A Crown of Flames Read online

  A Crown of Flames

  Pauline Creeden

  Melinda R. Cordell

  Contents

  1. A First Meal

  2. The Axe

  3. The Charm

  4. A Sad Homecoming

  5. A Contentious Meeting

  6. Some Father and Daughter Time

  7. The Black Cloth

  8. Utterly Dazed

  9. Too Much Grief

  10. Invasion

  11. Upon the Dragons’ Mountain

  12. A Frozen Lake

  13. A Confrontation

  14. Swords

  15. A Maiden’s Tears

  16. Meeting with the Queen

  17. Call Down the Lightning

  18. The Burning Rose

  19. Dragon Parley

  20. Strange Visions

  21. At Varinn’s Keep

  22. The Gorm

  23. Twinned

  24. Fire and Ashes

  25. A Small Whimper

  26. The Wooden Stag

  27. Pursuit

  28. Air Battles

  29. Back to the Holy Mountain

  30. The Crowns of Roses

  31. The Wedding Day

  Afterword

  Barbarians

  Read More from Melinda R. Cordell

  Read More from Pauline Creeden

  2018 © Pauline Creeden and Melinda R. Cordell

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  1

  A First Meal

  Nauma’s very first memory was of a man she didn’t know grabbing her by her hair and yanking her off her feet.

  She was the town scapegoat, long after her mother had died. So, her mother was a witch. So what? Those small-minded people had hated her mother with a burning passion, and they’d hated Nauma, even when she was a little toddling child. They hated her when she became an awkward, cringing girl, and their hatred had only intensified when her mother died when she was eleven years old. Everybody blamed Nauma for her mother’s death, even though they’d despised her mother when she was still alive and looked the other way when people would trip her in the streets. But once her mother was dead, somehow she was magically transformed into a saint. After her death, more people glared at Nauma, or hissed at her, or spit on her, or worse.

  They claimed that Nauma had killed the woman, because she stood at her mother’s bedside when she had died.

  That’s small-town logic for you.

  Of course, Nauma didn’t think that what she was doing at her mother’s bedside was any of their business. It was just a little potion she’d made her drink to ease her pain. Maybe it had not been mixed right. It still wasn’t any of their business.

  But the people of the town had made it their business.

  They knew Nauma had a fiery temper. They loved to mock her in the street. The men would grab her in dark corners of the town and force her to endure their slimy kisses, and then call her a slut.

  And so she did small acts of revenge. She started rumors that set families against families. She’d steal valued possessions, heirlooms, and fling them into the ocean. She would quietly and slowly poison people by feeding their chickens and goats certain herbs that the animals could tolerate, but the poison would pass into their milk and eggs. Then people, like that man who caught her unawares and tried to force her, would grow thin and lose all their hair and fall so sick they couldn’t leave the house. The woman who’d pinched her and called her a slut in the marketplace would wake up one morning and realize that her bed was full of vermin, crawling with lice and fleas.

  Small things gave her satisfaction.

  At long last, she’d had to flee the village. They blamed her for every bad thing that had happened, and they’d come for her. They wanted to capture her and burn her alive.

  So she’d run. And Nauma bided her time.

  The big revenge… that was all she wanted.

  She’d stopped feeling indignation over that hair-pulling memory a long time ago.

  Because about eighteen years after that memory had taken place—she couldn’t remember if she had been two years old or three—she’d killed the hair-pulling man. She’d killed his family, and then followed that up with many of the children in that town.

  It had been easy. There’d come news of an invasion. While the men of the town ran out to defend their families, Nauma went to each of their hiding places and killed the families as they cowered in the dark.

  As if she’d been directed by fate, the first person she’d found had been the hair-pulling man. She reminded him, pointedly, of the first memory that had been imprinted in her brain. She’d told him, in detail, how his hair-pulling stunt had made her feel (ugh, emotion) as she’d watched the blood run from his body and the light drain out of his eyes.

  Then she’d gone to work on the rest of the town, moving from hiding place to hiding place.

  After that, she’d shaken the dirt of that place from her boots and she had left the dead behind. Moved on to bigger and better things.

  That night had shown her that she had a particular gift for bloodshed.

  It made her want to repeat the experience.

  Soon, she’d built up an army of people who’d shared that particular penchant for bloodshed. They’d roamed far and wide and had amassed wealth and gold. They’d worked as mercenaries, attaching themselves to whatever kings or queens had paid them the most, and left a great path of destruction in their wake.

  And then Nauma found a source of magic that was far greater than that silly song magic that everybody else had used. She’d paid a little price to enjoy this magic, a price that nobody else had wanted to pay.

  Too bad—that meant more for her.

  And so, here she was, standing before the dragon barrow, standing ankle-deep in the blood of all the men she’d killed, pleased with herself.

