The Lost Gods (21 page)

Clare, ashen-faced, her tense shoulders drawn up to her neck, kept to the edge of the room while the Gods argued, darting anxious glances at Freya every now and then. For once she looked completely out of her depth.

‘Sorry there aren't enough chairs, my lords,' she said timidly. ‘My hospitality is not what it should be. Crisps, anyone? Or I could send out for pizza,' she faltered.

‘We will eat after we have fought and won,' said Njord. ‘There will be feasting in Asgard.'

‘Of course, of course,' said Clare. ‘You keep out of this, Freya,' she added.

‘I can't keep out of it,' said Freya. ‘I'm already in it.'

Clare shot her a look.

Freya's phone rang. It was her father, calling from Dubai. She backed out of the room to answer.

‘Uh, hi Dad,' she muttered. Bob's timing was always terrible.

‘Freya, are you all right?' he said. ‘I know it's the middle of the night—'

‘No, I'm up,' she said.

‘It's about the hurricane, I'm just checking to see you're okay.'

‘What hurricane?' asked Freya.

‘It's all over the news, turn on the TV,' said Bob. ‘There's a category 10 hurricane heading straight for London. It's sprung out of nowhere. Wind speeds of 140 miles per hour and rising off the scale. The Home Office is urging everyone within the flood zone to move to higher ground or leave London. There's going to be massive flooding. The Thames is
rising and going to burst its banks, and people are being evacuated and … Freya are you there?'

‘Yes,' she said faintly.

‘Freya, there's more …' Bob hesitated. ‘There've been explosions at the Cloisters Museum in New York, the chess pieces are missing …'

Freya gulped.

‘Dad, this isn't a good time, we'll be careful, I promise.'

‘Go to the top of the house,' he said. ‘Get candles ready. Block up the front door with—'

The front door smashed down.

Freya screamed.

‘Freya!' shouted Bob.

Thor burst in, then Roskva and Alfi. Gusts of wind rattled through the house. Freyja, Goddess of the Battle-Slain, followed, her hair wild.

‘I'm here,' bellowed Thor, holding aloft his massive hammer in his iron gauntlet. ‘Where are the giants?'

‘You took your time,' snapped his wife, golden-haired Sif.

‘What's that?' said Bob. ‘It sounded like—'

‘It's okay, Dad, gotta go,' said Freya, hanging up.

‘My door,' said Clare, then turned to see Woden materialise in the middle of the sitting room in all his glory, wearing his gleaming golden helmet and brandishing the rune-laden spear which never missed and always returned to the hand that hurled it.

Clare went white. Then she bowed.

Woden ignored her.

‘We heard Heimdall's horn,' said Woden. ‘We are battle-ready.'

‘Except I didn't blow it,' said Heimdall.

Freya opened her mouth and then closed it. Her phone rang again but she ignored it.

‘The frost giants are heading for the rainbow bridge,' said Tyr. ‘They'll be here by dawn. Without Thor's hammer and Woden's spear we weren't strong enough to hold them off in Asgard.'

Thor's face flushed. ‘We've been busy here, you know,' he boomed. ‘Noticed all the worship we're getting now? Look at you. The bright fame of the Gods is restored.'

‘It seems to me it's been restored for a while,' said Njord.

‘Shouldn't we call the airforce?' said Freya. ‘The army?'

‘To do what?' said Woden. ‘Fight against storm and sleet and whirling winds? Because that is all mortals will see. This is a battle between Immortals. The tornado coming—'

‘Why have you ignored us for so long?' said Clare suddenly. ‘All these centuries, praying and supplicating … and now you just turn up …' Freya saw her hands shaking, as her mother clutched the mantelpiece.

Woden frowned.

‘Who are you to ask for attention from the mighty Gods?' said Woden. ‘Does the ant burrowing in the ground demand
your
interest? Do the salmon swimming in the river cry out
that you have forgotten them? We gave you life and that's enough. Rejoice in that great gift. If anything we were over-generous when—'

‘Hush,' said Heimdall.

