by E. G. Foley
Red let out an unhappy growl at this command, but he seemed willing to give Jake the benefit of the doubt. He carried the boys back down to the ground, landing out of the beast’s sight behind a corner of the great hall.
“I’ll be back before you even miss me,” Jake promised in a breezy tone, jumping off the Gryphon’s back to slip cautiously around the corner. Then he went running over to where one of the singed Valkyries had landed.
She had obviously gotten too close to the beast. Her sword had melted, her short pastel dress was smoking, and one of her wings was on fire.
Thinking fast, Jake grabbed a leftover pitcher of water from the abandoned feast and splashed it on the gorgeous creature, putting out the flames.
The poor, burnt Valkyrie groaned a little, but a minute later, she was already regenerating, slowly getting up to return to the fight. “Thank you,” she panted.
“You’re welcome. Wait, don’t go!” he shouted as she turned to fly away. “I have an idea that might just help you defeat that thing!”
The Valkyrie paused, cocking her head to the side. “Yes, what is it? Quickly.”
“Drive the monster that way!” Jake pointed toward the forest where Snorri had undergone the terrifying test of courage. “A dragon lives in those woods! Old Smokey will be more of a match for Fenrir than any of us will. At least he’s fireproof! He’s also highly territorial. If you can herd the Fire Wolf toward the dragon’s lair, Smokey should come out to fight him!”
“Yes, I see…fight fire with fire. Excellent. Thank you.” The Valkyrie nodded. “I’ll tell the others.” She took a few running steps, leaped into the air, and flew off to rejoin her warrior sisters.
Jake paused, watching the Valkyries, and noticing in the meanwhile the clusters of frightened giants hiding around the village square—some behind overturned tables, others cowering beside broken walls. He gathered they had not been able to escape during the Fire Wolf’s attack and now were trapped in their hiding places.
The giant children were among them. Peter, the giant boy who had dwarf-tossed Archie, and his giant little sisters, who had thought Jake was a doll.
Fortunately, Kaia and Snorri were still on hand. They were hiding with some of their people, but Jake had a feeling that Kaia was already making a plan to get everyone out of there.
Stealthily retreating from the edge of the square, he ran back to Red and Archie and told them his suggestion for the Valkyries. Then the three of them remained on the ground, watching and waiting to see if his plan would work.
“Even if Old Smokey can’t actually kill Fenrir, he should be able to weaken him, or at least it’ll buy us some time to get these people out of here,” Jake said in a low tone, watching everything.
“But then what?” Archie countered. “What if he comes back?”
Jake considered this and shook his head grimly. “I have no idea.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The Irresistible Call
The boys watched from around the corner of the great hall as the Valkyries began working together to herd the Fire Wolf toward the dragon’s cave.
“Tough girls,” Archie remarked in admiration.
Zooming around the beast’s head like a swarm of insects, they pushed Fenrir back yard by yard to the edge of the woods that marked the dragon’s territory.
“C’mon,” Jake said to his cousin when the Fire Wolf had cleared the village. “Let’s get those giant kids out of the square where they were trapped.”
They ran out to join the effort that Princess Kaia already had underway, collecting the giant children into a cart to be driven off to a safer location. She then directed Snorri to start a bucket line of giants to start putting out the fires raging everywhere around the village. Even the top of the great hall was burning.
Jake glanced around in dismay at all the blazes the Fire Wolf had left in his wake. Surely this village would not last long when all the Viking-style buildings were made of wood or thatch.
Looking on in dismay, he wasn’t sure where he and Archie could be of use. He felt helplessly small. Kaia’s commands had helped create some order from the chaos, but panic still gripped the people.
With the giants running around nervously in the dark, Jake feared he and Archie were more in danger of getting stepped on than ever. As much as he wanted to help, he realized they had better just stay out of the way this time.
In the distance, a sudden flare of fire with an earthshaking roar told them Old Smokey had come out to fend off the intruder who dared invade his territory.
