Another audible gasp and moan rose from the crowd, and that was it for Grav’nan’s cool. He jumped off his dais and grabbed me where my bicep would be if I had one. The man was like a hundred and sixty years old, but he dragged me squirming back to where Korda and the guards stood. He was screaming, red in the face.
“Get this miserable creature out of my sight lest I do something to offend the Dragon Lords!”
He threw me to the ground at their feet, and my knees hit hard. I cried out in pain and looked up at Korda. Her face was all kinds of confused.
“Rinby knew!” I shouted. “She had secret data about the dragon trap. Now she’s dead, and Grav’nan stopped the investigation!” But who was listening anymore? I had fucked up my chance, and now Davix would pay the price.
The Prime Magistrate screamed down at me. “You are the poison that has infected our land! And worse, you have infected a youth of great promise. D’gada-vixtet’s life is ruined thanks to you.”
I tried to catch a glimpse of Davix through my tear-filled eyes, but surrounded by a forest of legs and robes, I couldn’t see anything. I felt like I was alone at the bottom of a well, looking up at all these faces, and no one was going to throw me a rope before I drowned. Below us in the city, bells started ringing.
Grav’nan spun around to face the crowd, his robe slapping me in the face like this was a bad comedy.
“We have lost our way!” he called to his People. “This miserable creature is right. Sarensikar will close, but until this poison is expelled from our realm, the fog will not lift. We will be a People without peace and balance, lost in the obfuscating mist.”
I craned my neck around him to see how the crowd was taking all this, and what I saw was a couple hundred people gone silent in shock, all looking our way. But they were looking past us. Something was very wrong. I got to my feet, and me, Grav’nan, Korda, and the guards turned in unison and watched as a man lurched into the courtyard from the direction of the gate.
He was still on his feet, but barely. The skin of his chest and arm was shredded and bloody, his shirt in tatters. He stopped moving and fell to his knees. Korda pulled out her knife and stepped into a wide-legged stance, eyes scanning the square.
“We are attacked,” the wounded man said, his gasping voice piercing the silence. “Air!”
And that’s when the thing literally dropped into our lives. And it was all kinds of WTF, like the wrongpunch line got attached to a joke. It jumped from the wall of the Citadel, landing gracefully on the stone courtyard. What was it? It was shaped like a human and dressed like one, in red and black leather. But its face wasn’t human. It was a cat’s face—and not a sweet, meme cat. No, it was scarred, one ear half chewed off, patches of brindle fur missing. And the sight of those pissed-off, alley cat eyes sitting on top of a human-shaped body was so intensely wrong, I wanted to throw up.
The cat stared at us all, pinning us in place like we were hypnotized, and spoke in a voice that was never built for the beauty of the Tongue of Fire.
“so so. too late for humans, too late for dragons. the time of triumph and blood is now NOW.” And then in one quick motion, it lifted the wounded man up by his hair and slashed open his throat with its claws. A geyser of blood hit the stones with a wet slap.
Chapter 36: We Are All Lost in the Fog
As the dead man crashed face first into his own spilled blood, I could hardly pick out my own scream from the general wail of terror. In fact, everything that happened in the next few minutes was the action of a crowd reacting as one big, frightened animal. No actual thinking seemed possible in that fog of shock. I only knew I had to get somewhere safe. I scrambled over unnamed obstacles, not stopping to wonder if some of them were people.
The world of order had collapsed into incoherent flashes of horror: running feet, straining hands, wild eyes, and cat soldiers. More and more of them dropping from the walls. How many were there? Three? Eight? Twenty? They were vicious and efficient, and almost defied gravity as they leaped and slashed, corralling us toward the middle of the courtyard.
Air! the dead man had said. This was an attack from the Realm of Air! Was this Grav’nan’s doing? Did he bring these monsters here?
And then I heard Grav’nan’s voice, shrieking above the chaos. “Leave this realm, beasts of heresy! There is no place for you in the DragonLaw!” Defence of Realm guards were pulling him to the ground, protecting him with their bodies. But if these cats were part of his plan, why did he seem so shocked?
