by Jess E. Owen
Behind them, the dragon dove, its murderous gaze locked on Shard. Jaws agape and shrieking rage, it flared its wings to follow—
—and smashed head first into the ground. Too slow.
The shock of shattering bones resounded like cedars cracking. A shockwave plumed out in the mud as the giant body hit. Shard and Stigr’s wild, relieved cries broke through the sounds of battle around them.
The dragon’s muddy gray and black body thrashed once like a beheaded serpent, drawing the eyes of the three remaining dragons –the black male, the green, the brown female.
The dawn light grew.
Shard and Stigr glided fast and low, catching breath. For one moment, the fighting rang dull behind Shard, and it felt oddly quiet. The dragons didn’t hunt in day. If they could just hold them back until the sun rose, it would be all right. He and Stigr wove back up, swinging around to rejoin the fighting.
“I’ve finally bested your mother in a hunt!” Stigr crowed, his voice raw as he and Shard regained height. “Killing a sailfish is nothing compared to—”
A dragon’s spade tail slapped him from the sky.
Shocked, Shard wheeled around, and saw Stigr fall hard in the mud. Raw air lashed Shard’s throat but he made no cry.
The female dragon ramped up, roaring a challenge.
Blind with fury, Shard forgot his safety and folded his wings to dive for the beast’s face. The dragon’s jaws yawned open wide and she swiped claws as he dove. Shard dodged under the swipe and regained height for another pass.
He stretched his talons straight toward the gleaming black eyes.
Another gryfon slammed into him from the side. Red and ragged. Brynja.
“Let go! Stigr!”
“No, Shard! No! You cannot win. Fly with me. The dawn will drive her off.”
“But Stigr,” Shard gasped, swooping with Brynja under the dragon’s next swipe. The great beast lumbered around, lashing her bladed tail and swiping with fore claws sharp as chips of obsidian. They dodged and wheeled. Desperate, Shard glanced back, trying to catch a glimpse of Stigr. The dragon’s jaws slammed shut a half leap from Shard’s tail.
Golden light crept across the horizon. Shadows ran forward from the dawn. The storm clouds swept toward the Outlands and sunlight gleamed along the dragon’s leathery hide. With a strangled roar she summoned the other dragons.
Shard climbed the air with Brynja, then glided together as the surviving dragons rose high to out fly the dawn, leaving the gryfon aerie behind them.
“Shard, don’t—” Brynja tried to claw his wing but Shard banked and dove fast again toward the ground.
Sorrowful keening wrenched the morning air. One dragon carcass was no victory, not with the number of gryfon dead. Shard thumped hard to the ground and leaped through dust and bloodstained mud to Stigr’s side.
“Uncle,” he whispered, gently nudging one smoky, black wing. With horror he saw that his touch rolled the wing almost completely off his uncle’s body. It was severed by the dragon’s tail, hanging only by tendon and skin, and he bled into the ground.
“Stigr.” He waited, staring stupidly, for a word, for something, for any movement. “Uncle,” he whispered again. “Stigr…”
If any breath lifted Stigr’s ribs it was so weak and faint Shard couldn’t tell. Warm dawn light glowed over the black feathers of his face and the scar of his missing eye, spread across his wings and flank.
Asvander trotted up beside Shard, bloodied, one wing oddly bent. “Healers!” barked the First Sentinel, when he saw Stigr. “Healers here! Shard, step back, I think he might…” Asvander gripped Shard’s wing in his talons, shaking him hard. “Rashard. He was a great warrior. If he dies, his peace will be great, in the Sunlit Land.”
“Healers, here!” cried Brynja, voice breaking as she trotted up beside them. “Please, hurry!”
Uncomprehending, Shard blinked at Asvander, barely recognizing him through dirt and blood. Unable to form words, he turned and lay down next to Stigr, tucking his beak under the soft black feathers of his chest.
He must be breathing. He has to be.
Shard couldn’t tell. Maybe Stigr’s ribs lifted gently, maybe the wind only lifted the feathers there. Every word his uncle had ever spoken to him rose up then swept away in a frigid, inner wind.
There were no words left. No thoughts. To think meant to know that this was his doing. His fault. His stupidity. No one flew back from across the Dawnward Sea. No one returned from the Sunlit Land.
