Read The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1) Online
Authors: Tony Daniel
Tags: #Fables, #Legends, #Action & Adventure, #Juvenile Fiction, #Norse, #Fantasy & Magic, #General, #Myths
The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1) (39 page)
Chapter Fifty-Two:
The Sacrifice
Darkly fell Amberly Reizend.
The line from the poem echoed through her mind.
She had spent days barely speaking with her star. She had been terrified the draugar would somehow pick up on it and overhear.
My star, my own! How I have missed you.
And I have missed you, my child, my own
, the star replied.
It is time to act.
But—
You wish to save the girl?
I do!
You have seen the choice in your moon-vision.
But not
him!
No, my star, my own! No! Never him!
You must. He cannot be killed otherwise.
No.
This is why there are elves, my child, my own. The dragons must hatch. The draug must fall.
My star—
But her star was silent.
The draugar would kill Anya. He would kill Wulf. He would kill everyone.
He would kill Anya.
Evinthir.
“Darkly fell Amberly Reizend.” It came out as a near-whisper. Her voice wavered, more breath than speech. But she said it. She meant it.
A star, a soul, could be given away.
Wuten was an elf with no star. Empty. A vacuum where his soul should be.
She could fill that void.
“Karltundelkan nalith Ebereth Serian!” she shouted.
Wuten held up his sword strike.
He turned toward Saeunn as if drawn by a lodestone.
“Elf girl, what do’st thou?”
Saeunn walked toward him.
“Run, Evinthir!” she shouted. “Run to Wulf!”
Anya turned and ran.
The draugar let her go. He was transfixed, looking at Saeunn.
“Karltundelkan nalith Ebereth Serian!”
The draugar lowered his sword. “Stop!”
“Then darkly fell Amberly Reizend.”
“No!”
He held the falcata up as if it could ward her away. Saeunn drew closer.
“Karltundelkan nalith Ebereth Serian.” The words were Saelith, the elvish tongue. “Then darkly fell Amberly Reizend.”
“Stop it,” he said. He sucked in a ragged, rasping breath, then breathed out noisily.
“Karltundelkan nalith Ebereth Serian.”
She felt it then. Separation from her star.
My child, my own!
My star, my own!
Saeunn gasped at the pain.
My star, my own, let go, let go!
My child. Oh, my child. Good-bye.
She looked at Wuten now and saw him as he was. Not the black vulture shell he lived in, but the elf he once had been. He was still there, trapped inside the draugar’s form.
He was ancient. His face was a ruin of wrinkles. Dried up. His eyes were sticky with fluid. The maw of his open mouth was covered with a spider web of dried mucus, as if a terrible scream were frozen there.
The one that I love is dying.
Saeunn’s vision was darkening, closing into a tunnel.
My child!
Her world was fading. The light was failing. Her memory was drying and crumbling.
I can’t remember why I’m doing this, but I have to.
“Evinthir!” she shouted.
She let go.
And her star found him, the elf inside Wuten. A place to hold. Memories to set in motion.
She clutched the draugar with talons of light.
The life began to trickle back into Abenweth Grevenstran, Pillar of the North. The scream frozen on his mouth became a real scream, the anguished cry of a living being. His eyes moistened, focused. They were green. Sea green. The lines on his face shrank. The furrows of his skin filled. Blood began to flow. Color returned to his features.
“No.” He began to sob. “I won’t! I will not!”
Saeunn Amberstone’s soulless body collapsed onto the stones of Allfather Square.
Why am I falling?
So darkly.
Abenweth Grevenstran whimpered. He was alive. He hated it.
X X X
The draugar screamed in pain.
Only it wasn’t the draugar at all.
It was a pale skinned elf with pure white hair and sea-green eyes. Wuten—now the elf—dug his fingers into the skin, seemingly trying to rip it away from his face.
The black was disappearing from his clothing. It leeched away to reveal him wearing a white cloak, lined with white fur.
He was definitely an elf. He was tall and thin with a gaunt face. It was a face that he was trying to rip away.
Wulf met Anya at the center of the square. He picked her up, turned around, and ran back the way he’d come. He found Albrec Tolas.
“Get her out of here, Tolas!” he said.
“Of course,” said the gnome. “Hello, my dear girl.”
Anya stared at Tolas for a moment. Then they hugged. Since they were both the same height, it was hard to tell who pulled whom into it.
Wulf spun around, facing back to the square.
“Archers,” he shouted. “Fire!”
Chapter Fifty-Three:
The Revenge
Arrows were flying. Men dropped as they were struck. The Hundred charged.
Things became bloody fast.
After the sides met, the centaurs threw their bows down and pulled swords. They had no armor besides a leather jerkin here and there and leather guards on their arms. Still they attacked.
Men and bears roared and grunted as they swung their weapons. Centaurs cried out, and when they were in pain, screamed like horses. Gnomes hacked at legs and tendons. Some were sliced by downward swinging swords. Others got stomped to death by the heavy boots of the Nesties.
Wulf headed for the elder elf.
He had forgotten that the bear men were guarding him, but they came to his rescue twice as Sandhaveners tried to intersect and cut him down.
