He stood with Cam near the access hatch that had brought them up onto the northeast corner of the roof. The Elf was pale, and his leg was soaked with blood. Rowan could only imagine the pain he was in, but Cam stayed upright, swaying slightly. Behind them reared a thirty-foot-tall glass and steel wall. Rowan had lived in Manchester all his life, and he had always thought that it was a windbreak – now he could see that it wasn’t. Built of glass panels set sideways into the frame across the entire south edge of the building, it blocked nothing. The cold wind whipped at them as it blasted through. The wall hummed like a giant tuning fork.
Cam saw where he was looking. ‘It’s a lightning rod. I read that somewhere. They called it a “blade” in the article, but basically it’s a lightning rod.’
Rowan nodded and looked back at the floor. The area was clad with large yellowy-beige tiles. They were more or less intact, but Rowan could see that they sagged and blistered in places, as if they were melting. All over, thin tendrils of smoke escaped from the cracks between their edges. Vents and grates and junction boxes were scattered across the roof. A huge crane was suspended sideways across the length of the building. The crane’s arm was high enough to walk beneath, and the eastern end was connected to a window-cleaning carriage. Parts of the crane glowed red hot. Presumably, its infrastructure ran deep into the roof to anchor it, and this was conducting heat from the fires ravaging the lower levels. The roof was searing and close, and the air was thick and choking.
Grímnir and the Maiden stood nearby. All four of them looked out over the city through thick shreds of smoke. To the north and east, Rowan could see vast tracts of buildings caught up in an unholy inferno which cast flickers of orange and red into the gloaming. The dragon was systematically levelling the city. To the west, the fires were few and sporadic. It hadn’t gotten that far yet.
The beast hovered a little way to the northeast, sending great plumes of roiling flame into what Rowan guessed was Piccadilly Gardens. The dragon undulated like a banner, its body constantly moving. Its equally impressive wings beat slowly, impossibly keeping a creature the size of a blue whale in the air.
Lit up from below by the conflagration it had caused, the dragon looked like an enormous vermilion python with four powerful limbs hanging below it: a corded, red-scaled pennant that lashed at the air. Each limb was tipped by three dexterous-looking digits, each of those tipped with a foot of black talon. Its head was large and sleek, and curved horns sprouted from its head as if it were the devil himself.
Evidently, it had caught some people outside; it swooped down and out of sight, and when it reappeared, its sinuous neck rose as it swallowed something whole.
‘What can we do against that?’ Rowan asked Cam.
The Maiden answered. ‘We kill it.’
‘Look at this place,’ Rowan pointed to the roof. Parts were beginning to bubble, and a heat haze shimmered over some solar panelling towards the northwest corner. ‘The whole building’s going to collapse around us. We can’t stay up here. It’s suicide.’
‘We make our stand here,’ the Maiden insisted. ‘There is no more time. There is nowhere to go. Nowhere is safe. We stand now, or Cú Roí will take everything.’
‘I must be insane,’ Rowan said. ‘What’s your plan?’
‘We get its attention,’ Cam replied quietly.
Cam looked at the Maiden and Grímnir. Grímnir nodded at him, his face stony. The Maiden smiled encouragingly. A waist-high safety rail ran around the roof about three feet from the edge. He limped to it and stopped, unwilling to climb over it, as if it delineated some imaginary point of safety. Strange, he thought; some small part of him was still worried about safety. There was nothing safe in what he was about to do.
Cam raised his hand and for a moment he stared at the tattoo, lost in the intricate detail. It was so real. He felt woozy, weak, and tired. Cam didn’t know if it was the loss of blood, shock, or just exhaustion, but he was struggling to concentrate. His injured leg spasmed and he leant on the rail to stop himself falling. He closed his eyes tight, fighting off dizziness and nausea. He took a deep breath and then looked back out over the city. Cam pointed the palm of his hand towards the dragon.
The eyes on his knuckles blinked. Then, a narrow line of blistering white fire shot from him. The flare covered the distance to Cú Roí in an instant, and then it was gone. Cam blinked away the afterglow that had burned across his retinas. He felt light-headed again and his hand slipped from the rail. He began to fall, but a strong arm caught him and held him upright. Cam smiled his thanks at Rowan.
