by Tony Daniel
He was some kind of half-man, half-tree as far as Rainer could tell.
Out of it.
The shuffling again.
There in the township shadows. Somebody followed us.
Rainer couldn’t shake the certainty he felt about that.
Now I have to be totally on guard, Rainer thought. He pulled his own dagger clear of the scabbard and held it loosely in his right hand. He took a deep breath and looked carefully around.
Be aware of everything. Like your life depends on it.
The footsteps again, the very faint ones he’d heard before. Whoever it was had one of the lightest steps Rainer had ever heard.
You don’t fool me, whoever you are. I know you’re out there.
Suddenly, there was a soft whoosh and a thunk. Rainer spun to see that a black crossbow bolt had embedded itself in the Olden Oak barely a fingerbreadth from Wulf’s head. The pale moonlight glinted off the shaft darkly.
The footsteps from across the square grew closer.
Chapter Six:
The Land-Dragon
Wulf gripped the dagger tightly. His other hand touched the rough bark of the Olden Oak and he leaned into it. But it was his dagger hand that truly made contact with the living insides of the tree. He felt through the steel, into the tree. Wulf’s mind traveled into the rock, and then down. Down and out. Into the land-dragon Shenandoah.
Soon he was everywhere.
Shenandoah. The dragon we live on. Shenandoah meant the beautiful green valley, sixty leagues long. This was where most of the people lived. Wulf could sense them all. Villages. Farms lying under the moonlight, their wheat and corn bending in a soft breeze. Cotton and tobacco fields to the south, with grasshoppers and boll weevils chomping on them through the night, wheat and corn to the north. Sheep grazing on the upland slopes. The Shwartzwald Forest blanketing the peaks. Then climbing to Massanutten Mountain, the long flattop highland that ran down the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, and into the U-shaped depression indented in Massanutten’s crest. This was Bear Valley, where the Earl of Shwartzwald dwelled. He was a bear man, but the valley was filled with all kinds of Tier. Down again into the east Shenandoah Valley, where herds of eastern buffalo lived. Living with them were the buffalo people, talking animals who stood on two legs like men but had the heads of buffalos. They were herders of their lesser brothers and sisters. Most were asleep in the wigwams where they lived, but some guarded the herd at night from the purely animal wolves and bears. These guards sang low and booming songs to calm their herds and let them know all was well.
Across the western valley and into the deep forests of the Greensmoke Mountains. The centaurs lived there, half-human, half-horse. The centaurs had a lot of magic in their bones, and Wulf felt some of the centaurs sense him within the land-dragon right now.
Then back to the Shenandoah Valley and south, to Glockendorf, where the gnomes made their famous bells of iron and brass. The neatly kept little town, half on the surface and half in caves, was shut tight for the night. Gnomes didn’t mess around when it came to security. They lived too close to the Roman colonies for that.
Running through it all, shaping the land with its waters, were the two forks of the Shenandoah River, a river that flowed south to north. Where the two forks joined and continued flowing north together was Raukenrose, ancient seat of the duke.
He could feel the township.
He could feel all the humans, otherfolk, and Tier, all at once, but each alone as a separate person also.
The Mark of Shenandoah. Wulf’s country, his land. It was also the landholding of his father, the duke. Wulf’s oldest brother, Otto—who was named after his father—would inherit rule of the mark after the duke was gone.
The true land-bond of Shenandoah belonged to Otto, not to Wulf. That was what it meant to be the ruler or the future ruler of Shenandoah. The dragon chose you. It pulled you into its dreams.
He should not be doing this. He shouldn’t be able to do this.
But Wulf didn’t feel guilty, not really. It wasn’t like he could do anything about the dragon-call. But he did feel afraid of what it might mean. If it ever came out that Wulf could hear the dragon, Otto would handle it. His brother was rock solid, totally committed to the mark no matter what. But there would be those who would say that if Otto weren’t the chosen one, then the rule of the mark was up for grabs when Wulf’s father died or when the disease that had already half wrecked his mind took its final toll.
