The Dragon Gods Box Set

by Resa Nelson

  “I heard someone in the family knew how to find it,” another woman said. “They kept it secret. Only the women in their family knew about it. It could have been the grandmother. Or an aunt, possibly.”

  Ti forced herself to stay calm even though she wanted to jump up and down with excitement. “Can I speak with the grandmother?”

  “Dead.” The woman shrugged. “For a long time now.”

  “What about the aunt?”

  “Died last year.”

  Don’t panic. That handful of women in the Lu family can’t be the only ones who know how to get there.

  “I would like to find Seahorse Island,” Ti said. “Just in case my cousin might have found her way there. Is there anyone else who might know how to find it?”

  The women surrounding the empress exchanged glances. One of them said, “Maybe someone in a village on the coast. The fishermen know the islands.”

  “Any village?” Ti said. “I saw hundreds of port villages on the way here. Would all of them know how to get to Seahorse Island?”

  An older woman spoke up. “All we know is a rumor that the Lu women knew about the island. It’s a good guess that fishermen would know where to find it—if the island exists and is near our region.”

  A young woman sitting across the table from Ti said, “The Wulong Province is vast. If the island is in a far-away region, no one may know where it is.”

  Ti slumped in despair. “Then it’s an impossible task. If there are hundreds of port villages in this region, then there must be thousands of port villages along the coast of the entire province. It could take years to go to every village, and I don’t have years. I might have weeks or only days before—”

  Before I run out of time to find Frayka’s child and use its blood to keep my body from disintegrating.

  Ti realized with a start that she almost revealed the secret about her failing body and the one thing that could cure her.

  I can’t let anyone find out. I have to be more careful. I can’t allow myself to feel so comfortable with strangers again.

  Ti sat up straighter and resumed her thought with a more formal tone. “I might have weeks or only days before my cousin leaves the Far East. And if that happens, I might never see her again.”

  The coolness of Ti’s tone sent a chill through the room. Smiles faded. The women surrounding Empress Ti straightened their posture to mirror hers.

  “If I might speak, my empress,” a young woman sitting next to Ti said. “I have an idea. I don’t know if it will solve your problem, but it might be a good way to begin.”

  “Understood,” Ti said. “You may speak.”

  “It seems to me,” the young woman said, “that the best place to begin would be in the nearest port village. We trade with them all the time, and their fishermen are very proficient. They know fishermen from other port villages who know other fishermen from more distant port villages. If our neighbor fishermen know nothing of Seahorse Island, it seems to me that you could then sail past and ignore dozens of villages—perhaps even a hundred villages—before needing to stop at one.”

  Ti perked up. “Are you saying the fishermen gossip?”

  “In a manner of speaking. If there is anything worth knowing, they tell each other. And what they say spreads far and wide.”

  “Very well,” Ti said. “I would like you to tell me how to get to the village where your neighbor fishermen live.”

  CHAPTER 22

  When the grizzled fisherman roused Njall out of a peaceful sleep, the Northlander saw no sign of dawn. “What’s wrong?” Njall said. He yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why did you wake me?”

  The fisherman kept his voice low and soft. “It’s best to get an early start. Don’t want any busybodies seeing where we take off.”

  Njall sat up. Having slept in his clothes, he straightened them out. “Why should that matter?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said last night? I took your wife and babe to safety. When I came back, the royal guards and the boy were here looking for her. You want to laze around until they come looking for you, too?”

  “No.” Njall hauled himself to his feet. “I’m ready.”

  By the time they sailed out of the harbor and headed north, the new day brought pale light to the edge of the horizon. Njall reckoned that they would be far from the village when the sun came up.

  With the sail in place and a steady breeze keeping the fishing ship on course, the grizzled fisherman sat on a crate next to Njall. “An avalanche came to the edge of my village a short time before your wife and babe arrived,” the fisherman said. “Wreaking magic. Everyone thinks your wife is a sorceress.”

  Njall laughed until he realized the fisherman was serious.

  “Chunks of ice came down with the avalanche. Turned into a man of ice that killed my wife.” The fisherman looked into Njall’s eyes. “She’d taken some cloth your wife was wearing and wrapped it around herself. Looked to me like the ice man mistook my wife for yours.”

  Stunned, Njall murmured, “I’m sorry.”

  The fisherman shook his head. “Never got along with her. Meaning, my wife, not yours. The point is this: my home is the last place you should be. In case anyone should come looking for you in the upcoming days, I’ll be visiting a cousin up north for some time. Still, it’s best you keep moving.”

  “My wife,” Njall said. “You’ll show me where she went?”

  “I’ll show you where I dropped her off. And where I told her to go.”

  By the time the sun lifted above the horizon, the ship skimmed alongside a narrow beach. The base of the cliff bordered the hard-packed, damp sand littered with broken shells. Short and gnarled trees dotted the cliff wall.

  The fisherman pointed north along the coast. “I told her to go that way and look for a path. Timing matters. When the tide comes in, it cuts off this beach. If you don’t watch it, you can get stranded. Go before my friends and neighbors find out I brought you here.”

