Lords of the Sky

by Angus Wells

  We descended, Deburah and I, and I loosed my buckles and slid from the saddle, only dimly aware of the others landing and dismounting around me.

  Take care.

  That from Deburah, her wondrous head ducking down from the jagged ramparts of a wall to nudge me. I rubbed her cheek and drew the ancient sword Bellek had given me and told her, “Yes. I think I’ll not be very long.”

  I recognized this hall, for all it was now roofless and littered. It was that chamber where Rwyan and I had first been brought to face Allanyn. I saw the corpse of Geran, ruptured by broken stone. There were other faces I remembered, felled by masonry or the bulls’ rage. Across the now-open area I saw Allanyn.

  Her beautiful face was a dreadful sight. It was contorted with a horrid fury that absolutely overcame her inborn fear of dragons. Were the bulls incarnate power, then she was incarnate rage. She stood beneath the shelter of an arch, the way beyond blocked by rubble. She wore a gown of crimson, dusty now and speckled with the blood of the slain. Her lips were peeled back from her white teeth: I saw her gums and could not help but think of a mountain cat brought to bay.

  She screamed, “What have you done? Do you think to live after this?”

  And as she spoke, her hands formed sigils in the reeking air, shaping magic.

  Uselessly, I raised my sword.

  Urt shouted, “We’d bring peace to the world. Shall you listen?”

  Allanyn’s answer was a bolt of power. I’d never seen such occult strength. Save perhaps when I’d witnessed the magic of the Sentinels, which I knew was a thing combined of many sorcerers, drawing on the power of a crystal. I thought to die then, at the beginning. But Rwyan raised her hands and met the blast with a countering gramarye that deflected Allanyn’s magic and sent it, like flood water held by a barrage, around us.

  She gestured again, and Allanyn was flung back, a ragdoll thrown against the fallen stone behind her. Disheveled, faced with the inherent terror of our dragons, still the gifted Changed was defiant. She said, “So. This communion with dragons appears to make you strong; but I’ll contest you to the end.”

  Urt raised a commanding hand. “We’d not fight you, Allanyn, save you force us to it. But you shall hear us out!” His voice was clear and loud; it held a plea and a promise.

  Allanyn’s response was no less impressive.

  She picked herself up from the rubble and smoothed her gown. She looked up, eyes casting slowly around the ravaged walls where our dragons perched. All fear seemed drained out of her now: she surveyed those terrifying faces with only contempt.

  Greater still was the contempt she turned on Urt. “Tell me then, traitor.” Her voice was a challenge. “Tell me how you shall bring peace when all you offer is fear. Shall we bow our heads to you now? Swear fealty to your dragons?”

  Urt ignored the disdain in her voice. “We’d end this dream of war that can only bring suffering to all our people. Must we use the dragons, then so be it, for we’ve no better answer. But better that fear a while than what you’d bring. We’d make a lasting peace—a new world, without Truemen masters or Changed servants, neither Sky Lords in lust of conquest or Dhar in fear of invasion. We’d build a new order, in which all have a place and a part. And when that’s wrought, the dragons shall return to Tartarus. So—shall you join us in that? Shall you seek not to shed your people’s blood but only aid them?”

  Allanyn brushed red hair from her face. “So you find your true calling, Urt. A lapdog to these Truemen! Think you you can win? Shall you turn over so many lifetimes of suffering? Shall your dragons make the Changed forget the oppression of Truemen? Shall you persuade the Ahn to forget that the Dhar drove them from their Homeland?”

  Urt said, “No. Those things are writ in blood; they were done—right or wrong—and cannot be forgotten. But what you intend is no different. Only a new oppression. What we’d build is a new world.”

  Allanyn laughed at that.

  Urt gestured at we who stood silent beside him. “I am Changed,” he said. “Rwyan is a sorcerer of Dharbek. You know Daviot for a Storyman. Tezdal is Kho’rabi. We—all of us—are joined in this purpose. Can you not take that as pledge of union and join us? It should be better so.”

  Allanyn snarled and flung fresh magic at us. Rwyan dismissed it with a gesture that was almost casual.

