Rjupa stared at the dragon. Her jaw fell open slightly, which made the tight skin on her face hurt. She shut her mouth. “You’re saying …?” Rjupa looked back at the queen … and at Skeggi. Rjupa turned her back to the queen and lowered her voice so only the dragon could hear … she hoped. “Do we need to leave?"
Yes. Come with us.
The queen behind them said, “Tell the dragon that she needs to go.”
That’s the problem, Fluffy said. We really are going. We are leaving for the parley, now. Without her permission.
Rjupa turned and looked at Skeggi through the door. He’d turned a little pale under his beard at those last words. He carefully stole a sidelong glance at the queen, who was frowning at Rjupa.
“Dragon, why aren’t you going to the keep?” Rjupa asked, trying to ask a question that would satisfy the queen … since the queen could not hear what the dragon was telling.
Because we are going to the parley, said the dragon. I want you and Skeggi to come with me. The dragon gestured to her back and made a sad noise.
“She wants us to come on,” said Rjupa and then added, lying, “I don’t know why.”
“You can’t hear what she’s saying?” the queen demanded. "I see you talking.”
”There’s an emergency,” Rjupa said. “But I don't understand what she is asking me. The other dragons need our help, that's clear. But I don’t want to make the queen mad by flying off in the middle of our discussion,” she added.
Skeggi spoke up. “Your majesty, Rjupa is flustered because she is afraid to disobey your edicts. We are your guests in your aerie, and you have treated us well. The discussion we’re having is important to our nation, and we must keep talking. But what does a dragon understand of all that? Her dragon wants us to tend to this emergency. She says it's something about the undead and she’s worried. Court talk means little to the loyal heart of a dragon, one who has a clear duty that must be done.”
Fluffy peered in through the window with a sad eye. Then she lifted her head and bounced a little, wings opening.
The queen laughed. “Go, carry out your mission,” she said benevolently. “Come back when you are finished. I know what a dragon, eager to fly, looks like.”
“Thank you very much for your goodness.” Skeggi bowed deeply and then he and Rjupa went out to the dragon, hopping aboard and tying up straps.
Go, go, go, go, said Fluffy.
“Okay, Fluffy, we’re going, we’re going,” Rjupa laughed.
The dragon spread her wings. And they were off.
Once they were airborne, the queen’s keep growing smaller behind them, Fluffy said, If the queen knew what I was actually asking of you two, she would not be so happy.
“The less said about that, the better,” Skeggi said. “It makes my stomach churn to think of it.”
“What did you mean back there, about the queen having something wrong with her?” Rjupa asked.
There’s a shadow on her, Fluffy said, banking so she could fly more into the wind. It's an enchantment. I don’t know who put it there. But the enchantment affects her in the way she acts.
“I’ve noticed that,” Rjupa said ruefully.
Other dragons glided into the air around them, riderless.
“I feel terrible leaving everybody in Skala in the lurch,” Rjupa said, looking down at the undead that churned on the outside of the city walls, mouths gaping, hands and arms flailing. Even from up here came the endless groans reached them.
“Where are we going?” Rjupa asked.
We’re going to the dragon’s holy mountain, to the parley, she said. You’ll see your friend Dyrfinna up there.
Rjupa felt Skeggi start behind her. She turned around and met that strange look in his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You’re doing that thing again.”
"Yeah. I guess I am."
"Give her a break. Finna can't help how she feels. I really feel bad for her, to be honest."
Skeggi gave her a squeeze. "It's not that. She's been fine. I just ... had an odd feeling. I don’t know why." He looked out to sea in the direction they were traveling. “I don’t know what we’re going to find.”
17
Call Down the Lightning
Dyrfinna fell on her back, the sword standing in her chest.
And Gefjun was at a dead run instantly, running into the line of fire. She heard King Varinn chanting a shield spell, but Nauma was flying away on her undead dragon, her stupid laughter following her. Gefjun had no time for that.
