Burning Ashes

by James Bennett

  The dream was still with him, in all its shimmering weirdness. All its suspect insistence and claims. The Lady had offered him some truth of her own, but he realised that it wasn’t the whole story. And if he knew the Fay at all, then he probably wasn’t going to like the rest of it. Still, he knew who he was now, didn’t he? What he was. He’d decided to meet his fate on his own terms. That meant letting everyone else do the same, Remnant and knight alike, whether it served him or not.

  We’re all bound up in this, he wanted to tell the knight. The Pact we made. This is our mess. But the humans out there, left in the city …

  He held his tongue. If House Fitzwarren was ready to acquit him and take measures to save this land, then the knights would have to prove it first. In recent years, he’d been on the sticky end of too much betrayal. Bardolfe. Jia. Von Hart. People he’d trusted once. In light of that, he would ask nothing of no one. He didn’t want the responsibility. Not any more. Too many had paid the price on his watch.

  He saw Lord Rulf’s shoulders fall, his disappointment plain.

  “Fair enough,” the knight said, his tone belying his words. “Then you leave the Last Pavilion in a quandary. But before you go, I’ll ask of you one more thing. Kindly remove that ghastly creature from the Fitzwarren family tomb.”

  Annis, still breathless, still bruised, caught up with him as he strode across the lawn. He was heading for the large stone edifice under the trees, the turf cool under his feet. The tomb was an ugly thing, a building in itself, flanked by pillars and graven knights. Who knew how many coffins lay inside? Lots, if memory served. Hundreds of Fitzwarren sons. And almost one of their daughters …

  Afternoon was fading, the shadows slipping between the trees, the eager grip of the coming winter. He’d stayed here too long already and he didn’t turn around as the girl ran up behind him.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Grim-faced, he slowed, letting her keep pace with him, a reluctant concession. Instead, she ran around in front of him, halting his steps.

  He growled at her, but Annis didn’t budge.

  “If you’re going to try and change my mind, I’m—”

  She waved his refusal away, meeting his gaze with the same frustrating resolve.

  “I don’t blame you for going back. Someone has to take a stand. We’ll go down fighting one way or another,” she said, and he knew it was true. “But the sword isn’t all you need.”

  With this, she reached into her jacket and brought out the relic she’d recovered in Trafalgar Square, in the ruins of the wooden giant. The Horn of Twrch Trwyth glittered in the sunlight, all ivory and gold, carved centuries ago from the tusk of the monstrous boar. Here it was, plucked straight out of legend, and Ben couldn’t suppress a gasp at the sight. In his flight from London, his dream-that-was-no-dream and his subsequent chat with the patriarch, he had forgotten all about it. Dummkopf … It was humbling; his bold words in the bedroom sounded a little hollow now. All the same, the memory of the dead king on the shores of Lake Bala came winging back to him, sounding the horn and summoning Remnants, raising an army to invade London.

  The girl held the horn out to him, the relic offering its own desperate suggestion.

  “I know you’re not taking me with you,” she said. “I won’t even ask. Still, you’d be a fool to go back to the city alone.”

  He let out his breath, finding himself unable to argue with this. He found the scar on her face hard to look at and he wanted to say something, but the words escaped him. Likewise, he wanted to warn her. To tell her to stay away. Find somewhere safe until this was over. One way or another. But he couldn’t muster that either. He’d made his decision and set out on his own course, leaving this House to do the same. There was no Pact. No Lore between them. He had no right to tell her anything at all.

  With a grunt, he took the horn from her. He hung it around his neck.

  “Take care of yourself, Annis Cade,” he said.

  Then he stepped past her and left her to watch his retreating back as he strode for the tomb, for the moss-covered knights guarding the entrance. As he approached, the deep gloom behind its broken door caught and echoed his call.

  “Rise and shine, du Sang. We’ve got a war to fight.”

  And somewhere in the darkness, he heard a weary groan.

  SEVENTEEN

  And so, after everything, it comes to this.