Jake turned to Red. “Will you take us up again? I want to see what happens! Then I can warn the giants if the Fire Wolf heads back this way.”
The Gryphon bobbed his head and soon they were off. As they soared across the face of the moon, nearing the dragon’s woods, they saw the Valkyries also hovering in the sky ahead, watching the battle between the two huge monsters below.
The dragon and the Fire Wolf leaped at each other, snarling viciously. The night reverberated with the crash as the beasts hit the ground and rolled.
Huge trees snapped behind them like twigs. The volcanic heat emanating from the Fire Wolf, paired with the dragon’s blasts of flame, set more sections of the forest ablaze.
Through the trees and billowing smoke, the boys caught glimpses of the awesome death-match. Leathery wings flapping, Smokey leaped onto the Fire Wolf’s back and clawed him with his talons; Fenrir whipped his head around and sank his teeth into the dragon’s wing. The dragon gave way with a mighty roar, and they tumbled off in the other direction, slashing at each other with fangs and claws.
A piercing squawk sounded from above them.
Jake looked up to see Loki in crow form swooping out of the sky toward the Fire Wolf, circling him. “Fenrir, stop fooling around!” he scolded his dog. “Get back to your mission, now! I didn’t let you out of that volcano so you could wrestle with this brute! Get back to the village! Go! Do what you were born to do! Destroy!”
Reluctantly, Fenrir untangled himself from his fight against the dragon.
Old Smokey stood panting, surrounded by burning woods. While the dragon caught his breath, the Fire Wolf backed away. But the great lizard only cared about guarding his territory; satisfied that the intruder was retreating, Old Smokey did not renew his attack. Instead, the golden-eyed dragon merely watched in satisfaction as the lava-dog turned around and trotted out of the clearing.
“Hurry, Red!” Jake cried. “Fenrir’s heading back to the village to finish the job! We need to get there first to warn the giants! Fly as fast as you can!”
“Caw!”
“Hold on!” Jake warned his cousin as the Gryphon banked to the left, circling back toward the village.
Red’s wings beat the air with powerful strokes.
They only just managed to beat the Fire Wolf to the village because the beast stopped to stomp a few farms along the way.
The Gryphon landed in the square, where the giants had made some progress bringing the fires under control.
Snorri saw them and came running. “Master Jake, Archie! I was so worried about—”
“The creature’s right behind us!” Jake shouted. “He’s coming back! He’ll be here in a moment! Everyone, get ready!”
“How?” Princess Kaia cried in despair. “How do we fight it? Is there any way to defeat that thing?”
“I don’t know.” Jake hesitated, but when he spotted the king in the square, he realized he owed it to the giants at least to deliver Loki’s message. “Sire!” He went running over to the King Olaf.
“I have no time right now, Master Dwarf—”
“Sire, I know why this is happening!”
“You do?” This got the king’s attention. His brow furrowed, he bent down to Jake with an inquiring look. “What can you tell me, lad?”
“Loki is the one behind this, Your Majesty. He loosed the Fire Wolf to force the giants to surrender to him. He wants control of an army of giants, so he can go to war agai
nst Odin. He was here, Sire, disguised as the Ice Wizard. That was Loki.”
“What?”
“That’s why he gave Gorm and Snorri an impossible riddle! He wanted them both to fail. That way, they both would’ve lost the contest, and Loki would’ve married your daughter himself. He thought he could get control of your people through Princess Kaia!”
King Olaf’s eyes narrowed. “Did he, indeed? Well…” The king of the giants stood up to his full, towering height, glaring into the distance. “My people will never be the slaves of that vile trickster!”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Jake said under his breath. He wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if the king had opted for surrender.
Kaia and Snorri approached.
“Father, what would you have us do?” the princess demanded.
“We are giants!” he replied, drawing his sword. “We fight!”
In the next heartbeat, the Fire Wolf was upon them.
