by Cat Weldon
Whetstone stooped down again, but before he could dip the bucket in the water, he was thrown sideways. The ship bucked and thrashed in suddenly churning waves.
The scarred man turned pale, which made his scar look even worse. He dropped his steering oar. ‘He’s coming!’
The other Vikings scrambled to grab weapons, shouting and shoving.
A shiver ran down Whetstone’s spine. Who was coming? Loki couldn’t be all the way out here, could he?
Sinuous grey-green coils thicker than a tree, maybe even thicker than a house, appeared in the water. Huge waves smacked into the boat, nearly capsizing it. One of the Vikings started to pray. A gigantic head – half lizard, half bull – rose out of the ocean. Four seaweed-stained horns decorated its head, and yellow-stained teeth poked out of its cave-like mouth. Water poured down on to the boat below.
Whetstone swallowed, unable to tear his eyes away from the monster. ‘Loki? Is that you?’
‘No – it’s his son, Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent!’ yelled Ulf, brandishing his axe.
‘What’s he doing so close to shore?’ Bragi spluttered. ‘We couldn’t have travelled that far from Krud.’
Jormungandr was a sea serpent supposedly so large he could encircle all of Midgard and still hold his tail in his mouth. He had been cast into the sea by Odin and now resided in the deepest parts of the ocean, rising only to eat the occasional ship, or whale. The longboat crew gaped at the monster before them. There was the sound of someone throwing up.
A dark tongue flicked out of the monster’s mouth, tasting the air. Whetstone stood hypnotized – that sea monster was Loki’s son? And he had thought Vali was weird. Loki must’ve sent Jormungandr to make sure Whetstone didn’t leave Krud by sea. Whetstone shivered with fear, wondering who else Loki had helping him.
The serpent writhed, churning the water and pitching the boat from side to side. Men crashed together. Whetstone skidded towards the mast. He gripped on tightly to avoid being thrown overboard.
‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ Bragi called as he was almost squashed by a Viking in yellow trousers, ‘but I can guarantee this is all Whetstone’s fault.’
‘Didn’t they warn you about deadly sea monsters when you joined up?’ Whetstone yelled back. ‘I thought you wanted an adventure?’
Jormungandr wrapped his sinewy body round the longboat and began to squeeze. Wood splintered as planks broke apart. Whetstone hugged the mast tightly and closed his eyes.
‘Dear Odin,’ he prayed. ‘I could really use your help right now . . .’
Suddenly there was a crash of thunder and a blinding white light. The sea serpent shrieked and let go of the boat, which rocked back and forth sickeningly in the waves, as the Vikings were tossed about like bubbles in a cooking pot.
Four hooves hit the deck – thud, thud, CRUNCH, SPLASH! – followed by a horsey whinny. Whetstone disentangled himself from a collection of oars and looked straight at a metal-studded boot with flint toe caps, topped with a wrinkly sock.
‘Lotta!’
The figure on horseback pulled off her helmet. She smoothed back her black curls. ‘Whetstone? What are you doing here?’
Whetstone struggled to his feet. ‘How—?’
Lotta held out a hand to silence him. She swung a leg over Thighbiter’s saddle. ‘I can’t talk now – I’m on Valkyrie business.’
‘But—?’ Whetstone gestured to where the sea serpent had been a moment before. The sea was now eerily calm, Jormungandr having sunk back beneath the waves. The Viking crew hustled towards the prow of the boat. There seemed to be a fight going on as to who could stand the furthest away. One man even clung to the snarling dragon figurehead.
Lotta puffed her chest out and put her hands on her hips. ‘It’s all right,’ she called to them. ‘I know visitors from Asgard are scary, but I’m not going to hurt you.’
‘I don’t think it’s you –’ Whetstone began.
Lotta turned back to Whetstone, her face scrunched up. ‘I appreciate you making the effort to come out here, but why didn’t you wait for me in Krud? I gave Awfulrick a message yesterday to say I was coming.’
Whetstone’s mouth opened and closed noiselessly.
Lotta gave him poke. ‘Good to see you’ve been keeping yourself out of trouble, anyway.’
Despite his shock, Whetstone couldn’t help but laugh. Some of the tension left his shoulders. He knew he should be annoyed with Lotta for not helping him sooner, but he was just too relieved to see her.
