Hunt for the White Dragon

DRAGONS OF FIRE AND ICE

BOOK ONE

JADA FISHER

K. L. REINHART

Copyright © 2025 Jada Fisher

All Rights Reserved

Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. All people, places, names, and events are products of the author’s imagination and / or used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

Cover Design by J Caleb Design

Chapter 1

Valda and the Southern Kingdoms

Of all the creatures in the Aea, is there none so powerful, so mysterious, as the Dragons?

We all know that there are two species of draco in our world: the giant, flying, and fire-breathing True Dragon and their smaller counterpart, the Hobdragon. The Hob is a dumb, brute creature fit for nothing more than a beast of burden, but the True?

Whose blood does not rise at the sight of their many-colored flocks screeching through our skies? Who has not felt awe and terror from their roar? Perhaps that is their true purpose—to remind us that beauty and terror are still mighty forces in this world . . .

—A Beginner’s History of Dragons, Micele M.

“It’s close.” Valda Hemsdottir dropped into a crouch, every sense in the bounty hunter’s body alive to the movements of branches and ferns around her.

Bog oaks, slender aspens, and bristle ferns surrounded the clearing she peered into. Their branches were still mostly dark from winter’s clutches, but a brush of green buds was starting to haze the canopy.

Winter passed easy down here in the south. Not like home, Valda thought.

“How can you tell we’re close? We’ve been on the darn toluk’s trail for two days now!” There was a grumble behind Valda, and the bigger, bulkier shadow of Darin Silvetti attempted the same movement on the forest path.

“Oh, darken it . . .”

She heard a grunt as the sell-sword’s boots slipped in a patch of mud and somehow managed to crunch the twigs and leaf litter too.

Valda sighed. The sell-sword and Valda’s closest (only) friend had none of her natural grace, honed from years of tracking in much wilder environments than the woods and hills of the southern Kingdom of Lantic.

Yeah, the ice wastes of the true north make these southlands look like a game for children.

No, Darin Silvetti was not the stealthiest she had ever met, but he was loyal. And he was one of the best with a blade she had ever seen. That was why she had brought him with her on this job.

“Just hang back. And don’t say anything,” Valda hissed.

She leaned out from the moss-covered oak she had been hiding behind. The clearing was occupied by a scatter of dark boulders, slowly being reclaimed by tufts of long grasses.

Almost looks like some old burial site, Valda glowered. She knew that the bestial toluks loved old places like this. They were drawn to anything that was old and abandoned and with a hint of death about it, such as old mines, caves, or burial mounds.

It would also explain why the people of the nearby village of Peasgood were suddenly being menaced by such a creature. Perhaps the winter just gone had forced this toluk down from the high moorlands and hills above them known as the Troll Marches.

And the people down here think that last winter was bad. Valda suppressed a small snigger. The Lantic Southlands didn’t often have snow, it seemed, and when it came—even if it was only a foot or so—they acted like it was the end of the world.

Nothing like home, Valda thought . . . and instantly winced. She didn’t like thinking of the place to the north of the world where she had been born. Or why she had left Otland.

Suddenly, there was a twitch in the branches on the other side of the clearing. The long droops of oak branches brushed with a hint of spring green shivered against the direction of the wind, not with it.

Valda let out the slightest hiss. She reached for the long-handled wood axe at her back. She heard Darin behind her shift in place.

The wind turned. Valda detected an off note among the smell of oak and pine and leaf mold.

Stale sweat. Something like off meat, and . . . cherry tobacco? Valda couldn’t imagine the toluks ever getting their hands on fine cherry tobacco. She must have been mistaken.

All at once, the oak branches across from her parted, swaying to one side as the beast returned to its lair.

Sheesh, it is a big one.

The toluk stood at least eight feet tall, with skin the color of old granite. It had powerful shoulders and long arms ending in vicious black talons. It clutched a wooden club in one, its end spiked with heavy iron studs.

The toluk wore the same mismatch of cloth and leathers that many of their kind wore. They preferred to steal, but they could also craft. This one had a mane of shaggy, knotted, and wild black hair that fell from its forehead down to the top of its back. Two long pointed ears flickered on either side of its snarling, ferocious head.

Valda’s heart pounded. She felt the cool of fear but also the energy of excitement running down her spine into her thighs. She tensed, feeling the heavy canvas of her trousers tighten against her. This was it. This was what she was here for and what she was born to do.

Remember your training. Remember who you are.

The words of another time and place sprang to her mind. She wasn’t just Valda the bounty hunter. She was Valda Hemsdottir, or Valda Bloodaxe to those who knew her services. She was the child of the Otland Raven Clan, born in winter and born to fight monsters.

You have to fight this cold world to survive. Nothing is going to stop you . . .

Valda took a breath.

The toluk’s ears twitched.

Before something utterly surprising happened. The toluk twisted its head, moaning in dismay as a rush of wings stormed over the forest.

A host of True Dragons swept over them.

Dragons.

True Dragons.

“Dragons!” Darin gasped in awe.

The shadow of giant wings threw the clearing into momentary darkness. The scales clashed as they hummed through the air. Despite the situation, and despite the toluk she had come to kill, Valda looked up.

How could she not? True Dragons were rare. As rare as an honest merchant, or so the Lantic saying went. Although there were two species of dragon; the Hobdragon and the True, the Hob was little more than a pack beast, while the True Dragon was a different creature altogether. True Dragons were ten times the size of the smaller Hobs, and they could fly truly, not merely hop. They were seldom seen outside of Lantic’s capital city of King’s Tower, and no one ever saw wild True Dragons anymore.

Flashes of yellow, green, and red burst high over the reaching fingers of black tree branches.

Dragons. REAL dragons!

Valda felt her heart swell. These were the most powerful beings in all of Aea. Their graceful bodies cut through the air faster than thought, hiding how powerful and strong they were. Legend said the claws of a True Dragon were as long as your forearm and could tear through plate steel. That an entire horse and rider could disappear into the snap of their jaws.

This has to be the Lantic Dragon Watch, Valda knew. She couldn’t imagine being so loved and so respected. The Dragon Watch had no rivals. Valda tried to imagine what it must be like to climb aboard your chosen dragon steed and have the whole sky as your playground. Impossible.

But what were they doing abroad? There was no way that a host would be called out just because the tiny hamlet of Peasgood had a problem with one toluk!

The storm of dragons lasted all of a few seconds, and abruptly, they were gone. Valda and Darin and the toluk they had come to kill were left to their clearing in a world that was suddenly grayer and somehow more muted.

“Sweet mother of the waters,” Darin swore, referring to the deity his people from the river cities worshiped.

Valda struggled to remember where she was. The existence of flesh-eating, fire-breathing dragons, after all, had a habit of changing your perspective on life.

“Flesh!”

But the toluk, apparently, was keen to remind them that there were other flesh-eating monsters in Aea. The creature roared, spinning around. It had heard Darin’s swearing, and the dragons had clearly scared it.

Its eyes rolled. Dribbles of white froth ran from its maw as it howled. It bounded over the boulder, raising its iron-studded cudgel.

“Ice melt!” Valda reacted. The tight energy she had gathered inside of her exploded, and she leapt forward into the clearing. Her strong legs propelled her into one bounding step and another . . .

In one smooth move, she drew her axe from her back harness.

Her foot hit the ground of the clearing. She twisted her upper body, swinging her axe in a gleaming arc through the air.

With a thump, it bit toluk flesh, and it was like she had taken the blade to a ten-year-old tree. She heard the roar. Then the weight of the toluk was upon her, dashing her to one side.

“Ach!” With a pained yell, Valda hit the ground awkwardly, and her hand slammed against one of the burial boulders. Stars exploded across her vision as she tried to remember to roll, roll . . .

She heard a crash, and through doubled vision, she saw the wounded toluk. Still with her axe embedded in its side, the creature had crashed its cudgel down against the boulder she had so recently been acquainted with herself. The end of the cudgel shattered into splinters, and the beast was turning, snarling.

Blood ran down its side in great sheets of green ichor where her axe still held onto flesh. The creature raised its shortened club.

Valda slipped her hunting knife from her thigh scabbard, snarling back in savage fury at the creature about to pound her into paste.

The blow didn’t fall. Suddenly, the toluk was stumbling to one side as Darin’s long blade stabbed, slashed, and danced against its unprotected back.

“Die! The thing won’t die!” Darin shouted.

“Careful!” Valda scrabbled to a crouch. Her head still pounded, but she knew toluks were twice as dangerous when they were cornered. They went into a blood frenzy that could see them lose limbs and still carry on fighting.

Darin was a quick fighter, but he didn’t have the experience Valda had in fighting these beasts. He wasn’t expecting the beast to twist so quickly. It smashed its free fist against his side, sending him flinging through the ferns in an explosion of green.

“Darin!” Valda shouted. She jumped forward, running under the creature’s arms and leaping to grab her stolen axe with both hands.

“Give me my MEAT!” the toluk roared, twisting back, as Valda planted her feet on the toluk’s body and kicked.

Her axe ripped free from the creature’s body, bringing with it a spray of ichor and viscera. Valda hit the ground and rolled as the toluk stamped forward to the place where she had been.

Valda kept on rolling until her back hit one of the boulders. She could go no further. She looked up to see the toluk take another stamping step toward her and another, a great hole carved through the side of its body.

In that moment, the toluk appeared to remember just how injured it was. It stopped its advance, looking down in awe at its own body. Its face looked confused and stunned for a moment—and then it toppled backward. Its body hit the ground with a thud that made the forest floor shake.

“Darin!” Valda was on her feet, holding her axe up in case the toluk got any ideas as she stumbled to the other side of the clearing.

“Ugh. Valda—don’t . . .” she heard her friend groan, and relief swept through her. If he could moan, which was one of Darin Silvetti’s favorite pastimes, then he could live. The people of Peasgood would pay for any doctors they needed, and they would pay the handsome gold coin that Valda demanded for her services.

“It’s dead, Darin. Wait up, I’m coming to you,” Valda said—as the form of her friend rose groggily from the bushes and thorns.

“I wouldn’t,” he grumbled. Her black-haired friend had lost his long blade, and he was holding one arm with the other awkwardly.

“You’re hurt?” she asked—and then saw the figures step out from the trees behind him.

Darin was surrounded by men and women in heavy dark cloaks and with heavy eyes. They had short crossbows pointed at Darin—and now at her.

“Ah, Valda Bloodaxe! I see congratulations are in order! I knew you would get the job done!” a man’s high nasally voice announced across the clearing.

Oh right. Valda’s heart sank in a moment. That is why I could smell cherry tobacco.

Chapter 2

Falko, AKA the Rat

A friend is no simple thing. They are bound to you by blood and oath and promise. So say the old sagas. What, then, is worse than a false friend, a liar, or an oathbreaker? That is why we demand they be driven from our hearths and our huts and our clans. Let them see if they can find their honor on the uncaring ice!

—Friendship and Oaths, Wise Hopyna (Otland)

“Falko!” Valda glared at the man on the other side of the clearing.

The man opposite her was older than both Valda and Darin Silvetti’s years put together. He wore the heavy dark-brown cloak and robe of a River monk, although Valda was certain that there was no spiritual order in all of Aea who would claim him.

Falko, otherwise known as the Rat, was one of the most well-connected fixers in all of the southern kingdoms, (or so he claimed, anyway). If there was a job of dubious morality that you needed doing, then the Rat knew people who could get it done for you. If there were items you needed that were unfortunately in someone else’s hands, Falko was the man to get them delivered to you.

And if there were people you needed to not be breathing anymore, Valda thought—then that was what Falko excelled at.

“What are you doing here? Drop your weapons. We haven’t even received the bounty money yet, so we have nothing you can take. Unless, that is, you have a thing for dead toluks.” Valda glared at him.

“Oh, my dear child. That is what I am going to miss about you. Your wonderful sense of humor. It has really brightened my otherwise dreary existence these past six years, I can tell you!” Falko leered. He had a small face with barely any hair, and small dark sunken eyes that he had gotten his namesake from. He wrapped his robes about him and sniffed at the body between him and Valda.

“Really. I thought you had progressed a little from toluks since I last saw you. The girl I first met could have beaten two toluks before breakfast already! I thought you were at least into leading mercenary bands territory.” Falko shrugged.

Valda gritted her teeth and said nothing as shame burned through her. Every time she saw this master criminal, he always pressed it into her that he had been the one to first “set her on her path,” as he so eloquently called it.

True, you gave me employment when I arrived on the cobbles of your city, but it didn’t take me long to leave it, did it? Valda shot the thought at him. She didn’t want her actual words to trigger a hail of crossbow bolts.

Falko sighed theatrically, shaking his head. More of his men had appeared around the clearing, and Valda guessed there had to be seven shooters now surrounding her and Darin.

“Seven? All for us? I never knew you cared so much, Falko.” Valda smiled sweetly.

At this, her old employer’s face twisted in a snarl of rage before he subdued himself, returning to an icy smile.

“I could have them take your fingers off, you know. With a butter knife. Then I wonder how amazing you would be with that axe of yours.” Falko nodded to where she still held it aloft in the air.

“Drop it. Let’s not have any little accidents, shall we?”

Oh, it won’t be an accident when I take your head off. Valdo lowered the axe slowly to her side, resting the head on the floor.

“All the way now, hon.” Falko flickered a glance to the men around him, and two of the crossbowers gestured their weapons at Darin.

“Fine.” Valda dropped the axe. “Just what do you want, Falko? You know I haven’t got anything to give you. Nothing worth paying seven men to ride out to Peasgood for.”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to take your bounty, don’t you worry. It was me who sent Tommy who sent Alice who left word at that pub you frequent about this job.” Falko’s earlier irritation disappeared as he got the chance to crow.

“I knew a girl like you couldn’t avoid a good toluk hunt, see. You can take the girl out of Otland but you can’t take Otland . . .”

“Get that name out of your mouth,” Valda snapped and took an involuntary step forward. She felt her mouth form into a rictus snarl of animal rage.

“There she is! There’s the barbarian we all know and love!” Falko cried with delight. As soon as she had moved, the rest of the crossbows had snapped to train on her.

Sadly, Valda was very much aware that she was no toluk. She would know at once if she was dead and would never get the chance to reach Falko with her bare hands.

“You set us up? You wanted us here to catch us? Why? There’s no warrants of arrest on me!” Valda demanded.

“Oh, Valda. You think I would waste my time on a bounty on your head, of all people? No. I wanted you here because there is someone else who very badly wants you. You’re a job, Valda. Nothing more, nothing less,” Falko announced. He nodded, and half of the crossbows took a step forward.

“Who? What for? They can just hire me,” Valda snapped.

A delicious smile spread across Falko’s face. “Oh, you might not have an arrest warrant out for you in Lantic, but you are wanted in Otland.”

“What?” Valda reeled where she stood, as if slapped.

Otland. The place where she was born. Far to the north of the kingdom of Lantic, Otland was barely a nation at all—more of an endless argument of mountains and warrior clans.

My homeland. The place I fled.

Valda shook her head. I was only eighteen when I ran. I was too young to know what I was doing. I was too young to know anything about anything.

“What do you barbarians call your chieftains or kings or whatever it is you have up there in that godsforsaken mess?” Falko tapped his chin.

“That’s it, jarl. Jarl Erlich wants you. ‘For crimes past,’ apparently—and he paid very handsomely for it, let me tell you.”

“No!” At this, Valda did take a step forward. She already had her dagger in her fist by the time that the first set of hands clamped on her shoulders and the muzzle of a crossbow thumped into the small of her back.

“Valda!” Darin shouted in alarm.

“Don’t.” Falko threatened.

Valda froze as more people grabbed her arms and wrestled the dagger out of her hand. Her arms were pulled behind her back and lashed tight with rope, and her legs were kicked out from underneath her.

“You can’t send me back! Jarl Erlich has no right to do this to me! I haven’t done anything wrong!” Valda shouted before a strip of cloth was thrown over her mouth and tied behind her head.

“Ah. Peace and quiet, at last. I guess I’ll have to put up with you glaring at me the whole journey, but that’s nothing new from you, is it?” Falko laughed.

Valda and Darin were brought struggling to the center of the clearing, both bound tight, and their weapons confiscated. Falko stood before them, dressed in his monk robes, looking for all the world as if he were about to receive their confessions. He leaned over to whisper into Valda’s ear.

“You see, Valda? This is what you always were. A barbarian. A foreigner in our southern lands. A savage. You might have fooled yourself into thinking you were something better, that you were a bounty hunter, that you were respected—but you were not. You were only ever a good-for-nothing outlander, and that is all your short life ever will be!”

Valda struggled in rage, but her bonds were too tight. She could no more escape them than she could escape the fact of the blood running through her veins.

Falko straightened up. “Get her ready for transport. I don’t care what you do with the other one.”

No! Leave Darin be! Leave my friends alone! Valda tried to scream through her bandages, but all that came out were muffled yells.

Chapter 3

Welcome to the North

There is one thing that is clear: there have always been dragons, but there was a time when there weren’t humans. Instead, a different sort of race ruled these lands, and the oldest tales tell us that they were cruel.

—A History of Dragon Species (Kings Tower Grand Library)

For a long time, Valda had no idea where she was. Her next few days consisted of total darkness, the occasional fitful, jostling sleep, and a few punches and kicks thrown in for good measure.

I’m in a carriage, of that much she was fairly sure. She could hear the creak of wheels, the clip of horses’ hooves, and the jangle of their tack. It didn’t take her too many hours of listening to figure out there had to be four horses, which meant that either they were carrying a great weight or their journey was a long one. You only brought that many horses if you knew some of them would tire on the way.

Valda had her first meal on day three of the journey (even with the canvas hood over her head, she could tell it was day by the glimmer of brightness that managed to break past the carriage curtains).

Her meal consisted of stew, dried greens, and suspicious bits of gray meat that could have come from anywhere. Her captors hadn’t even bothered to add pepper or wild garlic foraged along the way.

For these few days, Valda burned with anger. Thoughts of Falko’s betrayal and of Darin’s fate consumed her.

What happened to Darin? She had been hauled away from the clearing in Peasgood Forest before she saw what became of her friend.

They wouldn’t kill him, would they? What had Darin done other than accept the job from her?

No. Don’t say I caused his death. Guilt rolled through her.

But surely even Falko wasn’t that cruel, was he? Falko was swamp-dung, but he didn’t do things . . . unnecessarily. Not if he thought he might profit from it later on.

On day five, Valda was allowed to actually see when she was dragged out of the wagon (not carriage, she promised herself to get better at recognizing the difference . . .) and found herself almost blinded by the bright but cloudy day.

“Who are you? Where are we?!” Valda attempted to shout, but her captors merely replaced the bandage with a fresher one before dragging her to a stream by the side of the road to get washed up.

In truth, Valda could see the answers to her questions herself. The road they were on was a wide stone track with moss growing along its ancient flags. There was room for three wagons such as theirs at a time. It sat on a high ledge of land, while the slope on the right rose into crags and tall moors and uplands.

That’s the Queen’s Way. There was no other road like it in all of Aea; it was the main artery that ran north to south. Legend said it was the processional route for some ancient Lantic Empress who had come to do something terribly important that Valda had since forgotten.

That makes those heights the Troll Marches. Valda blinked, half pretending to wash as she turned in the direction they were headed in.

The north. The ground rose higher and higher ahead of them, hazed with pockets of fog, but she was sure she could make out the distant blue haze of the Ice Fjall: the northernmost, world’s ending mountains of ice.

As yet, they were still in the hinterlands between the true north and the regions of the south. There was no real name for this region of hills and running rivers bounded by small outcrops and mountain spurs to the far west. All Valda knew was that this middle area had been home to many smaller fiefdoms, cults, and villages.

It had also been home to many wars, as the people of the south and the people of the north had battled each other hundreds of years ago.

Wait, does that mean . . . Valda spun around, craning her aching eyes to the west.

There. A small spur of rocks rising from dense woods with the crags appearing entirely flat on top. If she squinted, she wondered if she could see the speck of jet black atop it.

The Black Keep. It was an ancient ruin supposedly left by the ancient peoples—the strange and mysterious Nuoldim, who had once inhabited all of Aea centuries before mankind.

“If that is the Black Keep then I’m not far from Eranden,” Valda whispered.

Eranden was really another part of the Lantic petty kingdoms, but its rolling hills, secluded nature, and proximity to the Otlands kept it removed from most of Lantic’s torturous politics. It was run by a council elected from the towns and villages but ordained by Lantic itself.

If I can escape at Eranden, I can find a barge that will take me anywhere. Valda had a plan. All she needed now was to . . .

“Oi! Prisoner!” Two guards appeared, lowering their crossbows down at her. Her hands were still bound, but she snarled at them all the same.

A hood was thrown back over her head, and she was put back in the wagon.

The journey was long, and several times, Valda attempted escape. Each time, she was brought low either with a swift blow to the head or the sudden menace of crossbows. One time, she managed to steal a paring dagger from one of the guards and used it to cut her bonds, sneaking out of the back of the wagon in the middle of the night before she was jumped on by four guards (one of them earned a broken nose from that fight). Another time, she threw herself out of the back of the wagon during a storm, but Falko himself rode her down and held a curving blade to her throat.

By the third week, she was loaded onto some kind of boat, overhearing muttered conversations about coin and risk, before she was stuffed in a cramped hold. She rocked and felt sick and did not see daylight for a long time. On the night they finally hauled her out of the hold, there was a commotion. Just as they were loading her onto the pier of a wide river, a mighty clash of wings sounded overhead.

Dragons!

Desperately, Valda wondered if the Dragon Watch had been sent further than they had been in a generation for her.

She was a Lantic citizen, was she not? She had been kidnapped from Lantic soil. Perhaps that was a crime worthy of the noble Dragon Watch.

Maybe Darin got their attention? Maybe he escaped and petitioned the young Lantic king . . .

But the dragons, high overhead, did not stop. They vanished in the night, flying north.

North? Why north? The Dragon Watch were never seen north of the Black Keep. Ever.

But then, as Valda realized that the twin moons of Eia and Kella had passed through more than one whole cycle each, her thoughts turned to accepting what she was heading toward.

Otland. The Raven Clan. Home.

I never should have left. I never should have abandoned my father to Erlich . . .

“What did I do?” Valda whispered in the dark.

Interlude

ISKYR, TROUBLED

Screams-with-the-Sun was hurt. That was all that existed in the young dragon’s mind and all that mattered.

Screams-with-the-Sun birthed me into this world. She carried me in her maw, as large as a cave.

She was his brood mother, a being at once as powerful as the Sun itself and seemingly as wide as the entire sky.

Well—that was until Iskyr’s mother had actually shown him the sky, anyway. Then the young dragonet had realized that there were things that were bigger even than her—but not bigger than his heart.

Iskyr’s first memories were a kind of hazy dream: A sense of warmth and belonging, punctuated by sudden heat and occasional blasts of fiery cold.

He was born to the top of the world, he now knew. There were very few of his kind left up here and very few that could survive for long up here.

“That is what makes us the strongest,” his mother had once told him. “The fiercest. The oldest. We never left the place where we first came into this world. We stay, we hunt, we nest . . . and we wait for the day that the Sun will return . . .”

Iskyr, in his young years, did not understand his mother’s strange tales and ramblings. All he knew was that she was his everything. She was the warmth that sheltered him from the ice, and she brought the meat that grew his bones. Her scales were the first place he had learned to sharpen his claws . . . before a friendly whap on his behind taught him not to.

But now Screams-with-the-Sun is sick. And she has begun to talk of the After.

The After was a strange concept for Iskyr and one that was hard for him to wrap his reptilian mind around. He had played with the skulls of the shaggy, woolly mamuts that his mother brought to him (after he had feasted on their innards, of course).

Iskyr had toyed with their long tusks, still sharp enough to puncture dragon scale at full charge.

But he saw no clue of what came After in their darkened eye sockets. All he saw was cold bone.

“The After is where we all go. Where all creatures go in the end. It is where we join the great River of Souls.” his mother had declared.

And yet, it was confusing. Sometimes Screams-with-the-Sun talked of the After-like a place where they would all become something much greater than they ever were. Sometimes she talked about it like a dream, and sometimes she said it was the place where they had first come from before ever coming to this world.

“World? River?” Iskyr didn’t understand either his mother’s illness or her increasingly strange rambles. He knew the sky and that it was eternal and stretched forever.

“There are no troubles in this world you cannot beat, little fang,” his mother had once hissed kindly at him. “For you are a lord of the sky, which is second only to the Sun itself . . .”

By the time that Iskyr was hunting for himself, taking down elk and mamuts and ice vultures, he had come to wonder whether his mother was not like other dragons. She spoke in riddles and poetry. She talked of the others of their kind as poor and imprisoned and repeating a great mistake that they should never have made.

“They have fallen into service. They do not know what they are,” she had told him.

But where were these other dragons? Iskyr had never seen them. He had never heard their cries echoing through the rivers of the air.

What if he and his mother were truly all that were left?

And now, his mother had grown sick. She was getting weaker every moon and said that soon it would be time to sing her Mourning Song and then she would leave for the After.

No, the White Dragon thought. No. I cannot allow that. I must leave this place to find a way to save her.

Chapter 4

Korjall

“Of the origins of the people known as the outlanders, little is known. We know that they are an unruly, violent people who are well suited to the lightning storms, blizzards, and ice of their home. They are organized into animal clans who seem to be constantly at war with each other. I would that we have little to do with them if we can help it.”

—Private missive from the Northern Ambassador to King Carles II of Lantic

“Bring her forward!” Falko’s voice cried out.

Valda woke up from a terrible sleep as she was thrown to one side of the cart’s bed. She had been dreaming about burning buildings and tall bearded men with blood drenching their armor.

She hadn’t been fed in two days. All she’d had were sips of water.

Hands grabbed her, hauling her from the cart and dumping her on the floor. Fresh wintry air bit at her. She struggled, but her limbs were weak. Still, she kicked out, her boots finding flesh. She heard a satisfied squeal of pain.

“See? Told you she was still good. So she’s a bit thinner—hasn’t made her any less mean!” Falko’s voice stated.

There was a disgusted cough and then her gag was wrenched from her mouth.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” she hollered, her voice sounding croaky but still doing an impressive job of raising the sound of alarmed gulls.

“Hmph. Yes. That’s her alright,” a familiar voice said.

Not you . . .

Her hood was stripped from her face, and Valda Hemsdottir found herself looking up at none other than Jarl Erlich, the ruler of all Otland—and, coincidentally, the man she had once tried to kill.

“Hello, Valda.” The man smiled.

Jarl Erlich was only five or six years older than Valda was herself, but there was no sign of youth or virility to him. A small man with a large belly, his jowls were heavy from the rich feasts he could enjoy every night, and his blonde beard and hair were wiry and unkempt. The worst thing about the man were his fishlike, rheumy eyes that he was constantly dabbing at with a rare silk cloth.

“I should have stabbed you when I had the chance,” Valda hissed. She felt weak and tired, but she knew it would be easy work to kill the man who had disgraced her father.

The Jarl’s face flickered, a moment of fear turning to a sly grin. “Yes. You probably should have. But now you will pay off your debt to the clans. I have plans for you, Valda Hemsdottir.”

“Screw your pla-” Valda started to tell him exactly what the corpulent man could do with his plans, but before she could finish, the ruler of Otland had fluttered his silk cloth, and there was a hustle of movement behind him.

It was then that Valda fully realized where she was.

She wasn’t in Svarbold, the keep of the ruling Wolf Clan. Around them, she saw the thatched huts of the Otlanders, and the rise of the foothills surrounding them. The air was clean and chill with just a few flurries of snow, and the ground underfoot was slush and mud.

Behind Erlich stood a hut that was bigger than the others. It had a high solid plant roof and two wings, with smoke filtering out through the roof windows.

The Raven Hall. Valda’s heart jumped to her throat. She saw the twin carved birds that were her clan’s totem animals around the door archway. Sconces of burning coals sat slightly over head height in front of them.

How many times had she sat by the great fires in that hall as minstrels sang for her father? How many times had she played under the grand tables, dreaming of the old sagas and great deeds?

Home. I’m finally home.

“Korjall. I’m in Korjall,” Valda whispered. The seat of the Raven Clan, her clan.

To her right stood the high-peaked Hall of Memory with its singular wooden turret. This was the hall where the women gathered, and the names of every fallen Raven were carved on wooden pillars inside. The younger Valda had only been allowed into those hushed cloisters rarely, during the death ceremonies. She had much preferred the action and loud voices of the Raven Hall.

On the left-hand side of the square stood Skulimo’s, the woodworker and boat builder, with some of his famous carved prows sitting outside. Valda saw the familiar designs of snarling, tongue-lolling dragons next to snarling beasts and, of course, the raven itself.

Next to Skulimo’s began the avenue of fish stands, where fresh catches were brought in and smoked to be distributed to the families or eaten all together in the Raven Hall.

“How does it feel to be back, Valda?” Erlich said, his voice oozing with self-satisfaction.

“I knew you would be difficult. All your years in the south haven’t changed you one bit, have they?” The Jarl smirked as figures were dragged out from her family hall by stocky Wolf Clan guards.

Valda cried out. She recognized Wulf and Gustav, her father’s most trusted bound warriors, being pushed at sword point toward them. There was a shout, and a third figure was brought out.

No!

Chill winds laced with sleet caught at Valda’s cheeks, but she didn’t feel them. She was watching the man who was kicked and shoved to his knees at the end of the square.

Hem Raven. Chief Raven.

“Father!” Valda shouted.

Hem Raven had once been a mountain of a man, a rock to his people, and had rightfully earned the title of First Sword of the Jarl.

