Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [0]
BONES
OF THE
DRAGON
MARGARET WEIS
AND
TRACY HICKMAN
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.
BONES OF THE DRAGON
Copyright © 2008 by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weis, Margaret.
Bones of the dragon / Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1973-9 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-7653-1973-X (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2346-0 (first international trade paperback edition) 1. Heroes—Fiction. 2. Gods—Fiction. 3. Dragons—Fiction. 4. Magic—Fiction. 5. Quests (Expeditions)—Fiction. I. Hickman, Tracy. II. Title.
PS3573.E3978 B66 2009
813’.54—dc 22
2008038032
First Edition: January 2009
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Angel Jane Peterson from Grampa Hickman: Thank you for all my brighter tomorrows.
—TRACY HICKMAN
To my flyball team, the BC Boomerangs, and our dogs: Dixie, Joey, Bandit, Razor, Chloe, Riley, Scooter B, Scooter C, Feisty, Scotty, Figment, Scout, Fly, Shelby, Frasier, Shifter, Ginger, Shooter, Homer, Simpson, Jem, Skaner, Smush, Kanga, Solar, Luke, Squirt, Lunar, Stewie, Max, Streyeker, Mojo, Target, Nikki, Tempe, Ranger, Zoomer: Thank you for the fun and friendship!
—MARGARET WEIS
WYRD
The thread
is twisted and spun
upon the wheel.
Then I snip it,
and he dies.
BOOK
1
THE OGRES
CHAPTER
1
The hunt had not gone well. The four young men had left their village six days ago, hoping to bring down game for their people. They had caught only a few thin and undernourished rabbits, which went to feed the hungry hunters. Discouraged, the young men had headed back home.
The Torgun were not generally hunters, except for sport. The clan raised cattle and sheep, ducks and geese, housing them in byres during the winter, feeding them grain grown during the summer months. But due to excessive rain, the grain harvest had been poor last fall. The winter, the dark months of Svanses, had been unusually long and bitterly cold, killing animals and people. Spring had brought hope to the Torgun, but the time of spring, Desiria, proved a mockery. The goddess Akaria’s rains came early and then ceased. Now, in late spring, the young crops withered in the dry ground.
Even under ideal conditions, raising crops was always difficult in this land of cold and snow. The growing season was short, the ground rocky and difficult to farm. Despite the hardships, or perhaps because of them, the Vindrasi people had lived here and thrived for centuries. Not even the eldest among them could remember a time as bad as this.
On their return, the group of four friends split up, hoping to cover more ground in their efforts to find game. The brothers, Bjorn and Erdmun, took a different road to the village, using the northern route. Skylan and Garn took the south. These two young men walked in silence. Skylan did not react well to failure, and he was sullen and brooding. Garn was silent because he never spoke unless he had something to say that was worth saying.
The time was morning, near dawn. The young men had risen early, intending to find deer stirring in the gloaming and eating tender green grass or coming to the stream to drink. There were no deer, however, because there was no tender grass. As for the stream, lack of rain had caused it to dwindle to almost nothing. A small child could toddle through the water without wetting her knees.
Skylan watched the sun rise up over the hills, and he grew even glummer. Aylis, the Sun Goddess, was an angry goddess, burning away the clouds that might have brought much-needed rain.
The day would be clear and hot. Again.
“I am beginning to think Aylis hates