The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1) (43 page)

Chapter Fifty-Nine:
The Tree

Come to the tree.

The dragon was calling again. It was the old familiar feeling. His skeleton seemed to shake inside him. The thoughts in his head echoed back and forth until he could barely think straight. Everywhere he looked, he saw people and things as unchained from time—young, old, middle-aged, bones and dust. It only happened for an instant, then they were themselves again. But he couldn’t predict when a vision would hit him.

So he went to the tree with Rainer beside him. This time it was in broad daylight. He took a couple of guards along—more to gently brush away people wanting to pull him aside for a talk on this or that than because there was any danger.

The Olden Oak still lay on its side, stretched across the square. He hadn’t had the heart to order it removed.

We’re here, Wulf thought. I’m answering the call. What am I supposed to do?

He went to the Olden Oak and touched it, trying to make the same kind of connection he had before. It was no use. He could feel the tree was no longer part of the land-dragon.

The crystalized rock was still there. He put his hand on it. Nothing.

What did the dragon want him to do?

Maybe there was nothing
to
do but put up with the call. He walked from the rock back to the Olden Oak trunk and leaned against it. The bark was starting to peel off and crumble away.

Rainer went to the dagger, still lodged in the wood. The leaves growing from the pommel had turned into a wooden stem. There were even more leaves curling out now.

Just then the Elder Bell in the cathedral rang imbiss bell. It had only a regular clapper now.

Rainer carefully ran his hand along the growth from the dagger, and Wulf came over to look at it, too.

“The townies call this the Allfather’s blessing. Sent to tell us all will be well. That’s why nobody’s messing with it.”

Rainer gently stroked another leaf.

Wulf shrugged. “Maybe a little branch worked its way into the cork under the leather and came out the end like that.”

Rainer looked around where the dagger entered the tree. “Yeah, maybe,” he said.

Suddenly Wulf’s body shook. A trembling shockwave ran through him from head to toe. He felt like he was under a mighty waterfall. Power rolled through him.

He leaned against the tree, gasping.

He was having a dragon-vision. It was the dagger. He was seeing it throughout time.

He looked down at the dagger hilt. It was still a dagger, but now
more
branches had erupted.

Then that vision wavered and he saw the forge fire and heard the beating of Grer’s hammer as he worked the steel in the dagger.

Then he saw the Olden Oak in his mind’s eye. Growing tall and strong.

No. It was a new tree. A new oak.

Then he saw…what was it? The land shaking. The ground under the tree buckling up, and the tree thrown aside.

Something rising from the ground. Rising and rising.

It was a dragon being born.

Just as quickly as the vision came, it disappeared, and Wulf was staring at the curious dagger again.

He smiled.

“I know what to do now,” he said to Rainer.

He reached for the dagger. He curled his fingers around the hilt and pulled it from the wood. It came out like he was pulling a knife from butter.

“Blood and bones,” Rainer said. “You did it. You got it out.”

Wulf walked the dagger over to the green crystal rock in the center of the square.

“Watch this,” he said to Rainer, and thrust the dagger’s blade against the stone.

It slid in. Up to the hilt, past the hilt. So did his hands.

In so far that only the stem and the leaves that grew from the pommel were showing.

He let go of the dagger and withdrew his hand from inside the stone where the dagger, the root, had sunk.

“Now grow,” he told it.

Then the dragon-call faded from his mind like a bell at the end of its final peal.

X END X