The Dragonslayer's Fate Read online

  Sven drew his frame as tall as he could and then ordered all of them to leave the tower despite his kin’s protest.

  He headed up the winding stairs. Before leaving Tower Island, Sven needed to speak with the one person who had the power to uncover the truth.

  CHAPTER 5

  Sven stood on the threshold of the alchemist’s chambers and leaned against the doorjamb. “Bee? Are you here?”

  The young alchemist stepped out from behind the door. “Come inside and let me close the door behind you.”

  Sven took a seat at a bench. Bee hadn’t lived on Tower Island long, but Sven and Snip had welcomed her eagerly. As the daughter of good friends, they trusted her presence and believed it would help. “How did you know I was coming?”

  Bee locked the door with a large iron key that hung around her neck. “How could I not know? Honestly, I can’t fathom how you people can’t sense what’s perfectly obvious in the air around you.”

  Sven resisted the sudden urge to reach out and touch the air. He’d done so on another occasion when Bee had made a similar comment. Sven had no knack for feeling anything in the air, even when Bee insisted that it hummed with information. “I’ve heard there’s a way to see ghosts.”

  Bee nodded. “That’s right. Night’s Bane is an herb that will give you a short time to see and talk to anyone whose spirit has left their body.” She tilted her head to one side as if preparing to ask a question. Instead, she stated it. “I imagine you want to speak to the dead dragonslayer.”

  “No. I want you to do it.”

  Startled, Bee stared at him for a long moment. “Why?”

  “I’m taking what’s left of my family to the Southlands.”

  Bee sat across from him on another bench. “Why?”

  “I’m not convinced they’re safe here.”

  “They’re safer than if you try to leave.”

  Sven paused, confused by her statement. “Are you saying it’s safer on Tower Island than the Southlands?”

  “For the moment.” Bee chewed on her thumbnail. “What do you want from the dead dragonslayer?”

  Sven’s left knee bounced in a nervous twitch. “I want to know how she died.”

  “You don’t think she slipped and fell by accident?”

  Sven rubbed his hand down his thigh to calm the twitch. “I don’t.”

  “You want the dragonslayer’s ghost to tell me how she met her death.”

  Sven felt his thigh tremble beneath his hand. “I do.” He considered what she’d said moments ago. “You think it’s not a good idea for me to leave Tower Island with my family. Why?”

  Bee stood and made herself busy among a collection of jars tucked inside a bench. “The air on this island has become dense and close-knit. That’s always a sign of danger at hand.”

  Sven rubbed his leg harder, but the muscles beneath his hand continued to contort. “What kind of danger?”

  Bee removed the lid from a glass jar filled with dried herbs, took a whiff, and coughed. Satisfied, she removed a small pinch. “If we were anywhere else, I’d say the danger boiled down to dragons being somewhere at hand.” She gave a sharp glance. “But I understand no dragons have ever come to Tower Island.”

  “That’s right. So, what else could it be?” Hoping he could walk off the nerves rattling his leg, Sven stood and paced around the room.

  Holding onto the pinch of dried herbs with one thumb and forefinger, Bee returned the jar to its place, opened the top of another bench, and rooted around inside it. “If we were anywhere else, I’d say it could be magic. But I’m not sensing anything magical or apothecarial.” Satisfied, she pulled a small cloth square out of the storage space. Bee placed the herbs in the middle of the square, folded it up, and tucked it inside the pouch hanging from her belt. “That leaves one possibility. Ill intent.”

  Although walking relieved the nervous twitch in his leg, Sven felt his knees go weak. He remained standing by sheer will. “Ill intent?”

  “Someone is wishing harm.”

  “Well,” Sven said, “we are on an island full of Scaldings. This clan has a long history of ill intent. That must be what you’re sensing.”

  Bee shook her head. “I’ve been here for several days. Today is the first day I felt it. If I were sensing a history of ill intent, I would have felt it the moment I set foot on Tower Island.”

