The Sleeping Army

by Francesca Simon

  ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘Get your fat elbow out of my face!’ snapped a girl’s voice. ‘And get your filthy hands off my crown.’

  Had there been an earthquake? Freya seemed to be trapped under a twisted pile of struggling bodies. There was a terrible rank smell of dead animal.

  Whoever was on top of her rolled off. Freya sat up. Her head was swimming. Dimly she heard traffic noises. She was lying in the middle of the road, in a knotted tangle of arms and legs and clothes. A girl and boy, both wearing crowns and knee-length fur tunics, struggled to their feet beside her. Their legs were trembling. The girl-queen wobbled and fell over. The boy-king took a step and collapsed to his knees, his slender sword clattering to the ground.

  Somehow she was outside. How had she got here? She looked up and saw a horse. A huge grey horse with eight legs, dancing nervously, its hooves thrumming the cobblestones, striking fire.

  She was hallucinating. Woden’s priestesses went into trances sometimes after pouring wine on an altar. (The High Fane ones still used ox-blood – yuck.) Maybe this was a trance. A strange trance, hearing honking cars, seeing the lights of Woden’s domed Temple lit up in the London night sky and a horse with eight legs.

  Uhh, thought Freya, this is some strange random dream. Maybe I’m in hospital. Or maybe I’m dead, and this is Hel. Freya shivered. It was certainly cold enough to be Hel.

  Freya saw twin light beams coming towards her. Headlights. Car headlights.

  I have to move, she thought. I really have to move. But somehow that seemed too much effort.

  ‘Get up! Run! Now!’ yelled the boy. He yanked her to her feet. ‘Now. On to the bridge! Now! Run!’

  ‘RAAAAAAA!’ A giant man wearing a bear skin, sword outstretched, raven shield raised, charged straight at her, snarling and roaring like a frenzied beast. Foam dripped from his mouth.

  Freya screamed.

  The crazed creature hurtled past her towards an oncoming car, bellowing and shrieking. The car screeched to a halt. Its windscreen shattered as the Bear-Man plunged his sword through the glass.

  Cars slammed on their brakes. Freya heard a terrible howling as the Bear-Man attacked another car. Then screams.

  She turned. The Bear-Man was surrounded by cars.

  ‘We can’t—’ stuttered Freya.

  ‘Leave him!’ ordered the boy. ‘He’s a berserk. He’s crazy. We can’t wait.’

  ‘Bear-Shirt!’ shouted the girl. ‘We’ve got to get on to the bridge!’

  ‘Shut up, Roskva! Save yourself,’ said the boy.

  ‘Don’t tell me to shut up, you stupid troll!’ screamed the girl, adding a few more harsh words in her strange language.

  Suddenly Freya knew where she was. On Upper Thames Street by the wobbly Millennium Bridge. The Tate Modern was straight ahead. Clare had taken her there only last week to see the Salvador Dali lobster phone.

  The boy-king grabbed Freya’s hand. The girl-queen grabbed her other hand and the horse’s bridle. Half-running, half-dragging her, they sped along the pedestrian passageway between the City of London School for Boys and the headquarters of the Asgard Army. They moved incredibly fast. Everyone heading in their direction stopped and gaped. Someone started taking pictures. ‘I’m telling you, the horse has eight legs,’ gabbled a woman into her mobile.

  ‘Where are we going? Where are you taking me?’ screamed Freya.

  ‘Shut up!’ said the girl.

  ‘We have to get on to Bifrost before it vanishes,’ said the boy.

  ‘Bifrost?’ said Freya. ‘Bifrost? But that’s—’

  They were racing across the wobbly bridge towards the dark hulk of the Tate Modern, their feet clinking on the metal surface, when she saw the flaming, three-coloured rainbow. It curved out of the night sky lower than any rainbow Freya had ever seen, the bottom edge hovering over the middle of the Millennium Bridge. The rainbow shimmered, reddish-yellow, greenish-blue. Flames shot into the sky from the red band at the top, reflecting in the dark water of the Thames. A rainbow at night? thought Freya. A rainbow on fire? What’s happening to me? The other pedestrians hurried past, unseeing.

  ‘Jump on!’ said the long-haired blond boy, pushing her. ‘There’s no time to lose.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Asgard.’

  Freya stopped dead.

