Hayley found Alfie gazing from a window at the snowy night outside, deep in thought. “What is it?” she asked.
“I was just thinking how many more homes like this there must be out there. Families trying to carry on as normal, not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow,” said Alfie.
“That’s why we’re doing something about it, Alfie. We’re going to help them – all of them,” said Hayley.
Brian and Greg came out of Willow’s room and pulled the door closed.
“Time to get some sleep, folks. We have a long journey tomorrow,” said Brian.
“Yes, we do,” said Alfie. “But you’re not coming with us.”
Everyone looked at Alfie, confused.
“Don’t be daft, lad, what are you talking about?” asked Brian.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen when we go out there again, and I can’t ask you to… You belong here, with your family,” said Alfie.
Brian seemed lost for words. He looked at Greg, clearly torn. But it was Greg who spoke first.
“Don’t forget, Your Majesty, I was in the army too,” he said. “I took an oath of loyalty to crown and country, just like he did. And this is how I keep it – I tell him to go with you and do his duty.”
“But what if he doesn’t come back?” said Alfie.
Greg looked at Brian. Both had tears in their eyes.
“That’s for me to deal with. You have a job to do, sir. You all do, same as me looking after our little girl in there,” said Greg. “Britain doesn’t lie down in the face of bullies – never has, never will – but people need someone to follow. King, Defender, doesn’t matter, but courage inspires courage.” Greg took a pile of towels from the airing cupboard and handed one to each of them. “I’ll have breakfast ready for you at six. You’ll be wanting an early start.”
* * *
* “Look, the Englishman has sent his lapdog for our amusement.”
Celia Ogden dug her spade into the snowdrift. The Stonehenge Visitor Centre’s roof had not been designed to have three feet of the white stuff dumped on top of it every few days. But, seeing as she was the only member of staff still around, the duty to make sure the whole structure didn’t collapse fell to her. She puffed her cheeks out against the cold and worked hard, turning great shovelfuls of snow over her shoulder and on to the ground below. It was a strange thing to admit, but the Viking invasion of Britain had had one big upside for Celia: it had made her a lot fitter. Decades of working slouched over a desk had left her back seized up, her muscles prone to cramping and her waistline ever-expanding. But clearing the roof every morning and feeding the café’s wood-burning stove every afternoon had done wonders. Yes, democracy might have collapsed and Britain might be buried under a new dark age of snow and ice, but Celia Ogden had lost at least eleven kilos.
“Eleven kilos!” Celia shouted, trying to keep her spirits up. Her words whipped away on the cold wind that knifed across Salisbury Plain.
When the Raven Banner’s evil magic had first hit Stonehenge a few months ago, there had been panic in the Visitor Centre as several tourists transformed into berserkers and went on the rampage. Instead of leading school children on a tour around the stones, Celia had found herself barricaded in an office, shaking in fear, the desk pushed up against the door. From the corridor outside had come the sound of terrified shouts, screams and berserkers roaring. When she’d finally found the courage to peek out hours later, what she saw had broken her heart: the brand new centre, with its high glass walls and polished wood, was a wreck. Smashed windows, splintered tables, bags and coats strewn around. Anyone else might have abandoned the place, but there was no way she could leave it in this state. So she started cleaning up and never really stopped.
Celia had only seen the Viking invaders with her own eyes twice after that: once when she’d hiked through the snow into Amesbury, the nearest town, to barter for some more food, and had witnessed a draugar gang hanging around outside a wrecked pub chucking beer down their rotten throats. And again when a small band of them had skirted the edges of the Stonehenge site. She watched them through some gift-shop binoculars as they stood and gazed at the old stones for a while, then backed away like they were afraid to get any closer. Celia wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t even like Stonehenge looked all that impressive any more. Even before the Vikings had arrived, there had been the freak earthquake that had levelled the stone circle as if it were a house of cards. She’d always remembered that date because it had been the same night King Henry the Ninth had died. Discussions about how best to restore Stonehenge had dragged on for weeks, but perversely visitor numbers had actually increased as people came to gawp at the damage. “Rubber-neckers”, Celia called them.
