The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (4 page)

Grella snatched it from me. She studied

it furiously and turned away to view it in a better light. “Where have you seen
 
this
?” She began to compare it to the tapestries already fixed to her wall.

Before I could speak or her mothercould scold her, the door opened and Eleanor’s man walked in. Yolen was a

pace or two behind him.

Eleanor stood up. “Are you met so

soon?”

“The meeting continues,” Rune said brusquely. “The sibyl, Hilde, is asking for Grella.”

The girl turned to look at him. Her handclenched tightly around my drawing.

Eleanor was at once both cautious and

fearful. “What would a sibyl want with our daughter?”

Rune went to the girl and stroked her hair. “She wishes to engage with an innocent.”

Eleanor of Taan at once shook her head.

“But there are many young girls in the settlement. Rula. Katrina. Why choose Grella? She does not even know her.”

“I offered her,” said Rune. “The sibyl wants a girl that has been touched by a unicorn.”

“Touched?” I muttered, but no one paid

me heed.

“For what reason?” Eleanor asked her

man.

“A way to reach Voss,” he said.

For a moment our breaths fell as

silently as snowfall. Then Eleanor spoke again, her voice charged with tension. “No. I forbid it. Let this… Voss have the

fraas.   Our  daughter’s  life   is  more important than an old dragon’s death.”

“This is not just about the dragon,” said

Rune. He began to pace the room, pushinga hand through his thick yellow hair. Hetook my drawing from Grella and turned itthrough his hands, frowning as though itwas the work of a goat. He put it on theseat where his wife had been sitting. “More pilgrims have joined us from Trooven. They come with a dire tale: Voss is attempting to seize control of allthe settlements along the river.”

“Control?” Eleanor was shocked. The

word was in our language, but we rarely heard it used in the context that Rune was

now implying.

Yolen said quietly, “All that has stopped him attacking Horste and Taan is the appearance of Galen. But the dragon may be just a temporary distraction.”

Rune poured himself a cup of waterfrom a flagon. “Tell her the rest.”

Yolen drew himself up to full height. He looked frail and old beside the Taans.

“The sibyl has cast the bones of a raven.”

One of those that was slain? I felt my knees weaken. She must have torn the bird

apart to separate the bones.

“She reads in them Voss’s greater

intent.” The walls seemed to lean in as

Yolen took a breath. “He plans to slay thedragon. If he’s successful, the prizes hewill gain – scales, claws, any amount offraas – will make him the most powerfulman ever to walk the Earth.”

“Stronger than Gaia herself,” Rune

growled, throwing back his drink.

“I will go to the motested,” Grella said

bravely. She stood forward.

Her mother held her back. “No,

Grella.”

“But the dragon must be saved.”

“The dragon is in no danger.” Eleanor frowned at the men as if they had dropped their wits in the river. “How can a man, even one with a tainted unicorn, get close enough to drive a spear through a dragon? At the first scent of evil it would turn him

to ash.”

A simple point, but a perfect argument.

Even I had heard it said that dragons did

not   need   to   waste   their   energy commingling with men to read their intent. They could detect any hint of malice in a man simply from the odour given off from his skin. In Voss’s case, that was as

predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise. My confidence was lifted. But not for long.

Yolen nodded politely and said, “Yes, I would agree – if the dragon was whole.”

Once again, a wary silence gripped us. I had fully expected Yolen to announce that the burning of Voss would be just a merry spectacle, a blessed relief to faithful pilgrims and a lesson to foolish and arrogant men. But now I was reminded of his look of concern when the

followers had discussed Galen’s white

undersides. Could the dragon that was singing his flamesong on the mountain really be vulnerable to some devilish attack?

Yolen thought so. “The loss of colour inthe scales is a certain indication that its

auma is fading. I believe the dragon has already shed its tear.”

“But it would be dead,” said Grella, echoing my thoughts precisely. We looked at one another. For a moment we had

unity; no danger of a needle in my eye.

Rune shook his head. “Brunne agrees with the seer.”

“Brunne!” scoffed his wife. “That old

fool? His teeth grind quicker than his brain these days.”

“He is our keeper of legend,” Rune said curtly, annoyed by his wife’s poor show of respect. “He spoke briefly at the meeting – but well. He reminded us of an ancient detail: that if a dragon cries its tear through the eye it least favours, it may retain a small amount of its fire. Enough to

enable it to fly a short distance and then sleep – like the winterfold animals do.”

“Sleep?” said Grella.

“Until you and I are long dead,” Yolen added.

“Why?” I asked him. “Why would it do that?” Had I not been taught that a dragon cries its tear so it might ascend to the spirit world, in joy? Why would it set itself down to
 
sleep
?

But all Yolen could say was, “That I don’t know.”

“Brunne’s visions have revealed that

dragons the world over are doing this,”

said Rune.

Eleanor looked away, clucking like a

hen.

“There can be very few left now,”

Yolen said. “This may be an act of self-preservation.”

“Not if Voss has his way,” I said.

Rune knocked a fist against his mouth. Jewels of water glistened in his beard. Hemade no attempt to dry them. “There youspeak all our futures, boy.”

“Mother, I must go at once,” said Grella.

This time her mother did not refuse.

First, however, she looked hard at Rune –and even harder at Yolen. “What does this

sibyl plan to do?”