That was why Wulf was sneaking out at night to visit the Olden Oak. That was why only his best friend knew his secret.
Wulf continued spreading out into his vision of the land. It wasn’t like looking at a map, or even like being in a map. It was more like being the real thing, the land, part of it—like if something happened to Shenandoah, it would happen to him.
Third son. Not even spare to the heir. That’s what the von Blaus and von Trausts and others of the castle boys taunted him with. But it was basically true.
Third son in a dragon-trance.
He had never been more confused in his life.
Third son, and the dragon-call and land-bond was coming to him? Most in the castle knew Duke Otto wasn’t the man he used to be. It was a disease called morosis. His father was always grasping for words for this or that—things he knew very well before—and his sentences often trailed off into confusion. Many thought that it was high time for the duchess to let Otto, the eldest son, take the reins.
But Otto claimed that he did not yet hear the dragon-call, so his father must stay in charge. When that time came, and not before, Otto would become regent.
The dragon-call should have come to his brother, Wulf thought. That was the way it always worked in the past. That was the way it was supposed to work now.
Rainer had asked him what land-bonding was like. He’d tried, but had not been able to put it into words for his friend, not really.
The land-bond was dangerous. You didn’t want to come back, you wanted to dream forever the dragon-dream that was history, and the present, and even the future.
And there was the Dragon Hammer. He kept seeing it.
The war hammer that had been used by Duke Tjark to destroy the berserker horde and drive the shape-shifters and Snakeband Skraelings from the valley.
The hammer that had been lost, no one quite knew how.
After he’d been through the land, felt the night move over Shenandoah, he was pulled down. It wasn’t violent. Only a small tug. But powerful.
The dragon wanted to show him the war hammer.
In the vision, he was staring down on the hammer’s head. It seemed to be floating upright in a brassy, red cauldron.
Eight times the dragon had shown this to Wulf. This was the ninth. What was it for? What was he supposed to do?
He was out of his body, part of the walls, part of everything. Yet he could shift his attention and look around.
He moved closer.
Suddenly, the hammer swung back and forth, clattering against the walls of the cauldron, or whatever the containing chamber was. And even though the cauldron seemed to be made of shining fire itself, the hammer was not burned up. The curving wall held it in.
Bang! Clang! But the sound was wrong, like a trumpet note heard when you were deep underwater. The hammer looked as if it was stirring something inside the cauldron.
What am I supposed to do? I don’t understand!
He moved closer still.
This time he had to try something different. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he did, somehow, have arms and hands in the trance. Maybe somehow he could grab the hammer, hold it—
Wulf reached for the top of the Dragon Hammer.
He saw his right arm stretch out before his eyes. It grew longer and longer. Impossible. There was no way his arm was that long. But he strained.
And…managed to put his palm on the top of the hammer. For only an eyeblink.
A stab of cold like he had never felt before cut through his body. He je
rked his hand away. It seemed to draw up inside him, to go back to normal length. His palm ached from the cold still.
He turned it over. There was a scar burned into his palm. Not just a scar. It was a deep stripe across his hand about the size of a knife hilt.
There was roaring in his ears. The clanging and banging had become one gigantic sound that shook him through and through.
Throbbing, roaring pressure. He was pushed up. Up, and out.
Above him, Wulf saw what looked like a huge set of roots. But instead of being anchored in the soil, they were anchored in the nighttime sky.
Then he realized what it was. The top of the Olden Oak. Its bare branches stretched up and spread out against the stars.
But he was seeing it from below, from underground. Underground, but rising fast. Getting closer.
The pressure pushed him out—
“Tretz’s bones, Wulfgang!” came another voice, a human voice, from a long way off. “You have to get out of that tree!”
It was Rainer. He was tugging on Wulf’s shoulder.
