by Sarah Ash
And then she heard a groan: faint, agonized, but recognizably human.
“Ease him onto the stretcher,” Brother Hospitaler was urging. “Careful, now—”
Kiukiu crept closer.
“Water . . .” The voice was parched, barely a whisper.
She peeped between the monks as they dripped drinking water into the injured man’s mouth—and closed her eyes in horror at what the lantern light revealed. Drakhaon’s Fire had seared his face and neck. His hair was all burned away—and half his face was a red, weeping weal, as was the hand that he raised shakily as the abbot approached.
“Look,” said Brother Hospitaler in an undertone, nudging the brother at his side. “The ring. The signet ring.” Kiukiu saw them exchange glances. “What do you think, Lord Abbot?”
Yephimy gazed down at the burned man on the stretcher.
“Is it really he?” Brother Hospitaler whispered.
Yephimy did not reply, but knelt down beside the stretcher. Kiukiu saw the burned hand reach out feebly toward him.
“Yephimy.” The burned lips moved, struggling to pronounce the abbot’s name.
“Your highness,” the abbot said, “this is a sad day for Azhkendir.”
“And . . . for Tielen . . .” The words were barely audible.
“If you permit, highness, we will take you to Saint Sergius. Brother Hospitaler has salves that will relieve your pain.”
As the monks gently lifted the stretcher, the man let out an involuntary moan. Kiukiu bit her lip, trying not to imagine how intense his suffering must be as they carried him away toward a waiting cart.
“I don’t understand,” Yephimy was saying, shaking his head. “Everyone else has perished . . . save the prince. How did he survive?”
“That man is Prince Eugene?” Kiukiu said, forgetting that she was not supposed to be listening. “You’re going to heal him? After what he did to us?”
Yephimy turned to her, his eyes stern beneath bristling iron brows.
“He is a man, like any other. He needs our help. God will judge him.”
A horseman had appeared at the top of the ridge; he sat very still, scanning the desolation. The rising sun gleamed on his polished buttons, epaulettes, and boot buckles. A Tielen scout.
“Look,” Kiukiu breathed. “They’ve sent reinforcements!”
Far below she glimpsed Askold trying to muster his meager forces in the kastel yard. He too had spotted the horseman on the ridge. The few remaining druzhina stood shoulder to shoulder, brandishing what weapons they could lay their hands on: pitchforks, axes, mallets.
The horseman dismounted and walked slowly toward the monks. Kiukiu glared at him, at his clean, shaven face, his spotless uniform.
“Where is the prince?” the horseman asked in the common tongue.
“Here,” she said sullenly, pointing.
She watched the young man remove his tricorn and kneel down beside the prince’s stretcher. To her surprise, his face registered no emotion; he seemed as stiff and formal as if he were on parade. Could he not see how badly injured his master was?
“An urgent message from Field Marshal Karonen, highness.”
“Read it . . . to me . . . lieutenant . . .” came the faint answer.
“‘Mirom surrounded. Awaiting your instructions.’”
There came the sound of a sigh . . . almost, Kiukiu thought, a sigh of satisfaction.
“Tell Karonen . . . to . . . take the city.”
“B-but who—” Only now did the young messenger falter. “Who will command in your stead?”
“Tell him—I will meet him there—”
“And Azhkendir?” The lieutenant had not once mentioned Eugene’s regiments, though he must have smelled defeat and death in the smoke that still rose from the charred hillside. Kiukiu held her breath, wondering what the prince would say. Would he give the order for their annihilation? There was no Drakhaon to protect them now.
“There will be no . . . further . . . resistance . . .” Eugene whispered. “And . . . no reprisals . . .”
“He’s tiring. He must rest,” interjected Brother Hospitaler.
“But not here.” The lieutenant stood up, facing the monk over the stretcher.
“Indeed not here. At our monastery, where I can tend his wounds properly.”
“Is that what his highness wishes?”
“It is . . .” came the fading voice from the stretcher.
“I will send an escort.”
Kiukiu looked up and saw that the ridge was now lined with horsemen. Eugene’s men must have been keeping silent vigil, pistols primed, in case of further trouble from Kastel Drakhaon.
