by Jen Williams
Frith glanced up at her, his white hair flapping like a flag in a storm.
‘Litvania coming up!’
It was true. A great dark mass was speeding towards them now, and already she could see the trees crowded on the coast.
‘Let’s get this bitch where she needs to be.’
The dragon roared again, and without Wydrin having to tell it to, the griffin banked sharply to the right, so fast her stomach surged up under her throat. She looked out along the sharp point of its tapered wing and saw that they had fallen back alongside Y’Ruen, the great vast bulk of her stomach so close that she could have reached out and touched it if she wanted. She grinned. This griffin was her kind of animal.
‘Under we go!’
Holding her sword directly above her head, she nudged the griffin and they swept under the dragon’s belly, scoring a fine line across the creature’s shining scales. An answering roar and Y’Ruen twisted in the air, jaws snapping, but they were already speeding ahead once more. She caught up with Frith, who was throwing orange balls of fire over his shoulder towards the beast.
‘Do you have to do that?’ he shouted. ‘It’s annoyed enough as it is.’
‘We want to keep her interested don’t we?’
‘I suspect we’ve done that.’ Frith kept looking back. ‘I think it’s the Edenier that’s drawing her on now – she wants to know where it’s coming from.’
‘Either way, we’re here.’ Wydrin pointed. The sea had given away to the forests of the Blackwood, and in the distance there was a walled town. Frith had the maps memorised, but she recognised Pinehold well enough. She’d helped to blow half of it up, after all. ‘Get ready.’
Dreyda left the temple at a run, her arms still full of the ceremonial incense papers she intended to burn that evening. The roar had shaken the very stones of the building, causing a fine layer of dust to drift down from the ceiling onto the pews and the townspeople sitting there.
Sometimes in Relios the earth itself would shake, causing huge cracks in the ground and a flurry of newly devoted worshippers to the temples, but she had never heard of such a thing happening in Litvania. Besides which, this roar sounded as though it were coming from the sky.
She looked up, squinting into the sunshine, dimly aware of other people doing the same. At first all she saw were birds, lots and lots of them flying madly in all directions as though they didn’t know where to get to first, and then something huge flew into view, casting an enormous shadow over the town.
Dreyda dropped the papers, and they danced around her feet in the sudden wind caused by the dragon’s wings. She felt very small, very small indeed, and she remembered the man who had been looking for Sebastian. The man with blond hair and grey skin, and what had he said to her? Relios is burning, and all the tales are true.
‘What is it?’ Alice was clutching at her elbow. ‘What is it?’
‘You can see what it bloody well is,’ she snapped, wrenching her arm out of the younger woman’s grasp. ‘Get everyone back inside before we’re all—’
The ground shook again, and this time it was so violent that Dreyda struggled to stay upright.
‘Get inside! Everyone, go back inside your houses!’
Light leapt up from the cobbles beneath her feet, light so bright that it was like suddenly being struck blind. Dreyda felt her arms rising towards the sky of their own accord, as though she were being dragged up with the beams. Time, she thought, time passing and moving us forever onward, like a river you can never swim against or a tide that will always crush you against the shore …
The light vanished. Dreyda fell to the ground, scraping her knees painfully against the cobbles. The incense papers were all burning, sending up slim swirls of smoke that smelled of cinnamon and scorpion oil.
‘By all the gods …’
The dragon flew off to the North, its long tail flicking. Dreyda watched it go with the smell of smoke in her nostrils, muttering the words for Peace and Protection, over and over.
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Frith slumped forward on the griffin, pitching dangerously over to one side.
‘Woah! Stay with me now, princeling!’
Urging her own mount as close as she dared, Wydrin reached across and gave Frith’s arm a shake. The dragon was reeling too, curling in on itself like a snake poked with a stick, and she estimated that they had no more than a few seconds of safety before it was back on their heels. She shook Frith again, and he groaned, his eyelids flickering.
