Neck rearing, horns piercing the haze, Ben vented a roar. The echoes thundered across the square, the ground shaking, throwing bugbears and hounds from their feet as they lurched towards him. Most of the horde cowered, vague shapes in the corner of his eyes, edging back into the shadow of the thorn wall. Most were perfectly aware of the damage a dragon could do, especially when unleashed and in a pissed-off mood. Ben was happy to prove them right. Embers glowed in his belly, still too weak to muster flame. But flame wasn’t what he needed here. Taranis had seen to that.
Eyes narrowed on the towering idol, Ben pushed himself forward and up the steps to the plinth, a red-scaled battering ram. Horns lowered, he crashed headlong into the fire. Whoomph! The column shuddered and cracked, the impact travelling up yards of stone and shaking Lord Nelson on the top. Cinders exploded around him, the stacked logs flying to all sides, trailing sparks and billows of smoke. The ogres, preparing to attack, cringed instead, but whether their concern was for their clothes or their safety, Ben couldn’t tell. Untouched by the heat, he shifted his bulk around in a half-circle, his claws flattening the blaze into heaps of charcoal and ash, his tail lashing out at the foundations. With a snarl of satisfaction, he felt the effigy budge above him, the great wooden structure, lashed together as it was, losing shape and stability. Vision rippling with flames and fatigue, Ben stretched out his legs, forcing himself upwards, his ridge of horns smashing through the trunks of the old god’s legs. Through the fire, he heard an uproar above, a crescendo of screams that told him Taranis was giving way.
The plan was far from perfect; it was a long way to the ground. All the same, he had limited options. This way, at least, some of the captives stood a chance. All he could do was spread his wings as the wicker man fell, spilling broken wood and prisoners, a makeshift safety net. In a hard rain, men, women and children dropped and bounced on his pinions, weighing him down. Fifty or sixty of them, Ben reckoned, falling and sliding off his wings, then stumbling away across the plinth, off into the surrounding streets. Most of the prisoners picked themselves up and ran south, heading, no doubt, for the shelter of Charing Cross underground station. For the moment, the horde in the square was too busy scattering to give chase, climbing over each other in their bid to escape the collapsing effigy.
It’s something.
But the element of surprise wouldn’t last long. And even as some fled, he heard others scream, tumbling through the smoke, their cries cut off as flesh met stone. Here and there, the pyre flared up, fuelled by clothing, hair and flesh. Like it or not, hundreds were going to die here tonight. There was no escaping it. All Hallows would have its feast either way, the dark half of the year anointed with blood. He’d count himself lucky if even half the captives managed to get away. He looked up, navigating his wings to catch the greater part of the falling god, timber smashing apart on his head and shoulder blades. More people rolled and slid off his wings, a handful of them, he saw, clad in black leather.
Fitzwarrens. Rescued. Never thought I’d see the day …
On second thought, this had been the running theme of the past two years, hadn’t it? His whole world flipping upside down. At this point, it shouldn’t surprise him. Nor could he deny the bravery of these men, despite its foolhardy nature. After all, the slayers had gone after a dragon for centuries with nothing but a grudge and a rusty sword. As soon as they’d regained their feet, the Black Knights were shouting into the chaos, herding the survivors beyond the column and towards the tube station. The best chance these people had was to hide before the rabble recovered from Ben’s attack.
“Ben! Look out!”
As if the thought was an omen, he saw Annis through the drifting smoke. The girl was waving at him from further along the plinth, her gangly limbs unbroken by the fall. Ash streaked her face and clothes, her hair resembling a chimneysweep’s brush. She’d managed to grab a weapon from somewhere, an axe dropped by the fleeing goblins, but he didn’t fancy her chances if she hung around much longer. He drew a breath to roar at her, tell her to run with the others, when he realised the reason for her warning, shrill and fevered in the chaos.
Arthur. Climbing the steps to the pedestal.
The corpse king bore no weapons; his legendary sword had refused his touch and he’d taken up no other. He isn’t Arthur. Not in the truest sense of the word, Ben reminded himself, recalling Caliburn’s warning. Did the wight that had taken his place imagine the crown on his skull was enough to make Ben quail and bend the knee? That his breastplate, silver and dull, could withstand dragon claws? Or did he simply rely on the light in his eyes, illuminating his beard and teeth, to fill his foes with crippling fear?
