“Where’s the swordmaster?” Skeggi asked.
“She’s late,” Dyrfinna said flatly.
“Well, I gathered that, since she wasn’t here,” Skeggi said, annoyed. The swordmaster was usually on time and took them to task if they were late. Not this time. Odd.
But as soon as she saw the little owl, Gefjun came over to coo at Smoke. “Who’s the pretty owl? Who’s the pretty owl?” Gefjun reached up to stroke Smoke on the head. Her big owl eyes closed with delight.
“Come on over here and fight,” Dyrfinna complained. So the two young women started sparring. Ostryg cheered Gefjun on, telling her how hot she was, until she finally put her sword aside and came over and whacked him.
Dyrfinna put down her sword. “Stop that. We’re practicing.”
“Come on, let a girl have her fun.” Ostryg rubbed his head and made a kissy face at Gefjun.
“Aaa! No kissy faces.” Gefjun toppled over the top of Ostryg.
He cried, “Help, you’re crushing me!” which earned another thwack from Gefjun.
Skeggi was exasperated with Dyrfinna … mixed feelings, really.
Dyrfinna was sullen because he’d broken her heart only last week. She truly loved him. When she would visit Skeggi’s house, she’d given his little brothers piggy-back rides and fought epic sword battles with them up and down the road. Then she and Skeggi would go on walks where she talked about her dreams of leading armies and his dreams of carrying on the shipping trade his parents had started but his grandparents were still carrying on, now that they were gone. Skeggi did love a life at sea, guiding a ship to distant ports, of traveling to faraway lands and meeting people of other cultures and races and trying their foods and listening to their stories and gawking at the amazing buildings and homes as he walked through foreign cities.
Though she loved him, he couldn’t think of her as anything more than a dear friend.
It wasn’t her fault that their relationship didn’t work out. It was just that Skeggi didn’t feel the pulse-pounding love that she had been experiencing. He didn’t want to lead her on and give her false hope about their future.
So finally, last week he screwed up the courage to make the break. Skeggi took her on a walk, where he said that she was a wonderful person, but he just didn’t love her the same way she loved him, and it was his fault.
She didn’t take the news very well.
Her face got red, then redder, and tears started up in her eyes. Dyrfinna had tried to speak, but nothing came out.
So she knocked him down.
From the ground, Skeggi watched her storm away, hands over his nose.
Even a week later, his nose still hurt, though it hadn’t been broken. And it was very awkward to be around her.
But at the same time, Dyrfinna refused to hold on to him if he won’t have her. She was too proud for that.
And now, Dyrfinna turned away to look into the sky, probably looking for their swordmaster, who was late, and Skeggi tried not to look at her.
Ostryg flopped down at his side. “Hey,” he said, reaching into his bag. “I have a leg of rabbit.” He unfolded his napkin and held it out to Skeggi. A peace offering.
“Are you sure? That’s not your lunch, is it?”
“I had a huge breakfast,” Ostryg said. “You can have it.”
Skeggi ate the rabbit leg ravenously. Papa Ostryg had a cook that made great-tasting food, so the rabbit’s leg was a far cry from the fish that Skeggi had cooked that morning – succulent and well-seasoned. It didn’t take him long to get done with it.
Smoke leaned off Skeggi’s shoulder, watching him eat with intense, big eyes. When Skeggi was done, he tossed the bones to the ground, and Smoke swooped down to start picking off bits of meat from the bones. She’d stop eating for a minute and just stand there, staring at nothing, then she’d go back to the bones and nibble another bit of meat off with her beak.
Skeggi reached into his pocket and got a handful of beech nuts. He poured some in Ostryg’s hand. Ostryg half-smiled then, and cracked one in his teeth.
“I really want to move out,” Ostryg said, picking the meat out of the nutshell. He was a rough kid, always looking for trouble. He’d give Dyrfinna hell sometimes because she annoyed him, but he stayed in with the rest of the swordfriends because Skeggi was such a good friend.
