Chapter Seven:
The Draugar
Chapter Seven:
The Draugar
Wulf spun around and grabbed at his dagger where it stuck in the tree. Tugged. No good.
Blood and bones, he thought. The dragon-vision is gone. Can’t pull it out.
Maybe that wasn’t true. He didn’t know for sure. He gave the dagger the hardest tug he could.
It didn’t budge.
Yep, it was stuck there.
He turned back around. Rainer had drawn his blade and had moved between Wulf and the dark being. Rainer was trembling.
“What are you?” Wulf called to it. His own voice was shaking.
The dark being did not reply. It didn’t break its steady stride. And there was something in the way it quivered as it moved, like it didn’t have bones.
Rainer got into a fighting stance with his dagger. It wasn’t a sword posture, but more like a ready position for boxing. Made sense. Rainer studied fighting the way Wulf studied the sagas.
He couldn’t let Rainer face this thing alone. Wulf started to move up beside Rainer, but Rainer glanced back, saw what Wulf was up to, and shook his head.
“You’ve got no blade,” he growled.
“I’ve got my hands,” Wulf said. “And, blood and bones, I have my teeth if I have to use them.” He went to stand beside Rainer.
At the sight of the two boys standing side by side, the thing stopped. It was five long paces away. It was as tall as a very tall man. The smell it put out was incredibly intense.
In the country, Wulf had once passed a dead horse that had been crawling with maggots. This smell was way, way worse.
The thing looked at Rainer and then to Wulf with its half-vulture, half-man head.
The grinding whisper-voice came out of it again. This close, it was a sound that made you cringe, like the sound of fingernails on slate.
“Where is Tjark’s hammer?” it screeched. “Thou know’st.”
Suddenly Wulf wanted badly to answer. He felt compelled. The black thing had the right because it had the power. Who was he to keep it from what it wanted?
He was nobody. He was filled with the complete certainty that if he didn’t tell, the thing would tear him apart.
The only trouble was that he didn’t know. He didn’t know if any of that part of the dragon vision was real or what it meant.
Wulf shook his head. “No idea,” he said.
“Thou know’st,” it insisted. “Boy heir.”
“I’m not,” Wulf replied, his voice shaking only a little. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
Quickly, faster than a man ought to be able to move, the black thing jumped toward Wulf. It reached for him with its free hand.
He stared at the gaping beak with its tearing, hooked point.
“Thou know’st.”
Wulf drew his hands back and got ready.
I’m going down swinging.
Somehow, Rainer was quicker than the dark thing. He charged toward the thing and met it head on. But Rainer had too much momentum. The dark thing stepped to the side, and Rainer stumbled past it—
There was nothing between the dark thing and Wulf now.
The beak. And now arms reached out, black arms, fingers not fully formed but sharpening to points, like spears. Talons.
Wulf faked to his left, then threw a punch with his right as hard as he could.
Nothing but air. The black thing was too quick. It had ducked.
Claw hands grabbed Wulf by the neck. The tips of claw fingers dug into his skin.
Then the thing lifted him up, completely off his feet, and held him dangling by his neck. It turned the edge of its sword against Wulf’s throat. Wulf grabbed at the thing’s hands and shook himself, trying to get free, but it was no use. The thing’s grip tightened.
“Thou know’st. Tell me.” The thing was in Wulf’s face. Its beak was a finger length from his eyes.
The talons squeezed his neck harder. The blade cut deeper.
Rainer appeared again over the dark thing’s shoulder. He had found something to grab hold of. The thing’s cloak. It was black, but it seemed real enough. Rainer clung to the fabric and pulled himself up onto the thing’s back and, with a yell of determination, drew his dagger across the black thing’s throat.
The sword moved away from Wulf’s throat. Wulf watched as a gash opened up in the thing’s neck from the dagger stroke. It oozed black fluid, too thick and syrupy to be blood. Then the gash closed up almost as fast as it had been formed.
Wulf twisted and kicked at the thing’s chest. The thing’s hold on him weakened for a moment and Wulf struggled free. He stumbled back, in too much shock to do anything but watch.
