The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1) (41 page)

Chapter Fifty-Six:
The Quest

Otto’s body rested on a pyre in the death ship. It wasn’t an actual ship. The shape of an old-style longboat had been formed on the ground with rocks. Within the ship’s outline, there was a wooden platform over a pile of dried birch. Sprinkled with the birch was mistletoe and magnolia leaves.

Otto had not married, but there was a woman he’d been seeing for the past year. They had kept it secret because she was a von Blau and the von Blaus and von Dunstigs were not supposed to get along. But Ulla knew about it, and invited her to the funeral.

After a prophet of the divines said the final blessing, Wulf’s mother took the lit torch to start the fire that would burn Otto’s body to ashes and carry his soul to Helheim.

The traditional site for human pyres was on Ship Hill, which was to the east of town on a rise that overlooked both the castle and the river. The Sandhaveners had camped here and torn up many of the rune-stone markers that were usually left inside a burial-ship after the funeral.

Rainer and Ravenelle came but didn’t join in the ceremony. Both their traditions believed in burial.

Saeunn was here.

He was glad. Wulf felt as if someone had ripped a part of his body away as the flames grew higher and higher. She reached for his hand partway through the burning, and he held hers while the pyre burned.

Otto had always been there. The eldest. The heir. The one who had to be grown up even when he was a kid. Wulf felt guilty sometimes that he’d had a much less stressful childhood than his brother because, well, nobody expected much of Wulf. And because of that, Wulf had found his own way and done his own thing much more than Otto ever had or ever could.

They trailed back to the castle, escorted by a guard of over five hundred.

Along the way, they passed by a hickory tree with two men hanging by their necks from the branches. One had his stomach cut open.

They wore Sandhaven badges. There was revenge killing going on in Raukenrose. Sandhaveners who went away from their prison camp were taking their lives in their hands.

Anya hadn’t needed to see that. But the little girl had seen so many terrible things in the past few days, he didn’t think one more horror piled on the others would do more damage. Still, it wasn’t good.

Wulf ordered the bodies cut down and given a proper funeral burning.

The Sandhaveners had not left yet. Wulf was going to send them back east with no weapons whatsoever. He was going to have a thousand mark soldiers march behind them to the border to make sure they went away.

Unconditional surrender.

But to do that he had to have the weapons confiscated, which took time.

And so long as the Sandhaveners were still here, there was the chance for more fighting, but the balance had shifted dramatically. More and more bands of levies from throughout the mark were flowing into Raukenrose, and now the number of armed and dangerous people in Raukenrose outnumbered the Sandhavener invasion force by ten to one.

Of course Sandhaven had a much larger army it could gather back home. Now that Wulf had killed not one but
two
of King Siggi’s five sons, he thought that this might not be the last the mark saw of von Krehennests seeking revenge.

But Saeunn was here. She held his hand.

That was Wulf’s definition of victory.

In a side chamber off the castle great hall, the Dragon Hammer lay on the long dining table. It was the same table made of fir planks that Duke Otto had planned to use for Ulla’s wedding feast.

That seemed so long ago to Wulf, but it had only been four months and a few weeks.

Duke Otto had been returned to the castle, but was still bedridden.

Wulf hoped his father would get better. But the wise woman had told him there was nothing anybody could do for the illness in the duke’s mind.

The duchess left his side only to eat and visit with her daughters. She had no interest in running the mark.

So Wulf was in charge.

Wulf had called a council to discuss what to do with the hammer now that it was found. Tolas was there. So was Earl Keiler. He was in an invalid’s reclining chair, covered by blankets. Ursel was was present to tend him.

Ulla was there, and Wulf had asked Saeunn to come.

Tolas had Wulf and Ursel hold each end of the hammer laid out along the table. Wulf held the head. Ursel held the end of the hammer. There was a sword from the armory lying next to it.

Tolas climbed up on a chair facing the hammer. He picked up the sword, raised it over his head, and, before anyone could even shout in surprise, brought its blade down hard against the Dragon Hammer.

