Dragon’s Call: Dystopian Fantasy

by Ann Gimpel

  Had he turned into my new best fighting buddy? Like I’ve said, I’m not much of a warrior. About the only reason I spar with Jarle is I feel guilty about my lack in that regard. Never in my wildest imaginings did I long be a soldier when I grew up. Hel’s offer to lose myself in her domain was beginning to look a lot more attractive. A wave of cold from the stone told me that particular avenue wasn’t open.

  Not for me. And not right now.

  Bits of unfamiliar magic pricked me. What was out there? Would I even recognize whatever it was by sight? We wizard types don’t exactly go to school. We read lore books. At least that’s how I honed my power. I was never particularly interested in Strange Magical Creatures 101. So I’d skipped over those morsels.

  Woven in with the magic I couldn’t identify, I thought I sensed Rowan. Maybe. My impressions that might have been her were fleeting. When I amplified them with magic, they frittered away altogether.

  Likely, I’d been wrong about thinking she was near. A product of wishful thinking on my part.

  It was raining harder, if that was even possible. I blinked water out of my eyes. A staunch crackling presaged lightning that split the sky in two. Thunder followed so fast, the storm must have been right on top of me. I gave up any pretense of anything beyond clinging to survival mode.

  I was still catching faint pulses of Runa’s—Rowan’s—energy. The more I felt, the surer I was it wasn’t her. Someone was tossing out copycat emanations as bait. Another lightning bolt hit the soaked ground only about a meter away. What the fuck? I’ve heard about lightning striking the ground in Midgard. Never happens in Vanaheim.

  We have plenty of thunder. Scarcely any lightning. The standing joke is the thunder is Odin and the rest of his ilk farting up a storm in Asgard.

  I should have followed my instincts and run hard and fast at the first hint of that odd magic. Didn’t matter which way, just so long as I was moving quickly enough not to turn into a target. I spun in a circle, watching as bolt after bolt of electrical power scribed a circle around me. The air thickened with static voltage until my hair, wet as it was, rose off my head.

  The sensation was worse than eerie. Not much rattles me, but no time like the present to get moving. It beat turning into a conductor when one of those jagged shots of lightning finally hit me. It wouldn’t kill me, but it would be damned unpleasant.

  Reaching deep, I tried to teleport out of there, but something stood between me and summoning enough of the particular mix of magic I needed to leave. A deep booming that had nothing to do with the thunder crashing around me filled my ears. Beneath my feet, the ground began heaving and buckling.

  What kind of bizarre weather pattern included earthquakes?

  Except whatever was happening around me had nothing to do with anything so prosaic as weather gone awry. I was under attack. Worse, the dragon had plopped me here. He must have known what he was doing. Hell, he’d hustled me specifically to this spot. Why? Was he planning to kill me? I didn’t think so. He’d gone to too much trouble shaping me into a tool to do his bidding.

  The quake worsened and tossed me from side to side. Staying on my feet without an infusion of power became impossible.

  A huge gash opened in the ground a few meters away. The dirt was so wet, it crumpled into the hole, but it didn’t stave off the inevitable. A hairy arm with claws where fingers should have been reached through the opening. Not much point in waiting for the whole of whatever it was to emerge.

  I might not be able to teleport, but there was nothing wrong with the rest of my magic. I funneled as hot a jolt as I could right at the exposed hand. Might have overdone it because the flesh caught fire, burning hot and fast. Bellows from beneath me made me fear for my perch. I did not want to fall into another hole in the ground.

  The owner of the hand was down there. He’d rolled his blackened stump back and forth, but it still burned courtesy of my power. I’d instructed the spell to keep on going until nothing was left. If it obeyed me, the flames would auger into the rest of the bastard.

  In the space between two breaths, all hell broke loose. Holes opened all around me. Some in the earth, some in the ether. Gnomes, trolls, ratty goblins with splotched faces. They must have been the odd energy I couldn’t pigeonhole. They looked like someone had tried to breed them with something else and failed.

  The dragonstone pulsed merrily in my pocket. The fucking fucker was enjoying the hell out of this.

