Dragon Breeder 4

by Dante King

  Queen Frami turned away, then stopped.

  “What is this wisp doing here?” she asked with genuine curiosity, motioning at Will.

  I shrugged, as cool as a turbot on ice.

  “He’s just a mascot of ours, a travel companion that we found down in the Subterranean Realms,” I said.

  Queen Frami nodded thoughtfully. “The Subterranean Realms,” she said, stroking her chin with thick, callused warrior’s fingers. “So, my envoys spoke true when they reported to me about the goings on at your encampment at the foot of Galipolas Mountain. Strange adventures are clearly woven about you, Dragonmancer…”

  “Noctis,” I said, realizing too late that I had neglected to introduce myself or my companions. “Dragonmancer Noctis, Your Majesty, but please, call me Mike.”

  Then, I hastily pointed out the members of my company and named each of them in turn. The Queen’s sea-gray eyes flicked from once face to the next.

  “Very well, Mike,” she said, “come up here and walk with me. Allow me to personally escort you into Berserker Hall.”

  Berserker Hall looked quite grim and forbidding from the outside. When I reached the top of the wide stairs, the first thing that greeted me were two enormous bears. One had fur of the deepest, darkest blue. Its paws were about the size of a semi’s hubcap, and the claws that stuck out from them were bright silver and almost two feet long. The other bear was brown but looked to be covered in dried bracken instead of fur. It too had paws that looked like they could flatten a Mini Cooper with one swipe, but its claws were a semi-transparent amber.

  Real, I first thought them, but then, when they did not move, I believed they were statues.

  It turned out I was wrong on both counts.

  “These are the bodies of Mikill and Meiri,” Queen Frami said to me, but speaking loudly enough so that all of the Mystocean Company could hear. “They were the two most feared and battle-wise bears who had ever graced Vetruscan lands, preserved for the last three-hundred and fifty years by the combined magics of some of our finest bearmancers.”

  “What happened to them?” I asked, looking up in wonderment at the massive magical beasts.

  “They were involved in the last minor set of border skirmishes between our two venerated lands,” Queen Frami said, her tone changing not one iota. “They were the living banners around which our troops flocked. It took four dragonmancers, one of whom was part of your Empress’ secret Twelve, I believe, to kill them.”

  That bombshell was far from comfortable, but I had seen enough movies to know that it was your classic test, a little trial to see how you handled diplomatic pressure.

  “That sounds like it was a little before my time, Your Majesty,” I said. “And probably before yours, although I’ll admit that I’ve met some people in this world who could have passed for thirty but were, in actual fact, closing in on their second century.”

  The Queen of the Vetruscans gave me a shrewd look from under her bushy grayish-blonde eyebrows, flicked one of her dreadlocks out of her face, and slapped me on the back. Even with my dragon-enhanced strength, it felt like someone had just clobbered me with a shovel.

  “Come,” she said, “and welcome. Welcome all of you!” she added, raising her hands to encapsulate me, Dasyr, Tanila, Elenari, Tamsin, Renji, Will, and Saya. “You are the first Mystoceans to set foot in Berserker Hall for many long, bitter years. May it be a sign of things to come!”

  The great doors of the hall, engraved with frescoes of more bears and bearmancers in various battle poses, were scarred and blackened and burned.

  Still standing though, I thought, which goes to say something about the hardiness of the Vetruscans, I’m sure.

  “Now we drink?” I asked as the Queen led us all inside, and a gust of warm air smelling of roasting meat and hay came out to greet us.

  “Yes, Mike, now we drink,” the huge, crowned bearmancer said to me. “Now we drink, and I see whether the Mystocean Empire is going to live up to their side of the bargain that I struck with your Overseer at the Drako Academy.”

  After the keen freshness of the fjordside town of Hrímdale, the air inside Berserker Hall was close and warm and mildly oppressive. Not so much oppressive with heat, but oppressive with secrets of the past, secrets unspoken. I felt as if I were sitting above a deep well of history and the many pillars that held up the shadowy, thatched, barn-like roof seemed to be twined all about with tales told and deeds done many centuries before.

