Bloody Rose

by Nicholas Eames

  “I’m not sure yet,” she answered—and truly, she had no idea how she planned on using the captain’s stash of explosives, but she suspected they’d be a great deal more effective against the Simurg than her bow and arrows. With her arm full, she turned and fled the room.

  Thanks to Roderick’s haplessness at the helm, the hallway slanted abruptly as Tam ran down it. She almost fell into Rose’s bedroom, but clutched frantically at the doorframe and managed to stay upright. As she vaulted up the stairs to the deck, another jolt sent her stumbling forward. One of the firebombs popped out of her arm and clacked onto the step below. Tam watched, winded, as it rolled and bounced, rolled and bounced, rolled and bounced down each and every step, until it landed (without exploding, thankfully) at the bottom and came to a stop against the Widow’s bare foot.

  The woman bent to picked it up, turning it over in her hands. Tam saw her lips part, her tongue flit like a serpent tasting the air for prey. A hungry gleam stole over her eyes, while the bard’s gaze flickered to the hatching of pale scars on her wrists. She remembered Cura attributing those scars to suicide, and wondered if the Widow might not hurl the thing at her feet right now and let the ensuing blaze devour them both. Finally, and far too slowly for Tam’s liking, she offered it up.

  “I believe you dropped this,” she said coolly.

  “Thanks.” Tam tucked it firmly back into the crook of her arm. She considered ordering the Widow to remain below, but since she was only a bard and the druin was mistress of her own castle and probably several hundred years her senior, Tam figured the woman would probably do whatever the hell she wanted anyway.

  Up top, Roderick was braced at the helm. The satyr’s hat had blown off; his mane of greasy hair whipped between his curling horns. He was grinning and pawing clumsily at the steering orbs like a teenage boy up a girl’s tunic for the first time. The Spindrift weaved from side to side as it hurtled out over the ice, and Tam, now at the rail, searched the frozen face of the lake for sign of the Dragoneater.

  She found it dead ahead, right beneath where the band was standing—a shadow that spread like spilled wine beneath Mirrormere’s glassy sheen.

  The Simurg, Tam knew, rising from the depths below.

  “Roderick!” she shouted.

  “On it!” the satyr hollered. He gripped two levers on the skyship’s console and yanked them in opposite directions, at which point two things happened, both of them bad.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Seventeen Seconds

  First, the engines stopped whirling.

  Then the sails snapped closed.

  They dropped from the sky, and Tam nearly lost her footing as the hull hit the ice. She recalled Doshi bragging about the barrel bombs stowed down below and was momentarily grateful the ship hadn’t yet disintegrated in a ball of fire. Her gratitude evaporated as the Spindrift tipped over, slewing sideways over the frozen lake. Tam clung desperately to the rail, saw her bandmates scatter from the skyship’s path—Brune and Cura one way, Rose and Freecloud another, ducking as the cinched sails passed overhead.

  The Widow, she saw, had wrapped both arms around one of the masts, while Roderick was hanging from the console like a climber from a cliff’s edge.

  Out of control, the Spindrift spun all the way around, so that Tam was looking over the bow when the sum of all her fears exploded from the ice.

  Since Rose had first mentioned the Simurg by name, Tam had begun to seriously imagine what it might look like. She’d expected it to be big, but big didn’t even begin to describe it.

  Ragas were big. Ogres were big. The cyclops Rose had killed back in Ardburg was enormous, but beside the Simurg it would have looked like a child standing next to a warhorse. She had wondered what kind of monster could terrorize a city, or bring whole civilizations to ruin. Even dragons tended to avoid cities, since even bards with a bow got lucky from time to time.

  But now—seeing it—she knew.

  You didn’t fight something this big. You didn’t even dream about killing it. You packed your things, gathered your family, and hoped traffic wasn’t too bad on the way out of town.

  Tam had assumed that seeing the Dragoneater would leave her paralyzed by fear, incapable of doing anything but cowering in abject terror. But instead, she felt a kind of hopeless resignation, as though she were standing in the path of an avalanche, or adrift at sea as a tidal wave curled overhead. The danger it represented was so extreme, so inescapably profound, that her mind could scarcely comprehend it.

