by Robin Hobb
The high-flying green gave a long shrill cry. ‘Vengeance!’ That was the word that rode on that sound. It echoed, ‘Vengeance, vengeance, vengeance!’
Not an echo.
‘Oh, my,’ Beloved said softly.
The vision my father had given him was becoming keener. He had seen them before anyone else. Two little jewels, sparkling and twinkling in the distance. One glinted scarlet and the other flashed bluer than the sky.
Beloved lifted an arm and pointed. ‘Dragons!’ he called to our companions. ‘Heeby and Tintaglia, unless I am mistaken. Rapskal said they would come!
With a rattle of plumes, a crow suddenly settled on Per’s shoulder. I jumped back in alarm but he laughed joyously. She was a strange crow, with a silver beak, and instead of being black she had a glittering blue to her feathers, and several scarlet plumes in each wing. And not the red of a rooster’s feathers but shining, as if polished metal could be red. Per cried out, ‘Motley! I feared you drowned or arrow-shot! I am so glad you’re alive! Where were you?’
The bird bobbed her head as if in agreement. Then she spoke, her voice and inflection oddly human. She opened her wings. ‘I fly with the dragons!’ Full of satisfaction. Then she turned her bright eyes on me. ‘A way out is a way in!’
A shiver went up my back. ‘You came to my cell!’ I exclaimed. But she paid me no mind. She had turned her head to stare up at the sky.
‘IceFyre. IceFyre!’
I saw confusion cloud Per’s face but before I could wonder what the word meant I heard him. The black dragon came—not over the sea as the others did, but from inland. He announced himself with one roar. ‘IceFyre! I return, and I bring your death!’ Every driving beat of his powerful wings brought him closer; he grew ever larger until he seemed impossibly big. How could such a creature exist, let alone fly? But fly he did. And as he approached the castle, we heard only his wings. Then a cry burst from him, a sound so powerful that all of us covered our ears. But while we might hold out the sound of his roar, the sense of it imprinted itself in our minds.
‘Remember me, Clerres? Recall how you poisoned us with a feast of toxic cattle? Recall how you gathered to dance and sing, to welcome us to your treachery? Recall how you butchered my fellows as they lay dying? How when I fought you, you filled my mind with a curse? “Bury yourself in the ice!” Back then, I fled. You shamed me! You made me the last dragon in the world! But I shall not leave even one of you to recall how you all died this day!’
The blue took panicked flight from the tower, a jay rousted by a raven. The black dragon did not perch. He dived on the turret of one inner tower, hitting it with his talons and the full force of his weight and impetus. It fell, tumbling like a child’s blocks. I thought he would ride it down, but his great wings beat and he lifted again. High he rose and higher. The blue and the green dragons circled wide around him, no longer actively harrying the castle. They kept their distance, and I wondered if they feared they might become his meal.
Then he fell like a stone, straight down, and only in the final moment did he change his course with a shifting of his wings, driving himself against one of the skull towers. It was a sturdier thing than the graceful inner towers. Even so, it could not withstand the blow. The fearsome head tipped as if it had taken a monstrous slap. A shocking crack ran down the structure, and as the dragon clung to the skull, pushing and flapping, the crack opened wider. The skull overbalanced and IceFyre lifted away from it as it leaned ever so slowly and then fell. Even at our distance, the sound it made as it struck the earth was impressive.
From her perch on Per’s shoulder, the crow opened wide her wings. A string of enthusiastic caws burst from her throat. She bobbed her head and declared, ‘Dragons! My dragons!’
Per put his hands on her to prevent her from taking flight. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ he warned her.
‘My dragons!’ she insisted.
‘She has finally found a flock to join,’ he observed to me. ‘Her own kind always pecked her. But the dragons have taken her in.’
His eyes on the dragons and their destruction, Beloved asked, ‘If a flock of crows is a murder, what should we call a group of dragons?’
‘A catastrophe of dragons,’ someone said, with no humour in his deep voice.
‘Stay where you are!’ The outcry from one of our guardians jerked my attention back to the land end of the dock. A familiar figure stood there. My heart lifted for a moment and then I wondered. Friend or foe?
