Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  “Yes.” Dyrfinna couldn’t keep the sadness out of her voice.

  She walked to their home alone. When she called for them at their doorway, they came out, and their expressions changed when they saw the look on Dyrfinna’s face.

  This is the hardest part of commanding, Dyrfinna thought, and took his daughter’s hands in hers. Hakr’s wife stood over their daughter, her eyes already welling with tears.

  Dyrfinna told them that Hakr had died in glorious battle, that he’d given this brooch and ring to them. “I have a small bundle of his belongings,” she said. “I didn’t bring it as I was in a hurry to get here. But I’ll bring everything to you, as well as your father’s share in the plunder. He was a good and strong captain, and I am going to miss him at the helm terribly. He knew everything about sailing and there’s nobody like him on these seas that I trust so wholly with my life.”

  When she returned to Mama and Aesa, she said, “I have to go. I need to take this dragon back to the queen’s forces before we sail this morning.”

  Papa leapt on that. “You didn’t have clearance to take this dragon. And you managed to nearly blow her out of the sky.”

  “Are you being a stickler?” Mama said. “She just saved this town. Saved us.”

  “She nearly killed a Queen’s dragon.”

  “You take them into battle constantly when you don’t need to!” Mama said.

  “That’s enough,” Papa said.

  Mama gave him a look. Dyrfinna knew Mama was going to discuss this with Papa later. And of course Dyrfinna had to hug her again.

  Then she swooped up Aesa in her arms. They hugged, her little heart pressed against Dyrfinna’s, Aesa’s little hands patting her on the back, her hair smelling like snowdrops.

  One last hug for everybody, though Papa got something of an air hug, and then she climbed back on Rjupa’s dragon. “Goodbye! Love love!” she called to Mama and Aesa.

  Papa followed her all the way back to the ships, as if making sure she wasn’t going to explode her dragon out of the sky a second time. She would’ve had an enjoyable flight, but with her Papa right behind her, she felt too self-conscious. She let the dragon set the course.

  Strawberries

  When they arrived at the ships, Papa landed alongside Dyrfinna. “I need to have a word with you. This time, no running away.”

  She kept her eyes down while she unstrapped herself. She wasn’t interested.

  “Finna,” he said.

  She hated when he called her that. Her teeth clenched as she slid off the dragon. She secured the ties so they couldn’t catch on anything while the dragon went flying, then she walked forward to thank the dragon and release her to get some food.

  “Thank you for taking me to Skala,” she told the dragon. “You’ve saved my family and Rjupa’s family, the people we love most of all in the world.” She felt the tears come but held them off. Her papa was right there.

  “Finna,” he said, coming over.

  “I appreciate your work,” she said to the dragon’s big golden eye, and she stroked the dragon’s rough face. The gold eye closed with a happy dragon grumble.

  “Finna.”

  Dyrfinna sighed and faced him. “Yes?”

  “You can’t just take dragons on a whim whenever you want to.”

  That cut. “I saved Skala,” she said. “People would have died if Skuld hadn’t brought me that vision.”

  “Don’t invoke Skuld if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “I don’t invoke her lightly,” she snapped.

  Oh, don’t lose control, she thought. He’ll use that against you.

  Control, control. She was so tired of control.

  He seethed. “I’ve seen people who say they’re having visions, and then it turns out to be a whole lot of nothing. And you can’t steal sentinel dragons. Period. You wait for clearance.”

  “I wouldn’t’ve gotten it,” she said, going deadly quiet. “Sinkr wouldn’t have granted it. Because that boy of yours doesn’t care about how many lives he throws away in battle.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “He killed five hundred good men and women in one fell swoop.” She pointed out at the ocean. “That boy you raised over me to command killed a lot of fighters yesterday, which he could not have done if he’d simply followed the very simple basics of battle strategy. Rules that I fully understand.”

  “Turnabouts in battle happen.”

  “You always told me that they don’t have to happen,” she shouted. “If you would at least hold that boy up to the same standards you insist of me, then none of this would have happened.”

  “Stop calling him ‘that boy.’ He’s older than you.”