  She’d single-handedly killed the army she’d raised so they lay dead around her feet. Or, undead, rather. She’d sacrificed them to raise the dragon dead.

  And she also raised her own army, again, from dead to undead. Her new army of blood-spattered, undead shambling men sat around her, groaning to themselves in their own blood. The undead dragons, two of them—she’d sent the third one to King Varinn’s keep with a message—sat next to her, quiet.

  Nauma knelt and sank her hand through the blood to touch the ground. Deep in the ground, far under the mountains and beneath the bones of the earth, lived the sleepless Gorm, who had taught her all the ways of his ancient magic. She had remembered him recently from her old witch days, and called on him, and had been taught and given much power.

  “See what I have done?” she told him. “I am prepared to do much, much more in this world. Just watch. You will be so pleased.”

  The earth muttered and tossed slightly. A small tremor shook the blood and made some of her undead soldiers lose their balance and fall down.
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br />   Nauma smiled. “There’s going to be so much more.” She broke her connection with the Gorm and stood, looking around her. “This is going to be fun.”

  Her undead army trembled restlessly, perhaps stirred by her restlessness. Or, maybe they were hungry.

  Her smile was gone in an instant. She sneered in disgust. “Am I going to have to feed you after all?” she asked.

  The undead soldiers moaned, their jaws working.

  “Then again,” she added, “maybe you could drink some sweet blood. Look at all this blood on the ground. That’s good, isn’t it?”

  Some of her former soldiers didn’t respond. But others knelt and began drinking, placing their faces in the blood, or scooping it up in their hands and drinking it from their palms.

  “There you go. I can see who the smart ones are in this bunch,” Nauma said, stepping back as the other undead began to follow suit.

  She sat down on a dragon skull to glare at the gigantic rose bower that Gefjun and the King had created to cover themselves and their soldiers and keep them safe from Nauma and her troops. Unable to make an undead army from those prisoners, she’d simply slaughtered her own troops and made an army from them instead.

  The great rose bramble grew in the snow, and from its branches grew roses streaked with red and white, each rose burning with a small scented flame—just in case you couldn’t tell this bramble growing in the snow was enchanted. Personally, Nauma thought the flames were just a little over the top.

  While her undead army slaked their thirst, Nauma peered through the thick branches, trying to catch a glimpse of the sleeping soldiers inside, as well as King Varinn and Gefjun. Several thorns grew out under her hand and face, trying to impale her. She backed up, cursing.

  Inside that bramble, in peaceful, enchanted sleep, was the undead army she should have had, all of whom were—unfortunately—quite alive and well. And, by the looks of things, a future queen was in there as well.

  Nauma took stock. She longed to fire more power at the brambles, but they had simply soaked up her attacks as if they were sunlight. She noted with disgust a spot in the rosebush that she had blasted. Instead of crumbling to ash, as it should have done, it had merely grown a cubit taller. The rose leaves looked as if they’d been scalded by the sun. But that was all the damage it took. Then, to add insult to injury, the rose had put out new leaves in a handsome bronze color.

  Her troops had drunk their fill of blood. The undead dragons, who had been lapping the blood from the floor, half-starved, now sat back, sated, their pale scales seeming to glow in the darkness.

  Nauma was pleased. Her army, drunk on their own blood, was ready to fight for her, and they were completely obedient to the sound of her voice.

  Their hunger was sated. But she knew their hunger wouldn’t be sated for long.

  “Follow me,” she said. “Come with me, and I’ll lead you to where battlefields are full of living fighters. You’ll be able to eat your fill of hot flesh and drink your fill of steaming blood.”

  She grinned at the prospect. This was going to be fun.

  And so they started the long trek down the mountain.

  2

  The Axe

  Dyrfinna’s three ships were asail, striking out into the wide world at last. They were heading back home to Skala, which would be their first stop on the voyage. Many of Dyrfinna’s old friends from Skala were on this ship, and she was glad of their company in this new quest of hers.

  Dyrfinna leaned against the side of the great Viking ship with the wild sea-wind in her black hair, watched the mewling seagulls and terns dashing through the air over the waves. She thought of the great goddess Skuld, and how she’d sent them on this voyage to find Nauma and cut her down.

  The sail, striped red and white, was filled with wind overhead, and the sun sparkled from the metal that gilded the mast. Painted shields stood along the edges of the ship, ready to be seized at a moment’s notice if a battle should come raging. The wind sang in the ropes, and the ship rose and fell on the waves as it cut through the ocean.

  Dyrfinna stood at the front of the ship, enjoying the wild wind with her little sister. Aesa was only five years old and a little bit unsure about all these big, scary people, so at the moment she had her arms around Dyrfinna’s leg, tight as a barnacle.

