Slowly, Lewis worked himself sideways after the other two.
“Hurry up, Lewis!” Greg urged.
“It’s all right for you,” Lewis complained. “With those magic shoes on you can’t put a foot wrong.”
There was a terrible crash as the door burst apart and with a roar the dragon bashed the flimsy barrier aside.
“Look, just keep close to the wall and you’ll be fine,” said Greg. “I won’t let you fall.”
The dragon’s stone snout scraped through the window, but its head was too big to fit through. It gave a disgusted snort and ground its jaws in frustration. That was enough to speed Lewis along the ledge until he was pressed against Greg’s side.
With a growl of frustration the dragon pulled back inside. One of the stone dwarfs crawled clumsily on to the ledge. As he drew himself upright he overbalanced and toppled to the ground. He hit the paving below with a resounding crash and shattered into a hundred pieces.
“Not exactly gymnasts, are they?” said Greg.
The other dwarfs bunched round the window and made a low moaning noise, as though shocked at the sight of their fallen comrade. None of them dared to follow.
Susie, Greg and Lewis continued to edge their way carefully around the corner of the palace. Above them the grey clouds were breaking up and a radiant sun blazed across the bright blue sky. From this height they could see out over the rooftops of Asgard.
The halls and palaces of the gods, which had looked ancient and derelict when they first arrived, now shone white and gold in the glorious sunlight, as if they had been newly built that day. Flashing banners of silver and green flew from the many towers, fluttering in the fresh breeze that was blowing across the city.
“Look!” said Susie pointing down. “There’s some kind of a pond down there.”
Below was a large circular pool of crystal clear water, the edge of which came right up to the palace wall. A memory jumped into Lewis’ mind from when the ring had mapped out the whole of Asgard in his head.
“It’s called the Pool of Urd,” he said. “That’s the House of the Norns on the other side and that’s where they—”
“Forget the geography lesson!” Greg cut him off. “The point is we can jump from here and land in the water.”
“Are you kidding?” said Lewis. “From this height?”
“This is nothing,” said Susie. “Easy peasy.”
“Maybe for you,” Lewis protested.
“What’s the big deal?” said Greg. “Last time we were at the Olympia pool in Dundee you jumped off a diving board this high.”
“Only because you pushed me,” Lewis snapped.
“Oh, right,” said Greg, sneaking a hand round behind Lewis’ back. “I remember now.”
Without warning he gave his brother a shove that sent him tumbling through the air, his arms and legs flailing helplessly. Lewis hit the water with a squeal.
“Zero points for style,” Greg commented drily.
“Let’s see you do better,” said Susie. She grabbed him by the shoulder and pitched him over the edge.
“Spinny!” Greg cried as he plummeted.
“Geronimo!” Susie yelled, jumping after him.
They splashed down a split second apart and bobbed up spitting out water.
“That was a dirty trick,” Lewis spluttered as he floundered about.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Greg countered.
He and Susie swam to the edge and hauled Lewis out after them. Shaking the water from their hair and clothes, they set off down the nearest street, eager to put as much distance as they could between themselves and Odin’s palace.
As they hurried along, the warm sunshine dried out their clothes and hair so quickly it was like they had never been wet at all. On either side of them the trees, which had been tired and wilting before, now stretched up tall and proud, sprouting fresh green leaves and stretching their mighty branches out against the sky.
Suddenly Susie pulled them all up short. “Hang on, where exactly are we going?” she demanded.
“Away from Loki,” said Greg, pointing back at Odin’s palace. “Unless you want to go a few more rounds with his armoured stooges.”
“Yes, but where are we going?” Susie insisted. “We can’t get home now that the Yggdrasil has fallen apart.”
“She’s right,” said Lewis. “We can’t just keep running. This is Loki’s kingdom now. He’s bound to catch up with us.”
“Unless we can find some way to take him down,” said Greg grimly. “We should make a fight of it at least. We’ve got Thor’s hammer after all and I can move pretty fast in these shoes.”
“I don’t think that’s much of a match for all the stuff Loki has in Odin’s palace,” said Lewis.
“Maybe we could drop by Thor’s place and pick up a few thunderbolts to toss at him,” Greg suggested.
“Thunderbolts are a meteorological phenomenon,” Lewis informed him shortly. “They’re not something you can throw around.”
“Well, at least I had an idea,” Greg retorted. “I don’t hear you coming up with much.”
“Greg does have a point,” said Susie. “All sorts of gods – if you want to call them that – lived around here. Maybe one of them has something we can use.”
