King's Army

by Mark Huckerby

  “EK MUN HAKKA HOLDIT ÞITT!” yelled Guthrum. “OK ÞÁ SKAL EK SLÁ VININA ÞÍNA OK PRÝÐA STORAN HǪLLINA HAUSINUM ÞEIRRA!”*

  “Whatever you just said,” replied Alfie, “you’ll have to catch me first.”

  With an ear-splitting roar, Guthrum pushed past the remains of the South Tower, stomping into the middle of the bridge, and lunged at Alfie. But rather than striking back, Alfie pulled Wyvern into a vertical climb. Guthrum anticipated the move, bent his knees and jumped after them. Hayley and the others watched in growing horror as the giant Viking strained every fibre of his stinking body to grab the Defender. Alfie clung to Wyvern, who shot up like a rocket. Guthrum’s grasping fingers were inches from them, so close that they brushed the end of the horse’s tail. But now he had reached the apex of his ascent and he began to fall. Seeing the giant tumble back towards the bridge, the Defender pulled Wyvern level and extended his arm downwards. Alfie closed his eyes and focused – this command would have to be faster and better timed that anything he’d ever attempted before. In a split second he felt a response from his target: the steel of the bridge’s bascules – the two halves of the central section that were raised every day to allow shipping to pass through. The counterweights spun round at high speed to his command and the bridge flew open from the middle just as Guthrum plummeted past, hands flailing in vain to stop his fall. Then as quickly as he’d opened them, Alfie commanded the bascules to snap shut. A stifled howl of rage was all Guthrum had time for before the steel trap closed on his neck, severing his head from his body, which fell into the water below to be washed away on the outgoing tide.

  The Defender landed on the bridge and recalled Wyvern into his spurs. The head of Guthrum – which, being undead, was still functioning despite the loss of its body – rolled a few metres down the bridge, shrinking back to its normal size. It stared up at him, eyes wide with shock.

  “Hvað hefr þú gjört við mik, riddari svíkligr?”*

  “I suggest you chill out here for a bit and think about what you’ve done. I expect someone will bury you later,” said Alfie.

  He was just turning back to join his friends at the other end of the bridge when he heard Hayley’s scream.

  “LOOK OUT!”

  A wall of fire engulfed him as something hit him with the force of a train, knocking the wind out of him. As his vision cleared of smoke he looked down to see thick talons encircling him, pinning his arms to his side, and the bridge growing smaller below him. Like a falcon with its prey, the Black Dragon was carrying the Defender back to the Tower.

  * * *

  * “Can you hurry up and die? I’m missing the battle.”

  † “SHUT UP!”

  * “GET IT OFF ME, WITCH!”

  * “KILL THE SEA-LIZARD, YOU COWARDS!”

  * “TIME FOR YOU TO DIE, PUNY KNIGHT!”

  * “But Lock told us he was not to be harmed! He wants him alive!”

  * “I’LL FEAST ON YOUR FLESH! AND THEN I’LL SLAUGHTER YOUR FRIENDS AND DECORATE MY GREAT HALL WITH THEIR SKULLS!”

  * “What have you done to me, treacherous knight?”

  “Richard! Let me go!” gasped Alfie.

  Despite his armour, the Dragon’s vice-like grip was squeezing the air from his lungs. But no answer came from the Black Dragon except a screech of triumph as it banked towards the Tower of London’s walls. Alfie could no longer detect any trace of his brother in the monster that was clutching him. It was as if Richard was completely gone, leaving nothing but the creature and its venomous rage.

  Alfie summoned Wyvern, but caught beneath the dragon’s belly, she flailed and whinnied in distress. It felt like he was being torn in half as his horse struggled to pull away. He recalled Wyvern into his spurs. The Defender was running out of time. Another few moments and the Dragon would deliver him into Lock’s hands and everything they had fought for would be lost. There was no choice; he had to stop the Black Dragon any way he could.

  Calming his mind, he commanded the Sword of State to unsheathe itself, unsure if it would even work. But sure enough the sword slid out, filling the night sky with light. Alfie felt the Dragon twist to see where the sudden glare was coming from and as it did he commanded his sword to turn its tip to the beast’s belly and thrust upwards.

