by K. Eason
Future regret soured her belly. She pushed it aside. “I don’t think I need advice from a noidghe who can’t tell living flesh from angry dead, yeah? I know Tsabrak better than you do. I know the God better than you do. Both versions.”
Frost collected in his eyes. In his voice. “And yet you did not predict his betrayal.”
Briel lanced through her skull, blue lightning buzz that made her eyes sting. That was distress. Upset. Fear, fuck and damn, no reason for it. Snow was angry at Veiko, not a danger to him. And he was hardly going to plant his axe in her skull.
Except his hand was dropping to his belt, to the axe, while his eyes flashed wide. Snow gave up a step. Realized he was looking past her, up the hill, at—
A gust off the mountains, sudden and fierce, escorted by muttering thunder. A hot wind, reeking of metal and scorch, as if from a forge.
Logi skewed backward and slammed into her knees. Made her look down a heartbeat to steady herself. And when she looked up, the street was turning black, like ink spilled from a massive well. But not just the street, no, the houses, the shops and the ruins—everything pitching dim like someone had rubbed out the sun.
A shadow, wide and dark, the edge sweeping at them. A familiar silhouette, yeah, the graceful bow and sweep of a svartjagr’s wing, except no svartjagr’s shadow could cover so much.
Snowdenaelikk looked up, and the dragon spread its darkness over the Warren.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Snow threw out an arm, grabbed at her partner. Please, she didn’t catch the axe blade instead of his sleeve. “Veiko—”
His fingers wrapped tight around hers. “Do not move.”
Veiko knew, as she did, how Briel saw things. Light and dark, not much color, warmth—and movement, more than anything. Something motionless might escape a svartjagr’s attention. Might escape a dragon’s notice, too.
But not the dragon’s sending. Svartjagr sent whispers of danger and threat, camouflage and bluff together. A single svartjagr made people nervous, but the effect was cumulative, so that a pack of svartjagr all sending we’re dangerous would keep most people at a healthy distance.
But when the sending came from a dragon, it became a weapon. The dragon’s I’m dangerous feeling made Snow’s heart go crawling into her throat, made her muscles go tight and shivering. There was not enough air in the world to fill her lungs. Panic and threat trailed over her like blind fingers feeling around in the dark. Fear settled in the back of her throat until she was sure she couldn’t breathe, that all she had to do was get up and run and her lungs would work again.
“Logi,” Veiko said, and then he moved, grabbing at Logi as the dog broke under the dragon’s sending and bolted for
there is no
safety under a charred set of beams.
The dragon, the avatar—fuck and damn, how much woman could still be in that thing—tilted her head. Ember-hot eyes, big as a bonfire, feel that stare. She dipped down over the Warren. Pivoted on a wingtip and beat her way back against the currents. Dragons were like svartjagr, clumsy on land, wings better suited for gliding than actual lift.
So death was coming back, yeah, but she was taking her toadshit time.
Snow pulled at shadows, dragged them out of Logi’s hiding place and stretched them along the street. Made a mist that swirled darkly, like a ripple in water. There weren’t enough shadows to conceal them, not with the brass-bright sun bending past the mountain’s teeth. So: take that light, wrap it, turn it. Braid it and twist just so. The theory said look away was like a mirror, reflecting what eyes expected to see. Bare hardpack, empty street, ruined buildings sullen and still. Nothing moving, no, just stillness. Eyes should slide off her and Veiko, see nothing. Snow could turn almost anyone, yeah, except maybe an adept, if she got the spell off before they saw her. But this godsrotted dragon knew where they were. Might slow her down, though, might confuse her.
Please, Laughing God.
Veiko eased his bow off his left shoulder. Took his hand back and strung it, slow movements, as if his limbs dragged through honey.
“Arrows won’t go through that hide.”
“Perhaps not,” he said. “But an arrow will draw her attention. Go left now, slowly.”
She saw at once where he meant. Logi had picked the nearest dog-sized hole in a pile that had been a three-floor building. The house next to it had been smaller, half-collapsed instead of leveled. All broken wood ribs and chunks of plaster chunks. But it had most of its second floor intact, visual barrier against aerial creatures. Wouldn’t count for anything if the dragon attacked. But if Veiko had his way, she’d come after him, not Snow.
