A Crown of Flames

by Pauline Creeden

  The emberdragon drew near as the ground spun up. Dyrfinna grabbed the dragon’s wing to pull herself in, and then grabbed Gefjun’s hand, and then her hand wrapped around the strap. She grabbed and held tight, pulling her body onto the dragon’s back behind Gefjun, her other arm grabbing her around the waist again.

  The dragon slowly leveled out then started beating her wings as they shot over the treetops of the rocky land below.

  Dyrfinna, dizzy, about to faint, clung to Gefjun.

  The emberdragon brought herself around, circling back to the direction from whence they came, and shot back after Nauma.

  We can’t let her get away, the emberdragon cried. We can’t let her desecrate any more of our dead!

  Dyrfinna breathed deeply, tried to get control of herself. Nauma was way ahead of them, but the emberdragon was very, very fast.

  “Hold on,” Gefjun said, and grabbed Dyrfinna’s arms and wrapped them around her waist.

  Dyrfinna fought off her urge to lay her head on Gefjun’s back. Gefjun took her work as a healer seriously, and this gesture didn’t mean that all was forgiven. Dyrfinna had known her for too many years to make any mistake in that.

  The emberdragon came rushing up on Nauma, her body awash in ember-hot orange, almost painful to sit on, sparks flying up from her scales. The heat from her body made Dyrfinna sweat, burning her legs. But there was nothing she could do about this, for the emberdragon was in a white-hot fury. Nauma was almost to the mountaintop, and the dragon was saying, You are not going to make it there, you are going to die for even resting your eyes on that place. The swiftness of her flight was cooling the sweat on Dyrfinna’s brow. She pulled her sword again, her fighting spirit raised by the dragon’s fury.

  “Get me close enough to cut through her neck and finish the job, if you can,” she commanded.

  No, said the dragon. I will use fire to purify this scourge.

  She blasted fire, coming up once again from below.

  Nauma shouted something and swung her hand toward them.

  “No!” Gefjun screamed, and shrieked out a short song that was suddenly cut off by what felt like the shockwave of an explosion.

  Dyrfinna found herself, an instant later, about halfway down the sky. The emberdragon shook her head as if addled.

  But they were still on her back, and upright, and the emberdragon’s wings were open and beating.

  Dyrfinna shook her head to clear it, remembering how she’d nearly knocked her own dragon out of the sky once. “Are you okay?”

  Ugh, said the emberdragon, but her wings beat hard, and with a growl she steadied herself in the air. Then, with a huge burst of power from her wings, she shot back once again toward Nauma, who had nearly reached the mountaintop.

  “Hold on,” Dyrfinna said grimly, her sword out, her eye on that undead dragon’s neck.

  Except now, the second undead dragon was trailing them. It was well out of firing range, but it followed nonetheless.

  “I wish I had those arrows,” Gefjun muttered, but began singing under her breath, preparing a song-spell. Dyrfinna didn’t recognize the spell – but there was no time, for their emberdragon was blazing up toward Nauma.

  We’re either going to die, or ….

  Nauma was sailing in to the top of the mountain. Even from this far away, Dyrfinna could hear her infuriating laugh. But the second undead dragon peeled off and came down at the emberdragon very fast.

  The emberdragon’s flames lit up the sky.

  The undead dragon kept coming on. It’s starting to get hungry, no doubt, Dyrfinna thought.

  Gefjun sang something to suck the air out of Nauma.

  I’m going to land ye, called the emberdragon. I can’t fight with you on my back. She sounded frustrated.

  “That would be fine,” Dyrfinna said.

  The dragon came in and tumbled off Gefjun and Dyrfinna. Get that strap off, she demanded. The moment it slithered off its back, the emberdragon took off fast.

  For Nauma had landed.

  And fire ripped out of the emberdragon directly at Nauma.

  Nauma flung up an arm and a red arc bounded out from her against the fire. The fire rebounded back onto the emberdragon. Unscathed by the billow of red-hot flames, the emberdragon merely leapt straight up out of the fire, into the air above Nauma, and then plummeted down on her and her undead dragon, jaws open, talons wide.

