Underworlds #4: The Ice Dragon Read online

  “Oh, come on!” he crowed. “Is that all you have?” He jiggled the daggers out of his arms and tossed them back, then swung his massive sword in a wide circle to clear a path. “You kids can scurry out any time you want, you know!” he said.

  We scurried.

  While the man hacked a path through the goblins, we tore through the mines, Dana clutching the rune close to her. As we burst out of the tunnels and clambered back up the path to the surface, the man tossed his torch into the cave and the goblins retreated. That was when we finally saw the full size of our rescuer. He was a man at least seven feet tall, with massive muscles and bulging arms, covered with furs from his shoulders to his chunky boots. We could see long, flowing blond hair when he removed a helmet the size of a fire hydrant, with a white horn curving up from the center.

  “Are you … Odin?” I mumbled, huffing for breath.

  The man cracked a smile. “Me? Pffft! I wish. I’m Baldur, Odin’s son. Well, one of his sons. He has a few.” With little effort he rolled a giant stone over the mine entrance. “That should hold those nasty goblins for a while,” he said. “They had rune neck-laces, did you see? Loki must be nearby.” Then he paused. “Hold on —”

  He twisted his elbow around. There were three goblin daggers sticking out of it.

  “I thought I had an itch!” Baldur said with a growly laugh, tugging the daggers out and snapping them between his fingers like toothpicks. Then he turned back to us and grinned. “I see you have the Lyre of Orpheus. There’s good magic in that thing — though not as much as in that rune you have.”

  “We weren’t stealing it,” said Dana quickly.

  “I know,” said Baldur. “I recognize Sindr’s handiwork on your armor, so I know you must be friends.”

  “But the goblins stabbed you,” said Jon. I swear he hadn’t blinked in two minutes. “Are you indestructible or something?”

  Baldur smiled. “Well, I’m a god, of course. But my father, Odin, also added an extra charm to make me invincible —”

  Sydney gasped. “I know why! It’s because of your bad dreams, isn’t it?”

  The Norse god blinked. “Yes. I’ve been having dreams where I … die. But how could you possibly know that?”

  Dana pulled out her copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology. “It’s in my book. We’ve all been reading it. There’s a story about you and your dreams.”

  Baldur frowned, but before he could say anything more, the squeal of goblins echoed and the rock over the mine entrance shifted a little. Baldur narrowed his eyes at the rock. “Take the rune to my father. He’s in Asgard, at the top of that glacier.”

  He blew out a long breath, and the clouds cleared enough for us to see a giant glacier slanting up beyond the volcano toward a mountain range nearby. The uppermost tip of the glacier was lost in fog.

  “Asgard lies at the very top,” he said. “Follow the glacier up. And keep that rune from prying eyes. Now excuse me, I’ve got to make sure these goblins don’t follow you. Hurry to Asgard!”

  Baldur leaped back to the mouth of the cave, swinging his broadsword at the escaping goblins.

  “You heard what Baldur said,” said Dana, quickly coiling the rope over her shoulder. “To Asgard!”

  THE GLACIER WAS A VAST FIELD OF ICE, SLOPING UP from the northern rim of the volcano to somewhere completely shrouded by clouds. It looked like a straight shot, but the thing about glaciers is that they’re slippery — so climbing them isn’t easy. Two wobbly steps forward, one back. It took forever to make any progress.

  Plus, it was getting colder by the second, our armor was freezing, and we had to keep breaking icicles off our helmets. All I wanted — all I really wanted — was to lie down and sleep.

  On top of that, it began to snow. Hard.

  “We’re going to get so lost,” Jon said. “I can’t even see my own hands.”

  Dana passed the rune to Sydney and uncoiled the rope from her shoulder. “Let’s use the rope to tie ourselves to one another.”

  “That way if one of us falls, we all fall?” said Jon.

  Sydney slipped the rune inside her armor and gave Jon a look. “No. This way, we don’t lose you.”

  We looped the rope around our waists, and just in time, too. When a blast of wind cleared the whirling snow for a second, Jon was tiptoeing inches from the edge of a deep chasm.

  “Ack!” cried Jon. “We almost lost me!”