“Thor told us that Surtur stole the treasures of Asgard and hid them on Earth,” said Lewis. “That’s why Thor’s hammer was in our garage. There can’t be much left behind.”
Susie puffed out her cheeks and made an exasperated noise. “What about something that was nailed down or too big to move?” she said.
“A big cannon, for instance,” said Greg. “You know, like Mons Meg in Edinburgh Castle.”
“Vikings didn’t have cannons,” said Lewis, “and I’m pretty sure their gods didn’t either.”
“But if Asgard is powered up again,” said Susie, gesturing at the city, “there must be something out there we can use.”
Lewis felt a notion stirring at the back of his mind, telling him she was right. They had spotted something when they first arrived in Asgard, something that could help them.
He cast his thoughts back to the images of the city that the ring had sent spinning through his brain. There was the Avenue of Giants, the Palace of Wings, the Seven Wells, the Golden Market. A small voice seemed to whisper to him that somewhere in the city there was a way to defeat Loki, but the stream of images and facts swirled dizzyingly about him. He began to sway and both Greg and Susie grabbed hold to steady him.
“Take it easy, Lewis,” said Greg. “I don’t want you throwing up all over me.”
“Something’s coming to me,” said Lewis. “There’s a place we saw when we came into the city…”
“What?” Greg pressed him. “The wall? The gate?”
“Heimdall’s Gatehouse!” Lewis exclaimed.
“Whose what?” said Greg.
“The place on the rock, remember?” said Susie. “With the horns.”
Suddenly it was clear to Lewis, like a blurred picture coming into focus. “Heimdall was the guardian of the Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge.”
“How does that help us?” said Greg. “Thor said that bridge was smashed to bits.”
“Yes, but a bridge that connects Asgard to Earth can’t be an ordinary bridge made of stone and steel,” said Lewis. His thoughts were starting to connect now and with that he felt a glimmer of hope.
“You’re right!” Susie enthused. “It would have to be an energy stream tunnelling through hyperspace.”
“Yes, something like that,” Lewis agreed.
“Hold on,” said Greg, raising his hand. “Where is all this taking us?”
“Look,” said Lewis, “if Loki can get Asgard back online, maybe we can restore the Bifrost as well. And if we can, Heimdall’s Gatehouse would be the place to do it.”
“We could go back to Earth and get help,” said Susie.
“Sure,” said Greg. “We could get the RAF to come and bomb Loki back to the stone age.”
“Well, what are we standing around for?” said Susie. “Let’s go!”
“Okay, it’s this way,” said Greg, setting off decisively.
Lewis grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him back. “No,” he said, pointing, “it’s this way.”
The layout of the city was still clear in his head from when he wore the ring. He was able to guide them swiftly down the tree-lined boulevards and wide avenues to the foot of the crag where Heimdall’s gatehouse looked down on them.
As they arrived at the bottom of the path leading up the slope, a horrid clanking made them turn and look down the broad street behind them.
“Not them again!” Lewis groaned.
A mob of bodiless armour, about twenty suits in all, Lewis estimated, was marching towards them, brandishing swords, axes and spears to show they meant business.
Greg caught Lewis by the elbow and pointed him toward the rock. “Lewis, you get up there,” he told him. “Susie and I will hold them off while you fire up the beef roast.”
“They don’t look so tough,” said Susie, taking a practice swing with the hammer. “Greg and I can handle this.”
At a shove from Greg, Lewis started up the path.
“Let me have that rope of yours, Spinny,” said Greg, unzipping her backpack and reaching inside. One eye on the approaching enemy, he formed one end of the rope into a loop.
“Pretty good lasso,” Susie commented. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“Cowboy camp,” said Greg.
Susie gave him a sceptical look. “Are you pulling my leg?”
“No, really, there’s a place down in the Borders Dad took us to a couple of years ago. You get to wear big stetson hats and do all kinds of cowboy stuff.”
While the other two prepared for battle, Lewis raced up the path to the top of the crag. It was a flat expanse of rock the size of a football pitch. In the centre was a marble building with a great iron door in the wall.
There was no sign of a lock or a handle. Lewis pushed at it, first on one side, then the other, but no matter how hard he pressed, the iron slab remained stubbornly shut. He ran his hands over it, searching for a button or a switch that might spring it open, but there was none.
Down below, a tide of living armour surged forward to engulf Greg and Susie. Susie greeted their arrival with a warlike whoop.