The Dragonslayer Series: Books 1-4: The Dragonslayer Series Box Set

by Resa Nelson

  Margreet looked up at the mention of her name, and she studied them closely.

  “Yes,” Astrid said. “I noticed.”

  Vinchi nodded. “I suspect she’s willing to show the well to you because you set her mother and the others free.”

  “We all did. The three of us.”

  “But it was your idea,” Vinchi said. “Had it not been for you, we would have left Limru the same way we found it.”

  * * *

  Later that morning, Astrid followed Margreet into the temple of Limru. Vinchi claimed he wanted to bury the fire properly with dirt, but Astrid suspected he feared going in the temple. He’d looked terrified at the sight of the ghosts taking form last night. If any lingered in the forest, they would probably scare the life out of him by sheer accident.

  Astrid agreed he should douse the fire instead.

  Stepping mindfully over gnarled roots, Astrid reconsidered her goal. Initially, she’d rejected Taddeo’s suggestion that she drink from the well to renew her lost arm and solidify the scars that sometimes wandered out of place on her skin. But now that she’d seen Limru, Astrid knew she’d be foolish to waste this opportunity. It seemed that only Northlanders drank dragon’s blood, which meant they were the only ones who could see her phantom arm. It made no sense to risk strangers witnessing Astrid using her phantom arm and assuming she used some kind of sorcery.

  And the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she should offer water from the Dragon’s Well to Margreet. Even though Margreet had all her body parts intact, she seemed to have a weakness in her own spirit. It was as if she didn’t know what kind of place she could have in the world outside of being Gershon’s wife.

  Even though Astrid had never married, she understood what it felt like to not know one’s place in the world. If not for DiStephan and Lenore and Randim and Donel—and even Taddeo and Norah—Astrid might just as easily be in a place like Margreet’s.

  Like the stones Margreet had laid out last night, the sacred trees grew in a circle. Their trunks were thick with rough bark, and a few of their limbs grew down until they touched the ground before rising skyward, seeming to reach with the intent of scooping the women up into the air. Despite the chilliness of approaching winter, grass grew thick and green in the center surrounded by trees.

  Margreet spoke, pointing toward a few wooden planks near the base of a tree.

  Astrid helped her lift the first plank covering the well. Its rim rose slightly above the ground, and its stone walls sank deep into the earth. Unlike the circle Margreet created outside the temple with gathered rocks, these stones had been carved to fit together and form a smooth and polished surface from the lip of the well at ground level to its depths below. The women lifted all the planks, revealing a bucket hanging from a rope looped around a hook inside the lip of the well.

  I’ll take the first drink. Then I’ll offer it to Margreet.

  But when Astrid un-looped the rope from its hook, Margreet protested, her face creased with worry.

  “It’s fine,” Astrid said, knowing Margreet understood nothing she said but hoping she’d hear Astrid’s intent. “I have permission to drink.” Before Margreet could protest again, Astrid dropped the bucket into the darkness of the well until it thudded to a stop.

  Astrid frowned and Margreet kept protesting her concern. Testing the rope, Astrid noted its slackness. The problem wasn’t that the bucket had reached the end of its rope. Instead, the bucket seemed to have reached the bottom of the well, even though there had been no splash.

  Quickly, Astrid pulled the bucket back up, horrified to discover no water inside the bucket. Not even the outside showed any signs of being wet.

  The Dragon’s Well that Taddeo had said would heal her had gone dry.

  CHAPTER 46

  Vinchi paced by the remains of their breakfast fire, now dead and gone. He stirred the embers to make sure none of them were still alive. The ground had gone hard enough from the cold that it made no sense to try to dig it to cover the embers, so he’d gathered a few dozen small stones to pile on top of the fire’s remains, just to be safe.

  Despite the cold, his armpits were damp with sweat from taking care of the fire. His heart raced with anxiety. With every day that passed, he worried about dying at Gershon’s hands.

