Bones of the Dragon (58 page)

Treia paid no heed. “Aylaen must stay on board with me,” she said.

Skylan’s scowl darkened. He shook his head.

“You have no say in the matter,” Treia told him. “Aylaen is my acolyte. The Kai commanded me to train her. Therefore, she must remain on board.”

I have no say in the matter! Skylan’s fury rose from his gut, surging hot and bitter into his mouth, nearly choking him. He snarled something, which Treia took for consent. She went to speak to Aylaen, who shook her head and clung to Garn. Both Garn and Treia talked to her, and at length, her head drooping, Aylaen gave in.

“Come with me,” said Treia. “You should try to get some sleep.”

Aylaen stood up. She looked down at Garn, and suddenly, casting a defiant glance at everyone, she put her hands to his face and kissed him on the mouth. “I love you,” she said.

She refused her sister’s help. Walking to the hold, she disappeared into the darkness below.

The three dragonships made landfall. The Vindrasi often used this cove as a first stop when setting out on voyages. The land was heavily wooded with
streams that provided fresh drinking water. Skylan had stopped here on his last voyage. The charred wood from their fires lay in black lumps amid circles of stones.

Garn put on his chain mail, which had been a gift to him from Skylan. He took the shield that Norgaard had given him from the rack. He picked up his axe and his sea chest and walked over to where Skylan stood.

Skylan’s arms were folded across his chest. He looked at Garn as though at a stranger.

“I am sorry, Skylan,” Garn said. “We never meant to hurt you.”

The blazing blue eyes burned Garn’s words to ashes. Slowly and deliberately, Skylan turned his back and walked away.

Garn left the ship. All eyes were on him as he made his way to the dragonship belonging to the Martegnan. Out of the corner of his eye, Skylan watched his friend and brother leave the ship.

They were dead to him, these two he had loved and trusted. They were dead, and he would have to find a way to go on living without them.

S
kylan longed to be able to crawl into sleep and hide there, licking his wounds. He ordered all the men ashore while he remained on board. Treia and Aylaen also stayed on board, holed up in the cabin. He hoped they knew better than to make an appearance. Night fell. His men doused their cook fires and went to sleep. He lay down on the deck and closed his eyes.

But it was not sleep who came. It was the draugr.

Draya stood over him, her pallid flesh drawn tight over her skull. She gazed down at him with sunken eyes. She pointed to the game board, which Wulfe had thoughtfully brought out before Skylan had angrily ordered him off the ship.

“Leave me alone,” Skylan muttered with a courage born of not caring.

The draugr stood over him.

Skylan closed his eyes and tried to pretend the draugr was not there. The cold chill of death seeped around him, causing him to shiver, though the night was warm. He seemed to see her even through his closed eyelids.

The draugr sat down on a sea chest. She picked up the five bones and
threw them on the board. It was his turn, but Skylan made no move to touch them. The draugr grabbed the bones and threw them again. Skylan sat there sullenly, not moving. The draugr again threw the bones.

Skylan realized that the draugr was prepared to do this all night. He grabbed the five bones and flung them onto the deck. The bones scattered everywhere. One landed on top of the hatch, leading down to the hold where Aylaen and Treia slept. One rolled across the deck to bump up beside Raegar’s helm. One bounded off the carved wooden neck of the Dragon Kahg. One splashed into the sea. One came to rest at the feet of the draugr.

The draugr seized his shuddering hand and pried open his palm. She dropped five more bones into his hand and squeezed his fingers over the pieces, squeezing hard. He gasped in pain, and she finally released his hand. He saw his flesh had turned whitish blue, as from frostbite.

“I don’t understand!” Skylan cried raggedly. “I don’t know what you want from me! Five bones! Five Dragons of Vektia. Is that it?”

The draugr gazed at him and did not answer. Thinking only to get this over with, he threw the five bones.

He and the draugr played the dragonbone game, and for the first time, Skylan won.

It took him a moment to realize this. He won. He had beaten the draugr. She gazed at him and gave a nod, then went away.

“Garn was right,” Skylan said. “Five bones. Five Dragons of Vektia.” He started to go tell his friend, and then he remembered.

He had no friend.

