The Sleeping Army (15 page)

Oh no, thought Freya. What happens now? Will witches be knocked off rafters? Will hanged men start speaking? Will shackles spring open?

‘I accept your challenge,' said Alfi. ‘I'll start. Aldafodr.'

‘Arnhofdi,' spat the troll.

‘Audun,' said Alfi.

‘Bragi,' said the troll.

‘Draugadrottin,' said Alfi.

‘Einibr—'

An axe whirred through the air and landed in the troll's head. The monster fell backwards, dead.

‘We don't have time for this,' said Snot, retrieving his bloody weapon.

‘But the All-Father's charm actually worked,' said Alfi. ‘I knew—'

‘Go!' said Snot. ‘Go to Asgard! Before I throw something at
you
.'

‘Alfi,' said Roskva. ‘Be careful. Please.'

Alfi ran. One moment he was there amidst the fir trees, the next he was a blur.

Freya glanced at Roskva. She turned away but not before Freya saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

‘He's all that's left,' said Roskva. ‘We've always been alone in Asgard. Who else could understand our strange life – two mortals who live with the Gods?'

They hid until dusk, then travelled almost without stop, in a tense, desperate silence. That night there was a bright full moon, so they criss-crossed through the grim woods for as long as they could see the narrow path, sleeping at dawn for a few short hours anywhere that was dry and hidden until the sky darkened again and they felt safer from the eagle's prowling gaze.

For three days and nights they travelled. This time there was no talk, no poetry. They grabbed blackberries and blueberries, ate roots and nuts, drank water from the little streams which bubbled up. As they hurried through the bleak forests of fir and beech, silent, exhausted, frightened, Freya felt like she was marching to her death.

Once they found a hidden hot spring bubbling up in a crevasse and bathed quickly, the others keeping an eye on the sky. Freya never wanted to get out. Until she looked down at her scratched body, and flinched. The ivory tendrils were now reaching towards her neck. Soon they would be strangling her. She jumped out of the water, drying herself with her filthy clothes.

Putting them back on again was horrible.

They walked and walked and walked. Freya's feet were raw and blistered, her legs covered in scratches and bruises. She was glad she couldn't see her face.

Her world had shrunk: wet; tired; trees; blisters; scared. And then even smaller: Tired. Scared. And then she was too tired to be scared. Had her life ever been otherwise?

I can't do this, she thought. I can't go on. She trudged, one foot in front of the other. One step. And another. And another. Every step, she reminded herself, was one she would never have to take again. She was tangled in a maze of trees without end. And always constantly checking the sky, for Thjazi and his talons.

She remembered a French marching song about a hen who kept losing her chicks, which Bob had taught her for their holiday in Normandy, when she was very
little and refused to go on walks.

She sang the song under her breath, and when the hen had lost all thirty of her chicks, Freya started again. Roskva joined in.

‘What happens if we – if we're too late?' said Freya. She couldn't bring herself to say ‘fail'. ‘And we turn back into—'

Roskva trembled. ‘You hear and don't hear. You see and don't see. It's like being a rock. Or a tree. Gradually, you stop knowing. Or caring. You're alone. Alone with all the other rocks and trees … Can we not talk about it,' said Roskva. ‘You'll find out soon enough.'

Freya held out her hand, and Roskva took it.

Slowly, gradually, the forest thinned, and the path became more like a track, strewn with loose stones. They crossed cooled lava beds, twisted ropes of sharp, grey rocks edged with white, jutting up amidst acid-green mosses. Freya felt like she was walking on needles. And always, getting closer and closer to the dark volcano ridges looming above them in the first faint rays of dawn light.

The land began to smoke. Tiny pools of brownish, murky water hissed and seethed. Freya bent down and felt the earth. It was warm.

Snot gazed at the barren lava field covering the
narrow valley. ‘My father's farm was here,' he said. ‘Long ago.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Freya.

Snot shrugged. ‘Bloody stupid place to have a farm, below a volcano, if you ask me. But no one did …'

Freya stared up at the ominous, cratered ridges, some dotted with snow and shrouded by clouds. Thin plumes of steam curled from the tops.

Snot scanned the pinkish sky, sword drawn. His neck was starting to turn ivory. ‘We can't wait until nightfall,' said Snot. ‘We'll have to risk climbing Hekla in daylight.'

‘Should I fly up?' said Freya. It was the last thing she wanted to say but the words came out of her mouth before she could stop them.

‘It's too dangerous to fly – if Thjazi spots you he'll kill you easily in the sky,' said Roskva.

‘We can protect you better on foot,' said Snot. ‘We'll walk up Hekla.'

Freya was secretly relieved. Exhausted as she was, blistered and sore though her feet were, the thought of flying terrified her. She gazed up at the iron-dark mountains. Fire and smoke and ash spewed high into the air.

‘Umm,' said Freya. ‘We're walking up a volcano,
right? What if it erupts?'

‘Then that will be how fate has decreed we die,' said Roskva.

They hastened up the volcano's dark face, sulphurous steam whistling out of fissures in the jagged rocks. On and on, up and up they climbed, crunching bits of ice underfoot, until the sun was high in the sky. A nearby volcano puffed, and then orange-red fire spewed from its molten mouth. Freya coughed and spluttered as she walked through rivers of billowing smoke.

Suddenly the air filled with ash. Chunks of ice and fire hurtled high into the sky. Steam swaddled them. From the plateau they stood on, she could see lava flowing, thick and molten and gloopy. Ice and steam, hot and cold. Surveying the burnt landscape, Freya felt she was already in the Underworld.