Shard lifted himself a little, crouching over Stigr as Sigrun’s voice rushed into his head.
No matter the wound, if it’s bleeding, put pressure on it.
Shard pressed both fore feet firmly against Stigr’s shoulder where his wing used to be. Dimly he heard Asvander and Brynja still shouting for a healer. Maybe that meant Stigr would live. If he still lived. Shard scented Valdis on the wind and, through a strange roaring in his ears, heard her strangled cry. He pressed hard.
He had to put pressure until the healers came.
A movement made him freeze. His ears flicked forward. He thought he’d seen a breath. Words floated over him. Shouting, keening.
A strong tawny male, wings flared, shoved into him. King Orn.
“I know you brought this on us! I’ll kill you myself!”
Shard staggered back from Stigr’s body, uncomprehending. Brynja, bright and beautiful, leaped in front of him, pleading to Orn. Asvander joined, arguing. Valdis. Others. Shard backed away, tail tucking slowly, his gaze locked on Orn, then Stigr.
“Fly, Shard!” Brynja begged. “Please, fly!”
Asvander whirled. “Shard, go! We’ll tend to Stig—” a member of his own Guard leaped at Shard and he dodged away, panic crawling over his reason. Orn shouted something. Shard realized the king ordered all of them to be captured and held. Brynja, Valdis, Asvander, Shard. Spies. Traitors.
Valdis shouted from the commotion. “Run, Shard, you fool!”
What would Stigr want?
Shard backed down from gryfons who circled him, their gazes dark and hunting.
He would want me to do what I came to do.
Without another thought, Shard shoved straight up from the ground and shot skyward as fast as he could fly. Exclamations and swearing echoed under him. He heard Brynja, sounding victorious. He glanced behind to see members of the Guard lifting off in pursuit. They would never catch him.
With a final look back he saw Stigr’s body again, saw a healer shoving past Orn to crouch at Stigr’s side.
I did this.
Cold, sharp sadness curled out like talons.
An emptiness grew and ate in his chest until it consumed him. He couldn’t think. His wings slowed as his chest tightened, and he couldn’t breathe. Shard grasped at some sense of strength, struggling not to fall.
But Stigr wouldn’t want that. He would want Shard to fly, to go on, to find his vision and bring justice…the thought of Stigr, of not hearing his voice again, his lessons, even a reprimand, opened a hollow in Shard’s heart. There was only one escape.
He let go of himself as he had over the sea.
Fleeing the gryfons of the Dawn Spire, the dragons, and the harsh judgment of dawn, he fell into oblivion.
Lost, exhausted, and Nameless.
44
A Red Dawn
Low clouds crouched at the edge of the dawnward sky.
The first rays laid feathers of red low across the horizon, and relief welled in Caj’s heart to see it after a fortnight of darkness.
Sigrun and Ragna led the pregnant females to the river at first light, with a number of the King’s Guard walking behind.
Sverin did not emerge from his den. As the pride crept out from their dens to bow to the rising sun, Caj noted that a lingering air of relief breathed through everyone with every moment the king didn’t show himself. Caj walked among the pride, talking, checking if anyone felt sick or frightened. All were relieved to see the dawn, all were shaking with hunger, but glad for t
he sun. All the years since the Aesir had lived in the Silver Isles they were used to the long fast, but it still put a strain on the pride in winter.
“Is the king ill?” Caj asked Halvden, who had spent the Long Night in Sverin’s den. They stood in snow, and a light wind brought the faint scent of the half-frozen Nightrun to them.
“As soon as the light rose, he chose to sleep.” Halvden adjusted the shining gold gauntlet on his foreleg. He looked unusually haughty and Caj resisted the urge to throw him to the ground like a strutting fledge. “He asked not to be disturbed until middlemark.”
“Then we’ll disturb him with a good meal!” Caj called names and divided the males into four hunting bands. Though Einarr was a good hunter, he put the pregnant females at ease, and so Caj left him with the pride. He took Halvden with him, the better to keep an eye. As they planned their hunting routes, the females returned from the river.
Sigrun loped up to him, wings half open.
“My mate,” she murmured as the other males took wing. Halvden glanced at her, flattened his ears and trotted away as if she were an exile he should ignore. Caj sighed, and looked to her.