‘I have no weapon,’ Prilkop pointed out. I wasn’t sure of that. Two of the Whites we had freed from their cells stood behind him. They had recovered enough to be carrying a large bucket between them.
‘I’ve brought you water. And I offer you shelter in a friend’s home.’ He turned and gestured at the two Whites to bring the bucket forward. They exchanged a look and one shook his head vigorously. They set the bucket down and retreated farther down the dock. Prilkop stared after them. Then he walked ponderously back to the bucket, took it up and walked slowly toward us, the water sloshing over the brim at each step. We watched him come and all I could think of was the water. He clutched the bail of the bucket in both hands and it was splashing on his legs and feet. I suddenly saw that he was an old man, and not very strong any more.
Behind him in the town, people were leaving their homes, some scampering like frightened squirrels and others moving purposefully, pushing barrows and carrying large packs as they fled. Some of them had clearly understood what IceFyre was saying. I wondered if those who lived here knew tales of how the Servants had killed and driven off the dragons. Had they ever imagined such a vengeance?
Beloved walked past our glowering guardians, went over to Prilkop and took the pail. ‘Thank you, old friend,’ he said, and left Prilkop standing there as he brought the water back to us.
‘Are you sure it’s clean? Not poisoned? I heard that dragon say they were poisoners.’ This from the tattooed woman.
‘It’s not poisoned,’ Beloved assured them. He stooped and found a ladle in the bucket. He dippered up water and drank it. ‘It tastes fine. It’s even cool. Come and drink. Water for Boy-O first.’
We gave Boy-O three dippers of water and no one objected. I took one, even though they said I could have more. The guards had not given up their vigilance. I slipped closer to stand near them and hear what Prilkop was saying to Beloved.
‘They’re destroying it all,’ Prilkop called to Beloved. ‘What Bee began with her fire, they are finishing with acid and blows of their wings and tails. If they do not stop, Clerres Castle will be nothing but rubble. I come to beg you to call them back. Let us change this path, Beloved. Negotiate a peace for us. Help me return Clerres to what it should have been, what it once was.’
Beloved shook his head, and I do not think he was sad to refuse. ‘Easy enough to negotiate a peace with us. Allow us to leave on the first ship that will take us. That is all we ask. We have what we came for.’
Prilkop nodded. ‘The Stolen Child.’
In a flat voice, Beloved added, ‘We can do nothing about the dragons. Their vengeance is even older than mine. They will be thorough. And nothing will stop them.’
Prilkop said nothing, but his mouth sagged and his face grew older.
The blue dragon had claimed the walkway on top of the west wall. He paraded up and down it. His lashing tail razed blocks of stone, destroying the crenellation. From time to time he threw back his head and then snapped it forward, showering the interior of the fortress with acid. I could not see the green, and then, with a wild roar, a much larger blue dragon flashed past the two remaining skull-topped towers. A smaller red one flew low over the town and then landed at the town end of the causeway. On that dragon’s back was something I could not make out at that distance. A rider?
‘Heeby! Beautiful Heeby!’ the crow cried. She tried to lift from Per’s shoulder, but he caught her, his hands moving so fast I barely saw them.
‘Motley, she goes to battle. It is no place for you. Stay
here with me, where you’re safe.’
‘Safe? Safe?’ And the crow laughed, a terrible cackle. Per had pinned her wings to her side and she did not struggle, but the moment he set her back on his shoulder, she leapt from him. With two flaps of her wings, she was up and then arrowing toward the red dragon. ‘I come, I come, I come!’
‘As you will,’ Per said sadly. ‘Likely she is right. There is no safety here for her. Or us.’
The great blue dragon circled back. As IceFyre had, she announced her name with a roar. ‘Tintaglia!’ she trumpeted. ‘Vengeance! For my eggs stolen and destroyed, for our serpents imprisoned and abused!’ She struck the tower a lashing blow with her tail as she passed. We stared. Nothing happened. And then slowly, slowly the skull tipped back, beheaded from its stone support. It fell, dragging half the damaged tower with it. We heard the distant crash of cascading stones.
‘You spent so many years at Clerres. As a child, you laboured long in the scroll-rooms. Your own dreams were stored there. You feel nothing?’ Prilkop asked quietly.