  “Whose side are you on?” I muttered and arced magic in every direction I could. There were so many bastards out there, I didn’t have to bother aiming. That was the good part. The bad part was no matter how many I took out, more showed up.

  I was yelling curses and charging from one side to the other like a crazed person. Damn, the enemy arrayed against me smelled horrible. Unwashed bodies and a generalized eau de rotten. Except the trolls. They’re stone, and it doesn’t stink. Why were they even moving? Daylight was a curse for them. Not that the sun was anywhere in sight. Bleak as it was, even a vampire might have gotten away with waltzing about.

  And then I remembered light was no longer a deterrent for the undead.

  My previous sense Rowan might be near departed. I’d been right about her scent being bait to keep me from leaving. I’m not immortal, and it was starting to look as if I might not make it out of this alive. A cudgel landed on my shoulder. Pain shot down my arm like a dose of liquid fire, but if I diverted magic to heal myself, there’d be less for defense.

  A knife descended from out of nowhere and sliced my face from cheek to jaw. Compared with my shoulder, it didn’t hurt much, but I smelled my own blood as it dripped onto my chest. I was more careful after that and rerouted enough magic to build a ward.

  Brave was one thing. Stupid quite another. I should have warded myself from the beginning, but this whole fighting thing isn’t second nature. I ducked and wove and leapt and feinted. I stopped paying attention to who crawled out of gateways and fought what was in front of me. When they fell, I moved to the next adversary.

  My chest was tight. My lungs burned. Maybe I’d broken a rib in addition to everything else. In the time it had taken me to come up with a decent ward, I’d sustained a couple more direct hits.

  I didn’t understand why I hadn’t fallen on my face, but I’d found a dynamic balance point. One where I could keep on slugging. Day was long gone. At some point, it had quit raining and the rolling, booming quakes had passed through. The sound of distant hunting horns blared, but I had to be imagining it.

  Who the hell had such things?

  And then my battered brain made the connection. It had to be Odin and the Hunt. Made sense. Naught but dead things lay around me. The Hunt liked ’em dead, but they’d have a little fun with the ones still on their feet swinging knives and cudgels and flails too.

  I risked a glance upward. Sure enough, the Hunt’s ghostly trail lit the night sky. When they got closer, the stink of horses and death would waft down. Bad as the Hunt smelled, they were better than what I’d been fighting. Whoops and cries rained from the sky.

  One thing was clear. I wasn’t needed here. Not anymore. If I remained, one of the Riders might take me out by mistake.

  I don’t understand why I even bothered trying to teleport again, but I visualized the Celtic lair beneath Ben Nevis. I’ve never viewed magic as a fickle bitch. There’s always a reason if it doesn’t work the way I want it to. My power may have failed me earlier, but this time everything clicked. The killing field dropped away, replaced by the solid rock of Ben Nevis’s robust flanks.

  I wasn’t inside as I’d hoped, but close enough.

  I sank into a crouch, still panting. My shoulder ached. My face felt stiff from congealed blood. My side was sore, but nothing jabbed when I took a deep breath, so maybe my ribs weren’t broken after all.

  What had just happened to me? Nidhogg had plopped me into the middle of a passel of bad guys. Why? What was he hoping for? Did he view my sparring matches with Jarle as wholly ina
dequate?

  I choked on bitter laughter. Truer words were never spoken. What little I’d done by way of dancing about carting a broadsword was worse than inadequate. It was laughable. For one thing, magic was a far better weapon than any implement.

  Not for Jarle, but for me. He took the lead in our sessions because he was the one with the military skills, and magic was far from his forte.

  My eyes snapped open; I sucked in a tight breath. All the time I’d wasted with Jarle, I could have been honing my magical combat ability—and imbuing weapons with magic. The possibilities were staggering. I could craft weapons specific to different enemies. Knives where a simple touch would kill a gnome.

  Of course, I’d have to get near enough to use it. Blades were always an up-close-and-personal proposition. Maybe it wasn’t such a grand idea as all that. I’d have to develop far better warding and be quicker on my feet.

