A Fire of Roses
Page 23
The undead dragon cast blindly about, turning its head upward toward her voice, sniffing the air, panting. Then it would get distracted by some good smell from somebody’s balcony and start screaming and clawing at things, its ruined jaws working mindlessly. It tried to cram its face through a door. Screams came from within.
Dyrfinna stuck the torch in the ground. If she couldn’t attract its attention by waving a torch, she’d have to sing at it.
At least she was standing on solid ground. She looked around but all the stablers were a little ways off. Good.
Dyrfinna burst out in song:
Come on, you pile of bones
You withered flap of skin
I am juicy red meat
I am steaming rich blood
Come here and gorge yourself on me
I bet you’re hungry
For the first time the ragged dragon showed genuine interest, raising its blind head, its jaw slowly working as it climbed.
Dyrfinna grabbed up a rock from off the cliff’s edge, tottered to the edge with it in her arms, and heaved it down at the dragon. It smacked onto the stone of the balcony near Corae, though not near enough to actually hit her.
“What are you doing?” somebody shouted behind her. “Are you drunk?”
“No, I’m of perfectly sound mind, thank you,” Dyrfinna muttered as Corae’s body raised its head to see where the rock had come from.
Corae’s eyes had been golden, and when you rubbed the side of her face, she’d lean into your hand and half-close her eyes in pleasure.
Now, she had no eyes. Just shrunken orbs that were a filmy white.
“Up here, you withered, dead thing!” Dyrfinna swiped up another rock and heaved it down at her.
This rock connected with a dull smack on the dragon’s shoulder, ripping some of the wing’s webbing off the bone.
Corae screamed, an awful sound that scraped her bones. Her jaws open, Corae alighted on a balcony, then leapt up, her wings crackling as if they were made of dried skin, to a higher one, her shrunken eyes now never leaving Dyrfinna’s.
The dragon riders screamed, “Stop her, stop her.” A few of them rushed Dyrfinna, but the undead dragon was too close, and was clambering up the side of the cliffs too fast.
“Why are you luring the undead dragon here, you bonehead?” somebody shouted.
Dyrfinna flipped her shield down off her back, breathing hard.
“I’m putting an old friend out of her misery,” she said quietly.
With a thin scream of a tortured soul, the dragon reared up, its rotting mouth opening wide, and it flew directly up at her … and the stench of her old friend almost brought Dyrfinna to her knees. Her eyes watered and she retched, but her eyes never left Corae as she flew blindly toward her, jaws hanging open as if she could not remember to shut them.
Dyrfinna was woefully unprotected, but there was nothing to be done about that. At least Corae was unable to shoot fire. Dyrfinna had never tried to kill a dragon before, though she knew exactly what she needed to do for this one: cut off its head … if she could.
Corae landed on the obsidian ledge, and each beat of her backwinging blasted corpse-stink in Dyrfinna’s face. Spit filled her mouth as she fought the urge to vomit. The odor of rotten flesh grew so thick, she could cut it with a knife.
The skin on Corae’s wings crackled, and thin flakes fell like dead skin sloughing off. Corae landed sideways, her wings off kilter, part of her front leg ending in a broken piece of bone, her foot missing. Her face broke Dyrfinna’s heart—it was mere skin and bone, the teeth showing through a hole in the cheek.
Dyrfinna, her heart pounding, held her shield before her, her sword at the ready. She thanked King Varinn for having returned her sword to her. She would not have had as much confidence in any sword but hers now, and she wanted her strikes to be clean and fast, and end her friend’s misery.
Even now, her heart failed at the thought of turning her sword against Corae. Even now, as her friend’s carcass wheeled blindly, screeching and lunging at her, her heart failed to think of striking a blow. She already regretted even throwing the stone at her, even if it had brought Corae up to the top where she couldn’t attack anyone but Dyrfinna.
All the same, she had no intention of letting Corae go anyplace else, either.
“Come on,” she said. “Smell this flesh. Smell this hot blood. It’s all yours for the taking. Come on.”
Corae lunged forward, her jaws snapping, a tooth falling out of her mouth.