  She did not this time throw the Changed mage down, but rather seemed to bind her with occult chains that leached out Allanyn’s own power. Allanyn stood a moment shaken, an expression of disbelief on her lovely, ugly face. Then she drew a dagger from the folds of her gown and sprang, cat-quick, at Rwyan.

  I leaped forward, but Tezdal was far swifter: his was the sword that struck the blow aside. Allanyn’s blade went spinning up, striking the broken stones of the wall, then tumbling bright in the sun down to the stained marble of the hall’s floor. It lay there like a defeated dream.

  Tezdal held back the downstroke of his blade. He turned to Urt and said, “‘Lest my people say it was Truemen alone delivered this fury’?”

  Urt closed his eyes and nodded. I knew he’d no taste for this: of all of us, I think he was the gentlest. But still he drew his sword—I’d not then noticed he’d left it sheathed—and brought it up high above his head.

  He said, “I’d sooner it not be this way.”

  Allanyn spat and returned him. “Traitor! Trueman’s lap-dog!”

  He was not expert: he’d no training in swordwork. His blow did not take off Allanyn’s head as he’d intended, but only drove an awful cut between her slim shoulder and her slender neck.

  Allanyn screamed and fell down. Blood rose in a ghastly fountain that sprayed us all. Urt cut again, and she was silent. I felt a dreadful calm and hoped I was not become inured to bloodshed. I looked to my friend and saw him stoop, mouth wide as he spewed.

  It was Tezdal who held him then, and took the antique sword from his hands, and told him, “It was a thing needing to be done. You’d no other choice.”

  I heard Urt groan, “No? Are you sure?”

  It was Rwyan who answered. She stood speckled with Allanyn’s blood, her hair blown wild. She was, I thought, like some goddess of war or justice, come out of the past like the dragons that watched our drama. She said, “Allanyn would have made a worse world, Urt. What you did was for all the Changed who’d live free.”

  Leaning back within the compass of Tezdal’s arms, he turned to face her. He wiped vomit from his mouth. “Are you sure?”

  And she said, “Yes. Allanyn owned your Raethe, and she’d lead your people into a war that none of us, neither Changed nor Dhar nor Ahn, could ever win.”

  I started as I heard hands clapping slow (and mocking?) applause, but it was only Bellek. He said, “That Council exists no longer. Those not slain here were taken by the dragons. I think there are not many Changed left with that power.”

  Urt said, “What of the town? Are the folk there safe?” Bellek said, “Aye. Some flee, but the dragons have not attacked them.” Then he laughed and added, “Yet, at least.”

  We mounted and crossed the lake, bringing utter panic.

  The streets of the town were filled with terrified Changed, those not hiding inside the houses cowering beneath the beating of our wings as we came down to land. I felt disgusted by the pride I felt as I strode down the wide avenues, Deburah strutting behind me, her wings brushing the verandas, her talons gouging ruts from the streets. I felt like some god then, potent in my ability to dispense death or life, knowing that I need only give my lovely mate a word to see all around me destroyed.

  Power corrupts. It’s a heady brew that is hard to resist: I pride myself that I did, for it was a difficult temptation as I watched them cower and felt Deburah’s contempt. But resist it I did, and we found Ayl and a few brave others. They held swords, and I think they’d have fought us had Urt not been with us. Certainly, their expressions were grim—they looked to me like men readying to die.

  As it was, our former jailer saw my Changed comrade come marchi
ng down that fear-struck street with a dragon in tow and stared wide-eyed and gape-mouthed, until Urt called out, “Ayl! I need a sound man here.”

  Then Ayl dropped his sword and fell to his knees and asked what Urt would have him do.

  He was terrified. He would not look at the dragons, and he shuddered and trembled as Urt spoke to him.

  I waited in the street as Urt told him, “Allanyn’s dead; and most of the sorcerers—there shall be no more thought of war. The Sky Lords’ airboats are destroyed, and all of Allanyn’s dreams. Tell the people that, Ayl. Tell them we open the gates of a new world. Tell them to forget the war.” He gestured at the dragons at his back, those circling overhead. “Tell them no harm shall come from these creatures, save the war goes on. Tell them that any attempt to cross the Slammerkin shall be met by these.”

  Kathanria sensed his mood and raised her head supportive. Her jaws gaped wide, displaying those terrible fangs, and she loosed a ferocious cry. I saw folk dart back through doorways. But Ayl, for all he was shuddering with fear, remained.