  Red Ben Garston stood on the bluff of White Horse Hill, looking down on the Manger, a deep vale sweeping through the heart of the ancient site. A few yards above him, the prehistoric figure of the so-called horse, carved in chalk and cantering over the rise for all to see for miles around. Below, the flat-topped mound of Dragon Hill, where the scarred summit spoke of legend and myth, the ground forever stained by wyrm’s blood, or so the story went. Beyond, the great flat valley, a patchwork of twilight fields and farms, cut by a railway line and wind turbines in the distance. In the air, the smell of wildflowers, bramble and chaff, joining the spice of his sweat. At this hour, Manger, hill and valley floated in the evening mist, ships cast adrift from another time.

  Like me. Like us.

  In the distance, the village of Uffington lay dark and still, abandoned to the autumn night.

  It comes to this. Full circle.

  No one had noticed Ben alight on the rise, a dragon returned after many long years. Eight hundred odd, if truth be told. His claws made scars of their own as he’d landed, wings folding, tail thumping the earth, snout pluming smoke. He scanned the gloom with golden eyes, picking out the leap of rabbits miles away, the tentative wheeling of birds. Nature, as ever, went on, despite the upheaval in the land. The warping of all that was good and true. For how much longer, he couldn’t say.

  Some of that upheaval, he could see first-hand. The shattered ridge of a nearby hill, a fissure running up the slope to the summit. Much of the earth had fallen back in, choking the mouth of the cave, but the scale of the wound made it clear where Cormoran had risen, before striding east across the Downs for London. Not that he needed a reminder, the sight made him think of the Remnants who’d come to the Manger on that long-lost midsummer night, a thousand strong or more, united in their plea for answers. For survival. Things might’ve turned ugly if not for the harp, strummed far away in Westminster Palace, the music already rippling out across the land.

  Guilt aside, that was the reason he was here.

  Perhaps out of courtesy, he dwindled into human form, thinking that this hill belonged to one beast alone. The one etched in chalk above him. Many around here claimed that the figure was a horse, whereas a handful of others knew better. Ben knew better.

  The Vicomte Lambert du Sang rolled from his shrinking shoulders with a sharp Gallic curse, but made no other sound as he fell, the grass muffling his enervated frame. Then, all rag and bone (he’s hungry again, Ben thought. And for more than just goblin blood), the boy brushed himself off and joined his companion, slinking into his reluctant and grim-faced shadow. Together, the two of them stood gazing down into the valley. Into the bones of the Old Lands.

  “If you do this, mon ami,” du Sang told him, “there is no going back.”

  Ben paid him no mind. He’d waited, the November wind ruffling his hair, until the sun had slipped into the west, sinking under a tree-lined ridge like embers behind a grate. Until the darkness poured in, streaked with gold. Blood on velveteen. Until his heart slowed, thudding in his chest with a desperate resolve. He didn’t need to explain himself to the creature beside him, the vampyr who, for all his apparent redemption, remained as murderous as ever. Indeed, who was only here for personal gain, the promise of fire and death. All the same, du Sang had helped him, flying in the face of his enemies, facilitating his escape. And as he stood here, on this ancient ground where his duty had first begun, it was impossible to blame him for wanting an end.

  Perhaps it is our turn again …

  Von Hart whispered to him through the heather, a sigh under the stars. Ben dre
w no comfort from the notion of a return to power; time had shown him that this was a lie. The envoy had wanted to undo the Sleep, he’d claimed, and summon the Fay to save the Earth. Restore the failing circles, whatever. The Lady had told him much the same. Ben knew he had every reason to doubt them. He had seen the light in Arthur’s eyes, the corruption of the dead king. He’d seen the Remnant army, enthralled by the horn and marching on London. He’d learnt the source of all these things, the experiments of the Fay, and yet, somehow, he still felt responsible. He’d pledged his loyalty to humans long ago and in this very place, leaning over a table in the vale below to sign the king’s scroll. The Pact. The foundation of the Lore. Overseen by knights (each one in armour, evidence of their distrust), he had turned his back on his own kind. In the name of preservation. Survival. A way to end the war and break the ground for peace, some dreaming day in the future. Or so he had thought at the time.

  All that had fallen apart. Von Hart was right, damn him. It had all been a mistake. That didn’t change the fact that Remnants and humans had failed to reach an accord. A decent one anyway, the former trapped in enchanted slumber, the latter stripped of magic.