Her eyes, soft brown like a sea eagle, searched him. “I have an uneasy feeling. It’s a red dawn. I beg you not to go.”
“We’ll be safe.”
“It’s not only an uneasy feeling for you,” she whispered, sidling closer.
Caj remained rigid, wings tight to his sides. He tried to be reasonable about his frustrations—she’d only wanted to feed the pride. She means well.
“Stay,” Sigrun pleaded again. “For us. The king will wake soon.”
“I trust my wingbrother,” Caj said, though his muscles tensed.
“Do you?” Sigrun whispered.
“I have to hunt, Sigrun. Even you are almost out of meat.”
Sigrun stared at him, ears laying back, though she spoke quietly. “Of course. My mate.”
Caj hesitated, then dipped his head. “My mate.”
He turned roughly when she nuzzled at his chin, and loped up to join Halvden and his band in the reddening sky.
“Come!” Sigrun barked at the next groggy, grumpy clump of gryfesses, the fledges who had nested with them, and the young males. Einarr trotted forward, looking stern and alert and ready to lead the next group. “To the Nightrun.”
Feeling confident that Einarr and Sigrun had the pride well in wing, Caj turned his attention to his hunters.
The wind rose and stung them with cold on the flight to Star Isle. Caj sent a group to each side of the river, one up the coast, and led his own to the deep woods in the middle of the island, desperate to find sheltering deer.
Rabbit. Pheasant. Anything. If only Sverin let the Vanir hunt from the sea. There lies a bounty that never grows thin.
Caj huffed at himself as he tucked wing and landed hard on the forest floor. It was only hunger that brought that thought to his head. He tried to ignore his shaking muscles and the needling aches from the cold. He was getting too old to fast through the Long Night.
Halvden landed behind, the two others in his band ahead. Little snow had reached the ground there, so heavy did the pine boughs criss-cross above their heads. Dim, quiet light made the forest seem like a deep, green cave. The rowans that had blazed only scant weeks ago with fire-red berries stood bare as dark bones.
“You two, scout toward the old wolf den,” Caj commanded the two youngest hunters. Each had a mate to feed, and turned eagerly nightward to seek out prey. Caj turned to Halvden, flicking his ears. “You’re with me.”
Halvden inclined his head.
Caj tried to fathom what might’ve passed between Halvden and Sverin during the Long Night, if Halvden had remained awake with him.
What new suspicions and poisons did he feed Sverin’s desperate ears?
They stalked tensely through the forest for a sunmark, climbing a broken trail to follow deer droppings and then, fresher hoof prints in the mud. The trees broke and scattered, leaving large areas coated with snow.
A heavy, sour musk stopped Caj and he paused, talons lifted, staring hard through the woods. “A boar den lies close,” he said to Halvden, who stood farther off, in the woods away from the deer track. The clouds pressed lower and the light faded to low gray. A storm pressed in. A red dawn.
A red dawn at morning, hunters take warning. A saying of the Silver Isles that Caj had first thought some old superstition, until he learned the way of the clouds and wind on the islands. It meant ill weather on the horizon and was a good warning indeed. The storm had flown quickly. He turned from their current path.
“Let’s put some ground between us and this scent.”
No answer. Caj looked up and peered around, and saw that Halvden had paused near a cluster of pine. A hole broke the ground beneath the roots and Halvden was picking around it, sniffing.
“Halvden. Leave it. We’ll hunt easier game.”
“I’m coming,” he chirped, too airily. Caj glared at him as he trotted forward.
“Focus. Your mate is hungry, and a storm draws in.”
“I know,” Halvden muttered. “We’re all hungry.” He looked as if he would say more, meeting Caj’s eyes in silent challenge. Caj’s hackles prickled, his heart uneasy. Halvden had seen something by those pines, something that lit his eyes with hunting light, and Caj’s instinct sparked as if an enemy stood in front of him.
Halvden’s ear slanted back, and he held perfectly still. “Do you hear that?”
Caj stood silent. “No.” Surely he wasn’t getting that old.
Halvden’s ears twitched, but he didn’t take his gaze off Caj’s face. Caj swiveled his ears back and around. He heard no other gryfons. He heard nothing in the dead, snow-covered woods.
