“Don’t worry,” Thorgil said. “We probably won’t find the well. Rune and Dragon Tongue didn’t.”

“I didn’t know Dragon Tongue came here,” said Jack. “If he couldn’t find it, we don’t stand a chance.” And Lucy doesn’t stand a chance either,he thought with a pain over his heart.

“It isn’t a matter of cleverness,” Thorgil said. “Rune says the path is guarded by Norns. They choose who finds it.”

“Norns? Wonderful. Something else in this wretched place that wants to stomp on you or bite off your leg.”

“Oh, no!” Thorgil was shocked. “Norns keep the tree Yggdrassil alive. Without them, nothing would exist.”

“So what are they? Huge, horrible trolls?”

“They’re women,” Thorgil said. “Well, they looklike women. That’s what Rune says, though he hasn’t seen them. They show up when you’re born and decide what kind of life you’re going to have.”

“I guess they were in a rotten mood when I came along,” Jack said. He loaded up the water bag and supplies.

“Me too,” Thorgil said gravely.

As they neared the ice mountain the air grew steadily colder. When the wind came from that direction, it actually hurt to breathe. Jack wrapped his cloak over his nose. Only his body heat kept the water bag from freezing solid.

Bold Heart shivered and his feet sparkled with ice crystals as he tried to hook his claws on to Jack’s shoulder. “Poor old fellow,” Jack said. “I’ll bet you’re sorry you ever met us. I’ll carry you for a while.” The crow sank gratefully into the bag, and the boy slung it around his neck.

I feel like a donkey in a lead mine,Jack thought as he trudged along. I’m loaded up with stuff. I’m hungry and cold. All I’ve got to look forward to is more work and a nasty death. The Norns certainly don’t loveme. Oh, I’m really in luck now! Thorgil wants to lean on me.

Perhaps two drops of poppy juice had been too much, or perhaps Thorgil, in her starved, weakened state, couldn’t handle it. She staggered and clung to Jack. Her eyes kept closing, and he feared she would fall over right there. He couldn’t possibly carry her. He could hardly stand himself. I am the most miserable, Norn-cursed boy alive,he thought as Thorgil reeled into him again. Things couldn’t possibly be worse.

But he was wrong.

For such a large creature, the dragon was able to float along with scarcely a sound, or at least nothing Jack could hear over the wind and his own labored breathing. She came up behind them like a leaf coasting on a breeze. Her claws swooped them up before he could even scream.

She did not kill them at once. That would have been too kind. She merely picked them up from the ground and sped off with her talons locked around them like a cage. For a moment Jack couldn’t understand what had happened. He was surrounded by black bars—bars that were hot.He saw the ground disappear. He felt the wind whistle past his ears.

He heard a terrible, deafening, heart-stopping shriek and recognized it at once. It was the same challenge that had been hurled at Olaf’s funeral pyre. “It’s the—it’s the—” Jack couldn’t get the words out. The dizzying ride and his own fear made him sick.

“It’s the dragon,” Thorgil finished for him. He saw her trying to chip away at the talons with her knife. She was woozy and weak but still attempting to fight.

“It’s hot,” Jack said. And it was, uncomfortably so. The talons radiated heat, and he had to shift to keep from getting burned. By now they were high above the ground. The dragon flew along, level with the cliffs. Each wing-beat blew a blast of heat past Jack’s face, and the dragon’s bones creaked mournfully, like a ship under full sail. It’s aknorr, Jack thought foolishly, echoing Olaf’s words from weeks ago: They call it that because the timbers creak the whole time—knorr, knorr, knorr. It takes getting used to.

The dragon rose and hovered in the air. She opened her talons, and Jack and Thorgil tumbled out into a ring of stone. Around them beady eyes watched intently. Jack realized, with a sick rush of terror, that they had been brought—as a cat might bring mice for her kittens—to teach the dragonlets how to hunt.

“Strike between the chest plates below their necks,” Thorgil said in a low voice. “That’s what Olaf told me.”

Jack could hardly believe his ears. She was up and ready for battle. He was anything but ready. He found himself hypnotized by the dragonlets. They hissed and swayed back and forth, craning their necks. Their eyes were lit with evil intent. How could Thorgil think of fighting now? It was all over. They were doomed.

Four of the monsters—each twice Jack’s size—were working up the courage to follow their mother’s bidding. The dragon crouched at the side of the nest, making a bubbling noise like a pot of boiling water. Her great, golden eyes were half closed.

Bold Heart stuck his head out of the bag and cawed sharply. The dragon reared back as though stung. Bold Heart climbed out and hopped to the ground. He cawed again and mumbled something in crow talk. The dragon burbled.

“Are they talking?” Jack whispered.

“I don’t know. Keep your eyes on the green one. He’s bolder than the rest.” All Thorgil’s attention was given to the dragonlets. She was correct: The green one was curling a long, snakelike tongue over his scaly lips as he gazed at the tidbits his mother had brought home. Saliva—or something like it—fell to the ground with a hiss. The other three creatures eyed their brother nervously. They were smaller and golden, like their mother. Jack guessed they were females.

Bold Heart had worked himself into a perfect frenzy of cawing and warbling. He seemed to be trying to convince the dragon of something. She hissed and lashed her tail. Then, abruptly, she rose and soared off down the valley. Bold Heart turned his attention to the dragonlets.

They, too, seemed to understand him, but they were too young to pay attention for long. One of the golden females scratched her potbelly with long fingernails. She seemed to be dozing off. “Thorgil, lie down,” Jack whispered.

“I’m not a coward,” she said.

“This is strategy. I think they don’t know about hunting. If we lie still and don’t move, they’ll ignore us.”

“Thorgil Olaf’s Daughter does not retreat.”

The green dragonlet arched his neck to study her. His snaky tongue flicked out. Jack despaired of getting through to the shield maiden. If she kept moving, she’d get them both killed. “Lie still and get him to lower his guard. Then you can stab him,” said Jack.

This must have made sense, because Thorgil immediately obeyed. The dragonlet considered her for a long moment before being distracted by a passing hawk.

Bold Heart hopped in front of the creature. Jack waited breathlessly for a fatal strike, but the crow seemed to be discussing something with the young dragon. The bird cawed and hopped, flicking his head at the smaller siblings. Jack couldn’t understand what was being said, but the meaning was clear: Hey, look! Mother’s away from home. It’s a perfect time to get rid of rivals.

The longer Bold Heart cawed, the more agitated the green dragonlet became and the more nervous were the golden ones. Suddenly, with shocking speed, the green dragonlet hurled himself across the nest, barely missing Jack and Thorgil with his talons. He seized his sisters by the neck—bang, bang, bang, one after the other—and threw them off the cliff!

Jack heard them wail all the way down. They were only chicks. They couldn’t fly. The green dragonlet threw back his head with an ear-piercing shriek of victory… and Thorgil raised herself up and stabbed him between the chest plates below his neck. The victory scream stopped in midshriek. The dragonlet thrashed and beat at the knife, but the blow was mortal. He collapsed onto the shield maiden.