  Njall had wanted to question the grizzled fisherman since they first met. The question gnawed constantly at Njall, but he’d waited until what he believed to be the right time to ask. “You saw my baby. Does the baby look like me?”

  Am I the child’s father?

  “Couldn’t tell,” the fisherman said. “She kept the babe wrapped up like a secret.” He removed the cover of a squat barrel filled halfway with water. “Help yourself before you go.”

  Njall filled his drinking skin. Before he swung his legs over the rail to step into the shallow water on the other side, the fisherman gave him a handful of small dried fish.

  By the time Njall slogged his way through the water and stood on the beach, the fisherman had sailed so far away that he looked like a speck on his boat.

  * * *

  Njall gnawed on a dried fish while trekking along the sandy path the fisherman pointed out to him. He searched for signs that Frayka had walked this way but saw none.

  By mid-morning the sheer cliff alongside the path eased into a mountain slope. Njall noticed a trail winding down that slope and walked toward its intersection with his own path. Once there, Njall studied the scene.

  First, he noticed clear footsteps at the end of the trail where its incline looked steep.

  These could belong to Frayka. They’re the right size.

  Then Njall examined the beach beyond the intersection of the mountain trail and the beach path. Clumps of seaweed and shells delineated the point of high tide. Beyond that point, the sand sloped down flat and wide toward the sea, smoothed by the incoming and outgoing tide.

  Njall stood in front of a section of the beach that the tide didn’t reach. Here, the sand had been disturbed by wide drag marks.

  Those marks were made by a ship small enough for a few people to drag on shore. If they came at high tide, they would push it up this far so the tide wouldn’t pull it back out to sea.

  Keeping enough of a distance so he didn’t interfe
re with the marks in the sand, Njall found more footprints. Some were similar to the ones he had already found.

  Whoever came here with a boat, they took Frayka with them.

  Njall looked from the drag marks on the beach out to the empty sea.

  Where has Frayka gone?

  Njall decided he needed a higher vantage point. He considered the trail leading up the mountain slope, but he saw a higher slope beyond it. The beach ahead of Njall jutted out into the water, but the path he’d been following appeared to curve around it.

  There must be a trail on the higher slope. If I climb it, maybe I’ll see something that can explain where Frayka went.

  He circled around the drag marks as if leaving them in place might somehow help. But when Njall followed the beach path and circled around the foot of the slope, he came to an abrupt halt.

  Three wild men—covered from head to toe in long black hair—collected seaweed from where it had washed up on the beach. They looked up in surprise at Njall, grunted fiercely, and began to creep toward him.

  CHAPTER 23

  Njall placed his hand on the grip of the dagger tucked under his belt.

  Although the wild men walked upright, Njall wasn’t sure whether they were mortal or beast. Njall stood a head taller than most Far Easterners he’d met, but these wild men looked to be his height or taller. The hair covering their bodies looked thinner than fur and appeared matted and tangled. Their stench rivaled his.

  They looked strong. Njall wondered if he could take on three men at once whose strength equaled his own.

  Njall spoke, just in case they might be men. “I mean no harm.” He backed up a few steps until a grunt sounded nearby. Njall turned to see a fourth wild men an arm’s length away.

  It might be time to swim.

  Njall changed course and now backed up toward the incoming tide with a plan to swim out to deep water and then head to another part of the coast.

  He hoped the wild men couldn’t follow.

  Before Njall could reach the water, the beach shuddered and the earth groaned beneath it. Unable to keep his balance, Njall fell onto the soft dry sand.

  Unlike Njall, the four wild men dropped to their knees voluntarily.

  The mountain slope behind the wild men trembled and then tore open with a loud crack.

  A rocky shape stepped out of a fissure that opened up at the base of the mountain slope. It looked like a dragon that had been sleeping, caked in dried mud.

  Twice as long as a horse, the dragon walked on short and stout legs that bowed out at each side while its long tail thrashed like an angry snake. It dragged each paw, which flipped up to reveal long and sharp claws.

  Its stone-like scales glistened in the sunlight. Its jaw hung open, jammed with dozens of needle-like teeth. Long threads of spittle hung from its mouth.

  When the dragon walked between two of the kneeling wild men, one of them whimpered.

  Njall kept his hand on the grip of his dagger, wondering if he knew enough about dragons to kill one.

  The dragon stared at Njall while pacing toward him. But then the dragon whipped its body around to place itself between Njall and the wild men. The creature hissed at the wild men.

  All of them bowed toward the dragon, placing their foreheads on the sand.

  The dragon hissed again, louder and longer.

  The wild men, now with sand-covered faces, stood and ran up the slope that Njall had hoped to climb.

  Njall took a quiet step back toward the ocean.

  He tried to remember if dragons knew how to swim.

  But before Njall got close enough to the tide to get his feet wet, the dragon spun to face him.

  The creature shook itself and shifted its shape until it took the appearance of a man.

  The earth split open, and a dragon came out of it. Now that dragon looks like a man.

  This must be the dragon god of earth.

  Under other circumstances, Njall might have been filled with wonder and relief.

  But all he could think about was the story that he’d heard from the man by the stream. The story about Frayka becoming the bride of the dragon god of earth and bearing his child.