Ulf stepped forward. ‘Now look here, young lady—’
Lotta ignored him. ‘How did you know this was where I was supposed to deliver the package?’ Lotta unstrapped a wooden box from behind her saddle. It rocked and hissed as though whatever was inside was desperate to escape. Ulf stepped back again.
‘I didn’t. I was just trying to get out of Krud.’ The box shuddered. Whetstone peered at it curiously. ‘What is in there?’
‘It’s a gift for Njord, God of Coastal Waters.’ Lotta lifted the lid a crack – a furious brown paw poked out, trying to claw anything it could reach.
‘It’s a cat?’
‘Not just any cat. It’s for Njord to pass on to his wife, Skadi. They’ve had another row. Achoo!’ Lotta wiped her nose on her wrist guard. Whetstone’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. ‘It’s one of Freyja’s cats. You know, the Goddess of Love?’ Lotta sighed. ‘She’s mad about cats. That’s why brides get them as wedding presents.’
‘So it’s a special love-cat?’
Lotta nodded.
Whetstone tried to keep up. ‘You’ve come all the way out here to deliver a love-cat to the God of Coastal Waters?’
‘Uh huh.’
Whetstone tore his eyes away from the box and peered out over the quiet ocean. ‘Well, the good news is: Jormungandr doesn’t seem to like cats.’
‘Jormungandr? Why are you messing about with him?’ Lotta wiped her nose again. Thighbiter snickered. ‘Hold this, will you?’ Lotta plopped the yowling box into Bragi’s arms. She looked around expectantly. ‘Well, where is he?’
‘Jormungandr?’ asked Bragi. ‘He’s in the water.’
‘No.’ Lotta snorted. ‘Njord. He’s supposed to meet me here. This is definitely where Glinting-Fire told me to come, and she never gets stuff like this wrong.’
Whetstone and Bragi looked at each other in confusion.
‘We haven’t seen him.’ Whetstone explained. ‘Unless he’s disguised as a sea serpent.’
‘He must be late.’ Lotta tutted. ‘Typical.’
Bragi held the yowling box away from him. ‘This thing stinks.’
A strong breeze blew from the north, bringing with it a distinctly cheesy aroma. It rustled the ends of Whetstone’s hair and made goosebumps rise on his arms. ‘I don’t think that’s the cat,’ he said. ‘Can anyone else smell . . . feet?’
The Vikings turned to each other.
The scarred man tutted. ‘I told you lot to change your socks before we left Krud.’
Ulf shaded his eyes to look out to sea. ‘There!’ He pointed towards the northern horizon, his beard glinting in the sunlight. ‘It’s a boat.’ The rest of the Vikings crowded round him to see.
Thighbiter stamped his hooves, making the damaged deck wobble. Lotta’s shield, strapped behind his saddle, gave a flicker. Lotta patted the horse’s neck. ‘It must be Njord coming to collect his cat.’
‘But why does it smell of feet?’ asked Bragi, trying to keep hold of the thrashing box.
The boat drew closer, black sails rippling in the breeze. The sea bubbled and churned.
‘There goes Jormungandr,’ Whetstone called as the sea monster rose from the ocean, water pouring off his head, seaweed dangling fetchingly from one horn.
Lotta gaped. ‘I thought you were joking about him!’ She nudged Whetstone. ‘You’d better do something, or that ship is finished.’
‘Why me?!’
‘Because you’re a Hero!’
Whetstone sw
allowed. ‘Yeah, of course.’ He turned to Ulf. ‘Have we got a really big net or anything?’
Ulf said nothing, just crossing his arms.
‘Really helpful,’ Whetstone muttered.
As the Viking crew watched, the monster twisted his long body to encircle the boat. Whetstone held his breath. But instead of crushing the ship, Jormungandr swam round it like a massive scaly dog chasing its own tail.
A heavy weight settled in Whetstone’s stomach. ‘That isn’t Njord, is it?’
Lotta shook her head.
‘And Jormungandr isn’t attacking it?’
Lotta bit her lip, her brown eyes fixed on approaching ship.
‘Because his dad is sailing it?’
Lotta nodded.
Loki.
Whetstone closed his eyes, his stomach feeling as though it were full of rocks.
‘Naglfar,’ Lotta breathed. ‘The ship made of dead men’s toenails.’
‘Toenails? That’s disgusting,’ spluttered Bragi.
‘I thought Loki was still inside the dragon.’ Lotta reached for her sword. ‘He never came back to Asgard.’
