Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  “If you’d been better, you would have been awarded the dragon’s seat.”

  “I had absolutely no control over that. So how is this my fault? Do you have a real reason?”

  “Look, he’s joking. You’re taking it all too hard. It’s a joke.” Gefjun tried to laugh.

  “Not to me.”

  “Get over yourself, Finna.”

  Dyrfinna sat up and stared in disbelief at Ostryg. “Do you realize that the only way Sinkr can make himself look good is by spreading awful lies about me?”

  Ostryg shrugged, meeting her eyes. “Awful lies,” he mocked in a mincing voice. “See? There you go again. You’re too sensitive.”

  “And you are spreading those lies in open company. You, who have that sword because I let you take lessons with me.”

  “That’s not true.” Ostryg was on his feet. “I earned everything I have. You had nothing to do with it. I would have gotten here just fine without your so-called help.”

  That took the breath out of Dyrfinna’s lungs.

  All those years she’d let him join them in sword lessons, battle lessons. All those years .…

  “Who gave you that sword you’re using?” she demanded, pointing at his sword.

  “That doesn’t matter,” he said flatly.

  “You wouldn’t even have a sword at all if Papa hadn’t given you one of his,” she said.

  His face went red. Ostryg wrapped his hand around the dark blue sapphire on the hilt that showed that it had once belonged to Dyrfinna’s father. “Where I got my sword has nothing to do with what you’re saying right now.”

  “Uh-huh. And now you are stabbing me in the back for a chance at a little status.”

  “‘Stabbing me in the back’ is rather a dramatic way to put it. But yeah, whatever, madame.”

  She climbed slowly to her feet.

  Ostryg glared at her. “Yeah, sweetheart. Finally got a reaction out of you.”

  Dyrfinna lay a hand on the hilt of her sword. “You want to fight a duel?”

  Everybody around the fire grew quiet.

  Dyrfinna was shocked at herself. She must have been really exhausted if she’d allowed that to pop out of her mouth.

  Gefjun drew a breath. “Finna, no, this isn’t the time—”

  “Sure. I’ll do it,” Ostryg said, brazenly meeting her eyes.

  “You sure?” Dyrfinna asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. We can settle this once and for all.”

  “I don’t know what you think we need to settle, besides all of those lies you’re believing, but okay,” she said.

  “Don’t get snarky with me. You’re the one who brought up duels in the first place.”

  “That’s because you choose to spread lies from a boy captain who is super angry that I’m smarter and better at the job than he is. Which I am.”

  “Guys, stop it,” Gefjun said.

  Ostryg sneered at Dyrfinna. “You don’t have to rise to the bait every time.”

  “Oh, so you admit you’re baiting me now. Very good.”

  “You’re not so great.”

  “Personally, I wouldn’t have killed a bunch of the queen’s fleet in one swift rush. You got a sword?”

  “I have three swords.”

  “Good for you. All I need is one.” Dyrfinna drew her sword.

  “Guys!” Gefjun cried.

  “Sorry, hon, I got a date.” Ostryg pulled his sword, his face angry and twisted in the firelight.

  “Are you two serious?” Gefjun cried. “Put up your swords! That’s enough!”

  Dyrfinna flicked her sword at Ostryg’s. Flicked it again.

  Ostryg struck her sword away.

  Gefjun grabbed his arm. “Guys, swords down.”

  “No way, babe,” Ostryg said, staring intently at Dyrfinna.

  “Skeggi!” Gefjun called over her shoulder. “Come over here and help. These two are being stupid.”

  “I’m busy,” Skeggi called from Rjupa’s bedside.

  “Help me break these two idiots up! They’re fighting,” Gefjun said, trying unsuccessfully to drag Ostryg away.

  Other people started gathering to see the commotion.

  Dyrfinna wanted to lie down. But now people had started gathering, saying, “A duel? There’s going to be a duel?”

  It dawned on her that she was standing in a very bad position. Fighting a duel was not forbidden. But fighting with a fellow commander, even if he was a bad commander, was not the best thing for morale.

