The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1)

Chapter One:
The Corpse Door

Come to the tree.

The dragon was calling Wulf again tonight. Strongly. He felt like his skeleton might pull itself out of his body and walk away without the rest of him attached.

When the land-dragon called, he couldn’t sleep. His mind felt like it was on fire, with thoughts flickering and flaming in all directions. It was as if the dragon was using Wulf’s mind to think
its
thoughts.

He would look at something like a table or a chair, and in a sudden flash see it
backward and forward in time.
He’d see the cut pieces of wood that the furniture was made from lying in a pile. Another flash, and he’d see the chair, old and busted, its pegs popping out and its backrest broken, waiting in some dark corner to be used for firewood. And he saw it burning.

This kind of dream or vision could happen with people, too. He’d see them old. He’d see them as babies. He’d even see their dead, dry bones. That was when it really scared him.

But behind all these visions there was a much more powerful drive. It was the urge to
get to the tree.

Not just any tree, but the tree from the nursery rhyme that he’d heard so long ago he couldn’t remember not knowing it. The first memory he had was of his mother softly chanting the rhyme while she rocked him to sleep after he’d been crying. He couldn’t even recall what he had been crying about, but he remembered his mother’s voice singing the words.

The Olden Oak

Where dragon spoke

From in the bark

To old Duke Tjark

The Olden Oak was a huge tree in the square near Allfather Cathedral at the center of Raukenrose township.

Which meant it was
outside
of the castle that Wulf was
inside.

Wulf knew he had to wait until after curfew, but the mixed-up thoughts churning in his head only grew more unsettled. Finally, it was time to go. He got out of his warm bed and used an ember from the fire to light a candle lantern. He got dressed by the lantern light, then armed himself with his favorite dagger. He opened his bedchamber door a crack. Now to get going.

This was not so easy to accomplish, though, because to follow the dragon-call he had to escape from his own
castle.
Nobody
had any privacy in a castle. For one thing, there weren’t hallways in the middle, just some passageways around the outside
.
Farther in, one room connected to another. Wulf had two brothers and two sisters, two foster sisters, and a foster brother, seven siblings in all. The fosters had rooms in the nearby castle towers, but his natural brothers and sisters had rooms that opened on the family great hall—a high-ceilinged chamber that at this time of night was filled with sleeping, snoring servants. Many of the servants were Tier, and they let out low growls and soft bleats when they dreamed.

The eating tables in the castle doubled as beds for the unmarried staff. Normally this was excellent, because a servant was just outside your door if you wanted a midnight snack or were cold and needed the fire in your fireplace built up. Not so good when you wanted to escape without anybody noticing.

As usual, the great hall smelled like fireplace smoke and just about every body and animal odor imaginable. The fire in the main hearth was banked, all the doors were closed, and there were no windows. Wulf’s own servant, Grim, was asleep near Wulf’s room.

Grim was not human. He was a faun: lower half goat, upper half man—except for the horns on his head. He was a Tier, a talking beast-person. Grim slept sitting up, his legs curled under him as a goat’s would be, his back resting against the wall of the great hall next to Wulf’s door.

Wolf’s light flickered, and the faun opened his eyes. He looked at Wulf quizzically, stroking his wispy beard.

Wulf shook his head and whispered, “Going to the crapper.”

Wulf had a chamber pot in his room where he could urinate at night, and where he theoretically could also do his other business, but he usually liked to go to the castle toilet instead. Grim knew this and wasn’t surprised at Wulf’s appearance in the middle of the night.

Still…The faun gave Wulf a sleepy look up and down. Wulf had belted his dagger under his thick cloak, which he had pulled around him for warmth, and he didn’t think Grim noticed the knife. It was hard to tell
what
Grim noticed sometimes. He was famous among the castle servants for his absolute silence unless he was asked to speak.

Grim finally nodded, lowered his head, and closed his eyes. He was instantly asleep.

Okay. One obstacle down.

Wulf pushed the main entrance door open enough to slip out—it was well-oiled and didn’t make any noise—then grabbed the big iron ring that served as a doorknob and pulled it shut behind him. Outside the great hall was an entrance chamber almost as large as the great hall itself. Its walls were hung with tapestries. A couple of servants, one a beaver man, the other human, slept on the wooden benches that lined the walls, but neither looked up when Wulf entered the chamber. Servants knew that if you wanted to get any sleep in a castle, you had to learn not to let every sound in the night wake you.

Off the other end of the entrance hall was a large stairway down to the castle doors. The doors were shut tight and bolted. No getting out that way without raising a ruckus. But to either side on the top of the stairs passageways led to right and left. These corridors circled the inner castle wall and led past several bays with arrow slits and holes for dropping boiling oil on any attackers who might make it this far inside the keep. Wulf took the hall to the right. The corridor was lined with tapestries—they were beautiful, but they were mostly there to keep the draft out. Along this walkway were the toilets. There were four of them, each at a spot where the passageway turned a corner.

Wulf went into one, so that he wouldn’t technically have told a lie to Grim. Wulf liked Grim, and hated that he might get the servant in trouble.

The toilet was a board with a hole cut it in it. This was placed over an opening that led four stories below to the base of the inner keep, where the nightsoil was mucked out once a week. Wulf thought about actually using the toilet, but he didn’t really have to. He’d gone before bed. Besides, he had to be on his way or things would get bad in a hurry. He’d tried to resist the dragon-call once, and had spent a day with a headache so awful it felt like somebody had taken an ax to his skull—and then beaten his entire body with the ax handle for good measure.