Gefjun immediately fell to her knees next to Dyrfinna's body, pulled the sword out, folded a strip of cloth over the wound, and compressed it. “You! Get over here! You carry her head,” she yelled at a nearby soldier. “And you! Carry her feet. You will take Dyrfinna to the rose bramble. Now!”
“She’s dead, Gefjun,” King Varinn said, his voice unsteady as he let the shield spell go. “She’s gone.”
“Oh no she is not,” Gefjun snapped, holding the cloth over her wound. “Lift her, now!” The two soldiers lifted Dyrfinna and she led them at a trot to the rose bramble. “Didn’t we make this gigantic magical rosebush by using an absolute dragonload of magic?” Gefjun shouted at Varinn, still pressing the cloth against Dyrfinna’s chest as they ran. “She’s going in there and I’m going to work on her, now!”
Gefjun raced with Dyrfinna into the rose arbor. As the soldiers set her down, Gefjun grabbed a knife and cut Dyrfinna’s shirt off, exposing where the sword had gone into her. She was obviously dead; otherwise, blood would have been spurting out of her with every beat of her heart.
“Get over here!” she yelled at Varinn. “You too, magic man!” she added to Ibn. She pressed a cloth against the wound again to hold the blood in, and then thought better of it, since it wasn’t coming out. She threw open her bags of healing supplies and grabbed some restoratives. Not strong enough to beat death, obviously, but for when they brought her around. She then grabbed her needles and thread.
Gefjun started singing over Dyrfinna a song that Thora had used long ago to heal her leg. Thora had read books, and she was the queen’s daughter, and she’d known a lot about the healing arts. The words and the music came to Gefjun now, and she dipped into the heart of the music, the flow of life within her, to divert it toward Dyrfinna, working hard to patch her heart and veins and arteries and lungs from the inside, reforming all those pathways for the blood. She sang, stooped over Finna’s chest, sewing together what she could to hold things in place to help everything heal better. She kept singing.
“Get over here and lend me power!” she shouted at the others when she breathed inside a phrase.
“She’s dead, you know,” King Varinn said, but he knelt at her side and put a hand on her shoulder, giving her power. Gefjun felt her strength grow at his touch, and instantly diverted that extra power toward her healing arts.
Gefjun sewed frantically, singing, now that she had more power to work with. Her heart’s not beating, she thought, but what’s inside her body has not yet died. There’s still time. But I have to be quick. The blood must flow. And more than anything, she needs to breathe.
Gefjun knitted everything together as best she could. Her hands trembled as she worked swiftly, and she swore inwardly. She needed to be steadier. But there was no time.
The sword seemed to have missed Dyrfinna’s heart. It had pierced a lung. She’d bled a lot. Gefjun kept singing as fast as she could, kept piecing things together, trying to make it be enough, but now she was nearly out of time. The human body couldn’t live for long without air. Actually, the body could live longer. But the brain could not. Time for the next step in the operation.
“Give me more power,” she told Varinn, and Gefjun put both her hands over Dyrfinna’s heart, still holding her needle and thread, singing a restorative song, a song that suddenly turned into a plea to Thor.
And then Gefjun sang down the lightning.
A bolt from the blue roared through her and into Dyrfinna.
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A huge flash of light. A gigantic shock as something slammed into her. Everything went white. An explosion so loud that she suddenly couldn’t hear.
Gefjun shook her head to clear it. She found herself lying sprawled on the ground a good six feet away from Dyrfinna, and her needle and thread were gone from her hand.
But blood gurgled up from Dyrfinna’s chest, a low fountain.
Gefjun scrambled back to her and compressed the bloody cloth over the wound to stop the fountain. Dyrfinna was coughing, choking up some blood.
“Help me roll her on her side!” Gefjun cried, still pressing the cloth against her chest. Several people helped her roll Dyrfinna on her side, where she coughed up blood – but then breathed a rattling breath.
“Hold her on her side to keep her airway clear,” Gefjun cried. “Support her head, give her a pillow.” She kept singing, kept directing the life and the magic into her, healing her from the inside out. She was vaguely aware that Ibn was singing with her, and working in some way that she wasn’t quite clear about, but she had no time to look. All of her attention was focused on her work.
