by Pierre Pevel
In the Cloister neighbourhood of Notre-Dame, the pillage of the first houses in rue du Chapitre began as Marciac looked out onto the street.
Alessandra had slipped a cushion beneath Valombre’s head. Sitting on the floor by the dragon in the small secret room, she heard the Gascon running down the stairs and stood up, alarmed.
‘What’s going on?’
‘We have to go. Come.’
‘Why?’
‘The dracs are attacking. They’re arriving from Les Écailles and plundering the neighbourhood. It’s a question of minutes before they break down the door.’
‘The dracs are attacking? But that’s impossible!’
‘Well, you can tell them that in a minute. Come on.’
He tried to grab her hand, but she would not let him.
‘We can’t abandon Valombre here.’
‘We don’t have a choice, Alessandra.’
‘I won’t abandon him!’
‘Alessandra!’
‘I’m staying here!’
Marciac cursed but refrained from commenting on the stubbornness of women. He needed to think fast and well. Of course, he could lock all three of them in here and pray that the dracs did not find the hidden staircase. But if he and La Donna had found it, why shouldn’t they? And even if the looters lacked the patience to find the mechanism for opening the passage, they still had the solution of breaking in. The winged dracs who had tried to assassinate Valombre were short of time and could not make too much noise for fear of alerting the neighbours. The dracs who were coming now could do as they pleased.
‘All right,’ the Gascon said resignedly. ‘Stay here. I’ll do what I can.’
‘You are leaving us?’
‘I must.’
He went back up to the ground floor after waving goodbye to Alessandra, closed the iron door first and then the sliding wooden panel.
Torchlight danced behind the window panes.
Bracing himself against a large and heavy cupboard in the corridor, Marciac succeeded in dislodging it, and then pushed it against the wall with the secret passage. There he had to turn it before putting it into place. The front door of the house was already shaking from the thuds of boots. Huffing and straining, he finished the job, but exhausted, he could only check the general effect achieved: Alessandra and Valombre should be safe as long as no one thought of moving the cupboard.
Marciac left through the rear garden just as the front door gave way.
He climbed over a wall, jumped down into an alley, and in rue Chanoinesse, saw people fleeing in the direction of Notre-Dame cathedral. Dracs were breaking down the doors of the last dwellings in rue de Chapitre. Bodies were being thrown through windows to crash bloody on the paving stones. Man, woman, child, or priest, no one was spared. It would soon be the turn of the small rue des Chantres.
Marciac knew that he could not do much, except to hurry stragglers along and urge as many people as possible to flee. But there were many residents huddled up in their dwellings out of fear of the Primordial, and who were completely unaware of the new danger that threatened them. So the Gascon knocked on doors and window panes, yelling vainly over the din from the bourdon of Notre-Dame and the thousand other bells of Paris that were sounding the tocsin. Enraged by his helplessness, he thought he glimpsed a movement through a window of a house, broke down the door with a great kick, entered, and called out, warning those inside of the great danger they were in.
A small door inched open beneath the stairway and a frightened man passed his head out through the gap.
‘You must leave, monsieur!’ Marciac told him. ‘You are not safe here!’
‘But …’
‘Are you alone?’
‘No. With my wife … and … and my children. In the cellar.’
‘Then they must make haste or all of you will die!’ the Gascon ordered. ‘And me with you,’ he muttered to himself.
When he returned, the man was carrying a three-year-old boy and held a little girl by the hand. His wife followed him. She was eight months with child and had difficulty walking, breathing heavily. Marciac helped her pass through the low door.
The sound of breaking glass came from the kitchen, on the garden side of the house.
‘What was that?’ asked the woman in alarm.
‘Quickly!’ said the Gascon in a low voice.
But the little girl screamed: a grey drac marauder had just entered the room.
‘Flee!’ shouted Marciac. ‘To Notre-Dame! Go!’
And drawing his rapier, he placed himself en garde while the couple and their two children escaped out into the street.