The blade broke. Its point went skittering along the planks of the table.

“The hammer is impervious to steel,” Tolas said. “No alchemic agent has any effect. Fire and cold do not even cause it to measurably expand or contract. It does not seem to be a thing of this world. Yet it has weight and volume. The weight varies, by the way.”

“What do you mean?” asked Wulf.

“Sometimes it weighs more than other times,” Tolas said. “I’ve verified that. But there’s no rhyme or reason to it that I can tell.”

“What about the lore?” Wulf asked. He let go of his side of the hammer. As he straightened up, he caught Ursel’s green-eyed gaze as she pushed back a lock of red hair. She was as beautiful as ever.

He wondered if she was jealous of Saeunn. Probably not. Ursel seemed to have moved on.

Tolas set the lower part of the broken sword down next to the broken blade.

“You know the lore.”

“Last night I found another reference in Harraldsson the Younger,” Wulf said. “That last strange saga of his,
The
World Dragon.
”

“Yes,” Tolas said, with a nod toward Wulf. “‘When the Hammer returns, the King of Dragons will rise.’”

“Pretty obscure, I guess. And it may not even be talking about the Dragon Hammer.”

“The passage has usually been interpreted to mean the end of time,” Tolas replied.

“So the hammer is basically useless except to end the world?”

“No one is sure what Harraldsson meant.” Tolas shrugged. “He obviously wrote it before the Dragon Hammer of Shenandoah was used in the fight to rid the valley of were-beasts. Was it a prophecy? We don’t know. Anyway, that is the lore of men. Saeunn’s folk know other things perhaps. But I’m not sure the evil one himself knows what its true purpose is. That is probably why he’s afraid of it.”

“Doesn’t the dragon know what it’s for? It
gave
the hammer to us.”

“Dragon lore. The emperor of disciplines.” Tolas smiled wryly. He had been a docent in the subject, after all. Wulf planned to restore him to that position if he had to march an army to the university and make them take Tolas back. “We live on the dragons. Saeunn’s folk sing to them. None of us really understands them. What some think is that the dragons don’t really ‘know’ anything. They are unborn. Asleep. Dreaming.”

“Dreaming what?” Wulf asked.

Tolas held out a hand, gestured airily around himself. “What do you think?” he said.

Wulf considered.

“Us? The world?” Wulf replied.

“Maybe.”

“All of this is a dream?”

“If it is, then it’s our job to make sure it doesn’t become a nightmare,” Tolas replied.

Ulla sighed. “That’s
quite
fascinating,” she said with a trace of sarcasm in her voice. “But can we talk about what to do
right now
?” Ulla was sitting in a cushioned chair. She was embroidering. She’d shown her work to Wulf earlier. It was a field of daylilies for Anya’s wall. Anya loved daylilies.

“Can’t we just hide the hammer again?” Ulla continued. “That
did
work for two hundred years.”

Tolas shook his head. “I don’t believe so, m’lady,” he answered. “The Elder Bell is special. It is a sort of shield. There are no other adequate hiding places, I’m afraid.”

Wulf had thought the same thing as Ulla. It
had
seemed too simple. “And they’ll be looking for that, I suppose,” he said.

“Okay, I guess so,” Ulla replied and went back to her work. “But can we keep the discussion a bit more down to earth?”

“Most sensible, m’lady,” Tolas said. He made a small bow in her direction. Tolas had tutored Ulla for many years, and she was a favorite of his.

“We can defend it,” Wulf said. “Shenandoah Valley is a fort. A double-walled valley. And there’s Bear Valley on top of Massanutten. We’re a natural stronghold.”

“Which is perhaps why the Dragon Hammer appeared here,” Tolas said.

“What do you think, Earl?” Wulf asked.

Keiler drew himself up in his slanted invalid’s chair. Ursel immediately moved to help him. “We can hold out for a long time. But if the might of Rome is thrown against the mark, they’ll overrun us,” Keiler said.

“The Kaltish kingdoms will help us,” Wulf answered.

