by Jon Hollins
She thundered the last words as loud as she could. She looked into the young soldier’s eyes and saw a little more color in his cheeks now.
“In Barph’s name!” she cried.
“In Barph’s name!” they roared back, up and down the line.
Quirk smiled as warmly as she could and headed toward the steps leading down into the streets.
“Okay,” said Afrit, following after her. “I concede that you finished strong. Now you just have to give that speech at every other wall on this city, and we should be okay.”
“Right up until the dragon’s army actually shows up and proves how full of shit I am,” Quirk said.
“Yes,” Afrit agreed. “Until then.”
It really did seem to be going well until the dragon’s army showed up. Morale had been strong through the night. Fires had burned bright, songs had been sung.
And then the sun had gone and ruined it all by rising.
The dragon’s army had marched on through the night. There was bloodlust in those troops now. They were clearly visible barely three miles away. Behind them the ground smoked—a charred ruin. The scent of grapes roasting on the vine was a faint tang at the back of the smoke slowly drifting over the city. Light reflected off polished steel. Faint shouts could be heard. The ground trembled slightly under their collective feet.
But what everyone gathered on the walls was truly looking for was the dragons.
“Where are they?” Afrit was pressed up against battlements made of scavenged wood and broken furniture tacked on to the crumbling stone parapets beneath.
Quirk swigged from her wineskin. She’d started early this morning. Tent after tent stretched out across the landscape. Knots of men scurried back and forth, but of the dragons there was no sign.
“Maybe they can’t be bothered with us,” she said. “Maybe it’s an act of disdain.”
“Do they do that?” Afrit looked at her hopefully.
Quirk shrugged. “How in the Hallows am I supposed to know?”
“You’re the leading expert on dragons!” Afrit, it seemed, was a little tense this morning.
Behind them, down in the city, the buzz of industry was still alive. Runners brought more wood, and more chunks of iron to add to the battlements. Nearby a carpenter was banging six-inch nails through the makeshift crenellations. In the streets below, a group of men had spent all night drinking and failing to figure out how to build a catapult. They were still hard at work.
Quirk felt a plucking at her shirt sleeve. She turned. Firkin had appeared once more. She’d lost track of him that night, but she’d stopped worrying about that. He seemed eager for this fight.
“Where are they?” he asked.
“The dragons?” Quirk asked. “I was just telling Afrit, I really don’t know. I never had enough time to observe them in—”
“Not the fucking dragons!” Firkin interrupted. “Who gives the slightest shit about poxy dragons?”
Quirk stared at him. “Probably,” she suggested, “all the people about to be attacked by them.”
“Fuck the dragons.” Firkin waved a dismissive hand. “What about Will. The other two. With the drink. Where are they?”
Quirk shrugged again. “You mean Barph’s Strength? The gods alone know. Maybe they’re all with the dragons having cups of tea. How am I supposed to know?”
“We need them.” Afrit had glanced back from her search for the dragons.
“I know that!” Quirk snapped. “I am nothing but aware of that. They are …” She broke off, lowered her voice. “They are pretty much our only hope. But I cannot magic them here.”
“You do magic!” Firkin shouted, affronted. “Do the magic! Do the magic! Do it! Do it!”
“I can roast you alive, if you want,” Quirk hissed. “That’s my magic. Do you want that?”
“Roast my nuts for a saint’s day?” Firkin spat over the wall as if that were somehow a response. He seemed to be back to his old self this morning.
“Are you feeling better?” Quirk asked. “You seem—”
“I will be fucking better”—Firkin wheeled on her—“when we have Barph’s Strength. I told them how to get it. I laid it fucking out. They should be here with it. Now. I said now. I want it now.”
So … not really better then. Quirk felt the headache buzzing behind her eyes again. She really had meant to drink less today.
But there was an army coming.
Suddenly a shout rose from the soldiers to her left. She spun to stare at them. People were pointing out into the fields.
“There they are,” Afrit gasped.
“Will and Lette?” said Quirk, squinting out at the fields, trying to work out what the pair was doing out there beyond the city walls.
Then she remembered that the regular city soldiers didn’t give two shits about Will, or Lette, or Balur.
Then she saw the dragons.
They must have taken to the sky in the night. They must have been above her while she slept. They could have rained fire down upon them at any time. They could have taken this city at any time.
But they had not. Instead they had waited. For this. This moment of revelation.
They swept down out of clouds and smoke. Their wings sent curling pillars of gray wafting through the air. They roared. The clouds and the earth trembled. Their army roared.
They were titans of flesh, and scale, and fire. They were a refutation of reality. They were simply too large to truly comprehend as a whole. It was as if great geologic tracts of rock and soil had wrestled free of the earth, and risen writhing into the air. One was a slab of slate-gray horns and muscles, wings spreading like night falling upon the earth. He sent streamers of red fire howling up into the night as he arced and roared. His mouth opened like the gates to the Hallows, a yawning herald of inevitable death.
