Page 1 of Blood of Wolves

1

The Wolf Mountains

Beyond Dreki Hörgr

The Great Northern Wastes

“Percy is a bloody stupid name for a dragon,” Náli, Corpse Lord of the Fault Lands, announced. He sat crossed-legged on a patch of dusted-off rock, arms folded, nose lifted to a petulant angle despite their circumstances, and the fact that he was still hardly able to walk on his own. The shadows beneath his eyes looked like bruises.

Eyes that flew wide in the next moment when a stag carcass landed with a thump and a puff of snow on the ground in front of him.

Oliver didn’t bother to stifle his laugh.

Overhead, the leathern clap of wings and a high trill that sounded distinctly amused marked Percy’s passage, before he turned, banked, and landed neatly on the granite ledge where his mate awaited his return.

Composure recovered, Náli scowled.

Birger said, “Might be best not to insult the one that brought you dinner, eh?”

“Oh, I wasn’t insulting the dragon,” Náli said, glare shifting pointedly in Oliver’s direction.

Oliver smiled at him. “You’re welcome.”

It was more than a marvel all that had changed for Oliver in the past twenty-four hours. In a phenomenon that he couldn’t begin to explain, touching the magicked sapphires he’d pulled from the cell wall had obliterated his fever. In the long, grueling day that had followed, he’d not faced one chill, one cough, one swooning spell. He felt well – felthealed. He knew he’d utterly failed to make sense of it to Erik when he’d asked, but, for his part, Erik didn’t seem in a frame of mind to question anything magical at the moment.

It was two days down out of the Wolf Mountains back to Dreki Hörgr. After they’d emerged from the cave, with not one, but three dragons in tow, their unlikely party had left the Fang camp right away. “They’ll be back, and soon,” Oddmarr had cautioned. The dragons had stayed, accompanying them on their slow trek along thin, snaky, treacherous mountain paths caked with snow and edged with ice – though the drakes had mostly flown, circling overhead, calling down occasionally. When Oliver had begun to think projected, hungry thoughts, Percy had winged off and returned with his prize, which Magnus and Lars set about dressing, now.

The light was fading, evening coming on quick and harsh at this elevation, and everyone had agreed that, while making camp and lighting fires could leave them targets for any vengeful Fangs who’d given chase, the paths were too dangerous to navigate in the dark. The cold was biting, but the fire was giving off heat, a wine skin was being passed around, and, clear-headed, with the drakes keeping watch, Oliver felt safer than he had in weeks.

“There’s a sheer drop on one side of us,” Erik announced, sitting down beside Ollie on the rock serving as a stool. “A cliff on the other. And Oddmarr put archers at either end of the trail.”

“Sounds like the best we can do, then,” Birger said, sipping from the wine skin and passing it to Náli.

The young lord was still sulking, but he took the skin and put it to his lips, tipped it back – only to pour wine straight down his front, spluttering, coughing and cursing as he whipped his head around.

Percy’s son, the smallest of the three dragons, had slunk up to the fire undetected, and was curled now around the rock where Náli was sitting. He prodded him in the hip for the second time, and looked up at him with his mouth open in what was clearly a fanged smile.

“What the fuck?” Náli fumed, wiping his chin with his sleeve. Wine soaked dark as blood into the pale gray front of his cloak. “Oliver, can’t you control your fucking monsters?”

“They’re not monsters,” Oliver said, suppressing a laugh, as he watched the young one rest his head on Náli’s thigh, looking up at him with what could only be described as adoration. Even Erik chuckled. “He likes you.”

Náli gave an ineffectual shove at the dragon’s snout, and got licked for the effort. He withdrew his hand with a disgusted face. “Well, I don’t like him.”

“Doesn’t look like he cares,” Leif said.

“I don’t like any of you either.” When he was met with laughter from all quarters, Náli blushed, cheeks going blossom-pink in the firelight.

Truthfully, all the dragons seemed to like the Lord of the Fault Lands. Oliver thought it had to do with Náli’s inherent magic – corpse magic, apparently, wasn’t seen as threatening to the drakes. But of the three, the youngest liked him best. He was the size of a pony, and sneaky as a serpent, and constantly nudging, licking, or trying to cuddle with Náli.

Oliver found it sweet.

Everyone else found it hilarious – like now, when the young drake tried to climb into Náli’s lap.

“No! No, don’t you – down,get down, bad dragon!”

Leif laughed so hard he nearly toppled off his rock. Several watching Beserkirs guffawed openly, offering bits of unhelpful advice.

The drake settled for draping his neck across Náli’s legs, and promptly dropped to sleep, snoring faintly.

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