Rage of the Dragon (11 page)

Aylaen knelt down beside Wulfe and brushed the hair out of the boy’s eyes. “But he didn’t. He saved my life. Take him below. Let him sleep.”

Skylan lifted Wulfe in his arms. The boy stirred, but didn’t wake as Skylan carried him down into the hold. The bedding was soaked. At least here the boy was out of the wind. Aylaen rummaged through sea chests until she managed to find a relatively dry shirt. She wrapped the shirt around Wulfe. He woke a little, blinked in confusion, mumbled something, and lay down, yawned, and closed his eyes.

Aylaen and Skylan stood together, staring down at him. Then Aylaen shivered and Skylan put his arm around her and drew her close.

“I love you, Aylaen,” said Skylan. “I can never take Garn’s place…”

Aylaen lifted her head.

“You have your own place in my heart, Skylan. I have loved both you and Garn since we were little.”

She sighed and added, “I think I loved you more. But loving Garn was easier. Loving you … You made it difficult.”

Skylan hesitated. “When I asked before if you would marry me, you always said no.”

“I said no because you never ‘asked,’” Aylaen told him. “You demanded that I love you. You expected me to fall into your arms, like all the others.”

Skylan thought back and smiled ruefully. “I was a fool.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling.

“Yes, I was a fool or yes, you will marry me?”

“Both,” said Aylaen.

Their fingers twisted, locked.

“From this moment, our two wyrds are one,” she said.

Skylan felt truly happy. He wished he could stay here forever. But nothing ever lasted forever. He thought of his two wyrds, one long. One short.

“Skylan!” Farinn shouted. “Come look!”

“You should stay here, bandage that wound,” Skylan told Aylaen.

“It’s stopped bleeding,” she said. She paused, then said, flushing in embarrassment, “I know this sounds stupid, but I need to make certain Treia’s safe.”

He kissed her, standing at the bottom of the ladder.

“Skylan!” Farinn shouted.

“I’m coming,” Skylan called back.

He and Aylaen went up together.

“Look. You were right,” said Farinn triumphantly. “Raegar’s stopped to save her.”

Raegar was on deck, directing operations. Two men who could swim were in the water, tying a rope around Treia’s waist. She held fast to the rope with her hands and several of those aboard the galley, including Raegar, hauled her up over the side and onto the deck. Once she was safely aboard and the men who had saved her were back on the ship, Raegar stood on the deck, his gaze fixed on the
Venjekar
.

Skylan picked up the spyglass and put it to his eye. He had to search for the galley as the sky and the sea bounced around, up and down, making him dizzy. Then he found the galley and he found Raegar. He seemed so close Skylan could have reached out and slugged him.

The two gazed steadily at each other.

Raegar looked about as bad as Skylan knew he himself must look. Raegar’s armor was wet. His shaved head, with the tattoo of the serpent of Aelon, glistened with sweat. He was grim with anger and frustration and fatigue. Raegar had lost his dragon. His crew was on the verge of mutiny. He had no choice but to sail back to Sinaria.

A half-drowned and half-dead Treia came into view. She tried to put her arms around Raegar. He shook her off.

“He’s probably thinking he made a bad bargain,” Skylan commented to Aylaen.

He continued to watch as Treia seized hold of Raegar’s arm and said something to him. She held up her hand, the fingers spread wide.

Five fingers spread wide.

“The secret of the Vektia. She
does
know it,” said Skylan.

“And now so does Raegar,” said Aylaen.

The guards escorted Treia below decks. She went meekly, her head bowed, now and then casting her lover a backward glance. Raegar paid her no heed. He was still staring at the
Venjekar
.

“Mark my words,” said Acronis from his place at the tiller. “That man will be Emperor of Oran.”

Skylan snorted in disbelief. “Raegar was a slave. A foreigner. Your people despise him.”

“And yet,” said Acronis, “they will follow him.”

“They’re not following him now,” said Skylan. “He’s lucky they don’t throw him overboard.”

“He’s suffered a setback,” said Acronis. “He was once, as you say, a lowly slave and he rose to become a Warrior-Priest. Mark my words. Emperor.”

Skylan recalled uneasily the dream, the winged serpents, the armies of Oran invading his homeland. With all five spiritbones, Raegar would rule the world. He knew the secret and so did Aelon.

Those two are a long way from having all five, Skylan thought to himself.