‘Are you okay?’ the human asked. ‘You look like shit. Maybe you should sit down for a bit.’
‘I’ve got to get it to come over here,’ Cam insisted. His legs gave way, and Rowan lowered him gently to the roof. The marine was still carrying the black sword, and it got tangled up between them.
‘Look, just sit here,’ Rowan said, putting the sword down. ‘That leg’s a mess.’
‘No time,’ Cam muttered. ‘No time. Got to get it over here.’
‘What are you planning to do if it comes?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll think of something.’
‘Yeah right. I still think we should cut our losses …’ Rowan went quiet. Cam looked around to see why. He followed Rowan’s gaze and shivered.
It had worked. The dragon was coming.
It flew through great drifting clouds of smoke towards them. It wasn’t hurrying. Its red scales glittered like rubies, and its eyes were dead black with coruscating white cores. Grímnir watched his enemy approach through the dusk with anticipation. This was what he had given his life for. He did not like this new world with its strange smells and the stone that covered the Earth. He did not like the cold feeling he got when he tried to tap into the magic that no longer existed. He did not like the hordes of humans with their shining machines that he could not fathom, and their ugly language that he could not understand.
It was a freakish and inhospitable place and he felt lonely; out of his element. He was not stupid, and he knew only his burning need to destroy Cú Roí had kept him focussed. Without that, he was sure he would have gone mad.
There were some good things, he supposed. The Chain-Sword, though unwieldy, had been a joy to use; its noise and power had been breath-taking in the enclosed spaces of The Tower at Dawn, and the carnage it caused had been magnificent to behold. The beer had been nice too, and young Camhlaidh had proved himself to be worthy and steadfast, as had Dow. At the thought of his dead companion, sadness touched Grímnir. He had lost so many people. He was lost across the aeons. He had no lovers, no children, no real friends. Everybody and everything that he had ever cared about were gone. Dead. He had volunteered for this because he believed in the cause. He had dedicated himself to this one purpose. To kill the dragon. His body was covered with a stark reminder of his commitment.
He thought of the Satyr, also dead now. Back when the plan was first conceived, the Maiden had agreed to bless the sword, while the Satyr had fused his magic into Grímnir’s body. He had taken to the role of tattooist with a mischievous enthusiasm, insisting that Grímnir would be a work of art, not simply a block of ink. The tattoos of dragons had been an ironic gesture to his mission, the Satyr had stated with a grin, his eyes flaring in delight. Grímnir hadn’t really cared, but the Maiden had laughed.
The joy had leaked from the big Ifrit as the years of the hunt dragged on unsuccessfully. He took to hiding in his apartments in The Tower at Dawn, becoming more and more reclusive as each season passed on Miðgarðr. When Grímnir found him again, he had barely recognised the Tattooist as the man he once knew. Even the immortals change, he thought sadly.
Camulus thrummed in his hand as if sensing his melancholy. They were one, he and the sword. Having it back completed him. He held Camulus up in front of his eyes. Colours danced along the rainbow blade. He read the runes, written there in the True Tongue so long ago.
I sacrifice immortality and my sacrifice shal
l live forever. He looked at the Maiden. ‘The Miracle Child needs to be down here. I cannot kill it while it is flying,’ he said.
She reached out and laid a slim hand on his shoulder. ‘You always were the best of us, my friend. I wish you well in the next life.’
‘This is not my world anymore. I am tired. Today is a good day to die.’
‘I wish it could be avoided.’
‘You more than anybody should understand how perilous wishes can be. Can you get it down?’
‘Yes. Prepare yourself, Grímnir Vafthrúdnir, for you champion the world.’
Cú Roí hovered in front of them. Its mouth opened to reveal a cavernous maw filled with sabre-like teeth. It was smiling.
You have courage to come to me here, but your pet’s small fires cannot harm me. I, who am forged from fire and air.
‘I have come to destroy you, Cú Roí. It is long past due,’ the Maiden replied.