  The Defender’s sword found its mark and the Dragon squealed in agony, releasing its grip on him. Alfie crash-landed on the deserted street below, and a moment later the Sword of State speared into the earth beside him, its blade wet with black blood. He heard the anguished cry of the wounded Dragon and looked up just in time to see it spiral out of sight behind the Tower of London’s walls. Alfie felt arms lifting him off the ground and looked round to see the concerned face of Hayley, and Qilin blink-shifting in behind her with Brian.

  “Are you OK?” asked Hayley.

  “Yeah. Bit winded, but I’ll live,” said Alfie.

  Ellie and Holgatroll ran up to join them, the massed ranks of the army not far behind. Ellie looked at the sword as Brian pulled it from the ground and wiped it clean.

  “Is that—?” she stammered.

  “Yes,” said Alfie, casting his eyes to the ground. “There was nothing else I could do.”

  “You said we could save him,” said Ellie, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s still our brother.”

  “There’s still a chance,” said Alfie. “We’ll try, I promise.”

  Brian handed him his sword. The gates to the Tower lay open before them.

  “Do you think your mum’s still in there?” asked Tony.

  “And LC?” added Hayley.

  “I don’t know. But whatever else we lose tonight, we can’t turn back now. People like Lock don’t give up. We have to stop him, for good this time,” Alfie said.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Holgatroll growled, cracking her immense knuckles.

  Alfie raised his sword. The king’s army raised a cheer in reply.

  “Long live the Defender!” cried a woman at the front.

  Alfie turned and charged over the drawbridge, flanked by his friends and followed by the rest. They streamed down Water Lane, weapons drawn, yelling their war-cries as they went, and turned left through the arch of the Bloody Tower and up the steps on to Tower Green.

  Just a few months ago I was right here with Gran watching the Ceremony of the Keys, Hayley thought. She remembered that while they’d waited for the ceremony to start, she actually thought this place was boring. Not that Gran would have recognized it now. Dust from the bombardment hung in the air like a grainy, white mist. Parts of the old walls had been completely blown to pieces, forcing them to clamber over piles of rubble. There were blackened remains of campfires and stacks of Viking axes and swords, but there was no sign of the undead monsters, or anyone else for that matter. It was eerily quiet.

  Brian beckoned Chief Yeoman Warder Stevens. “Sweep every corner, then lock down every exit. No one leaves till you see us again.”

  Stevens nodded and went to brief his men.

  Alfie circled the ruins of the White Tower until he found a doorway still intact, but blocked with rubble.

  “We might be able to get in here,” he said, waving the others over.

  “Allow me,” said Holgatroll, charging past him and smashing through the doorway.

  Alfie, Hayley, Tony, Brian and Ellie ducked after her and found themselves inside the wrecked shell of the Tower’s ground floor. Alfie eased open a door to the cellar to reveal a spiral staircase leading down into blackness.

  “Everyone ready?” Alfie asked and drew his sword. Ellie looked alarmed as she gazed at the silver blade. “Get behind me.”

  The siege had knocked out all the power, and the winding steps down into the Keep were long and dark, but Alfie’s glowing sword lit the way. Huge cracks from the Belfast’s bombardment had ripped their way through the stone even this deep underground. Water cascaded from broken pipes that jutted out of the walls, washing down the steps in front of them. No one spoke as they descended d
eeper and deeper beneath the Tower, only the gushing water and their breathing broke the silence – that and Holgatroll’s occasional cursing as she bumped her head against the low ceiling. Finally the steps opened out into a hallway that led to the shattered remains of an oak door. Alfie recognized it. Behind it lay the Map Room and the Keep. He tried the handle and was surprised to find it unlocked. Wary, he stepped through.

  The great hall of the Keep was filled with torn tapestries and overturned desks. Standing beyond the splintered map table at its centre were LC and Tamara, their hands bound.

  “Alfie! Look out—” Tamara shouted.

  A draugar warrior stepped out of the shadows and, with a yell, swung its axe at Alfie’s head. But Alfie side-stepped easily and swung his sword upwards, knocking the Viking’s axe out of its hands. Suddenly unarmed, the Viking nevertheless bunched its skeletal fists and came again at Alfie.

  Whoosh! Thunk.

  An arrow hit the Viking straight in the forehead, and it collapsed into a pile with a sound like dry kindling being dropped on to the floor.

  “Stay down, bag of bones,” Hayley said and lowered her bow.

  “Are you all right?” Alfie asked as he cut his mum’s and LC’s hands free.

  “Yes, somehow,” Tamara stammered as Ellie ran forward and hugged her fiercely.