  “Do you know whose intent it is you’re sensing?”

  “No. Only that it’s there.”

  “And that’s why you think it’s safer to stay on this island than leave? If you’re sensing danger, wouldn’t it make more sense to leave than stay?”

  “The danger I feel becomes palpable every time you talk about leaving.” Bee shuddered. “That’s why it’s safer to stay. If you leave, the danger becomes imminent. If you stay, the danger may become mild enough to mitigate.”

  “If I leave with my family, do you think the danger spells certain death?”

  Bee closed the lids on the benches and sat on one. “Not necessarily. Few such things are ever certain.”

  “I see,” Sven said. “If death isn’t certain, that’s all I need to know. It’s not worth staying.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  Sven nodded. “As soon as I learn how Bruni met her death. I’d like you to talk to the ghost now. Do you know where to find her?”

  Bee nodded. “Where can I find you when I have her answer?”

  “I’ll be at the dock with my family.”

  CHAPTER 6

  When Sven dismissed the Scaldings from the tower, Gloomer took his honey mead with him.

  “I suppose that’s all there is to say about that,” a matronly Scalding said. She paced outside the tower where Sven remained.

  While the other Scaldings debated, Gloomer nursed his mug of honey mead and tuned them out.

  Gloomer remembered the old days when the Scaldings were the greatest clan in all the Northlands. He missed the way they planned raids that took villages off guard. He missed how easy it had been to take whatever they pleased from each village and leave little but cinders behind.

  We used to be mighty and powerful. Sven has made us impotent and inconsequential.

  Gloomer had spent the last few decades stewing in such thoughts. When his glorious warrior days ended, the only thing that gave him any pleasure was finding a hobby of making mead. At first, he planned to prepare mead for celebration, certain that Sven would see the error of his thinking and lead the Scaldings to new raids.

  When that failed to happen, Gloomer made his mead as if it were a river in which he could drown his frustration. For years, Gloomer began drinking from the first light of day until he passed out at night. Living in a consistent stupor gave him the comfort he needed to ease the pain of losing the type of life he loved and craved.

  Gloomer took a sip and watched his fellow Scaldings dither over Sven.

  Fools. They’re all fools.

  He’d been a fool, too. Gloomer would happily admit to it if anyone would ever bother to ask. Since the day Sven became head of the clan, Gloomer assumed all was lost. The Scalding clan obliged to follow a specific code that laid out how leadership must be gained or lost. That code followed Sven’s bloodline. As his cousin, Gloomer’s blood put him near the last in line for leadership.

  If Gloomer murdered every Scalding ahead of him in the attempt to gain rightful leadership, there would be few Scaldings left alive for him to lead.

  Until recently, any attempt to change the status quo seemed pointless.

  Gloomer smiled at the taste of his own homemade honey mead as it coursed over his tongue.

  It’s time for things to change.

  Within the past few weeks, Gloomer’s sons Einarr and Tungu were killed in the Northlander port city of Gott. All because of Sven’s son, Skallagrim.

  When Einarr and Tungu first came to Gloomer with talk of a plan to go to the Northlands and steal swords from dragonslayers, he’d snapped out of his stupor. Putting the mead aside, Glo
omer saw hope for the first time in many years. All of the elders told stories of the old days, before Sven’s time. Even when mead thickened his tongue, Gloomer told his own share of tales.

  Gloomer had advised his boys, knowing how wily dragonslayers could be. Einarr and Tungu originally planned to follow routes until they found a dragonslayer and then hold him at sword point. Gloomer warned them to change that plan. He explained how any dragonslayer would easily defeat them, because dragonslayer swords gave them greater reach. Dragonslayer training gave them speed and cunning.

  The only option would be to ease up on a sleeping dragonslayer and strike before he had the chance to awake. Gloomer told his sons to hone not only their tracking skills but to practice walking on feet too quiet to be detected.