  “By less than a year. And he is stupider. And your standards for him are much lower than they are for me.”

  “Because you refuse to control your gift.”

  “I don’t need magic to do the things I’m doing, Papa,” she said in a voice of steel. “None of those good fighters who have families would be lying at the bottom of the ocean now. Some of them would have had a shot in returning home to them.”

  “People die in battles, Finna.”

  She fixed him with a glare. “So do sisters, Papa. And sometimes it’s by accident.”

  Papa grew absolutely white with rage.

  She could actually see him tremble.

  “Get out of my sight,” he hissed.

  She looked at him slowly. “You followed me here. You don’t have to stay. After all, Sinkr is in charge. So that makes everything all right.”

  Dyrfinna turned her back on Papa and walked to the dragon, not wanting him to see how shaken she was. She rested her head on the dragon’s face for a moment, and the dragon grumbled happily.

  Love love, the dragon said, just as Aesa said to her.

  “Love love,” she told the dragon, her heart trembling to think of her sister. “Thank you for saving my people.”

  Then she turned and walked down to her crew, and the cook fires where the smells of breakfast rose up. She wanted to eat so badly and maybe catch a short sitting-up nap before they cast off again.

  Svala, who she’d put in command of her ship yesterday, pressed some warm bread into her hands. “Where have you been?”

  “We heard you went for a joyride,” said a very grungy Viking through a mouthful of food.

  “Stole a dragon!” someone else shouted, fork in the air.

  “Sinkr said you were going on a crime spree,” Skeggi said, joining her.

  “He said what?” Dyrfinna squawked.

  “Actually, he didn’t say that, but close enough.”

  She gave Skeggi a little shove. “Don’t mess with me right now. Seriously. I just saved Skala and then Papa showed up and chewed me out over it.”

  She sat down on a log and ate a bite of bread. The crust was a little gritty from apparently having fallen into the fire, but it still tasted wonderful to her, as hungry as she was.

  Skeggi eyed Dyrfinna, then handed her a piece of his fish to eat. “Is it true?”

  Dyrfinna nodded, the fish already in her mouth. “Every bit. I had a vision of child-killers in Skala, so I grabbed Rjupa’s dragon and flew out there. We chased four shiploads of fighters out of Skala. Rjupa’s dragon set three of those ships and occupants aflame, before they could burn down our houses.” Dyrfinna swallowed hard.

  “Does anybody have a little ale or mead for our commander?” Svala asked, her eyes wide and approving.

  Three people sitting around the cook fire held out their drinking horns. Dyrfinna took a drink and tried to hand it back, but the warrior said, “No, no, I insist. You drink that. I’m full.”

  “You’re very kind,” Dyrfinna said, and emptied it in a few gulps.

  “You need to take better care of yourself, commander,” she said when Dyrfinna handed the warrior back her drinking horn. “You barely eat and you hardly ever sleep. If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re going to run yourself
down. We can’t afford that.”

  “I can sleep when I’m dead,” she said around her next mouthful of fish.

  “Well for goodness’ sake, don’t be in a hurry to die. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Skeggi shook his head. “Your papa was mad about your saving Skala?”

  Dyrfinna snorted, chewing and swallowing her fish. “How hard would it be to defend your own daughter?” she wondered aloud. “Or to thank her for saving the lives of your family?” Then she ate another bite of bread.

  Ragnarok came over. “I want you to have some of these. Hold out your hand.”

  Dyrfinna did, and he filled her hand with dried strawberries.

  “Listen to what she’s saying,” he rumbled. “Take care of yourself. We need you.”

  The fragrance of the strawberries was so good.

  Suddenly, she felt tears coming on.

  “Thank you,” Dyrfinna said, her voice breaking.

  “Because if you took out four shiploads of Varinn’s soldiers,” Ragnarok added, “then we could send you out to fight and win the rest of the war, while the remainder of us relax and watch and cheer you on.”

  There was some laughter, and several of the Vikings said, “Hear, hear,” raising their drinking horns.

  Dyrfinna laughed, too, and her tears vanished. “You’re a damn good man, Ragnarok.”

