Dragons and Mages: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  “Papa said that I led my ships into a trap?” Dyrfinna asked. “He seriously blamed that on me?”

  Mama looked confused. Then her face hardened. “Is he doing this again?”

  “That’s not the half of it. Then what happened?”

  “He said that our fleet was attacked. Many of them managed to get away, but your ship was surrounded and captured, and all of your people were taken into thralldom by King Varinn himself.”

  “No!” Dyrfinna lowered herself to sit on a low stone wall. “Is that the truth?”

  “Yes, because there were other reports. But your papa said that you also were taken by the king and carried away with all the rest of the crew.”

  “That’s a lie. I was trapped on a dragon’s island and had no knowledge of the battle or my ship being captured.”

  “A dragon isle?!” Mama looked at the dragon.

  The dragon made a restless move behind her.

  “Oh!” Dyrfinna said. “This dragon saved my life and brought me home. I promised her the finest bull in our pasture. But she has to get back to her eggs.”

  Mama blinked at the firedragon and nodded, her mouth agape.

  Thank you, said the dragon and turned to face the pasture. Then the dragon looked over its shoulder to regard Dyrfinna.

  If you need me, call me. And the dragon told her its name. Call my name if you need me again.

  “Are you sure?” Dyrfinna said. ”I thought you didn’t want to be in thrall to any human.”

  That is true, the dragon said. At the same time, I like beef. And when somebody says, ‘Give me a ride and I’ll give you a lovely bull,’ and then she keeps her promise—well, I can’t help but make an exception for that.

  “Everyone has her price,” said Dyrfinna.

  Only the hungry ones, she said.

  An idea burst into her head. “Dragon, dragon. After you eat your bull, could you take me to King Varinn’s keep? If you do, I’ll give you two bulls.”

  “King Varinn’s keep?” Mama cried. “In your condition? Not on your life.”

  “But .… ”

  Mama said, “No adventures for you. You are going to march right inside this house and lie down until you get better. You’re more likely to faint than fly to the King’s Keep.”

  “But .… ”

  “Go,” said Mama, “Or I’ll drag you in there myself.”

  Dyrfinna gave the dragon a rueful look. “I guess I’m not going anywhere after all. Go get your bull,” she said to the dragon.

  You have a good mama. The dragon bowed slightly. Go recover. Get better. If you need me to take you someplace later, I can.

  “You will?”

  Indeed, the dragon said. My babies will be hatching soon. They need food. Now, just as a reminder, I am not a ship to be sailed here and there, and I can see your beef herd is not large. We both need to survive hard times. But I believe we can work something out.

  “Thank you for your kindness, Dragon. And thank you for showing me mercy.”

  May the eternals grant you your heart’s desire, the dragon said, and unfurled her great wings of fire. Step back. There will be sparks.

  They did, and so did the crowd of people who had come running to see the firedragon that had landed in the middle of town.

  Aesa clutched her puppy-doll and pressed against Dyrfinna’s legs, staring up at the dragon’s wings in awe. “Sissy, look,” she said.

  “I know.”

  The dragon said to Dyrfinna, Until we meet again.

  And then she sprang into the air, shooting over the tops of the fir trees, then suddenly dropped into the pasture.

  The cattle broke screaming. The dragon came out a moment later, wings laboring, a full-sized bull dangling from her talons. After she passed, the guardian dragon flew up to watch her go. Dyrfinna realized that the guardians had been keeping an eye on the situation the whole time. As they should, of course.

  Mama said, “Now inside, my chick. Once Gefjun’s mother is up .… ” then she stopped. “Off to bed with you. Sleep is what you need now.”

  Dyrfinna realized she needed to find out what other news met her mama. But Mama was right. She was exhausted.

  Dyrfinna walked through the house, so familiar but so different. She gazed affectionately at mama’s soft shoes lying by the doorway, at their big oak table, and looked at Aesa’s drawings lying on the table.

  Aesa said, “Sissy, Sissy, look,” and Dyrfinna sat down, her head next to her sister’s and looked at her picture of her and Dyrfinna, and rays were coming out of their heads.

