The Sleeping Army (16 page)

Freya had no idea how long she spiralled in her swooping fall. The yawning steep widened and widened and widened and then – THUD! THUNK! She collided with the earth.

Freya tumbled and rolled and came to a halt, wings outstretched.

She had stopped falling.

Freya lay on the cold ground, so dizzy and battered
it was hard for her to imagine ever moving again. But she was alive – at least she thought she was alive – in the frozen gloom of the Underworld.

Freya shook herself, and the falcon skin slid off her back as easily as if she'd undone Snot's cloak. Instantly her bruised body uncurled and stretched and re-filled her skin as she regained human form. She groped around in the dark for the precious feather, found it, and put it inside her pocket.

Slowly, shakily, she raised herself on to her knees. Her arms ached. She became aware of the sound of water flowing nearby.

She had fallen beside a vast, bubbling lake, reeking sulphur, punctured with boulders. Great geysers of lava and flame leapt from the oily surface. And yet Freya saw her breath, chill and frosty, in the murky black.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw that the flashes of light came from a glittering, gold-covered bridge. Frost rose from the river flowing beneath, lumpen with knobbly blocks of ice.

Freya watched as the shadowy blurs of corpses streamed soundlessly across the Echoing Bridge. On the other side stood a pale young giantess, watching silently as the dead flitted past.

Maybe I can blend in with them, thought Freya.

She tip-toed across the bridge, barely able to see in front of her through the mist and the hastening shades. Despite her efforts to walk quietly, her footsteps echoed as loudly as if an army were stomping by. Glints of gold from the bridge's sides flashed in the darkness. Freya felt the freezing waters beckoning her to hurl herself over the edge.

‘Hey you! Stomping across like that. Are you trying to wake the dead? Yes, you!' came a shout as the girl held up her pale arm and blocked Freya's path. ‘You're not dead! Who in Hel's name are you and what do you think you're doing here?'

‘I'm Freya, and I've been sent from Asgard,' said Freya. She stared at the young giantess, white as chalk.

‘Pull the other one,' said the giantess.

‘It's true,' said Freya. ‘You think I wanted to come here?'

‘No one wants to come here,' said the guardian. ‘But here is where everyone ends up.'

‘I've come to find Loki,' said Freya. ‘Has he passed by?'

The girl snorted.

‘He comes and goes as he pleases,' she said.

‘And has he pleased recently?'

The girl shrugged. ‘Dunno.'

‘Wait,' said Freya. ‘Did Sleipnir pass this way?'

The girl smiled. ‘Woden's riderless horse galloped over this bridge not so long ago,' she said.

So Roskva was right.

‘He'll have gone to Hel's hall,' said the young guardian of the bridge. ‘It's much further down. Past the shore of corpses and the Carrion-Gate.'

Freya shuddered at the hideous names.

The giantess pointed to the bleak road, then stood aside to let Freya pass.

Freya walked through the mist, straining to see, and shivering as the dripping vapour enveloped her. Shards of ice gave off tiny pinpricks of light. She could barely breathe in the horrible smell of Hel's ghastly and rotting fog-world. The place was as dreadful as the worst of fears. It was like being sucked into a grave mound, knowing you would never, ever escape.

The road dropped deeper, running alongside a hissing river, bubbles belching out of the boiling mud. The shades of the dead stretched out to her as she hurried towards the mournful citadel rising high and impregnable before her. There was a bump-bump-bump sound as chunks of ice hurtled against the river bank. Freya recoiled.

What she had thought were blocks of ice were bodies. The icy river was choked with carcasses, all being whirled downwards towards their grisly fate on the shore of corpses.

Freya whimpered and squeezed her eyes tight shut. She breathed deeply. I must go on, she thought. I must go on.

Then she heard an odd crunching sound. Freya peered through the dismal light. A red eye glowered at her.

The dragon lay coiled in the swampy muck beside a gigantic tree root, mist congealing around it. The only sound was chewing and squelching as it bit into the corpses floating past and sucked out their blood.

The dragon raised its head, a half-chewed corpse dangling from its mouth. Foam and gore oozed from its boulder-like teeth and dribbled into the murky water as bloated bodies drifted by.

Freya backed away. Nidhogg gulped down the corpse's leg and spat out the body.

