Elizabeth Boyer - The Thrall And The Dragon's Heart

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The Thrall And The Dragon’s Heart

By Elizabeth Boyer

Scanned, proofed and formatted by BW-SciFi

Release date: December, 22nd, 2002

A Del Rey Book

Published by Ballantine Books

United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in

Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-72576

ISBN 0-345-31445-X

Printed in Canada

First Edition: September 1982

Third Printing: May 1983

Cover art by Michael Herring

Map by Chris Barbieri

Dedicated to Capitol Reef, an oasis of peace.

Chapter I

Brak shivered under the onslaught of the howling, gusting snowstorm, which had suddenly and

completely enveloped the two travelers, transforming the spring after-noon into a fury straight from the

dark heart of midwinter. The light failed rapidly and the storm obscured the sur-rounding landscape until

Brak and Pehr could see little beyond their horses' flattened ears. The riders wrapped their hoods and

cloaks tightly around themselves, watching anxiously for the welcoming lights of Vigfusstead. Pehr's father

Thorsten, the chieftain of his Quarter, would be there waiting for them, enjoying the warmth of Vigfus'

fires and his golden mead in the ancient longhouse his an-cestors had built. Brak closed his eyes against a

particularly hostile blast and pictured those seasoned, black beams and thick, friendly turf walls.

Someone would be playing the harp and singing or reciting poetry, and all the guests would be warm and

well fed in the finest traditions of Scipling hospitality.

Pehr's voice jolted him from his half-drowsing stupor. "Brak, I said do you think Vigfus will have the

sense to send someone to meet us with a light? We might have been there by now, if anyone had any

brains."

Brak could see nothing of Pehr but a white lump crouch-ing in the saddle of a larger white lump. The

larger lump stopped and blinked its snow-fringed eyes and heaved a re-proachful sigh.

"Do you think we're lost?" Brak hated to ask, knowing Pehr would think he was a coward.

"Lost on Vigfus' road? Don't be absurd. I remember distinctly when we crossed the beck, so the hall

must be over this next hill. I hope you're not going to disgrace yourself and me by being cowardly. I'm

supposed to be your chieftain and you're supposed to trust me, remember?"

Brak muttered a grudging agreement. Although he had grown into a tall, stout young man, a veritable

shaggy bear, he still had a tendency to blush furiously for little cause and he didn't like to fight, which

earned for him a reputation of cowardice.

He was of a mind to be frightened now, knowing that the cold and stony interior of Skarpsey was

famous for its abil-ity to confound the traveler with mazes of weird and deso-late formations of lava rock,

rendered even more inscrutable by clouds of steam from legions of smoking geysers. He was also aware

of the reputed strange magic that ruled the interior of the island.

"We aren't lost, Brak. The snow makes it seem longer, and we're traveling slower, too. You know old

Faxi couldn't hope to keep up with Asgrim otherwise. I feel in my bones that we're getting closer, and

any moment we'll meet a thrall from Vigfusstead coming to light our way with a lantern. I refuse to be lost

besides. The son of Thorsten simply couldn't do something so stupid and commonplace."

"Well, I, as a mere thrall, could manage it without the least trouble." Brak urged Faxi forward, noting

how the snow had matted the horse's thick mane until he seemed scarcely able to lift his head. It also

matted Brak's beard, a short, fine ruff sprouting around his face in generous growth for his early years of

manhood.

"Hush!" Pehr commanded. "If you'll be quiet, I can listen for someone shouting to us."

"It will probably be a troll," Brak muttered. "I'm not too proud to be superstitious. That's one of the

privileges of the lower classes."

They slogged through the deepening drifts, until both horses stopped suddenly, lifting their heads and

staring with alarm into the swirling gloom ahead. With rattling snorts, they backed away, refusing to go

farther.

"Barrows!" Brak gasped, catching sight of what waited ahead. Old lintels and doorposts loomed in the

dimness, capped with hats of snow like grim old ghouls standing watch over the dead in the mounds.

Pehr led the retreat, halting in the lee of a scarp of lava. "Well, now we know we're slightly off the road.

You might have said something sooner, Brak."