  He glowed with pride when they returned with the account of how they’d killed their first dragonslayer, stolen his weapon, and hidden it where they could retrieve it later. Gloomer agreed with their tactic of escaping the Northlands before being found out. Few Northlanders outside the Scalding clan dared to kill and steal.

  Only Scaldings understood that the world is a place for taking. The strong are entitled to take what they want, and the weak don’t deserve to complain about their failure to hold onto what they think belongs to them.

  The tower door opened, and Sven walked past his kin without speaking to any of them.

  Gloomer finished his mead, entered the tower, and climbed the winding stairs.

  None of his kin noticed. They were too busy complaining to each other about Sven’s dismissive attitude toward them.

  Oh, the stories these stairs could tell!

  In his younger days, Gloomer loved the stories about how dragons once invaded Tower Island and how the Scaldings drove them away. He had a faint memory of those days but preferred the stories.

  Gloomer steadied his footing when he stepped onto the tower’s rooftop, buffeted by a strong wind. He approached the waist-high stone wall that edged the rooftop and looked over it.

  On one side, the tower stood at the edge of an inlet where the rough and dangerous waters below prevented ships from landing at the tower’s edge. On the other side, he scanned the courtyard and houses below until he saw Sven. As patient as if he were hunting a dragonslayer, Gloomer stood and observed.

  Sven walked into his own home.

  Gloomer considered the long period of time Sven had spent inside the tower.

  Did Sven talk to the alchemist? Does he suspect?

  In the old raiding days, Gloomer had enjoyed prowling around inside homes that belonged to alchemists. He’d collected various ingredients, some that he understood, others that he didn’t.

  Through trial and error, Gloomer discovered one of those ingredients was a poison, which he believed to be dried mushrooms that had been ground by an alchemist into a fine powder.

  When Gloomer had set out mugs and poured his special honey mead into each one this morning, he’d slipped some of that powder into Sven’s mug. Not enough to kill him right away, because that would raise suspicion. For now, the poison would weaken Sven’s mind and body. Soon enough, Sven would weaken to the point where Gloomer could easily do away with him.

  It’s only a matter of time.

  Movement directly below caught Gloomer’s attention. He saw the alchemist leave her home and walk toward the dock.

  He smiled, happy to see her leave the island at last. Unless she were here to do his bidding, he saw no need for the girl.

  But instead of continuing to the dock, she veered off the path and crossed a field to the point where Gloomer had thrown the dragonslayer off the cliff.

  He leaned so far over the edge of the tower wall that when a loose stone shifted beneath his hand, Gloomer started in fear of tumbling over. He caught his balance just in time before he toppled.

  Gloomer’s hands trembled when he placed them on firmer stones. He stared at the alchemist and grimaced, wondering what business she had heading in the direction where he’d killed the dragonslayer Bruni.

  * * *

  The alchemist Bee slowed her quick pace when she neared the edge of the cliff. Testing the ground with the toe of her shoe, she found it solid. Preferring to err on the side of caution, she crept close enough to the edge so she could see over it.

  Bee’s heart sank at the sight of the crumpled figure of the dragonslayer tangled up in the jagged rocks below. The incoming tide landed just short of the dragonslayer’s body and would soon drag it out to sea.

  Maybe that’s part of why Sven is so keen to leave. Maybe he plans to retrieve the body if it floats out to the ocean and then take it to her family for burial.

  Rattled by the notion of how easy it would be to fall from the cliff, Bee dropped to lie flat on her stomach and crawled even closer to the edge. She stuffed a pinch of Night’s Bane in her mouth and chewed it well. Believing it had taken only a short time to kick in the last and only other time she’d ever used it, Bee stared down again, expecting to see the dragonslayer’s ghost.

  But no ghost appeared.

  “Bruni!” Bee yelled over the crash of the waves below. “Dragonslayer! Are you here?”

  The only answer came from the cries of a seabird flying over the ocean.

