The Coming of the Dragon (13 page)

“Go on, Rune.”

He swallowed, trying to wet his tongue enough so he could speak.

“It came out of the mist and flew just over my head.” He raised his hands as if they held shield and sword, reliving the moment. “It burned my shield—and then I fell, and I lost my sword.” Breaking his eyes from the king’s in his shame, he looked down at his sheathed weapon and mumbled, “Ketil found it.”

A croaking sound made him look up again in time to see a raven settling itself on a thatched roof just beyond the crowd. Finn’s roof.

The king saw it, too. He looked back at Rune. “Could you tell how big it was?”

Rune nodded. “Huge, as big as a ship, a longboat. It reared back its head, the way a horse does, before it breathed fire on me.”

“You saw that?” the king asked, excitement in his voice.

The bard stepped up to stand beside the king. “You saw its neck, its underside?”

Rune stared at them, trying to remember. It had all happened so fast. “I—” He shook his head.

“Could you see its scales?” the bard asked.

Rune nodded.

“Were they a different color underneath? Lighter?”

Again, he nodded, in his memory looking up again at the dragon as it shot fire toward him. “And when it reared back, there was a light place here”—he brought his hand to his chest—“a white spot.”

“A white spot? Are you certain?” The bard fixed him with his single eye, giving him a look that just moments ago would have made him shudder. But now, Rune looked away, nodding, his eyes firmly on the dragon who flew through his memory.

“Yes, I’m certain,” he said, and as he spoke, he remembered more. “There was a circle of scales, gold or bronze, maybe, and a spot of white inside them.”

The bard looked at the king, who was smiling.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” the king asked Rune.

Rune shook his head, not understanding.

The king turned from him and spoke loudly, addressing the crowd. “The dragon’s weak spot, the place a sword can enter—Rune has found it!”

Rune kept his eyes on the king while, around him, people began talking. “Every dragon is different,” the king said, his voice commanding the crowd to listen. “Each has a vulnerable place on its body—under the arm, in the belly. But now we know about our dragon, our enemy, and with that knowledge, we will defeat it!”

Cheers broke out, and Rune could hear the rattling of spears, the clashing of metal as shields answered them.
Oski, one of Ottar’s sons, yelled, “Rune!” and Rune turned to see the little boy waving at him, his brother Omi jumping up and down beside him in excitement.

Rune felt his neck flaming, and he hung his head in embarrassment as a strong arm encircled his shoulder. “Well done,” the king said quietly, and Rune looked up to meet his eyes. They looked at each other for a long moment before the king called out, “Ketil! Is there any ale to be spared for this warrior?”

Rune hadn’t thought he could flush more deeply.

Ketil gave him a lopsided grin and turned to go, but a voice called out, “I’ll get it, Ketil.” Wyn. Rune hadn’t seen her standing beside her mother, behind the king. Now, her skirts flared behind her as she ran to her house.

As Rune watched her go, the raven on the thatched roof caught his eye. A breeze ruffled the downy feathers around its neck, and it cocked its head, hopped twice along the gables, then spread its wings and wheeled out of sight.

Wyn emerged from the doorway, a drinking horn in her hands. Rune was watching her when he became aware of the slave’s voice. “Hear me, O King.”

King Beowulf looked at the man, who said, “Where did he get that sword?” and motioned with his head toward Rune.

“It’s his—from his father before him.”

A sudden silence fell over the circle of people surrounding Rune. Wyn stopped uncertainly, halfway between the doorway and the king, watching.

“Then his father is a traitor and a coward. That sword belonged to Eanmund—and Eanmund was stabbed in the back.” The slave’s words fell with the weight of an anvil in the hushed crowd.

Rune stared at the slave unseeing and felt the eyes of the people boring into him.