The lieutenant gave a curt wave of one gray-gloved hand, and one by one, the horsemen slowly began to move toward them.
“No reprisals,” the abbot repeated sternly. “You heard what his highness said.”
“An escort, that’s all.” The lieutenant swung back up into the saddle and gave a curt wave of the hand to the waiting men to follow.
Kiukiu watched the horsemen fall slowly into line behind the monks’ cart as it rumbled away up the trail toward the forest. Last in line, Abbot Yephimy paused, gazing at her with drawn brows.
“Are you coming back to the monastery with us, Kiukiu?”
“Not yet,” she said, scanning the pale skies. “There’s someone I must wait for here.”
“He is no longer the Gavril you knew,” Yephimy said, as though reading her thoughts, his voice heavy with warning. “This creature of darkness has taken control of him.”
“Then I shall exorcise it,” she said defiantly, “and set Lord Gavril free.”
Yephimy looked at her, a long, troubled look. “I must advise you most strongly not to attempt it, child,” he said. “For no one—not even the most skilled Guslyar—has ever achieved what you intend.”
The Drakhaon flew wearily eastward toward Azhkendir. Each powerful wingstroke was an effort now; he felt the strain shudder through his whole body.
He hardly saw the winter brilliance of the blue Tielen sky or the crisp snow on the hills far below.
He saw only Astasia—and the look of revulsion and fear that had clouded her face. Now she knew him for what he truly was—a monster. Possessed by a daemon of darkness, twisted into this distortion of his true self.
She must have seen him kill. And it had not been a noble killing, no duel of equals, but the last, enraged act of a creature driven mad beyond endurance. Small wonder she had looked at him with such horror.
Now they were over the frozen sea, a frosted expanse of shimmering gray and white ice. And he was so mortally tired and heartsick he could no longer see why he should fly onward.
“Stir yourself, Kiukiu!” Sosia snapped. “There’s more people who need soup, and heaven knows, we’ve little enough to go round.”
A makeshift cooking fire had been lit in the great fireplace of the hall; little matter that the roof gaped open to the sky. Sosia, ever resourceful, had rescued vegetables and a few strips of salt pork from the rubble in the kitchen. Now soup—of a kind—was bubbling in a dented cooking pot over the hearth, and the serving girls were ladling it out into cups, bowls, even upturned druzhina helmets.
Kiukiu stared up into the sky overhead. Something was different. A tingle in the cold air, an iridescent glimmer, blue as frost. She shivered, the ladle drooping forgotten in one hand.
“What’s up with you now, girl?”
“He’s coming back,” she said in a whisper. “Can’t you sense it?”
“Who? Not Eugene, God forbid!” Sosia cried, clutching her shawl to her throat.
“Lord Gavril,” Kiukiu said, dropping the ladle back into the pot and running out onto the lawns.
High above the kastel grounds she saw him. At first he was no more than a swirl of dark smoke. Then, as he flew slowly nearer, she saw the shimmer of scales and the obsidian gleam of cruel, hooked talons. Now she could feel the dry heat from his body, could smell the chymical burn of his steaming br
eath . . .
“There’s someone with him!” The people from the kastel were hurrying out from the ruins, clustering together to watch, pointing and whispering.
Now Kiukiu could see what they were pointing at: a windswept figure clung on as the Drakhaon circled, arms clasped tight around the Drakhaon’s neck.
A woman.
The Drakhaon plummeted the last few feet, righting himself to land with a hiss of steam in the soft snow in the gardens. The woman passenger slithered from his back, collapsing to her hands and knees. The servants glanced uneasily at each other, not knowing what to do.
“Who is she?” Ilsi said.
Kiukiu’s eyes were fixed on the Drakhaon. She forced herself to look at the dark daemon-beast that possessed Lord Gavril, even though the sight seared her eyes with heat.
A convulsion twisted the great dragon body where it lay in the snow, the tail lashing like a whip.
The Drakhaon wrapped its shadow-wings around itself like a cocoon . . . and dwindled before her eyes, melting like smoke into its body.
