Underworlds #4: The Ice Dragon by Tony Abbott Read Free Book Online Page A

rocks were as far apart as they could be. “And — row!” We plunged the oars into the water and pulled hard. The water threw us between and past the rocks with inches to spare before they crashed together with a deep BOOM .
    “Yeah, Baldur!” whooped Jon.
    But it wasn’t any better on the other side. We bobbed wildly away from Asgard on heaving seas. Over the tops of the waves, we could see plumes of black smoke rising from the distant shorelines in every direction.
    “Your world?” said Baldur.
    “Oh, man. It’s worse than before,” said Sydney. “So many fires.”
    Suddenly, the surface of the sea exploded, and an enormous serpent raised its head.
    “The Midgard Serpent!” Baldur shouted. “Another one of Loki’s ugly children! Jon, hold the rudder with me!”
    The serpent, a huge thing covered with black scales and streaky red spikes, roared and slapped its tail hard, sending a giant wave toward us. Jon jumped to the back of the ship and helped Baldur steer us directly into the wave. The ship spun around and around. Somehow, we lost sight of the serpent and found ourselves sailing down a familiar coast.
    I don’t know how, but the boat had brought us to Pinewood Bluffs.
    “Whoa!” Jon breathed. “Look at the smoke.”
    I wanted so much to stop, to see my family. But my family wasn’t there. They had gone with everyone else when the town was evacuated.
    And there was no going anywhere but Niflheim. Dana was still missing.
    “There’s Power Island,” said Sydney, pointing up ahead, “where we fought the Cyclopes. One of the entrances to the Norse Underworld is somewhere beneath it, remember?”



I had no clue how we’d find it, but apparently I didn’t need one. Water suddenly roared high around us, as if we were in the eye of a spinning hurricane. The black sea parted beneath the boat like a trapdoor. We hung in the air for a moment, screaming our lungs out.
    Then we fell.

“H OLD TIGHT TO — SOMETHING !” I CRIED .
    With the ship in free fall, we jumped on one another like football players in a pileup and clung to the rigging, while Baldur peered over the side. “Uh-oh —”
    “What?” I said.
    WHUMP! The ship hit water hard, then rushed forward like a racing boat.
    “There’s no controlling it now!” Baldur yelled. “Hold on!”
    The ship roared along a white-capped river until we were thrown into another waterway, then another and another. I counted eleven rivers in all, each faster than the one before, until we were dumped into a narrow channel jammed with ice floes.
    “What just happened?” asked Sydney, climbing to her feet and looking a little green.
    “Whatever it was,” said Jon, wobbling next to her, “I hope it never happens again.”
    The boat slowed to a crawl as the icy river narrowed even more.
    “Niflheim,” said Baldur gravely. “The smell of death gives it away.”
    I wasn’t sure what death smelled like, but the air was thick with the odor of something rotting, and barely breathable. Poor Dana. I so wanted to get her out of there.
    The lyre in my lap was barely in one piece, but I used the time to try to restring it. I couldn’t help thinking about Orpheus’ journey to the GreekUnderworld to rescue his new wife. After everything he did, charming the beasts and even Hades himself, he couldn’t save her. It wasn’t meant to be.
    I imagined how horrible he must have felt, knowing he had tried everything and still failed. We needed to do better … but the lyre in my hands was so fragile now. I remembered the mysterious man climbing the rocks and signaling to us. Could he really be the same person as at the museum? Did he want the lyre, too?
    And what did he mean — four, two, three, one?
    Jon tugged my sleeve. “Time’s up.”
    I reattached and tightened the lyre’s last string as best I could, then looked up. We were drifting toward a long wooden pier jutting out from the riverbank. Lanterns on the pier cast a sick green light on the black water.