“It’s Nauma.” Gefjun grabbed Varinn’s shoulder to hold on.
Nauma wore her grey robes, her angry blue eyes fixed squarely on Gefjun.
“I didn’t do anything to you, you demon spawn,” Gefjun snapped at her. “What’s with your pissy attitude?”
“Let’s finish her off right now,” Varinn said, circling the dragon around.
Varinn sang a powerful attack, opening his hand and singing up power in the form of a orange ball of light. With a strong sweep of his arm, he flung it down at his adversary. It struck Nauma dead on, and she vanished inside a great explosion of orange flames. A shock wave blasted out that flattened the ocean into white foam and blew the fog apart briefly, revealing part of the stolen ship nearby and people lying crumpled on the deck. After a moment, the fog slowly started rolling back in, and the orange flames cleared away ....
... to reveal Nauma still standing there, unmoved. Her hair had blown out when the shockwave had struck her, but she was otherwise unaffected.
She laughed.
“What! That should have blasted her into the water,” Varinn muttered. “What’s going on?”
Nauma and Gefjun fired music at each other, Gefjun trying to pull breath out of Nauma’s mouth. Nauma sang a spell to paralyze them and their dragon. Their dragon was fighting to stay aloft, but something was different in Nauma’s music. The music was binding Gefjun as it bound the dragon, and Gefjun felt a great weight of sorrow sinking her as the dragon sank, though his great wings labored.
Gefjun burst out in song against Nauma:
I reject your sad spells
They curl up like spiders in the flame
Crumbling to ash
But Nauma laughed, singing in that strange shrill language, and their dragon continued to sink, as if Nauma’s music slowly pulled him out of the sky. The water below them roiled as if boiling. Nauma’s face grew red, her bottom teeth showing as she sang, but that expression on her face was one of fury and delight. She stretched out a hand, claw-shaped, at them, her music grating and harsh.
King Varinn sang something new, in a language Gefjun didn’t recognize, in a strange sounding, trilling music, with many runs and glissandos. Gefjun listened, fascinated, her mouth open. She didn’t know what kind of music this was, but it caused goosebumps to rise on her arms.
Nauma couldn’t fight against this fluid music. She tried to sing discord, but he simply moved his music up into another key. His notes swooped; his voice sailed up to soar on a high note, and when Nauma tried to discord with that, his voice would swoop down the scale—and it was a different musical scale than the Vikings used—to land on a different note.
The dragon began to rise, panting from his exertion, Varinn’s music loosening the grip that Nauma had on him. Gefjun sang with Varinn when a note landed somewhere that she recognized. The dragon rose higher.
Come on, you can do it, she thought to the dragon.
She filled in with her whole voice behind any note she could correctly sing along with, treading carefully so she wouldn’t accidentally strike a discord and knock them and their dragon out of the sky.
With an exasperated shriek, Nauma broke off the song and lunged into the fog next to her. Out of the fog she yanked a young Viking warrior in full armor, a groggy man who looked all around him, confused. She spun the warrior to face her. As he fumbled to pull out his sword, a knife flashed in Nauma’s hand, and suddenly she was drenched in a bright red gout of the warrior’s steaming blood.
It happened almost too fast for Gefjun to comprehend.
“No!” she shrieked.
King Varinn sang powerfully, as if his spell-music was his sword and shield, and he was striking down and laying waste with the power behind his sword-arm.
Nauma, drenched in the soldier’s life-blood, stared into the dying man’s face, watching the pain and fury as it ebbed out of her sacrifice, as his blood pulsed out of his body with each beat of his heart, each pulse throwing out less and less blood.
Then Nauma flung the young man aside, and her eyes fixed only on Gefjun as she sang. Drenched in blood, she smiled at the horror on Gefjun’s face. Nauma’s awful music took hold of that horror in the air and fed on it …
… and absolute darkness fell.
Gefjun fought against it, frantically singing, Light! Light! Light! Light!
They falling.
Splash!
