Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (31 page)

Jake nodded darkly. “We have to try.”

“Is there time, Your Highness?” Archie checked his fob watch. “It’s one A.M. We’ve only got eight hours left.”

“If we’re going, we need to leave now,” she replied.
“It’s a good three hours there and back.”

“
But Your Highness!” Snorri insisted. “If they’re wrong, all is lost!”

“Do you have
any better ideas?” Jake exclaimed.

S
norri gave him a blank look, but Archie tried to intervene.

“You must admit i
t does sound highly dangerous, Jake. Not to mention a little insane. To have us go to the gates of Valhalla, enter the land of the dead, and then break into Odin’s palace, all in the vague hopes of finding some pool?” Archie shook his head, paling now that he had spoken the steps of their daunting task out loud. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t get Blood-Eagled.”

Jake winced at the reminder of that nasty Viking punishm
ent. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I’ll go myself. Me and Red. Right, boy?”

“Caw!”

“Jake,” Archie chided.

“Look, I know this is a gamble,
” he said, “but if somebody doesn’t come back with the right answer, and Loki gets control of Giant World, it’s Ragnarok for all of us.”

“He’s right. Enough talk. Come on,” Kaia ordered, grabbing her cloak and heading for the door. “I’ll take you on my
ship. If Thor smiles, we’ll have the winds at our backs.”

Jake called his Gryphon to his side; Kaia gave them extra gear to keep them warm, and off they went.

To sail to the land of the dead.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Valkyries

As Kaia’s royal Viking ship glided through the swirling mists, Jake shrugged deeper into his coat. It was too bad Miss Langesund couldn’t be here, he thought. The lady-archeologist would have been thrilled to take a sail on a real Viking longboat, even a giant-sized one.

Presently, they were in the middle of arctic nowhere, the carved wooden dragon-head on the prow forging on northward, always
north. They had left the shores of Jugenheim two hours ago, with Snorri and Kaia heave-ho-rowing through the waves at top speed.

Jake could hardly believe they were going to Valhalla. Breaking in, to be exact.

He was excited for the adventure, which probably meant that he was as much of a loon-bat as Loki. But the flutter of anticipation in his stomach to see the land of myth was mingled with a prudent dose of fear.

Other than that, he was numb. The cold at this latitude was unlike anything Jake had ever experienced—or Archie, for that matter. Each breath stung a bit in their lungs. Ice crystals kept forming on their lashes, and neither cousin could stop shivering, despite the sealskin coats
that Kaia had given them. (The smallest size available, for toddler-aged giants.)

She had also provided Red with a thick plaid horse blanket (foal-sized, for giant baby horses)
held in place by a strap under his chest. She had cut two slits in the top of it for his wings. She had also offered him a set of horses’ leg wrappings to protect his paws from the extreme cold, but the Gryphon wouldn’t wear them.

In any case, Red was half eagle,
and eagles could thrive in frigid climates. The boys took shelter from the wind under his wings, one on each side of the noble beast; the three of them huddled together for warmth on the deck while the hardy Norse giants rowed, navigating by starlight.

The dragon boat glided past glaciers that sparkled in the night. Gigantic slabs of ice as bi
g as buildings crumbled off the glaciers now and then without warning and crashed into the sea.

Archie while
d away the time with an explanation. “Th-th-the glacier is c-constantly re-m-making itself,” Jake’s shivering cousin informed him. “The ice f-forms farther north, and when it g-gets to the end, called the t-t-terminus, it c-calves, or b-breaks off, and floats away, f-forming ice-b-bergs”

Jake nodded, stifling a yawn. He had not plann
ed on staying awake all night, but he was too cold to sleep. It would be morning soon. This far north, there were only a few hours of darkness this time of year. He’d be glad when the sun rose and warmed them up a little.

Though the nighttime made their arctic surroundings look even more dramatic and mysterious, it also made the going that much more dangerous.
The large oil lamp attached to the front of the ship cast only a small beam of light ahead. The rocks, the passing whales, and most of all, the icebergs Archie had mentioned made their path an obstacle course through the sea. Unfortunately, they did not have the luxury of waiting until it got light out. The clock was ticking on the time limit to answer Loki’s riddle.

