Valhalla Virus by Nick Harrow (best management books of all time TXT) 📕

the naked shamans. Gunnar grabbed his shotgun in both hands and rammed the weapon’s muzzle into her chest.

The AA-12 barked three times in quick succession. Its first shot ripped through the jötunn shaman’s sternum and exited through a fist-sized crater between her shoulder blades. The second widened the gory wound and slammed into the shaman behind her. The third bounded away from the curve of one rib to pulverize her lung before opening a new hole through her right armpit.

The dead shaman slumped backward onto her screaming ally. Her demise had disrupted the ritual with catastrophic results. The ritual’s power erupted from the gaping crater in her chest, and arcs of lightning chewed into the Behemoth’s flesh. The other shamans cried out in a desperate attempt to hold the spell together. One of their eyes burst from the pressure and fired a scalding spray of blood into the jötunn in front of her. Another stabbed her hand toward the sky, and raw lightning raced up her arm and blasted her fingers into scarlet confetti.

Gunnar didn’t escape unscathed. He bowed his head and braced himself as jolts of sorcerous energy lashed his back like demonic whips. The mystic assault opened long gashes in his clothes and raised ugly red welts on his skin. It was like being beaten with red-hot wires.

That was all right. He’d gladly endure this pain to stop Hyrrokkin’s army from marching on Midgard.

“You disgusting worm,” the Behemoth howled when it had recovered from the stunning attack. “How dare you disrupt our sacred rite? I will devour you.”

The creature lashed out at Gunnar again, swinging the spear back in an awkward swipe that missed the bodyguard by inches. Furious that its foe had escaped its grasp, the Behemoth twisted the opposite direction and raked the air with thick claws. Two of those snagged on Gunnar’s tactical vest. The attack didn’t wound him, but it yanked the jarl off his feet and pitched him into the mob around the monster.

Jötnar instantly pounced on him. The monsters kicked and stomped him, and when he tried to stand, they punched him back to the ground. Blows hammered his body. His bones were on the verge of breaking. Gunnar knew he wouldn’t last more than a few seconds. Once he was dead, the Behemoth would go back to business as usual. The bridge would go up, the world would end. All Gunnar’s life had bought was a few more minutes of violence and pain.

No. It wouldn’t end like this.

It couldn’t.

The jarl reached out for the völva. He felt their warmth and strength through the threads of fate that bound them together. “Show me the way out,” he thought. “Lend me your aid.”

Instantly, the Valknut went ice cold in Gunnar’s head. Power crackled and popped within his skull. The world shifted and the colors leached away from it. All that remained were golden outlines of his enemies and faint purple shadows.

The völva’s gifts showed him where his enemies were in gold, where they would be in violet. It was a precious gift, but it came at a cost. The energy the völva spent would drain them quickly. If Gunnar didn’t end the fight in a few seconds, they’d be too weak to run when it was over.

Time slowed to a crawl as berserker fury consumed the jarl’s mind. He saw where his foes would attack and moved away from their blows, rolling up into a crouch. He swung the shotgun’s barrel in a narrow arc and squeezed the trigger to clear some space. The jötnar fell back, their blood misting into the air from the hellish injuries that Gunnar’s weapon carved into their bodies. The golden glow that outlined his enemies’ current positions seemed to draw the shotgun’s muzzle like iron filings to a magnet, and every shot landed with unerring precision.

The fiercest amongst Hyrrokkin’s minions threw themselves at the jarl to bury him under their weight. But Gunnar saw their attacks coming before they reached him, and flowed through the crowd like water. They couldn’t touch the death dealer that walked amongst them, and terror filled their ranks.

With every death, Gunnar absorbed more hamingja from his foes. He let it flow back to the völva and hoped it would offset the terrible cost their gifts demanded. The vision allowed him to carve a bloody path through the jötnar to reach their leader before the völva were exhausted and the chill faded from the Valknut.

“Give me the goddamned spear,” Gunnar roared up at the massive creature. He squeezed the AA-12’s trigger, tearing a chunk from the beast’s side.

“Gladly,” the Behemoth snarled.

Gungnir descended in a sparking flash too fast for Gunnar’s eyes to follow. The spear’s tip impaled him through the left shoulder. Jolts of electricity radiated away from the weapon, bolts of lightning that opened steaming wounds in the jarl’s chest and back. The pain stunned him and drove him to his knees. An icy wind howled across his flesh, sapping the heat from him.

He tried to move, but the weapon had nailed him to the floor.

“This is the fate of all mortals who stand in Hyrrokkin’s path,” the Behemoth roared. “Not even Odin’s pawn can stop us.”

The jötnar who’d survived Gunnar’s explosive assault unleashed a ground-shaking howl of victory. They chanted the Behemoth’s name, their words like physical blows in the jarl’s ears. The Behemoth whipped his followers into a frenzy. The enormous beast praised Hyrrokkin’s guidance. It spat curses at Gunnar and Odin.

The shamans who were still alive scrambled up onto Behemoth’s back, raising their eerie chant toward its finale.

“I will break those who resist our dominion,” the Behemoth shouted, a whirlwind gathering around him as the renewed ritual neared its end. “You will rip the balls from their men and roast them over our fires. You will fill their women with your seed and train their whelps in the ways of chaos. You will find everyone who ever aided this pathetic, useless pawn, and you will torture them as an