Kind of stringy, tasted like old leather, but still satisfying, the dragon said.
“Ugh,” Dyrfinna said into a clump of grass.
The dragon said, What happened to you? And heat gradually grew on her left side.
She raised her head from the grass and found the dragon walking up to her, heat shimmering off her, running her tongue over her teeth, and opening and closing her jaws as if she was trying to work a piece of gristle free.
Dyrfinna pushed herself to her feet. “Here. These are your eggs. See if they’re okay.” She opened the case, praying. To her relief, every egg looked just fine with no breaks.
The dragon reached her head down to sniff each one carefully, nuzzling each with her soft nose and upper lip. Dyrfinna stepped out of her way. She moved to stand upwind of the dragon, because the smell of steaming hot blood was coming out of her mouth, and it made Dyrfinna sick to her stomach. The smell had never bothered Dyrfinna during battle, when warriors lay bleeding out their lives, when the copper-tinged blood-stink was as bad as a slaughterhouse. But here, coming off the dragon’s lips and face, it affected her badly. Dyrfinna did her best stoic impression, however, and soon the dragon was done and raised her head.
“How are you going to get these eggs home?” Dyrfinna asked. “Do you need me to carry them for you, and then put them into your nest when we get to your isle?” Even though Dyrfinna never, never, never wanted to return to that god-forsaken island where she had nearly died.
That won’t be necessary, said the dragon. Close up the case, and I’ll carry them home. Once there, I’ll simply burn the case off the eggs. That’ll warm my babies right up, and then I’ll just nose them around in the nest to where they need to go.
“Oh good,” Dyrfinna said without meaning to.
Thank you, said the dragon. You have saved my babies.
“You killed the man who kidnapped my sister,” she said. “I think we’re even.”
The emberdragon picked up the case in her mouth, gathered herself, and leapt into the air. The orange fire under her scales glowed as the wind blew on it, orange and black lines on her wings showing where the air moved swiftly. She glowed like a planet would in the night sky, though it was daytime, as she gained altitude.
Dyrfinna watched the dragon go until she was a faint orange fleck against the blue sky.
Only then did she turn back.
A man came up to her and met her. “I’m glad you survived,” he said, and pressed something into her hand. The picture Aesa had drawn, which Dyrfinna had let the wind carry into the crowd.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, her heart burning like a coal, peaceful and warm, and she thanked Freyja that she was still alive, even after all that.
Then she remembered the horse that had carried Papa Ostryg into town and went to see if anybody had caught it, but somebody already brought it to her. It was a pretty mare with a brown coat and sandy mane and tail. It nuzzled at Dyrfinna and tried to lip the picture that Aesa had drawn, but she moved it aside before its teeth got to it.
“We’ll take her up to the king’s keep,” they said, and off they went.
Dyrfinna returned to the orchard, where she found Aesa playing under the blossoming trees while Sóma sat nearby, her hat nearly finished. Aesa had gathered a bunch of dandelions and was using them as dolls, though some of them were starting to look a little wilted.
“Hey, pumpkin bear,” Dyrfinna said, sitting down next to her sister. “You know that bad man, that Papa Ostryg man, who kidnapped you? He’s dead now.”
Aesa looked up from her play. “Yay! How did he die?” she asked.
“A dragon ate him.”
“Oh, good,” she said, going back to her dandelion dolls. “He was really bad.”
So much for that, Dyrfinna thought.
But had Skala really burned? Was Papa Ostryg telling the truth? She looked in that direction, figuring that, even at this distance, she might see some hint of smoke rising from the city if that were true. But the sky in that direction was cluttered with clouds and dark with a faraway storm, and the horizon was a dark slate color. There was no way to tell.
She swore to herself, wishing she could call the emberdragon back. But she had already gone, and she didn’t want to separate the dragon from her eggs ever again until they hatched and her dragon hatchlings were old enough to fly away from danger. To keep dragons in the world was far, far, far more important than hitching a ride back home.
17
“EVERY VIPER BITES.”
Dyrfinna had been standing outside of her room for a little while, apparently looking confused because Sóma walked up and asked, “Are you trying to figure out where to go for dinner?”