  Nauma flung her arm up at the incoming emberdragon.

  A flash of red light.

  An explosion.

  The emberdragon was bodily flung back, talons up, great orange wings open, to fall to the rocky ground in a huge crash. She lay there, stunned and unmoving.

  “Get up!” Dyrfinna cried.

  Nauma’s undead dragon, jaws open for fresh meat, lumbered toward the emberdragon, who lay on her back like some broken lizard.

  Dyrfinna started running in with her sword, but the emberdragon clambered to her feet and lifted away just moments before the two undead dragons reached it.

  “Get that pretty orange dragon!” Nauma howled. “I want it for my collection.”

  Ibn showed up at Dyrfinna’s side, holding, of all things, a burning rose in his hand almost like a torch. “Come this way,” he said. “Back to the roses.”

  “I need to take off that undead dragon’s head,” Dyrfinna grunted, her sword out.

  “The dragon is warded against attack,” Ibn said. “You saw how the dragon’s fire leapt off of it. Not even the dragon herself could get through. Come back to the roses, quickly.”

  Dyrfinna turned with a groan and ran after him.

  “My sweet rotting friend,” Nauma crooned to her undead dragon. “Look at those delicious morsels. You can’t let them run away.” Nauma’s dragon turned toward them, slavering, and moved at a gallop.

  Dyrfinna ran behind Ibn with Gefjun. “I can distract her,” Dyrfinna said, brandishing her sword and looking over her shoulder.

  Gefjun just rolled her eyes. “You’re single-minded as a cockroach.”

  “Go away, Gefjun,” Dyrfinna said quietly. “Or you could solve this problem without my help. It’s up to you.”

  But suddenly Nauma howled.

  It was a sound so loud and sudden that everybody turned. Dyrfinna raised her sword.

  “I will have my dead!” she screamed, and the undead dragon lumbered toward the rosebush and the people around it. “I will drag every one of you out into the open, and slaughter you, and every one of you will walk for me, undead and hungry!”

  Arrows and spears leapt toward her from the brave troops inside and outside the rose bramble. But every edged weapon vanished in the dark red light that Nauma had thrown up around herself as a ward.

  She marched toward them, and everybody jumped back into the rose bramble, out of sight. Ibn grabbed both Dyrfinna and Gefjun and dragged them inside, just as the undead dragon snapped at them, its teeth closing on air just in front of their faces. Dyrfinna had her sword up, longing to take off the undead dragon’s head, but she felt her sword buzz and crackle from the energy in the ward as the dragon came close. A pulse of electricity shocked her and the pain nearly made her nearly drop her sword. Disappointed, she ducked back into the rose bramble.

  It was a tight squeeze, because now there were two armies of fighters in there, not just King Varinn’s people.

  Crowded all together like this, and with the roses casting light and heat, the place was warm and cramped. Outside, Nauma’s undead dragon snapped at the walls of thorns and flame, but kept wincing back as the roses put up a magical shield of their own. Dyrfinna could hear the snap of electricity when the undead got too close. She watched Nauma from a gap in the bushes.

  Nauma threw aside the reins and leapt down from the dragon. “All of you are waiting here for me,” she said, walking right up to the entranceway. “And I’m going to have you.”

  The rose canes closed right in Nauma’s face, bristling with sudden thorns.

  Dyrfinna ran over, her sword at the ready. Th
e roses didn’t open for her, with Nauma standing right outside it, swearing at her. But a small gap opened in the leaves, just about at the level of Nauma’s heart.

  Dryfinna thrust her sword straight through the leaves and rose canes.

  The point of her sword cracked against Nauma’s armor.

  Nauma jumped back, unharmed. Ugh. In a twinkling she pulled her sword and tried to return the jab. But as soon as Nauma’s sword touched the roses, a small explosion sent her staggering back. Apparently the roses’ magic was not going to let her anywhere near Dyrfinna.

  “Let me through, rose,” Dyrfinna begged, ready to leap through the brambles and attack Nauma while she was down, but Nauma was already on her feet and coming back. The rose was not going to let Dyrfinna pass through, with Nauma this close.