  Ragnarok actually blushed. Everybody cheered.

  “And don’t forget, thanks for saving Skala!” somebody bellowed.

  “Kind of forgot that little detail,” somebody else added.

  Dyrfinna thought of Aesa’s hug. “I don’t do it for glory.”

  “Oh, yes you do,” Skeggi said, and they laughed again, just as the horn sounded from the waterside.

  The troops, still quite merry, got up. They gathered their things, took their food off the fire, finished or not, and started heading down to the ships.

  Dyrfinna put her strawberries in her pocket, eating them as she went, and caught up to Skeggi. “Rjupa,” she said. “How is she doing today?”

  Skeggi blew out his breath and ran his hand through his hair. “She’s alive,” he said, and his voice trembled. “It’s touch and go right now. The good thing is, we’ve got a lot of healers who are singing over her, helping ease her pain a little so she can heal. They have her near a spring where they can pour water over her legs and arms to ease the pain.”

  Dyrfinna’s heart broke. There was only so much that healing music could do. “I’m so sorry.”

  “She won’t look the same. And it’s possible she’s lost her eyesight. Not that I care. I’m just warning you.”

  Dyrfinna nodded. She’d seen what burns could do to people. She glanced up the mountain to where Gefjun had her wounded. “I need to go see her, but I still have to command a ship. I’m sorry, Skeggi. I don’t mean to be so busy that I can’t go check on her.”

  “I understand. I have command of a ship, myself.”

  “Oh. That’s right.” She had forgotten that detail.

  Then he did smile a little. “I can support my songbird for good with this ship, once this war is over. You know that, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “You could have kept that ship for yourself as plunder of war.”

  She shrugged. “It’s more important to have people in command of my fleet that I can trust.”

  Skeggi groaned. “Oh, stop. You’re overvaluing me.”

  “No. Not one bit.” And she headed down to her ship, calling her crew.

  The clouds in the east looked low and ominous, though. She needed a weather report.

  “Hakr!” she called—and immediately realized, as soon as his name was out of her mouth, that he was dead.

  Grief overwhelmed her. She bowed her head so the crowds of Vikings couldn’t see her face. How long would she keep looking around for him, expecting to see him standing on the ship’s edge and waving his old wide-brimmed sea hat?

  But what will hurt worse, she thought, is when I stop looking around for him. The old captain, her old friend, who held her hand when she was a tiny girl, toddling around the deck of his ship. Even now she could hear his voice, just as sprightly as ever.

  Dyrfinna sighed and brought herself back to the present. “Any weather watchers here?” she said. She had a very bad feeling about those clouds.

  Sinkr shouted, “Those clouds will go away soon! You’re getting worked up over nothing.”

  Skeggi leaned in to Dyrfinna. “Has anybody noticed that whenever he says anything, it turns out to be incredibly wrong?”

  Dyrfinna snorted a laugh.

  “Keep loading the ships,” Sinkr called.

  The clouds rolled in, a black battalion. A sudden wind blasted sand into the air, and whitecaps foamed up, leaping high. Waves started smacking the coast, lifting ships up, even bumping some together. A fast-moving squall had come upon them.

  Running against the hard wind, crews hurried to the shoreline, threw ropes, and pulled each ship, one by one, higher on the sands. The heavy winds and high waves helped each ship along, though occasionally the outgoing surf would nearly suck one out to sea, and burly men would be dragged helplessly behind it until the waves came back in again, and they would run uphill with the ropes, pulling hard.

  Once all the ships were high enough on the shore to keep from being dragged out to sea, most everybody fled for cover as a huge roar of rain poured from the sky, so heavy that Dyrfinna couldn’t even see ahead of her. It rolled in like a dense fog, only far colder, wetter, and more miserable.

  Several Vikings walked around in the rain, laughing at the babies who were running for cover. Dyrfinna said, “If any of you come down with pneumonia from promenading out here, I’ll kill you myself.” They just laughed. She rolled her eyes and headed up the hill.