  To banish magic forbids the world its very nature … We’ll snuff out the soul of the world. All will fall into darkness …

  In the end, the Pact had been the first drop of poison, souring the Earth entire. And much as it scared him, his present course, he could easily have told du Sang that there had never been any going back. Not from the moment he’d put quill to parchment, eight hundred years ago …

  The truth was he had no choice. If he wanted to save them, to save London, then Annis was right—he couldn’t do so alone. As much as it pained him to use magic, to compel others to come to his aid, the only other option was to accept defeat. Time was short. In his bones, he knew he should recover the sword and go after the envoy. He could feel each grain of sand running through the hourglass, stealing away his chance of the truth. Of revenge.

  One day. I’ll give it one day, fairy. And then I’m coming for you.

  But it was more than that. If the world was to end and take them all with it, then he’d see out his oath beforehand. At least that. His last mission. His final quest. He’d go to his death knowing that he’d fulfilled his promise.

  So he said nothing to du Sang. Instead, he looked down on the Manger and let the wind cool him, match the chill of his fears. Then, trying not to think of the skeletal teeth that had last met the gilded mouthpiece, he lifted the relic to his lips.

  He let the night fill his lungs. Then he blew the Horn of Twrch Trwyth.

  Its sounding rolled out over the valley, a haunted peal, a blast that shook the hillside under his feet. Mournful, deep, the horn pressed its demand upon the sky. Upon the earth. In his peripheral vision, he saw du Sang stagger back, his wail lost in the echoes. The birds overhead dived for their nests, a breaking wave of black. Rabbits froze, stunned in the hedgerows. Trees creaked, bending in a force beyond the wind. Far away, the bell tower of St. Mary’s Church, Uffington, gave a lonely toll, struck by the shuddering air, a widening pool of resonance flooding over the shadowed land.

  Then, silence. Ben lowered the horn, peering into the dusk. After a second or two, he glanced at du Sang, who simply shrugged. Nothing. Ben opened his mouth to speak, to vent a profane or caustic phrase, when another uproar answered him, riding on the waves of the first. Like a thunderclap, snatched from the clouds and buried underground, the surface of the Manger rippled and cracked, a rumpling carpet of green. In a heartbeat, a fissure zigzagged up to the empty road, swallowing trees and fences, the odd abandoned car.

  For a breathless minute, Ben gazed into the maw, tracing the glitter of obsidian walls, molten, rippling, catching the starlight. The night throbbed around him, alive with residual power. A song of the Old Lands. A song of summoning. The moon and the stars shone down, ever cold, ever watchful. The night fell still, as though measuring the force of the accelerant spell, this spurring of the shattered Sleep.

  And then—one by one, at first, and then in greater numbers—they came.

  Wide-eyed, the horn trembling at his side, Ben watched the Remnants return.

  The gnomes roused first, clambering from the earthen wound in muttering, ragged bunches. Their tiny, wizened forms shuffled into the meadow, brushing off dust with a tinkle of bells, their tall, colourful caps shaking.

  Then came the green men, their leafy faces rustling in the wind, their vine-clad arms stretching, throwing off the slumber of ages.

  Next, Ben watched the ettin climb from the chasm. Their grey, boulder-like shapes had easily passed for standing stone and barrow back in the Old Lands, changing whenever a traveller drew near. The shy creatures, strong as ogres and just as large, blinked with hollow eyes in the gloom, looking about themselves with sleepy, yet mesmerised purpose.

  The dwarves followed them, a grumbling lot, readjusting their helmets and smoothing beards rumpled by sleep. Axes and pikes clattered on shields as they gathered on the sward. Will-o’-the-wisp danced among them, bright silvery balls of gas, lighting the mist draping the valley.

  With an ache in his breast—part longing, part awe—Ben watched the Sleepers rise. A hundred of them quickly swelled to five hundred and more, the earth offering up its hidden bounty, swallowed and subdued by the lullaby over eight centuries ago. In amongst the gathering throng, he saw tiddy mun, the marsh guardians, and reynardine, the tawny were-foxes of yore. He saw hedley kow, blue caps and hunky punks, the little gnarled keepers of river, rock and tree.

  Then, bursting from the smouldering crack, a flurry of feathers filled the air. Sleek hides flexed with muscle. Claws spread. Beaks opened in an awakening cry. Strong they were, and golden, these winged warriors of old. The griffins swept across the face of the moon, high above the bluff on which Ben stood, his heart leaping at the sight. A flicker of white soon joined them, wreathing the bellowing gyre. Pale shreds of cloth streamed behind them as the women rode the wind, singing, singing with unfettered voices, hurled from the earth to the sky.

