Skylan reached the point where he had last seen Aylaen. She had vanished beneath a mass of canvas and rope and what was left of the mast. He shouted her name and his heart soared to hear her voice answer him. Aylaen floundered beneath the sail. Her bloody hand reached out to him. He pulled her out and stared in astonishment. She was covered with blood, so much he could not see if she was hurt. She relieved his fears with a smile. And then the wreckage heaved and shuddered. Raegar flung the mast off him to emerge from the rubble, his face a mask of blood. He looked dazed and a little unsteady on his feet, but he still gripped his sword. He scowled at Skylan.
“My little cousin,” he muttered.
“You are no kin to me,” said Skylan. “Acronis, see to Aylaen. Take her back to the Venjekar.”
Acronis had hold of Aylaen, who was protesting that she didn’t want to leave. Skylan focused on Raegar, stood braced and ready for a fight.
“I’ve been looking forward to killing you for a long time,” said Skylan.
Raegar sneered. He raised his sword, took a step, and then his legs buckled. He crashed down face-first onto the deck and lay there, unmoving.
Skylan eyed him warily, thinking this might be a trick.
“Kill him!” said Aylaen thickly.
Acronis was trying to urge Aylaen to come with him. She yanked her arm from his grasp and stood staring down at Raegar. “Kill him!” she repeated.
“Get up, Raegar, you son of a bitch,” said Skylan.
Raegar didn’t so much as twitch.
Skylan swore and kicked him in the ribs. “Get up, cowardly cur!”
“Skylan, we need to leave now!” Acronis said quietly.
Skylan glanced over his shoulder. The archers had picked up their bows and were nocking their arrows.
“Aylaen, go with Acronis.” Skylan kicked Raegar again in frustration. “You coward! Fight me!”
“Kill him,” said Aylaen for the third time.
Skylan shook his head. “When I kill this bastard, I want him to watch my sword slide into his gut. My smile will be the last thing he sees.”
Skylan turned to walk away. Aylaen clutched at him.
“Don’t be a fool, Skylan! You can’t let him live!”
“I will not slay a man who cannot defend himself,” said Skylan shortly. “Torval would bar me from his Hall in disgrace.”
“Then I will slay him!” Aylaen cried.
Raegar’s sword lay beneath his hand. Aylaen made a grab for it. An arrow whistled past, just missing her head. Skylan grabbed hold of Aylaen and lifted her off her feet. He carried her, struggling, beating him with her fists, back to the Venjekar. The Dragon Kahg had worked to free the ship from the wreckage of Aelon’s Triumph. His red eyes were bright with triumph. The eyes of the Dragon Fala were empty and wooden. Kahg edged the Venjekar as close as he could to the disabled Triumph.
Skylan set Aylaen down on her feet. Acronis was behind him, sword drawn, holding off the soldiers, many of whom had served under him and knew and respected his skill.
“You’ll have to jump for it,” Skylan told Aylaen.
Another arrow thudded into the wood. She glared at him, her green eyes blazing, and then climbed lightly to the rail. She waited for a wave to bring the Venjekar near, and then jumped. Wulfe and Farinn were both there to catch her and steady her. She looked back and shouted for Skylan and Acronis.
“You’re next, sir,” said Skylan.
An arrow whistled harmlessly past.
“Seems Raegar hired poor archers,” Skylan added.
Acronis smiled. “He always was a cheap bastard.”
Acronis waited, timed his jump perfectly and needed no help when he landed lightly on the deck. A couple of waves, higher than the rest, drove the Venjekar back. Skylan had to wait for the ship to come near again. An arrow grazed his arm.
The Venjekar swung near. Skylan yelled a warning and flung his sword over first, then he followed. He made a clumsy landing, coming down hard on all fours.
“Are you all right?” Aylaen asked worriedly.
“I’m fine,” he said, rising to his feet.
He reached for her, drew her into his arms.
“Queen Magali was right. You are arrogant and stubborn and willful,” she said.
He stared at her, hurt.
Aylaen laughed and embraced him and kissed him on the mouth. “And I love you with all my heart!”
Acronis yelled. Wulfe screeched. Farinn cried out in horror.