  What was I thinking? Vinchi wondered. He gazed up at the morning sky, worried that the wispy white clouds were a false promise of hope. What if the harmless wisps gave way to dark, heavy thunderheads? What if the winds grew strong enough to pick Margreet up and take her skyward? What if the ground shook apart and devoured her? What if the oceans rose and a rogue wave dragged her out to sea? What if—

  “Stop it,” Vinchi whispered to himself. Nothing like that would happen. Even if Gershon came searching, how likely was it that he could actually find them? Vinchi could take Margreet to the deep Southlands where he still had family, and he could marry her and protect her and cherish her—

  “The well is dry,” Margreet said.

  Vinchi looked up sharply, feeling guilty and not understanding why. “Dry?”

  Margreet let the skirt of her dress skim the ground, not bothering to pick it up. Though belted, the skirt still hung a shade too long. Dirt stains that had never washed out darkened the hem. Morning dew on the dried grass made the hem wet, as well.

  Astrid trailed Margreet, her gaze downcast and distant. Astrid looked as if her thoughts were oceans away.

  Vinchi repeated his comment, this time in the language Astrid understood. “Dry?”

  The muscles in her jaw flexed as she swallowed. “We should go to Guell,” Astrid said. “All of us. We’ll be safe there.”

  Vinchi’s immediate thought was to run and hide. To cower in a place where no one would ever find him. “Guell?”

  “Guell?” Margreet said.

  “Astrid’s home,” Vinchi said. Switching back to the Northlander’s language, he said, “That’s impossible. And what good would it do us?”

  “Most people are afraid to go to Guell because of Dragon’s Head and the dragons it attracts. Everyone in Guell will stand by us. Margreet will be safe there—we all will.”

  Vinchi shook his head as he suppressed a shudder. “But Gershon has no qualms. He’ll travel anywhere.”

  “He won’t suspect we’re there. He won’t think to look for us in Guell. And if he does, he’ll have to face an entire village.”

  No, no, no. I need Margreet in the Southlands. Once she’s there—once she has a chance to get to know me and my family and friends. And Gershon has never been in the deep Southlands. He won’t know where to find us.

  He looked up at the sky again, bright and pale blue, still dotted with wispy cloudlets. In a few weeks, crossing the sea back toward the Northlands would be too risky. The colder the air, the higher and more violently the waves churned. Few ships attempting to cross the winter sea survived. Not to mention the fact that the mountain passes leading to Guell would probably be blocked by several feet of snow. If they left now, this moment, the odds of crossing the sea and the mountain passes were still good, but so were the chances of running into Gershon or people who could report to him.

  No. Better to follow Vinchi’s way.

  “Why is she talking about Guell?” Margreet said, folding her arms across her chest as she pursed her lips in discontent. Margreet had never been one to show patience at being left out of a conversation.

  But she would have to wait a bit longer.

  “I told you,” Vinchi said to Astrid. “It’s impossible. At this time of year, the sea’s too rough to cross. We’d perish.”

  “But—”

  “And even if we survived the crossing, the mountain passes would be filled with snow. We can’t get to Guell until it all melts, and that’s usually sometime in spring. We’d be stuck at the town where we took Margreet, and folks aren’t likely to be welcoming of us.”

  “What are you saying about me?” Margreet said.

  Vinchi turned to face Ma
rgreet. “We’re talking about a way to keep you safe.”

  Both women stared at him.

  “That’s not my language,” Margreet said coolly. “You’re still speaking the tongue of the Northlanders.”

  Vinchi swallowed hard, hesitating before he looked at Astrid’s face, her jaw clenched in anger. He winced, realizing he’d forgotten which language he spoke.

  “We were talking about going back to Guell. Why didn’t you tell her that?”

  “No need to get her hopes up,” Vinchi said smoothly, scrambling to figure out a way to placate both women. He couldn’t suggest heading for his own home immediately. It would look too suspicious. He had to find a way to make it seem like the most logical and safe solution for all of them. It was best to stick to the destination he’d recommended several days ago.

  Astrid took a few steps forward, suspicion lacing the look in her eyes.