Good luck with that.
Lungs swelling, Ben reared up as the king approached, coming to a halt between the bronze lions at the top of the steps. Arthur spared Annis a look, enough to make her take a step back and raise her axe, but the distance wasn’t enough to assure Ben of her safety. Curse her. Even among the dispersing flames, he couldn’t risk an inferno. He may not have been able to save all the victims from the wicker man, but he wasn’t about to make some of his own. Not human ones, anyway.
He snorted, the king and the rebel knight shimmering below him. As the smoke cleared, he watched Arthur raise his hand again, his palm bearing a fresh sprig of hawthorn. Fuck. He’ll have a sackful of the stuff. And he couldn’t see du Sang anywhere. If he had any sense, the Vicomte would’ve gotten clear of the flames. He could see the wall of thorns, however. The barrier, he judged, was a couple of hundred feet away, rising from the roof of the National Gallery, but he’d seen how fast the briar could move with Arthur’s help and he didn’t fancy another thorny embrace. Could he detect movement over there, the shifting of timber and glass as the branches started to writhe? Yeah. He thought so. It was time to make a departure from this shitshow.
Exit stage left.
To that end, he spread out a wing, growling at Annis. The girl hesitated, then appeared to catch his intent. Last flight. All aboard for survival. Squaring her shoulders, Annis stepped towards him—then darted around in a half-circle, swinging her axe at the king.
No!
Metal met metal with a tooth-jarring clang. The echoes seemed to slow, events playing out in drawn-out seconds of shock. Ben watched as the girl let go of the axe handle and staggered away from the impact, her limbs shaking. She may as well have swung the axe into a tree trunk, the way that the blade protruded from Arthur’s breastplate, stuck in his mouldering flesh. A fetor filled the air, a cloud of dust puffing from his chest, a breath from the tomb. Blood, as black as oil, oozed from the cleft in his armour. Arthur remained on his feet, however, swaying a little. Slowly, he turned his gaze on his assailant, his skeletal face unreadable.
Annis cried out as the king strode towards her. The Fitzwarren knights were gone now, vanished into the streets and the underground station. And the goblins, growing aware of the confrontation on the pedestal, were steadily creeping forward, a closing circle of green faces and bared fangs. Above, the wyverns circled—daunted, Ben thought, by the scattered flames and the dragon among them, but looking for their chance.
In the chaos, a glint of gold. The Horn of Twrch Trwyth, he noticed, had flown from around Arthur’s neck. Clumsy, reckless as her swing had been, Annis had managed to sever the thong it hung upon, the ivory relic falling to the flagstones. In the flames of whatever went through his mind, the king hadn’t marked its loss, his eyes solely for the girl. As he reached out, his bony fingertips protruding from his gauntlets, Annis shrieked. The next moment, the king fell upon her, clawing at her face. There was a hiss as he touched her, a web of frost crackling across her skin, the dead laying hands on the living. A spray of blood peppered the air. Arthur, ever grinning, drew a nail down the girl’s brow, across her eye and the bridge of her nose, a ragged, bloody scratch.
Ben made his move. Red-scaled flesh eclipsed the king, a giant claw closing around him, wrenching him from the girl. Clutching her face, Annis rolled away,
groaning and kicking her legs. Ben felt her boots tapping against his scales as he reached out with his other claw, securing her in his grasp. Rearing, he thrashed out his wings, the blast sending goblins and ogres tumbling back down the steps to the pedestal, buying him seconds. Haunches bulging, he made to leap forward, meaning to snatch up the horn in his jaws and leave the rabble eating his dust. Before he could do so, a pain in his fist arrested him. A numbness was spreading there, quick, sharp and cold, riddling out from his knuckles and up his foreleg. Looking down, he saw frost covering his limb, a white tide crackling over his scales, chased by sapphire light.