For a moment, Wulf was in two worlds. He was in the land-bond, trying to hold his thoughts together against the incredible pressure. Trying to hold on to the dragon-vision.
Rainer shook him.
“You have to come out!”
Wulf opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground and staring up at the Olden Oak’s branches.
Rainer stepped over him, grabbed him under the shoulders, and yanked him up.
“I touched it! I think I almost had it.”
“Not now,” Rainer said, pulling Wulf all the way to his feet. There was a strain in his voice, and something else. It was shaking.
Rainer was scared.
Before Wulf could ask, his friend jerked Wulf around to face the south end of the square.
Across the square stood…something. Someone. It had the shape of a person. But its shape was barely visible in the night. Its skin wasn’t just dark, but black.
Coal black.
The only reason it was visible at all was because it was rimmed by the half moon’s faint light.
And then the smell reached them. The stench. It smelled like a dead thing. Wulf shuddered. He felt like he wanted to vomit. He glanced over and saw that Rainer was holding a hand to his nose and mouth. The smell was awful.
This was no man. It had no nose or mouth. Instead its face was pushed outward into a hooked beak. It cocked its head like a bird did and gazed at them with…they were eyes, but eyes with no whites in them. They were as inky black as the rest of it, just more liquid looking.
Blood and bones, what was it? Was it Tier, maybe some kind of vulture man?
Was there…there was a mention in the sagas. But he couldn’t think of it, not now. He was too terrified.
The vulture-thing had something in its hands, which it let drop and swung back behind itself on a strap.
“Crossbow,” Rainer said in a tense whisper. “Almost got you.”
Then the thing spoke, if you could call it speaking. It was more like the screech of a rusty iron door opening, and it made Wulf cringe listening to it. But it was loud enough to hear from across the square.
“The hammer,” the thing hissed. “Where?”
The thing reached to its side and drew a curved sword that was as black as the rest of the thing. Wulf recognized its design. It was a Roman falcata.
The blade glinted darkly in the moonlight.
The black thing walked toward them.
Chapter Seven:
The Draugar
Wulf spun around and grabbed at his dagger where it stuck in the tree. Tugged. No good.
Blood and bones, he thought. The dragon-vision is gone. Can’t pull it out.
Maybe that wasn’t true. He didn’t know for sure. He gave the dagger the hardest tug he could.
It didn’t budge.
Yep, it was stuck there.
He turned back around. Rainer had drawn his blade and had moved between Wulf and the dark being. Rainer was trembling.
“What are you?” Wulf called to it. His own voice was shaking.
The dark being did not reply. It didn’t break its steady stride. And there was something in the way it quivered as it moved, like it didn’t have bones.
Rainer got into a fighting stance with his dagger. It wasn’t a sword posture, but more like a ready position for boxing. Made sense. Rainer studied fighting the way Wulf studied the sagas.
He couldn’t let Rainer face this thing alone. Wulf started to move up beside Rainer, but Rainer glanced back, saw what Wulf was up to, and shook his head.
“You’ve got no blade,” he growled.
“I’ve got my hands,” Wulf said. “And, blood and bones, I have my teeth if I have to use them.” He went to stand beside Rainer.
At the sight of the two boys standing side by side, the thing stopped. It was five long paces away. It was as tall as a very tall man. The smell it put out was incredibly intense.
In the country, Wulf had once passed a dead horse that had been crawling with maggots. This smell was way, way worse.
The thing looked at Rainer and then to Wulf with its half-vulture, half-man head.
The grinding whisper-voice came out of it again. This close, it was a sound that made you cringe, like the sound of fingernails on slate.
“Where is Tjark’s hammer?” it screeched. “Thou know’st.”
Suddenly Wulf wanted badly to answer. He felt compelled. The black thing had the right because it had the power. Who was he to keep it from what it wanted?
He was nobody. He was filled with the complete certainty that if he didn’t tell, the thing would tear him apart.