  Urt said, “There’s a new order coming, Ayl. A new and better world. We Changed shall be no longer servants; neither subject to the gifted. We shall be free and deal as equals with the Truemen and the Sky Lords. This I promise you. Tell the people this.”

  Ayl nodded. I could not help but wonder if it should be so easy. Not even when Rwyan brought Anryäle up alongside Deburah, and found my hand, and told me, “It begins now, Daviot. That peace we dreamed of.”

  Even then, that first battle won, that first step so forcibly taken, I wondered if it could be so.

  We had denied Allanyn’s dream of conquest, aye. But what of the rest? What of Jareth’s dreams? What of the Sky Lords’, Tezdal’s kin? Could we truly force peace on the world?

  I was not sure, but I knew I was committed to that road. I knew that I could not turn back; not now, not with bloodied hands. I knew that only success could cleanse that stain.

  We had provisions of the frightened town and took flight. There was nothing more we could immediately do in Trebizar, nor in Ur-Dharbek, save trust that Allanyn’s bellicose dream was dead with her, and that such good souls as Ayl should bring some order to the chaos we left behind. Later we could return, but now—now we’d new battles to fight, fresh conquests awaiting us. And those to be won before the Sky Lords launched their armada, before Ennas Day. I hoped we came timely, that what we left behind, all we had wrought in Trebizar, not be for nothing.

  As the sun went down and the fires of our coming lit the sky, we flew to those hills that ringed the valley. Our dragons roosted there, calling amongst themselves as we five made camp and laid our plans for the morrow.

  Neither Urt nor Tezdal offered much comment but remained largely silent. They had both seen their own kind slain this day: I wondered how I should feel when we brought our dragons against my own people. I thought that night, as I held Rwyan in my arms and tried to sleep, that I should find out soon enough. It was not a pleasant anticipation. It was made worse by Tezdal’s lonely figure, not sleeping but only sitting staring into the flames.

  The dragons belled in the dawn. They took pleasure of this warmer weather, and I felt their eagerness to fly again, to drive southward to the combat promised there. Their lust enthused me, so that I forgot my doubts (or a part of me forgot them) and I found myself suddenly as eager. I saddled Deburah and mounted with alacrity, lifting her skyward even as the forerunner bulls beat their massive wings and climbed toward the rising sun. We circled once in dread reminder over Trebizar, and then turned away in the direction of the Slammerkin.

  We reached that strait by noon.

  I had never seen the Slammerkin, nor the Border Cities, and I was startled by the size of both. The dividing waterway was vast, far wider than the Treppanek, and I wondered how any Changed succeeded the crossing. I supposed only the most determined—like Urt—could hope to bridge that great expanse. And the Border Cities—they were each of them near large as Durbrecht, like vast fortresses spread all along the southern shore. I felt a pang of alarm then, thinking of the sorcerers in those sunlit towers and the magicks they could throw at us.

  From Deburah, then, I got a sense of calm, of tremendous confidence, an absolute certainty that we should cross this barrier unscathed. That no mortal magic could harm me so long as I sat her back. I hoped she was right: I had no choice but to trust her.

  I watched the cities come rapidly closer. Even had they not already sensed our approach, they must surely see us now—we filled the sky. Squadrons of dragons spread to either side, and more behind. The land and then the water below us was shadowed under our passing.

  They did see us, but no occult blasts were sent against us: as Rwyan had promised, we took them by surprise, and our passing was so swift, the sorcerers there had no time to link and draw on the crystals’ power. We were come and gone fleet as the shadow of a wind-driven cloud on a summer afternoon. We left the Border Cities behind us, our destination Kherbryn.

  That was another proposition entirely: Kherbryn was a citadel, fortified even stronger than Durbrecht; and warned of our approach.

  We were met with magic and, as we closed, those bolts Gahan’s war-engines threw. I saw a bull—a magnificent silver-skinned creature—turned from his path by occult power. It spun him in the bright afternoon light, holding him like a cork tossed on contrary tides, even as he beat his wings and fought to free himself. Before he could, he was struck by a gleaming shaft. His wing was pierced, close to the shoulder. Through Deburah I heard him shriek, less in pain than in rage and wounded pride. I had not seen dragon’s blood be fore: it is red, like yours and mine. It spread along his ribs as he attempted to gain height, but then a second shaft took him full in the chest and killed him. I felt that as I’d never felt a death before. I knew what it was to see a friend die; I knew what it was to put a sword in a man and feel his life spent. But this … I’d not felt this, ever: I shared the outrage of the dragons.