Now, however, Valda saw a weak and broken man. His blonde hair was unbound and ragged, and his beard wasn’t in its traditional warrior’s braid. His face looked sunken and pale, and he raised his head with a sluggard’s pace.

“Father?” Valda whispered this time.

Their eyes locked across the square, and in that look, all Valda saw was defeat. She watched the gasping rise and fall of his shoulders.

“. . . daughter?” His voice, once able to boom across a packed hall and bring two hundred people to silence, barely matched the freezing northern winds.

Chief Hem Raven shuddered, his great frame emaciated as he looked down at the mud, ashamed.

“What have you done to him? Stop hurting him!” Valda shouted. This was not the man she had known, whom she had laughed and quarreled with.

“Me? Done? Nothing, Valda.” Erlich puffed up his chest and made another of those dismissive flicking gestures to where her father knelt at sword point. Now, Hem Raven wouldn’t even raise his head to look at her.

“Your father did this to himself after you left. Drank himself to weakness. But I suppose this is what happens to oathbreakers. Even they cannot stand to live with their shame.” Erlich’s voice dripped with scorn.

“My father is no oathbreaker!” Valda snapped. Even though she was on her knees, she dove forward, raising her tied hands in fists. She would kill him like she should have done so many years ago.

“Ach!” A sharp pain hit her in the back, driving her to the mud. She struggled to move, but the heavy weight of Falko’s boot kept her in place.

“Jarl Erlich, your . . . eminence?” Falko dripped with respect now that he was actually faced with his employer. Valda spluttered and snarled in fury.

“If it’s all the same to you, I think that my job here is done. It is a long journey back to the south, and . . .” Falko’s voice teetered off hopefully.

There was a cough, and Valda heard movement. “Yes, yes. You will get your coin. See my man there, and then you may go,” Erlich announced.

Another shuffle of movement, and the weight on her back suddenly lifted, replaced by the heavy hands of Jarl Erlich’s own men dragging her back to her knees. This time, they held onto her, and a blade was pressed to her throat.

Valda watched as a small chest was transferred from one of the jarl’s men to the back of Falko’s wagon, and then the Rat and his crew were mounting their steeds, turning in a slow circle around Korjall’s town square. She saw Falko’s look of disdain at the huts and mud and the small gathering of Ravensfolk clan members who had come to bear witness to their shame. Falko was a man used to cobbled streets and fine wines, and Valda knew he would want nothing more than to be out of the rustic northlands as soon as possible.

But her ex-employer turned in his saddle just before they left the town square. He grinned wickedly as he raised his hand.

“Farewell, Valda Bloodaxe! May we never meet again in this life!”

“Only at the end of my axe!” Valda hissed. She heard Falko’s laugh as he and his men left.

Jarl Erlich watched them go before letting out a small snort of displeasure.

“Now. Perhaps we can talk as Otlanders to each other now that the southerner is finally gone?”

“What under the two moons is that supposed to mean?” Valda snarled at him. She kept her eyes on her father. He was hunched and broken, but she couldn’t see any blood.

Was Erlich appealing to her sense of honor as an Otlander? To her oaths?

I swore an oath to my clan, not you. Valda gritted her teeth as shame coursed through her. But I broke that oath when I left, didn’t I?

If she had stayed, would the result have been any different? Could she have inspired her father to do what was right and unite the clans against Erlich?

No. Of course not. Her father had been a disgrace even before she had left. That was the reason why she left, after all.

Well, that . . . and trying to put a dagger through Erlich’s heart.

“Ah, Raven’s daughter . . .” Erlich’s voice sounded weary. He had this habit of trying to sound cultured, even though it only made a man like him sound weak. The Jarl took a step toward her, and his voice lowered.

“You know what you did. You attempted to attack your Jarl. Your liege lord. For that crime, you know I am entitled to at least banish you to the wastes, if not have your head split from your shoulders.”

“Do it, then. At least I won’t have to listen to your warbling,” Valda muttered angrily.

There was a testy sniff, and then Erlich carried on as if he hadn’t heard her.

“I have wondered often, over the years, whether it was your father who put you up to it. After he killed the old jarl, my own father . . .”

“After he led the rebellion, you mean?” Valda spat.

“After he failed, Valda! My father might have died, but Wolf is still on the throne! I am still your Jarl!”

There was a flicker of movement as the Jarl’s hand struck out. Valda felt a stinging blow across her cheek. But she didn’t taste any blood.

“You can’t even punch properly.” Valda grinned at him.

She saw Erlich draw himself to his full and not very impressive height. The guards at her side shifted in their places, and Valda felt their hands tighten on her.

Her eyes flickered to her fellow clansfolk clustered at the edge of the town square. She recognized almost every one of them, but they all had the look of a creature that had spent too long in the cold. They were not the people they once were. Their clothes were simpler and ill-kept. Their eyes averted hers as she glared at them.

Do something!

But no Ravensfolk lifted a finger. Valda felt a great shame that she didn’t think her heart could ever recover from.

Was this what the mighty Raven Clan had become? Meek mice under the boot of Wolf Clan?

“I see you are still just as dishonorable as your father was. I should have had him killed all those years ago, but I thought I was being merciful.”

“You beat my clan into the ground! You starved us! Took every coin we had!” Valda shouted. The hands of her guards tightened around her, and the blade pressed hard against her neck.

“You are oathbreakers. You deserve nothing from me, and yet, here I am, willing to give you a chance,” Erlich stated. His voice had gone icy cold. He was a temperamental, childish man. Valda feared he would kill them all right then and there.

But why didn’t he?

Oh.

“You want something from me, don’t you? You would have killed me the first moment I was dragged off that cart if you didn’t,” Valda realized.

Erlich glowered. “Yes. I do want something, Valda. Your Jarl demands your service. You have only one redeeming feature, Valda Hemsdottir, and that is your passable skill as a tracker.”

“Passable? I’m the best you’ve ever seen,” Valda quipped.

Another look of annoyance from Erlich. But he didn’t deny it.

“There has been a sighting in the Ice Fjall. Not two moons gone, a White Dragon was sighted, and I want you to track it for me.”

What? Valda blinked. She didn’t even feel the icy burn of the blade’s edge pressed into her neck.

A wild dragon? Seen in the Ice Fjall?

“I agree that you are skilled, and that is the only reason you are still breathing right now,” Erlich said. “This will be your test and your opportunity to help your clan. You will track the White Dragon of Otland, and you will capture it for me.”

Valda swayed where she knelt. He was asking an impossible task.

Even the Lantics don’t capture wild dragons. They breed their own. And they have magic. And armies. And dragons.

“And if you do not do this or if you fail, then I will finally rid the Otlands of your entire household, Valda Hemsdottir.” The Jarl raised his voice. It was imperious and cruel and rang out across the square.

“If the Raven Clan think they are on hard times now, then they know nothing! I will take your ships. I will take your cattle. I will salt your fields, and I will blunt your swords. The Raven Clan will be cast out to the wastes for winter to do what it may to you! Mothers will bear their children in the snows, and no Raven will ever be offered warmth or salt from any other clan from now until the world ends!”

There was a low murmur of horror from the assembled defeated clan members.

Erlich took a step forward and crouched down beside Valda. She could smell the cloying sweetness of expensive scent, and underneath it, the acrid tang of sweat. The Jarl leaned forward to whisper into Valda’s ear.

“This is your chance to redeem your clan. This is your chance to repair your oaths, Valda Hemsdottir. Serve me, or everything you have ever loved will die.”

Chapter 5

To Kill a Jarl

Of the Oaths and Rights of Murder:

Murder is always punishable by death. This can be through combat or at the direction of a chief, jarl, or wise.

There are only three exceptions to this rule: when a parent seeks to defend their child, when a wife avenges her slain husband, or when the criminal is bewitched.

—Laws of the Otlands (ancient)

He wants to capture a live wild dragon. Valda’s head was still spinning when she awoke the next day in the gloomy predawn dark.

Around her was a scattering of straw and the freezing wooden walls of a cell. The Wolf Clan had dragged her to one of her clan’s own cells at the back of Raven Hall. The walls were made of thick pinewood, and the straw covering the floor was at least clean but not very warm. Her hands were chained to a post driven into the floor. There was no light save for the candle flicker that came through the cracks in the doorjamb.

How under the twin moons did my life come to this? Valda thought. To think that she was back here—the place she had never wanted to be anyway and certainly not like this . . .

“Val?” She heard a whisper, followed by the sound of the door being unbolted.

Torch light streamed into her room, and Valda found herself looking at a hunched silhouette with a spray of dreaded hair braids.

“Valda, I don’t have much time. Are you awake?” the woman’s voice whispered.

Of course, Valda was awake. She had barely slept at all under the freezing chill of an Otland night. The sound of a familiar voice almost made her heart break.

“Freya Onden?” Valda whispered. Hope fluttered in her chest.

The silhouette transformed into the hunchbacked form of the Wise of their Raven Clan as the old woman shuffled into her cell. In her ancient hands, Freya Onden clutched a cloth bag and a steaming tankard.

The Wises of Otland ran the Halls of Memory and gathered the sagas and lore of their clans like the weavers in their halls gathered threads. They were the unofficial advisers and counselors of every clan, simultaneously acting as their wise women, healers, and sages.

“I cannot do much, but I told the guards you would likely die out here if I didn’t tend to your injuries.” The wise woman huffed, thumping her back against the wooden cell wall and lowering herself next to Valda.

“Oh, Freya, I can’t believe it’s you!” Valda pulled against her chains to reach her, but the thick iron wouldn’t allow her to hug the old woman. All she could do was bump her shoulders against hers.

Valda had known Freya since she was a babe. Or before that, if she counted the fact that this woman had actually helped birth her.

Freya Onden looked as though she was a hundred years old, and Valda thought she could even be more than that. Her skin was deeply wrinkled, and her dreaded hair was a wiry silver. Her hands that unknotted the bags were twisted and gnarled with age like old tree roots. The blurred shadows of dot, circle, and line tattoos were visible on her fingers and arms. But for all of her impressive years, Wise Onden still appeared sprightly and had twin green eyes as bright as emeralds.

“You’ve been gone a long time. I can see you haven’t had anything decent to eat in six years,” Freya scolded her.

Valda laughed, and tears sprang to her eyes. Even as her heart broke, this was just like Freya to be worrying about her weight at a time like this.

“The southlands have terrible food,” Valda confirmed.

“Ach! As if I don’t know that already. You can tell when they have to call it ‘cuisine’ instead of normal food!” Freya set the steaming tankard into Valda’s hands, from which wafted the hearty smell of roasted seeds, meat, fresh herbs, and the fragrant spicing of heather blossom.

“Drink up. It’ll do more to revive you than anything they’ll feed you.” Freya nodded disparagingly at the Wolf Clan guards, who moved across the open door suspiciously.

Valda took a deep swig as the Wise rummaged in her sack. The elixir reminded her of home in ways she had forgotten. The taste of honey and juniper berries reminded her of the high meadows in full summer, fat Otland bees buzzing in the July sun. The deep hearty roast of meats and the peppery touch of young herbs brought back memories of listening rapt to the sagas in the Raven Hall with the sleepy conversations of clansfolk around her. Valda didn’t know if it was the memories or the broth or both that strengthened her, but even the first glug sent warmth through her aching limbs.

“Good? Of course it is. I made it myself,” Freya said. She next pulled out a hunk of bread and cheese wrapped in cloth and set them on Valda’s lap. The brown malted sourdough tasted equally as good, the hard crust and a fluffy inside melting away as Valda chewed.

Valda groaned appreciatively. The cheese was a segment of Otland Blue; a hard cheese with veins and florets of blue running through it that gave a tangy, rich flavor.

“Oh, dear moons . . .” Valda could have wept.

“And these you will keep on you.” Freya produced a thick pack of dried jerky, leaving a couple of strips for Valda to eat now before wrapping the rest up and setting it beside the other things she brought from the bag.

There was a quilted tunic with clasps down the front, as well as a thick gray woolen stole with a hood to wear over her own cloak. Valda recognized the wiry black wool of the tough little Fjall sheep that the Otlanders kept. Its edge had been sown with a fray of black feathers, each one meticulously stitched into the hide.

Raven feathers. Valda felt her heart thump. It had been a long time since she had worn her clan feathers.

Next to these came heavy fur wraps: cured fur hides sown onto leather and with leather ties at their ends. Freya looped them around Valda’s ankles and lower calves and secured them tightly.

“I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve been on the ice, but this winter was bad. I told the guards to bring snowshoes, but I have no idea if they’ll listen to me.” Freya shook her head, finally picking up the jar of ointment and spare rolls of bandages.

“This is heal-all. I figured you probably had plenty of bruises getting here. You’re a fighter,” Freya said proudly.

Valda remembered the white stuff that the Wise made. Every scrape, bruise, knife accident, or fight she’d ever had ended up with that stuff liberally smeared over the wound. It smelled awful, but it worked. The ointment reduced infection surprisingly well and caused her skin to knit together quickly.

“Thank you,” Valda said, but a sadness had crept into her. Freya Onden hadn’t said a word about escape.

Nor could she, the bounty hunter thought, seeing the two Wolf guards hovering at the open door. They were watching Freya suspiciously, but a wise was a respected position across the clans. It was commonly thought they had the power to curse your family or afflict your household with sickness if you annoyed them too much.

We might have a little time to talk before they get over their fear, Valda reckoned. She looked at the old woman and summoned the word that had been haunting her night.

“Father.”

Freya’s ancient hands fumbled the stopper of the ointment, and the woman sighed deeply.

“I know. Hem is . . . he is alive. Which is perhaps as good as can be said.” Freya’s eyes squinted a little.

“He wants you to know that he loves you and that he has always been proud of you,” Wise Onden said. Her eyes were on Valda’s, and they were kind, but Valda couldn’t hold her gaze for long.

“Really?” Valda could hardly believe that. Her thoughts spun back to a night six years ago, right before their huts started burning and Wolf guards started stalking through their streets.

“You did WHAT?” Hem, the giant of a man, the First Sword of a dead jarl, roared in horror.

Hem Raven was the backbone of his people. The first to roar with laughter, the first to lead in battle. He had once slain a great outer mountain bear whose pelt now hung over his throne. The most powerful chief that the clan had ever known, or so it was said. He stood as tall as a tree and could silence his foes with a stony glance. Right now, the chief of the Raven Clan wore his chainmail, covered in blood, and he turned in front of the hearth fire to confront his daughter.

“You foolish, stupid child!”

“I had to try, father. You know I did. Erlich is trying to raise Hawk and Dog Clans. He is trying to lead the others against you.”

Valda Hemsdottir was only seventeen, and yet, she had already earned her first warrior’s band—a black tattoo that completely encircled her right arm. She wore simple, heavy green trousers and a thick shirt. At her hip was her long dagger with its handle of whalebone.

Valda’s own fists were cracked with dried blood and none of it her own. As her father had led his own attack, she had sought out her own vengeance.

Father and daughter versus jarl and prince . . . There was a certain justice to that, wasn’t there?

Justice for the Raven Clan at last. Valda’s thoughts were consumed with pride at what they had accomplished. Well—what her father had accomplished. Erlich had managed to escape her own knife, but two of his best guards hadn’t.

“I told you to stay out of this! You were not meant to get involved!” Hem shouted. He slammed his fist against the oak table, and the entire structure shook in its place, spilling tankards from last night’s feast onto the floor.

“But father . . . this is our moment! This is when Raven Clan rises! What you did was just. You struck a blow for the clan and for all of Otland.” Valda was confused. Why was her father reacting like this, especially when he had just killed the old jarl himself?

“You know nothing, child.” Hem’s voice was dark.

What?

“Only I can strike that blow. Only I have the father’s right to protect his child. What you did . . . you have doomed us all!”

The murder had taken place that very night, as the rest of the assembled clans were feasting.

Erlich’s father, Jarl Fustang Wolf, had agreed to a feast in his honor here in Korjall, to which he had invited select representatives of all the clans. Valda knew well enough that it was a show of strength and an opportunity for the Wolf Clan to impose a whole new set of taxes on all of them.

Fustang was a terrible jarl. Ever since the Wolf Clan had claimed the throne of Otland in a terrible, bloody war, Fustang had grown cruel and vindictive.

His rule doubled and tripled the tithes each clan paid to the jarl. Then Fustang had demanded the best warriors be sent to join his forces, stripping each clan of their fighting potential. Fustang stole and “reclaimed” tracts of land held by other clans, saying it was his right as jarl, but everyone knew it was his greed.

The avalanche broke when Fustang demanded that the clans send their comeliest women to the Wolf Clan too.

That was the line that Hem Raven would not cross. He would not send his daughter to be a serving girl or worse to that spilled milk of a boy, Erlich Wolf.

Hem Raven had struck back. The only blow that he had the right as a father to strike . . . and he had killed the Jarl of all Otland.

“He was so furious. He sent me away,” Valda said softly. She hung her head in shame. She remembered her father roaring at her in fury, demanding that she be gone from his household lest she bring death to all of them.

But it was a revolution, wasn’t it? Raven Clan was rising, destroying Wolf Clan.

At least, that is what her seventeen-year-old self had believed.

But now, Valda knew that her seventeen-year-old self had spent too long listening to sagas and daydreaming about the heroes of old. Revolutions did not happen in the present. Righteous heroes smiting down corrupt kings were a thing of the past.

Her father had never intended to overthrow Wolf Clan. He had been doing his duty as a father, knowing full well that according to Otland Wise law, he and only he could strike that blow and still be supported by the other clans.

He had been trying to avoid a clan war, not start one.

But because I attacked Erlich, the other clans had to come for justice, Valda thought bitterly. Wolf Clan came. And then Hawk. Then Dog and even Otter.

It made me an oathbreaker. And all Erlich had to do was to use that to claim that all Raven Clan were dishonorable and deserved every punishment they got.

“He was trying to save you,” Freya said softly.

“Save me?” Valda’s voice rose. The Wolf guards shuffled uneasily, their hands on their weapons. “He said he never wanted to see me again.”

Freya pursed her lips, and for a moment, said nothing. When she spoke next, it was in a fast hiss. “We should have had this talk a long time ago. What your father did was justice, but it was dangerous enough. He knew he would have to present his case to the clans for clan law to prevail. He knew the wise would support him . . .” The old woman’s eyes flickered with defiance.

“But he knew that Erlich would stop at nothing to have you killed back then. Your father would rather never see you and know you were alive somewhere in Aea then have you die,” Freya said.

Valda reeled. It was somehow worse hearing all of her deepest shame confirmed by the woman she trusted more than life itself. “The downfall of the Raven Clan was my fault. My actions brought all of this.”

Freya blinked. She shook her head, but her response came too slow.

“No, of course not. You were seventeen years old. A woman grown, but not even a shield maiden yet.”

“I did this.” Valda ignored her. A wave of doom settled over her. Erlich was in control of all of Otland. The only bit of good news was that he insanely wanted to capture a wild dragon, which was impossible, and perhaps it would eat him. If it wasn’t for the fact that Valda was certain she was going to die in the process, then she might even look forward to it.

But he has to let me track, doesn’t he? A thought blossomed in Valda’s mind, turning very slowly into a plan.

And if I can track, then I can escape. I know the mountains better than anyone else. Or I did . . .

“This White Dragon. Is Erlich serious?” Valda asked.

The only dragon riders in all of Aea belonged to the Lantics. They were trained at the fabled Fire Academy, where riders were paired with specially hatched and raised dragons. How under the moons did Erlich expect to get the same result?

Onden sucked her teeth in scorn. “Erlich is a greedy man. He has been making speeches, saying once Otland has a dragon of its own, then Lantic will be forced to trade with them. He wants Otland to be a power across all of Aea.” Freya shook her head.

“But that’s . . . madness,” Valda said.

The Kingdom of Lantic had been the main power on the continent of Aea for the last three hundred years. Generations upon generations of kings and queens had dominated the entire continent, the River Cities, the coasts, and the vassal states like Eranden with crossbow, sword—and dragon fire.

Although Otland was a large territory, almost all of it was made up of deep mountains and ice plains. Even without the dragons, Lantic could obliterate the clans in a war.

But those who had dragons . . . ? Valda had, of course, never seen them in battle. She had only been around the much smaller pack wyverns called Hobdragons.

But a dragon couldn’t be harmed by any mere fighter, could they? Their scales could turn aside blades and arrows. Their strength could tear apart castles. And their flames could melt metal.

Valda understood why Erlich would want one. She just couldn’t see it ever happening.

“It is madness. But there is something else happening here.” Freya leaned back, her voice going far away. Valda felt the hair on her arms rise.

“The wild dragons of Otland haven’t been seen since before your father’s birth. They used to be plentiful, but they grew scarce as the world changed. Some of us wise believe they saw what Lantic was doing, and they chose to find another world,” Freya said.

Tales, Freya thought. Like the story that the Otlanders came from another world entirely and had found the mythical Ice Bridge that joined their doomed world to this one, walked out of the ice wastes and into modern day Otland. It was ridiculous, wasn’t it?

“A wild dragon sign is an omen. Great change is coming, not just to Otland but to all the world. And a White Dragon, well . . . the sagas tell us what white means,” Freya intoned.

“Death,” Valda said. Every Otlander knew that the white at the top of the world meant only death.

Superstitions. Valda shook her head. None of this would help her.

Not that she had any intention of trying to track a dragon, after all. She fully wanted to lead whoever was with her into the first ice crevasse she could find.

“Star root.” Freya drew forth a small leather bag, opening it to show the long fingers of plant root and the few miniature heads of green leaves inside.

“The oldest sagas say that dragons adore it.” She stuffed the pouch back into the bag alongside the ointment and bandages as one of the guards coughed loudly at the open door.

“That’s enough! Time to go! Clear out of here, Wise!” the Wolf guard barked.

The sky through the open front door of the cells was indeed starting to lighten to a murky gray. Fat flakes of snow had begun to feather down outside. Valda could hear the distant creaks and cracks of ropes as the early morning fishermen were doubtless preparing their boats to go out onto the fjord.

“You do not tell a wise what to do!” Freya snapped at the guard, for the man to grimace and look away.

But even Freya appeared fearful. Her authority here, as wise to a disgraced clan that was already close to being eradicated, was slender at best. She turned back to Valda quickly as she pushed herself to her feet.

“Your father loves you. Remember that, Valda Hemsdottir. Your father loves you!”

The Wise left, to be replaced with grim-faced Wolf Clan guards dressed in the gray and charcoal pelts of their clan animals. They were silent as they unlocked her hands and watched as she dragged on her mountain-ready clothes. She was allowed no weapons, but she clutched at her bag of gifts like they were the most precious things in all the world.

Valda didn’t know what to make of her conversation with the Wise of her clan or what Freya had claimed about her father.

But the visit had brought one thing, if not insight: It had brought the thin flicker of hope—and rage.

I will escape. And when I come back, I will kill you, Jarl Erlich, she promised.

As Valda knew only too well, oaths were very powerful things.

Chapter 6

The Hunt

To Wolf, there was given great cunning.

To Bear, great strength.

To Dog, great loyalty.

To Hawk, great knowledge.

To Otter, great design.

But to Raven, there was given another thing—great insight.

Ravens are the beings that travel on the edges of the worlds. They survive in places where others cannot. That is why they make the best scouts, hunters, trackers, and trappers. Ravens see opportunity where others do not.

—The Saga of the Raven Clan (Otland)

Erlich didn’t even have the guts to come with us.

Valda suppressed a snarl as the rope that reached from her bound hands to the sled suddenly tightened, and she was almost yanked off her feet.

“Stars damn!” she swore, breaking into a stumbling jog as the tall double-decked work sled she was attached to started to trundle forward.

There was no time to bid farewell to the halls, streets, wood smoke, and huts of Korjall. The Wolf guard on the front of the sled cracked their whip over the behinds of the hissing Hobdragons.

Large fattened flakes of snow fell steadily around them, and the two wyvern-like creatures that pulled the sled clattered as they shivered their slate-gray scales. The fact that Erlich was using Hobdragons at all was a testament to how important he thought this mission was. Although the pony-sized lizards with their short, stout necks and wide, flat heads were commonplace in the south where the air was warmer—up here in the north, they were a lot rarer.

Each Hobdragon had powerful limbs that were stronger than a bull’s, but with an agility that made them capable of climbing as well as hopping, walking, and galloping. Wing flaps stretched from the bony elbows of their front legs to just above their hip spines, which could allow them to swoop rather than take any true flight. A short, stubby reptilian tail ended in a paddle-like bone.

I’ll be lucky if they don’t turn on US when the food runs out, Valda scowled. Although Hobs had no greater intelligence, like all draco species, they were as vicious as a fox in a hen house.

“Three cheers!” Valda heard Erlich’s voice rising behind them. She turned her head, hoping to see her father once again, but instead, she saw the rapidly diminishing delegation of Wolf warriors on the edge of the town square, holding spears. They had corralled whatever Ravensfolk they could, with Erlich clearly hoping for some kind of jubilant send-off on his mad quest.

There was a whimper of disgruntled voices and a half-hearted cheer and then Valda, the sled, and the guards were moving through the palisade walls and into the Fjall Mountains proper.

The palisade walls of Korjall were three men high, made of entire trunks of tall northern pine, and sharpened to a stake at the very top. Valda had never seen them fall to any toluk, bear, or enemy clan.

But Erlich was already inside the gates, wasn’t he? Valda thought miserably.

It was hurting her neck to keep it turned back, and she was about to concentrate on her run when she saw a shape on the inner bridge that ran the inside of the palisades, peering over the stakes.

It was the shaggy-haired form of Freya Onden, holding a guttering torch high in the air. Valda didn’t know whether she meant it as a symbol of hope or defiance, but she felt warmed by the sight, at least.

“Concentrate!” There was a shout, followed by the sharp crack-snap of the whip. Luckily, its long leather tine didn’t hit her, but Valda hurried her feet just the same.

The sled itself was the size of any wagon, but instead of wheels, it had three long strips of polished wood, making it perfect to ski over the tops of the recently laid snow. The first deck appeared stuffed with boxes and blanket rolls and barrels—hopefully, everything an expedition would need to capture a dragon. The deck above it was the driver’s deck, with a collection of four stern Wolf guards dressed in the gray-and-tan pelts of their clan. One of them held the Hobdragon’s reins at the front of the top deck, while a second snapped the long whip in the air enthusiastically.

Yeah, just wait until I get my hands on it, Valda promised.

They were taking the northern trail, which Valda knew well. It rose up through wooded banks to meet the ancient stone road that ran in an unbroken line at the base of the Fjall mountains.

There were many passes through the first line of mountains, but Valda knew if they traveled further and higher than that, then they would be in treacherous territory. They would be in the ice wastes.

Which is where I’ll have my freedom. Valda tucked her head against the rising howl of wind and ran onwards.

Valda tried to concentrate on her jog, making sure she raised her knees high and stamped down on the impacted snow underfoot. The exercise kept her body warm, so much so that she was actually sweating by the time they were deep into the foothills.

Tall pine trees rose on either side of their trail, cut into the woodland. Snow had still somehow managed to fill this ditch of a trail, and the Hobdragons were having a hard time bounding through it.

Exactly how are you supposed to track a dragon? Valda’s thoughts swirled.

Didn’t matter. She didn’t have any intention of actually doing so, anyway. There was a crevasse not too far from here—Fool’s Gap—that she hoped the Wolf Clan knew nothing about. They were more used to the softer, lower hills of their clan holdings underneath Raven territory, after all.

But still . . .

The puzzle of her supposed quest still awakened in her the old excitement of the hunt. Valda had been the best hunter in all of Raven Clan, and it was only natural that she had applied those skills to her second career as a bounty hunter in the south.

It’s all the same, isn’t it?

Find animal signs.

Find animal territory. Where they belonged. Where they felt safe.

Humans were surprisingly easy to track, Valda had discovered. Every being made a mark on the world it moved through. And every being (at least, the fleeing ones that she tracked) always moved like a hawk toward an area where they felt safe.

Thieves ran to markets. Drunkards ran to taverns. Fat old corrupt merchants ran to their townhouses.

But what would a dragon do—a creature that had no natural enemy or predator? Which didn’t have anything to fear?

Valda was toying with the question when suddenly, there was a reptilian gasp from up ahead.

One of the ropes attached to the Hobdragon’s collar snapped, and the entire sled lurched backward.

“Ach!”

Valda saw the corner of the two-level sled suddenly jump toward her down the slope. She had a moment to leap out of the way before the icy weight of it slid past her.

“Ah.”

Then she remembered her hands were still attached to the end of it.

With a force like a giant’s kick, Valda felt the rope yank as she was violently pulled from her feet, hitting the snow gulch and tumbling down after the sled.

No!

Her world turned over, white and black as the sled dragged her. She heard the snarl and cough of the Hobdragons and the desperate shout of the Wolf guards.

Before she was suddenly free, tumbling through the snow and skidding into the tree line as the sled slid down the ditch.

Holy moons! Valda slid to a halt, coughing and gasping for air.

“I still have my arms.” She was astonished.

She lay in the roots of a large pine tree overlooking the snow-filled trail that was now a churn of snow rubble. Shouts filled her ears as she saw the sled had swerved a good way down the incline before finally getting stuck. One of the Hobdragons was flapping its leathery arms free of the snow drift, still attached to the sled, and she had no idea where the other was.

The rope that had tied her to the sled had torn. Maybe it had caught one of the boulders or tree limbs edging the trail. Either way, Valda was now the proud owner of painful bound wrists and about six feet of rope.

I’m free. The thought hit Valda abruptly.

“You know what, I actually thought this was going to be a lot more difficult than that.”

