“One man might well succeed where an army would fail,” Garn replied. “After all, we do not need the dragonship. We need only the dragon.”
Skylan’s eyes flared with blue flame. “This is why you are my brother!” he cried, pleased. He turned to Norgaard. “You must admit it, Father. Garn’s plan will work! I will swim to the dragonship, board it, and bring back the spiritbone. No one will see me in the darkness.”
Norgaard’s graying brows twitched. His lips creased in a rare smile. “It might work,” he conceded, and that grudgingly. The Chief leveraged himself painfully to his feet, took hold of his crutch. “I will go inform the Bone Priestess, tell her to hold herself in readiness—”
“I’ll do that, lord,” Garn said hastily. The last thing Norgaard needed now was to see his Dragon Goddess lying on the floor in pieces. “You should remain here with the warriors. In case anything goes awry.”
“Very well,” Norgaard agreed readily. He sank back down thankfully into his chair. The walk to Treia’s dwelling was a long one.
Skylan was already stripping off his clothes, preparing for his swim. He started to pull off his trousers. The movement caused him to draw a sharp breath. The gash inflicted by the boar’s tusk ran the length of his thigh, a long red weal, and though the flesh had closed, it was obviously causing him discomfort.
“Skylan, you should let someone else go,” Garn ventured to protest.
“I am War Chief. I would never order another man to face danger in my place,” Skylan said.
Garn glanced about the hall. The other warriors were talking excitedly among themselves, making plans for the morrow. Garn moved closer to speak to Skylan in private.
“A War Chief must also put the good of the people above his own needs and wants. Your wound may be healed, but it obviously causes you pain, and you are weak from loss of blood. No man would say that you were shirking your duty if you asked someone who is strong and fit to undertake this.”
“Like yourself?” Skylan returned. “So that you can grab all the glory?”
Garn made no reply to Skylan’s remark. He folded Skylan’s tunic and placed it on the table, then bent down to pick up his trousers.
“Garn, I’m sorry,” said Skylan, resting his hand on his friend’s arm. “I didn’t mean what I said. It’s just—I am the only one I can trust.”
Skylan wasn’t being arrogant. Even weak and wounded, he considered himself the best man for the job. But Garn knew something about Skylan that Skylan would never admit—Skylan could not bear seeing another man lay claim to the glory. Never mind that if Skylan failed, the Torgun would not have another chance to gain the spiritbone. The Torgun would pay for Skylan’s failure with their lives. Garn could have said all this to his friend, but he knew what Skylan would say in return. The very words he was saying now.
“Trust me, my brother. Torval is with me. I cannot fail.” Skylan went on issuing orders. “Tell the Bone Priestess to meet me in the Hall of Vindrash—”
“No,” said Garn. “Not the Hall.”
“Why not the Hall?” Skylan asked, pulling off his shirt. He looked out the neck hole, startled. “The Hall is the most suitable place for the ceremony.”
“And that will be the first place the ogres will come looking when they find the spiritbone missing,” said Garn.
“Of course, you’re right,” Skylan said. He smiled at his friend. “You see. I do listen to you. Tell Treia I will bring the spiritbone to her dwelling.”
Garn breathed a sigh of relief. He had been fairly certain Skylan was too excited to see the flaw in the argument, and he’d been right. The ogres, being strangers in this part of the world, had no way of knowing where the Hall of Vindrash was located.
“I’ll go talk to the Bone Priestess now,” Garn offered. “Make certain she is prepared.”
“A good idea,” said Skylan. “And if Aylaen is there, tell her I am thinking of her. I will carry her love with me as a talisman.”
Garn flinched and muttered something. Fortunately, Skylan was not paying attention.
Skylan tossed his shirt onto the table. His strong young body was seamed with marks of his valor. The scar on his thigh was only one of many.
Garn smiled, moved by true affection for his friend and admiration for his courage. Whatever Skylan’s faults might be, cowardice was not one of them.
“You are the best person for this mission,” said Garn.
Skylan clapped his hand on Garn’s arm. “You think too much, my brother. Thinking is good, but sometimes acting is better. Don’t worry. Torval is with me.”