  I looked down into the chasm, but couldn’t see the bottom. I kicked a slab of ice off the edge. It dropped fast, exploding into pieces with each ledge it struck on the way down.

  “Ohhh …”

  I turned to the others. “Who said that?”

  “Ohhh …”

  “Someone’s out there,” Sydney said, pointing into the spinning snow. “Hello?”

  “Ohhh … help!”

  We made our way forward, following the sound. Soon we saw an old woman dressed in rags. Her hands were stretched out in front of her, searching the air as if to find her way.

  “Wait, is this a mirage?” Jon said, shrinking back.

  “If it’s not, then what is an old lady doing out here?” Dana whispered. “Ma’am? Stop —”

  “I need to find my dog. He fell into the ravine. There he is!” the woman cried, stepping to the edge and pointing to a small dog limping back and forth on a ledge some ten feet below. “I have to save my poor puppy!”

  “No!” said Dana. “I’ll get your dog for you. You stay here. Guys, give me some slack.”

  “What?” I said. There was no way. But Dana gave me a look that told me she’d made up her mind. She was going. Keeping the rope tight around her waist, Dana edged down the chasm wall while we lowered her foot by foot onto the ledge. The dog backed away from her, but she motioned it over and stroked its head. “It’s all right. It’s okay, Mr. Puppy. Let’s climb back up. Here we go….”

  “Dana, be careful,” Jon said.

  Dana held the dog close, and we pulled her gently to the top of the chasm.

  “My hero!” the woman cried, as the dog leaped into her arms. “Now all of you must come with me. My hut is nearby, so you can warm yourselves. Follow me!”

  Laughing, the woman clutched Dana’s wrist as if it were a lifeline, unhooked her rope, and pulled her into the whirling snowstorm.

  “We need to keep moving,” said Sydney. “We can’t stay.”

  “Only long enough to warm up,” said Jon.

  “Dana?” I called. She didn’t answer. “Dana! Wait for us!”

  We lost sight of her for a second, and I didn’t like it. The snow was whipping around like a tornado, and it was all I could do not to be swept into the chasm myself. We plowed ahead for what seemed like ten minutes (but was probably only a few seconds), until we finally saw the woman’s home. It was a tiny hut wedged under a ridge of glacier. The wind blew like a hurricane across the ice, and it struck me that the hut hardly seemed strong enough to survive a good rain, never mind an Icelandic winter.

  “Dana?” I said. “Dana? Where are you —”

  And there she was, already squeezing out the little hut door, her arms full of bundles.

  “The nice lady gave us food!” She held up a loaf of bread and a bunch of grapes.

  Jon leaped on them. “I’m so hungry!”

  “And she gave me a special flower because I was so heroic,” said Dana, showing off a sprig of green with white berries tucked into her helmet. “Mistletoe. Cool, huh?”

  “Christmas mistletoe? Where did she find that?” Sydney asked. “We’re on a glacier. Nothing grows here.”

  Dana shrugged. “Well, I like it.”

  The whole episode was weird, but then again, what wasn’t weird about the last few days? I went to the hut and peeked in the door. The old woman sat on her bed in the corner, the puppy at her feet. “Thank you,” I said. “We have to go now.”

  Dana whispered over my shoulder. “She told me we just keep going up.”

  “My favorite direction,” Jon grumbled.


  But we had a job to do — we had to find Dana’s parents and stop Loki. So we walked on.

  And on and on.

  We huddled together and pushed through the snow. Whenever we found ourselves trekking on level ground, we knew we were off course, so we searched until we found a slope and traveled up again. Another hour passed before we burst through the storm and came out above the clouds. The snowstorm swirled beneath us.

  Then Sydney jumped. “Ow!” She yanked the Crystal Rune from her armor. It was beaming like a laser.

  Dana gasped. “Just like in the legends!”

  The rune was probably the most beautiful thing any of us had ever seen. Now its light suddenly arced across the glacier to a point in the near distance, where it stopped cold.

  “Well, that’s weird,” said Sydney. “Light doesn’t actually work like that — it usually fades out. But then again, this is a magic rune, so anything’s possible.”

