Read The Last Dragon Chronicles #4: The Fire Eternal for Free Online

said.
    What?
He looked up. The plinth was empty. Nothing to the left or right of it either. Avrel moved forward, purpose in his step, his chest heaving in time to his heart. Was he dreaming? How did this thing know his name? He lunged forward at the crest, certain that the fox would be cowering behind it. It wasn’t. It was ahead again, riding another floe.
    “Tell me a story,” it said across the water. “Tellme of Ragnar, Lorel, and Aluna.”
    Avrel shook his head wildly. Suddenly, pictures were pouring through his mind. It was as if he’d been buried for years in a den and now someone had punched a bright hole in the roof. He saw bears. Great bears, in battle with men. In conflict with one another. On nine great pillars. Memories, running the aurora of time. All the way back to the dawn of the ice.Generations. History. Adventure.
    Stories.
    He looked up again. The fox was trotting across the ice, north. This was impossible, he told himself. Howhad it crossed the gap so fast when there was ten bears’ length of water between them? “Wait!” he cried.
    “This way,” the fox replied. Its voice was lower now. Deeper. Rounded.
    Avrel took to the water again. He swam for the floe, but it seemed sucha long, long time in coming. When he eventually saw the white edge, the sky had darkened and he knew in his heart he was a long way from home. It occurred to him then he might have been dying, on a dream journey heading for the far side of the ice.
    In truth, he was about to come alive, to awaken.
    Just ahead, he could see the feet of his quarry. But they were no longer stick feet, nimble andclean. They were rugged, fur-straggled, heavy of claw. He looked up then, into the eyes of eternal wonder. The bear he would come to call Nanukapik, Ingavar, was gazing down at him. “Tell me a story, Avrel,” he said, and he carried all the souls of the North in his voice.
    Avrel knew without knowing that the real story began here. He dragged himself tiredly out of the water, shook himself down,and gathered his thoughts.
    “Where am I?” he asked.
    “Everywhere and nowhere,” Ingavar said.
    Avrel tested the ice. It was sound. “My head …?” he began. “These memories … are they mine?”
    “For now,” said Ingavar, looking at the sky.
    “Are you a spirit bear? What do want with me?” Avrel could feel himself trembling now.
    “Walk with me,” said Ingavar, and the fur on his head seemed to separate intothree until a mark was burning in white fire there. “You are Avrel, son of Lorel. My chosen Teller. Walk with me, nanuk. Watch, learn, remember …”
    … And now here they were, many, many months later, under a gray sky that seemed to walk with them. “Lord, look at the clouds,” said Avrel.
    “They are not clouds,” said Ingavar, continuing.
    Avrel peered at them again. Where he usually saw twistingvapor, he could now see a flock of spirit people, walking. They were dressed in the furs of the Inuit natives. Some carried harpoons, others drums. Somedrove long sleds, pulled by dogs. Avrel rose up, reaching out a paw. “Who are they?” he asked. Everything his claws raked turned to fog.
    “The dead,” said Ingavar, “mourning their home.”
    “Why are they with us?”
    “They are always with us,” Ingavarsaid. “You will see them when we need them, and we need them now.”
    He came to a halt. A drumbeat sounded, echoed by another and another and another, till the sky shook with a thunderous hum. The cloud people formed a gigantic circle. From their throats, they chanted
ai-ee-yah! ai-ee-yah!
stirring the wind into flurries and moans. They clapped and danced and sang to the ice, beckoning a greatspirit into their ring.
    Avrel felt a rumbling vibration in his feet. The ocean was angry. Something was surging up from below. “Lord!” he cried urgently. “Lord, we must run!”
    But Ingavar threw back his head and howled, a sound no bear should be capable of making. In the sky, every sled dog joined his call.