The Wolf guards were spilled at the bottom of the trail, one of them hollering and shouting to find the escaped Hobdragon, another shouting about the supplies as he clambered out of the snow.

This was it. Valda knew she had seconds, and she might never get another chance like this.

Ignoring the painful burning in her wrists, and the thump of an ache in her shoulder where she had hit the ground, Valda rolled deeper into the trees, stumbled to her feet, and took off at a sprint.

I’m free!

Valda’s boots burst through the snow and slush. Every charging step brought up a surge of earthy, piney scent from the mat of rotting needles below.

I’m leaving obvious tracks, she worried. But right now, she had to get as far away as she could, as fast as she could.

Everyone flies back to what they know.

Valda realized that, unconsciously, her feet had taken her east—back in the direction of the trail and of Raven territory.

“Which is exactly where they’ll come for me!” Valda growled under her breath. The sounds of shouting voices and wheezing Hobdragons had long since disappeared behind her. Snowy forests had a way of doing that, which was something that worked in her favor.

But I can’t go back to Korjall, can I? Not yet, anyway . . .

Valda’s heart burned with a desire to sneak back to her clan town, find Erlich, and put an end to his miserable little hide for good. But Wolf Clan currently riddled Korjall. They would be on high alert. She would have to be smarter than that.

“And the guards would go straight east as soon as they see my tracks . . .”

No. Straight back home wasn’t an option. Valda skidded to a halt, forcing herself to think. The snow wasn’t heavy. There were dark patches under the trees that hadn’t been flaked—but it was everywhere else.

Bad news. Snow was easy to track in.

Unless . . .

She forced herself to slow down, even as her heart hammered in her chest like all the fiery forges of the Lantic armories.

She turned north. Up slope. The wooded hillside was slanted down, so the going would be harder.

“But they’re expecting me to go straight east, aren’t they?”

Valda looked around, and it didn’t take her too long to find what she was looking for. A large branch had rotted and fallen from above, still with splays of thinner twigs at the end. It formed a sort of broom. She picked it up and smacked at the snow around her feet, causing a mess, and then threw it low down the slope, catching the snow and causing more disturbance in the snow and pine needles.

“If the moons are favoring me, they’ll think I slid down,” Valda whispered before she turned and jumped to the nearest patch of dark needles.

She had to clutch at the branches of the tree to stop herself from sliding. She used the roots of the trees as stepping stones, carefully circling the trunk until she got to the other side—and then jumped to the next sheltered spot under the trees.

It was slow going, especially as Valda chose to zigzag up the slope rather than heading straight up. By the time that her thighs had started burning and the cold was getting past her exertion, she couldn’t even see where she had started from.

But was it far enough?

The ground leveled out ahead of her where a scramble of young trees had fallen under the weight of snow.

Yes! Valda was in luck. The snow was heaped up on one side, but from the slant of the slope and the tumble of branches, she guessed it would be clear on the other.

“Valda!”

Before she made her move, she heard a muffled, angered shout from somewhere far behind and below. It was no use trying to find the source, as she knew sound bounced about differently out here.

The Wolf guards were on her trail. They would likely find the place where she had “slipped.”

Valda was freezing. A quick look at the treetops confirmed it was getting toward late afternoon. Their expedition would have to start a camp before it got dark—if they didn’t want to get lost in the arctic north.

She moved, making the last jump to a nearby tree, and then carefully scrambling over the bare tree trunk to the other side.

Instantly, she fell into a deep hollow of branches and twigs, the scent of pine and moss heavy in the air. The snow dripped around her, and she crouched down, praying that they would lose her tracks.

“Valda! You’ll die out here! Stop being a silly girl and come out!”

One of the Wolf guards clearly did not know how to convince a woman to do anything.

Valda hunkered lower, pressing her back against the tree trunk behind her. Her hands were frozen. No one had thought to give her the hide of fur mittens that the guards wore. She stuffed her hands under her Raven stole and shoved her head down.

“She’s gone. And we need to get back too! She’ll be halfway back down the trail by now!”

One of the guards growled, considerably closer than Valda would have liked. She turned, moving with glacial slowness until she could peer through the branches back down the slope.

“Or we come back in the morning. I’m not going back to Erlich without at least her body. He’ll skin us alive!”

Yeah, that sounded like Erlich, in truth.

Two of the four Wolf guards were below her on the slant. She could make out their smaller forms as they turned and kicked at the snow.

“We’re not going anywhere,” growled a third voice as a new figure appeared. This Wolf guard was tall with a blonde beard plait that had long since gone gray. His head was completely shaved, and he wore no hood even though it was freezing here at the top of the world. On his head over his ear, Valda could just make out a stylized swish of a flowing dark tattoo.

No. Valda tensed against the tree.

That was Kielder Ten. One of the most fearsome warriors of the Eagle Clan. He must have been one of the two guards who had sat hunched in the sled.

Valda had never met Kielder Ten, but she had heard of him. Some said he had refused the chieftainship of Eagle Clan because he preferred battle. He was supposed to have hunted toluks for fun when he was a teenager.

At her flinch, she saw the tall warrior turn in her direction. Valda ducked back behind the tree trunk.

Don’t see me, don’t see me. She slowed her breathing, forced herself to become small.

Like a mouse. All animals know how to hide. You just draw as much of yourself in as possible . . .

Valda’s heart slowed, and her thoughts settled. Her eyes unfocused, and all that she could hear was the steady drip of the snow above her.

There was a cough of disgust from further down the slope. “Olar is with the Hob. He’ll light a fire for us to come back to. Down there—tracks. She might be trying to get back to the trail,” Kielder Ten announced.

They’ve fallen for it! The thought threatened to break Valda’s quiet. She heard the men moving off, heaving and huffing as they crunched and slid down the slope.

Valda forced herself to stay still. She counted to ten, then to fifty, and then to one hundred. When she could no longer hear any sign of them at all, she waited some more to make sure that the Wolf guards and Kielder Ten were indeed gone.

She shivered. Her body was trying to keep her warm, and she was grateful for it.

I have to keep moving. Move through the night. Stopping means death.

Valda crawled out of her hollow, pausing as she poked her head into the fresh air—but still, there was no sound of her pursuers.

“Good . . .” She pushed herself up to the level patch of snow . . .

Just as there was a crunch and a deep rattling hiss.

Huh?

Valda looked up to see that the escaped Hobdragon was right there, its claws clutching the tree trunk, its head lowered at her, ready to pounce.

Chapter 7

Can You Really Be Friends with a Dragon?

Perhaps the greatest weapon that helped the Nuoldim to conquer the world then was not their dragon armies and neither was it the magic that could warp the elements . . . it was moon shards, the crystal that allowed them to control thoughts and send messages far across the world. Their entire empire would have crumbled a lot earlier if humanity had discovered this secret artifice sooner . . .

—A Treatise on the Nuoldim Empire (RESTRICTED)

“Uh . . . hi?” Valda froze, her bound hands still held before her. She gripped the long coil of rope that had once bound her to the sled.

The Hobdragon above her rattled a deep threatening growl. Valda saw its swollen throat scales shivering as it warned her.

“I, uh, I’m not here to hurt you or get you to pull some heavy load of garbage,” Valda said uncertainly.

How were you supposed to talk to a dragon—even a Hobdragon?

Even though this was no True Dragon, it was still larger than a horse or a bear. It was hunched over, both sets of claws clutched on the trunk at the moment, but its wide, flattened head was swaying, matching her every move.

Sacred moons. Valda realized she had a whole new problem on her hands. The Hobdragons in the south were dumb brute beasts. They could be seen pulling heavy wagons and even being ridden through the streets of King’s Tower.

But those swollen Lantic Hobdragons were not these ones. Where had Erlich gotten his hands on them? They looked leaner and meaner—smaller but also more feral than the oafish beasts down south.

“Uh, easy there, easy . . .” Valda dropped her voice a register, trying to give the same soothing tone you gave to animals. She made an appeasing, waving gesture with her hands.

The Hobdragon suddenly twitched, its head following her every movement. It was a very, very predatory movement.

Moving slowly, it extended one paw that Valda couldn’t help but notice ended with four very large black talons. The paw crunched onto the floor ahead of it.

Valda saw its flank of scales ripple as it tensed.

What were you supposed to do with big predators? Valda thought back to the time when she used to hunt these hills.

The fjall bear would tear you apart. You had to freeze and hope.

The dire wolf wouldn’t care what you did; it would still hunt you down unless you had fire.

The ice vultures you could scare off with enough noise if they hadn’t seen any blood.

Freeze. Fire. Scare.

Well, it was no good Valda freezing as the Hobdragon was already about to pounce. She didn’t have any means of making fire, so that was out.

And quite frankly, Valda didn’t think this thing was going to be scared of a human half its size.

The rattling, hissing, hungry sound increased from the Hobdragon’s throat.

What else was there . . . distract?

Valda had a rope in her hands and a hungry, annoyed half dragon. That didn’t sound like a lot.

Oh, wait.

She had her cloth bag still on her back and stuffed with the things that Freya had given her. She had dried jerky in there. Maybe she could . . .

“Star root,” Valda realized. “The Wise said dragons like this stuff, and you definitely look like a dragon to me right now, okay?”

She slowly moved her hand up to her shoulder, tugging at the strap that released her cloth satchel bag into her hands. The end of the rope hit the ground with a wet thump.

The Hobdragon’s rattle increased in alarming pitch. It was now putting its weight on its forepaw, like a cat in slow motion hunt.

“Moons, moons, sacred moonlight, and . . .” Valda pulled at the drawstring, shoving her hands inside until she found the smaller cloth packet. She grabbed the first handful of the strange fingerlike tubers.

“You like these, huh? This is food, right?” Valda said quickly, throwing a collection of tubers with tufted growing green fronds at the creature.

The star root hit the snow in front of it and sank.

The Hobdragon looked at it in confusion, then looked at Valda.

Oh, drat.

Valda had the terrible sensation she had just insulted a dragon. She knew she was going to die. She was going to be ripped to shreds and not even by the beast that she had been told to hunt . . .

With a cough, the Hobdragon suddenly pounced—straight at the spot where the star root had disappeared. Snow and earth burst everywhere as the creature pummeled at the ground with its claws, sticking its head straight into the hole and snuffing, huffing, and chomping victoriously.

“Uh, okay. I guess you like that, then?” Valda took a step back and then another. She had to put the bag down to reach for another handful of the root, and by the time she raised again, she found that the Hobdragon was looking at her expectantly with earth and snow dripping from its mouth.

Valda grinned despite herself, throwing the star root in the air for the creature to catch. She saw the Hobdragon’s strong hind legs bunch as it raised its head and body . . .

“Skrekh!”

Before it abruptly snarled in pain, twisting to one side, and thumped onto the snowy ground.

What?

Valda watched as the dragon shivered, whimpering in a high, keening tone.

“Oh no! Was it the star root?” Valda’s heart thumped in panic. What if she had hurt it? A sudden animal impulse made her dart forward toward the thing.

“No, it’s not the star root,” a deep gravelly voice intoned, as Kielder Ten stepped out from the trees.

Dung, she cussed under her breath.

Kielder Ten held his hand-and-a-half sword in one gloved grip. The blade was a little over two feet long, its metal a dreamy, inky black that caught the light iridescent greens and blues.

The First Sword of the Jarl. Valda recognized it instantly. It was the exact same blade her father had once wielded, given to the Jarl of Otland’s most acclaimed warrior and battle chief. Legend stated that it was forged by the ancient fae, strange and cruel Nuoldim themselves—although Valda had never known if it was true.

Valda had no weapon. Her hands were still bound, but her body tensed automatically, dropping into a crouch, ready to fight. Her eyes flickered to the squirming body of the Hobdragon on the ground, clearly in distress.

“What have you done to it?” Valda whispered in horror. How have you done this to it?

Kielder Ten watched her with small eyes that were dark under his heavy brows. Valda could see the swooping tattoos on the side of his head now. They were hawk feathers, denoting his clan.

The man reached up, pulling at the collar of his heavy studded leather tunic and tugged out a pendant on a loop of black leather twine.

“Moon shards!” Valda gasped when she saw the tiny glittering jewel on the end of the twine.

The tiny sliver of gemstone had been smoothed and shaped into a teardrop, but even from this distance, Valda could see its milky opalescence reflecting the snow glare with a flash of brilliant pink. It seemed to have the slightest radiance about it, although she didn’t know if that was the light shining through it.

“How else do you think Erlich managed to keep a hold of his Hobs?” Kielder Ten stated heavily. He rubbed the crystal with his gloved hands, and the Hobdragon whimpered once more.

“Up,” Kielder said in a heavy voice.

The Hobdragon lurched, stamping its clawed paws onto the ground as it pushed itself to a seated position.

Moon shards were a Lantic artifice, Valda knew. It was how the Dragon Watch controlled their True Dragons, while the Hobs of the south were raised in great breeding pens where moon shards hammered commands into their simpler minds.

Valda saw the way that the sides of the dragon quivered, and the folds of scales at its throat rattled as it tried to fight the bind that the crystals had over it.

“If you’ve got moon shards, then why do you even need me here anyway?” Valda said. She slid a look around her. The pine woods were deep and dark. The Sun set early this far north.

“You could just let me go. Erlich would never even know. You know my chances of making it out here . . .” she started to bargain.

Kielder Ten cut her off with an amused chuckle. “Your chances are probably pretty good, I’d say. Even without proper equipment, Valda Hemsdottir could survive on the ice wastes for two nights, wasn’t it?”

Three, actually. Valda grimaced. That had been when she was sixteen. She had been hunting a white buck much further out than she usually went, and an ice fall had caused her to detour into a journey that took her three nights instead of one. When she’d come back (with the buck) her father had called her a hero.

She tried again. “You’re not even Wolf Clan. What does Hawk owe to Wolf? You know what Erlich is.”

“Hunt.” Kielder snapped.

Instantly, the Hobdragon stopped shivering. Its head lowered, and its eyes glittered as it watched Valda’s every movement. It started to lean forward, ready to pounce.

“Erlich is jarl. The Eagle Clan obeys clan law, oathbreaker,” the First Sword said.

Valda kept her eyes on the Hobdragon. Even with its mind controlled by Ten, it was still a predator. She knew as soon as she moved, that would make it pounce. What was she going to do?

Nothing, apparently, as Kielder stepped out from behind the Hob, his sword raised as he approached her slowly.

“We still need a tracker. And moon shards only work on the dragon they’ve been twinned with. Throw me your rope,” Kielder growled.

“And what if that thing bites my hands off?” Valda hissed.

Kielder shrugged, his one hand holding up the moon shard pendant. “You take your chances in this life, scout,” he said grimly.

Toluk dung!

Valda kept her movements slow and steady as she looped up the rope in her hands, and then, as gently as possible, threw it toward the First Sword, who stepped forward and stamped on the end. The dragon’s head twitched with every movement and then it returned to edging toward Valda.

“Halt.” Ten said, and the dragon instantly froze. He casually picked up the rope, taking it toward the dragon to loop around the creature’s neck and tie it off. Valda knew she could run, but with Kielder in command of the Hobdragon, she would be run down and caught in seconds.

“Nice try, Raven. But you’ve got work to do,” Ten said, muttering another command to the Hobdragon so that it turned and started following him back to the trail.

Valda stumbled forward, angry tears rolling down her face.

She was captured once more, but in her mind, the image of the pendant burned brightly.

If I had that, then I would control the Hobdragons. And then maybe not even Kielder Ten could stop me . . .

Chapter 8

Dragon Sign

All creatures make a mark on the world, and the world tells its secrets through them. A cloud of birds can signal threat or opportunity. The first buds of the ash tree foretell spring . . . And a wolf print always foretells death.

—The Way of the Hunter (Otland)

“Halt!” Valda shouted as the trees around them whipped and flurries of snow fell.

Ice winds howled around the expedition, and Valda stood still with her hands bound and attached to the Hobdragon (Feisty, as she had named him).

They were much higher now, a full two days later. They were almost through the foothills and to the edge of the Fjall Mountains proper. Wooded gorges and hills rose on all sides, and they trudged through deep snow drifts. They had hunted moose and rabbit to supplement their dwindling stores, and every night lit a bonfire as they sheltered in tents attached to the sled.

“What is it?” Kielder shouted, standing up on the sled’s driving board. He signaled for the Hobdragons to stop their pulling, and the sled skidded to a stop.

Feisty was pulling at the rein and at the second rope that went from its neck to Valda’s wrists.

“What have you seen, boy?” she whispered.

He was straining at the ropes, which was unusual for him. Feisty seemed to want nothing more than to disobey any orders he was given unless Kielder reinforced them with the moon shard.

Valda followed the dragon’s snout, saw him open his scaled maw and taste the air. She raised her eyes to see large winged specks circling in the sky.

Oh!

For a moment, her heart leapt—but then she saw the flutter of feathers and their dark brown-and-black plumage.

Ice vultures.

But there were a lot of them, performing their classic “death spiral” as they descended through the trees to a spot just ahead of them. Valda cocked her head. Past the wheezes and cries of the wind, she heard the raucous cry of the vultures.

“That’s gotta be something big that’s died out there, to attract that many,” Valda murmured.

She was more interested in Feisty’s reaction, though, as his eyes flickered from the vultures to the trees and then up to the air again. Like all predators, he was always interested in meat, but this time, he seemed . . . intense.

And if Feisty is interested in it, then I bet any dragon would be too, Valda thought.

Their route had taken them a day away from Fool’s Bridge, and so Valda hadn’t had the opportunity to try to fling them all into the ice. In truth, a weary acceptance had settled over her heart.

She couldn’t flee as long as Kielder held the moon shards. He would just send the Hobs after her. And Kielder didn’t sleep with the humans in their shared tent but instead crawled into the first level of the sled itself, wrapped in blankets.

So, no chance to steal that shiny bit of glass you’ve got, Valda grimaced.

In truth, Valda was having second thoughts about her plan too. She had wanted to lead the sled over an ice bridge that wouldn’t hold their weight . . . but that would drag Feisty (and Sullen, as she called the other more morose plodding Hobdragon) to their deaths as well.

And I don’t see why you two should die just for those dregs of toluk spit, Valda thought.

Despite her situation, Valda had found a growing sense of admiration for Feisty and Sullen. They were hardy and naturally fierce. They had no desire to obey the whims of man. And like her, they were captured beings.

“If I can free you both, I will,” Valda whispered to Feisty’s shoulder, who thwapped their paddle tail in response and quivered in anticipation of what was ahead.

“Dragon sign?” Kielder shouted.

Valda shrugged. “Maybe.” It was the best clue they’d had so far, anyway.

Kielder jumped down from the sled and ordered two long canvas bags to be dragged out of the first level and stacked on top. Valda tried to see what they were as one of the Wolf guards opened them, but Kielder was turning back, signaling them to move on.

Their way through the forest was awkward and slow, as the path they were following was really a hunter’s track, not a proper road. They had to make their way along the narrow path with the Hobdragons passing between the trees one at a time and then straining to pull the sled behind them. Valda shadowed Feisty’s shoulder just a couple of steps behind.

There was a glint of white through the trees. Valda saw they were coming to an opening.

Just then, Feisty started to pull harder, and Sullen, seeing his friend agitated, copied. Feisty let out a strange high-pitched keening sound that Valda had never heard him make before.

“Something’s got you interested. Very interested,” Valda said.

The sled skipped forward to the sudden snarl of the driver, who cracked his whip over the Hobs’ heads.

“Halt!” Kielder shouted, as the two Hobs were in danger of flinging the sled to one side. All at once, the two beasts stopped, quivering—but not before they had uncovered what lay ahead.

They had popped out of the far edge of the woods, revealing a bank that led down to a long ribbon of pristine white.

Not pristine. Valda ran up to Feisty’s side. A little way off, there was a large humped shape on the ground, surrounded by the fluttering wings of ice vultures.

This is the Frost Road! Valda turned to look at the wide ribbon of flat, undisturbed white snow that ran left to right as far as the eye could see before it disappeared around a spur of rocky outcrops.

And that meant . . .

She looked up.

The Fjall Mountains—or more accurately, the first ring of the Fjall Mountains—loomed over them in their monumental snow whites and granite grays. The Frost Road ran like a river at the base of the Fjall Mountains and was overlooked by scree slopes and rocky spurs before the long climb up to the mountains themselves.

No one really knew who had made the Frost Road, as it was an exact width for the entire stretch of northern Aea. Valda had been taught that it was a relic of the Nuoldim, but she couldn’t see why anyone would ever build a road this far north leading from nowhere to nowhere. In her eyes, the road looked more like a bracelet or a warning boundary. If you hit this, head east or head west, but north will only lead to death . . .

Feisty rattled once again, and now, even Sullen joined in. They quivered against their controls as they strained toward . . . a carcass.

It was a body that had attracted the attention of the ice vultures, Valda saw. From its brutal size (larger than the sled they were pulling) and its rough shaggy brown fur, it looked the size of a small mamut.

What the hell is a mamut doing here? Valda thought at once. The large hairy creatures with curling tusks and long prehensile trunks roamed the ice wastes and tundra, migrating through some of the famous mountain passes to the lower forests.

But the land around them was hilly and deep. Valda guessed that perhaps the creature could have taken the Ice Road, but it would have had to walk for weeks with no herd, far away from its migration pastures.

Odd.

The ice vultures, their wingspans larger than Valda was tall, were hopping all over it, trying to find the rich meat.

Suddenly, Feisty let out another high-pitched keening sound, but this time, he was looking up at the crags and mountaintops high above them.

“What’s got you?” Valda felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. She got the unmistakable sense that what she was looking at was wrong and that they were being watched.

“What you got, dragon sign?” Kielder arrived at her side, taking a look down the road to see the mamut’s body.

“Don’t know yet. But I can’t very well go see, can I?” Valda raised her bound hands, still attached to the loop around Feisty’s neck.

Kielder grunted, looked at Valda, and then looked at the mamut. A sour look turned his mouth, but he nodded all the same.

“Okay. Go take a closer look. Try not to get eaten.” Kielder produced a skinning knife from his belt, and with one swipe, he cut the rope that went from her wrists to Feisty’s neck.

“Uh, and the rest?” Valda held up her still tied hands.

Kielder Ten smiled maliciously. “No chance. And no weapon either. You do your job, maybe you get your hands freed.” The First Sword tapped his chest where the moon shard hid under his clothes. “And don’t forget, if you decide to run, it won’t be far, and it won’t be for long.”

Go eat toluk breath. Valda glared at him.

“And the ice vultures?” she said pointedly.

Kielder cast around until he saw a stout stick under the trees. He sauntered over to it and picked it up to casually throw onto the Ice Road, where it landed with a plume of snow.

“Beat them back with that. Otland’s best hunter should be able to cope, right?” he said.

“Thanks,” Valda snarled at him, turning smartly to jump down from the woody embankment.

“Ooof!”

She sank at least three feet into the snowdrift by the side of the bank and had to half swim, half clamber to get out to the firmer snow and ice in the middle of the road.

“Darn self-righteous Hawks!” she muttered as she retrieved the stout stick, having to hold it in both hands before carefully approaching the carcass.

Hmm. Valda squinted at the road itself. The snow she was in was mostly pristine and untouched. No sign of mamut tracks.

Even though it was a small mamut, it was still large compared to Valda. She couldn’t see over its brown locks.

It’s also fresh, she thought. The air was sharp with the iron of the creature’s blood, but there was no smell of offal or rot.

How did a freshly killed mamut get here? She repeated the question to herself.

“Well, the darn ice vultures didn’t carry it here, did they?”

There was a squawk as the first of the ice vultures spotted her and shrieked down at her, flaring its wings where it stood atop the body.

Valda remembered then just how big an ice vulture was. The thing had a small bald head, but its beak was large and bone white, and its wingspan was wider than she was tall. Its feathers were a deep brown and black.

“Okay, fella. I’m not interested in stealing your food. I just want a look,” Valda grumbled—although she knew that a mamut this size would feed all five of them and the Hobdragons for a week.

No sooner had the first bird shrieked, than another hopped at it, pecking its wings to demand access to the potential new prey. Valda waved her stick back and forth in front of her. Ice vultures were a serious threat, but they rarely attacked anything that wasn’t already wounded. So long as she made enough noise, then they should . . .

There was a flash of dark wings as suddenly one of the monster birds launched. It screeched as it swept low over the snows toward her.

“Get away!” Valda yelled, jumping to one side and swinging her stick in a wide arc. It caught the edge of the ice vulture’s wing, knocking it into a squawking, flaring flight away from her and over the corpse.

“Back! Back!” she screamed. Two more of the creatures hopped backward, but another three jumped onto the top of the carcass, their heads bobbing as they examined the new threat.

Valda sidestepped around the body, past one giant foot that looked like a stub of tree trunk with blackened nubs for toes. She swept the branch back and forth in front of her experimentally a few more times, just to keep the birds at bay.

And then she saw what had killed the mamut.

As in; the juvenile mamut was missing a head.

“And as far as I know, having a head is pretty vital for all creatures,” Valda murmured to herself.

Oh.

Valda froze. The appearance of a mamut here, so far from its pastures. The lack of tracks. The missing head.

The freshness of the kill . . .

“There’s only one creature that can bite off a mamut’s head, even a young one like this one,” Valda whispered. There was also only one creature that could snatch a young mamut from its herd and carry it over the mountains to drop it on the Ice Road.

“The White Dragon,” she whispered—just as there was a piercing shriek from the mountain crags above.

Interlude

ISKYR, ANGRY

These beings are trying to steal my meat!

Iskyr had been perched atop the crag, glaring intently at the beings below. He knew how to hide. He had been hunting long enough to know how to let the first flurries of snow meld his sharp edges, the whiteness of his scales concealing him utterly against the winter.

Humans. Drakes. Ice vultures.

As his great green eyes widened, the knowledge that his mother had given him, along with the different scents attached to the memories, arose in his mind.

Even so near to the After as she was, Screams-with-the-Sun was doing her best to pass on her knowledge of the world to him.

Humans are awful beings. Very small but very destructive. They think they own everything, Iskyr remembered.

He glared down at them and saw how they had two Drakes in their thrall. The Drakes were thrashing and hissing, aware of his presence. When he concentrated, he could almost hear their minds . . . but they were very muted and very soft, more like dreams than real thoughts.

Drakes are our little siblings, but they are not us. They did not come into the world, but were made inside it by the works of an older race . . .

Iskyr did not understand. His mother had talked of this older race before, but the scent memory she conjured of them was elusive and disappeared quickly. It reminded Iskyr of ruins and moonlight.

But he knew two things. These creatures were after the meat he had worked hard to kill! He had already had his fill with the head and had decided to rest before carrying the remains back to Screams-with-the-Sun.

Perhaps the fresh food will revive her. A wild hope surged through him. It was all he could think to do.

The second thing he knew was that the minds of the humans were full of lies and greed. They were afraid of their Drakes, and yet they used them like prey. They were lying to each other, saying they wanted their task, and yet half of them wanted to kill the other half.

The cries of his siblings grew more frantic, and Iskyr heard the crack of the ugly black whip as its barbed ends slapped against the hides.

No dragon should be treated like this! We are lords of the sky! Second only to the Sun!

Iskyr roared and leapt from his rock. He would show these humans who ruled the top of the world . . . and whose meat that was!

Chapter 9

Hunters and Hunted

All that matters is the song your life sings before you die. Every action you take, every oath you make or break—adds to the song of your clan. In time, that becomes a saga.”

“What are you doing worthy of the sagas?

—Otland advice given to many young clansfolk

“Back! Get back here!”

Valda froze as Kielder Ten’s voice rose, and the dragon shriek echoed over the crags and rocks. She turned, trying to identify the source of it, but it was impossible as the sound bounced and carried from promontory to cliff to crag.

There was a cloud of smaller, more hysterical screeches as the ice vultures called, two of them jumping into the air while another one dove at Valda.

Sacred moons!

Valda swung her stick, just in time to smack the creature away before its heavy wing slammed into her side, knocking her to the ice and snow. With a snarl, she turned, rolling out of the way . . . but lost her stick in the process.

Valda scrambled to her feet, spinning around to see that two of the ice vultures had landed on the Ice Road before her. Their heads bobbed, and they hissed at her hungrily. The rest of the flock were hysterically pulling the last strips of meat from the mamut’s neck as if they knew that their lunchtime was over.

“Valda! Get back here!” Kielder roared. She shot them a glance to see that the Wolf guards were thumping two long metal tubes onto the rails of the sled. Feisty and Sullen were jumping up and down where they stood, straining at their reins and mewling into the air above them.

They’re excited, Valda saw . . .

Just as a shadow eclipsed her and the carcass as well.

A thundering shriek tore over the Ice Road as the body of the White Dragon swept over them all.

The dragon was large, with wings that could easily stretch the entire length of the Raven Hall. It had a vicious-looking face which ended in a maw of fangs and twin horns that swept back from its skull. Every scale on its body was white, some glimmering with a faint pearlescence, while others looked like bone.

“Sacred winds, waters, and moons!” Valda gasped even as her heart leapt. She felt joy, awe, and terror all in one. This creature was huge. This creature could melt them all with one cough.

“Aim the harpoons!”

Valda was distantly aware of Kielder bellowing, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the creature as it swept over them, scaring off a couple of the vultures and then rising. She watched in joy as it turned on a wingtip as delicately as if it had defied the earth’s pull for a moment—and then turned back toward its food . . . and them.

“Screkh!”

There was a screech, and suddenly, Valda felt a sharp stab of pain on her back as she was pulled to one side. One of the ice vultures, knowing its food was about to be returned to its rightful owner, had dared grab at her cloak and pull her toward its brethren.

No!

