King's Army

by Mark Huckerby

  It was cold in the flat when Hayley got back. The central heating hardly came on at all these days, and ice was beginning to claw its way inside through the rotten window frames. She found LC, Brian and Tamara hunched over some plans in the living room, deep in conversation.

  “I agree a full-frontal assault is too risky, but we’ll need a distraction and I reckon the lass will be up for it,” said Brian.

  They all looked up as Hayley came in. “Talking about me behind my back?” she asked with a smile.

  “Er, no, I meant Queen Freya actually,” said Brian.

  “We are discussing our strategy for recapturing the regalia,” added LC.

  “Without me?” asked Hayley.

  “Sorry,” said Tamara. “We would have waited, but we didn’t know how long you’d be.”

  Hayley shrugged, pretending not to care. “Whatever. You carry on, I’ll put these away.”

  Hayley sloped to the airing cupboard and hid the cans under a pile of towels. She had no idea how long everyone would be staying, so she would need to ration their supplies. Passing by her gran’s bedroom, she was shocked to see Freya perched on the end of the bed combing her hair.

  “Uh-uh, no way!” blurted Hayley, flying inside.

  “What’s the big deal?” replied Freya, not even looking at her.

  “Sorry, princess,” said Hayley. “You ain’t sleeping in here, I don’t care how big and green you get.”

  “You sure about that?” said Freya, looming over her.

  Hayley was about to grab the Norwegian queen by her stupid silky hair and pull her out of the room when a pungent smell assaulted her nostrils.

  “Ugh, what is that?” Hayley gasped. “Smells like burning plastic or something.”

  Freya rolled her eyes, squirting the air with perfume.

  “You’re not going to make a fuss too, are you? I’ll have you know that where I come from I get compliments for my very mild half-troll fragrance.”

  Hayley smirked, then giggled, then guffawed. “On second thoughts, you can have the room. Might be better for everyone else,” she gasped through the tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks. It felt weird to be laughing again, but she knew her gran would have approved. She backed into the hall and composed herself. In the darkness she almost trod on Tony, who was doing sit-ups.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Trying to get a six-pack,” replied Tony. “Don’t tell anyone, but there’s a lady I’m trying to impress.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me, Tony,” Hayley said, smiling.

  “It’s good for keeping warm too! Want a go?”

  “No thanks. Where’s Alfie?”

  “Oh, he popped out with the dog.”

  “He WHAT?!”

  After a frantic search, Hayley finally found Alfie, sitting on the tower-block roof, gazing out at the frozen city, Herne lying by his side.

  “Really like what you’ve done with the country while I’ve been away,” said Alfie when he saw her.

  Hayley took a seat next to him, legs stretched out towards the edge of the roof. “Yeah, well, I’ve had a bit of grief with some uninvited guests. They’re real monsters.”

  They looked at each other and smiled.

  “You know it’s too cold to stay up here all night, don’t you?” Hayley asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s better than listening to that lot arguing,” said Alfie.

  GRONK!

  Hayley squealed in surprise and grabbed hold of Alfie. Gwenn and the other ravens were dotted around the icy roof, feathers puffed up to keep warm.

  “Sorry about that, they kind of follow me around now.”

  “Well that’s not creepy at all.”

  Realizing she was still clinging to Alfie’s arm, Hayley let go and shuffled away from him again. They sat together on the roof, snow falling on them like confetti as the sun tried and failed to break through the veil of black snow clouds that hung heavy over the city.

  “Weird being back here, isn’t it?” said Alfie. “Our fateful meeting place.”

  “Not quite,” said Hayley. “This is where I met the Defender. Well, your first attempt at the Defender, anyway.”

  She laughed, remembering Alfie face-planting on the roof that night as he tried to dismount from Wyvern.

  “I didn’t meet you – the real you – till we got back to the Keep,” she added.