She dumped one last shovelful of snow off the roof and straightened up. Night was closing in and dark clouds were gathering with the promise of yet more snow. Just then she glanced across the plain towards the main site and gasped. There were people there, five of them, in among the snow-covered stones! Even from this distance, she could tell they weren’t Vikings. They were too strangely dressed, one in the pale armour of a knight and someone else all in red. There was a huge dog with them as well. What on earth were they up to?
“Hey!” Celia yelled and waved her arms but the wind was too strong, so she climbed down the ladder and set off through the snow up the hill as fast as her tired legs would carry her.
“There’s nobody here,” sighed Alfie, slumping down among the long, fallen stones.
Maybe it was too optimistic, but he’d been hoping they’d arrive to see the massed ranks of Yeoman Warders sitting around campfires toasting their return, cheering supporters – an army, perhaps. But there was nothing here except for snow, ice and the ancient grey stones, lying scattered like some giant’s abandoned game of dominoes.
“Maybe they’re hiding?” Tony said hopefully.
But Alfie found it hard to raise a smile. It wasn’t just that their long cross-country flight had been in vain. He loathed being here again. It was where Richard had killed their father, and the scars of their epic battle were still visible on the shattered stones all around them. A sullen silence descended on everyone as the clouds closed in and it started to snow again.
“So why did we waste so much time coming all the way here?” Ellie asked. “My mum, our friends – they’re all back in London!”
“The Lord Chamberlain was very clear,” said Brian. “This had to be the rally point.”
“Why?” asked Hayley. “What exactly did he say?”
Brian thought about it. “He said the king would find a new army and new power here.”
“Well, the army is a no-show,” said Alfie.
“What about the power part?” asked Hayley. “Did he say anything else?”
“LC’s not exactly big on chit-chat, remember?” Brian shrugged.
“Whatever he meant—” said Alfie, standing up. Except he never got to finish the thought, because he was too busy wondering why his hand was stuck to the rock he’d been sitting on. He pulled and pulled, but his left palm was glued solid to the rock. “Well, that’s odd,” he grunted.
It felt like a thousand magnets were pulling his gloved hand towards them. The energy coming from the stone was so strong it was making him feel lightheaded. The others tried to help prise his hand free, but it wouldn’t budge. Alfie attempted to take his armour off with his other hand, but he couldn’t.
“The exact same thing happened to me once with this tube of superglue and a fire extinguisher,” said Tony. Everyone looked at him for a moment. “Yeah, it’s not really the same.”
“Try using your command power to separate it from your hand,” suggested Brian.
Alfie closed his eyes and focused his thoughts through the Ring of Command. It felt like his hand was coming away, but when he looked up he saw that what he’d actually done was heave the entire stone upright. Suddenly as the stone settled in place, Alfie felt it release him and he fell back with a gasp of relief.
“Maybe it just wanted to stand up again?” Tony joked.
The others laughed. But as Alfie looked around at the fallen rocks he thought he could hear voices whispering on the wind, like they were talking to him.
“No, he’s right,” he said. “They do want to stand up. They want to be put back the way they were.”
“And you know this, because…?” asked Hayley.
“They told me.” Alfie shrugged.
“And that’s it, today officially cannot get any weirder,” said Ellie.
Alfie held out the Ring of Command towards another giant stone and willed it to move. A huge wave of déjà vu swept over him, so strong it felt like he was losing his balance for a second. Had his dad commanded the stones here to move when he fought Richard? A surge of energy swept back over him as the great grey slab reacted, floating into the air. Snow cascaded from it as Alfie slowly turned it around for all to see.
“Any ideas? Up? Down? Sideways?” Alfie asked.
“I wouldn’t have started with that one,” Qilin said, pulling his red cloak tighter against the blizzard.
“Really useful, thanks,” Alfie said sarcastically.
“Put that down at once!” Celia shouted as she bustled into the middle of the stones, red-faced and out of breath.
She sounded so much like a school teacher that Alfie did just that, and the stone dropped out of the sky. It landed with an earth-shaking crunch on the ground and narrowly missed Qilin, who blink-shifted out of the way.
