Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  “You can do this,” Dyrfinna said. “I’m just sorry I’m going to have to miss it.”

  “Me too,” Skeggi cried. “Maybe I should stay behind .… ”

  “Nope!” Dyrfinna said. “You’re stuck with me now.”

  Saying that shouldn’t have made her heart leap. But it did. She kicked her lovesick heart out of the way and took another bite of rabbit. One problem at a time.

  They ate quickly, Dyrfinna laying out what they needed to do. Then she stowed her uneaten rabbit in her rucksack, along with some of her clothes to wrap the eggs in—or to wrap burns in, if the whole operation went wrong—several bladders of water, some herbs that could work as a preliminary burn medicine until they returned, a torch with flints, and some other items. She put on her sword and a small dagger, and wore a short black cloak with hood to try to blend in with the night.

  Skeggi packed his own bag. Gefjun went to get ready, and Ostryg made comments about everything that was going on, as he always did.

  Finally Gefjun came out of a little glade with a black cloak wrapped around her. “This is going to be… very interesting.”

  “You think?” Dyrfinna asked.

  Gefjun just narrowed her eyes at her. “If you die in this stupid mission of yours, I swear I’m going to kill you.”

  “I’ll try not to die,” Dyrfinna said.

  They all trooped down toward where the Vikings were gathering around the longship.

  She and Skeggi parted ways from Gefjun and Ostryg and started cutting across the country through the brush and small trees at the edge of the beach, on their way to borrow the fisher’s boat from the ship.

  Dyrfinna was keeping an eye on her surroundings, making sure there weren’t any Vikings wandering around to see them as they hurried through the thin forest, but at the same time, her brain was already way, way ahead, thinking about where on that little island they’d stow the boat, trying to figure out how they could get back across the water if the dragon spotted them and started laying down a line of fire .…

  A woman’s shout came up from the beach.

  “It has begun,” Dyrfinna said, hurrying faster, but looking over her shoulder.

  Gefjun stood on the beach by the enormous fire, wrapped in her black cloak. “I entreat the gods to attend to my call,” she sang in a glorious voice. Even from here, the magic in Gefjun’s song touched Dyrfinna and lifted her heart. “Come gather ’round, brave Vikings, for I am here to fight a duel!”

  Vikings came running to see what was going on. Someone roared, “Yeah! Whoo!”

  “My griefs are very great,” Gefjun assured the gathering crowd, smiling. “Let me detail my woes to all and sundry.

  “First: His belches are loud, making the earth shake to their foundations, and they afflict my ears with their might and make them to bleed.”

  “Now you’re talking!” somebody shouted. Several Vikings began belching as loud as they could.

  “Second: His mighty beard is so filled with grease, that if the world were set afire, it would burn a week longer than the rest of it.

  “Third: His farts are terrifying and mighty. One time when his ship was becalmed, and no wind blew to fill the sail, he climbed up into the stem of the ship, pointed his rear to the gentle sea behind him, and propelled the ship home through the power of his farts alone.”

  “That was me! That was me!” somebody in the crowd was shouting.

  Gefjun squinted at him. “Nah, it wasn’t you,” she said, and the guy groaned.

  She straightened back into her role. “This man – more than man – has assaulted my ears, my eyes, and most of all, my delicate nose through the three ways I have listed just now. My grief is greater than my heart can hold. Greater! Far greater! And so …. ” She swept the crowd with her gaze. “I challenge Ragnarok to a duel!”

  The crowd whooped and pushed Ragnarok to his feet, which was something like a mountain getting up.

  “Men, don’t stand too close to his arse,” somebody remarked, and the crowd laughed.

  Ragnarok nodded to everybody as he lumbered over to where Gefjun stood.

  Even though Ragnarok was a huge warrior, everybody knew he was tender-hearted. Also, he loved kittens.

  “I am here to make answer to your complaints, little lady,” he said amiably, and made a neat little bow.

  Skeggi murmured, “The oak tree bows to the flower,” and Dyrfinna laughed.

