Bones of the Dragon Read online

  “Where’s Kahg?” Erdmun demanded suddenly, twisting around to look. “Where’s the dragon?”

  His brother, Bjorn, stood at his side. This was Erdmun’s first time in the shield-wall, and Skylan had put him in the front row. Bjorn, who had fought in shield-walls before, insisted on standing next to his brother.

  As to the dragon, that was a good question. Skylan looked back to see Treia on her knees on the ground, using a knife to dig up the dirt. Aylaen stood protectively beside her sister, staring at the ogre lines. Skylan saw a spear land on the ground near her. She did not flinch, barely glanced at it. She merely shifted her stance slightly, taking a firmer grip on her axe. Catching Skylan’s eye, she smiled encouragement. Skylan loved her so much, his heart ached with his loving.

  Treia began daubing the spiritbone with soil.

  “The Dragon Kahg will help us,” Skylan said confidently.

  Treia was a Bone Priestess. She knew her business. He was a warrior, and fighting was his business.

  The ogre godlords waited for the Torgun to run toward them. When that did not happen, the ogre warriors—hot, sweaty in their heavy armor—grew angry and impatient. Several of their number had been felled by Torgun spears. Their shaman had been forced to hike up his black feathered robe and scramble for his life.

  The Torgun began hurling insults, taunting them. The ogres could stomach only so much. A smattering of humans stood between them and gold, cattle, and women. An ogre broke out of the shield-wall and went lumbering across the grassy expanse. The godlords shouted and raged, but soon the entire ogre army was on the move. Brandishing axes, swords, and hammers, the ogres charged at a ground-thudding run.

  Garn’s plan worked. The ogres were deceived. They thought the distance they had to cover was short until they came to the dip in the ground and realized they had to cover more territory. Torgun spears slammed into their midst. Many ogres fell. Those on their feet were huffing, blowing out their fat cheeks, mouths gaping, gasping for breath.

  The Torgun did not celebrate. Half the ogre army could keel over dead and they would still outnumber them. The massive brutes came thundering at the Torgun shield-wall. The ground shook with their coming. Skylan braced himself for the blow.

  He had time for one quick glance at Treia. She held the spiritbone in her hands, and it seemed to him she was not praying so much as desperately pleading. If the Dragon Kahg was going to answer her appeal, he would have done so by now.

  Skylan sighed, and then he shrugged.

  At least we will die bravely. We will stand before Torval with honor. And if it is my last act on this world, I will slay that whoreson who has the torque.

  Skylan divided his gaze between the onrushing ogres and the torquebearing godlord, who was running after his men, his face purple with rage, shouting commands no one heeded. The godlord frantically and repeatedly gestured toward the end of the ranks of the Torgun warriors, attempting to tell his warriors to move to outflank the foe, get in behind their shield-wall, surround them.

  The ogre warriors paid no attention. They kept coming straight at the Torgun, stumbling clumsily over their own feet or tripping over the bodies of their own dead.

  The ogres had been shouting insults, but they were now forced to save their breath for running. Their chubby faces were red from the exertion and hardened in resolve. They resembled little children playing at war, except they were armed with axes and swords, not sticks.

  The ogres lifted their shields. Using them like battering rams, the ogres slammed into the front ranks of the Torgun warriors with such force that men in the front ranks were lifted off their feet and bowled over backwards by the shock of the impact.

  The Torgun shield-wall disintegrated.

  Blood spattered. Men grunted and screamed and shouted and swore. Skylan heard the crunch of breaking bone, and he smelled the stench of war—blood, urine, and excrement—as men lost control of their bladders and bowels in the desperate struggle.

  Bjorn, who had been standing in front of Skylan, suddenly wasn’t. Erdmun had been pushed back into the second line by an ogre warrior, who began slashing wildly at him with an axe. Erdmun floundered, holding up his shield to absorb the blows, unable to return the attack, which seemed to come at him from every direction at once. Sigurd grabbed hold of Erdmun and dragged him out of the way, then jammed his sword through the ogre’s gaping mouth.