  “Hold up, hold up,” she said, trying to stem the flow of interested gawkers.

  “No. No holding up,” Ostryg said mockingly. “You wanted this. You specifically said, ‘Do you want to fight a duel?’ and my answer was specifically, ‘Yes.’ You can’t back out now. It’s what you wanted.”

  “You are not going to kill each other,” Gefjun said through gritted teeth, grabbing Ostryg. Then Gefjun’s voice turned softer. “You don’t have to do this,” she sang. “You don’t have to do this.”

  The magic in her words worked on Dyrfinna, and she wanted to open her hand and let her sword drop.

  Ostryg shook his head like a wild man, like a berserker, and he sang out a discordant note that grated against Gefjun’s song and broke its power.

  Then he burst out in a thrilling song about the joy of battle. At once their swords were up.

  The voices of the crowd grew louder and more excited as he sang. Dyrfinna came forward too. This song leapt around as they circled.

  “There’s nothing you can do about this,” Ostryg told Dyrfinna, swiping at her with his sword.

  “You are wrong,” she replied.

  Dyrfinna walked slowly to the right around Ostryg, sword down, just watching him as he slowly kept turning to face her.

  This isn’t going to be a real duel, she thought. We’ll just fight a little. Then I’ll whip him. Then we’ll be done, and he can go away and gripe.

  Like that sword fight between Gefjun and Ragnarok.

  Ostryg snapped his sword against hers. “Stop walking around. You’re not proving anything.”

  Only he was much angrier than they were.

  “If you really could rise in the ranks without my help, then you’d better give that sword back to my papa,” she said. “You don’t need it anymore.”

  Ostryg lashed that sword out at her, and she parried.

  “I can pledge my sword to your Papa,” he snapped. “He can make me his son, and then I can inherit all your goods.”

  Dyrfinna snorted, returning his hits. “You could. But Mama would throw you out on your arse before you ever got within a stone’s throw of our door.”

  Ostryg struck with his sword but she deflected it. Dyrfinna said, “You call that a hit? That’s pretty weak.”

  “Keep talking your snarky talk. You’ll be crying before I’m through.”

  “Yeah. From laughter.” Dyrfinna returned the sword to guard position, still slowly walking around Ostryg.

  “Hold still,” he said, walking the opposite direction around her so they were both circling, like doomed stars being pulled into each other’s orbits.

  “No. I like walking.”

  “Walking is stupid. You only do it to annoy me.”

  “See, that’s your problem. You think it’s all about you. That everything I do is to cause you untold pain and agony. Truth is, I like walking in sword fights.”

  All this time Dyrfinna watched him closely, stalking him like a cat. She twirled her sword lazily, then raised it to the level of her eyes, the point aimed at him, watching. He raised his sword.

  They stood silent, she relaxed but watchful, he tense and silent.

  He tapped her sword. She didn’t respond.

  Another long moment. Then he lunged, sword swinging, and she deflected it. He went at her, striking over and over, and she blocked each strike. On the last he got within reach of her … and she hooked his foot with hers.

  Ostryg went sprawling.

  Dyrfinna stepped back, rolling her
shoulders, as he pushed to his feet, his exhale hissing in his throat. Dyrfinna left her face blank. Don’t let fury drive you, don’t let anger drive you. Nobody has to kill anybody.

  Ostryg got to his feet, his face filled with disdain. His eyes never left hers. Then he lunged again. She parried and stepped aside, and letting him travel past her on his own momentum.

  And she tripped him again.

  This time he stumbled but caught himself before he fell. The crowd shouted.

  Ostryg regained his feet and spun to face her.

  “That’s not how you duel,” he shouted.

  Dyrfinna didn’t speak. Just twirled her sword and watched him.

  “These things have rules, but like everything else you do, you flout them all,” he spat.

  “Hmm. Is that so?”

  Ostryg lunged again. The first strike she parried, but the second strike went through and cut a line across her shoulder.

  She gasped and fell back. Ostryg went after her, singing his battle song, infused with magic. “My might is far greater, every strike of my sword is deadly, you’re going to fall before me, drenched in blood.”

