Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  Dyrfinna let out her breath and leaned into Mama for a long, one-armed hug.

  Skeggi was whispering, “Thank God, thank God” so fervently that her heart went out to him. Her sweet little sister leaned forward and hugged his forehead, and he cried a little, smiling and patting her arm. He was going to make a great papa someday.

  “We cannot celebrate yet,” the queen called, and all went silent again. “We are in grave danger, so it is well that our warriors are returning home.”

  And then she told her story of what happened.

  The queen had wanted to take revenge on King Varinn, for last year he had killed her oldest daughter, Thora, who was set to inherit rule. He had lured the Viking princess to his keep by claiming he sought her hand in marriage, but she’d returned pale and weak, and they’d discovered that he had poisoned her. She died in the queen’s arms, and all the queen’s nation had gone into mourning. Everybody, including Dyrfinna, had been shocked at how the laws of hospitality had been brutally betrayed, and against a young woman who was beloved for being gentle to her people, stoic against pain, and who had always worked to bring honor to the Viking name.

  Dyrfinna had known Thora from a distance—they’d talked a few times, and Dyrfinna was very much taken by her. She was a quiet girl, preferring to watch and understand what was going on before she spoke out. But she had a wry sense of humor, and was one of the smartest people that Dyrfinna had known. She would have been a wonderful queen. So her death was a terrible blow.

  Queen Saehildr had been silent for several months, though her commanders had taken care of her army while her advisors had taken care of her queendom.

  But one day a quiet word went out that she was mustering an army at the standing tower at Skala, though for what purpose she did not say. Dyrfinna’s father had commanded the muster, and Rjupa had joined up, and they’d gone out in their long, ocean-faring ships very early in the morning, before the sun had risen. And that was the last the people of Skala had heard of their fighters, two months ago.

  So now, standing on the great rock before her people, with three dragons smoldering at her back, Saehildr spoke of all that had taken place while she and their warriors had been gone.

  After a few days of travel, the queen and her fighters arrived in King Varinn’s kingdom, and had beached their shallow-bottomed ships upon the shore of a quiet cove, far from human dwellings. The queen and a few trusted friends had gone to Varinn’s keep. Two friends had gone in, disguised as well-to-do travelers on their way to a nearby monastery to take vows. The king, seeing that they were wealthy, invited them to stay and eat at his table.

  Then the queen came in alone—disguised as a beggar in rags. She asked for food and shelter for a night, saying she’d lost her children, had no home, and prayed for mercy from the King.

  He scorned her when she’d been brought in. “I do not accept visits from beggars,” he’d roared, and cast her out of the keep.

  This spat upon the rules of hospitality, for every supplicant was to be given food and a bed. But he had no interest in the rules of hospitality, much less any human feeling.

  So Saehildr sought out and slew the king’s son. This man was no child, for he was a quarter-century old, wore a scraggly beard, and drank constantly. He didn’t even put up much of a struggle. Then she stowed away his body, cut out the man’s heart, and cooked it. She’d had the meat slipped into a dish that the cook had made for the king.

  That night, when King Varinn was eating, he was talking at the table with her friends, very much concerned about this son, who he hadn’t heard from for some time.

  While this king ate his meat, the queen rushed into the great hall, wearing her beggar’s clothes. The king roared at his guard to remove her, but she cried, “My revenge has been taken. You poisoned and killed my daughter, but now I have killed your son. That dish you have just eaten contains your son’s heart.”

  The queen threw off her rags and revealed herself.

  King Varinn’s eyes grew wide, recognizing her, and he coughed and choked on the meat.

  “And now I must fight my way out,” Queen Saehildr added as she hauled forth a longsword she’d cleverly hidden within her skirts. Then she made mincemeat of the guards who rushed her.

  While she valiantly slew his guards, King Varinn had fought his way to his feet, choking, retching, trying to scream. He fixed a horrible eye on the queen—and suddenly recited an invocation and smashed his hands together.

  A thunderclap burst from him that flung the queen off her feet.