  Everybody ran over, some running past them, to watch the fun. At this rate, there wouldn’t be any Vikings left on the beach near the ship to see them sneaking off.

  Skeggi quietly sang a few words, and a sensation slid over Dyrfinna’s skin, like a cool sheet over her body. She shivered.

  “I just made us invisible,” he murmured into Dyrfinna’s ear.

  She shivered again, but murmured back, “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Something I keep under wraps,” he said, as a drunken man staggered past, leaving the strong stink of ale in his wake.

  “This clears up a lot of problems,” she whispered as they made their way forward again.

  “We’re not entirely invisible,” he said. “Just hard to notice. So keep that in mind.”

  She nodded. She wasn’t going to bet on the magic working on the dragon, just to be careful. A dragon’s eyes and mind would be different than theirs, and she didn’t want to take any chances.

  They reached the longship, and quietly sneaked up the plank—

  —and found a couple making out inside the ship, completely liplocked and breathing heavily through their noses.

  Dyrfinna ducked down to the ship’s side so no one could see her outline against the sky. “How invisible are we?” she hissed at Skeggi.

  “Right now, pretty damn invisible,” he said, grinning and staring at the couple. “Mm-mm.”

  Dyrfinna gave him a solid nudge. “Knock it off, soldier. Maybe they’re lost in each other’s eyes, or .… ” But then she added, “Follow me. I have a little idea.”

  So the couple broke out of their kiss in horror when the fisher boat suddenly rose up into the air with a loud groan. It floated there as if gravity had let it loose.

  “What the Hel!” cried the man.

  “YOU HAVE ANGERED THE GODS OF THIS SHIP,” Skeggi and Dyrfinna burst out in unison, and ran at them with the boat between them, seeming to fly in the air straight at the couple.

  The couple made a short screech as they both flew over the side of the ship. They made soft thuds in the sand.

  After a moment of silence, the woman said, “You’re not telling anybody about this.”

  The man scrambled up and said, “Only if you keep your mouth shut first.”

  She and Skeggi looked over the side of the boat. All clear on the dark side of the ship, away from the bonfire. Carefully they slid the boat over the side and let it fall into the sand.

  “You’d better return that when you’re done,” Skeggi said.

  “Oh, I will,” she said.

  They both leapt down from the side of the longship, grabbed the little boat, and Dyrfinna led the way along the brush that grew beside the creek and into the ocean, both of them moving fast in the dark, hoping not to be spotted. As soon as the boat was far enough out in the water, Dyrfinna leapt in, holding on to the sides as Skeggi pushed them into the surf, then jumped into the boat. They both grabbed up a paddle, and the small craft leapt forward. They sat low in the craft as they traversed out to sea, hoping nobody had noticed a little boat setting off on its own.

  Dyrfinna looked back at the shore. Gefjun had thrown off her cloak, revealing her light, white dress that floated around her like thistledown, wearing her tartan shawl fastened in front with a brooch. They could hear her song faintly across the water. Her sword flashed in the firelight against Raganok’s. A magnificent sight. Despite her short-sightedness, Gefjun was an excellent swordswoman. She’d sing as she fought, and her song-magic helped her see and defend herself with her sword blazing. She fought Ragnarok glo
riously down the beach like a goddess all in white. He fought to defend himself, but she really was pushing him back, and the crowds cheered.

  Dyrfinna slid her glance toward Skeggi, and found his eyes wide and as awestruck as she was.

  “What I wouldn’t give to be over there right now,” Dyrfinna said softly. “I’m sorry to take you away from that. I think we’re missing something incredible.”

  “But we’re doing something incredible, too,” Skeggi said.

  “She’s good,” Dyrfinna said.

  “She has a good teacher,” Skeggi said.

  They were quiet. Dyrfinna was thinking about their swordmaster. “Where do you think she is now?” she asked.

  “With Rjupa and your papa,” he said. “And I hope they’re all home by now. And here I am .… ” He looked up at the stars for a long moment. Then he noticed Dyrfinna and quickly added, “Here I am, rowing into the jaws of death where my ladylove can’t see and appreciate the kind of fun I have.”