  A seagull landed on the side of the ship and cocked its head and watched Aesa. She stared at it with wonder from behind Dyrfinna’s leg. After a moment, the seagull began to preen itself.

  “So how do you like this big ship?” Dyrfinna asked.

  “It’s all right,” Aesa said with the careless attitude of a five-year-old who had already seen it all. “Except ….”

  “Except what?”

  Aesa stood on her tiptoes and whispered loudly. “How do you go potty?”

  A sailor nearby struggled to keep his smile hidden.

  A fair question, Dyrfinna thought. “You sit on the side of the ship with your bottom hanging over. If you’re embarrassed, you put your cloak up in front of you.”

  “Ooh,” Aesa said with some dread.

  “We can get you a wooden bucket to sit on, young miss,” the sailor said.

  “Okay.” Aesa added in a dramatic whisper, “I really gotta go.”

  After that, Aesa began following Dyrfinna all over the ship, spouting questions the whole time.

  “Sissy, what’s she doing with that pretty rock?”

  “It’s a sunstone,” Dyrfinna said. “See how the sun shines through it? She holds the sunstone up and lines it up to navigate with the sun. Come on over and she’ll show you how to do it.”

  After a while Aesa said, “I’m hungry!”

  “We’ll have some delicious sea biscuits in a little while. Yum, yum!”

  “Sissy, it’s only a big cracker! I can’t even bite it! What if my teeth fall out?”

  “Soak it in a little water. That will help.”

  Aesa was an endless fountain of questions. Dyrfinna did her best to be patient, but she was also trying to talk to all her commanders and put various people in charge and talk to everybody about what needed to happen next. She needed to have a long discussion with her crew about approaching Skala. Dyrfinna had quite a few concerns of her own, but one thing at a time.

  At any rate, Dyrfinna did her best. It was what Mama would have wanted. And Dyrfinna wanted her remaining time with Aesa to be as pleasant as possible. Aesa was so happy and easygoing, and she wanted to help and be good, but Dyrfinna could also see how eager Aesa was to look around her and be a part of all the exciting things that were going on.

  Aesa finally fell asleep during the day next to Ragnarok, who watched over her as carefully as a hen watches over her chick, a frown on his face as he studied her sleeping form. He brushed some hair out of Aesa’s face and patted her shoulder then looked out over the ocean, eyes wandering.

  During the day, Ragnarok had occasionally fallen down. It was due to how his eyes kept floating up, something he just couldn’t seem to control. He’d been badly injured when his ship had been captured, and though he was healing, his concussion, or worse, was not getting any better. He simply had no control over his eyes.

  Like my singing magic, Dyrfinna thought ruefully. If she could have a mentor who could help her control her song magic, she would be unstoppable. Her magic was powerful—too powerful. When she’d tried to sing her song magic recently, she’d managed to blast her own dragon out of the sky. And she’d done much worse in the past when she’d tried to sing. So the power was certainly there. She simply couldn’t control it.

  Dyrfinna took a deep breath of the salt air and let it out. Seagulls were chasing each other over the ship. She yearned to harness the power that still eluded her.

  The ship swung down into a wave and pitched up again. Dyrfinna loved the rhythm of the waves. She held to the side of the ship as her mind roved over all that had brought her here. Her own father had cast her out of her army that she’d commanded. Her father himself had thrown her into e
xile on a dragon isle to die. And yet she’d survived and escaped. Since then, she’d made friends with King Varinn, she’d rescued her little sister, and she’d slayed Nauma’s zombie dragon – who turned out to be an old friend. The memory of poor Corae made her sigh. Now here she was, on her way to stop the desecration of the rest of the dragon dead, and stop this unholy work that Nauma was doing.

  From behind Dyrfinna, somebody said, “I need to talk to you.”

  “So does everybody else,” she said pleasantly, turning around.

  It was Ulf, the captain of the ship. “I have something of yours,” he said. “This was written after your father Egill took you to the dragon’s island. I’ve held on to it all this time in hopes that you’d survive—I forgot I had it until just a little while ago.”

  “I appreciate your faith in me,” Dyrfinna said, smiling.

  He reached inside the pouch he carried at his side, fumbled a little bit, and brought out a piece of parchment. “I can’t read it but…” He grimaced and handed it to her. “You need to see it.”

  Dyrfinna took the parchment and read it. About halfway through, she gasped as if she’d been struck. Her eyes went huge, her hand going to her throat.

  “Exiled!” she cried. She looked up at Ulf. “It says I’ve been exiled!”

  “Is that what it says?” he cried, shocked. “I can’t read.”

  She slumped against the side of the ship, reading again and again through the words, trying to understand. They must have been about somebody else. This didn’t make sense.