Northern Storm ac-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  The sound of hunying feet on the bare earth and muffled protests stiffened Kheda’s spine. He glanced back over his shoulder and acknowledged Mezai and Beyau with a stern face that instantly quelled their stealthy attempts to edge past Zicre, who was still following close behind Kheda.

  The forest was still and silent all around. Distant bird-song and the calls of loals were muffled by the mists, with the distorted shrieks of some unidentifiable creature reverberating off an unseen cliff face. A flash of movement caught Kheda’s eye and he saw a golden-crowned matia clinging to the wrinkled grey trunk of an ironwood. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and when he looked again, it was gone. He and his men could have been the only living creatures in the forest.

  Apart from the blood-sucking flies. Feeling the burning bite of black sweat flies, Kheda scrubbed fiercely at one cheek with the back of a gloved hand. Beside him, Zicre paused and looked to the rear. Kheda did the same and was surprised to see how far up the incline they had already come. Glimpses of the dull turquoise sea were just visible through the crowded branches of the spinefruit trees overhanging the trail. Down among the trees, the men of Chazen were forcing their way forward, all sweating profusely. The forest around them was thick with mist, drifting upwards to join the unbroken cloud cover. Kheda looked up to see the thin cloud silvering as the hidden sun strengthened. The heat of the day was beginning to build. Somewhere in the pungent depths of the forest a stream chuckled and he saw thirsty men break off from the main thrust to search for the relief of its waters.

  Wordlessly, Zicre unslung a battered gourd from his shoulder and drank deeply before offering it to Kheda. The warlord took it with a grateful nod. His tongue felt like damp cotton, thick in his mouth, and the oppressive heat seemed to weigh more heavily with every breath. That and the burden of Zicre’s eyes fixed on him.

  What are you thinking? Why the unspoken questions in your eyes and the shadow of doubt? I was the one who brought lore from the north to join battle with the invaders and their savage sorcery coming unbidden to these waters. And I lost Daish for my pains, so that’s hardly the best endorsement of my wisdom. Is all I’ve done for Chazen enough to redress the balance? Is that what you’re wondering? Kheda handed Zicre back his gourd. ‘You’ve some herbs in there I can’t quite identify.’

  Zicre smiled briefly and restoppered the gourd. ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘What can I trade for the secret?’ Kheda wondered aloud.

  ‘We’ll see.’ Zicre shrugged. ‘Later, if we get the chance.’

  His dark gaze locked with Kheda’s.

  You’ve seen the dragon, haven’t you, Zicre? You know what we’re up against, wounded or not.

  ‘My lord?’ As the scouting parties paused to suck greedily at their waterskins, Beyau and Mezai forced their way through to draw close to Kheda, their faces concerned.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Kheda asked. The shipmaster was drenched with sweat.

  Beyau granted the scouts a cursory glance. ‘Let me lead the first assault, my lord,’ he begged unexpectedly. ‘I was trained to be a warrior for Chazen.’

  ‘And you want to test your fate here against the guilt you still feel for surviving when so many of those warriors died?’ Kheda asked with quiet sympathy. ‘Don’t try to second-guess your destiny, Beyau, just accept it and go on with your life. As for leading this assault, no, that is my duty and I will neither shirk it nor let any other man claim it from me.’

  He turned his back on the startled faces of Beyau, Mezai and the scattered scouts. As impassive as ever, Zicre walked silently beside him as they covered the last stretch of the track leading to the rocky cleft in the ridge of high ground.

  Not far now, my lord,’ the hunter observed quietly. ‘We need to stick to the sides of the valley. It’s all marsh in the bottom.’

  Now Kheda could see the stream he had been hearing all the way up the slope, flowing down from a peak still hidden in mist. The water of endless successive rainy seasons had carved a channel down the rock only to find its path to the sea barred by this stubborn ridge. It pooled in indecision before turning to seek another route and the reek of ancient decay fuelled afresh by recent downpours rose from the spreading bog.

  Zicre smiled humourlessly at Kheda’s unguarded grimace. ‘If you think that’s bad, wait till you smell the dragon.’

  Kheda didn’t answer, heading down towards the narrow path that Zicre indicated. He moved slowly, to be sure of his footing and to allow the rest of this diverse multitude of dragon slayers to keep pace with him. Not everyone was so careful on the awkward slope and the slippery, crushed vegetation was treacherous underfoot. Kheda couldn’t help but grin as startled yells were hastily stifled by splashes from the bog.