No prizes for guessing its source. Arthur. The touch of the dead. Like the inverse version of a hot coal, Arthur was burning him, burning him up, the spectral force that empowered him emanating from his scaly prison. With a bark of alarm, Ben tried to open his claw, hurl the threat away from him, but the rime was thickening by the second, icicles dangling from his elbow joint, the cold seeping into the muscles underneath. If he didn’t act soon, the frost would climb to his shoulder, reach his chest, twisting for his heart …
His bellow was part anger, part pain. Flames rushed from his jaws, fighting the creeping frost. Snout curling, he watched the inferno bluster from his lungs to meet the deathly chill that gripped him—and then roared in agony as his foreleg blackened and cracked, his flesh shattering like glass. The corpse king, instantly released, dropped to the ground in a smouldering cascade of scales, talons and blood.
Howling, Ben flung himself in retreat, crashing against the base of Nelson’s Column, the edifice booming. As his spine struck stone, knocking the wind from him, his remaining foreclaw flew wide, dispensing Annis into the maze of burning wood. Groggily, coughing, the girl climbed onto her hands and knees. Shielding her mouth with her jacket, she peered through the flames at Arthur, the dead king rising unscathed from the chaos. Then she looked up at Ben, her face frantic.
Do something.
Tongue thick, senses frayed, he forced out the words, urging her to move with his great golden eyes. Annis shook her head. What was wyrm tongue to her? A growl through the smoke, unintelligible, strange. All the same, she seemed to catch his panic. She frowned, straining to understand, even as he crooked out a claw, jabbing a talon into the mess.
Don’t look at me. Look over there.
She didn’t wait for further instruction. The girl slipped away as Arthur came striding out of the flames, making another grab for her. Leaping over fallen timber, she sprinted and then slid onto her knees as she made for the object in the space between the bronze lions. Bingo! Rolling onto her back, Annis held up the Horn of Twrch Trwyth, a questioning expression on her face that resolved into pride as Ben snorted and nodded his snout, the gesture shaking the pedestal.
Arthur continued towards the girl, his eye sockets trailing light, his hands white with frost. Clutching the relic to her breast, Annis pushed herself to her feet, her head swinging this way and that, searching for an escape route. There wasn’t one. At her back, the goblin horde was recovering again, approaching the pedestal steps. Before her, the flames and the dead king. She couldn’t defend herself against either. If she lingered a moment longer, then she would die.
With a thump, Ben’s tail swept across the flagstones, barrelling into the king. Arthur’s crown flew from his head, a spinning coin in the dusk, but he didn’t cry out as he followed it, tumbling through the air. In a jumble of armour, blue light and old bones, the dead king smashed down into the square, landing at the bottom of the steps. At once, the horde gathered around him, bugbears and greenteeth hooting and cursing, but Ben only spared them a moment’s glance. For now, the king lay sprawled and unmoving. But Ben had met the dead before and he knew that the situation wouldn’t last.
Groaning, he hauled himself up, onto his claws. Nursing his severed limb, he limped away from the column. Blood hissed on the stone under him, but no trace of frost, the murderous magic dispelled. Amputated. Lowering one wing, he saw Annis stagger her way through the flames, covered in soot from head to toe. Again. Her eyes, however, were bright beads, shining with desperate triumph.
This time, she grasped his meaning plainly enough. Spluttering, her face half hidden by the lapel of her jacket, the girl climbed the ladder of his extended wing and up onto his back. Buckle up … Dazed, his wounds screaming, he lumbered across the pedestal, crunching over the ruined pyre. With the last of his strength, he thrust himself into the air, leaping from the mess of Trafalgar Square.
Venting a plume of flame, he burst through the circling ring of wyverns, the smaller beasts shrieking as his wake tossed them from his path. Then up and up into the clouds, his tail snaking, Annis straddling his withers.
His blood fell from the heavens like red rain.
He didn’t get far. Twenty minutes later, with the thorn wall forty miles behind him and the sun sinking behind the Chiltern Hills, wings, midnight black, were fluttering at the edges of his vision. As he flew across the patchwork of fields and farms, his body was trying to heal, his nerves tingling with inherent magic, a warm balm. But his wounds were deep and his blood loss considerable. With each passing mile, his breath grew more and more laboured. In the gathering darkness, he could feel himself drifting, drifting further towards the earth, the villages below, twinkling in the dusk, heedless of his presence.
But not of my existence, he thought, oddly resigned. Not any more.
