Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  A little way out into the ocean, a burned island caught Dyrfinna’s eye.

  It was charred black as if it had been through a wildfire. But even after a wildfire, a light scrim of green on the land would show where grass was growing back. Not on that isle. There were no trees, no bushes, and nothing green.

  No sign of life on that island… except for one.

  The wild dragon.

  Against the black, scorched island, the wild dragon gleamed a brilliant orange as it circled. Then it closed its wings like a hawk and dropped to the cliffs that faced the sea on the side facing the mountain. It landed on a ledge and ducked its head low, then vanished into a cave. Mostly. For a long moment its orange tail, glowing like embers, lay outside the cave. Then the tail slid inside. Gone.

  Little flowers grew flush against the rocks of the mountain below her feet, signifying spring. And spring was when dragons laid ….

  “Dragon eggs,” Dyrfinna said softly.

  A New Challenge

  If Dyrfinna could have rolled down the mountain to speed her descent, she would have. She hurried as fast as she could, cursing her stiff muscles, cursing how exhausted she was, cursing how her arm hurt. She was on fire to jump in a little boat, paddle all the way around the point until she reached the scorched dragon isle, steal some dragon eggs, and sneak back out of there without being burned to a crisp—and she had to do all this before the longboat was repaired and ready to set sail tomorrow. She hadn’t had much sleep the night before, and she knew for a fact that she was not going to sleep tonight, because she wanted those eggs. She could always sleep while she was dead.

  Her mind was a whirl. How many chances would she have in her life to go to a dragon isle and try and capture a clutch of eggs?

  And yes, she knew full well she was running headlong into danger. There was a reason why people didn’t just go out and pick up dragon eggs in the wild—it was like pulling lion cubs out of the paws of their mothers. Only much worse.

  It had been ages since anybody had captured a clutch of dragon eggs. Many adventurers had gone out to find them. Only a few had returned.

  One had returned to Skala after an unsuccessful attempt. Dyrfinna had seen him. Half of his face had been burned off, half of his body singed. He’d died shortly after. They’d said he’d done everything right—he’d slipped in during the dead of night, had disguised his smell, had turned a cow loose elsewhere on the island for the dragon to feast upon, and had slipped into her cave to gather the eggs. But the dragon had come back while he was scaling down the side of the mountain, and she’d let loose a blast of fire across his body. He only survived that initial blast because the fire immediately burned the rope through and he’d tumbled down the rocky crags, all afire, into the ocean. His injuries left him to die a slow, painful death.

  The memory sobered Dyrfinna, and she slowed. She didn’t have a cow to lure the dragon away. She didn’t have a rope to scale the mountain. She didn’t have a clay pot or sand to put the eggs in and keep them warm for transport.

  She did have a little fisher boat on her ship, however, that she could use.

  Dyrfinna had read about dragons all her life. Watched them. Studied them. Hung around the dragon stables whenever her father visited the queen.

  To be a dragon warrior was rare, very rare, because dragons were very rare. The queendom had ten dragons, two riders for each dragon, one of whom was the queen herself. Twenty riders in the whole queendom. And it had been so long since the dragons had had a clutch of eggs. They were getting older. They’d gone on mating flights, but nothing had come of it. Nobody knew why.

  Dyrfinna found the place where she’d left her clothes, then found two rabbits in her snares. The other snares were still unsprung, but she brought them in.

  She found the crew on the small beach by following the smell of the cooking-fires. They’d been finding some meat, by the smell of things, and her stomach grumbled.

  “Dyrfinna! Is that you?” Gefjun squinted at her, walking up to meet her.

  “It’s me,” Dyrfinna said, because her eyesight wasn’t the best.

  “I thought that was you. I saw you making for the mountaintop after that dragon went by. We were yelling for you to come back, but I don’t think you heard us.”

  “I didn’t.” Dyrfinna held up her catch. “Would you like some rabbit?”

  “Sure,” said Gefjun. “My hot man bagged a goose, Skeggi got some lemmings, and I gathered some ground tubers, mushrooms, and herbs. So bring your rabbits over. I would like us to be all together at the fire tonight, as you said.”

