Verena's Whistle: Varangian Descendants Book I by K. Panikian (essential reading txt) 📗

glowed red with anger and sparks fell from its slavering mouths.

“Did it escape the rest?” I wondered. “Look at that collar.”

“Save the questions,” was Julian’s terse response.

It stalked toward us; Julian and Owen moved to either side of me and a few steps away. I fired my first bolt and it flinched away. It was very fast.

It rattled its wings and I could see daylight and blood vessels through the thin membranes.

I loaded the crossbow again as quickly as I could and said, “Someone start distracting it, and I’ll fire again.”

Julian began weaving his sword through the air in a figure eight pattern. Owen shouted suddenly, “Ah!” and I jumped. The azhdaya stopped for a moment, staring with its two heads, and then started moving toward us again, this time at faster pace.

Julian stepped forward, imitating Owen with a sharp, “Hah! Hey you!” His figure eight made a whirring noise in the air. The azhdaya focused on him with both sets of eyes and I slowly raised the crossbow into position. Julian yelled again and in that moment, I fired.

This time, the quarrel hit straight into the center of its chest. The impact made a thunking sound, but the azhdaya didn’t even stagger.

I whistled a penetrating high-pitched signal, “Stop!” My command though, split between two distinct gold sparks in the hearts of the beast, and fizzled in the air. Crap. I’d forgotten that. Two hearts, two brains. It made sense there would be two spirits. I focused on one and tried my whistle again. “Stop!”

This time the head closest to me froze in place, but the other immediately snapped at it, and my control slipped.

“My whistle isn’t working,” I told the guys.

The azhdaya was now about 15 yards away. It focused both heads on Julian’s whirling sword and then, in a sudden burst of movement, belched a ball of fire at him, lifting its body slightly off the snow with an upward thrust of its wings.

I whistled instinctually, calling not to the heads, but to the fire. Shrill, my whistle commanded the fire and it turned from Julian in an arc and slammed into the snow a few yards away.

Everyone stopped, including the azhdaya.

“Okay, new plan,” I said quickly. “I redirect the fire; you chop off the heads.”

Julian darted forward, blade spinning, and swiped at the head closest to him. It reared away and coughed again, the fire shooting forward; it took all I had to seize it and spin it away in time. As the azhdaya’s head turned though, to watch the fire spin, Julian leapt forward and chopped sharply, severing the head that just produced the flame. The empty neck slumped into the snow in a gush of blood, and the other head immediately turned to him, teeth extended. Julian continued his move into a roll and ducked out of the way. I fired my crossbow at the remaining head and missed again.

The stump of the missing head flopped to the side and the azhdaya’s remaining mouth shrieked. Owen started forward with his blade extended and then hesitated.

I whistled, this time capturing the one gold spark in the azhdaya’s chest, and I commanded it “Stop!” again. The dragon froze, glaring balefully at me out of its orange, whirling eyes. I extended my whistle, keeping it in place, using all of my focus to control the wildly dancing spark of its spirit. The spark vanished in a puff of black as Julian severed the remaining head.

I sat down hard in the snow.

There was silence. The lake was placid, the snow was red, and I concentrated on breathing. This time, the adrenaline rush didn’t overwhelm me. After a moment, I stood again.

I asked Julian, “You okay?” and got a wave back. He pulled a ragged cloth from his snow machine’s storage bin and wiped down his blade.

I turned to Owen, ready to ask the same, but found him staring down at his sword with a frown on his face. He said, in an unhappy voice, “It wasn’t that I was scared, though I was, of course. I’ve been scared before and still did what had to be done. This time, I didn’t know what to do though. Do I dance with my feet, do I thrust, do I lock my wrists, do I swing? I just stood there, thinking.”

I hesitated, then said it, “You’ve owned a sword for one day. No one expects King Arthur.”

“I expect it,” he responded stridently. “I’ve been a soldier for ten years. I expect to be able to defend myself, to defend my teammates.” He stopped. Then he continued in a quieter voice, “I thought I could help but I’m not helping. I’m a civilian in this fight. I’m another body for you to protect.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “You froze, fine, it was a dragon for crying out loud.”

“A little one,” he retorted.

“Yeah, but it had two heads.”

He smiled at me but it was forced. Julian walked over to us and added, “You stayed on Very’s six. You were ready. As far as I’m concerned, you did fine.”

Owen nodded and turned away, sheathing his sword and gesturing to the dragon body. “Very, are you going to torch it?”

“Yes,” I said. I pulled the gas can from the snow machine, made my fire ball, and then set the azhdaya ablaze. It took a long time to burn and I wondered if its scales were fireproof. I actually had to make a new fireball at one point and set it burning anew.

By the time we made it back to the chalet, I was exhausted. Zasha made a solyanka, a Russian stew, for dinner and I ate it robotically. It was delicious, especially the potatoes. When I went to help her and Theo with the dishes though, she waved me away.

I was ready to turn in, but I saw Owen sitting in the living room, playing with his phone. I came in and said to him, “About today—” and he abruptly stood.

“It’s cool. I don’t need to