The Sleeping Army

by Francesca Simon

  Freya’s head swam. She could have immortality – of a sort – or a tiny chance of getting back to Asgard alive before fate turned her into a chess piece and a living death asleep for eternity.

  She breathed the fetid air and stared at the sad girl looking up at her so hopefully.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Freya. ‘I have to try.’

  ‘Go then,’ said Hel. ‘See if I care.’

  Freya slipped through the bed hangings on to the threshold and back into the hall, reaching into her pocket for the nuts she had brought. She looked around for Loki, but couldn’t see him amongst the whirling dead. Quickly, she pushed through the teeming ghosts, flinging on the falcon skin, and flew through the open door into the murky gloom outside Hel’s hall.

  A man guarded the doorway. Loki.

  He’s not expecting me to fly, thought Freya. At that moment, Loki raised his eyes and saw her.

  He snarled with rage and sprang up at her. Freya hurled herself into the air, flying high over the gates. Behind her she could hear pounding feet as Loki turned into Sleipnir and jumped after her. She felt his hot breath as the horse leapt into the air, swiping at her with his flailing hooves.

  She twisted away from him and flew higher through the foggy mist.

  Loki snarled with rage. ‘Thjazi will get you!’ he bellowed. ‘I’ll soon be picking apart your carrion!’

  Freya’s heart thudded as she flew ever higher up and up into the blackness, Loki’s curses ringing after her, then she was once again inside Hekla and whirling upwards, the prize clutched in her right claw.

  9 Asgard

  Freya flew out of Hekla. After the endless gloom of Hel, the bright sunlight almost blinded her. She looked down and saw Snot’s ripped and torn body, sprawled on the blackened lava by the volcano’s mouth.

  Roskva was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Snot!’ Freya wailed.

  He’d died for her. But she had to leave him behind. Darting through the smoky ash she soared into the clear sky above the black volcanoes. She was on her own. She would have to find Asgard on her own.

  Stay calm, she told herself, stay calm. Just head for the mountains. You can do this.

  And then she saw him. He was a dot on the horizon, then a blot in the sky, growing larger and larger every second. And he was coming straight at her.

  Freya flew for her life. Over the barren wilderness, high over the mountains, Freya flew. But every time she twisted her head the giant eagle was a little bit closer. An eagle can outfly a falcon, she thought, despairingly.

  All too soon, Freya heard the whoosh whoosh of frantic wings, ripping the air. Glancing round, she saw the huge eagle hurtling after her, filling the sky.

  Her world shrank to a pinprick of straining muscles, pounding heart and beating wings. Faster! Faster! Faster! Faster! Faster!

  Freya heard a terrible whirr as the monstrous eagle closed in, talons outstretched, ready to rip her apart.

  She felt the air hum. Thjazi was her death, and it was almost upon her.

  NO! She dived steeply, twisting away from his talons. Then she opened her left claw, and let a nut fall.

  The eagle spiralled after the nut, plummeting towards the ground. Freya flew harder and faster, tearing the clouds, straining to get as far ahead as possible before Thjazi discovered he didn’t have Idunn.

  On and on she flew, terror and panic jolting her to ever-greater speed. Had she gone in the right direction? Where was Asgard? Why, why, did she never know where she was? She’d followed Alfi’s instructions, she was sure she’d followed—

  And there it was. Yggdrasil, the world tree, shooting up into the blue sky before her. Freya zoomed towards it.

  But behind her was Thjazi, and the whirr-whirr-whirr of his wings bearing down on her.

  Freya thought of her PE teacher, mean Miss Sylvester, bellowing at her to run faster in the school cross-country race. Freya had been so terrified she’d run like a crazed animal and wound up on the cross-country team.

  Freya veered and flew straight for Yggdrasil. Go! Go! Go!

  She shrieked, as the high walls of Asgard towered into view. She could see two specks, which turned into people, which turned into … Alfi and Roskva. They were standing on either side of what looked like a gigantic pile of kindling and wood.

  The eagle was now so close behind she heard his giant wings slice the air.

  He’ll get me here, thought Freya. I’ll fly over the wall and he’ll come straight after me. There is no escape. How could I have thought I could escape him? He’ll rip me to pieces when I land. Oh Gods!

  ‘Light the fire!’ screamed Alfi.

  Fire? thought Freya.

