by E. G. Foley
Jake looked over his shoulder and was relieved to see the giant puffing and straining, but successfully heaving his great bulk up through the hole.
Snorri hooked his elbows over the edge, and then carefully swung his right leg up onto solid ground. Jake grinned as the giant flopped safely onto his back in the grassy meadow from which he had originally fallen.
“Oh, it’s sooo good to be home!” Snorri groaned in relief.
The boys laughed, then Archie pointed to the huge, rounded boulder not far from the spot where Snorri lay. “I’ll bet that’s the stone he told us about!”
It was huge.
“You think he actually moved that thing?” Jake exclaimed.
“Sure looks like it,” Archie said with a shrug, and he was right. The rugged, rounded shape of the boulder was a perfect fit for the outline of the hole in the ground.
The sooner Snorri got that hole plugged up again, the better—preferably before Loki found out about it and realized he could finally get into Jugenheim to start causing havoc.
Jake guided Red to land on top of the boulder in question. Snorri was lying inert in the tall grass, a dopey grin of exhaustion on his face.
For someone who had wanted to get as far away from home as possible, he certainly looked happy to be back.
“Up, you! No rest for the wicked!” Jake hollered down to him with a smile. “You need to roll that rock back into place!”
“Don’t press it in too firmly, though!” Archie added. “We’ll still have to get out of here soon.”
“How soon?” Jake asked his cousin while Snorri let out a weary sigh before slowly lumbering to his feet.
Archie shrugged. “After we’ve had a look round, I guess. I told you, I’ve got to be back in three days.”
Snorri set all his gear down and shrugged off the shoulder-strap by which he had been carrying the Pigeon.
He took a deep breath, rubbed his hands together as he approached the big rock, and furrowed his brow with a look of concentration. “Shoo,” he ordered the boys, waving them off the boulder. “I don’t need any extra weight on here.”
“This I’ve got to see,” Jake taunted the giant merrily. “Set us down over there, Red.”
“How in the world did you move this thing in the first place?” Archie exclaimed as Red lifted off again, hovering nearby. “It must weigh ten, eleven tons! Did you use any tools for leverage? A spade or something?”
“Nope.” The giant shook his head. “I was just angry. At Gorm.”
“Whew! I don’t think I ever want to see you angry, mate,” Jake vowed.
“Don’t worry,” Snorri said with a chastened look. “It doesn’t happen very often. I’m usually quite calm.”
The Gryphon flew down into the field and the boys got off his back.
The giant stared at the rock, sizing it up.
Jake and Archie stood in grass up to their chins while Snorri shrugged his shoulders to warm them up for his mighty task. He flexed his wrists, then he stretched his neck from side to side—at which it let out a series of ear-splitting pops.
The boys hollered in alarm at the noises, but the giant showed no signs of serious damage.
The boys began to cheer him on, chanting: “Go, go, go!”
The giant let out a loud grunt as he hurled his bulk against the ten-ton boulder.
It rocked. They shouted in astonishment, then whooped at their dull-witted companion’s show of strength.
“Come on, Snorri! You can do it!”
“Do it for Jugenheim!” Archie yelled. “Keep your people safe from Loki!”
“Do it for Princess Kaia!” Jake teased.
Sweat burst out on Snorri’s face, which had gone beet-red; his arms shook with exertion; strange grunts of effort escaped him; his boots dug deep into the turf as he drove all his weight against the boulder.
All of a sudden, it slammed into place.
Snorri sighed and fell into the grass again in exhausted relief. The boys applauded madly.
When the dust cleared around the spot where the boulder had rocked back into place, Jake nodded to his cousin to go and have a closer look with him.
Archie followed, shaking his head in wonder as the boys approached the towering stone. “I can see why Loki wants an army of these big boys,” he remarked to Jake with a discreet nod at Snorri.
“Aye.” Jake tossed his forelock out of his eyes. “You’d need them, going up against the god of war.”
“And the god of thunder,” Archie agreed. “Not just one god, but two. Father and son team, remember? Jake, do you think Odin and Thor are real, too?”
