A Crown of Flames

by Pauline Creeden

  And the invisible hands that grabbed her arms seized her around her middle.

  A cool sensation washed over her, and her hair tingled.

  She looked down. But her body wasn’t there. Only the ground, which was cluttered with the rocks that had been blasted out from the explosion.

  She could not seem to comprehend that her body seemed to be gone. But she was right here.

  She shut her eyes. Somebody wrapped his arms around her middle, and he picked her up and flopped her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. Dyrfinna just lay there. Her eyes opened. She was floating along over the ground, and the invisible person who carried her was jogging along. When she looked down, she saw only rough ground bouncing past below her, and he’d dodge a pair of legs running in, or some mutt that came bounding in to see the fun.

  Dyrfinna’s face bounced against a cloak, with somebody’s back under it – though there was nothing there. She shut her eyes. The smell of the cloak, of the man who wore it, was so familiar. And she suddenly breathed it in, and grief suddenly spread through her. She didn’t know why.

  They stopped. He turned slightly where he stood, then she felt the vibration of his voice through his chest, though she couldn’t hear what he was saying. He put her down, and she swayed, unable to keep her balance. Then strong hands grabbed her around her waist, and another set of hands grabbed hers and pulled, and it was suddenly very hot, and she was being heaved and pulled… over an invisible dragon’s back.

  Finna, get aboard! said Rjupa’s dragon, clear as anything.

  The dragon’s voice startled Dyrfinna out her out of her stupor.

  She couldn’t hear anything through her ears, but that voice came through, clear as a bell. Dyrfinna pulled herself up, hardly understanding what she was doing.

  Somebody sat behind her, and a woman’s arms were around her, though she couldn’t see them or herself. She felt the man climb aboard, felt Rjupa’s dragon shift as her wings came out, and the sudden leap into the air.

  Nothing was below her. No body, no dragon. Only empty air.

  Skeggi’s aboard, the dragon said. We’re going to fly! And with a great sweep of her wings, she leapt into the air, Dyrfinna holding on for dear life to the dragon’s sides. Her fingers found the forward straps, and she grabbed them.

  Skeggi was aboard?

  The cloud was beginning to clear from her mind, though she still felt slow and stupid. She stared at what she had been quickly lifted out from, trying to comprehend what she saw. A ragged hole had been blasted through a stone wall in the queen’s keep. Three people were being dragged outside through the hole, one of them leaving a wet, red mark over the rocks behind him. People came running up. Others clambered out of the building over the pile of rubble and dust where the wall had been. Their clothes, hair, and skin were all a dirty, powdery white.

  A number of them were pointing this way and that and their mouths were opening and closing. Her ears still felt full of fluff, but now they were starting to ache.

  The dragon spoke, her voice clear inside Dyrfinna’s head even though Dyrfinna couldn’t see her. I still need to know if you’re okay.

  Dyrfinna roused herself. “Yeah, I … guess.” Even her voice sounded foggy and far away, like the vibration of somebody else’s words.

  The flat of somebody’s hand was tapping her shoulder. Dyrfinna startled a tiny bit and turned as best she could on the back of a flying dragon.

  Now the faintest of sounds came to her, a feminine murmur at the very edge of her hearing. Rjupa was talking! she suddenly realized. It was Rjupa sitting there behind her! Dyrfinna did her best to turn around and look at her.

  Well, not really look.

  But now a faint edge was returning to the invisible dragon. And now she could barely see her old friend Rjupa, like a faint reflection in the water.

  But it was Rjupa. And she wasn’t dead.

  Rjupa leaned sideways to meet her. The burning on her face was different, but her blue eyes looked filmy. She leaned forward, her stiff lips moving, but Dyrfinna could hear only the faintest murmur on the edge of her hearing.

  This was not a dream. This was real. Just as real as the explosion that had knocked her silly and did something to her mind and to her hearing. Somehow, Gefjun had been wrong. Her friends were alive, because here she was on a dragon with them, and Skeggi had flopped her over his back and carried her out of the wreckage she’d made.

