Dragon Sacrifice (The First Realm Book 3)

by Klay Testamark

  “Seems to be working,” Orvar said. The female wyvern, or cow, swished its long striped tail. Its eyes were locked on the dancing male. Its hind legs flexed and its hindquarters rose.

  “Ooh, she’s a hot one,” Cruix said.

  “Need a moment alone?” Orvar asked.

  “Just, er, admiring my closest relatives. I mean, they’re very like dragons.”

  “Are dragon mating dances any less ridiculous?”

  “Females always make fools out of males,” Cruix said. “Our courtship tends toward the exchange of gifts.”

  “Again with the shiny,” Orvar said. “Have you fellows seen enough? My bow is restless.”

  “Shouldn’t we move closer?” Cruix said.

  “We’re plenty close.” Orvar rose to a crouch.

  “But it’s three hundred yards at least.”

  I nodded. “I’ve seen him shoot half again as far.”

  Orvar nocked an arrow.

  “But we’re not shooting for distance, are we?” Cruix said. “Our targets are not patches of dirt.”

  “Deer or dirt, bullseye or clout, it matters not,” I said. “He never misses.”

  Orvar leaned into the bow, the great spring bending to the power of his shoulders and back. His bow hand pushed forward, the bow’s limbs curving in reverse. Orvar raised the arrow to this face, where the feathers of ten million arrows had carved a groove into his cheek. He looked down the arrow-shaft and past it to where the bull wyvern hopped and beat its wings.

  Orvar opened his hand.

  The first arrow was still swimming through the air when he sent its brother after it. These were war arrows, heavy enough to stagger an armoured man. They hissed over the clearing and punched through wyvern hide.

  The bull wyvern screamed. It hobbled on three limbs: its right wing had gone dead.

  “How—?” Cruix said.

  “I hit the nerves,” Orvar said. He drew another arrow. “Also, these are poisoned.”

  The female huddled in the bower, all four thousand pounds of her, while the male howled and tore at the dirt. It scanned left and right. It saw us and bellowed.

  Orvar laughed and put an arrow in its eye.

  Then the bull wyvern was running toward us. It was ungainly but fast. Its left wing was folded close to its body, its right wing hung as though broken. Its hind legs muscled it forward.

  Orvar pushed his bow forward. His arm was steady, his stance was firm. He shot again, and then once more, and the wyvern skidded with two arrows in its knee.

  “If he wanted to kill it, he’d put a shaft in its heart,” I told Cruix. “He’s waiting for something.”

  “Yaaaaah!”

  Ardel charged out of the forest, warhammer held high. The sun caught on his armour and he shone as brightly as the wounded beast. He made more noise than the wyvern did. It sounded like so much dropped silverware.

  Ardel clattered forward. The bull wyvern fixed its good eye on the prince and snarled. Its teeth were many. Its jaws, built for crushing. It got its feet under it and—

  —and every bird for miles rose into the air. The wyvern had roared. No other sound existed.

  That close to the wyvern, it must have hurt Ardel. He didn’t slow down. He closed the distance and with both hands hammered down on the wyvern’s nose.

  A flat-headed warhammer might have glanced off. One with a pointed tip might have done so as well. But Ardel’s hammer had four prongs, four spikes to catch on armour and deliver a blow’s full weight. The wyvern reeled. Blood poured from its broken snout. Its head snaked around to bite Ardel’s shoulder. The prince dove and rolled. He passed between the beast’s legs and hooked a blow into its knee. This was the good knee, or it had been. It folded.

  The wyvern slammed into the ground, but then it twisted. It tucked in its good wing and tried to deliver an upside-down bite. Ardel leaped over its neck and smashed its throat. The beast thrashed. Spiked tail and toothy skull made furrows in the grass. Ardel slipped and was covered by the monster’s bulk.

  “No,” Orvar said. He lifted his bow and loosed an arrow, but only hit a lung. “No!”

  The wyvern tried to gouge Ardel’s face with a thumb-claw. Ardel turned his head and took it on the helmet. The wyvern threw itself on top of him but Ardel rolled. He leaped to his feet, the wyvern snapping at his back.

  We were already running. Byrnjar, Eadric, and Rangvald were ahead of us. It was one thing to let the prince get the glory, entirely another to get him killed.

  Cruix ran at the wyvern cow. “Yaah! Yaah!” He waved his arms and drove it back. Ardel’s companions rushed to Ardel’s aid with axe and shield. I unsheathed my sword and hacked at the beast’s tail. Orvar leaped on the beast’s back and began putting arrows in its spine.