He shrugged. “I never would’ve thought Loki was, but I talked to him myself, so who knows? I don’t think we can rule it out.”
“I hope we don’t run into them,” Archie mumbled.
“Why not? Aren’t they supposed to be the good guys?”
“Well, compared to Loki, yes. But that’s not saying much, is it? I mean, any god such as Odin who welcomed human sacrifice is not one that I’m too keen to meet.”
“Wait, what? The Vikings had human sacrifices?” Jake exclaimed, turning to him in shock.
“Oh, sure! Why do you think our poor ancestors in England were so terrified of them? Even what was left of the Roman Empire cowered from the Norsemen—and the Romans weren’t exactly sweethearts themselves, what with throwing people to the lions and all. Didn’t you see it in Dani’s Norway book? The Vikings used to hang prisoners of war from their sacred oak trees once a year as an offering to Odin—to say nothing of their special punishment, known as the Blood Eagle.”
“Blood Eagle? That sounds neat.”
Archie looked askance at him. “You would say that.”
Jake grinned. “Why? What’s a Blood Eagle?”
“Oh, only the name of this nice little torture the Vikings used to save for their most valued prisoners. Captured enemy kings and such.”
Jake lifted his eyebrow in question.
Archie leaned closer while Snorri continued recovering in the grass. “They’d take a knife, see,” the boy genius confided in ominous tones, “and make two slits across the prisoner’s back. Then they’d pull his lungs out through the slits—”
“What?!”
“As the prisoner took his last breaths, his lungs, still partly attached, would pump like bloody wings sprouting from his back.”
Jake had stopped in his tracks and stared at him in horror.
“Well, you asked!” Archie said.
“That is disgusting!” he cried. “Who ever thought of that?”
Archie shrugged. “Just be glad the Irish monks rowed over to convert them and made them stop doing that sort of thing.”
“Blimey.”
“You can say that again.”
Jake paused as a frightening thought struck him. “Didn’t the Norns say the giants still live like the Vikings did, under the old ways? You don’t think that means Blood Eagles, do you? Because if so, I’m thinkin’ we should probably be, er, kinda careful around them. Not make them angry,” he said uneasily.
“You think?” Archie drawled.
Jake scowled at him, but blazes. No wonder Snorri had wanted out of here. Shaking off the gruesome image of the Blood Eagle as best he could, Jake crouched down to inspect the seal of the earth around the bottom of the boulder.
Little chinks and crevices spiderwebbed the dry dirt around the base of the rock. When he knelt down to peer through a few of these tiny cracks, he could still see Yggdrasil and the starry sky below.
He straightened up again with a thoughtful frown. The seal wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough for now, considering that he and Archie would still have to get out of here once they had warned the giant folk about Loki’s scheme.
But after what his cousin had just told him about the Blood Eagle, Jake was suddenly not as eager about visiting the Norse giants as he had been before. He was rather annoyed with himself, actually. Why did he never look before he leaped?
&nb
sp; As much as he longed to follow in his noble parents’ footsteps, becoming a Lightrider, he was still only twelve, after all, whether he liked to admit it or not. He was still new at helping magical creatures in distress, but he scowled at the thought that he did seem to have a talent for getting in over his head.
This was remarkably easy to do in Giant Land, where everything was huge and tall. In fact, Jake realized he had just lost the short boy genius somewhere in the tall grass. He cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, “Archie?”
“I’m here!” The giant blades of grass rustled and then parted. His cousin stepped back into view, much to Jake’s relief. “I wonder if this is how Gladwin feels when she’s spending time with us,” Archie remarked as he rejoined him.
“Hmm, it’s probably worse for her,” he replied, considering that the average fairy was only about five inches tall.
Gladwin Lightwing, a royal garden fairy, had helped to reunite Jake with his relatives. She was small enough to hitch a ride, as she often did, in his breast pocket. It would have been funny to see her here in Giant Land, he mused. She would have seemed as small as a speck.
