The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1) by Tony Daniel Read Free Book Online Page B

did not yet hear the dragon-call, so his father must stay in charge. When that time came, and not before, Otto would become regent.
    The dragon-call should have come to his brother, Wulf thought. That was the way it always worked in the past. That was the way it was supposed to work now.
    Rainer had asked him what land-bonding was like. He’d tried, but had not been able to put it into words for his friend, not really.
    The land-bond was dangerous. You didn’t want to come back, you wanted to dream forever the dragon-dream that was history, and the present, and even the future.
    And there was the Dragon Hammer. He kept seeing it.
    The war hammer that had been used by Duke Tjark to destroy the berserker horde and drive the shape-shifters and Snakeband Skraelings from the valley.
    The hammer that had been lost, no one quite knew how.
    After he’d been through the land, felt the night move over Shenandoah, he was pulled down. It wasn’t violent. Only a small tug. But powerful.
    The dragon wanted to show him the war hammer.
    In the vision, he was staring down on the hammer’s head. It seemed to be floating upright in a brassy, red cauldron.
    Eight times the dragon had shown this to Wulf. This was the ninth. What was it for? What was he supposed to do?
    He was out of his body, part of the walls, part of everything. Yet he could shift his attention and look around.
    He moved closer.
    Suddenly, the hammer swung back and forth, clattering against the walls of the cauldron, or whatever the containing chamber was. And even though the cauldron seemed to be made of shining fire itself, the hammer was not burned up. The curving wall held it in.
    Bang! Clang! But the sound was wrong, like a trumpet note heard when you were deep underwater. The hammer looked as if it was stirring something inside the cauldron.
    What am I supposed to do? I don’t understand!
    He moved closer still.
    This time he had to try something different. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he did, somehow, have arms and hands in the trance. Maybe somehow he could grab the hammer, hold it—
    Wulf reached for the top of the Dragon Hammer.
    He saw his right arm stretch out before his eyes. It grew longer and longer. Impossible. There was no way his arm was that long. But he strained.
    And…managed to put his palm on the top of the hammer. For only an eyeblink.
    A stab of cold like he had never felt before cut through his body. He jerked his hand away. It seemed to draw up inside him, to go back to normal length. His palm ached from the cold still.
    He turned it over. There was a scar burned into his palm. Not just a scar. It was a deep stripe across his hand about the size of a knife hilt.
    There was roaring in his ears. The clanging and banging had become one gigantic sound that shook him through and through.
    Throbbing, roaring pressure. He was pushed up. Up, and out.
    Above him, Wulf saw what looked like a huge set of roots. But instead of being anchored in the soil, they were anchored in the nighttime sky.
    Then he realized what it was. The top of the Olden Oak. Its bare branches stretched up and spread out against the stars.
    But he was seeing it from below, from underground. Underground, but rising fast. Getting closer.
    The pressure pushed him out—
    “Tretz’s bones, Wulfgang!” came another voice, a human voice, from a long way off. “You have to get out of that tree!”
    It was Rainer. He was tugging on Wulf’s shoulder.
    For a moment, Wulf was in two worlds. He was in the land-bond, trying to hold his thoughts together against the incredible pressure. Trying to hold on to the dragon-vision.
    Rainer shook him.
    “You have to come out!”
    Wulf opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground and staring up at the Olden Oak’s branches.
    Rainer stepped over him, grabbed him under the shoulders, and yanked him up.
    “I touched it! I think I almost had it.”
    “Not now,” Rainer said, pulling Wulf all the way to his feet. There was a strain in his voice, and