You are weak. Your magic has almost gone from this land. Your pathetic attempts to harness my power have failed. Up here, so far away from the Earth, you are defenceless. Your death will be painful.
‘You misjudge me, dragon. I am not as weak as you believe.’
Show me. The dragon laughed. Your bravado is worthless here.
‘As you wish.’ The Maiden raised her hands to the dirty, ruined sky.
Above the Maiden, the clouds of smoke opened like an iris, and the last light of the dying day bled through the hole. The ragged edges of smog and cloud around the calm purple disc of sky whipped up and began spiralling faster and faster. Rowan realised it was the eye of a storm in the moment before a hard rain like a rolling cliff of water came roaring over him and across the roof. Steam hissed off the superheated metal of the crane.
Huge, cold raindrops fell in a barrage so dense that it forced Rowan to his knees alongside Cam. It may as well have been a solid sheet. Water went everywhere – in his eyes and ears, and in his nose and mouth, causing him to choke and splutter.
Rowan tried to peer through the deluge but it was difficult. Cam was curled up on the floor, grasping his injured leg. The dragon was a vague shape in the maelstrom – a shadow within a haze. Rowan thought that he could see its wings beating, but faster now, more urgently. It was finding it difficult to fly in the torrents of water.
A huge ball of fire spun from the shape and hissed through the rain a few feet above their heads. Rowan ducked instinctively, giving silent thanks that it had missed the roof. He realised that if he couldn’t see, then neither could the dragon.
‘We’ve got to get out of here!’ Rowan shouted at Cam over the hammering rain. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to talk. His words came out with a gurgle.
‘I can’t. My leg …’
‘We can’t stay here. If the dragon doesn’t get us, we’ll bloody well drown!’
A twisting column of mud and debris lanced up past the edge of the building and crashed into the vague mass of the dragon before spilling back down. ‘Holy shit!’ Rowan gasped. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ He turned to look at the centre of the roof. The Maiden stood with her hands above her head, untouched by the rain. Grímnir was several paces in front of her, staring out into the cascading waters. Another column rocketed past the northern edge of the building. The dragon twisted to avoid it and screeched angrily.
Rowan watched with awe. The Maiden conjured pillars – roughly the width of a fridge and made of tarmac, soil, and whatever else was caught in her magic – forty-seven storeys straight up. Once the skewers reached their peak, they cracked and crumbled, great swathes shearing away until the individual pillar lost its integrity and toppled out of sight to crash down onto the buildings far below.
Another spear of earth shot up. This one battered into the dragon, flipping it almost upside down. A belch of flame arced up into the sky as it fought to right itself. The monster held one wing out flat and flapped the other frenziedly as it writhed in the air.
In the seconds since the rain began, the dragon had come closer to the northern edge of the building. So close that Rowan considered picking up the Immortals’ Requiem and sticking it up into the glittering iridescent belly. He knew it would be a futile gesture. Suicidal, even. Only one sword could kill the monster.
The dragon turned clumsily in the air, as if it were trying to fly away. As it righted itself, its tail hammered down, hitting the edge of the roof ten or eleven feet away from where Rowan knelt. Masonry crumbled, and the impact vibrated through the building. The dragon tumbled again, unbalanced by the unexpected collision. Its wings beat and it flew a few feet out over the city, away from the roof. Before it could escape, another earth-spear, bigger this time, came tearing up from below. At its tip, like a clenched fist at the end of a long arm, was a black Lamborghini Reventón. Rowan caught a glimpse of a corpse in the driver’s seat. The supercar hit the dragon under its jaw, delivering the most massive uppercut the marine had ever seen. The creature did a full somersault, its wings folding up as it tumbled over the roof from north to south. Another great stream of hellfire cut through the rain like a gigantic Catherine wheel, and scoured the roof behind Rowan before it blazed upwards and left a huge hole melted through the lightning rod.
