By the Silver Wind (38 page)

As the monsters closed, the hovering wall of gryfons burst apart in fifty directions.

With Andor and Tollack, Ragna peeled away, shrieking to loose some of her terror and to form a distraction. The monsters smashed into the ranks of flying gryfons, horned heads snapping this way and that, tails lashing, claws swiping randomly at Ragna’s warriors.

A smaller, dull green beast focused on Ragna, loosing a guttural scream that almost shattered her heart with fear. She spun in the air as Stigr had once taught her, and drove under him. Behind her, Andor and Tollack cheered at her aerobatics, then split, forcing the beast to choose between them. It lurched after Tollack, tail slashing the air behind.

“Don’t be heroes,” Halvden was yelling, “just keep them flying, keep them away from the pride!” Surprise and pride bubbled in Ragna’s chest that Halvden was leading so well. He had come very far. Then, with sudden shrillness the green gryfon shouted, “King’s Guard to me! To the woods, the woods!”

Ragna, veering hard, saw that the big dragoness was not fooled by their chaotic display, but flying over the whole scene toward the fleeing pride.

“Warriors to Halvden!” she barked. “Dagr, Andor! Tollack—”

She whipped around, and her heart clutched to see Andor spiraling toward the ground, one wing flailing uselessly. Tollack was diving, diving for him. Ragna swooped down to aid them, when another beast closed on her, screaming and gnashing its fanged jaws. Her ears nearly burst at the noise.

Fear swamped her like a wave, as it had in her youth when a great sailfish had dragged her deep under the ocean. She couldn’t move but to hover, beating the air and staring at the approaching, winged death.

A body slammed into her.

Eyvin, nearly mad with terror. “Fly, Ragna! Curse it!”

“Eyv—”

“Fly!”

The monster collided with Eyvin, and Ragna swooped down out of their tangled, battling path. She hated herself for it, but she had to stay alive. She had to be queen. She remembered Halvden, and the monster flying toward her fleeing pride. Andor, falling toward the ground.

Distracted, she realized there was still one color she didn’t see with those fleeing, nor in the sky with Halvden. No flash of scarlet met her gaze in the storm wind, on the ground or in the sky.

A sense of fury mingled with helplessness in her heart. The invading creatures would slaughter her pride, kill or harry the pregnant females to death if Halvden couldn’t stop them, and Sverin, the War King, would die cowering in his den. Even though it was his legacy, there was no part of Ragna that truly wished to see that.

Sverin’s grandfather took dragon gold, and brought this curse on us.

Dragon gold.

Thunder clapped, as if Tor herself roared in rage.

An idea butted past Ragna’s terror. She shoved her wings hard, soaring back to the nesting cliffs as unholy roars shattered the air, as the monsters battled her pride.

Halvden’s battle roar thundered in the sky, and in the corner of Ragna’s vision, as she navigated the storm, she saw warriors closing ranks with him to fly at the marauding queen, attacking in a series of wedges, like geese.

Then she saw no more, for she had to pay attention to her own flight or end up dashed on the rocks as the wind rose fast. She flew low, under the main fighting, down to the cliffs.

Angling hard, she swung herself back into Sverin’s den, the wind beating at her rump and nearly bowling her over. Ignoring Sverin, who crouched in the deepest corner with his head bent into his chest feathers, Ragna leaped at the nest that dripped with dragon gold.

His head came up slowly, his voice raw. “What are you doing?”

“I see you can still speak,” Ragna snarled. “We are in battle.” She curled her talons around chains, bejeweled bracers, and shining rings, and hauled them from the nest. Hobbling between her hind paws and her talons, full of gold, she heaved herself to the front of the den.

“Ho, great dragons!” she shouted. “Hail, cursed enemy! Is this what you want?”

Behind her, Sverin gasped a protest. Ragna ignored him, kept hold of what she could reasonably carry, and jumped from the den. Sinking steadily with the weight of the gold, Ragna yelled challenge into the storm.

“Here!” Her voice cracked into an eagle chirrup. She bellowed again, deep from her chest. “Is this what you’ve come for?” Skyfire crackled as she brandished a chain, illuminating the gold.

Monster heads whipped her way as the treasures flashed. Grunting with the weight, Ragna managed enough lift to crash atop the nesting cliff.

All but the largest shrieked in seeming glee and swung toward her. Dagr’s cry cracked the air, dismayed at seeing her call the monsters to her.