The Gods and Goddesses froze.

The Wind-shield of the Gods, who could hear the grass growing, cocked his head.

‘The frost giants are marching down Bifrost,' said Heimdall.

‘Take up your weapons and prepare for war,' said Woden, grabbing his spear. His radiance filled the room. ‘The time of blood-wet spears is upon us. Shields will be gashed. Shafts will sing as arrows bite. Swords will clash under the battle-storm.'

Freya began to slink from the room.

‘Where do you think you're going?' demanded Woden. ‘Put on your cloak of falcon feathers. We will need your eyes.'

Then Freya remembered. ‘Loki is here,' she said. ‘I saw him. He wants Idunn's apples.'

‘Of course he's here,' said Woden. ‘The
Wolf's father is always around when there's trouble. Give me the eski. We don't want any more accidents.'

Freya flapped her falcon wings and landed on top of the high, hammer-shaped steeple of Woden's Temple. The biting wind blew fiercely and she had to grip tightly with her talons to keep her balance. Her juddering bird's heart pounded inside her feathery chest as her sharp falcon's eyes surveyed the hushed city below. The foggy, pre-dawn light was no obstacle: she could see for miles along the River Thames, then she turned to look past the London suburbs to the south, over the snowy hills of Surrey, glowing pinky-grey in the mist, across the meadows and fields and ancient woodlands of the Kent Downs all the way to the chalky
cliffs of Dover and the choppy English Channel and beyond.

She shivered. What did she know of battles and tactics and armies? She couldn't even beat her younger cousin at chess. She hated computer games. Could Woden have made a worse choice for his eyes and ears?

Just look, came Woden's cold voice inside her head, and I will see with your eyes. Where are my chosen ones, my warriors?

Freya surveyed the iron-helmeted ranks of the Einherjar, the battle-bright fighters of Valhalla, spread out in front of the Tate Modern around the base of the Millennium Bridge. They grasped their shining swords and axes, their spears and bows, their gleaming shields. Their red-gold coats of mail, flecked and battle-scarred, glinted in the swirling snow.

There's Snot, thought Freya.

Good, said Woden. We will need him.

Snot, grim-faced, wearing his filthy bear skin cloak, was at the head of a phalanx of berserkers
on the north side of the bridge, clutching his battle-axe. Icy water drops dripped from the edge. Other warriors gripped their long spears, ready to rain down a shower of blood on the first giants to surge off Bifrost onto the bridge. In the still cold air the only sound in the empty city was the eerie clink-clank of armour as the warriors shifted from foot to foot, waiting. Waiting, in a thicket of spears. The murky Thames, studded with floating chunks of ice, slopped high against its banks, as if to escape the coming battle. Overnight, London had been hurled into the winter of winters.

What else? said Woden. What else?

Freya peered down at the silent fighters defending the narrow passage between the City of London School for Boys and the Asgard Army building. The London skyline of cranes and steeples, the Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, the Gherkin, the Shard, the winding streets and gardens, all looked normal. Except, of course, for the surreal view of massed
ranks of armour-clad warriors and the roads jammed with abandoned cars. Freya thought for a crazy moment of a film she'd seen, where warriors were superimposed on a blue screen ready for computer-generated images of orcs and elves to be added. The Gods were hidden … where? Freya had no idea. Would they spring out to fight? Or – and her heart went cold – had they fled, and abandoned them all to their hard fate?

‘Look down, you stupid mare, we're in All-Father Square,' snapped Woden's voice. ‘We want to take the giants by surprise. They think they will only be fighting mortals with their storms.' Freya saw the Gods, light-filled and blazing, spread out among the Sleeping Army. The chess pieces had heard her call and sprung back to life, the kings, queens, knights, rooks, pawns and their snorting horses, pawing the ground, steaming and shining.

Above them two ravens circled.

