Daniel nearly exploded. “It’s . . . Freya! It’s been—”
Alex held his hand up. “It’s not about what good it’s been—although it’s been plenty over the centuries, that’s certain—it’s about the future, about protecting this country from future invasion—about stopping the one that’s already in progress.”
“Right. Exactly,” Freya said. “It sounds like—with the dragon and everything—as if there’s a larger problem beyond Niðergeard. Shouldn’t we address
that
, instead of a dusty old city that everyone has forgotten about?”
“Young Freya,” Ecgbryt said after consideration, “you may be
right. But the situation is as you stated—we simply do not know enough yet. We need answers from Niðergeard and her people. And you three are the best for the job.”
“Three?” Freya asked.
“You, Daniel, and Vivienne,” Ecgbryt said.
“But . . . the army. Shouldn’t you go around and gather them before we know what the deal is?”
“Freya,” Ecgbryt said in a stern voice. “Kelm and the yfelgópes will need to be defeated, whatever the situation. Trust me on that. Their progress will only harm us.”
Freya shook her head. “Count me out,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Daniel asked.
“I mean, I’m not going. You don’t need me.”
“Oh, what? You’re losing the argument so you’re going to sulk?”
“Not at all. I’m no good at fighting, I’ll just get in the way. More likely killed. It’s dangerous and I’m not prepared for that, so I’m not going.”
Daniel’s mouth hung open, a half smile of disbelief across it.
“Let’s all take a moment and find some space to have a bit of a think,” Vivienne said, rising. “It’s a lot to take in all at once.”
“Freya,” Alex said, when she eagerly rose too, “don’t go too far. Stay on the grounds and try to avoid others—you’re a celebrity now. Your picture has been plastered all over the news. The ‘twice abducted girl’ story has rather sparked the public imagination.”
Freya nodded.
“If someone does recognise you, just say that you are already in the escort of two police officers and find a way to contact Ecgbryt or myself. I’m Constable Simpson, he’s Constable Cuthbert.’"
She nodded and struck out toward the golf course to stretch her legs.
_____________________
II
_____________________
Freya skirted the edge of well-cultivated woodland. It wasn’t the messy, organic sort of woods that you got in actual forests; it was the thinned out, well-tended woodland where anything rotten or dead was quickly carted off.
“They tricked you. They blindfolded you with their lies, told you all sorts of fantastic tales until your head started spinning, and when you were all mixed up, they took off the blindfold and pushed you where they wanted you to go.”
Gád’s words came back to her easily. It had been so hard to repress them, to push them away into any dark closet of her mind, but now they were coming back to her freely, in complete snatches. They’d obviously left more of an impression on her than she knew.
“They want to control us, make us live in the past with them, give up our identities, our hopes and dreams—make us something less than human.”
She had expected a villain but instead found someone who made a lot of sense. And he’d given her what she most wanted: an escape from their underground prison—which was considerably more than anyone else did for her. Even for all the hype about his power and wisdom, Ealdstan did not do that.
However, Gád had told her to lie, and he had killed Swiðgar. Those two things could not be forgotten.
But his words kept coming back, as if she were hearing them for the first time. It was like digging for a skeleton in the ground; every so often a bone unearthed, and she would fit it together with what she already had. Given time, she felt she could piece together the entire conversation.
“They told you I was an oppressor, but what if I’m a freedom fighter? A revolutionary?”
Rationally, she knew that there was little reason to take what Gád told her on trust, any more than Ealdstan. But even if Gád was not completely right, he couldn’t be as wrong as Ealdstan and Modwyn and the rest of them, with their secret battles, stockpiled soldiers, and weapons and enchantments for some supposed future mystical battle. With a creeping realization, she found that she sided more with Gád that with any of the Niðergearders. Ecgbryt and poor Swiðgar included.
She suddenly noticed she was walking faster now—her hands, arms, and shoulders were clenched, and she was sweating. Anxiety was taking over; it almost had control of her.