  The Spindrift kept on spinning, so Tam was forced to twist around to keep the Dragoneater in sight. Its head was twice the size of Fable’s argosy, with a broad white snout and deep-set yellow eyes that reminded Tam of the Palapti lions she’d seen at market from time to time. The lower half of its jaw was distinctively reptilian; a trio of spiny fringes—red, orange, and yellow—were layered to protect its gills. Behind its head was a flared mane of feathers, bright red fading to molten gold at the tips.

  Its underbelly was armoured in pitted gold scales seamed with white down, while its feet were a hybrid of paw and claw, furnished with talons that could carve a house to kindling. Four white-feathered wings shivered open as the Simurg hauled itself from the water, each one vast enough to throw a whole village into shadow.

  Rose and the others were scrambling for safety as the ice groaned under the monster’s weight. The Simurg made a lunge for Brune, but the shaman, clenching the haft of his twinglaive between his teeth, embraced his fain with the effortless grace of a bird taking flight. His boots and wool trousers shredded as the white wolf leapt clear of the Simurg’s shearing bite.

  He still wore the scarf, though. And it did look adorable.

  Before the creature could attack Brune again, Rose spun and hurled Thorn at the back of its head. The blade tore through one leathery fringe and the Dragoneater bellowed in pain.

  Fairy tale or not, Tam thought, it can be hurt.

  Now that it had fully emerged from the freezing water, Tam could see a tail, or something like one: a profusion of feathers the same sunset colour as those in its mane, as long again as the Simurg’s entire body. It flexed its wings, showering the lake around it with shards of splintering ice, then turned its golden glare on Rose.

  At which point, unable to help herself, Tam started counting to seventeen.

  One …

  Rose turned on a heel and began running at the Simurg, and the behemoth stalked to meet her. Its wings churned the air into snowstorms. Its talons raked gouges in the ice. The feathers behind its head fanned threateningly.

  Freecloud started after Rose, no doubt cursing her (or rather, the drug that had stripped her of rational fear) under his breath. He clasped Madrigal’s scabbard in one hand, its hilt in the other. His sky-blue cloak snapped in the gale coming off the Simurg’s wings.

  “KURAGEN!” Cura went to one knee, black skirts parting, and the sea goddess burst from a cloud of ink. The horror was already in motion, afloat on a bed of tentacle limbs. One of her arms snapped out, and Kuragen’s broad-bladed spear traced a shining arc against the dull iron clouds.

  Brune was doubling back. He’d planted Ktulu in the ice behind him and was racing on all fours toward the Dragoneater’s flank.

  … two …

  The Spindrift turned another full circuit. Snow came sheeting over the rail beside Tam, and the folded sails hissed under the deluge. Roderick managed to get a hand on one of the steering orbs, and suddenly they were upright, still spinning, but heaving skyward. The satyr pushed the lever he’d pulled earlier and the sails stormed open. A booming thunderclap startled Tam, and one of the grenades couched in her arm jumped loose. Without thinking, she swatted it over the rail.

  … three …

  Kuragen’s spear deflected harmlessly from the Simurg’s white feathers, which were glazed in armouring ice. The sea goddess dove into the freezing water from which the Dragoneater had emerged, while Brune, racing on all fours, was forced to skirt the hole’s splin
tered edge.

  The Simurg, meanwhile, was bearing down on Rose, who summoned Thorn back to her open hand. She was about to launch it again when the monster opened its mouth and unleashed a torrent of white frost.

  … four …

  Tam squinted, disbelieving.

  Rose was gone. Freecloud, too. Where they’d been just a second earlier was nothing but a strip of crystalline hoarfrost. The Dragoneater was already veering away, turning its attention toward the others.

  … five …

  Roderick regained control of the Spindrift. The skyship banked sharply, affording Tam an unobstructed view of the battle below. She scoured the scene for any sign of Rose and Freecloud.

  They can’t be dead already, she told herself. Even the Raincrows lasted seventeen seconds.

  She was right. They weren’t.

  … six …

  A glimpse of blue drew Tam’s eye. In a snowdrift next to the frost-burned strip she saw Freecloud, who’d managed to tackle Rose before the Simurg’s coldfire swept through. Even from so far away, the bard could tell they were shouting at one another.