“Form a line! Attack stance,” Korda called. “Weapons ready, await my command!”
Yes! Defence of Realm was going to save us! Two guards attacked a cat soldier, stabbing at it with spear and knife. But the unarmed cat tossed one aside like she was a toddler and leaped at the other, tearing his throat out with its teeth.
Then my name being called.
By Davix.
In all that spinning mayhem, he was still hung by his hands, face against the pole. Before I could think better of the plan, I was racing to him, shouting his name, Grentz suddenly running beside me.
“Get him down. I’ll defend you both,” Grentz shouted, pulling off his scarf and loading a stone into it to make an improvised weapon.
“Help me!” Davix screamed, twisting his neck sideways to find me. I wrapped my arms around him from behind. The sweat of his bare back soaked my face as I heaved him upward so he could free his hands. We strained and squirmed, and I wished I’d taken Altman’s advice and worked out sometimes, but then suddenly Davix was free, tumbling to the ground on top of me.
“Are you okay? Are you okay?” I shouted, as he climbed off me, as if any of this could be okay.
“Grentz, don’t!” Davix screamed. Grentz was swinging at a cat soldier with his useless weapon. It was the first cat, the nasty brindle that had started this chaos. The cat-man dodged each swipe of the scarf weapon without apparent effort, toying with Grentz, taunting him.
“weak and slow is the realm of fire,” it hissed. “living for luxury instead of war.”
And then with a lazy, savage blow, it toppled the sweet, strong boy. Time slowed to a crawl as an arc of blood rose high in the air, shining in a sliver of light that had pierced the fog like a slice of hope, even as Grentz’s body fell backward and hit the ground with an ugly thud. The cat licked its bloody hand with a mottled pink tongue. Davix and I huddled on the ground and held each other, our breath a single pumping bellows.
“Don’t move, don’t move,” Davix whispered. I could feel him shaking. Or was it me?
Screams and the clang of metal. The smell of iron hanging on the air like a bloody nose. To our left, I saw that three guards had killed a cat, and for the first time in my life, I felt the satisfaction of violence.
“Kill them! Kill them all!” I screamed.
A sickening change in air pressure made my ears pop and my stomach flip. The fog-shrouded sky, already blood-red with sunset, suddenly got darker. Every human and beast in the courtyard of the citadel went silent as a dragon appeared over the high stone walls, roaring like a volcano.
It was nothing like the dragons of Farad’hil. It dwarfed any of them in size and sickness. Its legs were long like a horse’s. But there were too many. I counted four legs on one side and three on the other, legs that ended not in hooves, but in talons like a raptor. The dragon’s body and wings were more bone than flesh, shining bone over which rippled a flowing skin made of wind and smoke. The dragon was a storm front of screaming tornados, and we were the trailer park going down in its path.
Then it saw me.
“IT IS AS RRRRHAARSS THE GROOOOM OF FIRE SHUUUUHARRRRR THE BLOODBONE KESSSSSSSRSSSSS.”
The dragon’s voice was part of the wind that surrounded it, a modulated shriek inside a deafening howl. The language it spoke was some ugly cousin of the Tongue of Fire, but even if I didn’t understand every word, I knew the dragon was talking to me as it moved my way.
“Help us!” Davix called, and Korda and three guards
broke off from the battle to run our way. Cat soldiers leaped between us and our rescuers, holding them off.
“Begone, creatures of Air!” Korda screamed at them. “This land belongs to the dragons of Farad’hil!” And while I really applauded the sentiment, our rescuers couldn’t get past the cats. The wind grew louder and a shadow gathered above us as the dragon of Air drifted closer.
Korda and her guards could barely stand in the rising wind, much less fight. Above the howl, I heard her yell, “Retreat!” and she and her guards did.
“No!” Davix cried. “Come back!”
Hunching low against the wind, the claws of their feet gripping the paving stones, the cats too backed away as the dragon floated over us on its portable tornados, one mighty talon opening. I could have yelled like Davix was yelling, but something was already happening inside me. I was abandoning myself to my fate. Abandoning myself as I had when I agreed to this whole trip to the Realm of Fire to be the Dragon Groom, as I had when I’d opened myself up to love with Dražen and Altman, and finally with Davix. No regrets about that last one.
