The Coming of the Dragon (25 page)

THE SKY HAD YET TO LIGHTEN AS RUNE AND KETIL SET
out for Hwala’s farm the next morning. Hairy-Hoof seemed as eager as Rune to leave the settlement. Rune wondered if she had felt as stifled by the crowd of horses in the stable as he had by all the people—and all their
opinions
.

They rode quickly, their senses alert, their weapons at the ready. Rune flexed his burned hand, trying to accustom himself to the feel of the padded glove that protected his palm. Accompanied by her cousin Wyn, curly-haired Gerd had brought it to him the previous day, presenting it to him shyly. Once Wyn pushed her forward, though, Gerd forgot her timidity. “I made it to protect your hand,” she said. “Here, do you want help putting it on?”

He had declined the help but was grateful for the glove.
It allowed him to touch things, even to hold Hairy-Hoof’s reins, without flinching in pain. Wielding a sword was still beyond him, though, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do if they were attacked.

As it rose, the sun’s rays brought not light to Rune’s eyes, but visions of enemy spears glinting on the horizon. There had been so much talk of the kingdom’s danger that a sense of dread weighed on his heart. It seemed as if each stand of firs, each rise in the terrain hid a band of enemy warriors.

Shylfing warriors were hardly the only danger. Every patrol that returned would find out what Rune had done, that he was trying to end the feud. He knew that his supporters would do their best to convince those men that he was right. But what if it wasn’t enough? If the kingdom turned in upon itself, splitting into factions, that would be far worse than a Shylfing attack. And it would be all his fault.

He shifted in his saddle. Beside him, Ketil rode in silence. Rune could see his eyes flicking from side to side, alert to his surroundings. He wondered whether Ketil thought he’d made the right choice, but he didn’t want to ask.

By midmorning, as they skirted the mountain’s slopes, Ketil began whistling, and Rune’s spirits lifted at the sound. He searched in his saddlebag and tossed his friend half an oatcake, crunching into the other half himself.

They made good time, reaching the runestone that
marked the edge of Hwala’s farm by midday. Hairy-Hoof perked up her ears and took the lead along the path through the scorched fields, down through the trees that bordered the stream, and up again to the farm.

As they rode past the blackened homefield and dismounted outside the ruined farmhouse, Ketil ceased his whistling. The place seemed very still. Even the chatter of birds in the ash tree was muted as Rune knelt by Amma’s grave. When he walked through the farmhouse and the stable, he felt as if he were trespassing. He hoped that Hwala, his sons, and his servant had accepted their hasty burial in a common grave with no one to sing them out or perform the rituals. Although he could sense no angry spirits haunting the place, he moved cautiously just in case.

In the drying shed, ghostly strips of herring hung flapping in the breeze, and in the corner, Rune found bags of groats from already harvested grain. He set some to soak for their supper before he led Ketil to the single unburned field, their swords never out of arm’s reach. The oats had waited so long to be harvested that they were already dry on their stalks. There would be no need to tie them into shocks; instead, they would be able to thresh them the next day.

Even with his hurt hand, Rune was more skilled than Ketil, who struggled to manage Hwala’s scythe. After watching for a moment, Rune shook his head and repositioned the tool in his friend’s hand. “It’s a scythe, not a sword,” he said. “Watch.” He swung the blade through the
stalks, then stepped aside as Ketil tried. It took him three attempts before Rune was satisfied enough to return to his own row. As he moved down it, he began to feel at home in the harvest rhythm. Insects buzzed in the oats, and the smell of sun-warmed soil overpowered the lingering odor of smoke. Over and over, he reached to grab the golden stalks, swung his blade, then stepped forward to reach again. The sun beat down on his shoulders, and the familiar movements loosened the dread that knotted his muscles.

Behind him, he could feel Ketil watching him, trying to imitate his movements and muttering angry oaths when he failed. Rune smiled and kept going.

