Bones of the Dragon (64 page)

Blood spurted from the dragon’s smashed and mangled jawbone, raining down on the warriors who had taken refuge in the dragon’s shadow, and who were now running for their lives. Roaring in pain, Kahg fell into the bay, landing with a splash in the shallow water, narrowly missing crushing the dragonship with his massive tail.

The dragon lay thrashing about feebly in the water, seriously, perhaps fatally wounded. Blood-tinged waves, churned up by his flailings, rolled onto the shore, washing about the boots of the warriors.

The dragon had not stopped the giants’ attack, but he had at least given the warriors time to recover from their initial shock. The loss of their dragon filled them with rage. The warriors did not wait for Skylan’s order. Each man grasped his spear, taking his time with his aim, trying to find a vulnerable spot on the grotesque bodies.

Alfric the One-Eyed flung his spear and hit the giant in the shin. The spear appeared about the size of a knitting needle compared to the giant, but it pierced his flesh. Blood poured down the giant’s leg, and he gave a yelp of pain, even as the spear bounced off the shinbone and fell to the sand. The warriors were heartened by the fact that the enemy could bleed, and the Torgun attacked, flinging their spears first, and then making daring forays, running beneath the feet of the giants to recover their spears or to strike at the foe with axes and swords.

The deadly stones whirled above them, making a horrid buzzing sound as they whipped through the air and shaking the ground when they slammed down with bone-crushing force. Men died beneath the stones, died with only time for a horror-stricken scream before the stone smashed into them, their bodies disintegrating into gruesome blobs.

Skylan hefted his spear. Taking his own advice, he aimed for the giant’s testicles.

He started to pray to Torval to guide his hand, then thought better of it. Why should the god heed his prayer? Torval had inflicted this punishment upon him. Torval expected Skylan to deal with it. Yet, perhaps Torval relented, for Skylan’s spear soared straight and true and struck the giant in the groin. The giant let out a shrill shriek and, dropping his weapons, clasped his splay-fingered hands over his privates.

“Close in! Get close to them!” Skylan shouted.

The smashing stones were lethal, but Skylan had noticed that the giants were careful to keep them far from their own bodies. The reason became obvious. The giants dared not strike at warriors who were close to them for fear of hitting themselves.

The warriors rushed to surround the giants. Bjorn and Erdmun stabbed at their heels and jabbed their spears into the muscles of their calves. Sigurd hacked at the back of an ankle with his axe, hoping to slice through a tendon to cripple the creature. The giants howled in pain and hopped about on their spindly legs, trying to stomp the warriors beneath their feet. The giants were thin-skinned, their wounds bled copiously, and soon the Torgun warriors were covered with blood.

Skylan hurled his last spear and then drew his sword, prepared to join the assault. All the giants were limping, but it seemed none was ready to give up the fight. They struck furiously at the warriors with their stone weapons, the stones bashing and thudding into the ground. Sklyan started forward when Garn grabbed his arm.

“Where’s Aylaen?”

“Here beside me!” Skylan cried, only to look to see that she wasn’t.

Aylaen fought courageously and with skill. Realizing she could not effectively throw the heavy spear with strength and accuracy, she ran at one of the giants and jabbed the spear’s head into a tender part of the giant’s foot, just below the ankle. Howling in pain, the giant kicked his foot, trying to shake her loose. Aylaen held on grimly, though the giant flung her about like a rag doll, eventually hurling her into the sand.

The giant tried to stomp her with his bloody foot. Skylan and Garn attacked the giant with sword and axe, and managed to distract the giant from Aylaen, who regained her feet. She was covered with blood, part of it hers, most of it the giant’s. She drew her sword, ready to return to battle, only to suddenly stop and look behind her, over her shoulder.

The wounded Dragon Kahg was dissolving. His shattered head, sparkling sandy scales, flaring red eyes, spikey mane, powerful legs, smashing tail, and translucent wings were all crumbling, pouring into the sea like the grains from a broken hourglass.

“The spiritbone!” Aylaen cried and, dropping her sword, she ran toward the dragon.

