Her fighters saw what had happened to the old captain. “At them! At King Varinn’s horde!” They attacked fiercely, driving the enemy back from Dyrfinna and Hakr.
Hakr tried to speak, but for a while was not able to do so. Dyrfinna raised her shield over them both to keep off the stones and arrows that fell around them. The cut in his helmet was very bad, and he was bleeding a lot, and his eyes rolled.
“I killed the berserker,” she told him. “He is dead. You are already avenged.”
Hakr tried to speak, tried again. “Thank you,” he said, grasping her hand with his bloody hand. “Here. Take … take this ring back … back home to my wife. Tell her my last thoughts were of her. And take this brooch … here.”
“This one?” Dyrfinna asked, laying her hand on a silver brooch that fastened his armor.
“Yes. That goes to my daughter. It … it belonged to my mother.”
She put his ring on her finger, and fastened the brooch to her armor.
“And I give you this ring.” He took a golden arm-band from his arm and placed it into her hand. “This was given to me by the previous Queen. Remember me, little Finna, as I go home.”
Tears came to her eyes as she accepted his final gift. “How could I ever forget you, old friend?”
“And … I will miss you,” he said, squeezing her hand in his old rough hand. “Be strong, and a sure commander.”
“I will.” Tears blurred her vision.
The old sea-captain took a relieved breath and smiled at her. Then his face slackened, and his eyes wandered from hers into the sky, no longer seeing. His head rolled to the side with a sigh, and every muscle in his body slackened. He no longer moved.
Hakr was done with earth.
Dyrfinna could imagine him walking into Valhalla as if returning home.
She gently closed his eyes, sheathed her sword, and picked up his battle axe. She was weary, but she swung it around her head to test its weight and heft. The axe was actually very light, well-balanced, and made an easy yet powerful swing when handled the way he’d taught her, long ago.
“Farewell, my old friend.”
One of the wounded fighters came over and dragged Hakr to the front of the ship, where his body would be out of the way of the fighting. With a battle-cry, Dyrfinna rushed back into the thick of the fight with greater fury.
Dragon Rampant
Above, the dragons fought across the sky. Skeggi, who pushed a dying attacker overboard, shot a glance skyward for his ladylove, and met eyes with Dyrfinna with huge concern and fear on his face. Dyrfinna followed his line of sight into the sky. Rjupa’s dragon was nowhere to be seen.
“A few dragons are missing. They probably gave chase.” She laid a tired hand on Skeggi’s shoulder.
He nodded, but still searched the heavens.
The fighting had slowed on her ship, anyway. Dyrfinna drank, handing the water jug to another thirsty fighter, and wiped her face.
A roar came from the front of the battle. Sinkr shouted something over the roar.
“Wait a moment, wait,” she said to her warriors standing around her. “Did he just say he was ordering an entire wing forward?”
One of the old veterans was agog. “That’s what it sounded like to me,” she said.
Faces turned toward the front of the battle lines.
To Dyrfinna’s astonishment, six ships that guarded the right side of their battle lines were being commanded to row forward and attack a knot of King Varinn’s ships far ahead on the waters.
“No! You idiot! You can’t do that!” Dyrfinna shouted.
But the line of ships broke away from the long battle front of the queen’s ships, rowing swiftly forward. They looked magnificent. But Dyrfinna saw with horror that they left behind a huge gap in the battle lines.
“Those six ships are going to be cut off and surrounded,” she cried. “Every one of those people on those ships are going to be slaughtered. He’s making a gap in the battle lines that the enemy can drive into. And look! They’re doing it!”
The king’s ships struck swiftly, surrounding the six queen’s ships at once. A groan went up from Dyrfinna and her warriors, seeing this.
In the meanwhile, a number of queen’s ships frantically began to row forward to try and fill the huge gap that left them open to enemy attack.
But King Varinn’s ships were faster. They moved in front of the fighting around the six queen’s ships, completely cutting them off from all help. Then these ships rowed swiftly toward the gap in the battle lines. They surrounded the ships at the edge of the gap. Then a second group of King Varinn’s ships breached the battle lines and started attacking the queen’s fleet from every direction.