Valda spun as she hit the ground, slamming her bound fists into the side of the ice vulture’s head, hearing it croak in pain as it scattered away.

Valda hit the ground and ate snow. Then she was turning over and kicking her legs to bat away the next ice vulture and the next . . .

“Ready!” Kielder shouted.

Before the birds could find her vulnerable neck, there was a blood-curdling shriek, and a shadow engulfed Valda. The ground thundered as giant claws slammed into the snow, scattering the ice vultures.

Valda screamed. One of the dragon’s forepaws, as large as her chest, had punched through the snow just a foot away from her head. She saw black curling talons as long as her hand.

The dragon was sheltering over its kill, its scaled wings completely covering Valda and the mamut, hissing at the human intruders.

“Fire!”

Valda saw shapes burst from the tubes that Kielder had brought. Harpoons, her mind registered. Something flashed through the air, and suddenly, the great wyrm was recoiling, screeching in pain.

Javelins at least four feet in length had slammed into the dragon’s hide. Most had splintered on impact, but Valda saw three places where they had smashed scales, and one javelin near the beast’s neck was stuck fast.

“We got it! Get the nets!” Kielder demanded.

Valda looked up in horror as the White Dragon staggered backward, trying to reach its own neck and not able to. Its movements were suddenly clumsy and awkward.

They’ve poisoned it, Valda realized. That’s how Erlich meant to capture a dragon—through poison!

She felt a deep revulsion turn her gut. This was not natural. This was not hunting. How could they do this to this magnificent, fierce being?

This is exactly what Erlich does to everything. Valda’s lips curled in disgust. Around her, she heard Feisty and Sullen thrashing against their ropes. The Wolf guards were jumping from the sled, each holding thick rolls of heavy nets and clubs in their hands.

Erlich steals. He beats and he threatens, and then he uses. And when whatever he used has no more value—he throws it away.

Valda saw the Wolf Guard approaching, and she knew what she had to do.

“Curse this,” she swore and jumped up . . . toward the dragon itself.

“Valda! What are you doing?” the voice of the First Sword raged.

But Valda ignored him completely. She dove to one side, avoiding the stamp of a dragon claw, and then jumped to the next side, under the sweep of the wing. The growl of the White Dragon was above her and all around her.

She saw the creature’s awkwardly lowered shoulder and the javelin sticking out of it.

She jumped, grabbing onto the haft of the poisoned dart. She let her weight pull her back down, yanking the javelin from the beast—before she fell to the trampled ground.

Chapter 10

An Unlikely Ally

A kindness can be just as powerful as a sword at the right time and in the right hands.

—An Otland proverb

Valda didn’t scream as the stamp of reptilian feet trampled all around her. For one, the pain of hitting the ground shook all of the breath from her body.

And besides, a last victorious thought ran through her—at least in her death, she wouldn’t give Kielder and the Wolf Clan the satisfaction.

At least Erlich won’t get his dragon.

There were shouts and screams around her, the whirl of shadow and light and heavy pounding feet. She heard a great whoosh, and suddenly, somehow, there was light in her eyes.

I’m not dead, she realized. She was not looking at her ancestors coming to greet her, but instead, she was looking at the peaceful, icy blue northern skies.

In her amazement that she was not in fact dead, Valda failed to recognize that there was utter mayhem happening behind her. She staggered to her feet, and only then did she turn around to see the melted snow, the burning bodies—and the smoking ruin of the sled.

The dragon had loosed its fire. She saw the great pile of slush and the smoking body of the mamut, and a trail of slush and churned earth leading to the burning wreckage of the sled.

Her heart beat, and then she heard the screams and terrified shouts of the Wolf Guard fleeing down the trail they had picked to get here.

Not all of them had made it, however. There were at least two dead guards, with the charred remains of nets on the ground.

There was a haunting cry, and Valda looked up to see that one of the Hobdragons was still here. Feisty had remained, cowering at the edge of the Ice Road and looking up into the skies as he keened.

Where’s Kielder? Valda thought in a heartbeat. Was she lucky enough that the First Sword of the Jarl himself had been killed by the White Dragon?

Somehow, something in her heart told her that could not be the case. Kielder was quick, and he was a Hawk. They were fast and savage, and a man like him would probably have found a way to escape.

Her eyes were drawn inevitably up to where Feisty was whimpering to see a sudden snowfall on a ledge of the rocks far above her. As she stared, she saw that snow burst from the edge of the rocks and a flicker of wings.

The dragon was poisoned, Valda knew. She saw another distant wingbeat, like a trapped bird trying to escape a snare.

Feisty whimpered once again, and in that pain and longing, Valda felt all the pain she had experienced being at the mercy of Erlich.

“What have you done?” Valda whispered up to the sight of the tormented, poisoned dragon. She was angry at Erlich’s petty greed. No, not angry—she was furious.

This was the only dragon she had ever heard of in the north. It was quite possibly the only wild dragon of its kind in all of Aea.

And now Erlich had gone and killed it.

Valda shook where she stood, hearing the keening of Feisty across from her, and felt his loss. This was wrong on a level that was somehow hard for Valda to articulate. It went against every natural law that she had been raised to follow as an Otlander.

Yes, you might have to kill to survive. You hunted. You trapped.

But you weren’t cruel.

And what was more, you only took enough to fulfill your needs. What need did Erlich have of a dragon, other than to throw it to certain death against the much better trained and bigger armies of the Lantics?

No.

There was a sudden strange whimper from Feisty, and Valda spun around to see him lurching to one side. The Hob hit the ground and then slowly dragged itself up again and took one shuddering step toward the trail.

“Fight it, Feisty!” Valda realized what was going on. Feisty was being pulled toward Kielder’s moon shard. That meant Kielder was alive.

Ice ran down Valda’s spine as she watched Feisty slowly trudge, rattling and whimpering, past the burning sled. How long before Kielder came back up to the Ice Road and searched for her body, to realize that Valda Hemsdottir was very much not dead?

And then the hunt would be on, and Valda had no hope against two Hobdragons. Kielder would use Feisty and Sullen to rip her to shreds.

Erlich has moon shards. He will come back. Her mind worked quickly. If the Jarl had two Hobdragons then he was rich enough to get more. He might not have Valda Bloodaxe, but he would find other scouts and other trackers. The next time he came up here, he would send ten teams with many of those poison javelins.

At least Erlich won’t get his dragon, she repeated as she came to the strangest decision she had ever made in her life.

She might have doomed Raven Clan to destruction for her young foolish hatred. She might well be an oathbreaker.

“But there is one thing I will not allow Erlich to have,” Valda said.

She stopped only to loot one of the bodies of the Wolf clansmen of their weapons, gloves, and essential items, then Valda turned to the outcrop of rocks where the White Dragon was trying to hide—and she ran.

Interlude

ISKYR, POISONED

What is this? What has been done to me?

Iskyr’s mind was a torment of ugly red and deep cloying shadows as pain shook through him.

His body felt ill. His muscles shook with fatigue and anguish, and his joints ached. It was like that time he caught the deep winter chill that Screams-with-the-Sun warned him about. He had spent an entire moon shivering in their cave with his mother feeding him meat morsel by morsel.

But this did not come from any mere illness, did it? This pain centered on the wound at his shoulder and at his chest.

But I am a lord of the sky, second only to the Sun! How could these humans think to attack me?

Iskyr’s thoughts were a jumble and a nonsense. Like the time he had been ill. He felt shivery with cold, although he knew that his body was not. A terrible lethargy ran through him.

But worse even than that was what this might mean for Screams-with-the-Sun. Who would feed her meat if he had to hibernate for a whole moon? She would sing her Mourning Song, and she would pass into the After without anyone to witness her.

Without me . . . Iskyr’s heart felt like it was going to break.

He flapped his wings, trying to remember once again how to fly, but they were clumsy and awkward. The red-and-black shadows closed around his mind, and he felt like he was so very young once again.

And this time, he was so very alone.

Chapter 11

At Least It Will Be Hot

There are few creatures that can survive at the top of the world, and all of them deserve our respect.

—A Bestiary of Aea (common)

Valda felt the sweat trickling down her back as she grabbed the ice-laden rocks, crunched her fingers into the crevices, and pulled herself up the final few feet.

Her hands were now secure inside the otter-skin gloves she had pilfered from the dead, but even these had not stopped the creep of cold into her finger bones.

“If I’m not careful, I’ll get frostbite,” Valda muttered. She had to keep moving. She had to keep warm.

She rolled onto the platform of rock with a gasp, panting after her exertion and pausing only to draw up the rope and small iron grapple she had also stolen. She looped it around her middle and turned to what lay in front of her.

There was no dragon.

Instead, there was a mess of disturbed snow and the dark recess of a cave.

“This is such a terrible idea,” she whispered, pulling the star root from her bag and trudging forward.

I just need to make sure it is alive and that it can fly off. That’s all, she told herself over and over.

Although she was nervous, Valda was surprised that she felt no terror. Not right now, anyway. Maybe it was the exertion of her climb that had forced all fear from her mind.

“Or maybe I’ve gone mad,” she murmured.

Suddenly, the thought seemed irredeemably funny. She started to chuckle and then to laugh.

This was ridiculous. She was about to go check on a moon-cursing real live True Dragon. What did she expect she was going to do—offer it a cup of tea and ask if it was okay?

Valda was halfway through her second round of good honest laughter when she heard a deep rattling whimper from the cave ahead.

Oh, spit!

She froze, all humor evaporating from her in a moment. Her eyes pierced the gloom, and she thought she could see a shadow of movement, a suggestion of vast bulk.

Was this it? Was she about to meet her ancestors as a roar of dragon flame stole the flesh from her body?

Valda didn’t even breathe. But nothing happened. There was no fire and no entry into the sagas. The cold crept back into her body, and she felt her limbs tremble. Whatever was about to happen, she would either die of hypothermia or dragon fire.

At least it will be hot, she thought and took a step forward.

Long glittering clear stalactites had been sheared from the cave’s opening by the dragon’s passage. As soon as she stepped inside, she smelled the rich tang of blood.

“You’re hurt!” she whispered, taking another cautious step and holding out her star root ahead of her like it was a magic wand.

Of course, it’s hurt. I ripped a javelin from its shoulder! She berated herself, edging deeper and deeper into the dark.

There was a shift in the darkness and a deep rattling hiss. Once again, Valda froze where she stood. And once again, she was not killed.

The warning rattle coughed, becoming a weak, sickened whimper.

“What did they stick you full of?” Valda whispered, edging her feet deeper into the dark. Hesitantly, she threw one of the pieces of star root into the shadows.

There was another hissing sigh and then the sound of metal rasping or rocks sliding before the sudden sound of a chomp.

“You like that, huh?” Valda’s voice trembled. She held up the next piece of star root defensively.

“I’m not here to hurt you. I need you to flee. You really need to get out of here,” Valda said. She took another step.

Weren’t True Dragons supposed to be intelligent? Was she supposed to talk to one like you talk to a Hobdragon or a horse or a dog?

There was a sudden hiss of annoyance, and a breath of sulfur-laden air hit her. The creature moved, and Valda saw a chink of light suddenly shine into the cave from where the dragon had been blocking it.

The cave, it appeared, was vast. Big enough for the full form of the White Dragon to lie inside. The beast was huddled with one wing awkwardly bunched high on its shoulder and the other half-covering his form.

It’s a he, Valda knew instinctively, although she didn’t know how she knew.

Valda saw yards of dark, leathery wing flesh, and then acres of white scales. Some were as large as shields where they ran down the dragon’s side. Others were as small as her hand or smaller. The dragon had a ridge of bony stubs that ran down the length of his back and a tail that looped around and around before ending in trident-like bone barbs. Valda was sure that one swipe of that tail alone would smash her bones.

The tail thumped against the cave floor, heavily and sloppily.

“Here.” She threw another piece of the star root toward the monster’s wing and prayed that would buy her some small good favor.

No sooner had the root bounced on the stony floor than the dragon wing twitched.

A bullish head almost as large as Valda was herself shot out, catching the root in giant jaws before it hit the floor a second time. With one chomp, the root disappeared.

Valda’s heart hammered in her chest. The dragon turned its head to stare at her with two vivid green eyes. The beast had two swept-back, large horns of pale yellow. A deep keening cry came from the dragon’s mouth before it slumped its head on the floor with a great thud.

A deep shudder ran through the creature’s neck and down its body. Valda heard the shiver of scales like the clatter of armor plates.

“You’re trying to keep warm,” she murmured as the shivering increased and then subsided.

“Just like me, I guess,” she whispered. Even though they were out of the worst of the wind, she still felt freezing. Both she and the dragon would need a fire if they were going to last the night.

“I’m here to help. You . . . they shouldn’t have done that to you,” she said, fumbling at her padded jacket. She no longer had any star root, having given it all either to Feisty or this dragon.

“But I have this.” She produced a stick of Wise Onden’s jerky. Instantly, her own stomach growled in hunger. When was the last time she had eaten? She didn’t remember anything other than the cup of gruel she had been given this morning—and it had to be late afternoon at the least now.

Without thinking too much, she threw the jerky toward the beast.

“I’m trying to help you. Those others? They want to hurt you. Capture you . . .” She realized she was babbling and stopped. True Dragons were supposed to be intelligent, but of course, she had never actually met one. Did it mean they could understand complex orders? That they had friendships?

“I doubt you need to know the ins and outs of Lantic-Otland politics, right?” she finished a little warily.

The dragon’s eyes flickered at the cured moose meat on the ground before it. It took a deep huff toward it, its nose blasting out hot mineral-laden breath. With a groan, a long forked tongue flickered out, slapping the stick of meat and disappearing it into its maw.

But still, the beast shuddered. It blinked and breathed rapidly.

“Okay. Well, I’m going to take that as you’re not going to eat me,” Valda said.

At least, not right now, a suspicious voice inside of her said.

“We need to get warm. There’s plenty of wood back there, and I think it will take Kielder time to regroup,” she said, looking around the cave.

It was large enough for two more of the White Dragons, but she saw no sign of a nest. No, the dragon had to be alone, which Valda was grateful for. She didn’t want to have to try and befriend a whole gang of ferocious wild dragons with nothing more than charm.

“So, I guess . . . don’t go anywhere?” Valda said, then added, “Stay,” in a slightly firmer voice.

The White Dragon of Otland didn’t look as though it was going anywhere in a hurry, and so Valda edged out of the cave, grabbing her rope as she went.

Interlude

ISKYR, CONFUSED

This human keeps talking to me like I’m a dog. Annoyance flashed through Iskyr’s mind.

But at least it had given him some food, which was what you did when your nest was sick or injured, wasn’t it?

Pain, exhaustion, and a terrible cold wracked Iskyr’s body. He didn’t think he had ever felt this bad. The only pain that matched it was the imminent loss of Screams-with-the-Sun. His thoughts were cloudy and muddled, but whenever he had a glimpse of feeling better, he threw his song toward the song of his mother . . . and felt only the faintest glimmer of heat in response.

She is still alive, that was good. She was holding on. Iskyr knew that she needed another dragon to hear her Mourning Song . . . but her time was coming fast.

I need to get up! I need to fly!

The dragon once again tried to rouse himself, and the small scraps of food had given him a small bit of strength, but it was not enough. He tried to push against his paws after the human had left, but weakness had sapped him of his vitality. He collapsed back to the stone ground of the cave, and cold radiated through him painfully.

What if this is my end too? A terrible thought occurred to him. What if fate had decreed that this was the end of their songs? There would be no one to hear his Mourning Song. He would not add his voice to the chorus, or the river, to join the After.

“No!”

Suddenly, with a triumphant effort of will, Iskyr felt a burst of sunfire in his mind, as his mother, Screams-with-the-Sun, threw her song at him. It was distant, and she was not here, but for a moment, Iskyr could hear in that voice her once-booming call and the warmth of her body.

“You must live, little fang, Heart of the Sun, you must live!”

In that burst of his mother’s spirit, Iskyr was given the image of humans: how they were so very small and so very insignificant, but they toiled endlessly. They had hands that created machines and cities. They had tools that cut wood and cooked meat. They were a greedy, treacherous race, yes, but they were useful. There had been times before when dragons and humans had found kinship together. When they had battled alongside each other to fight the older, much eviler race of people.

You want the human to . . . help me? Iskyr thought in wonder. He already had no intention of eating her, as she seemed far too stringy for his tastes . . . and eating intelligent beings was considered icky at the very least.

But I might have burned her. If she didn’t have those tasty snacks, Iskyr considered.

Mother? Screams-with-the-Sun?

He threw his song toward her but could find nothing but a distant muted warmth once more. She had spent much of her energy in that call that only his mind could hear. With a cry, he feared that she had spent the last strength she had on him.

Chapter 12

Dragon Healer

Dragons are like cats, fierce, savage, violent, utterly unpredictable, and also intensely loyal.

—Advice for Young Dragon Riders (Fire Academy)

An anguished keening shriek split the sky as Valda returned to the top of the stone outcrop laden with supplies. The work had taken longer than she had liked, and the western skies were now no more than an umbral pink glow of twilight.

“He’s hurting!” Valda gasped. Her earlier exhaustion was forgotten. She stumbled to her feet, grabbing the rope handles of the sack stuffed full of wooden spars she’d stolen from the sled. She ran forward into the cave.

“Here, here . . . it’s me. I’ve come back,” Valda panted as she lurched into the cave . . . to see a terrible sight.

The White Dragon of Otland was now stretched out along the cave, one wing crunched against the wall and one foreleg exposed. The dragon had obviously tried to move or stand but had collapsed.

“I got you. Look, I brought you something.” She dumped the large sack of wood before dropping the equally large backpack from her shoulder, dragging out the blanket, and then grabbing the bundles of freezing cloth underneath it.

She tore at the cloth, which she had also found on the remnants of the shed, to reveal a large strip of frozen mamut meat. Cutting strips from its freezing body had taken the longest of all of her tasks, in truth, but she had loaded her backpack with as much as she could carry.

She threw the hunk of meat at the dragon’s nose. He no longer sheltered his neck and snout with one wing, and Valda could see the crumpled scale and the patch of dried blood at the crook of his shoulder where Kielder’s poisoned javelin had hit.

The dragon panted rapidly, but one eye flickered open. It nudged its head to slowly, daintily pick up the end of a steak. Instead of the fast chomp of earlier, the dragon chewed slowly and painfully.

“Moons, moons, and moons!” Valda cursed as she worked.

First, she piled the wooden timbers, frames, spars, and joints in the center of the cave, near enough that the dragon’s belly would feel its warmth. Next, she grabbed the tinder and fire-lighting moss she had stolen from the Wolf guards to light a spark against the wood. The flame was weak at first, but thankfully, it held. She carefully layered the smaller bits of wood around it before setting three more of the mamut steaks on sticks over it.

“We both need warm food right now. It’ll do you the world of good, just you see,” Valda whispered. Next, she retrieved the steel pot and her two water skins, fetching as much snow as she could.

“Water to drink but also to wash your wound,” she said out loud as she returned, although she had no idea whether the dragon heard her. One eye fluttered as he tried to watch her before eventually giving up completely and shutting it.

Valda tended the fire, building it larger and rearranging the steaks on a couple of flat stones near the fire’s base. She heated the ice in her pan and then tore a strip of blanket and stuffed it inside.

“Thank the stars.” She turned to the dragon. This next part was probably going to be a lot easier if the dragon was asleep, to be honest. She saw the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, disturbed every now and again by a deep shiver of scales.

Grabbing one final thing from her pack, she turned to the beast and stepped cautiously toward it. Waves of heat hit her legs and back as she edged around the fire.

I’ve never been this close to a dragon before, Valda thought in wonder.

She stood just a couple of feet away from his neck. Valda gritted her teeth and forced herself to take another step closer.

“If you eat me, I promise to give you indigestion!” she said, taking the final step and slapping the hot mass of cloth against the dragon’s wound.

The beast flinched, and a deep rattling hiss surged through his body, but Valda sternly held the cloth in place.

If now is my time to die, then so be it. What better saga to tell than the woman who tried to heal a dragon?!

Even though she was scared, a sort of pride ran through her too. This was something no Otlander had ever done. This was something the Raven Clan would be proud of.

The rattling subsided, and Valda removed the cloth to dump it back into the pot. The hot water turned an instant inky red.

“Right. Let’s look at you,” the hunter murmured and squinted at the wound.

There were tales told in Otland about the ferocity of its hunters. There were teaching stories for children about famous warriors hunting bears or elk, or wolves. They all featured snippets of tracking lore and lists of qualities needed. The Raven Clan, in particular, valued their ability to survive and thrive in the harshest northern wilds.

But what Valda soon discovered was what no one talked about.

That to be a good hunter, you have to be a good listener.

You had to be just as good at listening to an animal’s needs as you were at tracking it. Freya Onden herself had taught Valda this.

When she was still a girl, Valda had been sent to work with the goatherds and the fishermen at the hunting kennels and the stables. She remembered spending an awful lot of time cleaning out stables and trailing behind herds and packs, but she had learned a lot too.

Listen to the animals. They tell you what they need.

And learning what a creature needed was most of the way to knowing how to hunt it too.

Valda’s sharp gray eyes could see the problem. The poison had collected in the wound and was slowly spreading through the dragon’s body. The ruptured scales were angry and red and wouldn’t close.

“Difficult,” she whispered, raising Freya Onden’s ointment in one hand. At least the grease would be clean, and it would stop any infection from swelling. She took a large dollop of the stuff and smeared it over the wound before wringing out the cloth and reapplying it. With a bit of effort, she could wedge the warm compress between the healthier scales, keeping it in place, before stepping back.

Another deep rattle ran through the dragon’s chest. To Valda’s ears, it sounded almost appreciative.

“I can’t say it will draw all of the poison out, but it will help,” she promised. She returned to tease one of the now cooked steaks from the fire and once again throw it to the dragon’s mouth.

This time, his nostrils flared, and his eyes half opened, and he seized the steak with a little more vigor. Valda followed that up by pouring an entire water skin of water over his jaw, which his tongue lapped up eagerly.

“Wait for it. A little and often, that’s the way.” Valda stepped back, suddenly realizing just how tired and hungry she was too.

The fire was the only light in the dark now, as the Sun had fully set, and thick flakes of snow were once more falling over the cave mouth.

But it was cozy in here. Valda appreciated that. She allowed herself to slump to a crouch on the other side of the fire, grabbing one of the steaks and chewing it ravenously. Perhaps it was the effort of the day behind her, but the steak tasted surprisingly good. She followed it up with snow melt and wanted nothing more than to curl up in a stolen blanket by the fire.

But I can’t do that. Not yet. She forced herself to get more water, to refill the pot, and to put another steak on the fire.

Valda knew she was in for a long haul if she wanted both herself and the dragon to live. She kept herself awake, reapplying the salve and soaking the hot compress several more times. In between this, she tipped skin after skin of water down the dragon’s gullet and fed him most of what remained of the mamut steaks.

How long before Kielder returns?

Is he plotting his revenge even now, or has he returned to Korjall?

Valda didn’t know the answer to any of these questions. Snow fell in a constant soft shush outside. There was no sound apart from the occasional crackle from the fire and the even purr of the dragon’s breath. Sleep crept into Valda’s muscles, and the fire’s warmth filled her. Valda could no longer hold her eyelids open, and her head nodded—as a strange, single word echoed in her mind.

Iskyr.

Chapter 13

Oaths, Songs, and Promises

3b. On the Intelligence of True Dragons.

It is known that the High, or “true” Dragon is not only intelligent but also has personality, wit, and cunning.

Although the mechanism is unknown, True Dragons use a form of communication that is dreamlike, acting on the same level as our intuition and gut feeling. It is believed that dragons communicate with each other over vast distances with this form of talk—while we have to use moon shards to amplify and perceive this with the human mind . . . still, there are many tales in the training grounds of sudden intimations, thoughts, and warnings between dragons and their riders . . .

—A Treatise on True Dragons (Dragon Watch Library, Fire Academy)

Valda awoke with a start to realize three things.

One, that the cave entrance she awoke to was now almost entirely covered in a deep snowdrift.

Two, it was cold. The fire she had tended through the night was nothing but blackened coals.

And three, there was a juvenile dragon standing over her.

“Argh!” Valda let out a yell, rolled out of her blanket. Her hand leapt to the handle of the axe she had stolen just yesterday. Before she could grasp it, though (not that she had any belief it would do her any good against a fire-breathing, armored dragon), a voice echoed in her mind.

“Valda?”

The dragon cocked its head to one side and chirruped at her with, if anything, curiosity.

Valda’s mind took a few long seconds to process what had just happened. The dragon had not eaten her. And she had heard her own name, called inside of her own mind.

“I must still be dreaming,” Valda said. She glanced at the ridiculously small hand axe on the floor, then up at the dragon above her.

Iskyr, her heart beat.

The axe would do nothing in this situation other than give her a futile sense of comfort, Valda thought. And perhaps the sight of a raised weapon would only make this dragon angry.

Iskyr, the thought beat once again inside her mind.

Valda shook her head and sat back into a crouch. She must be imagining things. She probably had hypothermia.

“Well, you’re feeling better? Do you want more food?” Her tone was cautious.

The dragon was still a ways from well, Valda saw another deep shiver run down his hide—but at least he was standing. The warm compress she had applied last night had fallen from his shoulder, and although there was still an ugly mar of pink and red where the scales were shattered, the wound did not look as terrible as it had before.

“Valda. Iskyr.”

This time the words were a lot clearer, and as they arrived, the dragon chirruped at her again.

“Holy moon spit.” Valda lurched backward, hit the floor, and scrabbled to the other side of the cave.

I’ve got snow fever. Or I’m already dead. Because there is no way that a dragon is talking to me.

Both of these options were very much possible, Valda thought. She had spent a night in a cave in the Fjall Mountains without proper clan gear and having eaten a fraction of the food she was used to on a serious expedition. Perhaps she had died in her sleep, and all this was her ancestors playing a joke on her.

But there was another deeply unsettling possibility.

Lantic Dragon Watch Riders talked to their dragons, didn’t they?

Everyone knew the myths and legends that circled the Lantic Dragon Watch. Valda had barely walked into any tavern in King’s Tower without hearing some scrap of lore about them.

Dragon fire is hot enough to melt steel . . .

(Their fire is hot enough to melt rock) . . .

Dragons eat dreams. No one in the palace has dreamed for years . . .

A dragon has to choose its rider, and a bad match spells death . . .

Dragons can smell lies . . .

Riders can talk with their dragons using only their minds . . .

Most of these rumors, Valda would dismiss as a part of the wonder and fear that ordinary citizens held for their protectors. These beings that lived inside their capital city were, after all, capable of destroying that city too. Many tales owed more to the teller’s need to sound more important than they were. A good tale could still buy you a tankard of something in most taverns across Lantic.

That is, if Valda had not seen the Dragon Watch firsthand.

It had been Summer Fest a couple of years ago, and it was one of the rare times in King’s Tower when the public was allowed anywhere near dragons.

Valda remembered the day well. She remembered the sense of anticipation in the crowd and in her belly as she had squeezed through the throng to get a glimpse at the line of monstrous creatures in the large Victory Square of King’s Tower. The creatures were supposed to form a parade, and the young king had been meant to lead them through the city for some reason, but on that day, they remained sitting on their haunches like cats and refused to move.

“No telling a dragon what to do! Not unless you got moon shards!” an elderly woman with only a few remaining teeth had laughed beside Valda.

But her attention had been fixed on the creatures. She watched them with a hunter’s interest. She looked at the different colors, the red, green, yellow, and blue dragons, with fascination. She admired their strength and their impossibly large wings, folded to nothing at their sides.

Each Lantic dragon had a wide metal collar that sat atop their breastbone and onto their neck. Each one gleamed bronze in the sun, and each one had a unique style. On some of the dragons, the scales around their eyes and snout had been painted. Each one was unique; each beast was celebrated.

But then—at some point, she saw one of the riders flinch to one side as if hearing something. Valda saw the man clad in light armors cock his head as if listening—and then an eerie thing happened.

Both the Dragon Watch rider and his dragon (a blue, larger than the rest) had lifted their heads at the same time to a distant spot in the sky. Without saying a word, every dragon and rider did the same, with several of the dragons raising their front paws expectantly.

That was shortly before the chaos, when the guards came running into the square. They surrounded the king’s carriage and rushed him back inside the keep walls, telling everyone to disperse. Only later did Valda hear that a roc—a giant fearsome bird capable of attacking even dragon young—had been sighted in the vicinity of King’s Tower.

Aside from the excitement of the day, Valda’s Otland mind had returned to that moment that the rider and dragon had seemed to share . . . something. It had seemed that an unheard message had passed through the dragons: a signal that no one else could hear.

It reminded her of the way that birds rise up as one invisible warning runs through them or hounds look at a door long before their human approaches . . .

“Valda. Iskyr.”

The words came again, and with them, Valda swore she could sense a whiff of char and smoke—somehow not from her nose, but from her mind. It was more the feeling of smoke and cinders, she thought.

“I’m Valda.” She looked up at the dragon, who chirruped at her once again.

“Are you . . . I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but are you . . . Iskyr?” Valda breathed.

Immediately, the dragon slid its two front legs forward, excited, like a puppy. Valda felt the rocky floor reverberate a little, and she flinched.

The dragon (Iskyr, Valda thought) leaned toward her. Its neck extended across the space until its snout was level with her face.

“Food. Warmth. Safety.”

Once again, Valda only got a sense of the words. The dragon was thanking her. The hunter’s mind did a funny mental flip whenever the dragon tried to talk to her. She received a flush of sensations: the feel of a full belly, then a surrounding hug of warmth as if she were curled up against her mother’s scales . . .

