Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  “Yes,” came his warm voice out of the darkness. Their voices carried very well in here, thank Freyja.

  The stones under her hands and knees were sharp through her kirtle and pants under them. She had to worm her way between two big rocks. For a moment she was trapped. She struggled, and fought the sudden urge to scream. Stay calm. Stay in control. She breathed for a moment, and then wormed past.

  The hole widened overhead. “I’m going up,” she whispered down to Skeggi. “Are you okay?”

  “Hey yeah,” he said.

  With a nod, Dyrfinna turned back and climbed to the surface. She listened for a long time at the entrance, seeing the stars burning above. The soft rush of the ocean waves reached her, but also the skirl of an ocean bird disturbed. Dyrfinna’s jaw tightened. If that bird had been startled, something out there was awake and moving around.

  Dyrfinna eased herself out like a gopher and looked around. A wide starry sky arched overhead. No trees to block the view or hide behind. The dragons had burned all of them off. She reached out and felt her way, but her hands met rocks only, no grass. It occurred to her that this was probably a common place for intruders to enter the island. Here in the middle of nowhere, with no cover, the dragons probably watched this hole very closely.

  She lowered herself back down the tunnel and whispered, “Skeggi! come up a little ways with the torch. I’ll tell you when to stop.” She crawled up into the mouth of the hole and looked down at the ground, until she could see a faint light from the torch lighting up the rocks on the floor.

  “Stop right there,” she whispered, and she heard his feet scuff to a stop. That should be enough light so it wouldn’t be visible from outside, but enough to guide her back to the hole.

  She climbed out, ears wide open for any sound, but heard only the sighing of the wind, and the everlasting voice of the sea. She could see the glow of the torch from the hole in the ground, though that was partly because she knew what she was looking for. Good. She cast around for a landmark to guide her. Here was a craggy bit of rock in the middle of the island. She walked to that, then looked around for the next landmark. But also, she listened for the sound of dragons breathing, and found the sound toward the cliffs.

  She followed her ear.

  Partly there, she tripped over a skeleton. She jumped back. Her heart pounded in her chest. Probably one of those guys who’d been making for the hole in the ground and got caught in a blast of flame.

  She plundered the bones, because he was dead and wasn’t using any of his things anymore. Her fingers found coins, charred black in the moon, but the other side was shiny. Heavy too.

  She found something heavy. A dagger? It had the same feel and heft, though she was confused about what she was feeling. She stowed it in her shirt. Plunder was plunder. She found a few coins and what seemed to be a musical instrument. The poor man. She stowed all that away, too.

  Then she got her bearings off the previous landmark and she moved forward toward the dragon sounds.

  She didn’t want to get too close to the dragons, and she could see a flicker of flame from their sleeping places.

  Then from behind her came a scrape of soil. She whirled, but it was Skeggi’s silhouette, climbing out of the hole in the ground. He’d left the torch behind, at least.

  “Go back!” she whispered.

  No response, except for Skeggi walking silently toward her.

  She loved this brave warrior, but she was not about to put him in any sort of danger. Ugh! Why couldn’t he just stay put?

  Focus on the mission, she thought, so we can both get out alive.

  The approach to the cliffs where the dragons slept was a clear, open path. All the dragon had to do was stick her head out of her cave and spit a little fire, and poof, the end.

  Dyrfinna looked at the hill that led to the top of the cliffs. No cover there, either.

  Behind the hills, though, they’d have to clamber over rocks strewn across the rough ground. On the other hand, she could see gaps between the stones—hiding places to at least dodge the dragon’s fire.

  Suddenly a rattle of scales reached them from the other side of the cliff, like somebody dragging a shirt of chain mail over a rough patch of rocks.

  Dyrfinna and Skeggi shared a terrified look. His mouth was open in a square shape, and tension claimed every muscle. Freyja only knew how much her body mirrored his.

  Back to the hole?

  No, the rocks below the cliffs were closer.

  “Quick,” she gasped, seizing Skeggi’s hand. They fled toward the rough rocks as the mail-shirt rattle and scrape went on.