A huge cheer rose from King Varinn’s ships, a cheer that went on and on and on. Invigorated by the breakthrough, more and more of his ships came flying to the attack, eating their way into the queen’s fleet.
Sickened to her very soul, Dyrfinna cried out and wanted to throw down her sword in protest, but now the attackers from the king’s ship next to hers cheered and their attacks grew more lively. The woman she was fighting laughed as she cut at Dyrfinna with her axe. “We have you now, you pathetic Queenlings.”
Dyrfinna sliced off part of her arm, then ran her through. “Not yet,” she snarled, pushing the convulsing body overboard.
With a roar, flying fast from the inland mountains, Rjupa’s dragon flew by with two other dragons on her tail. She blasted over the king’s ships, straight toward Dyrfinna’s. The downdraft from her dragon’s wings was so sharp and sudden that the ships rocked back on the water. Fighters staggered and fell over the decks.
Rjupa’s dragon dropped a gigantic fireball on the deck of the ship attacking Dyrfinna’s.
A roar of fire blossomed, its intense heat blowing Dyrfinna’s hair back. She clambered away from the ship to escape the heat and flames.
A great heartrending scream rose up from the people on that ship as they vanished within that awful cloud of fire. Then the cloud shrank to flames, hot and furious, crackling down the ship, and the stink of burning tar and burning flesh blew into her face.
Many of the attackers she had faced pitched themselves over the side, either into her ship, where they were thrust back into the water, or just went straight into the waves, dragged under by their heavy battle-armor.
But the black dragons gave chase, flying straight at Dyrfinna’s ship, ready to unleash the same awful fate on her and her crew.
Rjupa turned her red dragon in a tight, steep bank right over Dyrfinna’s ship. The downdraft from its wings pushed her ship back and made the fire gutter heavily on the opposite ship.
“Hold on, Finna!” Rjupa shouted down at her as she rocketed back over Dyrfinna’s ship, her red hair flying loose in the wind.
“No, Rjupa, don’t!” Dyrfinna cried. “No!”
But it was too late. With four huge strokes of her great wings, Rjupa swooped her red dragon up at the two black dragons, spouting fire right into their faces—
—which both black dragons returned.
The red dragon and Rjupa vanished in a dual gout of fire that absolutely enveloped them both.
“Rjupa, no!” Dyrfinna screamed, falling to her knees. Awful heat radiated out from that new gout of fire.
Rjupa’s dragon burst out of the fire, its huge wings beating frantically. It was not harmed.
But Rjupa was aflame.
Skeggi screamed. Dyrfinna clutched the side of her ship as Rjupa’s dragon upended herself in a steep dive toward the ocean. Flames streaked off her body, completely devouring her red hair. Rjupa’s arms beat at the air in a desperate gesture.
They plunged into the water with a huge crash, a great hissing, submerging just long enough to put out the fires, then bobbed to the surface, water pouring off them both. The dragon moaned, a terrible sound, as it twisted around to look at its back. Rjupa was too far away for Dyrfinna to see clearly, but she seemed limp as a doll on its back. Red and white and black.
Dyrfinna tore herself away from that horror. The two black dragons had overshot her ship. But they were going into a bank, tilting hard to the side to turn back.
With Rjupa down, they were going to come back to finish the job.
Skeggi was screaming, hands in his hair, running to the side of the ship. Gefjun came running, her face a mask of tears. Dyrfinna ran for them both, shaking badly. But even now, she couldn’t lose her head, or there’d be much worse than her best friend dying.
“Those of you with singing magic come here. Now! We need singing magic!” she sobbed over the noise of fighting in the ship. She grabbed Gefjun and Skeggi. “Make the ship invisible, now!”
The dragons were halfway through their bank.
Skeggi stared at her, tears running down his face, his mouth open.
“Make the ship invisible now so we don’t all die as well!” she screamed at him. “Gefjun, hands, now! Both of you sing!” She put her hands on them both.
The dragons tilted back to their level flight, low over the water, coming at them fast.
He stared at the dragons, at her, mouth still open.