A man lay sprawled in the vast winged imprint in the snow.
Kiukiu forgot all caution, all propriety, and hurtled forward, skidding to her knees in the snow at his side. He was almost naked. A few torn shreds and tatters remained of his clothes.
“Gavril?” The woman he had brought knelt on the other side, her hands reaching out to caress his forehead.
How dare she touch him? Kiukiu glanced jealously up at her rival, and saw from the lines scoring her pale face, the streaks of gray in her auburn hair, that the woman was of middle years. Too old, surely, to be a lover?
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“I am Elysia Nagarian,” the woman said, her voice ragged with exhaustion. “Gavril’s mother.”
Malusha stiffened, sniffing the wind, sensing trouble.
“Powerful,” she whispered. “Ah, so very powerful.” She hurried out into the monastery courtyard, eyes fixed on the sky.
“Malusha?”
She looked up and saw she had almost collided with the abbot on his way to the chapel.
“What’s wrong?” the abbot asked, bending down to steady her.
“Why does he have to come now?” she said, irritably shaking herself free of the abbot’s helping hand.
“Who are you talking about?”
“You should never have brought that foreign prince here, Yephimy. Look!”
There were clouds in the sky, but scudding faster than a cloud came a craft the like of which Malusha had never seen—or imagined—in all her long life.
“What in Sergius’ name—” Yephimy shaded his eyes.
“A ship. A little sky ship,” she murmured.
Now that it was coming nearer, she could hear the creak of its rigging, the swish of the unnatural mage-wind that propelled it along. The ship itself was no bigger than a lake coracle, light and flimsy—but above it billowed a vast balloon. She caught a glimpse of the pilot steering it, one man alone, head protected from the elements by a plain, tight-fitting leather cap tied beneath his chin.
Gusts of wild wind eddied above their heads, almost toppling them over as the wind craft began to descend, circling slowly down above the monastery spires. Eventually it bumped along the monastery courtyard, grazing across the frozen ground until it came to a stop. With a loud exhalation of air, the balloon slowly deflated, collapsing like a spent sail on a windless day.
The sky sailor had tethered his craft to a mounting post and was unfastening his leather cap by the time Malusha reached him.
For a moment, a long moment, they stared at each other, assessing. He was old, she saw to her surprise, much older than she, with only a few wisps of white hair still clinging to his smooth, narrow-domed head. Yet in spite of his years and his mild demeanor, she knew she stood close to the cool, calculating mind she had sensed earlier, emanating its chill aura of sorcerous glamor.
“You’re not wanted here,” she said.
“Where is Prince Eugene?” he said, ignoring her. His voice was smooth and quiet—a bland voice, all the more dangerous for its deceptive ordinariness.
The monks came out of the chapel. Yephimy went straight up to the stranger.
“You have disturbed our morning prayers. Who are you, and what do you want?”
“My name is Linnaius. I am Court Artificier to Prince Eugene.” The stranger gestured to the sky craft. “I have come to take him home.”
“Artificier?” Yephimy frowned.
“A scholar of the natural sciences, if you prefer,” Linnaius said calmly.
“Fancy words!” Malusha spat. “I know what you are.” The stranger might call himself scholar, Artificier, and other titles that would deceive ordinary folk, but she recognized a fellow sorcerer when she encountered one.
“I have come for Prince Eugene,” repeated Linnaius.
“I’ll take you to him, but I fear you’ll find he is still too badly injured to be moved.”
Prince Eugene lay in a cell within the infirmary.
Such a tall, broad-shouldered man, Malusha noted. And well-favored too, I’d guess, before his encounter with the Drakhaon. If he recovers, he’ll bear such a deep and bitter grudge against Azhkendir that I dread to think what manner of revenge he will take on us all. . . .
The prince’s burned face and hands had been smeared with Brother Hospitaler’s glossy healing salve, and the salve’s pungent, bitter odor filled the cell.
As Linnaius and Yephimy approached his bed, Malusha saw the prince’s eyes flick open, eyes that seemed startlingly pale against the red of his swollen lids and seared skin.
“Highness,” said Linnaius in his quiet voice.
