by Cat Weldon
‘You know, I never used to really believe all those stories about the Gods,’ Hod said, stroking his beard. ‘Before I came here, of course. It’s a bit hard not to believe in Hel once you’ve met her. Something about her lingers.’ Hod waggled his eyebrows.
‘Yeah, the smell,’ Whetstone muttered, smiling against his will. ‘But why did the string glow just now? The Dwarves made the strings to let them cross between worlds, but no one was going anywhere.’
‘It glows like that when danger is near,’ Hod explained. ‘You were about to be eaten. If your friend hadn’t stomped on Fenrir’s tail, you would have been a goner.’
‘Lotta – her name is Lotta.’ A hot rush of shame washed over him. ‘I didn’t know she did that.’
Hod was lost in thought for a moment. ‘If you know where the strings are, does that mean you know where your mother is?’
‘Sort of. There’s a riddle, but it’s not all that clear.’ Whetstone hunched his shoulders. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve failed. I gave Hel the harp string. Loki will come to collect it, and Lotta promised Hel the rest of the riddle.’ Anger stabbed through him. ‘Now there’s nothing to stop Loki repairing the harp, then he’ll be able to open the barriers between the worlds and fill them with monsters.’
‘If there is one thing that living here has taught me,’ Hod began, wrapping his arm round Whetstone’s shoulders, ‘it’s that too many people arrive regretting the things they didn’t do. It’s not over – not yet – and you’ll always regret it if you don’t try to fix things with your friend and do everything you can to stop Loki.’
Whetstone bit his tongue. Lotta’s face flashed into his mind. Guilt churned in his stomach.
‘We’re all allowed to make mistakes,’ Hod continued. ‘We just have to try and fix them too.’
Reluctantly, Whetstone and Hod made their way back to the Great Hall. The sunken door swung open as they approached, candlelight flickering from inside while grating music filled the air.
‘You know,’ Hod said, stroking his beard, ‘I’ve never actually been in there.’
‘What, never?’ Whetstone looked up in surprise. ‘You never left the bridge?’
‘Hel gave me a job to do.’ Hod tapped the glasses in his pocket. ‘I see them as they come in. That’s enough for me.’
Whetstone wondered what he would see if he looked through the glasses, then he decided he was better off not knowing.
‘Hey –’ Hod nudged Whetstone with this elbow – ‘guess who I bumped into on the way to get my glasses fixed? Everybody!’
Whetstone scuffed his toe through the footprints in the dust from the unwinnable race. ‘Let’s go inside. It can’t be any worse than out here.’
‘Are you sure?’ Hod asked as they dipped inside.
Whetstone was wrong – it was worse. Helhest figures whirled around the room in a sort of dance, Fenrir snapping at them as they spun past his dog basket, while a Helhest orchestra played discordant music on a collection of lost instruments. Hod stopped on the stairs and gave a low whistle, taking it all in.
‘It’s a – a feast?’
A couple of the dancers whirled behind them, and blue-black strands of Helhest oozed across the doorway, trapping them inside.
Whetstone moved deeper into the room. ‘I guess so.’
Sitting on a bench off to one side was Lotta. She very pointedly turned her back as Whetstone descended the steps. Vali sat opposite her, watching him over Lotta’s shoulder. Their table was littered with bowls and plates of rotting food. Whetstone held his sleeve over his mouth and tried not to breathe in the sickly scent.
At the far end of the hall, Hel sat on her spindly throne, a goblet in her skeletal hand and the harp-string necklace tied round her neck. She stood up. ‘Whetstone, you’re late to the party! I’ve invited Daddy – he should be here soon!’ The light shimmered, momentarily revealing ghostly forms filling the hall.
‘Her powers are getting stronger,’ Hod muttered.
Hel took a swig from her goblet. ‘It’s time for the poetry – Lotta is just about to give me the riddle.’
Lotta made a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob. Her circular shield was back on the wall behind Hel, one of the sections flickering on and off. It’s not too late, Whetstone realized. Lotta still had some powers left.
‘Why don’t you start us off?’ Hel hiccupped. ‘Vali said you were good at poems!’
Whetstone glanced at Vali, who picked at his nails with his knife.