  Their swords clashed and sparks sprang out from their edges. He was fighting valiantly now, every strike of his sword sending a heavy shock through her arm and body, and he drove her back before him. She longed for a shield to defend herself, to turn those stunning blows away from her arm, but she’d left it with all the other shields on the edge of her ship.

  “She won’t sing in response,” somebody in the crowd said. “She can’t, you see, because …. ”

  “Shut up,” she muttered, and she dodged a blow from Ostryg.

  Then she heard, from the edge of the crowd, Gefjun singing with Ostryg. Infusing his song with power. He laughed, and swung his sword, singing with her.

  Dyrfinna felt that betrayal all through her being, even as the magic in their song made her tremble and draw back, despite herself.

  She hummed a discordant note, but it wasn’t loud enough to stop their music. She dropped her jaw slightly and popped her ears to open up her Eustachian tubes, then hummed the note again. Now the note she hummed was much, much louder in her own ears, and it was enough to break her out of Ostryg’s spell. She couldn’t do it long, though, so she started murmuring lines from her own song. Not singing them. Just saying them. Because even now, she did not want something to go wrong. Not here, with Gefjun just over there, a few sword-lengths away, singing with Ostryg.

  “We reddened the eagle’s claws with blood when we came here; the wolf had much to eat wherever we went,” she murmured, slashing hard. “Let us brandish our swords and make the air glitter! Our red shields shine now that battle comes near.”

  It wasn’t working. It wasn’t working. Ostryg knew all her old tricks, knew how she turned a blade, knew all that. His song was loud and insistent, and now others were singing along.

  “Those in seats of power, the ring-givers, the givers of feasts, call me to them,” Ostryg sang. “The poor are humbled, and I am raised up.”

  She’d known that he wanted to join people like Sinkr and her papa. And now he was fighting a duel with her, and he’d beat her down, and he would kill her, and then he’d take over her portion of the army, and take her place. And he’d do it with the blessing of her papa ….

  She did not realize what she’d gotten herself into, but at that moment she understood.

  She’d completely overlooked what Ostryg had been doing. Dyrfinna thought she was so much better than Ostryg. It turned out that he was way ahead of her, and was ready to take full advantage of it.

  This whole time he was eroding her leadership.

  And Dyrfinna didn’t even think he was worth noticing because she thought so little of him. Because she utterly scorned him.

  How blind she was.

  And now Gefjun was helping him.

  Dyrfinna stepped back. She set her sword down in the Fool position, in front of her with the tip of the sword on the ground.

  Ostryg paused, and his eyebrows went up. Then his mouth slowly slid into a sneer, recognizing the stance. “The Fool? Oh, so you admit it.”

  He stepped forward, his sword slashing at Dyrfinna. But her sword came up fast from the ground, cutting up from underneath, and Ostryg jerked back. He wasn’t fast enough, because his blonde beard had been cut in half, and a dark bead of blood welled up from his chin where the sword had caught him.

  That stopped his song.

  He lunged forward, and their swords clashed harder now than before.

  He began singing his battle song again, but this time it was furious, and his sword rained down harder than before, and Gefjun helped him sing against her.

  Then his sword cut through a gap in her armor, into her leg. It was a blow she felt to her bones. Intense pain shot through her, and she gasped, her breath coming short. Many people groaned.

  She gasped, crumpling over her wound, but she had to defend herself against his flying sword. His blows rained down, and his magical song rang in her ears, and the hot blood slowly ran down her leg. She was so exhausted.

  She pushed up and thrust him back. They broke apart.

  She straightened her armor, moved her shirt, and something crinkled underneath. Dyrfinna remembered Aesa’s drawing that she kept there, though it was probably covered with sweat by now.

  She immediately remembered Aesa laying her little head on her arm and smiling up at her.

  “I can’t die,” she murmured. “I made a promise.”

  But the song, the magic. How was she going to fight against that?

  She would need to sing. Sing, and pray it didn’t turn out in tragedy.

