The Last Dragon Chronicles: The Fire Ascending (9 page)

The unicorn immediately bucked, lifting Voss higher against the sun. He gripped the mane and violently pulled the thing under control. It sickened me to see a

small amount of fluid oozing out of the

stump of its horn. “How do you know this queen?” Voss growled. Like his mount, he was disturbed by the image.

I remembered Eleanor, talking of her daughter. “It came to me in a dream,” I said.

Another horse pulled up with a clatterof hooves. Astride it was the sibyl, Hilde.

“You know him?” said Voss, takingnote of her squint.

“The seer’s apprentice. He was at theriver.”

“The one you let journey with the

tornaq?”

“Yes.”

Voss nodded and steadied his mount

again. He reached into a saddlebag and pulled something out. “You drew this,

boy?”

I cupped my eyes. To my astonishment, it was the tapestry I’d started in Eleanor’s krofft. The writing dragon was there, at its centre. But there was also a kneeling child with it now. A young girl I hadn’t drawn or even remembered. She was holding the dragon in the cup of her hands. Looking at her  made  me  feel  strangely  dizzy. “Grella?” I muttered. Had she drawn

herself into the picture as a child? Surely only she could have worked on the drawing?

Voss gathered up the tapestry and put it away. “Bring him,” he said, and tugged on his reins.

The overweight man trotted his horseforward. Before I could open my mouth

again, he had struck my face with the back of his fist. The world turned black and I

fell to my knees. All I could think about before I passed out was the lingering image of that innocent child.

When I came to, my hands were tied tightbehind my back and I was sitting upagainst a wall of rock. The air was so thinit hurt to breathe it. A few flakes of snow

were clinging to my robe. My shoes had been removed and my feet and ankles were slightly blue, though not as cold as they might have been. Even here, at the very neck of Kasgerden, the rising heat of the Earth could be felt. Galen, it seemed, was still calling out, drawing Gaia’s auma to him. Meanwhile, the sun was setting to

the west of the mountain, pulling shadows across the far fields of Taan. Only the wetlands around Lake Varlusshandaan

were easily picked out of the dusky orange landscape. It would not be long now before the rising moon was reflected in their calm, flat surfaces. With the moon would come the dying of the dragon – and the challenge to it from Voss.

He had camped on a ledge that was an overspill   from   a   natural   cave,   a considerable height above the Skoga forest. From the position of the sun, I guessed it had taken half a day or more to reach it. If the ache in my back was to be believed, I had spent the entire journey slung across Eirik’s horse. I could barely straighten my head to look around. When I

did, there was Voss, sitting on a fallen rock just in front of me. In the background were the horses and three other men, playing dice. The unicorn was lying down, trying to sleep. Grella was beside it, stroking its mane. She was unharmed but clearly frightened. Every part of her face was screaming at me, ‘Idiot! What are you
 
doing
 
here?’ The sibyl, Hilde, was nowhere to be seen.

“You must be hungry,” Voss said. He was eating the meat I’d taken from the krofft, hewing off chunks like a bear might do. Despite this brutish display, he did not strike me as an uncouth man. The manner

in which he held himself, the way he turned the joint of meat between his hands, even the ring of gold in his ear, suggested

that he hailed from a noble tribe. Unlike

Egil and Eirik, he took care of hisappearance. His fingernails were cleanand so were his clothes. His beard was

well tended and close to his skin. Like the

rest of his hair it was fully black, a shade that had also seeped into his eyes. He wore a plain padded jerkin, narrowed at the waist by a sturdy belt. In his belt was the unicorn horn. Rune’s hunting knife was slid into the top of one boot.

“You’ll forgive me,” he said, “for stealing your food, but you’ve brought about the deaths of two of my men and inconvenienced my quest somewhat. A share of your provisions is the least you owe me.” He spat a piece of gristle, which was picked up by a raven hopping

round his feet. I watched the bird tear the

gristle into strips. Every rip was echoed in the lining of my stomach. I had not eaten since leaving the krofft. “I should, of course, throw you off the cliff and be done.” He paused and waved the meat around. The raven’s keen eyes followed its arcs. “But you intrigue me, apprentice. I like a boy with spirit.” He reached into his jerkin and pulled out my tapestry. He spread it out on the ground and weighted the corners with four loose stones.

“You’re going to tell me exactly what you saw with the tornaq. And I’d ask you not to dither. I still have a destiny to fulfil with the dragon.”

I pitched a little and began to cough. A flare of pain all around my left cheekbone

reminded me of the blow I’d taken. From

the cave there came a high-pitched wail. A woman in pain. Voss ignored it, but took a little pity on me. “Give him water.”

Grella looked towards the cave, then uncertainly at Voss.

He ran his knuckles down the side of

her face, pushing back her tumbling yellow hair. “When I give an order, you obey me, remember?”

“Yes, Lord,” she said. She hurried to my side. The unicorn let out a quiet whinny.

Grella took a water pouch from her belt and offered it up to my dry, cracked lips. “Don’t speak to me,” she whispered. “He’ll be watching for that.” I filled my mouth with the warlord’s water. Its

coolness was a welcome relief for my

throat.

From the cave came another awful

wail.

Voss swung his body towards his men. “Gunn,” he barked. “Go and quieten thewitch.”

Gunn, the overweight thug who’d struckme, threw a wary look towards the cave. “I ain’t good with nippers,” he said.

Voss drew the unicorn horn.

“All right,” Gunn said, clambering to his feet. For a man with several layers of fat, he could run like a startled rabbit when threatened.

But even as Voss put the horn away, Gunn was back again, run out of the caveby the sibyl’s screams.