  “I’m going to heat up a bath for you,” Mama said, pouring well water into a caldron sitting by the fire. She started pumping water from the little pump by the kitchen fire. “Get a nightshirt out of your room.”

  Dyrfinna took a bath. She hadn’t realized her ribs were showing. Then when she dried off and put on her warm, soft clothes, Mama had a meal for her of bread and fruit and cheese and fresh goat’s milk. Dyrfinna ate, just about crying with joy. “This tastes so good. You can’t imagine how much I missed these,” she said, eating the bannocks that were her mother’s recipe from the old country.

  “There’s more where that came from,” she said. “But first, you need to rest. Now.”

  Dyrfinna lay down in her own bed for the first time in she-didn’t-know-how-long, amazed by the softness of the feather mattress and her pillows, and the feel of the blankets around her, and how they smelled like the dried rose petals that Mama rolled them in when she stored them. Dyrfinna curled up like a mouse in her nest.

  “You don’t know how wonderful this all feels,” she said to Aesa.

  Her sister patted her on the forehead. “There there,” she said, imitating Mom.

  Dyrfinna kissed her hand.

  “Eew,” Aesa wiped off the kiss.

  “There’s more where that came from,” Dyrfinna said as she fell into a sweet blissful sleep.

  Wolf In The Night

  “I’m here to discuss the blood-feud.” The sound of Ostryg’s father’s deep booming voice carried into the bedroom and woke Dyrfinna.

  Blood rushed to her head and her heart pounded in her chest. Voices continued to converse in the other room, quieter now. She stood out of bed, straightened herself, and went out to face her mistakes.

  In the fire room, Mama and Ostryg’s Papa sat together.

  “Well,” said Papa Ostryg, when his eyes met hers. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Dyrfinna at once went down on one knee and dropped her gaze to the floor. “Sir, I apologize from the bottom of my heart for my misdeeds.”

  “Get up, girlie. Pretty words can’t bring back my son. Nitwit though he was.”

  Dyrfinna stayed kneeling. “I am willing to pay the blood price, though it makes me a pauper. I do not want a war between our families.”

  “Finna. That is not your decision to make,” Mama said gently. “Even if it were, your papa refuses to pay the blood price.”

  “That cheap bastard put you out on a dragon island,” Papa Ostryg said. “A stupid idea, if you ask me. He should have known you’d go riding a dragon out of there.”

  Dyrfinna bowed slightly, an incline of the head, just as the dragon did. Papa Ostryg was a swarthy, red-haired man, a Scot Gaels man from Pictland who’d come to Skala with his family when he was young. Rumor said that his family had lost everything during a series of Viking raids on their lands and villages. So, it was said, they had come to Skala and settled here in order to raid the Vikings from within. Whether it was true or not, they certainly were successful, piling up wealth through secret means so guilt could not be linked to them—and if it was, they found ways around it, through bribes and assassinations.

  And now Dyrfinna had found a way to turn their eyes right upon her family, upon her Mama and Aesa. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  But here he was in his wolfskin cloak, waiting for his answer.

  “I caught a lucky break,” Dyrfinna said. “To be quite honest, I had lost hope of surviv
ing.”

  “Right. Sure. Your daddy knew better.”

  Dyrfinna took a deep breath. “No, he truly wanted me gone and perished, but he didn’t want my blood on his hands.”

  Mama gasped.

  “I’m sorry, Mama. He shoved me off his dragon into the water. Then he went back and let Sinkr send my ship and others into a trap the very next morning.” She turned to Papa Ostryg. “King Varinn has them now, many people from here in Skala. As soon as I am well, sir, I want to take an expedition to King Varinn’s keep and rescue my people from thralldom.”

  Papa Ostryg roared with laughter.

  “What’s so funny about that?” Dyrfinna, shocked, failed to see anything funny in rescuing Skalans from thralldom.

  He slapped his knee. “You? You were exiled, lass! Exiled to a dragon isle! They’ve kicked you out of your army, lass. What, do you think they’ll just hand you an expeditionary force now?”