‘Get offa me …’
‘Frith, wake up! We have to get to the Horns.’
He sat up straighter. Wydrin was relieved to see some sense starting to return to his face.
‘It worked?’
‘It’s definitely doing something.’ There was a pressure in the air that wasn’t there before, some sort of gathering force pushing down on her eardrums and making it difficult to focus. The sky was full of magic.
‘Just twice more,’ said Frith. It sounded as though he were trying to convince himself as much as her. ‘Two more words to go and then I can rest.’
She squeezed his shoulder, fixing his grey eyes with her own.
‘We can do it.’
They flew on, and with a roar and a blast of flame, the dragon followed.
Things started to go wrong when he realised he recognised their faces.
Sebastian knocked another blade out of his path and buried his sword in the belly of the brood soldier in front of him. She vomited blood over his arm and looked up, her forehead creased into an expression of confusion and pain, and her eyes widened slightly. She started to say something, but Sebastian dragged his sword free again and blood gushed from the wound in a flood that soaked his boots. Sebastian frowned. What could she have been trying to say? And more importantly, why did he feel like he knew her?
The battle raged on around him. There were piles of bodies from both sides now, and half the fight was getting to the enemy to kill them. The knights that were left were starting to tire, and wherever he looked he saw faces strained with exhaustion and fear. How much longer could this go on for? Would he be left to defeat the brood army alone?
‘You could fight on for ever, if I let you,’ Bezcavar whispered in his ear.
‘For ever?’
‘You will be a god of war.’ Sebastian could see Ip from the corner of his eye now, a slip of whiteness against the carnage. ‘Forget the armour, I can make you the vessel of pain. I will craft you as the armour was crafted, and all the suffering you bring will make me more powerful.’
‘To fight for ever …’
Another face loomed in front of him, and for a second he thought he knew her – how could they have met before? And then the feeling was gone. Sebastian’s sword crashed against the brood soldier’s blade almost lazily, and as he forced it away he noticed that she was different to her sisters. The golden scaled armour was patched over here and there with pieces of different fabric; a strip of grey wool, a swatch of crimson cotton slung over her shoulder. Hanging from her belt were other incongruous objects; a seashell, a tiny wooden doll with a painted face, a hairbrush with half its needles missing. There was something strapped to her back too. Sebastian thought it might be a book.
‘Father?’ she said.
For the first time on that endless day Sebastian stumbled, his sword flying wide of its target. He was open on his left side and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to take him down, but the brood soldier didn’t move. She was lowering her sword.
‘Father?’
‘What?’ Sebastian knew her voice too. Over her shoulder other brood soldiers were pausing, glancing over to them. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You are the man who gave us our blood!’ The tip of the soldier’s sword touched the ground. ‘And the words in our heads.’
‘I – you are creatures of the dragon, not –’ The Cursed Company were fighting their way towards him, sensing the pause in the fight. And Bezcavar couldn’t have that, o
f course. ‘Who are you?’
‘I am Ephemeral.’ The brood soldier smiled, as though glad she had been asked. ‘It is my own name, I chose it. And this,’ she gestured over her shoulder, ‘is Crocus, and Falling, and Anemone. There are more of us.’
‘What do you mean, more of you? What are you?’
‘We are the sisters who have chosen our names. We are your daughters, Father.’
‘I don’t understand.’
The Cursed Company were closer now. All around them the fight churned on.
‘You can stop this, Father. You just have to ask them.’
‘Stop this? What about the dragon? All the people you’ve killed?’
A member of the Cursed Company charged out of the blood-soaked mist and skewered the soldier to the right of Ephemeral, spilling fresh green blood down the rusted sword. There was a chorus of shouts from the last of the Order forming a shield wall to Sebastian’s left as the formation broke down again, and he was back in the midst of the fight, the soldier calling herself Ephemeral lost from sight.