  … seven …

  Kuragen came surging from the black waters of the lake, huge and horrific. As she did, the Simurg caught her with a swiping claw. The sea goddess slammed onto the ice, fracturing it, and before she could rise, the Simurg’s head swooped down.

  … eight …

  Its jaws clamped down on Kuragen’s torso, pinning her arms, cracking her carapace armour. A scream like a squall echoed inside the mollusk helm, and the sea goddess’s tentacle limbs reached frantically for the Dragoneater’s throat, coiling, squeezing, strangling.

  … nine …

  But to no avail. The Simurg wrenched its head from side to side like a hound wresting a bone from its master’s hand, and Kuragen went limp. Tam’s eyes darted to Cura and found her facedown in the snow. Brune was lost to sight beneath the creature’s tail-feathers, but beyond the monster she saw a lone figure step onto the ice.

  Hawkshaw, she guessed, since she doubted Doshi was brave enough to come anywhere near the Simurg.

  … ten …

  The Spindrift was headed straight for the Dragoneater now. The creature tossed Kuragen’s body aside and fixed its molten regard on the approaching skyship.

  Tam swallowed the dread that rose like bile from her gut and screamed over her shoulder at Roderick. “Up! Take us up!”

  “Going up!” the satyr hollered.

  And down they went.

  “Bloody fuck—” Tam managed, as she half-stumbled, half-fell toward the front of the ship. She might have tumbled overboard had the headless figurehead not broken her fall. Half the arrows in her quiver slipped out and went spinning away. She wrapped both legs around the woman’s waist and hoped to hell it proved sturdier than her neck. Before she could congratulate herself on not being dead or having dropped her armful of firebombs, she saw the Dragoneater’s ruff rise again as it readied to pounce.

  … twelve …

  Wait, had she missed eleven? She must have, though to be fair she’d been busy trying to stay alive.

  Now they were going up. The Spindrift groaned. The tidal engines roared like a storm, streaming mist. Below the prow, Tam saw the Simurg’s gold eyes leering hungrily at the ascending skyship. Before it could leap, the bard dumped her armload of alchemical grenades toward its open mouth.

  … thirteen …

  They fell for what seemed like forever, but in fact it was only a second. Tam held her breath, still counting.

  … fourteen …

  The Dragoneater turned its head at the last moment; the brittle clay firebombs shattered against the side of its face, scorching its snout with liquid fire. One of the bombs hit the creature’s eye, detonating on impact.

  The monster howled in agony.

  Tam howled in triumph.

  Roderick was cackling as well, looking backward as they climbed beyond the Simurg’s reach, and so didn’t see its wing come scything across to smash the Spindrift’s sails apart.

  … fifteen …

  The skyship’s masts came down, dragging a mess of mangled struts and shredded sailcloth that sparked with deadly currents. Tam looked for the Widow, but couldn’t find her anywhere on deck. Roderick had abandoned the helm and was backed against the stern rail. The skyship was skewing sideways again, gaining speed as it plummeted toward the frozen face of Mirrormere.

  … sixteen …

  She would jump, Tam decided, right before they hit the ground. She swiped silver hair from her eyes and squinted into the flurry of blowing snow, trying to determine where that was likely to happen. Somewhere between the patch of freezing water and where Cura lay prone on the ice—which was better, she supposed, than landing on the water or the witch.

  A glance told her that Rose—with Freecloud in tow—was rushing the Simurg again. Brune was halfway up its foreleg. He’d managed to get his teeth into something and was holding on for dear life.

  And in case it wasn’t clear to every one of them how totally and completely fucked they all were, several much smaller versions of the Simurg were emerging from the watery pit, directly in the skyship’s path.

  Roderick had been right, after all: The Dragoneater was a she.

  And she was a mommy.

  Seventeen, Tam counted, though she was pretty sure that second had come and gone. She launched herself from the skyship’s prow as the ice rushed up to meet her, flying for one moment, falling the next.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Soul on Fire

  Tam landed on her shoulder in a heap of drifting snow that wasn’t quite deep enough to pillow her fall, so it hurt like hell. She didn’t hear anything (an arm, a leg, her bow) snap, so that was lucky. She gained her knees in time to watch the Spindrift come down and, in a stroke of good fortune that felt like finding a penny in the burnt-out husk of your home, it landed directly on top of one of the tiny Dragoneaters.