  When we approached the glowing point of light, it began to change color. At first, it shimmered silver. Then blue. Then crimson. Finally, the spot beamed with a white light more brilliant than the ice itself. And the more we watched, the more the light grew up from the ground and took shape in the air.

  “It’s forming a door!” I said.

  As we stepped up to the door, it opened wide.

  “Asgard,” Dana said softly.

  We passed through the door. It closed behind us, and I had the sudden feeling of not caring if I were trapped inside that door forever.

  Where nothing but ice had existed only seconds before, now we could see a city of snow and stone, of crystal and silver. Tall buildings made of blue and white granite, gleaming with the sheen of moonlight, rose from hills of snow and green valleys as far as the eye could see. It was so deeply beautiful, so calm, that for the first time in weeks I felt at peace.

  “Stop where you stand!” boomed a deep voice.

  I took a look at the guy who had spoken and I nearly choked. I was getting the idea that the standard Norse god was a cross between a bodybuilder and a model. The guy who marched up to us had bigger and bushier blond hair than Baldur’s, was about a foot taller, and wielded a bunch of fairly unimaginable weapons — like a seven-bladed spear, a pair of winged arrows hovering in the air, something that resembled a Frisbee made of flaming thorns, and a long pole with a big golden claw on the end of it.

  Then we saw a huge rainbow-colored bridge rising up behind him.

  “Are you … Odin?” asked Jon.

  “Ha!” the man boomed. “I am a toddler compared to the great Odin! I am the Watch guard of the bridge to Asgard. And I know you. You are Owen, Jon, Sydney, and Dana.”

  “We have to see Odin,” I said. “We have … this …” Sydney held out the Crystal Rune.

  All at once, the ground shook with the sound of a herd of horses galloping over the bridge.

  Only it wasn’t a herd.

  It was a single horse.

  With eight legs.

  A god in a horned helmet rode tall in the horse’s saddle. His hair was so blond, it was almost white. By the massive hammer slung over his shoulder, we knew who he was.

  “Thor!” Jon cried. “Whoa, there are whole movies about you!”

  Thor slapped the reins of the eight-legged horse until he practically rode over us. Halting abruptly, he said, “Odin the magnificent, my father, requests you at the weapons forge! Mount his magical horse and come!”

  It’s not the kind of request you think twice about.

  So we mounted our second magical horse of the day.

  WE CLUNG TO ONE ANOTHER FOR DEAR LIFE AS THE giant eight-legged horse galloped down into the green valley, through a forest of tall pine trees, and up to the high hills, eating up the miles in minutes.

  It was hard to breathe, but it wasn’t long before we saw Valhalla, the giant hall at the northernmost point of Asgard.

  Valhalla was a hall the size of a small city. It was made of wood and stone, covered with ice, and beaming with silver light. Its high walls were jammed with warriors. But the amazing horse bounded on until we came to a place where furnaces and forges were pumping black smoke from tall chimneys. We recognized the Valkyries’ horses tethered outside.

  “This is the forge Baldur told us about,” said Sydney as we dismounted. “Kind of like how the Cyclopes used the power plant in Pinewood Bluffs as their forge.”

  “My father, Odin, is preparing for war,” said Thor.

  We passed heaps of breastplates, stacks of helmets, swords of all widths and lengths. Spears and axes leaned against the high walls of the forge. Some that lay cooling on the ground had melted the snow down to the brown earth.

  Miss Hilda poked her head out of the forge. “He’s expecting you!” I couldn’t help feeling relieved to see her familiar face.

  We entered, and immediately felt the heat of the ovens. The ceiling was charred black as smoke poured out a chimney at the top. More weapons gleamed inside, some sooty and black, some white-hot. But all this was nothing compared to the god standing in front of us.

  Odin — this time it had to be him — towered over a giant anvil, running his hand up and down the flat edges of a three-bladed sword, each blade as long as a ski and twice as wide. He turned the weapon in the firelight, weighing it, then making swift curlicues in the air.

  Flames from the nearest furnace beamed on the god’s golden face, except where a black eye patch covered his left eye. Thor joined the three Valkyries and stood behind Odin.