  ‘Asgard? The Realm of the Gods?’ said Freya. This was definitely the strangest dream she’d ever had. She made the sign of the hammer. ‘Thor protect me, Thor protect me,’ she whispered over and over.

  ‘No, Asgard, Iceland,’ snapped the freckle-faced queen. ‘Asgard, Sweden. Asgard. Asgard. Where else does Bifrost lead?’ She jabbed Freya hard in the back. ‘Jump!’

  Freya jumped. She was too scared and too shocked to resist.

  The dazzling, flaming bridge wobbled beneath her. Freya swayed, then steadied herself as her feet sank into the shimmering road. She kept well away from the flames rising from the edge. Behind her the horse’s eight hooves chimed on the gleaming surface.

  She took one step, and then another. It was like walking on blue-green sand. She was on Bifrost, the trembling rainbow road of the Gods. Freya had learned about it in Sunday school. Bifrost, built by the Immortals, connecting their sky-world to earth.

  And now it was no longer night, but day. She was walking up a gently sloping rainbow across a blue sky.

  Mum was right, thought Freya. My mum was right. (Oh, how it pained her to even think those words.) The Gods exist. They really truly exist.

  The immensity of what was happening overwhelmed her.

  I can’t do this, she thought suddenly. Her parents had always warned her, don’t go anywhere with strangers. And yet she’d been swept off by the strangest strangers in the world.

  She turned and started re-tracing her steps downwards, trying to ignore the sickening way Bifrost swayed.

  ‘Hey! Where are you going?’ shouted the boy-king.

  She ignored him and started to run. The boy blocked her in a flash. One moment he was behind her, the next in front.

  ‘You can’t go back.’

  ‘I can! I will!’ said Freya.

  ‘Look down,’ said the boy.

  Freya glanced down for a moment, then wished she hadn’t. She was bad with heights. She suddenly remembered the terrible moment she’d been travelling in the lift high up the Eiffel Tower, when she started shaking and sweating as the ground receded beneath her. Her stomach lurched as she glimpsed flame-bright water below. Water that looked nothing like the turgid Thames.

  She wanted to clutch onto the side but the red flames stopped her. Her knees wobbled. Then her stomach lurched again, and she vomited.

  The boy-king caught her arm.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get used to the wobbling. Bifrost is strange the first few times, then you don’t even notice it shakes.’

  Freya’s mouth tasted sour. She panted and wiped her lips on her frayed sweatshirt sleeve.

  ‘Come on,’ said the boy. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  Freya allowed him to lead her.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Freya. ‘Where did Bifrost come from? I’ve been on the Millennium Bridge before and I’ve never seen it.’

  The boy-king smiled.

  ‘Only people the Gods wish to see can cross over to their world.’

  Then the boy suddenly dashed ahead and started turning cartwheels like a mad imp. His crown rolled off and slid down the curving rainbow road.

  ‘Oh Gods, how wonderful to feel my body again. Hello, legs! Hello, arms! Hello, toes!’ He hugged himself tightly then did a little dance.

  ‘Roskva! Isn’t it wonderful to stretch your legs again!’ he yelled to the silent queen walking ahead of him, leading the huge grey stallion as easily as if he were a greyhound.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Freya.

  ‘I’m Thialfi. Alfi,’ he said, swooping down and replacing the crown on his head in one graceful move. ‘That’s my sister, Roskva. Grump-face w
e called her at home.’

  Roskva turned and stuck out her tongue at him.

  ‘But who are you?’ said Freya.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Roskva. ‘You’re very pale. Do you sleep in a grave mound with corpses?’

  ‘No!’ said Freya. What a mean cow Roskva was. ‘I’m Freya.’

  Roskva looked astonished. ‘I’ve lived in Asgard and I know the goddess Freyja. She’s extremely beautiful. You most certainly aren’t her.’

  ‘I never said I was,’ said Freya. ‘I’m just named after her.’

  Freya stared at Roskva. Roskva held her gaze. Her lip curled faintly.

  I don’t believe kings and queens are any better than anyone else and I won’t be scared of her, thought Freya.

  ‘Why can you speak English?’ she said.

  Alfi snorted.

  ‘Where are the toilets?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Freya.

  ‘Où sont les toilettes? ¿dónde están los aseos? Dov’è la toilette? Waar is het toilet? ?’ said Alfi. ‘We’ve been frozen in that place of dead things for years and years and years.’ He shivered. ‘Listening and waiting … All those people … Babble babble babble. Where were we?’