  Dyrfinna stopped cold, startled into silence.

  Somehow, during everything that happened to her, this had not occurred to her. She was so used to her lifelong ideal of being in command that she had never once realized, the whole time she was in exile, that her banishment also meant that she was out of the Queen’s army. And even if she requested an audience with the Queen … even then, who would the queen support? The young commander who had killed a former friend, or the man who had been her ambassador for decades?

  Papa Ostryg howled. “You should see the look on your face!”

  Mama stood, fixing Papa Ostryg with a baleful eye. He stopped laughing. “You should be ashamed,” she said quietly. “Háthski Buggason, you are a guest in my house, howling about the misfortunes of my own child, my own blood. She has offered to pay the blood cost, and has gone down on her knee to plead for your mercy on behalf of my family. You forget that you are under my roof, and I can have you thrown out in an eyeblink for your rudeness. Do you understand?”

  “Forgive me,” he said, clasping his hands to her. “I forgot myself. I had the funny thought that maybe she could throw her sword and her loyalty to King Varinn instead, and fight for his army. Once she’d won him over by beating the Queen in battle, she could name and get any terms she pleased.”

  “Are you mad?” Dyrfinna asked through clenched teeth. “I have already given my sword over to the queen. My loyalty lies with her. I am not a traitor.”

  Papa Ostryg just clucked his tongue.

  “I can pay the blood cost from my plunder.”

  “A pretty promise of future payments never holds water,” Papa Ostryg said.

  “I understand that.”

  “Unless you get me a baby dragon,” he added sneakily.

  Dyrfinna’s pulse jumped, though she didn’t let her face betray it. “No, sir. I cannot.”

  “I thought you were a dragon hunter, girlie. What happened?”

  Dyrfinna paused. “A dragon convinced me otherwise, and she and I have sworn oaths.”

  “She.” Papa Ostryg spat on the floor of their house and waved her away. “The sun has addled your wits, sure. Dragons kinna talk no more than a dog can.”

  “All the same, I have given my word and I cannot go back on it.”

  Papa Ostryg sucked on his teeth. “For shame. I know many who would give fortunes for a baby dragon.”

  Dyrfinna felt cold stealing over her, and she knew it was not from her weakness or from her exhaustion. All the same, she said lightly, “Then they should not give their fortunes to me.”

  Papa Ostryg frowned. “Oh, you minx. You are a funny one, aren’t you? All the same, I’ll have you know that I have friends in the highest places.”

  “Sir, I do not doubt it. Yet I cannot meet your demand, or my life will be forfeit.”

  “Eh? What?”

  “I’ll be burned to death if I go back upon my word. And I’d rather not die.”

  “Oh! Well then, why didn’t you just say so? Or are you toying with me with all your fancy talk?”

  Dyrfinna bowed. “I prefer to do you the honor of speaking to you as one who is above me.”

  “Well. Well.” He settled into his chair, satisfied, like an owl puffing up his feathers.

  “Sir, my papa refuses to allow me to pay the blood price. He preferred to throw me in the ocean near a dead island and leave me behind. I am not his daughter any more. However, I am here because my mama cares for me. As soon as I am well, I will leave. Though I’ll still visit,” she added to Mama. “But when I walk out of this house, I’m carrying what few possessions I own. I’ll have to leave behind the cattle I raised and my childhood furnishings. I can sell some of my cattle to pay the blood price, or give them to you outright.”

  “Are you keeping some of those cattle for that dragon of yours?”

  “Sir, she is not my dragon.”

  “She’s giving you rides.”

  “I paid her a fine bull to take me off the island, and she agreed. Otherwise, I would have died there in great agony.”

  He laughed slightly as if the idea of her dying in great agony amused him. “But when you came back here, you were haggling with her over prices. She has babies she wants to feed. Are you going to get to ride them, too?”

  She knew he’d been waiting to spring that question on her the whole time, from the naked greed in his voice.

