Free The Giants' Dance by Robert Carter

know concerning the Dragon Stone. He had always said there was no such thing as coincidence, that every weft thread in the great tapestry of fate touched every warp thread and vice-versa, and from all those touches was made the great picture of existence.
    Will’s thoughts returned to what had happened that night at Foderingham when he had last clapped eyes on the Dragon Stone. ‘Gwydion, I think there’s something I ought to tell you…’
    He explained how he and Edward, and all the Ebor children, had got more than their curiosities had bargained for. The stone’s writhing surface had terrified them. It had begun by posing a morbid riddle for Edward, and had finished by attacking Edmund, the duke’s second son, sending him into a swoon from which he had never fully recovered. He told of how he had wrestled with the stoneand how it had almost overcome him, before cringing back at the mention of its true name.
    When Will had finished explaining, the wizard leaned heavily on his staff and said, ‘Let us overnight here. We shall talk more on this after supper, though it would have been better for all concerned if you had told me about this sooner.’
    â€˜I couldn’t break a confidence,’ Will said lamely.
    â€˜You are breaking it now.’
    â€˜That’s because Edward is boastful and very close to his father. He may have told tales about the powers that dwell in the stone. That might be the reason the duke is behaving this way.’
    Gwydion turned sharply. ‘You think Friend Richard seeks to use the battlestone’s power for himself?’
    Will knit his brows over the suggestion. ‘I don’t think he would ever be that foolhardy.’
    â€˜Hmmm. It would depend on how desperate he became.’
    Here, east of the Slaver road, the air was cleaner and the grass greener. At their backs a slim crescent moon was following the sun down over the western horizon. Their camp was made on a rise close by the manor of Swell. Once again Gwydion had avoided the villages and farms that nestled nearby. He chose the best ground and then carefully cut away the turf to make a fire pit and piled up enough dry sticks to give them good cheer until they should fall asleep. Will was very hungry, and glad of old dry bread and a delicious soup of dried roots and morels that Gwydion cooked up from ingredients he took from his crane bag.
    Will’s eyes drooped as, with a full belly, he listened to the crackle of burning wood and the calls of night creatures. The ground was hard under his elbow and hip bone. He smelled the drowsy perfume of cow parsley and meadowsweet and bruised grass, and felt pleased to be back in the wider world.
    â€˜My First in the West shall Marry…’ he said, stirring himself to recite the riddle that had appeared in the skin of the Dragon Stone.
‘My first in the West shall marry,
    My second a king shall be.
    My third upon a bridge lies dead.
    My fourth far in the East shall wed.
    My fifth over the seas shall send.
    My sixth in wine shall meet his end.
    My seventh, whom none now fears,
    Shall be reviled five hundred years.’
    â€˜What are we to make of that?’ Gwydion asked.
    Will looked into the night. ‘If the Black Book said there were many battlestones, maybe it’s the Dragon Stone’s way of giving clues about its brothers. Maybe one of the stones is fated to be reunited with its sister-stone in the West – that might fit with the piece you sailed over to your friend Cormac in the Blessed Isle. Or maybe that’s the second stone mentioned, because it stood in the shadow of the King’s Stone. It could be that the third will be found, or drained, on a bridge. Or maybe it lies near a place called Deadbridge – oh, you know better than I how riddles go.’
    Gwydion settled back, watching the last rosy blink of moonset. He said distantly, ‘It may be that the Dragon Stone is more important than we have