  “Just for that,” Nauma sneered through the rose canes, “I’m going to turn the undead loose in your cities and destroy all the people that you ever loved. I want these dragons,” she added, jabbing an angry finger at the hall of dead dragons behind her. “And I’m going to get those dragons. But right now? I can get the dragons I need on the battlefields of your armies. I can kill all the dragons in your keeps. I can get all the dragons I ever needed. And then I’ll come up and get these dragons, too, just to rub it in your face. Think about that.”

  Nauma climbed up on her undead dragon.

  Ragnarok spoke up. “Do you know what you can do to yourself?” And then he told her, in words of one syllable, what she could do with herself.

  “Oh, no,” Nauma said with some amusement. “You first. I will look for your wife and children. I will put the terrible hurt on them. And then I’ll come back and tell you exactly how I killed them.”

  An awful look of fury crossed his face.

  Dyrfinna burned with rage for Ragnarok. “Let me through,” she said coldly to the roses, and she was through in an instant.

  Dyrfinna flipped her shield off her back, sword in her other hand, and as she ran at Nauma as fast as she could, she started singing against Nauma’s red shield, pulling power to herself to rip the shield apart.

  Dyrfinna tried to keep control of her singing, though it was already starting to spin toward chaos. She knew full well how painful the end result could be. But if her song-magic triggered yet another explosion, it could well break through that shield and knock Nauma off her awful dragon. And that was all she wanted.

  Gefjun was in the rosebush telling everyone to get down and protect themselves.

  The pressure from her singing built up, and though Dyrfinna dreaded what was going to happen next, the pain and the disorientation, she could not stop. The momentum of the singing carried her with it even as the pressure of her magic crushed her and made her fall to her knees.

  The spell she was singing spun out of control, a cyclone of power. She felt it pull, with almighty force, out of the magic she was trying to build. In that eye-blink of a moment, she felt that great helplessness and frustration tear through her, that she couldn’t control this awful power she had.

  The explosion from Dyrfinna’s song-spell ripped the air apart.

  When she woke up a moment later, she was on the ground. Ibn appeared over her, his lips moving as he said something she couldn’t hear. He reached down, hooked his arms under her armpits and began dragging her away. Dyrfinna tried to steady her head, which wobbled. Before her, Nauma lay outstretched on the ground and her undead dragon had been knocked over and lay unmoving, though its paw twitched.

  But now King Varinn came running past, sword out, a powerful man, and he was flying. Dyrfinna watched, and even in her addled state she felt a small rush of admiration.

  With one strike of his sword, he cut the dragon’s head from its body. The undead dragon twitched, lay still.

  And now he turned to Nauma.

  But just then, the other undead dragon dove in.

  Its jaws twitched and bit as it landed next to Nauma. Varinn battled the dragon though he had no shield to defend himself with, and he fired song magic at it to slow it down. Every note he sang slammed home against the dragon, which pulled back, shaking its head.

  Give him my shield, Dyrfinna tried to say, but she was still too addled to speak.

  But Nauma, reeling, was climbing on its back.

  And then she sang out something that blasted Varinn and tumbled him backwards. He got back to his feet, reeling, but the second undead dragon was rising slowly into the air.

  With a yell, he flung his sword at Nauma –

  And she screamed, flung back, his sword sticking out of her chest.

  Dyrfinna stared, thunderstruck.

  A great shout of joy rolled out from the rose bramble.

  Nauma straightened on the dragon’s back. She seized the hilt of the sword and started to pull on it. Slowly, it started to come out.

  She screamed as the bloody sword slid free from her chest.

  Gasping, panting, she stared at King Varinn, a grin slowly starting to widen on her face, as she lifted his sword in her hand with her blood on it.

  A long moment passed.

  “I forgot to mention,” Nauma said, her voice bubbling. “You can’t kill me.”

  “Aww!” somebody in the rose bramble groaned.

  Nauma coughed up some blood and spit it over the dragon’s side. Then she sat up, switched her sword to her other hand, and shook her blood off where it had run from the sword onto her arm.

