Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent (19 page)

When Ash turned on to O'Connell Street, the first thing she noticed was the Jormungand wrapped around the top half of the Spire. She could just about make out Loki and Max, still clinging to one of the fins. The serpent seemed to be relaxing, watching the people going about their business, itself going largely unnoticed.

Ash wondered what it was doing just sitting there but was relieved it hadn't yet attacked anyone.

She raced down the street, waving at pedestrians and urging them to get indoors. They looked at her like she was out of her mind but this didn't put her off.

‘Please!' she begged. ‘Get inside somewhere. It's dangerous! Look up – look at the Spire!'

‘Yeah, whatever,' one passer-by said cynically.

‘No, actually, look,' said another one who had done what Ash asked. ‘What is that thing?'

‘It's a –' Ash started. Just then Loki pointed at her from atop the serpent. The Jormungand saw her, then uncoiled from the monument and launched itself towards Ash and the people near her. It screeched its ear-piercing call as it dived through the air.

Ash and the others turned to the nearest building. It was a large bookshop that hadn't opened for business for the day yet. Although the glass entrance doors were still locked, the steel shutters were up and they could see staff getting the place ready. By the looks of things they'd just taken in the day's newspapers and were stacking them on their shelves. Ash and the others outside banged on the doors.

One staff member looked up from his sweeping and shook his head apologetically. ‘We're not open yet,' he said.

Ash kept pounding. She turned around and saw that the Jormungand had landed on the ground in the middle of the road. It hadn't taken any notice of the light traffic still moving down the street. The driver of a lorry had no time to swerve: the vehicle crashed into the serpent's side, sending the beast rolling onto its back. Loki and Max toppled backwards and landed on the tarmac with a thud. Before Max could even think of making an escape, Loki grabbed hold of him again. Meanwhile, the Jormungand was writhing about on its spine, struggling to turn the right way up. Ash turned her attention back to the bookshop.

‘Please, please let us in!' she cried.

The bookseller kept shaking his head. He walked towards the doors, thinking they couldn't hear him. ‘I told you already, we're not –' Then he saw the Jormungand behind the people outside. It had managed to right itself, but was standing shaking its head, still stunned from the impact of the lorry. The driver – along with several others – had abandoned his vehicle and joined the crowd at the bookshop.

‘Hurry up!' Loki shouted at the serpent from where he stood, with a tight grip on Max. ‘They're going to get away!'

The Jormungand finally turned back towards the people on the bookshop steps and roared.

As the sound echoed around the street, the bookseller swiftly unhooked a large loop of keys from his belt. He fumbled with the key-ring, dropping it to the floor. Ash and the others groaned and she looked over her shoulder at the Jormungand, which was licking its lips in anticipation of the meal to come, as if it was toying with its food. It started moving quickly towards them, unhindered by its tiny legs.

‘Come on, come on!' Ash urged the bookseller. He'd retrieved the loop from the ground and was trying key after key in the lock. Suddenly there was a click. He pulled the doors open triumphantly and everyone piled in, the weight of all the bodies pressing forward sending them crashing to the floor. Quickly the bookseller pulled down the shutters, locked them and then shut the inner doors for extra protection, just as the serpent slammed its head against the steel.

Ash sat up, catching her breath. She looked around her at the grateful people. They were safe. For the moment at least. But Max was still trapped outside with Loki.

Arthur came to with a dull throbbing in his forehead and found he was flat on his back staring at the ceiling of the cavern. He touched his hand to the throbbing spot to find a small lump. It stung to the touch although he was thankful to see that there was no blood on his hand when he took it away and held it in front of his eyes.

Where am I, he wondered to himself. He reached out around him. He was on dry land at least, and as he explored further he realised that he was lying on a wooden floor. With a groan he struggled upright. He quickly saw that he was in the Viking boat, which was now bobbing calmly on the surface of the water in the cavern. What's more, he was surrounded by the group of dead Viking soldiers. Only they weren't quite dead any more. They were moving. And one of them was steadily advancing towards him, carrying the strange iron hammer raised in his hands.

After a few more futile attempts to break into the bookshop, the Jormungand gave up.

‘Save your energy, my child,' Ash heard Loki shout to the Jormungand. ‘You've been asleep for hundreds of years. It would take anyone a while to get their strength back. You're not restored to your full power yet. When you are, those shutters will be like mere paper to you.' The terrified people in the shop breathed a sigh of relief as they heard the beast walk away, its claws scratching the pavement.

‘Is there anywhere we can see out?' someone asked the staff member who'd opened the door for them.

‘The windows on the third floor are quite large,' he said. ‘You'll get a good view of the whole street up there.' The people who'd been outside and most of the staff members took off, running up the steps of the escalator, which had not been started yet, two at a time. Ash looked at their saviour. He was in his early twenties with three piercings in each ear.

‘Thanks for letting everyone in,' Ash said, ‘but you have to let me back out now.'

‘What? Are you crazy?'

‘No. You just have to let me out.' She thought of Max. ‘My brother's out there. Please. Open the shutters.'

‘No way. I don't care if it sounds like it's gone. That thing could get in here and kill us all. Or if you go out, it could kill you. There's no way I'm letting a kid like you go out into the street to face that thing! Why don't you come upstairs? At least that way you can see what's going on.'

Ash thought about it for a moment, but quickly realised that just as Max was trapped outside, she was trapped in the shop. She knew from his tone of voice there was no convincing the bookseller to let her out and, since he was much bigger than her, there was no way she could force him to open the door. As much as Arthur had been trapped in the cavern, she was trapped in here. Worried and frustrated, she conceded and followed him upstairs.