Skylan turned his head. Raegar stood on the deck of Aelon’s Triumph, holding a bow, the bowstring drawn back, the arrow aimed. He called upon Aelon and fired.
The arrow, sped by the hand of the god, thudded into Skylan’s back.
He didn’t comprehend at first what had happened. He didn’t know he’d been hit until he saw Aylaen’s eyes go wide with horror and he heard her scream and then the shattering pain gripped him and it was hard to breathe and blood filled his mouth. He staggered. Aylaen kept hold of him, her arms around him. She tried to keep him from falling, but he was too heavy. She eased him to the deck.
Holding him in her arms, she begged him, threatened, cajoled.
“Don’t die, my love. Don’t die, Skylan! Don’t leave me!”
Skylan wanted to stay with her, but he couldn’t breathe and the pain was unbearable. The darkness rushed on him, coming fast, very fast.
“My sword!” He gasped, choked on his blood. He couldn’t see, he fumbled for the weapon.
Aylaen guided his hand to the hilt of his sword and closed his weakening fingers over it. She wrapped her hand around his to make sure he kept the sword in his grasp.
Skylan looked at her, Aylaen, his wife. He kept his gaze fixed on her, the last point of light in the hastening dark.
“Even in Torval’s Hall, I will be lonely for you,” Skylan told her.
Aylaen gathered him in her arms and pressed her lips to his as he gave her his last breath.
CHAPTER
41
Aylaen crouched on the deck, holding Skylan’s body in her arms. She did not move. She made no sound. She did not cry out after that last terrible scream when she had seen the arrow coming and felt him shudder in her arms as the shaft pierced through flesh and bone and muscle.
Farinn stared down at her, at Skylan. Disaster had fallen so swiftly, he couldn’t believe it was true. The song must not end like this. The hero could not die and go to Torval’s Hall and leave his friends behind, his quest unfulfilled. Evil should not triumph. Songs didn’t end like this.
Because such songs were never sung. The knowledge pierced Farinn, bringing nearly as much pain as the arrow that had struck down Skylan. In life, heroes died untimely deaths. Quests went unfulfilled. Wives mourned their dead. Bards did not sing such songs, for they stirred no hearts. They brought no light to the long, dark winter.
Farinn heard a low growl, vicious and savage, and he saw a wolf standing near Aylaen. The wolf’s teeth were bared in a hideous snarl, its ears were back, its tail low and motionless. Yellow eyes burned. Farinn could not speak.
“Aylaen,” Acronis said softly, his voice deliberately calm, quiet, but filled with urgency.
Aylaen raised her head. Her face was as pale as the face of the dead and just as cold. The blood had drained from her cheeks and perhaps her heart. She saw the wolf and then she let go of Skylan’s body, laying him gently to rest on the deck. The wolf watched every move, menacingly growling. Aylaen reached out, her hand stained with Skylan’s blood.
“He’s gone, Wulfe,” she said quietly. “We loved him, you and I, but we must live without him.”
The wolf lowered its head and the beast disappeared, leaving a grubby little boy, who collapsed, sobbing, in Aylaen’s arms. She held Wulfe until his sobs quieted and he fell asleep. Aylaen looked at Farinn. Her own eyes were dry.
“Take Wulfe below,” she said. “Watch over him.”
Farinn was glad to obey her. His own eyes burned and blurred, and he didn’t want to cry where anyo
ne would see him, especially Skylan’s spirit, who would be lingering, watching. Farinn picked up Wulfe and carried the sleeping boy with the tear-ravaged face down into the hold. There, unseen, Farinn let the tears stream down his face.
He was crying for Skylan and he was crying for the death of the song.
* * *
Aylaen sat back on her knees. She gazed out over the sea and at last rose, stiffly, to her feet. Her leather tunic was soaked with blood, her blood, the blood of her foes, the blood of her husband. The light had gone from her eyes. Acronis had never seen the ghost the Vindrasi called a “draugr” but he had heard the tales and he guessed that the dead who left their graves to roam the earth must look very much like Aylaen.
“You should go below yourself,” he said to her. “Try to sleep. I will do what is needful here.”
“A wife tends to her husband,” said Aylaen in a monotone. “That is my privilege and my honor.”
She pushed Acronis’s hand gently aside.
“But there is something I must do first.”