  “I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier,” Dyrfinna said, handing her a rabbit. “Even if I am tired, there’s no call for it.”

  Dyrfinna wasn’t entirely ready to forgive. After all, Ostryg had been an ass to her first. But she needed Gefjun’s goodwill very badly.

  “It’s all right. Skeggi was talking to us, and he’s right. I shouldn’t have jumped on your case.”

  “Skeggi said that, huh? So what else did he say?” Dyrfinna asked as they headed down the mountain.

  Gefjun grinned. “He was saying how much he loved you .… ”

  “Stop. He was not.”

  “You’re right, he wasn’t.”

  Dyrfinna hated how her heart always jumped with hope even when she knew full well that Gefjun was only messing. “You should know better than to say that to me. Remember how you felt about Olf a couple of years ago?”

  Gefjun snorted and shook her head, but she was smiling. “Fine. Fine. You’re right.”

  “So what else did Skeggi say?”

  “Just to go easy on you sometimes. He said he felt like I’d take sides with Ostryg against you, and it wasn’t the easiest thing for him to watch.”

  Huh. He’d noticed. He’d really noticed.

  And for some reason Dyrfinna felt sad all of a sudden.

  “Ooo! Comfrey.” Gefjun kneeled next to a thick rosette of leaves growing close to the ground. “I wish I could pot this up and bring this with us. This is such a useful plant. And I can steep this in hot water to make an infusion from it, soak a bandage in it, and lay it on your stitches. That’ll help you heal up so much faster.” She picked about half the leaves off the plant, leaving the rest, and looked around for other clumps of comfrey. “Here we go,” she said, moving to the next one.

  Dyrfinna smiled and found another comfrey plant, picking off only half of the stems as Gefjun did, so the plant could grow back. “Gefjun. You saw me run off after that dragon today.”

  “A wild dragon,” Gefjun grumbled, stacking her comfrey so she could pick leaves more easily. “You dummy, you know you could have gotten yourself killed.”

  “Then you’re going to love my idea.”

  “Oh, don’t you dare.”

  “When I got to the top of the mountain, I saw where the dragon went.”

  “No. We’re not going.” Gefjun grabbed up her stack of comfrey and stuffed it in a small bag she always carried at her waist.

  Dyrfinna scrambled to her feet. “Look, the visit to the dragon’s den will go faster if I have your help.”

  “Ugh! Finna! I wouldn’t go to an island infested with dragons,” Gefjun said. “Because I don’t want to die.”

  “You have song magic,” Dyrfinna pleaded. “You can bewitch the dragons.”

  “Are you crazy!” Gefjun yelped, turning to face her. “Not with these little songs. This brand of magic works for helping little kids to go to sleep or to help stitches knit skin.”

  “Your power is more than that. It’s stronger. You keep telling me it can only do these little things, but I know you can do more.”

  “Finna, stop. Just because you saw me help that whale once .… ”

  “That’s the thing, though. You were communicating with it.”

  “With her. But that’s not very big magic. Coaxing away a dragon? No, thank you. And don’t forget, those are wild dragons. How do you know that the baby dragons aren’t going to come out of those eggs
and roast you alive with their baby dragon breath?”

  “They’re babies.”

  “Babies with firepower.”

  “But Gefjun ….”

  “Look. I can call a chipmunk. I can call puffins. Puffins will come over, about five hundred of them, and they all want to be your special friend. And Dyrfinna, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but a puffin is nowhere near the size of a really pissed off hornet dragon that can unleash enough fire to burn all of Skala and then some.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Yeah, but what about the time I had to sing you out of that cave when you got stuck?”

  “But…”

  “That time I had to drag you out of the water when you jumped off Promontory Rock?”

  “But …”

  “That time the wild boar tore your kirtle off?”

  Dyrfinna blinked. “Now, you have to admit, that was pretty funny.”

  “Not when he started to chase me!”

  “It’s okay, I killed it when you distracted it.”

  “It wasn’t funny to me.”