To his right, a creature of pure gold spun up toward the heavens. It glinted and glittered, like some great testament to death raised up by loving and insane hands. Its eyes were red jewels studded in a face that was a nightmare of scales and spines. Teeth protruded from its elongated mouth at all angles, fine as Lette’s stiletto blades and long as Balur’s tail. Its own tail was a contusion of bone and spikes. Razorlike fins stitched their way down its back.
And finally, battering and bludgeoning its way through the sky on wings like spreading stains—Diffinax. A mottled orange and brown creature. The ragged edges of his wings fluttered in the air. He came crashing down to earth. Talons that seemed to stretch all the way from the fields of Vinland into Quirk’s nightmares tore up massive tracts of earth. He reared up on his hind legs, broad as two great oak trunks, and sent a column of fire smashing toward the heavens.
Part of her, the part she thought she had left behind in the Tamathian University, reveled in it. It was glorious. The dragons were purposely intimidating them. They had waited all night, so they could do this: dominate their foe. It was a fascinating glimpse into their natural instincts, their psychology.
Except she would never write a paper on that subject. Instead she would die here, a victim of those stupid, hateful instincts.
“A victim of the thing I study,” she muttered to herself. “Just like a good, self-respecting thaumatobiologist.”
“What?” said Afrit, looking over.
Quirk shook her head.
“They’re here! They’re here!” A frantic voice came hurtling up the stairs behind them. Quirk looked over her shoulder. It was Durmitt, red-faced and panting. He stared at them all wildly.
“They’re here!” he shouted again despite the fact he was only a few yards from them now.
“I know,” said Quirk gently. “Everyone knows. They’re quite large and they’re spitting flames.”
“No!” bellowed Durmitt. “Down here.” He pointed back down the stairs. “In the city.”
Quirk’s eyes went wide. Dragons? In the city? A fourth … How had they …
“The ones you sent down to get Barph’s Strength,” said Durmitt,
interrupting her panic. “Will and … and … the other two.”
It was too much. Too much information too quickly. Quirk whipped around, looked out at the dragons roaring and howling outside the city. She saw the army behind them starting to march. She looked left, saw the line of troops stretched out along the wall. Looked back to Durmitt.
So much hung in the balance.
“Did they have it?” she asked. Her voice held a calm she didn’t feel. It was as if the emotions were too big, had log-jammed in her throat and left her voice untouched.
“Had what?” Durmitt stared at her with his wild eyes.
The logjam broke.
“The motherfucking chalice!” she screamed. “Barph’s fucking Strength!”
Durmitt took a step back, almost went over the edge of the wall and down into the city below. “I …” he said. “I don’t …”
Quirk took a step toward him. She knew she should have stopped drinking. If she was less drunk and hungover, she would probably feel a lot less murderous.
And then, before she even had the chance to kill the impulse to wring Durmitt’s stupid neck, there they were, stomping up the steps. Will. Lette. Balur. The trio gone to get their only hope. And against all the odds they had held up their end of the bargain just as she, against the odds, had held up hers. Because there, in Lette’s hand, she saw it. A chalice studded with jewels. Red wine slopped over its sides.
She looked out again at the oncoming army, at its titanic leaders … She, Lette, Will, Balur, Afrit, Firkin—they had already beaten the odds. Maybe—just maybe—they could beat these odds too.
She turned back to the trio, and she thought her smile might split her skull.
She ran forward, seized Lette in a massive hug. “You did it,” she heard herself saying. “You actually did it.”
“I swear,” said Lette to her, “if I have to climb another set of fucking stairs, I am going to start chopping people’s legs off just on principle.”
Which didn’t make any sense, but Quirk didn’t care.
Balur was looking down at her. “I was doing it as well,” he said. “Where is my moment of awkward affection?”
Will was just rubbing the side of his head and groaning.
Quirk just didn’t have time for all of their usual bullshit. She was happy … no, she was overjoyed to see them. And still she didn’t.
“Does it work?” she asked instead, reaching out for the goblet. “Does it do everything Firkin said it would?”
She glanced over at the old man, to see how he was taking all this. He was staring at the chalice, jaw slack. She supposed it was a fairly unbelievable sight. At least he was being quiet.
“I don’t know,” said Lette. “Only Will drank it, and he …” She shrugged. “He was cataclysmically wasted, almost instantly. But I did see him pull off some improbable shit that should have got him killed.”
Quirk thought about it. “Doesn’t that describe most of Will’s life.”
“Hey,” grumbled Will. “That only happens where you’re around.”
“It does something,” said Lette. “Even if it’s just getting people really wasted really fast and making them overly confident.”
And that was not exactly what Quirk wanted to hear. And yet … And yet … The chalice was real. Its contents were sloshing right in front of her. And it had to work. The dragons would be here in an hour. It had to.
“I will take confidence,” she said. “Gods if that’s all it does, well, at least that way our lines might not break before the enemy gets here.”
She took the chalice. As she moved, she considered drinking from it herself. But she could not afford to lose control yet. She had to get this to every soldier. She would be the last to drink. Instead the first would be … She held it out to the sixteen-year-old from the night before. He had upgraded his pitchfork to a sword. It looked a lot like an oversized butter knife.
