Doom of the Dragon (5 page)

Joabis was by the door, motioning him to hurry.

Outside the sky was darkening with the coming of night, a gray gloom settling over the world. A blast of cold air hit him and he looked wistfully back over his shoulder at the fire's bright glow, the warriors returning to their drinking and singing. Torval called for ale and motioned his bard to begin to play the harp and sing.

“Someday I will return a hero,” said Skylan.

“Just not too soon, my friend,” said Garn. “We need you among the living. Give my love to Aylaen.”

As the two embraced, Garn whispered in Skylan's ear. “Keep your eye on Joabis!”

“I would keep three eyes on him, if I had them,” Skylan returned. “Farewell, my friend.”

As he was leaving, Skylan heard the bard singing a song of the glory of the Vindrasi and he saw Torval sitting in his chair, listening with an expression of sorrow and melancholy that made Skylan's heart ache.

He put his hand to the amulet, only to remember that it was lost.

“Make haste!” Joabis said, shoving Skylan over the threshold.

The door slammed shut behind them, leaving Skylan and the God of the Revel out in the snow and cold.

 

CHAPTER

4

Acronis, former Legate of the Oran Empire, woke in the night to the creaking of timbers and the feel of the dragonship gently gliding over the calm sea. He had made his bed on a pallet on deck and from where he was lying he could see the square sail black against the glittering stars and, beyond, the graceful curve of the neck of the dragon's head prow.

At first glance, the casual observer would take the figurehead for an ornate and beautiful carving of a dragon. Upon close examination, the observer would see that the eyes of the dragon glowed red with a fiery intelligence. The observer would also note that no one was rowing the ship or steering it, yet it sped across the waves, sending up foam in its wake. The Dragon Kahg had imbued his spirit into the dragonship and was sailing the vessel.

The feel, the sight, the sounds of a ship at sea were familiar to Acronis. As a Legate, he had spent most of his forty-some years at sea, commanding a Sinarian war galley, a trireme. He had been a powerful man in the capital city of Sinaria, a very wealthy man, until he had run afoul of a new god, Aelon, and her new Priest-General, Raegar.

When his beloved daughter, Chloe, had died, Acronis had lost the will to live and tried to end his life. But he was stopped by Skylan Ivorson, who had once vowed to kill him and instead had turned out to be his salvation.

Acronis had left Sinaria and his old life behind to set sail with Skylan in the dragonship,
Venejekar
, for reasons Acronis did not yet quite understand. He had been lost, adrift, desolate; Skylan had hit him like a tidal wave, crashing into his life, sweeping him up and carrying him along with him on an unusual quest to save strange gods.

Acronis was too old to have any illusions about Skylan's reasons. Skylan had not saved his former master out of friendship nor—to give Skylan credit—for revenge. His reasons were practical. Acronis knew how to read a map and chart a course. He had sailed these waters for years and was familiar with the customs and cultures of many of the world's people, including the ogres.

He and Skylan had started out as enemies, only to find friendship during the time they had spent together on board the dragonship. Acronis had come to admire and even love the courageous young man who strode through life boldly, fighting impossible odds to save his gods and his people, only to have his quest ended by a spear in the back.

When Skylan had died in the arms of his beloved wife, Aylaen, Acronis had mourned him as a son. Now the young man's body, clad in his armor and chain mail and helm, lay on the deck, only a few feet from Acronis.

He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at the corpse. Acronis had been a soldier for years and he had seen death in many gruesome forms. He had walked the bloody battlefield and watched vultures pluck out the eyes of the dead and rats swarm over the bodies. He had once, on a moonlit night, witnessed the ghouls, horrible fae creatures who feast on corpses, slinking among the dead.

But he had never seen, in all his years, a corpse that didn't decay.

The body was cold to the touch, the flesh smooth and cool as marble. The beating heart was still. No breath passed through the blue lips. Acronis knew this for a fact, for he had held a bracer to the lips to see if some faint moisture might form on the metal and had found no signs of life.

Yet, day after day, the body lay in the heat of the sun and there was no change. It was a mystery that Acronis, as a man of science, could not explain.

