The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm
Page 8
At close of the third day, the braver clan members returned to the village under cover of darkness to gather supplies and search for any wounded. They found but one: Darvek the carver, who had lost two of his fingers but otherwise still had use of his hands.
Four more days the clan held fast. In that time, Vêrmund showed no sign of movement; if not for the occasional puff of smoke that drifted from his nostrils, he might as well have been dead. Nevertheless, the clan prepared to again face the dragon. Under Arvog’s direction, they made spears from saplings and arrows from dogwood, boiled leather for armor, and honed their blades. Ilgra took to the warlike preparations with enthusiasm, determined to do all she could to help defeat the dragon.
For the Herndall had decided: they would stay, the valley was theirs, and Vêrmund an intruder deserving of death. All their belongings lay in that narrow mountain cleft, under the shadow of Kulkaras. Moreover, were they to leave, they would soon trespass on the territory of rival clans, and with their numbers so diminished, the Skgaro had little hope of winning new territory by force of arms.
Vêrmund too they could not hope to defeat in open battle, but much was said around the hall fire about tricks and traps, and a sense of reckless optimism spread. The most likely way to kill the dragon, they agreed, would be to climb Kulkaras and stab him through the eye while he lay dreaming.
First, though, the dead needed reclaiming. Without the proper rites, their spirits would not find the rest they deserved, and none of the Skgaro were willing to risk being cursed by those Vêrmund had slain. Nor was fear their only spur, but sorrow and respect also.
“We must move with haste,” said Arvog, “so we may strike at Vêrmund ere he wakes.”
Ilgra decided then to join the party that would retrieve the bodies. The thought of her father’s remains—if remains there were—lying in an open field where the birds and beasts might pick at them bothered her more than she could say. It was a deep wrongness, one she intended to correct.
From the store of weapons, she chose a spear, and she washed the blade with her blood and named it Gorgoth, or Revenge.
Her mother objected, said that Ilgra was still too young. “You have not yet reached the age of the ozhthim, and you have not passed your trials. Wait and leave this to those who have already proven their strength.”
But Ilgra rebelled. “No. I have my horns. I will not sit and cower while others venture forth.”
So she broke from her mother and went to stand with Arvog’s warband by the fire. They did not turn her away, but welcomed her into their fold, for their numbers were small and they needed all who were willing to help.
On the morning of the eighth day, Ilgra accompanied Arvog and the rest of the warband as they crept back to the smoldering ruins of their village. The fires had died down in the fields and the foothills, leaving the land scorched black. Many of the buildings still stood, though few without damage. Some had torn thatching, others a crushed wall or a broken beam, and everything sooty and stinking of smoke.
Finding their dead amid the devastation was no easy task. They worked in teams to sort through the rubble and scour the trampled earth, and many a grisly discovery they made. A smear of blood, a shard of bone: parts of loved ones left behind where the murderous dragon had been careless in his eating. Often it was impossible to attach a name to the parts, so Arvog had them gathered in the center of the village, and there the warband built them a proper pyre.
Ilgra labored alongside the others for half a day, silent except for when answering the occasional question or order. When last they broke to rest, she rested not but went to the wreckage of her family’s hall.
There, by the pile of blistered beams, Ilgra came upon what was left of her father: a twisted, nearly unrecognizable shape, charred black by dragonfire. Grief and rage—equally strong and equally terrible—stabbed her heart, and she knelt beside him and wept.
All her life her father had protected their family. Yet at the deciding moment, when the foul worm had threatened, she had not been able to protect him. It was a failure Ilgra could never correct, and she knew it would haunt her all her years.
Though singed and discolored, her father’s left horn was yet intact. When Ilgra could bring herself to move, she cut it from his head, chanting to the gods as she did, in the hope her prayers would smooth his way to the afterlife.
Then she gathered up his corpse and carried it to the pyre in the center of the village. The weight of her father’s body in her arms was not something that Ilgra soon forgot.