‘Come on!’ Hel encouraged. ‘I’ll even give you the first line.’ She threw out her human arm and recited:
A boy once came to Helheim,
And he thought that everything was fine . . .
She nodded at Whetstone. ‘Go on.’
Whetstone thought for a moment.
He wants to go home,
So throw him a bone,
And let us all out this time?
Hel cackled, throwing herself back in her seat. ‘Good one! How about this.’ She continued:
You came to the Land of the Dead,
But you’re in far over your head.
You want to go free,
But all belongs to me.
You’ll just have to stay here instead!
The ghostly forms flickered as Hel giggled.
Whetstone screwed up his face. ‘I’ve seen better feasts.’ He peered around the room. ‘Where’s all the eating and axe throwing? You know, the actual feasting?’
‘Oh, I’m sure we could arrange for someone to throw axes at you, if that’s what you want,’ Vali offered. Whetstone ducked as a knife spun across the room. Lotta hunched her shoulders.
‘Careful, we need him alive. For now.’ Hel took another swig from the goblet, a dark liquid draining between her pointed teeth. Round her neck, the harp string glittered.
Whetstone slumped on a bench next to his father. No one ever wanted him alive for something nice.
On the other side of the room, Lotta dragged her fingers across the table, leaving greasy streaks in the polish. Her head felt heavy, her thoughts slowing down. She doodled a picture of a Viking boy on the table. Lotta had been worried about Whetstone being stuck in Krud. She had thought they were friends. That’s why she went to all the effort of borrowing Awfulrick’s cup to make sure she won the poetry contest. What a waste of time that had been. A sour taste rose in her throat. In her drawing, she added arrows sticking out of the boy’s head. She sniffed and rubbed her hands over the picture, wiping it out.
Vali leaned across the table. ‘Do you know what I miss the most?’
Lotta shook her head. The cat wound around her legs, making her itch.
‘The bronze sky. In Asgard the sky was always bronze. It took me ages to get used to a blue sky in Midgard, and here . . .’ He shrugged.
‘I miss the smell of Valhalla,’ Lotta offered.
‘What – big sweaty men, overcooked sausages and sharp weapons?’
Lotta nodded morosely. ‘I never should have left. I was so pleased with myself when I won that contest. But it was all a trick to get rid of me.’
One of Hel’s tattered birds flew the length of the hall and landed on the back of her throne. Lotta thought of Odin’s ravens bringing him news from across the Nine Worlds. She scratched at the tabletop. Odin would be furious when he found out they had failed to get the harp string. If he ever came back from Jotunheim, that is. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes; she blinked them away. Valkyries didn’t cry, and she was still a Valkyrie. Just.
Hel stepped down from her throne and swept past them, her eyes twinkling. Lotta’s stomach flipped – there was only one thing that could make Hel look so pleased with herself. Loki must be on his way.
Vali watched his sister go. ‘She writes to him. Father, I mean. That’s how she told him you were here.’
Loki. The shapeshifter who was determined to hunt them down all because of a stupid riddle and some stupid harp strings. Lotta dug her nails into her palms. If only s
he’d never met Whetstone! She would be safe up in Asgard, probably polishing some armour or something. Glinting-Fire wouldn’t be trying to get rid of her, and she’d be just another ordinary Class Three Valkyrie. Her vision blurred for a second. Behind Hel’s throne the shield gave another flicker.
Vali was still talking. Now that he had started, the words just kept on coming. Lotta tried to focus on what he was saying. ‘. . . she can’t get over the fact that he abandoned her, and their mum is just as bad. I mean, you’ve met Jormungandr, Fenrir is OK, but—’
‘Wait a minute.’ Lotta tapped her fingers on the table. ‘You said she writes to him. She has a way of sending letters to Asgard?’
Vali nodded. ‘Not exactly letters. It used to drive my mum mad.’
Whetstone slouched on his bench, trying not to watch Lotta and Vali chatting like old friends. Whetstone had thought that Lotta didn’t like Vali. No one in Asgard seemed to like Vali. When Whetstone first met him, Vali was a weird, knife-obsessed loner and Whetstone didn’t think he’d improved, even if he was a Troll now. Whetstone knew he should go over and apologize, but his feet didn’t want to move. It was easier to stay sitting here, bad thoughts churning in his head.
