In Ashes Lie

by Marie Brennan

  “I believe she will,” Lune said. “And if I am right, it will gain us some time.”

  “To fight the Dragon.”

  Her answering smile was fierce. “To kill it.”

  FLEET STREET, LONDON: ten o’clock in the morning

  “I don’t think it’s working!” Irrith screamed at Angrisla, and the mara snarled in reply.

  The tower of St. Paul’s stood veiled in smoke, a rare island of sanity in the midst of chaos. The squat, rectangular shape betrayed no bright flicker, and surely it would do so if the cathedral had caught. Which meant the troop the Queen had dispatched to protect its grounds was succeeding.

  The ones who weren’t succeeding were underground, in the Onyx Hall. The Fire had climbed Ludgate Hill, moving up from Blackfriars and Carter Lane to claim the high ground, until the whole rise seemed like a volcano, belching thick black clouds. From that height it flung out sparks, riding the wind toward the wall.

  Which was not stopping them.

  For a time it had worked. Irrith had watched, holding her breath, as the incandescent flakes snuffed themselves against an invisible barrier. Angrisla, barely bothering to disguise her hideous face, kept up a continuous stream of curses and speculation, identifying for Irrith all the buildings and streets she could not name on her own. And it seemed that the stout brick courses of the City wall, bolstered by the fae, would hold the beast back.

  But Ludgate itself, which had long formed a stark profile against the glare behind, abruptly vanished into the flames. The debtors usually imprisoned within its walls were scattered—released by their jailers or broken free on their own, Irrith didn’t know—and the proud statues of old Lud and the Tudor Queen Elizabeth were lost somewhere inside the blaze. The Dragon had passed the gate, and was coming toward them fast.

  Angrisla spat a foul oath and ran for the Fleet Bridge—not away from the Fire, but toward it. These London folk are mad, Irrith thought in disbelief. She would never run to save the village near Wayland’s Smithy; the mortals could just rebuild, and breed more of themselves to replace the ones they’d lost.

  Fae, however, were harder to come by. I must be mad, too, Irrith admitted, and ran after Angrisla.

  The mara at least had not charged straight into the flames. She halted on the Fleet Bridge, leaning out between the iron pikes that lined its stone edge. Irrith cringed back from joining her, though whether because of the iron or the sheer filth of the river, the sprite could not say. If the searing air hadn’t roasted all sense of smell from her, she would have gagged on the water’s stench.

  Angrisla was shouting down into that fouled water. Irrith couldn’t hear her clearly over the whirlwind roar of the advancing Fire, and she was not even certain the goblin woman was speaking English.

  Except for the last bit, where Angrisla screamed, “Do it, bitch, and I’ll feed you a corpse a day for a year!”

  Which was almost enough to make Irrith shy off the bridge entirely. She made the mistake of looking down, though, and what she saw there transfixed her to the stone.

  Something moved in the choking sludge of the Fleet. Flowing sluggishly between the wharves and crumbling embankments, its surface clogged with debris and snowed under with ash, the thing was hardly a river at all—and Irrith had never seen a river spirit like the one that rose from it now.

  Angrisla ran off the bridge as if for her life, hauling Irrith with her as she went. “Blacktooth Meg,” she said when they scudded to a halt on solid ground once more, and gave a feral grin. “The hag of the Fleet. Not so powerful as the Cailleach Bheur, but more than you or me.”

  “Were you asking her for help or threatening her?” Irrith asked, unable to look away from the monstrosity before her.

  The mara shrugged. “Both?”

  The oil-slick skin might not have been skin at all, but an accumulation of the river’s filth. The shoulders were huge, but uneven, studded and twisted with lumps of either muscle or trash. Patches of stringy hair sprang from the scalp, debris caught in their strands, and the clawed hands that rose from the water’s surface could have crushed Irrith’s face, in concert or alone.

  Irrith was very glad she could not see the hag’s face.

  A voice like a thousand mutilated ravens screamed some unintelligible challenge at the Fire. I don’t think she needs the bribery of corpses, Irrith thought, backing another few steps away. This is her territory, and she does not like invaders.

