Dragon’s Call: Dystopian Fantasy

by Ann Gimpel

  For a scant half moment, I imagined what those lips would feel like crushed against mine, and then I scrubbed the image from my mind.

  He shook himself gently and opened his eyes. Mysterious as the ocean, they had silvery flecks in them. “I may have drifted off,” he murmured. “Sorry.”

  I set the kettle and basin down near him and poured steaming water from one to the other. A quick healing chant infused power into the water. As gently as I could, I sponged dried blood from his hurt places. Slowly, tentatively, he wove his magic in with mine.

  Because we’d been joined before, I was intimately aware of how truncated his power was. The battle had been worse than he described it. “You might have died,” I scolded, and then bit my lip hard. Why, oh why, couldn’t I keep my mouth shut?

  “Big difference between might have and didn’t.” His tone was sharp, and I accepted the rebuke. I deserved it.

  “You could have called on me,” I murmured.

  “Maybe at the beginning,” he agreed. “Before I knew what I faced.” He curved his fingers and raked them through his hair. When he looked up at me, his expression melded grim resolution with humility. “I haven’t spent much of my life tilting after windmills, but this battle blew up in my face damned fast. So fast I was reacting rather than planning my next moves.”

  I nodded. I knew exactly what he meant. I’d been there. More than once. I chucked the bloody water in my basin into a nearby bucket, poured fresh, and moved to his back. A particularly nasty gash had dug in across his ribs. As I cleaned the wounds, I seeded them with healing energy.

  He leaned into my touch. It took all my self-control not to wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. Why was I so drawn to him? He might be beautiful, but I’d met pretty men before. Whatever it was ran far deeper than his looks.

  I forced myself to take a step backward and cast a critical eye over my work. I’d done what I could, but I didn’t want him to leave. I started to suggest he bide a while in one of the vacant chambers. We had many we rarely used within this warren of hidey holes. Instead, I said, “All done. The abrasions are clean. Our power is complementary, so the magic I threaded into your hurt places will gel with yours.”

  “Thank you.” He got creakily to his feet and picked up his tunic. Once it had been creamy linen, but it was stained and stiff with his blood.

  “I can get you a cleaner shirt,” I offered and gave myself a sharp mental slap. Talk about transparent. I didn’t want him to go, and I was grasping at pathetic excuses to hold onto him for a little while longer. Subterfuge wasn’t my style at all, but neither was I willing to out and tell him how much I wanted him to remain here.

  Crap. Next thing I knew, I’d be suggesting he move in. He had a life. In Vanaheim. And it didn’t include me.

  He cast a sidelong glance my way. I felt like a young woman dealing with her first infatuation. In other words, like a prime idiot. He shrugged into the stained garment and then slung his cloak over his shoulders. It was a dark shade, so the bloodstains didn’t stick out like glowing beacons.

  He offered me a wry grin and said, “It’s all right. I learned how to wash my own clothes a long time ago.”

  I felt like I should say something, make plans for when we’d meet again. This time I was wise enough to remain silent. At least about that. I remembered how the feel of his magic had jolted me awake. “Were you checking on me earlier?”

  His smile widened. “Of course. Had to know you got back safely from Niflheim. Exiting from there is harder than it looks.”

  Teleporting hadn’t felt any different than it usually did, but rather than correct him, I said, “Thank you. It’s good to be cared about. I was just thinking that earlier when one of the young witches was fussing over me.”

  His blue eyes darkened to an inscrutable midnight shade when they met mine. “I remind myself of that all the time.” He touched his forehead as if doffing an invisible cap. Magic flashed around him, and then he was gone.

  I stared stupidly at the place he’d stood, inhaling the scent of his power, and of him. Brine-drenched air mingled with hot baked stones. The latter reminded me of my dream of being a dragon. What did it mean? Was I freer than I imagined? Or was I reading too much into it?

  Dreams didn’t always mean things, but I had a feeling this one did. I gathered the bloody rags I’d used to clean Bjorn’s hurt places and trotted one room over to a laundry kettle that hung over a perpetual fire. So long as I was up, I may as well get the morning meal going.