In the distance, Raegar raised a clenched fist. Even so far away, his voice boomed across the water. “I call down Aelon’s curse upon you, Skylan Ivorson!”

Skylan laughed because Aylaen was watching. He shouted back, “I would call down Torval’s curse on you, Raegar, but the god is busy with more important matters!”

Skylan lowered the spyglass. He looked up at the sail, filled with wind. He looked at Raegar’s ship, dwindling in the distance. He looked at the ogre ship, still too near, but now falling behind. He looked to the north, to the far horizon.

Let Aelon do his damnedest.

“We’re going home,” said Skylan.

CHAPTER

10

Skylan discovered he was becoming accustomed to using the spyglass, though he still didn’t like it. He trained the glass on the ogre ship. He could see the godlord pacing back and forth on the deck, watching the
Venjekar,
the ship Bear Walker needed to save himself and his men.

The ogre’s face was twisted in a scowl. He could see plainly that his slower, heavier ship could never catch the
Venjekar
. His ship had sunk lower in the water. It would soon go down and the ogres would go down with it.

Skylan thought of Keeper, his friend. He had tried to fulfill his vow, return him to his people. He had failed. Keeper would understand. Skylan would explain it to him when they were together in Torval’s Hall.

The sun was high above them, beating off the water. The heat shimmered on the waves. Bear Walker unhooked the paws of his bearskin cloak and flung it away from him. As he did so, Skylan caught sight of a flash, as of sunlight striking gold. He caught his breath. He remembered another time he had seen that same flash—sun gleaming off gold. He had been on the field of battle.

The flash was there and then it was gone. The godlord had turned to speak to the shaman.

“Turn around, you bastard!” Skylan muttered beneath his breath. He kept the glass to his eye.

The godlord flung out his arm, pointing at the
Venjekar
. The shaman started waving his gourd at the ship, probably working some of his foul magic. Skylan paid the shaman scant attention. The sun shone directly on the ogre, on the gold he was wearing around his thick neck.

A wave hit the
Venjekar
. Skylan’s arm jerked with the movement of the ship. The glass slipped from his eye and he lost sight of the godlord. Swearing, he braced himself against the rail, jammed the spyglass into his eye socket, and stared so intently his eye began to water. He caught only a brief glimpse, before the godlord left the rail and walked off.

A brief glimpse, but that was enough.

Skylan lowered the glass. He had seen all he needed to see—a torque made of heavy gold formed in the shape of two dragons, their tails intertwined, their heads facing each other. The two dragons held between them a spiritbone set with a sapphire.

The Vektan Torque.

Skylan had been prepared to sail halfway around the world to the ogre nation to retrieve the stolen Vektan Torque. And here it was.

On the neck of an ogre.

On a ship that was sinking.

If he didn’t act swiftly, the Vektan Torque would be on the neck of a dead ogre on a ship lying at the bottom of the sea.

Skylan raised his eyes to heaven. “Torval, I can’t do this! They have twenty ogre warriors to my four, five counting a fey child who can turn himself into a wolf. You can’t ask this of me!”

Skylan waited, but he heard only silence and the slapping of the waves against the hull. He looked back at the ogre ship to see the sunlight gilding the water with gold.

Skylan looked up at the Dragon Kahg. The dragon’s eyes seemed to shine with a golden glint.

“You, too,” he muttered.

Skylan heaved a sigh and yelled.

“Bring the ship about!”

Acronis and Farinn and Aylaen all started talking at once.

“What are you doing? We’re going home!”

Skylan shook his head.

“No,” he said, “we’re going to save the ogres.”

They stared at Skylan in stunned disbelief. Before any of them could move, the Dragon Kahg took it upon himself to bring the
Venjekar
onto the new course, sailing toward the ogre vessel that looked to be lower in the water every time Skylan glanced at it.

Aylaen had watched and listened in shocked silence until the ship was under way and then she sucked in an angry breath and came storming at Skylan.

“
What
do you think you are doing?” she demanded. “Are you
still
trying to prove you are a man by chasing death? You will get us all killed—”

“The ogres have the Vektan Torque,” said Skylan in flat, unemotional tones.

Aylaen gaped, the rest of her tirade forgotten.

“Bear Walker is wearing it around his fat neck,” Skylan continued. “And his motherless dung heap of a ship is sinking, and if that whoreson godlord sinks with it, the Vektan Torque will lie forever at the bottom of the sea.”

