Arthur and the Fenris Wolf

by Alan Early

  ‘Trust me. It’s not worth the effort. I’ve tried everything already. What’s your name anyway, child?’

  ‘Ash. And I’m not a child.’

  ‘It’s nice to meet you, Ash. I meant no offence, calling you child, but when you’re my age almost everyone could be considered a child. I’d shake your hand but I’m trapped in a dog cage.’

  What a strange man, thought Ash. ‘And what’s your name? Who are you?’

  ‘My name? My name is Fenrir.’

  ‘Fenrir? Like the Fenris Wolf?’

  ‘Hmm.’ The man smiled to himself as if it was funny. ‘It’s a long time since anyone called me that.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Where are we exactly?’ Arthur asked as they strode down the dark corridor that led away from the room he’d been interrogated in. Ancient flocked wallpaper was peeling off the walls and the dusty floorboards creaked loudly underneath their feet. Ellie was walking along with him but Ex had run ahead.

  ‘Just some abandoned house a ten-minute drive from yours,’ she answered him. ‘We live on the other side of the city so we had to find somewhere closer to bring you.’

  ‘Is it true that your grandfather’s taking care of you?’ he asked. After Ellie’s revelations, he’d have to rethink everything she’d told him previously.

  ‘Yup, that’s true,’ she said. ‘Like I said before, we’re usually home schooled. If my parents go away, they just leave us loads of work to do and Granddad supervises. But he’s pretty blind and nearly deaf now. He sleeps so much that it’s easy to sneak out without him knowing.’

  ‘Hold on a second!’ Arthur said as something popped into his mind. ‘You said we were a ten-minute drive from mine. But I was unconscious. How did you get me here?’

  ‘Ex drove.’ She bounded down a set of stairs ahead of him.

  ‘What! Isn’t he a little young?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said cheerily, heading for the front door. ‘But he doesn’t look that young so no one ever questions it.’

  Sure enough, Ex was waiting in a running car when they came out, seated behind the wheel with one elbow casually propped on the open window. It was a 1960s Volkswagen Beetle with a pastel-blue paint job. Ellie climbed into the passenger seat but Arthur hesitated.

  ‘Come on!’ she urged through the open door.

  ‘Whose car is this?’

  ‘It’s our parents’. Granddad used to drive it too, but he doesn’t use it much any more.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’

  ‘Of course it is. Ex has been driving since he was old enough to reach the pedals.’

  Arthur got into the back seat, trying to shake off the distinct feeling that he was taking his life in his hands.

  The Beetle arrived outside Ash’s house safely. Arthur hated to admit it but, even though Ex had driven quite fast, he was clearly a very competent driver. This night was proving to be full of surprises. And by the looks of Max’s expression at the open front door, not all of them would be so pleasant.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Arthur asked, getting out of the car. Inside, he could see Stace talking to a couple of Gardaí, while Max was sitting on the low porch wall.

  ‘Someone took Ash, Arthur,’ Max blurted out.

  ‘What?’ Ellie exclaimed as she and Ex came up behind Arthur.

  ‘I was at a friend’s house,’ Max said. ‘And when his brother dropped me home the door was open like this. I went into the living-room and …’ He trailed off but Arthur didn’t notice as he burst past him to get a look for himself. The glass coffee table had been smashed; shards were scattered all over the thick carpet. There’d clearly been some kind of struggle. Ice’s collar lay by the door, but there was no sign of the dog herself.

  ‘I knew I couldn’t trust that dog,’ Arthur muttered to Ellie, who was standing behind him.

  ‘I tried calling her and couldn’t get through,’ Max told them. ‘Stace told me to ring the Gardaí and Mom and Dad wouldn’t answer because they were at the parent–teacher meeting. They’re on their way now, though.’

  ‘Let me see,’ Ellie said, shoving past Arthur into the room.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said, glancing at the men taking Stace’s statement. ‘Shouldn’t we let the Gardaí look first?’

  ‘And risk them wrecking my crime scene? Not a chance.’ Ellie took a large magnifying glass out of an inner coat pocket, dropped to her knees and started examining the broken shards under the magnification.