‘I feel many things right now. Relief is one of them.’ Beloved stared coldly at the falling walls of Clerres Castle. ‘Satisfaction that what was done to me will never happen to another child.’
‘And the children that were in there?’ Prilkop was outraged.
Beloved shook his head. ‘This is the vengeance of dragons. No one can stop it.’ He turned to look at his friend and his voice was terrible. The voice of a prophet. ‘I spent him, Prilkop! I plunged FitzChivalry into death, a dozen times! No one can know what that cost me. No one! This is my future, my path, chosen by me, as the White Prophet of this time! Are you so blind? He and I, we did it all! We brought the dragons back into the world.’ He turned away from all of us. Arms crossed on his chest he shouted, ‘SERVANTS! You made this path! Long before I came into the world, you set us on this rutted route to this future. When you killed and destroyed for your own comfort, when your own wealth and power were all you cared for, this is the path you created! You delayed this reckoning.’ His voice dropped lower and suddenly he was coldly calm. ‘But my Catalyst and I have won. The future is here, and the vengeance is greater than even a prophet could predict.’ His voice, so grand a moment before, cracked and broke as he said, ‘Bought with his death.’
The sea wind blew past him and his pale hair stirred slightly in its passage. I did not have to touch him to see that he had been a nexus. For one instant, all the possible paths that had been shone around him. Then they moved, converging into one bright way before it, too, exploded into a thousand, thousand paths. They dazzled my eyes and I could not look away. But abruptly, he dropped his hands and he was just a slender pale man as he asked on a sob, ‘Do you think I would undo one moment of my Catalyst’s work?’
He knew, as I did, that it all had to end. Beloved was as much the Destroyer as I had ever been. Pull out the deepest root of the weeds. I did not know I was going to do it, but I stepped forward. I took his gloved hand in mine and we stood, staring at Prilkop.
‘Will they destroy the town as well?’ Prilkop whispered in horror.
‘They will,’ Beloved affirmed. Our small party had gathered around and behind him. ‘Prilkop, I see one narrow path for you. Take those you have and flee to the hills. It is all you can do and all I can give you. This is a balancing of the scales that was long in coming.’ He shook his head. ‘It did not begin with me but with the dragons. And the dragons have come to finish it.’
Prilkop looked toward the castle, his hands trembling. With no fear, Beloved went to him and embraced him. He spoke quietly. ‘Only for what you must feel, old friend, I am sorry. Take those you can. Guide them toward a better path.’
‘There were children there,’ Prilkop said brokenly.
‘There were children at Withywoods,’ I reminded him. I did not say I had been one of them.
‘They have done nothing to deserve such punishment!’
‘And my folk were just as innocent!’ Could he not hear what I was telling him?
Per was suddenly beside me, his round face contorted by an anger I’d never seen before. ‘Did my father and grandfather deserve to die so that you could kidnap a girl? Your people erased my mother’s memories of me, so that she denied me and sent me away. Neither of us will ever get past that! Do you understand that when the Servants came to Withywoods, they destroyed my life as well as Bee’s? And now her father is dead, because of what they did!’
I suddenly understood something from a long-ago dream. ‘Did you know that they arranged for nets to be set off Others’ Island, to capture and kill the serpents so that they would die and never become dragons?’
‘But …’ Prilkop began.
Beloved stepped back from him. His voice was harsh. ‘No one deserves to die like that. But very little of what happens to us in life is what we deserve.’
Still the old man stood staring at us pleadingly.
‘Prilkop. Time does not pause. Go.’
Prilkop stared at him as if shocked beyond words. Then he turned, and stumbled away. In a few steps he recovered himself and began a dogged trot. I watched him go. Our companions looked at us questioningly but there was nothing more to add. ‘Boy-O is awake,’ I said quietly. Ant turned and hastened to his side. He was sitting up, but looked worse than he had. Beyond him, out in the water, something moved.
‘What’s that?’ someone demanded, drawing our attention to the other end of the dock.