“Wait, what?” Valda shook her head. “My mother never had scales,” she said quickly, before muttering, “But it might be different if she had. My whole life might be different . . .”

Valda had never met her mother. Not properly, anyway. She had died out on the ice plains, surviving long enough to bring her only daughter into the world and giving her to their only traveling companion, Wise Freya Onden. It was a fact of Valda’s life that still left her with questions but had long since become a part of the tapestry of her existence—an ache that would never truly go away.

“Your mother . . . the After?”

A new rush of dragon words flooded into her mind, and the misery was so strong in them that Valda gasped for breath.

“Too much!” Valda cried out.

These words had been easier to understand, as if she and the dragon were getting better at understanding each other. She had seen images of a great white wyrm, larger even than Iskyr was, lying on the floor of a cavern alone. With this image had come a terrible sense of loss, and it was one that Valda recognized. Her own mother had left the same shaped hole in her heart.

“Your mother is . . . sick?” Valda asked. The dragon—Iskyr—reared back where he stood, looking at her gravely with his gold eyes before turning to look deeper into the cavern.

“She’s here?” Valda blinked. Had she just spent the entire night in the company of two dragons and not even known it?

The White Dragon turned, his tail flicking in the air behind him as he stalked to the back of the cavern. He stepped into the shadows until his pale body looked almost ephemeral before pausing to look back at her.

Valda was not in the habit of refusing fire-breathing dragons.

“You want me to help?” Valda murmured, rising to her feet and stumbling after Iskyr, pausing only to grab the blankets, pots, and what bits of meat were left from last night to stuff them into a bag. She wasn’t exactly sure what an adult dragon needed, especially a sick one, and hoped that she could cobble something together like she had for Iskyr.

Valda followed warily behind the young dragon as the cavern grew darker and darker around them. Just when Valda was certain that she was going to lose sight of the walls, ground, and dragon itself . . . she saw a faint blue glow ahead of them.

Iskyr’s claws clacked on the cavern floor, and Valda could see how he favored one leg over the other with the wounded shoulder. She hoped that the pain wasn’t permanent.

The blue glow grew stronger ahead of them until Valda could see that they were walking through a low but wide tunnel. The blue glow came from sporadic patches of something on the walls and floor, and when she bent down to take a closer look—Valda saw that it was a frilly moss.

“Moss bright!” Valda exclaimed. Wise Onden had told her about this stuff, but she had never seen it. Moss bright was supposed to only exist in the deepest, oldest caves.

Moving quickly so as not to stray too far behind the dragon, Valda grabbed handfuls of the moss and stuffed them in her bag too. Perhaps she could fashion a light from it.

“Because unlike you, I can’t see in the dark!” Valda murmured.

There was a slight rattle from ahead of her. Valda didn’t know if that was a sign of agreement or annoyance.

“What are you doing, Valda? You’re talking to a dragon. You’re in the middle of a mountain and talking to a dragon . . .” she muttered and griped to herself. She hurried after Iskyr, who was now climbing a scramble of rocks to where the passageway branched in two directions.

From one, there came a fresh, cold blast of wintry air, while the other smelled like wet rock and minerals.

Iskyr tasted the air delicately and then opted for the second path, padding forward into a passage that grew narrower still. Soon, Iskyr’s folded wings were squeezing and scraping against the rocks.

“You climbed through this?” Valda wondered. She was terrified that the beast would get stuck at any moment, but he appeared to know what he was doing as he scraped at the rocks, dislodging several that Valda wouldn’t even have a hope of moving an inch.

The dragon’s grunts and clicks echoed around her as he led them through the tunnel network, the air growing colder as they descended down and down. Valda marched on in the eerie blue glow, wondering how her life had become this.

Father . . . Her heart thumped in her chest.

What would Erlich do when Kielder Ten got back to Korjall? What if Erlich killed him?

No. He wants the dragon. If there is a chance he can use me or my family to get it, he will, won’t he?

Won’t he?

Iskyr gave a whickering whisper of a noise that sounded worried. Valda looked up to see that the dragon’s brilliant golden eyes had caught the moss bright and were looking back at her.

“It’s alright. One thing at a time,” Valda said, before instantly asking herself why she was trying to comfort a giant fire-breathing reptile.

“My father is strong . . .” she began, before images of the broken, beaten man swelled in her mind. He had been strong. She had to believe that strength was still there underneath it all. That the storm he had been was still able to rise.

“Jarl Erlich has him. And my people,” Valda found herself saying as Iskyr resumed his tread. Maybe it was being surrounded by the dark and the cold and being so far from everything she knew, but somehow, it was more comforting to talk out loud—even if the dragon only understood half of what she said.

“Erlich is a bully. He’s the one who sent the men to capture you. To hurt you . . .”

At this, Iskyr let out a much louder angry rattle.

So, you understand what an enemy is, at least, Valda thought.

“But I am not going to let that happen. As soon as you and your mother are healthy, I’ll leave you in peace,” Valda said, her brow furrowed as she thought of what had to come next.

“I’ll sneak into Korjall. I’ll kill Erlich and damn the oaths!”

“Oaths?”

This was the first time that the dragon had used one of her words, and Valda felt the strangeness of the word as it was translated back from dragon to her own mind.

“Clan laws,” she explained. “They are agreements that we Otlanders live by . . . they were set down years ago by wises and jarls and . . .”

The absurdity of what she was trying to do, explain human society to a dragon, suddenly hit Valda. She chuckled and then burst into a harsh cynical laugh.

“They’re like promises, I guess.”

“Promises. Truth. Song.” Iskyr breathed into her mind, and with it came a confusing array of sensations—of dragons flying or his mother feeding him—and then a dazzling, dizzying snippet of song.

Valda’s mind heard a rush of dragon voices merging and entwining through each other until they formed a woven, complex whole. Within that snippet, there was the glare of sun on packed ice, the melt and drip of icicles, and the thunder of rocks in the distant mountains.

“It’s beautiful,” Valda whispered. She got the sense that for a dragon, promises meant something simple, direct, unquestionable, harsh as the mountains themselves, but also as beautiful.

“Clan laws aren’t like that,” Valda said hurriedly. “Maybe they were once, but not anymore. Now they’re ways for weak men to make others do what they want.”

Iskyr growled, and the confined walls shook with the ferocity of his rattling threat. A tiny lick of flame puffed from his mouth.

“Laws don’t feel like oaths.”

Valda gasped at the statement that arrived fully formed and easy for her to understand. It was as if the dragon was getting better and better at speaking with her thoughts with every second.

Or maybe I am getting better at understanding his?

Imbued with this new irritation, Iskyr pushed on into the dark, his steps hurrying now. The tunnel opened up into a wider cavern with stalactites and stalagmites pointing up and down, and infested with more of the glowing blue moss.

There was also a fresher breeze down here coming from a crack far above them, which appeared to let in the pale light of genuine daylight.

“How long have we been down here?” Valda realized that her stomach was roaring, but Iskyr did not stop as he moved quickly on, crossing the cavern under the mountains to climb the slope on the far side, heading for the crack in the walls.

“Is this where your mother is?” Valda asked.

This time, Iskyr uttered a sharp clack, which Valda didn’t need words to interpret. Quiet!

At the top of the slope, the crack led to a wider cave, one that was filled with the rush of icy air and looked out over frozen snow plains.

It was also full of the large body of a dragon.

Valda could barely breathe. She had never seen a dragon so large, not in any of the flights she had witnessed in the Lantic Kingdom. It was a White Dragon like Iskyr, and her form filled the cavern that was big enough to take in Korjall’s Great Hall two times. A dragon of this size would have had a saga written about her. She would have been the hero of legends.

A feral wind blew frost flakes in from the plains below, and the sky was a ruminating somber gray. Iskyr let out a low crooning cry and stepped closer to the body of his mother.

For a moment, Valda feared that she was already dead—until she saw a shuddering breath roll down the great White Dragon’s flank.

“Is she hurt?” Valda whispered, her hands scrabbling to her bag to pull out the bits of cooked steak. “Here. If we can get her to eat . . .”

Iskyr paid Valda absolutely no mind as the younger dragon walked forward to gently huff at his mother’s snout. In response, Valda saw the tail twitch . . . and then a wave of sadness burst over her mind.

“Ach!” Valda had never felt such emotion. It was like all of the anguish and tears of her entire people had been rolled up into one thing and thrown at her. Tears sprang to her eyes as she sank to the floor.

Iskyr’s mother was dying, Valda knew that now. And there was nothing that anyone could do about it, despite what Iskyr might want. Valda saw a flash of a hundred, a thousand seasons blurring into one another; and the shadow of her giant wings as they crossed snow plains and mountains and oceans and forests.

How long has she been alive? Valda could barely fathom such a time. It was easily hundreds of years, perhaps thousands; she didn’t know.

“Screams-with-the-Sun!”

Iskyr’s voice was clear in her head now. He lifted up his head and let out a loud crooning wail.

Valda felt a sensation against her mind of another mind, the same deep ancient intelligence that had come from the mother dragon. The hunter blinked away her tears to see that Iskyr’s mother had raised her head and then her shoulders.

“Time. Now.”

Iskyr’s mother intoned. She growled a little at her son to get out of the way.

“No!”

Iskyr stamped on his front paws, sorrow running through him, but he still skittered aside as his mother heaved her bulk onto her side. Then, with titanic slowness and on wobbling legs, rose to her feet.

Valda felt in awe but also utterly out of place as she watched the mother dragon reach around and gently lick the place on Iskyr’s shoulder where he had been wounded. Iskyr purred anxiously, and his mother let out a cooing rattle.

“Be strong, little fang,” Valda heard—before the mother dragon raised her head to look back at her, Valda Hemsdottir herself.

“Together. Songs are to be sung together,” Valda heard. Once again, she felt the same thing that Iskyr meant when he said promises.

“Oaths,” Valda whispered. Iskyr’s mother was asking for an oath.

The dragon’s eyes were a shining gold as they stared back at her. They were as bright as the Sun and sharp as diamonds. The weight of the ancient reptilian mind pressed against Valda’s and demanded a response.

“I . . . I won’t hurt him. Ever.” Valda swallowed nervously. “I won’t let Erlich have him.”

The larger dragon wavered where she stood before appearing to accept that as much as a dragon accepted anything.

“Together.” Her voice came in hot and strong, full of fury and fierce pride. Iskyr whistled softly at her side. The larger dragon shared with him one last sniff before turning her head and walking to the edge of the cavern. Her presence pulled the other two behind her, like a storm squall does gulls.

Iskyr started to keen behind his mother as Valda saw the gigantic muscles across her body stretch and contract, suddenly bunching, and then—she leapt.

“Wait!” Valda said, half in horror, not knowing what the dragon was intending.

Iskyr’s keening reached a fever pitch—before there was a massive crack, like lightning splitting the sky.

The great White Dragon shot upwards before them, her wings impossibly large, her body gleaming in the wintry sun.

Sky. Air . . . Song!

Valda didn’t know whether these thoughts came from her own heart or from Iskyr or from Iskyr’s mother. All the hunter knew was that they combined together in a perfect symphony, a celebration of everything that was dragon.

“Sacred moons,” Valda swore as a feeling of awe washed through her. For a second, she could almost feel the wind thrumming against her own outstretched arms. She could almost feel the rush of fire in her belly.

The massive mighty dragon swept through the air, performing a great curve that rose until she was just a speck against the gray. Then she banked, turning back toward them, growing in size, and racing faster and faster as she flew over the edge of the rocky crags where Valda and Iskyr perched.

“This is her final flight,” Valda whispered. She didn’t know how she knew this, just that it was true.

Then, the great White Dragon began to sing.

Her song started as a high screech, a wavering clear note that was as sharp as the first winds of winter. It lengthened, and just when the sound was about to become uncomfortable to Valda’s ears, it deepened. Her song grew into a clear tone that somehow echoed off the mountains and started to trill, to swoop and soar just as the dragon herself was doing.

Valda sat dumbfounded. She had never believed that dragons could sing so beautifully. It was like the runs and swoops of a blackbird, only much, much, much grander.

Beside her on the ledge over the cliffs, Iskyr started to keen, his voice unsteady and high at first, then becoming deeper as he grew in confidence. He added his own voice to hers, their voices complementing each other as they wove melodies and tunes, counter songs and harmonies. His mother’s song was always the stronger and more complex, with Iskyr providing simpler matching runs of repeated notes.

Valda sat, aching to be able to sing with them—but something stopped her.

I am human. This is not my family, not my business, a thought told her.

The song of the dragons rose and rose to a triumphant crescendo before Iskyr’s mother punctuated it with another thunder crack of her wings. At this point, Iskyr fell silent, and his mother’s song became softer, even delicate.

And she began to turn, heading west, her song growing fainter and fainter as she did so.

There’s nothing out there, Valda knew. The double line of the Fjall Mountains stretched like a granite circlet around the top of the world, after which there were just endless ice plains and broken ridges of rock. No one had been beyond the mountains; the further west you went, the deeper and wilder the world became.

But the great dragon didn’t stop flying, now just a tiny speck against the gray—and she didn’t stop singing. Long after Valda couldn’t even make out her form, she could hear the faint delicate strains of her lullaby.

Until finally, Valda could hear no more.

What just happened? Valda sat on the ledge, afraid to even move, her whole body feeling alive even though the ice winds were freezing. She looked up to see that Iskyr was still peering into the distance, his entire body quivering with feeling.

“You . . . you will never see her again, will you?” Valda said softly. She could feel the deep waves of sadness washing off the dragon and wrapping her in its deep blanket of grief.

The Otlanders had a similar tradition, Valda thought. Sometimes, and only occasionally, when a member of one of the tribes felt they had become a burden on their fellow clan members, usually because they were aging or sick . . . they would do just as she saw this dragon do. They would walk off into the wastes, never to be seen again.

It is a noble death. Valda’s heart felt like it was breaking, but she was proud for Iskyr. His mother had chosen the most difficult path and done so bravely.

But still, the dragon beside her shivered with emotion.

We are both orphans now, I suppose, Valda thought.

She reached out, tentatively placing a hand on the large scales of the young dragon’s leg. Each leg alone was almost the width of her body. The giant black talons at the edge of the feet could have split her in two in a heartbeat.

“All songs are precious,” she heard Iskyr say in her mind. “But the Song of Mourning is the most.”

Valda did not understand what any of this meant to the dragon, but she somehow knew that songs, oaths, and promises were one and the same. There were no words to give to the dragon for his sadness, and neither did he appear to want them—so they sat together, looking westward as the day grew colder and grayer.

Valda was trying to make sense of what this now meant—when the sky was split by a new shriek.

“Is that her?” Valda gasped, although a part of her knew that of course it was not.

This new cry was harsher and more savage and came from behind them, not from the west.

“Dragons!” Iskyr flinched, his mouth opening wide to hiss soundlessly.

One shadow raced over the crags ahead of them and then another.

With a flash of color, two dragons crossed the mountains, gleaming green and yellow.

“Colorful dragons?” Valda scrabbled to her feet a moment before the sound of a horn split the air.

It was the horn of the Dragon Watch riders of Lantic.

Chapter 14

The Lantics

Sing then, of the glory of Lantic!

We who have stood for five hundred years!

We who sheltered humanity out of the darkness!

Never shall King’s Tower fall as long as dragons roar!

—Sing then, of the Glory of Lantic, (common military song)

“They must have heard the song!” Valda said, leaping to her feet. For some reason, her heart wasn’t filled with joy. The shrieks of the two Dragon Watch were harsh and raucous compared to the lilting Mourning Song of the White Dragons of Otland.

Valda could see the glint of their armor and harnesses now as they wheeled far overhead. When they swooped, she swore she could make out the small hunches of the Watch riders on their backs.

“Something is wrong. They . . . are not themselves!” Iskyr was beside himself. He had risen to his feet, but he kept clacking his jaws together, and little bursts of flame emerged from his maw.

“They. Do not. Sing?” Iskyr backed away a little, and then his muscles tensed. Far above them, the dragons were starting to wheel around, heading toward the west.

After Iskyr’s mother! Valda suddenly realized what was going on. The Fire Academy of Lantic bred their own dragons, didn’t they? And they trained them early, using moon shards to control them.

But they are lucky to have one egg every few years, if that, Valda’s thoughts raced as beside her, Iskyr grew more impatient.

Whenever the Lantics discovered wild dragons, they raced to find them. Valda had heard it was something to do with their breeding program. Or perhaps they were just trying to find a way to restock their own dwindling stables.

“They don’t understand. They can’t go after her,” Valda suddenly said. These Lantic dragons were so removed from what they were that they didn’t even know about the Mourning Song! They were going to try to chase and capture Iskyr’s mother!

“Never! I will destroy them! Rend them!” Iskyr snarled, hopping toward the opening.

“No!” Valda at once knew that would be a terrible mistake. Iskyr was young and wild and strong . . . but he was not a trained fighting dragon. The Lantics knew how to fight with their reptilian steeds.

Promises. Oaths.

Valda shook with the promise that she had made.

I swore to keep Iskyr safe.

All at once, Valda knew what she had to do.

“We distract them—draw them away,” Valda said urgently. She jumped up, ran toward his leg, and—without thinking—she jumped. She grabbed the bone spur behind Iskyr’s paw and climbed, grabbing the spurs of his spine before swinging herself into the hollow between his wings and shoulders.

It was like riding a horse, Valda thought, marveling that she was, in fact, comfortable. She tucked her knees up, wedging them against the ridge of scales that ran on both sides of Iskyr’s neck. At her back was the start of the bone spur tines that secured her in place. In front of her was a smaller one that she could grab with both hands.

Maybe I should have tied a rope first, Valda thought, as suddenly Iskyr was pouncing forward.

Oh, moons . . .

The dragon’s front paws hit the edge of the ledge and then they lifted as his back paws hit the ledge just behind, kicking him out over the gulf. For a dizzying moment, Valda saw the vast gulf underneath them. They were hundreds of feet up in the air, their cave not even in one of the high crags on the far side of the mountains. Underneath them was a ceaseless plain of ice, rock, and snow.

A storm of icy wind hit her, so sharp that it drove the air from her body. Iskyr was angling his head downward, tucking his paws in as he aimed at the ground.

“Stop! What are you doing?!” Valda shrieked—moments before Iskyr unfolded his wings with a mighty snap.

His wings were wider than a ship’s sail and looked like thickened leather. They caught the wind with a crack of thunder, and at once they were lifting up, shooting upwards into the overcast skies.

Valda knew she was doing the right thing, but she was also very suddenly and very painfully aware of the difference between everything she thought she knew about riding horses—and the nothing she knew about riding dragons.

She clung onto the neck spine, throwing herself forward as wind ripped at her body and unfurled her hair behind her.

They were moving faster than a speeding arrow. The ground blurred underneath them, and in moments, they were so high that the line of crags they had emerged from appeared the size of a string of carts. Valda blinked, seeing the acres of peaks and summits stretching behind their cave. They were so high that, in the distance to the north, she could make out the thunderous deep-gray haze of the second—and final—line of mountains.

We are past the first Fjall circle, aren’t we? the hunter realized. She had gone further than she had ever gone before.

Iskyr’s cry split the air as he wheeled, turning in a tight circle toward the west.

“The Lantics.” Valda dragged her attention back to the threat ahead of them. There was no way that the two Dragon Watch had missed them, and a moment later, she heard the tight bugle call of the Lantic riders and saw them wheeling around, back toward the east.

“Leave her be! Have you no shame? Where is your song?!” Iskyr demanded, his meaning delivered clearly now. He was enraged, and Valda was terrified he wasn’t going to stop.

“There’s two of them, and we’re only one. We have to draw them away, Iskyr!” Valda insisted.

But Iskyr flew on, straight toward the two Lantic dragons.

The Dragon Watch matched them for speed, growing larger in moments, but as they neared, they started to rise in the air, breaking apart in perfect unison.

“What are they doing?” Valda snapped as Iskyr beat his wings to rise toward them.

Valda could see the gleam of armored carapaces and the gleam of the bronze helmets of the riders themselves. The riders were moving, pulling at straps attached to large brown canvas bags hung from their saddles.

“Iskyr, pull back!” Valda said.

“I am a fighting dragon!” Iskyr roared in Valda’s mind.

The Lantics were moving fast, and in a moment, they would be right above them. Iskyr was angling toward the nearer one, but Valda was watching what the slightly higher one was doing. She saw the man tug at the bag, and spools of something like rope started to splay out.

“Nets!” Valda shouted. “He means to capture you—turn, turn, Iskyr!”

Valda’s mind filled with images of Feisty and Sullen, the Hobdragons that Kielder Ten had controlled with the moon shards. Perhaps it was the desperation in her voice or the memories that she held, but something made Iskyr snarl and twitch in his flight.

Everything happened quickly. The higher Lantic dragon rider pulled the last strap, and the large netting burst from his pack, spilling into the air above them. The netting was shaped like a large spiderweb, each strand made of a rope almost as thick as Valda’s fist. It was weighted on the edge with large rocks.

Iskyr spiraled, dipping one wing as he twisted away—but it still wasn’t quite fast enough. Valda felt the heavy thump and the gasp of pain from the White Dragon as the netting hit Iskyr’s tail and tangled with one of his back legs.

They were instantly spinning downward. Valda had no idea that dragons used their tails so much in their flight.

Iskyr roared dragon expletives that Valda had no name for. Somehow, she knew his reptile words meant “traitors” and what her mind translated as the more familiar “oathbreakers.”

He fought to flare his wings out, but they were dropping rapidly. He could not control his flight without moving his tail and hips. Panic tore through the dragon and through Valda both. Iskyr’s wingbeats became furious, slowing them down awkwardly as they plummeted toward the snow plains below.

The net!

Valda knew she had to do something. As soon as they hit the ground, the Lantic riders would throw more nets at them, immobilizing them. And then who knew what horrible tricks they used to control a wild dragon. Perhaps they would poison him as Kielder Ten sought to do or use their moon shards . . .

I promised to keep you safe.

Valda turned, seizing up her axe in one hand and the dragon spine behind her.

You’re going to die, Valda Hemsdottir, a cynical part of her said. But I still have to do something.

The ice plains were surging toward them as she pulled herself up, grabbing the next spine spike and pulling herself forward. She moved quickly, not giving herself a moment to pause as she climbed the dragon’s back. The dragon below her must have sensed what she was doing. Iskyr straightened out his back as well as he could while beating his wings furiously at the same time.

Valda climbed, and the back tines turned into stubs—and then she was there, with the thick strands of netting tangled over the dragon’s lower back.

With a snarl, Valda hooked the blade of her axe behind one rope strand and pulled hard. Threads broke free, starting to tear and unwind. Another yank, and this rope thread burst apart . . . but there were still more.

Valda gripped one of the spine ridges with a hand and did her best to clamp her knees around the dragon’s back as she leaned down to hack and pull at another and another. The ropes were already heavy under the strain of their weights, and the strands were eager to split apart.

“Valda,” Iskyr’s alarmed voice broke into her mind. She looked up to see that the plains were much, much closer now. So close that she could see the sudden upset of a snow hare as it tore a path across the snow away from them.

They were coming in fast. Iskyr would be lucky if he didn’t break a limb when he landed, and Valda knew she would be lucky if she didn’t lose her life.

Valda threw herself into her reach, grabbing the next rope thread with her axe-head and pulling hard. It split with one sweep . . . and suddenly they were free.

“Hold on, Valda!” Iskyr screeched.

Valda flattened herself against the dragon’s back, grabbing onto the tines around her as Iskyr straightened out and cracked his wings with a powerful beat.

In a second, they were racing over the ice plains, close enough that Iskyr’s claws could have reached out to touch them.

“Whoo!” A savage defiant call burst from Valda’s chest. As terrified as she was, she couldn’t deny the thrill of escape. They had outsmarted the Lantics. They were two strong powerful creatures in their element.

The green-and-yellow dragons of the Lantics gave fierce desperate shrieks behind them, and the riders signaled their chase with the sudden cry of a bugle.

“They are coming,” Iskyr said as they raced south toward the crags and the line of the Fjall Mountains.

But Valda had spent her entire life tracking and hunting. She knew what she would do—and she knew how they could escape.

“Now we lose them in the mountains. It’s a maze in there,” she urged, scrabbling to climb back up to Iskyr’s neck. It was much easier this time around, although she thought that could be from the excitement running through her body.

Iskyr beat his wings furiously as the Lantics seemed to gain on them far above.

“The high winds,” Iskyr announced with a growl. Valda understood immediately. She had watched gulls and the ravens that were her clan’s namesake using the high thermal winds to cast themselves ahead with little effort. Down here near the ground, it took more effort.

But Iskyr was young and strong. He was imbued with the loss of his mother. Valda felt his muscles bunch and stretch as he threw everything he had into the flight.

“The bridges!” Valda suddenly remembered. If her bearings were right, then they were near here. She spied the two-peaked rise of a black mountain, one lower peak looking like it had been sheared off by a great giant’s hand.

“Go there! Bridge Pass! Go there and head east,” she said, hoping that the dragon would understand her human directions.

He did, angling toward the gap to one side of the two-peak mountain as the Lantics sought to catch up with them.

Gray-and-black rocks flashed past them, and Iskyr’s wings exploded the snow from the small tufts of pine trees as they turned into Bridge Pass. The mountains rose all around them as they were thrown into canyons and gorges—and what Valda was expecting to see.

The Ice Bridges.

Bridge Pass was notable because of the near jumble of mountain cliffs that allowed ice bridges to form across their depths. Some trick of the winter meant that as the waters ran off the mountains, they carved out arches underneath the ice, leaving glittering ice bridges, shining white and blue and dripping constantly.

Valda’s eyes were dazzled with rainbows and sun glare as Iskyr turned into the maze of gorges. With the merest flick, he tucked his wings in as he dove underneath one of the giant bridges, bursting through a wall of water before flaring his wings and turning left to dart over the next.

Valda heard the enraged cry of the Lantics far above and behind them as Iskyr flew, turning and turning deeper into the maze of ice. There was no way that the Lantics could release their nets to catch him now.

“Keep going! Head for that mountain that looks like a cat!” Valda said, hoping that the dragon knew what a sitting cat looked like.

“Screams-with-the-Sun showed me what cats look like,” Iskyr stated proudly. “She said they were the only other creature she could respect.”

“Ha. Makes sense.” Valda almost snorted a laugh, despite the implied criticism that Iskyr’s mother had no respect for humans.

Iskyr swooped under and over the glittering ice bridges as the walls of their canyon grew tighter and tighter. Rising at the end stood a rounded mountain with a humped back. At one end, a collection of boulders appeared to have two triangular, catlike ears.

“Where?!” Iskyr asked, as Valda leaned to one side, looking for the narrow exit she knew had to be there. This was one of the entrances to the Bridge Pass, as all the old sagas told . . .

There. A narrow cleft between two cliffs, smaller than Iskyr’s wing width.

Valda felt a tremor of unease run through the dragon before he was shifting at the last moment, twisting one wing high and the other down as he swept through the cleft and out of Bridge Pass.

The terrifying journey took only a few minutes, but Valda’s hands were shaking as they tore out the other side and into wide valleys bounded by high mountains. The mountain tops were bare black rock, but their slopes were adrift with snow and forests. These valleys, Valda knew, ran and intermingled for a long time, heading into the deep woods and gulleys of northern Otland.

And as long as Iskyr stays low and out of sight, then they won’t find him, she knew.

“There are caves by the Giant’s Hammer. We can hide there,” Valda whispered. A wave of exhaustion ran through her body. The mountains obscured the low Sun somewhere in the west, and that meant night would fall soon.

He’ll be safe, Valda assured herself. From here, Iskyr could range into the forests or back into the mountains and do whatever it was dragons did.

And I have work to do, don’t I?

She fixed her eyes on the southern horizon where the mountains gave way to hills and the forests finally broke—toward Korjall.

Interlude

ISKYR, HURT

Together, Screams-with-the-Sun had said.

Does that not mean anything to humans?

Iskyr, the White Dragon of Otland, awoke in the middle of the night to the smell of meat. The human—Valda, she called herself—had thought she was being stealthy, but she had no idea what Iskyr’s senses were capable of.

He could smell the rats at the back of the cave where she had led him (they were far too small to eat and would do nothing but stick between his teeth), and he could smell the long-tailed, furry-bodied tree creatures that twittered and scratched in the woods around them.

So, it was an easy thing to smell the large catch of fish that the human had caught in the lake below them . . . as well as the goat that she had slain and left on the other side of the lake—presumably for him to find later.

The fish were the large fat-bellied lake salmon that Iskyr liked, and he had half-slept, keeping one part of his mind aware of her soft splashing in the shallows of the lake outside as he looked forward to his meal.

But his joy at being provided food was short lived when Iskyr smelled what was on Valda’s thoughts.

She has the song of leaving on her. Iskyr rose his head almost to the height of the cave, alarmed. What does this mean? This is not what Screams-with-the-Sun had asked for!

“Oh, you’re awake. I was hoping you would find these in the morning,” Valda said stiffly, laying down the heavy brace of salmon. She carefully selected one, untying it from its fellows, and took it to her pack.

She does not know that I know, does she? Iskyr looked at her in disbelief. He sniffed at her. Was she well? Had a sickness stuck to her mind?

But he could not smell anything from her thoughts other than sadness, which Iskyr knew could be a type of sickness in itself sometimes.

Her movements sang with the preparation for leaving. She did not know that she was broadcasting it, but her every thought and deed told of her imminent departure, from the way she laced her boots to the way she cinched her pack tight and had added to it several herbs and dried mosses for her journey.