“It’s coming,” he said. “She wants you,

Voss.”

“I’m busy,” Voss growled.

“Well, it ain’t a pretty sight.”

“Nor are you,” Voss argued. “Now get

back in there and stuff her mouth.”

Gunn looked at his friends. Theyshrugged and went back to their dice.

Voss turned towards me again.

While their argument had been takingplace, I had managed a swift exchangewith Grella:

“What’s happening in the cave?”

“Voss made a vile potion for Hilde –

from the stem of the unicorn’s horn.”

The oozing fluid. “He poisoned her?”

“No. She’s birthing a child.”

So Eirik hadn’t been lying about that.

“Why did Hilde take you?”

“To calm the unicorn. When it passed through Taan it knew I was there and tried to leave Voss. Be quiet now. Drink.”

“One last thing.”

She frowned. Voss was about to turn.

“Why did you draw the child on the tapestry?”

Her face turned as pale as the falling snow. “I didn’t,” she whispered. “She appeared by herself.” She thrust the water pouch back to my lips.

“Enough,” Voss barked.

Grella, head bowed, pulled away.

“Well, boy? What have you to say about this?” He jutted his chin at the tapestry.

“I saw many things with the tornaq,” I said. I swallowed and added, “Too many

to remember.”

Voss sighed. He stroked his beardtwice. “It’s a long drop, boy. You’ll havetime to remember every crack in everyrock if you don’t start talking.” He pointedthe joint of meat at the image. “The dragonis writing. What did you see?”

And suddenly, I knew a way to free myhands. “A symbol.”

“A symbol?” He tilted his head.

“I can’t describe it – but I could draw it

for you.”

He looked at me and chuckled, a clear indication that my plan was as plain as the night sky above. He pulled the hunting knife out of his boot and shaved off a

sliver of meat from the joint. “If I have to ask you again, apprentice, I’ll cut off your

toes and make you hobble to your death. What did you see the dragon writing?”

I looked at Grella.
 
Just tell him
, she mouthed. But I didn’t need to. I happened to glance down at the tapestry just then. And there, very small, but also very clear on the dragon’s parchment were the three curved   lines   that   translated   as

‘sometimes’. How they had appeared, I did not know. But Voss had followed my puzzled gaze and he could now see the lines for himself.

He stood up, throwing the meat aside. The raven cocked its head in hope. Itdanced what it knew could be a ritual of

death, then caarked once and stole the entire joint, dragging it away to a sheltered lip of rock. Voss put the knife

away and drew the horn again. He pointed it squarely at me. Out of its tip came three dark lines of twisted light.

The unicorn bayed, setting off the horses.

The men stirred and began to call, “Voss, what’s ’appening?”

I heard Grella scream, “No, leave himalone!”

But by then the dark light had struck myforehead. I jerked and kicked as theshadow force the Fain had warned me

about swarmed through my mind. I saw Voss’s mouth curl round the words, but the voice I heard came directly from the Ix.

You will tell us what you know about

Isenfier
.

They probed my memories and pulledout the image I had seen with the tornaq. Isaw the dragon and I saw the child. Shehad wings on her back. A human girl withfeathered wings
 
.
 
She was kneeling ongrass. In a valley between hills. Therewere other humans with her. And dragonslike Galen in the sky above.

You will locate this timepoint
 
, said the

Ix.

I screamed as darkness pressed uponmy auma from a thousand different pointsof space.

But just as quickly, I was free of itagain. When I shook myself back to fullalertness, Voss was staring at the peak ofthe mountain and his men were trying tocontrol the horses and the unicorn was

even more demented and the moon had

risen and there were eagles in the sky and there was so much heat coming out of the rocks – and so much snow coming down the rock face.

The first slide took Gunn’s friends over

the cliff. It gathered them up like pieces of fluff and carried them into the empty sky. They made no sound as they fell. All that could be heard was a distant
 
whump!
 
as

their   bones   smashed   against   their unmarked graves. Voss leaped up and turned the horn upon the next fall of snow. A bolt of the dark light struck it. The air filled with crystals of sparkling black ice. I lost sight of Voss, but saw an eagle swoop down and sink its talons into Gunn’s chubby face. He let out a shrill,

gut-wrenching cry and turned a circle with the bird still fixed to his head. I didn’t see

what became of him and I did not care to

imagine. By then, Grella was at my side. She hastily untied my hands.

“The cave!” she shouted. “It’s our only chance!”

But as I got to my feet, a vast shadowappeared behind the crystal cloud. Everyliving thing present – me, Grella, Voss,the horses – must have thought we hadbreathed our last. Galen had come, withhis wings spread wide, hovering in theway that Yolen had described to me instories in the cave. He flipped his wingsonce and we were scattered like seeds to

the back of the ledge. Through the swirling ice, I saw his jewelled eyes lock onto the

unicorn. It was baying at him with all its

might.

I heard Grella crying, “No, no!”

But before I could wonder what she

meant, Galen had brought his giant tail round and driven his triangular isoscele into the unicorn’s anguished heart. I had never seen a more appalling sight or heard such a brutal squelch. But as the unicorn buckled, its body turned white and its eyes shone blue. It collapsed onto its side and crumbled into ash. In death, Galen had given it peace.

My thoughts immediately turned to Voss. I remembered Yolen saying,
 
With the unicorn gone, his powers will be diminished
. Yet Voss was showing no sign of fear. I was shielding Grella tight in

my arms when I saw him approaching the lip of the cliff. Three eagles circled, wanting to attack. Galen snorted, keeping them back. This was going to be the dragon’s kill.