Instead of a dragon’s roar, she made an unnerving squeal—almost a sob.
Corae lunged at her too fast. Dyrfinna, all unprepared, flung herself out of the way. A mistake, a move that was not deliberate, as Dyrfinna’s feet weren’t under her. Fast as a striking snake, the undead dragon thrust itself after her. Corae’s teeth, in her carcass head that stank of death, skimmed Dyrfinna’s leg, so close that cold fear sprang into her guts that she might have been bitten and infected.
Dyrfinna swung her sword at her attacking friend and cut into what was left of Corae’s face, sparks flying from what remained of her teeth. Then she scrambled back. Quickly she looked at her leg. No bite. Dyrfinna felt weak with relief.
It took everything she had not to turn and run, except she knew that if she ran, the undead dragon would chase her, and bite her, and fill her with the infection of the undead. She jammed the shield into Corae’s face as its jaws opened ... and the most noxious stench that Dyrfinna had ever experienced in her life came forth. It was the stink of a thousand dead on a battlefield. It was the stink of Corae’s putrefying guts. In that moment, Dyrfinna would have gladly taken the purifying rush of flames over this horrible smell.
She shouted as those jaws bit down on her shield and tried to rip it away. She slammed her sword down on its neck, through soft, rotting flesh, and gagged.
The undead dragon jerked back, Dyrfinna’s shield still in its mouth. Screaming, Dyrfinna was dragged off her feet, her body dangling by her elbow. Her entire forearm was strapped into her shield and she was hanging at a very painful angle, unable to pull her arm loose from the straps. With her other hand she slammed the sword against the dragon’s face and neck again and again.
It screamed into her face, its jaws trapped around her shield. It shook the shield and Dyrfinna like a rag doll. The pain in her arm and shoulder was excruciating.
Just then, a sudden shock, and Dyrfinna found herself on the ground. One of King Varinn’s black dragons had plummeted out of the air, its taloned feet slamming square in the middle of Corae’s back
A loud and gruesome crack came from her spine.
Corae’s neck and head writhed with a deafening squeal. Dyrfinna’s shield fell loose from her jaws. Dyrfinna tumbled aside, gasping in agony, pulling her shield-arm and shield tight against her side, clenching her teeth.
Corae snapped at the black dragon, who sprang aside with a great burst of its wings.
Now that Corae’s back was broken, she couldn’t rise, though her wings jerked convulsively, open and shut. Corae crawled toward Dyrfinna, using only its front legs, with a heartbreaking squeal.
Dyrfinna had never spoken to Corae before the way she could now.
“What happened to you?” Dyrfinna cried, dodging her jaws.
Corae came at Dyrfinna, jaws open, slathering, trying to form words with her mouth.
Hungry, she said and she clawed at Dyrfinna’s shield.
Dyrfinna fought those claws back with her sword, barely able to hold her shield up due to the pain in her arm. “That’s your undead side talking. Corae, I need you to speak to me. Come out!”
Corae rolled her eyes as if Dyrfinna’s words had awakened a small portion of her mind. Then she shook her head and lunged viciously, snapping her teeth over Dyrfinna’s shield. Dyrfinna punched the dragon’s nose with the fist that held the pommel of her sword. Corae drew back. A moment later her teeth slammed against her shield again.
No, it was too much to hope Corae would’
ve had that much of her mind left.
Corae moaned, her head swaying, before she dropped her head down and lunged again, snapping and biting, rushing her and trying to get around the shield and the sharp sword. When Corae pulled back, its tongue, what was left of it, twisted in its mouth, no more than that of a dumb beast, or a dying one.
“Corae, stop,” Dyrfinna said, fighting her back with her sword. “Remember who I am. Remember me.”
The undead dragon stopped as if the words had struck it. Its mouth, hanging open, shut for a moment.
Help … me ….
But despite her spine being severed, Corae lashed out at Dyrfinna, jaws open.
“Corae!” Dyrfinna cut at her with her sharp sword. Corae pulled back. “Remember yourself. You are Corae. I am Dyrfinna of Skala. I was your friend not so long ago.”
The undead dragon paused. She seemed to look at Dyrfinna with those blank eyes, those empty sockets.