“How is that possible?” Aylaen asked in a strangled voice. “You must be wrong.”

“Take the glass. See for yourself.”

Aylaen grabbed hold of the spyglass and brought it to her eye. She gazed through it for a long time. Then she lowered the glass slowly.

“You’re right. He is wearing it.” Aylaen sounded dazed. She looked at Skylan in dismay. “What are we going to do?”

“Ask Kahg,” said Skylan with a grim glance at the dragon.

Aylaen shivered in the bright sunshine. “The dragon knows you want him to attack the ogres, but that would put the spiritbone at even greater risk. He cannot recover the spiritbone. Only we can do it.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Damn it! This isn’t fair!”

“Aylaen, I’m sorry—” Skylan reached out to comfort her.

“I’m not blaming you,” Aylaen said wearily. “It’s just … we were going home…” She evaded his grasp and disappeared down into the hold.

Skylan sighed deeply. He longed to go comfort her, but he had to keep his attention focused on the ogres. Bear Walker and the shaman and several ogre warriors were gathered at the prow, watching the
Venjekar
and gesturing wildly, confused and alarmed at Skylan’s sudden change of course.

Acronis looked questioningly at Skylan. “This Vektan Torque. A bit of gold jewelry. Is that really worth risking death at the hands of the ogres?”

“The Torque belongs to the Vindrasi,” said Skylan. “It is sacred to our people. There are five Vektia dragons like the one that destroyed your city. We took the spiritbone of one of them from Treia. That ‘bit of gold jewelry’ holds the spiritbone of a second.”

Acronis raised an eyebrow. “Ah, I see.” He scratched his jaw. “Do the ogres know how to summon this Vektia dragon?”

Skylan had not considered this possibility.

“I’m assuming they don’t,” he said. “Otherwise they would have used the second Vektia dragon to attack Sinaria. But that’s another reason to recover the Torque. We can’t risk having them find out.”

“How did they get hold of this spiritbone?” Acronis asked. “You said it was sacred to your people.”

“The Vektan Torque was given to our people at the beginning of the world by the goddess, Vindrash. A cowardly chieftain—Horg, by name—traded the Torque to the ogres in return for saving his own hide.”

Skylan did not tell the rest of the story—how he had fought in single-hand combat with an ogre godlord, killing him and recovering the Torque, only to lose it to the shaman and his foul magicks.

Wulfe came up on deck, tugging irritably at the shirt that was too big for him.

“What did you do to make Aylaen cry?” Wulfe asked, scowling at Skylan.

“We were going to go home,” said Skylan. “And now we’re not.”

“You wouldn’t have made it anyway,” said Wulfe. “This shirt itches. Do I have to wear it?”

“Yes,” said Skylan. “What do you mean we wouldn’t have made it?”

“The oceanaids warned you to leave.” Wulfe scratched and squirmed and wriggled.

Skylan snorted. “What did your fish friends say was going to happen?”

“They’re not fish!” Wulfe said, offended. He cast a wary glance at the dragonhead prow and said in a whisper, “Kahg knows.”

“Knows what?” Skylan asked.

“What’s coming!” Wulfe hissed. “That’s why he was sailing away.”

“Then why did the dragon turn back?” Skylan asked, then he realized he already knew the answer. “The Vektan Torque. The dragon won’t leave because of the spiritbone.”

Wulfe shrugged, not interested. “I’m going to go tell Aylaen I hate this shirt.”

Skylan cast an uneasy glance at the dragon, hoping for a sign, a reassuring flicker of the eye. But Kahg wasn’t communicating. Aboard the ogre ship, the ogres were gesturing and pointing, and once again Bear Walker had to chase them away from the ship’s rail.

The waiting was hardest. A tense silence fell over the small group on board the
Venjekar
. Aylaen brought food: bread and olives. Skylan ate because his belly demanded to be fed, not because he had any appetite. The vague shape of a plan was forming in his mind. It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least it was better than nothing.

Wulfe had returned with Aylaen. She had found him a different shirt, one made from linen instead of wool.

“You and I need to talk,” said Skylan to the wolf-boy.

Reaching out, he ruffled the boy’s hair, a gesture of affection that startled Wulfe.

“What’d you do that for?” he asked suspiciously.