“Linnaius?” Eugene managed a whisper. “Why are you here? Is Karila—”
“The princess is well, highness. I have come to take you wherever you wish to go. Home to Swanholm, or on to victory in Mirom.”
“Dead,” Lilias repeated. “What do you mean, all dead?”
The regiments that had remained in the gorge awaiting the prince’s orders stood silent, dumbfounded, as the officer relayed the news of the defeat. They had seen the blinding light crackle through the sky, turning the snow-covered rocks from white to dazzling blue. They had sensed the vastness of the surge of power that shook all Azhkendir to its foundations. They had not fully understood its import until now.
“All dead, but his highness the prince, whom God in His mercy has spared.”
A murmur ran around the massed ranks of men.
“Prince Eugene has ordered us on to Mirom. We are to strike camp and march into Muscobar to join the army there.”
Lilias stood clutching little Artamon to her, Dysis at her side, as the Tielen soldiers hurried about them, taking down the tents.
“And what of us? You’re not going to abandon us here?”
The officer shrugged. It was obvious he had other priorities than two women with a squalling baby.
“The prince promised me protection. He promised!”
He hesitated. “You can hitch a ride in the baggage train. You’ll have to fend for yourselves as best you can.”
A man’s cry, hoarse and agonized, echoed through the kastel walls. It twisted in Kiukiu’s breast, sharp as the blade of a knife.
“Doesn’t anyone know what to do?” she said again, turning from Sosia to Askold and back again.
“Only the Bogatyr, and he’s dead,” said Askold, roughly blunt.
They had locked Gavril in the Kalika Tower for fear he would harm himself—or anyone who came near him.
“Someone must remember! He’s saved all our lives, and we can do nothing to help him?”
“Kostya Torzianin was the only man Lord Volkh would let come near when the madness was on him.”
Another cry shivered through the ruined kastel, raw with desperation.
“Doctor Kazimir, then,” Kiukiu said. “What about his elixir?”
Sosia let out a little tut of disapproval.
“Seems like
the doctor’s helped himself to a different kind of elixir,” Askold said, mouth wryly twisted. “He must have crawled down into the wine cellar during the bombardment. Judging by the state of him, he’ll be sleeping it off for days.”
“The Drakhys, his mother?”
“Let the poor lady sleep a little longer; she’s exhausted,” chided Sosia. “Have you seen the state of her hands? Rubbed almost raw. I’ve put salve on them, but they’ll take a while to heal.”
Again the agonized cry shuddered through the kastel.
Kiukiu bit her lip. How could they stand by discussing so dispassionately while Lord Gavril was suffering such agony? She started to edge away.
“And where d’you think you’re going, my girl?” Sosia had guessed what she was intending. She went up to Kiukiu and took hold of her, staring into her face with eyes sharp as pineneedles. “Don’t even think of it.”
“But no one’s—”
“That’s because no woman in her right mind would go near him until he’s come back to himself again.”
Thirst. Burning, excoriating thirst. The black taste of pitch fouled his throat, his mouth, his gullet.
Gavril squirmed forward, trying to drag himself across the floor toward the bowl of water they had left for him. Every movement was an agony; every torn sinew ached, sending shivers of fire through his body. It was as if he had been stretched on a rack and each of his limbs had been tugged out of its socket.
He plunged his face into the cool water and gulped down mouthfuls, feeling it sizzle down his throat.
The next moment he was doubled over again, retching up the stinking tarry sludge that had clogged his lungs and stomach.
Groaning, he lay back on the floor. Tears of self-pity leaked from his eyes, hot as sulfur springs, and trickled down his cheeks.
“You are weak,” the Drakhaoul’s voice, smoke-dark with scorn, whispered. “Weak-willed. Unworthy to be Drakhaon.”
Another wave of nausea rippled through his whole body. He convulsed again, vomiting up a burning slime that smirched his throat and mouth. At last the spasm passed and he rolled over onto his back, gasping. The inside of his throat was dry, sand-dry as a baking desert under a merciless sun. There was not an ounce of moisture left in his veins. He was parched, a living mummy.
