‘Yoo-hoo! Hello! It’s us! Roskva and Alfi. Hello!’
‘Who are you calling?’ asked Freya, gaping at the curving wall of golden-brown rocks and boulders that soared upward into the bright sky, high as a mountain, higher than any wall she’d ever seen. She felt tiny and insignificant standing beneath the gigantic ramparts.
‘Heimdall,’ said Roskva. ‘Hellooooo! Heimdall!’
The guardian of the Gods, the one whose horn she’d blown. He’d be angry with her for her terrible presumption, she thought, shrinking inside.
‘He lives at the end of heaven outside the wall … guarding the bridge,’ muttered Alfi. ‘Where could he be?’
Roskva looked around. ‘He never leaves the heaven-mountain,’ she said.
‘Maybe he didn’t hear you,’ said Freya.
‘The Wind-Shield of the Gods can hear the grass growing on earth,’ said Alfi. ‘He can hear the wool growing on sheep. He can hear fish breathing in the sea.’
‘He heard us,’ said Roskva. She looked grim.
‘But where’s Heimdall’s palace?’ said Alfi. ‘It should be over there.’ He pointed to a barren stretch of land, with weeds growing amidst piles of stones and rubble. ‘There, under the wall, at the end of the bridge.’
Freya stared at the ruin. Roskva and Alfi exchanged rapid words in their own language.
‘What are you saying?’ said Freya. She heard the fear in their voices.
They ignored her.
‘Maybe he moved,’ said Freya.
‘Maybe the All-Father gave him a better palace,’ said Alfi.
‘It’s possible,’ said Roskva. She looked doubtful.
‘Roskva, I’m scared,’ said Alfi.
‘Let’s go in,’ said Roskva quietly. ‘There’s the little doorway we can creep through.’
‘It’ll be locked,’ said Alfi.
‘Then we’ll just have to break it, won’t we?’ said Roskva. ‘We don’t have time to wait for Heimdall to get back from wherever he is.’
Sleipnir suddenly reared and snorted and dug his hooves into the ground. However hard Roskva and Alfi tugged on his bridle, he wouldn’t budge.
‘Leave him,’ said Snot. He gnawed on his shield and bared his chipped black teeth. His matted grey wolf-hair stood up in bristly tufts. His rank smell was unbearable. Freya turned her face away from him, but Roskva and Alfi didn’t seem to notice.
They left Sleipnir beside the flaming bridge, and stood before the wooden door, studded with nails and criss-crossed with iron bars, cut into a gigantic doorway. Roskva tugged hard on the rusty latch, which fell off in her hand. She bit her lip, and pushed the door open. With a screech, the door splintered and snapped off its great hinges.
‘Get your sword out, you stinking son of a mare!’ snapped Snot. ‘Never walk ahead of your weapon.’
Alfi blushed and drew his sword.
Then, one by one, they walked through the gateway into Asgard.
Freya gasped. For once, she couldn’t speak as she looked around the stronghold of the Gods.
Tumbleweed blew across the desolate plains. Thistles and brambles covered the parched ground. There were no shimmering green and gold fields rolling out to infinity. No mighty gleaming citadels. Just nettles growing higher than any Freya had ever seen.
Where were the palaces? All she could see was the wind-swept world tree Yggdrasil soaring high into the heavens. She heard the far-off roar of torrential rivers. Otherwise all was silent, as if Asgard was asleep.
‘Are you sure … are you sure we’re in the right place?’ Freya felt overwhelmed with disappointment. Was this some kind of practical joke her weird companions were playing on her? Had they yanked her from her life and dragged her here to roam around a dusty wasteland? How could she have been so gullible to think she’d be meeting the Gods?
She glared at Roskva and Alfi.
Alfi looked ashen. He clutched Roskva’s sleeve.
‘Do you think the frost giants attacked while we were asleep?’ he murmured. ‘Could Ragnarok have happened?’
Roskva shook her head. ‘The earth still exists. So does the sun and the moon. We saw the stars tonight. It’s not the end of days.’
Snot growled and gripped his sword.
‘Who did this? I’ll kill them!’ he howled. Then, bellowing, ‘Valhalla! Valhalla!’ he ran towards the remains of a vast, derelict Hall beside a fast-flowing river.
Freya, Alfi, and Roskva followed him. They stood inside the ruined walls, unable to speak. Bits of tarnished metal, scrapings from the vanished roof, and a few rusted spears lay scattered in the dirt.
This was Valhalla. The Hall of the Slain. The gold-bright palace of Woden’s chosen warriors. The dark, echoing wine hall was now only home to the winds.