“They might,” said Keiler. The bear man gripped his blankets, fighting off the urge to cough. Finally he appeared to overcome it. His grip relaxed, and he continued. “
If
they can stop fighting idiotic blood feuds.
If
they understand that if the mark falls, they’ll be destroyed, too.” Keiler shook his shaggy head. “No, we can’t count on them. Your father and I started fighting the Little War thinking help was coming any moment. It took us a while to figure out that nobody was going to help and we were going to be made into slaves if we lost. That’s when we found the will to win.”

“What if we
use
it, then?” Saeunn said. She’d been standing near the table, her hand on her chin, considering the Dragon Hammer.

“To end the world?” Wulf asked.

“To hatch a dragon,” Saeunn replied.

“What do you mean, Lady Saeunn?” asked Tolas.

“There is one place we know where a living dragon rises to the surface.”

“Amberstone Valley,” Tolas said.

“If the Dragon Hammer can be brought there, it may…fulfill its purpose—and help us to defeat the enemy once and for all.”

“Lady Saeunn, Amberstone Valley is six hundred leagues from here,” Keiler said. “And you know that it’s a hazardous journey because you’ve made it yourself. Between here and your valley are the Wild Kingdoms, the Mississippi River and the Highbreit Mountains.”

“That’s true,” Saeunn said. “When I came east, we kept to the Elf Road. It’s the only way across, and even that is dangerous.”

“It’s one thing for a small band of travelers to cross without drawing attention,” said Keiler. “I doubt even a small army could cross unchallenged. It would be one battle after another.”

“Then you may have to send a small band of travelers,” Saeunn softly replied.

“With a relic the entire Roman Empire is looking for?” Keiler said. This time he couldn’t control his cough, and Ursel held a handkerchief to his muzzle until he finished.

They waited for the earl’s scrofula to settle.

“We may not have a choice,” said Tolas. “Rome knows that the draugar Wuten is dead. Our waiting to be attacked is not a good plan.”

“What do you say, Wulf?” Keiler asked.

Why did they keep looking to him for things like this? Did they think the dragon was constantly telling him what to do? Being the new heir was one decision after another that he didn’t feel qualified to make.

“I’m going.”

“Wulf, I don’t know,” Saeunn said softly.

“Saeunn
has
to go, so I’m going.” He spoke firmly. Finally he’d found a decision he didn’t have to second-guess. “We don’t know how long the star stone will keep her alive. I will not lose her again.”

Tolas shook his head. “You have other duties, Lord Wulf. Duties to the mark.”

“Mother won’t do them, but . . .” He turned to Ulla. “Ulla could—”

“No!” his sister said. “I’m not the heir.”

“You’d make a better one than me,” Wulf said. “I’ll appoint you Duchess Regent.”

Ulla laughed. “And what about Grer? How do you think the first families would react to having Earl Grer Smead as their better? Or Ulla Smead, for that matter?”

“He already
is
better than the lot of them.” Wulf replied. “Ulla, I’m serious. You should rule the mark.”

“That’s just like a boy,” Ulla said. Her face, which she kept so lily white, blushed. Ulla was getting upset.

“What do you mean?”

“You want to go questing when things get tough. Grow up, Wulf.”

“I’m trying to do the right thing.”

She glared at him. “You can’t get out of it,” she said “The dragon’s called you. The dragon
didn’t
call Otto. I know he never talked about it to you, but he told me. He was always worried. ‘Why don’t I hear the dragon-call, Ulla?’ Adelbert could have cared less, but it never happened to him either.”

“What about you?”

“Nothing,” Ulla said. “Not a whisper.”

“You are perfect to be regent,” Wulf said. “The dragon-visions aren’t important.”

“Listen to yourself!” Ulla said. “They’re the
only
thing that’s important. It’s why there
is
a Mark of Shenandoah.” She smiled sweetly at Wulf, but he knew his sister, and she was deadly serious. “No. You are heir, Wulfgang. Deal with it.”

But he
was
dealing with it. He hoped Ulla would see that.