“Let me though, curse you to cold hell,” he yelled at his guards.
Those beside him fell back. Two bear men pushed ahead. One was slain with a sword through the neck. This left the other bear man facing an unarmed opponent. He brought a halberd down into the man’s skull.
Wulf ran past them.
The elf was pulling himself back to his feet. His face was scratched and bleeding.
Almost there.
There was a shout of anger. Wulf turned almost too late to see Trigvi. The prince lunged at him with a sword.
“M’lord!”
One of the archers leaped between them. Trigvi’s sword sank into the shank where man shape turned into horse shape. Blood poured, and the centaur collapsed. It slid off the end of Trigvi’s sword.
Trigvi looked up triumphant.
Wulf lunged. The tip of his sword punched into Trigvi’s chest. The mail hauberk stopped the blade from cutting deeper, but Wulf felt something give.
He pulled back. Trigvi tried to raise his own sword, but Wulf plunged an elbow against the inside of Trigvi’s arm, and the sword flew from his grip. It clattered on the stones.
Prince Trigvi took a staggering step back. He raised a hand to feel whatever was causing the pain in his chest. He couldn’t catch his breath. Wulf’s stab had broken something.
Wulf drew back the bear-man sword with two hands. He hacked into the prince’s neck with a sweep. The blade sank in until it was stopped in the space between two vertebrae. Wulf twisted it to pull it free.
Trigvi’s head flopped to one side. A look of amazement stayed on the head’s face. But Trigvi von Krehennest was dead before he hit the ground.
Wulf’s spun around to find the elder elf.
The elf was headed toward the cathedral.
But then there was a flash as something brown and white crashed into the elf.
Nagel. The elf swatted, but missed. Nagel banked and flew at him again. This time the elf caught her with a mailed fist. The owl squawked in pain, and went tumbling to the cobblestones. She lay motionless.
“You,” Wulf shouted to the elf. “Turn around!”
The elf turned. He stood gazing at Wulf for an eyeblink. Then he pulled the curved sword from a scabbard. The sword was no longer black. It shone like bright, sharp steel.
Wulf raised his own sword to ready and moved in.
The elf screamed and charged. He swung his sword in a wicked downward arc at Wulf’s head. Wulf grabbed his sword by the tip and by the end and swung up into an overhead block.
The two swords connected and rang like an angry bell.
The elf pulled back and swung at Wulf’s side. Wulf smashed the blade down.
But the elf had lifetimes of experience. He recovered with lightning speed. He lunged and Wulf barely danced back in time. The elf had stepped in with the lunge. He swung the falcata’s hilt to the side and smashed the metal guard into Wulf’s head.
Agony. Wulf reeled away. He tried to stay on his feet.
The elf made a backhand slash at Wulf’s neck. Wulf reached for the blade by instinct and caught it in the palm of his gauntlet, barely stopping it in time.
But this left his side open, and the elf punched viciously into Wulf’s kidney. Wulf yelled in pain. He let go of the elf’s sword and staggered back.
He stumbled into the tree trunk.
His head ached, and his side throbbed with pain. His sword felt as heavy as lead.
This is it, Wulf thought. All I’ve got left.
The elf seemed to sense his weakness. His sea-green eyes danced.
Then something glinted on Wulf’s chest. The elf looked down, and so did Wulf.
The elf was staring at the star stone.
“Brenunn Temeldar?” said the elf. “Sister?”
Wulf lifted his sword up. It felt like he was trying to move it through honey. The elf slapped it out of the way.
“Where come’st thou this?” said the elf.
“Rot in cold hell,” Wulf replied.
The elf frowned. He looked into Wulf’s eyes once again. Then he drew back the curved sword to make the kill.
A shadow passed over Wulf’s shoulder. Boots crashed into the ancient elf’s chest.
The elf’s sword flew away, and it landed in a heap on the cobblestones.
Someone had jump from the tree trunk.
Whoever it was landed on his feet.
The elf scrambled upright. The two stood facing one another.
Instead of a weapon, the man had what looked like a lump of iron just out of the forge. It was brown-black. It had the shape of an ax or a hammer, but it wasn’t either one.
“Who art thou?” the elf said.
The man turned partially toward Wulf, and he could make out his face.
“Nobody,” said Rainer Stope.
Rainer swung the hammer from his shoulder as he might a sledge, arching down, aimed to crash into the skull of the elder elf.
The elf skittered out of the way, and the hammer slammed into the cobblestones, throwing stone chips in every direction.
Before Rainer could raise it again, the elf rushed him. His long fingers whipped around Rainer’s neck.
Have to help, Wulf thought.
His right hand closed around the handle of his old dagger.
He yanked on it.
It wouldn’t budge.
Rainer moved his arms inside the elf’s grip. He tried to push upward and break the grasp, but the draugar brought a vicious knee into Rainer’s crotch. Rainer doubled over with the pain, and the draugar pushed him farther down by the shoulders. Rainer’s head slammed into the elf’s knee.
Rainer collapsed to the ground.
The elf kicked Rainer in the ribs. Rainer groaned. He kicked Rainer again.
Wulf dove for the Dragon Hammer.