“I’m trying to figure out how you would live at my house,” Skeggi said.
“You don’t have any room.”
“We could make some room.”
“Your little brothers smell like piss. You smell like piss,” Ostryg said moodily.
“It’s not that bad,” Skeggi said. “And don’t snap at me. I’m trying to help.”
Just then Skeggi realized that Dyrfinna was staring at him. Actually, no, she was just staring at his owl.
All the same, Skeggi withdrew from Dyrfinna’s stare. Maybe she was staring at the owl to stare at him without him knowing. It’s not working, he thought impatiently.
“What do you want, Finna?” he asked, semi-politely.
“Your owl is acting funny,” she said.
Smoke was standing on top of her rabbit bones, holding very still and looking to the west though a gap in the fog that had opened up. There didn’t seem to be anything, just flights of shore birds over the grey breakers of the ocean under a sullen sky.
“She’s an owl,” Skeggi says. “Staring at stuff is what she does.”
A great shadow rushed over Skeggi. He looked up as a red dragon leapt, wings pumping, into the air over the parade ground, its red wings glowing like fire. The air of its wingbeats riffled his hair even this far down as the dragon soared toward in the direction that Smoke had been staring.
Smoke, glaring up at the dragon, stood on her tiptoes and beat her wings as if in challenge. Because now the dragon was circling around to land nearby in a rush of dust and heat.
3
Sparks
“Hello, Corae,” Skeggi said, approaching the red dragon. Corae bent her head down to him. He rubbed her nose, and then she rubbed her huge, horned face against him hard enough to almost knock him off his feet. Heat came off her, so much that he started sweating. If I’d had this dragon living in my house last winter, he thought, I never would have needed to light a fire.
“Would you like to take Corae for a practice ride this morning?” asked the swordmaster, Hildigunnr, who was saddled on her dragon’s back.
“I’d love to,” Skeggi said as Corae snorted hot air over him. She nosed at his pockets, probably smelling the rabbit leg he’d just eaten. Then she snorted over his arm, so close that his poor arm felt singed.
Hildigunnr undid the straps and slid off, wiping the sweat from her forehead with a corner of her shawl. She was a small, vigorous woman with gray hair in a thick braid all down her back, and a couple of smaller braids that she’d braided around the front of her hair to try, unsuccessfully, to catch some of the wisps that always fell out and got in her eyes.
“Aw! I wanted to fly today,” Ostryg said.
“You’ll be working on the spear this morning,” Hildigunnr said, tossing the dragon’s straps to Skeggi. “You and Dyrfinna both.”
“There goes my morning,” Dyrfinna said. Ostryg rolled his eyes.
“No bickering,” the swordmaster said briskly. “Skeggi, take Corae for a ride around the city to get her warmed up. Then take her up to the mounted riders up on Mount Pyrr. They’re doing a little training this morning, and it should do you some good to join them.”
Skeggi grinned, his hair flopping into his face. “Yes, madame.” What she really meant, but was too generous to say, was “You really need to work on this aspect of training, since yesterday you were completely taken out of commission by a training dummy.”
Ostryg, however, had no such qualms. “Hey,” he said, raising his chin at Skeggi. “If one of the training dummies attacks you, you better just run.”
Skeggi pleasantly told Ostryg where to stick his advice, and they both drew their swo
rds, ready for a good-natured fight.
Hildigunnr said, “Go, for the love of all that is holy,” and Skeggi said fine, he would. Ostryg made a face at him, but then laughed and waved.
Corae insistently stuck her horned head into Skeggi’s arms, rubbing her forehead against this chest, as if to say Pay attention to me. Skeggi leaned his head back so Corae wouldn’t accidentally jab one of her horns into his eye. “Who’s my good dragon? Why, you are! You are!” he said, talking to her the way he talked to a friendly dog. “Are you ready to go for a ride?”
Corae’s ears perked up and she pulled her head back to look at Skeggi. Then she tipped her head.
“Go for a ride? Go for a ride?”
