“STAND FAST!” shouted Hayley, calming the ranks behind them.
“NÝTT KJǪTT HANDA OSS Í KVǪLD, SVEINAR!”* yelled one of the Vikings, scraping his axe along the asphalt.
“Same to you!” Ellie yelled back, making Alfie jump. “Whatever you said.”
“Ow! Bit of warning next time?” He winced, lifting her off Wyvern’s back and placing her on the ground.
“What are you doing?” asked Ellie.
“Stay back, we’ll handle this,” said Alfie, nodding to Hayley.
Ellie folded her arms, annoyed, while Hayley nocked an arrow and stood by Alfie’s side, facing off with the snarling Vikings.
“She’s got guts, your little sister,” Hayley said to him with a wry smile.
“Yeah, too much sometimes,” he said, laughing. His eyes scanned the street. The Vikings were prowling from side to side like caged tigers, but they weren’t yet attacking. It was almost as if they were waiting for something. “Why do you think there’s only four of these guys anyway?”
“Search me,” said Hayley.
Suddenly a shadow swept across them as the Black Dragon soared overheard, screeching. Another pair of Viking zombie warriors dangled from each talon. The Dragon banked low over the rear of the king’s army, dropping his passengers on to the street behind them.
“Me and my big mouth. You got this end covered?” asked Alfie. Hayley nodded. “Herne, you stay with Hayley.”
The dog stood close to Hayley, growling at the Vikings as they swayed their axes and moved closer. Several Yeomen Warders ran up to join Hayley and Herne, brandishing their long pikes.
“Time to kebab some Vikings!” said Chief Yeoman Stevens, grinning from ear to ear.
Meanwhile, Wyvern flew the Defender over the heads of his army, back towards the rear. Along the way, he called to them to move off the street – he knew that the Dragon was probably circling for another dive and he didn’t want them to be exposed. The army obeyed, moving into the shadows of the office blocks. Just in time too, as the Black Dragon shot back along the road, filling it with fire from his throat. Alfie closed his eyes as the flames passed over him. His armour was a little scorched but he was unharmed and, looking back, he was relieved to see that everyone had made it safely out of the firing line.
At the front of the column, Herne led the first charge, leaping at a Viking and clamping his jaws around its arm. Hayley and the Yeoman Warders were close behind, firing arrows and poking the startled draugar with their sharp pikes. Encouraged by the anguished yelps of the Vikings, many ordinary people joined the fight, bashing the undead brutes with whatever they were carrying. At the back, Wyvern kicked the first Viking to the ground, then withdrew into her spurs, leaving the Defender to unsheathe the Sword of State and swing it at the rest. At first he forced them on to the back foot, but soon they were coming back at him hard and Alfie was parrying three axes at once, testing his swordsmanship to its limit. So Alfie was relieved when a large group of his citizens joined in, unfurling long nets and running at the Vikings with them. It was an idea Brian had come up with on the way to London – an old gladiator’s trick – and Alfie was pleased to see it was working a treat, as the draugar became too tangled in the nets to fight back. The Defender recalled Wyvern and hung the nets full of dazed Vikings up one at a time from lampposts where they dangled like angry Christmas tree baubles.
With the army’s rear protected, the Defender flew to the front to see how Hayley was getting on. He was proud to see that she was standing on top of a heap of four stunned Vikings as the others tied them down with ropes. Herne trotted over to Alfie and licked his glove.
“Nice work,” said Alfie.
“Thanks,” said Hayley. “Your sister’s pretty handy.”
Ellie looked up and grinned from the pile of Vikings, where she was busy securing one of the restraints.
“RAAAARGH!” yelled the Viking she was tying up.
“Oh, put a cork in it,” said Ellie, shoving another Viking’s foot in his friend’s mouth.
Suddenly the blast of a war-horn filled the streets around them. The stamping of giant feet shook the ground as a gang of more than fifty Viking draugar appeared at the junction ahead of them. They were led by Guthrum’s son, the gangly, sneering Eohric, who held up his war-horn for one of his underlings to blow through.
BLOOOOOOOOO!