‘This hall was so bright they used swords instead of fire for light,’ murmured Alfi. ‘The rafters were made of spear shafts and thatched with overlapping shields of gold. There were helmets and red-gold mail coats strewn everywhere, and men shouting and drinking … even Woden’s wolves are gone; I used to give them meat scraps … there were five hundred and forty doors. I know, I used to walk around and count them while the Valkyries, the Choosers of the Slain, served mead and haunches of boar to the tired warriors. That’s the corner where I tried to barricade myself from the men who pelted me with bones when they’d finished eating and my Master wasn’t there to protect me.’
Freya’s skin prickled. She was reminded of old photographs of American ghost towns, where only a few sun-bleached buildings and dirt roads showed that anyone had ever lived there. She felt as if she were walking in an ancient graveyard, untouched and unvisited for centuries, with tumbled-down stones and worn-out inscriptions the only signs of the people who had once walked the earth.
Snot stared at the shards of a black cauldron in the middle of the floor, and kicked at a few shield fragments. A rotten, sagging mead-bench was shoved against what was left of a wall. He picked it up and hurled it against the ground where it splintered. ‘I sat here,’ he muttered. ‘Woden put me in a low place by a door, because I was newly arrived and yet to prove myself. Ha! I didn’t stay there long. As they say, fast temper grows in a seat far from the High Table.’ He sighed. ‘We fought all day and feasted all night.’
‘Didn’t that get boring?’ blurted Freya, before she could stop herself.
Snot glowered down at her over his raven shield. His dark eyes glinted beneath his crooked brows.
‘How else can you forget your self?’ he said.
Freya wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Snot frightened her and she wanted to keep away from him as much as possible. She left him to his memories inside the ruins of Valhalla and walked over to where Alfi and Roskva were standing amidst dried-out rushes and sedges, watching the river roaring past as if they had lost the will to move.
‘The All-Father’s palace should be over there,’ said Alfi, pointing into empty space. Freya squinted. She could just make out a few piles of stones and pillars far off in the distance. It looked like the ruins of the Roman Forum.
‘Let me just have a quick look around,’ said Alfi. ‘Wait here.’
Freya watched astonished, as he ran off. One moment he was there, the next … not.
‘He’s fast,’ said Freya.
‘They say only thought can outrun him,’ said Roskva. ‘Bit of an exaggeration, but he’s pretty speedy.’
There was a flash of movement, and Alfi had returned.
‘Njord’s palace, and Freyja’s, and Sif’s … none of them exist any more,’ said Alfi, panting. ‘It’s all just rubble and ruins.’
‘Where is everyone?’ said Freya.
‘Master! Master!’ shouted Roskva. ‘Master! Are you here?’
There was a rusty upturned chariot, half-buried in the dirt, choked with weeds. A twisted rope of silver tarnished black lay beside it.
Roskva prodded her brother.
‘That’s our Master’s!’ she hissed.
‘No,’ said Alfi. ‘It can’t be …’ He picked up the silver reins and scraped at the tarnish, revealing traces of the interwoven pattern. Then he nodded.
‘Roskva, what are we going to do? Do you think we’re too late?’
Roskva twisted her hands. Freya noticed how old and wrinkled and calloused they were. More like the hands of an old woman than a girl. Her nails were bitten.
‘Could the Gods be – dead?’ Alfi whispered the last word as if terrified he would be overheard.
Roskva laughed. ‘The Gods are immortal.’
‘Something’s happened,’ said Alfi.
‘We’ve seen no burial mounds,’ said Roskva.
‘Maybe there was a fire … maybe the Gods have gone somewhere else …’
‘But that doesn’t explain … all this,’ said Roskva. ‘This is so much worse … How much time has passed since we were here?’
Alfi shrugged. ‘How can I answer that?’
‘I know things were bad, but …’ Roskva trailed off.
‘If no one’s here then I’ll be going home,’ said Freya. She felt angry and frightened.
‘You’re going nowhere, hornblower,’ said Roskva.
‘Since when are you my boss?’ said Freya.
Roskva waved her hands as if she were brushing off an ant.
‘You know nothing, little girl!’ hissed Roskva. ‘You are part of something much bigger than you can imagine.’
Little girl? Freya opened her mouth to protest.
‘We’ll argue about this later,’ said Roskva. ‘Let’s go to the Well. If any of the Immortals are still here, that’s where they’ll be.’
‘The Gods hold court at the Well of Urd under Yggdrasil every day to pass judgement,’ Alfi told Freya as they walked through the weeds towards the tallest, widest, most enormous tree she’d ever seen or imagined. Dead ivy coiled round its withered trunk. The towering tree hurtled into the heavens higher than she could see, wider than a street of houses, wider than Buckingham Palace. Its leafless branches fanned out across the sky.
‘Roskva and I came here every day with our Master. He lived so far away in Asgard we had to wade across many rivers to get here. But we did it. The Master was always moving, always travelling, always fighting and bellowing. It was hard to keep up with him.’