  “By the gods, but this building is quite something, is it not?” Dasyr said to me when we took our seats at the single massive table that stretched all the way down the hall. We were seated, in places of honor, around the Queen at the head of the table. “It feels like I have stepped inside a song or saga!”

  Tanila, who was usually as taciturn as Dasyr, was equally moved.

  “I agree, sister,” she said to the other Lorekeeper. “Almost, it seems to me, as if I could hear the sounds of ghosts. The echo of feasts and of dramas that have played out through the ages in this place.”

  Queen Frami had evidently overheard the comments. She was beaming, her eyes and teeth glinting in the orange glow of the fires burning everywhere in the hall. There were no windows in here, at least none that were currently open. Only the two smoke holes at either end of the hall let any sort of natural light in.

  The vibe was extremely Viking longhouse. Once more, I could not help but feel the weird thrill of being on a movie set that was, actually, the real deal.

  Firelight played across the dark polished wood, and shadows chased themselves around the columns, making the carvings of the bears and bearmancers appear as if they were chasing each other and reenacting the battles captured by the wood carvers who had laid their likenesses down with their chisels.

  Queen Frami clapped her hands, and silence fell amongst those gathered. There were many folk there, more people than I could be introduced to or remember the names of even if I had been. Doubtless they were chieftains and captains and important merchants of some kind, invited by Queen Frami to witness this historic moment.

  The Queen of Vetrusca raised her drinking horn. “Friends, both new and old, welcome. I’m not one for long speeches and flowery words, so let me just say this: this is the beginning of a new age between two old nations. With the coming of the Mystoceans, I hope that we will renew a tie that has grown brittle as of late and, in doing so, help put a stopper in the trouble that is flowing over these lands.”

  There were a few murmurs of disgruntled agreement. I imagined the Queen was referring to the rebels that we had met on our way from the border to Hrímdale.

  The Queen waved her hands, slopping whatever grog she had in her horn over the much blemished and stained table below, and the grumbling ceased.

  “Enough of that. Let us eat and drink. Then, those chosen Vetruscans who have been invited here today will bear witness—in a way—to something that none in this land have ever seen before. Now, we feast!” And the Queen raised her horn as high as she could and roared, “May life last as long as it is worth wearing!”

  This was echoed all the way down the table, and even me and the other Mystoceans joined in.

  Everyone settled down to dig into the mass of roasted animals and root vegetables, salad leaves, wheels of cheese, slabs of butter, fresh baked bread, and smoked fish.

  Queen Frami laid a large, heavy hand on my forearm.

  “Now, Mike,” she said, belching off to one side and wiping her lips, “Captain Grafa tells me that you had some trouble on the road here.”

  “Just a little disagreement,” I said, noticing the glint in the Queen’s one visible eye. “A little scuffle.” I looked down at the dried blood that coated my hands and was caked under my fingernails.

  Neither me nor any of the others had been offered a proper wash since arriving. We had had a quick cursory scrub in the stream before we left the abandoned village, but that had been done in haste, as we were unsure whether or not there might be more of the ren
egade bearmancer’s friends and acquaintances waiting for us.

  “Tell me about it,” Queen Frami ordered, draining her cup and tossing it to a manservant to be refilled.

  And so I did.

  When I was done, the Queen sat back and picked her teeth thoughtfully with a herring bone.

  “I assume it was these rebels that you were referring to in your speech just before,” I asked.

  The Queen growled; a deep, bass rumble that emanated from deep within her and sounded more like a noise that should have come from some dark cave.

  “That is correct, Mike,” she said. “In recent months, these rebels have become more and more of a bane on the Vetruscans who are still loyal to me. Now, moving around outside the walls of Hrímdale is nothing short of a life-risking penance.”