  ‘Is it him, Arthur?’ Max asked quietly so the Lavenders wouldn’t hear. ‘Is it Loki?’

  Arthur bowed his head. ‘It has to be. Who else would want to kidnap Ash? I’m sorry, Max.’

  The boy nodded slowly, despair written all over his face.

  ‘Weird …’ Ellie murmured as she scrutinised the carpet around the broken table.

  ‘What is?’ Arthur asked, kneeling down next to her.

  ‘There’s some kind of dust here.’ She didn’t look up at him as she spoke, just concentrated on her find. ‘See here – where the carpet fibres are flattened down?’ Arthur could just about make out the indentation she meant. ‘That’s a footprint. And there in the footprint are all these little flakes of dust. Hold on …’ She touched her fingertip off the carpet, pushing hard, and then magnified her finger under the glass. Motes of bright-red dust clung to her skin.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ she said. ‘Have you?’

  Arthur closed his eyes, remembering the vivid colour, seeing the dust and then–

  ‘Yes!’ he exclaimed loudly. ‘The lake! All around the lake where we found Ice the shore was covered in mud this colour.’ He even remembered Ash telling him that the lake was the only place in the country the mud turned that rich shade of scarlet.

  ‘Then let’s go!’ Ellie said, standing upright. ‘That is, if you’ll let us help.’

  ‘You want to help?’

  ‘Of course we do. We’re part of this now. Granted, this is the first case I’ve ever taken on, but still. If we hadn’t been holding you, you might have been here to help Ash, to stop her being taken.’

  Arthur realised he needed all the help he could get, even if he was still wary of Ellie and Ex. If they were working for Loki he would deal with them when the time came. Right now he had no other way of reaching Mullingar quickly. He made an executive decision. ‘All right, let’s go. We need to move if we’re going to save Ash.’

  Without letting another second pass, he ran out the door towards the idling car.

  ‘I’m coming too!’ Max cried.

  Arthur looked back at Stace inside the house. As she spoke to the Gardaí, she was pacing up and down nervously, describing her sister in minute detail.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ he told Max.

  ‘But–’

  ‘You’re staying here with Stace. She needs you now, and imagine how she’d feel if you suddenly disappeared too.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘We’ll get Ash back, Max. I promise.’

  Arthur hopped into the back seat, with Ex behind the wheel and Ellie next to him, and before Max could plead with another ‘but’, they sped off.

  Ash and the man who called himself Fenrir didn’t say much to each other for the next while. She thought about engaging him in conversation but didn’t trust him. Even though he was locked up like she was, if he was one of Loki’s children it would be crazy to put her faith in him. It could be some sort of trick – Loki could be trying to win her over. Although she wasn’t sure what for.

  At one stage she remembered her phone and reached into her pocket only to find that the raiders who’d kidnapped her had taken it. However, they had missed the little webcam she’d swiped from Arthur’s room, which was jammed in the inner corner of her pocket. She pulled it out and was turning it in her hands, trying to work out a way to use it to her advantage, when the door to the room creaked open.

  Two men walked in and positioned themselves on either side of the entrance. They stood stock-still w
ith crossbows across their backs. They were followed into the room by a girl in a wheelchair. She looked about Ash’s age, with her black hair tied back in a tight, constricting bun. She was wearing an old-fashioned dress with frilly lace edging and matching white tights. Her expression was blank, neither pleased nor upset. The wheelchair itself was constructed from wicker – long, thin interwoven strips of wood – while the wheels and handles were black iron. The man pushing the chair into the room was tall, with a head of platinum-blond hair and intelligent eyes. His beard was cropped close to his strong jawline and he wore a long black coat over a similarly old-fashioned suit. Ash gasped audibly as she recognised Loki, quickly hiding the camera in her pocket.

  ‘Hello, Ash,’ he said, pushing the girl in the wheelchair forward. ‘It’s simply wonderful to see you again. I do hope you’re comfortable.’ He chuckled to himself momentarily, then looked around the cellar. ‘Where’s Arthur?’

  ‘He’s, uh …’ the girl in the wheelchair started, looking down as if ashamed.

  ‘Where is he?’ Loki demanded, his tone dangerously low.