  Flames whooshed high into the air. She felt the heat singe her feathers like a hot furnace, Thjazi only a few hair’s-breadths behind her. Freya spun out of the sky into the citadel of the Gods, clutching the nut, reeling to avoid the fireball.

  Thjazi was following too fast and flew straight through the flames. She heard a terrible agonised scream as his wings caught fire.

  Twisting in agony, the eagle fell to earth, in a thrashing burning heap.

  Freya lay on the ground inside the walls, gasping and trembling. Dimly she saw Alfi and Roskva stabbing the flaming, shrieking eagle. His death cries tore through her.

  There was a horrible smell of blood and burnt, smoking feathers.

  ‘He’s dead! He’s dead!’ they shouted. Then Roskva and Alfi ran up to her. Their faces were ivory to the tips of their white-streaked hair.

  Freya flung off the falcon skin and regained human form. She lay panting and shivering, gulping the air through her singed lungs. The nut was clutched in her ivory hand. Roskva had to prise open her fingers before she would release Idunn.

  The All-Father stumbled over to them. Roskva held out the great prize.

  Woden sighed and took hold of the nut, cradling it in his bony, palsied grip. Tears poured from his eye. He murmured runes, again and again, shaking his head and trembling, his face scrunched with effort, his eye bulging. The other Gods staggered over, spectre-grey, muttering and murmuring, hissing and whispering.

  Oh, get it right, prayed Freya, get it right.

  Suddenly a girl stood before them, golden and shimmering. Over her arm she carried a basket. She smiled, and held out an apple.

  Woden took a bite, and then another. His twisted limbs began to straighten, and tufts of hair fuzzed on his bald scalp.

  Freya’s body tingled. She looked down and saw the ivory recede from her arms and legs. Roskva and Alfi were leaping and whooping, ivory no more. Above her, Yggdrasil’s mighty branches sprouted leaves, wreathing the sky.

  Idunn walked silently amongst the reviving Gods, smiling and radiant, passing each an apple from her basket. The Gods snatched them and ate greedily, crying and laughing as they saw flesh gradually returning to their withered limbs and colour flecking their sunken cheeks.

  Idunn smiled at Freya.

  ‘Enjoy your youth, mortal,’ she whispered.

  There was a roaring and bellowing as a gigantic grey-bearded man picked up a hammer and tried to swing it over his head before gasping and letting it drop. ‘Ooofff, my aching arms,’ he moaned. ‘That thing weighs more than a whale.’

  ‘Council of the Gods to meet NOW by the Well of Urd,’ Woden boomed. The heavens shook. ‘We need to trick some giants into re-building our Halls.’ Then he groaned and clutched his thigh. ‘Ooh, my lumbago. Idunn, I want more apples NOW!’

  There was a happy buzz as the Immortals hobbled to their ancient meeting place, laughing and tossing their wisps of hair. Their bodies eased and lengthened as Freya gazed after them.

  Is that it? thought Freya.

  The Goddess Frigg paused.

  ‘I almost forgot,’ she rasped, holding out her liver-spotted hand, ‘my falcon skin.’

  Silently Freya handed it back to her.

  Frigg shook out the silky feathers and examined them. ‘They’re singed,’ she shrieked. She clicked her tongue against her
tooth and sighed loudly. ‘Why weren’t you more careful?’

  ‘I did—’

  ‘You’d better keep it,’ said Frigg, handing it back. ‘I can’t fly around in that. I’ll use Freyja’s.’

  The Goddess Freyja glared at her.

  ‘I don’t have my falcon skin any more,’ she snapped. ‘Like an idiot I loaned it to Loki long ago, remember?’

  ‘It’s hanging at Skadi’s,’ said Freya.

  The Goddess tossed her thickening white hair, touched with gold, and scowled.

  ‘You left it there?’ said Freyja. ‘Idiot.’

  ‘If you remember,’ said Freya, ‘we were trying to find Idunn.’

  Frigg linked arms with Freyja. ‘We’ll get it back,’ said Frigg. ‘Let’s raise the matter at the Council.’

  ‘Idunn!’ shouted Freyja. ‘More apples! I still have bingo wings!’

  ‘Apples are hard to eat without teeth,’ grumbled Frigg.

  The two Goddesses tottered off together after Idunn, propping each other up. Only Woden stayed behind, lost in thought, his brow furrowed. The two ravens on his shoulders fluttered with newly-sprouted feathers.