“Invisible spell,” Gefjun said quietly to Skeggi. “Now. I’ll support.” She choked, cleared her throat.
He shut his mouth hard, glaring at Dyrfinna, as sparks leapt from the oncoming dragons.
Then he burst out in angry song, singing very fast, weaving threads in the air with his harmonies, naming the boundaries of the ship and including all the people on it in the spell. Gefjun sang quietly under his song, supporting it, strengthening it. Other voices around them joined the harmony. Dyrfinna hummed at crucial places in the song to bolster the harmonies and notes, willing the magic to work as the dragons took a deep breath.
And suddenly the ship—around them and below them—vanished.
Skeggi and Gefjun, who were holding onto Dyrfinna’s hands, dropped with thuds on the deck. She went down on her hands and knees, weakened by the magic they’d cast.
But she couldn’t see her friends. Couldn’t even see herself, or the deck she knelt on. She stared straight down into the blue-lit water, where curious fish bobbed toward her, then dived out of sight.
A number of short screams went up from the crew all around them.
Even at this awful juncture, even with Rjupa’s dragon moaning as it reached its head down to its unmoving rider, even with a pair of black dragons nearly on top of them, a part of Dyrfinna was in high panic because her body had vanished, the ship she was kneeling on had vanished.
But the dragons were so close. All screaming stopped. Nobody around her moved. She didn’t dare breathe.
A flame leapt out of a black dragon, then flickered out as the dragons and their riders looked all around in confusion. They shot past, directly over the top of Dyrfinna’s ship, and she felt the invisible deck sway slightly under the bursts of air from their wings. Then they made a slow circle in the air, looking all around. The other dragon spit out some flame, but it wasn’t much, as the dragon seemed to be too surprised and confused by her ship vanishing before its eyes. The flames struck the water, narrowly missing her ship, and were quickly gone.
The enemy ship rolled with flames now, terrible heat, and awful cries from those who hadn’t died yet. The heat rolling off the fire was making the enemy ship slide away across the water, away from Dyrfinna’s ship. The visible landmark next to her ship was actually moving away and the dragons didn’t seem to realize it.
The riders hesitated, looking at each other from their hovering mounts, the dragons looking here and there.
“This is too weird,” one of the riders said.
“Witchcraft,” the other one said. “I don’t like it. No ship has ever vanished before my eyes before.”
“Yeah,” said the first, and she urged her dragon up. “Let’s not mention this to anybody. They’d say we were drinking.”
“I don’t drink,” said the second, following her.
“They wouldn’t believe you,” said the first.
Just then, a red dragon came in high and fast over them, and the two dragons shot away.
Dyrfinna dropped her head to the deck. Thank you.
Somebody’s arm was near her head, and she touched it. Still warm. She found the hand at the end of it. A woman’s hand—Gefjun’s. She recognized it by touch. She clasped it, but Gefjun was unconscious. But they needed to get up, because Rjupa was still on her dragon, and she had to get to her.
At that moment, from the front of the battle, a horn blew. Another, and another.
Retreat. Retreat.
“No,” whispered Dyrfinna, raising her head. “No!” she said again, as she pulled herself up. “I can’t believe that idiot, I can’t.” She tried to take a few steps forward, feeling her way, but there were too many invisible people lying on the deck of the invisible ship. Her feet bumped into what seemed to be somebody’s back.
“Help me, help me,” said the man she’d walked into, his voice thick with pain.
“Hold on,” she told him, and she looked across the water. She was sorry the wounded person had to wait, but she had to get to Rjupa fast. And now she had to do it by bringing her invisible ship forward during a full-scale retreat.
On the front line, people shouted in unison, and then a horn sounded, and all of Sinkr’s ships leapt backward at once. The horn sounded again and again at a regular tempo, the oars matching the sound of the horn, all the rowers in the line rowing in unison. All the ships fell back in a nice, neat row, leaving no gaps between ships to let the enemy in. Dyrfinna wondered if this meant Sinkr had learned his lesson. She doubted it.
Invisible Vikings around her hissed and booed Sinkr’s retreat.
“Are they not fighters?”
“Cowards! Every last one of them!”