  The sound stopped, and a scream broke from the other side of the cliffs. Dyrfinna’s heart skipped.

  They ran, falling, scrambling over rocks, and Dyrfinna frantically looked for someplace for both of them to fit. She spied a bit of cliff behind a fall of stones, and a narrow gap underneath, wide enough for two bodies.

  She turned, nearly pulling her arm off in trying to change Skeggi’s course, and as soon as he was turning in the way she wanted him to, he saw it too. They both made for it.

  Another harsh scrape sounded, then abruptly cut off. A harsh leather rushing sound as dragon wings were extended, and then the hiss of their downbeat.

  Suddenly, all was quiet.

  “She’s airborne,” Dyrfinna whispered as they both tried to cram themselves into the space below the cliff.

  “I know,” whispered Skeggi, his voice shaking.

  “Drop the invisibility spell on us again,” she said.

  He did, and seemed shaken by the work. Dyrfinna looked wildly around. They were at least undercover, but they didn’t have an escape route. If that dragon found them, they were going to be burned alive, and nobody would know where to find them. Dyrfinna pressed against Skeggi’s body, and he wrapped his arms around her, but she was not exactly in a place where she could appreciate it right now.

  From under the sill of rock, Dyrfinna saw the dragon sink into view in the middle of the island, floating down, wings open, like a windhover hawk making sure of its aim before it dropped on the mouse it prepared to kill. Red and orange chased each other over the dragon’s scales, with silver lines like hot ash. The dragon was magnificent against the blackness of the starry sky. Its burning light was hypnotic, magical.

  Dyrfinna couldn’t help but marvel. Even the wings shimmered with orange and red burning light that moved across its surface in waves as the wind blew across it. The wings glowed brightly, like a burning log in the fire. A soft shower of sparks leapt from the wings, and shimmered on its scales. The dragon’s lithe body uncoiled as it turned in the air, its head over the hole, its body pivoting, perhaps to face into a small wind that blew the ash across the ground in front of Dyrfinna.

  And suddenly its mouth opened, its head moving down as it hovered—

  And a gush of fire erupted from it directly at the hole in the ground where they’d emerged, with a roar like that of the smithy’s forge, only a million times louder.

  Roaring, thundering flames with a white-hot intensity.

  Dyrfinna had to shut her eyes because it was so bright.

  And a second later the intense heat blasted her, so hot that her skin tightened.

  The fire-blast went on—and on—and on.

  How was she doing this? Every dragon had limited firepower. This was why they couldn’t just fly into battle and destroy everything. They had only so much fire before they needed to rest and renew.

  Dyrfinna turned her back to it, but it wasn’t enough, because the small alcove was catching the heat that rolled from her fiery blast. Sweat popped out all over her, evaporating as soon as it hit the air.

  Skeggi pulled in his hands to get them out of the direct heat. Both of them were whispering prayers as fast as they could, their voices so small against that endless roar.

  But something else was happening as that endless heat grew and grew.

  The oxygen was being sucked out of the air from the fire. Dyrfinna�
��s breath came shorter and shorter. Skeggi’s too.

  Dyrfinna held her breath as they met each other’s eyes, desperate, and there wasn’t even air to tell him that she loved him, and she was sure that the clothes on her back were on fire. But even in her agony she thought, Maybe I’m shielding him, maybe he can still live if I just don’t breathe and give him that little bit of oxygen, just a little bit.…

  And suddenly the flames stopped.

  Air rushed back, and they gasped for breath. Skeggi’s eyes grew wide and relieved, and she tried to smile in that stifling heat but was afraid to move. Couldn’t move, even though it was so hot in there still that she felt like she was going to die.

  The chain-mail rattle, the leathery sweep of wings.

  “Where’s the dragon?” she croaked softly.

  He raised his head to look around her, though trying to move as little as possible. “Flying this way,” he said in the softest whisper as the sound got louder. Then it vanished, though still faintly heard. “Gone over the top of us.”