All of a sudden, the boys heard a deep, swift drumming that made the ground began to vibrate, shaking them off balance.
“What’s that?” Archie cried.
As Jake looked up, his eyes widened. “Move, we’re going to get squashed!”
He yanked his cousin toward the boulder just as their first glimpse of the approaching animals loomed above the tall grass.
The boys dove aside, terrified, as a herd of sheep as big as elephants came running.
Woolly legs and enormous hoofs were everywhere. The boys pressed back against the boulder to avoid being trampled. But a moment later, Red flew down to rescue them, having seen the danger.
The boys scrambled onto his back, and the Gryphon instantly lifted away, angling clear of another massive sheep.
“Look at them all! They’re huge!” Archie exclaimed as the trusty Gryphon flew them up to safety on top of the boulder.
Meanwhile, some distance away, Snorri had sat up from where he had sprawled happily in the grass. “Sheepies?” He shot to his feet to greet them. “My babies!”
The sheep crowded joyfully around their master, bleating and baaa-ing. The Jugenheim sheep were, of course, proportional to the giant.
“Chubs! Zero! Maxine!” He greeted them by name, petting and doting on them. “Oh, it’s so good to see you! I missed you, too, poor little lambkins! I’m back now. Don’t worry, Daddy’s home…”
From their safe perch atop the boulder, Jake and Archie exchanged a startled glance.
“There, there,” the giant continued, soothing his panicked flock. “It’s all right. I’m back now, and I will give you carrots for a treat!”
“Poor Snorri!” Archie murmured as they watched the fierce-looking giant doting on his fluffy pets. “No wonder he wanted to leave Jugenheim.”
Jake nodded in amusement. “He probably doesn’t fit in here at all.”
But on second thought, if Blood Eagles and general Viking ferocity were the norm around here, then maybe, Jake mused, they should be grateful for that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Casa De Snorri
“Home sweet home! Come in, little masters! Welcome to my humble abode.” A few minutes after his joyful reunion with his sheep, Snorri flung open the huge front door to his turf-roofed cottage and beckoned his visitors in.
“Would you care for brambleberry tea?” he offered. “It’s very refreshing.”
“Why, thank you, that would be fine,” said the gentlemanly Archie. He was satisfied with the spot where Snorri had stowed the broken Pigeon before they had come in. The flying machine awaited repairs in the garden shed outside.
“Brambleberry tea, Master Jake? I grew the brambleberries myself, grafted from wild ones. I admit I’ve got a bit of a green thumb,” Snorri said cheerfully. He was obviously delighted to be home.
“Er, sure, I’ll try it.” Jake couldn’t stop gawking at the gigantic furniture. The simple wooden table was easily fifteen feet high.
Before them stretched a braided yarn rug as wide as a lake. To the left loomed a massive stone fireplace, its rustic mantel as tall as an ordinary rooftop.
As Snorri shut the door carefully behind them, Jake shook his head at the huge boots tucked against the wall. They were nearly as tall as he was.
Stepping over the boys, Snorri hastened to put away a few bits of clutter lying here and there. “Pardon the mess. I’m not used to having visitors,” he apologized. “Just an old bachelor, me.”
Soon they had the brambleberry tea with a gob of Snorri’s homegrown honey from his own beehive in the back.
Jake didn’t even want to think about giant bees.
They all were exhausted from the day’s long journey, in any case, and everyone was starved. Though the boys had their supplies to draw from, Snorri did not want to be seen as lax in his hospitality, for this was a point of honor with all the Norse people. He went outside and picked one of the apples as big as soup-pots from his orchard, and cut it up into pieces for the boys.
With his guests settled, Snorri bustled about preparing his own meal. It seemed the average giant required prodigious amounts of food for his dinner.
So, while Snorri cooked, humming to himself in front of his roaring hearth fire, the boys climbed up onto the footstool. Then, one by one, they took a daring leap across the gap, bouncing onto the cushion of the massive armchair.