"I did, this morning before we started out," Brak said. "I told you it would probably snow; and if you

hadn't been so lazy yesterday, we could have left with Thorsten to see the law-giving. But you couldn't

make up your mind until the last minute, and then it was too late."

Pehr responded with a snort. "I suppose what we should do is find a place with a little shelter and wait

for daylight. We can't really be too far off the track."

"I don't know why not," Brak growled, gnawing his lip in earnest worry. From their earliest childhood

scrapes together, he had been expected to see to it that Pehr came to no harm; and if anything went

wrong, it was invariably Brak's fault. Since Pehr had never possessed much common sense, it was no

wonder that Brak had spent most of his existence in a condition of fear.

Silently they toiled up yet another hillside and stopped. Pehr gave a shout and began pounding clouds of

snow from Brak's shoulders.

"Look there, Brak! It's Vigfusstead! Didn't I tell you we weren't far off the road?"

Brak saw one tiny light far below, which seemed half smothered by the storm. "That's Vigfusstead? I'd

expected more lights," he said, but Pehr chose to ignore him. With rising spirits, they rode toward the

faint, ruddy light. Even the tired horses walked more willingly.

The light soon showed itself to be the fireglow coming from a half-open door. Brak stopped several

times to look at it doubtfully, but Pehr forged on confidently.

"This isn't Vigfusstead, Pehr," he finally announced as they approached the dooryard. "I can't imagine

where we are. Whose holding could this be? There aren't any holdings this close to Vigfusstead, are

there?"

"Nonsense. Of course there are, or this one wouldn't be here. Come on, Brak, quit being such a fat old

coward." Pehr dismounted and approached the half-open door. "They'll be glad to let us stay the night

and feed us a good meal, and I know you won't balk at anything remotely edible. Halloa! Is anyone

awake in there?" He rapped at the window and waited.

A thin, pale face peered out the door warily. It was a serving girl, but she reminded Brak of a cornered

fox look-ing at its assassins. Raggedly clad and ragged-haired, she seemed ready to bolt away at any

instant.

"What do you want?" she whispered. "This isn't the sort of place for travelers. You'd better go back the

way you came, quickly, before something terrible happens to you."

"What? What sort of hospitality is this?" Pehr demanded. "We're cold and hungry and lost besides and

wouldn't know where to go back to if we wanted to. We were going to Vigfusstead, but we can't go any

farther in this storm. Where's the master of the house?"

A voice from within sent the girl scuttling away. The door was snatched open by a heavy hand, and a

large, stocky woman in poor, dirty clothing scowled out at Pehr and Brak.

For a moment she stared grimly, then said, "Well, you'll have to come in, then. I'll send my shepherd to

look after your beasts. Mind you, we're not used to guests here, so you needn't expect to be treated like

kings." As she turned away, she went on, muttering, "If you knew what place this was, you'd probably

rather sleep in the snow. On your heads be any misfortune that befalls you here."

Brak looked at Pehr, not quite able to believe what he thought he had heard, but Pehr didn't seem

alarmed. The place certainly promised an uncomfortable night. Two wretched rooms with an attic leaned

against a greasy-smelling old hut where the food was prepared. A heap of untanned sheep fleeces along

one wall filled the place with a strong smell of sheep, as well as furnishing the old woman a bed. The

serving girl probably slept in the kitchen, and the ill-favored shepherd, who skulked out the door to care

for the horses, smelled as if the barn were more home to him than the house.

The girl edged into the room with a large, black pot steaming with a muttony fragrance. Eying the two

strang-ers distrustfully, she hurried back for two large wooden bowls, which she flung on the table with a

clatter. A loaf of rather stale bread and a knife were added to the feast, followed by the grudging addition

of a lump of goaty-smelling cheese.

The old woman sat down with a wad of wool at a spinning wheel, watching her guests eat their food.

Her eye was grim and somehow speculative. The silence in the small house was formidable. Brak tried

not to look at her lest he lose his appetite, which was already experiencing difficulties with the rubbery

boiled mutton and greasy broth.

Suddenly the old woman leaned forward to inspect her guests more piercingly. "Did you pass by way of

the bar-rows as you were coming here?" she demanded.