But then, he reflected, watching the stars as the ship sailed slowly beneath them, he had seen many mysteries during his time with Skylan and his people. He supposed one more should not surprise him.

Now thoroughly awake, Acronis sat up on the deck, moving slowly to ease out the kinks and stiffness of age. A tiny sliver of red light in the eastern sky meant that morning was not far away. He rose to his feet and went to perform his ablutions, wondering if this day would be different, if Aylaen would listen to reason.

Returning from his ablutions, Acronis heard singing coming from the direction of the stern and paused to listen. The song did not last long, and ended in a sigh.

As the morning light stole across the waves, Acronis could see young Farinn standing with his back against the bulkhead, his arms folded, gazing out across the ocean. He sang the phrase again, then shook his head in obvious frustration.

The sun glinted off the armor on Skylan's body, which lay in the center of the dragonship, beneath the mast. The fae boy, Wulfe, was still asleep, curled up beside the corpse like a dog that will not leave its dead master. Aylaen, who made her bed in the hold below, had not yet come on deck.

Acronis walked back to the stern.

“May I speak to you, Farinn?” he asked. “I do not like to interrupt your singing, but I need to talk to you before Aylaen rises.”

“I am grateful for the interruption, sir,” Farinn said, adding with a sigh. “The song does not go well.”

“What song are you composing?” Acronis asked.

He leaned over the rail, watching the waves slide by beneath the keel. Farinn joined him, gazing down morosely at the blue water dappled with sea foam.

“I am trying to compose Skylan's death song to do him honor,” said Farinn. “The words will not come or, when they do come, they are not the right words.”

“Perhaps you are too filled with grief now to give the song proper thought,” Acronis suggested kindly, recalling that the young bard was only sixteen.

Farinn shook his head. “I have never had this trouble with any of my songs before. The words always flow from me as naturally as breath, yet now my tongue stammers and the words stick in my throat.”

He sighed again, then looked up at Acronis. “But enough of my trouble. What did you want to talk to me about, Legate?”

“I want to talk to you about Aylaen,” said Acronis, lowering his voice. “You know that she is determined to pursue this mad idea of traveling to the land of the Stormlords to find the fourth bone of the dragon, the … what do you call it?”

“Spiritbone. I have heard the two of you discussing the voyage,” said Farinn. “It sounds very perilous.”

“It is,” said Acronis, his voice grim. “That is why I want you to talk to her, try to dissuade her. She refuses to listen to me and, frankly”—Acronis shrugged—“there is no reason she should. I am a relative stranger. But she might listen to you.”

“I know Aylaen respects you, Legate, as a wise and learned man,” said Farinn. “If she would heed the advice of anyone, it would be you. But she is determined to finish the quest given to Skylan by the Dragon Goddess, Vindrash. The quest is even more sacred to Aylaen now that Skylan gave his life for it.”

Acronis gazed out at the horizon. The sky was brilliant with streaks of red and orange and gold. The sun, called Aylis by the Vindrasi, was a fiery ball rising out of the sea. They believed she bore a bright torch and that she was chased by Skoval, God of Night, who hated her for spurning his love.

“There is one other matter, Farinn,” Acronis said. “We must both try to persuade Aylaen to give Skylan a proper burial. She walks away when I bring it up. Admittedly I cannot explain what is happening to the corpse. Why it is not decomposing—”

“I think I might know, sir,” said Farinn.

He looked pointedly over his shoulder and Acronis followed his gaze. Wulfe was awake, yawning and sitting up and scratching himself. He was dressed in the rags of a cast-off shirt, and his hair uncombed and unwashed. He was scrawny and lanky. According to Skylan, the druids who had found the child running wild with a wolf pack had thought he was about eleven.

“You think Wulfe has something to do with it?” Acronis asked, frowning.

“He claims to be the son of a faery princess,” said Farinn, sinking his voice to a whisper. “Whether that is true or not, he knows fae magic. I've seen him change himself into a fearsome beast. He talks with the beautiful women he calls ‘oceanids' who live beneath the waves. The boy adored Skylan. He does not want to let him go. Perhaps he is using his magic to … um … preserve the body.”

