CHAPTER

19

BOOK THREE

Skylan roamed the riverbank, cursing Sigurd for a fool and a coward for sailing off and abandoning his friends. But Skylan did Sigurd an injustice. Sigurd might be many things, but he was neither a fool nor a coward. The Dragon Kahg had made the decision to run.

The Torgun were elated with their freedom. They lifted up the Venjekar, and though their numbers were far fewer than would have normally been needed, they were able to haul the ship over the wall and drag the ship, singing, down to the river.

They were about halfway there when Wulfe appeared. Sigurd scowled to see the boy and told him to get lost. Instead of obeying, Wulfe handed him the spiritbone.

“Skylan said you would like me now,” said Wulfe.

Sigurd stopped dead in his tracks.

“Where did you get that?” He snatched the spiritbone from Wulfe.

“The dragon gave it to me,” said Wulfe. “I gave it to Aylaen and she gave it to Skylan and he said I was to bring it to you.”

“Where is Skylan?” Sigurd asked.

Wulfe shrugged. He had no idea.

Mystified, Sigurd looked at the dragon. Kahg’s eyes gleamed red in the darkness. Sigurd shrugged and ordered the men to keep going.

They launched the ship in the river at about the time Treia was pouring water on the fire in the fire pit. The Torgun boarded and were breaking out the oars, Wulfe was scampering down into the hold, and Sigurd was hanging the spiritbone on the nail on the prow when the Vektan dragon spread its wings and blotted out the stars.

The Dragon Kahg looked into the heavens, and although he had never before seen one of the Five, he recognized it immediately.

The Five Vektan dragons. All dragons honored and revered these wondrous creatures that were godlike, wise and powerful, all-seeing and all-knowing.

Ilyrion, the great dragon who had created the world and fought Torval for a thousand years, had not been defeated by Torval, as the Vindrasi believed. Dragons believed that Ilyrion, seeing that their battle was having devastating effects on the world she loved, had sacrificed herself. The Five Vektan dragons sprang from her bony crest as her blood rained down from the heavens.

The world belonged to the Vektan Five. Torval and the other gods were viewed by the dragons as the world’s caretakers. Vindrash, born of the blood of Ilyrion, served the Five, giving each of five gods one of the Five spiritbones to keep safe.

Eons passed and other strange gods found the world and sought to dislodge the old gods. These interlopers could not find the power of creation; they had no idea it had been embodied in the Five Vektan dragons. Thus Kahg had been furious to discover that Horg had given one of the spiritbones of the Vektia to the ogres and the Gods of Raj. The dragons had been appalled to discover Sund’s betrayal, that he had given yet another spiritbone to Aelon.

The dragons did not blame Vindrash for the losses. Their dragon goddess had been driven to the extreme of taking on human form in order to hide from her foes, who were growing in strength. The dragons were starting to fear that the old gods might be too weak to survive.

Now would come the time of the Vektia. Now the Five would return in triumph. Dragons, true dragons, would save the world.

“I will fly with him, the greatest of our kind,” Kahg vowed, and his being began to coalesce around his spiritbone.

To fly with the Vektia! What dragon did not dream of that? Kahg would be nothing, of course. A grain of sand amidst glittering diamonds. The Vektan dragon would not even deign to notice him. But to see with his own eyes such magnificence, such awful beauty. To be able to live the rest of his life knowing he had flown in the shadow of the wings of gods.

But the shadow was dark and bloated. It blotted out the stars and swallowed the moon. It looked like death given wings, a tail, a head, and a crest. Death made to look like a dragon. Death made in mockery of dragons.

The Dragon Kahg was baffled. What was this hideous monster? Where was the Vektia?

Lightning crackled from the dragon’s claws. The beast opened its hideous maw and a roaring wind swept down from the heavens, flattening the willow trees on the distant side of the bank, tearing the roots from the ground with rending, snapping sounds, and hurling them into the river. The wind struck the Venjekar a blow that seemed to Kahg to be personal, malevolent, aimed at him. The ship heeled and nearly went under.

It was then Kahg knew the truth as the gods had always known. Creation is destruction. Destruct to create. Create to destroy.

The Dragon Kahg struggled to right the ship in the lashing rain, to keep it afloat. The Venjekar left the shore and began to sail away.

“Sigurd! Stop!” Bjorn cried. “What are you doing? We have to wait for Skylan and Aylaen!”

“I’m not the one sailing the goddam ship!” Sigurd roared. He pointed at the dragon.

Shaken to the soul, Kahg wanted only to flee the hideous thing in the sky. He roared out the name of Vindrash. The goddess either could not or would not answer.

Hailstones thudded on the deck and the heads of the Torgun, driving them to seek shelter in the hold. Lightning smeared the sky. The smoke of the burning city lay on the banks like a hideous fog. The Venjekar crept along, hugging the shore, hiding among the rushes and the trailing branches of the ruined willows.

Kahg could hear the Vektia rampaging through the heavens, hear its howling. Its fury was mindless. The Vektia, wise and all-knowing. Kahg could have wept if he hadn’t been so enraged. He hid the ship beneath the trees, not because he feared the Vektia might see him, but because he did not want to see it. He loathed the sight of it, made to look like a dragon.

Something hard and sharp struck him on his carved wooden snout. At first Kahg thought he’d been hit by a bit of windblown debris, but then the object struck him again, this time harder, chipping off a chunk of wood. He looked to see a hammer fall back to the deck, narrowly missing the boy who had thrown it.

Kahg glared. The faery child. The boy was a sodden mess; he seemed oblivious to the rain. He picked up the hammer by its wooden handle, careful not to touch the iron head, and brandished it threateningly.

“You have to go back for Skylan!” Wulfe cried.

Skylan, Kahg thought. Which one was Skylan? The dragon could not keep all these humans straight. The ship kept moving.

The boy peered through his sopping wet hair in the direction of the sky. “That’s not a dragon, you know. It’s old. Really, really old. It used to run wild, but then the gods of the Uglies captured it and chained it up.”

Kahg’s red eyes flared. His gaze cast a garish aura on the boy.

“If you throw that at me again, whelp, I will smash you flat!” Kahg snarled.

Wulfe lowered the hammer and backed away. “You have to go back for Skylan.”

Kahg changed course suddenly, bringing the ship around, a difficult maneuver in the wind-whipped river, but he managed.

“Thank you!” Wulfe yelled, waving at the dragon.

Kahg’s eyes glittered. He had not reversed his course for the sake of the faery child or for this Skylan, whom the dragon finally vaguely remembered.

The Dragon Kahg had abruptly reversed course because he had been about to sail into the midst of the ogre fleet.