  The ogre’s head seemed to explode, spattering Skylan with blood and brains. He fell, but another ogre thundered up to take his place, heedlessly trampling the body of his comrade. This ogre rushed at Sigurd, who had no more spears. The two collided and stumbled back, fighting hand-to-hand. Skylan lost track of them. He had his own trouble—an ogre charging straight at him.

  The ogre’s face twisted in a snarl. He didn’t look ferocious, more like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Skylan would have laughed, but the ogre’s eyes were grim and intent on his death.

  The ogre lifted his enormous shield, planning to bash it into Skylan, knock him down, and then hack him to pieces with his battle axe. Skylan waited until the ogre was directly in front of him; then he ducked, hunching his body, keeping his head down. Unable to stop his forward momentum, the ogre tumbled over Skylan, who leaped to his feet and, grabbing the ogre’s legs, heaved upward, upending him. The ogre landed on the ground. Three spears pierced him seconds before Erdmun chopped off his head.

  The battle swirled past Skylan, leaving him, for a moment, in the clear, and he looked about to take stock of the situation. It was grim. The shield-wall was no more. The Torgun were being pushed back. Garn stood protectively beside the two women. Aylaen was arguing with Treia, urging her to abandon her prayers and flee. Treia stubbornly resisted. She remained on her knees, the spiritbone in her hand. There was no sign of the dragon.

  Norgaard stood with his bodyguards, his sword in one hand, his crutch in the other. His bodyguards had gathered around him, ready to defend him. They would be the last to die.

  A bitter taste filled Skylan’s mouth. The taste of failure, defeat. Some men see their lives flash before their eyes in the moments before death. Skylan saw the future. The Torgun would be no more. They would be wiped out as a clan. And all because of Horg, the Chief of Chiefs. To save his own skin, he had sacrificed the Torgun, given them to their enemies.

  Despair and fury clouded Skylan’s vision. He seemed to be seeing everything through a haze of blood.

  He climbed up on top of the body of a dead ogre to search for the godlord with the torque, but couldn’t find him. An ogre struck at Skylan with an axe. Annoyed—the whoreson was blocking his view—Skylan cleaved open the brute’s skull. He swung his sword again, took down another ogre—at least Skylan supposed it was an ogre. His eyes burned. Everything he looked at seemed drenched in blood.

  He couldn’t find the godlord with the torque.

  The Sun Goddess had taken refuge in a bank of clouds. Aylis was not afraid. She was waiting for the moment to part the clouds and blaze forth. And when she did so, a bright flash caught Skylan’s eye.

  There was the godlord, standing right in front of him. The sun struck him in blazing, terrible splendor, illuminating the Vektan Torque. He wore it beneath his armor, trying to keep it hidden. Aylis had found it, however, and she revealed it to Skylan.

  Rage seared his brain, consuming fear as the beacon fire consumed oak. He rose from the ashes of the blaze with one clear purpose—to slay the godlord and recover the Vektan Torque.

  “Torval!” Skylan prayed, kissing the amulet around his neck. “I give myself to you.”

  And Torval blessed him.

  Skylan heard nothing except the roar of the god’s voice in his ears. He felt nothing except the hilt of his sword in his hand. He saw nothing but his enemy, and Skylan struck at anything that stood between him and his target, not knowing if he was killing friend or foe, not caring.

  He knew the Torgun were doomed. He knew he was going to die. He would stand before Torval proudly, holding the Vektan Torqu
e in one hand and the head of the ogre godlord in the other.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Skylan was not the only one to see Aylis’s light shining on the Vektan Torque. Other eyes saw it, as the goddess intended. Eyes that had been gazing off in an entirely different direction.

  The Dragon Kahg was not angry with the Torgun, as they imagined. He had been busy, preoccupied with fear and worry. The dragon heard the prayers of the Bone Priestess, but they were faint, distant—an annoyance, like gnats—and he paid scant attention. The humans were off on another raid, summoning him to go harass a bunch of goat-herders.

  Kahg had other worries, other cares and concerns that were far more important. His goddess, the Goddess of All Dragonkind, the blessed Vindrash, had vanished from the world. Her disappearance had thrown her dragons into turmoil. The dragons had heard rumors of a war in heaven. They had heard rumors that their gods had lost. The dragons did not believe these rumors. They sought out Vindrash to refute the claim, going to the sacred Hall of Vektia, located on the Dragon Isles.

