The Coming of the Dragon (5 page)

The booming sound came again. And again, there was nothing. Nothing except the relentless wind and the fear hammering through his chest. He tried not to think of the tales Amma had told him about mountain giants and their dealings with humans they caught on their lands. Sometimes they let the humans go.

Beneath his shoes, the ground seemed to tremble. Thunder rolled and rumbled. Only it couldn’t be thunder, because the twilit sky still glowed blue and clear.

The earth shook again. He felt it through the soles of his feet, into his bones. It could be giants. Had they seen him? The skin on the back of his neck prickled, and now an acrid smell burned his throat, making him cough. His eyes stung and watered and his nose began to run.

Goat or no goat, he had to get out of here.
Now
.

He turned for the path—and stopped, eyes wide in horror. Something was coming toward him, some monstrous shape, some
thing
was rushing at him, flying through the air. A silent scream rose in his gorge, and again he tried to run, but it was too late. The thing was almost upon him.

He threw himself to the ground, covering his head with his arms. Hot wind battered his body, and a roaring filled his ears, deafening him. Dust swirled in the darkness as the thing blotted out the sky, the world. He was choking; he couldn’t breathe. The biting smell was filling his lungs, his mouth. He was burning—he could feel the hair being seared off his arms, the clothes off his back. It was directly above him, so close he couldn’t tell whether it was touching him, consuming him with its heat. On and on it came, its thunderous noise obliterating all other sound.

He screwed his eyes shut, cowering, whimpering in terror, tears and snot wetting his face.

This was death, and he hated himself for meeting it this way. Shame mingled with fear, and somewhere deep in his mind, he felt sorry for all that he would never become. Now he would never even find out who he was.

Amma!
he cried out silently, and lay trembling, waiting for the final blow, the pain that would pierce his body.

He waited.

Nothing happened.

Slowly the noise and heat died away. Rune lay listening to the quiet settling around him, the scorched weeds
crackling with heat, the wind—now a mere breeze—nosing around the rocks.

Gingerly, he raised his head. He was alive.

He was still alone on the crag below the mountain. His skin felt raw, but his clothes weren’t burned after all.

He wiped his face on his sleeve and looked around him. In the east, golden light flickered in the air like lightning.

Still shaking too hard to stand, he raised himself to his knees, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.

Above a farm, a black shape rent the sky. Like a dark ribbon blowing in a breeze, it undulated through the air, then straightened and shot toward the farmhouse. Fire streaked from it. The thatched roof blazed in sudden flames, and two tiny figures raced from the door. The thing wheeled and turned, beating heavy wings and retching forth more fire. Both figures fell.

Rune’s body turned to ice. It was the worst thing he could imagine. A dragon.

Someone had awoken a dragon.

Another roof glowed orange. Rune watched in fascinated horror, unable to turn away.

The dragon wheeled lazily through the sky, turning again, beating its wings once, twice, then gliding. Where would it go next?

Amma! Rune staggered to his feet. He had to warn her.

A field ready for harvest went up in flame.

He stopped, staring at it. The whole eastern countryside would soon be ablaze, most of the kingdom’s grain for
the coming year. Beyond those farms lay the stronghold. Someone had to tell the king!

The dragon soared past another farm, wide out over the eastern valley. Hwala’s farm—and Amma—lay to the west, on the other side of the mountain from the dragon.

Another field blazed up and then another as the dragon casually exhaled its fiery breath.

He had to tell the king.

Whispering a plea to the gods, Rune turned, slipping over loose scree as he made his way down from the crag. As he ran, he glanced toward the west. The dragon wasn’t anywhere near Hwala’s farm. Amma would be safe.

THREE

UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAIN, DARKNESS CAME
fast. As he ran, Rune glanced behind him at every noise. Over and over he chanted a prayer to Thor, the Hammer-Wielder, to guard him. No one should be out in the dark this way, especially with a dragon abroad.

A stone caught his foot, tripping him. He went down hard, palms hitting the dirt, and lay still, breathing heavily, feeling his stinging hands, listening for noises on the wind. Where was the dragon? Winging silently over him, preparing to strike? He sniffed, testing the air for the creature’s acrid, choking odor. Instead, the sharp scent of fir trees filled his nose.

If he had a horse, he could get to the king before the darkest hour of the night, but he had no horse, only his two
feet, a dagger, and his lungs full of air. He raised himself and started running again.

The darkness deepened. No moon offered itself as a beacon, and he had to judge his way by the greater blackness of the mountain and the feel of it looming on his shield-hand side, reminding him of the giants. Did they descend at night to stalk the forests and the marshes? On he ran into the gloom, gulping air, forcing himself to keep going, his shoes pounding too loudly into the earth, alerting anything that cared of his presence.

Later, when a stitch in his side grew more painful than he could bear, he slowed to a halt, hands on his knees, to rest, to breathe. As his ragged gasps grew quieter, he began to hear the night sounds that surrounded him, pressing toward him. In the distance, a wolf howled, raising its voice in a long wail. He shuddered. If wolves found him, or giants, or the dragon, he was dead.

Nearby, something sighed in the darkness, a sound like breathing. He whirled and heard a whirring sound almost inside his ear. Barely stopping himself from crying out, he fled forward into the night.

As he came out of the firs, he could see something glowing far in the distance. Fire from the dragon—or was it the eerie flames people sometimes saw in the marshes? Had he gone the wrong way? No, the ground felt solid beneath his feet, and he couldn’t smell the rancid, rotting stench of the bogs.

He kept running, stopping when he could push himself
no farther, then running again—tripping and righting himself and falling once more until his palms were bloody—asking the Thunderer for protection, for the right road to the king.