The only trouble was that he didn’t know. He didn’t know if any of that part of the dragon vision was real or what it meant.
Wulf shook his head. “No idea,” he said.
“Thou know’st,” it insisted. “Boy heir.”
“I’m not,” Wulf replied, his voice shaking only a little. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
Quickly, faster than a man ought to be able to move, the black thing jumped toward Wulf. It reached for him with its free hand.
He stared at the gaping beak with its tearing, hooked point.
“Thou know’st.”
Wulf drew his hands back and got ready.
I’m going down swinging.
Somehow, Rainer was quicker than the dark thing. He charged toward the thing and met it head on. But Rainer had too much momentum. The dark thing stepped to the side, and Rainer stumbled past it—
There was nothing between the dark thing and Wulf now.
The beak. And now arms reached out, black arms, fingers not fully formed but sharpening to points, like spears. Talons.
Wulf faked to his left, then threw a punch with his right as hard as he could.
Nothing but air. The black thing was too quick. It had ducked.
Claw hands grabbed Wulf by the neck. The tips of claw fingers dug into his skin.
Then the thing lifted him up, completely off his feet, and held him dangling by his neck. It turned the edge of its sword against Wulf’s throat. Wulf grabbed at the thing’s hands and shook himself, trying to get free, but it was no use. The thing’s grip tightened.
“Thou know’st. Tell me.” The thing was in Wulf’s face. Its beak was a finger length from his eyes.
The talons squeezed his neck harder. The blade cut deeper.
Rainer appeared again over the dark thing’s shoulder. He had found something to grab hold of. The thing’s cloak. It was black, but it seemed real enough. Rainer clung to the fabric and pulled himself up onto the thing’s back and, with a yell of determination, drew his dagger across the black thing’s throat.
The sword moved away from Wulf’s throat. Wulf watched as a gash opened up in the thing’s neck from the dagger stroke. It oozed black fluid, too thick and syrupy to be blood. Then the gash closed up almost as fast as it had been formed.
Wulf twisted and kicked at the t
hing’s chest. The thing’s hold on him weakened for a moment and Wulf struggled free. He stumbled back, in too much shock to do anything but watch.
Rainer stabbed his dagger into the thing’s right arm. The arm went limp, and the thing dropped its falcata. But this wound sealed again, and the black thing reached for Rainer with taloned hands. Rainer scrambled around on its back, using the thing’s own head to dodge.
Wulf lowered his shoulder and charged.
Duck down low. Slam into the midriff.
He felt the boneless, syrup-like softness of it. But his charge caused the thing to stumble back.
This was what Rainer needed. Rainer dropped his dagger, which obviously wasn’t working. He grabbed a handful of bolts from the crossbow quiver hanging from the thing’s belt. With one in his right hand, he stabbed again, this time into the side of the thing’s head.
The crossbow bolt slid in.
If the dark thing had a brain, the bolt had sliced a wide gash deep into it. Rainer took another bolt and stabbed again. He left that bolt in as well and stabbed with the third.
There were three black arrows pushed all the way through the thing’s skull. Black ooze flowed. Yet still it would not die.
With a big jerk of its body, the dark thing went completely rigid. This sudden movement caught Rainer off guard, and he was thrown from the thing’s back. He landed in the dirt near the green rock’s edge. Wulf straightened up from his charge.
He was face-to-face with the dark thing once again.
There were three crossbow bolts sticking out of its head, one with its tip coming out of the thing’s right eye.
The thing opened its mouth again, and a black tongue shot out.
It hissed, the black tongue twitching like a snake.
The hiss did not stop, and the horrible smell of the thing’s expelled breath was all around him.
Stinging eyes. Burning skin. Wulf put a hand over his face and nose to keep from breathing any more of the rotten air.
Then Rainer was on his feet again, behind the thing. He had picked up the black falcata. He slashed into the thing’s side, crying out “Tretz” as he did so.