As he toiled, he began to gain an appreciation for all the work Skyn and Skoll had done when they hadn’t been busy tormenting him, for how quickly they could move down a row of oats, goading each other to go faster. Skyn hadn’t been so bad when Skoll hadn’t been around. Rune wondered if they could have found their way to being friends—if he’d ever tried. He wished he had. And that he hadn’t always been so quick to react to Skoll’s taunts. He could see Amma’s angry face and hear her words:
Always your fists, never your head
. How many times had she said that to him? Now, thinking of the ways feuds got started and how an argument between two men could lead to the destruction of families and even all-out war between kingdoms, he understood her impatience.

They finished the field as the sun was setting and
hurried to put their tools away before half-light, when it would be too dangerous to be out. While Ketil cared for the horses, Rune brought the fish and groats into the hut he’d shared with Amma. Stooping to keep from hitting his head on the lintel, he stopped, struck by how small the place seemed, how silent. Outside, he could hear Ketil whistling. The sound accentuated the hut’s stillness. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he looked at the loom leaning against the wall, the three-legged stool in front of it, the blackened fire pit, the pot still hanging from its tripod—the comforting elements of his childhood.

A noise startled him. He froze, heart pounding. The sound came again, a rustling from the corner of the hut—from under the goatskin that had covered his weapons. He’d left it lying on the ground.

Stepping cautiously, he moved toward it, just as a head poked out from under it, making him yelp.

“Everything all right in there?” Ketil called.

“It’s fine—I’m fine,” Rune said, trying to calm his breath. It was just a squirrel. The little creature crouched, unmoving, looking from Rune to the doorway, as if calculating its odds.

“Go on, I won’t hurt you,” Rune said. He stepped aside to allow the squirrel passage. It eyed him a moment longer, then raced out of the hut. Rune crossed to the goatskin and pulled it up, revealing Amma’s nut crock lying on its side, its contents spilled out. Only a handful of last year’s withered harvest remained. He righted the crock, and as he did,
he saw something underneath it in the shadows, half buried in the hut’s dirt floor. Gently, he worked it loose, revealing a whalebone box no longer than an outstretched hand. He didn’t remember ever seeing it before. Was it Amma’s? He shook it gently and heard something rattle inside it.

“I’m hungry,” Ketil said, coming through the doorway. “What’s to eat?”

Rune brushed dirt from the box’s sides and felt for the latch, his fingers twitching with anticipation to find out what was inside.

“What have you got?” Ketil asked.

“I can’t tell. It’s too dark in here to see.” He started for the door.

“You shouldn’t be out there now. I’ll build a fire.”

Rune nodded, his attention focused on the box. The metal latch was rusted shut, and he had to work to pry it loose without breaking it. It came open just as the fire blazed up. Rune crouched down and held the box to the light. As he opened its lid, he gave a low cry of dismay.

“What’s wrong?” Ketil asked.

“There’s nothing in it, just a piece of wood,” he said. Disappointment flooded through him. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but something more than this.

Ketil took the wood and squinted at it in the firelight. “There’s something carved on it.” He scowled and handed it back. “Not very good carving, though.”

Rune agreed. Figures were scratched into it with no
artistry, no skill, as if they’d been made by a child or in a hurry. He shook his head and tossed it onto the woodpile.

As Rune cooked their supper, Ketil poked around the hut, keeping his head down to avoid hitting it on the roof beams. “Do you remember when my father and I came to help with the harvest? The time Hwala was sick?”

Rune nodded, trying to remember. Ketil’s father had been killed in a hunting accident not very long after that.

“I was as bad with a scythe then as I am now. Amma finally took me with her down to the sea to collect birds’ eggs and seaweed.”

“She did?” Rune didn’t remember that, but it sounded like something Amma would do. Rune had spent many childhood days climbing cliffs up to seabirds’ nests and carefully handing the eggs down to Amma, or raking up seaweed for her to boil into sand-filled soups he had hated.

