by Joan Holub
11 Snow Beasts
HA-HA! WHAT IN THE NINE worlds is that?” Loki asked, chuckling and pointing at her beanie. He’d had the nerve to follow her and Njord up the slope. “Talk about ridonkulous. You should be embarrassed.”
“Yeah, why did you put that on?” Honir said, shooting her a look of confusion. “Soon as other teams notice, they’re going to make fun of us.”
But Freya instantly guessed why she’d done it. “Skade’s right,” she told the rest of the Asgard team.
“Yeah. Put your beanies on, everybody. Ratatosk is here,” added Yanis.
Malfrid nodded. “Mm-hmm. His acorns will report everything he sees. Or doesn’t see, as in, on top of our heads.” With that, those three girls whipped out their beanies and put them on.
“No! Not the antler beanies,” begged Thor, backing away in horror.
Skade folded her arms and nodded. “Yup.”
“They’re right. We have to wear them,” Ull agreed, but with a lack of enthusiasm in his voice. “Ms. Frigg will find out if we don’t.”
“And that would hurt her feelings.” Njord sighed and pulled his beanie from his pocket.
“Oh, all right,” said Angerboda, watching him put his on. Shoulders slumping, she and the rest of the AA team put on theirs, too.
“Gosh, too bad I don’t have one,” said Loki, not really looking at all sorry about that.
Taking his words at face value, Yanis suggested, “You could go borrow Balder’s.”
Loki’s eyes slid over to where the fire giants’ team stood a dozen feet away. Noting that Surt was already smirking at the beanies, Loki abruptly straightened and arranged his face into what Skade imagined he considered his “cool” expression.
“No, that’s okay,” Loki replied. “Balder might need his to keep his head warm while waiting around in that igloo.”
Skade didn’t buy Loki’s seeming show of concern for even half a second. Obviously, he wasn’t about to risk looking silly in front of his current fiery idol, even out of respect for Ms. Frigg’s feelings!
As the Asgard team made their way to the top of Chilly Willy where the obstacle course event was about to begin, Skrymir noticed their new headgear. He began pointing and laughing. Not just a little bit. No, he fell on the snowy ground and rolled around, holding his sides like they hurt from so much hilarity. Soon many other skiers were staring and giggling at them.
It took all the confidence Skade could muster to stand tall and call out to Skrymir, “What? Don’t pretend. We all know you’re just jealous of our awesome lucky antler beanies. Ms. Frigg made them for us, and we love them!”
Marching off with heads held high and proud, the whole Asgard team followed her up the mountainside. However, their cheeks were red, and not just from the cold air. Because having antlers sticking up from your head was embarrassing! Still, when Skade saw Ratatosk watching what was going on and sending out more message acorns, she knew her team was doing the right thing. Besides, she liked that her beanie was turning out to be cozy and warm!
“The views from up here are amazing,” Yanis enthused once they reached the starting line atop Chilly Willy. Skade and the others all nodded in agreement, gazing down at the glistening snow and the wisps of fog slowly threading through the treetops below.
“Aside from the fog and the usual rocks and trees jutting out from the sides, I don’t see very many obstacles,” Freya noted, studying Chilly Willy.
“Maybe they’re farther down the piste?” suggested Njord, using a term that referred to a ski run of compacted snow.
The Asgard team looked to Skade and Angerboda, who knew the Jotunheim slopes better than any of them.
“I’ve skied Chilly Willy plenty of times. It’s a black run, so a lot harder than a green or blue,” said Angerboda. “I don’t recall it having more obstacles than the usual rocks and trees jutting out here and there, though.”
“On the bright side, it’s fairly wide, which gives us room to maneuver. But it’s also icy and steep,” noted Skade. “And it’s got a lot more moguls than I remember.” She gestured toward numerous small hills of hard-packed snow. They’d been formed by skis making turns over and over in the same places.
Moments later, at the wave of a blue flag, all nine teams took off downhill at once. Skade zigzagged skillfully, avoiding any rocks, shrubs, and moguls in her path. That curling fog was pretty, but it also made it tough to see more than a few feet beyond her nose at times. However, soon she was leading the pack. So far, this event seemed easy-peasy!