“Go,” Veiko said through his teeth.
“You come with me.”
“No.”
Snow abandoned the look away. Began a different conjuring as the dragon beat its way upslope. Take the stone, and change it. Take the air, and twist it. Bind it, shape it, a wind from the mountains—fuck and damn, the work was shaky. Her left hand hurt. Her right arm did, all along the scar. Backlash would kill a conjuror, but so could botching the casting. She wanted to conjure a blast of wind with the force of a falling boulder. She might crush herself instead.
And that would be better than death by dragon. She heard the slow thunder of wingbeats, like curtains caught in a gale. Heard the absolute silence around them. No rats. No birds. Nothing but her breath and Veiko’s and the creak of the bow as he drew.
Briel’s keen was deafening, when it came. Echoed through skull and ears and off every surface, as if Briel were a hundred svartjagr. But there was exactly one slim black shape dropping out of the blue, slicing across the dragon’s course. Fuck and damn, she cut close, flick and whip as her tail licked across the dragon’s nose.
The dragon sheered sideways, blasted dust and small debris up the street in a stinging cloud as it beat its way toward altitude. For an eyeblink, Briel was lost against that greater darkness, one drop of ink in all the night sky.
Then she flashed visible again, wings arrowed, riding the dragon-wing gusts. The dragon’s head followed, jaws open, fuck and damn, the teeth. Snow clenched both fists and tied the last knots in her conjuring, drew breath to let it go—
And lost it, all of it, when Veiko grabbed her elbow. He dragged her with him, a dash and dive toward cover. Flung her ahead of him, so that she fetched up hard against the intact half-wall. Threw himself down beside her and pushed her ahead of him, under the thatch of cracked beams and burned floors. Wedged her in back and set himself between her and the opening. Drew the bow again, pointing at a gap in the boards.
So he did not see what happened when a botched conjuring burned itself out.
It was a smaller version of backlash. Witchfire and shadow bleeding off her skin, threads of silver fire all through her bones. Let it go, and she would burn from the inside, as if her guts had turned to oil and dry leaves. Hold it too tight, and flesh could split. Bones could break. She felt the first rip deep inside, tasted blood in her teeth.
And swallowed it. Breathed past it, cool wind against candles. Blow it out. Cool it down. Turn the power back on itself. This was the second lesson the adepts taught students, after this is conjuring. How to keep control and turn the power inward. How to let it go without screaming.
Snow doubled over. Let the pain out in tight, tiny breaths. She would thank her teachers for that, if she ever got back to Illharek. They’d taught her so well, her own partner didn’t notice what he’d done.
Saved your life, yeah? That’s what he did.
And maybe killed Briel. Her conjuring would’ve been better for drawing the dragon’s attention than a fucking arrow. Snow planted her hand on Veiko and pulled herself around and up. Ruined his aim, surprised him, dragged him off balance. Wedged in beside him to see.
Briel was opening space between herself and the avatar when the dragon struck. Fast, dear Laughing God, all neck and jaws and snap like breaking trees. She missed with the first strike, as Briel dove toward the roofline. Rec
oiled and aimed and struck a second time, faster than any archer could fire.
But not as fast as a svartjagr. Briel doubled back on herself and streaked under the dragon’s belly, dipped and disappeared into the Warren’s rooflines. The dragon’s attention followed, neck and head twisting like a tangle of rope. The wings churned, clutching altitude, but dragon and svartjagr were not meant to hover, and Briel was out of reach. The dragon hissed. Thrashed its wings and beat some distance between itself and the Cardik rooflines. Then it swung back toward the mountains. Took one last turn over the Warren, spiraling steeply upward. Caught a helpful current then that carried it over the peaks, out of sight, into the belly of the storm crawling over the mountains.
Triumph streamed out of Briel, sendings of cobble-rivers and plaster-and-tile canyons, all streaking past at svartjagr speeds.
Veiko let his breath out. His muscles slipped against Snow’s fingers where she gripped his arm.