  All the coven tasks were shared. Whoever got to them first did them. I suppose there were lazy witches, but I’d never met one. Even the old and sick pulled their weight. I brewed myself another cup of tea once I’d made a pot of thin gruel and left it to simmer on stones heated with magic.

  A quick stop at my chamber for a cloak, and I headed outside intent on checking the battlefield. Bjorn had told me his impressions of being set upon, of the earth opening and disgorging deplorable evil, but I was determined to unearth more in the way of clues. I’d been living in the midst of the post-Breaking world for a long while, and some of his descriptions hadn’t made sense to me.

  Why send so many to attack one man? Granted, Bjorn had potent magic, but I’d never known any of the wicked creatures to rain wrath down on one person. The spell that had snapped shut around me near the Breaking was different. It had Ceridwen’s signature stamped all over it.

  An unsettling thought surfaced as I hustled out of the cave system. Had Ceridwen somehow discovered Bjorn was aligned with me? Working on the assumption that my enemy’s friend is also my enemy, was Mother targeting him?

  It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Ceridwen was powerful, but commanding ranks of goblins and trolls and gnomes was beneath her dignity. Even if she could force them to fall into line and do her bidding, I couldn’t envision my goddess mother stooping quite that low.

  The morning was gray and chill. I strode to where I’d met Bjorn. The feel of his power lingered in that spot. It should be easy enough to follow. He’d described the field where he’d fought, but locating it this way was more expedient.

  Moments later, mists cleared around me. I stood in the center of an unnerving vista. Pockmarked earth spread in all directions. Dead bodies sprawled at every angle imaginable. At least a dozen new standing stones formed a bizarre line of sentinels where trolls had breathed their last.

  Bjorn had mentioned the trolls, but I’d discounted them. Trolls can’t operate when the sun is up, even if it doesn’t strike them directly. From the looks of things, these trolls hadn’t made the slightest effort to make a run for their underground dens. What I didn’t understand was why.

  I walked closer, intent on examining the pillars. It took time for their features to totally disappear, for the stone to smooth to nothingness. Sure enough, I could still make out faces and hair. I looked for mortal wounds. Something that would have kept them from seeking safety. All but one appeared intact.

  Had Bjorn immobilized them with magic? Was that why they hadn’t moved?

  I made a mental note to ask him because if he hadn’t, it meant magic was reshaping itself again. And not on my side of the tally sheet. If evil was growing stronger, it didn’t bode well for any of the mortals still clinging to their lives by the thinnest of margins.

  My heart hurt as I thought about the witches. So far, we’d avoided others with any type of power, but there had to be other decent magic-wielders left. Like the Sidhe, for example. Or the Fae. Granted the light and dark courts were perpetually at war, but when the chips were down, they’d battle evil before they fought one another.

  At least I thought so. Most of my magical education had come from Mother’s badly neglected lore books. On a tangent, I fleshed out my mental list of possible allies adding Druids and sprites to the list.

  As I wandered among the standing stones, still searching for clues, I considered just how the Nine Worlds intersected with Earth. By Bjorn’s telling, Earth was Midgard in
that system. Did it mean we could count on protection from Odin? From Yggdrasil and its roots?

  How about from the Norse dragon? It took me a moment to resurrect his name out of my memory banks. Nidhogg. Did he and Dewi know one another? It would make sense. Not many dragon gods out there.

  A strident mrowww announced Mort had tracked me down. The cat couldn’t have walked this far so quickly. I’d always suspected he had magic of his own, and here was a spot of proof. I held out my arms, and he jumped into them. From there, he clawed his way into place across my shoulders. It felt good to have him there. Warm and soft and purring.

  I scanned the field. Assuming Bjorn had worked alone, he’d slaughtered hundreds. So much for his assessment about not being much of a warrior. I didn’t know very many who wouldn’t be proud of what he’d accomplished.

  “Not much more to discover here,” I told Mort. He meowed knowingly as if he understood me perfectly.

  Perhaps he did.

