by Ben Galley
Cheska grunted and heaved and lifted her head so that she could see what was happening. Her eyes widened at the sight of the maids desperately mopping up her blood with towel after stained towel. Cheska spat out the scrap of wood. ‘What’s happening to me?’ she shrieked, eyeing the scarlet sheets beneath her. The seer walked forward and held her head back so she couldn’t watch. The strange woman whispered in her ear. Her voice was like a snake shuffling across dead leaves.
‘Be still, Written, so still and quiet. The child is coming. The Dust Song is being fulfilled.’
Cheska didn’t have time to reply. Another wave of pain crashed through her body. Her Ritual had been a breeze compared to pain like this. She strangled the sheets with both hands and prayed silently behind clenched teeth.
‘Give me the wood, or she’ll bite her own tongue off,’ ordered the seer. One of the maids dropped her towel and grabbed the wooden bit, tossing it to the old woman.
‘Worse things could happen,’ said a voice behind them, and the seer turned around to see Vice standing in the doorway, eyes aflame with a rapacious urgency. He fixed her with his fiery gaze. He was not in the least bit surprised by the change in her face. In fact he had expected it.
The seer was almost a different woman. Years had fallen from her once-craggy face. Her eyes were no longer dull and cloudy, but bright and smoky blue, twitching this way and that. Her jagged teeth had straightened out and shed their yellow hue; her hair was now jet black instead of grey and rather than hanging lank and greasy it was now combed and deadly straight, reaching almost to her hips. The most remarkable change of all, however, was that her sleeve no longer hung limp and empty at her side. A withered, but undoubtedly new arm now hid under the cloth of her green dress, and like the broken wing of a bird, it was tucked carefully at her side. Lilith was far from the decrepit tramp she once was, hovering just a pinch and a handful of decades away from beautiful. She was icy, and striking, but it was easy to spot the ancient wrinkly face lurking just beneath her skin. Daemon blood was a mysterious thing indeed.
‘Where is my child, Lilith?’ Vice demanded.
The seer sniffed and smiled. ‘Coming, coming, Vice, be patient. You can’t rush her.’
‘Her?’ asked Vice.
She cackled then, like her old self. ‘Her indeed, mage, a girl. And a strong girl by the looks of it.’
Vice wrung his hands delightedly. ‘How long?’
Lilith looked to Cheska, who writhed with pain on the bed. The maids were slowly building a pile of bloody towels at the bedside, but the blood kept coming. Cheska looked at them with a cacophony of emotions in her eyes, pleading with them. The seer tutted and clucked, and with her good hand fiddled with the three stones in the pocket of her dress. ‘Soon.’
‘You’d better be right,’ warned Vice.
‘You in a rush, Vice?’
But the Arkmage was not listening. Something had caught his eye. A smile appeared on his face as he pushed the seer aside and marched to the window. He threw the curtains wide open and stared to the north, where the sky had suddenly become full of flapping, wheeling shapes. Behind them in the east, on the fringes of the icy Össfen peaks, dawn was breaking beneath the iron clouds. Torches marched beneath them like a crawling horde of stars, and Vice’s smile quickly faded. Bells began to toll on the northern gates. The city beneath him was suddenly infested with soldiers. Vice narrowed his eyes and punched the window so hard it smashed, a spider’s web of cracks filling the pane.
‘I am now,’ he muttered. Behind him, Cheska cried out once more. It was an ear-splitting noise. Vice cursed under his breath. The Sirens had arrived, and they had brought reinforcements.
Farden was frozen to the gangplank like a statue to a glacier. Flashes and bursts of flame began to light the northern skies, and in the south a swarm of lanterns had appeared on the dark waves. In would be a matter of minutes before the dragons fell upon the docks and its ships.
Before Farden could decide what to do, the bells of the shipyard began to toll, startling the sleeping seagulls and raising the alarm. They cried and cawed and flapped and rose in thick flocks to escape the imminent mayhem. Soldiers began to pour out of the taverns and houses lining the boardwalk. Shouts and horns blasts echoed around the harbour and suddenly the great hulking ships came alive. Farden shrank into the shadows as the mooring ropes were hacked. Sails unfurled and snapped into life as the wind caught them. Farden’s boat lurched and bucked. It was now or never.