Ragna screamed at the nightmare horde. “Take it! Take all of it!”

As the leading male dragon, a grey beast the length of ten gryfons, dove at her, Ragna flung five sparkling, golden chains over the cliffs.

Jaws snapped three leaps from her, then the monster turned, and dove. Its brethren focused on Ragna as she cast the gold away. Above, in the chaos, her warriors caught on. Multiple gryfons dove toward the nests of the Aesir. The half-bloods and the Aesir themselves were large enough to bear the gold away from the nesting cliffs, and Ragna saw some flying along the cliffs, some risking themselves farther out to sea.

This had the desired effect, and drew the dragons away from the rest of the fleeing pride. She noticed that as they pursued and tried to snatch at the gold, they always veered shy of diving into the water.

The rain hit as Ragna snatched another treasure from Sverin’s den. Blood pounded her ears as the icy rain slithered off her oiled wings.

The nesting cliffs glittered with discarded treasure. The beasts fought each other now, and chased any gryfon bearing bright things that caught their eye. The largest female loosed an angry, bone-rattling roar as the monsters left her battle and began squabbling among themselves for gold.

Not wanting to risk them catching sight of the fleeing gryfons again, Ragna soared out over the water. Three of the smaller beasts pursued her over the icy, frothing waves. Ragna blinked hard against the driving rain and pretended it was only gryfons behind her, gryfons, nothing more.

The treasure she carried was a collar, so heavy it dragged her flight, and she knew after two moments flying with it she wouldn’t be able to draw the wyrms out and still have strength to carry it back while out-maneuvering her pursuers.

She would have to drop it.

She gave the treasure one last look. It was wrought with intricate designs and crested with shifting catseye gems. One of Sverin’s favorites. He had worn it often. Ragna flung herself around so the marauding dragons could see her clearly, and with pleasure, dropped it into the sea.

Two immediately tucked into dives, shrieking and snapping at each other, trying to catch the collar before it hit the water. One pulled up, unwilling to dive into the waves, and the second fell hard and fast, catching the collar in a single claw. Then a wave surged and knocked the wyrm into the water. Ragna didn’t see if it flew out.

The third was smart enough to figure out Ragna was to blame, and drove toward her. Ragna slipped under him and zipped above the waves, panting, staring hard through the rain toward the nesting cliffs.

In the distance she saw a line of gryfons against the naked birch woods that flanked the river. They disappeared from her sight in the tree line, and she knew they were safe. It looked as if most of the pregnant, elder, and young had made the river, made it to the entrance of the underground caves.

If I can just make it back to the cliffs myself . . .

“My lady!” Dagr shouted, flying out from the cliffs to meet her. Over his shoulder he called to others, “I found her!”

Multiple gryfons followed Dagr and converged on the dragon that pursued her, driving it back. Dagr, still clutching a golden bracer, whipped once around the beast’s head. He flung the bracer at the monster’s head and flew away, and the monster followed, striking randomly at gryfons who chased him.

Ragna followed them, flying high.

“Dagr!” she shouted. “Dagr! Halvden, retreat! Our pride is safe!” She tilted back, almost upright, ramping midair and flashing her wings. “Retreat!”

With the weakest of them to safety, Ragna hoped to spare as many others as possible.

The warriors appeared to hear, breaking off from the monsters. She saw them leave in strategic clumps, some staying to harry the marauding beasts in to confusion, others peeling away and flying to the woods.

Ragna soared over the cliffs, then dove down. As the monsters gathered their wits, she saw it was almost safer to fly low. To her relief she spied Halvden, shouting her order to retreat, calling gryfons to him. Ragna flew hard toward the woods.

A baleful roar struck the air. She’d lost track of the fighting, of the marauding queen, and could not look behind her. Terror drove her, flattened her ears, whipped her forward without looking back.

She should have looked back.

A gust of rotten wind bowled her beak over tail to crash, splayed in the slush and mud. Another guttural roar shook the earth and rattled her beak and her bones.

“
RAGNA!
”
someone shouted, a gryfess—in the chaos, she didn’t know who. Ragna gulped a breath. Scraping herself up, she whipped her head about in time to see the she-monster slam to the ground and duck her long neck, blaring a challenge at Ragna.