Is he? Garn wondered as Skylan left the hall, accompanied by the blessings of his father and his comrades.
Or does Torval also lie in pieces on the floor?
CHAPTER
10
The ogre ships rocked gently in the dark water of the bay. The wind continued to freshen. The sea was choppy and restless. Sklyan watched in scorn as the ungainly ogre ships, silhouetted against the light of Akaria’s silver lantern, wallowed about like grunting hogs in muck, bobbing up and down one minute and pitching side-to-side the next. By contrast, the Torgun dragonship rode the waves with a graceful motion, dipping and gliding as the waves slid beneath its keel. The dragon’s fierce head reared up defiantly, dominating the gaggle of ogre ships that surrounded it.
Sklyan frowned at Akaria. He could have done without her moonlight, and he scanned the skies in search of clouds. A few drifted across the stars. Skylan tracked their progress, hoping they would cross the moon, douse the lantern’s silver glow.
“Give me the knife,” Skylan whispered, and Bjorn silently handed over an extremely sharp thin blade used for gutting fish.
Tonight, thought Skylan, it will be used for gutting ogres.
He tied the blade’s handle onto a leather thong and slung the thong around his neck.
The three young men crouched in the shadow of the sand dunes, which were covered with brown sea grass.
“Wait for me here,” Skylan ordered Bjorn and his brother. “No matter what happens, keep quiet and stay out of sight.”
“What do we do if you don’t come back?” Erdmun asked.
Skylan glanced at Bjorn, who rolled his eyes. His brother was a worrier, always expecting the worst.
“I will come back,” said Skylan, and he added with a shrug, “They are ogres.”
“Torval be with you,” Bjorn whispered.
“It’s just that—,” Erdmun began. His brother jabbed him in the ribs, silencing him.
Skylan touched the silver axe around his neck. He was naked except for the god’s token and the knife. He took one more look at the ogre ships. There would be lookouts, and they would have posted guards on the dragonship. He took hold of the knife, put it between his teeth, and bit down on it. He had braided his long hair to keep it out of his face. The most dangerous part would be running across the beach toward the water. Silhouetted against the white sand, he would be seen by every ogre in the universe. He waited, watching a cloud that was sliding nearer and nearer to Akaria’s lantern.
“Torval, douse the light!” Skylan prayed. The cloud blotted out the moon.
Crouching low, Skylan dashed across the beach. He ran clumsily, slowed by the gash in his thigh that pained him more than he would admit. He kept an eye on the sky. The cloud was not large, and it was moving rapidly. Already the edge of the moon peeped out. Fortunately the tide was rising. Skylan thanked Akaria for that much, at least.
The waves broke over his feet, and he was in the water, gasping a little at the sting of the salt in his wound and the shock of plunging into the cold. Though the sun warmed the air by day, the temperature dropped when the sun set, and the sea retained the night’s chill. Skylan was accustomed to much colder water, however. His people lived in the sea, bathing in seawater so cold that ice formed on their hair when they emerged.
This section of beach formed a shelf that dropped off precipitously. Skylan took only a few steps, and he was in water up
to his shoulders. He began to swim, his strong arms gliding beneath the waves, taking care not to break the surface of the water with his strokes.
He hoped the chill water would ease the pain in his leg. Each time he kicked his legs was like jabbing himself in the thigh with a spear. The pain hampered his swimming, and the unwelcome thought came to him that Garn might have been right. Maybe he should have let some other man undertake this. The thought made Skylan angry, and he gritted his teeth, champing down hard on the knife’s blade, and deliberately gave a strong kick, like that of a frog’s, to challenge the pain.
Akaria brushed aside the cloud, and moonlight glinted off the waves. Skylan would have to swim close to the ogre ship in order to reach the dragonships. He scanned the deck as he swam near. He could not see the ogres who stood on watch, but he could hear their voices. There were two of them, by the sounds of it, and they were playing at some sort of game to keep themselves awake. The rest of the crew would be wrapped in their blankets on the deck, getting what sleep they could before tomorrow’s battle. As stupid as ogres were, they were smart enough to know that the Torgun would not give up without a fight.