The youth looked at her, a question in his eyes. But he didn’t voice it as he took the chalice, raised it to his lips, and drank.
And drank.
And drank.
Quirk pulled the chalice away from him. The boy gasped, wine running down his chin. “Oh,” he gasped. And then, “Bugger me.” He staggered, planted his sword for support, reeled. “Oh. Can I have some more? That’s … Barph’s balls. Wow.”
Quirk tried to assess. Was he stronger? Was he invulnerable? If she tried to burn him now, would he live?
He just seemed very drunk.
She looked back at Will. He had a graze down one cheek, a bruise on his lip. Were those the marks of someone invulnerable? She didn’t think so. But he was alive. Was that enough?
There was not enough time. There was never enough.
She passed the chalice to the next man in line. It was still as full as when she had given it to the first man. And that was magic, wasn’t it? That was a sign surely. “Here,” she said. “Now you.”
The man took a deep gulp, staggered, stared at the chalice, and tried to push it back to his lips. Quirk grabbed it out of his hands.
The man stared cross-eyed into space. “Oh that’s lovely that is.” He laughed. A sound of pure joy. “Oh, that’s perfect.”
“Your turn.” She gave it to the next man in line.
The man raised it to his lips.
Then from behind her, Quirk heard a cry. It sounded like a kettle reaching the boil at the very moment it orgasmed and also happened to lay eyes upon its most mortal enemy. A high-pitched animal squeal that scraped through her brain and grated against the roof of her skull.
She spun around to see—arms outstretched, fingers hooked like claws, lips pulled back against his teeth in a rictus of the purest, most unadulterated rage she had ever seen—Firkin charging toward her.
47
And a New Day Will Begin
Firkin watched as Will, and Lette, and Balur walked up onto the wall surrounding Vinter. He watched as they held out the chalice containing Barph’s Strength. He watched as Quirk fawned over them and it.
And he knew. He knew that this was … this was … the end.
Of …
Of what?
He knew that he knew. He knew that all of this—everything that had happened here—made sense somehow. He knew that it was all part of some grand plan, some strategy. But he didn’t know what it was. He couldn’t …
Remember?
There was a memory in his head. Something hidden. But who had hidden it there? Was it him? And if he had … then what? Did answers matter now? He was no longer sure where he ended and the memory began. His headache was a constant throbbing behind his eyes. Like an earthquake in his mind. And things kept clambering out of the fissures. Words, and thoughts, and plans. And he knew that somehow they were all connected, all important. But he didn’t know how. He didn’t … remember.
Maybe the memory wasn’t enough, or wasn’t complete, or was the wrong memory. Maybe the memory was keeping secrets.
Maybe that was what was coming to an end. Maybe he wouldn’t be confused anymore.
As he watched, he felt something in his head moving. He felt it aligning. And he waited. He watched Quirk take the chalice. And he did nothing. Because that was all that was left to do. Just wait. The memory was whispering to him. He could hear his own lips crooning the phrase. “Just wait.”
Dragons were at his back. An army was marching. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was the glint of the light shining from the goblet, the sound of the wine sloshing inside of it.
Emotions were starting to shake loose inside his gut. They felt distant, as if they belonged to somebody else. Perhaps they did.
The first of the soldiers drank from the cup. Firkin watched him almost curiously. The way the wine spilled from the edges of the cup, ran down his chin, through his peach-fuzz beard. There were stories in the ripples of that wine. There were untold histories. He could see them right there, almost his for the grasping. They were his stories. His histories somehow. Or the memory�
��s. Or he had a memory of them belonging to the memory …
He watched. He waited. He waited for things to make sense. Because they would. The memory in his head was stirring now, growing. There was no stopping it. He knew that. He had given up trying to resist. He had given up trying to ignore it. It just was. So Barph’s Strength spilled down the youth’s chin and the memory grew.
The pressure in his head doubled, tripled. He dropped to one knee. No one was paying attention to him. He was strangely aware of the dragons roaring. Those sounds seemed louder to him than anything else. They were important somehow. And the reason why … Gods, it was so close.
He pressed his hands to his head, trying to stop it from splitting wide open. And the bubble of memory had to burst soon, had to rupture and break into his thoughts. He knew it would. It always did. Just wait. Just wait.
A second man was drinking. And he was so close to … to …
He tried to get up off his knee, found himself down on the other one as well. He thought maybe he was screaming, but maybe that was the dragons, or maybe he just remembered screaming.
He just … just … just had to wait …
Everything was a roar now. A howl of rage. His rage. And … and someone else’s. The memory in his head. That was it. It was a memory of rage. Of blood. Of wine. He almost had it now. The memory wasn’t bursting. It was crushing his thoughts, his memories, it was forcing him to become part of it. This was no longer an invasion, it was his mind being co-opted, recruited …
The second soldier was clutching for the cup.
The memory was a memory of flailing fingers. Grasping, gasping.
Quirk took the cup away from the man.