  Eadric pulled Ardel to his feet. “Come with me, my prince!”

  “But Orvar—”

  The wyvern roared. It bucked. Orvar slipped. The wyvern twisted its head around, jaws widening, but Ardel leaped. Screaming, the prince straddled the beast’s neck, raised his hammer, and used the rear spike to punch holes in the monster’s skull.

  “Aaah! Aaah! AaaaAaaah!”

  Blood as red as any man’s stained Ardel’s breastplate. Then it was spattered with brains soft as butter. The hammer was covered in bits of wet skin. Ardel was still screaming when they threw a blanket over his arms and wrestled him off the corpse.

  “Calm, calm, calm, Ardel,” Byrnjar said. “It’s dead. Very dead. Orvar is safe.”

  “Orvar?”

  Ardel found his brother crouched beside the wyvern. Orvar was scratching his hand bloody.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Orvar said. “I never miss. Never miss.”

  “Brother!”

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

  “Please stop!” Ardel took his brother’s hands. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  “But I missed. I missed.”

  The two brothers embraced. There was a sob and we looked away.

  Chapter 17: Angrod

  Lunch was kind of tense. It was open bar, fortunately.

  They had set a buffet table in the main courtyard. There were dressed eggs, cold cuts, and other finger foods. Everyone was free to load their plates and talk around the little tables.

  “I didn’t know your people had cocktail parties,” I told Heronimo.

  “This is how our leaders eat when they assemble,” he said. “It’s not all drinking horns and turkey legs. Sometimes it’s turkey meatballs and glass drinking horns.

  “It’s also wise not to eat overmuch before a hunt,” Ardel said. “When one’s belly is full, it’s hard to find motivation.”

  I nodded. “I just carry a hip flask.”

  Ardel smiled. “We should go hunting after this is over. Something easy.”

  “Something safe,” Heronimo said. “I could bag a few whitetails myself.”

  “I was thinking bandits,” Ardel said, and laughed when I went pfft all over Meerwen’s face.

  There were trumpets. A servant said, “His Majesty, the King of the Caprans.”

  King Garvel received Arawn as he strode onto the lawn. The monarchs shook hands and exchanged thank-yous. Basically, Thank you for coming and Thank you for having me, with a few extra frills. With Arawn was Vitus, my one-time trainer-at-arms, as well as Laraib, Herkus, and Sham, three of my sparring partners. There was also Hafgan, the man they had been preparing me to kill. He was by far the tallest.

  King Garvel moved on. I put down my drinking horn (it had silver hawk legs) and went to greet my friend.

  “Your Majesty,” I said.

  “Your Highness,” Arawn said. He offered his hand. “How goes the road to kingship?”

  “It goes to interesting places.”

  “So it does!” He laughed and we shook hands.

  He looked at my group. “Five of you,” he said. “I’ll have to bench one of my men.”

  “Good to see you again, Prince Angrod,” Vitus said.

  “It’s just A
ngrod,” I said, shaking everyone’s hands. “And it’s good to see you too. How are you guys? Where’s Lister?”

  “He’s retired,” Laraib said. “Last I heard he’s raising a family.”

  “Good for him,” I said. “And, er, it’s nice to see you, Hafgan.”

  Hafgan nodded. “My worthy opponent,” he rumbled. “Nice to thee you too.”

  “This time we won’t be fighting each other. I expect it will be a lively contest all the same.”

  He nodded. “If I can reach the beast with my lance, we shall thee.”

  What else could I say to someone who’d almost gutted me?

  There was a sound behind me. Someone grabbed my buttocks, wrapped arms around me, and laid a sharp little chin on my shoulder.

  “Tamril,” I said.

  The capran ambassador breathed into my ear. “What gave it away? Was it my perfume?”

  It was her firm little breasts on my back, but I couldn’t say that. “Who else would greet me like this?”

  Meerwen snorted. “Don’t get me started. Now, girl, if you could climb off my boyfriend?”

  Tamril stuck something in my hair. “I claim this for my people. This is now the Capran Embassy!”

  “First, a man can’t be an embassy. And second, that’s a cocktail umbrella.”

  “Do you have a cocktail umbrella?” Tamril said, and stuck out her tongue.

  Tamril aside, the goat people were a capable crew. I had trained and hunted with Vitus and my three sparring partners. I wouldn’t want to fight them. And I wouldn’t want to fight Hafgan again, seeing as how I’d barely survived our last encounter. Finally, Arawn looked more than able to lead his crew. The capran king was a big man, neither young nor old, and I knew enough swordsmanship to tell that he knew a lot more.

