Bones of the Dragon Read online

  We should already be at Apensia! Perhaps I miscalculated the route. Perhaps the lookout is asleep at his post. I will go check on him. No, that would look odd.

  He made himself sit beside Draya, made himself attend to her. She was touchingly pleased by his attention and returned his smile with a loving smile of her own. He felt wretched and didn’t know how much more of this playacting he could tolerate, and he was thinking he would excuse himself to go take a piss when a voice cried out, “Land!”

  Skylan leaped to his feet, as did everyone else on board ship. The warriors crowded the rail, peering out at the smudge on the horizon and speculating what place this might be. It was not the Dragon Isles, with their cloud-topped mountain peaks.

  The Venjekar drew nearer, and soon they could see a rocky shoreline covered with trees, and here and there a few stone dwellings. The dwellings became more numerous, revealing a settlement, nestled in a cove.

  Smoke from cook fires rose into the air and drifted out to sea. A number of boats bobbed in the calm waters of the cove. Fishing boats, by the looks of them. Skylan’s spirits rose. He thought he recognized Raegar’s boats among the others.

  “Sail closer,” Skylan ordered.

  “No, don’t!” Draya cried.

  Skylan turned to glare at her in displeasure. On board the Venjekar, he was master. No one, not even the Kai Priestess, had the right to countermand his orders.

  Draya realized she had broken an unwritten law, and she hastened to provide an explanation. “That is the Isle of Apensia, an isle ruled by druids. As we value our lives, we should not venture anywhere near there!”

  Skylan gave a laugh. “I have heard about these druids. I hear they love peace so much that they do not carry weapons or even allow weapons to be forged on their island.”

  Skylan spread his legs to maintain his balance on the rocking deck. He put his hands on his hips and gazed out at the island. “I have also heard that their storehouses are stuffed with silver and gold and jewels.”

  The young warriors broke into excited talk, each eager to tell the stories he’d heard about druids. No one could lay claim to any facts. No Vindrasi had set foot on the Isle of Apensia for as long as anyone could remember. The Bone Priestesses had always forbidden it.

  “Lord Skylan!” Draya called from where she sat clutching the bench with both hands. “I would speak with you.”

  Skylan pretended he didn’t hear her.

  “What if the Kai are wrong?” he asked several of the young men who stood near him. “What if year after year we have sailed past a fortune that is ours for the taking? I say we raid it and find out!”

  “Husband! Please come to me,” Draya called.

  Skylan continued ignoring her. Some of the men were opposed to the notion of raiding the settlement, but the majority were in favor. They were young and thirsting for battle. Most had yet to win their first silver armbands. The stories they had heard about druids were firelight tales, insubstantial as smoke, and their longing for glory and wealth was very real.

  Draya listened to the talk of raiding, and her face grew increasingly grave. Skylan wished she would give up and go below.

  That didn’t happen. Rising to her feet, Draya tottered unsteadily across the deck. The ship rolled, and she fetched up against Skylan, seizing hold of his arm to keep from falling.

  He steadied her and said, “Well, madam, what do you want of me?”

  Draya flushed at his cold tone. “I want you to turn this ship around! Think, lord! There is a reason druids do not forge weapons. They do not need them! They have weapons of their own, and they are formidable!”

  “How do you know this, madam?” Skylan asked. “Have you visited this island? Has any Kai Priestess visited this island?” He shook off her clutching hand.

  She staggered again as the ship rocked, and grabbed hold of the rail. “Not for many, many years,” Draya admitted. “But that is because we were warned against it by Vindrash. A warning you should heed!”

  Some of the warriors were now starting to look doubtful, casting uncertain glances at the shoreline. Skylan could order his men to land on Apensia, and they would have to obey him, but he knew that men who fought reluctantly did not put their hearts into their blades, as the saying went. Skylan glanced up at the dragon’s carved head, and he thought he saw a flicker of red in the wooden eyes. That gave him an idea.

  “If Vindrash does not want us to go to Apensia,” said Skylan, “then I presume she would order the Dragon Kahg to refuse to take us.”