Skylan lay down on deck. He stared into the stars and saw Aylaen’s face and heard her voice. He saw her with Garn, the two of them making love, and his vitals curled with shame and burned with jealous rage. Only when the stars began to fade did he fall into a frayed-edged sleep to wake with a start from a dream of horror he could not remember.

The sun rose out of the sea, red and angry as Skylan’s soul. The night had been hot and the morning was hotter. No wind blew. The men said the sun had swallowed it. Skylan went onshore to rouse everyone, shouting and kicking at any who were reluctant to rise. He could not find Wulfe. Bjorn said he had seen Wulfe run off down the beach.

The air was humid, hard to breathe. Clothing stuck to the body. Clouds of gnats appeared, flying into faces and into mouths. Pelicans flew over the waves in a straight line, their wings dipping and rising as one. Gulls circled overhead.

The men hurried on board the ships, all eager to go back out to sea, hoping to find a cooling breeze. Skylan saw Garn standing on board the deck of Martegnan’s dragonship. Skylan pointedly looked away. He roamed the shore, searching for Wulfe.

Skylan shouted for him, a little worried that Wulfe might have run away. Skylan could not take time to go hunt him down. The men would not tolerate hanging about waiting for the boy to turn up. Most would be glad to hear he was gone.

Skylan gave one last shout.

“Here I am,” said Wulfe, coming up behind him.

“Where have you been?” Skylan demanded. He seized hold of the boy by the arm, hurrying him along.

“Talking to my friends,” said Wulfe.

“What friends? Never mind. You can tell me later. The ship is ready to sail.”

“It can’t,” said Wulfe, shaking his head. “You have to stay here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Skylan said.

Wulfe grabbed Skylan’s arm, hung on to it. “We can’t go out there! The oceanaids warned me!”

Skylan grunted in disgust.

“I know you don’t believe me—”

“You’re right,” Skylan said. He hauled Wulfe up the gangplank. He made a swift head count. Everyone was on board.

Treia had her hand on the spiritbone, communing with the Dragon Kahg. Aylaen stood beside her, presumably learning the ritual. Aylaen was not paying attention, however. She was haggard, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed. She cast one pleading look at Skylan. He met her look with a stone-cold gaze. She flushed. She had felt sorry for him, but now she was growing angry.

The three dragonships bobbed in the shallow water. Skylan waited impatiently for the Dragon Kahg to lead the ships out to sea. When nothing happened, Skylan walked over to see what was wrong.

“The Dragon Kahg will not leave unless you order him,” Treia reported.

“What? Why?” Skylan asked.

Treia shrugged.

“I think I know why,” Aylaen said. She gazed out over the water, seemed to look a long way off. “The Sea Goddess seeks revenge for the death of her sister. Akaria blames Torval and wants him to suffer as she suffers. Torval is angry and he is afraid, for Vindrash, whom he loves, has vanished and he fears she is lost to him forever.” She glared at Skylan as she spoke.

Treia shook her head and brushed all that aside with a gesture of her hand. “What do you want to do, lord?”

“I want to sail!” Skylan said, exasperated, and the men cheered loudly in agreement.

Treia nodded. “The Dragon Kahg wants to know if you will take the responsibility for ordering him out to sea.”

“I am Chief of Chiefs,” Skylan said. “The decision is mine.”

“Very well,” said Treia, and she placed her hand upon the spiritbone.

The
Venjekar
set sail, gliding over the smooth and rippling water. The other dragonships followed.

The storm struck them shortly after High Sun.

The storm bore down upon them rapidly, giving them no time to head back inland. No man had seen anything like it. Black clouds shot through with purple lightning boiled up from the horizon and surged over the sea. The water went from calm to frenzied in the time between one beat of the heart and another.

The ship plunged and rocked. The seas broke over the hull and flooded the deck. Skylan ordered the men to carry their sea chests, their shields, and weapons and armor below so they would not be washed overboard. This proved difficult, for the men lost their footing on the canting deck. Some could do nothing but groan with seasickness and heave their guts over the side.