As the dragon descended, I let go of Davix’s hand and roughly shoved him aside. I crawled up the steps of the stage and struggled to my feet, arms wide, confronting my fate alone. It was me the dragon wanted. It would just kill Davix.
The claws circled around me and squeezed, the sharp edges cutting into my flesh, the pressure forcing the breath from my lungs. Everything was wind, blinding me, howling like a hundred mocking voices. Helpless mouse that I was, the dragon of Air carried me off into the sky.
PART V
War
Chapter 37: The Net Closes
“X’risp’hin!”
The dragon of Air was clearing the walls of the Citadel and already vanishing into the fog, the Dragon Groom in its talons. Yet Davix raced up the steps, as if he could still pull his fleshmate free from the grip of fate. He tripped on the last step and crashed to the floor of the stage, trying to cushion his fall with his hands still tied together.
Turning on his back, straining to see in the dimming twilight, Davix again cried, “X’risp’hin!” Nothing made sense. He was back on the stage where he had only minutes earlier been a prisoner, his life shattered, like a clay pot dropped in a moment of clumsy inattention. That story already felt like a piece of another lifetime.
“X’risp’hin!” he called a third time, rising to his knees and reaching his bound hands into the gloom. A pair of strong arms circled him and dragged him down the steps, into the shadows against the stage wall.
“Stay down, you fool!” Stakrat hissed in his ear. “The cats attack out of nowhere, at any time.” Davix snapped out of his delirium, waking into a nightmare of terrified screams and running feet.
“We have to save X’risp’hin,” he moaned, struggling to get free of her.
“We have to not die first, okay? Now hold still.” Stakrat unsheathed her knife and sawed through the rope that bound his hands. “Remain here and let Defence of Realm handle this.”
She left him clinging to the shadows, shaking, trying to stay as small as he could. But after a minute, during which every cry from the People made his heart jump, he knew he couldn’t just hide. He peeked around the corner of the stage and saw Grentz lying out in the open, vulnerable to attack. Davix knew if he stopped to consider his actions, he would lose his nerve, so he scrambled from his hiding place on hands and feet until he was crouched beside his friend.
“Grentz! It’s okay, I’m here.” Grentz lay crumpled, one arm twisted under him, the other flung across his face. Davix turned him over, and the words of comfort died on his lips. Grentz’s eyes were open, unfocussed, his face white but for the sticky clot of dark blood at his temple.
A passage from the DragonLaw flashed through Davix’s mind. “When the spirit leaves the body to journey beyond the realms, all that remains is the lonely flesh, an empty gesture, tribute and reminder.”
He had to clamp both hands over his mouth to keep from screaming. It was too much to bear. He wanted to curl up and let the sobs and tremors wrack his body, but he dragged Grentz’s body, panting and cursing, until they were back in the shadows by the stage.
Again, he lost track of time. When he returned to himself, the Citadel had gone quiet. Only low whispers and moans drifted across the air. In the glow of torches, he saw guards armed with knives, spears, and bows, standing in a rough circle to protect the stunned People who were huddled together in the centre of the courtyard.
Davix rose from his hiding place and caught Kriz’mig’s eye. Hunched like she was hurrying through a hailstorm, she ran to him. Her hair had come loose from its clips and fallen into her smudged face. The silk of her clothing was torn at the elbows and knees.
She saw Grentz’s corpse and burst into tears. Davix held her, asking, “Are those cats gone?”
“No. They’re up on the walls, pacing back and forth, watching us.” He looked up and caught glimpses of glowing, yellow eyes. A shiver passed through him. Kriz’mig led him away from Grentz’s body, and they joined the People, a few hundred sitting stony-faced or crying, hugging their friends or their own drawn-up knees. Some nodded to Davix, but some just stared into the distance with empty eyes.
“What’s happening down in the city?” he asked, and a woman named Dral’gofrin answered. She had taught him how to tie knots as a child.
“We heard screams. There might be fighting. But the mixed beings are down there. I’m sure they will defeat the invaders.”