  He smiled. His goatee was neatly-trimmed. His earring and horns glittered in the afternoon sun.

  “I confess that this is my first wyvern hunt,” he said. “We have nothing like these creatures in the Silver World. Would you care to share some advice?”

  “Spill our secrets, you mean?” Cruix said.

  “Cruix!” I said. “This is a mission of mercy first, contest second.”

  “We don’t all have a huge bloody fortune in land,” Cruix said. “Will we just give the game away?”

  “If it saves lives,” I said. “Your Majesty, the most important thing about hunting wyvern is to never turn it into a toe-to-toe fight...”

  A wyvern was flying armoured death. It had claws, and teeth, and sometimes venom. However, it wasn’t very bright, and on the ground it was stupidly easy to track. To kill it, you only had to hit it hard enough.

  “... of course, this all goes out the window if it’s a throwback,” I said. “In that case its atavistic traits could make it bigger and smarter, maybe even magical.”

  “Like a dragon?” Vitus asked.

  “Gods, I hope not,” I said. “I couldn’t handle the sarcasm.”

  Mina had been silent. She stood at the edges, alternately gulping her drink and glancing around.

  “Looking for your father?” I asked.

  “Aye,” she said. “He’s not the type to delegate something like this.”

  “No, I am not.”

  I jumped. The dwarven delegation had managed to walk up to us without my noticing.

  “Father,” Mina said.

  “Daughter,” Magnus Wolfsson said. “Will you be joining in the hunt?”

  “What kind of a question is that? ‘Course I will.”

  “Good. At least your stolen equipment will see some action.”

  “Er, thank you for coming,” Ardel said.

  “I already spoke with your father,” Magnus said. “It remains to be seen whether I shall do anything worth thanking.”

  The chieftain of Ironore had the same auburn hair that his daughter did. He also had a horseshoe moustache and a chin that looked like it had knuckles. His voice was deep but surprisingly soft.

  “And you must be Lord Veneanar,” he said.

  “Glad to finally meet you, sir.” I extended my hand but he kept his hands at his waist.

  “You took my daughter in,” he said. “I thank you for giving her a home.”

  I bowed. “She’s been most helpful.”

  “And on the field? She has no combat training, you know.”

  Mina turned red. “I’ve joined him on every one of his adventures. I pull my own weight.”

  He snorted. “You carry ten priceless artefacts and the best you can do is carry your weight? You should be invincible!”

  She looked at the ground. “It’s only nine artefacts now. I gave the Mace of Shock to Angrod.”

  “It’s saved my life more than once,” I said.

  “That’s something,” Magnus said.

  Mina’s helmet protected her from concussion. She could never be knocked out as long as she wore it. Her mail shirt was as light and as soft as silk but could take a hit from a ballista bolt. Her belt and boots doubled her endurance and speed. Her jewelry granted her enhanced reflexes as well as a healing rate to rival a human’s. And if that wasn’t overkill, her crossbow never missed, her buckler never failed, and her axe made her fearless with rage.

  Mina was one of my closest friends. I trusted her completely. But without those things she was as useful in a fight as a full-body sunburn.

  “In the hands of a seasoned warrior, any one of those could do great things,” Magnus said.

  “Daughter, you hurt us greatly when you took them from the undercity.”

  “I begged you to train me,” Mina said. “If you want your trinkets back, you can have them!”

  He waved it away. “They’ve bonded to you. It would take too long to make them serviceable for anyone else. Keep them.”

  “Well!” Tamril said. “This is exciting. I wonder who else will show up.”

  Meerwen tapped me on the shoulder. She pointed to where King Garvel was arguing with Orvar.

  Behind the younger man was Elsa and a few others I didn’t recognize. Two men and a powerfully muscled woman.

  “Excuse me,” Ardel said, and hurried over.

  I looked away. It would have been impolite to stare. It seemed clear enough, however. The older brother was making his own bid for glory.

  A waiter came by with a tray of drinks and Meerwen took one. The waiter moved on and she frowned.

  “Did you notice anything strange about that man?” she asked me.

  “He seemed a bit overdressed for this culture,” I said. “Nice tattoos, though.”

  “They were blue,” she said.

  I searched for the waiter but he was gone.

  A waitress touched up a flower arrangement. She was short and narrow-hipped. Must be a halfling, I thought, and looked elsewhere. There was another halfling tending bar and one more pushing an ice cream cart.