by Resa Nelson
Turning inland, Skallagrim spotted a narrow waterfall tumbling over a short cliff and made his way toward it. He needed fresh water. He also knew that waterfalls sometimes disguised the mouth of a cave.
Skallagrim trekked across the sandy beach, irritated by the way the seawater squished inside his leather shoes and made his skin itch. His struggle to survive his boat wreck left Skallagrim exhausted. Every step drained his willpower, but he had enough presence of mind to pick up pieces of driftwood along the way.
Stepping onto the dry grass at the edge of the beach made his walk easier. Skallagrim made his way across rocky ground.
When he reached the narrow waterfall, he approached it with caution. Skallagrim looked for claw marks in the wet and muddy ground but found none. He listened beyond the pounding of the water for the wheezing sound sometimes made a dragon but heard none. The cheerful singing of birds in nearby bushes and trees showed Skallagrim that these animals felt safe.
Even so, he walked behind the sheet of falling water with caution, ready to drop an armful of driftwood and withdraw his sword if need be.
Skallagrim stood facing the darkened depths of the cave with the waterfall at his back, like a curtain separating him from the outside world. He watched and listened long enough to be satisfied that if any dragons hid in the darkness, they’d already fallen into a winter sleep so deep that little could rouse them out of it. Skallagrim used the flint he kept in his pouch to light the driftwood he’d gathered to encourage a bright fire that lit up the cave and proved that Skallagrim had no company.
Fatigued from his failure to find his brother on Tower Island and the voyage across the sea to the Northlands, Skallagrim slept like a hibernating dragon.
It was the first restful night he’d experienced since the day of his wife’s murder.
CHAPTER 5
When Frandulane’s wife remarked that they never should have left their first home in the Midlands, he barely resisted the urge to strike her. Mostly, he felt too weary.
After the debacle in the port city of Gott that he blamed on his cousins, Frandulane had been lucky to stumble into a chance encounter with his unwitting brother and steal his horse. After racing to the shore, Frandulane had no trouble using the silver rings and bracelets he’d stolen to pay a fisherman to sail him to Tower Island. There, Frandulane retrieved his wife and child and then risked a trip to the Midlands.
Frandulane had minimized his time on Tower Island and successfully avoided answering the questions peppered at him by his parents. His wife took no convincing. She’d spent her life as a milkmaid in the Midlands and hated Tower Island and the Scaldings who lived there. His son Mandulane was far too young to understand what was happening.
The trip along the southern coast of the Northlands had been fraught with peril, but the fisherman knew his boat and how to sail it through rough conditions. Now, they stood on the solid ground of the largest port city in the Midlands. Even with winter approaching, the dirt streets were packed with merchants who displayed their wares on overturned crates, travelers from the Northlands and Southlands, and native Midlanders. Earthy and flowery spices scented the air. People haggled over the last fresh vegetables of the season. The musical sound of a blacksmith’s hammer against an anvil rang in the distance.
As if suspecting Frandulane hadn’t heard her the first time, his milkmaid wife once more said, “We never should have left the Midlands. I don’t know why you thought we’d be welcome on Tower Island.”
Although Frandulane leaned toward agreeing with his wife, her criticism of Tower Island provoked him. “If you’d bothered learning how to speak Northlander, it would have been easier on you.”
“Northlander.” His wife spat out the word as if it choked her. “It’s a terrible language. It’s convoluted and makes no sense. Besides, it’s easy for you to say. You have a knack for picking up languages. You learned Midlander quickly, didn’t you? I don’t have that knack.”
Tower Island had not been the refuge for which Frandulane had hoped. He’d left his home there with the goal of finding Skallagrim, killing him, and taking his place as a dragonslayer. Frandulane should have been the favored son in his family, not Skallagrim. And because their father Sven led the entire Scalding clan, that meant Frandulane should have been next in line to be in charge of Tower Island, not Skallagrim.