King Olaf made a bold stand. The Fire Wolf slashed at him with its razor-like teeth, but each time it tried to bite him, the king of the giants parried the blow with his blade, and it didn’t melt because it was made of dragon scales.
It was a most impressive display of warrior prowess, and it made the Fire Wolf furious.
The beast suddenly lost patience with its stubborn target, opened its jaws wide, and came straight down on the king, swallowing him in one bite.
“Father!” Kaia screamed.
Jake and Archie stared in horror as the beast licked his chops, then eyed up Snorri with a hungry snarl, and started creeping toward him.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Furiously, Kaia nocked an arrow in her bow. She brought her weapon up again and again in rage, shooting countless arrows at the beast while Snorri backed away.
Unfortunately, most of her arrows simply caught fire and disintegrated into ash before they even reached the beast’s hide.
Still, the flying missiles annoyed the creature. Fenrir whipped around, seeking out the source of the vexing arrows. His glowing red eyes homed in on Kaia.
Too far away to help, Snorri yelled her name as the Fire Wolf bounded straight toward her.
Considering they were standing right beside her, Jake and Archie gasped in terror and leaped out of the way.
Kaia dove aside with them, avoiding the monster’s charge, and landing on her stomach nearby. The earth rocked as the giantess crashed to the ground, but to their relief, the Fire Wolf had missed her.
Snorri took matters into his own hands, picking up an enormous boulder from the charred foundations of one of the ruined village buildings.
Lifting it over his head, he hurled it at the Fire Wolf. The boulder lit up like a meteor hurtling earthward, but it was big enough to get through the monster’s heat shield.
When it conked the Fire Wolf on the head, the beast apparently saw stars for a minute or two, weaving on its paws.
This gave Kaia a chance to get up, but first she glanced at the boys. “Are you two all right?”
Jake and Archie were both staring at her in shock.
Being a thirty-foot tall giantess, she was rarely on eyelevel with them, and so this was the first they had seen her new necklace.
The special gift from Snorri after he had been so embarrassed about bringing her a book from the dragon’s cave.
They had forgotten to ask her about it in all the peril of traveling to the land of death and all.
But now, there it was, hanging right in front of them, dangling from her neck.
Gold and shiny, with the shape of a dog’s head on one end.
“Is that—?” Archie blurted out in shock.
Jake nodded dazedly. “I can’t believe it.”
“Snorri must’ve found it in the cave back in Midgarth.”
She saw them staring and touched it. “What’s the matter?”
“Your necklace!” the boys said in unison.
“What about it?” she countered.
But Archie ignored her, elbowing Jake. “Do you think it might actually work?”
He swallowed hard. “Only one way to find out.”
“I don’t understand! What’s the matter?” she asked in alarm.
“Your necklace,” Archie said again.
“We need it. Now!” Jake added. “Take it off! Hurry!”
“Why? Whatever for?”
“Please!” Jake cried, frantic all of a sudden at their first glimmer of hope.
“We’ll give it back!” Archie promised. “We just need to borrow it for a minute.”
Confused, Kaia did as ordered, while a short distance away, the Fire Wolf recuperated from being hit in the head with Snorri’s boulder. He shook himself, then continued his rampage in the opposite direction.
“Here.” Her brow furrowed, Kaia handed them her necklace. “I still don’t understand.”
“You will, shortly.” Jake took it from her and raised it to his lips.
The infamous Dr. Galton’s silent whistle for training animals.
He had thought it was long gone, lost along the way, after he had stolen it from the Exhibit Hall.
Jake turned toward Loki’s monstrous dog, took a deep breath, and then blew into the brass whistle. He didn’t hear anything.
But the Fire Wolf paused.
Turned slowly…
And snarling, looked straight at him with his red, glowing eyes.
Jake gulped. “I think it works.”
Archie and he started walking backwards slowly and carefully, not taking their eyes off the savage beast. “Er, Jake, he’s coming this way… Jake?”
“Red! To me!”
The trusty Gryphon was by his side in a pounce.