Wulf came out of the toilet and continued down the passage, heading for its very end, to a place people only went if they absolutely had to.

Wulf drew his cloak, made of fustian—coarse wool and rough cotton cloth—closer around his shoulders. His candle lantern squeaked as it swung on its handle. Under the cloak, his dagger rattled in its hard leather scabbard as he walked. Every little sound echoed.

“I sound like an army on the march,” Wulf mumbled to himself.

To make things worse—way worse to Wulf—it shouldn’t even be
him
who heard the dragon-call. It should be his oldest brother, Otto. Or even his other brother, Adelbert.

But not Wulfgang von Dunstig. Fourth child born to Duke Otto and Duchess Malwin von Dunstig. Third boy.

Not even spare to the heir. I’m not
supposed
to hear the dragon at all. Otto is, or even Adelbert. But not me.

He should only be able hear the call faintly.

So much for what he wanted. Again the call roared and burned through his mind and body. It socked him so hard, he stood for a moment trying to catch his breath.

Wulf glanced at the wall next to him. It glowed red and seemed to be mushy, as if it were made of some fiery, oozing liquid. The stones radiated heat, hotter than the hottest fire. Was he seeing the past or the future? Maybe this was the way rock formed? Then, just as he was thinking his skin would blister, the wall was solid stone again.

Wulf got his breathing under control then headed once again down the hallway.

Finally he saw the glint of crystal above him, shining in the lantern light. This was the rose quartz keystone at the highest part the arch. Carved into the smooth arch stones on either side of the quartz was a message.

THIS WAY TO HELHEIM

Helheim, the land of the dead. It was someone’s joke from long ago. Maybe one of the former dukes. Maybe a stonemason playing a prank.

Standing here when it was after midnight, Wulf didn’t think the joke was very funny.

He walked under the arch. The passage narrowed in stages, until at its end it was barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side.

It didn’t need to be very wide. Nobody came this way unless they had to.

Everybody stayed away from what was at the end—the corpse door.

I would stay away, too, if I could, Wulf thought. This place is creepy.

The corpse door was an opening made for taking dead bodies outside to be buried. Most castles had one. Wulf wasn’t sure why dead people weren’t allowed to be hauled out the main door, but it never happened. When the corpse door wasn’t being used, it stayed bricked up. The bricks were laid in, but
not
held in place with mortar.

That was key. It meant a single person could remove them and get out into the keep bailey.

Wulf sat down and put his lantern beside the opening. After a moment taking in the faint but cheery candlelight, he raised the globe and blew the candle out.

It was dark as pitch in the dead-end passageway.

Wulf tried not to let the darkness bother him. He pivoted on his butt and put his feet up against the stack of bricks filling the corpse-door opening.

This part was going to make a sound. There was no way to avoid it.

He pushed.

The bricks fell with a clatter on the flint pavement of the bailey courtyard.

He sat still a moment, calming himself. His breath was a mist in the dark hallway’s end. There was only moonlight from outside to see by.

Wulf waited a few breaths to find out if the sound of the falling stones had gotten any of the servants’ or guards’ attention.

No footsteps. Nobody calling out in alarm.

He was probably okay. For the moment.

Wulf stuck his head through the corpse door and looked around. It was dark out there in the bailey courtyard—there was only a half moon shining in the sky tonight—but he didn’t see anyone. The corpse door was set about knee-high in the wall. It was big enough to let through the body of a regular size grownup. A body went out, always feet first, with somebody on each side pushing and pulling.

A month ago, he’d seen the door used for Helga Svensson, a seven-year-old who had died of scarlet fever. Her blonde hair had been washed, combed, and plaited, but her face and hands were still splotched with the rash the fever made.

Seeing Helga Svensson taken out of the castle was what gave Wulf the idea of using the corpse door himself.

Wulf took off his dagger and held the scabbard in one hand to keep it from clattering against the stones. When his arms were clear on the other side, he carefully set the dagger and belt down on the outside flagstones, trying not to make a racket. Now it was time to get his own body through. He crawled through the opening headfirst—opposite of the way they took the dead bodies out. He pulled himself forward. Nothing happened. He wriggled. No movement.

Stuck.

Blood and bones, Wulf thought, this shouldn’t be happening. Even a fat man could usually pass through the door.

Wulf felt with his hand and, with a sigh of relief, realized what had happened. His cloak had bunched up under him, and the rough stones were catching at its fiber.

If only I didn’t have to wear coarse-weave tonight, Wulf thought, this would be so much easier.

But he did. He was about to get very dirty, and he didn’t want to have to explain why his good linen shirt had gotten filthy. Also, he didn’t want to be recognized, and the hood on the cloak could cover most of his face in shadows.

He planted his palms and elbows and humped the rest of the way through the corpse door. Wulf tumbled out onto the flagstones and quickly rose to a crouching position. Suddenly there was rustling behind him.

Wulf spun, his hand moving toward his dagger.

It wasn’t there! Of course. He’d put it through first.

But then a questioning “meow” rang through the castle courtyard.

Great.

It was Grani, his sister Ulla’s cat.

She meowed again. Grani was going to wake up the whole keep if she kept that up.

Had a servant accidentally left Ulla’s door open?

Well, he could worry about that later when he—

Wulf turned to find the hilt of his own dagger poked into his face. Its round metal pommel, the part at the end of the handle, scraped against his nose. Startled, Wulf gasped and backed up against the bailey wall. A dark form standing in front of him chuckled.

“Figured I’d find you here,” the form said in a low voice.