“Incoming! That’s a big signal. Alfie, back to the sub!”
On the sea floor, Alfie wrenched his eyes from the spurs and looked around. “Is it on the surface?”
“Negative. Get back to the sub NOW!” Brian shouted.
Alfie turned around in the suit and started the long, slow trudge back.
“Hurry, Alfie!” Tamara said as radar pings started to come faster and louder.
“Going as fast as I can!” Alfie said as he heaved his legs on, one step at a time, conscious of the fact that he couldn’t easily turn his head to see whatever was coming up behind him. He was breathing hard now and sweating; it was like one of those nightmares where you’re desperately trying to run from something you can’t see, but your legs are ten times heavier than usual.
Alfie stopped to catch his breath and glanced back. Big mistake. Now he could see what was heading his way.
“VIKINGS!” Alfie screamed.
A longship was ploughing through the depths, the huge zombie crew pumping the oars. At the prow stood the Viking captain, ripped dead skin and stringy black hair billowing out behind him in the water. He raised his axe and pointed it straight at Alfie. This was just the shot of adrenaline Alfie needed and he picked up the pace. The sub emerged out of the gloom in front of him, light glowing through the portholes, twenty feet away.
“ALFIE!” Tamara yelled.
Ten feet. Alfie couldn’t see it but the longship felt very close now. He expected to feel the blade of an axe in his back any second. Five feet, three feet, but no blow fell on him as he hauled himself into the airlock and the hatch swung shut behind him.
“I’m in!” Alfie gasped, just as the longship slammed into the submarine with a crunch and groan of metal.
Alfie lost his balance in the diving suit and fell over, still clutching the spurs.
“Full power!” Brian yelled and shoved a lever forward.
“More of them coming in!” Tamara shouted as she peered out of one of the small portholes.
Two more longships had emerged out of the gloom and were making a beeline for the submarine. They were trapped.
“Fire the torpedoes!” Tony squealed.
“We don’t have any!” Brian yelled back.
“What kind of submarine is this?” Tony said to himself.
Freya stormed out of her cabin. “I’m trying to get some sleep!”
SLAM. Another longship rammed into the submarine, shaking the rivets and knocking them all off their feet.
“On the scale of one to ten, how bad is a leak on a submarine?” Alfie said as he crawled from the airlock and pointed at a stream of water gushing between the rivets.
“I suppose I’ll have to deal with this,” sighed Freya, and before anyone could ask what she meant, her emerald necklace glowed green and her arms began growing like the roots of a Norwegian pine tree filmed in super-fast time-lapse. Freya’s neck elongated horribly as a huge, warty nose grew out of her face.
“Gross!” Tony said, staring in wonder, as Holgatroll filled the cabin with not only her size, but her wet earth troll stink as well.
“Cover your ears,” grumbled Holgatroll.
She threw back her head and let out a sound that started as a roar so loud it shook your ribcage, rose through the octaves until it was a painfully high-pitched, then dropped down again like whale song. It was a sound none of them had heard Holgatroll make before.
Outside the submarine, the Viking captain laughed as the troll’s demented howl shook the water.
“Ekki hræðumsk ek trǫllusǫngva! Drekkit þeim!”*
The longships manoeuvred into position, ready to ram the submarine and split it in half.
Brian looked around the cabin, alarmed. “Tony, can you blink shift us out of here?”
“Not all of you,” Tony said. “Besides, we’re too deep, the pressure would…” He mimed his head exploding.
“What you asking the squirt for? I told you, I’m handling it,” grunted Holgatroll.
Just then, another strange sound reverberated through the water, piercing the hull of the sub. High-pitched, eerie and echoing.
“Is that a whale?” Alfie said.
“Even better,” said Holgatroll through her fangs, and she laughed, sending gusts of hot meaty breath around the sub. “It’s Selma.”
“I don’t get it,” said Tony.
“No way! Nessie?” Alfie shouted happily.