He lost all sense of time. No stars guided his way. The night was as endless as his path. Surely he should be there by now. When he went to the stronghold during the winters, they hitched the horse to the sleigh and rode or skied alongside. It couldn’t have taken this long to get there, he was certain.

On he went, through stands of ash and elm, branches tearing at his clothes, up and over a rise that robbed him of his breath and made him skid his way downward, losing his footing before catching himself again.

Every step brought new terrors. He felt eyes watching him. What kinds of creatures were out in the night? Would they let him pass?

Fear made him keep going, but even fear couldn’t keep him running forever. He faltered, gasping for air, his strength almost gone. He blinked. In his exhaustion, his eyes played tricks on him, making shapes in the darkness.

He blinked again. It wasn’t trickery. The night was ending. The sky looked less black than gray, and boulders and bushes began to take on ghostly forms in the mist. He lifted his eyes and froze.

In the distance, something towered, a dark shape, monstrously big. He squinted, trying to understand what he was seeing.

A giant. It stood directly in his path.

He dared not breathe. If he moved, it might see him. Cold sweat trickled down his back, mingling with the hot sweat of exertion. More than anything, he wanted to turn, to hide, to bury himself behind some rock. Turning tail was what he was best at, after all, he thought grimly. But he couldn’t. Not this time. Not after he’d come this far, when the message was this important. Too many lives hung by a thread, ready to be snipped off by the witch-women if he did nothing to save them. The king had to know about the dragon before it was too late.

Steeling himself, gripping his dagger tight, he took a step, then another, forcing himself to creep toward the giant. Fear walked with him, clenching his chest.

Closer he came, and closer, but the giant didn’t move.

Had it seen him yet? Was it toying with him, waiting until he was near enough before it attacked?

Another step, and still it didn’t stir.

Hope gleamed like sunrise. Maybe it was sleeping. Maybe he could slip past it without being seen.

Two more steps, and another. He could see a giant arm held high.

A voice called out, a harsh cry, and he jumped back, his heart in his throat.

It had seen him.

The voice called again, a throaty caw.

Rune almost dropped his dagger as he staggered in
relief, drawing in breath after breath of sweet air. It was no giant—it was a tree. And not just any tree; it was Thor’s Oak, in the Feasting Field near the king’s stronghold.

The raven cawed again, and now a second voice joined it. Rune let the sound wash over him as his fear fled.

Then he groaned. If this was the Feasting Field, he’d come too far by at least a mile-mark. In the dark, he had missed the path that led to the king’s hall.

Weariness made him sink to the ground, his muscles jumping with fatigue, his chin bowing to his chest. Sleep. He craved sleep, and water, and food. But when he closed his eyes, images of dragonfire, of farms and fields burned to ashes, played against his lids. He opened them and remembered his prayer to the Hammer-Wielder, who had guarded him through the night and brought him to his sacred tree.

Rune stood.

The sky grew lighter, and by the time he had found the proper path, the mist had lifted. Squaring his shoulders, he turned down it.

What would he say to the king?
My lord, a calamity is upon us
. No, that sounded pompous.
Dear King, the time has come for men to honor their mead-hall boasts
. Bah. Even worse.

In the distance, across a grassy plain, he could just make out the dark shapes of buildings. Beyond them lay the king’s golden hall. When the sun rose, its burnished
wooden gables would gleam like fire. Rune had seen it before, but only in the winter. If he could make himself go just a step or two faster, he would see it again.

The comforting smell of wood smoke filled his nostrils, and his stomach grumbled. He hoped somebody would give him breakfast.

He passed a group of silent houses, then a farmshed, then a barn. It all looked unfamiliar to him—he’d never seen it without a cover of snow. The path turned into a rough road with wooden buildings on either side, and ahead he could see a gathering of people, men and women and children, standing in the road a few furlongs in front of him, and beyond them a high, dark barn against the gray sky.

What was going on?

He kept walking, and as he did, a figure stepped out of the group, a tall, white-haired man with a fur-trimmed cloak clasped about his stooped shoulders, a long sword sheathed by his side. He walked several steps with his head down, as if deep in thought. Then he looked up. Rune could feel the man watching him from under bushy white brows.

His mouth went dry, although he couldn’t imagine it being any drier. He kept going, his eyes held by the man’s fierce blue ones, eyes barely dimmed by age. Rune was vaguely aware of the murmuring of the crowd and the smell of smoke, but he felt trapped by those eyes.

A few steps now, just a few steps
, he thought, and then he dropped to his knees.

The man reached out and covered Rune’s bowed head with his hand. Rune could feel its warmth penetrating his scalp. The hand lifted and touched his shoulder, signaling him to rise.

“My lord, King Beowulf,” Rune said, his voice gravelly with nervousness and fatigue.

The old king looked at him, and this time, Rune could see the tears glinting in his eyes. A great surge of love for the old man filled him, and gratitude for the kindness the king had always shown him, ever since Rune could remember.

Then, as the bloody sun pierced the gloom, the king turned. Rune followed his gaze and saw a beam of light hit the dark building he’d taken to be a barn.

It was no barn. It was the king’s golden hall, its timbers scorched and smoking.

“The dragon,” Rune whispered.

King Beowulf turned back to him.

“I’m too late.” Rune’s head dropped, and the full weight of his weariness fell over him, making him stagger.

The king caught his arm, steadying him. “Rune,” he said. “There was nothing you could have done. Against a dragon, no warning can help. And we were warned.”

A movement caused Rune to look toward the crowd. A man stepped out of it—the stranger from the path by the
crag. He met Rune’s eyes and barked his humorless laugh. Then one of the king’s guards jerked on his arm and led him away.