Surely the giants would be no match for the
Gods, the Einherjar and the Sleeping Army. With Woden and Thor, how could—

The noise came first. A great whoosh of cloud and vapour. The bridge shuddered as hurricane winds whipped the Thames, which burst its banks in a tidal wave of ice-strewn water, spattering the shore and splashing the waiting warriors. Torrents of water flooded the streets, sweeping away all parked cars. The lights in the Shard and the Gherkin went out.

Freya saw Heimdall raise his horn to his lips. The ringing blast shattered every window for miles as the thunderous noise reverberated, rumbling and swelling, pealing and blaring.

The flaming rainbow road of the Immortals wobbled as it curved out of the dawn sky, hovering above the Millennium Bridge. Frost crackled across the railings, which snapped like brittle old bones and tumbled into the Thames.

Then the walkway buckled as the first giant lunged off Bifrost.

‘They're here!' screeched Freya. The Valhalla
warriors raised their shields, gripped their swords and charged.

The giant shook her swamp hair and hailstones fell from her lashes, punching holes in the metal bridge. Freya recoiled in horror. She looked as big as a building. Her hideous curved teeth stuck out from her mouth at crazy angles, like tombstones on a neglected grave mound. Spears of ice sprang from her hands like fingers.

‘I am Iron Hag!' she roared. ‘Prepare to die.'

More giants followed, dirt grey, with hair frozen into gnarled swirls of filthy snow. They bellowed their names: Hel Power. Whale-Head. Corpse-Eater. Blood Hair. Frost Lightning. Mouth Cramp. Horn-Claw. Spear Nose. Neck-Breaker. Lock-Jaw.

Jagged spikes burst from their shaking heads, like stalagmites. Half-gnawed seal carcasses tumbled from their matted hair and beards. Their eyes were like black pits with lava boiling behind them. They growled like the rumble of
a glacier tearing and splintering into the sea.

Woden hurled his spear and a giant fell dead. His body shattered like smashed ice, then cracked into rubble, stones and gravel. Then the berserks hurled themselves at the giants pouring off the bridge as Thor's hammer crushed many of their skulls. Thunder cracked and boomed and lightning criss-crossed the exploding sky every time his hammer whirled.

‘Go into the water and go under it,' Thor cursed them.

The bridge spun wildly, and broke. Freya heard the wrenching, tearing sound of bolts unbuckling as the bridge screamed beneath the giants' weight. A grating shriek; then TWANG TWANG TWANG as cables ripped and whipped into the massive bodies, hurling them off the madly swaying bridge. The water exploded around them as the river leapt its banks, burying the riverside buildings.

The Valhalla warriors continued to charge at the never-ending stream of giants. Several
fell through the churning ice and were swept away in the swollen current.

‘DIE!' bellowed the giants, with the bottled rage of centuries.

The roaring giants loomed up everywhere, trailing clouds of frost and ice, stinking of dead fish, blotting out the sky. They heaved into view through the skyscrapers, towering over the Gherkin. Shards of ice fell from their bodies, freezing everything they touched, and the raging wind whirled chunks of ice into the sky. Freya's ears ached with the great CRUNCH STOMP of their pounding feet as they pulverised houses as if they were dead leaves and swung their arms to topple tower blocks, rip up lampposts and uproot trees, which they hurled at the Asgard warriors.

‘The end is nigh,' shouted a man holding a placard in All-Father Square. A giant foot came down and squashed him.

Freya caught a flash of the Gods as they raced among the giants, slaughtering and hacking
and hewing. And yet still the giants tumbled off Bifrost in an avalanche of fury and hatred. The berserkers charged at them, heedless, racing across the river using the rubble of the giants' bodies as a makeshift bridge.

Trees fell as the earth shook and shuddered. Buildings crashed down, lashed by the fury of the winds. Telephone wires tangled on the road, tripping the lumbering giants. The toppled electricity cables spat sparks as they dangled in puddles, hissing. Flood waters gushed through the narrow roads and poured through doorways.

‘The power lines will electrocute you, be careful,' cried Freya.

‘Electrocute?' said Woden.

‘Fry you to a crisp,' said Freya. ‘Don't fight them, keep away from them.'