Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [154]
The Ugly One flung his arm over his forehead and slept deeply. His soul was still in the twilight realm, but he was no longer doing battle. Wulfe pictured his soul walking through pleasant meadows filled with flowers.
Wulfe was pleased with himself. The Ugly One would sleep a long time, and that would be good for him. Wulfe huddled down in the nest he’d made for himself among the blankets and whispered a thank-you to his mother. Thinking of her, he wondered sadly why she never came to sing to him anymore.
The boy missed her. He missed the elder. He missed his home. He felt so lost and alone that he began to cry, something he had not done since he was four years old and the druids had taken him from his father and the wolves who had been his family.
When Skylan woke, he was content to simply lie drowsily among the blankets, reveling in the warmth of the bed. He recognized his surroundings. He was in the hold of his Venjekar.
His contentment did not last long.
Memory returned, crashing into him like ogres crashing into the shield-wall. Memory, like ogres, stabbed him with sharp swords.
Warriors who suffered cracked skulls almost never remembered the blow or even the battle. Unfortunately, Skylan remembered everything. He saw his young warriors transformed into rabbits. He saw Draya’s gruesome death.
Skylan wished his eyes might have been gouged out before he saw that horrible sight, one he knew he would keep on seeing for as long as he lived.
He felt the ship’s motion and realized they had set sail. He wondered who was sailing the ship. The Dragon Kahg would never permit an enemy to seize the ship. Perhaps druids had released Skylan’s men from their enchantment. His men were taking him home.
Weak in mind and body, Skylan accepted this notion and drifted back to sleep. When he woke again, he saw the boy.
He was a strange-looking boy, thin and sinewy, with a thatch of shaggy hair. The boy was pouring water from a jug into a drinking horn, and he had his back to Skylan. Propping himself up on his elbows, Skylan stared at him.
“Who in the name of Freilis are you?” Skylan demanded.
The boy sucked in a hissing breath. Whipping around, he flung the drinking horn at Skylan’s head and fled, scampering up the ladder and disappearing.
Skylan wiped water from his face and licked it from his parched lips. He gazed up the ladder, trying to catch a glimpse of the strange boy. When the boy did not return, Skylan called out to him.
“No need to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Skylan heard the lapping of the waves against the hull and nothing more, and he realized something was not right. He should have heard his men tramping about the deck. The silence made him uneasy. Who was sailing the ship? He coughed, cleared his throat, and tried again.
“I can’t hurt you, if it comes to that,” he told the boy ruefully. “I am weak as watered ale.”
The boy returned, hovering in the hatchway. He had yellow eyes the likes of which Skylan had never seen in a human, and he stared at Skylan distrustfully from beneath crudely cut bangs. He did not speak.
“What is your name?” Skylan asked.
“Names are powerful,” the boy countered. “Tell me yours first.”
He cautiously descended to the topmost rung of the ladder, but would come no farther.
“Skylan Ivorson,” Skylan answered. He was about to add proudly, “Chief of Chiefs of the Vindrasi,” but that wouldn’t sound well coming from a man lying naked in his own filth on sweat-soaked blankets. A man too weak to pour himself a cup of water.
The boy hesitated, then mumbled something.
“I couldn’t hear. Did you say ‘wolf’?” Skylan asked.
“Wulfe,” the boy repeated loudly, annoyed.
“Wulfe,” Skylan said, pronouncing the name as the boy did. “Would you tell one of my men to come down here?”
Wulfe shrugged. “There aren’t any men. Only the dragon. And maybe the woman.”
“This is no time for jests,” Skylan said sharply. “Someone is sailing this ship. I don’t know