Skylan swam silently around the ship, keeping in its shadow, which drifted over the water.
The dragonship loomed in front of him. Akaria’s light lovingly gilded the dragon-head prow with silver. The ship was painted blue to honor the Dragon Kahg, whose spirit guided the dragonship on its voyages. Kahg’s spirit resided in one of his bones, which had been given long ago by the Goddess Vindrash to the Torgun in the Hall of Vektia, on the famed Dragon Isles.
The spirit of the Dragon Kahg powered the dragonship, so that it could travel the seas without need for oarsmen or sails. When summoned by the prayers of a Bone Priestess, the Dragon Kahg could take on physical form and fight the Torgun’s enemies. Many of the clans had dragonships, which were a mark of a clan’s rank and power. The Torgun might be poor, but so long as they had their dragonship, they remained a force among the Vindrasi.
In return for the dragons’ guidance and protection, the Vindrasi people pledged to give all the jewels they captured to the dragons. The dragons sorted through them, kept the gems they wanted, and returned the rest as a reward to the warriors.
The Vindrasi had no idea why the dragons wanted the jewels. It might be supposed that the gems the dragons kept would be the most valuable, but that was not case. Skylan himself had seen Kahg select a small emerald, badly set and crudely cut, and hand back a large ruby with a heart of fire.
The Vindrasi did not know what happened to the jewels the dragons took with them. Legend spoke of vast hoards stashed away in secret caves on the Dragon Isles, kept safe by a curse placed on them by the Goddess Vindrash. There were always, in every generation, a few greedy and irreverent men who would defy the goddess and set out in search of the dragon hoards. Such warriors always came to a bad end. Their stories and their gruesome deaths made for cautionary tales told during the long winter nights.
The Vindrasi imagined that dragons were like crows—fascinated by anything bright and shiny. None ever came close to understanding the truth, for that was a secret the dragons had kept for centuries and intended to keep for centuries more.
Skylan thought of all this as he swam through the water, his gaze fixed on the dragon’s fierce head. Treia had said the Dragon Kahg had not answered her summons because he was angry with the Torgun for not keeping their end of the bargain. Last year’s raiding season had brought only a handful of jewels, all of which the dragon had tossed aside in disdain. This year’s raid had brought no jewels at all, only ogres, and now the loss of the Vektan Torque, which contained a sapphire said to be of immense value. The Dragon Kahg might well be so furious that even if Skylan succeeded in bringing back the spiritbone, the dragon might refuse to fight for them.
“Perhaps you would like to see us impaled on ogre spears,” Skylan remarked, speaking to the dragon’s head, whose red eyes seemed to glare down on him with a baleful expression. “I am not saying that we have not deserved your wrath. But keep this in mind—if the ogres defeat us, there will be no more jewels for you, ever.”
Trusting that the dragon would take this reasonable view of the matter, Skylan treaded water near the prow of the dragonship and concentrated on listening, hoping to be able to judge how many ogres guarded the ship and where they were located. He heard the tread of heavy footfalls. One ogre at least walked the deck. Skylan, staring upward, was startled to see a bald head outlined against the stars, leaning over the side, gazing down.
Skylan ducked beneath the waves and remained there, holding his breath as long as he could. He surfaced some distance away, snatched a gulp of air, and looked. The ogre’s head was gone. The heavy tread of boots was moving on. Skylan did not hear any voices, and he hoped the ogres had posted only one guard on board. Skylan himself would have posted three, but then, these were ogres.
He didn’t dare take any more time to investigate. The chill of the water was starting to sink into his bones. He heard the ogre walking away from him. He swam silently to the prow, where the dragon’s long, gracefully curving neck formed the ship’s stem. The wooden carving that represented the Dragon Kahg was beautifully rendered. Each scale—and there were hundreds, each about as large as a man’s hand—had been carefully delineated. The grooves in the wood outlining the scales had been carved deep enough so that Skylan could dig his fingers into them and use them to assist him in climbing up the neck. One of his jobs when he was nine years old had been to “scale the dragon.” He had climbed the long neck, then clung precariously to the swaying head and acted as lookout, watching for everything from enemy ships to dangerous shoals.