"We did," Pehr replied, spearing a large piece of mutton out of the pot and fussily cutting the fat off it. "A

lot of people would try to tell us some frightening old tales about ghosts and strange lights and such

nonsense. I disbelieve all this magical stuff myself."

The old woman snorted. "When you're as old as I am, you'll come to believe a great many things that

you laugh at now, my fine young man. Ever since I've lived in the shadows of the barrows, I've seen a

mort of strange things." She shook her head until her jowls quivered, and her pale eyes fixed them with a

deathly glare.

"And may you live to see many more of the same," Brak said nervously, in an effort to appease her.

"Ha! I may not live out this night!" She said it with much satisfaction and hunched herself up in her shawl,

pursing her lips as if no one could ever wring another word from her. Under the cover of viciously

harrowing up the fire, she muttered, "And neither may one of you."

Brak's ears, sharpened with apprehension, caught what the old crone had said. He clutched at Pehr's

arm and whispered, "Pehr, I don't think we should stay here. She keeps muttering under her breath about

awful things. Let's leave, shall we? I'd rather sleep outside than with all the lice and ticks in those old

fleeces."

"Hush! It wouldn't be polite," Pehr whispered angrily.

"Polite? Who worries about that when you're scared to death?" Brak's eyes darted around the room,

lighting upon the most ordinary things with horror, as if they were in-struments of torture instead of

farming and weaving im-plements.

"Don't be so superstitious," Pehr answered, but even he jumped when the old woman suddenly uttered a

loud chuckle in the midst of her scowling contemplation of the fire.

"Superstitious!" Her bright, fierce eyes bored into Pehr and Brak. "That's what you call it, eh? You

young sprats know nothing about the old ways of knowledge. Super-stition, indeed!" She finished with a

cackle, a rusty sound that raised Brak's every hair to stiff attention.

She continued to snort and chuckle throughout the rest of their meal. When they were finished, she

pointed to the fleeces. "You can sleep there as well as anywhere, I sup-pose, and I shall take the loft."

Dubiously, Brak measured her bulk against the rather flimsy ladder ascending through the low ceiling.

"Bar the doors, and if you've got any sense you'll bury your heads and pretend you hear or see nothing,

in case anything should happen."

"What exactly are we to expect?" Pehr inquired with some annoyance, but the reply was a huffy grunt as

the old woman crept up the ladder like a fat black spider climbing a strand of its web. She took the

smoky tallow lamp with her, leaving her two guests in the dying glow of the meager fire.

"Now we can leave," Brak whispered, flinching when the fire popped.

Pehr prodded at the fleeces with one foot, then arranged his cloak in the far opposite corner and lay

down on it. "You're being absurd, Brak. Given a basic disbelief in magic, what is there that she can do to

us? I'll protect us well enough with this." He laid his short sword close at hand and looked at it proudly.

Thorsten had given it to him last month for his birthday. Pehr had practiced dili-gently with Thorsten's

oldest retainer, a one-eyed fellow Brak thought was surely ancient enough to have battled against the

scraelings seven hundred years ago, when the Sciplings first set foot on Skarpsey's rugged shores.

Brak sighed, watching Pehr making himself comfortable for the night. Gingerly, Brak sat down on the

stiff sheep fleeces in the deepening gloom and drew his cloak up to his chin. He had no delusions about

bravery and cowardice. He knew he was a coward from his bones outward, in-cluding each carefully

nurtured layer of loyal plumpness, which would someday become sturdy, faithful corpulence when Pehr

was chieftain of his father's Quarter.

"You always get us into these awful messes," he grum-bled, after he was quite sure Pehr was sound

asleep. "Some-times I think I might live longer as a poor fisherman. I certainly never asked to swear

fealty to Pehr Thorstensson. It's been nothing but trouble ever since. Barrow mounds, haunted stones,

and now a haunted house."

A soft, scratching sound sent him cringing into his cloak, except for his eyes, which glared around in

terror. He saw the fleece nailed over the kitchen door stir slightly, and the small serving girl called Grima

came creeping stealthily from her lair. Instantly Brak had visions of himself being murdered right before

his own eyes.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice quaking. "Go away, get back to whatever place you came out

of—please!" It did him no good to notice that she was scarcely half his size and as thin and delicate as a

wood shaving.