  Margreet stared intently at her. Maddeningly, even though the women didn’t speak the same language, there were times when they seemed to understand each other quite well. Margreet turned to face Vinchi with the same suspicion in her own eyes.

  “Then what,” Astrid said in a tone as chilly as the wintry air, “do you suggest we do?”

  “Keep our original plan,” Vinchi said with complete honesty. “Gershon will never find us there.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking!” Margreet demanded of Vinchi.

  Concentrating this time, Vinchi switched to Margreet’s language. “Astrid and I will take you to a safe place where Gershon is unlikely to find us but where we’ll have shelter from the weather and plenty to eat and drink.”

  “Is it far?”

  Vinchi smiled. “No. We’re nearly there.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Wendill and Norah walked for several days through the Forest of Aguille. Sometimes the trees were bare bones of trunks and limbs, making it easy to see far into the deadened forest as they marched ankle-deep through brittle, crunching leaves. Other times, pines grew thick among the leafless trees, making it impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction. The air took on the fresh crisp odor that promised oncoming snow, even though the little bit of sky that showed above looked pale and cloudless.

  Wendill mulled over how to prepare Norah for what she would soon witness. He hadn’t seen the Temple of Limru in many decades. He’d been trapped inside the Dragon’s Head outcrop near Guell, but Taddeo and other dragons had told Wendill about everything that had happened at Limru.

  A sharp crack caught Wendill’s attention. He slowed his pace, looking to his left. The groan of wood and a dull thud gave him reason to breathe easy. No one followed them in the forest. Most likely, a rotting branch had broken free and fallen.

  He turned when Norah tugged on his shirtsleeve. Wendill had encouraged her to walk by his side, but she refused. He didn’t know if she felt safer walking behind him or if she copied him to understand how a dragon moves through the world or if she had some reason of her own that he didn’t understand.

  “Bad man?” Although Norah appeared calm, something about the way she looked at Wendill made her seem concerned.

  Wendill reached to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she backed away. He silently admonished himself for forgetting her aversion to being touched. He’d never felt that way himself, but he’d been born and raised in the wild, as it should be—not inside a Scalding’s cage like Norah. He sometimes wondered if he’d made a mistake allowing himself to be trapped inside Dragon’s Head Point. If he stayed in the world instead of becoming part of it, maybe he could have prevented the capture and murder of so many of his kind by the Scaldings. Maybe he could have saved Norah from her imprisonment. Maybe she would have grown up surrounded by the love and care she deserved and she’d be happy.

  Then again, Wendill reminded himself, if I hadn’t agreed to the entrapment on Dragon’s Head Point, none of us might have survived.

  He smiled at Norah. Better to have her here in her current state than not at all. “Do you smell the bad man?”

  She paused, flaring her nostrils and taking a deep breath. She shook her head—she had caught no scent of Gershon.

  “You can trust yourself and what you sense. If you don’t smell him, then he is nowhere near us.” Wendill paused. “But there is something you should know about where we’re going.”

  Norah watched him steadily, bracing herself for the worst.

  “We are going to a place where people used to worship and pay respect to the spirits of the world.”

  “Spirits?”

  Wendill caught his breath, sad to see the confused expression on Norah’s face. He never dreamed he’d meet a dragon—even a young one—that knew so little about the world in which it lived.

  “Taddeo asked you to guide me to Limru, and you have succeeded.”

  “Here?”

  “Not here. But close enough that I recognize where we are.”

  Norah’s face relaxed as she smiled. For the first time, she looked happy.

  “But there is something I must tell you about Limru before we arrive. It is an old place that was once very beautiful.”

  The smile faded from Norah’s face. “Once?”

  Wendill hesitated, unsure of what to say next or how to explain what he needed her to know. “There are many kinds of people. One kind understands the world and its spirits. Another kind does not. This other kind hurt Limru.”

  “Hurt,” Norah whispered, seeming to take the word personally.