  Her blood ran cold. When Ostryg stepped in, she stood and watched. He raised his sword high, the point aimed at her.

  She took a deep breath and let it out, stilling herself.

  Dyrfinna imagined straightening her crown as she reached into her hair to touch her braids. Then she pulled the sword up so it was level with her face.

  They clashed again.

  Dyrfinna swung around, out of breath, panting, and yet she moved the sword with her dance.

  And this time, she sang. A dark song poured out of her, her sword clashing with his.

  Ostryg’s eyes widened as that darkness came out of her.

  Something broke inside her.

  Like a wild bear fleeing a blazing forest,

  She opened her mouth and unleashed a bear’s roar.

  It was a song, but she didn’t know what the song was doing.

  There was fear on their faces as she sang.

  Her sword was everywhere.

  The moon fled.

  The stars fled.

  The light was sucked out of the sky.

  She didn’t even know what she sang. She couldn’t stop. Her song was completely wrong, completely out of control, and she couldn’t stop singing it.

  Fear filled Ostryg’s eyes, and there was a harshness in his breathing but she was not about to let it go. He would not have. She’d been wrong. He was not here to show pity or kindness.

  And now, neither was she.

  Everything went red, red, red,

  and her sword lashed out

  working with a mighty will

  a million shocks as her every swing met his sword, blocking her

  but he was sweating.

  The pain in her leg was intense, like a red-hot band of steel tightening, throbbing on her upper leg

  and her sword circled and slammed down hard.

  Suddenly

  … screaming.

  Such screaming.

  Someone yanked her back and she

  found herself collapsing backwards against whoever had her

  hardly knowing where her feet were, unable to stand.

  Her eyes locked on Ostryg collapsed on the ground before her,

  kicking, his eyes bugging out of his head

  … bleeding out his life, his skull cloven in two.

  Blood-Price

&
nbsp; A new outcry, worse than the last.

  Voices shouted in anger.

  Hands grabbed her, yanking her this way and that.

  “Kill her!” somebody shouted.

  “No! She must pay the blood-price!”

  An awful scream ripped from Gefjun as she fell across Ostryg’s chest, clinging to him and crying out his name, her voice breaking, his blood on her arms and in her hair. Each sob wrenched out of her.

  Skeggi also on his knees by his old friend’s side, moaning in grief, stretching out his hands toward Ostryg’s ruined head, only the mockery of a face in that bloody mess.

  Dyrfinna couldn’t stop staring.

  Ostryg’s hot blood covered her hands and sword. It steamed. She went down on one knee, wanting to vomit.

  “You cannot blame her,” somebody in the crowd shouted. “He knew she’s a berserker. She killed a wolf with one arm while holding a child with the other. What did he expect would happen?”

  Sinkr came roaring up. Of course he would be there. “You whelp! I’m going to kill you right now!” He unsheathed his sword.

  The next instant, Ragnarok stood at Dyrfinna’s side as if Odin himself had dropped him there.

  “If you touch a hair on her head, you’re going to die,” Ragnarok rumbled. But he was staring at Gefjun and Ostryg, his eyes wide and tears standing in them.

  “Let me at her.” Sinkr lunged.

  Ragnarok blocked his strike, sparks flying.

  Dyrfinna struggled to come back to herself, but all she could do was stand there in shock, the way she did when she exploded her dragon out of the air.

  Sinkr stepped back. “She needs to pay the blood price,” he shouted. “She killed Ostryg, and I call on his family and friends to avenge this uncalled-for attack.”

  The blood price was the cost of justice. Dyrfinna or her family needed to pay a large sum of money to Ostryg’s family so justice would be served. Otherwise, a blood feud would begin, Ostryg’s family attacking hers, and those wars were often never-ending.

  And just then, a familiar red dragon coasted in to land nearby.

  How does he know to show up at the worst possible time? Dyrfinna thought.

  “What is going on here?” Papa demanded as he strode in.

  And then he drew up short, color draining from his face, as he saw Ostryg lying in his own blood.