Their wretched search continued late into the evening, until they were well sure they had found every last piece of battered flesh belonging to their clanmates and placed them with grieving reverence upon the pyre. Then Ilgra and the rest of the warband performed the required rituals, and Arvog lit the tower of stacked wood.
It was a funeral fit for the bravest of warriors. And all the dead were warriors, even the younglings. The hated dragon had killed them in battle. They deserved the same consideration as any of the Horned who died while raiding or wrestling or otherwise attempting to win honor for their name.
As the pyre blazed bright, Arvog strode forth, bared his throat to the great mountain Kulkaras—and to Vêrmund atop—and bellowed so loudly that his cry echoed the length of the valley. Others joined in, and Ilgra too, until they all stood facing the mountain, shouting their challenges through throats torn raw. It was a foolish, futile gesture that risked rousing the dragon’s wrath, but they did not care.
The noise frightened a flock of ravens from the trees. If the sound troubled Vêrmund in his slumber, it did not show. He seemed entirely oblivious—or worse, uncaring—toward the valley below.
The warband kept vigil around the pyre while it burned, and when night fell, they made camp on the cold earth. Ilgra could not bring herself to sleep, so she stood watch beside the pillar of flames, gripping her spear and glaring at the strip of inky darkness wrapped tight around the peak of Kulkaras.
* * *
Stars still glimmered in the sky, and the first hint of grey light had just appeared above the eastern mountains when Arvog and six other warriors set out to climb Kulkaras and kill the dragon Vêrmund.
Ilgra begged to go with them, to quench her thirst for vengeance. But Arvog refused, said she was too young, too inexperienced. “We have but one chance to catch the worm unawares.”
And Ilgra hated that he was right.
Then he said, “Worry not, Ilgra. With Svarvok’s favor, you shall have your fill of blood today. All our clan shall.”
This Ilgra accepted, but it sat badly with her. Young she was, and untested also, but the anger that burned in her belly had no match, and she felt herself equal in spirit—if not stature—with the mightiest of the Horned.
With Arvog at the lead, the seven warriors departed. Ilgra and the rest of the warband watched in silence from beside the grave of coals.
It had been agreed that midday was the best time to strike at Vêrmund. Dragons, like the great mountain cats, were known to do most of their hunting in the early mornings and late evenings. When the sun was at its highest, Vêrmund was likely to be in the deepest part of his sleep and, thus, the most vulnerable—if ever a dragon the size of Vêrmund could be described as vulnerable.
Kulkaras was a formidable mountain, and though the Horned of Clan Skgaro were strong and hardy, reaching the peak was far from easy. The way was treacherous, full of steep ascents, narrow ridges, and slopes strewn with loose rock. Rare it was any of the Skgaro sought to gain the crown of high Kulkaras unless driven by vision or honor or madness. In all Ilgra’s life, only one of the clan had attempted it: a young warrior by the name of Nalvog, who had meant to prove himself by the feat when he could not prove himself by strength of arms. But Nalvog had failed in his attempt and, shamed, exiled himself from the valley. Since then, he had been seen no more.
A chill crept into Ilgra’s bones. She sat crouched in the lee of a feed shed and pulled her wolfskin cloak tight around her shoulders. As always, her gaze turned to Kulkaras and to Vêrmund thereupon. But no sign of Arvog or his band could she see, nor did any cry or clash reach her straining ears.
The day wore on.
Near midday, one of Ilgra’s companions, Yarzhek, claimed to hear a sound from the mountaintop: a crack or a shout of some kind. But none of the others in the ruined village heard it, and Ilgra was doubtful. Soon after, she spotted what appeared to be a puff of smoke rising from Kulkaras, but after studying it, she decided the haze was actually a scrap of windblown cloud.
As the sun started toward the jagged horizon, it seemed clear that Arvog’s group had either been delayed in their purpose or had failed entirely.
Dispirited, Ilgra and the others gathered around the remnants of the pyre. There they sat, hunched and unspeaking, while dusk settled over the valley.