  The sky was growing lighter. It was past time to get moving. Soon the new day would be upon me.

  I stumbled upright intent on checking on Rowan and then returning to Vanaheim to lick my wounds and focus power inward until I recovered. Nidhogg and I were due for another heart-to-heart. If he was behind this—and he damn near had to be—the least he could have done was show up and make sure I didn’t get mowed under by gnomes and goblins.

  They live in the earth. Rumor has it they stash their enemies in iron cages. They don’t have much magic themselves, but the metal mutes their captives’ ability, and—

  “Stop,” I muttered, not wanting to look back and replay might-have-beens. Somehow I’d come through mostly unscathed. Keeping things subtle, I felt for Rowan’s presence. The distinctive texture of her magic settled around me. With it came a deep sense of relief. She was here, and she was all right. It was all I needed.

  I turned to put some distance between here and a gateway to the bridge. No reason to open anything quite so near the witches’ lair where one of them might stumble into my residual force field and thence onto the rainbow bridge. My kin might tolerate me, but they’d flay any witches who ventured into Norse territory.

  “Bjorn!” Hearing my name on Rowan’s tongue was alarming. I hadn’t meant to disturb her, but she’d clearly sensed my magic, trotted outside, and seen me.

  I turned very slowly and tried to cover the worst of my hurts with a glamour.

  A muted gasp told me I hadn’t done a very good job. “What the fuck happened to you?” she cried and ran to me. “You look like you went a million rounds with the Dark Fae. And lost.”

  I managed a sweeping mock bow. “Au contraire, mademoiselle. I won.”

  Rowan snorted. “Alrighty then, winner. Come inside so I can patch up the worst of your winning injuries.”

  I waved her aside. “I’m fine. Or I will be. I was heading home to heal myself.”

  She hooked a hand firmly around my arm. It was the same side where my shoulder had taken a beating, and I bit back a yelp. She angled a pointed look my way. “No more discussion. I’ll take a shot at fixing you up first. Then you can go home.”

  I might have argued harder, but I liked the idea of her magic searching out my hurt places. More than liked it, I yearned for her touch. For the jolt of rightness as our magics married together.

  She let go of me but then stood aside, apparently not sure I’d follow along if she didn’t keep her eyes on me. I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded and trudged toward the entrance she’d come from. I followed her scent and her magic and felt her energy behind me.

  There wasn’t any place I’d rather be, and it scared me as much as facing the endless stream of wicked creatures on that muddy field. Over my long life, I’ve never needed anyone, and I wasn’t about to start now.

  “What did you run up against?” Rowan’s question was low, fierce.

  I told her as we ducked within the cave system, and she shook her head. “This is why we have to make Inverlochy Castle work,” she said. “If we can’t grow food there, we’ll starve. We sure as hell can’t plant anything outside.”

  I wanted to say I’d help. That between us, if we leveraged joined magic, we should be able to outwit her Celtic kin and keep the witches at Inverlochy well hidden. I held silence. The more time I spent with her, the more we combined our magic, the harder it would be to be alone again.

  Better not to open that door.

  As I followed her deeper beneath Ben Nevis, I felt small and petty. So what if I was smitten by her. The witches were in trouble. I couldn’t stand by and let them fade because it was easier for me. Rowan and I made a hell of a team. The coven was important to her, and the witches had been kind to me.

  She led me into what looked like a dining room and sat me at a table. “I’m going to get hot water and bandages,” she said.

  “What can I do?”

  “Take off that jacket and tunic.”

  “Are you always this pushy when you want to see a man naked?” I quirked a tired brow.

  “You take them off, or I’ll cut them off. Your choice.”

  I chucked as I watched her departing back and began to gingerly divest my upper body of its coverings. When she returned, I’d offer my assistance with her crop project.

  I’d forgotten about the dragonstone until it began humming softly from my pocket. Clearly, it approved of my decision, which meant Nidhogg was still behind the scenes orchestrating my every move.

  “It would be a whole lot simpler if you just told me what you wanted,” I mumbled telepathically.