  “Yeah, I remember how pleased LC was that I’d brought a civilian back with me!” Alfie laughed. “Hard to believe that was less than a year ago. What with everything that’s happened…”

  “Yeah, I meant to say before, I’m sorry about your brother,” said Hayley. “I can’t believe what he did.”

  Alfie nodded. “And I’m sorry about your gran. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “Me neither,” said Hayley.

  She moved closer to Alfie and put her hand on his. He looked up at her.

  “Listen, Alfie, when I saw you tonight, I—”

  She never finished the sentence, as in the space of the next two seconds, Herne growled, the door behind them flew open, and Herne leapt past them, downing the emerging figure. Alfie and Hayley rolled away from the edge of the roof and scrambled to their feet to see the dog standing over the prostrate form of Fulcher, nose to nose, teeth bared.

  “It’s her! That government spook!” shouted Hayley.

  “There isn’t a government any more, in case you hadn’t noticed,” mumbled Fulcher, trying to move her lips as little as possible in the face of the slathering hound.

  “I don’t care, you nearly killed me and my gran. Herne, bite her head off.”

  “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help,” said Fulcher, craning her thick neck as far away from the growling dog as she could.

  “Stand down, Herne,” commanded Alfie.

  Herne instantly bounded off Fulcher and returned to his master’s side.

  “Alfie! What are you doing? We can’t trust her!”

  Alfie eyed Fulcher as she sat up and rubbed her head.

  “She’s unarmed,” said Alfie. “Let’s hear her out.”

  “Thanks, kid,” said Fulcher. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.”

  But as the giant woman studied Alfie’s face, realization dawned slowly.

  “Wait a minute. You’re him. That daft little king.”

  “Er, thanks,” said Alfie.

  “But you’re supposed to be dead,” said Fulcher.

  “I get that a lot,” shrugged Alfie.

  “And you’re not supposed to know any of this,” said Hayley, arms folded. “So if you really expect us to believe you’re on our side now, you better make this good.”

  Fulcher looked from Alfie to Hayley, furrowing her Neanderthal brow, and suddenly burst into tears.

  “The truth is, I don’t know whose side I’m on any more,” she blubbed. “I mean, one day I’m working for the secret service, then next thing I know there are Vikings everywhere and the whole world’s gone crazy!”

  Alfie and Hayley looked at each other, bewildered. Alfie edged over to the weeping agent and patted her on the shoulder.

  “Careful, it might be a trap,” said Hayley.

  But Fulcher was in full flow now, snot bubbles and all.

  “And then Turpin – my partner – he turned into this horrible thing, and I know we never got on that well, but underneath it all I really cared about him…”

  Hayley looked to Alfie and shrugged. “It’s true, I've seen him,” she said. Fulcher blubbed again, and Hayley rolled her eyes. “Oh come here,” she said, handing Fulcher a tissue and putting an arm round her gargantuan shoulders.

  Fulcher blew her nose so loudly that the nearest raven flew away and circled the tower block. Finally, she brought her sobs under control.

  “Thanks. Reckon I’ve bottled all that up too long. Haven’t spoken to anyone since it happened.”

  “You said you wanted to help us?” Alfie asked.

  “Yeah. The
thing is,” sniffed Fulcher, “Whatever you’ve got going on here, you want to be careful. They’re on to you.”

  “Who is?” said Hayley, worried.

  “That little oik, Earl Barron,” she replied. “The one who’s got my Turpin chained up like some stinking dog. No offence.”

  Herne didn’t look like he was offended.

  “Anyway, that’s why I came,” continued Fulcher, “Figured I owed you after what we did to you, you know, before. I’m not the brightest spark in the world, but I found you easy enough. I don’t expect it’ll take them as long. That’s if they’re not here already.”

  The corridor outside Hayley’s flat was jam-packed with undead Vikings: a drooling, stinky SWAT team of draugar warriors led by Guthrum, who had to bend low to fit his mighty frame inside the tight space. Dean Barron scurried to the front, pulling Turpin, his pet berserker, on his leash.