Her poor broken mouth came open.
Please kill me, she said. It … hurts ….
And Corae lay her head on the ground, stretching her neck out. Her jaws opened and closed, her wings and claws twitched.
Dyrfinna’s heart clenched. She gritted her teeth as the tears rushed to her eyes.
“My old friend, I am sorry,” she said with a sob. “Go now to your rest, my brave heart, my winged lion.”
Dyrfinna took a breath to collect herself.
Corae lay quiet and still now.
“Sweet Freyja, bless my work,” Dyrfinna said, and brought down her sharp sword with all her strength to sever the head of her old friend from its body.
One stroke did the work.
The sword struck with a painful jolt, and the head, still snapping its teeth, fell away. It hung from the dragon’s neck by a large gobbet of rotten flesh.
The body of the undead dragon jerked, and the stink of rotten meat from the open wound made Dyrfinna gag, even as her tears flowed.
But the headless body would not stop. Corae’s head swung from its neck, like a snake whose head had been lopped off, still convulsively snapping its jaws.
The body lunged at Dyrfinna, clawing, its wings and back legs dragging on the ground behind it.
Then it stumbled. The body fell forward across its head, tail lashing, wings slamming again and again against the obsidian pavement.
Dyrfinna stepped back, shaking, as Corae’s jaws, half under her own body, bit again and again into her own flesh. She waited until the struggling dragon subsided somewhat, then she stepped forward and severed the last strand.
Corae’s remains sank slowly into stillness.
Then everything stopped.
She was dead.
Dyrfinna flung her sword aside. She sat on the obsidian cobblestones and cradled her face in her hands, racked with sobs.
After a time, she lifted her head. The other dragon riders had gathered around her. The rest of the dragons had landed and stood around their fallen sister.
She looked up, rubbing the tears from her eyes.
Hedgehog held a hand out to Dyrfinna. “I’m sorry fer yer loss,” she said. “But I need ye ta read the message on this dragon’s back.”
Message? Puzzled, Dyrfinna took Hedgehog’s hand and got to her feet. Corae lay on her side, wings splayed out, in a way that broke her heart yet again.
But Corae’s back was now visible. Dyrfinna stared and stared at the runes written crudely down her back in lines of dried blood.
VARINN AND GEFJUN
ARE MY PRISONERS
COME FIND US
Dyrfinna swore. She picked up her sword, wiped it off on her kirtle, and drove it home into her scabbard. Her arms and sword and shield were covered with clotted, stinking blood, and rotten flesh.
“This was Corae,” Dyrfinna told the dragons. “She was my old friend from Skala. She sacrificed her life in glorious battle a few years ago to protect my friends and I, and she helped rescue our home from the Dane invaders.” She choked up.
One of the black dragons spoke, bending its head over Corae’s remains. We know her well. After her death, we helped to carry her to the summit where our kind are buried in honor. But this … what has been done here is unspeakable.
A chorus of assent from the other dragons.
How dare they do this to one of our own? How dare they?
I’d like to sink my teeth into that one, another dragon said.
May it be so, they all cried.
This cry of agreement came out as shrieks and roars, so the people who had all come running in to see the undead dragon stopped in their tracks.
Then a loud hiss cut through every sound there, a hiss that struck fear through Dyrfinna’s heart. Both humans and dragons went quiet.
Dyrfinna turned to see who’d made that sound.
It was the ancient dragon, dragging itself from the back of the stables, making a chilling, horned silhouette in the torchlight as it raised its head like a spirit of the deep.
The other dragons bowed and stepped back. Dyrfinna alone stood before her.
“Salutations.” Dyrfinna was very much aware of the tears shining on her face as the dark dragon stared at her from its mask of horn.
Then, weeping, she picked up the head of her old friend, cradling it in her arms. Ignoring the pain in her shield-arm, Dyrfinna lifted Corae’s head in both hands to the ancient dragon as if making an offering.
“Corae was my friend, many years ago,” Dyrfinna said. “She died protecting my people from invaders in Skala. And her eternal rest, which she earned, was violated. Corae did nothing to deserve this terrible injustice. I need to know how to stop this.”