  Skylan was taking a risk, bringing the dragon into the dispute. Yet the risk was calculated. The Dragon Kahg was as greedy for jewels as any of the warriors on board. He had been sulking for months over the fact that Vindrasi raids had been fruitless. The eyes of the carved figurehead gazed upon the island. Perhaps the Dragon Kahg could see the glitter of rubies and sapphires and emeralds.

  Or perhaps not. The Venjekar slowed its forward progress. The waves that had once broken over the bows now stirred beneath the hull in a creamy froth. Skylan’s heart sank.

  Vindrash will not allow it, he thought. The Dragon Kahg will refuse to sail to Apensia. Draya will insist that we go to the Dragon Isles, and I will be stuck with her for the rest of my life! Unless she poisons me first.

  Their progress slowed even more. Skylan cast a bitter glance at his wife, expecting to see Draya smug and triumphant.

  The wind whipped her straggling hair into her face. She was having trouble standing and was forced to cling to the rail with both hands. She did not look up at the dragon. She stared straight out toward the sea. Her face was pale, taut, strained.

  The Venjekar had slowed, but was still maintaining forward progress. The lookout called out a warning, sandbars ahead, and Skylan sighed in relief. The Dragon Kahg had slowed the ship because the water was growing more shallow, not because he had been commanded by the goddess to sail away.

  “It appears Vindrash favors our going, madam,” said Skylan.

  The young warriors were cheered by the dragon’s response, and they hastened to remove their shields from the rack, put on their armor and helms, and pick up their weapons. They watched the shore approach and spoke excitedly of the valiant deeds they would do. Guided by the lookout, the dragon steered the ship around the sandbars and headed straight for the island.

  People who lived along the shoreline had seen the dragonship by now. They raced over the sand, fleeing inland. Skylan stared intently at the boats belonging to Raegar and his partners. No one was around, no slaves guarding them. Skylan thought this odd, for he could see that the boats were loaded with trade goods.

  Perhaps Raegar has no need for guards. Maybe these druids are trustworthy, not given to thievery, he said to himself with a shrug.

  Skylan put on the chain mail and a shining new helm he’d had made while he was in Vindraholm. He buckled his sword belt around his waist. He had purchased a fine new fleece-lined sheath made for Blood Dancer. The sword garnered the universal admiration of all who saw it. Skylan never tired of showing it off. He had told the story of how Torval had given him the sword so often that he had almost come to believe it himself. He added a new short sword to his belt, then draped over his shoulders a fine new woolen cloak, blue as the sky in raiding season. Before he sailed to the ogres’ lands, he would have the cloak embroidered with the image of an eagle killing an adder.

  The Venjekar sailed into the cove. Skylan, standing on deck, went over the plan in his mind. He and his warriors would go ashore. Draya and the two warriors who would serve as her guards would remain on board the dragonship. Skylan would demand to be taken to the druids, the leaders of the settlement. Raegar had described them as a group of stoop-shouldered old men and women. Skylan would rattle his sword at them, point to his fierce, heavily armed warriors, and threaten to butcher the men, carry off the women, and enslave the children unless the druids paid him to leave them in peace.

  The druids would want to negotiate. While this was happening, Raegar
and his men, disguised as druids, wearing long, gray hooded robes, would board the dragonship. They would greet Draya as an honored guest and invite her to leave the ship, to take some refreshment.

  Draya would probably be suspicious. People of a settlement about to be plundered rarely invited the enemy to dinner. If she refused, Raegar would tell her that the negotiations were going well and that her husband, Skylan, wanted to present her to the leaders. The use of Skylan’s name would disarm her, and she would go ashore.

  Skylan was worried that Draya might recognize Raegar. The two had been affianced, after all. Raegar had assured Skylan that he would keep his face concealed by the hood. And he reminded Skylan that when Draya had known him, he had been clean-shaven, as was the custom among Vindrasi warriors. She would never recognize him with a long flowing blond beard.

  The Venjekar glided into the calm, shallow waters of the cove. Warriors leaped over the side to haul the dragonship up onto the beach. Skylan made ready to join them.