A shock of cold water knocked the breath from Gefjun’s lungs, engulfing her to her waist. Her face slammed against King Varinn’s back. She bounced once, and then lay there, unable to move, her nose, cheekbone, and sternum in pain. And the water was rising as if the dragon they sat upon was sinking. Varinn was not moving; the dragon was not moving. Nauma’s spell had bound them into immobility.
Move, move, move!
Gefjun couldn’t make herself move.
Through the ringing in her ears, she could hear Nauma saying something but couldn’t make out what it was.
I can’t let the dragon drown. I can’t let the king drown. I just can’t.
She could still remember the awful gasping and gulping noises from Skeggi and Rjupa after they were thrown overboard.
Suddenly her lips could move.
Fishes, come
Lift us out of the water
Call your big friends to help us
I implore you
Nauma screamed, “If you call your puffin friends, I will net them and set the nets afire.”
You hog’s behind, you thrice-burned bun, you rotten bowl of calf’s foot jelly. “Save my friends.” Gefjun eyes began to clear, and she could make out shapes. “Wake our dragon and bring him out of the water! He’s going to drown,” She was still trying to move, still trying to force her arms and legs to twitch, but she lay across King Varinn’s back like a lump. She couldn’t even tell if his face was out of the water. “Get us out of here!”
“Huh. You can talk but you can’t move.” Nauma laughed, her voice at ease. “I’ll keep the dragon, don’t you worry, Miss. I won’t let your king drown. You three will be valuable to our operation.”
“We’re still sinking!” Gefjun felt many tickly little fish moving around both of her legs in the freezing water. The side of a large fish brushed her calves. She felt a fish slip under the arch of her foot and it pushed her leg up slightly, but then it darted away.
Her eyes cleared more, and she was able to see Nauma, leaning against a railing on the back of the ship.
“Yeah, well, that can’t be helped,” the thief said with a smile that turned Gefjun’s stomach.
“Dragons can’t survive for long in freezing water, you idiot numbskull!” Fishes fluttered more and more around Gefjun’s legs. A painful ache started to grow in her bones as the cold reached through her muscles. She began to shiver.
“A frozen dragon will suit our purposes nicely.”
“What stupid purposes?” Gefjun spat.
Nauma rolled her eyes. “Raising dragons from the dead. A fresh dragon that doesn’t have all its bones coming apart and bits of flesh falling off would be a lot easier to ride.” She gazed longingly down at the dragon. “And that’s a very beautiful dragon. The king’s personal dragon. One of the very best the world has to offer. I would resurrect this dragon and lead my armies into battle. They’ll know me as the Carcass Queen.”
Gefjun sang quietly into the king’s back.
Fish, fish, hurry up
Somebody call a whale over fast
Lift us out of the water
Hurry up for goodness’ sake
“I heard you singing over there.” Nauma sang something that stopped Gefjun’s mouth. And now Gefjun couldn’t sing at all, much less yell the insults that were coming thick and fast to her mind.
And now Gefjun’s body locked up and she could not shiver. This is bad! She thought. I can’t generate heat if I can’t shiver. Neither can these two.
The water continued rising over their legs.
Her eyes were closing—she couldn’t
make them stop. Stay awake, stay awake….
The dragon rocked underneath her.
“Hey, look out for sharks,” Nauma said, smiling.
Do you like this? Gefjun thought, enraged. Does this somehow please you? I hope wild dogs rip our ears off, you piece of ….
The dragon rocked again … and suddenly rose straight out of the water.
“What the!” Nauma cried.
And up and up they rose.
An unearthly whine and groan came from under the dragon.
It’s a whale! Gefjun thought. We’re on top of a whale!
The whale sang its great, unearthly music that swooped down to a deep rumble, deeper than anything Gefjun had ever heard, a note that vibrated through her whole body as if she were part of the song.
And suddenly all three of them could move. Air rushed into Gefjun’s lungs and she started shivering, her body out of control. Varinn groaned, his teeth chattering. The dragon moaned, and its internal fires flickered on, for she felt a barest hint of heat from under its scales.