  Bee had heard of ghosts too shy or preoccupied with their own death to respond to inquiries from the living. She understood that direct questions usually elicited answers.

  “Bruni!” Bee called out again. “I came to ask how you died. Was it an accident? Or did someone do you in?”

  Still no response. The broken body below appeared to have been deserted by the spirit it had once housed.

  Bee propped up on her elbows, determined to coax the ghost out of hiding.

  She worried about Sven leaving Tower Island. At the same time, she had no proof that doing so would be dangerous. Bee knew she might have misinterpreted the danger she thought she sensed. Most things she sensed weren’t cut-and-dry, and she’d learned from experience to ease off on giving advice.

  Only the ghost could confirm whether Bee’s suspicions were well held.

  “Dragonslayer! Your family will want to know what happened to you. Sven will leave soon to tell them your fate. Don’t you want them to know the truth? Don’t you think that will ease their pain?”

  If the wind had whipped up around her, Bee might have taken that as a positive answer.

  If the flying bird had changed course and landed on the ground next to her shoulder, Bee would have accepted that as a sign.

  If a woman’s voice had whispered in a gust, Bee would have recognized the presence of the dragonslayer’s ghost.

  But none of those things happened. Nothing unusual or unexpected happened.

  “You’re already gone,” Bee said to the corpse below.

  Bee considered her options.

  She thought about the danger she sensed. What if she lied to Sven and told him the ghost claimed to have been murdered? And that Sven’s family would be next if he dared to leave Tower Island? Would that convince him to stay?

  Staying would ease the danger.

  Bee didn’t understand why staying would be safer than leaving. She simply sensed it and knew it to be true.

  If I lie to Sven, I might save his life. Maybe even the lives of his wife and children.

  But a sinking feeling reminded Bee of when she’d done such things in the past and everything had turned out wrong. She had a pitiful history of giving advice, and she didn’t want to bring about more pain to a family that had so recently suffered such a great deal of it by hearing that one son had murdered the other.

  If I tell Sven the truth, he’ll leave. Maybe he’ll be safe.

  Bee stood and walked toward the dock. When she came close enough to see the commotion ahead, she hurried.

  The boy Drageen sat clutching his infant sister Astrid in his arms.

  His grandmother Snip gripped Sven’s arm as he sank to his knees.

  Bee ran to his side. “What happened?”

  “I don’t kno
w,” Sven croaked.

  “He’s sick,” Snip said. “Help him!”

  Bee directed Sven to lie on his back and then examined him. Placing the back of her hand against his forehead, she detected a fever. Studying his face, she noticed that since she’d seen him a short while ago, his eyes had gone bloodshot and his face had lost its color. She placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get you back home in your bed. I’ll ask you some questions, and what you tell me will help me decide what I can do for you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Sven said in a raspy breath. “But we need to leave—”

  I was right. It’s more dangerous for him to leave Tower Island than to stay.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Bee said. “Not today.”

  When she helped Snip lift Sven to his feet and walk, Bee looked up and noticed a dark figure at the top of the tower that appeared to be watching.

  She squinted, trying to make out a familiar shape or mannerism.

  But the figure backed away from the high tower wall and vanished.

  CHAPTER 7

  The boy Mandulane woke up with a start at the break of dawn.

  Lying flat on his back, he trembled, not knowing where he was.

  A dream woke me up.

  Fleeting images from that dream ran through Mandulane’s head. A tall golden tower. An island. Traveling away from it on a boat.

  Slowly, the shocking changes in his life came back.

  His father had brought Mandulane and his mother to the Midlands, where people spoke her language.

  Mandulane spoke both Midlander and Northlander, even though he looked nothing like a Northlander. He favored Midlanders in appearance. Midlanders like his mother.

  The boy’s eyes began to adjust to the dim light until his surroundings became clear. He heard a soft snore and recognized the light weight of his mother’s arm across his chest. The straw on the palette on which they’d slept made his skin itch. Its dusty scent made his nose twitch.