by Jen Williams
‘The mages were not the only people to find the power of the old gods disturbing. There were others who thought that one day it would be necessary to stop them. Permanently.’
‘Who were these people?’
Jolnir waved his hand dismissively.
‘Ancients. Under the instruction of a single master they built these tunnels all over Ede. Such an undertaking as extraordinary. A masterwork. They excavated and built, all in secret, for hundreds of years. All that time and all that effort, and they were never used. Such a shame.’
‘Never used? What do you mean, the tunnels were never used?’
‘They were a weapon, my dear Lord Frith. A weapon to be used against the old gods.’
By the time they emerged back into the daylight, Frith’s mood had worsened considerably. Jolnir had, after imparting one impossible piece of information, retreated back to his usual tactic of answering questions with questions. Frith stomped to the edge of the pool, still shouting queries over his shoulder.
‘But who were they? Who ordered it? How does it work?’
Jolnir emerged from the hidden door. Immediately three of the black birds fluttered down to land on his hunched shoulders.
‘There, my lovelies, I wasn’t gone long, was I? Never far from the sky, never far.’
‘Jolnir, it is very important you tell me …’
‘Always full of questions. Come along, I need to give you the word for healing, do I not?’
They made their way back to the mystic’s home in silence, and as Jolnir pottered about inside his hut Frith stood by the fire. One of Jolnir’s assistants, the woman Luggin, was sitting by the embers trying to warm a kettle over the meagre flames.
‘I can help you with that.’
Frith formed a small ball of fire and let it settle gently into the coals. After a moment the fire grew in size, licking the bottom of the battered kettle.
‘There you go …’
To his surprise, Luggin took hold of his wrist, bony fingers gripping like a vice. She stared at him with wide eyes.
‘What is it?’
She pointed to the fire, then back to his hand. The headband around her forehead was slipping and she pushed it back up in one distracted movement.
‘You want to see it again?’
When she nodded, he summoned another ball of fire in his free hand, and she made a shrill noise of delight. There was a rustling from the grasses and, as though called there by some signal Frith couldn’t hear, Muggin and Dobs came shuffling through the grass, their eyes as bright as the female assistant’s.
‘Here.’ Jolnir emerged from the hut with a piece of parchment in his hand. When he saw the three assistants crowded round Frith he chuckled. ‘It appears you have an adoring audience, Lord Frith! Go ahead, show them what you can do.’
Smiling a little, Frith pictured the word for Hold, and there was a collective gasp as a ring of black stones rose from the ground to hover above the fire. Luggin ran her fingers over the strips of fabric hanging from his wrist, murmuring under her breath.
‘It’s almost as if they remember!’ Jolnir came over to the fire and handed Frith the parchment. There was a new word on it, inscribed in black ink. ‘Your healing spell, as promised.’ He drew the stick from his hump and poked Luggin in the midriff. ‘Is this echoing in that empty mind of yours? Does it remind you of something?’
Frith dropped his hand, letting the rocks fall.
‘What do you mean, remember?’
‘You’d think such knowledge would be long gone, but it seems they do recognise Edenier when it’s right in front of them. I always said they wouldn’t know real magic if it bit them on their arses, but it seems I was wrong about that.’
Frith found his eyes were drawn to the headbands worn by Luggin, Muggin and Dobs, and the symbols drawn there. They were familiar, weren’t they? And what sort of names were Luggin, Muggin and Dobs, anyway?
‘Who are they, Jolnir?’
‘Nonsense theories, they used to say. Looking down their noses at me, the only one who knew the truth. Ha!’ There was an edge to Jolnir’s voice now. ‘They’re more use doing my fetching and carrying.’
Frith cleared his throat.
‘The mystics of Whittenfarne, the other ones. That’s who they are, isn’t it? What did you do to them?’
Jolnir waved a stick.