The grey drac also unsheathed his sword, and was immediately joined by another drac – this one black – who already had a sword in his fist. They advanced. Marciac retreated, overturning a table back against a wall so that it would not hamper him. The black drac was chuckling uncontrollably and his eyes, in the dimness, shone with an insane glow. The grey drac had a slightly unsteady step, but nothing more. With a kick, Marciac slid a stool towards the black drac who easily avoided it and chuckled even harder. No luck. The two dracs spread out, with the intention of obliging their adversary to fight on two fronts. Seeing this, the Gascon started to look truly worried. His guard position began to waver and the grey drac sneered …
At least until Marciac reached his left hand behind his back, suddenly brandished a pistol and opened fire. The drac tumbled over backward, hit in the middle of the brow. Astonished, the black drac reacted too late: the Gascon had already lunged at full stretch and planted the point of his rapier in the invader’s heart.
Withdrawing his sword and backing up, Marciac looked at the two corpses.
Not a very honourable way to fight, but it was effective.
Without giving it further thought, he came out on the threshold of the house and saw that Black Guards were taking up position in the street while others were protecting the survivors’ flight, aiding those who had difficulty walking, carrying those who couldn’t. They were just in time: dracs were arriving from rue Chanoinesse and were immediately routed by a volley of musket fire.
Marciac recognised the officer commanding the guards.
‘Leprat!’
‘Marciac!’
The two men exchanged greetings.
Reynault had entrusted Leprat with keeping watch at the northern entrance to the cathedral: the Cloister portal. Realising what was happening in the canons’ neighbourhood, the musketeer had decided to go to the assistance of all those who could still be saved.
‘Where is La Fargue?’ asked the Gascon.
‘At Notre-Dame.’
‘What’s going on there?’
‘The Chatelaines are praying, thanks to which the bell of Notre-Dame is keeping the Primordial at bay. But don’t ask me any more than that. I don’t understand these matters myself … And La Donna?’
Marciac had no time to reply.
Other dracs were arriving, with Keress Karn at their head. Neither Leprat nor Marciac knew his name, but they recognised him as the red drac who had led the assault on the Château de Mareuil-sur-Ay, when Alessandra had been abducted.
That could not be a coincidence.
Leprat gave the order to retreat and the guards abandoned the small rue des Chantres, slowly, to allow the refugees time to reach the cathedral. But then the dracs charged and furious hand-to-hand combat broke out alongside Notre-Dame, the guards falling back in good order towards the Cloister portal, where the last fugitives from the canons’ neighbourhood were now jostling their way inside. Disciplined, courageous, and fighting every inch of the way, the Black Guards formed an arc in front of the portal, which gradually tightened as the survivors entered the cathedral.
Then it was the turn of the wounded, of Marciac and the rest, to enter one by one.
Lastly, Leprat and a few others retreated together into the cathedral, just as the heavy doors of the portal were closed behind them.
The siege of Notre-Dame had b
egun.
Fanning the night air with great beats of their wings, two saddled wyverns were flying over Paris. Above them, the sky was immense, starry and peaceful, beneath the impassive eye of a beautiful round moon. Below them the city had been thrown into fear and panic, with scenes of violence, stampedes towards the city gates, and outbreaks of rioting all across the capital. Fires burned everywhere the dragon’s breath had struck. And they were spreading, flames rising with a roar like greedy, furious monsters.
His bruised face caressed by the wind, Laincourt guided his wyvern, trying not to be overcome by emotion. Or rather, by all of the emotions that were thrashing about inside him: hatred, anger, fear, revolt. He held tightly to the reins of his anxious mount and followed Saint-Lucq who was flying ahead, just as he had followed him to the Gaget Messenger Services, where the half-blood had requisitioned the two wyverns. After a few heavy, lumbering steps in the courtyard, the reptiles had taken flight. They were now carrying the two men towards Notre-Dame, whose song reached through the clouds of smoke and set off a low vibration that stirred in their guts.
Stone-faced, Saint-Lucq did not take his eyes from the twin towers of the sacred citadel.