They walked to the sacred Well of Fate beneath one of the roots of the world tree. Reverently, Freya brushed her hand along the rough bark of the great ash, which loomed above the holy place of the Gods. Her fingers tingled as she felt the tree’s faint pulse.
Freya stood in the middle of a circle of intricately carved, ivory-white stones, their seats worn smooth. Tracery lines of runes were etched along the bottom. Moss and grasses grew around them. At the centre was a large pool with glinting blue-black water, nestling under the root of the giant ash tree. A single shaft of sunlight lit up the well.
There was a hushed silence. Freya felt the power of the place.
‘That’s where the great god Frey sat,’ said Alfi, pointing to the stone seat still decorated with the outline of a giant boar. ‘And that’s the All-Father’s High Seat. His wife Frigg sat beside him. Baldr the Fair and Heimdall over there. And the beautiful goddess Freyja, Frey’s sister, across from Woden and his wife. Our Master Thor and his wife Sif sat here. Roskva and I stood behind him in case he needed us.’
Freya walked to the pool and knelt down to peer into the inky depths. She picked up a small stone and was about to drop it in when Roskva gasped and stopped her.
‘That’s a sacred well,’ she said. ‘The Well of Fate. You don’t just throw things in it.’
‘Oh,’ said Freya. She stepped back as if the well had caught fire. ‘I just wanted to see how deep it was.’
‘She didn’t mean any harm,’ said Alfi. ‘Remember when all this was new to you too, Roskva.’
Roskva scowled. Freya thought for a wild moment how nice it would be to dump Roskva down the well.
Roskva scooped up a handful of water and sprinkled it on the bark of the giant tree. Yggdrasil shuddered and jolted, and a burst of dark green leaves appeared on the lower branches.
‘Well? What do we do now?’ said Freya.
‘About bloody time,’ hissed a voice beside her.
‘What took you so long?’ rasped another.
Freya jumped. She looked around, but saw nothing. Roskva tensed.
‘We’ve been waiting centuries for you,’ moaned a peevish voice behind her.
The shadows fluttered. Freya saw ghosts rise from the earth and the rocks and shuffle towards her, tottering creatures of twilight and dew, more like walking air than living beings. Freya could hear bones creaking, like rusty wheels trying to turn again. She smelled mould and damp, as if the lid of an old trunk filled with moth-eaten rags had suddenly been lifted.
Roskva gasped. She clutched Alfi’s arm. Snot growled.
Alfi nudged her. ‘That’s Heimdall,’ he murmured, pointing to a wizened spectre babbling to himself as he rocked back and forth. ‘Oh Thor, that’s the guardian of the Gods. Roskva. Look at him. He’s worse than Grandpa was …’
The wispy, flickering shadows gathered in the stone circle under Yggdrasil’s withered root. The dying Gods were assembling to hold their court.
A crippled, shrivelled wraith hunched on the highest stone seat. His single eye glittered faintly beneath a few threads hanging down from what was once a wide-brimmed hat. Fragments of a blue mantle clung to the bones jutting out from his emaciated body.
Snot fell to the ground.
‘Bow!’ hissed Roskva, flinging herself down. Alfi did the same. Freya copied. She tried to stop her hands shaking.
‘Who is that old guy?’ she whispered.
‘The All-Father,’ murmured Alfi. ‘Hide your eyes.’ Freya obeyed. Her heart was pounding.
It was impossible. How could this doddery, broken-backed wreck be Woden the Much-Wise, Father of Magic, Giver of Victory, Lord of Poetry? Freya glimpsed the stone seat beneath his transparent skin. The capricious, scary, vengeful God, the one Clare bowed down to so anxiously, was a crumpled husk. Two dead ravens, skeletons with a few feathers sticking out from their sides, perched on his shoulders.
‘Stand up!’ croaked the one-eyed ghost. ‘Our time is brief.’
The four stood in the middle of the stone circle, surrounded by the trembling Gods. Freya felt faint with horror and pity. The immortal Gods were old and dying. How was this possible?
‘Where is the hero we’ve been waiting for?’ rasped Woden. ‘Where is the battle-brave warrior who blew Heimdall’s horn and woke my sleeping army? Where is the mortal hero the seeress foretold? Let him step forward and reveal himself.’
He can’t mean me, thought Freya. She looked down at her scuffed black shoes and her Baldr’s Fane of England school uniform with its crumpled blue-pleated skirt. There was still a ketchup stain from lunch on her ratty yellow sweatshirt. He can’t mean me.
Freya looked around. Snot scratched his bum. Alfi cleared his throat. Roskva gave her a push.
‘Who blew the horn and cracked open the earth? Step forward!’ hissed Woden. His withered eye flashed for a moment.
‘I did,’ whispered Freya.