Gripped by the magic command of the horn, half the Vikings – including the ones tied up at Hayley’s feet – began to shape-shift into huge, shaggy, black-furred, slathering devil dogs. Herne howled his own battle cry in response, but Alfie’s army was gripped by renewed terror at the sight of the fiery-eyed giant hounds. To make matters worse, the shadow of the Black Dragon could be seen circling high above, preparing for another dive.
“Hey, Defender! What do we do now?” called out a man brandishing a broken snooker cue.
Alfie turned to Hayley. “What do you reckon?”
“Me?” asked Hayley.
“This is your turf. You’ve led the Resistance longer than I have,” Alfie replied. “What’s your call? Fight? Run? Take it into the side streets?”
Hayley surveyed the streets, considering their options. Ahead of them, the devil dogs stalked closer, preparing to charge. Suddenly she caught sight of something in a nearby alleyway. She smiled.
“I always find when in doubt,” she said to Alfie, “hail a cab.”
She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled loud. On cue, a convoy of black cabs drove out of the alley and pulled up alongside them. The window of the first cab wound down to reveal the ruddy smiling face of Ged.
“Hello, luv. Got the message from your funny friend in the red get-up,” he said with a wink. “Where to?”
“Tower Bridge, please,” replied Hayley, waving for everyone to get behind the cabs. “And if you could take out as many Vikings as possible on the way there’s a tip in for you.”
“Now you’re talking,” said Ged, gunning the engine. Hayley got in, leaning out of the window with her bow, while Ellie and the Yeoman Warders hopped on to the back bumper.
A hideous chorus of snarls rose up from the devil dog pack as Eohric ordered them to attack. The hellhounds barrelled forward en masse, just as the line of black cabs started to accelerate towards them. Hayley shot an arrow clean into the first devil dog’s chest as it leapt at the cab. Ellie and the Yeoman Warders whacked the hounds off their feet as they passed by. Soon devil dogs and Vikings were being thrown out of the road in every direction as the cabs ploughed a path through them. Those that managed to dodge out of the way were trampled by the citizen army stampeding behind. Eohric, seeing that his force was defeated, shrieked with frustration and retreated down an alleyway, an arrow sticking out of one buttock, care of eagle-eyed Hayley.
Above them, the Dragon streaked down from the clouds, gathering flames in his throat for another attack. What he hadn’t noticed was that the Defender had concealed himself on the roof of the tallest office block, and as the Dragon dropped past, he threw himself into the air, ambushing him from above. Wyvern’s hooves hammered into the Black Dragon’s back, pushing him off his attack run and instead smashing through the side of a building in a shower of glass. Flames exploded from the hole where the Dragon had collided with the block as the Defender flew on, to rejoin his forces.
“Not a bad start,” shouted Hayley from the cab as the Defender flew alongside.
“Yeah, but I have a feeling they’ll be back. Let’s hope Brian’s having an easier time…”
* * *
* “FRESH MEAT FOR US TONIGHT, BOYS!”
The undead Viking lookout standing on top of the rebuilt White Tower didn’t notice the Royal Navy cruiser till it was too late. He was too busy watching the smoke rising from the battle in the streets of the South Bank to pay much attention to what was happening on the river. HMS Belfast, the eighty-year-old, 11,000-ton battleship that was moored just west of Tower Bridge as a floating museum, was on the move again. The Viking frowned, uns
ure if his eyes were playing tricks on him (to be fair, he only had one – a family of rats was living in the other eye socket these days), as the six-hundred-foot-long, grey vessel floated to the middle of the river. A grinding of metal drew his gaze to the twelve main battery guns, which he was startled to see were now pointing his way. They had not been fired in anger since the Korean War, but, thanks to the stealthy work of Yeoman Sultana and a handful of Naval officers they had picked up on their way from Stonehenge, the ship’s armoury was now very much back in business.
“Let her rip!” yelled Sultana from the ship’s bridge.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Shells rocketed from the guns and flew across the river. The Viking lookout threw himself to the floor, but it didn’t do him much good as the shells found their mark and he was swallowed up by the collapsing tower.
“I feel a bit bad about this,” said young Yeoman Gillam, joining Sultana on the bridge. “I mean, couldn’t we get the sack or something?”