  ‘I’m not sure, Wolf-father. I’m sorry. We got Ash first but when we went to grab Arthur he was missing.’

  ‘Missing?’

  ‘He should have been in his house. He’d been there minutes beforehand.’

  Loki stepped away from the girl, took a deep breath to calm himself, then turned back.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Well, I was hoping that we’d have both little troublemakers out of the way tonight, but no matter. At least Ash will get to see my greatest triumph, and no one, not even Arthur, can escape what I have planned.’ He laid a tender hand on the girl’s head. ‘You’ve done well, Drysi.’

  Loki swivelled on one foot, then marched quickly out of the cellar. The girl started to turn the wheelchair by herself.

  ‘Wait!’ Ash pleaded, rattling her cage. ‘Let me out. Please. You don’t know what you’ve done!’

  The girl turned slowly towards Ash. She tilted her head with faux pity. ‘I know exactly what I’ve done, Ash,’ she said and began to wheel towards the door.

  ‘Please,’ begged Ash once more. ‘I don’t know who you are, but please let me out.’

  The girl stopped and without turning said, ‘I’m hurt, Ash. After all we’ve been through together I thought you’d know me. After all, you did risk your life to save mine.’

  ‘Ice?’ gasped Ash. ‘It can’t be.’

  The girl Drysi looked back over her shoulder, smirked sadistically and said simply, ‘Woof, woof!’

  They were on the road to Mullingar in minutes, with Ex manoeuvring skilfully between other vehicles but being cautious to avoid any Garda squad cars. They’d stopped the car at the edge of the estate, giving Arthur a chance to run into the shrubbery – where, frustratingly, there was no sign of Eirik anywhere – and into his house. Thankfully, Joe still wasn’t home from the parent–teacher meeting so Arthur didn’t have to explain himself as he raced upstairs, pulled out the hammer from under his bed and legged it back to the waiting car. The hammer was now next to him on the back seat.

  In the front, Ellie had taken her iPad out of her coat pocket – she must have everything in there but the kitchen sink, Arthur thought when she pulled it out – and was currently flicking through high-resolution photographs on the touchscreen.

  Arthur took a break from Garda-watch and leaned forward to look at the pictures on the tablet. An image of the hammer filled the screen. By the looks of it, Ellie had taken the photo on the floor of his bedroom. She flicked her finger across the iPad to display another image – this time a close-up of the rune lettering on the hammer itself.

  ‘So you did take photos of my hammer,’ Arthur said.

  ‘Hmm?’ she asked, lost in thought, not looking up. ‘Oh, yeah. The hammer. Thor’s hammer.’

  ‘Thor’s hammer?’ he replied, surprised.

  ‘Clearly.’ She flicked to another view of the war-hammer. ‘It’s said that Thor died battling the World Serpent. And according to you, this happened right here in Dublin. With that and what you’ve told me about it, I think this must be Thor’s hammer.’

  ‘Wow,’ Arthur muttered. It had never occurred to him before, but it seemed so obvious now Ellie had pointed it out.

  ‘According to legend,’ Ellie went on, ‘it’s a powerful weapon. When you need it most it will always come to you.’

  ‘Like in the lake.’

  ‘Exactly. And it probably only works for you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. From what you told me it looks like it chose you. The same way the pendant chose you.’ She looked him straight in the eye. Headlights from passing cars moved across her serious face. ‘You’re clearly very important, Arthur.’

  He blushed and looked away. I can’t be important, he told himself. I’m just a boy who fell into this whole thing by mistake. And dragged my friends down with me.

  ‘Hmm …’ he heard Ellie muse, once again staring at her screen.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, looking back at the iPad. The screen was filled with a photograph of a Celtic chalice taken in the National Museum before the raiders had arrived.

  ‘These are all the items Loki and his raiders stole from the museum,’ she told him, flicking to an image of some Bronze Age jewellery. ‘The full list was in the newspapers so I looked them all up. I’m trying to work out why he took them. What was so special that he needed it so badly?’

  ‘You’re right!’ he exclaimed. ‘Loki wouldn’t have gone to all that effort for money. It’s too normal, too human. He must have been after something in particular. Can I have a look?’