She wished she had her pills, but her pills were long gone. She hadn’t escaped Stowe with them, and right now it would be next to impossible to pick up a new prescription. Her heart was going as fast as an alarm clock bell. Without the pills, life was like a deathmetal soundtrack with the volume kicked up to eleven. It was hard to think and hard to feel anything except the Fear. She ran through some exercises that a therapist once tried to teach her—she built up the mind-wall and tossed every fear that she came across over it, but that was only of limited help. She could still hear her fears behind it—scrabbling, skittering, climbing . . .
“You’re right, you know.”
Freya whirled and found Aunt Vivienne looking into the trees.
“Sorry to interrupt your solitude, but I wanted you to know: you’re right. I know it, you know it—and that’s why we all need you to go down there with us.”
Freya looked away. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “I don’t really want to go back. For years I’ve been terrified—literally terrified, often almost paralysed with terror—of being sucked back into that world, of what would happen to me if it did.” She looked about at the trees, then back to Vivienne. “It’s ruining my life—it’s ruining me. I’ve thought of killing myself lots of times. Regularly, I
would say. I probably never had a chance of a normal life after getting sucked into Niðergeard, but I think I could have a life without fear if I could go back there and deal with it.”
Vivienne came closer to her. “Well, don’t go off and do anything foolish. You’re a good thinker, and I feel that we need thinkers more than we do fighters in a situation like this.”
“I’m worried about Daniel, that he’ll mess things up. He’s too eager to run in and start chopping people’s heads off.”
“I believe I can keep him in line. I know his type, but I need you with me.”
“And Ecgbryt. We don’t need the knights yet. It’s stupid to send him off to get them. Wouldn’t we be better off taking him with us?”
Vivienne shook her head. “We not only must find out if we can find and wake the knights; we need to try and save them. They’re already being tracked down and killed. The dragon Alex discovered had killed all the knights and made their chamber its lair. We have to get to the others before they’re discovered too, and Ecgbryt and Alex are the best qualified and able to do that.”
Freya chewed her lip. This was the time to tell Vivienne about Gád if she was going to, but she still wasn’t sure.
“They told you I was an oppressor, but what if I’m a freedom fighter? A revolutionary?”
Freya looked out over the green landscape of Scotland. A light rain was moving in on the hills ahead of them, misting the horizon in a grey blur.
If I’m really going to wade into a war,
she thought,
then I want to make sure I’m on the right side before I start sharing information.
“Dreary weather, eh?” Vivienne said.
“We’ll miss the view when we go underground.”
“Does that mean you’re coming?”
“I don’t think I have much choice.”
“Wonderful.”
“How do we get there?”
“Through the Langtorr tunnel,” Vivienne said matter-of-factly.
“The what?”
“The Langtorr tunnel. You must know the Langtorr, correct? Ecgbryt said that’s where you all stayed. If you go to the top of it, it connects here—well, to the midlands at least. We’ve been keeping a very close eye on it. It seems to be still open and unguarded by the yfelgópes.”
Freya felt like she was plunging downward already. “The Langtorr . . . It’s been there all this time?”
“Indeed. I even did a quick scout of it myself.”
“You’ve been to the Langtorr? Recently?”
“Just to see if I could or if we had to arrange something else. There are scads of entrances if you know how to look for them. The Langtorr is the most direct one.”
“Would Ecgbryt have known about it? Even years ago?”
“Certainly. It’s one of the oldest gates.”
Freya turned her back to Vivienne. She could feel her face flushing with rage. There
had
been a direct exit from Niðergeard. They could have been sent home at any time at all. The only reason she’d agreed to go on that ridiculous quest was to get back home—something Ealdstan told her was impossible to do unless they destroyed Gád. She had known they were being used but had consoled herself by knowing that there was no other way through the terrible situation they were in. But it was another of Ealdstan’s lies—and one that all the other Niðergearders—Modwyn, Godmund, and Ecgbryt and Swiðgar included—were complicit in.
That settled it. She may not wholly be on Gád’s side, but she certainly wasn’t on the side of those who would manipulate small, helpless children into going on missions of assassination. Was he a revolutionary? Then she was too.
