Page 41 of Dragonbound

Those who served him were descended from a select few who’d sought shelter with the drekkis and offered to serve as payment. They weren’t allowed to leave rún-ketill. If they attempted it, he had a duty to return them to rún-ketill or kill them if they refused. The thought wasn’t comforting, but it explained the presence of a race that the majority of his kind knew nothing about. And vice versa.

The Others’ presence on his land explained all the rules about remaining within the cave system and not venturing outside its shelter.

Eventually, a day came when the Naer-Vera quietened and the depiction of different scenes in the pool room ceased.

He spent a full day lying in the pool waiting for the images to start again, for Naer-Vera to reveal more about his life as Speaker. Eventually, he concluded his teachings were at an end.

He stood, allowed the water to drain from his shimmering, golden scales, and retreated to his new home.

Without Naer-Vera to instruct him, he took to spending time on the icy ledge which lay next to his personal cavern, gazing out upon the beauty of his homeland.

His green eyes allowed him to penetrate the Pitch Darkness, as his kind called it, before the light returned to his land. From the icy ledge, he could see the faint purple shimmer of the huge wall, which was now his to maintain, to keep the Others from rediscovering his kind. Through the haze, he saw a dazzling vista of sparkling stars in the permanent midnight sky and could see them mirrored in the icy surface of the glacier beneath his home, and around much of which the wall of light shone mutely.

All that he’d learnt led him to pity the Others. They knew so little. They thought only of killing his kind and not of the knowledge they had. They were trapped inside their tiny steadings throughout the pitch darkness. Their existence was wretched compared to all he knew, and all his kind could be. Soon, he knew, they’d emerge from their pitch darkness imprisonment. Then he’d fly further than ever before. He’d check to see how many survived. It was critical he do so. Naer-Vera had told him as much. Drekkikind could only allow so many of the Others to live on their land.

While his eyesight meant he could see regardless of the presence of the sun, the Others struggled. They couldn’t endure the freezing conditions and so remained in their homes throughout the pitch darkness. It was impossible to count them while the sun refused to rise, and they remained locked up tight to keep warm. In a few days, he’d be able to fly free from the vast caverns of rún-ketill for the first time ever. He looked forward to the challenge and waited impatiently for the sun to finally crest the horizon after the pitch darkness. Naer-Vera had told him it would be soon.

27

SKALD DREKKI

By the time the pitch darkness ended, he was eager to take his first flight. He woke from his comfortable stone bed thirty days after becoming Speaker, and noticed the pale ray of sunlight touching the far reaches of his cave, mingling with the green light emitted from the stone, where it joined with his ledge. At last. He could fulfil his duties as Speaker of his kind by ensuring the Others remained unaware of the presence of drekkikind.

He was no longer daunted by this first test of his flying skills. Flying free from rún-ketill would be very different from flying in the caverns, to the feeding grounds. He’d fed well yesterday, visiting the hot feeding grounds, anticipating today’s sunrise.

Now, he balanced himself on his ledge, near the edge of the sharp drop. The cliff face fell straight down, beyond sight below him, unless he used his wings to balance, while his claws gripped the ledge. Now, he extended his mighty golden wings, temporarily distracted by the shimmering sunlight on them, testing them once, twice, enjoying the sound as they swept through the air, before lifting himself briefly from the frozen rock. A sharp wind rose to meet him, as he hovered, and then he snapped his wings shut and his claws scrabbled for purchase.

Exhilarated, he stretched his wings once more and this time, leapt from the ledge, soaring skywards. His golden wings beat up and down in the glow of the first sunrise after the end of the pitch darkness.

He flew south, towards the far edge of the shimmering wall, watching himself in the reflection as he flew across the massive glacier below his home. He’d never flown so far before, although all hatchlings learned to fly before they could walk.

He swooped and soared, revelling in his freedom, marvelling at the speeds his wings could take him away from the constraints of rún-ketill. It was only when the sun was high in the pale sky that he truly started to notice anything about the landscape below him.

Its unexpected beauty absorbed him. Frozen green rivers. Icy blue glaciers. Snow-encrusted purple high-peaked mountains. The dark green sea trapped beneath the ice. Black-topped mountains lacking snow on their peaks.

He sought the homes of the Others, but it was impossible to see much detail with so much thick snow blanketing the ground. He looked down at the sparkling expanse of white, and then up at the low-lying clouds and at the glowing orb pulsing weakly in the clear sky. As he hovered over the ice-locked sea, he surveyed the distance he’d flown. Far off, he could see his snow-tipped home of rún-ketill, barely discernible from all the other mountains dotting the horizon.

Everything he saw was perfect and pristine, new and fresh. He saw it with new eyes. It was one thing to glimpse his home in the images playing in the Archive. It was another to see it for real and to know he was the only one of his kind who’d ever see what he saw until his life ended.

The wind was gentle on his face now, occasionally buffeting him. When it did, he’d temporarily lose height and work his huge wings hard to regain the lost height. He wasn’t used to being out in the open. His kind were restricted to their home in rún-ketill, where the wind speed and direction was always predictable. Out here, it was another matter entirely. Skaldi knew a shiver of fear but countered it. He was young. He was strong. He could fly as far as he liked. With each downward stroke of his wings, he gained strength, rather than losing it.

Then he saw it. One of the Others, outside their dwelling. If he’d thought them small before, now they appeared minuscule. A few wing strokes later, their home appeared. It was nothing more than a small snow-covered rock. Only its regular shape interrupting the otherwise pristine snow confirmed what it was.

Following his success, he felt emboldened. He flew closer to the snow-encased land and saw more homes, but never another Other. Curiosity consumed him.

Why did the Others live here, in this land of ice and snow? They were evidently not made to endure such conditions.

He flew on, spotting other dwellings, but still not a single Other. Eventually, the multitude of stars, his firm friends for the last thirty days, began to sparkle, crystalline, in the blackening cobalt sky above his head. It was a beautiful, crisp evening, but the wind was bitterly cold, even through his tough hide.

With a final glance at the ice-locked ocean, he turned and beat his huge wings steadily home. But flying was no longer as easy. The wind battered him, making every downward stroke an effort as the wind seemed to rush upwards from the ground.

Now, stirrings of fear took hold. For every one of his great wing strokes, he moved only a little way forward. His earlier speed had vanished.

Battling his growing terror, he decided on an alternative plan. He fought his way higher and higher, until the land was a tiny, shining, multi-hued jewel beneath him. Up so high, the going was somewhat easier. The wind was less robust, but there also seemed to be less of everything. He struggled for air to fill his mighty lungs. After only a few short moments, his wings seemed to double in weight. They were so heavy, he couldn’t maintain his wing beats. There was no choice but to return closer to the ground.

As he dropped lower, his wings returned to their normal weight and the wind to its previous ferocity. At last, feeling exhausted, Skaldi decided there was nothing for it. He’d have to land and wait out the night before returning to rún-ketill in the first rays of early morning sunlight.

Perhaps the warning from his lessons in the cave shouldn’t be ignored after all. He must only fly during daylight hours.