It was not Halvden or Caj who leaped past Ragna to come to her defense, but Sigrun, her own wingsister returning from the woods. Sigrun, followed by Gret, by Tollack, by Vanir and half-bloods and then a cloud of angry, shrieking gryfon voices, led by Halvden from above. A chaos of dragons descended with them, and tails and horns flashed like skyfire and hail.

Ragna watched, numb, as wyrms and gryfons whirled around each other. She saw gryfons fall to the ground and remain there.

“Fly!” Sigrun shouted, wheeling around the great, horned head of the dragon queen. “Ragna! Remember yourself. Fly!”

A gray beast snapped at Sigrun and she peeled off, leading it away from the river. Others followed. Ragna swallowed a stone in her throat, moving one locked hind leg.

Move. Move. MOVE!

The she-monster lunged forward and Ragna leaped back. A flash of emerald swept in front of her and she pitched sideways as Halvden skidded to the snow, roaring and lashing his talons. Ragna saw the dragon’s tail whip up and screamed a warning, too late, but wily Halvden, trained under Caj, had already leaped up to evade.

He was still too slow.

The deadly spade rounded, caught his foreleg, and Ragna saw a spray of blood and heard Halvden’s curdling shriek of pain. She stood locked in the snow, wasting his bravery, wasting his effort to protect her, a queen he didn’t even love.

An angry, shrieking roar broke through her shock and sorrow.

The dragoness reared up to her hind legs and Ragna scrabbled back in the sludge as the monster turned to behold Sverin.

Sverin, standing twenty leaps away, clutching shining bracers and collars, blood red against the rain and mud and snow.

“Is this what you’ve come for?” he snarled at the rearing dragon. His wings were still bound. Ragna’s blood seemed to lodge in her veins. “Well take it! Take all your cursed chains of gold!”

He flung the treasures at the dragon, and others whipped about to see, but she lashed her tail, warning them back.

“Sverin!” Ragna shouted. “The pride is safe, flee—”

The dragon lunged, her great claws swiping the air, but Sverin ducked under her massive paw, rolled, and came up on his hind legs.

Then, with a roar that bounded across the cliffs, he shoved open his wings.

Ragna stared as golden links snapped, flew apart, and glittered to the ground. He bellowed a challenge and the dragon queen answered with a roar like an avalanche, stamping the ground, tail whipping high. Her wings flared, darkening their sky. Sverin crouched back, ears flat, and sank toward the ground, his eyes losing their light.

“Sverin!” Caj’s voice cracked through the rain. “Sverin, run!”

The red gryfon’s gaze darted past them, to the fleeing warriors. Most of them had made it to the woods. Some remained, to help gryfons like Ragna who stood, mute, staring at the horror of the dragons. Without their queen guiding them on, most of the smaller beasts broke off from fighting to gather the gold still scattered along the cliff.

“Sverin!” Ragna yelled, coming to her own senses, coming out of her shock. “Sverin, the pride is safe, fly with us!”

He backed away from the dragon, wings opened, his beak and eyes wide. Ragna feared he’d lost himself. His gaze darted from the gold he’d thrown to the dragon, who stalked him, ignoring the treasure. Then his gaze flicked to the last of the gryfons, fleeing into the woods.

“Brother!” Caj shouted, leaping forward through the mud and slush.

“It’s not the gold,” Sverin rasped. “She doesn’t want the gold.”

He looked at Caj, then met Ragna’s eyes, spun, and shoved hard from the ground. With a nasty bellow, the dragoness followed, lunging hard into the rain.

Sverin’s scarlet wings beat hard against the storm—Ragna realized he hadn’t been eating fish, that his wings wouldn’t be as impervious to water as a Vanir’s. The monster had eyes only for Sverin, it seemed—and when Ragna realized that, she realized Sverin had not fled, but purposefully flew, to draw the great she-beast away.

And it appeared to Ragna’s eyes that she was slowing down. The wyrms were slowing. Whether injured or exhausted, she didn’t know.

“Sverin!” Caj cried, lunging up beside Ragna. “Ragna, please . . .”

With a curse, Ragna looked once more at the bodies of her fallen, counting at least Andor, Gret, and many of the Aesir. She didn’t see Halvden. Warriors tried to drag bodies toward the forest. Others hobbled, bloody and wounded, or fell beside their fallen comrades, with horrible cries that sent Ragna reeling back to memories of the Conquering.

Except this time they had been united—Aesir, Vanir, and all their new, mixed generation, fighting together in horrible, heart-wrenching unity against an impossible foe.