  Before I left, I sent power auguring into the earth. What lay beneath me? Had Bjorn stumbled on the goblins’ home? Or the gnomes’? Or had they simply chosen this spot to launch their attack?

  I was careful. I took my time. While I sensed residue from dark power all around me, including underneath my feet, I didn’t find any more bad things. It argued they lived elsewhere. Too bad. I’d been hunting for Goblin Central for years. If I could locate their den, I could obliterate it.

  The concept was so real to me, I dusted my hands together. Problem solved. At least for one adversary. All I had to do was find them.

  I smelled dragon before I saw it. Maybe because I’d been sunk in dragon dreams, the scent of rocks baked under a sun far hotter than it ever got here didn’t alarm me. In an odd way, it was like coming home.

  I shook myself out of complacency in a hurry.

  Dragons were fucking dangerous. It was sheer folly to romanticize them. Was it too late to leave? A hasty glance skyward suggested the answer to my question was yes.

  Two dragons were winging their way through the sky. A golden one that looked a lot like the wyrm I’d seen the other night, and a smaller one in shades of brilliant blue. It was definitely too late to summon the amount of power I’d need to teleport, but maybe they hadn’t seen me.

  I pulled power up through the earth and shrouded myself with it. Mort quit purring. A muffled yelp told me how much he hated being snared in my spells. I reached up and soothed him as best I could with gentle fingers buried in his fur.

  “Hush.” I breathed the word and laced power in with it. On the very off chance the beasts above hadn’t noticed me, I’d be damned if the cat gave us away.

  I willed invisibility, willed the dragons to keep right on flying. They didn’t belong in this world. Earth had never hosted their ilk. For a pathetically short while, I believed I might have pulled it off.

  But then, amid trumpeting and smoke and fire, they wheeled and dropped lower in the sky. No avoiding it. They were headed right for me. Since I’d been discovered—or maybe they’d known about me all along—I dropped my ward and stood tall.

  Cowering in front of enemies is the wrong thing to do.

  They hadn’t declared themselves hostile. Not yet, but it paid to prepare for the worst.

  Happy again, Mort licked my neck. I hoped to hell the dragons wouldn’t consider him as some kind of appetizer. The gold one touched down first, maybe two meters from me. Clods of wet, blood-saturated earth flew up from the spot he’d splatted down.

  I guess when you’re that big, elegant landings aren’t a priority. He folded his wings and stared at me. Steam puffed through his partially open jaws. Meanwhile, the much smaller blue dragon settled to his right. Both the beasts had the same spinning eyes I remembered from Dewi.

  Eyes like that sucked you in and didn’t let you go—until the dragon was well and truly done with you. Except they didn’t appear to have that effect on me.

  I pushed my shoulders farther back, making myself as imposing as I could. Laughable in the face of creatures who stood better than two meters tall. Hell, the gold might be close to three. Angling my head to one side, I said, “Can I offer my assistance in any way? If not, I’ll be leaving.”

  More steam billowed from both dragons until it swathed us in a warm, damp cloud. Far from disconcerting, it made me feel safe.

  Yeah. Right. Don’t be a bigger fool than you already are.

  Batting the mist away, I repeated my query.

  “Who are you?” the blue dragon asked in a lyrical voice that was damn near as mesmerizing as its eyes.

  It was an odd question, but one I was willing to answer. Names offered power over people, but the dragons outstripped my paltry magic by so much, I wouldn’t be offering them anything by way of an advantage.

  “I am Rowan,” I told the beast, and then added, “Ceridwen’s daughter.”

  The gold shook his great head. “Not right,” it intoned. “Ye are rightly Ceridwen’s get, but that is not your name.”

  If this was going to turn into a game of twenty questions, I was at a serious disadvantage. “Apologies.” I bowed my head briefly. “It is the only name my mother ever called me.”

  “Because she had reasons to hide your true one,” the blue dragon said.

  I flinched from the truth shining through his words and waited, but neither beast said anything further until the gold announced, “We shall return,”

  “Aye, by then ye will have found your name. Once ye know it, we can proceed.” The blue dragon tilted its head until I gazed right into its spinning eyes.