  I picked up a smoked kipper from a platter and put it on the trencher bread in front of me. “But why are there any rebels? What happened to piss off some of your population?”

  The Queen looked cagey for a second or so. Her unpatched eye swiveled across to me and then away.

  “It was the peace talks that we began with your nation that did it,” she said.

  “But I thought that the peace talks had been started because you wanted help in beating down these agitators?” I asked. “That wouldn’t explain why they would have started giving you trouble in the first place, would it? Your Majesty,” I added hastily.

  The Queen looked slightly mollified at my obviously clumsy attempt to show my respect.

  “That is so,” she said, taking her refilled horn from the manservant and necking half of it in one long swill. She belched again. She was good at burping. Gave me the impression that she could fill a hot air balloon if it was suddenly required. “What you do not know, perhaps, is that my Kingdom and your Empire were already in talks.”

  “What about, if you don’t mind me asking, Your Majesty?” I asked, flaking off some of the delicious smoked kipper and shoving it into my mouth.

  “We were discussing the best way that we might combine our forces to take on the potential armies that await us in the Subterranean Realms.”

  “And, what? Some of your people didn’t think much of that idea?”

  The Queen gave me a long look. “I am, apart from being born as the daughter of the last Queen, a simple woman. The only things I really believe in are common, like me: common decency, common honesty, and common sense. This makes me bloody well ill-suited for the political office into which I was born.”

  I snorted and nodded my head. “You’re certainly the most honest monarch that I have ever had the fortune to meet.”

  Queen Frami growled. “That is a kind thing that you say, Mike Noctis,” she replied, “but there are many in my land who do not agree that it is possible to relinquish the past without letting all of our pride go with it. These damned, stinking rebels think that we must hold onto the tenseness and the ill-feelings that have existed between our two nations for ages, rather than unite against a common enemy more powerful than any of us could have imagined.”

  The Queen stared into the flickering fire of a torch nearby, her bushy brows contorted into a scowl of frustration.

  “I lost my eye to you Mystoceans over some ridiculous border scuffle. A fight that marked the beginning of the peace that has existed between us for decades now. If I do not grudge the loss of a part of my body, how is it that there are some fools out there who can begrudge the seeming loss of some national pride, hm? Such an intangible thing is pride. You cannot hold it, you cannot feel it, you cannot smell it or hear it, but by all the gods it sticks in some peoples’ minds like a sliver of glass and drives them to commit all sorts of heinous and stupid acts.”

  I nodded. “And that’s why we’re here? To help you try and stop this rebellion before those who are leading it really get their claws stuck in?”

  “That’s right,” the Queen said.

  The two of us lapsed into silence for the rest of the meal, each of us pondering our own thoughts as the feasting continued.

  The Queen stood abruptly and raised her hands once more for silence. Soon, the only sound that could be heard was the cracking of bones by the dogs under the table and the crackle of the fires.

  “Friends,” Queen Frami said, “it is time. Outside, if you please.”

  I followed Dasyr and Tanila outside. This was clearly the moment that they had been brought here for. If there was a time that any rebel might try to take out the two key Mystocean Lorekeepers, hoping to spark some fucking international incident, then now would be their last chance.

  I blinked in the glare of the sunlight as four guards swung wide the doors of the Berserker Hall. It had been all too easy to forget, in the smoky confines of the feasting hall, that it was still morning outside. The wind had picked up, and rain pattered my head as we stepped out into the fresh air.

  We walked around the side of Berserker Hall, following Queen Frami. Many of the guests were in fine spirits, having drunk deeply from the honey-mead barrels that had lined the hall.

  The wind acted as a slap in the face for me and woke me up wide. I scanned the crannies and ridges above us for any sight of an ambush, despite the Queen’s assurances that the only way into Hrímdale was through the front gate or by ship.

  Around the back of Berserker Hall, in a small, wild garden of flowering herbs, a large wickiup of skins had been erected. It was like a marquee-sized teepee.