After a while, Kaia took a break at
the oars to rest her arms while Snorri kept rowing. Her blond head was draped in the fur-lined hood of her cloak as she looked up to consult the map of the stars.

A
ll of a sudden, she pointed skyward. “Look!”

Swirling ribbons of color danced across in the sky.

“The Aurora Borealis!” Archie burst out in excitement.

The green, pink, and yellow glow of the Northern Lights bathed their faces, etched with wonder.

“Odin’s battle-flag,” Kaia said somberly at length. “That means we’re almost there.” With that, she sat down and took up her oars again with renewed determination.

The mysterious swirling lights in the
sky mesmerized Jake. He watched them until they faded half an hour later, vanishing as inexplicably as they had appeared.

But the Northern Lights had no sooner abandoned the sky than the sun peeped over the icy horizon. As it climbed higher, it lit the arctic landscape with
incredible colors of a wintry dawn.

B
rilliant blues and otherworldly greens shimmered amid a hundred shades of white and silver ice; here and there, the snow looked lavender and pink.

They laughed at the sight
of a polar bear standing on an ice floe. It roared at them as the dragon boat glided by. The beast looked ferocious to Jake, but Snorri and Kaia just laughed. The hulking polar bear was only the size of a dog to the giants.

At length, they entered a narrow p
assage between two towering rock faces. The height of the cliffs blotted out the morning sunlight, casting them in shadow.

The waves crashed between the two
sides of the narrow strait they had entered. Jagged rocks were everywhere.

Snorri used all
his strength to steer with the oars.

As the boat tossed, Jake and Archie held on in dread, while Red dug his claws into the deck to keep him
self anchored.

The longboat angled every which way in the wild currents trapped between the high sea cliffs.

Aside from feeling queasy from the ship’s bucking, Jake was terrified at how easily the vessel’s hull could be damaged. If they hit any of these rocks and the ship went down, even the giants would be dead in minutes in this icy-water—provided they weren’t eaten first by whales or polar bears or something worse.

Sweat stood out on Snorri’s brow as he used his massive strength to maneuver the dragon-boat
safely through treacherous rocks.

As they approached
a sheltered inlet where the foaming waters calmed, a strange clamor filled the air, like a flock of a hundred restless seabirds. The din came from somewhere up ahead, echoing to them down the long narrow corridor between the cliffs.

“What is that?” Jake exclaimed.

“Penguins? Puffins?” Archie guessed.

Kaia and Snorri exchanged a worried glance.

The constant noise of the birds grew louder as the boat drifted deeper into the stone passage.

“I think we’re almost there,” Kaia murmured. And she was right. The strait ended ahead in
a rounded hollow in the rock, a dead end. The water here was an otherworldly shade of bright aquamarine. The back wall blocked their way in the form of a towering cliff, with twin glaciers reaching down both sides of it like great white arms.

Indeed, the gray cliff ahead was carved with runes taller than two giants. Jake realized he was looking no
t at a cliff, but at the gate to Valhalla—even as he heard Archie gasp.

“Jake, look
!”

He turned as his cousin pointed
at the birds, and his eyes shot open wide.

There were creatures clinging to the bare rock face of the cliffs on either side of them, like a huge flock of puffins. Sitting there on the rugged outcrops of stone, some tucked in to little cliffside nests. But they weren’t puffins.
No, they weren’t birds at all.

They were women
.

With wings.

“Valkyries,” Kaia said reverently. “The Guardians of Valhalla.”

Jake was nearly speechless. “What are they? L-like
Viking angels?” he stammered with a nervous gulp.

“Of
a sort,” Kaia told him. “Odin’s battle-maidens, hand-picked to go and collect the souls of warriors fallen in battle. They escort them here, to a hero’s afterlife. When they’re not doing that, they guard the gates to the realm of the gods.”

It took a moment for Jake to absorb this. “You mean we need to get past all these hundreds of Valkyries in order to get inside?”

Kaia nodded grimly.

“There’s no way,” Archie whispered.

“There’s got to be,” Jake said. “We didn’t come this far for nothing.”

As Snorri brought the ship to a halt in the calm waters of the inlet, sheltered from the wind, one of the Valkyries pushed away from her perch on the cold rock cliff and flew toward them.