Rainer stabbed his dagger into the thing’s right arm. The arm went limp, and the thing dropped its falcata. But this wound sealed again, and the black thing reached for Rainer with taloned hands. Rainer scrambled around on its back, using the thing’s own head to dodge.
Wulf lowered his shoulder and charged.
Duck down low. Slam into the midriff.
He felt the boneless, syrup-like softness of it. But his charge caused the thing to stumble back.
This was what Rainer needed. Rainer dropped his dagger, which obviously wasn’t working. He grabbed a handful of bolts from the crossbow quiver hanging from the thing’s belt. With one in his right hand, he stabbed again, this time into the side of the thing’s head.
The crossbow bolt slid in.
If the dark thing had a brain, the bolt had sliced a wide gash deep into it. Rainer took another bolt and stabbed again. He left that bolt in as well and stabbed with the third.
There were three black arrows pushed all the way through the thing’s skull. Black ooze flowed. Yet still it would not die.
With a big jerk of its body, the dark thing went completely rigid. This sudden movement caught Rainer off guard, and he was thrown from the thing’s back. He landed in the dirt near the green rock’s edge. Wulf straightened up from his charge.
He was face-to-face with the dark thing once again.
There were three crossbow bolts sticking out of its head, one with its tip coming out of the thing’s right eye.
The thing opened its mouth again, and a black tongue shot out.
It hissed, the black tongue twitching like a snake.
The hiss did not stop, and the horrible smell of the thing’s expelled breath was all around him.
Stinging eyes. Burning skin. Wulf put a hand over his face and nose to keep from breathing any more of the rotten air.
Then Rainer was on his feet again, behind the thing. He had picked up the black falcata. He slashed into the thing’s side, crying out “Tretz” as he did so.
Like some mushroom fungus full of spoors, the thing exploded. Then—
Poof!
It turned into a cloud of dust. No skin. No gore. No pieces anywhere. And the sword disappeared from Rainer’s hands.
Only the stench remained.
Wulf stared ahead, shaking like a leaf in the wind. He stood that way until he heard Rainer groan. His friend had been thrown several paces away by the explosion.
Snap out of it. Rainer needs help.
He ran quickly to Rainer.
“You all right?”
Rainer shook his head to clear it. Wulf lent him a hand as he pulled himself up.
He rubbed his wrist.
“Ouch,” Rainer said. “Like a hornet sting.”
But the wrist seemed to move in all the right directions.
Rainer started walking in a semicircle through the dirt of the square. Wulf didn’t understand what he was doing until Rainer stooped and picked up the dagger he had dropped. He cleaned it against his cloak, looked it over again, then slid it back into its scabbard.
From out of nowhere, the answer came to Wulf—what he’d put out of his mind before so he could concentrate on surviving.
“Henli’s Saga,” Wulf said.
“Huh?”
“That was a draugar.”
“A what?”
“Thousands of years ago. Four elves sold their souls to evil,” said Wulf.
“How does anybody know that?”
“They’ve been seen since.”
He turned and looked at the spot where the dark thing had disappeared. There was nothing. He checked the ground. No sign of a body or even of a deflated skin sack or anything like that.
Wulf looked around. There was candlelight behind a few windows. The noise had awakened the townspeople who lived around the square. Somebody would be out; someone would be sent to get the town guard if he hadn’t been already.
The night could end in a completely stupid way, with him having to make a lot of explanations. He and Rainer needed to go, and fast.
“Let’s get out of here,” Rainer said.
“Yeah, we should.” Wulf turned dejectedly back to his dagger, still stuck in the oak. “I can’t pull it out when I’m not in the dragon-vision, and I’m pretty sure that’s done for tonight.”
Rainer, too, gave the dagger a giant tug, then let go and stumbled back.
“Well, I sure as cold hell can’t, either.” He panted from the effort.
They had to go.
“We are so in the crap-hole,” Wulf said, shaking his head glumly.
Rainer put a hand on Wulf’s shoulder.
He pulled Wulf along, and the two soon lost themselves within the maze of the town streets.