“Um … no …,” Dyrfinna said, even though this had been exactly what she’d been doing.
Sóma laughed. “Take a moment to wash your hands and rebraid your hair. You can go with me to the dining hall. Is your sister here?
“Aesa is, yes.”
“Go get her. I really thought they’d already sent somebody for you.”
After cleaning up, Dyrfinna and Aesa followed Sóma to supper and sat with her. At least Gefjun and Varinn were not there. She gave a quiet exhale of relief. Dyrfinna’s mood kept getting better, because Aesa was in a wonderful mood and Varinn’s cooks had cooked the best eel ever, along with delicious rare side dishes she hadn’t tried before.
Aesa was talking a blue streak, as she always did. “Sissy! Sissy! watch me,” she said. “Aaa!” She fell off her chair. “What happened. I was just sitting on the chair and I falled off.”
“Get off the floor, you silly,” Dyrfinna said with a laugh.
Then Aesa got back up and tried to sit on Dyrfinna.
“You need to sit down and eat your eels.”
“The eels are looking at me,” she said, wrinkling her nose at her plate, their lidless eyes wide and staring. “I don’t want to eat them when they’re looking at me.”
“If you eat them, they won’t look at you any more.”
“Yeah, but then they’re looking at the inside of my tummy.”
Dyrfinna shook her head. “Stop being a goofball!” she said, and Aesa started to giggle.
Aesa went on talking about these fish she’d seen once, while Dyrfinna looked out the big window at the world around and below. She studied the terrain, the mountains that ranged around the keep, and the ocean that tumbled on the black rocks at the foot of the mountain. She could lead a pretty good ambush from the side of the mountain out there in the sea if she had an army fleet coming in from the water. It would be easy to set up a little hammer-and-tongs operation with forces on this mountain and that one ….
“Sissy!” Aesa poked her. “Give this eel a kiss.”
“No. Eat your food.”
Then Dyrfinna’s attention was caught by a movement far, far in the east. She watched it for a while, lazily.
Aesa settled down and took a big bite of bread. While she was chewing, she used the tip of her dinner knife to move the eels around on her plate and line them up. “This is the eel daddy … this is the eel mommy. I’m going to make them kiss. Here is the sissy eel. Here’s a baby sissy eel. Look, Sissy, look at my eels.”
“I’m trying to figure out what kind of bird that is out there.”
Aesa took a look. “It’s a dragon, silly,” she said, going back to her eels.
Aesa was right. A black dragon, too, by the look of it. But … the dragon’s flight was wrong. That’s why I thought it was a bird, Dyrfinna realized, watching the black dragon’s feeble wingstrokes. Dragons were almost always strong fliers, with slow wingbeats and a straight flight path. The wingbeats on this dragon were weak, and the dragon’s altitude would sink. Then it would fight to bring itself up again.
But then she realized the other reason that she’d thought it was a bird.
Every dragon always had a rider on it—something she was so used to that her mental idea of a dragon always included the riders.
This dragon h
ad nobody on its back.
“Hold on, Aesa,” Dyrfinna said, getting slowly to her feet.
She went to Hedgehog, who was already talking to someone in the dining hall.
“Commander,” she said, but Hedgehog didn’t seem to hear, just kept talking. She cleared her throat.
“Commander,” she said again, slightly louder.
This time, Hedgehog, after a long moment, turned slowly from her conversation. “Aye,” she said in a slightly annoyed voice.
Dyrfinna dropped her voice to keep it low. “It’s a black dragon coming in. Riderless.”
Some rolled their eyes and ignored her, but Hedgehog took one look out the window and jumped to her feet.
“That’s King Varinn’s dragon,” she said in a low voice that only Dyrfinna could hear.
“And did Gefjun go with him?”
Hedgehog took a shaky breath. “Aye. That she did.”
Dyrfinna immediately went calm and quiet, though inside she was anything but. “Aesa, I’m going to see if I can meet a dragon,” she said.
“I want to go! I want to go!” she said.
She shrugged to Hedgehog, who was, she noticed, holding her emotions back with marvelous restraint.
“I’m Gefjun’s closest friend,” she said. “Well, was.”