  I touched Dasyr on her shoulder and asked softly, “Is this where the Ceremony will take place?”

  Dasyr inclined her head in the affirmative.

  Outside the giant wickiup, three women waited. They were as tall and strong-looking as Saya, and that was saying something, as she was the toughest-looking woman that I knew. Each were clad in a simple toga of bearskin, which showed off the smooth contours of their muscular physiques. All three had long hair that had been plaited and braided. One was raven-haired, the second red-headed, and the last had hair the yellowy-green color of silky moss.

  “These,” the Queen said to the assembled company of feasters without preamble, “are the three warriors whom I have chosen to pass through the trial that the Mystoceans here call the Transfusion Ceremony.”

  There was some astonished murmuring at this proclamation, and the Queen had to bark an order to restore quiet.

  “I know,” she said gruffly, “I didn’t tell a soul of you about this, but I quite frankly didn’t much fancy the fucking headache of having to deal with your objections!” She raised her hand to ward off any further objections. “I have struck a bargain with the Mystocean Empire. I am the Queen of Vetrusca, and this will be done, let the gods help me!”

  Queen Frami turned her one flaming gray eye on Dasyr and Tanila.

  “Lorekeepers, if you would be so kind?” she said and gestured toward the tent.

  Dasyr and Tanila bowed respectfully before the Queen, and then ushered the three waiting bearmancers inside the large hide tent.

  “We will now wait until the Ceremony is complete,” the Queen ordered the gathered throng of onlookers. “Those of you here, you are about to witness history in the forging!”

  “If their bears are already waiting in there for them,” Elenari said to Renji in a low voice, “then it must be a mighty tight fit in that tent.”

  The wickiup’s flap fell into place. There was a gentle murmuring from inside. Then silence, except for the sound of the growing wind and the occasional splash of an oar or flap of a sail out on the fjord.

  Out of respect for their Queen, none of the Vetruscans said a word while the minutes went by. Every now and again, there might come some random groan or shout from inside the tent and that would stir the interest of those waiting patiently outside.

  “Do you recall what it was like for you?” Saya asked me under her breath.

  “Of course,” I whispered back. “Seeing my dragon, Noctis, hanging there suspended in that glittering crystal cage or vat or whatever it was.”

  “The glittering
magical tubes that formed, like air made solid, and snaked out toward you?” Elenari muttered.

  I nodded. “One by one the ends of those tubes morphing into spikes,” I whispered, picturing the scene in my head. “Each tube moving through the air to a specific part of your body—the parts that mirrored those on Noctis.”

  “Yeah,” Tamsin hissed as another short scream emanated from the tent, “and then the sweet mingling of the blood.”

  It was almost as if the memory of my own Transfusion Ceremony was playing in front of me, projected on the side of the wickiup, so clear was it in my mind’s eye.

  “And then…” whispered Renji.

  “The pain,” I finished in a very quiet voice.

  That was the part that I remembered most clearly of all. That was the part that I imagined stuck with all dragonmancers, right up until they were lowered into the graves or turned to ash and dust.

  Pain.

  Pain as I had never known it.

  Pain that made all other physical pain look like a parody, like a satire, like a two-bit impression.

  It had been pain that hit me like a freight train in the small of the back. That drove the air from my lungs, scythed my legs out from under me as if they were grass straws, and turned the blood in my veins into boiling acid.

  “I remember,” I said, “that my jaw was locked so tight that I could hear my teeth creaking.”

  The others nodded in mute agreement.

  I recollected how spit had sprayed from between my lips, which were pulled back in an animal snarl.

  “My back arched spasmodically, so hard that I thought I was going to break it,” Tamsin said. There was a respectful gleam in her eye. A flash of pride.

  I wondered whether I had the same look in my eye when I talked about it, not that I ever did. I wondered whether, when I remembered how I thought I might start climbing the fucking walls like that chick in The Exorcist and barfing green slime everywhere, whether the same small smile played across my lips as it did Tamsin and Saya.