Whetstone opened his eyes again, suddenly remembering why he was stuck on this boat in the first place. ‘You would know,’ he said sourly.
Lotta stared at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? I got this job specially so I could have an excuse to come back to Midgard and help you. Now I’m wondering why I bothered.’
‘It’s getting closer.’ Bragi dumped the yowling box on to the deck and reached for his own sword. ‘How many people can your horse carry?’
Thighbiter tried to take a bite out of his hair.
‘Maybe Loki’s not on it?’ Whetstone said, twisting his cloak between his fingers as the smelly boat grew closer. A kernel of hope grew in his chest. ‘Maybe it came loose from its moorings completely innocently, and it’s just a coincidence that it’s here, miles out to sea in the same random place that we are?’
Lotta raised her eyebrows.
Whetstone glanced at her. ‘No, I don’t believe it either.’
The sails snapped in the breeze as the ship drew closer. Jormungandr nipping playfully at its prow. Whetstone looked around for a weapon. Unusually for a Viking, he wasn’t much of a fighter, preferring to run and hide rather than face Death or Glory in hand-to-hand combat. He picked up an oar. At his feet, the cat thrashed about inside its box. Thighbiter tossed his mane.
‘It’s coming right for us!’ yelled the scarred man.
Ulf strode to the prow and waved his hands above his head. ‘Stop! I did what you asked. We have the boy! STOP!’
Whetstone’s mouth fell open. Lotta pivoted to stare at Ulf.
‘I said this was your fault!’ Bragi spat.
Ulf turned to face them. He slowly reached up and tugged on one corner of his ferocious beard. It peeled away with a faint sucking noise, revealing a fresh-faced young woman underneath. Bragi’s jaw hung open, making him look a bit like a haddock.
‘I knew it was a fake beard!’ Whetstone cried as a burly crew member grabbed the back of his tunic, lifting Whetstone up on to his tiptoes. Lotta rolled her eyes as a second crewman grabbed her arms.
Ulf carefully tucked the beard into her tunic. ‘I am Snotra the Cutthroat,’ she announced. ‘And I’ve made a deal with Loki.’
Chapter Five
Toenails and Fish Scales
Whetstone and Bragi stared at the figure in front of them. Without the disguise, Snotra was a sharp-faced young woman with a topknot of strawberry-blonde hair, one gold tooth and, Whetstone noted with a lump in his throat, a very determined expression.
‘But you said we were going on an adventure!’ Bragi spluttered.
Snotra crossed her arms. ‘We are. Well, I am.’
Whetstone fixed his eyes on Snotra; the oar slipped from his hands. The cloth of his tunic pulled tight across his neck.
Snotra paced towards him. ‘I needed a way to get you on the boat.’ Her thin eyebrows lowered into two sharp lines on her face. ‘You must’ve seen my message back in Krud? He’s coming!’ She waggled her fingers at them. ‘Whooo! Scary!’
‘That was you?’ Whetstone wobbled on his tiptoes.
‘Yes – and you should be grateful. Without my little push, you would still be stuck there.’ Snotra turned to face the northern horizon. ‘Loki promised me safe passage to the Lower Worlds in exchange for –’ she waved dismissively at Whetstone – ‘you.’ The toenail boat loomed over her shoulder. ‘I just had to bring you here.’
‘Loki arranged for you to be here – Glinting-Fire sent me here,’ Lotta mumbled to herself. ‘Oh no.’
Whetstone clutched at the fabric cutting into his neck, his face turning pink. ‘It’s not too late – you can still let us go. I’m pretty important, you see. Odin sent me on this quest—’
Lotta looked up. ‘We don’t have time for this. We need to get out of here.’
‘Good luck,’ Snotra snorted as Jormungandr’s enormous coils rose from the choppy sea, encircling the longboat. The cat hissed as it skidded across the deck in its box.
Lotta narrowed her eyes. She thrust an elbow into the stomach of the crewman holding her. The man released her, gasping for breath. Lotta spun forward, grabbing Whetstone and yanking him away from his captor. With the sound of ripping fabric, Whetstone was freed. He stumbled forward, feeling pretty amazed by Lotta’s impressive new moves.
Lotta’s warhorse trotted forward, the damaged deck bouncing under his hooves. ‘Thighbiter, wait!’ Lotta yelped, tripping over her own feet as she grabbed at his bridle. Whetstone helped her up – he should’ve known her slick moves were too good to last. The horse’s neck stretched out, reaching for something.