The assembled Gods hissed and muttered. The Goddess Sif choked. Heimdall rocked to and fro, drooling.
‘But it was a mistake,’ said Freya. ‘I didn’t mean to … I didn’t know, I …’
‘Your name,’ said Woden. When he spoke, there was an edge to his voice that frightened her.
‘Freya,’ she said.
‘An unworthy namesake,’ hissed a bald Goddess with shaking, liver-coloured hands. Her transparent skin was a mass of wrinkles. A glittering gold necklace weighed down her scrawny, turkey-gobbler neck. ‘You’re so ugly. What were your parents thinking? I am insulted.’
You’re one to talk, you old crone, thought Freya. And she’d always been so proud to share the name of such a beautiful, wise Immortal.
Woden fixed the Goddess Freyja with his dark, baleful eye. She tossed her wobbly head as if she still had flaxen curls to toss. Her necklace rattled.
‘Your parents’ names?’ said Woden.
‘Bob … uh … Robert Gislason,’ said Freya. ‘My mother is Clare Raven.’
‘You and your family are unknown to me,’ said Woden. He sat for a long moment in silence. ‘There was a time when no creature on earth escaped my notice.’
‘I am Frey,’ quavered a stooping God with tightly stretched, blackened skin. He looked like rags fluttering on a stick. ‘Are you a thrall?’
‘A thrall?’
‘A slave,’ said Frey.
‘No!’ said Freya.
‘A farmer then?’ asked the God of crops and sunshine and peace and plenty.
‘No,’ said Freya.
‘Surely not a noble?’
‘No,’ said Freya. How her granddad the baker would have loved that question.
‘There is nothing else,’ said Frey.
The Gods and Goddesses jittered and stuttered.
‘Not a slave? Then who does the work?’
‘We all do,’ said Freya.
‘We’ve been dying too long,’ whispered Sif, a heap of shrivelled, transparent skin, her wispy white hairs barely covering her bald skull. ‘We’ll have a lot to learn …’
‘A lot to put right,’ quavered Woden’s wife, Frigg. Her toothless mouth sagged.
‘Can I go home now?’ said Freya.
‘Hold your tongue,’ ordered Woden. Freya shrank back.
‘What was I saying?’ muttered Woden. He was silent for a long moment, mumbling to himself. ‘Oh yes,’ he rasped. ‘Where are the others? Where are my sword-bright warriors? Where are the ones versed in the arts of old magic? Where is the sleeping army who will save us?’
Freya looked around. Alfi, Roskva, and Snot did the same. She half-expected to see all the chess pieces gathering, the knights, the kings, the queens, the pawns, all changed back into living people, but there were only the empty plains of Asgard and the wrecked, racked Gods shaking before her.
‘It’s just … us, Lord,’ said Roskva. ‘We’re the only ones who woke when she blew the horn.’
The assembled Gods murmured.
‘This is our sleeping army! Four? Just … four? These … mortals! These … these – children!’ spat a toothless God.
‘I’m no child,’ said Snot. The gnarled skin on his thick neck tensed. ‘I’m not a babysitter either. I was one of Woden’s berserks.’
‘Alfi and I can take care of ourselves,’ said Roskva.
I can’t, Freya wanted to whimper.
‘The charm is weakening,’ whispered Woden. ‘The whole army should have woken … There should be over a hundred warriors here … My powers are fading.’
The assembled Gods sighed. The Goddess Freyja began to weep. Tears of gold fell from the cataract-covered eyes and plinked on the dirt. Someone Freya presumed was the Goddess’s husband leaned over to wipe her eyes, but she pushed him away.
‘We are nothing more now than breath in the trees, the rustling of leaves, the foam on the waves. We who used to make and destroy, reduced to rustling,’ moaned Sif.
‘I HATE rustling,’ hissed the Goddess Freyja. Her palsied hands shook.
‘Wait … for … me!’ gasped a voice.
‘Master?’ breathed Alfi. His eyes filled with tears as he bowed to the frail, dripping-wet man with a hint of a red beard still visible on his gaunt jaw. He paused to regain his breath at every painful step.
Freya stared. This was Thor? The mighty Thor, the killer of giants? The God who could devour an ox and eight salmon at one sitting, who heaved boulders and shattered cliffs? The God of thunder and stormy skies?
Roskva looked shocked. ‘Master.’ Almost unwillingly she smiled. ‘Still wading through all those rivers to get here, I see.’
‘Ah, Roskva. Thialfi.’ A tiny smile flittered across the skull-like face. ‘You’ve returned to save us. At last.’
‘As if we had any—’ began Roskva.
‘Of course we have,’ interrupted Alfi, kicking her.
Roskva kicked him back.
‘Ow,’ said Alfi. ‘That hurt.’
‘Good,’ said Roskva.