‘There’s someone in the water!’ Spark cried. All her heart was in her shout, and with no hesitation, she leapt from the dock to swim to the man who clung to a bit of plank and doggedly kicked. We watched her go, some shouting encouragement. She reached him and we saw her take her place beside him on the broken board. They both kicked then, and slowly, slowly they reached a point where Boy-O suddenly cried out, ‘It’s my Da! He’s alive! But where is my mother?’ He staggered to his feet, swayed and then Ant seized his good arm to support him.
‘Brashen Trell,’ Per said. ‘Paragon’s captain.’ His face shone with hope.
Agonizing moments crawled by as they slowly drew closer. The waves pushed them toward us. Boy-O stood, his burned arm held close to his chest, his scorched face full of hope and misery. When they were close enough, Per climbed down to help first Brashen and then Spark to climb out of the water. The moment the man was on the dock, he sank down and Ant lowered Boy-O beside him. The father reached for his son, then drew back, not daring to touch his burned flesh. They both wept as the captain brokenly explained that he had seen Althea briefly when the ship fell apart, but not since. He had been swimming from raft to raft of wreckage, looking for some sign of her, but found nothing. When the wreckage began to drift out of the harbour, he knew he had to try to return to shore before he was carried out with it. Too weary to swim any longer, he had clung to a plank and stubbornly worked his way back to us.
Those who clustered around father and son smiled and wept. Spark, I noticed, isolated herself to sit and weep noisily yet privately. Lant was gone, as gone as Althea and probably others of the crew I had never met and knew nothing about.
When the captain saw the carefully composed body on the dock, he gave an exclamation of both pity and despair, and Boy-O began to weep afresh. ‘I failed, Da. Twice I tried to get through the flames to the figurehead, but the pain drove me back. In the end, it was Kennitsson who saved Paragon from dying. He claimed the Silver from me and ran right into the flames. I heard him screaming but he didn’t stop. He saved our ship.’
The man said nothing to try to comfort Boy-O but just let him weep. The two small dragons that had been his ship were like fluttering ribbons in the sky. Though so much smaller than the other dragons, they were just as intent on the destruction of the castle. He watched them. ‘So many losses,’ he said.
The red dragon rampaged on the ground. The ship’s dragons soon joined her. They were thorough in their destruction, moving methodically from structure to structure. They started at the houses and b
usinesses closest to the causeway. There were no flames. The red dragon spat acid and then, when the structures weakened, turned them to rubble with a blast of her wings or a sweep of her tail. We heard the crashes and the shouts, and the stream of fleeing folk became thicker. Some fled up into the pastures and farmland behind the town; others pushed carts and followed the road that wound up into the hills. I sat on the dock and looked up, past the roofs of the warehouse and fine homes, to the hills beyond. People joined the sheep there and then pushed on, to vanish over the ridgeline.
Slowly, slowly the summer evening waned away. There were no flames to light the night. When IceFyre and Tintaglia had finished with the castle, they joined the smaller ones in a very organized destruction of the city. There was nothing random in what they did. The ruination was as coldly calculated as anything Dwalia or Capra had visited upon me. Mothers fled with their babes in their arms, fathers with small children in barrows or on their shoulders ran past. I watched. This was not justice at work, but vengeance.
Vengeance took no account of innocence or right. It was the chain that bound horrific events together, that decreed that one awful act must beget another worse one that would lead to yet a third. It came to me, slowly, that this chain would never end. Those who survived here would hate dragons and the folk of the Six Duchies and perhaps the Pirate Isles. They would tell tales of this day to their descendants and it would not be understood or forgiven. It would, some day, beget more vengeance. I wondered if that was a thread that was wrapped around every path. I wondered if ever a White Prophet would come who could snap it.
Boy-O suffered from his burns and many of the others from their lesser injuries, but we dared not leave our little spot of safety while dragons walked the streets and flew over the houses. I dozed in the night, when sleep eventually triumphed over fear and discomfort.
In the dawn, I wakened to a place I had never been. Every structure in the town was roofless, with walls cracked and crumbled. The harbour was studded with the masts of sunken wrecks. Of the piers and docks, only ours was left intact. The scene was eerie, lifeless: the streets were empty of people. I wakened because Spark shook my shoulder. I sat up to see the smaller blue and green dragons advancing down the dock. ‘What do they want?’ one of the guards demanded in a shaking voice. Beloved went to him and pushed aside his blade.