  “Ye doona listen well. I already did.” The dragon’s immediate response in his deep, raspy voice told me I’d been spot on about him hovering in the wings. Out of sight, but near enough to keep right on pulling my puppet strings.

  I should have been outraged. Instead, I was just tired and looking forward to the touch of Rowan’s magic.

  Chapter Twelve, Rowan

  I’d been dreaming of dragons—again—when something jolted me from sleep. In this dream, I’d been a dragon, swooping and riding the air currents high above the wasteland Earth had become. The sensation was heady, mesmerizing, and the wonder I’d felt at spreading wings of my own defied attempts to resurrect it.

  Other dragons had been in the air. No one had talked with me, but I’d felt a sense of community, of belonging to something greater than myself. It was how I’d always hoped things would be with the Celtic gods.

  Except they never were.

  A hasty scan told me Bjorn was right outside the cave system. He must have been searching for me, and his magic had shaken me from sleep. It was nearly dawn, so I’d rested enough. I rubbed sleep from my eyes and then jumped to my feet when I understood he was leaving.

  What the hell?

  He’d only come to make sure I was here, but hadn’t planned to pop in long enough to say hello? Granted, it was a bit on the early side, but I’d have been glad to see him.

  I winced. Too glad.

  Maybe I should let him trot into the breaking day. No maybe about it. I should definitely do just that.

  My traitorous feet weren’t listening to reason, though. They made the decision for me, and I hustled out of my chamber and down the corridor leading outside. Bjorn was, indeed, striding purposefully away. I called his name, and he turned. Not eagerly, as I would have wished, but slowly, painfully. As if laying eyes on me was at the bottom of his list.

  Hot words hit the back of my throat. I was about to tell him to go fuck himself. That sneaking about like a thief in a grocery shop was unacceptable. Either he accepted me as a friend, and treated me as such, or he could damn well remain in Vanaheim. Forever.

  I understood full well I was hurt, and my wounded feelings were far easier to tolerate when they manifested as anger. Insight didn’t make my rage any more manageable, unfortunately. My stomach twisted into a hot, sour knot.

  Once Bjorn turned enough so I could actually see him, I was grateful I’d held my ire within. My pride might be trashed, but it paled in comparison to his body. I didn’t care wha
t he thought about me when I ran to him.

  Damn. The whole side of his face was a bloody pulp. One shoulder sat stiffly, and his back slumped with weariness. I smelled magical residue all over him, but I had him tell me what happened, rather than guessing whom he’d fought.

  I should have let him retreat and funnel his power into patching himself together, but I couldn’t. Worse, I cheated and added a subtle dash of compulsion when I nudged him into remaining long enough for me to at least assess the worst of his injuries.

  Pretty self-serving on my part, but it was for a good cause. Something about the way our magic fit together felt bigger than both of us. As if we were destined to shape events neither of us could yet imagine. I kicked myself for what had to be a total flight of fancy and settled him in the common room. Breakfast, such as it was, wouldn’t happen for at least an hour, so we’d have the place to ourselves.

  I guess I’d been wrong about him being a dragon shifter. If he’d had access to a winged body, he wouldn’t be so beat up, which meant the dragon in my chamber couldn’t have been him.

  But he was here now. Even injured as he was, he’d cared enough to check if I was all right. A small warm place bloomed in my chest, and I let myself enjoy evidence of his concern.

  I’d have taken him to my chamber, but it felt presumptuous. He wouldn’t be comfortable there, and his presence in my private space didn’t fit somehow. I didn’t work too hard to sort out why. I’ve always trusted my instincts.

  When I returned with a kettle of hot water, a basin, and bandage material, he’d removed the garments from his upper torso. The sight of his body hit me like a one-two punch. He was beautiful. Stunning. Even bloody and bruised, his skin glowed with an inner light. Pale-gold illuminated his gracefully muscled chest, arms, and back. He was tall and elegantly built. Not slabbed with muscle like brawnier men, but delightful to look at.

  He’d removed the bands from his hair, and it spilled around him, thick, shiny, and so blond it shimmered like fields of summer wheat. His eyes were shut, and pain had carved lines into his forehead and around his well-formed mouth.