Aylaen walked over to the dragonhead prow. Acronis had forgotten about Kahg. Acronis looked up to see the eyes gleam a lurid, hideous red. The Venjekar was adrift, floating on the waves that had gone dreadfully still. No wind blew. The water was dead, flat, calm. The clouds vanished. The sun beat down, hot and fierce. The gods themselves mourned.
Not far from them, soldiers and sailors aboard Aelon’s Triumph were working to repair the mast and patch the gaping hole in the hull.
Raegar stood on the deck, grimly smiling.
“I warned you, Aylaen!” he called out over the leaden sea. “I gave you the choice. If you had come with me, Skylan would be alive right now.”
Aylaen paid no heed to him. She lifted the spiritbone of the Dragon Kahg from the nail on which it hung and pressed the bone to her lips. Softly, quietly, she began to chant the ritual to summon the dragon.
Raegar realized what she was doing. He was still holding the bow and he bellowed at someone to fetch him an arrow. He had to kill Aylaen before she succeeded or they were all dead men.
The shot would be a long one, for the two ships had drifted farther apart. Aylaen ignored him. She had no water to use to form the dragon. She had no earth to scatter over the spiritbone. Taking the spiritbone to Skylan, she dipped the bone in his blood.
Aylaen threw the spiritbone in the air.
The bone hung for a moment and vanished. Just as Raegar fit the arrow to his bow, the Dragon Kahg came to life. His scales were as red as blood. Blood drooled from his jaws and stained his fangs. He spread his red wings and the sun, shining through them, was blood-red. The Dragon Kahg made no sound. He dove, claws extended.
Raegar had no spiritbone. He could not summon his dragon and it was doubtful if Fala would have stayed around to fight the enraged Kahg. Raegar knew he was a dead man anyway. He had nothing to lose. He stood his ground, lifted the bow, aimed at the dragon, and fired.
The arrow burst into flame and fell into the sea.
Kahg flew over Aelon’s Triumph. Drops of blood rained down from the dragon’s wings, burning anything they touched. The droplets ate like acid into men’s flesh. They screamed in pain and jumped into the sea. The water boiled around them and they were never seen again. At last, the only two left on board were Raegar and Captain Anker.
The deck smoldered in a hundred places and soon caught fire. Raegar and the captain tried desperately to put the fires out, but they spread too rapidly. Captain Anker urged Raegar to abandon ship. Raegar paid no heed, kept fighting the flames. Captain Anker shook his head and leaped into the water.
Abandoned by its crew, Aelon’s Triumph sank, hissing, into the blood-red sea. Raegar stood on the deck gazing on the Venjekar with hatred until the waves washed over him.
All that was left of Aelon’s Triumph were a few bits of charred wood and the dragonhead prow which had broken off and lay floating in the water, its empty eyes gazing up at heaven as if asking Aelon what had gone wrong.
Pleased at his work, the Dragon Kahg saluted Aylaen gravely and then disappeared, flowing back into the ship. His spiritbone fell from the skies, landing on the deck at Aylaen’s feet. The bone was covered with blood and from that day forward, the spiritbone of the Dragon Kahg would always be stained red. Aylaen picked up the bone. She thanked the dragon and hung the spiritbone on the leather thong from the nail on the dragonhead prow.
She went down into the hold and Acronis thought she had at last gone to rest and grieve in private. He stood gazing out at the red blotch upon the water.
“I have seen too much death, Chloe,” he said. “I have watched too many men, young men, good men like Skylan, die. I have given orders that sent men to their deaths. I have killed men myself. For what? Some cause or other. Some country or other. Some god or other. And in the end, who wins? For everyone is dead…”
He remained there a long time, staring out to sea.
* * *
Aylaen washed off the blood. She combed her red hair and changed her clothes, putting on a sodden chemise that she had pulled from one of the sea chests. The sun still shone brightly, as though reluctant to set on this day.
She went back up on deck.
“I need to speak to you, sir,” Aylaen said to Acronis. Her voice was calm and did not waver. “Can you and Farinn and Wulfe and the Dragon Kahg and I sail this ship?”