  Freya swallowed. ‘London. The British Museum.’

  Alfi shrugged. ‘Before that it seems we were in a sand dune on an island called Lewis. Do you know it?’

  Freya shook her head. Her throat was parched.

  Roskva said nothing. Tears dripped down her face.

  ‘I hate you, Alfi. I hate you.’

  ‘Can’t you stop?’ said Alfi. ‘Can’t you let it go?’

  Roskva shook her head. She patted the grey horse’s muzzle and murmured to him. The horse snorted.

  ‘We are the playthings of the Gods,’ said Roskva. Her feet stomped as she walked.

  But I’m not, thought Freya. ‘Why am I here? I have a history test tomorrow on Tudor England. I haven’t written my book report …’

  ‘You called us,’ said Alfi. ‘You blew Heimdall’s horn.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to! I think there’s been a terrible mistake.’

  ‘You called us. You woke us. It is your fate. That cannot be changed.’

  ‘No,’ said Freya. ‘That can’t be my fate.’

  ‘Fate is stronger and the Gods mightier than anyone can imagine,’ said Roskva. ‘When the Gods give orders, we obey. My life has never gone according to my wishes.’ She looked at Freya curiously. ‘What strange clothes you wear. No cloak. No arm rings. No jewellery at all.’

  ‘We’re not allowed to wear jewellery in school,’ said Freya.

  ‘School?’ said Alfi.

  ‘Where you learn stuff,’ said Freya.

  Alfi frowned. Then his face cleared.

  ‘Of course,’ said Alfi. He looked at her respectfully. ‘Of course. You must have great wisdom for the fates to have chosen you.’

  Freya didn’t like the sound of that.

  ‘Chosen me for what?’ said Freya.

  Roskva snorted unpleasantly. ‘Ha.’

  ‘The All-Father of Asgard, who rules all things, will explain,’ said Alfi.

  Freya’s eyes widened.

  ‘You mean … Woden?’

  Alfi looked at her and smiled.

  ‘Woden. Odin. All-Father. The Much-Wise. The God of Victory. The One-eyed. Who else?’

  Freya shook her head. ‘He’s going to … talk to me?’

  She was having trouble breathing. The Gods didn’t meet humans. Long, long ago they did, but not now.

  They fell silent. There was just the sound of their feet, padding on the bridge, and the huge grey horse skittering and snorting and jerking his head as he meekly followed Roskva, unperturbed by the flames leaping around him. Freya felt hot and a little out of breath. She took off her sweatshirt and tied it round her waist. She still couldn’t see the end of the rainbow bridge, lost in the clouds and mist above them.

  Alfi raced ahead, a blur of speed, then just as quickly dashed back. His fingers drummed restlessly against his sides as he fell into step beside Freya. Roskva walked on her other side, the stallion following obediently behind them. Just in case I make a run for it, thought Freya.

  ‘Has the dark season started yet?’ said Alfi.

  ‘Dark season?’ said Freya. ‘It’s spring. And the year is 5012 aw.’

  Alfi looked bewildered.

  ‘What do those numbers mean?’

  How can he not know this? thought Freya. ‘According to the sacred Edda, Woden and his brothers created the world 5012 years ago,’ she recited. ‘AW means the years after Woden’s birth. So A = after, w = Woden. Of course the earth is much older than that, but—’

  Freya broke off. Somehow it seemed rude to question when the world began in front of the deities who for all she knew had been there when Woden used the eyebrows of the frost giant Ymir to make the earth and his blood to form the lakes and the oceans.

  ‘You are gods, right?’ Freya asked cautiously.

  ‘We’re human,’ said Roskva. ‘Like you.’

  Freya gasped.

  ‘But you’ve walked with the Gods,’ said Freya. ‘You’ve lived with them.’

  ‘Humph,’ said Roskva. ‘If you like that sort of thing.’

  ‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Alfi. ‘We know how much thanks we owe to fate. You can never tell what will bring you luck.’

  Freya stared at them in awe. They must be the luckiest humans who ever lived.

  ‘If you’re not a goddess, Roskva, then what are you queen of?’ asked Freya.

  ‘Queen?’

  ‘Your crown,’ said Freya, pointing.

  ‘Oh that. Ha.’ Roskva laughed. ‘I’m queen of nothing. Not even myself. I’m Thor’s bondservant. Thanks to my greedy-pig brother there. This is all your fault, Alfi!’