  Fortunately, some forward-thinking sailors, who had already read what the sky had been telling them, had ignored Sinkr and grabbed packs of sailcloth and ropes out of the ships before the waves hit. Now they were erecting low pavilions in some protected areas away from the shore, tied down with every knot imaginable. Vikings gathered here out of the worst of the weather, waiting out the storm.

  Dyrfinna caught one of these sailors and asked him to take a length of sailcloth up to the wounded.

  “I was on my way there right now,” he said, and she gladly followed him.

  Fortunately, somebody had already made a shelter of sailcloth for the wounded, but they were happy to see a second piece of sail so they could expand the shelter for everybody. In an eyeblink, the sailcloth was up, and the healers were able to gather here, giving the wounded the drier area under the first sailcloth to lie in.

  Dyrfinna went to Rjupa. She stopped when she saw her, her skin red, and black in a few places. She stood there a moment, out of Rjupa’s sight, breathing into her hands to try and gather herself so she wouldn’t make these stupid horrified faces at her friend. It didn’t matter what Dyrfinna felt. The only thing that mattered was how Rjupa felt.

  Once she was calmer, she went to her. Gefjun sat with her, singing a healing song. Rjupa’s eyes opened, and Dyrfinna managed not to betray her shock when she saw the whites of her eyes were completely red.

  “I’m here,” she said softly. “It’s me, Dyrfinna. I’ll stay with you as long as I can. I love you.”

  Rjupa’s lips moved slightly, cracked and red from burns, and her eyes closed.

  “She’s exhausted,” Gefjun said.

  “I would be too.” Dyrfinna looked sadly at Rjupa. “I wish it was me lying there instead of her.”

  Rjupa’s lips moved. Two of her fingers squeezed Dyrfinna’s hand.

  The Duel

  That evening, the rain let up enough to allow the Vikings to build cooking fires. They built one close to the healer’s pavilion. Dyrfinna sat down beside it and immediately fell asleep.

  Somebody bumped her hard on the arm and she jerked awake.

  “Why are you sleeping? Wake up,”
said Ostryg.

  “Nice to see you here,” she said.

  “Don’t give me that snark.” He sat down next to Gefjun, who leaned on him. “So where did you go with Rjupa’s dragon today?”

  “I went on a crime spree.” Dyrfinna built up the fire.

  “That’s not what Sinkr said.”

  ”Oh? Then what, pray tell, did Sinkr say?” she asked. “I’d sure like to know, as he has a better idea about what I’m doing than I do.”

  “Stop being snarky.”

  If she hadn’t been so hungry, she would have simply walked away some quiet, out-of-the-way place, curl up in her sea cloak, and go to sleep.

  “You took that dragon,” he said.

  “Yes I did. And I saved .… ”

  Out of nowhere her heart simply dropped. If Skuld hadn’t granted her that vision, Dyrfinna would have come home to … tragedy.

  “I saved some people today,” she said quietly. “Your parents, too.” She met eyes with Gefjun.

  Gefjun drew in a breath. After a moment, she said, “Ostryg, sweetheart, leave Finna alone.”

  Ostryg wouldn’t let up. “There’s no guarantee she saw that vision. I’m just saying. She might have gone on a joy ride and gotten a lucky break. You can ask Sinkr.”

  Dyrfinna snorted. “Why don’t you ask Rjupa’s dragon? She was actually there.”

  “Dragons don’t talk. And what was cutting up your arm about? That was creepy.”

  Dyrfinna looked at that painful cut. She’d forgotten about it.

  “Sweetheart,” Gefjun said. “Stop it.”

  “I’m just saying,” he told her.

  Dyrfinna shook her head. “I just want to sleep. If Ostryg would just stop braying his interpretation of everything Sinkr said.” Then Dyrfinna dozed off without finishing her sentence.

  She was awakened again by Ostryg saying, “Well, it’s true. You can ask her.”

  “She’s sleeping,” Gefjun said quietly. “Just leave her alone.”

  “Sinkr said that Rjupa’s injury is Dyrfinna’s fault.”

  Dyrfinna stretched. “How on earth is that my fault?” she asked bitterly.