‘Good to see you, my boy, good to see you both,’ gasped Thor. ‘’Course I can’t see you, too blind now, but I heard your voices. You are still young. That’s good. That’s very good. Speak again.’
‘Master,’ said Alfi, brushing tears away from his eyes, ‘where’s your hammer?’
‘Hammer?’ muttered Thor. ‘What hammer?’
Roskva gasped. ‘Your hammer, Mjollnir. The one you use to smash giants. The one only you can lift. Mjollnir.’
‘Ah!’ said Thor. ‘I knew I’d forgotten something. Mjollnir … yes, now where did I put it?’ He looked around as if the hammer would appear before him.
Snot grunted and said nothing.
‘Tell me one thing,’ rasped Woden. ‘Are we still worshipped and feared? My ravens who brought me news of the world of men are long dead.’
Freya gulped. What should she say? Dare she tell him about the half-empty fanes attended mainly by old ladies or students praying for extra wisdom during exams? Oh and of course by families trying to get their children into the local Fane of England school who turned up every Sunday for a few years till priests like her mum wrote a letter to the headteacher testifying to their attendance and then … poof! Never seen again until they wanted a fane wedding or a baby-naming?
And what about all the other religions?
‘Answer me,’ ordered Woden.
‘Lots of people worship and honour you,’ said Freya. ‘Your High Priests sit in the House of Lords. The Queen of England is the head of your Fane.’
Woden groaned. The assembled Gods groaned with him. The air filled with sighs.
‘Just lots? Lots! Not all? It’s as I feared – there are other gods now … taking our place,’ hissed Woden. ‘False gods. And we can do nothing to destroy them while we are … like this.’
‘Why do people worship other gods besides us?’ said Njord, God of winds and wealth. ‘We are the Immortals! We gave them sun, and crops, and fish in the sea and oxen to till the land, and battles to fight, and Valhalla for the brave …’
‘Our gifts to mankind are poorly repaid,’ said Frey. ‘We demand to be worshipped. We are the Lords your Gods. You shall have no other gods before us.’
‘Lots of worshippers is still good,’ said Freya.
‘You’re lying,’ said Frigg.
‘I no longer smell sacrifices,’ said Woden.
Freya didn’t know what to say. How could Woden not know that sacrifices stopped hundreds of years ago?
‘My mother is your priestess. She has a big throng every Sunday at her fane,’ said Freya. ‘And on feast days it’s packed.’
Woden looked as if he could see straight into her thoughts.
‘You’re lying. Again.’
‘I’m not lying,’ said Freya. ‘I’m … umm …’ She was saying what she thought he wanted to hear.
‘You were saying what you thought I wanted to hear,’ said Woden. ‘I crave knowledge, not lies.’
Freya bowed her head.
‘I always got more sacrifices than you,’ said Njord.
‘Didn’t,’ said one-handed Tyr.
‘Did!’
‘I had more temples than all of you,’ said Thor.
‘I want my gold-bright hall again,’ whispered Frigg.
‘I want my beauty,’ moaned the Goddess Freyja.
‘I want to kill giants,’ said Thor.
‘Eh?’ said Heimdall, waking up. ‘Giants? Where?’
‘What’s happened to you, Lords?’ said Freya. She felt bewildered. ‘Why am I here?’
Woden smiled a ghost of a smile.
‘The hornblower brings us back to our business,’ he said. ‘Listen carefully. Our time is very short.’
Freya strained to hear his faint voice. Roskva stifled a yawn. Alfi jabbed her in the ribs. She glared at him.
Woden cleared his throat. ‘The Goddess Idunn, who guarded the apples of immortality which we ate to keep us young, was stolen from us by the giant Thjazi. Loki the Trickster—’ the Gods moaned and snarled at Loki’s name, drowning out Woden’s feeble voice. He raised his skeletal hand to quiet them.
‘Loki gave her to that evil giant, may curses rain upon him and fire consume him and his hearth. We ordered Loki to bring Idunn back. But he – and she – never returned.’
Freya gasped.
‘Idunn never came back?’
‘No,’ said Woden.
‘But everyone knows that Loki rescued Idunn,’ she said. ‘The Gods regained their youth. Loki returned to Asgard with Idunn and her apples … it says so in the sacred Edda …’
Woden glared at her with his dark, deadly eye. Freya shrank back. Snot scowled.
‘That was the story we told. You think we wanted the world to know the truth? Loki never came back. Whether because he wouldn’t, or because he couldn’t, even I don’t know. Loki is the son of a giant, a trickster, a shape-shifter, and the father of lies. We’ve been dying from the moment he led Idunn out of Asgard. We who were beyond time are now its subjects. Then the sleeping army … the army I …’
Woden trailed off. Drool dribbled from his mouth and down his chin. Freya averted her eyes. He reminded her, horribly, of her old cat, Caesar, who’d shrunk to a tottery grey ghost before he died.