  The dragons were shocked and horrified to find the Hall had been attacked by some unknown foe. The dragons who served Vindrash and who should have been guarding the Hall had vanished, both from the Realm of Stone and the Realm of Fire.

  Dragons were creatures of magic, created by the dying Dragon Ilyrion when she gave herself to the world. Ilyrion came from the Realm of Fire, as did the fae folk who populated the world. The gods and all races of men (including the races of ogres, Cyclopes, and so forth) came from the Realm of Stone.

  The dragons, with their powerful magicks, discovered that since the dying Ilyrion had given herself to the world, which lay in the Realm of Stone, they could live in both realms simultaneously. By leaving a physical part of themselves (the spiritbone) in the Realm of Stone, their spirits could remain safely hidden from their foes in the Realm of Fire. Through the spiritbone, they could manifest themselves physically in the Realm of Stone.

  The dragons needed to be in the Realm of Stone, for it was only in this realm that they could find the “shards of Ilyrion,” which were used to create new dragons and perpetuate their race. These shards, made of the scales and teeth of the dying dragon, took the form of gemstones. The dragons scoured the world, searching for gems, taking those they found that were dragons back to the Realm of Fire for nurturing.

  The task was long and laborious. To their dismay, the dragons discovered that men coveted these gemstones, not for the fact that they might hold the spark of dragonlife within them, but because they were pretty, because they were rare, because they were valuable.

  The dragons might well have gone to war with men over the gemstones (joining the fae folk in the battle that was known as the First War), but their Dragon Goddess, Vindrash, who had presided over their creation, taught them how the humans could be useful to them in their search.

  Dragons could move about the Realm of Stone in their spirit form or in their physical shape. In the spirit form, they could not interact with the world. They could not eat or drink or pick up a ruby in their claws or fight an enemy. In their physical form, they could do all those things, but there were drawbacks. Dragons in the physical form were heavy. They had wings and they could fly, but not very far or very fast. That made it difficult for them to traverse the world hunting for the gemstones.

  Vindrash proposed that dragons give their spiritbones into the hands of her chosen people, the Vindrasi. She would make the Vindrasi into a nation of seafarers, a nation of raiders, who would sail the seas of the known world in search of gold and silver and jewels. The Vindrasi would take the dragons along on their questing. The dragons would imbue the ships with their spirits, guiding the ships, giving them wings, as it were. The dragons could also assist the Vindrasi in battle by taking physical form and attacking their foes.

  The beauty of this plan was that the Vindrasi would be ignorant of the fact that they were the unwitting tools of the dragons, transporting them over the seas in the never-ending search for jewels. The Vindrasi would imagine the dragons were serving them, whereas the dragons knew it was the other way around.

  The dragons who volunteered to work with the Vindrasi gave a piece of bone to the Bone Priestesses, who could use the bone to summon the dragons should they have need. The dragons were free to answer or not as he or she chose. Generally it was in the dragon’s interest to respond. The Vindrasi became known and feared throughout their portion of the world for the dragonships and the dragons who fought for them.

  Then came these new gods, young gods, seeking to rule a world of their own. The Gods of Raj, they called themselves, and a single god, Aelon, Lord of the New Dawn. The old gods had not foreseen their coming. Caught by surprise, they had been defeated, vanquished. One of their number had been slain.

  Emboldened by their victory, the worshippers of these gods had attacked the Hall of Vektia. They had come by night—come silently, by stealth, for the giants who were Torval’s servants and kept watch over the Isles claimed they had never seen them.

  The Hall of Vektia had been ransacked. Whoever had attacked the Hall was not after treasure, but had been looking for something else. Urns made of pure gold lay overturned on the blood-covered floor beside silver pitchers and jewel-encrusted candleholders, all of which looters would have carted off. The ancient statue of the Dragon Goddess had been ravaged, decapitated.

  And then the dragons discovered what was missing—the spiritbones of the dragons who were supposed to have been guarding the temple.

  Here was a mystery. Why had the dragons failed in their duty? What had become of the bones? Who had taken them and why? Only the Bone Priestesses could summon the spirits of the dragons, and the Priestesses resided among the Vindrasi. They came to the Hall of Vektia to present the goddess with treasure or on other special occasions.