  “Just for that, I’m going to your keep first,” she told King Varinn, blotting the blood that was staining her shirt. “Once I’m there, I’m going to steal a clean shirt, since you wrecked this shirt. And then, I’m going to kill off your people, make them all into obedient undead shamblers. Then I’m going to crown myself queen.”

  “We’re not even going to let you get that clean shirt,” King Varinn snarled.

  Nauma tossed her hair. “If you show up and try to fight me—and I hope you do—I’m going to beat you. Then you’re going to make me a pretty crown, and I’m going to put it on my head, and then you’re going to kneel to me. Yes, you, and your pretty little girl will kneel to me, too.” She gave a big wink to Gefjun.

  Gefjun turned every shade of red and sputtered. “You… you…” She was too furious to spit out the insults that Dyrfinna knew were fighting to be shouted.

  “As soon as she’s out of sight, we are going back to the ships,” King Varinn said, his voice filled with fury. “Get your things, everybody. Get ready to march.”

  “I’ll meet you there, loverboy. I still want you to give me my heir,” Nauma shouted. “Since I’m going to be your queen.” She blew him a kiss then wheeled her undead dragon around.

  “Oh, you will die first. I’ll kill you myself, you idiot.” Gefjun was shaking.

  Furious on Gefjun’s behalf, Dyrfinna shouted, “Nauma, you’re out of your mind. If you even have a mind in that sickening skull of yours. Come on down here, you coward. Face me in honest combat. I’ll send you to Hel myself.”

  Nauma’s face darkened, her hand tightening on the hilt of King Varinn’s sword.

  “You go first,” she snarled.

  Then she flung the sword hard, back to the ground and straight through Dyrfinna’s chest.

  Dyrfinna flung her hands up and collapsed.

  Fire burst through Dyrfinna’s body from the sword and out of her mouth came a scream. The pain enveloped her, the fire, worse than the fire of the emberdragon’s.

  She was on her back on the ground, King Varinn’s sword looming over her, blocking out the sky.

  Her mouth opened.

  But she could not scream. Her mouth was filled with blood.

  Dyrfinna had long wondered what death felt like.

  Everything was going white.

  She fought to stay awake.

  She fought but it was coming too fast, like the shadow of a total eclipse rushing toward her across the ground, the edge of darkness swallowing everything she’d ever known.

  Aesa. Her mama. Skeggi.

  An
d Dyrfinna herself, before she even had a chance to say goodbye.

  15

  A Maiden’s Tears

  Many miles away, Rjupa stood upon the walls of the city, watching the undead surge against the dark stones below, when she noticed Skeggi suddenly shiver and raise his eyes to the mountains, looking troubled.

  Curious, Rjupa asked, “Are you okay? Did you see somebody else you know down there?”

  Skeggi, puzzled, mulled it over for a moment, and shook his head, looking back at the great sea of undead at the city walls. “No. I just… I don’t even know what that was. It was weird.”

  “You went white all over. Don’t tell me that’s just weird,” Rjupa said, but when Skeggi merely shrugged, she let it go. They’d been together so many years, and she knew not to push him when moments like this occurred.

  I’m ready to go again, said Fluffy, looking up from the fountain where she’d been taking a long drink. Are you? She stretched out her garnet-red wings as if easing out an ache, then folded them with a storming rustle.

  “Yes,” Rjupa said, casting a glance back at Skeggi, who nodded.

  In a twinkling they were back in the air, flying out of the city to where refugees running from the undead needed help.

  Rjupa and Skeggi had been bringing people in all day via dragon, walking in people who were trying to get to Skala, working with the other dragons to carry out rescue operations. The undead were everywhere now, as were the people who were desperately trying to make it to the city with their families and loved ones before they were captured and devoured.

  “Here’s another one,” said Skeggi. A family of four people, complete with a small cart, were walking toward Skala, but they stopped when they saw the waves of the undead thrashing around the walls of the city.

  “Go in closer,” Rjupa told her dragon.

  I wish I could pick up that cart in my talons, said Fluffy.

  “It will throw you off balance. Besides, you’ll be carrying six people when we pick these people up.”

  “Hello!” shouted Skeggi to the people. “We’re coming to help you.”