"You're the ones who must go away," she whispered. "A dreadful curse abides here; if you don't leave

this house, you'll find yourselves victims of it by midnight. Don't ask any questions, just gather your things

and go."

"I'd like to, but I can't. My chieftain Pehr thinks it would be a breach of hospitality—and superstitious

besides. You're quite certain of the curse on this house?"

The girl nodded, her eyes lost indark shadow. "Then you must desert him if he won't go. I assure you,

the curse is as real as the wart on Katla's chin."

"I can't desert Pehr, I fear," Brak said unhappily. "Ex-actly what sort of curse is it, may I ask, and what

kind of danger are we in?"

The girl shook her head, and pale hair gleamed under the edges of her ragged kerchief. "I can't tell you.

If Katla knew I tried to warn you away, she'd—" A heavy creak from upstairs silenced her. Shaking her

head and holding up a warning finger, she started scuttling back toward the kitchen.

Brak caught her wrist, dropping it hastily, amazed at his own temerity. In a whisper he asked, "Are you

in some sort of awful trouble? Can I—be of any help to you?"

The girl stared at him and seemed to be of a mind to laugh. Then she favored him with a quick, sad

smile, saying, "No, I don't think you can, but it's most kind of you to ask. If you only knew—no, then you

wouldn't want to help me. I wish you'd slip away before it's too late." Her whisper followed her as she

glided away into the darkness of the sordid kitchen.

Brak struggled between the resolve to bestir Pehr imme-diately and get him out of danger and the fear of

the wrath and derision of his friend at being awakened from a sound sleep to listen to Brak's ridiculous

and definitely backward superstitious anxieties. All the common working folk on Skarpsey possessed a

healthy respect for magic and magical beings; doubt was reserved for the educated and wealthy, who

had little to do with the vast, lonely fells and isolated valleys. With a small sigh, Brak picked up Pehr's

sword and propped himself watchfully against the wall. The sword in his hand was as comforting to him

as if it were a live, poisonous snake. Earnestly he hoped nothing would happen to prove his cowardice to

an even greater extent.

From time to time he added chips of wood and dry dung to the fire to keep the room somewhat lighted.

He wanted to see the menace before it throttled or murdered him, al-though even a vengeful, bloodthirsty

draug would have second thoughts about sallying from its grave on such a night.

He pinched himself to stay awake until he was numb and almost delirious. He wished the small creaks

and squeaks and sighs he heard would frighten him awake, but sleep had dulled even his overdeveloped

sense of self-preservation. In spite of himself, he nodded and dozed, slumping against the wall with the

sword across his knees. For no reason, he suddenly awoke, glaring around wildly with the knowledge

that something was wrong. The air felt disturbed, as if something had just brushed past him. Turning his

head, he saw that Pehr was gone. For a moment Brak could only gape, listening to his heart hammering

with the terror of being abandoned in Katla's evil clutches. Then he persuaded his quaking limbs to rise

and creep toward the door, which was not completely closed. Fearing all manner of gruesome sights, he

peered through the crack, not daring to risk breathing.

He saw a cloaked and hooded figure mounting a tall horse and turning it away to ride out of the yard.

Brak fell back and began scrambling his possessions together, picking up one thing and dropping it to

seize another. De-serting him in such an awful place was exactly Pehr's idea of a fine joke, which he

could tell everyone back at Thors-tensstead to make them all laugh. It would be a great story; the best

ones always were at Brak's expense. Brak finally managed to fasten his cloak and grab his boots, letting

himself outside as quietly as he could, stumbling in his haste over Katla's spinning wheel, left treacherously

to ensnare the unwary, like a large, predatory insect.

Brak hurried to the stable, where no one seemed to be awake. He fastened Faxi's bridle with shaking

hands, trotting his horse out without the saddle, and followed the tracks the other horse had made in the

snow. The storm had left the sky clear and cold, glittering with stars and half a moon, which offered

ample light for following Pehr's tracks. Pehr would tease him and complain about going back for his

saddle, but Brak resigned himself to it in advance, rather than enduring a night alone in that house.