Ketil nodded. “I was in the way.” He peered at the wall hanging that Amma had woven with stories of the gods. “I was a little afraid of her because of, you know, the sorts of things people sometimes said about her.”

Rune looked up from the pot. “You mean, what Dayraven said about her.”

Ketil didn’t answer.

“I still can’t believe he ran from the dragon.”

“I can,” Ketil said.

Rune looked at him, surprised by the vehemence in his voice.

“You didn’t see him running from the king’s hall when
the dragon attacked it.” He frowned as he sat down by the fire. “I did.”

“But dragons—they do that to people; even the king said so.”

Ketil shook his head as he took the bowl Rune handed him. “There were men sleeping in the hall, and he knew it. He could have shouted something, given them a chance to save themselves. He didn’t.” He took a bite of porridge. “Hey, this is good!”

“Of course it’s good,” Rune said. “I made it.”

They ate in silence for a moment, chewing the meaty oats, stopping every now and then to spit out husks and grit.

“I used to really admire him,” Ketil said. “I used to want to be just like him.”

Rune stared into the fire.

“Do you know how many arm rings Finn had?” Ketil asked.

Rune thought for a moment, remembering Finn standing beside him in the hall, helping him to get a better grip on his sword hilt, watching his swing with a practiced eye. Had Finn even worn any arm rings? He had been the king’s shoulder companion—he must have won plenty of rings over the years, but Rune couldn’t recall seeing them. He shook his head.

“Of course you don’t. He only wore one of them. And he never spent any time polishing it, either, the way Dayraven did.” He scraped porridge from the bottom of his
bowl, then took a bite of dried herring, working it with his teeth to make it soft enough to swallow. “When it was time for weapons training, did you ever notice how he disappeared instead of helping teach the boys in the hall?”

There was no need for Rune to answer.

“Like I said, I used to really admire him. But after I got made a hearth companion and got to know him better …” His voice trailed off. “Finn never talked about all the things he did. He just did them, putting himself in danger with hardly a thought. Wyn’s brothers are like that, too.”

Rune didn’t know what to think. He remembered standing behind a beam in the hall, listening to Dayraven tell a group of boys about how he’d killed the aurochs. The warrior’s armbands had flickered in the light from the roaring hall fire—as if they’d been polished. “Warriors always boast,” he said tentatively.

“But not just about themselves,” Ketil said. “And not at the expense of others.”

Others like Amma, Rune thought. He stirred the fire and picked up a piece of kindling to add to it—the wood he’d found in the box. Instead of putting it on the flames, though, he turned it over in his hands, looking at it closely. Dirt was packed into the crude carvings, making them hard to decipher. Had he made them when he was a child?

A log rolled over, making the fire flare. As it did, a pattern jumped out at him: runes. The same runes that were cut into his pendant. His name was carved into the wood.

He sat up, holding it as close to the fire as he could
without it being burned. There was his name, along with more runes that he didn’t recognize, marching in a line across the wood.

Under them, he could see what looked like human figures. One of them, wearing a long skirt, stood beside what looked like a boat. He caught his breath.

Ketil came around the fire and crouched beside him, staring at the wood. “She’s putting a baby into a boat,” he said. “Isn’t she.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Men fighting—see the spear?” Ketil pointed. “And something else. Flames? Is that a hall on fire?”

Rune shook his head, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. “Can you read it?” Unlike farmers, boys who were raised in the hall, the way Ketil had been, were taught to read runes.

Ketil took the wood and studied it. “ ‘Wiglaf, son of Weohstan,’ that’s how it starts,” he said. “Then something else: ‘and Inga Til,’ Inga the Good.” He handed the wood back. “Your mother. The one putting you into the boat.”

That’s why he’d been in the boat all those years ago. He was no sacrifice to the gods, as Dayraven had believed. The failure to kill him hadn’t brought a curse on the kingdom. Instead, his mother had simply been trying to save his life.