The seat of the chair had about the same dimensions as their shared dorm room back at the University. It looked like the perfect place to get some sleep, as long as Snorri didn’t forget they were there and accidentally sit on them.
Archie took off his coat and draped it over himself as he lay down on his side. “Nice and comfortable,” he said, letting out a large sigh. “It feels so good to shut my eyes…”
With a yawn, Jake finally closed as eyes, as well. Red lay down protectively beside him, his eagle beak resting on his crossed lion-paws, his wings tucked against his sides, his tufted tail wrapped around his haunches.
As tired as Jake was, though, he found he couldn’t fall asleep, pondering all the astonishing things that had happened today.
“I wonder if the girls have seen Henry and Helena yet,” he remarked after a few minutes, but there was no answer from Archie.
He looked over and saw that the freckled boy genius was already fast asleep. He smiled wryly, but a few minutes later, he drifted off, as well.
About two hours later, voices from outside awoke him.
Blinking against the light of the evening sunset, Jake found that Red had not left his side. The Gryphon was awake, though, and listening; his small tufted ears were pricked up toward the window. Archie was still sleeping.
Before Jake could decide whether to ignore the noise and go back to sleep, the door to the other room opened and Snorri poked his head out, looking groggy and more rumpled than usual.
Having finished cooking and eating alone, the giant must have decided to get some sleep, too. Snorri noticed that Jake was awake, also, and nodded to him as he stepped out of his bedroom. The giant shuffled past the armchair where the boys were resting and crossed to the window. He moved the curtain aside and peered out.
“What’s going on out there?” Jake whispered.
“Not sure,” Snorri whispered back over his shoulder. “Bunch of my neighbors are standing out along the road. Looks like they’re watching a parade or something.”
“Maybe we’d better go see what’s going on. Make sure this has nothing to do with Loki,” Jake said.
Snorri glanced grimly at him. “Aye, maybe you’re right.”
Archie sat up rubbing his eyes. “What’s going on, fellows?”
“Get up. We’re leaving,” Jake said, and relayed to him what Snorri had just reported. Both boys hurried to put their boots and coats back on.
Snorri returned to his bedroom and did the same
.
He seemed worried when they rushed out of his cottage a few minutes later. “When you see my neighbors, be careful what you tell them,” he advised. “If anyone figures out that you two are from Midgarth, that could be trouble for me.”
“Well, what are we going to tell them?” Jake asked.
“It’s obvious we’re not giants!” Archie agreed as he threw his tool-bag over his shoulder and ran to keep up.
Snorri mulled the question. “Why don’t we just tell them you’re dwarves?” he suggested as they hurried across the fields toward the road.
“Dwarves?!” the boys exclaimed in unison.
The giant nodded earnestly. “We don’t often see them in these parts, but at least dwarves are allowed in Jugenheim.”
Before this matter was quite decided, they reached the country road that wound past Snorri’s farm, and Jake and Archie stared in amazement at what they saw.
It was a sort of parade. Giant peasants watched, applauding, as towering giant warriors rode past on gigantic horses, heading for the vast Viking great hall in the distance.
The sunlight glinted on the passing riders’ helmets or crowns. Seated on their gigantic steeds, with extra horses carrying their gear, they wore chain mail and rugged riding gauntlets. They looked like giant princes or royal knights on their way to a jousting tournament.
“Who are they?” Jake yelled to Snorri over the thunderous applause of the gathered crowd.
“I don’t know. I’ll see what I can learn,” Snorri mumbled, then he shuffled off to consult his neighbors.
The ‘dwarves’ and the Gryphon followed warily. With all of the commotion of this impressive caravan arriving, nobody paid attention to such small creatures.
“Hullo, Petunia,” Snorri greeted a massive, homely lump of a peasant giantess who was carrying a fat white goose in a basket. She wore drab, shapeless clothes in a vaguely medieval style. “What’s all the excitement?” he asked her.
“Why, Snorri! There you are!” Petunia greeted him with a rap him on the shoulder that would have been enough to knock down a tower back in Midgarth.