Outside the sub, the longships reached ramming speed just as the great sea monster appeared, answering Holgatroll’s call. Three times their size, Nessie shattered the first Viking boat with a lazy flick of her scaly tail, scattering the crew in the water. Wrapping her huge neck around the second like a boa constrictor, she squeezed and snapped its rotten timbers, then head-butted the third longship, crushing it to pieces. Helpless, confused zombie Vikings wandered the seabed like lost tourists. Her work complete, Nessie swam alongside the sub, escorting it away. Inside, Holgatroll transformed back into Freya and put her palm against a porthole, where Nessie’s giant eye appeared, peering in. The others looked on, astonished.
“That’s my girl,” Freya said, as Nessie swam away, back into the depths.
Alfie caressed the intricately embossed gold of the spurs in his hands. He could feel Wyvern sleeping, peaceful and content. “Freya, I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.
“You can thank me by keeping it down, please. I’m going back to bed.”
And with that, the Norwegian queen turned on her heel, strode back into her cabin and slammed the door.
* * *
* “I am not afraid of troll music! Drown them!”
“Wake up! Princess Eleanor! Wake up!”
Ellie woke, startled to see the Jailor leaning over her bed, shaking her. At first she thought she was still dreaming. It had taken her hours to get to sleep, as her mind raced trying to understand how Alfie could be dead, and trying to work out why Richard was acting so cold and heartless. He had been like a stranger to her. When sleep came at last, it was filled with disturbing nightmares, so it was only the musty smell of the Jailor’s breath that made her realize she was awake and this was real. Gasping in shock, she sprang up against the wall.
“What do you want?”
Over his shoulder she could see the cell door was hanging open. Ellie leapt off the bed, delivering an efficient punch to his mouth as she went, and ran out. The glowing light from the ball of keys hanging at the centre of the antechamber was blinding after the darkness of her cell. Growls and hoots from the other prisoners filled Ellie’s ears as she shielded her eyes and spun around, trying to pick out an exit.
“Hold up, girl!” hissed the Jailor, as he stumbled from the cell. “I’ll help you get out, but you have to keep your trap shut, or we’ll both lose our heads.”
He took out a grubby handkerchief and dabbed his bleeding lip.
“Blimey, you ain’t half got a decent right hook for such a scrawny little thing.”
Ellie backed away, on guard.
“Maybe if you fed me more than that gruel, I’d be bigger,” she snapped back. “Why are you suddenly helping me now, anyway?”
“Sorry, Your Highness, but I couldn’t risk it before. I had to keep the professor sweet to make sure he didn’t let any of these nutcases out.”
A snarl came from behind the nearest door. The Jailor kicked it with his heel.
“Stick a paw in it or I’ll dock yer tail!”
“OK, I’m listening,” said Ellie.
“After he released our friend the Colonel, I realized this geezer’s going to do whatever he wants anyway. No sense in you getting caught up in it any longer. The Keep should be quiet this time of night – there’s a tunnel you can use to get out. Here.”
He passed her a crumpled piece of paper with a map of the Keep scrawled on it.
“Aren’t you coming?”
The Jailor shrugged. “Nah, my place is here. If they ever got out, the horrors behind these doors would make them Vikings look
like a pack of Girl Guides.”
“Hey, I was in the Girl Guides. We’re tougher than we look,” said Ellie. She turned to go, then looked back. “What’s your name?”
The Jailor seemed to need to think about it for a moment, as if it had been so long since anyone had asked, that he’d forgotten. “Sid,” he said eventually. “Just Sid.”
“Thank you, Sid.” Ellie smiled.
Sid was right about the Keep: it was quiet. But it wasn’t empty. A Viking draugar was slouched asleep over one half of the broken ops table, his rattling snores echoing off the high walls of the Map Room. Ellie checked her map – the tunnel entrance was in the corridor beyond. Padding through the wreckage of the beefeaters’ work stations, she tried to stay focused, but she couldn’t help taking in the startling tapestries hanging on the walls either side: bizarre images of what looked like the Defender in famous moments from British history. She didn’t know it, but Professor Lock had chosen to switch the tapestries to the worst Defenders – monarchs who had chosen to use their powers for evil. There was Edward the First, “Hammer of the Scots”, who was posing with a miserable, chained-up Loch Ness Monster. Then there was a drunk King John, holding out one hand to levitate an oak desk and the long scroll of the Magna Carta over a group of terrified barons. On the opposite wall hung the tapestry of “Bloody” Mary the First, who appeared to be attacking a town beneath white cliffs, opposed by plucky townsfolk in striped jumpers carrying burning torches and a banner which read “We wunt be druv!”, whatever that meant.