  ‘You did well, Freya,’ said Roskva. She nodded. ‘You did well. We owe you – everything.’

  Freya beamed. Her body ached all over.

  ‘Whose idea – the fire?’ she rasped.

  ‘Mine,’ said Alfi. He grinned. ‘Thjazi chased me, I barely got away from him, and I thought you’d suffer the same fate. Roskva wasn’t here, she only just made it back, I had to think for myself. I realised we had to do something to stop Thjazi if he flew here after you …’

  Roskva scowled. ‘And why do you think I sent you here ahead of me?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Alfi.

  ‘I’d hardly have a reputation for wisdom if I couldn’t see further into the future than you,’ said Roskva.

  Alfi snorted. ‘What reputation for wisdom?’

  They smiled at one another.

  ‘I could have been burnt to a crisp,’ said Freya.

  ‘But you weren’t,’ said Roskva.

  ‘Roskva! Alfi! I need you now!’ bellowed Thor.

  ‘We’d better go,’ said Alfi.

  ‘Business as usual,’ said Roskva.

  ‘Snot?’ said Freya.

  Roskva’s face fell. ‘Thjazi attacked. I managed to run away, but Snot …’

  ‘I hope the All-Father will send the Choosers of the Slain to bring him back here,’ said Alfi.

  Freya gasped. ‘That reminds me,’ she said.

  She ran up to Woden and tugged on his sleeve.

  ‘I must know,’ she said. ‘What will happen to the others?’

  ‘Must?’ he said, glaring down at her. ‘Must? Must? What others?’

  ‘The chess pieces we left behind. In the museum? The sleeping army?’

  ‘Their time will come, when the forces of darkness rise up at the fated end of days and another world begins,’ he murmured.

  ‘There afterwards will be found in the shining grass

  Wondrous chess pieces

  Treasures which the Gods possessed in ancient times,’

  he recited.

  ‘… and until then?’ said Freya.

  ‘They sleep,’ said the All-Father. He fixed her with his piercing single eye.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ said Woden. ‘Asgard is forbidden to mortals. Alfi! Take her to Bifrost. Hornblower, go home.’ And he staggered off to join the others, straightening up little by little as he drifted away, becoming more and more the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, All-Father again with every step.

  Freya stood. The Gods had already forgotten her. Well, what did she expect? A crown? A gold arm ring? Thanks?

  Freya heard shouting and the clank of metal. Asgard’s newly green meadows suddenly gleamed with shields and swords as heavily armoured fighters jousted and clashed, laughing as they died.

  ‘Woden’s warriors fight again in their playground,’ said Alfi. ‘There will be feasting tonight in Valhalla when they all come back to life.’

  ‘And tomorrow?’ said Freya.

  ‘They fight and kill each other all over again,’ said Alfi. ‘And so on, and so on, until the end of days.’

  ‘Out of my way, you stinking son of a mare!’ bellowed a familiar voice as a giant Bear-Man thundered across the battlefield, wildly swinging his sword. ‘I’ll rip out your guts and stuff them in your face!’

  ‘Snot?’ said Freya. ‘Snot? Snot!’ she screamed.

  The Bear-Man paused for a fraction of a second and raised his sword, saluting them. Then he charged back into battle.

  ‘The Valkyries fetched him,’ said Freya. ‘I’m glad.’ She breathed deeply, drawing in Asgard’s faint perfume of fresh grass and honey and sun-dried linens.

  Alfi walked her to Bifrost across the flower-filled meadows. There was too much to say, and nothing to say.

  ‘Well …’ said Freya.

  ‘Well …’ said Alfi.

  ‘What will happen to you now?’ asked Freya.

  Alfi shrugged. ‘Wallop giants with Thor, watch out for Loki, dodge flying bones in Valhalla. Skadi will want vengeance for her father …’

  ‘Same old,’ said Freya.

  ‘Same old,’ said Alfi. ‘Is that what people say now?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Freya.

  ‘I have a lot of catching up to do,’ he said.

  They stood on the edge of Bifrost, flames leaping around them.

  ‘Will I ever see you again?’ said Freya.

  ‘If that is our fate,’ said Alfi.

  She hugged him. ‘I hope it is.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Alfi. ‘Here. Take this.’