  “That’s the one. They’re in there,” he hissed, pointing eagerly at the door to the flat.

  “Mun þat þér vel at hafir rétt fyrir þér,”* Guthrum snarled in Dean’s face.

  Dean didn’t know what the Viking Lord had said, but he figured correctly that it was a threat.

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ll find the girl and her Resistance mates in there,” he said, adding a thumbs up to try to keep it friendly.

  The door to the flat exploded inwards, along with most of the wall either side, as Guthrum and his men smashed their way in, bellowing their war-cries. They stampeded into the kitchen, which was empty, then they stampeded to the living room, which was also empty, then back to the kitchen to double check. There didn’t seem to be anyone at home, but from the look of the plates of half-eaten food left lying around, they hadn’t been gone long. Roaring with rage, Guthrum felled the bedroom doors with his axe. They were empty too. But in Hayley’s room there was a cartoon of a dumb-looking Viking scrawled on a piece of paper and stuck to the wall along with a note. If Guthrum had been able to read, he’d have known that it said: “Better luck next time, deadheads.”

  Guthrum tore the cartoon to pieces and thundered back into the corridor, looking for Dean. Rather wisely for such an idiot, Dean was making a beeline for the lifts, pulling Turpin with him. The Viking spotted him and pointed.

  “Haltu! Skaðask skaltu fyrir að taka á lopti veizlunna!”*

  Dean whimpered and stabbed the lift button again. Unfortunately for him, when it opened he found himself plucked off the ground by Fulcher, who was already inside. She took Turpin’s leash from him.

  “I’ll have that, ta muchly.”

  Fulcher shoved Dean back into the corridor. The last thing he saw before the lift doors closed was the massive woman holding the irate Turpin at bay and telling him off.

  “Uh-uh, no biting! I can see we’re going to have to start some training with you, pal.”

  Dean was so confused he almost forgot to scream as Guthrum arrived and yanked him off the ground by his ear.

  Meanwhile, out on the streets, miles from the tower block, Hayley led the others through the shadows, eyes peeled for Viking patrols. She and Alfie had been smart enough to take Fulcher’s warning seriously, and it wasn’t hard to persuade everyone to pack up and leave. The idea of another minute crammed together in the flat didn’t appeal to any of them. Besides, raiding the Tower of London sounded much more fun.

  * * *

  * “You’d better be right.”

  * “Halt! You will pay for wasting my feasting time!”

  Holgatroll was already enjoying herself hurling Vikings off the drawbridge into the moat, where they were set upon by what she would have eventually worked out were giant vampire eels, if she’d bothered to hang around and watch. But the rampaging she-troll wasn’t stopping. She head-butted the Byward Tower gate off its hinges and pounded over it, much to the disappointment of the squad of berserkers pinned underneath. Ahead of her, a band of fearsome draugar emerged on to the cobbles of Water Lane. Their leader, an unusually scrawny Viking called Eohric, who was only in charge because Guthrum was his father, laughed at Holgatroll.

  “Sjáit! Fǫlt trǫll er undan komit hellinum sínum. Færit mér hǫfut sitt hit ljótt.”*

  Holgatroll smiled. “My family’s been bashing Vikings since before you were dead,” she boomed.

  She bounded high into the air, spinning her arms up to pummelling speed, and fell on to the shocked draugar like an angry, green meteor.

  While Holgatroll was attracting as much attention as she could at the Tower, a couple of miles away at Buckingham Palace, Alfie and Tony were squeezing as quietly as possible through the bent and broken gates. At the main entrance there were no guards to stop them, no soldiers standing to attention, no Royal Protection Officers sizing them up through their shades. Alfie took out the Scout Orb and tossed it through the door. He closed his eyes and let the images of the inside of the palace come into his mind as the Orb floated through corridors and rooms.