  Dyrfinna felt a flush of heat pass over her face and looked down. But she said, “When we get back, and when you see her again, you can tell her everything.”

  A Wild-Dragon Chase

  Their oars flew, and once they’d rounded the mountain, the island on the other side slowly slid into view. The bonfire was tiny now, a flickering light from far away. Stars lit into view as the sky went from an incredibly dark blue and slowly moved nearer to black.

  From the cliffs along the island’s side, a glow appeared that matched the bonfire on the opposite side of the mountain. A tiny glow, no more than a sunseed at this distance.

  “Can you lay the invisibility protection over the boat, too?” Dyrfinna asked in a voice no more than a murmur.

  Skeggi, staring out at the cliffs, lifted his hands at once. When he spoke the word, sweat suddenly gleamed on his forehead, but the boat became oddly translucent under her. Small dark shadows moved under the boat—little fish, moving softly below them, and one big fish coming up to gawk, mouth open.

  “Neat,” she said, her voice still low. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

  He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

  A secret, huh? Oh well, he had his secrets, and she had hers.

  “So why’d you sign up to do hunting for dragon eggs?” Dyrfinna asked. “Nobody else wanted to.”

  Skeggi continued to row. “I like adventure,” he said. “I’ve been stuck running the household and raising five brothers. I don’t care if you’re going to fight a dragon in hand-to-hand combat; I just want to go outside and live a little.”

  “That bad, huh?” Dyrfinna asked.

  Skeggi laughed. “I wouldn’t call it bad. I love my brothers, I really do, and they know I’d do anything for them. But you get stuck around the house with them. I want to go out hunting and fishing, or hop in the canoe and glide down to the next village to pick up some supplies and talk to people. But I never can get away. There’s always a kiddo wanting something, or my older brothers would say, “You’re so busy, it’ll only take me a little time to do this,” because I could never get in a canoe without three kids wanting to go and the other two yelling at me to stay home with them. By the time I got everyone divvied up, my brothers would be long gone.”

  “The jerks.”

  “Yeah. They like to rub it in my face that they could get out and I couldn’t. I got the last laugh, though. I wanted to get out so bad I thought I would die of it. So I went. I know I broke everybody’s heart, but hell, I wanted to go with all of you and make Rjupa proud of me.”

  “Of course,” Dyrfinna said gently.

  “I have to admit,” he said, pulling on the oars, “I’m so scared of this dragon up ahead that I want to throw up. But this is still so neat. I live in a world where I haven’t gotten to see everything. And now I want to see everything I can. I hope I don’t die of fear from it, but my wanting to see is greater than my being scared of it.” Skeggi dug in the canoe paddle harder and the little boat flew forward.

  Dyrfinna grinned. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  She sat at the front of the little boat, casting around in the shadows, carefully studying the looming island up ahead. There were several high points on the island, but very little cover on them. Generally, good tactics involved singling out the high land as being the most valuable, strategically, but in this case, finding the highest land didn’t mean much when your opponent had wings and could fly over your head, zero in on you, and burn you to a crisp.

  So Dyrfinna was looking for caves, hopefully leading to a underground cavern. If a dragon tried to burn them out of a cave, they needed to be able to escape its fire by going out another way.

  “The land where we’d landed the Viking ship last night was volcanic, full of pocks and holes. The island would stand to be the same way,” she said to Skeggi. “My other hope is that maybe, from being out in the ocean for all these years, this island would have been washed full of holes, as other islands have been. At least that would offer us some escape, even if it’s just water to duck into as the dragons breathe fire down at us. Though,” Dyrfinna added almost to herself, “if the water we fell into was shallow, the dragon’s fire would likely steam us to death in a little hole, like clams in a bucket.”

  “You always look on the bright side?” asked Skeggi.

  “I don’t want to run headlong into this,” Dyrfinna told him. “What I want to do is explore this area. Find all the places where we can make a safe run from the dragons back to the shore. I want to get dragon eggs, but I also want us to survive.”