‘A little too chewy, that one,' it hissed. ‘I like them fresh and bloody. By the time I get the battle-warriors they're a bit – drained. You, on the other hand …' Nidhogg leered at her. ‘You look … very fresh. I've never had a live one before …' Drool dripped from
its blood-speckled jaws as the dragon slowly uncurled himself from Yggdrasil's root and slithered towards her. His tail thrashed in the swamp, splattering her with bloody spray.

‘Stop!' screamed Freya. ‘You can't touch me! I'm a messenger from Asgard.'

Nidhogg paused. It ground its teeth together.

‘Messenger?' it hissed. ‘From the eagle? Where's the squirrel who always brings insults from him?'

‘He couldn't make it, so I've come instead,' said Freya. She could hear her heart thudding against her chest. ‘The message from the eagle is, “You smell worse than a thousand pigs.”'

The dragon spat.

‘Ha! I hope this means that revolting little squirrel is dead. Well, tell that stinking eagle from me that he is a coward and a – and a—'

Nidhogg paused.

‘A what?' prompted Freya. She prayed Thor that the monster would not sense her heart pounding.

‘It's a very long time since that piece of vermin last sent an insult,' said Nidhogg. ‘I'm a little out of practice.'

‘How about “You're a stinking son of a featherless freak”?' said Freya.

Nidhogg considered.

‘Good insult,' he said. Freya tried not to look at the mashed-up guts and bones filling the dragon's gory mouth. ‘What else have you got?' he mumbled, swallowing.

‘May all your teeth fall out except one, and may that one have a cavity,' said Freya.

The dragon cackled. ‘A curse
and
a jest. I like it. That'll teach that stinking bird dropping to taunt me. More.'

‘You've got the head of a chicken and the courage of a sheep,' said Freya.

‘More,' rasped Nidhogg, reaching out and ripping open another corpse with a horrible squelch.

‘Leeches should drink you dry.'

‘May you grow a wooden tongue.'

‘May your children peck you to death.'

‘May crows feast on your liver and your brain dry up.'

‘May your wings drop off.'

‘May fire burn your home and everyone in it.'

‘May your eyes pop out of your head and blind your children.'

Freya paused.

‘I like you better than Ratatosk,' said the dragon.
‘He only
delivered
messages.'

‘Don't forget,' said Freya. ‘You don't have to stick with calling that eagle stinking. There's Woofy. Poofy. Smelly. Odoriferous. Pongy. Reeking. Whiffy. Rancid … uhhh … Poo-face.'

Nidhogg snatched up another corpse. Freya tried not to look.

‘I'll remember,' said the dragon, crunching. ‘Oy! Where are you going?' he hissed, as Freya started to edge away.

‘I need to get back to Asgard,' said Freya.

‘You're not going anywhere,' snapped Nidhogg, lurching towards her.

Freya stamped her foot. The dragon looked startled.

‘The sooner I go, the sooner I can bring you the eagle's reply, remember?' said Freya.

‘Hmmmm,' said the dragon. Bits of corpse dropped from his jaws.

‘That is, if that tiny bird brain can think of anything to top your cleverness, which I very much doubt,' she added, trying to keep her voice strong.

Nidhogg retreated back into his swamp and grabbed a body.

‘Come again soon,' said Nidhogg, chomping. ‘And bring more insults.'

‘Will do,' said Freya. She suddenly found she could breathe again.

She smiled to herself. She'd forgotten to tell him her favourite, ‘May you grow like a carrot with your head in the ground.'

She'd save it for next time.

Freya stood tiny before the black walls and bolted, massive iron gates which protected Hel's poisonous hall. The ghosts streamed through; she was stuck. She reached out and touched the icy gate, recoiling at its oily chill. Somewhere in the dark distance she heard the mad howling of a ferocious dog. She looked up. The walls were far, far higher than she had realised.

There was only one way in.

Freya shook out her falcon skin, and flew silently over the massive Carrion-Gate of Hel's walled stronghold. Her body felt more at ease as a falcon now, she no longer feared that she would fall out of the air.

She perched for a moment on top of the wall to look over Hel's grisly hall. The only sound was hissing. Freya suddenly saw that the roof was thatched with writhing snakes.

It was now or never. Freya flew down and resumed her human shape.