“We can, my dear,” said Acronis. “At least as far as the nearest land. I have no idea where we are, but once I see the stars tonight, I can find a safe landfall—”
“You misunderstand me, sir,” said Aylaen. “I do not seek a safe landfall. We must sail to the land of the Stormlords. Do you know it?”
“I know of it,” said Acronis, astonished. “Why do you want go there?”
“These Stormlords have in their keeping the fourth Vektia spiritbone.”
“I don’t … I’m not sure…”
Aylaen turned from him before he could say anything more. She lowered a bucket into the sea and drew it back, filled with water. She set the bucket on the deck beside Skylan’s body and with gentle, loving hands, closed the staring blue eyes. She dipped a cloth in the water and began wiping away the blood.
Farinn brought up Skylan’s shirt and breeches and the armor that he had worn in Sinaria. He and Aylaen dressed Skylan and put on his armor, for he would need it when he stood with Torval in the god’s shield wall. Aylaen combed Skylan’s hair. Farinn laced on Skylan’s boots. Last, Aylaen gave Skylan his sword, placing it on his breast and clasping his hands over the hilt.
Acronis watched, torn between admiration and pain. He could tell her what he knew about the Stormlords, that they were reputed to be powerful and dangerous wizards, who used terrible magicks to keep people away from their land. He could tell her, but it wouldn’t matter. She would not be deterred.
At last, as though exhausted, the sun slipped beyond the horizon. Those left on the Venjekar kept vigil throughout the night. The Dragon Kahg carried the body of Skylan Ivorson, Chief of Chiefs of the Vindrasi, across the dark and silent sea.
Farinn sang his song.
EPILOGUE
The Norn were three sisters who lived at the foot of the World Tree. The Norn were ancient. Their backs were bent, their bodies twisted, their feet halt and lame. They held the wyrds of gods and men in their hands. One of the Norn spun the thread of life. One wove the thread into life’s great and never-ending tapestry. One of them held the shears that snipped each thread when a man’s life came to an end.
The Norn had little care for the wyrds in their hands. They cackled and gossiped and spun and wove and cut. Some wyrds were short. A young mother died in childbirth, an infant died of fever, a young man was cut down in the shield wall. Some wyrds played out long. An old woman lay on her deathbed, smiling to see her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered around her.
The Norn prattled away. The Norn who did the spinning saw her sister ready to shear through yet another thread
.
“And whose is that?” the Norn asked.
“Skylan Ivorson,” said her sister who did the weaving.
“Past time for that rascal,” said the Norn with the shears.
She held the sharp blades over the thread and began to cut. The wyrd was thick and stubborn and the shears were dull from much use, or at least that’s what the Norn would later claim. She hacked at the thread and cut apart strand after strand and still it would not break. Finally there remained only a single thread. Her old, palsied hand jerked. The shears slipped from her gnarled fingers and fell to the ground.
The Norn stopped spinning. The Norn stopped weaving. The gods in the heavens and below the seas stopped warring. They stared in shock at the shears, lying on the roots of the World Tree.
“What do we do?” asked one of the Norn, trembling.
The Norn gazed with her shrewd watery eyes at the wyrd of Skylan Ivorson—a single strand finer than a spider’s silk.
“Apparently, it’s not his day to die,” said the Norn.
The three Norns cackled gleefully and, leaving the strand quivering in the sunlight, went back to work.
* * *
Skylan Ivorson strode up to Torval’s Hall of Heroes, his sword in his hand. He stood for long moments outside the Hall, gazing up at it. The Hall was an immense structure, for it had been built by giants, who had labored on it for many long centuries. They had ripped enormous oak trees from the ground by the roots to use to form the walls. The shields of brave warriors decorated the walls. Skylan would soon see his shield hanging among them.
He could see through the windows the orange glow of a roaring fire. He longed for its warmth, to ease the chill of death, and he walked toward the door. Made of oak, banded by iron, the door was closed. He thought that odd. Certainly Torval must be expecting him. Skylan was surprised and somewhat offended that the god was not there to greet him.
He could hear the riotous sounds of song and music, jests and laughter. He could see the warriors inside, carousing, dancing with their womenfolk, fighting mock battles. He paused to look inside a window and he was pleased beyond measure to see Keeper, seated at a table, devouring a leg of venison. Skylan waved and called, but Keeper did not appear to see or hear him.
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