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Authors: Rebecca Barnhouse

The Coming of the Dragon

BOOK: The Coming of the Dragon
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ALSO BY REBECCA BARNHOUSE

The Book of the Maidservant

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2010 by Rebecca Barnhouse

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barnhouse, Rebecca.
The coming of the dragon / by Rebecca Barnhouse. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Rune, an orphaned young man raised among strangers, tries to save the kingdom from a dragon that is burning the countryside and, along the way, learns that he is a kinsman of Beowulf.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89349-0
[1. Heroes—Fiction. 2. Dragons—Fiction. 3. Identity—Fiction. 4. Wiglaf (Legendary character)—Fiction. 5. Beowulf (Legendary character)—Fiction. 6. Mythology, Norse—Fiction. 7. Scandinavia—History—To 1397—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B2668Com 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2009019295

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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For

S K B

Contents
PROLOGUE

NO ONE KNEW HOW LONG AMMA HAD BEEN THERE
.

When the women and children who lived in the stronghold, taking advantage of a sunny day, came down the rocky cliff path to gather bird eggs and seaweed, they saw her standing just below the high-tide line, looking out to sea.

Fulla set her basket down and approached her.

“Amma? What are you doing so far from home?” she asked, but Amma didn’t answer. Instead, she stared out at the waves, eyes narrowed against the sun. Fulla turned to see what her friend was looking at, but there was nothing out of the ordinary—just gannets plummeting into the water for fish, while smaller birds swooped and skimmed above the whitecaps. She must have been there for a while, Fulla realized, looking down at the circle of dried salt at the bottom of Amma’s skirt. Long enough for the tide to
recede and wool to dry, at the very least, although Fulla had the impression it might have been much longer.

Gently, she touched the other woman’s arm. “Amma?” Again, there was no response. “Well,” she said, “I’ll be here if you need anything.”

She might as well have been talking to a post for all the reaction she got. She pursed her lips and picked up her basket. Glancing back at Amma every now and then, she sent her son up the rocks to hunt for birds’ nests while she raked a stick through the wet seaweed, looking for the only kind worth collecting.

She raised her head just in time to see a boy hauling his arm back, ready to let a pebble fly toward Amma. She rushed over and grabbed him. “Don’t you
ever
do that again,” she hissed. She gave him her meanest look, then let him run away as she scanned the group for his mother.

Didn’t these women have any compassion? She saw the suspicious glances they cast at Amma, who stood as still and silent as a rock, watching the water. Unusual behavior had been common for Amma ever since she had shown up seeking a place in the kingdom some six winters back. Or was it seven? Fulla couldn’t recall, although she remembered the way people had treated Amma even then. Didn’t they recognize grief when they saw it? And they, the wives and mothers of warriors? It was said that Amma had lost her brother, her husband, even her son in a feud, but she never talked about it, not even to Fulla. No wonder she
wanted to live alone, far from the hall where nobles’ sons spent their days honing their fighting skills.

Fulla looked over to see her own son climbing down from the rocks, cradling eggs in his shirt, waving away a tern that screamed and flew at him, defending her nest. It wouldn’t be very many summers before Gunnar would be joining his father and his older brothers in the king’s houseguard, for all that he was still a boy. Sword training started early for the youths who lived in the stronghold, and even farmers’ sons traveled to the hall during the winters to learn how to wield spear and ax. She closed her eyes, indulging herself in a brief desire for a time when boys didn’t have to become warriors, when feuds didn’t have to be avenged, when other tribes’ raiding parties didn’t threaten the kingdom of the Geats.

A gray cloud rushed across the sun, blocking its light, and a gust of wind sent dried seaweed skittering over the rocks. In the west, more clouds gathered.

Fulla looked back at Amma, who still hadn’t moved. What did she see out there? Shading her eyes as the cloud uncovered the sun again, Fulla stared out at the water. Was that a black speck? No, nothing. Still, uneasiness crept up her spine.

“Gunnar!” she called, and her son came running, eggs still clutched in his shirt. “Careful!”