Corae tipped her head more, her ears at attention.
“She’s not a dog, she’s a dragon,” Dyrfinna groused.
“Go for a ride?” Skeggi added, just to annoy her. Corae began to bounce around with short bursts of her wings, her serpentine tail whipping and snaking all over the place so that everybody had to jump out of its way.
Skeggi settled Corae down, then he mounted up on her back onto a nice, thick fleece that was meant to keep some of the dragon’s heat off the rider’s legs. Skeggi still sweated buckets whenever he was on a dragon’s back. Even now, as he sat upon the fleece, buckling the straps meant to hold him on, faint ripples of heat shimmered over Corae’s back and neck from her internal fires.
Corae was a beautiful dragon, though; no doubt about that. She was a deep, rich red, and her scales were like flakes of garnet, dark as wine, catching flecks of light in their surfaces. A few sparks would kindle on her back, or between the scales, a deep peach glow under the edge of the scales that would soon wink out. A few sparks floated around Corae’s face when she breathed, like tiny orange stars.
She turned her head, as if curious, and watched him buckling and securing the straps, pulling them tight. If Corae had to bank suddenly in the air, as often happened during battle, these straps kept the rider in the seat – would keep Skeggi from pitching off her back and falling a long, long way back to his death.
Skeggi wasn’t a dragonrider. Neither were his friends. They were in training, which was paid for by Dyrfinna’s father, who was part of Queen Saehildr’s high staff. He had influence – and he had a lot of money, to be able to pay for the training of not only Dyrfinna, but her friends. Otherwise, there would have been no way on earth that Skeggi could have afforded this kind of training. Absolutely no way at all.
Corae stretched her wings impatiently, opening them to their full width like sails, then closing them halfway. Then she opened her right wing and began to lick along the ribs, cleaning off a little soot that had collected there in the crannies.
“Corae! Are you ready to fly?”
Her ears, behind the mass of horns on her head, perked up again, and she stopped grooming her wing in order to stand straight and still, staring off as if listening very closely. Then she crouched, her great ruby wings flaring open, quivering with excitement, as she stared expectantly upward. Her great tail twitched along the ground as if she just couldn’t hold it still, like a puppy that couldn’t help wagging its tail.
“Up, Corae, up!”
Her wings flashed, and she sprang into the air. Corae’s great wings beat rapidly, her body pushing itself ponderously up, then more easily as her wings beat harder, carrying Skeggi higher and higher. His little owl chased them, as she always did, trilling exitedly next to Skeggi’s head, but finally, when they got too high, she peeled off and headed back to earth.
The fog broke across Skeggi’s face, and the world turned white and chilly all around them for a moment, which felt good because Corae was really putting out some heat.
Then they broke through the top of the fog cloud, and Skeggi could see the white billows lying below them, looking velvety as a horse’s nose. The fog cloud clung to the base of the mountains and blanketed Skala so he couldn’t see much of the city below him.
“You’re such a good dragon,” he said to Corae, and she rumbled happily as she climbed through the air.
Skeggi always loved seeing Skala from above – loved seeing everything from the air, really, as if the whole town had been enchanted and made small so he could just reach down and pick up the houses in his hand. The trees looked like a carpet of moss, and the waves on the crinkled ocean were just wee bits of glitter.
The cold air blew into his face and hair, mixed with hot air from the dragon’s neck.
He started murmuring a poem he’d been trying to work on:
In olden days in whale-road spoils
Three men roamedranging far
Sword-friends firmin loyalty and love
Dragon-spoils stealing and arm-rings gleaming
He made a face. The poem was just not even making any sense. If only he could have more time to write his songs!
Over the foothills of Mount Pyrr floated several of the other red dragons of the queen’s, with their riders at the reins. The dragons drifted up along the side of the mountain with slow wingbeats, then drifted back down in a hypnotic motion that Skeggi loved to watch. One of the riders was singing an old ballad about a Viking battle from the early days that he could barely hear, as he was still very far away. It was a quiet morning, and everyone was simply enjoying themselves.