_____________________
III
_____________________
Kelm Kafhand sat on the hero’s throne. It was a chair made of rough-hewn stone and sat atop an irregular pile of rubble in the largest courtyard of Niðergeard. Coal fires burned in braziers at the base of the pile. It was difficult for him to heave his powerful but unwieldy form up the heap, but the view gave an appropriate perspective for his thoughts.
Kelm huffed in large, ragged breaths as his enormous chest moved up and down with a slow, inevitable regularity. His body may be still, but his mind was racing—running through exercises and evil thoughts to help while away monotony. His scowl was deep—he had been frowning for decades.
Occasionally he would sneer in pleasure at a particularly ugly thought, but even then the large jowls that anchored his face to his shoulders and chest would remain unstirred. His eyes were buried beneath a flabby brow that pressed down on his cheeks and created a series of folds that masked his eyes. His face, grotesque as it was, was not one without emotion. Long, shaggy eyebrows moved and twitched almost constantly, and his wide mouth had found nuance and subtlety in conveying fifty shades of displeasure unobtained by younger, more inexperienced faces.
He was doing what he always did, whether he was eating, drinking, dreaming, or just sitting: he was plotting. Plotting was as natural to him as breathing. Every minute of every day was filled with cooking up plots—small acts of meanness or large acts of cruelty, it didn’t matter. Most of his plots never went further than the grin on his own slimy lips, but that didn’t matter. Each plot kept his mind in shape for the next one.
Kelm’s lieutenant, a wretched little yfelgóp with a large head and weak arms, slouched into view from around one of the buildings and began his address with a bored drone. “Your honour, my
general, most exalted among all military leaders, illustrious master of the underground races and magnificent commander of the five unseen armies”—the lieutenant drew in a deep breath before finally getting to the point—“a messenger has arrived.”
Kelm glared at the miserable creature for almost a minute before nodding. During that time the lieutenant merely stood gazing vacantly at his esteemed general, breathing heavily through his mouth and drooling. Kelm decided that none of his soldiers could be as stupid as this man looked and therefore this one was trying to fool him, and therefore needed to be killed. He already had what must be a dozen plots to accomplish it, but he’d need to spend time selecting the most satisfying one.
For now, he signalled to the lieutenant, who turned away unceremoniously and shuffled back through the curtain. A moment later the messenger appeared.
He was dressed in white with a light, full-length travelling cloak made out of a thick, bleached hide. Kelm’s lip curled with pleasure; his breathing shifted into something that, in him, perhaps passed for a type of slow laughter.
The messenger frowned.
Kelm’s breathing slowed. “You look like him.”
“But I am not him. I am his mannequin. His fetch.”
Kelm wheezed. “And what message does Empty-Grinner send to me in your empty shell?” the enormous leader asked, contempt raw in his voice.
The messenger bristled at Kelm’s tone. “A wise man would advise you to be more respectful of your superior.”
The right side of Kelm’s mouth jerked upward, showing a flash of black and orange teeth. “Show me a wise man and I’ll consider his advice. Show me a superior and I’ll show him respect.”
The messenger gave a sly smile. “Wisdom and superiority are not mine to possess. I merely speak and listen for those who are
greater than myself.” He gave a bow but kept his eyes on Kelm’s.
“Gád and I have an understanding,” the massive general said with a belch. “There is none other who can control his troops with the skill that I can.”
“No. You killed all those who might have.”
“It is right that it was thus. Power is undeniable—in me it is irrepressible. He who is strongest must lead, and none have proven to be my strategic equal. It is I whose strength and prowess allowed us to conquer this city. I raised this hero’s throne, and now,
I rule
.”
“None but Gád,” the messenger said quietly.
“What?”
“None but Gád have proven to be your equal.”
It may have been the fire that made Kelm’s eyes gleam viciously for a moment, but it was only for a moment, and when the gleam left, Kelm’s face had a fairly apathetic cast to it. “My ambition does not extend to Gád’s . . .” His breathing caught and he let out a wheeze. “. . . responsibilities. What Gád has, Gád can keep. I shall remain here.”
“That is very generous. I’m sure that Gád thanks you for such a consideration. But perhaps when Gád has more, then you will want more? I wonder, have you already numbered Gád’s days in your mind?”