Chapter 29
“O…dddddiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!” Thor let out a bellow of rage which made the sky shake. The heavy clouds let out a surprised grunt of thunder at the sheer volume of air that moved beneath them. Kate started back, white with fear and shock, with her ears ringing. “Toe Rag!!!!” He hurled his hammer to the ground right at his very feet with both hands. He hurled it this short distance with such astounding force that it hit and rebounded into the air up to about a hundred feet. “Ggggrrrrrraaaaaaaah!!!!!!” With an immense explosion of air from his lungs he hurled himself up into the air after it, caught it just as it was beginning to drop, and hurled it straight back down at the ground again, catching it again as it bounded back up, twisting violently round in mid-air and hurling it with all the force he could muster out to sea before falling to the ground himself on his back, and pounding the earth with his ankles, elbows and fists in an incredible tattoo of rage. The hammer shot out over the sea on a very low trajectory. The head went down into the water and planed through it at a constant depth of about six inches. A sharp ripple opened slowly but easily across its surface, extending eventually to about a mile as the hammer sliced its way through it like a surgeon’s knife. The inner walls of the ripple deepened smoothly in its wake, falling away from the sheer force of the hammer, till a vast valley had opened in the face of the sea. The walls of the valley wobbled and swayed uncertainly, then folded up and crashed together in crazed and foaming tumult. The hammer lifted its head and swung up high into the air. Thor leapt to his feet and watched it, still pounding his feet on the ground like a boxer, but like a boxer who was perhaps about to precipitate a major earthquake. When the hammer reached the top of its trajectory, Thor hurled his fist downwards like a conductor, and the hammer hurtled down into the crashing mass of sea. That seemed to calm the sea for a moment in the same way that a smack in the face will calm a hysteric. The moment passed. An immense column of watcr crupted out of the smack, and seconds later the hammer exploded upwards out of its centre, pulling another huge column of water up from the middle of the first one. The hammer somersaulted at the top of its rise, turned, spun, and rushed back to its owner like a wildly over-excited puppy. Thor caught at it, but instead of stopping it he allowed it to carry him backwards, and together they tumbled back through the rocks for about a hundred yards and scuffled to a halt in some soft earth. Instantly, Thor was back on his feet again. He turned round and round, bounding from one leg to the other with strides of nearly ten feet, swinging the hammer round him at arm’s length. When he released it again it raced out to sea once more, but this time it tore round the surface in a giant semicircle, causing the sea to rear up around its circumference to form for a moment a gigantic amphitheatre of water. When it fell forward it crashed like a tidal wave, ran forward and threw itself, enraged, against the short wall of the cliff. The hammer returned to Thor, who threw it off again instantly in a great overarm. It flew into a rock, hitting off a fat angry spark. It bounded off further and hit a spark off another rock, and another. Thor threw himself forward on to his knees, and with each rock the hammer hit he pounded the ground with his fist to make the rock rise to meet the hammer. Spark after spark erupted from the rocks. The hammer hit each successive one harder and harder, until one spark provoked a warning lick of lightning from the clouds. And then the sky began to move, slowly, like a great angry animal uncoiling in its lair. The pounding sparks flew faster and heavier from the hammer, more lightning licks arced down to meet them from the sky, and the whole earth was beginning to tremble in something very like fearful excitement. Thor hauled his elbows up above his head and then thrust them hard down with another ringing bellow at the sky. “O…ddddiiiiiiinnnnnn!!!!” The sky seemed about to crack open. “Toe Raaaaagggggggggg!!!!!!!!!” Thor throw himself into the ground, heaving aside about two skipsful of rocky carth. He shook with expanding rage. With a deep groan the whole of the side of the cliff began slowly to lean forward into the sea as he pushed and shook. In a few seconds more it tumbled heavily into the seething torment beneath it as Thor clambered back, seized a rock the size of a grand piano and held it above his head. Everything seemed still for a fleeting moment. Thor hurled the rock into the sea. He regained his hammer. “O…!” he bellowed. “…Ddddddddinnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!” His hammer cracked down. A torrent of water erupted from the ground, and the sky exploded. Lightning flickered down like a white wall of light for miles along the coast in either direction. Thunder roared like colliding worlds and the clouds vomited rain that shattered the ground. Thor stood exulting in the torrent. A few minutes later and the violence abated. A strong and steady rain continued to fall. The clouds were cleansing themselves and the weak rays of the early morning light began to find their way through the thinning cover. Thor trudged back up from where he had been standing, slapping and washing the mud from his hands. He caught at his hammer when it flew to him. He found Kate standing watching him, shivering with astonishment, fear and fury. “What was that all about?” she yelled at him. “I just needed to be able to lose my temper properly,” he said. When this didn’t seem to satisfy her he added, “A god can show off once in a while can’t he?” The huddled figure of Tsuliwaкnsis came hurrying out through the rain towards them. “You’re a noisy boy, Thor,” she scolded, “a noisy boy.” But Thor was gone. When they looked, they guessed that he must be the tiny speck hurtling northwards through the clearing sky.