  ‘Go wild,’ she said and handed him the iPad. As they moved ever closer to Lough Faol and Ash, Arthur started to scan through the images himself, searching for a clue.

  ‘You know Drysi?’ Fenrir asked when the girl and the guards had left.

  ‘I thought I did,’ answered Ash, watching the closed door with awe. ‘At least, I knew her differently. I think … this is going to sound stupid, but she used to be my pet dog.’

  ‘She wasn’t a dog. She was a wolf.’

  ‘That’s what Arthur said.’

  ‘Arthur?’

  ‘He’s a friend of mine. A good friend. I should have listened to him. How do you know her?’

  ‘She’s like a daughter to me.’

  ‘A daughter?’ She turned to look at the man in the next cage.

  ‘I raised her as my own, anyway.’ He smiled at Ash. ‘Although she didn’t turn out quite as I’d expected. I hope she didn’t cause you any harm.’

  Ash was taken aback by how unthreatening Fenrir seemed to be. ‘Well, I almost drowned the first time we met and now I’m locked in a cage,’ she said wryly. She had expected Loki’s second child to be just like the first: a monstrous and wicked thing. But Fenrir simply looked tired.

  ‘How did she turn out like this? So …’

  ‘Bad?’ Fenrir prompted sadly. ‘Evil? Wicked?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘She wasn’t always this way. It’s a long story.’

  Ash waved her hand at the deserted cellar. ‘By the looks of it, we have the time.’

  ‘All right, then.’ Fenrir shuffled around in the cage so that he was facing Ash. ‘My story starts a thousand years ago,’ he said. ‘A millennium. It’s a long time in anyone’s understanding. I was just an ordinary wolf in Asgard, the land of the gods. Then one night Loki found me. I’d been wounded but he had charms to fix that. Using old and powerful magic, the speaking of runes, he harnessed his power into a moonstone – a piece of rock that fell from the moon itself. He called it Hati’s Bite and its power would only come into effect when the moon was full in the sky. Then he cast a spell on me, turning me into something huge and powerful. I could speak and I could change from beast to man at will. He gave me my name and, in return for my new gifts, he tasked me with an important mission. I was to take Hati’s Bite and make him an army. An army of wolves for him to cont
rol.

  ‘But before I even began my great undertaking, the gods of Asgard found and captured me. I thought I would never be free. Then my sister – the third of Loki’s children – helped me escape. But, in doing so, she fell into an impossibly deep sleep. Taking her with me, I fled to the world of man, to Dubh Linn. Dublin.

  ‘As soon as we arrived, I saw a young Celtic girl playing in a field. She was alone, running through the high grass on a warm summer’s night, laughing and talking to herself. The moon was full that night also. So I hid my sister safely in the high grass and called to the girl …’ He looked up at the ceiling, wistfully recalling the encounter.

  ‘She wasn’t frightened of me at all. I remember thinking that she was the perfect candidate to start the army. I had her lie down, basking in the white glow of the moon. And then I spoke the rune magic that Loki had taught me, holding Hati’s Bite over her. And she changed then. She had my powers also, including the ability to transform into a wolf. She was the first. And I loved her as a daughter. Drysi. We left that place together – the father and his new daughter – taking my sister. I told Drysi about Loki and his plan, and together we worked to fulfil his charge.

  ‘As the years passed and I waited for Loki’s return, I changed more men, women and children into wolves. The army grew and grew. I had hundreds at one stage – all powerful beasts that could not age. An army ready for world domination, just waiting for our leader to appear. But he never did.

  ‘At first I was contemptuous of the humans around me, seeing them as weak, pitiful creatures that I could devour in an instant. I thought I was doing those I changed a great service, making them strong, powerful, immortal. But living amongst humans for such a long time forced me to change my mind. I saw their compassion, their kindness and the love they held for each other, and I slowly began to respect them.

  ‘Eventually I stopped changing people. It seemed pointless. I became convinced that Loki would never return. Centuries passed and we learned to live peacefully alongside man, always careful to hide our true nature. Humans didn’t know what we were and we tried never to reveal it to anyone. Unfortunately, some of the wolves weren’t as restrained as I would have liked and occasionally attacked the humans. That’s when the legends of the beast you humans call a werewolf started to spread.