King's Army by Mark Huckerby & Nick Ostler

Author:Mark Huckerby & Nick Ostler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic UK
Published: 2018-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

* “Look! A stinking troll has escaped from its cave. Bring me its ugly head.”

* “THIEVES!”

* “STOP DOING THAT!”

† “YEAH, IT’S NOT FAIR!”

If Hayley stopped running, she would die. Her legs felt like lead and her breath was coming in short, sharp stabs. She was built for sprinting, not the marathon. All her energy spent, she slowed to a walk and clutched her sides.

“KEEP GOING!” Brian shouted, waving her on urgently.

Behind Brian was a sight she’d never forget. A yowling, screaming mass of enraged berserkers, led by a handful of fearsome Viking draugar, who vaulted over parked cars and pushed over phone boxes in their relentless pursuit. A black-feathered arrow whistled past her head and embedded itself in the wooden fence she was leaning against with a deep thunk.

“MOVE!” Brian yelled, grabbing her arm and dragging her on. Hayley sucked in more air and forced her legs to work.

“How … much…” Hayley gasped but couldn’t finish the sentence. But Brian knew what she meant.

“The park should be right around this corner.”

They had to make it. They couldn’t fail on their part of the mission. And to think, earlier Hayley was feeling annoyed that she was going to be left out of the action while Alfie and his new, shiny superhero buddies were busy doing all the fun stuff at the Tower. Instead she and Brian were on a mission to break into the Crystal Palace transmitter. The huge radio mast towered over the south London park, and it was their job to switch it back on and start broadcasting again.

“This will be a message of great comfort and cheer to those who hear it,” LC had told them before they left, solemnly handing them a flash drive.

“Do you even know what this thing is called?” Hayley had laughed, holding the USB stick.

“I confess I do not, Miss Hicks. But you need to ensure it is delivered,” LC had said, his face stern.

Hayley and Brian had set off south across London in good time before the curfew, keeping to quiet back streets, and had only occasionally glimpsed distant berserker patrols. The blizzard was particularly thick today, which helped them to stay concealed. They’d used the sub to travel west along the river and disembarked at Vauxhall before setting off again through the deserted streets of south London. All they had to do was reach Crystal Palace Park by nightfall, hide out and then turn on the transmitter. But as bad luck would have it, when they emerged from an alley in Dulwich, they’d ran slap bang into a party of Viking draugar from the Swanage fleet who were enjoying some shore leave. Brian and Hayley had tried to pass by the rowdy rabble unnoticed, as if they were just locals heading to the market, but one of Vikings, a huge brute with part of his skull breaking through the green skin of his forehead, had caught Hayley’s eye, and grabbed her.

“Heu! Sjáið andlit á henni!”* he had yelled to his mates, turning her head this way and that, while Brian tried to reach her.

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