Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [224]
CHAPTER
14
The Torgun went about the sad task of honoring their dead. Four men had fallen to the giants, including Garn and Alfric the One-Eyed. A pulverizing blow had caught Alfric on his blind side. He’d never seen it coming. The gruesome remains of the two others lay at the bottom of a large depression that had been punched in the sand by the smashing stones. The sight of the mangled mess that had once been men was so horrible that Sigurd, a hardened warrior of many bloody battles, fell to his knees, puking.
They decided to leave what was left of the two where they were. The tide was rising, and the seawater would soon fill the holes with sand, mercifully covering the ghastly remains.
The warriors made Alfric ready for his journey to Torval. They covered his smashed skull and shattered body with his shield and placed his axe in his hand so that Torval would know he had died valiantly in battle.
The men would have done the same for Garn, but Skylan ordered them away. Aylaen would tend to Garn, as she would have done if she had been his wife. He could give her that poor comfort at least.
“The dead are at rest,” Skylan said to the others. “We are alive, and we must take thought for ourselves.”
Skylan sent men to cut pine trees for funeral pyres. He ordered men out hunting. He himself led a group to the dragonship. The ship had to be manned and ready to sail when the incoming tide floated it off the sandbar.
The wounded dragon had returned to his realm, either to heal or to die. The warriors would have to sail the ship themselves. Skylan and his men hoisted the sail and fit the oars into the oarlocks, ready to row it into shore when the water lifted the keel and set it free. Since dragons were mortal and could be slain in battle, the Vindrasi carried oars and sails aboard their ships, so that a ship bereft of its dragon would not be stranded on the sea. His plan was to sail the ship to the beach, where they could repair the damage.
Skylan left Aylaen in Treia’s care. The Bone Priestess had walked into camp shortly after the battle. When he asked her where she had been, she said that she had been praying in the Hall of Vektia and lost track of time. He asked her if she had seen Wulfe. Treia said caustically that since Skylan had brought the brat, he should keep better charge of him.
If Skylan had paid more attention to Treia, he would have noticed a smoldering triumph in her weak eyes. But Skylan paid no attention to Treia or to anyone. He was like the warrior who stands alone against his foes, braced for the assault he knows is coming, waiting to be overrun by his anguish, his grief, and his terrible guilt.
Aylaen had been right when she accused Skylan of killing Garn. Skylan had not wielded the weapon, but he was responsible for his friend’s death. Torval had made Skylan’s lie the truth, and Garn had died.
The warriors were shocked at Aylaen’s accusations and tried to convince her she was wrong. Bjorn described how the giant had swung the huge round stone and struck Garn a glancing blow, breaking his back. Erdmun told her how Skylan had saved her life at risk of his own, standing in the path of the swinging stone to slice the rope with his sword.
“If anyone was responsible for Garn’s death, it was you, Aylaen,” Sigurd told his stepdaughter. “If you had remained home as was seemly—”
“—then we would all be dead.” Skylan said. “Aylaen summoned the Dragon Kahg. His intervention bought us time to ready our attack. No man will say a word against her.”
Aylaen had not thanked him for his defense. She had not spoken a word to him or to anyone. Her face pale and set, she went about the task of preparing Garn’s body for the funeral. She closed the staring eyes, washed the blood from his body. She shaved his face and combed and plaited his hair. She scrubbed his clothes, for he must not go before Torval looking like a beggar. When she was finished, the men built a pyre