  LC straightened what remained of his tie and brushed down his shredded, dirty suit before bowing to Alfie.

  “Most obliged, Majesty.”

  “Any more of those Viking guards around?”

  “I think it was the last one, sir. Lock and your brother—” LC stopped and corrected himself. “I mean Lock and the Black Dragon have retreated to the Arena.”

  “Last stand, huh?” Alfie said.

  “If I may suggest something, Majesty? Leave them. We can seal them down here for ever, find a new base for the Defender.”

  “And run the risk of Lock getting out again? No way, Cuthbert.”

  “So, you finally know my true name.” LC’s smile was warm and knowing. “You’ve ridden with the Wild Hunt and lived. I knew the extra power from King Alfred’s crown would aid you in your battle.”

  “Yeah, about that… I didn’t take it. No one should have that much power.” Alfie shrugged.

  LC gazed at Alfie in awe. Tears sprang into his eyes.

  “Then you are a wiser man than me, and truly King Alfred the Great’s heir.”

  A roar, thick with pain, shattered the silence and made everyone jump.

  “The Arena,” Brian hissed and drew his pistol.

  Alfie signalled everyone to get behind him and advanced inside. The Arena had changed almost beyond recognition since his raid with Qilin for the regalia. Tall, black candles stood at intervals around the edge of the wide, oval chamber, casting an eerie glow up the high inner walls of the tower above. On one side, where the benches had once sat, animal bones now lay scattered. Norse runes painted in what looked like blood were daubed on every wall and across the velvet curtains that covered the regalia cabinet on the other side. Alfie thought it looked more like a temple for some evil cult than his old training ground. In the centre of the dirt floor on a raised plinth, stood Cameron Lock next to the scrying mirror. He wore black ceremonial robes and his eyes blazed with excitement. Behind him cowered the vast form of the Black Dragon. It roared again, but Alfie thought it – his brother! – sounded weak. One of its wings was crumpled, and the deep slash across its chest where Alfie had plunged his sword was black and raw.

  “Richard, I’m sorry,” called Alfie.

  But the Dragon merely growled in response and returned to licking its wounds.

  “I’m sorry, Majesty, your brother is no longer with us,” said Lock. “Nevertheless, this is a happy reunion.”

  Alfie fixed Lock with a fearless glare and strode towards him. “A nation can survive its fools, but it cannot survive treason from within,” he said, his confident voice echoing around.

  “Cicero, I believe?” said Lock, a thin smile on his lips. “I’m glad you haven’t been neglecting your studies, Alfie.” Deep, dark blotches hung under his bloodshot eyes and his cheeks were sunken. His skin looked as dry as one the draugar.

  He looks totally out of it. Crazy, Alfie thought.

  “That’s King Alfred the Second to you, Lock. Surrender or die,” Hayley announced as the others entered and fanned out around the edges of the arena, weapons drawn.

  Lock watched them with a faintly amused look in his eyes and cocked his head. “I obey only one ruler. Would you all like to meet her?” he asked.

  Lock lifted the seeing mirror over his head and hurled it to the floor at the Defender’s feet. It exploded in a shower of glass. But far from remaining where they fell, the jagged shards melted like molten steel, then merged together to form a thick, bubbling black pool, like an oil slick. It spread with lightning speed, racing to the edges of the arena.

  “Get back!” LC shouted as everyone retreated. “Don’t let it touch you!”

  Alfie was already astride Wyvern, hovering safely above the pool. He gazed down into the foul, churning liquid. The air was filled with the deafening buzz of a million flies as Hel’s half-skull face emerged from the surface. Wyvern flew clear as the plague goddess’s head reared out of the pool, snapping her jaws at them.

  “Come to me, king!” Hel shrieked, her voice like a thousand nails being dragged down a chalkboard.

  At the edges of the Arena, everyone clamped their hands over their ears.

  “Never!” Alfie yelled. “Without my blue blood, you’ll never be free!”

  And it was true. While Hel screamed in rage, tendrils of black liquid clung to her, dragging her back down into the dark pool.

  The Lord Chamberlain stepped forward. “Stop this, Lock,” he commanded. “The king’s blood you need must be given freely for your evil ritual to work. You’ve lost.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Lock said as he clung to the plinth that was now surrounded by the raging, opaque water. “But perhaps all His Majesty needs is a little more motivation. Saving his sister, for example.”

  “Alfie?” Ellie said.