  Draya stood on deck, her hands clasping and unclasping, her fingers twisting. She was pale, her gaze roving the empty shore or glancing up at the dragon. Skylan walked over to bid her farewell. Farewell forever. This would be the last time he saw her. He should have been elated. He was surprised to find that he felt tense, uneasy.

  “I will send you word of how our negotiations proceed, madam,” Skylan said, trying to make his voice sound natural—and failing. He coughed and continued. “With Torval’s blessing, we will be on our way to the Dragon Isles by nightfall, our hold filled with jewels as an offering to the dragons.”

  Draya shook her head, made no reply.

  Skylan tried again. “I know you disapprove, madam, but I am Chief of Chiefs, and this is my decision.”

  She gave him a bleak look and then lowered her eyes.

  Skylan could think of nothing more to say, and he made ready to vault over the ship’s side when he was stopped by the touch of Draya’s hand on his. Her fingers were cold as those of a day-old corpse.

  The unexpected chill made him flinch, and he turned to her and asked irritably, “Well, what is it?”

  “I wronged you, Skylan,” Draya said. “I see that now. I am sorry for that. Deeply sorry. I hope someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  She released his hand and moved to the prow, to the curved neck of the carven dragon’s head. She took down the spiritbone from the nail on which it hung. Skylan thought at first she meant to summon the Dragon Kahg, and that would not fit into his plans. He was about to tell her angrily to put it back.

  Draya lifted the spiritbone to her lips and kissed it, then hung the bone back in its place. She remained standing there, leaning her cheek against the dragon’s neck, her hand resting on the spiritbone.

  Her words made him uneasy. He looked at the shore and was assailed by doubts. What if she is right? What if our doom awaits us on that isle? Maybe I should leave. . . .

  Stop it! Skylan told himself, realizing what he’d been thinking. Raegar is right. Draya is stealing my manhood! I will soon be a cider-swilling coward like Horg if I don’t get rid of her.

  Skylan jumped over the side and landed with a splash in water that came to his knees. He and the other warriors seized hold of the Venjekar’s hull and with triumphant yells, hauled the dragonship up onto the sandy beach.

  The Vindrasi were at last doing what they had been born to do. With a bold chief to lead them, the Vindrasi were going to war.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Skylan and eighteen eager young Heudjun warriors came across a dirt trail that led from the shore through waist-high grass to a long wooden bridge. Built across a large stretch of freshwater marshland filled with murky brown water, the bridge was made of planks held together with wooden pegs. Cattails, taller than a man, rustled in the breeze. The marsh was thick with plant life, and Skylan could guess that the bottom was sticky, oozing mud.

  Skylan approved the defenses, even as he saw his danger. If the druids sighted a foe approaching from the sea, they would set fire to the bridge, forcing their enemies to wade through this miasma of plants and water. Dressed in chain mail and lugging axes, swords, shields, and spears, an enemy would soon find himself in trouble—quite literally bogged down. Skylan could imagine the druids lighting their torches at this moment.

  He ordered his men to run.

  As they pounded over the wooden bridge, he kept waiting to see tongues of orange flame and the first tendrils of smoke. He saw only the plants, waving in the wind, and small black birds with red patches on their wings clinging to the reeds, guarding their nests with throaty warbles.

  The warriors reached the end of the bridge in safety and found themselves in a thick forest. At first glance, Skylan couldn’t see any signs of life, and he wondered if he’d followed a bridge to nowhere. Staring into the shadows, he saw that the dwellings had been built in such a manner that they were part of the forest. Made of logs, the dwellings huddled beneath the large trunks of ancient oak trees. The dwellings were small with shuttered windows and thatched roofs. Narrow dirt lanes wound mazelike among the tree trunks. Rays of sun slanted through the canopy of the leaves whose dappled shadows cooled the air.

  Off in the distance, Skylan could see hills of lush green grass dotted with grazing sheep and cattle. Fields of tall grain lay golden in the sunlight. He contrasted this land of plenty with his own land of parched grass, starving cattle, withered crops—and his resolve hardened. He was glad he’d come.