“All of our people who died today have died in vain. For an idiot.”
The fighters around her, all invisible, grunted their agreement.
But Dyrfinna’s mind leapt ahead.
Dyrfinna said, “We need to get these ships out of here. Skeggi!” No reply. Still unconscious.
“We need to get our ships out of here,” she called to her invisible crew. “Who is near the rowing benches? Can anybody get an oar?”
How she wished it were Hakr saying those things, but his body lay in the front of the ship. “Those of you who can get to the benches, go,” she said sadly. “We need several people to unbind the two ships so we can move. And we need a skeleton crew on Skeggi’s ship to man it.”
Several people said, “I’ll do it,” and there was a great deal of scrambling and falling, and apologies and cries of pain and things crashing as people fought their way to the oaring benches, and others started cutting through the lines that held their ships together.
Dyrfinna began feeling her way toward the fisher boat. The faintest wisps of movement became visible around her, like reflections barely seen in a sheet of glass. Thank heavens. People exclaimed in relief. Now she could dodge all those obstacles.
Suddenly Skeggi cried out and moaned in a way that went straight through her heart like a sword. He was awake.
She staggered forward, now much faster. “Where’s the fisher boat? We need to go now.” Dyrfinna could see the outline of the boat beyond the ghost images of her crew milling around, some trying to get to the oars, others trying to unbind the ships, and others trying to drag wounded out of the way.
“Svala!” Dyrfinna called to one of her archers, who was also raised on a ship. “Can you be in command while I take the fisher boat out to Rjupa?”
“I can,” Svala called from somewhere in the stern. “I have a little flesh wound but I can still function. Give me a little while to make it up front.”
“Ulf, take command of Skeggi’s ship. Take these ships and retreat with the rest of the fleet. We will follow.”
“You, follow in a fisher? Alone?” Svala called, following Dyrfinna. “You can’t keep up with two evacuating ships. We have at least thirty at the oars and you have o
nly two or three.”
Ulf spoke up. “I will stay behind for you. Go. We’ll take care of your crew, but we want to keep all of you alive, too.”
Dyrfinna lifted the fisher boat off its hooks with the help of several half-visible hands. Skeggi was there, ghostly, crying without sound. In seconds the boat was up and over the side, and rocking on the water, partly invisible, but the water and the floating wreckage from other ships in the battle could still be plainly seen through it.
Skeggi and Dyrfinna climbed over the side and stepped in. Then Ragnarok lifted Gefjun over the side and set her into the boat like a delicate vase that might break. “Go, and may the gods go with you,” he rumbled.
Gefjun was crying as well, but she tossed a kiss up to him. Skeggi and Dyrfinna laid into the oars hard, and the boat leapt toward the dragon.
“I don’t want to see this,” Gefjun whispered, sitting down and going through her large pack of moss, herbs, and bandages. Skeggi just laid into the oars, his face a mask of tears. Dyrfinna’s gut was a sea of dread. She remembered the burned man they’d brought back to Skala, the red blisters on his arms and face, and the parts of his skin that had been burned black. Not Rjupa. Not Rjupa.
Rjupa’s dragon, who still sat on the water, groaned when she saw the small boat approaching. She turned her large head and nudged Rjupa’s body with her nose.
Rjupa’s hand raised shakily up and rested on its nose.
“She’s still alive!” Gefjun cried.
Tears leapt to Dyrfinna’s eyes, and she and Skeggi pulled harder on the oars. The boat fairly leapt ahead.
Skeggi shouted, “Rjupa! Honeybee, we’re coming to rescue you.”
“Her hand isn’t moving,” Gefjun said. “It’s just lying on the dragon’s nose.”
“Can you see her?” Dyrfinna asked. Her back was to Rjupa and she was pulling too hard on the oars to turn and look.
“The dragon’s wing is in the way,” Gefjun said. She sang a little song to sharpen her vision, then squinted. “The rest of the dragon is in the way, too.”
Just then, one of King Varinn’s ships started moving in their direction. Shouts went up from the approaching ship. “You’re not ghosts!” somebody called, brandishing a sword at them.
Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology Page 18
