Treasures of Fantasy - Margaret Weis [23]
The others laughed and added their own crude remarks.
“Unless our gods are dead,” said a quiet voice. “Maybe his god rules everything now, even the dragons.”
The young man who had spoken was named Farinn. He had not been long among the Torgun, having only recently moved to Luda to live with relatives following the death of his parents, who had been killed when their long house caught fire. He was fifteen and this was his first voyage, the battle with the giants his first battle. He had accorded himself well; at least Skylan assumed he had. He couldn’t remember that Farinn had even been there, though he must have been. The battle with the giants had been chaotic and confusing and Skylan could recall it only in horrific flashes. Farinn was so quiet people tended to forget he was around. Even now, when he spoke, men looked surprised. And troubled.
Skylan did not know Farinn well. Looking at the other Torgun, Skylan realized he did not know any of these men well, though he had lived with most of them from childhood up.
He could not have said, off hand, what Sigurd liked to eat for supper. Skylan might have been able to put names to Grimuir’s children, at least the boys, for he sometimes played war games with them, but he would have been hard-pressed to say whether Grimuir had three sons or four.
Sklyan knew his comrades only as warriors. He knew where to place each man in the shield wall, knew how well each handled sword and spear and axe. He had relied on Garn for the rest. Garn who seemed to know everything about everyone, not because he loved gossip, like Bjorn, but because he had genuinely cared about his friends.
“How can I care about these men when I might have to send them to their deaths?” Skylan had once asked Garn.
“That’s just an excuse,” Garn had told him with a laugh to take the sting from his words. “The welfare of one person absorbs you completely. And that person is Skylan Ivorson.”
Skylan remembered Garn’s laughter and his heart ached. He stared out at the waves lapping against the ship’s hull and listened to the talk that, not surprisingly, excluded him. No one asked his opinion or what he thought. They kept their backs to him.
“Our gods are not dead,” Bjorn said firmly.
“Then where are they? Not around here, that’s for certain,” Erdmun returned. “I heard Treia was going to summon the dragon. She is a Bone Priestess. If anyone would know whether or not our gods are dead, it would be her.”
The others looked uneasy at this. Skylan stirred and considered speaking out, denying Erdmun’s claim that the gods were dead, but he knew no one would listen to him. Skylan focused his attention on Raegar. It was hard to stomach the sight of the traitor pacing proudly back and forth beneath the dragonhead prow, casting a critical eye over the Venjekar as though he was her master.
The others continued talking. The soldiers generally broke up conversations among the prisoners, for fear they might be plotting to escape. Skylan was surprised they were allowing it until he noted Zahakis, their commander, lounging nearby, listening intently. He was finding this discussion about dead gods and dragons very interesting, apparently. Skylan was about to order his men to keep silent, until he remembered that they would refuse to obey.
“The spiritbone is lost,” said Bjorn. “It fell into the sea when the Dragon Kahg was wounded and left to return to his own realm. I should know. I helped search for it.”
“The spiritbone always comes back to the Bone Priestess. She must have found it. Raegar wouldn’t risk making a fool of himself otherwise,” Grimuir argued.
“He isn’t just risking making a fool of himself,” said Sigurd. “He knows that the Dragon Kahg could send that monster of a ship to the bottom of the sea with a twitch of his tail. Raegar knows something. Or thinks he knows something.”
“He knows our gods are dead,” said Erdmun stubbornly.
The sea chest beneath Skylan began to shake, and he kicked it to make it stop. Wulfe had woken before dawn and had started to leave