  Dyrfinna frowned. Was Gefjun really this upset?

  Gefjun’s voice shook. “Look. I have been saving your butt in every situation because you think it’s fun to have a little adventure. I’m not letting you do it this time.”

  “But… you used to love that.”

  Gefjun fixed her with a serious look. “I did it because you loved it. And I’ll admit it was funny watching you fall off things on your head because you had this notion that you could beat everything. But that was back at home, Finna. Here? We’re in enemy territory, and I’m a healer. I know what I am; I know it in my heart. I also understand who you are. I’m a nurse because I want to serve the queen, but, more important, I want to stay alive.”

  Well, damn.

  Dyrfinna didn’t doubt for a moment that Ostryg had been talking to her about that, too.

  “Come on,” she said. “I need to get these rabbits on the fire.”

  Gefjun looked straight at her and picked more comfrey. “This works a little bit on burns,” she said. “But, may I remind you that this will not take the pain away. And severe burns take a very, very, long time to heal. You will not like to be treated for burns. I guarantee it.”

  Dyrfinna just handed Gefjun her small stack of comfrey leaves.

  They soon reached the cook fire, and Dyrfinna had to sit down because her legs were completely done with walking. Using her dagger, she ungloved the first rabbit and prepared it for cooking.

  “I saw you running after that dragon,” Ostryg teased as he laid a large log carefully on the smaller, burning logs. “Did you catch it?”

  “No,” Dyrfinna said. “But I didn’t see you grabbing that dragon in mid-flight, either.”

  “I wasn’t going to do that. You’d just yell at me for taking your dragon.”

  “That’s right. And I saw where it lives. It’s got a clutch of eggs on the other side of this mountain, on an island. I am going to try and get them.”

  Both Ostryg and Skeggi looked at Gefjun.

  Gefjun shrugged. “I’m not going with her. Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. I don’t want you going on a wild-dragon chase and getting burned to death.” Ostryg put an arm around her, pulled her close in a sideways embrace.

  Gefjun pretended to protest and push him away, then laughed and pulled him close. “The queen offered Dyrfinna a command if she brought back dragon eggs. Finna, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think she was joking with you.”

  “She was,” Dyrfinna told her. “But what would happen if I did bring them? Imagine that.” Because Dyrfinna, spitting her rabbit, could imagine it vividly. The queen giving her a command. Dyrfinna, leading armies into a surprise attack on the enemy, watching the opposing army break and run before her warriors. Dyrfinna, a few years from now, riding one of the grown dragons she’d raised from the egg.

  “Imagine this,” Ostryg said quietly. “Imagine your burned bones lying in the sun after your attempt fails. Then imagine Aesa crying when you don’t come home.”

  The air puffed out of Dyrfinna as if she’d been punched in the gut. How dare he speak of her little sister in that way. She glared at him.

  Gefjun broke in. “Finna. You know the danger. You saw Emil when they brought him in.”

  Her glare broke and she frowned at the rabbit in her hands. “I saw. It was horrifying. But I can’t be this close to a dragon isle and not try to get eggs. Obviously I’m not going to steal into a dragon’s cave while the dragon is in there, but .…

  “I think of Aesa all the time,” Dyrfinna said. “She wants to be a dragon rider, like I do. I know you don’t just become a dragon rider. Those positions are filled by the kin of the dragon rider, or their friends. They’re filled out to the next generation. And we have no new dragons.

  “If you become a dragon rider, you are bumped up to a very high level in Skala. A place that very few people get to enjoy, and your whole life is … unlimited.

  “I want to get some dragons. One or two. Because if Aesa gets older and wants to be a dragon rider, I’m giving my dragon to her. Just as long as she gives me a ride now and then. Because I love her, and she’s made me happy in so many ways.”

  Dyrfinna looked around at everybody. “If Aesa hates heights, or if she just doesn’t want to, I’m not going to make her ride a dragon. But if she wants to, I want her to have that chance. I know I can make it happen for her.”

  Everybody stared at Dyrfinna. Gefjun looked ready to cry. She ran over and they hugged.