  “But those people are not at Limru anymore. They achieved what they wanted—to hurt Limru and the people who took care of it—and they have gone to other places. They cannot hurt you or me.”

  “Scaldings!” Norah hissed.

  “No, not the Scaldings. I understand how much the Scaldings hurt you, Norah, but know this: the Scaldings are people who can understand us. They can learn how. These other people, the ones who hurt Limru—it will be very difficult to help them understand. It might be impossible.”

  Norah nodded as if accepting the inevitable, her eyes glazed with puzzlement. But she gestured for Wendill to lead on.

  As they pressed forward, Wendill realized for the first time that in addition to preparing Norah for the destruction they were about to see at Limru, he would have to prepare himself as well.

  CHAPTER 48

  A few days later, Wendill stood among the sacred trees of the Temple of Limru while Norah studied them, keeping close by his side.

  Wendill last visited the temple many decades ago, long before he’d been imprisoned at Dragon’s Head Point. For the first time, he saw Limru after autumn had left its tree limbs bare. Even though their leaves were brown and thin as an old man’s skin, the trees standing without them somehow appeared more powerful and strong. Their thick branches wove high above the tree line of the surrounding forest.

  But even more shocking, the sight Wendill beheld looked nothing like what Taddeo or any of the other dragons had described. They’d warned of carnage and destruction, and he saw nothing like that here. True, the gold and silver chains that had once hung on every limb of every tree and glittered among the leaves had vanished. Otherwise, the sacred trees of the temple were just the way Wendill remembered them. “Hello, my friends,” he murmured.

  “Look!”

  At the sound of Norah’s voice, Wendill turned and followed the direction in which she pointed. His heart plummeted like a seabird diving into the ocean.

  With Norah trailing close behind, Wendill approached the stone circle in the clearing outside the temple. He recognized the work of the Keepers of Limru: a circle as large as a ship, aligned with the four directions and blessed with fire. But when he peered at the contents inside the circle, he felt more confused.

  Charred bone fragments rested in a thick bed of soft ashes. As a matter of respect for the Keepers of Limru, Wendill stayed outside the stone circle and simply peered at its contents instead of reaching inside. “Do you see those marks on the bones?” he sa
id to Norah, who now stood so close by his side that she almost touched him. “That is the mark left behind when the spirit has been set free from the bones.”

  Wendill swallowed hard. He hadn’t considered that the spirits of the people who died here would have been trapped. But the violence and the suddenness of the attack would have been enough to keep them imprisoned inside the little that remained of their bodies.

  Norah crept to the edge of the stone circle and walked slowly. Coming to a stop, she pointed at one of the stones. “Scalding.”

  Wendill turned to face her. “You sense the Scalding was here?”

  Norah nodded, jabbing her forefinger at the same stone. “Scalding!”

  Wendill frowned. “The Scalding is a Scalding. Not a Keeper of Limru. How could she know how to do this?”

  “Others.”

  “Others were here? With the Scalding?”

  Norah considered it for a few moments. Then she nodded again.

  “But the Scalding didn’t stop them.” Wendill looked back at the Temple of Limru behind them, its sacred trees standing tall and proud. “She allowed the others to heal the Temple.”

  Norah stared at the bones and ashes, seeming to contemplate them. Softly, she said, “Well?”

  Her question jolted Wendill back into the reality of why they’d come here: the Dragon’s Well of Limru. How fitting that Taddeo had suggested the guise of Wendill needing to be healed for the sake of convincing Norah to travel to the one place with the power to heal her and set her right in the world—and that they’d discovered the place itself had been healed.

  “Of course,” Wendill said. “Follow me.”

  Instead of following quietly behind Wendill, Norah practically skipped next to his side, watching his every step as if to make sure she didn’t take a wrong one.

  Wendill understood. He and Taddeo had been able to lure her into the outside world by promising she could do something that mattered and that would make a difference to all dragons. Although Wendill would benefit from drinking from the well, it wasn’t essential to his survival. But Norah’s survival depended on it. Norah stood on the precipice of the most important thing she had ever done.