Ellie couldn’t understand what all this was doing here, beneath the Tower of London, but she had no intention of hanging around to find out. She held her breath as she tiptoed past the slumbering Viking, in case the stench might make her cough and wake him. She was almost at the door when heavy footsteps and long shadows filled the stone corridor ahead. Ellie backed up, stepping right on the foot of the sleeping draugar.
“Yargh!” he cried, rubbing his eyes as he sat up.
Ellie ducked and crawled behind the table. Hearing the approaching patrol, the dozy Viking heaved himself up and searched around for his axe. Ellie took her chance and darted for the nearest exit, bounding up some steps and out of sight just before the other Vikings stomped into the Keep. She could hear them arguing in a strange language as she crept higher up the cold stone spiral staircase.
The gust of fresh air that met her face as she emerged on to the top of the tower was so welcome after months in the cell, that Ellie nearly didn’t see the gaping hole at her feet and the hundred-foot drop to the flagstones below. She gripped the door frame and stepped carefully around the gap, shivering in the biting wind. A harsh snowfall blew across the Tower of London, dusting the walls like icing sugar. But as her eyes adjusted to the dark again, Ellie could see that the once-proud silhouette of the fortress was now jagged and broken, clad in scaffolding like an unruly set of teeth in braces. It was a shocking sight – the central White Tower was almost completely demolished, the outer towers and walls less so. A mixed band of berserkers and human builders were shuffling to and fro in the lanes below, carrying brick hods and pushing wheelbarrows of stone. A Viking draugar thundered up and down the lines of workers, yelling.
“BYGGIÐ ÁKAFLEGRI! ENDA ÞÉR GEFUM VÉR HUNDUNUM!” *
Ellie ducked down as a pair of burly builders hurried along the battlements just beneath the tower.
“He can yell all he wants,” said one of them. “The cement won’t set and the stone won’t hold. This place don’t want to be rebuilt…”
Ellie kicked herself for not having called out to them; they were too far away to hear her now. Maybe they would have helped her escape. But then again, maybe they would have turned her in. She was crouched on top of the Devereux Tower at the northwest corner of the fortress, overlooking the outer wall. Ellie was surprised to see that the moat was now full, water lapping amid patches of ice. If she could climb down closer, maybe she could jump in. The thought made her knees go weak. She hadn’t been swimming since she nearly drowned last spring, when the Black Dragon attacked the Boat Race. She’d survived the fall from Hammersmith Bridge, with the Defender’s help, but she couldn’t believe she was contemplating another high dive.
A huge shadow was approaching from across the river. It passed over the darkened, empty Tower Bridge and descended on bat-like wings, whipping up tornadoes of snow from the rooftops. Ellie froze in terror – the Black Dragon was coming straight towards her tower. She thought it had been killed in the battle at Alfie’s coronation. How could it be here? There was nowhere to hide, and if she ran for the stairs now it would surely see her. She swung herself over the side of the roof. Finding a narrow ledge, she pulled herself down, clinging on to the wet stone with her fingertips. There was nothing between her and the cobbled lane far below and she would be plainly visible to any Viking patrol that passed outside the Tower. The impact as the Dragon landed shook her feet from the ledge and for a moment she dangled by one hand. Heaving herself back against the wall, she could hear the deep, rattling purr of the Dragon as it settled on the roof. It was so close she could feel the heat from its fiery throat.
Meanwhile, only a few miles downriver, a hearse, escorted by four black cabs, was turning into Parliament Square. In the back seat of the leading cab, Hayley was shocked to see the ominous sight of Big Ben up close – a pulsating red beacon, crisscrossed with hideous, glowing scars, pumping out its Norse blood magic. The famous green lawn of the square had turned black, the roads and pavements cracked with the crimson tendrils that spread out in all directions from the base of the tower. Hayley was relieved to see that their target, the phone box, was still in place on the pavement leading to Westminster Bridge. But before they could get close they would have to negotiate one of Lock’s new security checkpoints that had sprung up across the city.