  “Where is everyone? Aren’t they going to challenge us?” asked Tubbi. He was a young man of sixteen, on his first raid. Short and barrel-chested, Tubbi had become one of Skylan’s favorites.

  His question was a good one. Smoke from cook fires rose from the dwellings and drifted among the branches. Chickens and ducks roamed about, pecking at scattered grain. Dogs came out to sniff in friendly fashion at the strangers. But there were no people.

  Skylan was baffled. He had not really believed Raegar’s tales of a peace-loving people. He had expected armed men prepared to die to defend their homes. Instead, a mongrel dog thrust its nose into Skylan’s crotch. He stood alongside his warriors, every man armed to the teeth, and no one to fight.

  “I am Chief of Chiefs of the Vindrasi,” he called out loudly. “If the men of Apensia are such cowards that they will not fight us, we will take what we want!”

  He waited for a response, and when none came, he was about to order his men to ransack the houses, but then one of his warriors nudged him. A tall spare man in the gray robes of a druid walked with unhurried pace beneath the shadows of the trees. The man had a long beard, black streaked with white. His beard was plaited, as was his white hair. His skin was brown and heavily wrinkled and creased. His gray robes were plain and unadorned. His hazel eyes were mild. He did not appear afraid, or even particularly concerned, at the sight of Skylan’s eighteen armed warriors.

  “Greetings, Skylan Ivorson,” said the man. “You are welcome to Apensia. It has been many years since our Vindrasi neighbors have honored us with a visit.”

  Skylan was startled. How did the man know his name? The only answer was that Raegar must have mentioned it, and why in the name of Hevis would Raegar do such a thing? He could feel the eyes of his warriors boring into his back. They were growing jittery. Draya’s tales of druidic magicks came back to them. They would not have feared an army. This strange old man, who seemed to have stepped out of a twilight tale, unnerved them.

  Skylan had to give them back their courage.

  “We are not your neighbors,” he said, his voice grating. “We are your enemies. Our children starve, while even your dogs are fat! We do not want to make war on you. Fill our ship with gold and silver and jewels, and we will leave you in peace.”

  The warriors behind him felt better. They growled their agreement and struck their blades on their shields or thumped the butts of their spears on the ground.

  “I am sorry to hear the Vindrasi people are suffering,” sa
id the druid gently. “It is true that the land has been good to us. We will be glad to share our bounty with you. We can fill your ship with grain and cattle, though not, I fear, with precious metals or gems. Of these we have none.”

  The warriors jeered. Skylan laughed and said, “You are an old man, sir, and old men are prone to confusion. You have gold and silver and jewels. You have just forgotten that you have them. You will forgive me if I look for myself. You men”—he gestured—“go search those houses.”

  The druid said nothing. He made no move to stop them. He stood calmly watching, his hands folded in his long sleeves.

  Tubbi led the warriors to several houses. They kicked in the doors and, weapons drawn, barged inside. Skylan heard sounds of breaking furniture. The men tore up beds. They tossed blankets and linens out the doors and flung clay pots and dishes out the windows. They emerged, shaking their heads.

  “No silver or gold, lord,” called Tubbi in disgust. “Nothing. Not so much as an iron stewpot!”

  “You will find no metal of any kind on Apensia, lord. Precious or otherwise,” said the druid. “We have no use for it.”

  Skylan had never heard anything so ridiculous. Raegar had said there was wealth in abundance. The druid was lying.

  “They must have buried their gold and silver somewhere, lord,” said Tubbi, coming up to him. “Or maybe it’s hidden in a storehouse.”

  Skylan seemed to remember Raegar mentioning a storehouse. He was determined to find it.

  “I think you lie,” Skylan said harshly. “Tubbi, you and the men, set fire to the houses.”

  “No, wait!” cried the druid, his mild and gentle demeanor shaken. “We can discuss this, lord. Perhaps we can come to some arrangement.”

  “Perhaps we can,” said Skylan, grinning. He winked at his men. “We are hungry. Give us food and drink. The best you have to offer.”

  “Of course, lord. You will be our honored guests,” the druid said humbly.

  “Tell them we want to see their women,” said Tubbi in a low voice.