ELEVEN

HE DIDN’T KNOW EXACTLY HOW HE’D ENDED UP IN FINN’S
house—it was as if his mind had been stolen from him the moment the slave had spoken. All he could remember was the stricken look on the king’s face and someone’s hand on his arm, exactly where he had a bruise from falling down the mountain. As men hustled him forward, images and sounds splintered into shards around him, mingling with the sharp pain in his arm.

And now, the dark interior of Finn’s house, where the Thor’s hammer amulet hung from a peg on the wall, a cup below it, an offering to the god.
Goat’s milk? Mead?
Rune wondered distractedly, unable to focus.

“Sit,” somebody said, pushing him onto a bench, and he sat, despite the ache in his tailbone.

A body before him resolved itself into Gar, gripping the slave by an arm. Rune looked down.

The bench creaked, and he felt it shift as a man lowered himself onto it. The king.

His mind was clear enough to know that he shouldn’t be sitting by the king this way, but as he started to rise, the king put a hand on Rune’s leg, guiding him back down.

In front of him, a pair of rich leather shoes worked with decorative stitching, shoes without even a hint of dirt on them—the bard’s—paced back and forth, sometimes nearing the slave’s stained and ragged shoes. A smaller pair of feet in brown wool slippers peeked out from the bottom of a skirt. They came forward, then backed away. Rune looked up dully to see Thora setting a drinking horn on the sideboard. Dayraven stood beside the door, sword in hand.

“Tell us what you know.” The king spoke without ceremony, and Rune turned to him, startled, wondering how to answer. But the king was looking at the slave.

“I know how Eanmund died. And I know who killed him.” The slave kept his voice low and steady, with no hint of scorn.

“There are many Eanmunds,” the bard said.

“Eanmund, son of Ohthere.”

No one spoke.

Rune could hear Gar’s whistling breath. Outside, a child called out—or maybe it was a bird—and he pictured the bright bowl of the sky, the clean chill of the air, and
wished he were out in it. Anywhere but here, where the thatch of the roof seemed to bear down on him, the wood of the walls tilted in toward him, and his life seemed as if it were being ground into darkness.

His father a traitor and a backstabber! People had been right to treat him with scorn. Maybe cowardice was a family trait.

“So.” The king breathed out heavily. He sounded weary. “You are a Swede, then.”

“I have been among that tribe.”

“And you count yourself loyal to them, although you come here, seeking a place in my kingdom?”

The slave didn’t answer.

“Why should we trust his word?” Thora said from the shadows. “He’s already told us what he thinks of honor.”

From his position guarding the door, Dayraven said, “I want to hear what he has to say about the boy’s father.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Rune could see the king nodding.

“Go on,” he said.

The slave shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Rune looked up at his face, his skin creased and beaten by weather and age and who knew what else. As he watched, the man’s face seemed to shift somehow, his skin looking smooth and supple for an instant. Rune blinked. It must have been a trick of the light. The slave flicked his eyes at Rune, then back to the king.

“I was Eanmund’s man. I served him well.”

When the slave stopped, the bard said, “Where were you when he died?”

“I wasn’t there.” The sneer returned to his face, the snarl to his voice. “I was a captive. Taken by the filthy Wayamundings to be their slave.”

The king made a noise, a cross between a cough and a bark. “So you escaped them and ran straight to me.”

The slave raised his chin, giving him a look of such insolence that Gar jerked him by the arm.

“Perhaps you didn’t know that my father was a Wayamunding,” the king said mildly. “Either way, you haven’t told us how Eanmund died.”

“Like I said.
His
father”—he jerked a hand toward Rune, who felt it like a blow, as if he’d been hit by elf-shot—“his father stabbed Eanmund in the back. After they’d sworn a truce.”

Rune closed his eyes.

“I wonder how you could know that when you weren’t there—when you were held captive by the Wayamundings.”

“I’ve heard.” The slave’s voice dripped with contempt. “They made me a slave; they didn’t cut off my ears.”

Rune opened his eyes at the sound of a dagger sliding from its sheath and saw Gar pushing its point into the slave’s neck just under his ear. “Interesting suggestion,” he said.