“The dragon is hunting,” Veiko murmured. “But not us, or she would not have retreated so quickly.”
“Retreat. Is that what we’re saying? I think she’s got somewhere else to go.” Snow clenched her fists against their shaking. Took gulps of summer morning and dragon stink and the smoky dust of the ruins. “You damn near killed us both, yeah? I had a conjuring. About to let it go when you grabbed me. Could have flattened this whole street, worse than backlash.”
And turned me to slag.
Not often she surprised Veiko. His brows made two perfect crescents. “What was it?”
“A wind gust with rocks. Except just for the dragon. Would’ve knocked her sideways.”
“Fortunate, then, that I interrupted. We would not fare well if she fell on us.”
“Fuck and damn, Veiko, I wouldn’t’ve dropped her here—oh, shut up.”
His eyes smiled at her. Sobered again, next blink. “I forget, sometimes, that you can conjure.”
A decade plus of her life spent in Academy walls, earning the rings threaded through her ears and the right to shave the sides of her head and wear her hair in a topknot—what any born-bred Illhari would recognize as Academy rank. And to Veiko, it was just how she looked. Normal Snow. Nothing special.
Aneki had asked once what she saw in her partner. That. Right there.
She waved off his confusion. Pointed at Logi instead. He was slinking out of his hiding place. Ears down, tail tucked, streaked and striped with soot. He crept past Veiko. Crouched between them and sighed.
“Ashamed, yeah?” She brushed at his fur. Fuck and damn, the dust coming off him. Half of the Warren stuck in his coat. “You should be. A dragon’s just a bigger Briel, that’s all. No need to worry about her. Well, except where she came from.”
“She was low,” Veiko said slowly. “She could not have been in the air for long.”
“You think she jumped off the top of the walls? Or came out of the mountain?”
He pulled himself up the half-wall. Hugged the brick and, hand over hand, worked his way to the street. Step and pause, move and wait, until he reached the end of his cover. Straightened, finally, and squinted at the sheer rockface.
“I do not know. I think we should find out.”
“We’ll have to get closer. Let me tell you how much I don’t like that.”
“We will move with more caution.” Sober stare, half a heartbeat, then: “Can you manage shadows if we stay to the edge of the street?”
She scooped a handful of shadows as answer, pulled them out of cracks and crevices and sent them into the sunlight. She shrank the street’s brightness by half a body’s width of solid shadow and turned the rest of it uncertain, shifting patterns of grey and greyer.
“I worked this trick out with Briel,” she said. “I tried to hide, she tried to look for me. Once I taught her no cheating, eyes only, it worked pretty well.”
“So, this is proof against svartjagr.”
“This is proof against things watching from above. Don’t think it’ll stop a dog’s nose. I don’t know it’ll stop a dragon, either. Briel doesn’t hunt by smell. Do they?”
“I know one man who claims to have killed a wurm. I think he was lying. And he said nothing about how they hunt.” Veiko hitched the bow across his shoulders. Frowned at the axe. “I need to walk the ghost roads, find a wurm spirit, and make it teach me its secrets. Then I will know how to kill it.”
“Stick sharp things through its soft bits.”
That won a smile, wry and reluctant. “I hope it is that simple.”
“Killing’s always simple. Staying alive is what’s hard.”
They took a long time climbing through the Warren, all the way up to the old walls. Briel joined them partway. She was staying close to the roofs, very pleased with herself. Brave Briel, fierce Briel. Worse than a dockside minstrel, yeah, singing the same tune a dozen ways. She sent flashes of the avatar from far too close, ghosts of hot breath and a Briel-scale perspective of the inside of its mouth. Brave Briel. Fierce and swift.
But even Briel stopped sending, the closer they got to the city wall. They passed the place where Ehkla had died, kept climbing. Snow’s lungs burned. Her throat did. Blame the pack for its weight, and that godsrotted teakettle. Blame the jenja habit. Except jenja didn’t turn a woman’s legs to dough and set fires in all her joints. No. That was the fault of thirty-winters-and-a-handful and a near miss by dragon and the toadfucking conjuring. At least she was younger than the buildings. These had been built later than some of the ones lower down. The mud bricks were a different color. The roofs, a little higher. Might’ve been a fire up here, some catastrophe that required rebuilding.