Sebastian took a few breaths, trying to understand what she’d said, to fit it together with what he knew to be true. He’d nearly died under the Citadel and his blood had roused the brood army. He’d dreamed of them, marching and killing and burning, had even heard their voices on the edge of sleep. Had they also heard his?
New strength flowed into his arms and legs, and all those thoughts were forced from his mind. Time to fight, and to kill.
They came upon the Horns as the setting sun began to light the waves with flares of orange and red. Wydrin had visited the islands more than once, a smaller, paler shadow of Crosshaven, with worse food and less competent pirates. According to Frith and his maps, this was where O’rin had carved the word for Change.
‘I think she’s falling back,’ called Frith. Wydrin looked and saw he was right. Instead of following them across the central island, she was circling around them, keeping just out of range of where they needed her.
‘Do you think she’s figured out what we’re doing?’
Frith didn’t answer. Wydrin glanced down. She could make out a small port town below, and people had come out to see what was going on. There was no way to see their faces, but from their movements she could guess that they weren’t very happy about what they saw. She couldn’t blame them.
The dragon moved so fast that the first Wydrin knew about it she was already falling, the warm solidity of the griffin ripped from under her and a roaring in her ears. She tried to shout but the wind tore the noise from her throat, where her stomach was now trying to take up residence. She saw the sky, vividly pink like an infected wound, and the ground, grey and spinning, and now and then a part of the dragon, filling her vision like a tumour.
You still have to, she thought, you still have to do it, Frith, you have to do it and at least it will be quick I—
She crashed into something but it was soft and covered with feathers. She flung her arms around the griffin and for a few seconds they spun together as the bird-beast tried to right itself.
‘By all the Graces!’ Wydrin gasped air into her lungs, trying not to pass out with relief. ‘You great big beautiful animal you, thank all the gods for griffins, even the stupid bird-headed one. If we get out of this alive I’m building you a temple.’
The griffin squawked and a split second later they were consumed in light as the Horns below them released the third part of O’rin’s spell.
‘Frith!’
She saw him briefly with his arms held out to either side, his knees clamped to the griffin and the Edenier crawling over his body like summer lightning. The dragon was screaming now, long tail lashing through the air, and then the spell was over and Frith began to tip backwards, eyes rolled up to the whites.
‘Quickly now!’
The griffin shot up like a rocket, wings folded back, straight as an arrow. As they passed Frith, Wydrin reached down as far as she could and slapped him hard across the face. Instantly he sat bolt upright.
‘How dare you –’ He faltered, touching one hand to the red mark on his cheek. ‘I saw you fall.’
‘I got caught. Come on,’ Wydrin nodded to Y’Ruen, who was shaking her snout back and forth like a dog with a bee in its mouth.
They flew again, faster now, as fast as they could. Over the Yellow Sea until the coast of Ynnsmouth grew on the horizon, a thin shadow and then a fat line. The mountains sprang up, a solid blue fracture across the sky. They were coming in from the North and would have to fly over the god-peaks, as Sebastian called them. It was the quickest way to reach Baneswatch. If Baneswatch was still standing.
‘One more spell to go, princeling. You reckon you’ve got it in you?’
To her surprise, Frith smiled. ‘Just as long as you’re around to slap me awake.’
‘Oh, any time. In fact—’
A wall of sound hit them from behind. Y’Ruen was roaring again, but this time there was a strange, sonorous quality to it, like someone shouting from the bottom of a well. The air around them seemed to vibrate with it, and when Wydrin pressed her hands over her ears it made no difference at all.
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The noise rolled like thunder over the battlefield, and Sebastian felt rather than saw everyone pause, fearful faces turned up to the sky. No dragon appeared, but from the back of the brood army there was a flurry of movement. A brood soldier in front of him shuddered violently, the carapace of armour across her back shifting, cracking. A long pair of wet membranous wings slid from the gaps. She flapped them once, twice, and Sebastian was reminded of dragonflies on the lakes emerging from the water. All over the battlefield brood soldiers were releasing wings.