  “When I was five hundred cubits away from that dragon,” she said quietly, “the heat from her flames was intense enough to melt my hair together on the back of my head, and my clothes started smoking and smoldering. She is not like our guardian dragon. This dragon’s flames are like white hot metal.” She met his eyes. “I would die quickly in those flames. But not quickly enough. My blood would boil inside my body, and the liquid in my eyes would evaporate instantly.”

  His face turned slightly redder than it already was.

  “I would rather not die in that way,” she added. “And I am sure you do not want to die in that way, either.”

  “Is that a threat?” he asked, leaning forward.

  “I’m just explaining what would happen to somebody who tried to steal her children,” Dyrfinna replied.

  He left with a bill of sale to a quarter of her cattle herd. Her blood debt was paid.

  Dyrfinna lay down again, even more exhausted than before.

  “Mama,” she said, curled up warmly in her blankets, “please take those papers to the queen. Also show those papers to everybody you run into on the street while you are walking up to the keep and walking back.”

  “Everybody?” Mama asked.

  “Yes, everybody. I don’t care who they are. I don’t want there to be a shadow of a doubt that I have paid my blood price,” she said. “Especially with Papa Ostryg. If people want to gossip, then let them be informed so they actually have truth in their gossip for once.”

  Mama put on her shoes and called Aesa to go with her.

  Dyrfinna instantly fell asleep.

  For the rest of the night she dreamed of Ostryg, gore dripping out of his head, throwing ropes around the fire-dragon and pulling her out of the sky. Or driving a sword through the dragon’s eggs. Or grabbing the baby fire-dragons, only to have his body go up in flames.

  She dreamed of shouting her people forward into battle, but then turning around and finding there was nobody behind her—and she was standing alone before an advancing army.

  And she’d wake with a feeling of great hopelessness. How could she be a commander if she no longer had an army? What was going to become of her?

  Outside of those dreams, however, the next week was lovely.

  Mama gave her apples from last fall that she’d laid away in the cellar, cut into small pieces so Dyrfinna could eat them without having her gums bleed from her scurvy. She drank milk and a little mead. She ate fresh strawberries by the handfuls, and bannocks, and delicious broth. She lay wrapped in light, soft blankets, and hugs from her Mama and little sister, and slurps from her dog Floki, who still smelled of chicken poop but gave her all the love.

  Aesa wou
ld have another picture drawn for her. Or she’d wake up with Aesa snoozing at her side, clutching her puppy doll. She’d kiss Aesa on top of her head and cuddle up.

  Dyrfinna woke up in the middle of the night to find Aesa standing next to her, patting her leg.

  “Did you have a bad dream?” Dyrfinna mumbled.

  Aesa moved slightly.

  “Are you nodding? I can’t see you nod in the dark.”

  “Can I sleep with you?” Aesa asked in a little voice.

  “Yeah, come on in. You got Puppy?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Dyfinna held up a corner of her blanket and Aesa crawled in.

  Dyrfinna gave her a hug, then tucked her blanket in around her. “Stay here a while with me,” she said. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  She nodded.

  Dyrfinna picked up Puppy and had him tip his head. Aesa smiled. Dyrfinna tipped her head right, and he tipped his head right. She tipped it left and he tipped it left. She nodded, and he nodded. Then Puppy slurped her check several times and she giggled. Aesa wrapped her arms around Puppy and hugged him tight.

  This was all she wanted, when she was on that burned island. Home.

  She’d have to leave soon. She had no command, her grandma’s ship was captured, along with her crew, and when it came down to it, she would have to leave her mama’s house soon and make her own way in the world. She did not want to live in the same house her papa still lived in. It was just fortunate that he had not returned here the whole time she’d been here.

  Dyrfinna dreaded seeing him.

  She didn’t know how she was going to do it—where she was going to go—who would accept the pledge of her sword.

  Dyrfinna had survived the island. She never dreamed that she could be home again. Blissful, she curled up with her little sissy. Her mama was making her buzzy snore in the other room. It made her smile.

  She had to get to her friends to rescue them, but first she had to get well. And she would. She’d get strong and then she’d head right over and save them all.