He followed the tracks to the top of a hill and down the other side, where he discovered a hodgepodge

of tracks, as if the horse had galloped up and down several times. To his dismay, he couldn't decipher

which way Pehr had gone. Tracks led away in all directions; after attempting to follow several sets of

them, he could no longer tell Faxi's tracks from the original ones.

As he sat pondering, he heard a horse whinny behind him, toward the north. Gladly he set off in pursuit,

urging Faxi to trot a little faster.

"Pehr, you're going too far for a joke!" he muttered, see-ing that the tracks led straight toward the

barrow mounds. Jolting and muttering along on Faxi's knobby spine, he tried to persuade himself not to

follow Pehr to the barrows. He knew Pehr would be waiting to spring out at him and scare him, and even

that knowledge wouldn't make the fright any less when it came. Unhappily he urged Faxi as close to the

barrows as the animal would go, and then he got off and led him, cajoling and comforting the old horse.

"Pehr? Where are you? I know you're going to leap out at me with a horrible scream any moment, and I

promise I'll nearly faint, so why don't you get it over with? We can go on to Vigfusstead by moonlight."

He listened for any slight betraying sound, but he heard nothing except the hissing of the wind among the

upright doorposts and lintels. With a sigh, Brak tugged Faxi after him, following the hoofprints further into

the cluster of barrow mounds. Faxi shook his head and made disapprov-ing grunts and groans as he

plodded reluctantly after Brak. The hoofprints led toward the largest barrow, which bristled with a ring of

stones on its flat top. Brak shivered, suddenly feeling cold and alone in a place where he had no business.

"Pehr!" he shouted. "I'm going back now! You're going to miss out on scaring me and telling everyone

about it! Do you hear, Pehr? This is no place for jokes, especially in the middle of the night!"

Still there was no answer. Brak waited, then began follow-ing the tracks again, muttering to himself.

When he looked up again, he was nearly at the foot of the large barrow. The tracks led straight to the

gaping, black entrance and vanished between the two tall doorposts. Unwillingly Brak approached the

doorway, smelling the musty breath of the barrow and prickling all over with creeping gooseflesh.

"Pehr!" he called. "This isn't funny. I know you didn't go inside that barrow, so there's no way you'll get

me into it. I'm going back, Pehr. I'll meet you at Vigfusstead."

This time he heard a faint sound in answer, an echoing clatter of stone from inside the barrow.

"I'm not going in there," Brak said to Faxi, bending his head for a look into the absolute blackness of the

barrow. "I don't know why I do these things for Pehr. I'm sure he doesn't appreciate half the trouble I go

to—" His words trailed off, echoing in the waiting darkness below. Brak had been forced to crawl into

earthy barrows with Pehr many times to search for treasure, or merely to defy any linger-ing curses, but

none of those sadly decayed little chambers had ever echoed. Brak made a small, quavering hoot and

listened to the sound rebounding as if in a vast cavern. With an unsteady hand, he felt around the

doorposts and discovered walls of hewn stone. Before his feet was a flight of steps leading down into the

earth. Brak stepped back, leaning against his horse for support. Something unnaturalawaited him,

something more frightening than Pehr leaping out of the shadows with a terrifying yell in his ear. Pehr had

already gone down into that strange darkness before him, and it was his duty to follow, however much

against his better judgment.

Moving one leaden leg at a time, he stepped into the barrow and felt his way down the stairs. Faxi

followed him with a little encouragement, his hooves clopping softly on the steps and his speckled nose

nudging Brak along from behind.

"I don't need you pushing me," Brak muttered as they reached the foot of the stairway. A broad tunnel

sloped away steadily downward, with guttering tallow lamps at intervals in little niches in the rock.

"I must be dreaming this," Brak told himself, "so there's no sense getting frightened, is there? I'm asleep,

safe at home at Thorstensstead in the loft over the hall—" Acciden-tally he touched Pehr's sword at his

belt, startling himself. Gripping it resolutely, he strode down the tunnel to the first lamp. Far ahead, the

distant, sharp clipping of a horse's hooves on stone made Faxi lift his head and listen.