Hedgehog scrutinized her as Dyrfinna. “Ye also talk ta dragons,” she said quietly, so nobody else could hear.
“If the dragon is willing.”
“Come with me. You, too, wee bairn,” Hedgehog said.
Aesa crinkled up her face scornfully. “I’m not Weebarn. I’m Aesa.”
“Oops.”
“Run, Aesa! Let’s go see a dragon.”
They hurried up the stairs at a run after the wee bairn, or weebarn, and once they were out of earshot from all the fine dinner guests, Hedgehog said, “Do ya ken what this means?”
“We’re in some deep trouble,” Dyrfinna said soberly.
A sick feeling hit her in the guts. “And it was my fault that Gefjun was with him. I recommended that she go with him on the dragon.”
Hedgehog half-laughed, a despairing sound. “I’d forgotten that. But aye.” She slammed her fist into her hand. “I’m such a bloomin’ idiot, but we ’ave nobody, absolutely nobody else available fer dragonridin’. I thought it would be a simple reconnaissance mission. Ach.”
They raced up what seemed like a thousand stairs, for Dyrfinna was out of shape from her time on the dragon isle, but finally they reached the top, and Hedgehog gave the password—which at this particular moment was “puffin”— and the guard let them into the dragon stables.
Dyrfinna’s eyes went wide at the massive stables, all dark wood and soot-blackened stone and open sky. Aesa said, “I want to see,” but Dyrfinna just picked her sister up and kept running.
“O’er ’ere,” said Hedgehog, turning a corner.
There was a black platform looking out to the sea with some dragon poop scattered here and there, and Hedgehog skidded to a stop, looking out toward where a black dragon winged—labored, really—low to the sea.
“Is it wounded?” Dyrfinna asked.
“I don’t know,” Hedgehog said. “My eyes aren’t that good.”
Dyrfinna’s stomach was low. So what had happened to Gefjun? And the king? She’d suddenly liking him a lot when he’d given her sword back to her. Who does that, anyway? A very trusting man, apparently. At the same time, he must have been impressed enough to realize that she wasn’t somebody who would stab you in the back for their own gain. Or he figured that any friend of Gefjun’s was a friend of his.
Or, former friend.
“Tell me, Dyrfinna, ‘ow do ye talk ta dragons?” Hedgehog asked, frantic.
Dyrfinna saw that she was probably in the right mindset to speak to the dragon herself. That was how Dyrfinna herself had been able to speak to her first dragon—she’d been almost out of her head in fear on that night.
“You have to shed your blood for the dragon,” she said, showing the wounds in her arms. “I cut off a piece of my flesh and gave it to the dragons, and then they staunched my wounds. You might not need to cut a piece of flesh, as the emberdragon said that blood alone would work. It seems that a sacrifice of blood works when you are in dire need of the dragon’s assistance. Can you do that?”
Hedgehog pulled her dagger immediately and held it up. “Aye, I’m ready ta go.”
Instant action, Dyrfinna thought. A woman after her own heart.
The dragon labored up the slope of the castle to the platform, its wing clipping a tree in a spray of twigs and leaves. The straps that had held Varinn and Gefjun dangled in the air like sad ribbons. It looked exhausted enough to fall to the ground and crawl, but with a supreme effort and one final heave of its wings, it cleared the lip of the cliff and collapsed on the platform before them.
Hedgehog ran to the dragon’s head, and, placing a hand on its scales, called to the stablers, who were already on their way. Then she dropped to her knees before the dragon, whose eyes were closing.
Hedgehog had her dagger in hand, ready to plunge it into her arm, but Dyrfinna gestured to her to her pause a moment. “Dragon,” she asked. “Dragon, Can you speak to us?”
The dragon opened one eye, then gave a look of weary surprise to Dyrfinna. Ah. I can speak to you, but not to her.
“She will shed her blood so she can speak to you,” Dyrfinna said, gesturing to Hedgehog.
The dragon roused slightly. Yes. Please do.
Hedgehog cut into her arm and the blood flowed. “I must speak ta ye. Please, please dragon, accept me sacrifice.”
