The Breaker of the Oceans, Chapter 41

The recess bell faded into the stone. Men filed from the benches. The noise of the yard thinned and drifted toward the sea. Hela rose without speaking and stepped down from the platform. Two Einherjar fell in behind her. Soren Alson walked at her left shoulder. Grettir at her right. Both wore their black harness and carried no banner. Their boots took the steps without echo.

They passed through a low arch where the tide smell took the air and pushed it into the halls. Servants drew back against the walls as they came. Some bowed their heads to the stone. Others kept their eyes on the floor. Hela did not slow. She crossed a narrow passage and a second and pushed through a high door banded with iron. The hinges had been set with oil and they made no sound.

Beyond the door the corridor fell away into the hill in a gentle grade that men could walk with full burden. The walls were dressed black stone. The lamps were set at long intervals inside cages of iron. The flames were steady and left little smoke. Hela moved past them without a glance.

They stopped beneath a rib of the corridor where the vault came down low and the stone joint ran like a seam. Hela set her palm to it. Then she reached her other hand under the edge of her cloak and pulled a knife that was not a knife. The long black line of it had not existed a breath prior. It took shape as it came into air and the edge saw no candle light. She held it point down and pressed the tip into the seam. The stone gave in a long sigh that had no voice. The seam widened to a narrow door just wide enough for two men if they turned their shoulders. Cool air moved past them and the salt smell deepened and another smell came with it. A clean heat.

They came to a chamber where the tunnel widened and dropped in a shallow stair to a landing. A heavy gate of iron bars stood across a wider door beyond. The bars were thick and set into plates sunk deep into the stone. The lock was a square block without a keyhole. Hela set the flat of her palm to it and the block clicked once and the bars slid down into the floor. The gate lowered into the stone as if it had never been there.

They passed under the arch and into the sanctum.

The roof ran high and the pillars that held it rose out of the floor in smooth black flues. The stone glowed faintly where heat had kissed it. Channels in the floor ran in wide loops and emptied into a central basin of pale rock that had been whitened by the scald of long heat. Iron rings were bolted to the outer walls at intervals. The rings were wide as a man’s chest. Chains hung from some of them and lay coiled on the floor. None were fixed to anything living.

The green light came from vents cut high in the wall that were masked by louvered stone. Hela looked to the far end of the chamber where a bed of black sand had been laid over flagged stone. The sand was glassed in places. The glass made soft curves and did not crack underfoot.

He lay there and lifted his head when they came.

Fenrir was the length of a good warhorse from skull to tail and stood to the shoulder higher than a man’s chest. The wings lay folded tight across his back and the membranes were dark as aged leather and shot through with thin green lines that pulsed once and dimmed. The scales along his flanks were black and each scale held a sheen that was not oil. The sockets of his eyes were deep and the eyes within burned the color of old bottles in sun. He set them on Hela and the lids narrowed and lifted and narrowed again.

Hela walked forward. She did not reach for him at once. She stood with hands at her sides. He shifted his weight and rose. The claws of his forefeet gripped the glassed sand and left no mark. He lowered his head to bring his snout level with her face. He leaned against her and the plates at her shoulders took the weight and did not move.

Soren stood at the mouth of the chamber with Grettir. They did not enter further. Their helmets were off and they held them at their sides. They kept their eyes down until she spoke. When she spoke their heads lifted.

“Show me,” she said. “Show me what you can do now.”

The dragon’s gaze fixed and did not change. It did not appear to understand a word. It understood her voice. He took a breath, deep, the ribs spread under the scales, and he lowered his head until the horns nearly touched the floor. The scales began to shift. They slit in their centerlines and black edges rose between them. The skin took the changes without blood. A sound came like wet stone pulling free of old mud. The black edges grew into spikes and the spikes carried a smoke that had no smoke in it. They came first along the crown and then across the shoulders and down the ridge of the spine and along the tail. They rose along the outer forearms and set in lines up to the elbow. Short ones rose along the ribs and the thigh. The air slipped along them and made no sound.

Fenrir held them out full and the body trembled. They had weight but it was not much. She moved to the shoulder and pressed her palm against the spikes. He tried to retract them and they did not all answer. Some sank at once. Some sank half their length and stopped. Some did not move. Hela watched the places that did not move and said nothing. He took another breath and the eyes flared and the throat clicked and the spikes sank in little by little. One broke off at the base with a soft crack and fell to the glassed sand and lay there and steamed and then went still. 

He looked to her. She set her hand to his throat and held it there. 

“Well done, my darling.” she said. “Better than last time.”

The two men at the gate did not move. Soren waited for the signal. Hela rubbed the dragon’s jaw once with the back of her left hand and then snapped her fingers with the right. Soren and Grettir stepped back into the tunnel they had left a moment before and returned pulling a sled of iron on runners that struck sparks where they hit stone.