Dyrfinna was alive. Now Gefjun needed to knit her up enough so that she could stay alive, and then continue to survive, and keep healing.
Gefjun kept singing over her. She had Varinn give her another needle and thread, and she kept sewing Dyrfinna up where she could.
Finally, she sewed up the outer skin with thirteen dainty stitches, in order to hold everything in place.
But Gefjun kept singing, running power into Dyrfinna, helping all the different parts of her body heal. She diverted energy into her, speeding up the healing process.
Healing was never done in an instant. It took time. And Dyrfinna would not be completely healed when Gefjun was done. There was still much that the body had to do on its own.
When Gefjun finally ran out of power, her hands slipped from Dyrfinna’s chest, and she staggered back and sat down abruptly, her eyes blank. King Varinn broke his connection to her and sat down at her side.
“I haven’t done that before,” she said. “No, I take that back. I’ve tried to do that in the field before. Though I don’t know where the lightning idea came from. That was new.”
“Next time, give me a chance to leave before you blast bolts of lightning through me,” King Varinn said. “You fried my hair. I don’t even know if I have any hair left.”
“You do,” Gefjun assured him.
“It’s going to all fall out tonight,” he said glumly. “I can feel it. I’m going to be bald as a rock because of you.”
“You’ll make a very handsome rock,” she said. “Though you’d still be bald.”
Ibn came to them then, carrying a fiery rose in his hands. “Roll Dyrfinna on her back,” he said.
“Are you crazy?” Gefjun snapped. “If you do that, she’s going to aspirate blood and catch pneumonia, or worse.”
“Trust me,” Ibn said, holding the rose over Dyrfinna. He held the flower in his hand, the stem hanging down through his fingers, and the soft flames flickered from its petals, casting a gentle light on Dyrfinna’s pale face.
Varinn lay a hand on Gefjun’s arm. “Let him do his work. He understands healing as well.”
Gefjun blew out her cheeks, and they rolled Dyrfinna on her back.
Ibn immediately lay the rose on her chest so that the flower sat, sepal end down, like a living candle. A faint smell of burning came to Gefjun. She frowned and made as if to move forward, but Varinn put out a hand, and she stopped. She was suspicious, but she also trusted Varinn.
The burning smell grew slightly stronger, and now a faint wisp of smoke began to rise from the petals.
“The stem is touching her wound,” Ibn said. “The rose is wicking out her impurities and burning them.”
Gefjun’s eyes went wide. She looked at Varinn for confirmation.
He nodded sagely. “I told you. Ibn is very good. And he doesn’t hit you with unexpected lightning bolts, either. Not like some people I know.”
The inside of the rose bramble was quiet. Most of the men and women had gone racing out after Gefjun had brought down that lightning bolt, so the three of them had the place mostly to themselves.
The rose burned with a smoky flame for a while, but little by little, the flame began to clear, and it guttered less. As it did, Dyrfinna’s breath grew more regular, deeper.
Soon the flame was clear again. Only the scent of roses came from the blossom. Dyrfinna’s wound looked cleaner, now, and her breathing was soft and regular. Gefjun put an ear next to her mouth and nose. No bubbling, no rattling. Her airways were clear.
She sat back. “That was amazing. Thank you.”
“I would not have been able to do this kind of healing if you and King Varinn had not created this beautiful rose,” Ibn said.
“We couldn’t have created this rose if you hadn’t done that thing where you made us cough up those rubies and diamonds,” said Gefjun. “Credit where credit is due.”
Ibn knelt next to Dyrfinna, looking over her face carefully, then crossed his legs and sat down. “I can watch over her if you need to rest,” he said.
“I’m not tired,” Gefjun said stubbornly.
“You pulled a lightning bolt from the sky. You knitted together Dyrfinna’s veins and lungs in many subtle ways. At least find something to eat. When you are refreshed and ready to sit with her, come back. I assure you, she’s not going anywhere for a while.”