Hel's door was open. Freya walked into the rain-damp citadel.

The cavernous hall teemed with the dead. Rotting faces, putrid bodies, half skeleton, half flesh, mingled with long-dead wraiths and ghosts, flitting and flickering. Corpses packed together on the low benches against the wet stone walls, huddling in the dark. Others roamed the vast emptiness, seeking Freya knew not what. The benches clogged with the dead stretched far into the distance, further than Freya could see.

Chandeliers criss-crossed with bones and skulls dangled from the roof, filled with unlit candles. Sconces made of skulls hung on the walls. There was a stone hearth in the centre. When Freya looked more closely, she saw that the cold fireplace was circled with teeth. There was no sign of Loki.

To the right of the door, the High Seat was empty. Behind it lay a curtained-off area.

Freya sat on a bench near the entrance, watching and waiting. There's no point in hiding, she thought. I want Hel to know I'm here.

Dead faces without number turned to stare at her. Wraiths, bodies, corpses, decomposed and
mouldering, thousands and thousands and thousands, noiseless and prowling. There was an eerie silence as the teeming dead moved restlessly through the hall. The only sound was the
ssss ssss sssss
of the snakes writhing on the roof. Their poison dripped down the walls.

A hideous corpse leaned towards her and offered her a drinking horn. Freya sniffed it and recoiled. The horn was full of pee. The corpse opened its rotted mouth, laughed soundlessly and passed on.

‘Where can I find Hel?' asked Freya.

‘Talking to me?' said a corpse with a peeling face, scowling. ‘Or to him?'

‘Both,' said Freya.

‘You know we can't speak unless we're spoken to,' said the corpse.

‘Wouldn't bother talking to him, he's a right pain in the bum,' snapped the wraith.

‘Bet you wish you still had a bum,' spat the corpse.

‘Please tell me where Hel is,' Freya pleaded.

‘She's lying on Sick-Bed, where else would she be?' said the wraith.

‘Sick-Bed?' said Freya.

‘Over there, look, behind the curtains. That's Hel's servant woman, Ganglot the Slow-Poke, coming over
now,' said the corpse. ‘Oy, you, budge up, you space hog, I was here first,' it said, grimacing hideously through what remained of its rotting green mouth and shoving its elbow through the bones of the skeletal body huddled beside it.

Freya saw an ancient woman dressed in rags walking towards her. Walking was actually the wrong word. Freya had never seen anyone move so slowly. She watched as the old woman crept nearer, inch by painful inch. Freya closed her eyes and rested her head for a moment in her ivory arms.

Ouch!

Someone was poking her in the shoulder. Freya woke.

Slowly, the old woman raised her arm and pointed to the curtained-off area. Freya followed her, but Ganglot's slow pace made her crazed. Time was what she did not have. Pushing past the snail-paced servant through the thronging shades, Freya went up to the filthy black curtains. The hangings were embroidered with many threads of black and grey, shot through with silver flecks. She looked more carefully, and saw that the ghastly curtains were decorated with pictures of gibbets, dangling with decomposing bodies. They stank of rot.

Do I knock? thought Freya. As she hesitated, a hand poked through the bed hangings and beckoned Freya inside.

Freya braced herself. Would Hel drip poison on her, or kill her with her foul breath? Would she be turned to stone when Hel revealed herself in all her hideousness?

Freya parted the heavy drapes, and entered.

She was in a small chamber, filled almost entirely by a bed hung with heavy black drapes, now drawn back. A young girl was lying there, eyes closed, a filthy blanket pulled up to her waist. Her wild, curly hair spread out everywhere on the pillow. Her skin was pale and plump. There was a strange, sickly-sweet smell in the room, as if something long-forgotten was rotting. An empty plate, dirty knife, and overturned goblet were scattered around her.

Freya looked about for the monster. Could this pink-cheeked girl be her daughter?

‘I'm looking for Hel,' said Freya. ‘I need to speak to her urgently.'

For a long moment, Freya thought the girl hadn't heard.

‘Excuse me,' she said louder. ‘I need to see Hel. Please, please, tell me where she is.'

‘I – heard – you – the – first – time,' said the girl, pausing heavily between each word as if speaking was more than she could bear. Her pale eyelashes flickered.