  And behind Rjupa was Skeggi, his beloved face smiling at her.

  And they were alive.

  Rjupa spoke again. Dyrfinna just clutched her hand. Even her hand felt different. Of course it had been burned, so it would. But it was so good to hold her hand again.

  “Dragon, what is Rjupa saying?” Dyrfinna asked the dragon.

  She’s asking if you’re okay.

  “I’m fine,” Dyrfinna told Rjupa. “I can’t hear anything, except what your dragon is telling me.”

  Now they were becoming more solid as Skeggi’s invisibility spell began to wear off. Dyrfinna drank her fill of their faces. “You’re not dead! I was told that you two had died.”

  Rjupa shook her head, and Dyrfinna could well read her lips saying “No!” and her stiff smile. She hadn’t even expected Rjupa to survive her burns, but here she was. Thank Frejya.

  Rjupa’s dragon said, Come with me. We have lost over half our army.

  Dyrfinna blanched. “You’ve lost half your army?” she asked over her shoulder.

  Rjupa and Skeggi nodded, tears coming to Rjupa’s eyes. “It’s why we came back to Skala, to warn everybody. But then we heard that you’d been taken prisoner and came to find you… invisible, of course.”

  “What happened to them?” Dyrfinna asked.

  “Nauma has brought an army of the undead to our battlefield,” Skeggi said. “She flew in on a dead dragon, and her dead soldiers were following her. They attacked all the armies, regardless of side. All of them. They ran in and started attacking, both human undead and dragon undead, and…” Skeggi choked.

  “The newly dead all rose up in their wake,” Rjupa finished for him.

  Come and see, Rjupa’s dragon cried to Dyrfinna. We can try to save those poor souls who have survived.

  Dyrfinna repeated what the dragon had said for Skeggi and Rjupa’s benefit. Rjupa’s dragon was flying in the direction of the battle, her great wings moving slowly, but the miles shot past them below.

  Rjupa lifted her head as if hearing something. “Be careful,” she said to her dragon, leaning forward. The dragon rumbled softly, descended some toward the trees for a lower flight.

  “Odin’s tears. What has happened?” Dyrfinna growled. At last her mind was starting to come back with her hearing.

  And now Dyrfinna saw something in the far distance, moving like bats. A lot of them, flying with the same broken wingbeats as Corae had used. Undead dragons. They’d lost every bit of grace that living dragons possessed. Those dragons shuddered through the air instead of flew. And there were five of them.

  Dyrfinna swore to herself. How many of these undead dragons did Nauma have?

  But then, from below, something on the battlefield caught her eye.

  Dyrfinna leaned forward.

  “What is that?” she whispered.

  This far away, all she could see was a vague movement on the field of battle that looked nothing like battle. Then she saw that it was a wave of humanity running pell-mell for their lives. No battle fronts, no forces clashing. Just pure rout. And behind them came the shambling undead.

  “Those are the undead soldiers,” Skeggi said. “Nauma brought in undead humans in her army. They raced onto the battlefield and began attacking our soldiers and Varinn’s soldiers. Everybody they bit died, and then those soldiers came back to life as the undead. The blood-lust came onto them, too, as soon as they died. It just kept spreading through the ranks. All of our soldiers were down there, and Varinn’s.”

  Screaming soldiers were being chased down by hordes of undead. Some fell
from exhaustion, and the undead lumbered to them and piled onto the exhausted, struggling soldier, who would slice at them with his sword until he was overwhelmed.

  Dyrfinna seen a small animal try to get into a honeycomb, and the bees had piled on it and stung it to death. That was what the undead reminded her of.

  She was very nearly sick.

  “This is terrible.” Dyrfinna’s pressed a hand to her face. “Can’t we save them?”

  “We tried when we were out here earlier,” Skeggi said wearily. “There’re so many of the undead. There were a few times that they nearly caught us.”

  “But we keep trying,” Rjupa said in her whispery voice.

  Dyrfinna wanted so much to get down there and fight them. She wanted to bring that dragon in and blast all of the undead with fire.