Gefjun left the rosebush with Varinn and found a great crowd of Vikings standing around looking worried.
“Dyrfinna’s fine,” Gefjun said. “She needs to take a little time to heal, but she’s going to be okay.”
Everybody cheered.
“You can go back into the rose bush if you’re cold.” For Gefjun had started shivering as soon as she’d stepped out of the warm, flame-lit rosebush into the cold wind and snow that blew over the high mountaintop.
“Go back into the roses,” King Varinn said. “Warm up in the flames, while we get ready to go pursue Nauma. Though the word ‘woman’ hardly suits one such as her.”
“Go quietly,” one of them told the others. “Dyrfinna’s in there fighting for her life.”
“I think she’s going to be fine,” Gefjun said. “Ibn and Varinn also worked on her, and she’s going to live.”
They went in.
Varinn leaned in close to Gefjun. “I thought Dyrfinna wasn’t your friend,” he teased.
Gefjun frowned. “Hush.”
18
The Burning Rose
Dyrfinna woke up. Stars shone overhead through the brambles of a rose bush. She stared at them, confused, trying to piece together where she was and what had happened.
She realized she was inside the gigantic rose bush, since no other plant she’d ever seen had roses that softly burned with a mystic flame.
Then she remembered what had happened.
With a gasp, she looked at her chest. The sword that had loomed there, sticking out of her chest, was gone. In its place rested a rose that burned with a soft blue flame. She stared, hypnotized by the flames that flickered from the petals.
A soft cough from next to her. It came from Ibn, who sat cross-legged at her side, his white clothes stained with blood around his arms.
“I am glad to see you awake,” he said gently.
“What happened?” Dyrfinna asked. It hurt to speak, in both her chest and throat. She winced.
“Nauma threw a sword through you,” Ibn said. “But we got it out again.”
Dyrfinna looked again at her chest where the sword had been, and then back to Ibn. “But I … I was dead.”
“Only a little dead. Not very much.” He poured water for her into a small clay cup. “I’ll help you sit up, just a little. You need to drink.”
She sat up slightly, though the wound in her chest hurt, and she was afraid that she’d cause it to open up again from that little movement. The water was cold but scented like roses. She emptied the
cup, had a second cup and emptied that as well, and lay back again, feeling a little better.
“Sleep now,” Ibn said, setting the burning rose back on her chest. Its warmth soaked into her, gentling away her pain, making her drowsy. “We are all well. Nauma has gone away for now, and Varinn is preparing his forces to pursue her.”
Dyrfinna’s eyes, which had been slowly closing, popped back open. “Nauma. I need to stop her.”
“You are not going to stop anything in your condition. Now, rest.”
Dyrfinna shut her eyes. “But we need to do something.”
“Enough talking.” He touched her forehead with two fingers. “Now sleep.”
“Okay,” said Dyrfinna obediently, and she did.
Once Dyrfinna went back to sleep, somebody sat up nearby, and a puffin tumbled down from where it had been sleeping on her chest. “I’m sorry, puffin,” Gefjun said, catching it in her arms before it could land in the grass. “Ibn? Is she sleeping now?”
“You know as well as I do that she is,” Ibn said mildly.
Gefjun lay back down. “She killed my betrothed.”
“My apologies.”
They were quiet for a moment.
Then Ibn said, “So … you brought Dyrfinna back to life so you could take revenge on her once she recovers?”
“Um … yes. Yes, I did.”
Ibn said, “That’s a poor excuse.”
She glared at him. He shut his eyes, still sitting up and cross-legged, and then he made a dainty small snoring sound.
The next time Dyrfinna woke up, Ibn was sitting there with some water and some very thin gruel. “Rations for someone who needs to get well.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said as he raised her head just enough for her to drink and eat. When she’d finished her small portion, she lay back down. She was already feeling better, but still afraid to jostle anything. The inside of the rose bush was nearly empty. “Where’d everybody go?”
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