Brak mounted his horse and sent him trotting after Pehr, trying not to wonder where the mysterious

tunnel was leading to, or how it had got there, or who had made it. He didn't feel like shouting in such a

place. He wasn't at all certain it wasn't a dream; and if he was actually asleep back at Katla's, he didn't

want to go shouting his head off as a guest in a stranger's house. Awakening the house-hold would be

extremely bad manners.

The tunnel ended, finally, without a glimpse of the other horse. It looked exactly like two great, half-open

doors leading into a well-lit room. Brak almost chuckled, knowing for certain he must be dreaming.

He dismounted and groped his way forward in the dark, blundering unexpectedly into the other horse. It

was tied to a ring in the wall and breathing as if it had galloped a long way. After the initial fright of Brak's

bumping into it, the horse let its head droop again and began to shiver. Brak touched its sweat-soaked

neck, wondering how long the poor beast had stood, hot, winded, and growing stiffer and colder the

longer it stood. It rolled fearful eyes at

Brak and trembled as he smoothed its soaking neck and peered cautiously between the doors into the

room beyond.

It had once been a large and magnificent hall, but now it looked like a forgotten lumber room. Tattered

rags hanging on the walls and old sheep fleeces thrown in heaps added their own rotting smells to the

natural mustiness of the cavern. Splintered timbers held up the roof in several places and were sprouting

coats of phosphorescent fungus. Two small, shaggy ponies were tied to the timbers, snorting and rolling

their eyes at the flickering of the fire in the center of the chamber. Brak had never seen such ponies. They

were black, delicate creatures, glossy and fiery of eye, reminding Brak somehow of spiders. He shivered

and poked his head a little farther around the edge of the door.

The riders of the black ponies stood on the far side of the fire, so he could see them only through the veil

of danc-ing flame. The instant he caught sight of them, a voice shouted threateningly, "You know you can

never go back now! You'll be in our power until you die, which may be very soon if you continue with

such stubborn behavior. All I have to do is breathe one word to Katla's zealous and superstitious

neighbors, and you'd be burned alive or hanged. I'm sure you know what that one word is, so I needn't

repeat it. Even your own people would rather see you dead than allow you to return to them the way you

are. Now, what is your choice? Are you going to step forward and swear your loyalty to us, or are you

going to die?"

Chapter 2

Brak gasped, staggering back against the door, certain he was going to be killed on the spot for the

heinous crime of eavesdropping.

Then a different voice answered. "I doubt if I will die, Hjordis—not while I have the gift my father left

me. That's what you want me for, isn't it, so you can take possession of this small object I wear around

my neck? All I have to say to you, Hjordis, Queen of the Dark Alfar though you may be, is that you shall

never get this necklace from me, whether I live or whether I die, and I know you wouldn't dare try taking

it by force."

Brak crouched behind the door, peering around it with helpless dread and fascination. He saw a third

figure con-fronting the other two, a smaller figure in a ragged cloak with a kerchief tied around her head.

The girl reminded him of Katla's kitchen maid, Grima, only more bold and defiant. She revealed a gleam

of gold at her throat for a moment, then quickly concealed the small object inside her tattered tunic.

"You'll never get it by force," a deep male voice rumbled from the blurred image of a black-shrouded

figure with a long gray beard. "The Rhbus will never permit it."

Hjordis, the queen, had taken two swift strides toward the girl. Now she halted and put something back

into her belt—a knife, by its flashing gleam. "Would they dare strike the Queen of the Dark Alfar?" she

demanded with a toss of her lofty headdress. It was a sinister contrivance of bits of fur, bones, teeth, and

other peculiar objects.

"Would you like to tempt them?" the deep voice replied sharply. "You're already risking their anger by

putting your curse on her and forcing her to stay with old Katla. She's not going to run directly back to

her people, who would most likely lock her up and try to work a cure which would almost certainly be

the death of her. Neither will she be able to find old Dyrstyggr to help her cause some sort of mischief;

we've seen to it that he'll never get his powers back. Now all that remains is for us to convince Ingvold

that her best interest lies in giving us Dyrstyggr's dragon heart. We're engaging in war on a grand scale, so

where on earth could a lone, wretched girl such as Ingvold possibly thwart our plans? Those who tried to

oppose us, such as her father Thjodmar and Dyrstyggr, are all happily dead or out of the way, are they

not?"