  The queen’s two friends jumped up from the table and together sang their song-magic at him in defense, a powerful song sung in tandem that twisted the sinews of the air and hurled the king back against his throne.

  The queen had whirled toward him, sweeping her sword up and around, drawing lines of light in the air around her and her two friends at her side. With a single note sung with all their strength, they called on Freyja to protect them. The note blasted from them, tumbling the king and guards back. In that space, the queen and her friends darted out of the hall like falcons, their sharp wings striking the air as they dashed through trees and over fields to escape their enemies.

  The warriors of Skala waited outside, hidden, and when the queen and her company dashed out of the castle, they had horses they’d stolen from Varinn’s stables for all three. The warriors covered their retreat to the black ships, and when all were aboard and the queen and her guards were mounted upon their dragons, the ships launched out on the ocean and swiftly set forth for home. The dragons ranged silently in the air, casting about them for any oncoming danger. One of the dragons had peeled off to destroy a few of King Varinn’s ships in port, only to find that they were under guard by another dragon. They quickly flew under cover of darkness to escape its fire and wrath. Surprisingly, no other dragon gave chase.

  The queen’s dragons who flew over her fleeing fleet were able to see King Varinn’s keep from the sky. They had fled early in the evening, but it wasn’t until sunrise, after they’d been sailing away all night, that the dragons had seen, far behind them, activity around his mead-hall of men being mustered, and movement around the ships as if they were being provisioned.

  “So we had the start of them,” the queen told her listeners as she stood on the rock by the sea, with her dragons behind her. “A good overnight start. But King Varinn is on the move. We need to muster fighters and commanders quickly. Our warriors coming home will need rest, for they have done all I’ve asked of them and have barely slept in our flight. We’ll need two battle forces to go out and waylay King Varinn on land and on sea—fighters on the land, pirates on the sea. We’ll need a third force here, stationed outside of Skala, held in reserve if King Varinn draws close to the town. This third regiment will be joined by the fighters in the black ships once they’ve landed and eaten and had a short rest.”

  Everybody cheered.

  “All Vikings who want to fight for me and for Skala—and for the love of my lost daughter—must come to the aid of their country,” Queen Saehildr called in a thrilling voice. “Come up to my mead-hall and muster quickly! Bring enough provisions for a sea-voyage of three days. Naturally, there will be plunder!”

  Everybody cheered again.

  An excited Dyrfinna turned to her sword-friends. “Let’s go to war.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Skeggi, putting down Aesa and offering a wide grin which warmed Dyrfinna down to her toes.

  “Me too!” Gefjun said, “but I don’t want to fight. I’d rather be attached to the regiment as a nurse. I’d still go with you.”

  “I’ll go with you only because she is. I’ll work as a nurse as well.” Ostryg shot a significant look at Gefjun, who batted her eyes back at him.

  Dyrfinna smiled as she looked on, though he annoyed her greatly and the feeling was mutual.

  Dyrfinna glanced around at the excited crowd, eyes wide. She clenched her fists, ready to join the Queen’s army right on the spot. Growing up
, she’d watched her papa as he’d fought with his regiment, and she’d been in training all her life with her sword-friends to fight. If she enlisted, she could protect her city and her family. Maybe she could rise in the ranks with deeds of valor until she was allowed to take command. And maybe, at long last, Papa would watch her with pride.

  Commanding an army wasn’t just some idle daydream of Dyrfinna’s. This was a dream she’d had since she was small. She’d imagined herself writing battle plans, talking with other commanders at a council of war to plan the next attack, drinking berserker mead, then sleeping for a few brief hours only to get up well before dawn to send her soldiers onto the field to prepare to meet the enemy.

  Dyrfinna had always loved tales of the work of battle. At night by the light of seal blubber lamps, she played the battle strategy game of King’s Table with her grandma, who came in from the Balkans a long time ago. Dyrfinna had tried to teach the battle strategy game to Aesa, but her little sister preferred to draw fish and flowers on stones with a sharp rock.