“Iskyr . . .” Valda cleared her throat, turning around to face him. He could smell the slightest run of fear on her as she faced him. Is that what was going on? Did she not realize that he could never hurt her, not now that they sang the same song?

“You are leaving,” he said incredulously.

The young woman flinched as if slapped. “You know? How do you know?” she asked before shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Yes, I am. I have to.”

“Together,” Iskyr said. The dragon felt his heart ache. It was the same ache he felt when Screams-with-the-Sun had performed her Mourning Song.

Valda looked aside, her face blushing furiously for a moment. Iskyr saw the frustration knotting her up inside but did not understand why.

“I know . . . but you are safe now. I fulfilled my promise!” she said hotly.

“That is not what it means,” Iskyr said. A bond was a bond. It was not something you could pick up and throw away at leisure.

“You don’t understand.” Valda looked up at him, her eyes full of tears.

“There is something I have to do. My father is in danger. My clan is in danger. I need to help them.”

“Then we go together,” Iskyr said flatly. It seemed obvious, didn’t it?

But not to the human.

“No. No—you cannot. If you come, then that will only bring the Lantics. They’ll come with more Dragon Watch next time, and they’ll capture you. This is the only way I can keep you safe!” Valda said.

Iskyr didn’t understand. There was no such thing as safety under the Sun, not entirely. He knew that only too well now that Screams-with-the-Sun was so recently gone.

“But together, we are stronger. That is how we hunt,” he insisted.

“No.” Valda was adamant. Her eyes sparked with anger, and she dared to strike out her chin at him.

“You cannot come with me. Or follow me. I mean it. This is something I have to do alone,” she explained.

Iskyr opened his mouth, letting out a soft rattle of hurt. Why was she doing this? What was wrong with her? And yet, when he felt toward her mind, it reminded him of when he had tried to argue with Screams-with-the-Sun. There was an immovable wall there as strong as the mountains they had just passed over.

“Stick to the forests and valleys. When you can, head back into the mountains. It is too cold up here for the Lantics. They will give up searching before too long,” Valda announced, turning back to her pack.

“What fools humans are,” Iskyr spat. He was not going to let Valda have the victory of walking out on him. He rose on his legs, rattling his hide to make his scales hiss.

Holding his head up, he stalked to the edge of the cave, ignoring the fish she had brought him, and launched into the predawn blues.

He ignored the goat carcass too.

Chapter 15

Slight Return

“That is the funny thing about oaths. They are rarely about you. They are what tie you to your clan, to your people, and ultimately, to your future . . .”

—Advice on Otland Oathkeeping

Damn fool of a dragon! Valda’s thoughts were a dark tangle of anger and pride as she marched through the dense woods of her home. Her thoughts had been like this for the past three days as she traveled through the far north, navigating by the stars and distant landmarks back toward her home.

He’ll probably go and get himself captured anyway. Valda threw the angry thought back at his memory before instantly feeling ashamed.

“Of course, I don’t want him captured. Or hurt,” she whispered into the shadows of yet another early evening. She strode over a slope that was only slightly wooded, rushing down to a churning river below her. Deeper forests rose up on a lower incline on the far side. Her boots crunched on the snow, and every step made her body feel heavier and heavier.

What am I heading toward?

How am I going to pull this off?

She had a vague idea of creeping into Korjall with her axe, finding where the Jarl was guesting before plunging it into his forehead. That made her heavy heart feel vaguely better.

Better still were her fantasies of jumping down from the rafter beams of the Great Hall—where Jarl Erlich would no doubt be eating his fill of Raven Clan food—and challenging Erlich to single combat.

Valda had run through that scenario several times, and although she knew without a doubt that she would win—she also knew that she had no right to challenge the Jarl. He would order his men to shoot her before she had even managed to run to the end of the banqueting table . . .

No, I need to be smarter than this, Valda thought.

She had considered poison before instantly dismissing it too. She didn’t know enough to poison someone, and besides, poisonings had a habit of affecting all the people you didn’t want them too.

A fire. That had been another wondrous image—apart from the fact that she would have to set her own clan home aflame, which kinda defeated the whole point.

So, Valda was left with the hard options.

“I need to sneak into Korjall, find where Erlich is, and convince enough people to rise against his guards,” she admitted to herself. She knew she could rely on Wise Onden for aid, and there were several of her father’s hearth warriors that, if they still lived, she was sure would help.

Her foot slipped on the snow, and she tumbled, hitting the white and rolling a few yards before coming to a rest.

“Moonspit!” she cursed. A wave of despair rolled through her. She knew she hadn’t been paying attention to her steps. She was tired.

She was upset.

“Iskyr,” she breathed, looking up at the skies as the twilight deepened and the first star—the Hunter’s Star—appeared high in the north.

He was going to be alright, wasn’t he?

She had done the right thing, hadn’t she?

The thing was . . . Iskyr was a dragon! And she was just a human.

“I am no dragon rider and no Lantic Dragon Watch.” Valda shook her head, flinging snow one way and another where she lay.

“I haven’t even been able to keep my own father safe. How would I be able to keep the last dragon in Otland safe!?” Valda hissed. She pushed herself up and proceeded to dust herself off irritably.

“I made the right decision,” she told herself for the hundredth time over the last few days.

What did Iskyr think they were going to do? Liberate her father together and then all three of them live in the mountains for the rest of their lives? Being hunted by both Jarl Erlich and the most powerful kingdom in all of Aea?

“No. Madness.” Valda shook her head once again, shoving herself to her feet to continue her march.

She would find somewhere to sleep, set up a trap for the morning, and then, by tomorrow afternoon, she would be at the outskirts of Korjall. But first, she needed food—there would be voles and rabbits and squirrels and, of course, nesting birds . . .

Valda suddenly paused, half rising from her crouch as a very disturbing thought struck her.

She had been so caught up in her head that she hadn’t been paying attention for the last hour or so. That was how she had ended up falling, after all.

But she couldn’t remember the last time she had heard bird call. Usually, at this time of the night, there was the rising trill of blackbirds as they sang their evening song. There would be the soft warning churrs of the smaller birds as they sought the safety of their nests.

Valda slowly stood up and turned around and realized that she could hear . . . nothing.

And that only happens when something has scared the birds off, something big . . .

Valda spun toward the nearest tree line just as something shot out from the woods.

It was too small and too fast to be a bird, and when it hit her legs, it wrapped itself around them, bringing her down with a heavy thump.

“Hai!”

“We have her!”

Husky, growling voices jumped from the trees.

Toluk dung!

Valda’s knee felt like it was on fire. She looked down to see that a thick curve of rope was wrapped around her legs, each ending in a large round stone ball. A bola. It was used by Otlanders to trip up big game, like elk.

Or people.

Valda reached for her axe, but before she could pull it, she heard a snarl and a thock as something hit the snow not far from her head.

A black arrow, fletched with golden tawny feathers, thrummed in the snow and dirt a few inches from her face.

“I wouldn’t if I were you, oathbreaker,” a grim voice announced as Otlander shadows encroached on all sides. Half of them held bows, and the other half held short spears.

All of them bore the long golden feathers of the Eagle Clan—the clan of First Sword Kielder Ten and loyal to the Jarl.

Chapter 16

With Allies like These

“Heed this warning—the Eagles are content to sit in their treetops and watch from afar, but woe betide any who wake the lords of the forest!”

—Saga of Eolar, the First Chief of the Eagle Clan

“You have no right to hold me, Eagle,” Valda snarled as she once again kicked at the wooden staves of her cage.

The clanswoman who walked beside the cage pulled by four stout Otland ponies just laughed. Like most of the Eagle Clan, she had her head shaved almost right to the top of her crown, save for a thick braid. Hers was peppering to gray, and the tattoos that she proudly wore on her bare arms spoke of her experience.

I’m not going to get very far with you, am I? Valda knew. The woman had three thick black bands of ink on her upper right arm, bare to the snows. Valda knew enough to know that meant she was a senior fighter in her war band.

Still, it didn’t hurt to try, did it?

“How does it feel to be working for a man like Jarl Erlich? Is he the sort of man you can be proud of? You will go down in the sagas for?!” Valda grabbed the wooden slats and rattled them. They were strapped together with bands of leather. If she had her knife or even a sharp flint . . .

“How does it feel to be an oathbreaker?” the woman snapped back before there was a warning shout from the other man riding a pony at the head of their train.

This one was large with a bushy black beard and thick eyebrows. Valda would have thought him to be Bear Clan from the size of him, were it not for the short bow he had across his back and the strand of eagle feathers hanging from his hair.

He was clearly the leader of this war band, although Valda had no idea what his name was. None of them had offered their names, and no more explanation had been given for capture other than she was an oathbreaker.

So, they had been looking for me, Valda thought. It wasn’t a great stretch to think that Kielder Ten, the beloved warrior of the Eagle Clan, had pulled in a few favors. Usually, the Eagle Clan kept to themselves, their pride demanding they act superior to everyone else.

It seemed that in the years that Valda had been away, the alliances had shifted.

Valda Hemsdottir was currently trapped in a wooden cage built on the trails and placed on a small cart the likes of which many of the clans used. Ponies pulled it, and her enemies numbered five.

Only five, Valda thought. If this were down south, where the fighters were softer than porridge, then she might even have thought she had a chance.

But Eagle Clan are fierce. her spirits dipped lower. They trained with every aerial weapon from an early age, making them expert archers, spear throwers—and she knew firsthand their skill with thrown bolas.

The snow shifted to a gentle drift rather than a heavy fall, its fat flakes eddying into her cage and out again as if taunting her. The only glimmer of hope that Valda felt was that they hadn’t taken the road south toward Korjall but had kept on heading west, taking the smaller drover’s tracks to the base of the foothills.

Which means we’re only going to one place, aren’t we? Valda thought, and today, on the second full day of her journey, she was proved right.

“Elvik,” the man with the black hair announced, and Valda saw the relief settle through the war band as they neared their home. They picked their slow trail around the feet of giant ash trees, and suddenly the path opened up, and Valda saw their destination.

Elvik. Always showing everyone else up. Valda glowered.

Where most other clans were content to live on the ground, the Eagle Clan had to be better. While they had huts and halls and smokeries and saunas on the ground, the town itself was spread through an area of Otland deep woods, many of the buildings built onto platforms that encircled the giant pine trees that they shared their town with.

She couldn’t help but look up, raising her eyes to the heavens. Entire huts had been built around the central trunks of their parent trees, sitting with wider circular platforms, braced against the tree’s spine.

As Valda watched, she saw the sudden movements of people as they ascended or descended quickly, using ropes with counterweights and wheels to rocket up or down, then coming to a jerking halt. The members of Eagle Clan were used to this transport, and none of them appeared out of control.

“She’s going to Alar,” the man with the black beard said. They trundled down a slope to join the main track, which rolled right into the center of the town without any palisade wall or ditch.

Not that they need defenses at all. Valda saw the movements of people above them on all sides as keen-sighted guards with bows and spears moved on guard platforms high above them. She knew that they would be willing to rain hell down on those below at any moment—long before any foolhardy war band managed to get near the town.

“Chief Alar wants me? Kielder Ten’s brother?” Valda shouted. “You know you are serving a corrupt jarl, don’t you? Erlich is a weak man. He doesn’t deserve the fealty of the Eagle Clan!”

She tried, she really tried, but the black-bearded man and the three-banded woman ignored her as they drew the wagon past the town huts and to one of the largest pine trees there was. Valda saw other Eagle Clan members stepping out of their huts to look at her silently, making the sign to ward off ill luck and spitting on the forest floor.

Oathbreakers should not be suffered to live, Valda quoted from the old sagas. They were the betrayal of everything that the Otlanders held dear. Some wises even said that oathbreaking could be catching and spread from the criminal to those around them . . . so, it was best to drive them into the wastes as soon as possible.

“Well, I survived the wastes. Now what?” she grumbled as they stopped at the base of the largest pine tree Valda had ever seen and came toward her.

Valda fought them, earning a solid smack against Mr. Black Beard’s right eye and a kick to three-banded woman’s chest before the woman pressed a skinning knife to her throat and ordered her to be still.

There was no greater incentive than cold steel, apparently.

Her captors dragged her out of the cage and pulled on the simple loop harnesses that dangled and hung everywhere at the base of the Elvik trees. One was slipped over Valda’s feet and legs and tightened at her waist.

“Oh, and keep your knees in if you don’t want to lose them,” Mr. Black Beard grunted and reached for the rope-

“Wait!” Valda said—before the wind took her.

With a jerk that pushed all of the wind from her chest, Valda shot upwards as the counterweight shot down. The tree blurred, and somehow, she managed to not kick, which would have resulted in her foot or knee slamming into the tree trunk at breakneck speeds.

Almost as soon as it began, it was over. Valda was suddenly jerked to a bouncing standstill with the tether cutting into her clothing and hips painfully as she gasped for air.

“You’d have thought with all the fuss about her, she’d be better at that.” Mr. Black Beard laughed as he stepped out onto the wooden platform next to them, undoing his harness as he went and then pulling on the overhead rope to drag the thrashing and gasping Valda next to him.

“That was NOTHING like flying a dragon,” Valda grumbled, earning a strange look from Mr. Black Beard and another Eagle guard who stood looking at Valda with disgust.

Black Beard pulled his short sword and prodded Valda in the back, not hard enough to tear clothing but hard enough so that it hurt. A lot.

“Move.”

They hadn’t even bothered to bind Valda’s hands, she saw, as she was marched across the wooden walkway to where the Hall of the Chief stood, built on a wide platform with two giant branches of the pine tree supporting it. In other respects, the Hall of the Chief was like every other clan hall that Valda had ever seen, with a thatched roof, multiple smoke holes with thin ribbons of smoke rising from them, and two large totems depicting the fierce eagle they were devoted to in jet-black wood.

Valda wondered how old those totems were. Every clan apparently had them. Who had carved them? Why? It was easier to think of such things than the fact that she was about to be handed over to Jarl Erlich or Kielder Ten and then—she and everyone she loved would most likely die.

“I see why you didn’t bother to tie me up,” Valda grumbled to her guard, nodding to the slim railing and the hundred-foot drop below them.

Mr. Black Beard laughed cruelly and prodded her into the hall.

“Raven’s daughter! Finally—the chance to meet the girl that almost started a war!” a clear voice called out to greet her, bringing the sound of laughing voices and stringed music to a sudden halt.

The inside of the Hall of the Chief was surprisingly bright. Window panels were pulled down, letting in light and the smell of fresh pine from the trees above. Stands of candles scattered everywhere about the hall, which had been divided into sections by thick woven hangings.

Valda saw two fireplaces where the fires were contained in metal stands on large stone slabs, and the smoke filtered up to the window panels above. Around them, she saw Eagle clansfolk, either on low wooden stump stools or on the ground, talking and mending bits of equipment or listening to a minstrel with a lyre.

All activity stopped, however, as soon as the Chief of the Eagle Clan himself spoke.

“Bring her.”

Chief Alar was a man much older than his brother Kielder Ten or Jarl Erlich, and he looked like the epitome of his clan. He was tall and willowy but with a constrained, wiry strength to his form. Valda recognized what years of climbing and hunting did to a body.

You never get big, but you get tough, she thought.

Alar had the sides of his head shaved to silvery stubble, a singular topknot extending from the back of his head, festooned with eagle feathers both small and large. His face was narrow and his nose sharp, and he had a line of white scar dots across his temple—a ritual practice that had significance here but which Valda did not understand herself.

He wore a simple gray-blue cloak and tight-fitting linens and leathers. His trews were bound with leather straps, and Valda thought he looked ready to leap into a hunt or a climb at any moment.

Ah. Valda glared furiously at him. Chief Alar was clearly not a man to be treated lightly.

Valda was poked across the near room of the Hall but stopped before she could get closer than a few yards as Mr. Black Beard slapped the flat of his blade across her chest.

“So. Oathbreaker. You know why we have you, of course.” Chief Alar, who could easily be in his seventieth year, cocked his head to one side. His eyes were a striking gray, like the overcast skies of the ice wastes.

“The Jarl demands your return, and my good brother has asked me to . . . be of service.” A shadow flickered across Chief Alar’s eyes as he said that.

Interesting. Do you not like serving anyone, Chief Alar? Valda thought. Perhaps there was a glimmer of hope here. Perhaps Chief Alar did not like taking orders from his (much) younger brother.

“Erlich will not stop until every clan is on their knees,” Valda stated seriously. “You know that as well as I do. What my father did was justified, and we almost would have rid ourselves of these tyrants if it had worked.” She clipped each word into crystal clarity as she spoke. There was not a person in this room who couldn’t hear her.

Chief Alar was silent for a moment before he made the slightest shrugging gesture. “That may be—but it didn’t work, did it? The younger Wolf survived, and now he is the jarl, and he is in charge. And you, Valda Hemsdottir,” Alar leaned forward, his eyes flashing, “are an oathbreaker. I don’t have to remind you of the terrible penalties for helping a traitor.”

“I betrayed no one but myself!” Valda snapped. “I should have trained harder!”

“Fool!” Chief Alar snarled, his voice turning from soft to furious in a heartbeat.

“Did you think of the other clans when you tried to kill Erlich?” Chief Alar rebuked her. “Did you think of your father, your own clan? What about your oaths to keep them safe? Or did you just think of your own pride and quest for glory? Those are the oaths you broke, Valda Hemsdottir!”

“But . . .” Valda started defiantly, but something in what Alar had said stopped her in her tracks.

He’s telling the truth. A deep shame burned through Valda. It was worse because she had replayed that night over and over in her head for the last ten years.

“Erlich was stealing women,” Valda said softly, her voice broken. “I know of them. He would take them, do what he wanted with them, and his father just fed him whatever slaves he wanted . . .”

Chief Alar’s eyes were shining, as fierce as the creature he had been born to respect.

“And there are ways to deal with such dishonor. The sagas quite clearly tell us so. A father may kill for a child, a widow for her partner . . . a war for a chief,” Alar said.

What?

Valda was surprised. What was Chief Alar telling her? That if her father had been killed, the other clans would have risen up? Or if she had been given to Erlich, then the clans would have gone to war with the more powerful Wolf Clan?

“The oaths are there for a reason, Hemsdottir. But in Raven’s selfishness, they placed themselves and their clan before all others,” Alar stated. “It has always been the way with Raven. They keep themselves apart, on the edges of things, until they feel wilder than they do Otland.”

Valda felt devastated, but she was still her father’s daughter. She was still a Raven. She would not have her clan insulted.

“Give me an axe or just fists and say that again about the Raven Clan,” she snarled. “I’ll meet anyone you want in single combat.”

Chief Alar took a step back, and the blade pressed against her chest rose, its edge sitting on her throat instead.

“I’m sure you would, Valda. I’m sure you would,” Alar muttered as he shook his head.

“You are not going to have your fight. Not with me, anyway. And besides, there is a reason I didn’t tell my men to drive you straight to Jarl Erlich at Korjall. I have some men here who very much want to talk with you,” the chief said.

“Men? Who?” Valda said at once.

Chief Alar raised his hands and clapped. One of the side tapestries was pulled aside, and three figures stepped out.

Well, to be precise, two figures stepped out, and the third was pushed as his hands and ankles were bound with thick rope. He had a mop of ragged black hair, but it wasn’t long enough to hide the swelling covering one eye.

“Darin!” Valda recognized the lump of a man, even if his face looked as though it had gone several rounds with a stone wall.

“Hey, Valda.” Darin Silvetti, her trusted friend and fellow bounty hunter’s tone was muffled as he cracked his neck and spat a gobbet of blood on the floor.

“I met this lovely clan of yours when I came to see what was taking you so long. I see they haven’t even bothered to tie your hands together, huh?” Silvetti raised his bound hands and gave a wry grin. Valda was sure he had lost another tooth.

Darin came all the way up here to find me? Valda would almost have been touched by that if they both hadn’t faced imminent or prolonged execution.

“Wrong bird, Darin,” Valda whispered. Tears sprang into her eyes. “I’m Raven Clan. This bunch of toluks are Eagles . . .”

“Ah, my mistake. You know how I am with ornithology.” Darin tried to laugh and only ended up spitting more blood on the floor.

Valda’s gaze swept to the other two men who stood beside him. They appeared to be holding themselves slightly apart from both Darin Silvetti and Chief Alar.

They were dressed in heavy riding leathers, a sort that was quilted against the cold and studded with bronze metal rings. That sort of armor gave flexibility and movement, Valda knew. On top of this, they wore simple steel breastplates and thick metal arm greaves that ended in large steel gauntlets.

Both men were carrying their helmets under their arms, but Valda knew at once who—or what—they were.

Their helmets were a light golden-bronze color. And on their breastplates was the stylized, curving flame of the Fire Academy.

Chief Alar was about to hand her over to the Lantic Dragon Watch.

Chapter 17

The Dragon Watch

“. . . it is true that the Lantic Kingdom is impressive indeed. even without their dragons. They have thousands upon thousands of soldiers. More ships than you can count—but it is the Dragon Watch that makes them unstoppable. And I am sure the Lantics will do everything they can to keep that power . . .”

—private missive between River Cities ambassadors

“Well, you’d better say what you want to say quick because I think Chief Alar wants to see us executed real soon.” Valda gave the Lantic knights a savage grin as they led her and Darin through the Great Hall.

“Perhaps not. I think that might depend on what you say next,” said one of the Lantics—the older one with short hair that may have once been brown but was now shot through with gray and white. He had a look of a career soldier about him, Valda recognized. She had met plenty in her time in the southlands . . . usually those who had later turned to bounty hunting and freelance work when they had been paid out from the king’s service.

“What if I tell you that good people are dying up here in Otland while the Lantic king sits on his hands and does nothing?” Valda hissed back.

She saw a troubled scowl cross the older knight’s face, but he said nothing as he led them through the maze of woven tapestry walls to finally step out of an open archway and onto the platform.

Fresh pine-scented air mixed with woodsmoke greeted her, and for a heartbeat, Valda paused. Night had descended over Elvik, and Valda could hear the soft scraps of conversations and a drift of song as an Eagle woman sang to her children.

Life could be so simple for all of us out here, Valda thought. Life in the frozen north was hard enough. Why did humans have to make it harder?

For a wild moment, Valda vividly wished she was flying with Iskyr once again. She wished she could rise above all of this complicated human world. She might even bring Darin.

“Valda Hemsdottir, or should I say Bloodaxe?” the graying haired knight announced, walking them forward until they were near the railing and finally turning to them.

“My name is Bartholomew Avans, Captain of the Dragon Watch, and this is my second, Sir Holstein.” The man nodded to his fellow, who wore the same armor but was younger with ruddy hair and a tidy beard. The younger man’s eyes sparked with anger.

What did I ever do to you? Valda rolled her eyes.

“And I am Darin Silvetti, scourge of the River Cities, handsomest man in the west, most famous man you’ve never heard of . . .” Darin snickered beside Valda. It was one of the many reasons why Valda liked having Darin around. He simply did not give a damn what finery and graces anyone around him had.

The ruddy-haired Dragon Watch glared at Darin, but the older captain merely pursed his lips a little before continuing.

“We know who you are and what trouble you are in, Valda. You are a bounty hunter. A famous one, as far as such fame goes.” The man made a face. Valda grinned back.

“And here, in your homeland, you are considered a traitor. You will quite likely be executed by this jarl of yours. That is of no concern to the Lantic throne.”

“Wonderful caring bunch of guys, huh? And after all the taxes we never paid them,” Darin whispered loudly enough so they both heard.

“What does concern the throne is the White Dragon of Otland,” Captain Avans said heavily.

Iskyr. Valda’s heart thumped against her chest. They can’t have him. They MUSTN’T have him.

“Maybe you should take off and go talk to the dragon then, buddy.” Darin raised his voice.

“Shut up,” Avans snapped, and Sir Holstein shifted where he stood, his hands settling on the pommel of his greatsword.

Captain Avans kept his eyes focused on Valda. “Where did you learn to ride dragons, Valda?”

“What?” Darin stuttered.

What? Valda blinked. That was not the question she was expecting. She opened her mouth to tell them that they were crazy but knew better than to admit anything to a man who held all the cards (and swords, in this case).

Avans stretched his hands inside his metal gauntlets. “You were riding the White Dragon. You freed it from our nets.”

Of course, it was these two who had hunted her and Iskyr over the Ice Fjall. They were too far away to recognize, but how many Dragon Watch could there be up here?

Valda thought quickly. They want Iskyr for their Fire Academy. That means they’re in direct opposition to Jarl Erlich.

There was an opportunity here, she thought. The Lantics were far, far more powerful than Otland. They had the Dragon Watch, after all. They could fly up here and burn Elvik and Korjall and every clan to the ground whenever they wanted, couldn’t they?

They could defeat Jarl Erlich. They could free her clan.

Her mouth went suddenly dry, and her stomach dropped when she realized what she would have to do for that to happen. She would have to lead these men to Iskyr. They wanted her to capture the White Dragon of Otland for them . . . and in return, that might mean her family got to be free again.

Father! Valda felt her breath catch in her throat. How could she turn down this opportunity? The Raven Clan had ten long years of being beaten down, starved, and made a mockery of by Erlich and the Wolf Clan. What had Chief Alar said—that she should remember her duty to her clan?

Is this what Alar meant? Valda bit her lip. Perhaps Chief Alar had been offering her an opportunity to save her clan and overthrow Erlich in the process.

But I made a promise.

Her last argument with Iskyr sprang to her mind, and once again, Valda felt that deep sense of shame and hurt. She wasn’t sure if it had come from her or from him or both of them. She remembered his mother’s Mourning Song rising over the ice plains. Perhaps no other human alive had ever been allowed to witness such a thing.

I can’t.

I have to.

But I can’t . . .

“Ah.” Captain Avans cleared his throat and nodded to himself. Valda blinked, suddenly back in the moment. It looked like the Dragon Watch Captain had come to some decision.

“It is as I feared, Holstein. This one will never give up the location of the White Dragon now, even if we offer her more riches than any of her clan have ever seen,” Avans growled darkly.

“Hey, wait—you could try to offer the riches, at least . . .” At her side, Darin sounded mortified.

Valda felt everyone’s eyes on her, while her heart broke. How could she forsake her clan? But at the same time, how could she break her promise to Iskyr and Screams-with-the-Sun?

Promises and oaths are songs, Valda remembered. To a dragon, an oath was the same thing as singing. It was bravery, and it was honesty. To deny it was to be out of tune with who you really were.

“Impossible.” The red-haired Sir Holstein shook his head. “Do you know what you are suggesting, Bartholomew? Such a thing hasn’t happened in over a hundred years!”

The captain cleared his throat angrily, shooting a furious glance at his second, who looked suitably chagrined and stood up a little straighter. Valda’s eyes moved between the two men. There seemed to be something else going on here between them that she didn’t understand . . .

“Can you hear it? The dragon?” Avans suddenly took a step closer to Valda, his eyes scanning hers as if he searched for evidence of the dragon there.

“What? I don’t understand.” Valda shook her head and made to take a step back.

“Did the dragon tell you its name?!” Avans abruptly lunged forward, grabbing Valda by the upper arms.

“Don’t touch her!” Darin snarled, his chest puffing and anger dripping from his voice as he raised his bound fists to strike at the captain. All at once, Sir Holstein stepped forward and delivered a heavy blow to Darin’s chest with his metal gauntlets. Darin crumpled in a second, sighing over Holstein’s fist as the man grabbed him and pulled him away from Valda and Avans.

“Let him go! He didn’t do anything!” Valda shouted and started to move, but Avan’s metal-clad grip was strong.

“You hear him, don’t you? When he speaks, you hear him in your head? You feel what he is feeling?” Avans shook her once again, so strongly that Valda’s head whipped back and forth.

“Get toluked,” Valda gasped. She might not know anything about dragons or about the Fire Academy, but something in her told her at once that she should not reveal anything that had happened between her and the dragon.

Avans hissed angrily, sharing a quick glance with his second. It appeared that they were at as much of a loss as she was over what to do. Meanwhile, Valda’s mind rapidly tried to sort through what was happening.

Dragons can speak to people’s minds.

But not everyone heard them? Valda had assumed that this was only because Iskyr had chosen to speak directly to her—but these two Dragon Watch appeared to be placing a lot of importance on that.

Like it was unusual.

“We know that no one else has got a dragon academy yet,” Avans muttered. “So, she couldn’t have learned riding from anywhere else. And she has never been a student of the Fire Academy; I know that because I checked!”

Valda watched the conversation between the two men. Whatever it was they were discussing, they were taking it deadly seriously.

“She must have moon shards on her. There is no other way,” Holstein argued.

“Moon shards take years of training! Drakes are trained with them from hatching,” Bartholomew Avans argued back. He turned to stare at Valda.

“Well, do you? Did you use moon shards to control the dragon?”

Moon shards like the ones that Kielder Ten used to control Feisty and Sullen? Valda thought of the way that the twin Hobdragons had frozen, cried out in pain, before apparently being controlled by the First Sword.

“No!” she burst out. It was a disgusting idea. The mere thought of controlling a beast like Iskyr, who sang with the Sun and felt the world’s winds through his mind was . . . wrong.

“I tell you, she’s bonded,” Avans said, letting go and stepping away from her. His eyes were wide, and his mouth a flat horrified line.

“That can’t be so . . . A wild bonding? Without training or moon shards?” Holstein stuttered.

“What are you talking about?” Valda snarled back.

Sir Holstein standing over Darin grunted. “There’s one way we can soon find out, Captain. We have the training crystals. The ones we were going to use to capture the White . . .”

No. Valda didn’t know what they intended to do, but for some reason, she rejected it. A well of anger and fear pushed up through her, and in her mind, she smelled smoke and burning cinders.