  What coiled up to meet the hag was not the entire Dragon. Irrith was not certain there was such a thing anymore; the beast had grown so huge under the wind’s encouraging hand that it could probably manifest itself in half a dozen places at once.

  It was not the entire Dragon. But it was big enough.

  Blacktooth Meg didn’t flinch back. She yowled in fury and threw her clawed hands skyward, burying them in the creature’s molten flesh. A stench bad enough to punch through to Irrith’s dulled senses struck her like a giant’s club, knocking her to the ground. The sprite writhed on the hard-baked dirt, until she felt Angrisla’s bony fingers wrap around her arm and haul her upright.

  The river hag was lost from sight, buried in a twisting, tearing mass of flame. The stones of the bridge next to that battle were beginning to glow with the heat. The Dragon—that part of it—was pinned down.

  But for how long?

  The hag was no great spirit, not like Old Father Thames. Sparks glided by overhead, seeking the dry, close-packed houses of Fleet Street.

  And from inside the raging battle, the sprite and the mara heard Blacktooth Meg scream.

  “I don’t think it’s working,” Angrisla said, and Irrith swore in agreement.

  ALDERSGATE, LONDON: four o’clock in the afternoon

  The sudden crack of an explosion made the man next to Jack startle and look around in fear. The physician had him by the shoulder before he could run. “It isn’t foreigners,” he said, weary with having repeated it a thousand times. “The duke’s men are blowing up houses around Cripplegate, to stop the Fire’s spread.” Also by the Tower, though most if not all of the powder had been removed from the fortress. Jack hoped someone had the sense to clear breaks in the liberties west of the City, too—but he had no sense of that land, which lay outside the borders of the Onyx Hall.

  That strange, extra sense was ravaged almost beyond capacity for life, though. Jack had been forced to ride halfway around the City to reach this spot; of all the entrances to the faerie palace, only the Crutched Friars and Tower doors stood unscathed. St. Paul’s was yet intact, but besieged on all sides by flames.

  Everything else had fallen to the Dragon.

  The western wall collapsed early—not physically, but in its magical fortification. Here, where the northward run of that defense bent eastward for a time, the line was breached, but not by much. The narrow gap of Aldersgate strangled the flames, letting only a slender arm through, and the wind lacked enough northward bent to carry the sparks over the height of the bricks. They battled the Fire for every inch it claimed.

  Too many inches, though. The message was sent; now they waited for Nicneven to answer, losing more of London with each minute that passed. And Jack, well aware of the irony, prayed to God that Lune was right—about the Gyre-Carling being here, about her willingness to meet, about the killing of the Dragon, about everything. Otherwise they would lose all they hoped to save.

  He could not sit below and wait; it would drive him mad. So he came out here again, joining the men who still fought, slowing the Fire with every means at their disposal.

  Shouts rose at the corner across from Jack. An ember had wormed its way into the wood, unnoticed by the men busy fighting to extinguish another blaze, and now a whole wall was in flames. Staggering, weary past the telling of it, Jack grabbed the nearest fellow by the sleeve—some fine gentleman, whose rich clothes would not be fit for rags when this was done—and dragged him toward an unused fire-hook. Somehow the two of them got its heavy iron point up; then others joined them, helping mane
uver the hook into a ring under the eaves of the burning house. “We have it!” Jack cried in a voice gone hoarse with smoke and overuse, and a dozen hands seized hold of the ropes set along the thirty feet of the pole. Together they all heaved, bellowing, until the timbers gave way, and the house front came crashing down.

  Sparks erupted skyward, but others were there with buckets. Jack and the fine gentleman positioned themselves as close to the heat as they could, flinging water over the crackling wreckage, until the last of it sputtered out. A small victory: one more house destroyed, true, but it would not spread to others.

  Chest heaving, Jack dropped the last bucket from his blistered hands. His companion gave him a soot-blackened smile, shoving the lank, sweaty mass of his dark hair back toward the ribbon it had escaped from.