“Unless the cats have killed them,” a man said. He was holding a blood-soaked rag to his arm.
Davix shook his head. “That’s impossible. Even five of those horrors couldn’t defeat a bidahéna. Has anyone sent word to Farad’hil?”
The man said, “The grace books have gone dark. And if any kingsolvers were dispatched, we haven’t seen them.” Davix realized this man was the guard who had been tasked with beating him. The man’s ceremonial hat and veil were now discarded, and he looked ridiculous in his shiny copper gown, like a child playacting.
A cry rose from the crowd as a cat leaped from the wall. The guards all whirled and raised their knives.
“Wait!” Korda yelled. “Do not strike without my orders.”
The cat didn’t even acknowledge her or her guards. It paraded itself in front of the frightened people, waving a clawed paw and hissing.
“now now the humans know their flesh is soft, their dragons too weak to protect them.” It was the cat that had appeared first and started all this terror. Davix recognized the voice, though he had been tied to the pole with his back to the action. It lunged at a woman holding her infant, and she screamed. The cat hissed in contempt and pulled back without striking, strutting in front of the cowering humans.
From the centre of the group, Grav’nan-dahé leaped to his feet.
“Creature of Air! Beast who knows not the meaning of balance! Return to your realm before you are destroyed. You are nothing beside the beauty and majesty of our sacred DragonLaw and the Dragon Lords who love us.” The cat stared his way and hissed a warning, but Grav’nan-dahé continued. “Does it pain you and your grotesque dragons to see the beauty of our realm? Do you envy the contentment of our lives?”
Davix watched with fascination. If the cat killed the Prime Magistrate, would he mourn, after all that had happened? What duty did he still owe to the teacher who had banished him?
Korda hurried to Grav’nan-dahé. “Prime Magistrate. I must ask you sit down. Do not provoke the enemy.”
“I will stand,” he shouted back. “I am the living representative of the law, and I will not be silenced by twisted blasphemies from across the strands!” At first he had seemed calm, but now Davix heard the hysterical quaver in his voice.
Up on the walls, the cats were still squatting, as if ready to pounce. Davix stood quickly and walked a crooked path through the frightened People until he stood beside Grav’nan-dahé.
He grabbed his arm. “Old man, do as Korda says.”
The Prime Magistrate turned to him with an indignant frown, but when he saw it was Davix, his face twisted in confusion, and he did indeed look old and weak.
“Personally,” Davix whispered into his ear, “I don’t care what happens to you, but the People need your leadership. Besides, the grace books are dead. Your final speech won’t even end up in the DragonLaw.”
Teacher and acolyte stared into each other’s faces like they were grappling, seeing who would surrender first. After a long moment, Grav’nan-dahé allowed himself to be helped back down to the paving stones.
The cat slapped his paws on his leather vest. “smart smart is the old man, no longer holy, his claws torn out. all humans will be silent and await their orders. new destiny, new lords, yes yes.”
When the beast left, Davix toured the miserable crowd. Someone gave him a handful of dried fruit, and he ate gratefully. Back near the greenward wall, a makeshift hospital was being set up to treat those wounded in the attack. There he found two of the younger apprentices from Atmospherics sitting with an injured friend.
“Davix,” said one, jumping to his feet. “Are you all right?”
“None of us are all right, Zent’r. But I’m as well as can be expected.”
The other apprentice said, “We’re sorry for what happened to you. Before, I mean. With Grav’nan-dahé. That wasn’t just. That wasn’t balance.”
Davix was amazed how young they looked. He was only two cycles older, but he could barely remember what it felt like to be that age.
He put an arm around the boy’s thin shoulders. “Who is to say, at a time like this, what justice looks like?”
A woman from Health and Healing, her clothes bloody and her eyes red, asked Davix and the boys to help carry the seven people who had died in the attack to a makeshift morgue in a corner of the courtyard. The long silence that accompanied this grim parade was suddenly broken by the sound of a large crowd approaching from below. Within seconds, everyone was on their feet, straining to see what was happening.
The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood Page 25