The funeral cortege crawled towards the checkpoint, rumbling over rips in the asphalt as it approached a repurposed guardsman’s hut. The collaborator guard, a short, bald man, flanked by an especially ugly Viking draugar, stepped into the path of the convoy and raised his hand. To emphasize the point, the Viking shook his axe in the air and let out a long roar.
Hayley lowered the black veil over her face and rested her head on LC’s shoulder.
“Talk about hiding in plain sight,” she said.
“Last chance to change your minds,” whispered Ged from the front.
“The plan is sound,” said LC. “We proceed.”
“You’re the boss. But I’ll be expecting a proper tip,” said the cabbie.
The convoy came to a halt and the checkpoint guard marched past the hearse and up to the first cab’s window. Ged lowered the window and leant out, grinning.
“Evening, guv'nor.”
The guard peered into the cab with his angry little red face, brow furrowed all the way up to the top of his shiny scalp. He was wearing what looked like a traffic warden’s uniform with a large Viking brooch crudely pinned over the “Westminster Council” badge.
“What’s all this?” he barked.
“Funeral, chief,” replied the cabbie innocently.
Right on cue, Hayley started sobbing. The guard recoiled for a moment.
“But you can’t just… I mean, this is— Where are you going?” he bleated at them, his voice rising an octave.
“That’s my fault, officer,” LC interjected, talking as slowly as he could. “You see the deceased, my dear departed wife, was in a nursing home in Woolwich, but our church is in Watford – St Barnabas. Do you know it?”
“What? No. Listen, you can’t just… It’s after curfew!”
Hayley wailed louder.
“My poor granddaughter was too upset to come out of her room, I’m afraid,” LC droned on. “It caused something of a delay. I am sorry for the inconvenience.”
The Viking pointed at the coffin in the back of the hearse and laughed.
“Grafa þeir líkamar jørðinni eins ok skikkjurakkana! Brenna skyldi þeir bátunum eins ok
eðlilegt er!” *
The guard rolled his eyes.
“Fine, but get a move on. And don’t come back this way!”
He scuttled off and ordered the Viking to lift the barrier. The convoy drove through, honking a cheery “thank you” as it passed the checkpoint.
Hayley whipped off her veil and dried her cheeks.
“Excellent performance, Miss Hicks,” said LC.
“Yeah, you should win an Oscar for that, love,” added Ged. “Look lively, here we are.”
As they approached the red phone box, the hearse driver cut his engine and glided to a halt. The cabs fanned out behind him, blocking the hearse’s rear doors from sight.
“Wish me luck,” said Hayley, reaching for the handle.
LC took her hand for a moment.
“If anything goes awry there is no dishonour in retreating. Live to fight another day.”
Hayley was touched by how worried he looked.
“Don’t worry. Just take care of Gran for me, yeah?”
Hayley’s gran had already been cremated and her ashes were safely tucked away in a box beneath the front seat.
“You have my word, Miss Hicks.” LC nodded.
Hayley climbed out. The cabbies had already opened the rear doors of the hearse and were pulling the coffin out. Hayley watched as they eased the lid off, revealing the three large black holdalls inside. She stepped past them without a word and entered the phone box.
At the checkpoint the Viking grunted and pointed at the stationary cars on the far side of Parliament Square.
“What now?” said the guard, putting down his mug and looking over his shoulder.
A jet of weak tea spouted from his mouth all over the Viking’s back as he hurried to grab his hat.
The interior of the phone box was dirty and cramped and smelled of something Hayley didn’t want to think about. She lifted the heavy plastic receiver and checked the first number she had written on the back of her hand – 871 – “easy to remember”, according to LC, because it was the year King Alfred the Great ascended to the throne. She dialled the number and remembered just in time to place her feet as far apart as she could. The floor in the phone box slid away, revealing a dark hole beneath. One of the cabbies wheeled the first holdall into the phone box and towards the hole. For a moment it got wedged in place, until Hayley gave it a sharp kick and it fell through. The cabbie raised his eyebrows at her in relief, and turned to get the next bag.
King's Army Page 10