  Dyrfinna moved back slightly to let some cooler air in. What a relief to feel it. But she was shaking badly. So was Skeggi.

  Still, she looked at him. “I guess I need to work on strategy.”

  He grinned, or tried to. “You think?”

  After a little while, Dyrfinna rolled over to crawl out.

  “Ye gods,” Skeggi said, and she felt his hand on her hair. Except her hair felt … weird.

  “What happened?” She reached back, expecting to feel her straight hair—and was met with a mass of curls. Not nice curls, but something that felt stiff and foreign.

  “The heat singed your hair,” Skeggi said. “My cat stuck his nose in a tallow candle once when it was burning, and his eye whiskers looked like that.”

  “Was that Boots?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “It just sounds like something he would do,” Dyrfinna said, gingerly touching her burned hair. “He was a good cat.”

  “Not unlike some people who go playing with dragons out of sheer curiosity.”

  “I’ll take your cat on my next mission,” she said.

  She crawled out enough to see overhead. Only the endless sweep of stars—no dragon in the sky, no dragon brooding on a nearby rock. She crawled out further. No red glow in the sky or on the mountain. Only a few licks of fire where the old skeleton lay. Amazing that there was anything left there to burn. She thought of that raging fire and her knees went weak for a moment. She’d seen fire from the guardian dragons and from the tame dragons, but they were nothing like these wild dragons. She’d had no idea.

  She slid out farther. Then she realized something—if Skeggi hadn’t decided to come out and go with her.…

  “I nearly killed you. Twice,” she said aloud. “If you hadn’t come out and followed me … you would have died in that tunnel.” She retched. “I would have killed you.”

  He touched her ankle. “That’s why I followed you,” he said. “I figured my odds were better.”

  Despite his joke, her heart was low. What might have happened … but then she pulled herself together. She still had to get him out of here. After everything that had happened so far, she deeply felt the mess she’d gotten them into. Because now, she had to escape the island with a dragon watching out for them, and they had to row away and get to land without being burned to death. On the open water, they’d be in clear view of the dragon’s den. There was no place to hide.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  The only place to go was the cave that led from the center of the island, and who knew if the dragon would return. They crept out there swiftly and hurried underground and ran—or tried to—the whole way down the tunnel. Dyrfinna was convinced that the dragon would come back and start blasting the tunnel with its fire. Indeed, the tunnel was still pulsing hot and low on oxygen from the last blast, and every step was torture, with Dyrfinna and Skeggi gasping for breath the whole way through. But finally they reached the open air by the ocean, and a cool breeze blew into their faces. Dyrfinna gasped and all but drank the air, she was so grateful for it.

  The fisher boat was still in the water where they’d sunk it. While raising it up, a glint from an oddly-shaped rock in the water caught her eye. But when she picked it up, it turned out to be a small golden ring, roughly made, with a ruby on top.

  “Well, how about that?” Skeggi said. “You found a treasure after all.”

  She slipped it on her ring finger, where it fit. She was charmed by the ring, as rough as it was, and immediately wanted to give it to Aesa, but only when she was old enough to not lose a pretty ruby ring.

  They pushed the boat out and began rowing as quietly and quickly as possible. Neither of them spoke. False dawn was beginning, where the sky in the east brightened even though dawn was still a good ways off. But any amount of light might reveal them to the dragon.

  They were nearly around the island, the eastern sky growing light. Dyrfinna started to think that they might be able to escape … when the chain-mail sound echoed from the rocks behind them, bouncing off the quiet mainland.

  Without a word she and Skeggi dug their oars in hard and flew faster, though Dyrfinna was too exhausted to think straight and her shoulders and arms burned.

  The cliffs behind them lit up with the light of the wild dragon creeping out of its cave. It stretched its neck out at them and screeched, and the screech bounced off the hills and crags on that side of the world in a way that went straight down Dyrfinna’s spine. Then it opened its wings wide and leapt at them. It came at them fast. She had no idea how fast those dragons could go.

  “Stop paddling!” Dyrfinna cried. “Breathe in deep!” She showed him. “Let it out and take another. Get air into you!”