“No!” Nauma shouted. “How’d they get free?”
It’s because whales can sing too, you walnuthead!
“Get her, Dragon,” Gefjun said aloud, just about ready to shiver herself to death. Her stomach muscles were seizing, she was shivering so hard.
“He can’t,” King Varinn said as the dragon groggily lifted its head. “The freezing water has gotten to him. He needs to warm up, first.”
The whale moved toward the ship as if to ram it.
Nauma leapt back into the ship.
“That’s a whale!” one of her crew members shouted.
“I never noticed,” Nauma shouted back sarcastically.
And she sang out against the whale, a music that cut against Gefjun.
The whale didn’t seem to notice. It was rushing at the ship and picking up speed. Gefjun held on to the dragon.
Three Vikings of Nauma’s crew leapt up to the edges of the ship, each one of them bearing a great whale harpoon in their hands.
“No!” screamed Gefjun. “No, don’t kill him!”
The three harpoons launched out, and two of them found their mark in the whale. The whale groaned and suddenly dove.
The dragon, Gefjun, and the king all plunged back into the freezing water completely.
Bubbles burst from Gefjun’s lungs and she flailed, but she was still strapped onto the back of the dragon. It wasn’t until the dragon kicked feebly and rose back to the surface that her head broke through the freezing salt water, and she coughed and spat salt and brine. Varinn was choking, and she pounded him between his shoulder blades to help him cough up his saltwater, her hand making wet splats on his drenched riding cloak.
Nauma’s warriors plunged into the water and swam over to cut King Varinn and Gefjun free from the dragon’s back. Gefjun, gasping and sputtering for air, scarcely had strength to protest. They caught a rope flung from the ship, and everybody was dragged back over the water and forced over the side into the boat.
“Put me down, you rat turds,” Gefjun exclaimed when they dumped her aboard the ship, her teeth chattering so hard that she could hardly get the words out.
They dropped her right in the bilgewater collected at the lowest point of the deck.
”Better?” Nauma sneered.
Actually, it was, because the bilgewater had been warmed by the sun and was a great improvement over the freezing water she’d just been hauled out of.
All the same, Gefjun informed her, “It’s not going to be any better until you shrivel up and die.”
Nauma just rolled her eyes and stooped down to peer in Varinn’s face. “Well, well. I have a real prize here.”
A song exploded from King Varinn that made all the other ones seem puny. He reached out his shaking hand, still dripping ice water, and flung the music out over Nauma’s warriors.
A number of them fell over, clutching their heads and screaming.
And then Varinn’s sword was out, and he sprang at Nauma, faster than Gefjun’s eye could follow.
Her sword came up just as quick and blocked his. Sparks flew. Varinn roared at her.
Nauma shrieked like a sea hawk ... and the noise made Gefjun’s muscles feel like they’d dissolved.
The next thing she knew, both she and Varinn were lying once again in the bilgewater at the bottom of the boat.
She rolled over, splashing, and put her hand on his shoulder. He was staring at the sky, eyes wide, not a muscle moving. She shook him, but he didn’t move, not even his eyelids. He wasn’t breathing.
“Frejya’s tears, Nauma,” Gefjun snapped. “If you’re going to paralyze him, let him at least blink and swallow. You don’t have to freeze every muscle group in the body, you idiot.”
“Oh, so now you’re going to tell me how to paralyze my enemies?”
“Well, yeah, if you don’t want your most valuable prisoner to die.”
Nauma sneered at Gefjun, but half-muttered, half-sang a short phrase. The next moment, Varinn took a deep gasp of air, and coughed.
“At least you have some sense.” You dried-up piece of hog snot.
“Tie them up,” Nauma said carelessly to her soldiers. “Stick them in the back of the boat. Send a message back to his keep to let them know what a prize catch we have.”
“What kind of terms should we ask for?” the big, hulking henchman at her side asked.
Nauma stared at Varinn. “I wouldn’t mind bearing his next heir to the throne.” She licked her lips at him.