Before they had a chance to cast off the gangplank, the mage exploded from his hiding place and sprinted up the slippery walkway. Jumping over the bulwark, he slashed his sword across the unprotected face of the nearest soldier. The time for sneaking was over, which was just as well, because the man fell down with a loud and sickening cry.
Every eye turned on the mage, and in an instant every sword and knife was drawn. Men ran at him from every direction, brandishing every sort of sharp implement imaginable. In the midst of it all, Farden found a grin on his face. He left the sword imbedded in the soldier’s face and slammed his wrists together with a clang.
A wave of magick punched outwards like an invisible fist and threw the charging men flat on their backs. Only one, the mage with the beard, managed to stand his ground. Farden jabbed the air and his fist crackled with lightning. The other mage retorted with a force spell, striking Farden a glancing blow in the midriff. Farden’s boots squeaked on the tarred deck as it drove him backwards. Another force spell flew at him but this time Farden caught it, spun it around, charged it with lightning, and then hurled it straight back. The spell struck the mage in the chest, and he tumbled backwards against the wooden bulwark of the starboard side, his neck burnt and charred. Farden wrenched his sword from the face of the dead soldier and threw it as hard as he could. The blade buried itself in his stomach, and the bearded Written spat blood, and sagged into death.
More men ran at him, and Farden dealt with each one quickly and brutally. One crumpled to the deck as a sharp, cold icicle penetrated his armoured thigh. Another found his ribs smashed by Farden’s knuckles, while yet another slumped to the wood as lightning surged through his body, turning his veins to fire. His eyes rolled up and he fell limp and useless to the wet deck.
‘Any more?’ asked Farden, breathing heavily, and to his slight dismay, some of the men had gotten up, dusted themselves off, and nocked arrows to their bows. The bows sang as the arrows flew. Farden dove to the floor, deflecting a few and dodging the rest. He slapped his palm on the deck and a ripple of magick surged along the tar-painted wooden planks. One of the soldiers was tossed straight over the bulwark and fell with a splash in the murky water below. The others choked on splinters. Farden was already up and ready and after retrieving his sword he began to hack mercilessly at the confused soldiers. Magick fortifying his blade, he cut deep gashes through their mail and found flesh underneath. A knife caught him on the neck but he shrugged it aside. An arrowhead scraped his arm but he didn’t notice. The mage was in his element.
In three short minutes, the deck was awash with blood, and the mage stood surrounded by dead and dying soldiers. He did not waste any time watching them die. The dragons were getting closer, and by the looks of it, the eleven other ships had already released their moorings and were beginning to sail for the gap in the harbour walls. Farden growled; the bastards had even lit lanterns to catch the Sirens’ attention.
Farden heard the whine of arrows and ducked. It was just in time; archers from the nearest ship had spotted him and began to launch volley after volley at the mage. There was shouting and panicked from below. Something whirred and thudded, and suddenly there was a loud snapping noise as a ballista on the nearby ship fired. Farden jumped as a huge bolt, almost five feet long, crashed through the wooden bulwark inches from his elbow and sent splinters flying in his face. ‘Bastards!’ yelled Farden, rolling to what he assumed to be safety. He winced as he plucked a long splinter from his cheek. He sneaked a quick look over the boardwalk
and realised that his ship had drifted along with the others and was slowly heading out to sea. Again he looked to the north, where flame and arrows now fought for space. The dragons would be upon them in moments, and they had no way of knowing the ships’ true cargo. The people of Krauslung would be slaughtered and drowned in their thousands. Soaked in tar as they were, they would be aflame in seconds, and out in the rough seas the Arka people would either cook or be drowned like plague-ridden rats.
Stuck between a dragon and a hard place, Farden said to himself. The mage began to crawl to the main mast, dodging arrows as he went. He pulled every scrap of his mind together and thought as hard as he could about one name, hoping to the gods that he would hear him. Ilios, Ilios, Ilios…
Unseen by any human eyes, ignored by all, two shafts of faint light drifted, ghost-like and veil-thin, above the stormy clouds and high into the frenzied sky, past the hissing sun, past the slippery moon, higher than the mind could imagine, higher than the plains of darkness, until they stood between the stars at the gates of a shimmering fortress of light and shadow, weak and shaky on a bridge of rainbows. Bolts slid from holes, cogs whirled and cranked, and the two shadows were ushered indoors. Wings rustled. Careful eyes stared into the darkness behind them.