Acronis would once have scoffed in disbelief, but in the past few weeks he had watched a powerful dragon level his city, breathed water as if it were air, and witnessed a dragon sailing a ship. He had learned to keep his mind open to all possibilities.

“We must convince Wulfe to let Skylan go,” Acronis said.

“Aylaen would be the only one to do that. He might pay heed to her.”

“But that means one of us needs to convince Aylaen,” said Acronis, sighing.

“You should speak to her, sir,” Farinn urged. “She will listen to you.”

“She has not thus far,” said Acronis.

*   *   *

Aylaen came up on deck to see Farinn and Acronis leaning over the rail, their heads together, conferring in low voices. When they noticed her watching them, Farinn flushed red in embarrassment and Acronis looked very grave. She knew they had been talking about her.

The Legate crossed the deck, coming to speak to her. Judging by his carefully formed expression of sympathy and understanding, he was going to talk to her again about Skylan, about burying his body at sea.

Aylaen had come to love Acronis as a father, though the transition from hatred to love had not been easy. He had taken her and her people prisoner, made them slaves. He had treated them well, however, and by a series of strange circumstances, Skylan had saved his life and brought him with them when the Torgun warriors escaped Sinaria. Aylaen knew the wise man's reasoning was sound, but she didn't want to hear his arguments, perhaps because she had no way to refute them.

Pretending not to see him, she turned her back and hurried off in the opposite direction, going to stand beside the figurehead, the Dragon Kahg, that graced the prow of the sleek, fast dragonship.

Aylaen put her hand on the dragon's neck and felt the life quiver beneath the carved wooden scales. The glowing red eyes gazed fiercely ahead into what was, for her, the unknown. She was the first of the Vindrasi people to ever sail these waters, the first to travel so far from their home.

“Acronis and Farinn must think I have gone mad,” said Aylaen softly. “They don't understand, and I can't explain.”

She spoke to the Dragon Kahg as if he agreed with her, although in truth she had no way of knowing what the dragon was thinking or feeling. Despite the fact that she was a Bone Priestess, with the power to summon the dragon, Kahg had refused to communicate with her.

She knew only that Kahg was following her orders to take them to the land of the Stormlords, and she knew this only because Acronis, using his mysterious navigational instruments, determined that was the dragon's destination. Acronis marked their progress daily on the map he kept with his instruments in a wooden chest in the hold.

He had taught Aylaen how to make sense of the squiggles and lines that represented the world on the map. He had shown her the place on the map that represented the land of the Stormlords and every day he showed her the dot on the map that represented the
Venejekar
. The ship was drawing closer and closer.

She stole a glance at Acronis and saw him standing near the corpse, regarding her with sympathetic understanding. He was so kind. He had a right to an explanation, if nothing else.

“Kahg, please tell me the truth,” Aylaen said to the dragon. “Is Skylan truly dead, as Acronis and Farinn believe, or is he alive, as I feel in my heart?”

She saw the dragon's eyes swivel in her direction, bathing her for a moment in a fiery red glow. But it was not the dragon who answered.

“Skylan isn't dead!” Wulfe said angrily. “I keep telling you.”

Aylaen looked around, startled, to see the boy crouched on the deck behind her, keeping a wary eye on the dragon. Wulfe maintained that the Dragon Kahg did not like him. For all Aylaen knew, that might well be true.

“I should give you a bath,” said Aylaen, knowing from past experience this threat would frighten Wulfe off.

He did not run away, though he did back up a step, ready to flee at the first sign she might try to grab him.

“The two Uglies want to dump Skylan in the sea. You won't let them, will you?” Wulfe asked. “The oceanids say that if you try, they'll stop you.”

Aylaen turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest, huddling beneath her cloak.

“Are you using your magic to keep Skylan…” Aylaen paused. She could not bear to say “from rotting.” She bit her lip and said, after a moment, “To keep Skylan with us?”

“I don't know how to work magic!” Wulfe cried. “Leave him alone! He's not dead! You'll see!”

The boy dashed away, his bare feet slapping across the deck that was wet from sea spray. He fled to the ship's stern where, leaning over the rail, he began to talk to the waves, sharing his grievances with his oceanids.