A wounded dragon can heal himself only by returning to his lair in the Realm of Fire, where he can rest while spirit and body fuse together. In promise that he will return, the dragon leaves behind his spiritbone. During battle, a Bone Priestess is supposed to focus her attention on the dragon, to the exclusion of everything else going on around her, one reason why warriors
are assigned to guard her. If the dragon is wounded and forced to retreat back to his realm, his physical form disintegrates rapidly. The Bone Priestess has to be ready to recover the spiritbone, marking the location where it falls in order to find it.

The Dragon Kahg had departed to his realm, hopefully to recover, leaving behind an enormous mound of sand. The white spiritbone was clearly visible atop the mound. Heedless of her danger, knowing only that she must recover the spiritbone, Aylaen ran across a beach pocked with deep holes bored into the sand by the smashing stones.

Skylan and Garn both left off attacking the giants to run after Aylaen. Skylan was the swifter of the two and he outpaced Garn. Aylaen splashed into the water. She was ahead of him, Garn was behind. Skylan heard the heart-stopping whirring sound made by the stones and he looked up to see the stones hurtling through the air, one aimed at Garn, the other at Aylaen. Skylan had Blood Dancer in his hands. He could save one of his friends, but not the other.

Skylan looked back at Garn in agony. Garn, as always, understood. He pointed at Aylaen.

Skylan watched the stone fly at her. He would have one chance and one only. He waited, timing his stroke. The rope looked thick as a tree trunk and he would have to cut completely through it. He swung as hard as he could, putting his back and his shoulders and his prayers into the stroke. Blood Dancer sliced through the rope. He dropped his sword and flung himself on Aylaen, dragging her down into the water. The stone whistled harmlessly over their heads to land with a drenching splash in the sea.

Aylaen had not seen him coming, and she was shaken by the fall. She sat up, choking and coughing and spitting seawater.

Skylan leaped to his feet and looked, his heart in his mouth, at Garn. His friend lay on the beach.

Heedless of the giants, Skylan ran to his friend and flung himself down into the sand beside him. He searched anxiously for a wound, and he did not see any. Then Garn looked up at him.

Skylan saw the shadow of death in his eyes.

“Where does it hurt?” he demanded.

“It doesn’t,” Garn said, frowning, puzzled. “I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel anything.”

Skylan saw the blood seeping out from underneath his friend’s body, and he knew that Garn’s body was broken. The dream came back to him. Only then it was Draya who had been slain by the giants.

She could not move. I held her in my arms as she died.

“You can’t leave me!” Skylan said fiercely, making it an order. He took hold of Garn’s limp and unresponsive hand. “I need you!”

Garn smiled. “Not . . . much choice . . .”

He coughed, his breathing labored. He could no longer talk, and he asked the question with his eyes.
Aylaen?

“She is safe,” said Skylan. “You saved her life.”

He wrapped the palm and fingers of Garn’s hand around the hilt of his axe and held them there, so that Garn would come before Torval holding his weapon.

Garn’s breathing slowed to nothing. His eyes stared into the sun and did not blink.

Skylan fought back the tears. Garn had died a warrior’s death. He did not want to dishonor his friend with blubberings and wailings, but the tears came, hot and burning, down his cheeks.

He heard, behind him, a heart-piercing moan.

“Aylaen—” Sklyan turned to comfort her.

“You killed him!” Aylaen screamed and she struck him across the face.

She hit him again, bruising his cheek and splitting his lip. He tasted blood.

“You were jealous of him and you killed him!” she cried in a frenzy of grief and rage, hitting Skylan, pounding on him, beating him with her fists and kicking him. “You killed him!”

He bowed his head before the onslaught, did nothing to defend himself. Bjorn and Erdmun had to leave the battle to drag her off him.

Wulfe saw the giants from a distance. He heard the cries and shouts, he smelled the blood and iron. He would have run away from the battle, but he recognized the foe from his mother’s lullaby-tales. They were known as Flesh-Spinners and though he had never seen them, he hated them.

The giants were fae, wicked fae, shunned and despised by the faery folk because, during the First War, the Flesh-Spinners had turned against their own kind and fought alongside the Ugly Ones. The faery folk had never forgiven the Flesh-Spinners for their treachery or for the fact that they believed the giants continued to slavishly serve the gods of the Ugly Ones.

According to the fae, the Flesh-Spinners had been giants who bestrode creation, scattering stars like seeds throughout the universe and spinning their own flesh on enormous wheels, using the threads formed of their bodies to form the fabric of worlds. The faery folk populated these worlds and loved and cared for them.