“Whoa, there, lady, step back. We’re on important business,” Brian said as he tried to usher her away. Herne growled. But Celia wasn’t the sort to be intimidated by anyone.
“So am I! And take your hands off me! This is a scheduled prehistoric monument – you can’t just throw these stones around…” Celia’s voice trailed away as her mind suddenly caught up with what her eyes had just seen. A fifty-ton sarsen trilithon floating in the air as light as a feather. Impossible. She swayed on the spot like she was going to faint, until Alfie caught her and sat her down gently on one of the stones.
“Whoa, there. Have a seat.”
“Oh, my giddy aunt. You’re the Defender. But … they said you were dead,” Celia whispered.
“Nope, alive and well. I thought I could help put Stonehenge back together while I was here,” Alfie explained.
“Well, I wouldn’t start with that one,” Celia said, pointing at the stone he’d just dropped.
“Boom!” Qilin said, snapping his fingers together.
“Is he quite all right?” Celia said as she watched the figure in the red robes and Chinese mask (a Xiangdong Nuo mask, possibly Ming dynasty, she thought) dance around.
“Don’t worry about him. You know about this place? I mean, how it would have looked?” Alfie asked. Again, the certainty swept over him that he had to do this.
“Yes … but … the paperwork. Defender or not. I’d have to apply for permission from about a thousand different people.”
“This has got to happen now,” Alfie said. “I can’t explain it, but I think it might be really important. Like, saving the country and maybe the planet important.”
Celia closed her eyes and weighed up all the crazy events that led her to be sitting in front of a legendary superhero. She stood up, proudly. “Celia Ogden, Professor of Archaeology, at your service.”
And with that, they started to rebuild. Working through the night, Alfie raised the stones with the Ring of Command and flew them around the site as Celia directed them in (“Left a bit, right a bit, stop!”), like one of those people on the runway who guide planes safely to the gate. Ellie found the crunch of stones grinding their way into the frozen soil oddly satisfying. And with each standing stone that was put the right way up, with each lintel that was laid back where it used to be, Alfie could feel something ancient, immense and magical building, like a long-dead current of electricity had been switched back on. When the rebuilding work was done, everyone stood in the middle of the ancient stone circle and gazed about them in awe.
“Do you feel that? It tingles,” Alfie asked Hayley, a little worried as he touched a stone.
“Nope,” Hayley said, puzzled. “But then I’m not Defender of the Realm. Looks better, though.”
Alfie didn’t know if it was just him, but the air seemed to be shimmering with light. Somewhere, across the snowy plain, a distant hunting horn was blaring. Clouds formed themselves into the silhouettes of riders on horseback and chased each other through the night sky. There was no doubt about it, something strange was happening. The horn sounded again.
“Can’t you hear that?” Alfie whispered.
“Alfie, are you OK?” Hayley said, but he barely heard her.
“I think you’d all better get out of the circle,” Alfie shouted, and everyone did as they were told. Herne paced, restless, and the agitated ravens wheeled overhead, gronking. Alfie wasn’t wearing a watch, but a strange voice was inside his head, counting down the seconds to midnight.
10, 9, 8…
“You feeling OK, chief?” Brian shouted from the edge of the circle.
“What’s happening?” Tony asked.
7, 6, 5…
“Herne!” Ellie shouted as the howling wolfhound suddenly bolted away from her to be by Alfie’s side at the very centre of the stones. Alfie gripped on to Herne as the air seemed to warp and vibrate around him. Stonehenge went in and out of focus like he was looking at it underwater.
4, 3, 2, 1…
Midnight.
When Alfie’s vision cleared, it was daytime. Everything and everyone around him, except Herne, had disappeared. There was now no trace of Stonehenge at all. The snow was gone. All he could see was the grassy plain stretching towards the horizon, a vision of what it must have looked like in pre-historic times. The ground shook as, across Salisbury Plain, for as far as the eye could see, thousands of trees in full leaf burst out of the ground, sending explosions of black soil into the sky. Soon the barren landscape had been magically transformed into dense, green forest. The air was damp and the rich smell of rotten leaves filled his nose. Everywhere he looked there was a tangled mass of giant tree trunks and twisted, moss-covered roots, like something from the pages of a dark fairytale. Suddenly a dazzling white stag leapt through the clearing. Alfie and Herne dived out of the way as the magnificent creature stopped and looked back at them with a snort. From one of its impressive, many-pointed antlers hung a crown. Alfie recognized it at once.