The boys’ eyes widened. She
did
look like an angel, except she was armed to the teeth.

Wings pumping, the Valkyrie flew to the front of the ship and hovered there, a ray of morning sun illuminating he
r exquisite Scandinavian beauty: high cheekbones, brilliant blue eyes, flowing strawberry-blond hair.

Odin had good taste
in battle-maids, Jake thought in wide-eyed admiration.

She had sleek, white-feathered wings. Her athletic frame was lightly draped in a short, pale-pink slip of a dress over high, laced boot
s. But Jake doubted most angels carried a silver sword like the one at her waist, let alone had rune tattoos twining up her arms like this battle-maid of Odin did.

“Noble giants!” she intoned in a forceful voice full of stern dignity. “You must turn back. You are too near the Gates. You have no business in these waters.”

Snorri made the boat shake, he was trembling so much in terror of the pretty creature, but Kaia stepped forward and answered in equally formal tones. “Oh, battle-maid of Odin, please grant us passage. I am Princess Kaia of Jugenheim, and I’m here because our land is besieged by the trickery of Lord Loki. We must outwit him in his mischief to prevent a great evil—”

“Non
e shall pass!” the Valkyrie cut her off. “We have our orders!”

“If you please, ma’am,” Snorri spoke up, humbly removing his horned helmet, “there’s not enough
room in these narrows to turn our ship around.”

“My sisters and I will assist you. We will steer you back out to the open water, so you may return to your homes or go where you will.”

“We can’t! We need to solve a riddle!” Archie cried.

The Valkyrie narrowed her eyes
at him. “You must go or you will die. None of the living may trespass in Valhalla.” She flew back to Kaia to issue her final warning. “I asked you with the respect due your rank, Princess of Jugenheim, to leave. But if you give us no choice, we will turn you away by force.”

To emphasize her point, the Valkyrie let out a loud birdlike call, at which
, twenty more winged beauties joined her, flying over to surround their boat.

They took hold of the edges of the bulwarks. The leader gave the order and the Valkyries began to fly, driving the dragon-boat backwards.

Snorri tried to work against them with the oars.

Jake whispered to Red, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

The Gryphon cocked his head to the side and nodded.

“Good. L
et’s go, then. C’mon if you’re coming, Arch,” Jake whispered. “Can’t promise we won’t get Blood-Eagled for this, but Red can get us past them.”

“Of course I’m
coming with you!” he whispered back. “These girls are too pretty to Blood-Eagle anybody.”

Don’t count on it,
Jake thought.

Snorri was begging the gorgeous Valkyries to let go of the ship, but Jake exchanged a glance with Princess Kaia, whose hand was inching toward the bow hung across her back.

The princess gave him a subtle nod, understanding his intent. The boys slipped onto Red’s back. “Hold on tight,” Jake warned his cousin. “He’ll have to fly in an unpredictable pattern to get us past this lot.”

“Will do.”

Red took two running steps across the deck of the ship and leaped into the air, taking flight.

Several of the Valkyries split off from the others, coming after them. “Back to your ship! What do you th
ink you’re doing?”

Red
kept going, flying swiftly to scale the massive gate ahead. The boys held on tight, but Jake glanced over his shoulder when he heard a piercing, bird-like screech.

The leader of the Valkyries screamed out the summons to her sisters; it w
as answered by every other winged woman on the cliffs
and
the ones pushing the boat.

As the enraged shriek from all of them echoed through the narrows, the sound was so loud that the vibrations from it cracked a chunk of ice off the end of the glacier.

When the huge slab of ice fell and splashed into the sea, it sent plumes of freezing water arcing high into the air—high enough to spatter Red and the boys.

As a result, i
ce crystals formed on Red’s wings here and there and made it harder for him to fly, especially with passengers.

Behind them, meanwhile, the dragon-boat rocked wildly from the splashing of the ice. Snorri was thrown back from the oars and Kaia we
nt sprawling onto the deck.

Red continued climbing into the sky.

“Good boy, keep going, we’re almost there!” Jake urged his Gryphon, riding low over his neck like a jockey on a racehorse.

Meanwhile, Archie glanced behind them. “Uh, Jake?”

“What is it?”

“Remember how the Norns had a bad side?”

“Yes, why?