  There were other places to fight. Jack opened his mouth to suggest they join a group farther down the road, but left it hanging as a horseman trotted to a halt at their side.

  He knew the man on that horse, who had been everywhere around the City since yesterday morning. The prominent nose of James Stuart, Duke of York, would have been recognizable through any amount of grime.

  Jack could only blame desperate exhaustion for his failure to recognize that same nose on the fine gentleman at his side.

  “We have the Fire under control here,” the duke said to his brother, ignoring Jack. “The men fighting in the liberties, though, could use encouragement.”

  Charles Stuart nodded. “But reward those working here. By their efforts are these northern parishes saved.” Reaching into a bag slung across his body, the King of England pulled out a shining guinea and offered it to Jack.

  Who merely gaped at it. The coin was so clean, winking brilliant gold in the afternoon light, that he could not comprehend it. Nor the hand that held it. The King and the duke had been in and around the City all day—that much Jack had heard—and yes, that they worked with their own hands alongside the citizens of London, but...

  But the tall, long-nosed man before him, however fine his clothes had been, was so far a cry from the drinking, wenching, merry-making ruler of England that Jack’s tired mind simply could not put the two in the same body. And so he stared, until Charles said, “Take it. You have earned it, in defense of my City.”

  Jack found the wit to shake his head. “Keep it, your Majesty, for some other man—one who needs it more.” The part of his mind that still possessed an ounce of sense reminded him that his house in Monkwell Street was gone, and so was the Royal College of Physicians, and the Barber-Surgeons’ Hall.

  Yet I have the fae. Others are not so fortunate.

  Charles smiled again. It was friendly and open; no wonder so many liked this man, for all his failings as a king. Replacing the coin, he offered Jack his hand instead. His strong grip infused Jack with strength—not by magic, but the simple charm of his confidence and goodwill. “Your name?”

  “Jack Ellin. Doctor.”

  “God send me more subjects so charitable as you, Dr. Ellin. Keep fighting; we will kill this beast yet.” A gentleman brought up another horse. Charles mounted, and was gone.

  We will kill this beast yet. Jack prayed it might be so.

  But the wind was growing stronger.

  THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: eight o’clock in the evening

  They had abandoned the defense of the wall. At the end of Basing-hall Street, just east of Cripplegate, the Fire had battered itself into exhaustion against the high bricks; westward, from the gate itself, the reinforcement held enough for the mortal defenders to wrestle the flames into a standstill, scant paces beyond the line.

  Those along the wall’s farthest reach, though, from Newgate down to the river, now lay in exhausted stupor, tended by sad-faced hobs.

  Any faerie with an ounce of vitality left in him, Lune had sent above, to form a ring around St. Paul’s. The Dragon was driving hard at the cathedral, and they must not let it break through. Like the Stone, it was a foundational piece of the Onyx Hall; if the Dragon conquered it, the palace would soon follow.

  Lune kept back only her knights, who now stood in thin ranks on the white sand of the amphitheater. Their numbers had never fully recovered from the war and Prigurd’s betrayal; she could only hope they would be enough.

  Jack stood at her side, kept upright only through grim force of will. There would be no speeches from him, and none from her, either; the Onyx Guard needed no convincing for this battle. “The Dragon wants the cathedral,” she said simply. “This means it has focused itself in one place, and this means we can fight it. Not fragments of its power, not the salamanders it has birthed: the Dragon itself. And we must kill it.”

  She did not add, for the sake of London. The appalling truth was that London was lost. A remnant of it survived in the northeast, forming a crescent down to the Tower; the suburbs that lay outside its walls were mostly untouched, save for the liberties immediately to the west. But the City itself was gone. They had suffered terrible losses on Sunday and Monday, but today the Dragon, fueled by its stolen power, had devoured as much again. If there was anything yet to be saved, it was the Strand, Covent Garden, Westminster.

  But London was more than just the City within the walls. They would not abandon their defense so long as one outlying village remained under threat.

  Sir Peregrin cleared his throat. “Madam—you wish us to let it through into the Onyx Hall?”