“King Alfred’s crown!” he gasped.
The last time Alfie had seen it was when the Black Dragon had fused the final part back into it at his coronation, making it whole again. Later they’d retrieved it from the rubble inside Westminster Abbey and LC had told him he would send it far away, to a safe place. Was this what the old man had meant? On a stag’s antlers in some weird, enchanted wood?
The blast of a hunting horn started the stag running again, and it rapidly disappeared into the thick forest. Seconds later, hooves pounded the ground as riders crashed out of the trees and circled Alfie and Herne. The men and women were dressed in furs and mud-spattered cloaks, and their faces were craggy, scarred and weather-beaten. A large man with piercing blue eyes and a white beard neatly tied with a strip of leather raised his hand and the riders came to a stop. He was wearing a small crown made from antlers and riding a white horse a full couple of hands bigger than all the others.
“A new rider for my hunt! What is your name?” The man’s voice was rich and low.
“Alfie.”
“But you are dressed as a knight. Speak as one.”
Alfie, throat suddenly as dry as sandpaper, coughed and said, “I am Alfred Henry Alexander Louis, King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
The bearded man nodded and smiled playfully, like he’d known it all along.
“This is not the first time your kin have come to seek my help against the Norsemen.”
“You mean, Alfred the Great?” Alfie said. He remembered LC t
elling him ages ago that Alfred the Great had prayed to some ancient god called Woden to help beat the Vikings. He’d received the immensely powerful magical crown and that had been the start of his family’s blue blood powers. Alfie’s head was spinning. Wait a second. Could it be that this was Woden himself he was talking to?
“You must join us and ride with the Wild Hunt, young king. Catch the stag and you may keep the crown and use it to slay your enemies.”
Is that the “new power” LC told Brian about? Did he know this would happen? wondered Alfie.
“But know this,” Woden continued. “If you fail, you will ride with the hunt for ever.”
A chill ran down Alfie’s spine as he gazed at the other riders. They did indeed look like they’d been on horseback for a long, long time, their wasted bodies wrapped in threadbare cloaks as they rested in their battered saddles. How many centuries had they been trapped here?
“OK, Mr Woden. Or is it just Woden?” asked Alfie. The ancient god stared at him, impassive. “Never mind. Sorry. But just before we start, I need to tell you, I’m really anti-hunting.”
Ignoring him, Woden gave another blast of his hunting horn and led the Wild Hunt off again, leaving only a swirl of dead leaves in the air.
“Wait!” Alfie yelled, but the sounds of the hunt were already fading. He couldn’t risk being lost in this place. But how was he supposed to keep up with them? Oh yeah. Dur.
“Spurs!” Alfie shouted, and Wyvern appeared beneath him, but something extraordinary had happened: Wyvern’s usual ghostly form had been replaced with her real body. Alfie could feel every living sinew, every muscle under her white hair as it twitched. He ruffled his horse’s mane and marvelled at the coarseness of it.
“Wyvern … you’re alive!” Alfie said.
By way of a reply, she whinnied and galloped forward at tremendous speed, ears pricked.
“Tally-ho!” Alfie shouted, and Herne barked happily as they sprinted after the hunters.
The woods flashed past. Ahead of them, the Wild Hunt was in full flow, but Alfie could see he was gaining on them fast. Wyvern leapt over a log and in seconds they were up alongside the riders. It was a melee of horses and elbows as everyone jostled for position. Alfie lost sight of Herne, but he could hear the dog barking somewhere in the enchanted forest. He couldn’t afford to take his eyes off what was happening right in front of him. Branches appeared at warp speed, and he was ducking and weaving like a boxer dodging blows. But he couldn’t avoid them all. Branches clanged against his armour, which to his surprise was getting dented and scratched.
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