‘Made them more useful, is what I did.’ He poked at Dobs, pushing the bewildered man back a few inches. ‘Just the tiniest touch, is all it took. Such weak minds. I have more knowledge in my fingertip than the lot of you combined!’ His voice was steadily rising, echoing within the bird mask. ‘I have seen things you idiots wouldn’t be able to comprehend! Ridiculous creatures, crawling around in the mud. Trying to make sense of the words of gods!’ Suddenly, he was bellowing. ‘Show them, Frith! Show them what my nonsense has wrought!’
There was an odd frequency to his voice, and for a moment Frith found his hands rising of their own accord.
‘No, I will not. I am no mummer’s dog, jumping through hoops.’
The bird mask swung towards him rapidly, and Frith took a step back.
‘Then I will show the fools myself!’
Jolnir reached under his mask and jerked it up over his head. He threw it down onto the rocky ground, revealing a huge, monstrous bird’s head, nearly identical to the mask he’d discarded, except the eyes were yellow and wet and real, and his razor sharp beak opened to reveal a wrinkled black tongue. With the mask removed he seemed to unfold somehow, his cloak falling away to reveal a pair of enormous black wings. He unfolded further, becoming taller, while his spindly grey arms flexed and stretched. The thing that was Jolnir rolled its head on its shoulders and snapped its beak, apparently relieved to be free of its confinement. He was a good eight feet tall now, and although it was difficult to see his body through the remnants of rags and swathes of feathers, Frith thought he was partly human. Or human shaped, at least.
‘I am O’rin, you idiots!’ cried Jolnir. He bellowed with laughter again, and his birds rose up in attendance around him. Frith edged away.
A god? How could a god be here?
Muggin and Dobs were cowering in the dirt, while Luggin was already running, heading for the distant black hills.
‘The god of lies,’ muttered Frith in amazement.
‘Well done, my lad,’ said O’rin. It was unnerving to hear that voice coming from a face with no lips. The eyes rolled towards him in approval. ‘You see? This one listens. I am the last old god, the only one not stupid enough to fall for the mages’ trap, although what use is that, I ask you? The magic all gone, my brothers and sisters trapped, and the world all full of foolish little people like you.’ He pointed at the mystics with one grey finger. ‘I hid away, and over the years I became smaller, less powerful. I watched as the Edenier drained from this world, and there was nothing I could do about it. Although that’s not quite the case any more.’
Frith was already moving, already trying to remember the swiftest direction back to the shore, but O’rin was faster. His hand shot down and grasped Frith by the shoulder, squeezing tight.
‘One last taste, my young student. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.’
The strength dropped from Frith’s legs in one sickening wave. He fell to the ground, trying to pull away from O’rin’s grip even as his vision faded and started to turn dark at the edges. The last thing he saw as the rocks came up to meet him was the swirling of soot-black feathers.
58
The attack came just after lunch.
The Sea King’s Terror and The Briny Wolf were skirting the coast of Relios, looking for a place to go ashore. Jarath, who had sailed this section of the Creos Sea many times, claimed that the cliffs softened the further south you went, and that there was a small fishing village called Lockey’s Rock where they could stop and take on supplies.
Wydrin wondered if Lockey’s Rock was still standing. From the patches of thick black smoke they’d seen inlan
d it was likely to be a smouldering ruin by now.
‘How’re you going to find him, Wyd?’
She sat with her brother on the deck, chairs either side of an upturned barrel. They had some hard black bread, half a wheel of strong cheese and a chunk of salted pork between them. The food made her think of her mother, who had provided similar fare on her infrequent visits. She sipped weak mead from a battered tin cup.
‘He’ll be there, somewhere. I’ll just look for the biggest source of trouble.’ She paused, smiling slightly. That was what Sebastian had always said about her, of course. Jarath did not look amused; his normally cheerful face was pinched with worry.
‘Sure, and the biggest source of trouble is a bloody great dragon. I don’t like it, Wydrin. I know you and Sebastian are friends …’
‘He is like a brother to me. A brother that doesn’t whine as much as my real brother.’
Jarath sighed.
‘He wouldn’t have wanted you to go and put yourself in danger like this.’
‘You’re talking about him like he’s dead already.’ She said it lightly, but once the words were out she realised she couldn’t take them back. Jarath just looked at her, and she knew well what that look said. She turned away from him and cut a thick slice from the pork.