“Dwarves? What are you doing?” Kaia exclaimed.
“Sorry, Princess. I need to borrow this for a while. Trust me! I’ll explain later!”
“Should I come with you?” Archie asked.
“No, Red can fly faster with just one of us. Stay here and tell the giants to get ready. Once I lead Fenrir back into the volcano, they’ll need to seal him in. Have them throw boulders on top of it or something to plug up the opening so he can’t get back out.”
“I’ll take care of it. Jake—you need to be careful up there,” he warned, nodding at the sky. “Volcanoes belch out all sorts of poison gases. When you get close, don’t inhale them or you’ll die. Stay above the smoke clouds. I should also warn you the forest fire will be sucking the oxygen out of the air. That’ll make it harder for Red to gain altitude. Without normal oxygen levels, you’ll both tire faster.”
“Then we’d better do this quick.”
As the Fire Wolf stalked closer, growling, Archie sent the beast a frightened glance, then backed away. “Be careful, coz. Don’t go dying on us, now that the family has only just found you again.”
“Don’t worry. You lot won’t get rid of me so easily. C’mon, Red, let’s put this dog back in his cage!”
“Caw!” the Gryphon answered with a fighting gleam in his golden eyes.
Swinging onto his back, Jake grasped Red’s collar; the Gryphon took a few running strides across the cobblestones, then unfurled his wings and launched into the air.
The Fire Wolf leaped after them, chasing instinctively.
Each powerful beat of the Gryphon’s scarlet-feathered wings brought them higher over the forest. They set their sights on the fiery mouth of the volcano ahead.
Jake blew into the dog-whistle again and again.
Unable to resist its piping call, the Fire Wolf followed.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
An Angry God
Jake’s hair blew in his eyes as he and Red raced across the sky, the Fire Wolf bounding along the ground below them. Clouds of drifting smoke from the forest fires and heavy ash from the volcano made his eyes water. He coughed, his lungs burning. But as he pulled his scarf across his nose and mouth to help filter the air, his greater concern was keeping an eye out for Loki.
He doubted the trickster god was done play
ing with them tonight.
In the distance, the volcano, like a great, burning wound in the earth, oozed with blood-red lava flows dripping down its sides. Occasional plumes of fiery molten rock shot up into the dark sky and left huge smoke clouds towering in the distance.
Jake hoped those clouds of poison gases didn’t drift in his direction.
While the rumble in the mountain echoed like thunder in the distance, the immediate danger was closer. Through the swirling smoke, Jake could see the Fire Wolf racing through the forest, following them.
The Galton whistle had worked to get Fenrir’s attention, luring him to follow. Still, it was terrifying being the focus of the monster’s attention.
The Fire Wolf was half as tall as the trees. It kept leaping up as it ran, trying to lunge at Red and him like a cat chasing a butterfly.
“Keep going, boy,” Jake urged his feathered friend. “We can’t lose altitude or that thing might jump high enough to grab us.”
With a cough, Red valiantly flew on, racing toward the volcano as fast as his wings would carry them. The heavy film of the ash and smoke in the air made it hard for both of them to breathe. Jake knew the smoke was bothering Red, for he could feel the Gryphon starting to strain a little under his weight.
Glancing over his shoulder, Jake kept blowing the dog-whistle, luring the Fire Wolf toward the volcano that was apparently its home.
But as he looked forward again, up ahead in the distance, Jake saw a familiar figure standing in the barren wasteland between the lava flows.
Loki was dancing a jig of glee in anticipation of his victory over the giants and all the Nine Worlds soon to follow. No doubt he was delighted at all the chaos he had caused.
But when the Lord of the Shapeshifters looked up and saw Jake and the Gryphon coming, he stopped dancing and stared up at them in disbelief.
They flew over him at top speed.
Jake glanced back to see Loki’s reaction when the trickster god realized what was happening. He blew the Galton whistle again, and in the next moment, the Fire Wolf emerged from the forest into the naked lands around the volcano.