Hod leaned forward, breaking into Whetstone’s angry thoughts. ‘Hel’s gone.’
Whetstone’s head snapped towards the white throne. It was empty.
‘She left,’ Hod explained. ‘While you were busy sulking.’
‘I was not sulking,’ Whetstone spluttered.
On the other side of the hall, Vali said something to Lotta, who nodded. They both got to their feet and headed towards a narrow doorway almost hidden in the shadows.
‘Now, where are they off to?’ wondered Hod aloud.
‘In here.’ Vali slipped through the doorway.
Lotta followed, catching her knee on a bench on the way. The world around her felt fuzzy. She was NOT turning human, she told herself. She was going to get her shield and get back to Asgard so she could kick Flee and Flay on the bottom. She just needed to FOCUS.
She paused on the threshold, taking in the horror that was Hel’s bedroom. Lotta didn’t know what she was expecting. A four-poster bed with curtains of darkest night and pillows stuffed with lost souls maybe? She definitely was not expecting the untidy piles of clothes, broken cuddly toys and abandoned goblets on every surface. A narrow bed with rumpled blankets was pushed up against one wall; the floor was littered with screwed-up drawings. ‘And I thought my room was a mess.’ Lotta crept forward. A piece of paper caught around her boot. She peeled it off and uncrumpled it, revealing a black-and-white drawing. Mume, Dady, Jorm, Fenrir and me was written across the bottom in careful loopy writing. One of the figures was snake-like, the other a dog. Lotta dropped the paper again.
Vali stopped in front of a gooey black wall. ‘Whatever you write on this wall will appear back in our house in Asgard. She used to write all the time. My mum hung a tapestry up in front of it in the end.’
Lotta’s blood pounded in her ears. ‘This is it! This is how we get home.’
Vali ran his hand over his hair. ‘We can send a message, but there’s no guarantee anyone will see it. Mum covered up the other wall, remember? I know Hel thinks Father is on his way, but he might not even have seen the message yet.’
Lotta stepped closer to examine the wall. ‘What’s it made of?’
‘No idea.’ Vali wrinkled his nose. ‘I think Father made it on one of his good days.’
‘What’s going on?’ said a voice from behind them.
Lotta and Vali spun around to see Whetstone standing in the doorway, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Lotta turned her back on him, wobbling as the room spun. ‘Mind your own business.’
Whetstone stepped into the cluttered room. ‘Look, Lotta,’ he said, staring at the ground, ‘I’m sorry about the shield thing. I was so worried about you being hurt that I forgot about getting it. I should’ve realized that you getting the shield back was just as important as . . . my stuff. I should’ve tried harder to help you.’
Lotta sniffed. Vali raised his eyebrows in a sceptical expression.
Whetstone looked up. ‘Seriously. We’ve got a bit of time: the shield is still glowing. If we work together and convince Hel to give us another chance –’ Whetstone stopped. ‘What?’
Lotta turned back round, her brown eyes curiously wet. ‘Whetstone, you are a complete pillock.’ She marched across the room and thumped him on the arm.
Whetstone rubbed his bruise. ‘I almost missed this.’
Vali crossed his arms. ‘I wouldn’t trust him if I were you. He’s the one who got you into this mess.’
‘Actually, that was the other Valkyries. I was an innocent bystander.’ Whetstone grinned. Vali snorted.
‘We’ve found a way of talking to Asgard.’ Lotta gestured at the wall.
‘But no-body-is-read-ing-it,’ Vali reminded her.
Lotta tossed her head; the movement left her unbalanced. She touched the wall to steady herself, it sucked at her fingers. ‘Vali, don’t you think your mum will be looking for you?’ She wiped her hand on her skirt and turned to Whetstone. ‘Sigyn, his mum, kept badgering Odin to bring Vali back from Midgard. Once she even barged in when the Class Two Valkyries were showing Odin their flying formation. Scold was so cross I thought her head was going to explode.’ Lotta faced Vali. ‘And now you’ve completely vanished. Don’t you think your mum would be so worried that she would even check the messages from Hel?’
Vali ran his hand through his dark hair and stuck out his jaw. ‘Maybe.’