‘You worry too much,’ she said eventually. She held up her hands around three feet apart. ‘I was this close to the dragon before and I survived. The Copper Cat is a hard creature to kill.’
‘Yes, when you had your lordling there to whisk you away.’
‘That is nonsense and you know it.’ Wydrin shifted in her chair, more annoyed than she wanted to admit. She should never have told Jarath about any of it. Of course he would see it that way, the idiot. ‘Frith caused more trouble than he solved.’
‘I always thought that was your sort of thing.’
Wydrin shot her brother a poisonous look, and drank down the rest of her mead.
‘We’re here now, Jarath. I’m going to find Sebastian, and you’re not going to talk me out of it.’
He raised both hands, admitting defeat, but she could see from the lines on his face that he was still annoyed with her.
‘And what about your stinky friend? You’d better be taking him with you when you go.’
Wydrin stood up, wiping greasy fingers on her trousers.
‘I will. Don’t worry, we’ll be out of your hair soon.’
With that she turned and left, heading for the belows. It was a cold, bright day, the sky streaked with thin white clouds all pointing to the east. A chill wind was blowing, pushing them ever closer to the coast. It’s always the same with family, Wydrin reflected. You spend your life consumed with guilt that you’re letting them down somehow, and then when you meet up with them you can’t wait to get away again.
Down in the belows, Gallo was seated in the dark. The oil lamp had gone out some time ago and he hadn’t bothered to relight it. In the light from the doorway he looked like a dishevelled corpse propped upright in a chair, until he wearily lifted his head in greeting and bared his teeth in what Wydrin assumed was supposed to be a smile.
‘Come to check on your stowaway?’
‘We’re nearly there.’ Wydrin paused in the doorway. She wasn’t sure why she’d come down here at all. Perhaps she wanted to see a friendly face, although she doubted Gallo counted as that any more; his face was more likely to cause nightmares. ‘Do you eat? I mean, do you still eat?’
Gallo shrugged.
‘I can put food in my mouth and swallow, if that’s what you mean. Can’t really taste it any more – or at least, the tastes don’t appear to matter. Does that make sense?’
‘Not really.’
‘When I first crawled my way out of the Citadel and realised I was free of Y’Ruen, I went straight to a tavern. It was being looted at the time, so I found a crate of wine and started drinking. Good, Istrian wine it was, rich and dark.’ He coughed, a dry rattle in his chest. ‘I drank the entire crate, one bottle after another. I wanted to get to that stage of drunk where you can’t remember your own name. I wanted to erase the memory of everything that had happened inside that damned place, but no matter how much I drank, I stayed sober. I started to feel bloated and strange, yet even my stomach wouldn’t heave it up. I was inert.’ Gallo shrugged. ‘I can’t get drunk, and I derive no pleasure from food.’
Wydrin frowned.
‘That sounds awful.’
‘It is,’ agreed Gallo. ‘I hope there will be an end to it soon. You say we are close?’
‘There’s a fishing village not far from here. We’ll put in there, then you and me and no doubt the two sell-sword idiots from The Briny Wolf will see what the situation is in Relios. That’s assuming—’
A series of shouts from above caught the words in her throat. A ship was always ringing with shouted commands, but these were tinged with panic. She lifted her head, listening for them to come again.
‘Dragon!’ came the call. ‘’Tis a bloody dragon!’
Wydrin shot back up the stairs, with Gallo close on her heels. When she reached the deck she saw men and women running for the port side. She joined them, her heart in her throat. At first she could see nothing, just the same rugged cliffs they’d been sailing along for days, and then a huge, graceful shape appeared above the rocks. It was the dragon, sleek and fast and impossibly big. The wings alone would dwarf The Sea King’s Terror, and the long tail tapered to a wicked point. Her dark blue scales glittered under the sun like a wall of sapphires. She banked, throwing up one fibrous wing and turning back inland. Wydrin felt a puff of wind brush against her face, and was certain it was from the dragon’s passing. They saw her for perhaps five or six seconds, and then she was out of sight.