‘Don't tell me – that's Hekla,' she moaned, as a nearby volcano belched a fresh shower of fire and lava. ‘I'll die the moment I enter it …'

‘No,' said Snot. ‘We're standing on Hekla.'

Freya felt her heart stop.

‘So soon?' said Freya. During the long walk up to the peak, she'd tried not to think about the horror awaiting her.

Freya gulped. Hekla's mouth opened out of the
rock, a yawning black cavern waiting to swallow her. Shaking, she crept to the rim and peered in. It was like looking into Mordor.

‘No one has ever dared come up here before,' said Snot. ‘We're the first.' Freya noticed he stood well back, as if he might get sucked into the world beneath the worlds.

They stood awkwardly, watching wisps of steam curl up from Hekla's grisly mouth.

‘Get on with it,' said Snot, glancing nervously at the sky, sword drawn.

How could there be a blue sky, as if all was well in the world, when everything was so wrong?

Trembling, Freya took out the gleaming falcon feather and shook it. The grey-white blue-flecked feather glimmered and fluttered and took bird-shape. She spread out the falcon skin and held it in her shaking hands. The others gathered around her. Freya felt like a sacrifice to some implacable god.

She swallowed and peeked again into Hekla's black depths. How do I know it won't erupt? she thought, shuddering.

‘I'll stand guard,' said Snot. He gripped his heavy sword. ‘If Thjazi comes I'll be ready for him.'

‘Don't be stupid, Snot,' snapped Roskva. Her voice
was shaking. ‘We can't wait up here. We might as well hang out a sign with an arrow saying, “Come and get us, Thjazi!” We're visible for miles.'

‘Roskva's right,' said Freya. Ugh, how she hated saying that.

‘If death ambushes us, you must fly straight back to Asgard,' said Roskva. ‘Can you find your way?'

Freya felt like crying.

‘I don't know,' said Freya. Her mouth was dry and she could barely speak. Compared to what lay ahead, getting to Asgard seemed the least of her woes. ‘Where is it?' she asked through her tears.

Roskva pointed. ‘Do you see those black mountains? They're the mountains of Jotunheim. Asgard lies behind them. Head straight for those mountains then veer north and upwards. You'll see the world tree Yggdrasil rising high into the heavens … really, you can't miss it.'

Don't bet on that, thought Freya. She had no sense of direction at all. She could get lost going to the loo and back. One mountain looked like any other to her. And which way was north?

Freya stared at the falcon skin in her hands. She felt absolutely frozen, unable to move. Roskva spoke to her, and it was as if she were already far, far away.

‘… and
try
not to get your blood sucked out by Nidhogg.'

‘Nidhogg?' said Freya. Her head was spinning.

‘The corpse-eating dragon the spectre warned you about,' said Roskva. ‘Do your best to distract him.'

‘Thanks for sharing, Roskva,' said Freya. She held out the falcon skin, the feathers fluttering. ‘If you think I'm so useless you're welcome to fly down to see Hel yourself.'

Roskva glared at her. ‘The All-Father gave
you
the falcon skin, not me,' she said. ‘Only you can do this. Unfortunately.'

A horrible image came to Freya. If fate decreed she get out alive, let alone with Idunn, Thjazi would be searching the skies waiting to tear her apart. She saw herself ripped to pieces by the giant eagle, the nut falling from her grasp …

‘I can't do this!' wailed Freya. ‘Any of this!'

‘We all have to do things we can't do,' said Roskva. ‘Freya? Put on the falcon skin! Now. It's time.' She lifted her head, and Freya glimpsed her mottled ivory neck.

Freya's hand trembled, then she flung the gleaming falcon skin over her shoulders.

Instantly Freya's flesh prickled as feathers burst
forth and her body shuddered and twisted as her bones shrank and bent.

One moment she was a girl. The next she was a falcon.

How do I change back? thought Freya frantically, tottering on her little stick legs. I forgot to ask the Gods. How will I get out of Hel? I'm alive. Will I be stuck there forever?

‘I wish we could come with you,' said Roskva suddenly.

Freya opened her beak. Then she swivelled her head as her newly keen eye glimpsed a dark shape bearing down on them across the empty sky. She squawked.

The others turned and saw the gigantic eagle approaching, talons outstretched.

‘Go! Go!!' shrieked Roskva, drawing her sword. Snot raised his and they turned to face the dive-bombing eagle as Freya flung herself into Hekla's vast abyss.

Freya fell.

It was like one of those nightmares where you fall and fall and fall, except this time she knew she was awake. Frantically she flapped her heavy wings as she spiralled downward head-first, screaming as she tumbled into the Underworld.

The storms inside Hekla buffeted her as the volcano's breath whirled her about. Freya's wings felt leaden as she struggled to keep airborne against
the winds flinging her against the volcano's jagged sides. Freya could feel icy fingers reaching for her as she plummeted.

Were the others alive? Was Thjazi pursuing her even now?

One moment she thought she would die of heat, and prayed that Hekla wasn't about to explode. Then icy blasts bit through her feathered body and a shroud of frost enveloped her as she was yanked ever-deeper into the darkness.

Desperately she tried to right herself as she was swirled about. She had no idea if she was right side up and which way she was facing as she was twisted and twirled. Her stomach heaved.

Then, gradually, she found a way to spread her wings into the volcano's gusts, and began to glide downwards less violently.