  Then he caught a gust of a smell so putrid it made him retch. Recollections of revolting encounters flashed through his memory.

  That spotted deer dead of an arrow to the throat and unseen in a thicket until an incautious woodcutter filled the campsite with the foetid gas from its bloated belly. The hunt when we came across a hook-toothed hog drowned in a wallow, skull picked clean by carrion birds and beetles, the rest of it disintegrated into a slough of foulness roiling with maggots. That time we found a courier dove fallen into a water cistern and realised we’d bathed in water tainted with that matted mess of slimy decay. Clapping a mail-backed glove to his mouth, Kheda fought to control his heaving stomach. ‘The dragon?’ he asked Zicre with a gasp, trying to ignore the sound of vomiting behind him.

  The hunter nodded silently as he tied a rag around his mouth and nose. He handed a second strip of cloth to Kheda. The warlord caught the pungent scent of chaelor oil and pressed it gratefully to his nose. ‘How exactly do we set about attacking it, my lord?’ The other men who’d scouted out the valley drew up around Zicre as the hunter spoke, all their faces expectant. ‘Once we’re up on the terrace.’ The men of Chazen were spreading out among the trees; some were still doubled up emptying their guts but most were standing upright, faces muddy with apprehension and nausea.

  Kheda took a slow, careful breath to avoid any spasm of queasiness and did his best to pitch his words to carry to the farthest man he could see without speaking overly loudly.

  ‘First and foremost, we cannot risk letting the dragon fly away, so we must foul its wings with nets and ropes.’ He glanced at the contingents from the fishing boats. ‘Those of you without much armour, tear into its wings, ripping the membranes. For the rest of us-’ he included everyone with an impromptu blade in his gaze ‘—if its hide is proof against another dragon’s teeth, it’ll be proof against the best swords. So we attack its wounds. We set it bleeding again. It’s already weak. We want it weaker still’

  ‘Weak is one thing, dead’s another,’ interrupted Zicre, ignoring looks of outrage at his temerity. ‘How are we to kill it?

  ‘The quickest way to any creature’s brain is through its mouth or its eyes.’ Kheda fixed the hunter with an unwavering gaze. ‘That’s my task. What I need the rest of you to do is keep it distracted by so many attacks that it doesn’t realise what I aim to do, until it’s too late.’

  Confused protests rose from Beyau and Mezai and others besides, while the armoured warriors of Chazen tried to force their way closer to their warlord, with fervent assurances that they would be at his side, their swords with his.

  Kheda ignored them all as he looked at the rugged shoulder of the peak, a dark shadow against the mist lightened under the strengthening sun. ‘The path leads up round that spur?’ He looked to Zicre and got a silent nod of confirmation. ‘The terrace is beyond that?’

  He drew a deep breath, grateful for the pungent chaelor oil masking the stench of decay. Setting a punishing pace up the hill, he was soon feeling the strain in the backs of his thighs and calves. As the path widened to claim a broad, undulating ledge at the base of the peak, men drew level with him on either side. Beyau was surrounded by waniors of the Chazen household, their armour brilliant with beads of moisture, the muffled li
ght of the sun turning their naked blades to dull silver. Mezai was in among the fishermen burdened with their nets and ropes, other men from the Gossamer Shark gripping clubs and long knives.

  A broken knife edge of rock rose sheer on one side, the broad ledge falling away into a confusion of forest on the other. As the slope grew less cruel, Kheda pushed on faster, Zicre still at his side. Beyau and the swordsmen ran with them, faces grim beneath the brow bands of their polished helms. The tramp of the countless feet behind Mezai and the mariners reverberated across the steep valley.

  Kheda rounded the shoulder of the peak and the hollow of level ground between the two ridges running down from the peak opened up before them. Some of the biggest ironwoods he had ever seen had claimed this sheltered, fertile spot for their own. Hidden from foresters who would have cut them down long since and thought them a mighty prize, they had soared upwards.