That’s where everything will be decided, he had said to Laincourt.
Everything.
Looking livid and tense, his long hair floating over his shoulders, the half-blood held his wounded flank with one hand as the glow from the great blazes below were reflected in the red lenses of his spectacles.
La Fargue and Mère Béatrice d’Aussaint had climbed to the top of the south tower of Notre-Dame, the one housing the bourdon, which – slow, low-pitched and steady – continued to ring out its protective toll.
From this terrace, exposed to the winds sixty metres from the ground, they saw the drac bands that had left Les Écailles and were now engaged in wild pillaging, starting with the Saint-Paul quay on the Right Bank, La Tournelle quay on the Left Bank, and the nearby Cloister. The mother superior of the White Wolves had sent messengers to the Louvre, the Bastille, and the Arsenal, where troops were garrisoned, alerting them to the situation. But even those who were not already mobilised to fight the fires would not be able to intervene in time. At present, the dracs were encountering no resistance and could carry out their atrocities with complete impunity, terrorising a defenceless population. Already plundered, most of the Cloister neighbourhood had been set alight and the rest of the Ile de la Cité was now under threat. Under the orders of Reynault d’Ombreuse, the company of the Black Guards was preparing to defend Notre-Dame’s western forecourt. The Cloister gate on the north side of the cathedral had already been subjected to an assault by the dracs.
‘Nothing will have been spared us,’ said Mère d’Aussaint. ‘Just when we repelled the Primordial, the riot started in Les Écailles and now we have to defend Notre-Dame itself.’
The great black dragon passed in the distance: its wide circles still keeping it well away from the cathedral bell tower. But it had not given up.
On the contrary, it appeared to be waiting.
‘These riots have started just in time to suit our enemies,’ said La Fargue. ‘I don’t know how, but the Arcana are behind them. Moreover, the dracs who attacked the Cloister portal and continue to besiege it are all well-disciplined mercenaries who are obviously following orders.’
‘Orders to interrupt, at any cost, the ritual taking place inside Notre-Dame. Without it, the bell will toll in vain.’
‘I agree,’ replied the Blades’ captain turning round. ‘Perhaps you should shift some of the guards defending the forecourt and … LOOK OUT!’
La Fargue leapt and pinned Mère d’Aussaint to the ground as a winged drac flew past, delivering a mighty sword stroke to the empty air. As they picked themselves up and unsheathed their own weapons, five dracs landed on the terrace and, rapiers already in fists, tucked in their leathery wings.
Back to back, La Fargue and the White Wolves’ mother superior placed themselves en garde, waiting for the dracs to make their move.
‘They want to reach the bell tower,’ said the Chatelaine. ‘If the bell ceases to toll—’
The winged dracs attacked.
Inside Notre-Dame, as the besieged Cloister portal was being closed, the Black Guards had been quick to lead the escapees across the transept, and then made them leave by the Saint-Étienne door to seek refuge in the adjoining episcopal palace. Some of them wanted to remain under the double protection of the cathedral and the Sisters of Saint Georges, but the guards were adamant: the tranquillity of the Chatelaines at prayer had to be preserved as much as possible. Kneeling in the choir behind the high altar, the sisters had been praying for hours, their murmur haunting the empty space of the immense nave. Their fervour was such that the air seemed to vibrate, as if traversed by echoes between the slow, grave peals of the bourdon. But they were growing exhausted, to the point that some had fainted and had to be carried away.
Nevertheless they were still managing to hold firm.
As long as they prayed and the bell of Notre-Dame continued to sound, the Primordial would be forced to keep its distance from Paris.
Joining Leprat near the Cloister portal, Marciac saw his friend succumb to a bout of weakness that he alone noticed. The musketeer’s legs suddenly gave way beneath him and he had to lean on a pillar to disguise his weakness. His face was pale, however, and his jaws clenched as he tried not to grimace.