Years of hearing the stories of the great adventures and glory of the Scaldings who lived before Frandulane was born thrilled him. His own parents refused to speak of those days, but plenty of uncles and great-uncles took great pleasure in spinning yarns about them.
When he’d failed to find Skallagrim, Frandulane had changed course. At first, taking the milkmaid for his bride and moving back to Tower Island made him feel like a beaten dog tucking his tail between his legs. But then a new realization had dawned on Frandulane.
He came to believe that a better way to win his parents’ approval—and take his rightful place as heir to Tower Island—was to pretend to be like his father Sven.
What better way to prove Frandulane’s worth? Surely, Sven would come to see that Skallagrim’s absence from Tower Island had helped no one.
Wouldn’t it become obvious that while Skallagrim galivanted around looking for dragons, Frandulane showed better judgment and maturity by living an expected and stable life as a husband and father on Tower Island?
Sven wouldn’t live forever. All Frandulane had to do was bide his time and wait for his father to die. And once that happened, Frandulane would make some changes.
Sitting and doing nothing on Tower Island—which all the Scaldings did—made no sense to Frandulane.
Why not revive the days of the past when the Scaldings took what they wanted from those too weak or cowardly to fight back?
Why not build Tower Island into a stronghold that no other Northlanders could conquer?
But instead of congratulating Frandulane on his domestic ways, Sven had confounded him. The old man continued to hold Skallagrim in the highest esteem, even though the dragonslayer hadn’t set foot on Tower Island in many years.
Every time a merchant came to the island, he regaled all the children with tales of Skallagrim and his exploits slaying dragons and saving lives. Frandulane once caved in to his own son’s clamoring to hear the merchants’ stories and stood on the sidelines in quiet rage.
The day he’d learned that two of his cousins had killed a dragonslayer and planned to return to the Northlands to kill another, Frandulane recognized an opportunity that might never come again.
He’d seized that opportunity, went to the Northlands with his cousins, and watched them kill a dragonslayer and steal his sword.
But when they went to Gott to trade the sword for riches, more people died. Frandulane killed his first dragon despite never having been trained, a sure sign that he should be the dragonslayer, not Skallagrim.
It made sense to retrieve his wife and son, because they did him no good on Tower Island.
In fact, once reunited, Frandulane grasped how they threatened to become a liability.
Now, his milkmaid wife sidled up to him with the boy clinging to her skirts. “We’re still days away from home. What are you going to do to get us there?”
It gave Frandulane pleasure to surprise people. He felt strong and invincible when he showed them how he could outwit them. “Nothing,” he said to his wife. “It’ll be easier for you to find work here. There should be plenty of farms around the city and plenty of cows that need milking.”
His wife faced him with a mix of anger and astonishment. “First you drag me to Tower Island. Why drag us back to the Midlands if we’re not going home?”
Frandulane gave her a pleasant smile, relishing the fact that she could hold no secrets from him. “I’m a fair and generous man. You deserve a second chance. Maybe you’ll be a better wife to the next man. Assuming you don’t lie to him.”
“You make no sense,” his wife huffed. She pointed at a stable down the road. “It’s a long
journey home, and Mandulane is too young to ride all that way. We’ll need a cart.”
Frandulane stifled a laugh, amused that his wife made the wrong assumptions even though he’d just made his opinion perfectly plain.
Then again, fools ignored the truth when it stared them in the face, preferring to believe their own fantasies instead.
He pushed up his sleeve to reveal the few silver bracelets that remained after he’d paid the fisherman who’d ferried them to Tower Island and then here to the Midlands. “No need to hurry,” Frandulane said. He pulled off a couple of bracelets and then pointed down the street at a tavern. “Why not relax for a day or two? There look to be plenty of merchants here. Why not visit them and buy something pretty for yourself?”
His wife’s mouth gaped open in disbelief for a moment and then snapped shut. She opened her mouth again as if to speak but then appeared to think better of it. Without another word, she took the silver bracelets from Frandulane’s hand and led their son toward the tavern.