From the way he looked down and then back up at her with his lopsided grin, she could tell that at least one egg
must have broken. She smiled and shook her head as he neared her. “Two broke, but I can get more,” he said.

“No need, these are fine.” He held out his shirt, and she put the small, speckled eggs one by one into her basket. “I want you to do something,” she said, her eye on Amma.

He craned his neck to see what she was looking at.

“I want you to run home as fast as you can and find your father. He’s in the hall.”

“I know that.”

She suppressed a smile. All of her sons seemed to have a second sense when it came to their father’s duty roster. Long before she did, they knew when he was leaving on patrol, when he was on guard at the hall entrance, when he was standing watch beside the throne or serving as the king’s bodyguard. “Tell him …” She hesitated, not knowing quite what she wanted Hemming to know. “Tell him what Amma’s doing.”

He nodded and started to run.

“Wait!” she said. “Wash the egg off your shirt first.”

He ran to the water’s edge and dabbed some foam over his front.
Ah, well
, Fulla thought. He was sure to get plenty of other things on that shirt before the day was out. She watched until he had climbed the path up the cliff and disappeared. Once he was out of sight, her gaze shifted to the giants’ mountain, looming out over the water in the distance, its top covered with mist. Amma lived out beyond the mountain’s roots, alone in a hut on Hwala’s farm. There was another beach near the farm, so why had she come all the
way here? Fulla walked over to stand beside Amma. Shading her eyes with her palm, she looked out to sea again.

Again, she thought she saw a black speck, far out on the horizon. When she blinked, it was gone. Just waves, she realized, which have a habit of making themselves appear to be whales and sea monsters and longships.

She glanced sideways at Amma, at her dark hair and brows, so unlike the blond and brown and red hair of the Geats. Near Amma’s ear, strands of gray mingled with the dark hair. Fulla unconsciously touched the hair above her own ear before concentrating on the horizon again.

There! She
had
seen something; she was sure of it. She squinted into the distance. Far out at sea, something bobbed on the water, winking in and out of existence as the waves pushed it from crest to trough. It might have been a bird or a piece of driftwood. Or it might have been something else.

She watched it for a long time, until the clouds had rolled over the entire sky, taking the sparkle off the water and turning it a hard metallic gray, like the color of chain mail.

“What is it?” someone beside her asked, making her jump—Elli, a girl Gunnar’s age.

“Probably just a bit of wood,” Fulla said. “Come, we’d best get home before it rains. Where’s your mother?”

Elli pointed and Fulla shooed her off. When the girl was gone, Fulla whispered, “Amma? Do you know what it is?”

Without taking her eyes from the water, Amma quirked her lips, then moved her chin in the slightest approximation of a nod.

“Could you tell me?”

There was no response.

“Is it …” Fulla hesitated to say the word. “Is it raiders?”

Again, Amma said nothing.

It could be a longship full of warriors ready to sweep down and take the Geats captive, enslaving them. And like bait to lure them forward, defenseless women and children swarmed over the beach while gulls and terns screamed and swooped over their disturbed nests. How foolish she’d been, standing here doing nothing! Fulla gathered her skirts and ran. She called for the other women, trying to hurry them without causing panic. A few of them looked out at the water and, understanding her rush, began to help.

Just as the children had all been rounded up, the sound of hoofbeats from the cliff made Fulla turn in alarm. She let out her breath in relief when she realized it was her husband, Hemming, Gunnar in front of him on the horse. Behind them rode two other warriors, Dayraven and Horsa. They reined in their mounts, and she saw Gunnar pointing excitedly at the sea.

“Let’s go,” she said to the woman in front of her, who called out, “No pushing, Tor!” as she shepherded the children up the rocky path.

The children were safely at the top of the cliff and heading down the trail toward the stronghold, Elli in the
lead, by the time Fulla reached her husband, who was still on his horse. Gunnar had dismounted. “It’s a boat,” he said.

She reached for her son, wrapping her arms around his chest, and turned back to look. She could see now that he was right; it was definitely a boat, but too small for a longship. Gunnar tried to shrug himself out of her grasp, but she held him and said, “I want you to go back to the stronghold.”

BOOK: The Coming of the Dragon
8.95Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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