  The great grey trees with their lofty crowns of dense green leaves looked no more than saplings behind the massive bulk sprawled in front of them. The reek of decay hung stifling in the air. The dragon lay awkwardly, hindquarters slumped to one side, stormy-blue hind legs drawn up to its pale grey belly, its massive tail, dark as thunder cloud, curling around. The wounds torn in its hide by the dead fire dragon gaped wide, dark bruised flesh barely visible beneath clusters of flies and beetles, intent on feeding and not caring if their prey was alive or dead. Every now and again the dragon’s skin twitched in a feeble attempt to shake off the tormenters. A few flies were dislodged, only to return with buzzing eagerness. Where beetles fell away, their place was instantly taken by newcomers from the glittering horde scrambling over and around each other. The ground below the creature was a crushed mass of bushes and saplings foul with blackened blood.

  There was more life in the front end of the dragon. It rested on its chest, forelegs braced, white crystal claws digging into the shattered twigs and leaf litter. Its massive blue-grey head swayed from side to side, hoary spines bristling with malice the length of its long, muscular neck. Eyes blue as sapphire glowed with malevolence beneath frosty brow ridges and it opened its mouth to hiss menacingly, long cobalt tongue flickering over teeth like steel sword blades. With a rattling clap, it spread its wings.

  It couldn’t spread them very far. The rents torn by the fire dragon had ulcerated horribly. Purple slime soiled the cloudy membrane, oozing from the spreading wounds. The creature’s defiant hiss turned to one of agony as it let its wings fall back in painful disorder.

  The men of Chazen crowded behind their warlord, each man lending courage to those gathered close around him, inadvertently pressing Kheda forward. He raised his sword slowly, then cut it down with an audible swish. He was already running, Zicre on one side, Beyau on the other, mariners, waniors and huntsmen hard on their heels.

  The dragon disappeared. A veil of mist opaque as silk came down before their astonished eyes. Kheda barely hesitated, plunging on through the fog. After a moment’s indecision, the men with him followed. The whiteness wrapped around them, denser than ever. Kheda looked from side to side and found he could barely make out Zicre or Beyau even though he was close enough to touch them. He slowed just a little.

  ‘Where is it?’ Beyau asked through clenched teeth. ‘It can’t have flown away.’ Shivers wracked Kheda and he looked down to see frost forming on his chain mail. Not on those wings. And we’d have heard it.’

  ‘What magic is this, my lord?’ Zicre’s sweat-sodden clothing crackled as he fought against its sudden icy embrace.

  ‘We must kill it before we all freeze to death.’ Kheda gasped. The all-enveloping mist deadened his words and he realised he could barely hear anything beyond aim’s length either.

  ‘My lord?’ It was Mezai, teeth chattering uncontrollably, breath frozen white in his beard. ‘Come on,’ Kheda said with difficulty, his jaw stiff with cold.

  ‘My lord!’ Barely coherent, Beyau threw himself at Kheda and knocked the warlord off his feet. The dragon’s head appeared out of the deathly mist, snapping at the void where Kheda had just been standing. Mezai and Zicre stumbled forward, brandishing their weapons. Their yells of wordless defiance were instantly swallowed by the fog swirling ever denser around them.

  ‘I got it!’ The ice in Mezai’s beard cracked as he grinned, proffering his crude hacking blade.

  Kheda pulled himself painfully to his feet, chilled thighs and forearms aching bone deep from the impact on the brutally frozen ground. ‘Well done.’ An icy smear of dark-blue blood glittered on the burnished steel of Mezai’s weapon.

  ‘Here, my lord.’ Zicre bent to recover a scatter of small blue-white scales with fingers withered by the cold.

  Tossing aside the chaelor-soaked rag, Kheda held out a gloved hand and examined the scales the hunter laid on his palm. They were edged with putrid flesh where they had been ripped from the underside of the dragon’s jaw. He closed his hand around them and felt them crumble. When he uncurled his fingers, all he held was glittering powder.

  Velindre said it would fade away to nothing.

  ‘Perhaps its hide won’t be so tough after all,’ said Zicre cautiously.

  ‘Come on.’ Kheda threw the dust away, brushing his hand against his thigh.

  They advanced slowly, Kheda at the forefront, the other three behind him to make a rough arrowhead, every man’s eyes looking in all directions. Shadows in the fog fleeted on the edge of vision. Noises came and went so fast they might just have been imagined. Kheda ripped off his helmet and threw it away. ‘My lord,’ Beyau protested.