“Rubbish – it was a horrible rebuild anyway,” scoffed Sultana. “We’ll do up the place nice and proper, once we’ve turfed out those stinking squatters. Fire again!”
Deep down in the Keep, Lock felt the impact of the shells shake the foundations and noted the clouds of dust falling from the ceiling. But he didn’t seem concerned. He waved over a Viking guard.
“I think I’ll go for some fresh air. Ask the Lord Chamberlain and Queen Tamara to join me, would you?”
Furrowing his broad brow, the Viking nodded and stamped off to the dungeons.
On the river, HMS Belfast was just lining up another barrage against the Tower when a Viking longship burst from the water like a great white shark hunting a seal. It cleared the surface entirely, giving the Yeomen a good view of its blackened timbers and undead oarsmen, before crashing down on the surf in their path. At the helm stood Guthrum, beard thick with kelp, brandishing his axe and yelling across the water at them.
“Víkingar járnaskips! Búið þér dauðinum! Grafir þín verðr áráll!”*
“Engines, stop! Target the longship!” shouted Sultana.
Yeoman Gillam ran to help the crew reload the guns. But no sooner had they taken aim and fired than the longship submerged and reappeared a hundred yards to the right, now joined by two more. Then another group of three longships appeared behind those, and another and another, until the entire undead Viking fleet filled the river, all the way under Tower Bridge and beyond. As one, they rowed in a V-formation, making straight for the HMS Belfast.
“What do we do now?” cried Yeoman Gillam, running back on to the bridge.
“Hold fast,” said Sultana, scanning the water.
Suddenly the royal submarine surfaced between the Belfast and the onrushing Viking armada, forcing the longships into a hasty halt, the wake from the sub even capsizing one of them. The conning tower hatch opened and Brian and Tony stepped out. Guthrum laughed bitterly from his ship.
“Bátr þín er fǫgr, en hon hefir engi vopn!”* he called out.
“Show these deadbeats what we have, would you, Tony?” said Brian.
“Coming up, chief!” said Tony, donning his Qilin gear and disappearing.
Guthrum felt a tap on his shoulder and was surprised to find Qilin standing next to him on his longship.
“Special delivery,” said Qilin.
He handed Guthrum something and blink-shifted away. Guthrum opened his large grey palm and looked at the small silver fireball sitting in it. Yelping like a startled dog, he tried to toss the fireball away, but it exploded, knocking him spinning into the river, and setting fire to the boat. Brian watched with a satisfied grin as Qilin teleported from longship to longship, leaving a fireball behind each time. Flames flashed from boat after boat like a firework display gone wrong, setting decks, sails and oars alight and sending their draugar crews tumbling overboard.
On the banks of the river, the cab convoy had reached Tower Bridge. Ahead, the road bridge was clogged with long-abandoned vehicles. Ged leaned out of his window as Hayley hopped out of the cab.
“Can’t go any further, unless you have a way to shift that lot?”
“I might know a guy,” Hayley said, waving the Defender down to them.
Alfie landed and Wyvern disappeared into his spurs.
“Qilin’s doing quite the job on those longships,” he said.
Sure enough, the Thames was turning into a graveyard of burning longships before their eyes. Vikings were splashing about and sinking all over the river.
“Reckon you could clear us a path?” asked Hayley.
“I’ll do my best,” said Alfie, taking off once more and hovering over the bridge.
He pointed his ring finger to the rows of cars and focused his mind. Within seconds, every British-made vehicle, except for one bus, had floated into the air and dropped on to the already beleaguered Viking boats below. Alfie then commanded the bus to ride across the bridge, ramming the remaining cars to the sides. He was just allowing himself to admire a job well done when the Black Dragon swooped overhead, screeching. The Defender banked away sharply and landed back with his army, but the Dragon wasn’t attacking them. He was flying towards the HMS Belfast.
On the sub, Brian just had time to wave a warning at the ship, where Yeoman Sultana saw the incoming shape of the Dragon and sounded the alarm. The crew hit the deck as the Dragon dived at the gun battery, yanked it clean off the ship with its talons in a screech of rending metal, and dropped it into the river. Alfie was relieved that no one on the ship seemed to have been hurt in the attack, but he felt uneasy as he watched his brother fold his wings and dive behind the walls of the Tower of London on the other side of the river.