  “No,” Lune said. “You will battle it outside the cathedral.”

  In the mortal City. Not hiding under glamours, pretending that what they did was something mundane; a fight such as this could not be concealed. But who was there to see? The cathedral mount was an island in a sea of fire. The humans were fled. Their church bells had fallen silent, brazen tongues now melted slag in a desolation of cinders. If London was not quite safe for her people, it was the closest it had come since mankind settled on the banks of the Thames.

  The Captain of the Onyx Guard touched his hand to his heart. Lune knew his doubts, as clearly as if he had spoken them: his knights were brave, but few, and the Dragon a foe more terrible than any had faced.

  She would be sending some of them—perhaps all—to their deaths.

  But any who lacked the courage for this battle had already fled.

  “Let me fight it.”

  The voice came from the amphitheater’s entrance, rumbling in the hollow pit of Lune’s stomach. Broken and hoarse, but still familiar, and her throat closed up tight.

  Prigurd Nellt was coarsely dressed, his hair grown long and shaggy beneath the helm he now removed. Deep lines seamed the hard skin of his face, marking the lonely years of his exile. But his shoulders were straight, and the hilt of his great two-handed sword rose above one of them, wrapped in well-worn leather.

  Peregrin’s own sword hissed out of its sheath, and the tip flashed fire as he leveled it at the giant. “You have been banished. Why are you here?”

  “To defend London.” Prigurd said it without flourish. He advanced carefully, Peregrin’s blade tracking his every step, and stopped well shy of Lune, kneeling on the sand. “Your Majesty. Lord—” He caught Antony’s name before it came out, blinking at Jack in confusion. “Er—Prince. Let me fight for you.”

  Jack was staring in manifest curiosity, but Lune did not have time to explain. She frowned down at the exile. “You are no longer of our guard.”

  The giant’s doubt spoke frankly as he eyed the knights. “I know. I—I haven’t forgotten. But I’ve had time to think, and to—regret. I don’t expect you will let me back, your Grace. That isn’t why I’m here. I just want to do something. So that when I think about this place, I can remember something other than how I betrayed you.”

  The constriction in her throat grew tighter. Against shame, against the threat of punishment, he returned to them in this desperate hour. Not for reward: she believed him when he said that. But for honor, and duty, and loyalty. Because this was his home, even if she had driven him from it.

  Peregrin’s bo
dy was practically humming with distrust. Lifting her fingers, Lune gestured for him to back away. “Madam—” he began.

  “We need him,” Lune said. “His size, his strength. Would you face an enemy whose head you cannot reach? We will not turn away a sword arm, Peregrin—not when our realm is at stake.”

  An intake of breath from Prigurd, that from a smaller creature might have passed unnoticed. His thick fingers dug into the sand.

  From Lune’s side, unexpected support. “I wasn’t here when this—fellow’s crimes were committed,” Jack said. “In fact, I have no idea who he is. Which makes me, I think, as close to a neutral party as we’ll find in this room. I make no judgment regarding his past actions, but if he will fight for us, then he has my favor.”

  Prigurd’s head came up in startlement. Purest joy flickered there, just for a moment, and it struck Lune like a blow.

  He deserves this much of me.

  “For this battle,” she said, “he shall have mine as well.” Fumbling, she unpinned the diamond brooch holding her cloak shut, and extended it toward the giant. The star buried in its depths winked in the light. “And when this is done, he shall have three days and nights’ safety here in the Onyx Hall, with no hand raised against him.” Could she grant more than that? It depended on his former brothers-in-arms—who, if they did not precisely forgive him, looked more than a little relieved to have the giant’s strength on their side. After the battle, they might view him with renewed charity.

  Disbelieving, Prigurd rose, ate the ground between them with two strides, and took the brooch from her hand. His calloused skin rasped against hers—and then Jack and Lune gasped as one.

  Sir Peregrin leapt forward, ready to defend them, but he had barely moved before a tiny sprite shrieked into the air above their heads, screaming what the Queen and Prince already knew. “The cathedral burns!”

  ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON: eight o’clock in the evening