Skylan’s fingers were no longer those of a nine-year-old child. They no longer fit into the grooves, but the irregular surface allowed him to establish a handhold. His arm muscles ached with the strain; his wound throbbed. The water had been cold, but the air was even colder. The breeze raised gooseflesh on his naked body. His teeth would have chattered, but he still held the knife between them.
The ogre guard had walked to the ship’s stern. Skylan, clinging to the dragon’s neck, was just thanking Torval for this blessing, when a large head, bullish neck, and massive shoulders reared up from the deck not five paces away. Skylan froze, holding his breath, careful not to move or even shiver. The guard stretched and yawned cavernously; apparently he’d been napping. He scratched his belly and peered in a bored manner around the ship.
Both ogres had their backs to Skylan. Neither had seen him. Torval had given his enemies into his hands, but Skylan had only seconds to act. He climbed silently over the hull and jumped down, landing lightly on the balls of his feet, and immediately crouched, hiding in the shadows. Skylan eyed the ogre nearest to him. He had to fell this ogre and do it quietly. If the guard had been human, Skylan would have wrapped his hand over the man’s mouth to prevent him from screaming as he plunged the knife into his heart.
The ogre was too large for that. Skylan would have had to jump on the brute’s back to reach his hand around the head, and then he wasn’t sure his knife was long enough to find its way through the blubber and bone to the brute’s heart.
The ogre blinked, yawned again, and stretched his arms over his head. Any moment, he might call out to his friend, who would turn around and see Skylan.
Skylan glanced swiftly around the deck for another weapon besides his knife. Men were constantly working on the dragonship when in port, making repairs and keeping the ship fit and trim. Woodworking tools littered the deck. Grabbing hold of an adz, Skylan padded soft-footed up behind the ogre, and using all his strength, he swung the adz and bashed the ogre in the back of his head.
The adz’s sharp point pierced the skull and sank deep into the ogre’s brain. Skylan yanked. The tool came out, trailing blood and brains. The ogre’s body jerked spasmodically. His knees buckled, and he started to fall backwards. Skylan caught the heavy body in his arms, nearly collapsing himself under the dead weight. Gruntin
g softly, Skylan lowered the body quietly onto the deck.
Skylan had kept as silent as he could, but the other ogre had either heard something or sensed something that alarmed him. He whipped around, his large body moving faster than Skylan would have thought possible. The ogre’s eyes widened in astonishment to see a man, dripping wet, naked as the day he was born, standing on the deck.
The ogre reached for his axe, opening his mouth to shout the alarm. Skylan had to shut him up, and he flung the adz at his foe as he would have thrown an axe in battle. Unfortunately, the adz was lighter than a battle axe. It struck the ogre a glancing blow on the forehead. The ogre stumbled a little and blinked his eyes as blood poured down his face, but he did not fall.
Skylan broke into a run, racing across the deck, bounding over what tools he could avoid, treading barefoot on others. The ogre was dazed from the blow, and Skylan barreled into him. He slammed his right shoulder into the ogre’s gut, driving the breath from the ogre’s body. The two crashed against the hull.
Though he was gulping for breath, the ogre continued to struggle and, what was worse, to make noise. Skylan plunged his knife into the ogre’s side, not caring where he hit. The ogre grunted in pain, and Skylan stabbed again and again and at last the ogre quit moving and bleating. Skylan sank back on his heels, sucking in air and looking around to see if anyone on the ogre ships had heard the commotion. He waited tensely for flaring lights and voices shouting in alarm.
Nothing happened, and Skylan heaved a sigh. He groaned as he rose to his feet. He limped like his father across the deck, his injured leg throbbing, his feet cut and bruised from treading on the tools. Skylan was elated, however, and he laughed to himself to think how easily he had defeated his enemies. He touched Torval’s silver axe in thanks.
The sacred spiritbone—a fingerbone from Kahg’s front claw—hung on a wooden peg that had been driven into the ship’s curved prow. Unlike the Vektan Torque, the spiritbone was not decorated with gold nor was it adorned with jewels. A pewter band wrapped around the knuckle portion of the fingerbone held it suspended from a plain leather thong.
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