  “So how does it work exactly?” asked Tony, before Alfie shushed him.

  “I need to concentrate!”

  After a couple of minutes, the Orb floated back out of the entrance and landed in Alfie’s hands. He opened his eyes.

  “All clear,” he said.

  Inside it looked like a hurricane had blown through. Paintings lay trampled on the floor, furniture and vases scattered in pieces, whole rooms scorched by fires that by sheer luck had not claimed the whole building. Even though he had lived here most of his life, Alfie had never liked the palace very much; it always felt more like a workplace than a home. And yet as he and Tony picked their way over shattered glass and through wrecked rooms, he found himself growing angry.

  “I’ve always wanted to visit your place, Alfalfa,” said Tony.

  Alfie marvelled at how his friend’s mood always stayed so sunny no matter how grim their surroundings.

  “Sorry, you’ll have to come back if you want the full guided tour.”

  Footsteps. A shadow at the end of the hallway. Before Alfie could even react, Tony engaged his robes, touched Alfie’s shoulder, and blink-shifted them through a doorway into an empty ballroom. Swiftly they hid behind a smashed grand piano, peeking through the cracks in the lid to see who was approaching. Richard paused by the doorway, holding a candle. He turned and looked back down the corridor, as if sensing he was not alone. Alfie was shocked by his brother’s stooped, hunchbacked appearance, and grey, scaly skin. He wanted to reach out and ask Richard if he was all right. But he had made that mistake once before, and it had cost him his kingdom and very nearly his life.

  Richard shuffled away like an old man heading for bed. It was only then that Alfie noticed his brother was barefoot, his long, hooked toenails scraping the floor like a hawk’s talons.

  In his old bedroom Alfie was relieved to find that the dressing table, though damaged, was still in its place against the wall. He reached beneath it and clicked the concealed release switch. Tony squealed with excitement as the dressing table slid aside, revealing the tunnel entrance behind.

  “That’s why I wish I had a palace and stuff: look at all the gadgets you get!”

  “Tony, you have a magical hoverboard and you can teleport,” said Alfie.

  “Yeah, but apart from that…” muttered Tony as he followed Alfie down the dark stone staircase.

  There was no sign that anyone had been down here in months, and Alfie was optimistic as they reached the bottom of the steps and the carriage chamber.

  “Where are we?” asked Tony.

  Alfie smiled as he recalled asking LC the very same thing the first time he was shown the tunnel.

  “About a hundred and fifty feet beneath street level,” he said, putting his hand into an alcove and feeling around till he found the lever.

  The flagstones slid apart and the stagecoach rose out. Alfie hopped on board and the carriage rolled forward, its wheels gliding out from underneath and travelling up the sides till they found their grooves in the wall of the exit tunnel. Tony’s mouth was hanging open.
>
  “Now you’re just showing off,” said Tony as he climbed inside.

  “Oh, hang on, almost forgot!” said Alfie.

  He leaned out of the carriage and rooted around inside one of the wheels’ spokes until he found what he was looking for. He yanked, twisted and pulled until, with a crack, he came away holding a curved block of metal, sparking with magical energy where it had been severed from the wheel.

  “What’s that?” asked Tony.

  “I’m hoping it’s the brakes,” said Alfie, repeating the process on each of the other wheels.

  Tony frowned and secured his guard rail. As soon as Alfie had done the same, the carriage set off into the dark, accelerating with tremendous power.

  “I’ll signal when we’re close,” Alfie called over the din of rushing air. “You’ll have about a second’s line of sight to blink-shift us out of here before it crashes.”

  Tony nodded, serious, but soon he was whooping and hollering, getting more and more excited the faster they went. Alfie laughed at his hysterical friend.

  “OK, relax, this next bit kind of takes your breath away!” yelled Alfie.

  The carriage whipped to the vertical and shot up, pinning them back in their seats with tremendous G-force and in Tony’s case rendering him instantly unconscious.