‘But who in Asgard would help us?’ Lotta mused. ‘Sigyn wouldn’t be able to get us out of Helheim – no offence.’ Vali shrugged.
‘And we need to get the harp string back too,’ Whetstone added anxiously. ‘Preferably before Loki gets it.’
The sound of Hod’s raised voice rang out from across the Great Hall. ‘. . . fresh air. Too stuffy in here with all these candles . . .’
‘Quick,’ Whetstone hissed, pushing open the bedroom door. ‘Dad was on lookout duty. Hel must be back. We have to get out of here.’
‘Hey, Hel. Do you want to hear a joke?’ Hod continued, a tinge of fear in his voice.
‘Oh no, not the jokes,’ Lotta moaned, scuttling outside, followed by Vali.
‘How do you make a tissue dance? Put a little bogey in it!’
‘We have to get Hel out of the hall,’ Lotta muttered. ‘That way we can – LEAVE ME ALONE, WHETSTONE!’ she yelled as Hel suddenly turned towards them. Lotta winked at him. ‘I’m not interested in anything you have to say!’ She dropped back down on to the bench. Vali sat down opposite her, a knife twisting between his fingers. The cat blinked its yellow eyes at them and curled up on the end of the table.
‘I’ll do it,’ Whetstone muttered as he faked sulking away. ‘This sounds like a job for a Hero.’
Chapter Sixteen
Stuck in Helheim
Hel almost skipped across the Great Hall, the necklace gleaming in the candlelight. Behind her, Hod scratched his head.
‘You’re in a good mood.’ Whetstone moved out of the way as Hel swirled through the Helhest dancers towards the throne.
‘Yes –’ she did a little spin, her cobweb hair flying out – ‘and wouldn’t you like to know why.’ Whetstone tried not to choke as the smell of decay wafted towards him.
His eyes flickered over to Lotta and Vali. Vali stared down at his hands, his knuckles white. Lotta’s jaw was clenched. Loki must be nearby. They had to get the shield and the harp string and get out.
Now.
Whetstone pushed his shoulders back. ‘So, Hel, I’ve been thinking.’
‘Have you?’ Hel tucked her rotten legs up under her on the throne. ‘Did it hurt?’
‘It’s just that the only reason I couldn’t get the shield away from Fenrir was because Lotta was slowing me down.’ From the corner of his eye he saw Fenrir prick up his ears. ‘You saw how rubbish she was at the race. We only won because of my b
rilliant idea. I bet if I tried by myself, I could get the shield, no problem.’
The bench scraped as Hod scrambled across the room. He put his arm round Whetstone’s shoulders. ‘Ha ha, just a little joke. The boy’s funny.’ He tried to lead Whetstone away.
‘It’s not a joke.’ Whetstone shrugged his father’s arm away. ‘Set up the challenge again, and I bet I can get it.’
‘What are you doing?’ Hod hissed, a fixed smile on his face. ‘You only just escaped last time.’
Hel tapped her bony fingers against her jaw in thought.
‘What have you got to lose? You’ve already got the harp string, and Lotta’s promised you the riddle,’ Whetstone continued. ‘Why do you care if Fenrir eats me?’
Hel drummed her fingers against the arm of her throne.
‘You lot are all losers, you see,
‘And that’s all you will ever be.
‘I’ll give you a go,
‘I won’t be sorry, I know—’
‘So how about two out of three?’ Whetstone finished, not looking at his father, who shook his head in despair.
‘All right,’ Hel said after a moment. She stood up. ‘If you want to lose again, that’s fine by me.’
‘But just me this time. I don’t need any help from this lot.’ Whetstone jerked a thumb at Lotta and Vali. Lotta snorted. ‘Me against Team Loki.’
Hel tilted her head, the dark half of her hair covering her face. ‘Oh yes. Team Loki.’
Once again Whetstone found himself on the field, the Great Hall squatting low against the sky behind him, the wolf waiting in front. Lotta’s shield lay gleaming in the red sunlight between Fenrir’s enormous paws.
Hod stood off to one side, his arms crossed. Whetstone knew his father didn’t understand why he was so determined to face the wolf, but he had to give Lotta and Vali a chance to contact Asgard. He was not staying here for the rest of his life – and death.