  Her grandfather, too, taught her about battle strategy. His old home in Dalmatia had seen warfare, and his ancestors had been driven out of Illya during the Roman attacks and purges. From this heritage, he’d learned the art of war, and he well understood the cost. All his life, he had been careful to pass that understanding on as his legacy.

  Although Dyrfinna wanted to be a ground commander, she longed to be up on a dragon. She wanted to get a complete view of the battle from above, and watch how the field changed during attacks and counterattacks, and understand how the terrain affected the battle. To see where the pressure points were in the fight, what attacks made the armies roll up before them. She had heard about how a flank attack would burst a regiment and make them run, but she wanted to see it for herself.

  Dyrfinna spent a lot of time with her game pieces, laying out battle plans, using King’s Table, a version of chess, to help her think strategically.

  Her father and mother liked to talk about old battles, in her side of the world and on his. The styles of warfare, Skraeling and Viking, gave Dyrfinna a multifaceted view of military history. She noted foremost the heavy responsibility a commander had to bear when a battle went wrong and many fighters died.

  That was the most difficult part of being a commander—that you got to know all those warriors and earn their respect during the lulls in battle. And then you had to give the command to send them into the fight, often to their death. And after, you answered to the wives and husbands and children you’d bereaved.

  But those wives and children were safer because of the warrior’s sacrifice, and there was great glory in battle. You could bring home coffers filled with gold and silver for all your fighters. And your quests could open up new lands for your people to live, with rich soil.

  They could all earn a new life.

  And maybe they could earn enough plunder where her family could leave this rocky, sad soil that took everything given to it and still refused to grow a decent crop, a poor soil where the wheat blighted on the stalk or where the crops came up small.

  But just then Aesa came up and grabbed her leg, throwing back her head to smile up at her. “Sissy, can we go home now?”

  Dyrfinna stooped. Her body ached with the motion, still stiff from her recent battle with the wolf, as she gave her little sister a tight hug. That little heart beating against hers. She’d have to leave. She’d have to break that little heart.

  But it won’t be long, she thought. I don’t want King Varinn’s fighters breaking into this city and berserking, attacking my mama, and my little sister….

  It won’t be long, she promised Aesa silently.

  Wolf-Snuffer

  “Mom.” Dyrfinna still held onto her little sister. “I have to go.”

  Her mother looked grieved, but she sighed, and it faded into a loving look. “My brave girl. You fight a wolf, and now you want to fight the world.”

  “I want to help protect you two,” Dyrfinna said, still kneeling next to Aesa.

  “From wolves?” Aesa said, pressing close to her, looking scared.

  “From bad people. I have to go help Papa,” Dyrfinna said.

  “But isn’t Papa coming home?” she asked in a little voice.

  “Yes, but not for long. I have to go help him.”

  “You mean go away?” Aesa cried.

  All of her sword-friends stood around them, watching silently as Aesa began to sob. She grabbed Dyrfinna, crying, “Don’t go! Don’t go away!”

  Gefjun took Dyrfinna’s mother by the hand. “My mother and father can help you.”

  Her father was unable to fight because he’d lost an arm in a long-ago battle. He was still very much willing to fight, and probably could have fought on horseback. Dyrfinna had heard of others who’d done that, holding the reins in their teeth and slashing around them with their sword. But horses were rare in this part of the world.

  “Aesa. Puppy. Listen to me.” Dyrfinna brushed the hair away from Aesa’s sad little eyes full of tears that nearly made Dyrfinna cry, too. “Your big sissy loves you. But we have some scary people coming here, and we have to chase them away. Everybody who’s big enough is going to have to fight. When you get big, you can fight too.”

  “But I don’t want you to go.”

  “I must. My friends are all going and they need my help. These bad men are like wolves, okay? Bad wolves. And I already killed one today. I’ll kill some more. Then when we chase them away, I’ll come home safe.”

  “We all will,” said Gefjun. “We will keep each other safe.”

  All of their sword-friends nodded solemnly, looking at Aesa.

  Aesa subsided a little bit, looking at them. Then she suddenly got shy with all those eyes on her, and she hid her face on Dyrfinna’s unwounded shoulder.

