CHAPTER
12

Aylaen held the spiritbone of the Dragon Kahg in her hands. She kept her gaze fixed on the bone, concentrating on the ritual, visualizing the dragonbone game in her mind and trying to blot out the terror that was thundering through her. She gathered up a handful of sand and let it trickle down over the dragon bone.

In the game, the gods make the first move.

“Vindrash, hear my prayer,” Aylaen said softly.

Mortals make the second move.

“Tell the Dragon Kahg of our desperate need.”

Fate has the third move. Gods and mortals, each bound by their own wyrd, each bound to the other.

Aylaen drew the rune that represented the wyrd in the sand. She remembered the rune because it was on the game piece, a piece important in play, for its movement is random and can disrupt the strategies of both men and gods.

Aylaen laid the dragonbone down on the rune and took up more sand. She let it fall over the bone.

So far, so good. This was all part of the ritual. But what came next? In the game, the pieces moved along winding trails, leading to birth, death, victory, loss, journey, status, marriage, home, children, crossing paths, meeting, parting, meeting again, parting forever.

“The ritual is ever changing,” Alyaen remembered Treia telling her. “The ritual involves my wyrd, the gods’ wryd, the dragon’s wryd, and what we are now, what we were then, where we have been, where we are going.”

There was something about moving and turning the bone, pushing and taking and holding and forcing.

“This part is very complicated,” Treia had said. “It takes years to learn.”

“Vindrash, I don’t have years!” Aylaen cried in despair. “I have only now and the people I love and they are depending on me and I lied to you. I am sorry. Forgive me!”

Aylaen let more sand fall over the spiritbone. “I love Garn, Vindrash, as you love Torval. I seek your blessing, though I do not deserve it. I ask that you send your dragon to fight for us this day!”

Aylaen picked up the spiritbone, and with all her strength and all her might and all her love and desperation and fear, she cast it high into the air. The spiritbone rose, then, twisting and turning, it began to fall. Aylaen’s heart fell with it, for she knew she had failed.

The spiritbone spun round and round, faster and faster, and first it was one bone and then it was twelve bones and then it was a hundred bones bursting from the spiritbone.

As fast as forked lightning, the Dragon Kahg came into being. Formed of sand, he was whitish in color, his scales hard as rock, hard as the mountain that had stood for countless eons, before time and the elements reduced the mountain to a grain.

The Dragon Kahg materialized in front of the five giants, who came to an uncertain halt. They glowered at the dragon. The stone weapons swung from their hands.

Aylaen sent up a prayer of heartfelt gratitude. She did not have time to be proud of her accomplishment or to wonder that she, who had lied about becoming a Bone Priestess, had been able to summon the dragon.

“Good work,” Skylan said. He thrust a spear into her hand. “Now be ready to fight.”

The Dragon Kahg was confused. He had been overwhelmed with relief to have found his goddess, Vindrash. She had explained to the dragon that she was in fear of her life and that she had needed her enemies to believe she was dead. Not even the dragons who worshipped her could know the truth. She had asked the Dragon Kahg to keep her secret, and he had been proud to do so.

He had obeyed her commands. He had carried Skylan from Apensia back to Luda. He had watched with considerable amusement to see Vindrash disguise herself as the draugr of Skylan’s dead wife, Draya. Kahg knew why Vindrash played at dragonbones with Skylan. The dragon knew the game was serious, the stakes were life and death. Kahg understood and sympathized with the goddess, who was bound by Torval’s edict regarding the Five Bones. Ever since Hevis had basely sought to use the Five to attack another god, all the gods had been forbidden to speak of them to a mortal. Vindrash had to find a way to tell Skylan about the Five, without actually coming out and telling him.

Thus far, all had been going as planned. And then disaster.

Vindrash had felt the growing fury of the Sea Goddess, Akaria, and she had warned Kahg that sailing was dangerous. The hothead Skylan had paid no heed to the warning. The Dragon Kahg might have taken it upon himself to refuse to sail, but Vindrash was determined to teach Skylan a lesson, and she had ordered him to sea.

He had lost contact with the other two dragons, an alarming situation, for dragons are able to commune mentally. Kahg could find no trace of them, and Vindrash claimed she could not locate them either. Dragons were mortal beings and it was possible they could have been killed, but she did not think so. Kahg had the feeling she knew the truth of what had happened to the dragons and their ships. If so, the goddess was keeping her knowledge to herself.

When the Sea Goddess had finally exhausted her fury, the Dragon Kahg discovered that the winds of her rage had blown them close to the Dragon Isles. Vindrash ordered him to take the half-starved, weary Torgun to what he believed would be safe refuge on the isle, only to run aground on a hidden sandbar. And now he discovered that the Torgun were about to be attacked by their own guardians.

The Dragon Kahg was further troubled by the fact that although he had repeatedly alerted the goddess to the presence of a strange ship shadowing them, Vindrash had not seemed to care. The ship had dogged them all the way from Luda, keeping below the horizon line, staying out of their sight. Even when the Sea Goddess caught the ship in her tempest, the ship had survived. The winds of divine fury that had blown the Venjekar off course blew the strange ship to the Dragon Isles, as well.

The Dragon Kahg had tried to persuade Vindrash to take an interest in the ship, but she persisted in ignoring it. And now, the Dragon Kahg knew why.

He had been hovering about his spiritbone, eager to be summoned, when he heard Garn’s words.

The gods are afraid.

Kahg had known Vindrash was afraid for her life, but Kahg had not really understood the depth of her fear. He had not truly understood the danger, not even after the attack on the Hall of Vektia, not even with the death of Desiria. Now, at last, Kahg could visualize the might of the foes arrayed against them. The dragon was appalled.

The gods were falling victim to fear. They were a family, these gods. A clan of immortals, not much different, neither better nor worse than the humans who revered them. The Gods of the Vindrasi quarreled and bickered, lusted and loved. They were either preoccupied with their own pleasure or were embroiled in plots to disrupt the pleasure of the others. The world to them was a shining ball they had come across while at play and they had amused themselves down through the centuries by tossing it back and forth between them.

But now came gods who wanted to take away the ball.

And not only that, these gods planned to destroy their foes in the process.

Kahg was starting to think the gods had lost their minds to panic. How else could the dragon explain the fact that Torval had ordered the guardians of the Dragon Isles to attack the very people they should have been guarding?

And so the Dragon Kahg did not attack the giants. He sought to reason with them.