But then came the gods of the Ugly Ones. They saw the beautiful worlds and wanted them. They praised the work, and the Flesh-Spinners grew proud and haughty, refusing to believe the fae when they warned the Flesh-Spinners
that the gods were trying to trick them. The Flesh-Spinners believed the lies of the gods and ended up giving them the worlds. The fae were furious, and they cursed the Flesh-Spinners, so that their flesh would never again grow back. They could make no more worlds.

Angry at the fae, the Flesh-Spinners sided with the gods and fought against the fae during the First War, only to discover that after they had helped win the war, the Ugly Ones and their gods reviled the Flesh-Spinners and drove them away. Tormented by the fae, the Flesh-Spinners hid in their lairs, whining and sulking over their hard fate until the God Torval came to them with an offer. He needed guards for the Hall of Vektia, and he promised to give the Flesh-Spinners a home on the Dragon Isles, a home where the fae would not attack them, for the fae were in awe of the dragons and would not live near them. The Flesh-Spinners agreed and moved their small tribe to Vektia, where they came to revere Torval and obeyed him in all things.

Wulfe remembered only bits and pieces of this history, but he knew one part for certain: All fae everywhere hated the Flesh-Spinners. His inner daemons had no trouble convincing Wulfe that it was his duty to attack them.

Wulfe hastened toward the battle, his dislike of iron overcome by the thrill of being able to avenge the faery folk on these wicked fae and help Skylan in the bargain.

Wulfe had been studying his magic with Owl Mother. No one had ever before tried to teach him how to use his magic. The druids did not understand the magic, but realizing how dangerous such power could be in the hands of a child, they sought to suppress it, their fond hope being that by teaching him self-discipline the boy’s human side would learn to subdue the chaotic influence of the fae.

Owl Mother had taught him the basic fundamentals. She had said he would never be as powerful as his faery mother had been, but that he would be far more powerful than Owl Mother, who had only a smidgen of fae blood in her. (Wulfe had been eager to hear how that could be, but Owl Mother had refused to tell him.) At first he’d been afraid that lessons in magic would be dull and tedious, like learning to read and write.

Her lessons had proved far more fun and interesting. He was looking forward eagerly to trying them out.

Wulfe sped toward the shore, racing over the sand on all fours. He considered as he ran his best plan for attack. At first he thought he would grab sunbeams and throw them at the giants. He liked this idea, for the fiery beams would burn holes in the giants’ flesh. Then he remembered Owl Mother’s first lesson: Use nature when you can, especially when around Skylan and his kind.

“Like the druids, the Ugly Ones fear fae magic because they do not understand it. They will come to fear you if they think you are using magic, even to help them. Use your magic to call upon nature to help you, and the Ugly Ones will always find the means to explain it away.”

If Wulfe had been in a forest, he would have asked the dryads to fight the Flesh-Spinners by rousing their trees to attack them. The pine trees were spindly, and he did not think they would be of much help. He might call upon the oceanaids, but he feared that if they rose up in fury, the deluge would drown not only the Flesh-Spinners, but also Skylan and the other Ugly Ones.

Wulfe was close enough now that he could see the carnage. The stench of blood and iron sickened him. He trembled in every limb, and wished he hadn’t come. He could always turn and flee, but the sight of the Flesh-Spinners brought back to him the memory of his mother’s voice, her burning hatred. It was now his burning need to make her proud of him. If only he could think how. . . .

A seagull circled overhead, squawking in annoyance. The hungry bird had spotted a dead fish washed up on the beach, but every time the bird dived for it, a giant would lash out his foot or a man would swing his axe and drive the bird away. Wulfe began to sing, as Owl Mother had taught him, using the music and the notes to form a net of enchantment that he flung over the bird.

Peck their flesh.
Peck their eyes out!
They steal your fish
and suck your eggs and kill your young.
The giants, the Flesh-Spinners!

Wulfe remembered to add the last hastily, realizing that the enraged bird might attack everyone in sight. The seagull gave a raucous call and within moments was joined by flocks of gulls, screaming in hatred, flying down to peck at the eyes of the giants, diving at their heads, tearing at their hair.