  “So that’s why I’m doing this,” Dyrfinna said into her hair. “I’m going to be careful. But I want to try, and see what luck gives me in my attempt. Because if you don’t try, you stay alive—but you don’t get anything.”

  “And sometimes, even when you don’t try, you die,” Ostryg said.

  “Yeah. Why wait for death when you can go out and try and catch it?” Gefjun cried into Dyrfinna’s shoulder.

  “I said I’ll be careful.” Dyrfinna squeezed her. “I want to get close enough to that dragon to at least start figuring out logistics. I can scout it out and maybe think of a way to trick them and keep them out long enough to swipe a clutch of eggs.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Skeggi, looking up at her with those soulful brown eyes.

  Dyrfinna’s first reaction was to immediately come up with reasons why he shouldn’t go with her. Calm down, she told herself. Do you want to get those dragon eggs, or not? You need a partner—someone to back you up … or bring your body home.

  “But you can’t do song magic, can you?” she asked.

  He grinned, setting her spitted rabbit over the fire to cook. “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Makes it hard to do songwork if you can’t sing.”

  “Why can’t you sing yourself, madame?” Ostryg asked.

  Dyrfinna shook her head and turned from him to face the fire.

  He knew perfectly well why she never sang. And of course he had to call her “madame.”

  “Hello?” Ostryg said. “You can vanquish your enemies from a distance with songwork, you know.”

  She turned her eyes on him, her anger burning. “People die when I sing. Remember?”

  He turned away with a sneer. “At least you had a family,” he said under his breath.

  Gefjun nudged him hard.

  “What?” he asked, annoyed.

  Gefjun simply changed the subject. “So how are you going to get off this island without anybody noticing?” she said.

  “I’m going to take the fisher boat,” Dyrfinna said.

  “Are you going to swipe that while everybody is hanging around the ship having a party?” Because down on the beach, near where the longship had been pulled up out of the water, some of the Vikings were building a bonfire, and others were going down and joining them, slapping each other on the back.

  One of the Vikings on the beach had started singing a song, though it was less singing and more
like yelling words at the top of his lungs. Several warriors went to him and picked him up. He left off yelling music and started yelling swear words as they carried him into the pounding waves and dumped him in the water. The bystanders cheered. The singing man rose like a monster from the waves and tackled the others, dragging them into the water. The bystanders cheered again.

  “Half of the ship is out of their sight,” Dyrfinna said. “We’ll have to go in carefully, but there might be enough cover to where Skeggi and I could sneak the fisher boat out into the ocean.”

  Dyrfinna scanned the beach and longship from where she sat, getting an overall understanding of the lay of the land—high points, low points, what places afforded cover, where the Vikings would mostly likely gather. After a little while, she stood up. “I have an idea, but I need to mull it over,” she said. “I’ll be back in a little bit. Leave one of the rabbits for me—you guys can have the other one.”

  She walked toward the shore and the longboats, thinking deeply, looking at the land in the way she always did with her King’s Table game, musing over possibilities, considering moves, countermoves, a plan of attack. Time grew short. The sun sat low on the horizon, and if she wanted to get to the isle soon, she needed every second of darkness that she could wring from the night.

  When Dyrfinna came back, her cooked rabbit lay next to the fire, cooling off. “What did you come up with?” Gefjun asked.

  “I have a diversion you may not like,” she said mildly, picking up her skewer of meat. “Oh, I am so hungry.”

  As she ate, she told Gefjun her idea. Gefjun’s eyes grew larger and she shook her head. “Oh, no, what kind of idea is that?”

  But Skeggi and Ostryg hollered, “No, do it! Do it!”

  Ostryg got down on his knees to beg, and Skeggi copied him. “Do it!” they cried.

  “Come on! It will be the best diversion ever!” Dyrfinna smiled and wiped her mouth.

  “Ugh! No!” Gefjun covered her face, trying not to laugh, shaking her head. But then her eyes met Dyrfinna’s through her fingers, and she let her laughter loose. “Oh, well, fine. Fine!”

  They laughed and cheered her.