A gust of fierce wind spewed forth from the Storm Goddess’s angry maw and came straight at them. The wind tore off the tops of the waves and spit foam into the air. The gust struck the
Venjekar
amidships, causing it to keel over. Men cried out and grabbed hold of ropes or the mast or each other, struggling to keep from falling off the deck that was almost perpendicular to the water. Skylan had nothing to hang on to, and he crashed up against the hull. Erdmun hurtled into him. A barrel rolled across the deck and slammed into them both.

For a terrifying moment, the ship seemed to hang between wind and water, and then the wind suddenly abated, like a sucked-in breath, and the ship abruptly righted itself, sending men and equipment sliding over the deck in the opposite direction.

“Did anyone fall overboard?” Skylan shouted, fighting to make himself heard against another blast of wind laced with stinging rain.

Not that it mattered, he thought grimly. If anyone did fall into that sea, he would be lost.

Skylan clung to the rack that held the shields and stared across the heaving, churning waves, trying to catch a glimpse of the other two ships. He could not see them due to the lancing rain and the sea spray and towering waves. Or perhaps he could not see them because they had gone under.

He glanced across the deck to the prow where Treia and Aylaen had been standing. They were gone, and his heart stopped. Then Raegar picked himself up and helped both the women to their feet. The big man must have
caught hold of the two of them as they had gone flying, and he had managed to hang on to them, saving them from the waves.

“Take them below!” Skylan bellowed, and he jabbed his finger at the cabin.

Raegar either understood or he knew what he had to do. Fighting the wind, holding each woman around the waist, he struggled across the deck. Skylan, bent double, half-blinded by the pelting rain, went to help.

Lightning sizzled and thunder cracked. The wind fought them like a berserk warrior, coming at them from every direction. The Dragon Kahg would not allow the ship to sink, but he could not keep it from being tossed on the waves. Water crashed onto the deck, pulling and tugging at men’s legs, seemingly intent on dragging them to their deaths.

Skylan managed to reach the hold. He tried to lift the hatch. The wind buffeted him, and he could not manage on his own. Raegar let go of his charges. Treia crouched on her hands and knees, her wet hair streaming over her eyes. Aylaen started to join her sister, and then she gave a wild cry and ran to the ship’s side.

“Garn!” she screamed, leaning perilously over the rail.

Skylan looked out and saw Garn’s face and arms and hands riding the surface of a rising wave. And then the white water broke over him and he was gone.

“Garn!” Aylaen cried again, and Skylan realized she meant to dive into the water. He leaped to stop her. The motion of the ship sent him careening into her, and he dragged her off the rail.

“Keep hold of her!” Skylan shouted at Raegar.

Skylan stared into the blue-black, foam-flecked waves. He saw nothing for long moments, and then Garn, gasping for air, burst out of the water. Garn saw the dragonship, and in the space between one wave and another, one lightning strike and another, he tried to swim toward it.

Skylan marked Garn’s location. Climbing up onto the rail, Skylan dived into the water.

He plunged into sudden quiet, an almost soothing contrast from the chaotic noise of roaring wind and booming thunder. The water was dark and murky, and he could not find the surface. He floundered beneath the waves, not knowing if he was on his head or his heels, his lungs burning. Then he saw lightning flare, and he swam toward it. His head broke free of the water. He gasped for breath and searched for Garn.

Men lined the rail, shouting and pointing. Skylan began to swim in that direction. A wave carried him up, and he saw Garn below him. The wave flung him down on his friend, practically right on top of him. The two grappled, each trying desperately to hold on to the other. The sea dragged them both below.

Skylan managed to grab a tangle of Garn’s hair. He wrapped his arm beneath his friend’s chin and kicked toward the surface. Garn’s strength was flagging. He was almost finished, and he had sense enough to go limp in Skylan’s grip, not struggle against him in a panic that would have drowned them both.

Skylan’s lungs seemed ready to burst. He was going to have to breathe, even if it meant breathing in his death—when his head broke free. He gulped air. Keeping Garn’s head above water, Skylan plowed doggedly through the waves. He seemed to be making little progress. If he managed to claw his way forward by an arm’s length, a wave dragged him back six.

And then a wave carried him and Garn so near the ship that Skylan’s outstretched hand touched the hands of men leaning over, in peril of their own lives, to grab hold. The sea swept them apart and water closed over his head. Skylan despaired. His arms ached and his legs and lungs burned. He could not hold on to Garn much longer.