  The hull crunched as it hit the ice. An instant later the front half of the ship (along with another young Simurg) was vaporized in a succession of whumping blasts.

  Poor Doshi, Tam thought, as the heat off the wreck seared her face. There’s no stealing your ship back from this …

  The Simurg—who’d lost an eye and two offspring in a matter of seconds—was shrieking in rage. She beat her wings and stamped the ice so violently that Tam feared it would crack and dump them all into Mirrormere’s freezing waters.

  Roderick poked his head from a nearby snowbank. “Have you seen my hat?” he asked, touching a hand self-consciously to a curling horn.

  Shrugging Duchess off her shoulder, Tam pointed wordlessly at the creatures shaking water from their wings at the edge of the ice. Three of them had survived the skyship’s crash. The raptors looked like smaller, snow-white versions of the Dragoneater, except without crests or feathered tails. The smallest was roughly the size of a horse, while the largest looked big enough to haul an argosy all by itself.

  “Simurglings!” The booker’s voice was shrill with disbelief. “Fuck me with the business end of a battle-axe, where did they come from?”

  Simurglings? Tam was actually a little pissed she hadn’t thought to call them that first.

  She drew an arrow from the quiver on her hip and nocked it. When one of the creatures made a move toward Cura (now climbing groggily to her feet), she let it fly. The arrow pierced the muscle beneath the creature’s wing, slowing it, and Tam ran to intercept.

  Cura was standing by the time Tam slid to a stop beside her. The summoner’s gaze, heavy with exhaustion, took in the trio of Simurglings, the wreckage of the Spindrift, and then the Dragoneater herself—vast as a mountain above them. She said nothing, but the thin line of her lips spoke volumes. She began pulling at the scarf binding her arm.

  “Get behind me, Tam.”

  The bard reached for another arrow. “I think we should—”

  “I said get behind me,” Cura snarled, and Tam leapt to obey.

  Two
of the raptors came scampering toward them. The other went after Roderick, who jumped behind his snowdrift like it was a fortress wall. The young Dragoneaters moved with feline grace, prowling over the ice like feathered cats. Tam took aim at the nearest, but figured she’d best leave it to whatever Cura had planned. She switched focus to the one closing on Rod instead. She drew, fired, and swore beneath her breath as the shaft skipped off the ice between the creature’s legs.

  The echoing shing of Madrigal leaving its scabbard drew Tam’s eye back to the Simurg. She couldn’t find Rose or Freecloud at a glance, but Brune was in dire straits. The Dragoneater had pulled him from its leg and had him in a tightening grip. The bard watched in horror as the monster plunged her fist—with Brune trapped inside it—into the lake. She imagined the shaman thrashing madly, desperate to wriggle free as cold water filled his lungs.

  Her eyes snapped back to the Simurglings advancing on her and Cura. They seemed to be fighting over which of them got to take the first bite of bard. The smaller of the two nipped at the other, but was bullied aside as they drew near.

  Cura was still furiously uncoiling the scarf, so Tam reached for another arrow. She’d nocked it, drawn it, and was exhaling to steady her trembling arm when the scarf finally came free. She watched, mesmerized, as it sailed skyward like a pennant torn from its pole, then stole a glance at Cura’s latest tattoo.

  And gaped. “Is that—”

  “BLOODY ROSE!” Cura screamed. She stumbled into Tam as the thing carved into her arm stepped from a cloud of ink and fire.

  It was discernibly female—rounded at the hip, broad across the shoulders—but decidedly inhuman. It didn’t look like Rose, because Rose wasn’t twelve feet tall and wreathed in flame, but it felt like her, exuding an air of boiling menace that left the bard gasping for breath.

  The smaller of the two Simurglings drew up short, but the larger attacked, undeterred.

  Bloody Rose leapt to meet it. Scalding swords bloomed in her hands. One smote the raptor across the face, battering its downy snout aside, while the other cleaved most of the way through its neck. The wound was cauterized instantly, but the Simurgling fell to the ice, skidding just short of Tam and Cura. It shuddered, squawked miserably, and died.