  As the emerging creatures slowed, the fissure belching forth dust and Remnants, Ben looked down on the mob and his joy at their revival waned somewhat. He saw no giants and no dragons. The absence of the wyrm-weir, the old guardians, the keepers of a thousand treasures, sat like a stone in his chest, an unbidden and unanswered yearning. But for all his disappointment, his wish to add the might of these beasts to his ranks, he knew that such creatures slept as they dreamed. The deepest of all. Deep in the darkness under the earth.

  Tears stinging his eyes, he clung on to hope.

  This is just the beginning. The beginning of the end, maybe. But still a beginning …

  For all his rapture at the view, the roaring above, the clamour in the Manger and du Sang’s gasp, he couldn’t ignore the sorry state of them. The hunched shape of once-proud forms. The blunt weapons and the broken swords. The patchy feathers and limping gait. The tattered ears and dull eyes. Their decline. Their decay.

  They’re all dead. Or dying.

  Wasn’t that what Jinx had told him, moments before the manticore went up in flames? And here, he knew, was the proof of Von Hart’s claim, made months ago in the nether, resounding from the maw of the Ghost Emperor.

  Magic is souring. The Sleep is failing. The Remnants will die.

  Here was the fire of Jia’s mission, her desire to steal the Cwyth, the mnemonic harp, and bring it to her master.

  I can save them …

  And here was the reason for her sacrifice.

  He blinked away tears. He couldn’t think about that now. He had no way to undo the past. He’d come here on the business of the future. Whatever he could salvage from it anyway. Whatever good he could do. The legacy of the last dragon, wakeful and walking the earth …

  Surveying the Remnants in the Manger, a shadow of guilt touched his heart. Not one of them, he knew, was free from enchantment. Even though he’d released them from the Sleep, broken, unravelling as it
was, there wasn’t a creature down there, awake or no, who didn’t have good reason to rebuke him. Punish, kill him even, for choosing to side with the humans and for signing the king’s damnable Pact. The griffins, the women wheeling in the sky, had more than enough to hold him to account. To blame him for their spellbound and stolen lives. What could he tell them? How could he press his reasons upon them, make them accept his ancient mistake, his selfish need to survive? Would they care? Would they listen before they tore him apart?

  He doubted it. The truth was he held the Remnants enthralled. Bound. Enslaved by the horn. Was he any better than Arthur? He’d simply replaced one enchantment with another, dragging them out of the earth.

  Silently, he begged their forgiveness.

  I need you. Albion needs you …

  But much like councils and pacts, this was no time for speeches. And as every eye in the meadow turned towards him, a flame-haired figure on the bluff, he met the roar that went up with a weary hand.

  He raised ivory and gold to the moon, calling the Remnants to war.

  London

  Astride a wyvern, Arthur, the Once and Future King, swooped high above Bloomsbury. Carrying a twelve-strong contingent of goblins, the green-winged squadron shadowed the thorn wall below, a dark and tangled boundary in the pre-dawn chill. The king wasn’t best pleased, not that his grin conveyed the matter. Or rather, the power that steered him, making of him a puppet of bones, rankled at the present calamity. Only the light in his eyes, blue and unextinguished, flared with the ire that drove him, magic as fierce as it was sour.

  Time is running out.

  Caliburn, his sword, had refused him. Taranis, his beacon, had collapsed, the dragon and the knights escaping, his hecatomb undone. We are in the dark. And he had lost the Horn of Twrch Trwyth. In the dark. But still, we come … How long these idiot creatures, with their dented helmets and hunger for flesh, would stay bound and loyal to him was anyone’s guess. He had promised them a feast to end all feasts. Instead, they had ash in their mouths. Once sounded, the horn spoke to whatever lay in the hearts of the Remnants who heard it. In this case cruelty, savagery and greed, wrenching the creatures from the broken Sleep and pressing them into his deathly service. Soon, the echoes of enchantment would dissipate completely, of that he had no doubt. And, craven, mercenary at best, every goblin, ogre, greentooth, bugbear, gargoyle, grim and ghoul would break rank to go in search of easier prey, out there in the wilds of Britain.