Читать книгу Afterworlds: The Book of Doom - Barry Hutchison - Страница 14

HERE WAS ANOTHER round of clapping, cheering and fists thudding on tables when Zac sat down, and then the Vikings got back to the business of eating and drinking, as if the last few minutes hadn’t actually happened. Only Odin paid him any notice.

“Ale!” the god cried, pushing a dented metal tankard into Zac’s hands. “Drink!”

Zac set the mug down on the table. “No, thanks,” he said.

Odin looked at the tankard, then back at the boy. “Ale!” he insisted. “Drink!”

“I’ll just have some water.”

There was a sound like thunder as Odin hurled back his head and laughed. “Ah, young Zac, thou dost make me laugh!” he boomed, reverting back to character. “Ale it is!”

He pushed the tankard closer to the boy’s hand. Zac pushed it back. “Water will be fine.”

Odin frowned and gave his beard a stroke. Up close, the Allfather didn’t quite look real. His scaled-up size and the way he exaggerated his movements gave him the appearance of an animatronic puppet from a low-budget children’s movie.

“Water,” the Allfather mumbled. He rolled the word around in his mouth, as if tasting it. “Water. Very well.”

He gave two claps of his hands. Something large immediately dropped from the ceiling and landed beside him. Zac twisted in his chair, tensed, ready to fight, but instead of coming face to face with another Viking, he found himself looking at a tall, slender figure in a black leather bodice and matching leather trousers.

She was a girl, if you ignored the wings. Around his age, he’d say, although he’d been several centuries out with Angelo, so he wasn’t committing to anything at this point.

Her hair was long and dark, tied back behind her head in a functional ponytail. The girl’s white feathery wings folded in against her back with a sound like rustling velvet. She focused her gaze on Odin, not so much as glancing in Zac’s direction.

The girl’s mouth smiled, but her eyes weren’t really in on it. “Yes, Allfather? How may I be of service?”

“Ah, young Herya,” he boomed. “Meet Zac. Zac, Herya here is a—”

“Valkyrie,” said Zac. “You retrieve the souls of Vikings killed in battle and bring them to Valhalla.”

Odin clapped Zac on the back. It was like being slammed across the spine with a shovel. “Very good, Zac! Ye are not as dim as I first suspected!”

“I read a lot.”

“Herya, fetch our guest some...” Odin turned back to Zac. “What was it again?”

“Water.”

“Water,” Odin repeated. He gave a bemused chuckle. “Drinkable water. What will they think of next?”

“Will that be all?”

Odin looked along the table. “Who’s for another round?”

The Vikings’ cheers almost lifted the roof. Shouts came from all corners of the table at once.

“Down here, love.”

“A few more flagons at this end, sweetheart.”