The king made a tiny gesture, and Gar lowered the blade, giving Ketil a grim smile over the slave’s head.

“You have heard.” The bard stepped forward. “So have
I. But the story I heard was different. Remember Widsith, the bard who traveled through these parts on his way to visit the Franks.” It wasn’t a question—Rune was sure that everyone in the room, everyone except the slave, could recall the famous poet’s visit. “So great is his knowledge that men say there is no history he cannot sing.”

The king nodded.

“Widsith spoke of Eanmund,” the bard said. “Of Eanmund the exile, who rebelled against his king. Of Eanmund’s death in hard battle.” He looked at Rune, who stared back, startled, caught by the bard’s single eye glittering under a hedge of brow. “A fair fight with Weohstan.”

“Weohstan!” Rune could hear the eagerness in the king’s voice. He wanted to listen, but all he could think about were the bard’s words:
a fair fight
. So his father wasn’t a traitor after all!

“Weohstan the Wayamunding,” the king was saying. “I have heard of his honor, his prowess with the sword.”

In another part of the room, someone made a noise that sounded like disgust. Dayraven, Rune thought, but his attention was on the king, who turned to Rune, looking him full in the face. “Your father was a good man, Rune.”

He swallowed.

“Ketil!” the king called. “Didn’t I ask for ale?”

“My lord, you did,” Ketil said, grinning at Rune.

Wyn stepped out of a shadowy corner. Rune watched as she murmured something to Ketil, then picked up the
drinking horn from the sideboard and brought it to the king.

“My lord,” she said, dropping into a graceful curtsy but keeping her eyes on the king’s face.

He took the horn and drank a long quaff before he returned it to her. He must have given her some signal, because her mouth moved into the barest hint of a smile before she moved to stand in front of Rune, holding the horn before him in both hands, her eyes on his. They were blue, like the king’s. He’d never noticed before.

The bard cleared his throat, and Rune realized everyone was waiting for him. He reached for the horn, hoping it was too dark in the room for anyone to see the blood rushing to his face.

The ale tasted good to his dry tongue and cooled his parched throat.

He handed the horn back to Wyn, then watched as she took it to the bard, to Gar, and finally to Ketil, never taking his eyes from her bright braid, her slender fingers, her solemn face.

Then it struck him. He had been offered the horn first, right after the king, before Gar and Ketil, even before the bard. And he hadn’t even realized.

“Come with me,” the king said as they left Finn’s house. Rune looked back to see Wyn silhouetted in the doorway, leaning down to pick up something from the floor, her movement graceful and assured.

The king saw him looking and glanced back. “That girl is one of the kingdom’s treasures. She has her mother’s wisdom and her father’s cool head.”

Just then, Ketil stepped to Wyn’s side and the door closed.

“This way.” The king touched Rune’s shoulder, guiding him down the path that led past the smithy. “Ketil told me about Amma,” he said quietly.

The suddenness of the statement caught Rune off guard, and he sucked in his breath, feeling as if he had been punched.

“She is a great loss,” the king said, and a choked quality in his voice made Rune look just as the king lowered his head. He thought he saw a tear glinting in the corner of the king’s eye. A tear? Why would the king mourn a crotchety old woman who lived on Hwala’s farm?

They walked on in silence, stopping beside the blackened ruins of the golden-roofed hall. The dais was gone. So were the long tables that had lined the fire pit in the center of the hall, where the king’s warriors had gathered to drink and feast and boast of their deeds. Now, not only was the hall gone, but so were many of the warriors. Only a mead bench remained, a tendril of smoke still twining up from its far end.

Gazing at the destruction, Rune reconstructed the hall in his mind, recognizing where they had held weapons practice; where the alcoves had been in which the women tended to gather; where the bard’s high seat had been,
on the dais beside the throne. He looked up as the king spoke.

“How much did she tell you about herself?”

Amma? About herself? Rune shook his head. “She told me about you, about the monsters you killed, about—”