A Hero's throne

simply do not know enough yet. We need answers from Ni?ergeard 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 yfelgopes 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.”

Gad’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, Gad had told her to lie, and he had killed Swi?gar. 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 Gad told her on trust, any more than Ealdstan. But even if Gad 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 Gad that with any of the Ni?ergearders. Ecgbryt and poor Swi?gar 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 Ni?ergeard, 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 Gad 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