“Do you think he’s coming back?” asked Ellie.
“I don’t know. But we should hurry,” Alfie replied.
Following Hayley’s lead, the king’s army started to pick their way across Tower Bridge, behind the black cabs.
*
Across the river, Lock had come up to the top of an undamaged tower to observe the battle. As instructed, the Vikings had brought the Lord Chamberlain and Queen Tamara up from their cell and they stood now, under guard, also watching the unfolding battle below. They could see everything from up here – the longships on fire, crashing into each other, and the mass of people being led across the bridge by the Defender.
“They’re winning,” Tamara whispered to LC.
“Don’t be so sure…” LC replied.
“Wise words, Lord Chamberlain,” said Lock. He took out his ancient book of Old Norse spells and read from a cracked, yellow page.
“Rán, Sjávargyðja, gef mér feldinn þinn til að glepja óvinar!”*
High above the river the black clouds swirled and billowed, spinning back and forth unnaturally.
“You meddle with such ancient powers at your peril!” shouted LC.
But Lock ignored him and continued casting his spell.
“Søkktu sálar dauðlegra manna, dragðu þeir í djúpið!”†
A bank of black fog rose like a wall from the river and rolled towards the ships. Guthrum sounded his horn and his longships submerged as one, putting out the flames, and returned to the surface. On the sub, Brian and Qilin watched the supernatural fog as it moved towards them.
“If I can’t see, I can’t blink-shift,” said Qilin.
Brian looked towards the bridge – the army wasn’t even halfway across.
“We have to give the others as much cover as we can,” he said. “For as long as we can.”
He signalled the advance to the HMS Belfast and together they made for the Viking fleet, as the fog rolled in behind them.
Deep in the Tower of London’s dungeons, the Black Dragon eyed the gleaming ball of golden keys that hung by some unknown magic in the centre of the chamber. What Lock had told him to do seemed like madness, but then madness was all he had now – that and a boiling rage that trapped him inside this monstrous body. What difference does it make now? he thought. Let chaos come.
/> He inhaled and spat a torrent of dragon fire at the keys. They glowed red, then white, then they began to melt, molten gold pooling on the floor around his feet. CLUNK, CLUNK, CLUNK – one by one, the cell doors opened. The Black Dragon withdrew, leaving those inside to find their own way out.
Take every screech and howl of every beast and monster that has ever been imagined, put them together in one horrible cacophony, and that is something close to the noise that now drifted across Tower Bridge. It was the sound of centuries’ worth of Britain’s most vile and fearsome villains celebrating their freedom, and it was enough to stop the king’s army in its tracks. Alfie looked over the side of the bridge and caught a final glimpse of the Yeoman Warders onboard HMS Belfast, and Brian and Qilin on the conning tower of the sub, all bracing themselves for battle as the Viking longships surrounded them before the fog bank tumbled in, hiding them all from view. But the blood-curdling shrieks and cackles were not coming from beneath them.
“Um, what’s that?” asked Ellie, wide-eyed.
They were coming from the Tower across the river. Alfie peered ahead and was shocked to see creatures cascading over the walls like ants fleeing an anthill. Some were familiar from the pages of books on myths and legends – ogres, werewolves, vampires, what looked like a Yeti in a Nazi uniform and even a giant Cyclops wielding a club. Others were entirely new combinations so bizarre they didn’t seem like they could be real – a giant bat with the head of a unicorn, a woman with a beautiful face and the body of a tarantula, a tall, lizard-faced man with webbed hands and feet, slime dripping from his green body. They slithered, climbed and flapped over the walls on to the streets outside. A red horned demon with long goat legs, who was called Spring-Heeled Jack, bounded across the rooftops. The enormous, snarling Beast of Bodmin, with shaggy black fur and three heads – a lion’s, a wolf’s and a bear’s – smashed its way to freedom with a chorus of howls. Robyn Hood, a lithe young woman in a green hooded cloak, swung from wall to wall like an expert gymnast, firing arrows from her sleeves at a skull-faced vampire that tried to bite her.
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