  Even worse, the dragon god stood naked after his transformation, bearing the finest male physique Njall had ever seen.

  So much anger filled Njall that he couldn’t speak.

  “My name is Wendill,” the dragon god said.

  Njall didn’t listen to the dragon god. Instead, he fumed.

  “I saw you were coming, so I prepared this for you.” Wendill swept his arm toward the sea, and the air shimmered. It then pulled apart like invisible curtains to reveal the Northlander boat that Njall had left on the other side of the mountain when he first arrived. “I told the boat where to take you.”

  Still not listening, Njall’s anger finally burst free. He drew his dagger, pointed it at Wendill, and said, “You have no right to take my wife!”

  Confused, Wendill said, “Your wife is not a possession someone can take. She is her own woman and makes her own choices.”

  “Then you worked your dragon magic on her,” Njall said. “You ruined our marriage. You ruined my life!”

  Wendill frowned. “I helped your wife. Were it not for me, she and the baby might have died.”

  For a moment, Njall remembered that the grizzled fisherman who brought him here said he never caught sight of the baby’s face—and without knowing what the baby looked like, Njall didn’t know whether he or Wendill was its father.

  There might be a chance I’m the father.

  Njall’s anger proved to be more powerful than that thought, and he pushed it away.

  Although he had never been one to spread rumors, he noticed they often held a bit of truth.

  “Stay away from my wife,” Njall said. He slashed the air between him and the dragon god to prove his intent. “You have no right to take her from me. You have no right to make her your wife. You have no right to take her to your bed. Leave her be!”

  Wendill’s face darkened. “Mortals have always been fools,” he said. “All you need do is listen to what I’ve been saying, but you push my words aside. You tempt me to set you on a course that will leave you stranded at the ends of the world.”

  The dragon god’s harsh tone shocked Njall out of his rage. “I don’t want to be stranded,” Njall said. He kept his dagger in hand, ready in case the dragon god attacked him. “I want to find my wife.”

  “And do what?” Wendill said. Anger flashed in his eyes. “Threaten her? Harm her?”

  Startled by the dragon god’s words, Njall lowered his weapon. “Of course not! I would never hurt Frayka.” Emotion choked Njall’s voice. “She is my partner. She is my friend and my closest ally. And my sweetheart. How could I ever lower myself to hurt her?”

  Wendill stepped closer to Njall and peered into his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder,” Wendill said, “if we should have hunted down all the Northlanders who escaped our destruction. Sometimes I wonder if we should have wiped your kind from the face of this world.”

  Njall said nothing in response. He knew the stories of how the dragon gods destroyed the Northlands and surrounding areas. He knew his family and neighbors had been lucky to escape and make their way to the Land of Ice to create a new homeland.

  And this is one of the dragons that once threatened them.

  Wendill grunted. “I promised to help Frayka, and I have no wish to harm her.” He pointed at Njall’s Northlander boat. “The boat knows the way. Get in, and it will take you to her.”

  Too afraid to speak, Njall nodded his thanks.

  Wendill grunted again. “When you see Frayka’s child, take a moment and think of which one of us the child resembles.”

  His mortal form expanded back into the shape of a dragon.

  Thrashing his tail, Wendill walked back inside the fissure, and the earth closed up behind him, although the place where it had opened now rose like a scar.

  Njall looked at his boat and wondered
if Wendill told the truth. Did the boat know how to take Njall to wherever Frayka had gone?

  Or would the boat take him to the far side of the world and leave him stranded there?

  There’s only one way to find out.

  With the help of the outgoing tide, Njall pushed the small boat into the shallow waves and then climbed on board.

  As soon as Njall raised the sail and then sat on a bench, the boat took control and steered itself toward the northwestern reaches of the sea.

  CHAPTER 24

  That evening, Frayka talked with GranGran and TeaTree after feeding Dagby and placing the infant on her favorite pillow. The little girl gurgled happily and then faded off to sleep.

  TeaTree sat on the floor, hunched over the tattered hem of a woman’s skirt, mending it. GranGran reached down to her toes, doing her evening stretches.

  “I walked along the beach this afternoon,” Frayka said. “I asked my portents to forgive me for dismissing them. I hope my portents heard me.”

  “They heard you,” GranGran said. “But it may take asking for many days or weeks or months before they decide to forgive.”

  The peaceful atmosphere inside their home ended at the sound of women shouting nearby.

  Frayka ran to the door and peeked outside. “Something’s happening toward the center of town.”

  TeaTree dropped his mending and stood. “What is it?”

  “I can’t tell.” Frayka glanced up at the sky. “It must be overcast. All I can see are a few lanterns and a crowd of people.”

  GranGran stood upright and gripped her cane. “We’ll go. Stay here with Dagby.”

  “No!” Frayka propped up the seat cover of a bench and searched its contents until she found the sling she used to bind her infant to her chest. She patted the dagger tucked under her belt. “We’ll come, too.”

  GranGran walked up to Frayka and took her by the arm. “No,” GranGran said in a calm voice. “Something might be wrong. Bundle up the child and be ready to seek refuge.”