  Freya was startled by the venom in her voice.

  ‘Oh Gods, Roskva, when will you let it alone?’ said Alfi. He clenched his fists and drummed them against his legs.

  So Roskva was Thor’s slave. Oh. Freya flushed, and not just from the heat of the rainbow’s flames.

  ‘Alfi? Are you a king?’ she asked.

  ‘If only,’ said Alfi. ‘I’m also Thor’s bondservant.’

  How awful to be a slave, even if your master was a God. Freya wished she hadn’t asked.

  ‘Our life was stolen long ago,’ said Roskva, as if she could read Freya’s thoughts.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Freya. ‘How old are you?’

  Roskva scrunched up her face. ‘Who knows? I don’t remember any more. We were children when Thor took us from our parents. Now … we’re still children. Just old ones.’

  ‘Why did he take you?’ asked Freya. Once she started asking questions, she always found it hard to stop.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Alfi.

  Suddenly Freya had a horrible thought.

  ‘Am I going to be a slave too?’ said Freya.

  Alfi laughed and shook his head.

  ‘Then why are we going to Asgard? You must tell me.’

  ‘Because we’ve been summoned,’ said Alfi.

  ‘But why?’ said Freya. ‘What happens if we don’t go?’

  Roskva and Alfi glanced at each other. The great horse shook his head and flicked his ears nervously.

  Alfi shrugged. ‘We have no choice.’

  ‘I know you’re slaves, but why don’t you just run away?’ persisted Freya.

  Roskva slapped her. Freya stepped backwards, clutching her stinging cheek. She wanted to slap her right back but something about Roskva’s stony face stopped her.

  ‘When Gods give orders we obey,’ said Roskva.

  ‘And even if we could run, where would we go?’ said Alfi. ‘Our parents have been dead for thousands of years. We have nowhere to go but Asgard.’

  But I do, thought Freya.

  ‘You know I can’t stay for long,’ said Freya. ‘My dad will be worried about me and I’ll need to get back.’

  Alfi and Roskva looked at
each other again.

  ‘What?’ said Freya. She began to feel afraid. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  There was a clomp-clomp stomp-stomp-stomping behind them. The horse shied.

  ‘Whoa, whoa, Sleipnir,’ said Roskva as the huge Bear-Shirt appeared, panting and sweaty. His sword was bloody. Great white gobs of foamy sweat dripped off him as if he were an animal. He looked as grey and dirty as a block of broken ice.

  ‘We thought we’d lost you,’ said Alfi.

  I wish we had, thought Freya, shrinking back.

  The giant man grunted. He wiped his iron-studded sword on his skins, leaving a reddish streak across his huge chest. Freya trembled. His fist was like a club. His bulging arms were thicker than a man’s thighs. His crooked, bristly grey eyebrows met in the middle and his face was criss-crossed with scars.

  His black raven shield, which he carried slung over his arm, was overlaid with gold and embossed with jewels.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked Roskva.

  The berserk grunted again.

  ‘Snot.’

  ‘Snot? But that’s a girl’s name,’ said Roskva.

  ‘It’s not,’ he growled. The knotted muscles on his neck bulged.

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ Roskva said. ‘The next farm over had a girl called Snot. Remember, Alfi? Ugly little troll she was, too, with all those cracked teeth. Snot? Really? Did your parents want a girl or something?’

  ‘Say that again and I’ll kill you,’ said Snot.

  Roskva opened her mouth, then closed it. Holding tight to Sleipnir’s bridle, she stomped on ahead.

  ‘I remember you,’ said Alfi. ‘You arrived at Valhalla, ignored the place Woden assigned you and yanked two men out of their seats and took their places.’

  ‘And you were the one we threw bones at,’ said Snot.

  Alfi looked away. A faint blush spread over his face and neck.

  Freya didn’t know what to say. She was usually the picked-on one, too.

  ‘Come on,’ shouted Roskva. ‘We’re almost there! If we’re lucky, Heimdall will have cake and mead to welcome us home. He’ll have seen us coming ages ago.’

  Freya forgot how tired she felt and how much her legs ached.

  Asgard! The great fortress of the Gods. The lush green meadows, the palace roofs thatched with gleaming gold. The sky-high stone ramparts built by a giant, protecting the mighty palaces of shining silver. Asgard.