  “Being dead would solve a lot of ills,” Skeggi said.

  Dyrfinna looked at him. “Talk about looking on the bright side of life.”

  “It’s Viking humor.”

  Dyrfinna nodded and looked across the island, now so close that she could hear the water washing on the rough stones of its edges. The soil and stones were nearly black, much darker than the soil of the nearby isles. Had they been that burned over the centuries of the dragons’ reign here?

  When they pulled the canoe up onto the shore, Dyrfinna saw that the black wasn’t from the rocks being scorched, but a slimy algae attached to the rocks, blackening them and making them slippery. Definitely a problem she’d have to calculate into her equations. She and Skeggi slipped a few times trying to get the fisher boat up on the shore.

  “Be careful of these stones if we have to run out,” Dyrfinna said. “I need to find a stable place to put this boat where we can be protected from dragon attacks if it comes to that.” They hunted around for a while until Skeggi found a sheltered little cove where some ragged rocks stood. There was also an easy way up to the island among the stones from this place. Dyrfinna whispered, trying to keep her voice from waking any stray dragons nearby, “We need to fill the fisher boat with water and sink it here on the shore, so dragons can’t find and burn it.”

  That done, they carefully walked up the shore toward the dragon cliffs. The rough rocks crunched under their feet. “I hope they can’t hear this over the noise of the waves,” Skeggi whispered.

  Dyrfinna hoped the same. Logically, she knew the dragons shouldn’t be able to hear their feet on the shore, but the late hour and the fact that dragons were snoozing not very far away was beginning to work on her. Why on earth did she think this was a good idea? “First, search for caves,” she whispered.

  They found one that seemed to reach well into the rock, a very narrow one, but a cave nonetheless. Dyrfinna moved the boat over there and sank it, and they walked back into the cave. Skeggi had brought a nice small torch, and once they got it sparked with a bit of flint and rock, it popped into light and they looked around them.

  This was a small cave, and they could walk only while stooping. Other people had been here long ago, for there was a sign of a fire, long extinguished. And some old clothes lay folded in a corner. Skeggi lifted them up, and they actually crackled, from having lain folded for so long. Something hard fell out.

  “A dagger!” he wh
ispered.

  “Nice!” Dyrfinna said, very much pleased.

  Skeggi tried to pull it loose. “It’s rusted into its sheath.”

  “We can have the smithy fix that when we get back.”

  Skeggi searched through the rest of the clothes, but found only a flint sparker and a few little clay marbles, of all things.

  He pocketed those for his brothers. “Do you think that person had children?”

  “It’s possible.” Dyrfinna held up the torch.

  ”That’s too bad.” Skeggi said quietly as he looked at the marbles in his hand. Doubtless thinking of the children who never saw those marbles, or their parent, again.

  Dyrfinna stepped forward into the cave, looking out for animals and watching out for pools. Places like this often had puddles that looked innocent, but they were actually pits that would drop them into the ocean.

  They walked farther into the darkness. The cave grew narrower, and rougher.

  “Do you mind if I put out this torch?” Dyrfinna asked. But then she changed her mind. She didn’t want to be stuck with no light, and she didn’t want to leave Skeggi in the dark. “Wait. How about this instead. You stay back here and hold the torch. I’ll go forward, carefully looking for holes to the surface. I don’t want to alert any dragons by shining a bunch of torchlight up into their island. I’ll feel my way forward in the dark. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Dyrfinna felt her way along. With the torch well behind her, every stone under her feet cast a shadow longer than death, and her body cast a shadow in front of it that blocked everything else. Like she was walking into her own shadow.

  Dyrfinna watched for dangers while clambering through narrow gaps that took her breath away. She kept looking up, praying to see a little starshine from above. Moving away from the torch, letting her eyes adjust to the dark, she didn’t dare turn around and look for the torch so she wouldn’t ruin her night vision. She felt very much alone.

  Finally, a faint shine gleamed ahead. She shut her eyes and turned back toward Skeggi. “I see a light up ahead,” Dyrfinna whispered back to him. “Can you hear me?”