The Sleeping Army Read Online Free PDF Page B

branches.
    â€˜Well? What do we do now?’ said Freya.
    â€˜About bloody time,’ hissed a voice beside her.
    â€˜What took you so long?’ rasped another.
    Freya jumped. She looked around, but saw nothing. Roskva tensed.
    â€˜We’ve been waiting centuries for you,’ moaned a peevish voice behind her.
    The shadows fluttered. Freya saw ghosts rise from the earth and the rocks and shuffle towards her, tottering creatures of twilight and dew, more like walking air than living beings. Freya could hear bones creaking, like rusty wheels trying to turn again. She smelled mould and damp, as if the lid of an old trunk filled with moth-eaten rags had suddenly been lifted.
    Roskva gasped. She clutched Alfi’s arm. Snot growled.
    Alfi nudged her. ‘That’s Heimdall,’ he murmured, pointing to a wizened spectre babbling to himself as he rocked back and forth. ‘Oh Thor, that’s the guardian of the Gods. Roskva. Look at him. He’s worse than Grandpa was …’
    The wispy, flickering shadows gathered in the stone circle under Yggdrasil’s withered root. The dying Gods were assembling to hold their court.
    A crippled, shrivelled wraith hunched on the highest stone seat. His single eye glittered faintly beneath a few threads hanging down from what was once a wide-brimmed hat. Fragments of a blue mantle clung to the bones jutting out from his emaciated body.
    Snot fell to the ground.
    â€˜Bow!’ hissed Roskva, flinging herself down. Alfidid the same. Freya copied. She tried to stop her hands shaking.
    â€˜Who is that old guy?’ she whispered.
    â€˜The All-Father,’ murmured Alfi. ‘Hide your eyes.’ Freya obeyed. Her heart was pounding.
    It was impossible. How could this doddery, broken-backed wreck be Woden the Much-Wise, Father of Magic, Giver of Victory, Lord of Poetry? Freya glimpsed the stone seat beneath his transparent skin. The capricious, scary, vengeful God, the one Clare bowed down to so anxiously, was a crumpled husk. Two dead ravens, skeletons with a few feathers sticking out from their sides, perched on his shoulders.
    â€˜Stand up!’ croaked the one-eyed ghost. ‘Our time is brief.’
    The four stood in the middle of the stone circle, surrounded by the trembling Gods. Freya felt faint with horror and pity. The immortal Gods were old and dying. How was this possible?
    â€˜Where is the hero we’ve been waiting for?’ rasped Woden. ‘Where is the battle-brave warrior who blew Heimdall’s horn and woke my sleeping army? Where is the mortal hero the seeress foretold? Let him step forward and reveal himself.’
    He can’t mean me, thought Freya. She lookeddown at her scuffed black shoes and her Baldr’s Fane of England school uniform with its crumpled blue-pleated skirt. There was still a ketchup stain from lunch on her ratty yellow sweatshirt. He can’t mean me.
    Freya looked around. Snot scratched his bum. Alfi cleared his throat. Roskva gave her a push.
    â€˜Who blew the horn and cracked open the earth? Step forward!’ hissed Woden. His withered eye flashed for a moment.
    â€˜I did,’ whispered Freya.
    The assembled Gods hissed and muttered. The Goddess Sif choked. Heimdall rocked to and fro, drooling.
    â€˜But it was a mistake,’ said Freya. ‘I didn’t mean to … I didn’t know, I …’
    â€˜Your name,’ said Woden. When he spoke, there was an edge to his voice that frightened her.
    â€˜Freya,’ she said.
    â€˜An unworthy namesake,’ hissed a bald Goddess with shaking, liver-coloured hands. Her transparent skin was a mass of wrinkles. A glittering gold necklace weighed down her scrawny, turkey-gobbler neck. ‘You’re so ugly. What were your parents thinking? I am insulted.’
    You’re one to talk, you old crone, thought Freya. And she’d always been so proud to share the name of such a beautiful, wise Immortal.
    Woden