Nothing but Halvden.
The green gryfon stepped closer and Caj lifted his wings.
“I heard something,” Halvden whispered. His eyes grew bright, half with excitement, half with fear. “A boar, I think.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Caj growled, chilled with understanding. Halvden advanced as if he were stalking a stag. Maybe I am getting old. Too old for this tier-climbing. I should’ve seen it. “What do you gain by this?”
“The king’s ear,” Halvden snarled. “You have no faith in him. You choose your Vanir witch over your king. Your wingbrother.”
“Halvden, you know so little.”
“I know enough.”
Caj, not wanting to fight, backed toward the trees. He had to remind himself he didn’t truly want to harm Halvden. He was only young and arrogant, and he had a new mate and an unborn kit.
“Stop this now.”
“I heard a boar,” Halvden whispered. “It will come out of the trees. We’ll fight it. Valiantly. You’ll save my life. The king will like that. Your mate will believe it.” Halvden raised his wings in threat. “Everyone will. Noble Caj.”
“Halvden—”
Halvden lunged. Caj ramped to meet him, locked talons threw him to the ground. Starlings that had sat silent and invisible in the trees raised an alarm and flocked from the trees into the iron gray sky.
“You’re a traitor to your kind!” Halvden rolled to his feet, ready for attack, but Caj didn’t pursue. Nothing in the forest moved after the birds fled. His other hunters had ranged wide. No one would witness.
“Halvden you are half Vanir! You’re leaping at shadows just like the king!”
Caj clamped his beak. He hadn’t meant to say it.
Halvden leaped again and Caj had no time to think. They clawed and wrestled deeper into the trees. Several times Caj slapped talons toward tender spots to debilitate his young opponent, and his claws scraped hard metal. Gauntlets. A collar. Dragon treasures studded with gleaming emeralds that matched the arrogant gryfon’s feathers. Armor suited for battle, not just hunting in the woods.
He planned this, and I was too stupid and hungry to see.
“You want to be wingbrother to a king?” Caj hissed. His muscles threatened to cramp, his belly ach
ed with hunger. “You have no idea of loyalty. Loyalty is knowing when those closest to you are wrong.”
Halvden hissed low, and circled. They passed through trees again to a clearing. A meadow. Caj knew it somehow. Memory flashed.
This is where we killed the boar. The evidence was perfect. Everyone would believe Halvden’s tale.
Halvden glanced around, pleased, then locked his gaze on Caj. “I am loyal to the king. You’re bewitched, and I’ll tell him so. You turned your back on us.”
“Never like that.”
Halvden surged forward. Caj twisted out of the way again. Hunger raked in his belly. Fight-thrill was all that kept his muscles moving, kept his blood coursing hot, and he couldn’t understand how Halvden moved so quickly.
Unless…
Unless he had eaten the king’s store of meat to keep strong for a fight. Halvden turned Sverin off to the food by planting ideas about Sigrun’s motives, and eaten it himself when Sverin wasn’t looking.
Caj ducked as Halvden slashed forward, weaving away from Halvden’s advances, fearing he wouldn’t have the strength to meet him full on again.
“If loyalty is knowing when someone is wrong, then I am loyal to you.” Halvden’s voice cut with mockery. Snow whirled down, dimming the day to strange twilight. “My teacher, mentor to the young warriors. I’ll make sure your great name lives on.”
Halvden ramped, flaring his wings. Something fluttered down. Something had been tucked in his golden collar. Two feathers. Two feathers blazed gold on the snow.
Only one gryfon in Sverin’s pride boasted that coloring.
“Kjorn,” Caj whispered, stunned. He looked at Halvden. “Where did you find those? We must tell the king!”
“Don’t worry,” Halvden said as he thumped back to all fours, eyes gleaming. “I will.”
Caj rose in time to meet Halvden’s next, vicious charge. The younger gryfon slashed and fought like a witless beast. Caj twisted and tried not to harm him.
“You can’t win,” Caj growled, growing breathless, weak with hunger. Halvden drove him out of the meadow into the trees again, through dead, wet ferns and gnarled brush and naked white birch trees. “I taught you everything you’re doing now!”