Whetstone gazed into the air above the horse’s head. Something glittered there. ‘Is that an . . . apple?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous; fruit doesn’t fly,’ Bragi began with a sniff.
‘A toenail boat is fine, but a flying apple – that’s too much?’ Whetstone retorted.
With a shimmer, a silver-haired girl on horseback appeared hovering in mid-air, an apple in her outstretched hand. A smug smile on her face.
Bragi’s mouth dropped open. The other Vikings gawped.
‘Flee!’ Lotta stared in shock.
The girl rose higher. Before Lotta could do anything to stop him, Thighbiter sprang into the air after the apple, sending Lotta crashing into Bragi. Then, with a pop, Flee and Thighbiter disappeared.
The Vikings gasped.
‘Thighbiter, you come back here right now!’ Lotta’s knuckles cracked as her hands clenched into fists. ‘Flee! You are going to be in so much trouble when I tell Scold what you’ve done!’
Whetstone blinked a few times. Things were happening too quickly for him to make sense of them. Blood pounded in his ears as the realization sank in that they’d lost their only means of escape.
Lotta spun round to face Snotra. ‘You’d better tell us what is going on right now!’
The gold tooth glinted in Snotra’s smile.
With a waft of cheesy feet, Naglfar drew up alongside them. Slightly transparent and ghostlike, it bobbed easily in the waves. Its sides and hull were woven out of thousands upon thousands of tiny slithers of nail. Whetstone stared, weirdly impressed that toenails made such good boat-building material. A tattered rope with a hook on the end landed at Whetstone’s feet. Whetstone stared at it, disgusted. ‘What’s this made of? Eyebrows?’
A grey-skinned man jumped across from Naglfar, following the rope, tattered clothes hanging from his withered body. Whetstone ducked behind Lotta. The man hauled on the rope to drag the boats closer together.
‘Naglfar is crewed by the dead.’ Lotta smacked the man with her sword, knocking him into the water. ‘Don’t let them touch you or you’ll end up like them!’
More hooks were flung on to the ship, swiftly followed by more dead sailors.
‘Snotra has doomed all of you!’ Lotta yelled at the longboat crew. ‘You have to help us
– push the sailors in the water and keep away from the toenail boat!’
Jormungandr tightened his coils; the boat squealed.
‘Where’s the cat?’ Lotta panted, whacking another dead sailor with her sword.
‘Forget the cat.’ Whetstone dodged past the Viking crew, now busy battling dead sailors. ‘We’ve got bigger problems!’
Rising easily through the sea spray on the tip of Jormungandr’s tail, Loki appeared. Sunlight glinted off the golden threads in his tunic, making him look like a figure from a dream. If Whetstone hadn’t seen him being swallowed by the dragon with his own eyes, he would’ve doubted anything bad had ever happened to him. His fine clothes and handsome looks were intact, apart from the scars that twisted his mouth – souvenirs of an old deal gone wrong with the Dwarves.
He landed easily on the deck, stepping through the chaos as though it were nothing. ‘Hello, Whetstone.’
Before Whetstone could open his mouth to speak, Lotta stepped forward. ‘I should’ve known.
You’re getting Flee and Flay to do your dirty work again. What was it this time? Were they jealous that I won the contest?’
Loki smiled, his lips twisting. ‘I might have friends in high places, but I haven’t asked Flee or Flay to do anything for me. Someone else has plans for you, Lotta.’
Lotta glared.
Loki fixed his dark eyes on Whetstone. ‘Come with me now or die. There is no other way off this boat.’
Snotra clambered across the deck towards them. ‘Loki promised to take me to new worlds,’ she puffed. ‘Join us, kid. Adventure Awaits!’
The cat, still in its box, bumped into Whetstone’s ankles, making him jump. ‘OK, OK. I’ll go.’ Lotta’s brown eyes opened wide. Whetstone spoke quickly. ‘But first I have a present for you.’ He scooped up the box and wrenched it open, allowing the enraged cat to spring out.
Huge, with brown-and-white fluff and a face like a furry fist, the cat attached itself to the man’s head, spitting furiously. Loki cried out as all four sets of claws dug into his skin. Snotra tried to wrench it away and got a set of claws to her face for her trouble.