Captain Avans looked most displeased at this prospect, but after a dour silence, he nodded. Holstein turned to the pouches at his hip, rummaging for a moment before he brought forth something wrapped in fine paper.

Sweat broke on Valda’s forehead, although she had no idea why she was so worried.

Holstein unwrapped the large teardrop shard of pea-green moon shard and held it up so that it caught the starlight. It threw brilliance and strange rainbow glimmers as he handed it to Captain Avans.

“Get that thing away from me,” Valda snapped as the captain held it before her eyes.

“No one really knows for sure where this stuff came from,” Avans said heavily, holding it so that it shone in Valda’s eyes.

“Some believe it was the Nuoldim that made the stuff, or perhaps it was the aftereffect from their magics. Either way, it allowed the Nuoldim to control the minds of dragons. It allows a mind to be bound to another. They amplify our commands . . .” Avans held it before Valda’s eyes.

“Valda Hemsdottir, I know your name, and you are bound to it. By your name, I bid you to listen to me,” the captain intoned, his voice thick with emotion.

Valda shook her head. What was he trying to do? She was no dragon. She could not so easily be controlled . . .

And yet, at the same time, she could not deny the attraction of the swirling, almost translucent green jewel. It was almost like glass. If she peered deeper into it, she fancied she could see beyond even her own reflection.

“Tell me the dragon’s name, and I will save you from Jarl Erlich,” Avans intoned again.

“No,” Valda said at once, even though she felt a tug at her mind. Something was happening to her. Her thoughts felt light, ephemeral, as if they might float away at any moment . . .

“Tell me the dragon’s name, Valda Hemsdottir!” Avans intoned.

This time, however, Valda felt something twitch at the back of her mind. A sense of agitation, of anxiety. For a moment, she could almost smell dragon fire and feel the cold solidity of scales under her hands.

“Tell me the dragon’s name, and I won’t have to do what you are forcing me to.” With Avans’ free hand, he drew his belt knife and took a step toward her, holding it closer and closer toward her cheek.

“Get away from me!” Fear woke Valda up for a moment from whatever soporific spell the moon shard was casting. She took a step backward—to thump against the wall of the Hall of the Chiefs. Darin struggled, writhed as Holstein grabbed him.

“Tell me the dragon’s name so I may bind it, Valda. Otherwise . . .”

Avans pressed the tip of the knife against Valda’s cheek. He still held the moon shard in front of her eyes. The soft pea-green light shimmered, and Valda saw swirls in the crystal as if it were made of entire seas, not rock.

“No, sister-friend! I am coming!”

Iskyr’s voice sounded inside, but Valda could barely hear it. How was Iskyr so close? Had he been following her all this time?

But the swirling green was pervading all of her now. Her own thoughts were starting to drift away under the creep of magic.

Iskyr, Valda thought. The dragon’s name is Iskyr . . .

Valda felt her mouth open, but just as suddenly, her heart pounded. She couldn’t do it. She had made a promise—and to break a promise was like denying the savage beauty of the dragon song itself, like denying who you really were, wasn’t it?

There is a part of me that belongs to Iskyr and he to me, Valda finally accepted.

Suddenly, a roar of rage and fury burst through the hunter. The mind of the human woman was gone, to be replaced with outrage and dragon fire. Valda was aware of the thunder crack of wings and the rush of air as anger tore through her.

She saw red and lunged out, her hand blurring as she struck the moon shard away, leaping forward as a fierce shriek tore the night sky.

“Valda!” Darin gasped, but she was too far gone to register him. Valda kicked and struck out, her hands hitting metal armor, but she did not feel the pain. She hissed and growled as—at the same time—something much larger howled over the treetops.

“I am here, Valda. Fight!” Iskyr’s furious voice billowed through Valda’s mind like an inferno.

Far above them, the White Dragon of Otland whirled, unleashing his fire onto the treetops.

Chapter 18

Escape from Elvik

A true friend is worth more than a jarl’s treasure.

—an Otland proverb

“It’s here! The dragon is here!” Sir Holstein was shouting—which under any other circumstances, Valda would have found highly amusing, as there was no one in all of Elvik right now who had any doubt about it.

However, Valda was too incensed to pay much attention to the Lantic’s statement of the obvious.

She hammered blows on Captain Avan’s breastplate and scored one solid punch to his cheek that knocked him sideways.

Rage soared through her. She had always found anger to be a tight limiting feeling. Now, however, it was as if she had been given wings.

She pushed the captain to one side. She saw Darin standing up and swinging his bound fists in a blow that took Sir Holstein by surprise. The man went down in a second.

“Darin—run!” Valda jumped past him, grabbing Darin’s elbow as she did so, and shoved him ahead of her as they ran down the wooden platform outside Alar’s great hall.

Above them, Iskyr roared in frustration. Flames had caught the tops of the trees, and there was a terrible crashing sound as first one and then another tree split, shattering under his talons.

“Valda, where?” Darin gasped. They ran halfway around the Hall of the Chief to see the eagle totems outside—and the crowd of clan warriors racing out from within. They were still shocked by what was happening, as flaming branches and leaves rained down onto the forest floor. Not so shocked, however, that one of the gathered—Chief Alar himself—didn’t spot Valda and Darin.

“It’s them! Get them!” he shouted.

“Don’t stop!” Valda demanded, her fear and anger lending speed to her racing feet. She shot past the still surprised crowd with Darin following right behind her.

They were nearing the end of the platform as shouts followed them, and the chief’s hearth warriors broke into a chase.

“The harnesses!” Valda said, pointing to the smaller adjoining platform with the open “booths” that held each harness.

Screams rose from the forest floor as the clansfolk of Elvik awoke to the frenzied thrashing of the dragon far above them. There was another mighty crack, and it seemed half a tree fell past the railings, its leaves smoldering.

Valda knew they had no time. She ran up the steps to the first booth and grabbed the harness, not even bothering to step inside as she reached for the pull rope she had seen Mr. Black Beard clan guard use.

“We’re going to die, Valda!” Darin gasped as he grabbed another set of harness ropes, copying his friend.

“Stop them!” The shouts of Alar’s guards were right behind them.

“Better die free then!” Valda said and pulled the release.

Instantly, she was pulled off the platform, her hands slipping and burning before she grabbed on tighter. The trees flashed in a blur around her, and Valda remembered to pull her knees in before . . .

“Ugh!”

The harness ropes jerked to a stop just above the tree floor, and the move was so sudden that it threw Valda off, spinning her through the air before she hit the ground with a heavy thud.

“Valda!” Darin, apparently, was a much better tree climber than he was a diplomat. He had one foot wedged in the leather harness, which caught his drop before he jumped out and staggered over to her.

“You have to get up. Too many trees. Come to me.” As shadows and pain clustered around Valda’s mind, she heard the dragon’s voice, as loud and as clear as if he were standing right beside her.

“You have to move. If you want to be free.”

Valda groaned, throwing herself to one side as Darin seized her armpits and dragged her to her feet. There was the whine of releasing ropes as Chief Alar’s guards rappelled down their chief tree toward them.

“Run!” Valda gasped, her body unconsciously turning in the direction of the dragon’s voice. They broke into a desperate sprint, leaping over tree roots as thick as stairs, their boots sending explosions of decaying pine needles behind them.

Beyond the chief’s tree, the huts and largest halls of the Eagle Clan were spread out. Two of the buildings were already on fire from dragon-touched branches, and smoke was billowing thicker in the evening air. Clansfolk screamed as they ran across their path.

“There!”

Valda heard the guards hit the ground and shout a moment before there was the telltale thwip and hiss of objects flying through the air. The first arrow hit the ground to the right of Valda’s leg—and the next knife thudded into the wooden panel of the hall that she dodged around.

“Where are we going?” Darin demanded, keeping pace with her even with his bound hands.

“I don’t know,” Valda confessed. All she knew was that her dragon had called to her, and she had to go.

She skidded around the end of the first hall, surprising a trio of clansfolk as they rushed past, shouting and running into the forest.

“I am here. Come!” Iskyr announced.

“That way!” Valda jumped again, dragging Darin behind her as a trio of arrows flew down the avenue between the huts behind them.

The ground was starting to rise, and the huts becoming more spaced out as their feet took them to the edge of the town itself. They saw boars in a pen suddenly break down their fences. A duo of mountain ponies galloped past.

“Watch out!” Iskyr commanded her. A moment later, a mighty crack like the entire world splitting in half shook the forest.

Behind them, a burning tree slammed into the ground, shaking the forest floor and sending billows of smoke into the canopy, completely trapping their pursuers on the far side.

Valda and Darin didn’t stop. Their legs ached as they ran up the side of the hill, panting and gasping for breath to see the trees thin and the gleam of stars between the black trunks.

The top of the hill was bare save for the hulking twitching agitation of the young White Dragon.

“Quickly now, the other riders are getting their dragons!” Iskyr wheeled his great head to stare defiantly at them. Darin skidded to a halt as Valda ran forward.

“Val-Valda. That is a star’s darned dragon!” Darin stood, his eyes wide and his whole body shaking.

“Great observation, Darin. He is also going to save our lives!” Valda said, running back to seize Darin by the hand and drag him to Iskyr’s foreleg. The dragon dropped into a crouch to allow them to climb.

“What am I doing? What is going on?” Darin’s voice was weak and utterly terrified, but he moved his hands and legs under Valda’s insistence to climb first the paw, then the foreleg and shoulder, to swing his leg over the dragon’s neck. Valda followed behind, jumping into place.

“Grab onto the tines, like this!” She placed his bound hands over the nearest ones and grabbed two of the back tines as power thrummed through Iskyr’s muscles.

“Now, we fly!”

Iskyr lifted his head and bellowed in defiance. It was a shout of fury and also of celebration—a call of the wild against this cruel human world. With an explosion of strength, Iskyr leaped into the air, his wings unfolding to crack the wind and send them shooting low over the Otland forests.

Behind them, the town of Elvik, home of the Eagle Clan, burned.

Chapter 19

Parts of the Same Song

Dragons choose to share their songs with few . . .

—a dragon proverb

“Iskyr?”

Valda stirred in her sleep, opening her eyes to realize that something was wrong.

It was still dark, but the lightened tones of pastel blue were illuminating the eastern horizon. Dawn wasn’t too far away, and already, the early cries of the blackbirds could be heard.

Valda was exhausted, and every new movement woke her up to the realization that her body was also battered. She couldn’t number how many scrapes, thumps, and falls she’d had over the last few days.

Ah, Otland, she thought a little wryly. The mountains had a way of beating you to a pulp, even when they weren’t trying.

But there was still something wrong. The warm body of the dragon was gone from the patch of bare earth they had found—underneath an overhang overlooking one of the many nameless fast mountain streams. The sides of the valley were deeply wooded, and Valda knew that they could be anywhere, in any valley, all across Otland.

She pushed herself up as memories of last night’s desperate flight met her. Iskyr had flown low and fast over the forests of the Eagle Clan, and they had already flashed into the high foothills by the time that the two Lantic dragons had risen to chase them. Valda had no idea how they got away, but she remembered clinging onto Iskyr’s back for a long time in the freezing night as he flew fast down gorges, alighting on rocks and lying low before flying fast in the other direction.

Apparently, dragons are excellent at hiding too. Who would have known? Valda wondered.

Darin was still curved against the wall of the overhang, snuggling into the residual warmth that the dragon’s body had left. Either shock or exhaustion had silenced him last night, and instead of questioning her about her newfound friendship with a dragon, he had collapsed into a deep sleep.

Looks as though he needs it too. Valda wished she had a blanket to throw over him. The Eagle Clan had done a good number on his face when they had caught him, it was plain to see. Intruders aren’t generally welcomed in Otland, and especially so by the Eagle Clan.

At some point, Iskyr had brought them here, following whatever sense of goodness that a dragon followed. It was secluded, and they had a view down the valley ahead of them. There were fish below them to hunt if need be.

If only we were staying. a twinge of sadness moved through Valda as she stood up.

The White Dragon was sitting on his haunches just outside the overhang. The pale twilight cast his scales into a ghostly glow.

“Something interesting?” Valda said quietly as she stepped toward him. She was surprised that she no longer felt any trepidation around the giant beast. Instead, this felt normal.

“Watching,” Iskyr said in her mind, his voice dusted with the image of cinder sparks and warmth.

Worry clutched at Valda’s heart. “Are they out there? The Lantic dragons?”

Iskyr’s tail thwipped against the hillside, and he turned his great head toward her, for her to see the golden gleam of his eyes.

“Yes. Of course. But they are far away. That is not what I was watching.” Iskyr turned back and dropped his snout toward the eastern horizon—just as a crack of golden light peeked through the distant black trees.

“Sunrise? I didn’t know you dragons were quite so fanciful,” Valda said. It felt like the most normal thing in the world to have a conversation with the dragon. She settled down beside him, drawing her knees up to her chest.

“I don’t understand . . . fanciful?” Iskyr tail thumped against the ground one more time.

“It means whimsical. Imaginative, I suppose. Something not needed,” Valda explained, leaning back on her elbows to watch as the Sun quickly grew bigger, its few golden rays becoming a bank of light. In response, it seemed as though the whole world took a breath. There was a lightness to the air as well as the colors, and the birds started to trill louder.

“A hatchling’s delight is the song itself!” Iskyr said, which Valda guessed was some bit of dragon lore.

“The song . . .” Valda wondered a little. The dragon talked a lot about that. It seemed to mean a lot of things, and all of them very important and deeply good.

“Dragons sing to the Sun. That is what Screams-with-the-Sun taught me. Every morning, every evening,” Iskyr said. “Although this morning, I cannot, as that would alert the other dragons of our presence.”

“You sing? Like birdsong?” Valda laughed in delight.

Iskyr’s tail hit the ground a little harder this time. “Maybe birds sing like us.”

“I think that’s beautiful,” Valda said softly. Her thoughts took her naturally to Screams-with-the-Sun’s Mourning Song and how it had appeared to fill the sky with notes. She would very much like to hear Iskyr sing again—but obviously didn’t want a repeat of the near capture again.

“They haven’t learned,” Iskyr said after a pause. Valda could feel the heaviness of his thoughts.

“Who? The birds? Or the Lantic dragons?” Valda leaned up into a seated position. She felt the conversation shift, and she didn’t want it to. There were an awful lot of things that they had to think about now, such as what they were going to do now that Wolf Clan, Eagle Clan, and the Lantics were after them. She had wanted to linger a few more minutes, thinking of dragon song and mornings.

“You humans.” Iskyr turned his head once again, and this time, Valda did feel a shiver of unease. He was still a giant fire-breathing reptile, after all.

The dragon regarded her for a moment, then turned back to the dawn with a tiny puff of smoke from his nostrils.

“The shards of the moon were remembered by Screams-with-the-Sun. The old people used it to enslave my people.”

“Moon shards,” Valda translated, and by the old people, he must have meant . . . “the Nuoldim?”

A deep rattling hiss sounded through Iskyr’s chest at the mere name of them. But they were almost mythical. Legendary. They had all finally died out, a victim of their own magics, leaving nothing but their ruins.

“It enslaves another’s song. It makes them sing not their own song.” The dragon quivered with disgust, which was probably the worst insult that Valda thought a dragon could give.

“And these other humans still use it. To train other dragons,” Iskyr went on. “I could sense them, you know. The others. But they were angry and suspicious of me. They did not trust me, even though we sing similar songs.”

Valda winced. She felt how much that would hurt. It was a bit like what she was facing in Otland: her clan enslaved to the Jarl, and most of the people that she thought would stand up for her had instead betrayed her—like the Eagle Clan.

“What do you want to do?” Valda asked quietly. She knew that Iskyr would be entirely within his rights to decide to leave the north for good. He could fly to the deep mountains beyond the ice wastes or head west after his mother or even cross the eastern ocean to the lands as yet undiscovered.

Iskyr’s tail thumped on the ground once more. Valda was starting to get the sense that it was a bit like a shrug.

“What we have to do. We are together. A part of our songs is the same.”

Iskyr’s utter confidence and dedication humbled Valda. She no longer felt the need to fight it.

“Bonded,” she breathed, turning the word that the Lantics had used. It had meant something important to them, and it appeared that they couldn’t believe that it had ever happened.

“Together,” Iskyr insisted. “Dragons choose to share their songs with few others. When they do, they are stronger.”

Valda nodded. This was starting to make sense. The way that there were older hunters she knew who had wolfhounds for years, and it got so that they were almost two parts of the same thing.

“But the Lantics . . . they said that it didn’t happen in the wild. It hadn’t been done for a hundred years,” she breathed.

There was a cough behind them, and Valda turned around to see Darin standing warily at the mouth of the cave, looking doubtfully at the woman and the dragon.

“Dragons are bonded with their riders; that’s how it works,” he said gruffly, before throwing a glance over at the White Dragon. “That is, uh, what’s going on with you? You’re bonded?” Darin said carefully.

Worry clutched at Valda. “He’s not going to hurt me. Or you,” she said quickly.

“There’s not enough meat on him for me to eat.” Iskyr turned and stared just as warily at Darin Silvetti.

“Not helping,” Valda whispered, quickly trying to suppress a nervous smile. She saw Darin squint at them both suspiciously and then sigh a little, as if whatever mystery this was, it was beyond him.

“I met a guy once, out on the Broken Seas campaign, you remember that?” Darin said. He was nervous, his voice a little fast. Valda knew the swordsman told stories when he was nervous.

“I heard about it,” Valda said. “I’ve never been great in boats, so the thought of going up against pirates in some of the worst waters on Aea didn’t appeal to me at the time.”

Darin nodded. “Yeah, well, you didn’t miss out. But one of the guys there, he tried out to be Dragon Watch before signing up as a mercenary. He was from one of the noble families, see, and the first son got to inherit, so he thought he would become a knight.” Darin made a face. His opinions on those with titles and flags were well known to Valda.

“Anyway. He spent from age sixteen to nineteen trying to get these hatchlings to talk to him, but whichever dragon they paired him with, it just never took. He told me once that they were supposed to bond if they spent enough time training together, and the older dragon riders could even hear the thoughts of their dragons . . .” Darin looked owlishly at Valda. “Is that what it is like for you?”

“SOME of my song.” Iskyr’s tongue flickered in his maw. It seemed that even dragons liked to keep their secrets.

“I don’t know.” Valda tried to stay focused on what Darin was telling her. It was hard to keep two conversations in her head at one time, and she wondered if that was one of the skills that the Fire Academy taught.

“The dragon has to choose their rider. Unless you’re like that guy I met, I guess. Even I hated him.” Darin laughed awkwardly.

“Dragons share songs with whom they trust. Who sing the same tunes they do,” Iskyr said.

Valda nodded. The more she talked with Iskyr, the more she understood how the dragon talked. A song—or a tune—was how she felt, and acted, and believed. It was the shape of her life and what she felt.

She and the dragon shared something. A sense of loss, perhaps, but also a need to put things right. To do the right thing.

“And we’re both Otlanders.” Valda smiled. She could sense Iskyr’s annoyance at this assertion, but it was only minor. He probably had another name for the north of the world.

Valda turned to find the dragon looking at her. His eyes were the color of sunlight and burnished gold. When she studied them, she saw that they were flecked through with green.

There was something she needed to say to him. In a way, it was fitting that Darin, one of her oldest friends, was here to witness it.

“I’m sorry,” Valda said solemnly, frowning at herself as she spoke to the dragon. “You knew we were bonded before I did, and I rejected it. I was scared of what this means. I’m still scared, but I’m here now,” Her voice dropped into a low whisper.

For a moment, Valda was scared that the dragon would rebuke her—would reject her for how she had treated him. She kept her head bowed, waiting for his judgment.

“Sister.”

Iskyr’s head stretched forward on his long neck. Very carefully, he bumped the top of Valda’s head with his snout. She felt a huff of hot air, laden with something like soot, flow over her.

“So, uh, I guess this is going to make tavern visits interesting,” Darin cut in.

Valda burst out laughing. “Darin, you’re an idiot.”

“Most good-looking idiot in the south!” the sell-sword gave a mocking bow.

They laughed, but there was an edge to their humor. Valda knew that Darin had put his finger on something true. What are they going to do now? What did their lives look like now that she was a bonded dragon rider?

Father, Valda’s heart thumped.

Whatever the future held, there was one thing that was right in front of her. Jarl Erlich was still holding her father captive in his own lands, and if she didn’t do something, then her father, her clan, the Wise Onden . . . all of them were probably going to be killed.

Anger curdled her good emotions, and she felt a rising chill seep into her bones.

“I need to stop Erlich,” Valda said, turning her gaze to the dawn. “I need to free my clan, and it doesn’t look as though any of the other clans will help me.”

There was a moment of silence from the other two around her. Iskyr’s tail whipped against the ground, but she did not sense any hesitation in him.

“Well, you do have a dragon now.” Darin Silvetti grinned.

Chapter 20

The Plan

The Wise of the Otlands are another such example, perhaps, of an ancient form of knowledge passed down from mother to child for generations. It is part of their mystery whether their wisdom is entirely their own or the relics of the Nuoldim. Who, then, knows for sure what secrets the wise keep?

—A Study of Mystery Traditions in Northern Aea (King’s Tower)

As plans go—in all of Valda’s years as a bounty hunter, tracking criminals and murderers and entire gangs through towns, cities, forests, and wild lands—this plan was probably the most devastatingly simple.

Go in.

Kill Erlich.

After all, it was just as Darin Silvetti said, wasn’t it? They had a dragon.

“You ready?” Valda murmured to Darin, who was sitting on the slope outside of their overhang, clutching one of the wooden spears that matched the one that Valda herself held.

One of the main problems with this whole plan was the fact that all of their things had been taken from them multiple times. In Valda’s case, it had been Falko the Rat and then Wolf Clan and then the Eagle Clan who had stolen every useful item she used to carry. For Darin, it was just Chief Alar’s men.

However, they still had a dragon, didn’t they? Valda had selected the stakes, and Iskyr had snipped them off. She had used one of his claws to help sharpen their ends.

It’ll do until we get into combat. The first Wolf we overpower, we steal their weapons. Valda ran through the idea.

“But hopefully, we won’t even use them,” Valda said as she climbed up Iskyr’s foot and swung herself into place. “I mean, as soon as Wolf Clan knows that we have a dragon . . . you’d run for the hills, right?”

Darin winced, but he nodded as he reached for the dragon’s leg and climbed up to sit behind Valda.

“What?” Valda asked. She could always tell when Darin didn’t agree with her. His silence was heavy.

“You’re the boss,” Darin said. “I just think that battle gets messy. People do all sorts of things when they’re scared.”

“Hopefully run away,” Valda insisted as her mood shifted. In truth, she knew that Darin was right. There was no way to predict how this was going to go.

But what else can we do?

“Let’s go,” she whispered, as Iskyr chirruped and jumped forward to leap into the air.

Valda heard Darin breathe in briskly. A moment later, Iskyr’s wings snapped open, and the wind threw them forward. If Valda was no good at boats, then it seemed that Darin was no good at flying.

In fact, a surge of excitement ran through her as soon as she was flying. She wanted to stretch her arms out and howl in delight but stopped herself.

“All wild things love the wind,” Iskyr said. She could feel the same savage satisfaction in him that she felt.

Valda tried to stay focused. The Wolf Clan wasn’t the only threat they might face today.

“Stay under the valley walls. Maybe we can use them to reach Korjall,” she murmured.

“As if I am scared of southern dragons!” Iskyr said defiantly, but he still followed her advice.

Iskyr had told her that they weren’t too far from her home. which he said he could smell even from where they were. But what a dragon considers far and what a human does are two very different things.

The dragon flew for leagues through valleys and gorges with deeply wooded sides and snow-frosted floors. But he did so quickly, using the thermals to shoot down the inclines and wheel into the next. Birds cried and erupted into the air at his passing, but they saw no other sign of life.

No sign of dragon life.

Finally, after the valleys had grown deeper and steeper, they suddenly wheeled out over a long ice-flecked forge, and Valda recognized where they were.

“The Claws,” Valda whispered. The Claws was a series of three fjords, each open to the eastern seas at one end, sitting side by side and meeting a rise of deep forests.

Korjall sat at the head of the third and southernmost claw.

“Overland.” Valda leaned forward. “Set me down near the woods, and I can make my way on foot.”

“Why do this?” Iskyr rattled a deep growl.

“I still think this is a bad idea.” Darin Silvetti, even though he couldn’t hear the dragon at all, apparently agreed with him.

It was a ridiculously straightforward plan, but that didn’t mean that it was going to be easy.

“We’ve been over this,” Valda called, raising her voice over the ice winds.

“Someone needs to make sure Father and the others are safe. Someone needs to make sure Jarl Erlich is dead. As soon as Erlich sees me, he’ll be delighted. It’ll be the distraction that you need, Darin—to rescue my father. Iskyr will drop you on the other side of the town while Erlich is busy with me.”

“And then I get to breathe fire on everything?” Iskyr swished his tail as they flew. The forests of the fjord were getting larger and larger by the moment.

“Not everything!” Valda said at once (and it wasn’t the first time she’d explained this to him).

“There will be Wolf encampments, Wolf fighters.” Valda winced. This was the most difficult part of the plan. How did you get a dragon to distinguish between two sets of humans?

“Breathe fire on whoever tries to kill me, I guess,” Valda finished, her words feeling a little lame.

“That’s what I was going to do anyway,” Iskyr said.

“Good.” Valda nodded. It was a terrible plan, but it was the best she could do. She hoped that she would be the one to kill Erlich herself, but she wouldn’t be annoyed if it was Darin or Iskyr.

The dragon skimmed lower and lower over the waters, so close that Valda could see the dart of salmon silvering away from the dragon’s flight.

With the slightest flick of his wings, Iskyr rose over the black shingle beach and flew over the tree line to land under the ridge that joined the three fjords. His wings flapped, and his feet hit the sand at a run.

Valda jumped off Iskyr’s back to hit the ground running, pausing as she climbed up to the ridge line. She looked back.

The White Dragon stood behind and below her on the slope, his head proud as he stared at her. She saw Darin raise a hand in greeting—or farewell.

“Hunt well, sister,” she heard Iskyr’s voice.

“I intend to,” Valda whispered. She turned around and jogged over the rise.

Korjall lurked at the mouth of the fjord, ringed by a high palisade wall made of tree trunks. From where Valda stood, she could see the top of the Raven Hall and the Mother’s Hall and the smoke rising from the various cook houses and smoke shacks.

But none of the boats are out, she thought, scanning the dark waters of Korjall Fjord. It was nearing midday, and by now, she should be able to see a whole host of fishing vessels plying their waters as well as the occasional large warships patrolling the mouth of the fjord.

Instead, there was . . . nothing.

“That’s odd,” Valda whispered, frowning. Her quick eyes ran across the buildings and the surroundings. She couldn’t see much movement in her home. Where was everybody?

Foreboding settled on her as she realized that the fields and pastures were untended too. She could see the large shaggy mountain goats that her people tended, slowly and methodically moving in expanding arcs across the patchy snows, just as they always did.

But where are the campfires of the shepherds? Where are the hunters guarding them? Valda knew you had to have people out there defending the flocks; otherwise the wolves and bears and worse would get them. She remembered doing that job herself many times.

It was then that she saw the singular fluttering flag over the front gates of her home. The ice-flecked winds caught it, unfurling it for her to read.

It was a black flag, just like the Raven flag—but instead of the stylized, sweeping bird head that her clan used, there was the profile of a snarling wolf’s head instead.

“Toluk breath!” Valda strode forward, her anger propelling her to march. Her hand, bound with scraps of linen in place of frost gloves, clutched at her wooden spear tightly.

Erlich wasn’t just teaching the Ravens a lesson. He had claimed Korjall, her home, the ancestral home of the Raven Clan.

Valda marched forward down the slope, passing the meadows and pastures she had worked as a child. Memories assailed her as she trudged. She passed the wide, flat, and drab square of field where her father had first taught her to hold a bow and throw a spear. She rounded the Small Ponds where, as young as ten years old, Raven children were expected to break the ice and jump in, before running to the low stone towers filled with burning embers. The towers didn’t even smoke, and the Small Ponds were so iced over, it was obvious no Raven child had experienced this rite of passage this year.

Where is everybody?

What has Erlich done!

A stand of ash trees marked the avenue to her home—and that was when Valda saw her first body.

“No!” she gasped in horror.

Bjorik, one of her father’s hearth warriors, sat at the foot of the tree, his body still peppered with arrows.

“Bjorik . . .” Valda let out a low moan. The man had been a giant in life, almost as large as her father was and always his silent second. He might have made a First Sword one day—if they had a jarl worthy of the service.

At the base of the next tree and similarly peppered sat Vjurn and then Elfka, then Hurgis. All of them were some of her father’s most experienced warriors.

And all of them had been killed.

Erlich took out the strongest warriors and executed them. Valda felt her stomach turn over with horror . . . and then fury. Perhaps they had tried to rise up, she thought. Perhaps they had sought to do what she wanted to do now . . .

Or perhaps Erlich had just decided to punish them for daring to be strong.

Valda was terrified that she would see her father Hem himself, seated as limply as the rest. But she did not. There were only warriors here, not chiefs. A wave of gratitude rushed through her, for which she felt instantly guilty.

She stepped out from behind the last tree of the avenue, and a sudden blast of a horn sounded from above the gates.

“Hsst!” She hissed, crouching with her spear held in readiness.

Ahead of her, the two giant entry doors of Korjall creaked, and a quiver of movement ran through them. The Wolf Clan flag fluttered limply over the gates before the doors slowly started to push outwards from inside.

At this point, Valda realized one very large error in her plan.