  The dragons searched for clues to the nature of the enemy. Generally soldiers would discard something that gave some indication of where they were from—a torn leather strap, a leaky waterskin, a half-eaten apple. This army had left behind nothing, no trace. They had even taken care to hide their bootprints.

  The dragons were baffled until they came across a lone spiritbone lying on the floor below an immense tapestry. The spiritbone was broken in two. The dragon whose spirit it held was dead. The dragons had started to pick it up, to give it a reverent burial, when one of them happened to notice that the two pieces were seemingly pointing at the tapestry.

  The dragons studied the tapestry and saw, to their dismay, that it portrayed the story of the creation of the Vektia Five, born from the crest of the Great Dragon Ilyrion.

  The dragon, grievously wounded, had chosen this place to die, knowing that his spiritbone would be found here. He had taken a risk, for the enemy might have removed the spiritbone. Perhaps he had waited until after they departed, or perhaps they had not bothered with a spiritbone they knew to be dead.

  This, then, was the answer—or so the dragons believed. The enemy had come in search of the Five Bones of the Vektia. Which meant that the enemy knew about the Five, though not where they were hidden, apparently, or how to distinguish them from other spiritbones, for the bones they had captured were those of ordinary dragons.

  Or perhaps not. The dragons came to the terrible realization that the intruders had escaped with one of the Five Vektia spiritbones, which must have been hidden in the Hall. But which of their enemies had taken it? And, more important, did they know that the spiritbone could transform into one of the most powerful dragons ever created?

  The Dragon Kahg was the leader of the dragons who served the Vindrasi. Like others of his kind, he had been searching for his missing goddess until the dragon elders gave him the task of ensuring the safety of the Vektan Torque.

  Returning to the Torgun, Kahg at last heard the pleading prayers of the Bone Priestess, and he became aware that the Torgun were in a desperate struggle for their lives against raiding ogres.

  Kahg was at first annoyed. He’d g
one on an urgent mission to check on the Vektan Torque, and now he was going to have to waste time snatching the Torgun fat out of the fire. Undoubtedly this was the fault of that young hothead, Skylan Ivorson. Kahg was grumbling to himself, taking his time materializing to teach them a lesson, when the angry Goddess Aylis struck the ogre godlord with a shaft of sunlight. Kahg saw the bright flash of gold and the sparkle of sapphire and realized in an instant that the ogre wore the Vektan Torque.

  Kahg had no idea how the ogre had come into possession of the sacred torque, but he could guess. Kahg did not like Horg, who refused to go raiding, much to the ire of all the Vindrasi dragons. The Heudjun’s dragon had left in a rage, first seeing to it that Horg’s dragonship struck a rock and foundered. Feeling his stature as Chief of Chiefs was diminished by his lack of a ship, Horg had tried to persuade the Torgun to give him the Venjekar. When Norgaard refused, Horg sent a raiding party to steal the dragonship.

  The Dragon Kahg had angrily smashed their boats, forcing them to swim back. The Torgun never knew anything about Horg’s attempt to steal their dragonship, or there would have been war between the clans.

  Kahg could picture Horg bartering the torque for cattle, silver, or even to save his own skin. The reason did not matter now. The torque held the spiritbone of one of the powerful Five, and Kahg had to help the Torgun recover it. The task was made more urgent by the implication that another of the Five was already in enemy hands.

  “Vindrash, hear my prayer.” The words of the Bone Priestess dinned in the dragon’s ears. “Tell the Dragon Kahg of our desperate need.”

  Kahg roared into being, astonishing both friend and foe as he burst into life directly above their heads.

  Fighting was now hand-to-hand, warrior pitted against warrior. Surprisingly, after that first terrible onslaught had caused their shield-wall to crumble, the Torgun were holding their own. The ogres had brawn and brute strength on their side, but those had been assets only at the start of the battle. Weighted down by their heavy armor, massive shields, and enormous weapons, the ogres were being forced to fight a protracted battle, and they didn’t like it. Their arms were starting to ache. Their leg muscles burned. Their clumsy blows went wide, missing the mark.