Veiko waved her to a halt. Squatted and poked in the dirt.
She was glad for the rest. Raw throat, all the breath she could manage, so that she sounded like a determined toad: “The walls are right up there, yeah? One more damn corner. Why’d we stop?”
“This is river clay.” He showed her a bit of it, pinched between his fingers. “There was water here once.”
That explained the newer buildings, then. “Probably the S’Ranna’s old bed. The Illhari must’ve moved it when they built the garrison and the rest of the new city.”
“Moved the river.” His brows knotted together. He shook his head slightly. “Conjurors?”
“Yeah.”
“This was conjured,” slowly, as if he was a stranger to the word. “A river moved with conjuring.”
“Sure. Water wants to find a way through stone, yeah? It doesn’t care how it gets there. Doesn’t care if it has to cut its own way. You conjure it a path, water will take it.”
“Dvergiri did this.”
“Fuck and damn, Veiko. Who else? The Alviri were good at godmagic, singing, and making war. But they were shit for metalwork and architecture. Even if they wanted to shift the S’Ranna, they wouldn’t know how.”
He stared between his feet at the clay. “There are spirits in a river. Of a river. To simply move them for convenience.” He looked at her, cold as all the north. “Your people have no care at all who they offend.”
Her people now, was it? As if he had not spent the last few months telling her she was as much Jaihnu as Dvergir, that her father’s blood counted as much as her mother’s.
“Save the scolding for the dead, yeah? Maybe you’ll find them when you go looking for the dragon. Tell them they have no respect. Don’t tell me.” Snow pushed hard off the wall. Stalked mostly steadily past Veiko. Ignored the look on his face that might be regret, and marched around the last bend in the road, to the base of the wall.
Fuck and damn.
Most of the rock was natural mountain, craggy and impassable, except for what must have been the S’Ranna’s original mouth. The Illhari had conjured a patch over it: not a gate, but a smooth wall of stone, seamed into the natural crags and crevices. Now one whole chunk of that conjured barrier lay on its side, like someone had taken a hunk of bread off a loaf, grab and twist and pull. Except this bread was hollow. What lay inside was more perf
ect Dvergiri stonework. Precise dimensions, flat-floored and even. A conjured tunnel in the river’s old bed. A dragon’s lair, bet on it: there were score marks in the stone.
Logi scrabbled up beside her. Then came a firmer, two-legged tread, and a man-shaped shadow carving black into the wall’s ruin.
“Not for convenience,” she told him. “That’s not why you move a river. You move a river because it’s easier conjuring a tunnel where one’s already started. This is the S’Ranna’s old bed, Veiko. And I bet it leads to Illharek.”
* * *
Veiko squatted at the mouth of the
stolen
conjured tunnel and counted the firepits. He found an easy dozen within two paces of the threshold. People had come through here, very recently, but with no concern that anyone might follow their trail. There were bones that had come from animals and meals, not men and murder. And the smell, dear ancestors—badly cut latrines, badly buried. These weren’t folk used to travel.
“So, this is where the city’s population went,” Snow said. “At least some of them.” She kicked at the nearest firepit. “Why would they come up here? Why not run into the forest? I mean, there’s a dragon up here. She opened this tunnel. It’s not like they wouldn’t’ve seen her.”
“They may not have had that choice. Or they may have decided this was better than running into a raider-filled forest in winter.” Veiko squinted at black nothing, past the rim of weak sunlight. Ignored the weight of her stare on the side of his face.
“Or maybe the Taliri drove them up here.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because they’re toadfuckers. I don’t know. Because they’d run out of poles and decided everyone else could go starve in a cave.”
“That would be a waste of sacrifice.”
“Then there’s some other plan, isn’t there? I mean, there has to be. Kellehn came all the way to Illharek to get us, you and me, to kill this dragon, yeah? So, why not just bring us straight up here? Why go to the garrison at all? Tell you, Veiko, I don’t think we were supposed to make it up here at all or find any of this. I think he just wanted us out of Illharek, so why?”