At first, Frandulane’s throat tightened with sorrow. He cared for Mandulane enough that he fought to keep from running after them and scooping the boy up in his arms.
But when Mandulane looked back at his father with longing, it was a stinging reminder of why Frandulane planned to take this opportunity to abandon them.
Mandulane’s eyes remained as blue as the sea.
Proof.
Frandulane had spent his life on an island, surrounded by Scaldings whose eyes had turned lavender long ago due to an alchemist’s curse that came in the form of a potion placed in their food without their knowledge. Only those Scaldings—and by default their children—who had committed murder woke up the next morning with lavender eyes. Only those who had never committed murder maintained their blue eye color.
Although lavender eyes represented a curse, Frandulane’s blue eyes had made him feel like an outsider in his own clan. All his life, Frandulane’s lavender-eyed cousins teased and taunted him. They called him a coward. A mama’s boy. And worse.
But days ago, in the port city of Gott, Frandulane earned his lavender eyes at last. When he’d fought alongside his now-dead cousins, he couldn’t be sure who delivered the blows that killed Benzel of the Wolf and a Far Eastern man. The only thing Frandulane knew with certainty was that he’d been the one who killed a dragon.
The details didn’t matter. All Frandulane cared about was knowing his eyes had turned lavender at last.
By default, Mandulane’s eyes should now be lavender, as well.
They weren’t.
Frandulane supposed he’d noticed when he first collected his son and wife on Tower Island and hustled them to the Northlander fisherman’s ship waiting to sail them to the Midlands. But the more he looked at the boy during the voyage, the clearer the truth became.
And that truth squashed the remaining feelings Frandulane had for his family.
Farewell, you wretched boy. Not a drop of Scalding blood in you. Your milkmaid mother can look after you on her own. You’re no kin of mine. I’m no longer a fool tied to his lying wife and her bastard son.
The boy kept staring back as Frandulane’s wife led him toward the tavern.
Frandulane took a final look at the child and then turned his back on them.
More pressing matters required his attention.
My cousins made a mess of things in Gott. All we had to do was jump on that ship willing to take us. How did they let everything get so out of hand?
Instead of feeling any guilt at being the only Scalding to survive the slaughter in Gott, Frandulane felt relieved to be rid of the two cousins who had talked him into trouble.
It was their fault. I’m better off without them.
But their death left Frandulane in a bind. After joining his cousins in killing a dragonslayer and stealing his sword, Frandulane recognized the problems he now faced. His brother Skallagrim—as well as all other dragonslayers—would be compelled to avenge their fellow dragonslayer’s death. They were probably already searching for Frandulane.
While there were many places to hide, Frandulane had rejected the Northlands for a reason. All Northlanders knew of the Scaldings and Tower Island. All Northlanders knew how to recognize Scaldings by their lavender eyes. He once heard an uncle talk about using dragon meat or blood to disguise one’s eyes in another color, but Frandulane didn’t understand what that meant or how it worked. Now that he’d left Tower Island, he had no one to guide him.
A hiding place in the Midlands or the Southlands would have to do. Frandulane had the means to secure a simple home in a remote place, but the safest strategy required trading for silver.
For the next few hours, Frandulane picked his way through the crowded city streets with two goals in mind. First, he kept a sharp lookout for any dragonslayers recently arrived from the Northlands. He saw none but knew some could be present, possibly even Skallagrim. Second, Frandulane searched with even greater care for merchants that bought and sold weapons.
Even the merchants here in this Midlander port city knew every dragonslayer by name and by face. Most merchants would question Frandulane’s possession of a dragonslayer sword because they would know at a glance that he hadn’t earned the right to own one.
A merchant could challenge Frandulane with theft. Any merchant who had spoken recently to a dragonslayer arriving from Gott could challenge Frandulane with a charge of murder.
That could lead to a trial by combat.