  “What do you mean, proceed?” It was a struggle to get the words out since I felt like I was falling headlong into a tornado.

  “Once ye find your name, ye will know,” the gold dragon replied. “It has been withheld from you for far too long. Ye are needed, but afore ye can do aught but get in the way, ye must—”

  The other dragon trumpeted, effectively obliterating his companion’s next words.

  The two of them were talking in riddles. A harsh blast of magic reeking of dragon pushed me from one side of the patch of ground I stood upon to the other. Mort mewled his displeasure and dug his claws into my shoulder. By the time I detached him, the dragons were gone.

  I blinked at steam and smoke still sifting through the air. If it weren’t for the evidence of their presence, I’d have thought I imagined the whole exchange.

  But then, I’d have seriously considered the possibility I was losing my mind. No time to dissect this. I was beyond late checking on the witches at Inverlochy Castle.

  Had the dragons been some kind of ruse? A diversion to keep me away while the Celts slaughtered my family? I set Mort on the ground with firm instructions to return home. The set of his ears and tail told me he was angry, but he’d obey. To be on the safe side, I added a short blast of magic to speed him safely on his way.

  Fear gripped me. Far more compelling than when I’d been confronted by the dragons, I rode it all the way through a rapid teleport to the castle’s ruins on the river Lochy.

  If moving my friends to Inverlochy Castle ended up bringing death and destruction, I’d have a hell of a hard time living with myself. The rest of the witches would forgive me, but I’d never be able to forgive myself.

  Chapter Thirteen, Bjorn

  I’m not sure how I marshaled the strength to walk away from Runa—Rowan. The touch of her power lingered on my skin for hours after I returned to my cottage. Her scent tantalized me. Sleep came in dribs and drabs. In between, I washed the stink of blood and roadkill out of my shirt, cloak, and pants.

  The cloak was heavy wool. It would take forever to dry, so I hung it over wooden racks near my hearth and selected another from my slender stores. One advantage of living long is I’ve had centuries to collect a motley wardrobe. Things do wear out, but there are always others to take their place.

  The stone continued to vibrate merrily. I’d put on fresh trousers, and it had leapt into my pocket unbidden. Somewhere during our br
ief tenure as associates, it had come to associate my right front pocket as its territory. So long as it wasn’t nagging me to do something I didn’t want to, we got along fine.

  I rolled my mental eyes. That statement was true of just about anyone. Not that the stone was a person, but it may as well be. It was sentient and channeled Nidhogg’s will quite effectively. Thinking about the dragon was a reminder. He and I were overdue for a chat.

  One where he shared more than he had our last go round.

  The bar was low since he’d said almost less than nothing then.

  I’ve always been a believer in getting unpleasant tasks over with. It solved a lot of problems. I didn’t have to hang about worrying, for one thing. After finishing the last morsels from the meal I’d been working on for hours, I decided it would be prudent to position myself outside.

  I couldn’t talk with the dragon from within my abode. Well, I could—if I shouted through the walls or used telepathy. Even if he did show—and it was far from a given—I’d end up outside anyway. May as well just start there. I admit I was dragging my feet a bit. I was still stiff and sore and bleary-eyed from the battle he’d plonked me into.

  Annoyed too.

  I needed to ask why he’d chivvied me into Midgard in that particular spot. More importantly, was he planning to do it again? If so, I needed to be better prepared than I was right now. The magical weapons I’d flirted with designing would shoot to the top of my list. Maybe Odin could assign someone else to Alfheim and general sorcery tasks. At least for a while.

  I moved to the pump handle over the sink and worked it until cold water filled my hands. I ducked my face into the chilly stream hoping the dousing would sharpen my fuzzy brain. Not much point in a conversation with Nidhogg if he refused to answer every question I posed.

  Once I’d dried my face and hands, I plucked half a sheet of used vellum from my stores and started a list. That way, at least I’d have a reference point if the dragon’s presence thwarted my reasoning ability.