‘What are they?’ screamed a man next to him. ‘We can’t fight flying demons!’
Newly sprouted wings began to vibrate, throwing a thin mist of golden droplets into the air, and then, as one, they rose up, moving with an inhuman grace. Not all of them went; there were still more than enough regular troops on the ground. One of them lurched towards Sebastian again and his sword was up and moving before he realised it was Ephemeral.
‘They’re going to Mother,’ she said. There was red blood on her face now, pooling at the corner of one eye. ‘And they will kill your friends. Please, Father, you have to speak to them while she is not here. You can get them to stop!’
‘Stopping is not what I made you for.’ Ip laid one cool hand on his arm. Somehow he could feel it, small and icy through the leather. ‘Your sword is mine, your life is mine. Kill this creature and be done with it.’
‘No, Father.’ Ephemeral was holding out her hands now. Each of her fingers was tipped with a sharp claw. ‘No.’
Sebastian shook his head at the both of them, taking a step backwards. All around him men and women were dying. There was a fire burning in his head again, the same fire that had been burning since he’d woken up on the dark soil of Litvania. Could there ever be an end to it?
He lifted his eyes to the mountains, to the air that was now thick with the flying brood army. They were swarming towards a larger shape. Looking at it his mouth filled with the taste of blood.
The dragon was coming back.
At first Frith thought it was a trick of the setting sun. The sky in front of them was filled with a thousand flecks of gold, dancing and shifting like motes in a sunbeam. Then the dragon roared again, and the brood army added their shrill voices to the call.
‘We have to get through them to reach Baneswatch.’ Wydrin bent low over her griffin. ‘I’ll try to clear a path for you.’
‘Wait!’
But she was already gone, shooting forward with Glassheart held above her head. As he watched she flew past the nearest flying brood soldier and slashed open her belly, before turning to meet the next. The second, third and fourth fell in a similar manner, but there were always more, and always the dragon was at their backs. Frith threw a wall of ice at the brood army, and this proved to be especially effective; their delicate wings crumpled und
er the extreme cold, and those that were not knocked out of the sky by the initial blast fell when their wings failed to work.
The dragon roared again, spewing a ball of fire that Frith just managed to dodge. It exploded into the centre of her army, sending charred bodies down to the mountains below. It seemed she was not above sacrificing her own children.
A group of the soldiers were converging on Wydrin now. The griffin turned its beak on them, tearing through green flesh and piercing the golden armour. There were screams, shouts of rage. In the distance Frith could see Baneswatch, still burning in places, but they were making progress. They might even make it.
One of the brood army pulled a bow from her back, and as if it were a signal all the others did too. Wydrin shouted a warning, and suddenly the air was full of golden arrows.
‘Move!’
Frith urged the griffin on, trying to fly as low as possible without being torn apart by the jagged rocks. Wydrin was just in front of him, sword whirling from one side to the other, cutting down any brood soldier that got too close.
It’s not far now.
He was throwing another wall of ice ahead to clear their path when one of the golden arrows hit Wydrin’s griffin in the flank. The animal gave an anguished screech and lurched awkwardly, obviously in some pain. Wydrin turned to look, and Frith saw the expression of horror on her face.
‘Keep going!’
She nodded to him, but another arrow hit a hand’s breadth from the first, and then another, just below the creature’s breastbone. Now the griffin was falling, and Wydrin with it.
No.
Frith conjured the word for Stillness and threw it at them, and their descent slowed long enough for him to catch up. He leaned down as far as he could, holding out his arm.
‘Take my hand!’
‘You will fight for me, Sebastian. You will be a god of war. A prince of suffering.’
Sebastian looked up. The shapes coming over the mountain were close enough now for him to make out the two griffins, the two figures atop them fighting desperately. Close enough for him to see one of them fall.