Then, out of nowhere, she heard a grrrowl. She let out a little shriek. Because an enormous furry white figure with a scary grin on its face had leaped from beneath one of the moguls in the snow just ahead, its arms outspread as if to grab her. A polar bear? Standing up on its hind legs, it appeared to be twenty feet tall! Somehow she managed to shift her weight in time to turn her skis and dodge it.
“Ha! You missed me, Frosty!” she called back to it. But it had disappeared. Back into the mogul, she guessed.
However, just a few yards on, a new figure sprang up from another mogul to make a grab for her. This time it was a gigantic white penguin! Pushing off hard with the pole in her right hand, she veered away in the nick of time. More such beasts began springing up from other moguls, one after another. They tried to block her and other skiers. These must be the obstacles. Obviously, they were made out of some kind of magical snow. Well, she would not let them defeat her!
Way over to her left, she saw Thor zooming downhill without poles, wearing a pair of iron gloves Sif had once given him as a gift. When a super-tall snow-walrus appeared a dozen feet in front of him, he tossed Mjollnir at it. However, he couldn’t throw that hammer fast enough to save himself. Too off balance to successfully veer around the beast, he took a tumble and wound up sprawled in a snowbank. Immediately he stuck one arm straight up in the air and handily caught his hammer as it returned to him. (Which it always did.)
Coming up from behind Skade fast now, Skrymir whizzed by on his skis, easily avoiding the snow-lynx that leaped into his path. From all sides of her, Skade heard shrieks as additional snow creatures popped up from moguls here and there to send students tumbling in every direction. Yet the frost giants were having no problem, she realized. They somehow managed to zoom around every beast that sprang up.
No, wait. They weren’t zooming around them. They were zooming through them! And afterward, the beasts disappeared until another skier came along. This could only mean that the beasts were made of enchanted snow!
Skade watched as Skrymir ran right through the middle of a large snow-squirrel. Poof! It simply disappeared. Of course! That sneaky Skrymir was skilled in magic, able to create illusions to make you to see things that didn’t really exist. Like fake snow beasts.
Cheaters! The frost giants knew they weren’t real, so they didn’t even try to avoid them. No fair for them to be the only ones with this information. By the time the rest of the teams figured out what was going on, they’d be too far behind to ever catch up. Skrymir was trying to ensure that his team would win this event. He was just as bad as Loki with his magic tricks. Maybe worse!
As Skade zoomed haphazardly down the slope, yet another enchanted beast suddenly sprang out only two feet in front of her. A giant snow-moose! Even knowing it was fake, she instinctively dodged it. This caused the tips of her skis to hit a mogul straight on. Whoa! As she went flying into the air, she curled into a tight ball, expecting the worst as she came tumbling back down.
Crack! She slammed onto the icy, packed snow, smacking the back of her head. She waited for a headache to start pounding. For pain to come. But it didn’t.
“You okay?” It was Njord. He’d skied over to help her.
Sitting up, Skade raised a hand to her head. The soft, knitted antler beanie she wore was no longer soft. She took it off. Staring at it, she knocked her knuckles against the invisible layer of hardness that now covered it. “I’m fine. Not hurt at all,” she told Njord. “I thi
nk Ms. Frigg’s antler beanies have some kind of magical safety feature in them. Mine saved me when I fell and hit the ice.”
Njord relaxed, looking relieved. “She did mention that the beanies were protective gear.”
“Yeah, but until now, I didn’t fully appreciate what that meant,” said Skade. “They’re like safety helmets or brain armor.” She grinned at him.
“Good thing, too,” said Njord, grinning back.
“Right, I’d be toast if I hadn’t been wearing this,” said Skade, plopping her beanie back on her head and tying its strings under her chin. “Bruised and broken toast.”
Njord’s smile widened. Hand out to her, he tugged her up. “If the rest of the events are this dangerous, our team is going to need all the protection we can get.”
“True,” she replied dusting crusty snow from her clothes. Eating her friend Idun’s magical apples of youth kept the goddesses and gods forever young, but the apples did not make them immortal. They could die if injured badly enough.