Varinn’s breath hissed, and Gefjun felt heat coming off him. The fury in his face was so terrible that she had to look away.
“Oh, stop with that self-righteous glare,” Nauma said. “I was joking. Can’t you take a joke? All the same, you would be worth a tumble.”
“We need terms,” said her henchman impatiently.
“Don’t be jealous, I’d include you,” she said, then got back to business. “As far as terms, I don’t know. I just had the richest prize fall into my lap, and I can’t decide what value to put on his life. Should I ask for his army? His keep? His dragons? I already have one of his dragons dying in the water here. Should I make it three dragons, or five? How much would they pay for your life, Varinn?” she asked, meeting his glare. “No, let me think on this for a little while. In the meantime, get these two into the back of the ship.”
Two big men wrestled Gefjun to her feet. Though she fought, she couldn’t get any good kicks in because she shivered too hard. They forced her hands behind her and tied them together, and then they flung her into the back of the ship. They hauled the king to his feet, though he could scarcely walk, as he was still partially paralyzed by Nauma’s spell. They dragged him to the back of the ship and flung him down next to Gefjun.
His great eyes were full of fury. “I never, never should have brought you into this.”
“It can’t be helped,” she said sadly.
Gefjun struggled to stand, which turned out to be a tricky process with her hands tied behind her back. She looked over the back of the ship, where the dragon was trying to lift his wings out of the water, smacking the water’s surface, striking Gefjun’s face with drops of freezing water.
“Hurry, run, get back home and tell the others what happened,” Gefjun whispered.
Nauma, who was on the other end of the ship, shouted, “I heard that. You’re trying to incite the dragon to leave, aren’t you?”
“Go, go, go,” Gefjun whispered. The dragon’s eyes met hers, hooded, panicked, and he lifted his wings high, shook out the water, and started flapping.
“Don’t let that dragon get away! That’s going to be my dragon, if he’d just die!” Nauma shouted. She started running across the ship.
The dragon hissed, but no flame came out, as he fought to rise off the water.
And suddenly, he heaved clear of the water, rising higher though his scales were dark and dull, more blue than black with cold.
“Harpoons!” Nauma shouted, and the harp
ooner came running, harpoon on his shoulder. “Kill that dragon for me!”
Gefjun ran straight at the harpooner, her arms still tied behind her back, and rammed him. The other shipmates grabbed her.
But while she fought with the rest of the crew, Varinn drew to his feet and ran. Nobody noticed until he roared into the harpooner like a bull. Both the harpoon and the harpooner went flying.
“Do I have to keep both of you paralyzed since you can’t behave?” Nauma cried.
Gefjun shrugged, watching the dragon rise above the water, laboring with hard flaps of his wings through the air toward the castle. In a moment, the fog swallowed him. He got away, Gefjun thought, relieved. Good dragon. The way he was flying, it was clear that they would not have been able to escape on him. Their weight would have been too much for him, as cold and wretched as the dragon was from his time in the water.
Varinn was ready to fight, and fight he did, taking down several of Nauma’s shipmates with some powerful kicks and punches. Two of them had concussions, Gefjun was glad to see, from the way they sat up, addled and confused. But she wasn’t going to treat them. They brought that pain on themselves.
The crew jumped on Varinn and slammed him to the deck. Once he was unconscious, they dragged him over and wrestled Gefjun to sit with him by the mast. Then they worked to get Varinn and Gefjun tied up with their backs to each other. At least he was warm. Gefjun cuddled up to his back, trying to build up some heat between them so they would both stop shivering. Dying from the cold was a very big threat right now.
The dragon’s flapping and groans faded as he got farther and farther away.
And now we are on our own, Gefjun thought.
She was going to be a good girl and keep quiet. Because she needed to keep her voice in case she could summon the puffin army. Or the fish army. Or whatever the opportunity called for.
“Sit closer to me,” Gefjun said, barely able to get the sentence out for her chattering teeth. “We need to bring up our temperature as much as possible.”
A Fire of Roses Page 15