  ‘Seeing and hearing have more value than armour in this.’ Kheda strained eyes and ears. ‘Are we the only ones going forward? Can you hear anyone else?’

  A scream ripped through the mist and the clouded air swirled violently around them. More yells tumbled’over each other, punctured by a rattling sweep. Then the mist gathered ever closer, deadening the noise.

  ‘Its tail?’ hazarded Zicre through clenched teeth. He brushed frost from the front of his tunic but the oiled leather vanished beneath a fresh layer of white.

  ‘Where’s its head?’ Kheda gripped his sword tight with aching fingers and peered into the fog. He could feel cold moisture seeping through his hair to trickle down his scalp and temples.

  A stealthy current in the air alerted him an instant before he saw the sapphire glint of the dragon’s eye cutting through the white mist. Its blue head darted forward, jaw agape, cobalt tongue lashing, blue-black blood dripping from its chin. Kheda didn’t flinch, sweeping his sword around and up to slash at the slack hide beneath the dragon’s jaw. He ripped the blade away and ducked sideways to lose himself in the mist. The creature’s roar of pain made the fog all around throb.

  Kheda tensed at a swirl of the vapour then relaxed as the other three emerged and crouched beside him. ‘We have to catch its head somehow,’ he told them forcefully, ‘so we can force it down and have at its eyes. We have to blind it!’

  ‘We’ll find a net.’ Mezai was shivering so violently he looked like a man in the grip of fever. Jerking his head at Beyau, he stumbled backwards to vanish in the white mist. The swordsman hesitated. ‘Go,’ Kheda ordered.

  Zicre moved to stand with his back to Kheda’s. Do you think it can see us through this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kheda shivered as the other man’s weight pressed the frozen padding beneath his mail against his chilled flesh.

  His words were lost as sobbing forced its way through the dense mist, cut off short in a horrifying gurgle. The dragon’s hiss rasped through the blinding fog, seeming to come from all directions. Kheda drew his second sword and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  ‘Ware!’ Zicre shouted and flung himself sideways as the dragon’s forelimb raked through the mist, glittering claws ripping across at chest height.

  Kheda wheeled around, dodging awkwardly. He flailed blindly with his swords and made contact more by luck than judgement. His blade ripped a claw from its socket, the crystal talon nearly skewering
Zicre before it disappeared into the enveloping fog. The dragon bellowed and its head loomed above him, teeth bared, dodging bloody blue saliva. Kheda stood his ground and hacked at the beast’s neck and jaw with all his strength. One blade clashed against its teeth. The dragon recoiled, only to snap at the blade, shattering the tempered steel to lethal needles. Kheda flinched from the blinding shower, fleeing blindly. The dragon’s foreclaws struck him a glancing blow on his mailed back, sending him tumbling over frozen vegetation that crackled beneath him. He rolled over on to his back, raising his remaining sword. A shadow darkened the fog, pierced by a glint of sapphire flame.

  ‘Hey!’ Zicre found a fallen spear underfoot and flung it at the mist-shrouded dragon.

  Kheda heard the polearm strike with a solid clunk. The dragon’s head whipped across to snap at Zicre, trailing tendrils of haze and slaver. Diamond drops spattered Kheda’s armour. The steel rings and inset plates of his hauberk cracked and split where the drool landed.

  ‘My lord.’ A hand grabbed his shoulder. It was Mezai.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ As Beyau hauled him up, Kheda realised there was a rent in the back of his chain mail. No.’ He gripped his remaining sword and scanned the white opacity for the dragon and Zicre alike. ‘Have you got a net?’

  ‘And grapnels,’ Mezai confirmed with bitter satisfaction.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Kheda strained his ears for any sound that would offer an answer. ‘Where are the others?’

  Before anyone could speak, the dragon attacked, murderous maw agape and intent on Kheda. The warlord waited until the last instant before darting aside, hacking at the side of the creature’s long, scaly face. Mezai threw a grapnel at the dragon’s head and the curved tines tangled in the crest of spines at the nape of its neck. It roared and reared up, trying to shake off the biting metal teeth. Zicre appeared and flung himself on the rope to add his weight to Mezai’s, pulling the barbs ever deeper into the creature’s flesh. ‘Chazen! Here! Chazen!’ Kheda shouted into the empty mist as loudly as he could, moving between the dragon and the two men, lest it try biting at them.