The bull aurochs bound upon it stood high and filled the harness. The hair at its neck lay in a thick ruff. The horns ran wide from the skull and turned forward at the tips. The eyes were wide and white showed. Rope lines circled the horns and the muzzle and held them hard. The legs had been lashed and the hemp cut into hide so the blood stood in beads and dried before it could run. Its chest rose and fell in short takes. The tongue had dried in its mouth. It watched the dragon and the ropes creaked where it set itself against them.

The men brought the sled to the ring of chalk near the center. The chalk was old and had been laid in to mark the place where beasts were cut open when she wished. The chalk showed through in parts and wore away in parts. Grettir took a blade from his belt and cut the hobbles on each leg and stepped back. Soren kept his hands on the horn ropes until the end. Hela stood a dozen paces from the chalk and smiled. 

“I made sure they did not kill it, my darling.” she said to Fenrir. “This will please you.”

Soren dropped the horn ropes and took three long steps back. Grettir had already gone. The aurochs shook its head and the ropes fell. It stamped once and the sled chain rattled on the floor. It lifted its head and snorted and set its eyes on the dragon.

Hela took another step back. The dragon lowered himself and watched the bull with a stillness that had nothing of man in it.

“Go on,” Hela said and her grin showed teeth.

The aurochs charged. The hoofs pounded the stone and threw grit. The runners of the sled cut across the floor where the sled skittered loose of the bull’s haunches and the chain clanged once and went slack. Fenrir leaped forward. The wings stayed folded. The head leveled with the charge and the mouth opened and the lines of green in the throat brightened. He did not breathe fire. He met the bull head-on.

The first second was all noise. Hoof on stone. Claw on stone. The hit when they met ran across the floor and through the iron rings in the wall and up the pillars. The horns struck and skidded along black scales and threw sparks. The claws cut into the hide at the shoulder and tore long with a sound that carried. Blood sprayed and fell. The bull set its head and drove. The dragon braced and pushed. The sand under him slid and the glass did not break. The bull’s head turned. Fenrir’s jaws snapped and missed the throat and found the crest of the skull and lost it. The horns caught under the jaw and cut a line across the scales and did not go deep. The dragon struck with the forefoot at the ribs. The ribs flexed and did not crack. The bull swung its head and the horn caught the membrane of the folded wing and tore a notch. The dragon’s eyes widened and narrowed again. He set his hindquarters and drove the foreclaws into the bull’s chest. The hide tore and muscle opened and heat rose with the smell of it.

Five seconds.

The bull bellowed once and drove forward with all weight. The horns slid off the scales and one horn tip found the softer plate at the gullet. The tip skidded and dimpled and slipped away. Fenrir brought the head down and then lifted it fast and the horns glanced. He opened his mouth and bit. The teeth took the base of the horn and the skull under it. The sound was wet and hard together. The bull lurched. The dragon shook his head and the joint of the horn cracked and snapped free. The bull swung again with one horn and the point scraped the eye ridge and left white marks on the scale and nothing more. The dragon struck with the other forefoot at the knee. Bone gave under the skin and the leg went soft. The bull pitched. The dragon stepped in and set a foot on the neck.

Eight seconds.

The bull bucked and threw its head and the muscles in the neck swelled and thickened and then faltered. The dragon put both forefeet on the skull and pressed down. The skull creaked. The bull pushed up once with all that was left. Fenrir’s tail lashed and hammered the ribs and the body slumped and the breath went out in a rush. The dragon lowered his head and closed his jaws across the crown of bone and bit.

Ten seconds.

The bone broke. The mouth filled with blood and soft tissue and the dragon drove his muzzle into the break and pulled. The tongue spilled to one side. He bit again and the head cracked in a ring and opened like split fruit. The dragon thrust his snout into the skull and drove it to the brain and fed. He chewed once and twice and the throat worked in long pulls. He ate without pausing. He lifted his head and strings of matter hung and fell and he let them fall to the floor and bent his head again and took more. The body twitched under him and then was still.

Soren had not moved from where he had stepped back. Grettir had his hands at his sides and looked on without shifting weight. Hela watched. She had stepped back when they met and now she stepped forward until her boots stood in blood. The heat from the dragon’s belly pushed against her face. She put her hand on the upper mandible where the scales were slick and ran it once to the hinge and back again. He did not stop eating. He pushed his head deeper into the skull and the horns scraped her plates and she did not move her hand.

When the skull was hollow he lifted his head and chewed the last of what he wished and sat back on his haunches. The blood ran from his mouth and pattered on the floor. He swallowed. The throat glowed green and dimmed. He turned his head to her and nuzzled her hand and the blood smeared under her fingers. She rubbed the jawline again and spoke in a voice that would not carry beyond the scales of his head.

“Good,” she said. “You will take harder game soon. In time, perhaps you’ll even taste the flesh of another dragon.”