Oh, thank goodness, the dragon said, now getting up a little. He licked the wound; Hedgehog winced, then looked in surprise at her injury, which had closed up as if cauterized where the dragon had licked it.
Bring me something to eat, the dragon said. I am nearly dead.
Hedgehog’s eyes went wide, but immediately she cried, “Bring a sheep here, quick! Don’t bother to kill it first!”
After a moment, one of the stablers came up to them, leading a sheep with a blindfold on. The animal was calm enough—but then its nostrils flared as it smelled the dragon, and it screamed and pulled back. The stablers had to bring the sheep almost to the dragon’s mouth, as he was too weak to get up, and killed it before him. The dragon bolted down his food, and after a few bites, its seemed to revive slightly.
The king and Gefjun have been captured by that girl on the ship, the dragon gasped.
Hedgehog shuddered and closed her eyes. “’Tis what I feared.”
“Is that girl’s name Nauma?” Dyrfinna asked.
Yes. The dragon tore another piece of meat. She stole a ship of our people that was on its way to battle and wrapped it in fog. When we met her, she killed one of our fighters to give herself more strength, and she pulled me down from the air, and she stopped the king’s magic. He threw power at her, and she just laughed at him.
Hedgehog looked shaken by that, but said, “Where is their ship now?”
I can show you once I recover. The dragon kept eating. She’s wrapped a fogbank around it so the ship is hard to find. We shouldn’t’ve gone in alone, though. That woman just pulled me down out of the sky, like she had a rope on me. I was flying just as hard as I could, but I couldn’t get away.
Hedgehog puffed out her cheeks. “Aye. Now she ’as Varinn. And yer friend,” she added to Dyrfinna. “But that means … that means I ‘ave to lead in ’is place now.” Her face sagged.
“Varinn has no heirs?” Dyrfinna said.
“His wee son was all ’e ’ad left,” Hedgehog said. “His extended family lives off in Iberia.”
“No wife?”
“That is another tragedy. I ain’t been given leave ta discuss it.”
Dyrfinna nodded.
Hedgehog took a deep breath. “I need ta go and tell the others what ’as ’appened. ’Tis terrible, terrible news. I am Varinn’s second-in-command, and now all the ruling responsibilities ’ave fallen ta me
.”
Hedgehog bowed to the dragon. “Thank ye for talking to me. I’ve wished for a mighty long time to talk to ye, but I never knew I could do this. Thank you, thank you.”
The dragon lay his head down on the warm obsidian. You’re welcome. I need to rest for a while.
Dyrfinna bowed deeply to the dragon. “My friend Gefjun rode with Varinn. Well … my former friend. Tell me, what happened to her?”
Your friend is a clever one, the dragon said. She managed to sing up a whale and got all three of us out of the water. That might have helped keep me alive. But I fear for Varinn. Nauma was ecstatic about capturing him and they were both treated roughly.
Dyrfinna shook her head. If only she’d been able to kill her when she’d had the chance. “Tell me, dragon, is there anybody here who could talk to me about what Nauma is doing? I want to ask about the undead dragons. Have these been raised before from the dead? What do the old stories say? How do we kill these beings?”
The dragon stretched out his wings over the black obsidian and shivered with joy at the delicious heat of the sun. In the back of the stable is our oldest comrade. She doesn’t fly any more, but mostly stays warm in the sun. She might know a few things. I wish I did.
“Thank you. Thank you for trying to save my friend. We’ll get the king back, or die trying.”
Dyrfinna walked through the stables. The stablers were talking in low voices to each other, huddled in corners, too deep in talk about what had happened to the king to notice Dyrfinna walking by.
Aesa was excited about seeing the dragons as she followed Dyrfinna. “I want to have a dragon,” she said. “I want to fight bad guys with my dragon.”
Dyrfinna’s heart warmed. “Someday, gosling,” she said, using the nickname that the emberdragon had used.
Dyrfinna thought back to her childhood, how she heard stories of how dragons used to blacken the skies, back in the long-ago days of legend, before dragonhunters killed off the emberdragons, the ones that burned homes and stole cattle and sheep.
A Fire of Roses Page 17