‘I have lost the thread of my thoughts,’ murmured Woden. He struck himself hard on the forehead. Some of the Gods, who’d been dozing, startled awake.
‘You were telling them about the sleeping army,’ hissed Frigg. ‘Be quick about it.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Woden. His voice was getting fainter. Freya moved closer to hear him. She was longing to sit down and rest.
‘Sit,’ said Woden. ‘All of you.’
Alfi, Roskva, and Freya gathered at his feet. Only Snot remained standing.
‘Long, long ago, when all was well with Gods and men, I wove a mighty charm and sent an army to sleep under the mountains. There they would lie, my hidden warriors, disguised as chess pieces, ready to wake when Heimdall’s horn summoned them. I thought the twilight of the Gods would be far, far off. I did not know a time of deadly peril would arrive so much sooner … even I cannot foresee everything.’
Woden sighed. There was a faint snoring sound. The Goddess Freyja kicked her husband to wake him. Sif sat listening, twisting her gnarled hands. The others dozed, their heads sinking to their shrunken, wrinkled chests.
‘At first, when Loki did not return, I sent Valhalla’s best warriors to find Idunn, but … they failed. I sent more heroes, snatched from the world of men. They also failed.
‘It was time to wake the sleeping army, but the horn had vanished. Heimdall had hidden it somewhere in a spring to keep it safe, but by now his mind had gone, he could no longer remember where, he kept saying, ‘What horn? What horn?’
The Gods sighed and glared at Heimdall.
‘What horn?’ said Heimdall.
‘Oh shut up!’ snapped Sif.
‘We searched and searched, but we were now too weak to leave Asgard. The horn was never found.
‘With the last of my strength I sacrificed my horse, Sleipnir, and the two young mortals amongst us, Roskva and Thialfi, to sleep with the army and guide them here when a great hero found the horn and woke them.
‘And so it has come to pass as the seeress foretold. Heimdall’s horn was blown at long last.
‘But the entire army didn’t wake. Just … you.’
Roskva and Alfi glanced at one another. Snot gripped his sword and growled under his breath.
Uh-oh, thought Freya. Uh-oh. I don’t like the sound of this. Could Woden hear her heart banging against her chest?
‘Our fate is a harsh one, Lord,’ said Roskva. Alfi poked her.
‘Fate rules all our lives,’ said Woden. ‘Even the Gods.’
‘Just tell me who to kill,’ said Snot. ‘My sword is sharp and ready.’
‘You four are our last hope,’ said Woden.
‘Ha!’ snorted Sif.
‘Some hope,’ muttered Frigg.
Woden ignored them.
‘You must save us. The giant Thjazi took Idunn the ever-young to his storm-home high in the mountains of Jotunheim. Go to the realm of the giants. Find Idunn and bring her back. Otherwise, we will die.
‘And when we die the weeping world will die with us. The ice is melting. I can feel it. I can hear it. Drip. Drip. Drip. The waters are rising. The Frost Giants will rise up, freed from their icy bonds. Then the Axe-Age and the Wind-Age and the Wolf-Age will be upon the earth.’
Let the ice melt, thought Freya viciously. She felt as if she were struggling through quicksand. What can I do? Find Idunn? Find Thjazi? What?
‘Don’t ask me to do this,’ Freya whimpered. She thought of terrible things she’d been forced to do in the past. Wear a hideous pink dress to the school disco. Babysit her bratty cousin. Eat beetroot. Walk to the top of Arthur’s Seat in the Edinburgh rain. Invite Grisla Taylor to her birthday party. Sing a solo at Ruth Kirsch’s bat-mitzvah. Clean her bedroom every Saturday. Go on a rollercoaster.
‘You will do as you’re told,’ said Tyr. ‘We are the Lords your Gods.’
Alfi looked at Freya open-mouthed. Then he fell to his knees.
‘We are ready to obey,’ he said.
‘Tell us where to go,’ said Roskva.
‘I will kill Thjazi, I vow it,’ said Snot.
Everything was happening too fast.
‘Wait!’ said Freya. She jumped to her feet. ‘Wait. I’m a schoolgirl. I’m not even old enough to stay home alone at night. Of course if I were, then I wouldn’t be here, would I? This is all some terrible mistake. I blew the horn by accident and I was in the stupid museum by accident because my dad is stupid and my parents are divorced. Please. You can’t ask me to do this. I don’t even have a coat with me!’ she wailed.
Roskva muttered under her breath. ‘I’d shut up if I were you.’
‘It is not for you to decide yes or no,’ said the Father of All. ‘It’s enough that I command it.’
‘You can’t make me.’ Freya felt as if a bratty voice inside her was speaking. Fear made her reckless.