What if Erlich is so mad, he just shoots me? What if Erlich had tired of dragon hunting and decided that the Raven clan had to go?

“I am coming!” Iskyr’s voice surged into her mind. She could feel his worry humming through their connection.

“Wait!” Valda hissed back as the gates opened to their full length, the counterweights on the inside rising and falling—and a solitary figure stumbled forward.

It was Freya Onden.

“Wise!” Valda gasped. This was the last person she had expected to see. Instantly, she noticed that the older woman was in distress.

The Wise, Freya Onden, staggered forward, catching herself on the doors and pushing herself on. She wore the same large fluttering robes and furs that she always did, but they looked tattered, dirty, and torn. Onden had always taken pride in her appearance.

Her head was a mass of gray-and white braids as always, bedecked with small charms scattered throughout. But her deeply wrinkled face had a large bruise over one eye.

“Freya!” Valda ran forward, catching the woman before she could fall over. Both stumbled to their knees in the churned-up sludge before the Korjall gates.

“What did they do to you? How dare they strike a wise!” Valda said in horror.

“Valda. He knew you would come. You shouldn’t be here!” the older woman hissed as a deep shudder ran through her body. She was freezing, Valda realized, and her fingers were blue. But she had her own hut as well as the always warm Mothers Hall! What had happened?

“You are cold. We have to get you warm!” Valda said, hugging the old woman to her chest and attempting to thump some warmth into her back.

“They’ve kept me in the square for the last week. Tied to a post!” Freya’s teeth chattered. She spat with disgust on the ground.

“But never mind me. You have to leave. Erlich has rounded up all the people and put them on a boat in the fjord. He means to sink them all—including your father if you don’t bring him that dragon!” Freya gasped.

“What?!” Valda cried, but before the wise woman could tell her anymore, another blast of a horn came from above the gate, and she heard the sound of running feet.

“It’s too late. They saw you coming. You must run, run if you want to live!” The Wise feebly pushed her away, but Valda saw that it was already too late.

Twin lines of Wolf Guard had run into the wide avenue that ran from Korjall’s front gates to the main square. They wore the gray and tawny furs of their namesake over black cloaks, and each one held weapons in their hands. There had to be at least twelve of them, jogging toward the gates—and toward her.

Valda snarled, leaping forward to put herself between the Wolf Guard and the Wise woman. She raised her spear defensively.

“Valda Hemsdottir!” A voice called out from behind the Wolf Guard. The guard skidded to a halt, holding their axes and swords and spears at the ready.

“It would have been better for you if you died up in the mountains. Especially as you have failed to bring me my dragon!” the voice of the Jarl of Otland rang out, and the twin lines parted to reveal Erlich himself, striding forward to stand among his men. Erlich’s paunch belly stretched the fine purple robe he wore, and his thin, wiry yellow hair and beard fluttered in the wind.

“Korjall is a miserable place full of miserable people. But at least it will make a fine port for my new fleet,” Erlich announced, waving a hand theatrically as he grinned cruelly at her.

“If I can’t have a dragon, I will have ships. Your ships,” the Jarl said.

At his side stood Kielder Ten, who was much taller than the Jarl and who had his hand on the pommel of his greatsword. Valda’s eyes flickered to the man who was far more dangerous than the Jarl to find him silent.

“Sister-friend?” Iskyr whispered in her mind. She could feel his eagerness through their bond.

“Almost,” Valda muttered under her breath, knowing that somehow the dragon would be able to understand. “There is a ship in the harbor full of my people. They are in danger!”

A sense of irritation swept through her like a wildfire. “I would rather roast all of these pathetic little men,” Iskyr said.

“The ship!” Valda cried out a little louder. Her voice was strong enough for the Jarl to hear.

“The Wise told you about that, then? Good. She has fulfilled her use. Just in case you get any strange ideas, of course,” Erlich said—before cocking his head to one side.

“I’m going to drown all of you anyway actually. So, I guess it doesn’t matter what you do, does it?” Erlich laughed, raising that fleshy hand and waving it through the air.

At his gesture, figures suddenly appeared from the top of the palisade battlements. More Wolf Guard, only this time, they were armed with short bows.

“No!” Valda saw what they were about to do and turned to leap toward the Wise.

But she was already too late. A dozen bows twanged and black arrows ripped through the air as Valda spun. They hit the body of Freya Onden in a moment, even as Valda’s leaping steps jumped toward her.

“Freya!” Valda yelled.

“Hold!” Erlich shouted imperiously behind her.

Valda grabbed Freya’s body as it slumped backward, a dozen arrows poking from her back. She felt a shudder of breath leave the body of the woman who had brought her into this world and who had always been there, no matter what, to advise her and heal her and support her.

“Did . . . did you find it? The dragon?” Freya gasped in Valda’s arms, her eyes drooping.

“I did, Wise, I did,” Valda whispered.

A faint smile crossed the old woman’s face briefly . . . before she stilled. She was dead.

They killed our Wise. Valda felt like she had been slapped in the face. She had known that Erlich was evil and that he was cruel. But she had never suspected that he would go this far. Killing a wise was . . . unwise. No clans hurt the wises of the other clans. They were the ones who had the ears of the spirits.

And she was someone I loved!

Fire raged up through Valda. Her entire body shook as she laid Freya back down on the ground she had walked and worked on all her life. She could barely contain her fury. It threatened to burst out of her body with every movement.

“Guards? Seize her. I would very much like Valda Hemsdottir to see the moment her people sink to the bottom of their home fjord!” Erlich burst into a savage laugh as Valda remained kneeling over the body of her friend.

He killed her . . .

He killed Freya Onden . . .

She heard running boots coming toward her.

“Sister-friend . . .” Iskyr sounded worried.

Valda had seen enough. There was nothing that was going to stop Erlich now. The Jarl was intent on killing all of them.

To hell with the plan.

“Yes, Iskyr. Come now!” Valda growled, spinning around and raising her spear just as the first wave of Wolf guards reached her.

Chapter 21

First Sword of the Jarl

“Realizing that he needed to sow unity, Jarl Ravik selected the mightiest warrior from all the clans to become his First Sword, a mighty honor. The First Sword would advise them on all matters of war, and their clan would receive great honor. In return, the First Sword was expected to keep the jarl alive, no matter what.”

—Saga of Jarl Ravik (Otland)

Valda spun, anger lending speed and certainty to her movement.

Her first thrust with the sharpened stave missed the belly of the first Wolf guard as the man quickly dodged to one side. But Valda slammed the butt end of the staff into his helmet, hearing the wood splinter as well as the satisfying crunch of the man’s nose as he cried out and fell back.

Large burly hands grabbed her spear arm as Valda was surrounded before she could even take a second strike.

But Valda hadn’t only spent years as a hunter. She was also Valda Bloodaxe, one of the best bounty hunters that the southlands had ever seen.

She launched herself boldly toward the Wolf guard holding her, slamming his chest with her shoulder and driving the man back a few paces. It gave her a second to reach the surprised guard’s belt, pulling his dagger free with her hand and slashing at his shoulder.

With a cry of pain, this second guard fell back, and Valda whirled around, the broken stave in one hand and her stolen dagger describing an arc of steel that cut through the air to drive back the three Wolves who had dared approach her.

All of a sudden, Valda was crouching in the middle of a circle of four heavyset Wolf guards, their eyes glaring past the nose guards of their steel helmets. Valda crouched, feeling fire and fury burning in her chest as she snarled at them.

They were all around her. They would kill her in seconds.

“Now, Iskyr!” Valda shouted.

A terrible shriek tore through the air, and there was a crack like thunder. The White Dragon of Otland burst over the rise of land, its wings unfurling as it swooped low toward them.

“Dragon!” The two guards in front of her gasped in panic at the sight of the beast.

Valda took advantage of their panic, darting forward to dance a line of red down the first guard’s arm. In the same instant, she dropped her staff and grabbed the weapon the man had been holding.

A two-headed battle axe.

Valda wrenched the battle-axe out of the man’s grip as she heard a great whoosh and felt a wave of heat burst over them all.

Iskyr had released a plume of flame near enough that a wave of heated air hit their group—but the flame itself struck the gate just ahead of her.

The world erupted into anguished screams as half of the group of Wolf guards protecting Jarl Erlich burst into flames. A dragon’s fire was heavy and didn’t act like normal flames. It stuck to the ground and to flesh; it fell in gobbets as the men writhed and ran.

Guards were screaming and jumping around Valda as she spun, catching one in the back and bringing him down. The ones she had already wounded were stumbling to their feet. Seeing that their way ahead was blocked by dragon fire, they instead chose to flee to the fields and pastures outside the palisade walls.

Yes, run. Run and fear the wrath of Raven Clan! Valda threw the thought at their backs as she turned to the wall of flame engulfing her town gates. She had no thought of chasing these men down, not when the real enemy was still out there.

“Archers! Bring it down! Bring up the ballista!”

She heard Erlich’s terrified voice wailing ahead of her somewhere past the burning bodies and the plumes of black smoke.

Erlich.

Valda didn’t stop to think about how many Wolf guards there were on the other side of that flame. Her heart thumped with anger as she ran forward, vaulting through the fires to land, skidding to a crouch on the far side.

Korjall was in uproar. Wolf guards were running this way and that, fleeing to the walls or running down the main avenue of the town in a tight knot around the Jarl.

There had to be at least another dozen Wolves that Valda could see and more running out of the stolen halls, seizing up their weapons or bows.

For a split second, Valda’s eyes locked on Erlich’s. Then his guards surrounded him and strong-armed him through the central town square. Valda could see the look of terror on his face as well as the outrage as he pointed a chubby finger back at her.

“There she is! Go! Kill her!”

A figure broke from the group, and Valda recognized the tall, quiet form of Kielder Ten with his sword now loose and slashing through the air as he jogged toward her.

Before the other Wolves around the town could concentrate on Valda, there was another ear-splitting shriek as Iskyr appeared. He burst over the halls of Korjall like a hurricane, his maw opening.

A jet of boiling flame shot down into the avenue, crossing Valda’s path and striking the nearest halls and huts, bursting two apart with the fury of its strike. Wolves were somersaulted from their feet, burned to a crisp before they even slammed into the wreckage of the huts behind them.

Flaming timbers fell down around Valda, landing on the thatch of other buildings and crashing through the smoke houses, spilling great gusts of oak-laden smoke through the streets.

“The boat, Iskyr! Save the boat!” Valda demanded as she ran forward. Her ears rang with the sound of destruction, and time had snapped back into its moment-by-moment, breath-by-breath suddenness.

A snarling Wolf jumped out of the smoke, swinging his long-handled, single-headed wood axe at her. Valda just had time to leap out of the way, snarling like a dragon herself as she batted his axe to one side, turning so that her counter swing ended the man’s life with a cruel chop.

Another came rushing past the burning buildings from her other side, and Valda dropped to one knee to deprive the man of one of his legs.

Valda hit the dirt and rolled, skidding up into a crouch as the smoke billowed around her. She could hear flights of arrows above her as well as the crack of her dragon’s wings. She saw the edge of a hall and knew that she must have made it to the town square.

Where was Erlich?

Valda tried to see past the smoke, but her eyes were watering.

“Sister—look out!” Iskyr’s voice slammed into her mind.

Kielder Ten did not give any threat or warning as he stepped out of the smoke, his face utterly impassive as he sliced his blade down.

It should have been a killing blow, but Iskyr’s warning had made Valda jump backward just in time, so that the First Sword of the Jarl only caught her on her shoulder.

Pain tore across her skin, and Valda stumbled back just the same, as Kielder Ten pressed his advantage. He darted forward, feinting with the hand-and-a-half blade held in two hands.

Kielder Ten, the younger brother of Chief Alar, was already in his fifties, but where age might have weakened other men—in Kielder, it just allowed him to hone all of his years of experience.

The First Sword was the chosen hearth warrior of the current jarl. They were the jarl’s general and champion, and it was one of the highest honors that an Otland jarl could bestow on any clan member.

Kielder was silent as he attacked, his steel-blue eyes as cold as fjord ice.

He danced forward, feinting high so that Valda ducked to the left and then stabbed down low, quickly . . .

“Hai!” Valda managed to turn the blade at the last moment with her battle-axe before she had to defend herself again.

Kielder rained blow after blow against her, stepping forward with every blow as he forced Valda to skip and dance backward.

Valda caught and parried and ducked, but she knew what he was doing. The older man was trying to tire her out, pushing her back, hoping she would stumble or trip.

I need to break this, Valda knew.

“You have no honor!” Valda threw the words at him as she ducked another blow and chopped with her axe at him. He danced out of the way easily. Battle-axes are not meant for dueling. They are meant for dominating.

Valda seized on something his own brother had said. If it was true . . .

“The clans were ready to take Erlich down! You betrayed us!” she hissed.

Kielder smiled grimly as he lunged, forcing Valda to jump out of the way and trade the attack for a blow of her own. It clanged off the side of his parry.

“You betrayed your own brother!” Valda threw desperately.

“What do you know of my brother?!” Kielder hissed, jumping forward to slash down at her.

Gotcha!

Valda threw all of her strength into the block—she knew the battle-axe was a much heavier, stouter weapon. Heavier even than a hand-and-a-half sword.

She struck Kielder’s blade so strongly that she saw it send shock waves down his arms, forcing him to recoil.

She had him.

In the next moment, she jumped forward, burying her knee in his chest before thumping the butt end of her axe against the side of Kielder Ten’s head.

“Urk!” The man staggered and jumped back, barely getting out of the way of the swing she ended her run of blows with. He was suddenly slipping and falling flat on his back.

This was the opening she wanted. Valda jumped forward, her axe flashing over her head and back down again in a blow that would split him in two . . .

Kielder shifted on the floor. He was still wily and quick, despite the blood running from the side of his head.

And Valda shifted her grip on the downward strike, turning the blade so it was the flat of the battle-axe that slammed into Kielder’s rising sword hand with a crunch of popped bones.

“Argh!” The First Sword of the Jarl screamed in agony, dropping his weapon for Valda to kick it into the mud.

“You’re a traitor, Kielder Ten of the Eagle Clan.” Valda stood over him, gasping for air.

Amazingly, and still with blood seeping down the side of his head, Kielder was defiant.

“How do you figure that, oathbreaker!? You’re the one who raised a weapon against your Jarl. You’re the one who sided with a dragon over your own people!”

“And I would do so again and again and again if my people means you!” Valda shouted down at him. The rage in her cried out for her to raise her battle-axe one more time. Her enemy was defenseless. She could put an end to him right here and right now.

“Erlich is not fit to be jarl. You know this, and you still follow him. He is killing Otlanders for sport, and you would rather count the coin he pays you!” Valda hissed down at the man. “What saga do you think they will sing of you after you are gone, Kielder?!” she snarled at him.

“At least there will be sagas sung of me. There won’t be anyone left to remember you, Valda Hemsdottir—your family are about to die!” Kielder sneered and suddenly kicked at Valda’s ankles. She had a moment to jump aside, but in that moment, Kielder had already snatched a small knife from his boot and jammed it into Valda’s calf.

“Aii!”

Valda screamed in pain, stumbling to one side.

Kielder was turning, reaching for the handle of his sword . . .

Valda twisted, ignoring the pain in her leg as she slammed the flat of her battle-axe blade against Kielder’s head. There was a terrible solid thunk, and he slumped to the ground. Valda didn’t know if he was unconscious or dead.

And neither did she care, as pain eclipsed her mind.

“Toluk spit!”

Valda looked down to see that the knife was still—rather disgustingly—sticking out of the lower half of her leg. Every breath she took sent a new ribbon of pain through her.

“I don’t have time to be hurt.” Valda gritted her teeth, reaching down to grab the handle . . . and yank it out.

“Ach!” she cried out as she did so, a sob shaking her chest. She had no bandages, but she had the strips of her tunic she had been wrapping around her hands in place of gloves.

They would have to do. She tied them good and tight around the wound, gritting her teeth against the pain before looking up.

Iskyr. Father. Her heart beat heavy in her chest.

She still had work to do.

Chapter 22

Oathbreaker

Valda limped across the central town square, as around her, Korjall burned.

Half of the town was in flames. During her fight, the dragon had attacked the wall archers, and now, ruddy flames had engulfed most of the town’s palisade walls. Where the walls had started to fall, they had taken out the nearest huts, further spreading the fires and the smoke.

Wolf warriors still ran—but they appeared to be fleeing, not fighting.

I don’t blame them, Valda thought.

Who had ever fought a dragon in all of Otland? When was the last time that anyone across all of Aea had heard of people fighting a dragon and winning?

That sort of thing belonged to the old sagas and legends. It wasn’t the stuff that Erlich’s guards were ready for.

“Valda!”

There was a gasp from the edge of the town square, and Valda looked up to see Darin Silvetti running through the smoke, two swords in his hands. Blood spattered his tunic and cloak, but Valda was sure that none of it was his.

“Darin! Thank the sacred moons!” Valda said, struggling toward him before her next thought shook her.

“Iskyr!”

“He’s doing okay. He got hit many times by those arrows, but it doesn’t seem to have slowed him down.” Darin panted for air. “He set me down after I killed the guards on the boat. He looked back this way, and I figured that he wanted me to help you,” Darin said. His eyes were wide, but his voice was serious. Working with dragons was a new thing for everyone.

There was a reptilian cough from somewhere far ahead of them, and Valda raised her head to see the shoreline through the smoke.

Iskyr was grappling one of the large high-prowed, two-story ships that Erlich must have brought with him here. As Valda watched, she saw that he was clutching onto it with all four paws as his wings beat furiously.

“He’s . . . pushing it to shore?” Valda said. The dragon was large, but not that large. He was barely a third of the size of the galleon boat.

“It started sinking when he dropped me on top of it. I reckon that jarl of yours told his men to scupper it as soon as we got close.” Darin shook his head. “But it’s full of people, Valda! He was going to kill hundreds!”

“Yeah.” Valda glowered. That sounded like Erlich. He was the sort of man who would rather kill everything when he was near losing.

Which is why he needs to be stopped.

Valda turned to slowly survey the ruins of her home. Erlich could have fled with his men, but somehow, she doubted it. He was too certain of his own power. He was too cruel. The Jarl would rather destroy everything than ever admit defeat.

“And he was always envious of Raven Clan,” Valda whispered—as her eyes settled on the one place she knew where he would be.

The Raven Hall.

“Come,” Valda whispered, loping toward the darkened open doorway.

The twin totems of her people had been defaced, ugly fresh marks cut across their beaks and fierce eyes—but the twin totems the hall of her father still stood. Even Erlich’s hate couldn’t topple them.

Valda paused at one side of the doorway as Darin crept to the other.

“Are you sure you can . . .” Darin whispered, nodding at Valda’s leg.

“I’m fine!” Valda promised before taking a breath and diving inside.

Just as she crossed the threshold, there was a zing in the air and a powerful thock as a fat crossbow bolt hammered into the wood frame behind her.

“Come and meet your death, Valda Oathbreaker!” Jarl Erlich’s high-pitched, fevered voice cried out in the dark.

Valda kept on moving, hitting the floor, and skidding to the end of one of the great tables. She heard the sound of ratcheting.

The Jarl was back there in the gloom somewhere, and he was using a crossbow—a powerful but ugly weapon that Hem wouldn’t allow any Ravens to use.

“You can’t hunt with a crossbow. And that is what we are, above all things.” Valda remembered her father’s words even as she scrabbled for cover.

“We Ravens are hunters and trackers. We live up here, further north than any other clan territory, because we’re the only ones who CAN!”

Valda grinned darkly to herself. That is what Jarl Erlich knew about his enemy and why he and his father before him had hated Raven Clan above all of the others. The Raven Clan were the spirit of Otland.

“You can’t win, Erlich. Your clan has abandoned you. No one is coming to save you,” Valda shouted and moved.

There was a hiss of air and a thump as another crossbow bolt hit the top of the table she had been hiding behind.

“But I can kill you. The woman who brought a dragon against her own people!” the voice of the Jarl hissed in the dark. She heard him desperately ratcheting the crossbow arm to put another bolt in place.

“Not against my people. Just against you,” Valda promised. She broke her cover again to limp, running, to one of the giant tree trunk pillars halfway down the hall.

There was a hiss of annoyance, and the sound of ratcheting continued. Erlich had failed to load another bolt. If Valda was quick, then she just might make it.

She ran, staggering from her wound, toward the next pillar. She had almost gotten there when she heard the bolt click into lock.

“Hey!”

Darin shouted from the other side of the tables where he had been creeping.

No, Darin! Valda gasped.

She heard Erlich’s form turn and knew in that instant he wasn’t as far away as she had thought.

“Halt where you are! I have him in my sights!” the Jarl snarled, and there was a scrape of a chair. His sudden movement and a sliver of light from outside meant that Valda could see him now, rising from behind a chair as he pointed the crossbow straight at Darin.

Not my friends! Not my family!

Valda lunged forward, her axe slicing down. She prayed she was fast enough, that she could cut through time, cut back the years to when all of this mess had started . . .

“Hyurk!”

There was a terrible gurgling thump as Erlich’s body hit the floor, and the bolt rolled out of the crossbow beside him.

Even in death, he didn’t have the courage to face me in single combat, Valda thought.

It was over. Jarl Erlich was dead, slain by the oathbreaker after all.

Chapter 23

Wild-Bonded

“Daughter?”

Valda was sitting outside the Raven Hall alongside Darin Silvetti, the flames still burning her home when her father, Chief of the Raven Clan, Hem Raven himself, stumbled up the path to the beach.

Valda blinked. She felt woozy and light-headed and wondered how much blood she had lost.

Her father was a shadow of the man he had once been. He still had his great shoulders, but his frame had collapsed to almost nothing. He was stooped, and there was none of the great strength that there had been to him once.

“Oh, my Valda. My fierce little Valda . . .” Hem struggled forward, and behind him, Valda saw the rest of her clan, similarly looking starved and beaten. They collapsed on the beach or stumbled toward their burning home.

Valda tried to rise, but a wave of dizziness forced her from her feet.

“Stay! You’re hurt!” Her father’s deep bearlike rattle was nothing more than a croak now as he dropped to the ground beside her, throwing his arms around her.

Valda pressed herself against the man who had raised her, and the man who had once exiled her. She was surprised that she felt no hurt and no anger toward him, not anymore. They had both been through far too much for that. For now, it was enough to remember his smell and to be held in her father’s arms.

“Erlich?” Hem whispered when they finally broke free of each other.

“He’s inside,” Valda said. “Dead.”

She glanced quickly at her father’s eyes, saw how his great black beard was now struck through with silver and had grown wild. His cheeks were sallow and sunken.

Is he going to be angry at me for killing Erlich? What did the sagas say? Only a wronged wife or a parent or . . . ?

“Good,” Hem growled. He held his daughter by the shoulders, and a shade of his former strength returned, just for a moment.

“A war for a chief,” her father said heavily. “The Wolf Clan started a war against Raven, and you acted justly. You liberated us all.”

“I didn’t do it because of the laws, Father,” Valda said softly.

Her father blinked, and for a moment, Valda thought she saw a troubled look cross his eyes.

“I know, Daughter,” Hem said quietly.

Valda wondered what her father thought of her now. He knew that she would break clan laws as soon as she felt there was a need to. He must realize that she was not the same girl who had left Korjall ten years ago.

Valda sighed. What was left of Korjall, anyway. The town was in ruins, Erlich was dead, and Kielder Ten was missing. His body was no longer on the ground when they had stumbled out, and Valda hoped he had run off with his tail between his legs.

Her father cleared his throat, and Valda’s eyes turned back to him.

“Anyway. It is done now. The Wolf clan has been defeated. We must rebuild. There will be a new jarl to choose . . .”

Before Hem could continue, there was a piercing shriek across the skies, accompanied by the defiant blast of a horn.

“No!” Valda whispered in horror, this time managing to get to her feet as she recognized the sound.

She looked up and saw two large shapes cross the skies, one green and the other yellow.

It was the Lantic Dragon Watch, Captain Bartholomew Avans and Sir Holstein.

The Lantics had come to claim Iskyr.

Valda didn’t have to stagger and limp all the way to the coast. Iskyr met her on the edge of the beach as she hobbled as fast as she could.

“But—daughter! You have only just come back to me!” her father Hem called out, leaning on a fellow clan member as he struggled to follow her.

“We can make it if we’re quick. Iskyr’s fast . . .” Darin Silvetti was saying, running to loop an arm under Valda’s shoulder and hurry her along.

Every step was agony. Valda felt weak with each breath.

“Just go!” she gasped at Iskyr, who was crouching on the beach, his mouth open and hissing at the whirling Lantic dragons above.

“Go on! Fly away! Get out of here!” Valda cried out.

“No! Never!” Iskyr’s voice was defiant. Through their connection, Valda could sense that the dragon was in almost as much pain as she was. Pain rippled across his hide where a dozen arrows were stuck and working their way under his scales.

“Don’t be like that, Valda,” Darin was saying. “I know a spot near the Swamps of Rhz. No one will dare search for us there. Or the Broken Coast itself. Even the Lantics can’t fly through those storms . . .”

But Valda knew that they had already lost. Frustration rolled through her.

How could they come so close and get through so much—just for the Lantics to capture Iskyr anyway?

Maybe Falko had been right so long ago. That she would never amount to anything. She was just a barbarian, an Otlander, and an oathbreaker. What gift did this cruel world ever give to people like her?

“They’ll never make me fight for them! No moon shard can control me!” Iskyr bellowed defiantly. He didn’t even have the strength left to release his flame.

“Oh, bless you, my heart,” Valda whispered as exhaustion rolled through her. She felt terribly sad because she had felt the effects of the moon shards herself. She knew just how powerful it was. The Lantics would take control of Iskyr, and he would be the strongest dragon they had ever worked with . . .

“WAIT!”

One of the Lantic’s voices—Captain Avans, Valda thought—bellowed from above, amplified as he shouted through the horn he used.

It was then that Valda realized that the Lantics had no nets with them. Valda herself had destroyed the last one.

“WE WANT TO TALK!” Avans shouted. His green dragon swooped lower and lower toward the beach.

Valda used the opportunity to walk the last of the way toward Iskyr, laying a hand on his shoulder.

Sir Holstein remained in the sky, circling around them as Captain Avans’ dragon skidded over the icy waters of the fjord in a wide spray, hopping to land in a spray of sand on the beach opposite them.

Valda saw the green dragon raise its head, and its nostrils flared, tasting the air toward Iskyr. It was a little larger than Iskyr was, but it looked older too.

“Valda Hemsdottir!” Captain Avans jumped down from his steed, his boots crunching on the sand as he took a few steps toward her and then stopped.

She saw the Dragon Watch Captain looking up and over the listing galleon that Iskyr had moved with just his strength alone. She saw him cast a look up at the burning village above her.

“That was your home village, wasn’t it?” Captain Avans said seriously, his voice carrying over the still air. “This is why we train dragons. It is safer if he is with us, for your people—and for him!” Avans said heavily.

Valda felt Iskyr shiver, his scales rattling in fury at the insult.

“I know,” she murmured softly. She felt the same anger as he did. Did Avans really think that Iskyr couldn’t control himself?

“A wild-bonded dragon is a dangerous thing,” Avans called out once more. He took a step toward them over the beach.

“You may be good and noble, Valda Hemsdottir—but what of the people like Jarl Erlich, who will stop at nothing to capture you or challenge you? What if they hold your family for ransom? Or bewitch you? That is why we keep the dragons and riders with us at the Fire Academy. Wild bonds can cause too much hurt to all of us. All of Aea . . .” Avans was saying, trying to be reasonable. Valda felt her mouth open in a snarl.

“I will never give him up!” Valda cried out.

The Captain of the Dragon Watch was silent for a moment. He cocked his head to one side, curiously, like a dragon did.

“What if I wasn’t asking you to do that?” Avans said.

What? Valda thought.

Captain Bartholomew Avans drew himself up to his full height and cleared his throat as he looked at her.

“Valda Hemsdottir, Valda Bloodaxe, I have changed my mind about how best to deal with you. You are wild bonded to a wild dragon. That is something that hasn’t happened in a hundred years. I am here to offer you a place to train with us at the Fire Academy, to take your place as a dragon rider of Aea among the Dragon Watch.”

Valda rocked on her feet, and if it hadn’t been for Iskyr’s warm and strong body beside her, she thought she might even have fallen down.

“A wild bond doesn’t need the moon shards. This will be our chance to see how we can truly grow as dragon riders and your chance to protect your people,” Avans said.

All eyes turned to Valda and Iskyr.

Is this serious? Can this really be true?

“Do it, Bloodaxe!” Darin whispered a few yards away.

Valda felt her heart flutter. This had never happened to any Otlander before, had it? This would do more than defend Otland and her clan; it would place them as defenders of all of Aea, together.

“Iskyr . . . ?” she turned toward him, knowing she had to seek his approval first.

“No moon shards?” Iskyr said.

“No moon shards,” Valda promised.

Iskyr raised his head to sniff at the green dragon ahead of them dismissively before turning back to his human.

“I am with you wherever you go. Together.”

“Together,” Valda agreed. She looked up at Iskyr and nodded.

She was going to do it. She was going to be the first Otland, wild-bonded dragon rider.

The adventure is just getting started for Valda and Iskyr. Their next stop is the renowned dragon academy. Be sure to check out Fire Academy on Amazon today!

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THANK YOU

Thank you so much for reading Hunt for the White Dragon. I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as I did writing them. If you could leave a review for me, that would be awesome.

Valda’s and Iskyr’s adventure is just getting started, and the whole world is going to take notice. The next thing they need to do is get some training, and that’s where we start off the next book, Fire Academy.

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