‘What is that thing anyway?' he asked on the way up.

‘You don't want to know,' she replied grimly.

When the serpent, Loki and Max got back to the Spire, the Jormungand slumped to the ground with a raspy sigh. Loki rubbed the side of its face lovingly.

‘Aw,' he said, ‘are you tired from banging your head on that door? Poor Jormungand. You know, you may be my largest child, you may be my oldest child, but you're certainly not my smartest.' The serpent seemed oblivious to the insult. It was watching the people still on the street. They were running away in all directions, screaming and yelling, heading for any shelter they could find. If the Jormungand had had more energy he would have devoured all of them in one swift flight. But his father was right: best to conserve what energy he had for the moment.

‘Will?' said Max's voice shyly. ‘I want to go home.'

Loki turned to him in disgust. ‘Are you stupid or something? Don't you get it yet? I'm not Will.'

‘You look like Will.'

‘There is no Will. There never was. I'm Loki.'

He momentarily transformed to the ancient and scarred Loki form.

‘See?' he asked. Then he changed back to Will.

Max couldn't hold it in any more. What with the swim through the water and the terrifying flight above the city and Will not being real, he'd had enough. He started to cry.

‘Oh, do stop crying, Max. Grow up! You should try to enjoy yourself.' At this Max tried to halt his tears. Loki stooped and put an arm around the boy. ‘You know, one day, when you're old, if you're still alive – which, let's be honest, is looking less and less likely – people might ask each other where they were on the day the world was destroyed. And you'll have the pleasure of telling them that you were standing next to Loki the Trickster himself. Won't that be nice?'

At this, Max only cried harder.

The dead man advanced slowly on Arthur. His leathery dark-brown skin stretched over his skeletal form. His cheekbones were high and sharp and his brow was prominent, which caused his black eyes to appear even more sunken than they actually were. His mouth was slightly open, displaying cracked yellow teeth. There was very little hair left of his beard. From the bronze helmet he was wearing, Arthur recognised him as the dead Viking who had been sitting staring at the Jormungand from the bow of the boat. As he walked forward, he stretched the hammer out towards Arthur, groaning deeply.

‘Please, don't hurt me,' Arthur said, shielding his head and face with his arms. ‘I need to get out of here and help my friends.'

The dead man stopped and looked at the others in confusion. A couple of them shrugged their shoulders, silently. The man with the hammer moved forward again. He made a guttural, croaky sound. Even though it sounded ugly, Arthur detected no sense of a threat. He looked up at the dead man and realised that he wasn't going to hit him with the hammer. In fact, he seemed to be offering it to Arthur.

‘You're giving this to me?' Arthur asked. He pointed to the outstretched hammer and then to himself.

The man grunted again, thrusting the weapon forwards as if to emphasise the point. Arthur accepted the gift. Strangely, it didn't feel as heavy in his hands as it had done before. It almost felt like it belonged in his grasp.

‘Thank you,' he said. Using the hammer as a small crutch, Arthur got to his feet.

‘Did you save me?' he asked, looking around him at the men. ‘Did you pull me out of the water?' They looked confused then grunted in a puzzled way. ‘I guess you can't understand me, huh?' Just then he remembered the pendant. He took it out of his pocket and hung it around his neck. It momentarily glowed green then faded.

‘Do you understand me now?' Arthur said. The dead men smiled and nodded frantically. A series of excited throaty sounds came out of their mouths.

‘Can you speak?' he asked. They shook their heads. ‘I guess being dead for a thousand years would mess up your vocal cords a bit. Okay, grunt once for yes and twice for no. Understand?'

The man with the bronze helmet – Arthur thought of him as their leader – grunted once.

‘Great. So you rescued me from the water?'

The leader grunted again.

‘And the hammer?' At this they all nodded frantically again. ‘And this hammer's very important?' They nodded even more, all of them grunting loudly.

Arthur walked through the men to the end of the boat. They parted to let him explore. Shields, armour and weapons were scattered about. He stood for a moment at the end of the boat, looking out through the hole to the Liffey, thinking. When he'd worked out what was going on, he turned back to face the dead men.

‘You're the hundred men that were guarding the Jormungand, right?' he said. The leader groaned once but dropped his head, as if he was ashamed of the job they'd done.

‘But you came back to life because it escaped? Like a back-up plan?' As the leader grunted once, the men nodded.

‘That's brilliant. Bet Loki didn't see that one coming. I'm Arthur, by the way.'

‘Ar-kkkrrr,' the leader croaked. He slapped his own chest. ‘Be-yr-n.'

‘Be-yr-n?' Arthur repeated. ‘You're Be-yr-n?'

The leader nodded and smiled.

‘Oh, I get it now! Like Bjorn. Your name is Bjorn?'

Bjorn bowed his head with a grin.

Arthur pointed straight at Bjorn. ‘So I guess you're in charge, Bjorn? Like their general?' At this, Bjorn shook his head and grunted twice. He pointed to Arthur. ‘I'm the general?' The men all nodded.

Then, one by one, all the other soldiers fell to one knee. They took off their helmets and bowed their heads towards Arthur in deep respect. He looked to Bjorn, who simply grimaced back in what Arthur took to be an attempt at a smile.

‘Well then,' Arthur announced, walking to the bow of the boat, then turning to face the Vikings. ‘Last time it took Thor and the gods to stop Loki's madness. If my vision was correct, they can't help us this time. But my friends are out there with Loki and we have to save them and stop him. I don't know if we'll be able to. But we have to try.'