“C’mon, let’s get going,” said Njord. But before they could continue downhill, a great quaking began. It felt as if they were trapped inside a huge snow globe being shaken by a giant unseen hand. Next, they heard a roaring sound and whirled around to look uphill.
“What now?” Njord said worriedly. Turned out, he was right to be anxious. Because behind them, a roaring avalanche was now hurtling their way! Not a snow avalanche, however. An avalanche of water.
Skade gasped. In the distance, Surt stood on a tall peak. He’d drawn his infamous flaming sword and was approaching a snow beast! With each swish he wielded, the sword shot flames in every direction, liquifying everything in their path.
“The fire giants! Surt’s trying to melt the enchanted snow beasts,” she exclaimed. “But they’re not actually real, just an illusion, and his fire sword is turning everything that’s frozen to water.”
Njord frowned. “Not to mention burning down all the trees alongside the run!”
Suddenly a big wave of frosty water rushed downhill and slammed into the fire giants. To Skade’s surprise, Stupendously Scary Surt shrieked like a baby as he and his drippy pals were carried along by the whooshing water. She saw Loki hovering in his yellow shoes over a large rock nearby, watching the spectacle. He looked shocked, obviously disappointed in his idol’s wimpy behavior.
“Oh no!” Skade wailed to Njord as the water whooshed their way. “Too bad we don’t have Frey’s ship.”
“Skidbladnir? Wait—I do! Frey loaned it to me to sail while he’s away.” Quickly, he pulled Frey’s magic expandable ship from his pocket. They both pulled off their skis, then tossed them and themselves into the ship as it enlarged around them. The magical ship automatically hoisted its sail, causing a wind to fill it and blow them safely along the top of the moving water. As they sailed downhill, they rescued anyone they found on the way, and the ship magically expanded to accommodate them all.
Skrymir’s trickery had put him way ahead. But as the rush of water got louder, Skade saw him glance to see what was going on behind him. Just then, another enchanted snow beast popped up in front of him. This one was shaped like a giant rabbit with tall ears and two long front teeth. Taken off guard by its sudden appearance when he turned again to face forward, Skrymir startled even though the creature wasn’t real. Automatically veering, he ran into another frost giant, and they both took a tumble. Splash! The oncoming water swiftly overtook them.
Seeing Ull and Honir swept up in the water some distance away, Njord called out to them with advice on how to use their skis on water, by moving back and forth in wide zigzags. As the boygod of the sea, it was a skill he knew well! Soon those boys were safely water-skiing atop the rushing water. Watching them, others on the slopes caught on and began doing the same, skimming along the water avalanche as it hurtled them all downhill.
Skade grinned and waved at Skrymir as they passed him by. He was a great snow skier but wasn’t doing so well at waterskiing. Instead, he had kicked off his skis and was slowly swimming his way downhill. At that rate, he’d probably finish last!
“Ha! A rabbit scared you into crashing? Cheaters never win!” she called to him, causing an embarrassed frown to cross his face.
Eventually the rushing water slowed to pool at a low spot near the finish line, forming a lake. Skade, Njord, and those they’d rescued jumped ship. As they spilled into the lake, they shivered. Because that water was freezing cold! Luckily, like with the Spring of Mimir, once they stepped out of the lake, all became magically dry again.
After it was empty, Skidbladnir had shrunk, and now Njord stowed it in his pocket. He and Skade glanced around and saw that all the teams were searching for their members. She waved to the rest of the AA team, which had wound up safely across the lake from them.
Before she could call out to them, however, a cute, tiny voice spoke up from somewhere near her feet. “Balder’s gone!”
12 No Crow
STANDING LAKESIDE NEXT TO NJORD, Skade glanced down to see a message acorn rolling around her booted feet. “Balder’s gone? You mean to Asgard?” she asked it.
“No, not to there,” singsonged the acorn.
“Where, then?” Skade asked, squatting down to better hear its reply.
“Balder’s in Helheim,” replied the acorn before rolling away.
Skade gasped. She and Njord exchanged a horrified look. Spotting Ratatosk scampering past, Njord shouted out to him. “Is it true? Is Balder in Helheim?”