The crew stood, stunned, on the decks. Wydrin spotted Jarath to her right, and grabbed hold of his arm. Now they were here and they had seen the beast, it felt like they were sitting targets.
‘I think we should move,’ she said quietly. When he didn’t respond she tugged sharply on his sleeve. ‘Get the ships out further into the water and keep our heads down.’
He looked at her then, his eyes very white and wide.
‘Let’s do that,’ he said. He began shouting orders to his crew, and signals were passed to The Briny Wolf. Wydrin felt the ship turning under her feet, and she allowed herself some small measure of relief. Gallo was standing next to her, his eyes riveted to the horizon.
‘Do you think it’ll come back?’
Gallo didn’t answer. When she touched his elbow she found he was trembling slightly all over; it made her think of a mouse caught under the gaze of a hungry cat, too terrified to run. Wydrin glanced over to The Briny Wolf and caught sight of Draken and Errine on the deck, pointing excitedly at the horizon. They’re pleased, at least, she thought, although she had no idea what they hoped to achieve against such a creature.
She grabbed one of the men bustling past her.
‘Hoy, Bill! Do you have bows? Any weapons like that?’ She already knew The Sea King had no cannons; such weaponry slowed down a raider.
Bill had gone very pale under his bristling beard.
‘Aye, we keep a few in the armoury. Don’t get used much, ’cause the damp tends to warp the wood.’
‘Get them,’ said Wydrin. ‘Bring them all up here. We don’t know—’
There was an ear-splitting roar. Wydrin felt every hair stand on end, and for a moment she was the mouse too terrified to move. The dragon appeared once more over the edge of the cliffs, her giant maw open to reveal row upon row of jagged, yellow teeth. Wydrin thought she could have counted every one, if she’d had a mind to.
‘Don’t come over here,’ she whispered. ‘Just carry on with your business, no need to take any notice of us.’
But the dragon turned again and with a few flaps of her enormous wings she was heading straight for them.
‘Arrows!’ screamed Wydrin. ‘Whatever you’ve got, fire it up there!’
The dragon swooped down ac
ross the water, dragging the end of its tail across the tips of the waves. The enormous head lowered for a moment, and for one absurd second Wydrin thought Y’Ruen was just having a drink, and then the terrible jaws opened and a gout of blood-coloured flame exploded forth.
‘Take cover!’ came several cries from around the deck. The initial fireball passed harmlessly between the two ships, rousing a hot wave of steam in its wake. Y’Ruen flew back up into the air until she was poised directly above them. Somehow Wydrin found Jarath amongst the chaos.
‘How fast can you move this ship?’
‘I’ve men on every oar.’
They both tensed as the dragon roared again. There was a hollow clatter as a handful of arrows struck the creature’s scales and bounced harmlessly away, and then Y’Ruen opened her mouth and another boiling column of flame shot down, right into the centre of The Briny Wolf.
Wydrin heard her brother shouting, heard the screams of the men and women on the other ship. She elbowed her way to the side rail and watched as the smaller ship was engulfed in flames. The sails went up first, like a ragged set of orange flags, and soon the deck was alight too. Men and women ran from the fire, some of them with their hair and clothes already catching, while others were blackened figures, lost to the inferno. She saw that Draken and Errine were still there, and she thought Errine had produced a cross-bow. Others were already abandoning ship.
‘We have to get out of here,’ she cried to no one in particular.
The dragon circled once more, a sinuous shape in the heavens, and dived at the smaller ship. The bulk of the monster obscured her view, but when Y’Ruen rose again Draken was nowhere to be seen, and the dragon’s teeth were working busily. Its jaws snapped and its neck pulsed, just like a heron eating a particularly large fish. There was a moment’s pause as the creature finished its meal before unleashing another blast of flame at The Briny Wolf. This time there was no space untouched by fire, and within seconds the ship was reduced to a fiercely burning bonfire. The dragon circled above them, triumphant.
‘Fetch the ropes,’ said Jarath. ‘Get those people out of the water.’