  She looked back down at the undead soldiers ranging across the battlefield. “What happens when you blast them with fire?” she asked.

  “We did that,” Rjupa said. “It works for a little while, but the undead keeps walking when they’re on fire. And then the undead dragons come after us, following the light of our flames. And they attacked us.”

  Dyrfinna grimaced.

  “Nauma started with only two undead dragons earlier,” Skeggi explained. “They killed three of our dragons; now she has five.”

  Dyrfinna was sickened to her soul to think of this.

  “Go on and land,” Rjupa told her dragon in her whispery voice. “Maybe Dyrfinna can come up with some ideas if we show her what happens when we face these creatures.”

  There was hope in her voice.

  Good Frejya, don’t let me disappoint her, Dyrfinna prayed.

  With some trepidation, Dyrfinna watched the ground come up as they landed.

  “We’ll demonstrate,” Rjupa said. Skeggi slid off the dragon’s back then carefully lifted her off and set her on the ground. Dyrfinna couldn’t help but wish that was her that he would pick up in that way, instead of slinging her over his shoulder like an old bag of grain while he was invisible.

  Dyrfinna rolled her eyes at herself. No whining, she told herself sternly.

  A group of undead raised their head from the person they were eating, staring for a moment. Slowly, they started lumbering toward them. One of the undead was missing a leg, and so he dragged himself along the ground with his one leg trailing behind. Among the group, Dyrfinna recognized two people. Santl, who owned a fishing boat and kept a collection of turtles in a small pond near his home. And Helda, who’d just started working recently as one of the queen’s guards. Helda kept telling Dyrfinna that she needed to come to her mama’s house and learn how to make paper. Dyrfinna’s heart broke to see them in the group, their eyes blank and dead. Their loved ones had been denied the honor of their good deaths.

  “Oh, no, Helda,” Rjupa said softly.

  “Don’t think of it,” Skeggi said, wrapping his hand around hers. “Just sing.”

  They burst forth in song against the undead, weaving power through their music, trying to sing them back into death, singing them down.

  The undead only shambled toward them much more quickly, as if the song had quickened their appetite.

  “They absorb our music,” Skeggi explained, backing up. Rjupa drew her sword.

  Dyrfinna came forward with her sword and shield at the ready, and lopped off the heads from a few of them, but there were too many. And even after she lopped off those heads, she suddenly felt weak and unsteady.

  Helda limped toward Dyrfinna, ravening, and Dyrfinna raised her sword to her … but she couldn’t give her the clean death her undead body deserved. Dyrfinna backed away from the battle, her sword and shield on guard, shaking her head.

  “I can’t … I can’t do this,” she said, surprising herself.

  Rjupa’s dragon said, All of you. Get up on my back, and watch what happens next.

  “Your dragon just asked us to mount up,” Dyrfinna said, clambering aboard. Rjupa and Skeggi followed her, strapping themselves in.

  The dragon lowered her head and blasted the oncoming undead with fire. A conflagration raged forth over the undead. At the sight of the fire roaring over all those former people, Rjupa had to cover her face with a sob. Skeggi put his hands gently on her shoulders, trying to offer her consolation.

  The dragon’s fire stopped, and she stepped back.

  The undead were still there, but now they were burned and gruesome. And they still stumbled toward them. Their groans had been silenced, but they still would not stop walking.

  “Great All-Father,” Dyrfinna whispered, sickened. “Dragon, fly us away from here. Let’s try to help the living instead.”

  “A better idea,” Rjupa whispered.

  They went to work, helping the soldiers get back to the ships. They flew over the battlefield, scooping up those who were running and carrying them to the ships. The dragon couldn’t land in the water, so they’d drop the soldiers in carefully, and a large Viking with a rope tied around his armpits would jump into the water and bring the poor soldier in to the ship.

  Dyrfinna had a hard time telling which soldiers were still alive and which were dead. Dyrfinna was surprised by one soldier that she dropped in to help. She recognized him as being a blacksmith at the horse stables near the queen’s keep who she’d had a falling out with when he made her a poor quality sword that broke the first time she’d used it. She’d been fighting in a mock battle against one of the queen’s guard when the sword had broken and she’d nearly been run through as a result.