Most merchants who sold weapons knew how to use them.
Even though Frandulane carried the most powerful weapon in all the world, he didn’t know how to use it properly. Although he’d assumed he could use it the same way as a short sword, a few days ago Frandulane learned the hard way that he couldn’t.
I was lucky to kill that dragon. It could have just as easily killed me.
Frandulane knew that if he approached the wrong merchant, that merchant might charge him with a crime and had a good chance of winning a trial by combat. Such combats were often fought to the death, and Frandulane didn’t like his odds of staying alive.
It made more sense to search for a merchant who looked like he might be more forgiving of Frandulane’s ownership of a dragonslayer sword for the sake of the profit it might bring.
Hanging in the back of the crowd, Frandulane felt disheartened every time a weapon merchant caught sight of the long hilt of the dragonslayer sword peeking over Frandulane’s shoulder and responded with a disapproving gaze. Frandulane became adept at melting into the crowd and retreating from those stern looks.
However, as Frandulane neared the outer fringes of the city market, he noticed the merchants’ expressions leaned toward apathy.
When the last weapon merchant Frandulane encountered spotted the dragonslayer sword, that merchant looked at him with interest.
Frandulane bided his time and let all others complete their business with the last weapon merchant before approaching him.
That merchant appeared old and grizzled. He constantly shifted his weight from side to side as if his feet caused him grief. The merchant stared at the hilt of the dragonslayer sword with watery eyes. “Hello, friend,” the merchant said. “Can I presume you’re here with something to sell?”
Still worried about being recognized or charged with a crime, Frandulane glanced in all directions to make sure no one listened in on their conversation before answering. “You presume right.”
The merchant busied his hands by adjusting the weapons displayed on his crates until they all lined up like perfect soldiers standing at attention. “Some weapons are easy to sell. Everyone’s always looking for a dagger, and it’s a challenge to keep them stocked. Axes are less popular, but I keep all sizes. Some carry over from one season to the next, but they all sell eventually.”
The merchant drummed his fingertips against the crate, and it made a hollow sound. He continued. “Swords are the most difficult to sell because they’re the most expensive. Still, in a city like this, we ge
t all kinds of visitors. Rich as well as poor. I’ve had wealthy land owners come up from the Southlands and buy every sword I’ve got, saying they worry about war.” The merchant chuckled. “I think they travel around and buy up any swords for sale just to put on a show. Just to show they’ve got the silver to pay for them and still have plenty of silver rattling around on their arms.”
Unsure of the merchant’s point, Frandulane shuffled his feet, feeling uneasy and wondering if he should stay on his toes and be ready to run if need be.
The merchant crossed his arms and leaned back on his heels. “But then there’s a special kind of sword. One whose value is worth a house and enough silver to make any man happy for a year.” The merchant shrugged. “No one here has enough to pay for that kind of sword.”
“I need a place to live,” Frandulane said. “But it can be something simple.” He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder, still worried someone might eavesdrop. “The more remote, the better.”
The merchant paused and then spat on the ground. “No one here can give you a house. No one here has enough silver to pay for what you’re offering to trade.” He guffawed. “If you add up all the silver that every merchant in this city has right now, it still wouldn’t be enough.”
Frandulane considered the merchant’s words. “There are other kinds of payment for goods. Silence, for instance, instead of silver. Advice and guidance instead of property.”
The merchant mulled over Frandulane’s suggestion. “Houses in remote places can be easy to build if you find the right neighbors. I might know of a place like that.”
“That’s a start. How much silver can you part with?”
“Let me take a look at the sword.”
Trying not to attract attention, Frandulane unbuckled the strap that held the sheath in place across his back. He eased the sheathed dragonslayer sword into the hands of the merchant.
The merchant placed it on a low crate behind the taller ones displaying his goods. He slid the sword free and examined it. “The nicks on the edges tell me it’s had plenty of use, but those are nothing that can’t be ground out by a good blacksmith.”