  And even as the great body tumbled from the sky, the horror began.

  The bulls came down like those demons the Church threatens. Even as Deburah—as we, for there was no longer, not then, any difference between us—followed them, I saw two bulls plummet like stooping falcons on the engine that had flung the bolt. One caught it in his hindpaws and lifted it, the soldier-mechanics falling from it like insects shed from a raised carcass. He beat his wings and carried the engine high above the walls. I saw a luckless soldier clinging to the machine, and then falling down as the bull loosed his hold and let the engine drop into the streets below. The other, meanwhile, was landed on the ramparts—I had seen this before, in a dream; but then it had been Kho’rabi knights the dragon snatched and tore and chewed, not Dhar warriors, not soldiers of the Lord Protector’s warband.

  Then I was too close to observe anything more than what Deburah did. What we, locked in our gestalt identity of dragon and Dragonmaster, did. And that was terrible enough: a bull was slain—our wrath must be delivered in full measure, these upstart creatures taught a lesson.

  We swooped low over the ramparts of Kherbryn, slaying as we went. Not pausing but driving on, talons and jaws slashing and snapping, our tail a sweep that dashed men down, screaming, to the stones below. We left only ravaged bodies in our wake. The war-engines were too heavy for us—we left those to the bulls, who left them wrecked. We took the men; like a fox in a chicken coop. We knew only the venting of our fury, and when there were no more left on the walls, we swooped over the city, all of us. Rwyan was there, and one with the dragons’ anger; and Tezdal, and Urt, with Bellek fearsome on Kathanria.

  And when it was done, when Deburah sat in the yard before the Lord Protector’s great palace, and dragons sat like the God’s judgment upon the walls and more hung in the sky above, I climbed from the saddle and became, a little, myself again. Enough that I looked around, and felt my stomach churn, and fell to my knees, and emptied my belly, as Urt had done in Trebizar. And when I rose, telling Deburah that I
could not properly explain why the slaughter should upset me so, I saw Rwyan’s leathers all discolored with vomit, and her face so pale, I thought she must faint.

  She leaned against Anryäle, who radiated the same satisfaction as Deburah, and wiped her mouth, and said, albeit thickly, “We did not think it should be easy, eh?”

  I shook my head, and spat, and answered her, “No. But neither like this.”

  Tezdal said, “This is war. In whatever cause, it is still war, and war is a bloody thing. When we go east, it shall likely be worse.”

  I thought there might be some measure of pride in his voice, or even satisfaction, but I offered him no response, because just then I caught sight of a bull across the yard. He was digging claws between his teeth to dislodge something caught there, and when it came loose, I saw that it was the head of a man, trapped between the fangs by the column of the spine the bull had torn from the body. There was a helmet still locked in place, and from it hung that slender length of linked bones. It fell loose and rolled across the flagstones. I had thought my belly quite emptied, but I managed to vomit again at that.

  It was Urt who helped me up, and his face was drawn as Rwyan’s. He said soft in my ear, “This is not easy, Daviot.”

  I said, “No,” and heard my voice come thick. “I never thought …”

  “Nor I,” he said. “But we can do it. We must, now. Now more than ever. Or it means nothing, any of it.”

  I felt his hand firm on my shoulder and remembered the touch, from Durbrecht. I spat again and ducked my head and told him, “Yes. For all the world.”

  He smiled, and it was not dissimilar to that expression I’d seen on Bellek’s face when he told me of Aiylra’s demise. It was not dissimilar to the smile of the Pale Friend.

  I said, “Then let us do it. But I think it must be hard to fight our way down those long corridors. The palace must be filled with warriors intent on defending Taerl and Jareth both. We could scarce dare hope to win through. Not without terrible carnage.”

  Bellek said, “It should not take long to destroy it—the bulls would welcome it. Or we could send the dragons out to scour the streets until our quarry comes to us.”