  But as Alfie looked down to his sister, Qilin placed his hands on her shoulders and blink-shifted the two of them away. They reappeared across the Arena, by Lock’s side.

  “Get off me!” yelled Ellie.

  “Tony! What are you doing?” shouted Alfie.

  But Qilin, moving stiffly, held her firm. And when he spoke, it was not with his own voice. It was with the icy, tittering words of Colonel Blood. “There, there, princess. Don’t struggle. Your travails will soon be at an end.”

  Both the Defender and Holgatroll flew at them.

  “Get back, I implore thee!” Colonel Blood hissed.

  They both stopped when they saw the Viking axe Qilin had pressed to Ellie’s throat. In the corner, the Black Dragon seemed to notice and growled for a moment, before turning away again, wracked with agony.

  Qilin’s head jerked, puppet-like, to regard Alfie, who backed off, hovering above them on Wyvern.

  “Well met, young king! As I foretold, our paths have crossed once more!”

  “Don’t you dare hurt her, Blood!” he said.

  But with a giggle that was not his own, Qilin pushed Ellie into the pool.

  “NO!” screamed Tamara.

  Ellie thrashed around in the thick, stinking black liquid, but it was pulling her down.

  Time seemed to slow down to a dead crawl. Without thinking twice, Alfie forced Wyvern into a vertical dive towards the pool. The Black Dragon roared in anguish. Lock’s eyes grew wide with hungry anticipation. Hayley yelled at Alfie to pull up. Hel pressed up through the whirlpool like a screaming death mask wrapped in black cloth. LC shouted at Alfie to stop.

  But Alfie and Wyvern splashed down into the churning black water and disappeared.

  Beneath the surface of Hel’s mirror pool, all was black. Alfie tried to swim, but it was like being caught in quicksand. He screamed noiselessly a
s he felt the blue-blood power leech out of him. Once at Harrow he’d caught a virus and had to have a blood test. He’d watched anxiously as the nurse had pricked his arm with a needle and drawn out a vial of blood. But this was a million times worse. It wasn’t just his blood he could feel flowing out of his body; it was a thousand years of blue-blood magic being sucked away. His ancestry. His family. His power. His life. Next to him, Ellie writhed in panic – she was drowning. Alfie reached for her, but his strength was being sapped by the second.

  The black liquid began to clear, turning to an icy, pale blue as it drained Alfie of his family’s magic. Hel’s seven-hundred-year curse was coming to an end. The plague goddess’s head broke free of the pool’s grasp and her shrieking laughter echoed around the arena.

  “My mistress!” Lock shouted as Hel’s long, skeletal arm suddenly exploded out of the water and grabbed hold of the arena wall. “A new age has begun!”

  LC fell to his knees in shock and nearly tumbled into the magical pool, but Hayley picked him up and dragged him away. Brian emptied his gun into Hel as she emerged, but it was like throwing pebbles at an elephant. Tamara tried to dive in after her son and daughter but was grabbed at the last second by Holgatroll. Qilin, still possessed by Colonel Blood, shrieked with insane laughter and clapped his hands with delight. And no one in the Arena could take their eyes off the terrible creature being birthed in front of them.

  Behind Lock, the Black Dragon’s eyes cleared for a moment as he watched Hel emerge from the pool.

  “What about me, Lock?” the Black Dragon managed to say. “You promised me a cure.”

  “Oh, there’s no cure for you. There never was,” Lock said, barely giving him a glance. “Alfie’s was the pure blue blood we needed all along. Yours is too corrupted with dragon rot. But never mind, dirty lizard, you’ve served us well.”

  Across the pool, Tamara saw the Dragon struggling to lift himself on to his haunches.

  “Help them, Richard! Help them!” she screamed.

  The Black Dragon watched as Alfie and Ellie thrashed around in the pool. Somewhere deep down, where the last part of Richard flickered like a dying candle, he knew they were dying and he was sorry. With a scream of triumph, Hel’s other arm shot out of the water and grasped the side of the Arena wall with skittering, clawed fingers. She was halfway out. Her gibbering laughter was pure madness. Anger rose in the Black Dragon, but this wasn’t the unthinking animal rage ready to breathe fire; this was entirely human and directed only at himself. Richard knew he’d killed his father. He’d betrayed the brother who had only ever wanted to love and save him, and his sister who he should have protected. He’d betrayed his family, his country, the world. This was all his fault.