And the girl on his back—Anne? Alice?—well, she may have shouted something, a warning into the wind, but he couldn’t quite catch the sense of it and her words couldn’t keep him from the shadows.
Not far from Christmas Common, the treetops were whipping against Ben’s chest and belly. With a sigh that sounded like surrender, his wings crumpled, and his breast ploughed into a dense tract of woodland. His snout gouged a furrow in a hillside as he slid, grunting, into darkness.
FIFTEEN
The dragon dreamed in darkness.
But when Ben opened his eyes and found himself sprawled face-down on the ground, he spat out the notion of dreams along with a mouthful of grass. Climbing to his feet, he surveyed the state of himself before checking his surroundings, gasping with the realisation that he lived. A close thing. But … His skin looked unbroken, his flesh twinging with a familiar burning sensation. His wounds were healing, lending weight to his suspicions.
You wish you were dreaming, mate.
Somewhere, his body was struggling to mend itself, sure. In this place, he was naked, in human form, sans injury and scales. Frowning down at himself, he couldn’t even see any bruises on his arms and legs, his flesh taut with sinew, pale and smooth. There was the usual web of scars, the map of his age-old mask weaving down to the crimson patch of hair between his legs, but that was it. Considering what he’d been through, he acknowledged a slight doubt about his situation, a grumble rising in his throat as he absorbed his location.
Here in the Orchard of Worlds time moves differently than on the terrestrial plane, if it moves at all …
He was between again, wasn’t he? Deep in the nether. A glance through the rows of trees, each one crooked and pregnant with fruit, confirmed the fact as he spied the shimmering walls, the crystalline palace in the distance. In soft, radiant pink, the battlements, turrets and spires speared into the dark. That darkness, he’d come to learn, was as infinite as it was cold, an orchard sown with worlds that hung on the branches of the cosmos like ripe fruit. Branches? No. Leys. Weaving like vines. Worlds that the gods had seeded, tended by the creatures that survived them. Replaced them. The Fallen Ones. The Fay. And at least one of those worlds—his own—was growing more withered by the hour. With the souring, Earth had found itself haunted, hounded by an army of hungry ghosts.
Benjurigan. Welcome …
Ben curled his lip.
“Are we really going to do the whole theatrics thing again?” he said, nervous all the same. “I know you’re here, my lady. Might as well show yourself.”
Laughter answered him,
somewhere off in the trees. Laughter that sounded much like bells. The echoes faded around him, spilling over the bluff at his back like the brook he’d seen before, trickling out into nothing, out over the glittering knot-world.
Avalon. I’m standing in the gardens of the High House of Avalon. And for some reason, I don’t like the smell of it …
Rolling his shoulders, he traipsed into the trees, clover and yarrow brushing his feet. Blossoms shook from the branches as he went, a white storm swirling around him, and he tried his best not to look at the dangling fruit, these plump metaphors of Creation. It was bad enough being a Remnant, something different, other and strange, without dwelling on the fact that even his planet wasn’t unique. How small can a wyrm feel? More than this, his discomfort centred, as ever, on his mistrust of the Fay. Whatever passed for air in the orchard—even that was sly and capricious. He wouldn’t let himself forget the nature of the woman—the creature shaped like a woman—who played host to him in this nowhere place. Under the guise of granting enlightenment, Our Lady of the Barrows had drawn him here, summoning him in a waking dream. She’d shown him the supposed truth of the universe and then pressed her lips to his, a taste of need that lingered. Sweet. But cold. Nimue wanted something. Where it came to the Fay, there was always a price. Over time, the understanding had grown as deep as his instinct. One thing was for sure, she hadn’t dragged him here for tea and biscuits.
Where the hell are you? What game is this now?
Thinking this, he looked through the trees and caught a flash of blue silk, whisking out of sight behind a gnarled trunk. Flapping blossoms from his face, Ben lumbered in that direction, drawn on by the laughter, the bells, the sound bringing colour to his cheeks in annoyance. Another whirl of silk, the hint of an arm, willowy and brown, led him down another row and across another, the Lady keeping ahead of him, a few seconds out of sight. Leaping around a bush, he saw her hair through the branches, her snow-white braids coiled high on her head, and he made in that direction, running now, a curse held behind his teeth.
Burning Ashes Page 21