The old dragon raised her head. Indeed, she hissed.
“My friend and your king was taken to be sacrificed in order to bring these things into existence. These dragons are forced to die again in a dishonorable death, through no fault of their own.” Then Dyrfinna looked down at Corae’s head. All her old friend had wanted was to rest quietly at the top of a mountain where none could disturb her bones. But now this. Dyrfinna set Corae’s head down, gently, next to her body. Then she spoke again to the ancient dragon.
“Dragon,” she said quietly, “Corae’s heart was golden. She lived a life of service, and she died a hero. Is this a reward for her life? For all that she gave?”
Dyrfinna looked across Corae’s body at the marks of a hundred arrows, dealt by the Danes a long time ago. “Look at these wounds. Her body took these wounds to save my life, and the life of my friends. Please. I need to avenge her second death, to bring honor back to her, that the honor of her memory might live long among humans and dragons alike.”
The old dragon was silent, smoke coming out of her nostrils.
The dragon inhaled, a harsh noise, and then she raised her head in a terrible, red roar. The other dragons followed suit, roaring, and flames went up all around the dragon riders. Dyrfinna braced herself from the sounds and the heat. Inside the sound, within the music of the roars, like horns, Dyrfinna could make out a chant.
Glory
To the great-hearted
Flame-bearer
Waft her home
Bear her up
To the firemount
Across the great sea
Eternal ones
We ask your favor
Then the dragons grew still, lowered their heads, and watched the old dragon. Hedgehog gazed at Dyrfinna, eyes wide.
Dyrfinna knew that great wonder was on her face, too. She nodded.
And then the old dragon said, I will talk to you now.
Stiffly, the dragon rose up into a sitting position.
Suddenly, dizziness struck Dyrfinna, and she swayed. The dragon was still before her—but it wasn’t a dragon, it was … a cloud? A bright cloud?
Dyrfinna’s senses swam for a minute, confused, as she tried to make out with her eyes what was happening.
And suddenly she realized that the dragon had shrunk down into a person.
A very tall person.
A woman, as a matter of fact, wearing white armor and a dark blue cloak over it, holding a shield and a spear. A woman who gazed at Dyrfinna with unreadable eyes.
Dyrfinna took one look at those eternal eyes and went down on one knee, fear gripping her guts.
It wasn’t the ancient dragon at all.
It was Skuld. The Valkyrie.
Skuld, the cutter of the threads of life. The goddess who chose those who died in battle.
She heard the other dragonriders rushing to kneel. From the chain-mail rattle of dragon scales, even the dragons were bowing.
Skuld spoke, sending chills down Dyrfinna’s back. “I expected more self-reflection out of you.”
I am a woman of action, not of reflection, Dyrfinna thought, but simply nodded.
“You have a long way to go. I see much good in you, Dyrfinna. I also see much haste. Much action for action’s sake. You have a lot to learn. I think you are willing to learn it.”
Dyrfinna bowed deeply. “I want to learn. I want to be worthy of your favor.”
“You seek Nauma,”said Skuld.
Dyrfinna’s head came up.
“Yes. How can I find Nauma?” Dyrfinna asked fiercely. “Does she have my friend? And the king?”
“The dragons will know where she is—at the place where they lay their heroic dead to rest.”
The dragons made a heartsick moan.
But one came forward.
Goddess, human though you are, hear my plea, said the great black dragon. Varinn is my rider. I am the one who returned when they were captured. I am still not well enough to fight, but I can show this crew where they are, and I can protect them. Truly, I am sickened to my soul to see what is being done, and am brokenhearted that I was unable to prevail against Nauma’s power.
Dyrfinna made a note to find out more about what had happened, and what kind of power Nauma had. When Dyrfinna had faced Nauma in combat, she’d seen no trace of magical power like this on her. What had happened to give Nauma the kind of power that could fight off a dragon, a king, and Gefjun?
Skuld lifted a hand to the dragon. “Dragon, greathearted one, go with Dyrfinna. Nauma has your friend and the king. They are safe for a time, for they put themselves and their prisoners under a powerful enchantment that Nauma could not break.”