  She pulled at the air with great, deep breaths as the dragon hurtled toward them, making herself dizzy. “Fill the boat with water. Leave the oars underneath.”

  She splashed in the water but held on to the side, letting water pour into the boat, breathing deep as the dragon came on. She could hear Skeggi’s deep breaths beside her.

  “Get ready to dive,” he said. Dyrfinna filled her lungs, a little more, a little more, watching that awful dragon come on.

  The dragon inhaled, and at that sound she and Skeggi dove.

  Both of them dove deep together as the water got cold and dark—

  And suddenly the water behind them filled with light and grew hot.

  Not again, not again, she thought frantically. But Skeggi gestured, pointing behind them, and started swimming in that direction. The water was cool and dark over here, where the dragon was not directing its flames. In the ocean, heat was slow to travel.

  They clung together, slowly drifting upward. The water was actually boiling where the dragon continued blasting it. She pointed, and Skeggi shook his head. Their hands were clasped together, Dyrfinna suddenly realized, his hand warm in hers.

  The flames stopped. Slowly, they rose to the surface, broke the water, breathed.

  The dragon was flying back toward its cliff. Thank Freyja.

  They were both gasping for breath, and the top of the boat could just be glimpsed on the waves, burned black to the waterline, swaying back and forth on each wave. Their bodies bumped against each other as the waves tossed.

  “Oh, ye gods,” Skeggi said softly, his voice cracking. “Let’s never do that again.”

  She couldn’t do anything about how her heart was pounding. “I think I’ve had enough of dragons for a while.”

  A wave nudged them together.

  And suddenly they were kissing.

  His mouth opened to hers, and she was pressing her body to his, feeling his heat. His arms went around her waist, and her hands rose out of the water to his face, holding him there for a moment, his stubble rough under her palms, their breath going hard, and her heart pounding like never before.

  A long, sweet kiss.

  Skeggi suddenly broke away.

  He started swimming toward the fis
her boat. She swiftly followed him, wanting with all her heart to jump in there and kiss some more, almost dizzy with the feel of his lips on her, his body against hers. The taste of him and seawater in her mouth.

  But he grabbed the bailer without a word and started bailing water out of the boat, blowing air hard through his nose, his lips tight.

  His cold anger crushed all her newborn feelings right there.

  Confused, trembling, she helped bail out the boat.

  “Skeggi. I’m ….”

  “I’m not ready for an apology,” he said, cold. He climbed in the boat. “I shouldn’t have done that. Even if we just about got killed by a dragon, it doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t know what got into me.” Dyrfinna climbed over the edge of the boat also.

  “I do,” he said, meeting her eyes. “You’re in love with me. I know that. And there’s not a damn thing I can do to help you.”

  She picked up an oar and thrust it at him. “You could row,” she said quietly.

  They started rowing back.

  All of this done in absolute, uncomfortable silence.

  They rowed for a while, until they rounded the curve of the island and the dragon’s isle fell out of sight behind them.

  Finally Skeggi sighed. “Finna, I’m sorry.”

  “No,” said Dyrfinna, her voice hard, looking at a faraway point. “I’m really kind of not feeling it either.”

  Even though she absolutely felt it. Even though she wanted, more than anything, to hear his heartfelt apology, to accept his apology … but then she wanted it to lead to kissing. A lot of kissing. And possibly them lying at the bottom of the boat, their bodies tangled together, and they’d talk about all the things that lay in their hearts, revealing their dark secrets, declaring their love for each other between passionate kisses ….

  She snorted at herself.

  “Every breath of yours is precious to me,” she said quietly. “Your heart, your wishes, your thoughts. Every part of you intrigues me, because I love you wholeheartedly. But none of you belongs to me. I’d be no more than a thief, trying to break in and steal a heart that belongs to someone else. And I know that. Skeggi, I love Rjupa. She’s my dear friend. But I don’t love her as beautifully and wholeheartedly as you do. And she loves you just as deeply and generously.”