Two of the dragonriders sparred, their dragons circling around and charging at each other, their riders leaning in with swords and shields to cut at each other as the dragons wrestled in the air, wings flailing, then broke up to circle around, gaining altitude all the while, then jousted, the dragonriders trying to score a hit on the others’ shield as they passed.
Skeggi flew in, and some of the other dragonriders waved. “How will you fare today?” one of the young women called. “I heard that the training dummy got the upper hand on you yesterday.”
“I never saw it coming!” Skeggi called back. “It was just too fast for me.” The others laughed, but pleasantly.
“Race ya!” Skeggi called to the woman who’d ribbed him about being attacked by the training dummy. “Dive, Corae!”
She loved diving. Skeggi flattened himself against the dragon’s back and held tightly to the forward strap. Eagerly she curved into a dive, and with a snap of her wings she went into a screamingly steep dive. Skeggi was no longer touching her back; he was floating, and only the straps kept him from being left behind in space.
He couldn’t look back over his shoulder to see if the other dragons were catching up, because he felt that his head would snap off if he did, they were falling so fast. Corae’s wings were trembling against the force of the wind. Skeggi had his head as low to the dragon’s back as possible, his eyes open only as slits. They were getting close to the ground, and Corae was beginning to level out – but not quickly enough, and the ground came hurtling at them way too fast. Gritting his teeth, Skeggi barked through them, “Up! Up!”
Corae leveled off, just barely in time, and Skeggi was pressed against her back by his sudden weight. The ground screamed past just a short way below. A huge bunch of spruce trees, all packed together, loomed ahead –
-- and out of the trees rose a dark brown dragon, almost in their path.
4
First Taste of Combat
“Pull up, pull up, pull up!” Skeggi screamed. All the while thinking, whose dragon is that? because he’d never seen this kind of brown dragon here.
Corae pulled up, a tight rise – and suddenly the trees opened up to the ocean….
And there before them were four Danish ships, cut low to the water with their typical short, squat, brown sails. Crowded on the shore were men and women warriors putting on their battle-gear, and cutting brush for camouflage, and buckling on swords.
“Danes! What are they doing here?” Skeggi yelled. “Corae, drop fire.”
The dragon blasted everything. One of the Danes flung up her hands with a chant that flung protection over the camp, and the flames passed harmlessly over.
But he could see, as
they flew over the camp, that there were other Danes here, and other warriors putting on armor and preparing for battle.
A lot of warriors.
“It’s an invasion force! Corae, get us out of here!” Skeggi said, tucking himself small against her back as arrows screamed up from the ground.
And now the brown dragon, a Danish warrior seated upon it, was flying straight at Skeggi and Corae, the dragon’s wings pounding, fire trickling from the edges of its mouth.
Skeggi had seen combat, but never from the back of a dragon – and he’d never had a dragon draw a bead on him before. His whole body loosened as he suddenly became light-headed, and everything suddenly seemed very far away as the brown dragon, almost in slow motion, drew itself up higher and higher, closer and closer, the eyes of the dragon and its rider never leaving Skeggi, their slow grins of delight growing.
Corae dove – and shut her wings, clapping them to her sides.
And now they were rocketing down, Skeggi holding on for dear life to the forward strap.
As the ground came screaming up – again – Corae flung her wings wide and swooped upward on the incredible momentum her falling body had created, and they shot up. Skeggi held on tight, thinking, Please don’t throw up, please don’t throw up, please don’t throw up.
Behind them, the brown dragon screeched. That screech was too close behind them, too close. Corae suddenly flipped onto her side and banked hard to the right – and a burst of flame from the other dragon broke like water against her belly. Her body and wings blocked that deadly blaze from Skeggi, though flame-drops and sparks reached around the edges of her wings.
The heat was intense. He would have gasped for breath except he didn’t dare breathe. The inferno scalded his face, and if he’d breathed that intense heat in, he knew he would have perished.
A Whisper of Smoke Page 2