  “Mama, I need to run home and get my stuff so we can get out to the mustering. I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch.”

  “At least your papa has been granted a short leave,” she said. “We can get things squared away while he’s here.”

  It suddenly occurred to Dyrfinna that, if things were moving this fast, she might not get to see her papa. By the time he got here, she would probably already be gone to the muster.

  That was probably good.

  “Let’s get our things packed. Three days’ worth of provisions, clothes for the field, and tools like knives, spades, flints. Herbal medicines. Weapons.”

  “Yes, don’t forget the weapons,” Ostryg said, starting to head out.

  “A good warrior doesn’t need weapons,” Dyrfinna said, thinking of a story where a warrior forgot to bring his sword to a duel, so he killed his adversary with an oar instead.

  “She’ll be killing wolves with her bare hands next, so look out,” Gefjun said.

  Skeggi gave Dyrfinna a long, serious look before heading toward his brother’s house, as he had no parents, but many brothers.

  At home, Dyrfinna found her armor and put it on, though the leather belts were stiff as she tried to bend them around her waist. They’d been out in the rain during their training, and she’d put off taking care of them because she was needed in the fields. She put a vial of mink oil in her belongings, as her boots were in similar shape. They needed waterproofing so they wouldn’t shrink on Dyrfinna’s feet. The queen had called for three days’ provisions, but she brought extra, knowing that it would be possible that they would be cut off from supplies. Losing access to provisions constantly happened in Papa’s stories about war life.

  Dyrfinna found the short-handled spade that Papa had made long ago after coming back from the Ericcson expedition and put that in her bag. She found his old leather canteen and her well-balanced, sharp dagger. It was plain, but it fought true. And, along with her clothes, the last thing Dyrfinna packed were the pieces to her Hnefatafl game, King’s Table.

  The fact that Dyrfinna was putting her King’s Table game in her bag drove it home to Aesa that she was truly leaving.

  “No, Sissy!�
�� Aesa grabbed Dyrfinna’s legs and would not let go.

  Dyrfinna embraced her mother, then tried to pull Aesa into a hug, but her sister shied from her touch.

  “No!” she said, and hit Dyrfinna with her little fist. She threw herself face-down on the bed. After a moment, she lifted her head and shouted, “I hate you!”

  “I love you,” Dyrfinna said, reluctantly heading out the door.

  Aesa sat up and screamed, pleading, “No, Sissy, don’t go!”

  Dyrfinna went back and gave Aesa that last hug. Then she walked out the door.

  Aesa’s sobbing followed Dyrfinna all the way up the street. Little kids can really tear the heart out of a person.

  She quickly asked her grandparents’ permission to use one of their boats for the voyage.

  Her grandfather, whose home had been in Dalmatia, a half-world away, had been to Skala many times on trading trips, and he loved the snow and great majestic mountains and the endless sun in summer. His wife, Dyrfinna’s grandma, hated the endless nights in winter and missed the wonderful heat of Dalmatia. All the same, they moved from Dalmatia to Skala and they stayed, her grandfather using his fleet of ships to trade from Skala, an international trading port, to points all over the world. He finally retired extremely wealthy. Which was good, because Grandma wanted a fireplace in every room of her house.

  Grandma was proud of Dyrfinna. “Yes, yes, take a ship,” she said, her shaking hands holding Dyrfinna’s firmly. “Get revenge for the Queen’s poor daughter. I’d do it myself if I were not so old and shaky.” She pantomimed cutting down somebody with a sword with her shaky arm. “See, look at that. My form is terrible. Now you go and strike down many hundreds in magnificent battle, there’s a good girl.” And Dyrfinna kissed her grandma on the forehead, and her grandma blessed her.

  Grandma sent a messenger to her ship to sail over to the Queen’s harbor and meet Dyrfinna there, and Dyrfinna joined the others hiking up the hill toward the Queen’s keep. Ages ago, a fortressed wall had been built around Skala that led down to the sea and up the mountain to the Queen’s mead hall at the top, a wall that protected the city from raiders—and they’d had quite a few. So far, it had withstood every onslaught.