  She’d taken the sword back to him, and he said the metal was of very high quality, even though the royal armorer said that was a complete lie.

  At any rate, here was the shoddy blacksmith, standing and looking completely battle-shocked.

  “The undead must have sent him out of his mind,” Dyrfinna said, and went forward to talk to him.

  But then his eyes came open, and his mouth came open, and blood spilled out.

  Dyrfinna made a strangled noise as he ran at her with a moan. She hadn’t even noticed how his neck was chewed to the bone until he ran at her and exposed it.

  She just about climbed up the side of the dragon to escape him, she was so undone by the display. Rjupa’s dragon stopped him in his tracks with a long blast of fire. Then Dyrfinna climbed down to finish the job.

  “It’s easier to deal with them when they’re alive,” she said, staring down at the finally-dead soldier, surprised at her sudden cowardice. “But to realize that the soldier you’re looking at is already dead…” she shuddered.

  Rjupa’s dragon finally had to go rest.

  Several of the warriors had made it back to their ships, and several courageous warriors sat in boats just a short way from the shore. Some soldier would stumble into the water with the undead on their heels and splash, exhausted, toward the boats. The undead would struggle through the waves after them, only to be knocked off their feet time and again and tumbled around in the waves. The undead didn’t seem to drown in the water. But the waves kept knocking them around so they couldn’t give chase.

  Even in the tumbling and pounding waves, the undead moved like mindless insects, not like people. And there were familiar faces she glimpsed among the waves, twisted in pain, their mouths belching out seawater before the waves tumbled them under again.

  One by one, the surviving soldiers made it out to the row boats, which would then carry them to the ships when each vessel was filled.

  But some of the unlucky soldiers didn’t make it, grabbed by a heel by some undead creature that would not let go of its powerful grip on their foot. The thrashing soldier would be sucked down into the water every time the undead got knocked off its feet, and then the soldier’s body would vanish underwater. A little while later, the unlucky soldier would bob up, eyes open, mouth questing for meat, undead as all the rest of those that shambled on land or tumbled in the water.

  “This is beyond anything I’ve ever heard of,” said Rjupa, who was listening to the cries of the
soldiers and the groans of the undead.

  The dragon spoke. They are coming this way.

  “Who is coming this way?” Dyrfinna asked, turning in her seat.

  Three undead dragons had risen up from the battlefield and were flying toward them, wings jerking, mouths hanging open.

  We are leaving now, said Rjupa’s dragon as she turned and flew back toward the queen’s keep swiftly, like a falcon.

  Dyrfinna lay her hands on the dragon’s neck, unable to speak. Rjupa’s hands felt around her shoulders, probably because Rjupa could not see her face to gauge her mood.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “No. Not at all,” she said.

  “Dragon, do you know where the old mead hall is?” Rjupa asked. “Thora used to go out there when she was younger. When we all were younger.”

  Yes, I remember, said the dragon, and Dyrfinna told them what the dragon said. She turned her course that way.

  “Stay low so the rest of Nauma’s forces won’t see us. That will be a quiet place for us to go and talk about all this,” Rjupa said.

  As they lifted away, Dyrfinna watched the undead with hate in her heart.

  9

  Too Much Grief

  How many people have died today from that scourge? Dyrfinna thought as she scanned the battlefield where so many undead soldiers now lurched and bit each other in a frenzy for blood. How many?

  This, on top of all else that had happened to the people of Skala and to their burned city. Now many of their people would never come home. And many of King Varinn’s people would never return.

  Her heart burned to see this.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked herself. Something she never thought she’d say. And here these words were, coming out of her mouth. She was the one who made plans. She was the one who knew what to do or where to go next. But right now, she felt empty.

  Rupja pointed. “Some of the more fortunate soldiers are escaping back to their ships.”

  “But not very many,” Dyrfinna said with a frown.

  The ships were sailing away as fast as they could, but Dyrfinna saw that the crews were small.