  He handed her an arm bracelet, heavy with gold. ‘From my Master,’ he said. ‘And this,’ he added, offering her an intricately carved brooch, ‘this is from me.’

  Freya beamed and took the jewellery. Then she saw his grave face.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ said Freya. ‘Do you have friends here?’

  ‘I quite like Woden’s ravens,’ said Alfi after a long pause. ‘And the wolves … after they’ve been fed.’

  ‘No one else?’ said Freya.

  Alfi shook his head. ‘Just Roskva.’

  Did a sister count as a friend?

  ‘We’d be friends if I lived in Asgard or you lived in London,’ said Freya suddenly.

  Alfi smiled. ‘We would,’ he said. ‘And I’ll remember that, always.’

  He was there, and then he wasn’t.

  Freya unbuckled Snot’s bear-skin cloak and left it lying on the ground. Then she set off on the long walk down Bifrost, alone.

  London and the Thames stretched out before her, oblivious to the flaming bridge above it. London, crisp and shining in the sunlight, had never looked so beautiful.

  Freya stumbled off the Gods’ rainbow road. Her feet touched the hard surface of the Millennium Bridge and she jostled the horde of French schoolchildren hurrying to the Tate Modern, pointing at her and jabbering.

  Freya exhaled deeply. She’d been to Hel and back. She’d escaped giants, fled fire, outwitted dragons. She’d been terrified and half-drowned and near death.

  And now, thank Gods, it was over. She could go back to her normal, boring life, shuttling between her parents, losing her gym kit, and being told off for leaving her junk all over the kitchen.

  How wonderful.

  Freya smiled and switched on her mobile.

  Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Her phone was filled with messages. She clicked it open.

  ‘Uhhh … Dad?’ said Freya.

  10 London

  Light bulbs flashed. ‘Freya! Over here! Freya! Smile! Freya! Freya! Freya!’

  All around her journalists and onlookers and photographers swarmed on to the Millennium Bridge, pushing and shoving and shouting questions at her. Where had they all come from? She’d only just spoken to her dad, and he’d yelled: ‘Wait there! Don’t move. We’re coming! Just stay on the phone with me …’
and then her battery had died and she was standing on the bridge leaning against the side watching the boats and thinking of nothing when she was suddenly surrounded.

  ‘Did you steal the chessmen?’ ‘Who kidnapped you?’ ‘Who stole the chessmen?’ ‘Was that you with those kids in fancy dress?’ ‘Where’d they take you?’ ‘Why’d you run away?’ ‘Where’ve you been hiding?’ ‘Where are the chess pieces now?’

  Freya shrank back under the barrage of questions, blinking at the flashing, clicking cameras, the noise, the honking cars and the hustling-bustling scrum of people arguing and thrusting phones at her.

  ‘We’ll BUY your story – don’t give it away!’ screamed a bald man waving a cheque book.

  ‘He’s a crook – talk to us, Freya!’ shrieked a woman with black, lacquered, swept-up hair.

  Everywhere she turned there were more and more people yelling and gabbling into microphones. Freya heard odd snatches – ‘horse’, ‘looks a right mess’, ‘Runaway or victim – you decide!’ Camera crews pulled up, blocking traffic, followed by an ice-cream van.

  Three police cars, sirens wailing, screeched to a halt.

  Through a tiny gap in the jostling crowd Freya saw her parents’ faces pressed against the back window of the middle car. Then they started waving frantically.

  ‘MUM! DAD!’ she screamed, struggling to get to them.

  Clare burst from the car and shoved her way through the mob. Bob followed. Two police officers, an older man and a younger woman with dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, shouldered their way towards her.

  ‘It’s all right, Freya, we’ll take over from here,’ yelled the policewoman. ‘I’m Sunil, and I’ll be looking after you.’

  Clare pushed past Sunil and flung her arms around Freya.

  ‘Thank Woden! Thank Thor!’ said Clare, clutching her. ‘Praise Njord! You’re safe!’

  ‘Freya! My Gods, Freya, where have you been?’ shouted Bob, trying to hug her as well.

  The cameras snapped frantically.

  ‘I’ve been to Asgard and Jotunheim and Hel. I’ve met the Gods. I’ve saved them, and I’ve saved the world,’ she thought, then suddenly realised she’d spoken out loud. She covered her open mouth with her hand.