The hollow moon had just peeked over the mountains when they heard footsteps approaching. Down the path to Kulkaras came four of the seven who had departed. All were smeared with dirt and blood, and they appeared heartsick, footsore, and hungry. Arvog and another of the Anointed carried one of the Skgaro, who looked to have a broken ankle, while Arvog himself bore a deep gash above his brow.
Ilgra approved of the gash. It served his features well. “What happened?” she asked.
Setting down their injured companion, Arvog answered: “The dragon heard us. Heard or smelled, I know not which, but when we drew near, he lifted his tail and dropped it upon us. The four of us barely escaped being crushed. The others…” He shook his head. “We could not reach their bodies.”
Then Ilgra bent her neck with sorrow, mourning their deaths. She hoped their spirits might someday find safe passage to the afterlife.
What remained of the warband was somber indeed as they started back through the dark and the rain. When they arrived at the hall of Zhar, Arvog gave the clan a full accounting of their expedition, and the Herndall decided: they would not trouble Vêrmund the Grim again, not until or unless they had a better plan for ridding themselves of the cunning old worm.
Ilgra hated the decision, but having no suggestion of her own, she held her tongue.
The oldest of the Herndall, Elgha Nine-Fingers, then said, “We are fortunate you did not anger Vêrmund such that he came seeking after us. But we should not rest easy. Dragons have long memories and are slow to forgive. It is known.”
And all agreed.
Later still, when she sat with her mother and sister, Ilgra showed them the horn she had cut from her father’s head. As eldest heir, the horn was hers to keep, but Yhana touched it and said, “I am glad you did this.” And Ilgra saw tears in her eyes, and she knew then the measure of her sister’s grief, and it was no less than her own.
* * *
Days passed. In that time, the clan did their best to ignore the dragon perched atop Kulkaras. Instead, they tracked and captured the livestock that had survived the attack. They saved what seeds and materials they could. And one by one, those of the Skgaro who still had halls intact enough to ward off the weather began to return to the village.
Ilgra’s father had been a good hunter, and a Speaker of Truths for the Anointed—a position of no small importance. With him now gone, and their home destroyed, Ilgra and her family had no choice but to take refuge in the hall of Barzhqa, brother to her mother and much like her in make and temperament.
It rankled Ilgra that they needed to depend on Barzhqa’s generosity. But their choices were limited, and they were lucky not to be stuck living with Zhar, who always smelled of fish.
In the evenings, when she was free, Ilgra took her father’s horn to a stream and soaked it in the swift-flowing current. When the marrow of the horn was soft, she scraped it out and smoothed the inside with heated stones until it was slick as shell. Then she gave the horn to Darvek, and he carved a mouthpiece from the thigh bone of a bear, scribed the woven pattern of their family history around the belled end, and last of all, knotted a leather carrying strap round the middle.
When it was finished, an expanse of wonder broadened Ilgra’s heart. She put her lips to the mouthpiece and sounded the horn with a mighty breath. A brazen note rang forth, loud and deep-throated—a challenge to all who might oppose her. In it, Ilgra heard an echo of her father’s voice, and a sorrowful joy filled her eyes with tears.
A fortnight after Vêrmund’s bloody reaving, a wandering shaman came to them from the south. The shaman was short but thick in every measure, and his horns curled twice around his ears. His name was Ulkrö, and he carried a staff cut with runes and with a single sapphire, large as his thumb, set within the knotted wood. He claimed to have heard of Vêrmund and said that he, Ulkrö, could kill the dragon.
Ilgra listened with resentment: if anyone were to kill Vêrmund the Grim, it ought to be her. But it was a selfish desire, so she spoke of it not. The shaman frightened her: he passed his staff through the hall fire and made the flames dance at his command. She did not understand magic. She put her trust in bone and muscle, not words and potions.