“She wants to entice the unicorn from

Voss. Without the horse, his power isgreatly diminished. Hilde believes theright enchantment will draw it away.”

“And what does Brunne say to this?”

“Brunne had retired to his krofft by

then.”

Eleanor extended a hand in despair.

“A song,” said Grella. “I know aunicorn song!” She ripped a tapestry downfrom the wall. It pictured a child no higherthan a barrel picking flowers at the edgeof a woodland. A unicorn was shown

approaching her. “My lullaby to Gaia attracted it,” she said. She pushed the neck of her garment aside and showed us the bare skin of her shoulder. To my surprise, there was the mark I had seen in my vision. The same drawing the dragon had made on its parchment, branded into Grella’s soft flesh. “It touched me,” she said. “I stroked its face and it laid the tip of its horn on my shoulder. Then it was

gone. I never saw it again.”

“How has this affected you?” Yolen enquired.

Rune gestured towards the tapestries. “Since that day, all the girl has stitched are dragons.”

“I feel it,” she said. “I feel its pain. The horse Voss rides is the same one, I’m sure of it. You should not have hidden me away when he came.”

Her father said, “That was done foryour safety.”

“And how much less safe is this plan?”asked Eleanor. “Even if Grella can call

the horse away, Voss will see it the moment it moves and instantly know of the deception.”

“Not necessarily,” Yolen said. He

walked a pace or two, shaking the knotted ends of his belt. “The horse is greatly distressed. Its confusion is binding it to Voss’s company – that and the fact he carries the horn. But if the lyrics of Grella’s song are appropriate, the horse might be soothed and persuaded to run. They are fleet of foot. By the time Voss wakes, the horse will be with Grella.”

“And then?” Eleanor looked at her

husband, who had once again taken his

knife from his belt.

“What are six against the men of three

settlements?”

I saw a loss of colour in Eleanor’s

cheeks. “You are not the warrior you once

were, Rune.”

“I will fight like a dragon for our

freedom,” he said. “I will not give up my

homeland to any rogue Premen.”

And with these brave words the

decision was set.

Leaving Eleanor at home to muse uponour fate, we four – Rune, Yolen, Grellaand myself (this time, my master gave hisconsent) – made our way to the old Taanmotested. We found the men in good heartand strident voice. They were passinground a flagon, drinking a brew preparedby Hilde.

“What is this?” Yolen asked the sibyl. He laid his palm across the neck of theflagon as it was presented up to Rune.

“A potion to give the men strength – andcourage.”

“Aye,” said a man nearby. He was

bending his elbow, tensing his muscles. His upper arm, I saw, was greatly swollen, the veins wriggling about like snakes. “I feel it already. I am twice the man I was!”

“And three times as ugly!” another man

called.

A roar of laughter rattled the pointed

roof of the motested.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Runesank a long quaff, spilling rivulets downhis beard again. He passed it to Yolen. My keeper shook his head. “I have mywits. That is all I require.”

The men bellowed their displeasure. The sibyl took their cause.

“You more than anyone need it, seer. Sharp of mind you may be, but Voss’s

sword is sharper. He will run it through your chest as quickly as he passes a splint through a berry.” She snatched up the flagon and held it to him. “Drink,” she said.

“Drink!” cried the men of Horste and

Taan, pounding their feet till the motestedthundered.

Yolen had no choice. He took a small

draught, which I was sure he would have spat out had the sibyl turned her back. But I saw his neck ripple and the brew went down. Now the only male not to try it was

me.

I reached for the flagon. The sibyl held

it back.

The men bellowed, “Let him have it!

Let him feel what it is to grow a hair on

his chest!”

The sibyl thought long and carefullyabout it. Then she tipped the jug, and thedust on the floor had the last of her potion. “Someone has to stay and milk the goats,brave men.”

They roared again and slapped theirthighs. Even Yolen let a smile past hislips.

Now the sibyl drew Grella into view. She called for quiet while she spoke ofher plan. In one hour, when the moon roseover Kasgerden, every man present wouldgo with stealth to the forest of Skoga,which covered the western slopes of themountain. Voss and his men were campedthere, she said (more birds, sent as spies,had confirmed his position). The men

would encircle Voss’s camp but hide among the trees until the vital moment. Grella, the girl once touched by a unicorn, would enchant the dark horse and draw it

away. This would leave the men free to attack. Voss and his followers were not to

be spared.

But a hum of concern quickly rose among the Horste. The forest men knew of the Skoga pines and were deeply afraid to enter them. What about the skogkatts? they muttered. Those trees were the lair of

legendary wildkatts. No one needed a tapestry to know that a skogkatt, with its haunting green eyes, could bedazzle a man then rip out his throat with one slash of its claws.

A loud debate blew up. The sibyl ended

it in one swift act. She threw the flagon to the wooden floor, smashing it. ‘Spineless idiots’ she called the men of Horste. “Do

you really imagine that Voss hasn’t thought of this? That he could sleep soundly surrounded by the threat of skogkatt claws?” She raised one hand and opened it. Two bushy tails dropped out. She threw one at Rune. Another at a startled Trooven

man. “These souvenirs have come from

my spies,” she said. “Voss has cleared the forest of skogkatts. But in doing so, has left himself vulnerable to spears.”

So the men, their confidence restored, returned to their families to make what

preparations they needed. The sibyl took Grella away for counselling. And my role in this battle was quickly defined: I was to