‘It has begun,’ said a deep voice.
‘Then we can only trust to luck,’ whispered Evernia. By her side, Thron put a hand to his throat. ‘I failed,’ he whispered. ‘Let us hope that you did not.’
It was all that could be said.
Chapter 21
“Pray, and the gods might hear you. Don’t pray, and nothing will hear you…”
Etched into the wall of an Arkathedral prison cell
Tyrfing’s heart was beating like a battle drum. He had never ridden a dragon before. Had he not been stuck in the midst of fierce and terrifying battle, he would have enjoyed it immensely.
No battle, not in the history of Emaneska, had ever gone exactly to plan, but Krauslung had already descended into utter chaos, and they had only been fighting for less than a minute. The air hummed with the sound of arrows. Above them, the fleet of dragons wheeled like vultures and rained fire down on the city. He could see the paler dragons of the Lost Clans swooping to and fro, grabbing men and war machines from the streets with their saw-blade claws and hauling them high into the air only to drop them again. Behind them a yellow dragon fell, a ballista bolt stuck deep in its ribs. Tyrfing winced and gritted his teeth as he watched the young beast spin out of control, its rider yelling and flailing. The poor reptile landed in a broken heap in a street swarming with Skölgard and Arka soldiers, who wasted no time in finishing it off. Ochre blood filled the gutters.
Dodging a cloud of arrows, Farfallen banked and twisted and the world capsized for a brief moment. Tyrfing’s insides somersaulted, and before he could recover, the Old Dragon swooped downwards, skimming a forest of chimneys and weathervanes. Up ahead, a roof poked its tiled head above the rest and Farfallen wasted no time in blasting it with fire. The house exploded and the archers that had been climbing its roof were flung screaming in all directions, skin and hair ablaze. Svarta hugged her dragon’s armoured neck with her legs, using a shortbow to pick off strays. Behind her, the old mage hurled spell after spell into the pandemonium below.
As they rocketed back into the dark sky, Tyrfing shouted over Svarta’s shoulder. ‘Set me down with Eyrum! We can’t waste time picking off archers!’ he bellowed over the raging wind. Svarta shook her head and fired off another deadly arrow. She waited until she had watched the arrow hit her mark before answering.
‘Not yet! Farfallen and Towerdawn can’t risk landing until we’ve broken through the gates! Then we can put you down near the Arkathedral!’
‘But we’re running out of time!’ shouted Tyrfing, but nobody was listening. He hung on tightly as Farfallen skimmed over the parapets of the Arkathedral and pulverised a section of battlement with his armoured tail. Men screeched as they plummeted to the cobbles far below. The Old Dragon roared to his captains above. ‘Glassthorn! Take a contingent and attack those ships before they reach the harbour walls, the rest of us will focus on the gate. The city is too dangerous!’ As if to reiterate the dragon’s point, a ballista bolt suddenly glanced off his wing with a metallic thud. The Old Dragon grunted and flapped higher.
‘Are you okay?’ called Tyrfing. Svarta answered with a grim nod, and rubbed her arm.
The mage looked to the north, where their forces were swarming over the hills like insects over a fresh corpse. Krauslung was well and truly under siege. Arrows filled the air like hornets, and all along the walls grappling hooks and ladders fought with boiling water and buckets and baskets of rocks and bricks. Chaos was the order of the day indeed.
Farfallen soared higher and higher until the formidable gates and walls below resembled nothing but a tiny fence trapped between two warring carpets. A score of dragons rode the air currents behind him, waiting for the Old Dragon’s signal.
‘On me!’ Farfallen roared, they dove like falcons, tucking their wings tight to their sides. The wind screeched over their steel armour and whined through their horns like a tortured machine. The walls leapt up to greet them, and Tyrfing clenched every muscle in his body.