The next morning, Ulkrö set forth to climb Kulkaras and confront the dragon. The whole clan turned out to watch, a silent gathering of hard-eyed faces, too wracked with sorrow to cheer or hope. Ulkrö made up for their quiet with japes and gibes and shows of magic. He finished with a bolt of lightning from his staff, with which he split a sapling, sending it tumbling to the ground. At that, the clan broke their stillness and gave full voice to a war chant as the shaman made his departure.
That evening, when the sun streamed low across the mountain peaks and the valley lay in purple shadow, Ilgra heard a roar from Vêrmund. Fear struck through her, and she and her family rushed outside, as did the rest of Clan Skgaro.
Upon high Kulkaras, they saw the giant worm spread his coal-black wings and rise up rampant before the amber sky. His head was wreathed with flashes of light, and fire burst from his maw, an angry banner that rippled as if in a beating gale. Shadows clung round the dragon, unnatural in the extreme, and slabs of stone split off the face of Kulkaras and fell to shatter against the trees below.
Whatever else could be said of the shaman Ulkrö, he was neither coward nor weakling, and his magics served him well. For a fraught span, the battle raged fierce and ferocious. Then the hollow shriek of the deathbird sounded among the trees, and a flare of red light went up from Kulkaras—a great beacon bright enough to pierce the gathered clouds and breach the heavens beyond. A moment later, the light vanished. They heard Vêrmund utter a triumphant bellow, and then all was still and all was quiet.
At dawn’s first light, Ilgra crept out with the warriors, fearful to see what Ulkrö had wrought. They turned their gazes northward, and there upon the peak of Kulkaras the scaled length of Vêrmund again coiled around the jagged rock, seemingly unperturbed by the night’s events.
Ilgra felt the grey leach of hopelessness, and she looked at Gorgoth, her spear, and wondered what hope she had of ever defeating the dragon Vêrmund. It was not in her nature to give up, though. Ilgra was her father’s daughter. By his name, she swore she would have her vengeance.
* * *
Two things Ulkrö had proven by his attack: First, that Vêrmund was content to stay on Kulkaras and sleep off his meal. Second, that the dragon was no more vulnerable to magic than he was to swords, spears, axes, or arrows.
It was a disheartening realization for the Skgaro. There was talk of making weighted nets big enough to snare Vêrmund’s wings, but the season was turning from summer to autumn, and much needed doing were they to survive the harsh mountain winter.
&nbs
p; So the Skgaro put aside their plans for killing the dragon, and though they knew it was a risk, they began the task of rebuilding their village. They built more with stone than wood this time, and it was a tiresome labor for the males, who preferred hunting or raiding or sparring among themselves to determine who was strongest. But they prevailed, and their halls rose anew.
The Skgaro also dug hidden burrows throughout the foothills and stocked them well with provisions. It went against every fiber of their being to contemplate hiding like prey—the Horned bow to nothing and no one—but necessity forced them to it. The younglings had to survive, and the seedstock for next year’s planting too.
And they set watch upon Kulkaras at all times, night and day. Should Vêrmund descend again, they would have warning.
Many watches Ilgra stood. When not at her post—nor hewing stone or weeding their meager crops or tending flocks or any of the myriad tasks required of her—she devoted herself to working with her spear and learning from Arvog and the other warriors how best to fight. It was custom among the Horned for both males and females to train in the use of weapons—for theirs was a warlike people—but Ilgra pursued the practice with greater enthusiasm than most. She forsook the arts of hearth and home, much to her mother’s disapproval, and spent herself in contest with the males until she could hold her own with all but the strongest.
Thus the year crept past. With help from their clanmates, Ilgra and her family finished their new hall, and thereupon they set to making it a fit place to live ere the weather turned cold. And still Vêrmund remained perched upon Kulkaras, lost in his gluttonous slumber. At times, they heard rumblings from the mountain as the worm shifted or as he snored, knocking loose falls of ice and snow, and there were nights when fire lit the undersides of the clouds as Vêrmund exhaled particularly forcefully.