The earth-spear broke and crumbled and fell forwards onto the top of the Beetham Tower. Rowan watched as the Lamborghini surfed an avalanche of debris that slumped onto the beige tiles. Mud and stone rumbled to the roof near the access hatch, narrowly missing him and Cam. The Lamborghini landed upside down on the crane, crushing it to the floor with a crunch and a screech. The dragon spun drunkenly over them, desperate now, wings flapping crazily as it fought to stay airborne. It failed.
Grímnir clutched Camulus and waited. The Maiden was bringing the monster closer. Soon, he would be able to strike it down. He was not surprised by the furies that the Maiden had summoned. She had hidden her power away for this moment – to bind the creature long enough for him to cut its filthy head from its body.
The rain was a hammer, but he set his feet and absorbed it, unwilling to sacrifice his position even for an instant. He watched as the Maiden’s magic shepherded the dragon towards him. Soon.
One of the strange metal wagons the humans loved so much came hurtling up on a gigantic pillar of earth and crunched into Cú Roí’s head. The dragon spun and flamed, and then slowly, ever so slowly, it careened towards the great transparent structure – that curious metallic fin – behind him. Grímnir ran towards it. ‘Keep it down!’ he called to the Maiden as he passed to her left. She nodded curtly, her face set with concentration.
It did not take him more than a few seconds to get to Cú Roí, but in that time the creature crashed into the centre of the fin headfirst. The whole thing shattered around the dragon. With a groan, it crumpled backwards until it was leaning drunkenly at forty-five degrees out over the streets far below it. Lengths of metal rope ripped out of the destruction with a chorus of metallic screeches and tangled around Cú Roí’s wings and neck.
The monster thrashed desperately, trying to free itself. The broken fin trembled and wobbled. Between Cú Roí’s flailing and the rain’s constant assault, it was close to breaking away completely. Grímnir didn’t hesitate. Still clutching Camulus in one hand, he began to climb up towards his enemy.
His leg was agony. He was drenched. And he was sure the roof beneath him was starting to give way. The Lamborghini that had surreally smashed Cú Roí out of the air and demolished the crane blocked some of his view, but Cam could still see Grímnir. The Jötnar crawled up the toppled steel and glass construction towards Cú Roí.
The dragon was tangled up in the half-collapsed lightning rod. Its head had gone right through the hole it had burned there seconds before colliding into it. Its wings were caught in a snarl of twisted metal and loose cables, and its back legs pushed and kicked frantically at the point where the structure joined the building as it tried to pull itself free. If Grímnir carried on the way he was, he would reach its head in moments. Then it would be o
ver.
His heart was in his mouth. Even through the rain, Cam saw the dragon wrench its head free by half a foot. Steel cables tore loose from around its wings. The glass and steel wreck dropped another two feet and swayed alarmingly.
‘Can’t you do something?’ Rowan shouted at him.
‘Like what? The only trick I’ve got to hand is fire. I doubt it’d even notice.’
‘You can’t do anything?’
‘Well, I’m open to suggestions,’ Cam snapped irritably.
‘Christ, Cam – it’s getting loose. What have you got to lose?’
‘Oh, what the hell,’ he said. He raised his hand, pointed it at the dragon, and let loose a blazing stream that cut across its belly. Cú Roí didn’t seem to notice. Why should it? It was a fucking dragon. A dragon! How on Miðgarðr had he ended up here, bleeding to death on top of a burning fifty-storey building? How?
Grímnir was struggling over a great mess of steel and glass. Cú Roí was pulling itself backwards out of the tangle that held it. ‘I told you! I can’t do anything!’ Cam shouted at Rowan. The marine didn’t answer. ‘Are you listening to me?’
‘Oh shit,’ Rowan said.
‘What?’ Cam demanded. ‘What?’ Rowan wobbled to his feet, bent into the storm, and ran towards the centre of the roof. Cam saw him pull the gun from his jacket.
Grímnir was so close. If it weren’t for the magic of his tattoos, he would have been half-flayed. He clutched Camulus, and squirmed and crawled and dragged himself up and across glass and sharp metal, ignoring the pain just as he ignored the fear of failure. Frustration crashed around him but he refused to give up. The beast was nearly free.
Immortals' Requiem Page 44