The assembled Gods gasped and hissed. Thor half-rose, but couldn’t get up and collapsed back on to the stone.
Roskva muttered under her breath. ‘I’d really shut up if I were you. He’s killed people for much less.’
‘You DARE to challenge the will of the All-Father, Waker of the Dead, Giver of Victory, the All-Mighty, the …’ Woden broke off, coughing, hacking, wheezing and clutching his wizened chest. ‘Don’t you want to outlive your mortality?’ he rasped. ‘Life is so short. You came from darkness and in a few flaps of a raven’s wing you will return to darkness. Without renown, without glory, you are nothing. You’ll be nothing. You should be eager for fame.’ His filmy eye glared at her contemptuously.
Eager for fame? Freya looked bewildered at the one-eyed God as he swayed before her, gasping for breath. Of course she wanted to be famous. Didn’t everyone? But she wanted to be a famous rock star. A famous writer. A famous palaeontologist. A famous tap dancer (even though she had two left feet – a girl could dream, couldn’t she?). Not a famous – uhh – giant killer. Or a famous apple snatcher.
Right now she’d gladly settle for being alive, a little unfamous nobody.
‘I want to go home,’ said Freya. ‘Please find someone else.’
‘You’re pathetic,’ said Snot. ‘My sheep are braver than you.’
‘Good for them,’ said Freya. ‘They can take my place.’
‘The length of your life and the day of your death was fated long ago,’ whispered Thor. ‘So you might as well live fearlessly while you can.’
‘My mum – my dad will be worried about me,’ said Freya.
Woden shrugged. ‘Then you will join the others,’ he said softly.
‘What others?’ said Freya.
‘All the other chess pieces,’ murmured Woden. ‘So many more than a single chess set needs. You remember that multitude of queens? Those extra kings? Those rows and rows of knights and pawns? They’re the warriors I sent first, the ones who survived, the ones who failed to find Idunn.’
Freya trembled.
‘The chess pieces … in the museum?’
‘You will become a chess piece and sleep with the army – till another hero rouses them.’ Woden fixed her with his crazed eye. ‘And since you care so little for renown, I think you will sleep as a pawn.’
Freya could not stop shaking. To be frozen … lacking in fate, trapped in a glass case … the horror of it overwhelmed her.
I’ll run away, she thought frantically. I’ll hide and no one will—
‘In nine nights your fate will catch up with you wheresoever you are,’ said Woden.
‘What do you mean?’ said Freya. She wished she could stop him reading her thoughts.
‘You cannot outrun your fate. Even I cannot change what will be. In nine days and nine nights you will be victorious and live, or fail and turn into ivory.’
Freya closed her eyes. Now she had her bitter answer why the chess pieces looked so glum.
She saw herself on the chessboard, frozen forever, her eyes popping, mouth downturned. What a choice: do nothing and be frozen for ever; do something and fail and be frozen for ever. A wave of dizziness overwhelmed her, and she put her hands on the mossy ground to steady herself.
‘Just so I know – what happened to the others?’ whispered Freya.
‘What others?’ said Woden.
‘The ones you sent before … the ones who didn’t return …’
‘You’re wasting time, girl,’ hissed Sif.
Woden shrugged. ‘Drowned. Killed. Eaten by wolves.’
‘Squished by a giant,’ said Frey.
‘Swept away,’ said Thor.
‘And one coward jumped off Bifrost,’ said Sif.
‘Always good to know what I have to look forward to,’ said Freya.
Woden almost smiled. ‘A death jest. Good.’
I wasn’t jesting, thought Freya.
‘Go to the realm of the giants. Find Idunn and bring her back. The giant Thjazi took Idunn to Thrymheim, his mountain home. I warn you – he is the most powerful of all the giants.’
‘I’m not afraid of giants,’ said Snot. ‘Though one of Woden’s chosen warriors merits worthier companions than two slaves and a … not sure what that herring-faced one is,’ he added, pointing his thumb at Freya.
Freya whimpered to herself.
‘You have nine nights before the charm ends and this brief life will be over for you,’ said Woden, struggling to stay awake. ‘If you succeed and bring Idunn back to Asgard, your life will be restored to you. If you fail, then you will sleep with the army until the horn is blown again … if the horn is blown again.’
Freya wanted to cry. And scream. And blame her horrible, stupid squabbling parents. She felt sick to her stomach. If only she could turn back time.
‘You cannot struggle against fate,’ said Woden.
‘We’ll leave immediately,’ said Alfi.
‘With or without this blubbing coward,’ said Snot, jerking his head in Freya’s direction.
‘Coward or no, she must go with,’ said Woden. ‘That much I know. She blew Heimdall’s horn and woke you. Without her, you will fail.’
I think they’ll fail with me, thought Freya.