Marciac took Leprat by the elbow in a gesture that might seem merely friendly, but supported the musketeer’s weight as he drew him aside, beneath the first arches of the ambulatory.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ the Gascon asked in a low voice.
‘Nothing. I … I’m just tired.’
‘Pull the other one. It’s the ranse, isn’t it?’
Leprat sighed. Looked away. Nodded.
Marciac understood what was happening to his friend.
‘It’s the ritual, it’s hostile to dragons,’ he said. ‘It threatens your ranse which is defending itself and eating away at you. It will kill you if you stay here!’
‘And where do you suggest I go? To the Hôtel-Dieu hospital next door?
‘No, Antoine, no one is asking you to—’
‘At this hour, my place is here, Nicolas. Here, and nowhere else.’
Irritated, the Gascon turned away.
‘Anyway,’ added Leprat in a jesting tone, ‘don’t you think I have more to fear from a drac’s sword than from the ranse, if I stay here? And so do you, by the way …’
Marciac did not reply.
They were near the Red portal, which owed its name to the colour of its panels. Much smaller than the Cloister portal, it gave the canons direct access to the choir. The Black Guards had barricaded it rather than defend it.
A wisp of smoke was rising from beneath it.
When he saw it, Marciac thought – too late – of the mines that had blown away the gates at Château de Mareuil.
‘DOWN!’ he yelled, pushing Leprat behind a pillar.
The blast threw the Gascon into the air.
He fell back heavily on the flagstones and, covered in dust and with blood dripping from his nostrils, he tried to get up. A high-pitched whistling filled his ears and the thump of his own heartbeat was deafening, but any sounds from outside his body were muffled. His vision was clouded and the ground beneath him seemed to sway and rock, making him dizzy. His legs like jelly, he stood with the help of a pillar and then almost slipped back to the ground. In a great blur, he saw armed dracs entering Notre-Dame through the demolished Red portal. He also recognised Leprat, advancing towards them. The mine’s explosion had not spared the musketeer. His step was unsteady. He struggled to remain standing and drew his white rapier with a far too expansive gesture, like that of a drunken man. Combat was engaged as Black Guards came to the rescue. One of them jostled Marciac as he ran by. The Gascon tripped and caught himself the best he could. The sounds of the fighting came to him from a distance, in a distorted fo
rm. For him, seconds stretched out in slow motion. He straightened, saw Leprat brandishing his sword with two hands in the midst of a confused mêlée, taking large swings with it. The musketeer was possessed by a warrior’s fury. He had already taken several wounds without yielding ground and he continued to strike to the right, to the left, and to strike over and over again. Marciac wanted to come to his aid. He tried to unsheathe his rapier, took a step, then two, three, but was overcome by dizziness and fell to one knee. The immense lines of perspective within the cathedral danced, blurred, and separated above him.
Gathering his wits, he searched for Leprat …
And suddenly there was a great silence.
Suddenly his ears stopped buzzing and his heart stopped beating.
Suddenly icy terror stamped in his memory an image that would never leave him: Leprat had a blade planted up to the hilt in his belly and was vomiting up blood.
On the roof of the south tower, La Fargue and Mère Béatrice d’Aussaint had slain one winged drac apiece. Three remained, two of which joined forces against the captain of the Blades. Striking, parrying, riposting, at one corner of the terrace he defended the turret which housed the stairway leading to the belfry. They needed at all costs to prevent the dracs from reaching it and stopping the slow peals of the bourdon. Evading one clumsy cut, La Fargue passed beneath the guard of one of his adversaries and found the drac’s chest. Then he broke off to avoid the thrust of the second drac, engaged his blade, pushed it away from the line of his body and – obeying old reflexes – projected the reptilian’s body into thin air with a strong kick to the abdomen. But the creature simply deployed his wings and immediately returned to the fray, while La Fargue cursed. The drac had barely managed to set one foot back on the terrace, however, when he was struck by a pistol ball right in the middle of his forehead. It was a service rendered by the mother superior to the captain, just after she had disposed of the third drac she had been confronting alone.
