Kjell's Arc

Chapter 21 of 27

The dragon sat and watched them with six red eyes. Kjell held his axe, but he did not move. The beast had cleared the road, then stopped. It wanted something before it let them pass. "Merlyn," Kjell said. "Read it. There must be a mark." Merlyn came forward, his branded hands out, blind eyes hidden behind his stitched blindfold. He would not touch the dragon. He held one hand near the center head and went still. "A brand," he said. "Old. Under the left horn." He turned his face up. "Same maker as the master's coin. This thing was bound too." Thorgar raised both axes. "Then we kill it and go down." "No," Merlyn said, flat. "Steel won't cut the binding. It never has. And this one is not the master's. It served the same hand. The mark is worn thin. Half broken already." Kjell looked at the beast. It had burned the lichen from the walls. It had held its fire when it could have cooked them all. "It's a guard," he said. "Set to hold the road. But its master is dead. We burned the coin above." He lowered the axe. "It doesn't know it's free." Merlyn pulled his stone-bound book from his pack. He set it on the floor and ran his fingers over the carved pillars on its cover, then the pages inside. "There is a way," he said. "Break the last of the mark and the beast is loosed. It will not stop us then. But if I read it wrong, it burns us where we stand." "How?" Gunnar asked. "Fire and a seal," Merlyn said. "I carve the counter on bone. You burn it under its horn." They had no bone left to spare. Thorin reached to his belt and drew a small carved token, iron-ringed like his beard. "Not my father's," he said. "That's gone. This is old enough." He pressed it into Merlyn's hand. "Carve it." Merlyn worked fast, his hammer tapping soft marks into the token. The dragon watched. Its throat glowed low, but it did not breathe. Kjell stood between his men and the heat and did not blink. "Done," Merlyn said. He handed it to Gunnar. "Under the left horn. Close as you can. Then fire." Gunnar stepped forward with his flame. The center head dipped toward him, slow. Gunnar did not stop. He pressed the token to the scaled hollow beneath the horn and touched his fire to it. The token caught. White light ran up the horn and down the neck. The dragon shuddered. All three heads shook. Then the red edge dimmed in its eyes, and the beast drew back against the wall, low and quiet. It made no sound. It did not strike. The road down lay open behind it, clean and dark. Kjell stepped past the great scaled shoulder. The dragon let him pass. Below, the cold air moved. Something waited in it, deeper than any of them had gone.