There was a rustling sound as the Gods stirred. Alfi took off his crown and placed it on the ground. After a moment, reluctantly, Roskva did the same.
Is that it? thought Freya frantically.
‘Before you go,’ said Woden, ‘I have secret wisdom, secret runes, the ones I sacrificed my eye for …’ His hoarse voice trailed off.
‘Get on with it, Dad,’ rasped Thor. ‘They need to go!’
‘I can put the sea to sleep,’ muttered Woden. ‘I can make iron shackles spring open. I can fill foes with panic and weave love charms. I can knock witches off roofs. I can blunt sword blades. I can wake the dead.
‘To each of you I will share one rune,’ said Woden. ‘I have never shared these secrets, torn from the dead, with anyone. What you alone know is most powerful. You will keep these words hidden even from one another. One may know your secret, never a second.’
Woden whispered to Roskva. His claw-like hand gripped her arm. She winced, and nodded. Then he whispered to Alfi. Alfi nodded, and his lips moved, memorising the rune. To Snot he did the same. Snot looked uneasy.
‘I’ll never remember that!’ he burst out.
‘Write it down,’ said Freya.
‘Write?’ said Snot. ‘No one can write.’
Woden sighed. ‘I grow weary,’ he whispered. ‘Let me teach you your rune, then I must sleep.’
Freya went up to him. He smelled of cold ash and mildew. Reluctantly, she bent closer. Woden whispered in her ear: ‘To make a corpse talk, you say: AERKRIUFLT AERKRIUFLT KRIURITHON … umm, KRIURTHON … or is it THKIRTHU?’ Woden broke off and looked away in the distance. ‘Well, I’m sure you won’t need that one. Corpses can only tell you so much and their news is usually out of date.’
Freya thought she’d prefer a rune to keep a corpse safely in its mound.
Woden trembled as he gazed at her. ‘I must give you something … you must have a gift from me … lend her your falcon skin,’ Woden ordered his wife.
The shrivelled Goddess scowled. Then Frigg reached into her girdle and took out a glowing heap of feathers.
‘You’d better bring it back,’ she hissed.
‘This will turn you into a falcon. With it you can fly anywhere in the nine worlds,’ said Woden.
Freya looked at the translucent falcon skin. Fly? Not if she could help it. She was scared of heights. Gingerly, Freya gathered up the feathery skin. It shrank in her hand to a single feather. She shook it out, and it became again a plumed falcon skin. Freya smiled a tiny smile and tucked the feather in her skirt pocket.
‘What a shame you don’t have Sleipnir. No horse can keep up with him.’
‘But we do,’ said Roskva. ‘He’s grazing by Bifrost.’
Woden shook his head.
‘My memory,’ he muttered. ‘My memory. The fates are kind. I wondered where he’d got to …
‘You have Sleipnir. Good. He can gallop across any land or up or down any mountain, no matter how steep. No gleaming river or torrential stream can stop him.
‘Now swear a ring-oath that you will complete your task, whatever fate may throw in your path,’ said Woden.
The God held out his wasted hand. Freya watched as Snot, Alfi, and Roskva placed their hands on top of his ring. Then slowly, reluctantly, she added hers to the pile.
‘Swear by the rivers that run through the Underworld,’ said Woden. ‘Terrible fate-bonds attach to the oath-tearer.’ His one eye seared her.
Freya felt icy chills as Woden intoned the fateful words. ‘Wretched is the pledge criminal.’
‘Wretched is the pledge criminal,’ they repeated.
‘May Woden hallow this pledge.’
‘May Woden hallow this pledge.’
‘May Thor hallow these runes.’
‘May Thor hallow these runes.’
‘So help me Frey and Njord and the all-powerful Gods.’
‘So help me Frey and Njord and the all-powerful Gods,’ they swore.
‘Will the fates favour us?’ asked Roskva.
‘The seeress said nothing of the future, and it is hidden from me,’ said Woden. ‘You – berserk. Protect them as you would me.’
Snot grunted and bit his shield. He glared at them.
‘Always stick together,’ whispered Woden. ‘You will be stronger that way. Go now. Go swiftly.’
Then the grieving Gods drifted off and faded into the shadows. The stone circle was empty. The only sound was a faint rustling of Yggdrasil’s sparse leaves above them.
Freya was alone with Roskva, Alfi, and Snot. She looked around desperately. Maybe she could make a run for the bridge and … and what? Throw herself over the side?
They stood together for a moment, in silence.
‘Right … well …’ said Alfi. ‘I guess we’d—’
‘Let’s go,’ said Roskva. ‘Jotunheim is a long, long way from here.’
‘Noooooo!’ wailed Freya. ‘I can’t do this!’
Snot picked her up and slung her over his back as if she were a sack of wool. She kicked and wailed and wept as they hurried on their way.