“Of course! Got it straight from the dragon’s mouth,” the squirrel informed them. “I was down in Niflheim just now, gathering gossip, er…I mean, news from Nidhogg. That dragon keeps a sharp eye on the third-ring worlds. He told me that Hel has stolen Balder away to Helheim.”
Skade paled at this news. If there was one place Balder didn’t belong, it was in Helheim! That world was home to the evil dead, and Hel was the female monster who basically babysat them and foiled any escape plans they hatched.
“What a big news day! Snow beasts, a water avalanche, Balder in Helheim!” said the squirrel, rubbing his paws together in delight. “I’m off to spread the scoop everywhere, all the way up to that nosy eagle at the top of Yggdrasil. Gotta go! Don’t want Nidhogg to beat me to it. For some reason, that dragon has decided to race me throughout the worlds to deliver the news!”
Ratatosk took off in a series of leaps across the snow, leaving paw prints behind him while he tossed out message acorns as if they were gossip-sprouting seeds. Which they kind of were.
“We’ve got to rescue Balder!” Njord exclaimed. “Who knows what that monster in Helheim and the evil ones she babysits plan to do with him?!”
For a split second, Skade thought how going after Balder could mean that Asgard would lose the upcoming relay race, disqualified for having too few members. And she’d miss her chance to triumph in the aerial ski tricks event too! But what was more important? Winning games? Or helping a friend in trouble? She didn’t have to consider twice.
“Okay, I know a shortcut to Helheim from here,” she told Njord. She pointed to a large forest some distance away. “It’s through those trees, then down a ski slope called (Gulp!) Helrun.”
Using hand gestures, pointing toward the forest and calling out across the lake, she tried to convey to their distant team the mission they were about to undertake. Yanis and Freya signaled back that they’d mostly understood and would tell the others.
As Skade skied into the forest with Njord, an involuntary shiver ran through her. She could hardly believe she’d suggested that they traverse the treacherous Helrun. Ever since she’d lost control and tumbled down it, the idea of going anywhere near it terrified her.
“Why do you think Hel took Balder?” Njord mused as the two of them pushed through the forest with skis and poles, gliding around trees and rocks. “Think she hopes his kindness will be a good influence on those evil dead she babysits?”
Privately, Skade was worried Hel had taken Balder for a very differen
t reason. Had that mistletoe made him sicker that they’d realized? Even turned him rotten somehow? Would he soon fit in with the evil dead?
“I guess we’ll find out” was all she said. No reason to make Njord more worried too. An hour later, they were through the forest. Directly ahead of them was the Helrun. Skade shuddered, and not just from the cold.
A look of alarm came over Njord’s face as he considered the perilously long, steep, narrow, icy chute. “One wrong move and we’ll wind up skiing on our faces the whole way down it,” he remarked.
“Yeah, been there, done that,” Skade informed him. “C’mon, let’s go. I don’t want to overthink it. We’ll just have to be very, very careful.”
Cautiously, she positioned herself at the top of the run, ski tips forward. Her heart was beating fast. The sun behind them threw their bluish, antler-headed shadows across the snow. The shadowy sight made her giggle and relax a bit. Ms. Frigg’s beanie had protected her when she fell. Maybe the beanies would protect them both now and even bring them the luck they would sorely need to save Balder from Helheim! That thought lifted her spirits.
Odin’s words came back to her: Every time I faced down a fear, no matter how big or small, I gained courage and strength. She could do this! She pushed off. Whoosh! Down, down, down she shot through the narrow chute, with Njord close behind her.
In seconds they were whizzing down the Jotunheim mountains, across the second ring, and beside one of Yggdrasil’s three roots past a spring called Hvergelmir. Eventually the Helrun sent them across a golden bridge and zoomed them along the banks of the raging Gjoll River.
This river was boiling hot and full of warriors who hurled magical bubbles at whoever passed by. Whenever the bubbles hit Skade, Njord, or the snowy ground nearby, they exploded into loud insults. “Those antlers are stupid!” “Losers! You think you’re reindeer or something?” “Weirdos!” It was a like a game of dodgeball, only instead of dodging silent rubber balls, they dodged bubbles that were steaming hot, loud, and mean!