  “Is it good, my lord?” said a small, lumpy man half the size of Odin. His eyes looked expectantly from the sword to the god.

  “It will serve, Sindr,” Odin said. “It will serve well, indeed.”

  Odin turned toward us, the sword smoking, almost like it was breathing. “Welcome, children. My daughters” — he waved his hand at the lunch ladies — “alerted me to your coming. You find Asgard on the eve of war.”

  We bowed.

  “Asgard is beautiful,” said Sydney. “So is Valhalla.”

  “Only as long as we protect them,” Odin said gravely. “And only for now. Let’s hope our home doesn’t fall into the depths, as Loki wishes. Come. Look.”

  We followed Odin out of the forge, to a rise over-looking a vast sea. “Since I learned the mystery of the runes, for which I sacrificed my eye, I have known of Loki’s eventual betrayal. It is written that he shall come over the Sea of Asgard in ships made from dead men’s fingernails.” He peered out over the water. “Make no mistake, Loki is a god, and powerful. But his power comes from trickery and evil, not from good. Therein is our one chance to stop him.”

  “We found the Crystal Rune,” said Jon. “Show him, Syd.”

  Sydney removed it from her armor and held it out.

  The rune’s white light flickered brightly, but Odin’s face grew dark. He took the rune from Sydney, looked it over, then passed it to me.

  “I wish it had never been found, never been created,” he said. “The Crystal Rune of Asgard is a key to Valhalla’s deepest secret….” He paused, saw the holster on my back. “You carry a weapon?”

  “A lyre,” I said. “It belonged to Orpheus.”

  Odin nodded grimly. “Magic older than even the Crystal Rune. Amid all these weapons, you may have use of your lyre here.”

  “What is the rune’s secret?” asked Dana, half turned away, her eyes fixed on the sea below us. “It would probably help us to know.”

  Odin shook his head. “The time for explanations will come soon enough. For now, not even Loki knows its power — not that that will stop him.” Odin breathed out, then nodded toward Dana, who had stepped away and was staring out over the crest of the hill to the sea below. “Your friend seems … deep in thought.”

  “Loki’s Draugs took her parents to Niflheim,” I said. “They knew too much about the Crystal Rune.”

  “And that is why I keep its secret close,” Odin said.

  Just then, Baldur raced up the hill to the crest and embraced his fathe
r, brother, and sisters. A handful of other super-blond heroes called Baldur over, laughing, and began testing their weapons — first against one another, then on Baldur himself.

  “Strike as you may!” He laughed. “I am invincible, charmed against every harm!”

  “Not every harm,” said Dana quietly.

  “Father, look,” Thor called. “Your ravens have returned.”

  The black and white ravens we’d seen before swooped out of the sky. One sat on each of Odin’s ridiculously broad shoulders. “What say you?” he asked the birds. “Speak so all may understand.”

  “Ships gather in the eastern ocean,” squawked the black raven. At this point, nothing should have surprised me, but I couldn’t help thinking how cool it was that I understood the ravens.

  “Loki’s flagship leads them, though he is not with them,” said the white raven.

  Before we could puzzle out what that meant, a flare went up on the plain below and an armada of black-hulled ships appeared on the horizon. Odin’s expression grew even more grim. “Marshal the armies. Heroes, take up arms to meet our enemy!”

  Everyone started after the great god, but when I turned to Dana, she was staring at Baldur. She didn’t move, except to slide the mistletoe from her helmet.

  “Dana?” I said. “Are you all right?”

  Odin turned and fixed his eyes on her. “Is that … no …” His eyes flashed from Baldur to Dana. “Not you — not here —”

  “What’s going on?” said Jon.

  Dana lifted her arm high over her head and threw the sprig of mistletoe at Baldur.

  Every other weapon had bounced off him harmlessly, but for some reason the mistletoe struck Baldur deeply in the neck. He cried out and fell to his knees. With a sigh as loud as the wind, he slid to the ground, eyes blank, body still.

  “My son!” boomed Odin. “The traitor has killed my son!”

  “Traitor?” I said. There had to be some mistake. “Dana?”