Just when it seemed they were about to plunge into the solid walls and be dashed upon the battlements, Farfallen and his dragons flared their wings. The sudden jerk was sickening, and Tyrfing had to fight to keep from vomiting. The Old Dragon spewed flame left and right along the top of the wall, dodging arrows as he flew. Flesh cooked, armour melted, stones cracked, and wood dissolved. As they flew by like a golden blur, the mage caught glimpses of soldiers screaming and falling from the wall into the hungry arms of their enemies below. Justice, he thought, sniffing the rushing air, it smelled like burning skin.
It was over in moments, and Tyrfing turned around to watch the other dragons following and scorching the walls in their wake. ‘Again!’ roared the Old Dragon, and up he climbed into the swirling metallic palette that was the dawn sky, chased by the snap of bowstrings and the hiss of arrows.
Farden was not enjoying himself. Not in the slightest. Far from it in fact. He was besieged by arrows and slingstones, and worst of all, with every thud and thwock of raining missiles, the closer his ship got to the hungry waves licking at the harbour walls. As always, it seemed, the mage was fast running out of time.
Farden had managed to trail a rope from the tiller to his hand, and now he was crawling back to lie under the main mast. The rope was barely long enough and he had to stretch, but it was all he needed. Farden placed his feet against the stout pine mast, still sticky with resin and caulking, and raised his hands. The wind whistled. The symbols beneath the red and gold of his vambraces glowed and quickly the wind became a bitter howl. The sail above him, chalk-white and stiff, billowed and bucked as the wind grew and grew. Farden pushed harder and felt the ship sway beneath him. The rope in his hand lurched. Farden pushed harder and watched the wind fill the sail. The sound of waves slapping the bulbous hull grew louder.
Another arrow thudded into the deck beside him and the mage chanced a quick peek over the bulwark. The other ships were now beside and slightly behind him, just where he wanted them to be.
Farden yanked the rope sideways and the tiller swung. The ship lurched onto its side and there was a sudden deep boom as the nearest ship collided with the starboard side. Shouts and cries of panic came from below. Farden jumped to his feet and watched as the other ships began to collide and bump each other, one after the next, until the whole fleet had been brought to a halt, the wind dead in their sails, bows pointing uselessly at the thick harbour walls. Stuck.
The mage smiled and quickly bent to seize the handle of a hatch cover under his boot. It was sealed tight with bolts and caulking so Farden spread his fingers out over the wood. The hatch splintered under the pressure of the spell, but held fast. Farden tried again, muttering below his breath, and the hatch cover instantly split in half. Farden dropped to h
is knees and poked his head into the darkness, purging it with a clenched fist and a light spell.
‘Elessi!’ he shouted, receiving nothing but a wave of stench and a crowd of blinking and fearful eyes. He winced visibly at the smell of urine and rot. ‘Elessi!’ he called again, dropping into the hold. The deck was sloping severely and he almost slipped on the slimy wood under his feet.
The hold was worse than the mage could have imagined. Crammed into every tiny space, stuffed and stacked like rotten goods in a rotting ship, were his people. They were dishevelled and slick with muck and cold sweat, even down to the very smallest child, and the look they shared in their eyes said everything. Farden felt his heart sink and fall to wallow in the muck. In all his years he had never seen such blatant cruelty as this. He could only guess at what the decks below this one must have been like.
A woman peered out of the crowd, shielding her eyes from the mage’s light spell. ‘Farden?’ she called, in a tear-cracked voice. It was Elessi. The mage jumped forward, startling the others, and grabbed her. There was no time for hugging but he did it anyway. She returned his embrace for a moment before becoming cold and stiff. Farden moved away and she slapped him hard on the cheek. The mage ignored his stinging skin, and nodded. It was all he could do. ‘Save these people,’ Elessi whispered, and Farden nodded again.
‘Right!’ he shouted, ‘We have no time to lose! The only way you’re going to get off this ship is to swim. When you get on deck, move fast and don’t look back! Just swim for the docks and don’t stop. You stop, you freeze, you drown.’ The faces around him were a mixture of fear and confusion, some bobbed their heads and pushed forward, eager not to die, others gave up and retreated further into the shadows, suspicious of this mage, embracing the hopelessness.
