, coming on at a run.
What harm could she do them? Into the arms
Of the first Heid threw herself.
Out from the braid came that blade,
And into the back of his neck. As he dropped,
She closed on the next, arm whirring.
The third aimed his bang-stick, ready to shoot
Till an axe struck home in his head,
Hurled by Thorolf, part of Halfdan’s band,
Running round from the long lanes
Marked by the rune of the fish-hook.
The first part of the fight was now finished.
From the ATTO, attackers kept coming.
Asmund, Icelandic berserker, far-famed.
Hrani, the shipwright from Sweden.
Arngrim, Hjorvard, Yngvar, Snorri,
Mighty Thord. Magnus gave each man a task.
Sending them this way and that.
Hostages were herded and held.
Strange sheets of wood, wide and flat,
Formed the flanks of a new fortress
Wrapped and roofed in bright blue tarpaulins
Lashed down with lines.
The West-march of the Walmart
Held all the food in the world,
Bottled beer by the boatload,
Frost-kept food, milk and meat.
Setting up for a siege behind barricades
The Norsemen fetched food, collected clothing,
Turkish trousers with flies in the front
Kept closed with clever contraptions,
Tiny teeth, meshing like millipedes’ legs,
Gnashing, knitting, concealing the naked.
Zipper the Fatlanders called it.
Cock-catcher it was to Hunfast, the hapless.
Chains, padlocks, ropes of wrought steel
Fetched forth from the long lanes
Curved round the captives’ necks.
But all turned to the source of a sound,
A big bang, like the trunk of a tree
Snapping in a storm, making all deaf.
A Fatlander, about to be fettered
And fastened to the fortress’s side,
Had pulled out a small bang-stick,
Concealed in his clothes, shot a stone,
Struck Saemundr, Yngvar’s son,
Beloved brother, oar-puller, sword-swinger.
He had taken on a troll once, outside of Eiear,
Bested him in battle, hand to hand.
But the bang-stick’s stone had struck a lung,
Saemundr’s life-blood gushed out of his mouth.
He fell like a tall tree. Magnus took a machete,
Held it in the hero’s hand, sent him to Valhalla.
Another bang bloodied our ears. Thord cursed.
A stone had struck him in the arm.
A third bang as Thord threw down, thrashed
The man who’d murdered Saemundr,
The coward who killed from afar.
The stone struck no one, hewing a hole
In the wooden wall, tearing the tarpaulin.
Face down on the floor, the Fatlander
Rose not again. Murder-loving Magnus,
Riven by rage, grabbed an axe,
Swung it into the spine of the shooter,
Severing two ribs, just by the backbone,
Adjusted his aim, swung again,
Rending the ribcage, separating the spine.
The shooter’s screams went silent
As wind whistled through those wounds.
His struggles ceased. Magnus opened the man
Like the spreading wings of an eagle, blood-bright,
Lungs loose, open to the air now.
A clashing cart was fetched, dumped out,
Making room for the murderer’s remains.
Magnus shoved him out through the glass gates.
Fatlanders’ fear-cries resounded, Sirens screamed.
Magnus made his way back to the fast fortress
We’d made around the wonder-windows.
Translator’s note: “The Lay of Walmart” breaks off at this point. Surveillance camera footage, combined with eyewitness accounts compiled from surviving hostages, agree that from this point onward the author, Tóki, was kept busy learning how to extract cartographical data from computers in the home electronics section.
Journal Entry of
Rebecca East-Oda
NEXT DAY, I.E.,
SATURDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING
Temperature 39F.
Our dining area has been designated a “War Room” and is now matted with cables of various descriptions. Most of these have something to do with Mortimer’s efforts to “boot up” the new GRIMNIR system, which is going to be his improvised ragtag replacement for ODIN. It runs on something called the dark net, of which the less said, the better. Fielded a telephone call from a representative of the cable television company complaining that we have been making all sorts of connections to dodgy servers and are in danger of having our service cut off. Played the little old lady card, feigned ignorance, requested technical support which I knew would hold them off for days.