Hjordis folded her hands inside the deep sleeves of her gown and stared haughtily at the girl. "Yes, but

she still possesses that heart and we must have it. As you say, she is alone and insignificant, and I'd gladly

kill her in an instant if not for fear of the Rhbus, who protect her, but the question is how to get the heart

away from her. I be-lieve in playing on the safe side."

"Indeed, I never suspected such a thing," Myrkjartan grunted. "I believe you're coveting that heart so

desperately you'd do anything to get it for yourself."

"You'll never get it," Ingvold said scornfully. "I am the last of Thjodmar's line, and as long as I live you

shall never possess the dragon's heart and the assistance of the Rhbus."

Hjordis' hand reached toward the knife at her belt. "But perhaps I can persuade you to come over to

our side, will-ingly and gladly. You'll get tired of my curse before long, my girl. It's not pleasant to be a

hag, as you have discov-ered. I can't say which fate would be worse, falling into the hands of the

Sciplings, who would burn you alive, or into the hands of the Light Alfar, who would try to cure you. No,

I daresay you won't escape from me, and one day you'll change your mind, and then the dragon's heart

will be mine, freely given by its bearer. Until then, back to your miserable captivity with Katla."

"Like a bird on a tether," Myrkjartan remarked dryly. "She can fly around where she wants, until you

begin to pull on the string."

Ingvold stamped her foot. "Someday I'll find a way to escape from your tether, Hjordis, and I'll return to

Snowfell and tell King Elbegast about Dyrstyggr, even if the cure kills me."

"And she would, too, the little cur," Myrkjartan growled. "I think a dungeon would be a better place to

reform her character, rather than letting her run loose in the Scipling realm."

Hjordis waved her hand contemptuously. "The Rhbus would regard a dungeon as infringing on the girl's

free will."

"And this despicable curse you've put on me isn't?" Ingvold demanded. "I wouldn't maim and murder

poor, innocent people of my own choice, although I couldn't say the same for either of you—a

necromancer and a witch-queen."

Myrkjartan rose from his seat with an impatient lashing of his cloak to move it out of his way. "Get rid of

her, Hjordis, and let's go back to Hagsbarrow. That idiot Skarnhrafn will get into the blackest trouble if

he's not watched closely. I hope you won't trouble me again with the observation of your inept tactics for

obtaining Thjod-mar's heart."

"You can go," Hjordis said to the girl. "Until the next full moon, when I send for you. I hope you'll do

some re-considering, Ingvold. I doubt very much you want to con-tinue your life among uncivilized and

ignorant Sciplings."

Ingvold replied over her shoulder, "I prefer them to you, Hjordis. The smell of mutton fat and fish is far

more pleasant than the smell of evil." She dived through the doors as she ended her speech, tripping over

Brak, who was still crouching there, too shaky with fear to scuttle out of her way.

"You!" Ingvold cried in amazement, seizing him and dragging him out into the darkness. In the next

moment the doors slammed shut with a crash, and they heard the sound of a heavy bar falling into place.

"You followed me, you fool! How could you—how dare you?"

She gave him several shakes, which did nothing to restore the strength of his wobbly legs, and pushed

him as rapidly as he could go toward the horses.

"I thought I was following Pehr," Brak replied. "Where is he, and by the way, where is this place? Who

—"

"Never mind all that. If you're lucky, you'll never find out. There's no time for explaining, except to say

that your friend Pehr is alive, if not too well, and he'll cer-tainly be much worse if we don't get out of here

as quickly as we can. Get up on this horse, not your old nag, or we'll be trapped. Dawn's not far off.

Come on, poor beast, you're almost spent, but we'll take care of you as soon as we get back to Katla's

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TheThrallAndTheDragon’sHeart ByElizabethBoyer Scanned,proofedandformattedbyBW-SciFiReleasedate:December,22nd,2002ADelReyBookPublishedbyBallantineBooks Copyright©1982byElizabethBoyer AllrightsreservedunderInternationalandPan-AmericanCopyrightConventions.PublishedintheUnitedStatesbyBallantineBooks,adi...

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Elizabeth Boyer - The Thrall And The Dragon's Heart

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